Sweat seemed to pour down James Potter’s forehead as he rounded the corner towards his starting point. It was all up to him now. No one else but himself was able to get this far, something he was extremely proud of- too proud of sometimes. Maybe that was something he should have considered before he’d gotten involved in this. He flinched, letting the feelings of shame wash over him and let them go.


All he had to do was get through this last task. It was his burden and he was willing to take it all the way. James placed himself in starting position and tried to wipe some of the sweat off his forehead. Dimly he could see the stadium in the background behind him, his fans whispering excitedly and waiting impatiently for the starting flare. A hush came over the crowd when Dumbledore raised his wand. James counted silently in his head, not aware of the other boys standing beside him, wanting this glory as much as he did.


One.


Time was slowing down, turning the world around him blurry as everyone mouthed the numbers together.


Two.


James lost his focus for a split second, moving his eyes away from the finish line and towards the Quiddich stadium seats. He could see Sirius, Peter, and Remus beaming proudly from the first row. Instead of making his eyes come back to his goal, he stopped to search for a certain redhead who should have been sitting anywhere around the other marauders, smiling broadly, her mind only thinking of how fit he was and how much she didn’t deserve him.


Three.


He wasn’t ready for the red flare coming from the wand, bursting into the air with a hundred sparks moving along with it. He was able to make his foot move to begin running, but instantly the other runners were strides ahead of him and he suddenly knew there was no way for him to try to catch up.


Then there was the road block. It was only in his lane, never in the others and was too large to jump over. It was Lily.


Her face was contorted into rage, turning bright red. “You think you’re all that, James Potter? Take a look at yourself in the mirror! Maybe it could do you some good!” she hissed, throwing a hand mirror at him and narrowly missing his face. James caught it, falling backwards.


He expected to hit the hard ground on the field and have the wind knocked out of him, but instead he landed on his bed in his, Sirius’, Peter’s, and Remus’ dormitory. He was still holding the mirror. Cautiously he turned it over, letting the reflected side lean face up on his bed. It reflected the ceiling, but nothing else.


James was too scared to look. Anything Lily told him to do must have serious repercussions. Gathering up his courage, he held it up to his face, which had suddenly become Sirius.


“James, you shouldn’t do anything you might regret,” The mirror-Sirius told him, a smirk on his face in typical Sirius fashion. “You should leave Lily to me. She’s never liked you anyways.” James threw the mirror at the wall, enjoying the shattered glass and the destruction of Sirius’ words. Now, though, it was coming right at his face. He could feel the sharp glass tearing at his skin and watched his own blood flow from the wounds.


There was no pain. He could feel nothing at all, not even the tears rolling down his cheeks. There was nothing there until Lily stepped in front of him. He wasn’t sitting on his bed anymore. The room was blank, completely white, making it look as if it went on for eternity.


She was smiling, walking toward him in a way that made his heart clatter against his chest. He was suddenly aware that his face was bloody and that he couldn’t feel his it. For almost a minute James swore Lily was about to kiss him. Her hands were gently on his face and when she touched him every bleeding gash healed.


Her hands moved to his chest and she smiled even wider. James could feel himself smiling too, but it suddenly turned into an expression of pain when her nails began to dig into him.


James cried out as Lily’s nails dug deeper into his flesh. Within seconds she had a hold of his heart, ripping every vein from it, letting him hear every pop. When the red thing finally came out of his chest she surveyed it, a little glimmer of amusement in her eyes.


“Funny,” she whispered as James began to writhe on the ground. “I didn’t think you had one of these.” She glanced at it again before dropping it to the ground and stepping on it. “Guess you don’t need it anyways, right Jamesie?”

---

James Potter sat bolt upright in his bed, soaked through to the bone with sweat. It was still dark outside the window. The others were asleep and James could hear Sirius’ snoring from across the room. Panting heavily, he swung off the bed and stumbled into the bathroom.


The light blinded him for a moment before he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Thank goodness he didn’t look a thing like Sirius. There were no scars, either. His heart was obviously beating, so apparently he had nothing left to worry about.


Except what he had done to Lily. Merlin, she was never going to forgive him after when he had done now.
It was his brainless stupidity by the lake after exams yesterday. It was just a bad day, that’s all. Well, that and the fact that his ego was even more swollen than normal, that he was stressed out from the exams, that he only had one more chance to get Lily to like him before the summer, and…well…he could blame it on the musing that the planets weren’t in line that day, but it still didn’t change that Lily was going to hate him forever.


He suddenly caught sight of something in the mirror. He had a red scar under his chin.

---

“What’re you so nervous about, Jamesie-Poo?” Sirius Black glanced at his best friend who kept staring out the window of Hogwarts train at Hogsmeade platform every six seconds. “Lily won’t hate you for forever.”


“Just for eternity,” Remus said without taking his eyes off of his book. Peter laughed uproariously at the joke. The others looked at him with their eyebrows raised. His laugher stopped instantly.


Sirius rolled his eyes and turned back to the problem at hand. “Anyway, it’s not as if we did anything new to Snivellus yesterday.” He pointed out, pulling out his wand and flicking it through the air, miming James taking off Snape’s pants in front of everyone.


“Admit it,” he showed his infamous grin that he only used when he was certain that he was right. “You enjoy showing off in front of Lily just a little too much,” He paused to make sure James was listening to him, already knowing that he had the other’s attention. “And it’s not just the fact that Lily’s watching; it’s that everyone else is too.”
Remus gave Sirius a look and then checked the title of his book, Magic Psychology to Use on Your Friends! “That’s it,” he sighed, throwing the book into a bag that sat next to him. “I’m never letting you borrow one of my books again, Padfoot.”


James ignored them all. The only reason he had gotten on the train so early was to make sure that he caught Lily before she avoided him for the rest of the summer. Without thinking, he rubbed his chin where the mysterious scar was, giving the impression that he was thinking very hard. In fact, the only thing he was wondering was if he happened to catch a glimpse of red hair flying in between the other kids lolling about the train platform.


He was so close to the window now that his nose was pressed against it, leaving a slightly greasy mark. It reminded him even more of what they had done yesterday. James’ eyes were beginning to hurt as he continued to stare. Just as he thought he saw Lily, he was suddenly aware that the compartment was eerily silent. Slowly he turned his head around and saw that Sirius and Remus weren’t there anymore and Peter was sitting casually with a magazine in his hands.


“Where are Remus and Sirius?” he asked Peter suspiciously. Peter looked up nervously and James could almost see the lie trying to form in his head.


“R-Remus?” he stuttered, his eyes bouncing around the room, trying not look directly into James’ eyes. “I…uh…think he mentioned something about finding some chocolate…” Peter quickly turned back to his magazine and pretended to be very interested in an article about Herbology.


“And you expect me to believe that Sirius followed him like a good puppy?” James asked, knowing exactly where Sirius most likely was.


“Um…er…uh…” Peter’s hands were visibly shaking, scared that he was going to get in trouble with Sirius or James.


James stood up, half smiling. “Don’t worry. I’m a resourceful chap; I think I know where to find him.” In a couple of strides, he reached the compartment door, but right as he reached it, it opened for him.


Lily stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, her red hair gleaming in the morning light. The only motor function that James could control was his mouth, which instantly dropped at the sight of her. She was still mad at him, obviously.


“Sirius said you wanted to tell me something?” Lily inquired, gently raising an eyebrow, succeeding in making her look even more imposing. James’ eyes swiftly glanced behind her and promised silently to kill Sirius later. Sirius just waved carelessly at him. “Potter?” she asked sharply, jolting him out of imagining himself dismembering Padfoot.


James swallowed hard and tried to speak without looking as if he were totally scared of her at this moment. “Yeah, I guess,” he squeaked, then righted his voice back to the land of puberty. There was a silence in which Sirius coughed loudly from the corridor, trying to help by making hand gestures to tell James what to say.


“My…my parents…uh…are…inviting?” Sirius got distracted and began to make puppet shadows in the sunlight streaming into the hallway. James gave Sirius a look to tell him to stop goofing off and give him a real answer Lily would believe.


“Inviting me?” Now she was really confused. “To what, pray tell; a let’s-beat-up-Severus-Snape-party?”


“Actually, that wouldn’t be such a bad idea…” Sirius thought aloud. Remus, who was standing beside him holding some chocolate, elbowed him in the ribs.


James took the lie into his own hands while Sirius dreamed of a place that only existed in his mind. “My parents are inviting your whole family to go with us on our tour of the world this summer.” He quickly spat out, thinking suddenly of the trip that his parents were taking for their anniversary.


Lily looked surprised, to say the least. For once she let her guard down and uncrossed her arms. “I…I guess I’ll have to ask mum and dad,” she said unexpectedly, surprising even herself. With that, she glanced quickly at his face and turned silently down the hallway.


James’ ego got the best of him. “Oh, and Lily?” he called after her, sticking his head of the door to make sure she heard him. “We’re going muggle-style, so maybe we’ll even get to share a room at one of those things you call hotels?” Lily’s face burned with anger and embarrassment. She opened her mouth to tell him off, thought seriously of hexing him in the hallway, and finally decided to stomp off angrily in the other direction.


“One step forward and two steps back…” Remus muttered as he walked back into the room in front of Sirius.


“What’s that supposed to mean?” James roared slamming the door shut before Sirius had a chance to walk in.


“Nothing,” Remus said nonchalantly, sitting back down to pick up yet another book he magically pulled from inside his robes.


