All Kidding Aside

Things were usually rather loud in the Gryffindor Common Room with the usual ruckus that children and teenagers were wont to cause. On a normal night, there would have been games of Exploding Snap going on in the corner. There would be a chorus of loud, boisterous laughter after having one too many Butterbeers. There was even and occasional spontaneous sing-along every now and again.

This was usually incited by Sirius, who had a tendency think that life was a musical of which he was the unquestioned star.

However, on this night the Marauders and Lily were entirely alone in the Common Room. It was one of those eerie coincidences that upon later inspection would seem entirely contrived and impossible. The silence could only have been increased after that kind of mind blowing question. And for the first time in Hogwarts history, the four boys, who were just on the verge of being men, were stunned into silence.

Sirius, predictably, was the first to come back to reality. He pushed himself up onto his elbows as if that would do something to improve the situation. "Could you say that one more time, Lils? I really don't think I heard you right."

"You couldn't have heard her right if you heard what I heard." Remus's jaw somehow remaining agape as he spoke. It was a remarkable feet.

Lily sighed sharply, her courage and perfectly justified frustration bolstered after their lack of response. She put her hands on her hips, ignoring the looks that Peter and James were giving her. She tapped her foot impatiently and repeated herself for their benefit. "I asked if you two were shagging, and I want an answer."

Remus and Sirius had indeed heard right.

They stared at Lily for a moment. And then they stared at each other. At first, no one in the group could read their expressions or even begin to guess at what they were thinking. For all they knew, they were about to break into a pair of furious rants about how no, they weren't, and it wasn't her business if they were, and how dare she ask that; how dare she even think that, and they're never going to speak to her again, even if she was James's girl.

Then again, they could have just as easily started coughing slightly, rubbing the back of their necks and sheepishly admit that they thought she knew. After all, with all their talk, how could it not be true? She should have mentioned this earlier as they would have been more than happy to clear it up.

Or, they might just get up and leave, refusing to say one word about it simply because they wanted to send her into a tizzy.

But, instead, they acted like any Marauder would. They burst out laughing.

Sirius fell off the couch, in a clear and successful attempt at being overly dramatic and rolled around on the floor, looking every bit a canine. And, had it been closer to the full moon, Remus would have quite literally been howling. As it was, he was clutching his sides and throwing his head back in hysterics, desperately trying to regulate the flow of oxygen to his brain.

It was Lily's turn to stare.

James put a hand on her shoulder, obviously trying to hide the fact that he was chuckling under his breath. Under her withering stare, he fell into a coughing fit and spoke in a tone more suited to a doctor informing her that had less than a week to live. "Well, Lily, you really should have seen that coming."

Peter did not find the situation particularly amusing and just sat in his chair, looking uneasily at the lot of them. Unsure of the appropriate response to this situation, he remained silent and hoped that no one would notice him. Of course, they didn't.

Finally, Remus managed to calm down enough to speak. He poked Sirius with the worn toe of his shoe, but it did little more than impact a particularly ticklish spot on his ribs, sending Sirius into an even stronger giggling fit. Remus quickly decided to forgo that plan and speak with Lily before she clocked them.

"Sorry, Lily..." Remus wheezed, taking deep breaths to repress any residuals snickers that might have resurfaced. "But you have to admit the idea of Sirius and I is pretty... pretty..."

He never finished his sentence as he once again collapsed into laughter in spite of the fact that he was endangering his life in doing so.

Lily scoffed and snapped, "I don't see why it's so funny! I mean look at you two! You're always talking about sleeping together. You always sit by each other. You're always exchanging looks that seem like you are hiding something oh, so terribly amusing from the rest of us. You're always touching. You always work together on assignments. You are practically joined at the hip--"

Here, James interrupted, giving his girlfriend a slightly unsettled look. "Lily, how do you know all of this?"

Lily whirled on him, stamping her left foot for emphasis. It didn't do much to prove her point, but it did succeed in making her look ten years younger. "Because I've been obsessed with this since we started dating! It's been bothering me for months, and I just can't take it anymore! And these two won't give me a straight answer!"

"It would be pretty hard for a homosexual to give a straight answer," Peter mused.

Lily gave him a look that by all accounts on Peter's strength of will should have killed him.

Peter flushed bright red and tried to disappear into his chair. "Well, someone had to say it."

