The Hogwarts Express rolled through the Scottish countryside, smoke billowing from its roof and twisting into the air in swirling patterns. A light breeze sifted through the trees lining the train-tracks, and the sun appeared to be smiling down as this was the first time that it wasn’t raining on the first day of school. Birds chirped happily as they flew by outside the window, and the occasional butterfly appeared beside the glass pane. One of these windows was opened the full way, and a large tawny owl swooped inside it and landed on the head of a member of the compartment.
“Hello there, Sebastian!” the boy exclaimed, gently swatting the bird off of his head. “Brought me another letter, have you? I wonder who this is from…”
“Oh, shove off, Prongs,” his companion said good-naturedly. This boy was lounging on the seat across from his friend. His head was propped up on a makeshift pillow fashioned out of the robes he would be changing into in about three hours, and he had one leg propped up on the wall, the other hanging to the floor. “You’ve been sending letters to Moony the entire ride because you’re too lazy to go find him and talk.”
“Illogical, as usual,” James muttered under his breath as he unraveled the scroll his family’s owl, Sebastian, had had tied to its leg. “Prongs, you’ve been sending letters to me the entire ride. Stop being so lazy and come find me to talk. Moony,” he read aloud. “Damn him.” He stood up and walked out of the compartment, grumbling about the unfairness of his having to get up when it certainly wasn’t his fault Remus Lupin was a prefect. As he left, Sirius sighed heavily and rolled over to face the wall. It was definitely a good time to catch up on sleep that he had been sorely lacking for the past few weeks. He had been at James’s house for the past few weeks; after a blowout with his family, he had stormed out of the house and shown up at the Potters’ doorstep. Both of James’s parents had taken him in with open arms, and James was delighted to have his best friend in the house with him, but at the same time Sirius couldn’t shake a feeling of guilt that he was intruding upon a perfectly happy family.
As he felt the recesses of sleep gently pull him under, he felt his legs lifted up and dropped none too gently to the floor. He looked up to see the grinning face of Jackie Carter, a Gryffindor girl from his year that happened to be one of his good friends. “Get up!” she giggled. “You need to come see this!”
Sirius sighed. “Fine.” He stood up and brushed off his jeans, grunting as the brunette girl grabbed his arm and dragged him forcibly from the compartment. She pulled him down the corridor until they reached a new segment of the train where Sirius knew the prefect compartments were. His eyes widened as he took in the sight in front of him, then sighed heavily as it was really nothing new.
“Potter, for the last time, please just go away,” Lily Evans said with a sigh. Sirius assumed this had been going on for quite a while; the redhead looked rather worn-out by now, and she normally had rather wonderful stamina when it came to tearing down Sirius’s best mate. “I’ve told you millions of times, and please don’t tell me that’s an understatement because you damn well know it’s not. I don’t particularly want to go out with anyone right now, so I’d like it if you respected that. If you care about me at all, you’ll accept it. Please.”
James looked at her and his hazel eyes lit up in a smile. “I’ll wait forever, you know.” He winked. He looked from Lily to her friend Mary Macdonald. “See you at Hogwarts, ladies.” He nodded his head at them, and stepped towards Sirius. “Padfoot, urgent matters to attend to. Find Wormtail and Moony, will you? I’ll be in the compartment.” And with that, he disappeared.
Sirius looked from Jackie to Mary to Lily. “Well, erm, I’ve urgent matters to attend to, I guess. See you all at the school.”
Lily nodded to him and turned around to continue her rounds through the train, prefect that she was, and Mary gave him a quick wave before walking into the compartment behind her. Jackie looked up at Sirius. “Care if I come, too? I’ve got nowhere else to be right now.”
“Personally, I don’t have an issue with it. However, it appears that James means business, and I think it would be best to leave it to us for the time being. Sorry, you know how he gets.” Sirius smiled sympathetically.
Jackie shrugged. “I’ll see you at Hogwarts, then. My time would probably be better spent helping Lily through the trauma that your best mate has no doubt put her through before we even arrived at school.” She raised her eyebrows and turned to walk down the corridor that Lily had just disappeared into.