“Hello?” Sirius called from out in the hall, but everyone ignored him. “Uh…The dog’s still in the corridor…” he gently rapped on the door, but no one moved to open it. There was the sound of him shaking the handle, but James pointed his wand at it before it had the chance to open.


“Moony…” James threatened, turning back around and narrowing his eyes.


Remus sighed and barely looked up from his book. “I only meant that you never let Lily stay happy with you.” James’ eyes instantly went huge and round.


“What does THAT supposed to mean?”


“Why is the door locked on the outside, anyway?” Sirius wondered, pulling as hard as he could on the door. “It opened for Lily, for Merlin’s sake…why is it less than five minutes later it won’t open for Padfoot?”


“SHUT UP, PADFOOT!” James roared from the inside. Merlin, he’s not bright. It’s a wonder he even passed his exams.


An hour later, Sirius was still sitting outside, bouncing spells off of the window, trying to hit the Slytherins in the car next to them.


Sirius sighed. “It’s gonna be a long summer…”

“Cheer up, Jamesie!” Sirius tried to encourage his friend as they got off the Hogwarts Express. “It’s not as if it’s the end of the world or anything.” Sirius stopped on the platform for a moment as he caught sight of his best friend’s face. “On second thought, maybe it is.”


“Shut up,” James muttered, but not nearly as loud as he usually would. His mind was still reeling from the encounter with Lily on the train that had just sent his entire vacation down the drain.


Remus shoved past Sirius and laughed. “Be careful, Padfoot, or he might reconsider having us over for the summer!” James said nothing, but mumbled something that sounded vaguely rude under his breath.


“Like spending the entire train ride stuck outside in the hallway wasn’t enough torture,” Sirius sighed dramatically, putting his hand to his forehead as if he were about to faint. Peter laughed as he bounced off the steps onto the platform.


James glanced around nervously, as if maybe Lily would suddenly appear from around the corner somewhere and kill him. Realizing that Peter was talking, he began to tune in. “…parents really going on that trip without you?” Remus caught James’ dazed expression.


“Sorry you couldn’t come Peter, but we understand,” Remus said sympathetically. Sirius rolled his eyes.


“Yeah, we’re real sorry that your mum is overprotective and won’t let you come just because we’ll be all alone in James’ big old house all summer long while his parents have the time of their lives.” He snorted at his own sarcasm. “By the by, Prongsie, have you decided on how to tell Lily when she comes to spend the summer with us-”



“Which she will,” Remus added.


“-that your parents are never going to let all of us go with them and we’ll be spending the entire summer with her whether she likes it or not?” Sirius finished.


“And that she’ll have to stay there whether she likes it or not-” Remus continued, berating James alongside Sirius.


“Which she won’t,” Sirius cut in.


“-no matter what you told her on the train when you were tongue-tied and trying to impress her at the same time.”


“You did quite well in divination, did you?” Sirius asked, totally off topic.


“Quite.”


“Good, because I keep having this reoccurring dream where girls are chasing after me down the corridors and I can’t seem to shake them off.”


“Sirius, that happened just last week.” Peter explained, spotting his parents and waving goodbye. Sirius and Remus waved back, but James didn’t notice that Peter was leaving. He was trying his best to ignore Remus and Sirius’ stupid banter while twirling his wand in his hands.


“By the way, are we ever going to be leaving?” Sirius asked with feigned curiosity. At this, James finally smiled, beginning to prepare what he was going to say to his mother and father.


“I have to wait for my parents to come get me.” James sulkily said, putting his wand back in his robes.


“Aw, poor baby can’t do magic outside of school?” Sirius teased, pointing his own wand at James’ head and making it turn bright pink.


“Stop it!” James pushed him away, already mad enough at Sirius.


Remus sighed and quickly changed James’ hair back to normal, rolling his eyes. “You two are acting like you’re three.” He sounded agitated, but the beginning of a smile had crossed his lips.


“I guess there’s nothing to do now but wait.” Sirius said and the three stood in silence for a moment before James spotted someone and quickly turned around.


“Yeah, that and hide from Lily.”

---

(A/N: For the sake of propriety, let’s give the parents some names, shall we? Hmm…Laura and Jon.)


“Absolutely not!” was the instant reply that James’ mom gave to him when he finally had the nerve to ask her after they got back to the house. She was still packing for the trip, even though they weren’t leaving for another few weeks. James’ dad sat propped back on the bed, reading the newspaper. “What makes you even think that we’d allow six extra people to go with us?” she laughed slightly hysterically, looking around a little too frantically for her wand.


James’ dad held it aloft and twirled it in his fingers. Laura half sighed and smiled, walking over and trying to grab it out of his hands. He was too fast for her and snatched it out from her at the last second. James watched in disgust as his mom chased his dad around the room, but no matter how hard she tried, Jon was always one step away.


“Mum…dad…” James whimpered, massaging his forehead and running his hand through his hair simultaneously. His parents instantly stopped acting like four year olds and looked up at him, identical giggles frozen on their faces. “You don’t understand -how do I tell her I lied to her?”


Even though the last sentence was said under his breath, his parents still heard. Jon sighed and gave Laura back her wand, which she promptly used to throw even more stuff into the bottomless pit of a suitcase. James’ dad sat back down on the bed, sitting on the edge of his newspaper.


“I’m reminded of the way your mother and I met,” he began, and Laura snorted, trying to hide it behind a cough. Jon turned toward her. “It wasn’t that funny!” he said, turning beet red.


She laughed, gathering up some of the bottles sitting on the vanity. “You’re absolutely right,” she chuckled and her husband’s face calmed down a little. “It wasn’t just funny, it was hilarious!” Jon scowled, gathering up the newspaper and throwing it across the room where it landed perfectly folded in a chair. He patted the bed beside him, indicating that James should come sit.


“A heart to heart? You’re joking, right?” James raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest.


“He’s only heard the story a hundred times, dear.” Laura called from the inside of their closet.


His father continued nevertheless. “It was the start of the term in seventh year,” he began, much to the groans of both his wife and his son. “And there she was, sitting lonely at the Ravenclaw table-”


“I was hardly lonely; I had about forty people sitting around me.” Laura laughed, throwing a shoe at James, which he caught and put into the suitcase.


“-And me, being Quidditch captain of the Gryffindor team,” he continued as if there had been no interruption, “decided to grace her with my presence.”


“Now you see where you get it from.” James looked incredulously at his mother, who was still throwing articles of clothing at him to do her dirty work for her.


“Get what from?” James muttered, knowing exactly what she was talking about.


“You, unlike Pompous Potter over there,” She said, her eyes rolling toward her husband. He was still telling the story, not noticing that no one was listening. “You will most likely grow out of it after your last year at Hogwarts.”


“Even though she didn’t like me at first, ‘try, try again’ is my motto,” Jon went on, oblivious that his wife had taken over the heart to heart talk with James.


Laura smiled at her son, holding a skirt in one hand while putting the other hand on James’ shoulder, bent down and whispered, “I think this Ms Lily Evans is going to be the one to deflate your oversized ego, Mr. Potter.” She smirked and pushed him toward the door, leaving Jon still speaking about the images in his head.


James hurried quickly out the door, smashing head-on into Sirius. Sirius giggled nervously and James conked him on the head, making him laugh harder.


Once James was gone from the room Jon stopped talking, instead looking at Laura, with a grim look on his face.


“What’s wrong, dear?” she asked, sitting next to him and hugging his shoulders, putting her head on his.



“We’re not really going to just leave four teenagers alone in the house while we’re away, are we?”


Laura laughed, but he could hear the uncertainty in her voice. “Of course not…we have the house elves,” she paused, thinking for a moment. “There’s no certainty on whether she’ll actually show up here, of course…but even if she does, then everything will be taken care of.”


Jon kissed her and muttered, “If she’s anything like you, then everything will undoubtedly be fine.”

---

“So what happened? Are you going to tell her? Is she still coming?” Sirius bombarded James with questions, nursing the bump on his head as they walked back to James’ room.


James sighed and almost laughed. “You tell me; you’re the one who was eavesdropping.”


Sirius looked slightly annoyed. “That’s only because Remus is too much of a scardy-wolf to come. He bolted himself in your room and started to make his way through all the books on your shelf. Which are only three books, by the way.”


“Well, I’m very glad you learned to count.”


“Ha, ha.” They opened James’ door to find Remus twirling a box of tissues around and around with his wand.


Now it was James’ turn to be annoyed. “Just because you’re seventeen already doesn’t mean you have to flaunt it.” He said, knocking the box to the ground. Remus just grinned.


“And just because you’re not seventeen yet doesn’t mean you have to be bitter about it.” He shot back, knowing that James couldn’t have anything to say about that.


Sirius laughed, also pulling out his wand and throwing it up and catching it. He heard James mutter something that sounded like, “Just one more month,” and quickly pointed the wand at James, who instantly was pulled into the air, hanging by his ankle.


“Hey! Let me down!” he shouted, also shouting some filthy things at Sirius, who merely laughed.


“I thought we agreed to use that only on Snape.” Remus said holding in a laugh as James struggled helplessly against the curse. “He is, after all, the one who invented it.”


“Yeah, but I figured that he could sustain a little more torture before his birthday next month.”


On that note, the torture session continued until James’ mom came in, giggled helplessly (“You’re not being very helpful, mum!” James yelled.), called James’ father in, who also laughed uproariously, (By this point, Sirius and Remus are sitting back, drinking tea.) and who ultimately let his son down. James was red-faced all day.