"Oh, lay off Wormtail, Lils," Sirius said, wiping away the tracks his mirthful tears had left behind. He gave one last chuckle before expertly hopping back on to the couch. "We're obviously not. I mean, look at me. I have a new girl on my arm every other day."

"And a new girl in your bed more often than that," James remarked with a shit-eating grin.

"Little known fact, I actually invented sex," Sirius said sagely. "You should really thank me, Lily, as often as you and Prongs--"

"And," Remus said sharply, effectively cutting Sirius off and saving his skin from Lily's legendary wrath. "He's constantly trying to set me up. To the point of extreme annoyance where I often consider turning gay. The I realize that he would just try and get me and Peter together."

Peter squawked indignantly and turned a rather unsightly shade of grey.

Sirius nodded and gestured at Remus with equal parts disdain and pity, "Can you blame me? I mean, look at him. He is obviously in desperate need of a good shag. Which I can tell you he would not need if he was with me."

Remus rolled his eyes and picked up the pillow Sirius had thrown at Peter earlier and pelted Sirius with it. Sirius immediately became absorbed in fixing his hair; therefore, he was obviously not going to say anything else for awhile.

"Despite Padfoot's rather unnatural obsession with his hair," Remus jested smartly, "he is not bent. And I would like to get away from these obtuse, male imbeciles every now and again, so I'm certainly not."

"Not to mention, I'd never sleep with Moony," Sirius added, his hair finally fixed to his satisfaction, which was nothing short of perfection. "I mean... He's all virginal and stuff."

"And he's all whorish and stuff."

"Shut up," Sirius growled, throwing the pillow back at his fair-haired companion.

Remus caught the pillow and proceeded to throw it to the other side of the room in order to prevent anyone from getting anymore use out of it. He then proceeded to stick his nose in the air and said, "I refuse to answer that moronic and plebian statement as it is beneath me."

Sirius snorted, now sitting back and using Remus as a footrest again. "Please. I could buy and sell you."

"You'd put a price on one of your best mates? I'm ashamed for you."

Sirius was about to say something else to continue the banter between the two of them when Lily stormed up to them with the proverbial Irish fire in her eyes.
While the entire group found great joy in incurring Lily's wrath every now and again, they had all learned when to stop they day she had transfigured the lot of them into potted plants for an entire weekend. They hadn't gotten her that angry in a very long time, but all present knew that one more joke, and Remus and Sirius would be turned into rhododendrons and hydrangeas respectively.

"We're not finished talking," Lily ground out.

Sirius shrugged his shoulders, having the rare amount of decency to seem sheepish. "Look, Lils, I do not mean to put you in a tizzy."

Lily scoffed.

James snorted.

Remus shook his head.

Peter rolled his eyes.

Nearly Headless Nick, whom Sirius had apparently woken up, laughed his head off...

Literally.

After recovering from that disturbing image, Sirius continued. "I meant not in this instance. And I resent the fact that you all think that my one ambition in life is to make Lily angry... I would actually like to grow up and have devastatingly handsome children, thank you."

"Then get to the point," Lily cautioned.

Sirius didn't have to be told twice. "But there's nothing more to discuss. We aren't. We haven't been. We never will be. And the very idea is laughable."

Remus nodded emphatically in agreement.

Then Peter of all people offered up his thoughts. "I wouldn't say laughable."

Everyone's head snapped over to Peter, eyes wide in disbelief. He was not usually one to volunteer his opinions in arguments... Then again, this was one of the few times he was on Lily's side. He wouldn't dare go against her after spending forty eight hours as a pansy. Although it could be argued that that was the manner in which he lived his life.

He was slightly unnerved by all of them staring at him, yet titillated by the attention. "Well, I mean you guys are always saying that stuff about you..." He paused and lowered his voice, running the words together as if this kind of thing shouldn't be uttered. "Having sex."

Sirius guffawed, "Wormtail, it's called a joke. Should we have Moony to define it for you?"

Peter clucked his tongue, echoing the habit of his grandmother, and persisted. "I know what a joke is, Padfoot. Honestly... But you do say it an awful lot for it just to be a joke. I mean I understand every once in awhile... But you two go at it incessantly!"

Sirius leapt to his feet indignantly and shouted, "We most certainly do not!"