~~**~~
Peter was found talking to several incoming first-years, discussing with them the numerous classes they would be taking that year and, every once in a while, telling them about the horrid ghoul that wandered the corridors at night. In true Marauder fashion, he left out the news that Peeves was virtually harmless unless you were found in the halls after curfew. The Marauders had built a rather special relationship with the mischievous spirit in the middle of their fourth year. Peeves had caught them out of their dorms after-hours, but had resisted telling the professors when he saw that they were trying to welcome the first-year Hufflepuffs to the school a little differently than a direct greeting. However, these incoming students didn’t know that Peeves wouldn’t try to hurt you too badly, and Peter was taking full advantage of that fact.
As for Remus, he was still patrolling the train in his prefect duties, pacing the corridors and checking up on the compartments of new students. Luckily, Sirius had dragged Peter away from the first-years before Remus had gotten to that particular compartment, and on their way to find James they found Remus walking in the opposite direction as them. Sirius and Peter passed him on either side, each of them grabbing one of his arms without a word and pulling him backwards.
By the time they found James in a completely different car from where they had started the train ride-- (being that Severus Snape and his cronies were in the compartment next to their original, he felt it was much too close and they were at a risk for contamination) --he had drawn up some blueprints on a piece of parchment he had taken from Sirius’s trunk. He was still working on them when his three classmates joined him, a white quill scratching away at the parchment as he scribbled down instructions and diagrams.
“Don’t break the tip of my quill before classes even start,” Sirius groaned. “You did that last year, and I had spent four Galleons on it.”
“That’s your loss for buying a bloody snowy owl quill,” James grumbled, not looking up from the paper. “I mean, really, why spend that much on a quill? You could’ve gotten a common barn owl quill for three Sickles like I did.”
“That’s because you are a responsible shopper,” Sirius said, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against the wall. “I see you decided not to bring my stuff from our old compartment.”
“You see correctly.”
“Was there a reason you concluded that your mate’s trunk and robes were better left behind while you brought your own belongings? Levitating them by magic, mind you, so that ‘it’s too heavy’ is not a valid excuse in this situation?”
“Get your own bloody stuff if it means so much to you,” James groused.
Sirius narrowed his grey eyes before standing up and walking out of the compartment. Remus snickered as he sat down next to James, looking at the notes he had written up. “’Plan number three hundred and seventy-four to winning Lily Evans’s heart‘,” he read. “James, are you sure this is wise? I mean, Lily basically stated that you aren’t going to get anywhere as of yet because she doesn’t want a boyfriend. Plus, I‘d say she‘s right pissed at you after the whole spectacle at the end of fifth year.”
“Are we really up to three hundred and seventy four?” Peter mused. “I didn’t know we were nearly that incompetent.”
“Speak for yourself!” James exclaimed in mock offense. “Well, no, I’m counting the times from third year when I first started to fancy her around… May fourteenth and I would ask her out daily. So it’s somewhere higher than that, I’d assume, I just thought that this was a pretty good number to estimate at.”
Sirius re-entered the compartment at that, his trunk hovering behind him and falling to the floor as he sat down. “Did you see this, Remus?” he inquired as he sat down next to the boy he was addressing. “Three hundred and seventy four! Wait a second… What about, er, May fourteenth of third year? That’s when this all started, and I’d say you were much more persistent back then.
“You two are scary,” Peter commented. “You practically share a brain; that can’t be normal.”
“Who ever said we were normal?” Sirius asked, popping a Chocolate Frog that he stole out of James’s pocket into his mouth.
“Stop stealing my food,” James muttered.
“Stop stealing my stuff,” Sirius retorted, plucking the quill out of James’s hand, “and maybe we’ll talk. In the meantime, how’s good ol’ three hundred and seventy-four working out?”
“Well, see, we can’t exactly put it into action until New Year’s because it requires a load of holiday cheer,” James replied, “but I’m fairly certain this could work.”