He finally forgave his friends after chasing Sirius around the house, throwing whatever happened to be near at Sirius’ head since he couldn’t hex him, and avoiding Sirius’ own hexes that he threw at him. (For two hours James was pink and frozen in a running stance. Remus and Sirius took advantage and used him as a coat rack.)


The boys finally fell asleep around 4 am, Remus muttering something in his sleep about chocolate.

---

James’ problem seemed to have melted away over the next few days; there were no owls from Lily to tell of her doomed arrival and James’ parents were set to depart in less than a week.


Everything seemed to be going great. That is, until one morning two weeks after school had let out an owl arrived in the late afternoon.


Remus, Sirius, and James had just come back from playing a quick game of Quidditch in the backyard when James spotted the tawny owl twirling around and around the house in effort to catch someone to take its letter. Instantly James’ face went from heat-exhaustion red to having no color at all.


He stood frozen for a few seconds before Remus finally said, “Are you going to let itself drop dead from exhaustion or open its letter?” James didn’t reply.


“I have the feeling that maybe Lily will be a little more than mad if she finds out that you killed her owl,” Sirius added, leaning on his broomstick and smirking. James glared at him with malice and started walking closer to the house.


“You might want to hurry up!” Sirius teased. James pretended like he didn’t hear, but sped up.


By the time that James had reached the bird, it had dropped to the ground. James gasped as if his worst fears had been realized. He could hear the others laughing behind as he bent down to cuddle the owl in his arms, scared out of his wits. Then he noticed that the bird wasn’t dead; it was stupefied. James turned around very slowly, giving his most evil death glare that he could and shouted at the nearing Remus and Sirius, “Alright, who did it?”


Remus and Sirius pointed at each other, giggled, and then both pointed at James. James sighed, wishing he had something to hit his head on. (Either that or a new pair of friends.) Instead of throwing the owl down like he wanted to, he laid it on the ground and pried the letter from its beak.


Dear Mr. and Mrs. Potter,
While we are extremely grateful for your offer to our daughter, Lily, I’m afraid that we simply cannot accept something of this magnitude.


James’ eyes popped out of his head. Whooping for joy and throwing the letter down, he never even noticed the rest of the writing on the page. Remus and Sirius looked at each other, alarmed, and ran the rest of the way to him. Sirius contented himself to giving James a strange look while Remus picked up the letter.


“Uh…James…?” Remus asked semi-calmly, trying to keep a straight face at the same time. Sirius leaned over his shoulder and burst out laughing.


Putting his arm over James’ shoulder, Sirius began dancing with him, singing, “Lily’s coming to James’ house…Lily’s coming to James’ house…He’s going to freak out and lie some more…He’s going to-” James stopped dancing.


“What did you just say?” Sirius stared at him, giving him his best I-know-you-love-me-so-you’ll-forgive-me-later grin.


“However, if your young James is really as insistent as Lily says he is,” Remus read, not even trying to hide a smile anymore. James’ face changed colors again. “We would be delighted to allow Lily to stay over at the house for the summer, provided that there is appropriate supervision. The only problem as far as we are able to see is that my wife and I are leaving to go on a vacation with our other daughter, Petunia to celebrate her graduation from High School.” Remus stopped reading. “Then it just goes on for a while about the other sister. It’s quite boring, actually. I think they just want Lily to stay here while they go off on vacation.”


“I wonder why they sent it by owl?” Sirius mused. “I mean, I thought that Lily was a muggle-born.” Remus pointed to a P.S at the bottom of the letter.


“They didn’t think that James’ parents would understand how to send it back any other way.”


Sirius smirked. “Well…if they’re anything like James, they wouldn’t.” His smile faltered when he saw that James was no longer standing beside them. Remus pointed toward the house’s opened door. “How do you know everything?” Sirius whispered under his breath.


“It’s a gift.”


They found James standing on the staircase, hitting his head furiously against the mantle. Remus seemed alarmed, but Sirius just shook his head. “Jamesie my boy, that will give you what is known as a concussion, which is actually not good.” James didn’t seem to hear him and continued making a bruise on his forehead.


Remus rushed over and pulled him away from that side of the staircase, forcing him to sit down on the steps. Immediately James began to hyperventilate. Remus sighed. “It’s just one emergency after another, isn’t it?”


“For…your…information…” James tried to speak, holding his now purple head in his hands. “This…wouldn’t…have…happened…if…Sirius…”


“Wasn’t so loveable?” Sirius went into a victory pose.


“I don’t think so,” Remus answered for James, who was still struggling to talk.


“Aww, why not?”


James grunted in frustration and then started again.


“If…Sirius…Hadn’t…started…making…finger…puppets…”


Sirius smiled, as if remembering some fond memory. “Ah, yes…Puffin the Bunny and Billy the Pig…”


Remus gave him another look. “You’re weird.” Sirius’ smile almost fell, but came back within a millisecond.



“Yes…but I’m funny,” he pointed out, raising his eyebrows up and down.


“Don’t ever do that again.”


James looked up from his pathetic state. “New subject. Please.” Remus and Sirius grinned at each other and looked down at the letter in Remus’ hands simultaneously.


“I think we’ll go have a little chat with your mother…” Without another word, the two bounded up the stairs, headed toward James’ parent’s room. (His mother was still packing.)


It took a few moments for James to catch on. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going with that letter?” his two best friends started to run faster up the stairs. James stood up quickly and then fell back down, feeling the worst head rush that he had ever had. “You’re going to get it later!”


Remus and Sirius laughed, waving the letter high above their heads, knowing full well that they’d get away free from James’ wrath.


And, almost as proof, a few minutes later there came uproarious laughter that sounded very much like James’ mother and father. James pounded the floor with his fist, and then proceeded to think up the most horrific revenge to pull on his friends.

“Will you stop worrying? You’re making me nervous. And that, my friend,” Sirius stopped talking for a moment to swallow his chocolate that he was sharing with Remus. “Is a very hard thing to do.”


James was pacing up and down the area of his room, trying with all his might to get rid of the dull, aching pain he was having in his forehead along with the brats that he called friends. “Would you just try again?” he pleaded with Remus, who now had his face covered completely in chocolate and was still eating.


“I don’t think there’s anything that I can do.” Remus told him after swallowing. “I believe that your brain is permanently trying to leave your head to forget about the damage you made with Lily.”


James glared at him. “You need to stop hanging out with Sirius.” He turned around again to pace the other side of the room. Sirius smirked, making his face look even stranger with the immense amount of chocolate surrounding his mouth.


“Stop blaming me for your problems. Just because Remus can’t cure your headache with a spell doesn’t automatically mean that it’s my fault.” Sirius popped another piece of chocolate in him mouth as Remus laughed.


“See?” Remus giggled, unwrapping another bar of chocolate and adding it to the already huge pile on James’ bed. “He’s not as dumb as we thought he was.” Sirius laughed while James began to hit his head on his desk to make the pain go away.


James stopped for a moment, realized something, and turned to look at Sirius. “You do know that he just insulted you, right?” he asked, forgetting for a minute about his headache.


Sirius shook his head. “No he didn’t, he just-” Realization dawned on him. “Wait a minute…”


James went back to pacing and listening to the sounds of Remus trying to avoid getting hit by Sirius or anything Sirius threw at him. There was a sudden sound of the doorbell and all three of them jumped, catching the other’s eyes.


From downstairs they could hear James’ mother answering the door. Any noise that was in the room prior to now stop completely; the whole house seemed to have become eerily silent. The boys listened with everything they had to hear the conversation going on below them.


“Why hello Mrs. Dongle! I’m so glad you were able to make it on such short notice!” they heard Laura exclaim. There was a collective sigh of relief. Lily wasn’t here yet. They had nothing to worry about until then.


Then Sirius voiced what he and Remus had both been thinking. “Wait a second, who’s Mrs. Dongle?” James shuddered.


“I’m not taking that as a good sign,” Remus muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.


“Mrs. Dongle is the old lady from across the street that my mum used to pay to baby-sit me,” James explained, shuddering a little at the thought of her. “She was the worst…I…I don’t even want to think about her…” Remus and Sirius glanced at each other.


“What’s she doing here?” Remus finally asked, giving James a chance to calm down a little.


The realization that the old lady from across the street was actually once again in his house suddenly dawned on James, hitting him hard. There was a brief silence in which James’ eyes suddenly got a lot wider and then he was out of the room, running so fast that he left a trail of dust behind him. Remus and Sirius laughed for a moment, and then followed him leisurely.


James reached the top of the stairs in record time, beating his old record by two seconds at least. His mother heard him immediately, using the sixth sense that only mothers have to detect their sons. She glanced up at him, her face half saying “oh, look who just stopped by!” and “If you dare do anything to be rude, I’ll gut you like a fish!”


“Jamesie!” she laughed nervously, a smidgen surprised by her son’s quick entrance. She continued even through the laughter that suddenly erupted from Sirius and Remus when she had used James’ nickname. “Look who just came by to help!”


“To…to…help?” James asked, a frightened look on his face and in his voice.


As he looked at the older women that he had not seen in many, many years, all the old memories came back to him. There was the fiasco at the quidditch pitch in the backyard; the time when he purposely covered everything in putty just to make her mad after she had sent him to bed at six-o-clock (When he was nine and then again when he was eleven), and all the times that he had to sit in the corner for ‘accidentally’ magically shaving all her hair off.


Ok, so maybe the evilness was more of James than it was of her, but he sure wasn’t going to admit that.