"He only goes at it with women incessantly," James chimed. He held up his hands at the contemptuous stares that were suddenly directed at him. "Kidding, kidding."

Peter jumped in again before someone else decided to interject. "But I'm serious. It just seems like you guys hang out in a... different way then you do with me or James."

"Well, there's a reason for that," Remus said calmly. "You usually don't put up with any of that kind of banter, and Padfoot can't do it with Prongs anymore because of Lily."

"Double meaning," Sirius mumbled, unable to contain himself.

James's face now closely resembled the color of his girlfriend's hair. He pointed at the two of them accusingly, not looking particularly cheerful. "Hey! I'm not like that!"

"Neither are we," Remus intoned in his ever logical manner.

"That's the bloody point of this pointless conversation!" Sirius said, throwing his hands up over his head and falling back in a mock swoon. He was now laying down again, propping his feet up on Remus as usual.

Suddenly, Peter was the one pointing at him, looking very much like Abigail Williams must have looked at the Salem Witch Trials they had all read about in their History of Magic course. "And you always use him for a footrest!"

"Peter, you prat, I use whoever's closest to me for a footrest," Sirius grumbled.

"But you're always closest to Moony..." James observed, his voice now laced with suspicion, as if in a few moments he would leap away from them, eyes wild and scream, "Sweet Merlin, you are gay!"

Which in fact, he did do.

Remus groaned loudly, covering his face with his hands and leaning back against the unoccupied couch. "Prongs, not you too."

Sirius shook his head and said, "And I had such faith in him being the sensible one. Being Head Boy and all."

James smiled slightly but he didn't move closer to them. He always had been a little wry of anything deviating from the norm. "Look Padfoot, all I'm saying is maybe Lily has a point. Maybe you do kind of give off that vibe."

Sirius craned his neck painfully to look at his best friend and raised an eyebrow. "A vibe? I have a line of broken hearts-- female broken hearts that could probably span a few miles behind me, and you say I give off a vibe?"

"Overcompensating are we?" James said, waggling his eyebrows in such a way that Lily promptly punched him in the arm.

Sirius rolled his eyes with much more flourish than anyone else ever managed. "Oh, very funny."

"I'm sure he thought so," Remus soothed, reaching for his book that had been discarded when James had accused Sirius of adultery as Remus had been forced to correct him on the definition and then try to heal the friendship. He was now quite tired of this line of conversation and more than prepared to put it behind him.

James feigned hurt before going on to say, "You have to admit, the way you two talk, someone had to wonder someday."

Remus shook his head slightly but didn't look up from the fascinating novel that was War and Peace. He turned the page with a flick of his wrist and said, "Prongs, as you so often declare to anyone who will listen, the four of us are the practical joke kings of this school. Sirius and I thought that it would have been fairly obvious that we were joking."

"Well, it wasn't," Lily said, looking rather embarrassed over the entire situation. She pushed a few wayward strands of hair behind her ear and then continued repeating the action, a sure sign that she was uncomfortable. Had the boys been unkind, they would have been sure to tell her that it was her own fault since she was the one who brought this up to begin with... But then, she wasn't in Slytherin.

After a few awkward seconds of unnerving silence, Lily coughed a little too loudly and said, "Well, I suppose that clears everything up then."

"Suppose so," Remus remarked, now fully engrossed and not really paying attention.

Lily coughed a few more times, to the point where James was beginning to get concerned that she was getting a cold. After resisting the urge to strangle him for his thick attitude, she began to inch her way to the stairway and said, "You know, I think I'll go ahead and go to bed. I'm kind of tired..." she paused. "Unless of course you'd like to change your answer?"

Sirius grinned widely and said, "Would you care for a practical demonstration?"

Lily flushed scarlet, catching the not so hidden meaning behind the dark haired boy's words. Within the next three seconds she'd bid them all good night, kissed James on the cheek, and dashed up to the girl's dormitory.

"What do you suppose her hurry was?" Peter asked curiously.

"My stunning good looks probably tempted her to knock you off the couch and proceed to ravish me in front of James. I would run away from me too if I weren't me and finding me very hard to resist," Sirius mused, making himself more comfortable on the couch.

James chuckled slightly, plopping down on the floor in front of Peter's chair. "Then I would have had to kill you both, and that's just so messy."

"And time consuming," Peter added.