“Here, give me that,” Remus said, grabbing the paper. “As the only one here that Lily particularly cares for, I’d like to believe I can be of some assistance here. First of all, scratch the orchestra, unless that’s a metaphor, because I know for a fact that’ll get you a swift knee to the groin.” He grabbed the quill from Sirius and crossed out a section on the paper. “Second of all, think subtle, you twisted bloke. A large sign in the common room will not get you anywhere.” He looked up. “Have you turned sixteen or not? Merlin, James.”
“That part was a joke…” the lad in question mumbled sadly.
“Really? Well, it wasn’t particularly amusing. I can’t say she’d be too pleased at all with one.” Remus continued scrolling through the paper. “And this one… And this, too… Sirius, are you sure you didn’t create half of this?”
Sirius shot him a dirty look. “Ha ha, very funny.”
He looked down once more and sighed heavily. “James, I’m hoping my eyes deceive me. What does this say?”
James looked over at the sentence his friend was pointing to. His voice was uncharacteristically soft as he said, “Bribe house-elves to serenade her.”
Remus pursed his lips and nodded. “I feared that was true. But you know what I think of this whole thing?” He tore the paper in half, ignoring the squeak that emitted from Sirius at the trashing of his school supplies. “I think you need to grow up. A lot. Lily won’t go for any of this, you know, and if you really care for her, you should know that by now. I’m starting to think that this is all just a game to you, too. James, please. I think what she’d really like is for you to leave her alone right now.”
James sighed heavily. “You’re right. I’m a prat.”
“Took you long enough,” Peter muttered from where he sat, reading through his new Potions text. “Merlin, N.E.W.T. year looks hard.”
Remus nodded. “I’m a tad worried, too. McGonagall wasn’t exactly which classes to set me in this year.”
“What?” Sirius exclaimed. “But they always have something for everyone!”
“Not for a werewolf civil rights activist,” Remus chuckled. “I was placed in Muggle Studies, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, History of Magic, and Charms.”
“Well, Defense is going to be absolutely a godsend,” Sirius said. “You’ll learn more about werewolves--as if you need to--and you’ll learn all of those wicked spells that’ll protect you and your dear friends from Death Eaters, which are really important right now. Muggle Studies will help you to learn a bit about Muggle activists, their work and everything. And Transfiguration and Charms are core subjects; you can’t not take them. I pity us all for the fact that we‘re stuck with two more years of Binns, though.”
Remus nodded. “I guess you’re right. The fact remains, it’s not an exceptionally common career path and your logic behind Muggle Studies confuses me ever so much.”
Sirius smirked. “Sorry.”
Peter stood up. “Well, as long as you lot are behind boring, I’m off to get changed.” He walked out of the compartment with a raise of his thin eyebrows and disappeared from view as James pulled the shade down over the door.
“I’d assume we can just get changed in here,” he said. “I’m not entirely sure why Wormtail needed to evacuate to do so.”
“He always has,” Sirius replied. “He’s bloody strange sometimes.”
~~**~~
Several hours, four games of Exploding Snap, and numerous failing plans to woo Lily Evans later, the train arrived in Hogsmeade village. The four Marauders made their way to one of the horseless carriages. They climbed into one, Sirius and Remus sitting on one side and James and Peter sitting on the other. As their carriage made its way to school, the four boys discussed numerous topics, their favourite of which involved a certain Severus Snape.
“Honestly, the way the thing manages to get through a day without more people commenting is outrageous,” Sirius exclaimed. “It’s like it never even heard of a shower.”
Peter scoffed. “Clearly he’s heard of a shower, Sirius, otherwise I think we would have noticed an odour worse than usual. It’s shampoo that has evaded his knowledge.”
Sirius nodded in agreement, and Remus sighed heavily. “You know, I think it’s rather immature of you to continue complaining about Snape. We’re all almost adults now. Besides, we all remember what happened last year because of this.”