“Of course to help,” Laura said, her smile frozen on her face. Obviously she remembered what James had done in his younger days all too well. “We will need a babysitter if there’s going to be a teenage girl and three untamed teenage boys in the house while we’re away.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, only enough just so her son could see that she meant business.


Inwardly James cursed. Outwardly he fainted. This, of course, made Sirius and Remus laugh even harder.


His mother just sighed and gave an apologetic look to Mrs. Dongle. “He’s really changed since you last sat for him, Mrs. Dongle, I swear,” she half pleaded, trying to ignore the look on the older woman’s face. “I mean, six years have passed and he’s turning seventeen next week. At school he’s gotten much better…” she trailed off, realizing that nothing at all had changed since James was eleven. “Well…I’m sure he’ll be better behaved once we have a young lady in the house.”


Mrs. Dongle sniffed, turning her nose up a little in a pompous way. “I’m sure,” she said quietly. Laura was immensely relieved.


“Then you will help us?” she asked and received a slight nod which she took to be a yes. She let out her breath the she had been holding ever since Mrs. Dongle had step foot in her house. “Thank you so much!” With that, the two parted and Mrs. Dongle left using the front door. Laura turned around to face the stairs to find Remus and Sirius trying to resuscitate James, who was still lying on at the head of the stairs.


“I’ll go get some water.” She said, heading off toward the kitchen.


Sirius and Remus nodded in sync and then turned back to the task at hand.



“I still say that slapping him multiple times will do the trick.” Sirius repeated for the billionth time. Remus had stopped laughing at it when he finally realized that he was being serious. He smiled weakly.


“I don’t think that his mum would appreciate that very much, Padfoot.”


“But it would wake him up.” Sirius argued back, smiling self satisfyingly. Remus shook his head.


“I need a pin.” He sighed, sitting back to release the pressure off his legs.


“A pin? Why?”


“To deflate your ego,” Sirius narrowed his eyes as if to say ‘very funny.’ Remus just shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, you can’t argue with the truth, my friend.”


They sat there for a few more minutes, staring at James’ lifeless form. “I think his mum got sidetracked.” Sirius finally said. Remus nodded and they went back to their brainstorming.


Suddenly the doorbell rang, singing the refrain to a version of the Hogwarts school song. As if on cue, James sat straight up, blinking and holding his head.


“Good timing,” Sirius told him, now looking at his fingernails as if he had planned this the entire time. “Now you get to go answer the door like a good little boy.”


“Agh…” James managed to sputter out. “Why me?”


“You live here, remember?” Remus asked, holding up two fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up? What’s two plus two? Who’s your best friend in the whole world?” James knocked his fingers aside trying to stand up.


“Moony, I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.” He said, practically falling down the stairs to get to the door.


Sirius smirked. “The answer to the last question was me, anyways,” He looked at Remus sympathetically. “Don’t give yourself too much credit.”


Remus rolled his eyes. “Where’s that pin when I need one?” Sirius laughed evilly. They watched James stumble down his stairs as the doorbell rang three more times. “Bet you all your wizard cards that it’s who I think it is.” Remus whispered to Sirius.


“Bet you that’s why neither of James’ parents has come down to answer the door.” Sirius retaliated and Remus laughed.


James finally reached the door, pulling it open in the middle of a fourth rendition of the doorbell. Blinded by the sun for a few moments, he shielded his eyes to see whoever was there, hoping to Merlin that is wasn’t Mrs. Dongle, back again to make his life a living hell.


“James?” a distinctly female voice asked, stepping closer a little to block out the sun behind her. James saw red hair, green eyes, and gulped. Oh, yeah. She was supposed to be here today.


“H…Hi, Lily…” he muttered, now gripping the door in his right hand with a death grip. “Forgot…uh…you…er…are here?” Lily looked confused for a few seconds then nodded tentatively.


“Am I allowed to come in?” she asked and James finally noticed that she was standing there buried by two humongous suitcases. James opened the door wider and allowed her to pass by.


“Lily!” Sirius screeched by way of greeting. He began to run down the stairs and then stopped, also noticing the bags. “What’d you pack the whole continent of north America?” Lily smiled a bit, glancing down at her things.


“I just…couldn’t decide what to pack,” she said by way of explanation. “I had no idea whether or not you boys were going to ambush me on my first night here or not.”


“We wouldn’t do that!” Remus insisted, coming down the stairs too.


Sirius nodded. “Yeah, we’d wait until the third or fourth night for that.”


There was a long pause. The four of them stood there silent, with one word floating through all of their minds: awkward.


“Prongs, are you going to stand there holding the door all day? ‘Cause if you do it long enough we’re going to have to start to pay you.” Remus said and Sirius laughed, enjoying the effect of James turning red so quickly.


“Allow me to take your things to your room, Lily my dear.” Sirius added quickly, trying to take some of the awkwardness before it could rear its ugly head again.


Lily narrowed her eyes. “Don’t call me that.” She warned.


“Don’t call you what? Lily?” Sirius asked, confused. Remus and James sighed in unison. With a huff, Lily handed her shoulder bag at Sirius’ feet and he lifted the two bags in the air with a simple wave of his wand. The bags floated up the stairs to Lily’s room. Don’t ask how Sirius already knew.


To relieve some of the tension of James not being able to open his mouth, Remus suddenly said, “James’ birthday is next week.”


Sirius laughed and added, “He’ll be turning two.”


Lily laughed for the first time since she got there, making James’ face turn a darker shade of red. “That’s funny, because I thought he would be only turning one.” She said.


James opened his mouth to retaliate, but at that moment, his mum and dad chose to reappear at the top of the stairs.


“Lily!” James’ mom said excitedly. “We’re so glad that you could make it!”


“Sorry that we have to leave you four alone so soon, though.” James’ dad motioned to the array of bags following them down the stairs as they headed for the door.


This seemed to shock his wife out of fun mother mode and into ‘these are the ground rules’ mode. “Oh yes.” She pulled some sheets of paper from out of her pockets. “Mrs. Dongle,” James shuddered at the mention of her name, “Will be the lady staying with you four while we’re away. You’ll be sharing a room with her, Lily.”


“They thought of everything, didn’t they?” Sirius whispered to no one in particular.


“She’s rather old, so don’t be too rough with her.” Her eyes fell on James and he suddenly started whistling to show his innocence. “She’s just here to make sure that none of you try to pull anything. To give you a little freedom, though, she won’t be here during the day.” There was a release of breath from all four teenagers.


“It’s mostly just the nights we’re worried about.” James’ dad added, winking at his son, who suddenly wished that he was anywhere but there.


“That’s it!” by this time all the luggage had accumulated at the bottom of the stairs with its owners standing by it. “We’ll be gone for about the entire summer, but you can always reach us by floo or fire.” She gave Lily and Remus each a piece of paper with the name of their tour’s name on it. “You can always reach us here.”


“Hey!” Sirius protested, noticing that she only gave Remus and Lily a piece of paper. “How come James and I didn’t get one?”


“You’d use it for something dangerous.” Remus told him, putting the paper in his pocket for safekeeping. Sirius muttered something about that being a good idea and became lost in his own little dream world.


“Don’t worry,” James was saying as Sirius came back to reality. “Mum, nothing serious will happen.” Just a couple of pranks to a few people who deserve it. He thought, thinking of what he had planned for that night.


“For some reason, that doesn’t console me.” James’ mom and dad answered together, identical looks on their faces. They started making their way out the door, the bags automatically following them.


After saying goodbye to their son and getting all of the bags out, James’ mom stood in the doorway and said, “Remember that we trust you, alright?” and closed the door.


James, Lily, Remus and Sirius stared at each other, wide-eyed.


“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” Sirius finally voiced and the others nodded in agreement.

James scurried quietly down the stairs, heading toward the kitchen, a huge mischievous smile on his face. He tried to wipe the smile off, attempting to shake off the combination of nerves and excitement running through him, but it was nearly impossible.


He was going to try something he’d never tried before. Well, okay, he’d tried but he’d never been successful. This time, though, he would have to be; after all, if he actually found the cupboard then he could pull of the best prank of all time. Okay, fine, the best prank in the neighborhood.


The kitchen seemed smaller without his mom there, as something was always cooking in the Potter household. James quickly got his mind back on subject as he tried to remember what his dad had told him about the cupboard. It was hidden in one of the walls, with a secret way to get in. And, supposedly, it held all of James’ wildest dreams that didn’t include Lily in them. ‘Supposedly’ being the key word there.


James carefully circled the room once, finding all the spots on the walls without anything there. Only one spot was open, James’ mom being one to cover every inch of a wall. He began pushing in on it, but it was completely smooth.


“Dammit,” James swore. He’d have to use magic to get in. I should’ve known. He thought. What kind of magical family doesn’t keep things locked up with magic? The excitement of getting back at Sirius and Remus must be going to my brain.


In his head James could hear Sirius’ automatic response: What brain?


The real problem now, of course, was that James couldn’t do any magic until his birthday. So the amount of people who could in the house was numbered down to Sirius, Remus, Mrs. Dongle, and…Lily.


Lily? Granted, she was the only person who could actually help, but…Lily?


Giving up, James headed back up the stairs thinking that it would never work even if he did ask her to help. But then again…


James turned the opposite direction at the top of the stairs, going toward Lily and Mrs. Dongle’s room instead of his own, hoping against hope that this would work.

