“Are you sure he’s still being stalled by that first year?” Remus called over to Peter, who was crouched over the Marauder’s Map. Remus was leaning over Sirius’s shoulder, watching as the grey-eyed Marauder scribbled a letter on a piece of parchment.

“Still being stalled, but I think you will only have ten more minutes, max,” Peter called back, watching the Map like his life depended on it.

“No, no, no!” Remus yelled at Sirius. “We’re trying to get James a date with a girl that’s good for him, not trying to hook you up with a girl to snog!” He ripped the paper up and pushed Sirius out of the desk. “What was I thinking, asking Sirius to write a thoughtful, kind-of-person-a-Lily-like-girl-would-want-to-date letter?” Remus muttered as he sat down to write the letter himself. “He doesn’t know how to be thoughtful! He couldn’t be thoughtful if his life depended on it!” He finished writing the letter, and tossed it over to Sirius, who scanned it before nodding.

“You were right, Remus. Much better then mine!” he said, bouncing on the bed.

“Let me see it!” Peter said, scrambling over to them. Remus and Sirius looked at each other. There were sometimes when they realized just how rat-like Peter was, and it threw them for a loop every time. Suddenly there were footsteps on the stairs.

“He’s coming! Peter, why weren’t you watching the bloody map?” Sirius whisper-shouted.

“How could I? I was over here with you guys!” Peter whined. Sirius only glared, and stuffed the letter under the bed. When James came in, the other Marauders were sitting on Remus’s bed, playing Exploding Snap, calm as could be. At least, Remus and Sirius were calm. Peter was looking extremely guilty.

“What’s up with him?” James asked, motioning toward Peter, who was sitting completely upright on the bed, an odd expression on his face.

“Something at lunch disagreed with him,” Sirius lied smoothly. “We’ll take you down to the Hospital Wing, Wormtail. Come on, Moony. We’ll see you in Transfiguration, James!” The last part was shouted, because they were halfway down the stairs by that time.

****
“Got the fireworks, Wormtail? You know what to do, right?” Remus said, looking nervous. He hated to break the rules in McGonagall’s class, because she was downright scary when she was mad, but since this was to help James, he was forcing himself to overcome his nervousness.

Peter nodded and patted his bag, where their means of distraction was located.

“Okay, let’s go over Operation Get James Over Lily one more time,” Sirius said quickly. They only had a few minutes before James showed up. The Marauders bent their heads as Sirius quickly went over the assignments. Then the bell rang and they went into class.
****
“This is the right book, isn’t it?” Sirius whispered to Remus. They were hovering over a desk in the Transfiguration classroom. The rest of their classmates were up at the front of the room, staring at the fireworks soaring around McGonagall.

“Yeah, the blonde Ravenclaw was sitting over here and looking through it at the beginning of class. Let’s just put the letter in here,” Remus said, looking nervous. Sirius put it in the middle of the book, sticking it up a little at the top. The bell rang as they were walking back to their seats, and all the students rushed out to dinner. The blonde, however, lingered, and to Sirius and Remus’s horror, gave the Transfiguration book to a tall Ravenclaw. She was talking, and they strained to catch her words.

“Thanks for letting me borrow your book, Kevin,” she seemed to be saying.

“No problem,” he said, blushing. The blonde walked away, and Kevin looked in a daze for a few moments before he snapped himself out of it. Sirius and Remus watched, wondering whether he would find the letter or not. They never found out, because Kevin left the room, and James walked back in, wondering what was taking them so long.

****

As Kevin walked towards the Ravenclaw Common Room, he encountered a trick step, and because his thoughts were so caught up with Lisa, he tripped. His books slipped everywhere, including his Transfiguration book. The letter slipped out of his book and lay forgotten on a step, where it lay until the next person who was caught in the step would pick it up.

***

Lily headed back to the Gryffindor Common Room, her head buried in an Ancient Runes textbook, but her mind dwelling on the scene at dinner. What had Severus been thinking? I haven’t talked to him in two years, and he hadn’t seemed that bothered by it, so why was he suddenly talking to me now? Surely he didn’t think that I’d forgive him, not after all this time! Sev was smarter than that! So why was he trying to talk to me? She was so immersed in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the trick step until it was too late. She was stuck.

What a funny picture she must have made, stuck in a step up to her waist, her legs dangling down. “Help!” she cried, but felt it was futile. After all, everyone else was at dinner. The Ancient Runes textbook lay a few feet away, and she glared at it, even though her thoughts for the last few minutes had been far from Ancient Runes. ‘Stupid Ancient Runes, stupid Sev, stupid trick step. Why couldn’t I have waited with Leah and Char? They wouldn’t have taken very long, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, and then I wouldn’t have been stuck in the step. Why did I have to go rushing out of there like a maniac, just because a guy spoke to me? Granted, this was Sev, not just any guy, but still, I didn’t need to react that way.’

She continued her mental rant for a few minutes, enjoying the self-indulgence of blaming her problems on others, when a folded piece of parchment caught her eye. She picked it up, figuring that it might be something interesting, but if it wasn’t, then it was probably someone’s homework, and she could do them a favor by returning it. Lily opened it to find a very unusual letter.

Dear whoever is reading this,

Hopefully this is a girl. If it’s a guy, please pass this to the nearest girl, and stop reading immediately, because this could get a little awkward.