James groaned. “Seriously? You needed to bring that up? That was the day that any chance I ever had with Evans was basically ruined.” He looked back out the window and sighed with happiness as Hogwarts came into view. “It’s great to be home, isn’t it?”
“Speak for yourself,” Sirius answered.
“I’d really rather you just came to live with us,” James said with a sigh. “Mum and Dad love you more than they love me; it wouldn’t be a problem at all. We’d love to have you.”
“And my parents would love to see me leave,” Sirius said, “and we certainly can’t have that. Besides, it’s fine. I promised you that if things got bad, I’d be at your house within seconds.”
“At least spend the holidays with us.”
“When haven’t I?” Sirius asked. This was true; he had spent Christmas and New Year’s with the Potters every year since first, when he stayed at the castle rather than spend time with his family. This was before James knew about the Black family situation and hadn’t realised that Sirius would rather have stuck pins in his eyes than gone home.
The carriages pulled up to the doors of Hogwarts, and the school’s students all filed in with the exception of the first-years, who were being held back at the lake after crossing it. The Marauders remembered all too well the fear they had individually felt back in that position, and were none too glad to have escaped it. The students all paraded into the Great Hall, filling up their house tables and jockeying for seats by their friends. Sirius, James, Peter, and Remus found seats near each other right next to where Lily, Mary, Jackie, and their friend Angela Hunter sat.
“Hey, Lily,” James whispered. His seat was luckily diagonal from where Lily sat, which meant that he could talk to her without provoking Sirius’s wrath when he tried to talk over him.
Lily looked over. “I don‘t want to talk to you, Potter.”
“Can I talk to you after the feast?” he asked. “I just need to discuss something with you.”
“Potter, I swear to God…”
“This has nothing to do with asking you out. Trust me.” In a voice she couldn’t hear, he muttered, “I got rid of that plan fairly quickly…”
“I’d rather not,” she said. “I really would rather not.”
“Why don’t we all just talk for a little while?” James asked instead. “Your friends, my friends, all of us together. It could be a great chance for some time together. We only have one more year.”
“Two, technically,” Lily shot back.
“Not counting this one.”
“Which is pointless.”
“Not exactly.”
“If I say yes to talking to you, will you shut up already?”
“For how long?”
“The foreseeable future.”
“I can’t guarantee that.”
“Would both of you give it a rest?” Angela snapped. “I’m trying to listen to Dumbledore’s speech!”
James rolled his eyes at her, but stopped talking nonetheless.
“We’ll gladly talk after the feast,” Mary said softly, so as not to annoy Angela. “In the common room? Don’t try anything, though, because I highly doubt any of you want to spend the first week of term in the Hospital Wing.”
“Sure, sounds great.” James smiled at her.
~~**~~
The feast and Sorting were over quickly, and the Marauders walked up to the common room together. Sirius was complaining loudly about having eaten too much--which was a given at any feast the school had, as the boy never knew when enough was enough--and Remus, for once, was on the same page as him. The prefect rarely ate enough to satisfy his appetite, but at the beginning of every year he could never get enough of Hogwarts’ food.
When they reached the Gryffindor common room, he stopped talking rather quickly. It was generally a ritual for him to go up to bed as soon as they arrived in the common room, but James grabbed his collar and pulled him back to where they were standing. “Time to talk to Evans, Padfoot.”
Remus sighed heavily and looked at James and Sirius. “Do we really need to? I’d like to get a good night’s rest after the feast. Food makes me tired.”
“Same here,” Sirius whined. “Prongs, let me go to bed. Please?”
“No!” James snapped.
“Someone’s not in a very good mood,” said a voice from behind the Marauders. Sirius turned around to see Jackie, Lily, Angela, and Mary standing in the portrait hole, the portrait still swung open behind them.
“Care to close that?” Peter inquired. “The Slytherins followed us up here one year, and we’d rather not relive that.”
Angela scowled at him but swung the door shut nonetheless. “Can we get this over with?” she asked. “I really don’t care for one or two of you, and would like to get out of here.” She shot a glare at James and Remus in particular.