---

Mrs. Dongle could’ve been more than a hundred years old. Every time she moved she creaked. Her breath smelled like old gym socks and she snored. Badly.


Lily tried to sleep, but she became convinced that Mrs. Dongle’s snoring was as loud as a sonic blast. Nothing helped, so she carefully turned on the light by her bed and took out her journal. Apparently, nothing would wake her up, either.


Dear Diary,


Well, here I am at the Potter’s house…although I don’t know why mum and dad let me come. Something about me ‘needing to socialize more’; otherwise known as they need more vacation time without me and Petunia mucking it up. Thank God Petunia is sleeping over at a friend’s house this week. I don’t think I could listen to her yell at me about the ‘around the world trip’ because it’s too magical. I wish she’d just shut up. It’s not as if she didn’t wish she had magic, too. She doesn’t have to hate me for it.


It was kind of weird coming here today, though. Remus was the same as always, thank God he’s here. Sirius was his usual pompous self and James…was…uh…is there a word for how he is? Stilted? Off? Cute when he blushes?


Oops. Don’t count the last one. My brain wasn’t working.


Suddenly Lily was aware that the door was slowly opening and a finger was telling her to come. Slightly confused, she put down her diary and made her way to the door. Stopping suddenly, she realized that she was only wearing a nightgown and grabbed her sweater off the end of her bed.


Opening the door wider, James’ head appeared and mouthed the words ‘come here.’ Lily followed, rolling her eyes at his attempts to be quiet.


“What is it, James?” she asked, pulling the sweater closer to her to cover the nightgown.


James looked her over and raised an eyebrow. “What’re you wearing?” Lily blushed.


“What is it James?” she asked a little more forcefully this time, letting go of the sweater.


“I need your help. With magic. Downstairs. Right now.” He muttered.


Lily laughed slightly. “Can you talk in complete sentences?”


“I need your help downstairs so that I can open a magic cupboard so that I can pull the ultimate prank on Remus and Sirius.” James sighed, hoping that that about covered it.


Lily narrowed her eyes. “You mean that you can’t do magic outside school yet?” He nodded. “Hmmm…I don’t know…what will you give me in exchange?”


“What?” James couldn’t believe this. Lily was bribing him?


“Well, it’s not everyday that I have James Potter groveling for my help. So I figure that I might as well make the most of it, right?” She grinned innocently.


“I’m not groveling…” James muttered quietly. Then, louder he said, “Merlin, Evans. If you wanted to do something dirty you didn’t need to bribe me to get me to do it.” As soon as it was out of his mouth, he regretted saying it. Inwardly he cussed, kicking himself for ruining his only chance for a good prank.


As expected, Lily gave him a look of disgust. “Potter, I don’t even want to dignify that with a response.” She turned and began to go back to bed. James caught her by the arm.


“Wait! Please help me? I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”


Lily looked down at his hand gripping her arm and he let go. The she sighed and rolled her eyes. “All right, I’ll help.”


James was surprised. “Really? I swear I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”


She turned toward him and flashed him a grin. “You just better make sure that whatever it is you have planned for me is worth it.” James smiled back and he led her down to the kitchens.


He showed her the blank space on the wall and Lily inspected it. Turning back to him after a moment, she gave him the strangest look.


“What?” James asked, blushing a bit.


“It just now occurred to me that I’m older than you. Hmm…Interesting how that makes a whole lot of sense, isn’t it?”


“Shut up.”


Lily turned back to the wall, a small smile of triumph written on her face. She pulled out her wand from her sweater pocket and gently tapped the wall three times and then said “Potter.” Instantly a small cupboard appeared.


James looked at her, a mixture of gratefulness and awe on his face. “How’d you know to say Potter?”


Lily shrugged. “We have one of these at home; I’m the only one who knows about it. Each cupboard basically is fixed to use the last name of the inhabitants of the house. It’s actually very simple.”


“Yeah, yeah, I don’t need its life history.” James spurned, already elbows deep into the contents of the cupboard. He pulled out a small vial and examined it. “Perfect!” he exclaimed.


But Lily had already begun climbing the stairs, hurt by what James had said. James considered running after her, but he shrugged it off. She wasn’t his priority right now.


Instead, he quickly closed the cupboard, watching it melt back into the wall, and went back to his room. Sirius and Remus were still very much asleep, unaware that James had even slipped out.


James quickly read the label over again on the vial. If he wanted it to work, he would have to use it now before the morning. The label said that all it took was a drop on the victim’s head. (Alright, so it didn’t say victim exactly, but James envisioned it did.)


Remus was easy to drop the potion on, but Sirius was another matter altogether. It seemed that Sirius had a defense system set up just for this kind of thing. Obviously, he had been pranked too many times at night, or more likely, he had delivered too many pranks at night that he built up an immune system to it just in case.


In any case, it took four tries to just drop the potion on Sirius’ head before James finally held him down and forced the liquid to settle. Finally satisfied, James put the vial away in his sock drawer and settled down in bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

---

The next morning Sirius felt itchy. It was hot, like he had way too many blankets on himself. Cursing James for making him sleep on the floor, Sirius pulled off the covers, but couldn’t grab a hold of the blanket itself. It wasn’t until he sunk his claws deep into the material that he finally got it off.


Wait. Claws?


Opening his eyes, Sirius lifted his head up, took one good look at his body, and screamed.

---

Remus woke up to the sound of Sirius’ screaming. Not an altogether pleasant experience, but at least he woke up.


It was then that he noticed that he had fur. Not just any fur, either.


Orange fluffy fur. With white stripes.


And he was shedding. Everywhere.


He tried to sit up but couldn’t and had to resort to four legs, stretching out involuntarily. It was then that Remus realized what he was.


I’m a cat. Oh my gosh, I’m a cat. I’m a cat. Why am I a cat?


He looked at Sirius for support, who seemed to be coming to terms with what was going on. James sat up from the bed sleepily. But from the angle Remus was at, he couldn’t see James. Then he noticed it was because he was a small cat.


Ahh! I’m a kitten! Ah man, why does my irrational fear of cats have to manifest itself now?


Sirius jumped up on the bed and bit James on the arm. James let out a yell to rival Sirius’.


“And you’ll get more where that came from if you don’t change me back right now!” Sirius hollered, but his voice had a slight mew-ish tone to it.


Just then the door slammed open, Mrs. Dongle in her pajamas in the doorway with Lily behind her.


“And what is going on in here? What’s with all the noise?” Mrs. Dongle shouted, but she spotted the two boys-turned-kittens and exclaimed a sound of surprise and cooing.


“Ah, what adorable kittens!” She reached for Sirius, who was still on the bed with James. “Since when did you keep these cooped up in here?” She asked, holding Sirius against her chest, petting the life out of him. From the look on Sirius’ face, James could tell he was in for it later.


Lily laughed, trying to cover it up with her hand. “We’d better take them outside,” She said.


Mrs. Dongle gasped. “You’re absolutely right, Miss Evans.” Still holding Sirius against her, she turned to walk out the door, but Sirius started to thrash wildly at her, scratching her everywhere he could reach. He finally won his freedom when she dropped him in surprise.


“Maybe it’s better if you hold them, Miss Evans.”


Lily smiled broadly and with the utmost care picked up Remus and Sirius, who seemed much happier with the switch. The two women were gone after only being there a few minutes.


James was still sitting up dully; still dumb on what was going on. He remembered Sirius biting him, but Sirius was a kitten…


Oh, yeah.


Suddenly remembering last night, James began to laugh maliciously. It had worked!


Then he thought about what Sirius and Remus would do to him when they were back to their original forms.


Eegh…never mind…think of something more pleasant…like…uh…dandelions. Yeah, that’s it; dandelions.


He kept his mind on a different subject helped while he got dressed, but it left his mind completely when he spotted two kittens, one orange and one black, staring at him from outside his bedroom window, patiently bidding their time.


It was an omen if he had ever seen one.

After quickly getting dressed, James went downstairs to find Lily searching frantically through his kitchen cabinets. James took a step back to admire the picture of Lily’s flushed face. And her butt. Although, he would never admit that if she caught him.


“You know, most people would look in the fridge for food.” He said after a few minutes of…er…admiring.


Lily’s head snapped up and James caught the wild look in her eyes. “Do you have any cat food?” She practically shouted. However, James never had a chance to respond, as Lily began to push him towards the front door.


“I really thought you may have actually have thought this through, James. You are just going to have to go out and buy some food for them!”


“Wait just a minute!” James steeled himself against Lily. “Isn’t there something in the fridge that they could eat? If I leave I’ll be killed! Didn’t you see the way they were glaring at me?”


Lily gave him a look that he was getting all too used to, but stopped pushing him. “All I’m saying is that my comfort zone is here,” he gestured around him, “And I’d be stepping out of said comfort zone if I go outside to be mauled by the crazy cats! I mean…people.”


Lily sighed. “It doesn’t matter anyways; you’d still have to go out to get food.”


“Are you telling me that there is no food anywhere in this house?”


“Not enough to live on. And the two people who could fix something up are outside trying to lick themselves!”


Ignoring the licking comment, James raised his eyebrows at Lily. “It’s the second day that you’ve been here and there’s no food at all anywhere?” She carefully avoided his gaze. Then the light bulb came on in James’ head. “You can’t cook, can you?”


Lily blushed scarlet and then mumbled something under her breath. “What was that?” James asked, trying not to giggle. He reached down and lifted her chin up to look at him.