Sirius scoffed loudly, obviously gearing up for one of his dramatic exercises. "Balderdash! The night is young my friends! Only two hours past the witching hour, and we're not even drunk yet!"

"Did he just say balderdash?" Remus asked without looking up from his novel.

"Yes," James sighed. "Yes, he did."

"Ah," Remus said calmly. He placed his bookmark back in the pages of the book and placed it back on the floor. Quicker than anyone could have blinked, Remus had sat up straight and pointed at Sirius with a crazed look in his eyes. "Thou art evil, oh putrescent one! A minister for the devil no doubt! Using such foul and accursed words! You are a sick, vile creature to be loathed and spat upon!"

"What are you going to do? Talk me to death?" Sirius pronounced with an air of laziness. "Or perhaps bore me to tears?"

"I could rip you apart with my bare hands and you know it," Remus reminded him. "It is one of the few perks of my being a wolf every twenty eight days you know."

"You could probably make a killing off the pieces," Sirius chuckled. "Even in death, the women would be fighting for me. How very fitting."

"Your modesty is stifling."

Sirius hissed in a way that was akin to a vampire being caught in the blinding light of day, covering his ears to save himself from turning to ash. "No! No, I bid you not to speak that evil word in my presence ever again!"

Remus smirked in a manner strangely similar to Lucius Malfoy. "Modesty."

Sirius clutched his heart and cried out dramatically, acting as though his life giving organ was being slowly ripped out of his chest. "Oh, the inhumanity! The pain! The agony of it all!" He then proceeded to look skyward and rose his voice in a mock prayer. "Oh Lord, take my soul from my body if only to save me from this foul demon in my midst! I would rather than die than hear such evil speech ever again!"

"Oh, yet another word to add to 'The Things That Make Padfoot Shudder' List!" Remus exclaimed gleefully, imitating an eight year old who was absolutely elated at the mere possibility of receiving a Chocolate Frog. "I can put it right after dandruff! Excellent!"

Sirius twitched where he lay on the couch, giving a very good show of having a seizure. Froth and all.

"Or perhaps pimple..."

Sirius gasped, grabbing his throat with one hand and lifting the other aloft. It appeared as though he were actually reaching for something. Had anyone not been well versed with Sirius's fits, they might have actually thought he was drowning without water.

"No, I have the perfect one," Remus said with a dastardly grin. He leaned down to where Sirius was clinging to the last of his life force and whispered the most sinister thing he could think of in his ear. This was a word that Sirius was convinced the Devil or Grindelwald himself had come up with... Probably the latter.
He was quite convinced it haunted every human being who still had a soul in their dreams. For Sirius after all, it was the stuff of nightmares.

"Single."

And then, Sirius uttered a loud cry and died.

For the time being anyway.

Remus chuckled, satisfied with his own cleverness and ability to torture his best friend. He feigned wiping away a tear and made a move to raise Sirius from the dead. If for no other reason then to continue the banter that he was so enjoying.

It was then that he noted neither Peter nor James had jumped in with so much as snide comment or a little jab. He looked over at the two, a rather expectant look on his face. Then he saw the expressions the other two Marauders held. He couldn't stifle the groan that arose from his throat.

"Oh, come now."

James shook his head in disbelief. He looked a lot like the characters in Muggle cartoon strips when they had gotten an idea. Remus could have sworn he saw a shining light bulb hanging over the boy's unkempt hair. "You expect us to believe you about not being gay, and then you go and act like that?"

Sirius quickly resurrected himself, springing to his feet. "Yes, actually. Because, and feel free to call me crazy in this, but I don't seem to remember a single guy-on-guy sex joke in the past five minutes. Remus?"

Remus looked as if he was scanning his memory for whether or not any such joke had been made. He made such a show of it, the boys often thought that he was kidding. But after several occasions of his accurately reciting a turn of phrase that had been uttered in passing over twenty minutes and thirty-eight topics ago, they were no longer quite sure.

After a few moments, Remus shook his head definitively. "Nope. Not a one."

"Thank you, Moony," Sirius said, bowing his head quickly. Then he turned back to his other friends with a very smug look on his face. "See? If Moony says it didn't happen, it didn't happen. He can't lie. He's a Prefect."

Remus remained mute, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"I realize that," James defended. "But... It was like you two were off in your own little world that we weren't allowed into. I felt like Peter and I completely disappeared. You didn't even notice that we weren't saying anything!"