Remus’s brown eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. “What have I ever done!”
“You beat me in Transfiguration last year!” Angela exclaimed. “I was the top of the class for the entire year, but you beat my score on the O.W.L.!”
“Oh, give it a rest!” Remus cried. “James beat you, too.”
“I have other reasons for disliking him, thank you very much.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “Women! I hate your entire gender.”
Angela raised her dark eyebrows. “Need I add sexism to the list of reasons I don’t like you?”
“What, your list of one thing?” Remus scoffed.
“I’m going to bed!” Angela snapped. She stormed up the stairs to the girls’ dormitory.
“Well, hello,” Sirius said, chuckling to himself. “That was fairly amusing, I won’t lie.”
“Shut up, Padfoot,” Remus muttered.
“Fine, fine,” Sirius replied. “So, James, talk away. We’re just here to listen, verify, and mock.”
James looked at Sirius with an expression that clearly stated, are you kidding me? He turned back to where Lily was standing, with her arms folded across her chest, and sighed.
“All right. What I basically wanted to tell you, and the rest of you, too,” James began, with a gesture to Mary and Jackie, “is that I’m really sorry for the way we’ve behaved in the past years. To you, to Snape, to the general public, and to you especially, Lily. The way I’ve acted to you in the past years has probably bordered on harassment--”
“Bordered on?” Sirius cut in.
James ignored him. “It’s probably bordered on harassment, and I’m really quite sorry. I never intended on that, and I never meant to do anything to make you hate me. I was immature, and I apologize.”
Mary smiled slightly. “You’re sweet.” She turned to Lily. “He’s sweet.”
Lily shook her head. “Is this really such a game to you, Potter? That you need to pretend to feel bad for everything you’ve done, convince my friends that you legitimately do feel bad for it all? And you actually believe that I’ll fall for it. Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“What? No, not at all!” James exclaimed. “I meant every word I just said.”
“I’m sure,” Lily answered sarcastically.
“He does mean it,” Peter put in. “If it means anything coming from me, that’s one of the sincerest things I’ve ever heard him say.”
Lily sighed. “I don’t know whether or not to believe you.”
“Fine,” James said. “Believe me or don’t, I don’t care. I just want you to know that it’s all true. I wouldn’t lie to you, Lily. Honestly. I don’t care if you don’t want to go out with me now, I’m not going to ask you. I think, though, that for now, it’d be great to be friends. To get to know each other more.”
“I don’t know, James,” Lily replied.
“Lily, how about this,” Jackie said softly. “Try it out, being friends with them. Mary, Angela and I will suffer through their company as well, if it’ll make you feel better. I know they’re irritating, obnoxious, infuriating, irksome, grating, galling--”
“We get it!” Sirius said, looking exceptionally affronted.
Jackie rolled her eyes. “I know they’re like that,” she said to Lily. “You won’t be alone. And if you get to know them, then maybe you’ll start to like them. I already know that Peter and Remus are pretty great guys--”
“Try telling that to Angela,” Remus muttered.
“And I know that Sirius has a pretty good head on his shoulders… At least mentally, I’m not sure why all of the girls at this bloody school think he’s so gorgeous--” She was cut off by a loud gasp from Sirius. “And James isn’t all bad. He’s bloody insufferable, but that’s just part of him. If you get to know him, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”
Lily put her hand to her forehead and sighed. “Fine. I’ll try it, okay? I don’t see it working out, but I’ll try to get along with him.”
James smiled. “That’s all I ask.”
“Right, well, I guess I’ll be seeing you all tomorrow…” Lily walked up to the dormitory without another word.
“You owe me so much for this,” Jackie snapped. “You have no idea.”
The Boys are Back in Town by ringobeatlesfan4
Story Notes:
I'd just like to thank the lovely Sagen, who happens to be my wondifferous beta =] And the substance abuse warning is for much later.
Chapter Endnotes: I'd appreciate a review, yes? I hope you liked it! {BeccA}