Blushing even redder, she said, “Mum never taught me because she assumed that I wouldn’t need to know…being a witch and all…”


He thought about laughing, but then realized that it was cute. “I can teach you,” he whispered, leaning in closer to her. “Of course, all I can cook is boiling water.” Lily smiled nervously and licked her lips in confusion.


“Right, well…obviously Mrs. Dongle will have to cook or something…” Lily started to back away slowly, but never took her eyes off his.


There came a YOWL from the front yard and James moved away from Lily as quickly as he had moved forward. Matching the other’s red face, they both ran to the window to find a black kitten screaming from a high tree branch and a orange kitten with his hair on end staring at another black kitten who was mewing down at the bottom of the tree.


“Oh bloody hell.”

---

“Padfoot, you can come down now, you know…she’s not going to hurt you.” Remus coaxed from the ground, after getting over the scare that the kitten had given the two of them.


“But she…but she...” Sirius whimpered from the tree, not letting Remus calm him down. “She violated my personal space!”


Remus rolled his eyes as well as a cat could roll his eyes. “She did not. She snuck up behind you and you ran into the tree. If anything you violated the tree’s personal space.”


Sirius glared at him. “You’re not helping.”


“Yeah, really you can come down now.” The cat said, beginning to lick her paw.


There was a pause while Sirius tried to pull his claws out of the tree branch. “I…uh…can’t…I’m afraid of…uh…heights?”


Remus sniggered. Sirius glared back down at him. “Hey! You try being a cat when you’re obviously meant to be a dog!”


“Sirius, I’m a werewolf. That’s pretty must closer to a dog than a cat. You’re not in any trauma.”


All three cats turned as James stormed out of the front door, Lily trailing right behind him. “Sirius Black!” he yelled, “Come down this instant!”


Sirius’ reply to this was to stick out his tongue.


“Hello there. Will you pet me?” The black cat politely asked Lily and she stared at it blankly.


”Remus, since when do real kittens talk?” she asked, not taking her eyes off of the kitten for one second.


“Since real people turn into kittens,” Remus replied, beginning to lick his fur, and then stopping. “I have got to learn to stop doing that.”


Lily bent down to the black cat and asked in the sweetest voice she could manage (well, the cat was a kitten…), “And what’s your name, kitty-kitty?”


The cat looked at her with an undertone that suggested that she would be rolling her eyes if she could. “Don’t patronize me.” Lily blinked, and then muttered an apology, but the kitten kept on talking. “I’m Kat with a K, not a C; don’t confuse it.”


“Now, why didn’t I see that one coming?” Remus thought to himself, shaking his head and sitting in the grass.


“And I didn’t mean to scare your friend over there,” she continued, glancing up at Sirius and then at Remus, “but I couldn’t help it! Do you know how long it’s been since the last animals to walk through this yard haven’t been a rat, dog, werewolf, or moose?”


“Stag!” James angrily yelled, momentarily taking his eyes off of Sirius to correct her.


“Whatever. All I’m saying is that I’m a little starved for attention.” She looked at Sirius again and winked at him.


“Please don’t tell me that a kitten just tried to hit on me.” Sirius’ eyes went big, unsettled.


“She didn’t try,” Lily smiled broadly, “she most definitely succeeded.” She began to pet Kat’s head, who purred in response.


The next hour was spent watching James try to get Sirius to come down from the tree, who looked like he really wanted to, but the instinct to make James mad overcame that want.


“So, how old are you?” Lily asked Kat as they watching James climbing the tree to physically take Sirius down from it.


“I wonder if he even remembers why he wanted him to come down so much in the first place.” Remus said to himself, knowing that no one else was listening.


“In human years I’m probably about ten.” Kat replied. (A/N: I have no idea how cats age according to humans.) She was sitting in Lily’s lap, having her own personal massage. “But looking at that,” she tilted her head towards the two idiots in the tree, “I know that I’m much more mature than ten years old.”


Lily looked over at Remus, who was trying not to lick his fur. “You know, you are a very cute cat, Remus.”


Remus blushed and involuntarily licked his paw.


All three looked up when they heard a THUNK and watched as James come crashing to the ground.


“Whoops.” Sirius said, nimbly leaping to another branch and shaking a leaf out from his fur.


“You…did…that…on…purpose…” James groaned from the grass.


“You can’t prove that.”


“Wanna…bet…?”


Lily sighed, rolling her eyes. “Okay, that’s enough.” Putting Kat on the ground, she stood and stepped over James to get to Sirius. “Sirius get down here!”


He immediately jumped into her arms.


“We’re all going inside to sort this out.” She said, walking into the house, trailed by Kat, Remus, and James, who had finally gotten up off of his butt.


“James,” Lily said when they all were assembled at (or on, considering they’re kittens) the kitchen table, “You have to turn them back.”


James looked down and mumbled something.


“You can’t turn us back?” Sirius shrieked, launching himself at James and trying to scratch his face off.


“Sirius! Control yourself!” Lily tried to get him off of James to no avail.


“Yeah, go for his heart first, not his head!” Remus yelled.


When Lily finally got Sirius to calm down, she looked around at the cats, and then at James, who was nursing the cuts on his face.


“I think I can turn you guys back.” Lily said and watched as their faces brightened. “But you might suffer from cat-like personalities for several days.” From the looks on their faces, she could tell they didn’t care, but just in case they came complaining later, she wanted to be able to say ‘I told you so.’


“But I can’t do magic yet and I’m the one who’s best at transfiguration!” James protested.


“Well maybe you should have thought about that before you turned your best friends into cats.” Lily hissed, throwing a towel at him. “Go get cleaned up. When you come back they’ll be as good as new.”

---

James cleaned his cuts the best he could, but couldn’t help thinking that he looked as if he had just collided with a cactus.


“Maybe it’ll make me look more rugged.” He thought out loud, but when he put on his glasses, he realized that he had been beaten up by a cat. And that was as far from rugged as you could get.

---

“Ah…to be human,” Sirius took a good look at himself in the glare from the fridge. “I look even better than I did before!”


“And here I thought it was impossible for someone to compliment himself and boost his ego even more.” Remus sighed, looking at himself in the fridge too.


“I just thought it was impossible for his ego to get any bigger.” Lily agreed halfheartedly, staring at Kat.


“What does that look mean?” Kat asked, nervously looking back at Lily.


“I think I have an idea.”


Sirius and Remus heard a wand PING and turned around to find a ten-year-old sitting on the kitchen table. She was dressed in all back; black mini skirt, black shirt, even long black socks and black shoes. Her hair was jet black with, curiously enough, red highlights.


“Huh. I didn’t see those when you were a cat.” Lily remarked, touching a red strand. Kat grinned.


Remus and Sirius both stood wide-eyed, mouths open. Remus found his voice first. “Wow, Lily…I didn’t know you could do that.”


“Yeah, when I was really little I used to turn my bunnies into people sometimes so that I could have someone to play with.” Lily said as sadness briefly crossed her face.


Kat hopped down from the table and crossed over to Sirius, “So, what do you want to do now?” She smiled as she put her arms around his neck, her feet on her tiptoes.


Sirius squeaked, “Uh…problem!” and ducked out of her arms, backing into the fridge. He held on for dear life. He looked at Lily. “It was fine when she was a cat and all, but…” he looked back at Kat. “Could you age her or something? This is starting to get a little creepy!”


Lily and Remus burst out laughing at the same time, doubling over. At that moment, James walked in.


He saw Kat and did a double take. “Do you have a tattoo on your bellybutton?”


Kat glanced down and saw that her shirt had come up when she lifted her arms. She giggled mischievously.


“Can cats even get tattoos?” Sirius wondered as Lily and Remus calmed down.


Still chuckling, Lily waved her wand at Kat and everyone watched as she aged seven years.


“Okay, it’s still kinda creepy.” Sirius whimpered, which sent Remus and Lily into hysterics again. Angry, Sirius rushed out of the kitchen, ignoring Remus’ pleas of ‘Wait! We’re almost done! Come back!’


“Sirius!” Kat whined, chasing after him, but she stopped as he ran up the stairs.


On impulse, instead of running to James’ room to destroy everything he owned, Sirius turned the other direction toward where Lily was staying.


Stopping short of the door, Sirius suddenly heard a voice telling him to stop, but he waved it off, realizing it was his conscience.


The room was small with two beds stuffed in, but Sirius immediately knew which was Lily’s. A small black book caught his eyes, but after searching through it enough he only confirmed what he already knew; that Lily and James had the hots for each other.


Moving on to a brighter book (The color caught his eye; he’s pretty easily distracted) he found it to contain nearly every person in Gryffindor’s phone number or address for floo powder. A thought struck him and he raced out of the room to find a phone.


He had a lot of phone calls to make…but first he had to figure out what a phone actually was.

Sirius didn’t actually begin to put his plan into action until a few days later, when he finally managed to figure out where and what the phone was.


Sirius stared at the phone, completely oblivious to the fact that he was being watched. Lily and Remus stood not ten feet away from him betting continuously for the last fifteen minutes on how long it would take him to figure out how to dial. Kat was further away and could care less about how the phone worked and more about how cute Sirius was when he was frustrated. (Kat had been staying with Lily and Mrs. Dongle the past couple of nights.)


“So…if I just…uh…” Sirius turned the phone around in his hand, pretending that he knew what the buttons were for.


“Ok, seriously now, five more seconds and we have to go in there to tell him.” Lily whispered to Remus. She had now completely gotten over the whole funny aspect of the situation five minutes ago and was now frustrated to no end.