This is a girl now, I trust? Good. Now, onto the real point of this letter. I’m a nice guy, whose looking for a nice girl to go out with. The problem is, I’m shy. Every time I try to ask a girl out, I freeze up and usually stutter some nonsense syllables. So I’m trying a new approach.

I’m leaving a letter trail. Every letter will have a random fact about me, and will lead you on to the next letter. After ten letters, it will tell you a time and a place to meet me. Sound good so far?

Here’s the catch. You’ve got to write letters back. You also have to tell me a random fact about yourself, and leave the letter in a place that I tell you.

Interested? If you are, please leave a letter under the big willow tree near the lake.

I’m a nice guy, I promise you, but I’m unlucky in love. I hope you give me a chance and leave a letter under the tree.

See you soon…I hope,
Anonymous

Her jaw dropped open. What was she going to do now?

Dear whoever is reading this,

Hopefully this is a girl. If it’s a guy, please pass this to the nearest girl, and stop reading immediately, because this could get a little awkward.

This is a girl now, I trust? Good. Now, onto the real point of this letter. I’m a nice guy, whose looking for a nice girl to go out with. The problem is, I’m shy. Every time I try to ask a girl out, I freeze up and usually stutter some nonsense syllables. So I’m trying a new approach.

I’m leaving a letter trail. Every letter will have a random fact about me, and will lead you on to the next letter. After ten letters, it will tell you a time and a place to meet me. Sound good so far?

Here’s the catch. You’ve got to write letters back. You also have to tell me a random fact about yourself, and leave the letter in a place that I tell you.

Interested? If you are, please leave a letter under the big willow tree near the lake.

I’m a nice guy, I promise you, but I’m unlucky in love. I hope you give me a chance and leave a letter under the tree.

See you soon…I hope,
Anonymous

Her jaw dropped open. What was she going to do now?
************************************************************************
Lily, for once in her life was speechless. This was a rare occurrence in her life, and was usually caused by James Potter. This time, however, a simple piece of parchment rendered her with no words. I must be losing my touch she thought, staring blankly at the letter, her mouth wide open in shock. She stayed that way until the voices of her best friends, Charlotte and Leah shook her out of her reverie.

“Lily, Lily, Lily!" Char’s voice echoed through the hall. A naturally loud person, she was even louder now that she was trying to get her unresponsive friend’s attention. She ran up the stairs, her shoes making thumping noises that echoed throughout the large hall.

Leah, her other best friend, was quiet in comparison. Her light brown hair and navy blue eyes were part of what made her such a good blend-into-the-background kind of person, which was just the way she liked it. She appeared quiet and shy to most people, and they tended to overlook her, giving her a chance to pick up valuable gossip and little tidbits of information that people didn’t want publicly known. This made her the official informant for her group of friends.

Charlotte had finally caught up to Lily, and was attempting to pull her out of the staircase. “Give me a hand, would you, Leah?” she asked, grunting as she pulled Lily’s arm.

“Sure,” Leah answered. “How’d you get yourself stuck in here anyway?” she asked Lily, straining to pull her out.

“Long story,” Lily replied as they finally managed to pull her out of the step. “We need to call a group meeting. Char, can you get Sean and Greg? Leah, can you get Keegan, Natalie, and Sarah? I’ll grab Andi and meet you guys in the Head’s Common Room.”

“Sure,” they replied, and headed toward Gryffindor Common Room. Lily gathered up her things and headed to Ravenclaw Tower. It was time to do some planning.

************
Earlier, at dinner,

“So, what was up with you guys today?” James asked through a mouthful of food.

Remus, Sirius and Peter exchanged nervous looks. “What do you mean, James?” Peter asked, his voice shaking.

“I’m not stupid. I know you guys were trying to hide something from me when I walked in after lunch, and the fireworks in Transfiguration were a distraction so you could do whatever you were planning without getting in trouble.” James sat back, looking smug.

“Not quite without getting in trouble,” Peter muttered, “I got a week of detention.”

“Do you think we should tell him?” Sirius said, looking at the others. “He’s going to have to find out eventually.”

“I guess so,” said Remus. The three of them blurted out the story to James, who was looking more furious by the second.

“And then some Ravenclaw guy took the book from her and walked out. We would have followed him, but you showed up,” Remus concluded apprehensively.

“How could you guys do something like that? I’ve been chasing Lily for five bloody years! I’m not going to stop because of some letter. But,” he said, calming down slightly, “I guess Fate didn’t like your plans.”

“What does Fate have to do with this! It was a brilliant plan!” Sirius said, looking outraged at the suggestion that his plan wasn’t a good one.

“Well,” James patiently explained, “if the letter thing was actually going to get me the girl of my dreams, don’t you think that Fate would have arranged it? Face it, this letter thing just isn’t the way to go. If it was, Fate would have made sure it fell into the right girl’s hands.”

“You know, Remus…that actually made sense. I think we’ll have to take his word on this,” Sirius commented, helping himself to some treacle tart.

“Fine,” Remus sighed, “but you have to check the willow every day next week, just in case.”

James opened his mouth to reply when a distraction in the form of Charlotte Holloway came rushing up the table. The Marauders watched as she walked over to where her twin and his best friend, Greg, were sitting, spoke to them, and, when they didn’t respond to her liking, grabbed them both by the collars of their robes and hauled them out of the Great Hall. The hall had gone silent, as everyone watched Charlotte haul her brother and his friend out by their collar, and as soon as the door had slammed shut, everyone burst into laughter before returning to their dinners.