"And it isn't the first time it's been like that," Peter elaborated. "It's been happening more over the past few months."

"Congratulations, James. Now you know how Peter and I felt when you and Sirius did the same thing," Remus surmised with uncharacteristic bitterness.

James and Sirius gave him a rather surprised look, but Peter had to acquiesce."This is different, Moony. I never felt like I would break the fabric of the universe by interrupting with them."

"You don't break fabric, you unravel it," Remus replied without thinking.

Sirius was giving both boys a very odd look, but decided it was another discussion for another time. "You know, we weren't holding up a sign that said you two weren't allowed to speak. I really don't understand what you're getting your knickers in a twist over."

"Why can't you just accept that Lily jumped to conclusions and move on?" Remus sighed. "I'll admit that it probably did seem strange to her, but just because it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck doesn't mean it is a duck."

"In what crazed alternate universe of monumental weirdness?" Peter pursued.

Sirius held up his wand threateningly. "Would you prefer to be a ring-necked or a rosy-billed?"

James actually stood up and placed himself between Sirius and the now quivering Peter. "Don't transfigure Wormtail."

"I wasn't planning on it!" Sirius shouted, fully exasperated with the two of them. "However, I might be forced to deck the both of you if you don't shut up about this crap!"

"Sirius, a lot of what Lily said makes sense," James pressed.

"Yes, circumstantial evidence does tend to make sense however you spin it," Remus droned.

"Look," James continued, not about to be dissuaded. "Peter's right. It's been like this for a long time. For awhile, I thought maybe it was just because I was spending more time with Lily, but it's been happening for years. I just didn't notice it until now. You two are leaving Peter and me in the dust. It's like you have this weird connection... You're like an old married couple or something!"

"You're mental," Sirius maintained. "Absolutely, mental."

"Now, might we please drop this? This conversation isn't getting us anywhere," Remus said, his voice full of forced apathy.

"Not until you tell us the truth!" James declared.

And once again, all activity in the room stopped.

Remus stiffened, his amber eyes flying wide at the words as they came from James's mouth. He didn't remember leaping to his feet a few moments later to stand beside Sirius, but that was where he had suddenly found himself. Out of his peripheral vision, he could see Sirius normally jovial blue eyes full of resentment.

James suddenly seemed to realize what he had said and did his best to make up for it. "Moo-- Padfoot, I... I didn't mean--"

"Get out, James."

James halted in mid-sentence and stared at the wrathful boy in complete disbelief. He had never heard Sirius talk like that, not even to the lowest of Slytherins. It was filled with enough venom to sting even the deadliest of snakes. "Sirius, I really didn't mean to say that. I--"

"I said, get out."

James recoiled as if he had been slapped. Sirius might not have raised his voice even half a decibel, but something about the inflection made James move away from him.

Peter was now staring with eyes as wide as a full moon at the group of them. He knew that he should probably say something in James's defense... But he couldn't bring himself to do it under Sirius's enraged gaze. Peter felt a deep sense of shame as he felt his knees knock together.

"That wasn't a request," Sirius snarled, turning his gaze on to Peter who instantly shied away from it.

James shut his eyes in something akin to surrender and said, "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I--"

"Get out!" Sirius bellowed, causing even the unshakable Remus to wince.

James and Peter both seemed to give up in that moment. They glanced at each other, expression full of guilt and regret. They stood and left the Common Room without so much as a rustle of their clothing.

Sirius glared at the retreating backs of two of his very best friends with more ire than he would have ever expected to direct at them. In fact, he was having a very hard time keeping himself from vaulting off of the couch and pummeling them into something resembling an ingredient from Potions Class. Only Remus's hand on his shoulder kept him from doing something he was bound to regret.

Contrary to Lily's opinion, it wasn't because it calmed him down. It was because Remus could very easily snap his arm off.

Once the two other boys were gone, Sirius settled back onto the couch, still glowering. However, he did not launch into a string of curses. He continued to sit in the quiet of the early morning.

Remus finally felt that it was safe to release Sirius's arm. He didn't miss the relieved sigh from the darker boy when he did so, but Remus thought better than to apologize. Remus replaced the hand without thinking about it and made an attempt to comfort him. "Padfoot, you know he didn't mean what he said."