“Wait a minute; I just want to see if he knows to press the buttons.” Remus covered his grinning mouth with his hand, still not being able to get over the fact that Sirius had even been able to know what the phone looked like.


Lily gave him a withering look.


“Yeah, okay, it’s been long enough.” Remus complied, feeling her glare burning through his skin.


“So I hold it in this hand…” they heard Sirius muttering as the two of them neared him. “Wait, wait, wait! I almost have it!” he held up the hand that wasn’t holding the phone to keep Remus and Lily away.


“Sirius, the phone is upside down.” Lily stated matter-of-factly.


“Right…” Sirius flipped the phone over.


“Why do you need to use a phone anyways?” Remus asked, taking the phone gently from his hand.


“I…uh…want to call my mommy?”


It was then that Lily noticed the black book stuffed into his pant’s pocket. “Sirius!” she grabbed for the book, but he pulled away quickly.


“Lily!” Sirius feigned shock, “I for one am surprised at you! If you really were that anxious we could have at least talked about it first! And then, you know, maybe have a few drinks…”


Lily’s face contorted in disgust, but she didn’t let that distract her. “Give me back my address book!” she tried again to reach for it, but Sirius jumped out of the way.


“Sirius, are you planning what I think you’re planning?” Remus narrowed his eyes, putting two and two together.


“I’m…calling all the eligible girls in town, that’s all.” Sirius replied as he jumped away from Lily yet again.


“You know very well that I have everybody’s number from Gryffindor in there, Sirius Black!” Lily stopped trying to grab her book and began to kick Sirius instead.


“OUCH!” Sirius doubled over, clutching his knee.


“Give it!”


“Fine, fine! Here, take it!” he managed to get the book out of his pocket and throw it at her, finally falling on the ground in pain.


Remus wasn’t looking at the spectacle before him, but rather staring off into space. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”


“What’s not a bad idea?” Lily asked, distracted by the sight of Sirius withering on the ground because of a little kick.


“A party,” The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.


“A what…?” She muttered, still completely taken aback by Sirius and beginning to suspect that he was pretending.


Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius (he was now totally unfazed by his antics) and continued to speak. “Yeah, you know…one of those things with lots of people, some balloons, and perhaps most likely a cake?”


“Uh-huh,” Lily murmured, checking through her addresses to make sure everything was still there. “Wait…a party for whom? The idiot on the floor?”


“Lily, its James’ seventeenth birthday next week; maybe we could have the party for him?”


Lily’s eyes went wide as she suddenly stopping flipping through the pages. “Oh my gosh, it is…” she thought for a moment as Sirius got up from the floor and was instantly tackled by Kat, who had been silently watching from her hiding place. “I suppose we could do something like that…” she said hesitantly.


Lily and Remus started to flip through Lily’s address book to find people to invite. Neither was paying any attention to Sirius and Kat.


“C’mon! Just get off of me!” Sirius cried out as Kat wrapped her arms around him for the twelfth time in the last twenty seconds.


Kat responded by hugging him tighter. “I’m just so glad that you’re ok! I thought for a moment that you were hurt!”


Sirius sighed and tried again to pry Kat off of his waist, but she had learned all too well as a cat to sink her claws into her prey and not let go.


“Look, I was just pretending to be hurt to make Lily feel bad for kicking me, all right?” he told her, waiting for her to realize this so that he could breathe again. “So, if you’ll please let go of m-OUCH!”


Remus and Lily looked up to find half of Sirius’ shirt missing.


“Could you please NOT use your claws to destroy my wardrobe?” screamed Sirius, finally managing to push Kat away to survey the damage of what was left of his shirt.


The others watched as Sirius jumped up the steps to James’ room to find a new shirt, muttering all the way, “Damn it, fifth time today…”


Sirius came back down about ten minutes later wearing a new shirt, having cleaned the new cuts caused by Kat for the sixth time that day. He found Kat, Remus, and Lily in the kitchen, still looking through the book for people to invite to James’ surprise party.


“No! We can’t invite her and that’s that!” Lily was shouting at a very confused Remus.


“But she’s one of the most popular people at Hogwarts-”


“Besides us.” Sirius chimed in.


“-and she knows and likes James!”


“And she’s hot.” Sirius grinned.


Lily gave Sirius a look. “Sirius, you don’t even know who we’re talking about.”


Sirius shrugged. “I just figure that if you don’t want to invite her then she must be hot.” Lily’s face turned bright red in anger.


“We’re talking about Graziana Harding and-” Remus was cut off again by Sirius.


“Oh. She’s hot.”


“ARGH!” Lily started to bang her head against the table. “We’re…not…inviting…her!”


“I get what this is about.” Sirius pointed at Lily. “You’re afraid that she’ll show up here and steal James from you right under your nose, right?”


Lily didn’t say anything, but was betrayed by her face turning beet red.


“I knew it!” Sirius pumped his fists in the air. “You’re the only girl who really has access to him this summer and now you’re overprotective of him!”


“Wow…that actually makes sense…” Remus muttered, raising his eyebrows in surprise.


Kat jumped up from her place on the kitchen counter. “Yay! My Siri is the smart one!”


“What did you just call me? ‘Siri’?”


“Where is James, anyway?” Lily asked amid all the confusion. “Isn’t he supposed to be here?”


Sirius and Remus looked at each other and bit their lips. “Uh…he’s…erm…finally getting around to trying maturing?” Sirius guessed, but Lily obviously was too smart for that.


“Really?”


The two smiled weakly. Remus kicked Sirius under the table for being an idiot.


“Okay, then…never mind…” The table was silent for a few minutes as Remus continued to go through the black book half-heartedly.


“Should we invite James’ sister?” he suddenly asked.


“James has a sister?” Lily and Sirius both said in unison.


Remus rolled his eyes slightly. “Sirius, you’ve always known he’s had a sister. You had a crush on her in fourth year.”


“Right. I knew that.” Sirius looked around nervously.


“What’s her name?” Lily asked excitedly. “What year is she in? Is she older or younger than James? Is she just as immature as the rest of you? How would you rate her maturity?”


“Uh…” Remus stuttered, “Rachel, graduated, older, more mature, uh…seven?”


“Wow…who would’ve thought that someone in the Potter family would be as cool as that?”


“You don’t even know her.” Remus protested, but Lily had already formed an image in her mind of Rachel Potter that he couldn’t change even if he had to. “Oh, well,” he muttered.


“Anyway…here’s what I’m thinking for the party…” Sirius said, and a few minutes later the party planning was in full swing again.


James had no idea what was coming.

---

James was actually right at that moment in Diagon Alley trying frantically to find something for Lily to make up for the whole ‘turning people into cats’ incident. He had been browsing through the same store for the last hour, a total of five hours actually spent shopping. That alone was too much time spent shopping for any boy, especially a boy who had no experience shopping save for Quidditch.


He picked up a scented candle and smelled it. “Ech!” It smelled like earwax. Definitely not what he was looking for. How did he end up in the scented candle store, anyway? Oh, yeah. It was the only store that didn’t frighten him upon walking in. This was probably the reason why he had been sniffing candles that smelt and probably tasted like various Bertie Bott’s Beans.


Maybe he should leave. James looked around for the exit, but found it blocked by the evil saleslady who was determined to make him buy something. Perhaps if he threw her off his track by knocking over some candles…


James’ thoughts were cut off by someone calling his name.


“James! Over here!” He looked over by the half off sales table to find Graziana Harding waving furiously at him.


Wonderful… He thought, walking over to her reluctantly. It wasn’t that she wasn’t fun to hang out with or that she was annoying and she definitely wasn’t ugly, but she was forever trying to get him to go out with him. Most teenage boys wouldn’t mind this, but James was always trying to get Lily and…well…there was the problem.


Graziana was a slim five-foot-seven black headed girl with an attitude that suggested she really didn’t care about what you thought unless, of course, she did. She was a girl who always got what she wanted, so naturally the fact that James wasn’t into her as much as she was him ticked her off considerably. And oh, yeah. She was in Slytherin.


“James Potter! I would never have imagined that you would be in here!” That was a total lie; she had seen him walk discreetly in here and followed him in. “What are you doing?”


“Uh…I’m just…looking for a mother’s day present…you can never be too early, right?”


Graziana looked a little confused. “Right…” She quickly changed tactics and began to stroke his arm. “So…what have you been doing this summer? Having out with Sirius and oh, what’s-his-face…Remus?”


James hurriedly looked around and found that the saleslady was now busy badgering another customer and the path to the door was open. “Yeah, right…um, I really have to go now…father’s day gift and all…” he quickly began to move towards the door.


“But I thought you were looking for a mother’s day present?” Graziana tried to keep him from going, but James was already halfway out the door.


Damn it! She thought, watching him practically run out into the street, knocking three people down in the process. I’ll have to do better next time. That Lily Evans really does have way too much power over him. We’ll just have to ratify that situation, won’t we?

---

James arrived back home to find the rest of the household in complete turmoil.


“I never said that she could be invited!” Lily was screaming at Sirius and Remus. Her face was beet-red. She had obviously been yelling for some time now. “I don’t even have her stupid address! You’re the ones who suggested it!”


“Well, if we didn’t you sure as hell wouldn’t.” Sirius pointed out, flicking a grape across the kitchen.


“Who wouldn’t be invited to what?” James asked as he came into the kitchen. Instantly Lily stopped shouting and Kat woke up from the nap she had been taking on the kitchen counter.


“Are we still talking about James’ surprise par-” Remus quickly jumped over a chair and clamped his hand over her mouth.


“My surprise what?” James asked suspiciously.


“We were going to make you a cake?” Remus said rather unconvincingly.


“Great. Make it chocolate, will you?” James sat at the table exasperatedly.


Sirius sighed dramatically. “Now we have to make you a cake, too? I thought that ignoring you would be enough.”


As James and Sirius bickered good-naturedly, Lily went over to Remus and Kat and whispered, “Remember, the party is two days from now. We’ll call everyone tomorrow.”


The two nodded. The rest of the night was uneventful, but tomorrow night would prove troublesome for what Lily had planned.

The first owl arrived at precisely two in the morning. James awoke from an unsettling dream involving Lily turning cats into people, Graziana Harding chasing him around with a candle, and Kat tearing Sirius into shreds. (The latter half of the dream was much more enjoyable than the former.) Sirius’ arm was lying across his neck, cutting off his circulation, but that was not the immediate reason he had woken up.


There was an owl and he was currently tapping loudly on James’ window. There was an owl and James was about ready to throttle it for waking him up. There was an owl and it wouldn’t shut the heck up.


James pulled Sirius’ arm off of his main supply of air, not really caring whether or not he woke up. If James had to be awake, then he was going to punish the rest of the world for it. Sirius simply rolled over and fell off the bed, repeating sleepily what sounded a lot like, “I wasn’t cheating on you, just exploring other options…”


Fighting the urge to go with his first instinct, which was to slam the window down on the bird’s silky feathers, James walked zombie-like over to the incessant noise and opened the window. The bird flew instantly in with an air of perkiness that should never be witnessed by any of humankind, especially at two in the morning, and zoomed around the ceiling. James glared at it and imagined the owl slowly roasting over an open fire. He waited for two minutes for the owl to come down and when it didn’t comply, he threw Sirius’ shoe at it.


The shoe only knocked the wind out of the bird, not rendering it unconscious like James hoped it would have, but it caused the owl to drop the letter and fly rather haughtily out the window. James shut the window and locked it tightly just in case the owl had a thought to fly back in. he entertained himself with the thought of the bird smacking into the window and falling straight down to the ground another story below, but then realized that he didn’t care anymore.


He threw the letter over to the side, where it landed next to Remus’ sleeping head, and climbed back into his bed intent on sleeping. It had a lot more room now that Sirius was gone, which suited James just fine. Falling asleep again, James promptly forgot about the unopened letter and began to have dreams about owls pecking his eyes out for revenge on their rather annoying brother.


It couldn’t have been more than an hour later when the next owl arrived. James heard the tapping again from the window and groaned, turning over and putting his pillow over his ears. “Whoever had the ridiculous notion of using owls for a mail transport system is going to die!” he shouted from under his pillow, half asleep and half wanting to throw another shoe at the bird.


“Actually, I believe they’re already dead.” Remus sat up from his sleeping bag on the floor and rubbed his eyes. “This is the second time I’ve heard something in this room tonight…is Sirius snoring again?”


“No, nothing as bad as that: there are birds outside my window.” James said into his pillow, trying to learn how to breathe without suffocating beneath it.


Remus picked up the letter beside his head and squinted at it in the dark. Looking up at the window he could clearly see two owls struggling to get in to deliver their letter, intent on getting back home as soon as possible. He glanced back over to James, who was still huddled under his pillow.


“Are you going to let them peck on the window out there all night?” Remus asked and James groaned. Remus sighed and got up to open the window. The two birds flew in, deposited their letters on top of James’ inert form, and flew back out into the night sky in a burst of feathers.


Remus was about to close the window again when he saw a sight that made him do a double take. Outside, loitering on every possible surface, were about a hundred owls. Even more were on the house itself, still gripping their letter in their claws, calmly cleaning between their feathers. These were the smart owls, depending on how you looked at it.


“Why haven’t you closed the bloody window yet, Moony?” James murmured into his pillow, intent on getting back to bed. Remus quickly recovered from his shock and closed the window once more, turning around to see the letters that had just been dropped upon James. James flipped his head back on top of the pillow and turned over, making the letters fall beside the bed.


“Uh, James?” Remus said quietly. “Aren’t you going to read these?” James’ whine that escaped from his mouth gave him his answer. Good. He thought, rapidly opening one after the other to find exactly what he feared.


The letters were all RSVPs to James’ birthday party. James’ surprise birthday party. And, if Remus had counted right, there were approximately one hundred and fifty of them outside just waiting for James to open them up and read them.


Just one question remained. Who had been the idiot to tell everyone to RSVP by owl to James’ own house?


As if that was a hard question to answer.


However much Remus wanted to wake Sirius up by kicking him in the groin, it would have to wait. If he wanted James to wake up again and figure it all out he would have to wait until morning to kill Sirius. There was only one other person who could help him get rid of the evidence.


Lily Evans.


Unfortunately she was locked in another room with Mrs. Dongle, who was sure to suspect that Remus was just trying to get Lily to come away with him on a secret rendezvous. Or to magically toilet paper the neighbor’s house. Either one.


Remus debated for about half a second before deciding it was the price to be paid. Sure, Lily and Mrs. Dongle would massacre him for waking them up at three in the morning, but James could not find out about this party. Then Remus would be more than dead. Whatever that was.


Remus quickly stole out of the room, shutting the door behind him, clutching the letters in his hand. He prayed silently that another owl would not wake James up before he and Lily had a chance to gather up all the letters. He just hoped his prayers were good enough.

---

Getting into Mrs. Dongle and Lily’s room proved to be the easy part of the mission. It was waking up Lily without also waking up Mrs. Dongle that was the problem.


Remus used a simple spell to unlock the door and crept in silently. The two women slept on opposite sides of the room, but their shapes looked exactly alike. Remus tiptoed toward one bed only to be overcome by the scent of moldy baked ham and day old tea. He instantly went the other direction, convinced that this was not Lily.


Lily didn’t smell like anything; thank Merlin, because Remus almost gagged when he stepped too close to Mrs. Dongle. However, she was obviously deeply asleep as she didn’t stir when Remus got near her. This was going to be tricky.


“Lily?” Remus tentatively whispered, not sure if he wanted to chance shaking her awake or not. “Lily, wake up…it’s me, Remus.” It was then that Remus realized how stupid it was to tell her who he was because she was asleep. He reached out a hand to touch hers, absolutely entirely not sure on how to do this without scaring her.


He precariously shook her hand and when that didn’t work he pushed her shoulder a little bit. In a flash Lily’s eyes were wide open and she let out a piercing scream that lasted about four seconds before Remus clamped his hand over her mouth.


“Shh! It’s me, Remus! I’m sorry for waking you up, please don’t scream-OUCH!” Remus pulled his hand away from Lily’s mouth, inspecting his wound. “You bit me!” he cried incredulously, almost forgetting about Mrs. Dongle for a second.


“Well then, don’t put your hand over my mouth.” Lily whispered back, her head falling back on her pillow. She put her hands on her head and ran them through her hair. “Why am I awake at three o’clock in the bloody morning?”


“There’s an emergency.” Remus said seriously, still nursing his bite.


Lily looked over at him tiredly. “Enough of an emergency to wake me up at bloody three in the morning?” she asked.


Remus grimaced. “The world is ending.” He said seriously.


Now Lily looked half bored. “Really?” she said lazily, almost completely back to sleep now.


“It will look that way when you take a glance outside. C’mon, we’ve got to round up some owls.”


“Huh?” Lily sat up and strained to look outside, but Remus grabbed her hand and pulled her into the hallway and down the stairs before she got a chance.


“Just promise not to scream again.” Remus asked, letting go of her hand to open the door. Lily rolled her half open eyes at him, still basically asleep. He kept the door closed and asked her, “Have you ever seen Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds?” she nodded her head slowly. “Well, just imagine that, but with owls.” And he opened the door wide, pushing her outside and closing the door behind them without another word.


Lily’s eyes bugged out of her head. She was at a loss for words, but at least the shock had woken her up.


“Wha…What are we going to do with all these letters?” she questioned, swallowing hard at the scene around her.


Remus shrugged. “Check off who’s coming and who’s not?” Lily wouldn’t even dignify that with a response.


“I’m going to kill Sirius.”

---

James had fallen back asleep imagining plucking an owl’s feathers out one by one until it was completely bald. It was quite satisfying even if he didn’t remember the owl being bald because he had fallen asleep by then. However, he was once again woken up about forty minutes later by some indescribable noise he chose to believe was more owls.


He slammed his pillow against the bed and opened the window about ready to yell at another owl. Then he saw Lily and Remus chasing down what looked to be about a hundred or so birds and grabbing letters from them. James rubbed his eyes over again to see if what he was seeing was a vision. It wasn’t.


He looked over at Remus’ sleeping pallet, Remus and Lily outside, Sirius still asleep on the floor, and back again only to still be completely confused. Convincing himself that he must be sleepwalking, James stumbled back to bed and collapsed, not even bothering to close the window again.


He woke up again at about seven, saw the window closed and Remus asleep on the floor, and rolled back over and went to sleep.

---

Lily stuffed all the RSVPs into her dresser drawers. She counted almost two hundred replies. All of them said yes. And if she weren’t so tired from catching owl’s posts all night, she would be ecstatic.


She went to bed at about four thirty in the morning not even noticing one unopened letter in the batch.


The return address had one name.


Graziana Harding.