"No one calls me a liar, Moony," Sirius growled. "My parents are liars. My brother is a liar. I'm not like them. I'm a... I'm good."

Remus looked down for a moment, shading his eyes from the crackling fire. He had known full well that Sirius took great offense at anything insinuating that he was in league with the Darkness. James and Peter had known it just as well if not better than he, but James hadn't been thinking.

In fact, Remus was quite sure that the pair of them would be equally apologetic in the morning, saying that they had never meant to accuse him of anything and that they hadn't really thought that they were an item. The teasing had made them paranoid and hyper-vigilant. They would realize they were wrong and be sorry for what the had done. No doubt Lily would be a wreck a few hours from then as well.

"I know," Remus finally said after a time. "They know it too."

"Then they shouldn't have said that," Sirius snapped, unwilling to listen to reason at that point.

"They didn't mean it about the gay bit you know," Remus continued in spite of his brain telling him that it probably wasn't wise. "James has always been capricious and Peter's... Peter."

Sirius snorted, nodding. "Yeah... Peter doesn't have a backbone or an opinion of his own in his entire body."

"Sirius," Remus admonished lightly.

"Well, he doesn't Remus!" Sirius cried out in annoyance. "You know it as well as I do. I nearly had a heart attack when he actually offered up his own thought, and that was only because he knew Lily wouldn't have his hide."

Remus didn't argue the point.

"But James... I don't know what James was thinking," Sirius confessed. "He ought to have more sense than that."

"Maybe he's been wondering the same thing for awhile," Remus proposed. "Or maybe he just misses all the time you two used to spend together."

Sirius stopped in his tirade for a brief moment, remembering what Remus had said about feeling shut out when he and James were together. Sirius glanced over at the boy to his left and faltered slightly. "Moony... About what you said earlier--"

"Forget it," Remus said, his grip on Sirius's shoulder temporarily tightening before Remus just let his hand fall to his side.

"Did you mean it?" Sirius persisted. "About James and me shutting you out?"

Remus sighed the same way that professor McGonagall did when Peter asked a stupid question. "Peter and I are very insecure individuals, Sirius. We were probably imagining it most of the time. But yes, I did feel like that, and apparently James feels the same way. He's not used to being on the sidelines. He's like you. He lives in the spotlight. I'm supposed to be the behind-the-scenes guy. I imagine the role reversal has shaken him considerably, necessary as it was. Lily's his world now. And you need an audience. That's what I'm here for."

Normally, Sirius would have made some kind of snide remark on the obvious double entendre in that statement, but he held his tongue. he continued looking at Remus in concern, not wanting to give up the other line of conversation. Still, he knew that when Remus didn't want to discuss something, he would just bury his nose in a book and then there was no hope for communication.

"That's not all you're here for, Moony," Sirius said honestly. "I--"

"I know," Remus interrupted before he could go further. "Thank you."

And that was the end of that.

"So," Sirius said with a sigh. "What do we do now?"

Remus settled back on the couch and glanced over at his companion. "You really want to go back up there?"

Sirius raised his head to take a good, long look at the stairs leading up to the Boys' Dormitory. On any other night, Sirius would have ascended the long, winding stone staircase to his room and flop down on his bed. And he would drift off to sleep to the sound of James's steady breathing, Peter's snoring, and Remus as he turned the pages in his latest book. He would be content in the normal environment and feel like he belonged. He would be content, unlike in his other bed in his old home.

Without another word, Sirius laid back on the couch, stretching his legs out over Remus's lap. He shut his eyes in spite of the bright fire and drifted off to the sound of Remus turning another page in his book.

-----

The feud of the Marauders was big news by the time Peter and James woke up on that grey Tuesday morning. A pair of Third Year Gryffindor girls had gotten up early to work on a particularly difficult charm for Flitwick's class in the Common Room so as not to disturb their roommates and not destroy anything of value to them. They had both been very surprised to find two members of the infamous band of brothers asleep on the couch in the clothes they had been wearing the day before. They had been even more surprised when Remus had calmly woken up at the sound of them descending the stairs, waved, made a motion for them to be quiet so as not to disturb his companion, and then went back to sleep.

The two had quickly abandoned their project and rushed back upstairs to tell everyone else, whether or not they were awake.

Including one Lily Evans.

The redhead had sprinted down the stairs in her nightgown, not at all concerned of the sight she would have made for any hormonal teenaged boy in the dormitory. She had taken one look at the pair of them and gone back upstairs to change for modesty's sake. Then she went over to the Boys' Tower and burst into James's room with all the subtlety of a drunken Giant.

She picked up the pillow that James wasn't using and promptly brought it down on his head. He woke up with a start, as if quite concerned that he was once again being attacked by his bedding. It had been one of Snape's more effective acts of revenge. Before he could question Lily's unexpected and very blurry presence in his room while the world was in the state of pre-dawn, she shrieked, waking Peter up as well.

"What happened after I went to bed last night!"

James stared at her in utter confusion for a very long time. He was too groggy to remember what had happened at first. When he did, he let out a long groan and put his head in his hands. "Oh, shit."

"Where's Remus and Sirius?" Peter yawned, not quite as sharp as James was. "Did they get up early?"

"They never came to bed," Lily continued in a frenzy. "James, they spent the whole night downstairs in the Common Room. They never do that. Even if Remus falls asleep, Sirius always moves him up to the room. Now, what happened?"

James sighed, tasting the cotton in his throat and longing for a drink of water. He reached for his glasses and croaked, "I wouldn't stop harping on the two of them, and they started to get sore... At first, I was just messing about, you know? But then... Well, I sort of called Sirius a liar, and--"

"You what!" Lily squeaked, turning pale. She wasn't privy to all of the details of Sirius's infamously dismal childhood, but she had been on the receiving end of this kind of thing before. Several years before, she had dared to call Sirius a liar when he had denied involvement in a particularly heinous attack on the Slytherin Quidditch team. Thankfully, Remus, though he had always been slight, managed to hold him back while James whisked her off to safety. She had never forgotten the look in his eyes. It was something that had seemed unwarranted given the situation. And it had frightened her more than any ghost story or unnaturally large spider ever could.

"Oh, James..." Lily groaned, distressed. "How could you say that? You of all people ought to know better."

"It was late," James offered weakly, knowing that she was absolutely right about the whole fiasco. "I was tired and confused. And... And it's felt off lately.
Like ever since we started dating, Sirius had been different. Kind of distant, you know. He's been hanging around Remus even more and... They just seemed so.
connected, and I felt like some kind of intruder. It just rubbed me the wrong way I suppose."

Lily resisted the urge to admonish him for being ridiculous. After all, he had a point. Her presence had shifted the dynamics of the group. And while she knew that no one blamed her for it, and that nothing was really wrong, after six years, a change would have felt wrong. Especially to James who had ingrained himself in the unofficial rankings, relishing in being the unspoken leader. She stroked his messy head gently, feeling the need to be nurturing rather than try and write this off.

A part of her hoped that Sirius and Remus had just slept downstairs to prove a point and that things would return to normal within the next few hours. The boys had never had only had one other serious row in Fifth Year, and no one ever talked about that. Besides, the Marauders weren't exactly known for taking things in so grave a manner. Surely the pair would find some humor in the situation and go on with their lives.

But then Lily remembered the look in Sirius's eyes, shuddering as she did every time she pictured it. And she thought about how devoted Remus was to all of them,
but to Sirius most of all for reasons perhaps even he didn't know. And she saw them together in her mind's eyes, saw how connected they were in a way that James and Peter fell short of even though they were no less important, no less loved.

And Lily kissed the crown of James's head and hoped everything would be all right.

-----

"Was that Lily?" Sirius yawned groggily after the red and black blur had blown past them just seconds before.

"Yes," Remus replied without opening his eyes.

Sirius stretched, announcing the action as he did so, and then made himself even more comfortable, pillowing his arms under his head. "She go see James?"

"Most likely."

Sirius cracked his jaw. "Think they'll apologize?"

"Multiple times I'm sure."

"Do we accept?"

"Actually," Remus said, coming alive at last. He opened his eyes and looked down at Sirius with a curious glimmer. "I had a thought."

"Oh?" Sirius asked, intrigued.

"It's a good thought..." Remus tempted in a sing-song voice.

Sirius grinned, his white teeth shining in the early morning light. "Does that mean it's an evil thought?"

"Do Wormtail, Lily, and Prongs need to be taught a lesson?"

"Do go on."