The Marauders: Year 1

"Ummm, not quite, Peter," Cortessa mumbled, running her hands through her hair, with a look of determined resignation on her face. "But we'll get it yet."

James chuckled as he noticed that the hair Tessa had been running her hands through was not its normal shade of black, but rather pink, for a moment, then purple, then green. James watched, mildly amused for a moment before Alice looked up from her own book.

"Goodness," she said and pulled out her wand, muttering what James assumed was the countercharm. He had to bite back a chuckle as Cortessa's usually very straight hair, turned into a mass of bouncing curls. From the look on her face, she was clearly regretting offering to study for the impending Charms final with Peter.

Peter glanced over at the table across the Common Room where James, Remus and Sirius were cramming for their Transfiguration final tomorrow morning, to be followed by a Charms examination the same afternoon, sending a 'get me out of here' look to James.

James just shrugged at him, then pointed back at Tessa. Peter swiveled and sighed in relief as Melissa showed up.

"Oh bloody hell," she muttered and returned Tessa to her normal state.

"Thanks, Mel," Cortessa said glancing up at Peter. "Could've happened to anyone, I suppose, Peter." She didn't quite sound like she believed what she'd just said.

"Maybe I'd best go over and work with James and the others," Peter said quietly.

Melissa sat down, "Nonsense, if Tess, said she'd help you, then she will. You just hit one of her many vain spots, spends hours on that hair each morning she does. I'd venture a guess that you just made her worst nightmare come true."

Cortessa slapped Melissa hard on the arm.

Melissa looked puzzled. "Not all of us roll out of bed and into the Great Hall, Mel," Tessa addressed her and then looked her up and down slowly. "Obviously."

Melissa's eyes widened. "And what, exactly are you implying? Miss I Spend Two Hours Getting Ready Every Morning? I tremble to imagine how bad you'll be by our Fourth or Fifth Year."

"Oh really? Well, Miss My Hair is Bushier Than Your Average Shrub, some of us would actually like to attract an occasional member of the opposite sex." Tessa slammed the book she had on her lap onto the table in anger.

"Right then," Alice jumped in. "So we've established that you're a narcissist, Tess, and Mel, you're a... tomboy? Oh the horrors of it both. For Merlin's sake, you're both best friends and you're acting worse than Slytherins. Maybe you'd both best just head up to bed, I think the studying had warped both of your brains."

"Who'll help Peter then?" Tessa spat out, still glaring at Melissa.

"I will," Rebecca said, walking up to the table, clearly having overheard most of the argument. "Anything, and I do mean anything, has got to be better than Lily in exam mode."

The other three chuckled.

"Sorry Tess, you can spend as much time as you want with the mirror... as we've clearly ascertained it's not my favorite piece of furniture in our dormitory," Melissa said with a grin.

"And someday I'll actually get you to spend some time in front of it and those Gryffindor boys won't know what's coming," Tessa commented back, glancing first at Peter and then over to the Marauders huddled in the corner studying. She hugged Melissa. "Sorry, Mel."

Peter sat there wide eyed, having listened to the two girls insult each other and then suddenly burst into laughter was very odd. His eyes darted around as he tried to figure out how to escape the madness.

"You know, Tess, you mock my tomboy ways, but we'd solve all our problems considerably quicker if we just took a few swings at one another when we're annoyed," Melissa observed as she began to gather up her books and quills.

"Very true, but if women started doing that, therapists would be out of business," Tessa agreed as they stood up from the table.

"No, not as long as we've got our mums," Melissa concluded following Cortessa up the stairs, where Peter could hear their conversations, faintly, as it continued amicably.

"I never would've pegged them to become best friends when we first got here," Alice commented.

"Why not?" Peter asked, startled, but still happy for the study break.

"Are you daft, man?" Rebecca said as she settled in across from Peter. "The only person in this place who is possibly more narcissistic than Cortessa is probably Narcissa Black, I mean, she was aptly named. Now, don't get me wrong, we love Tessa dearly, but she's not quite all there upstairs, if you know what I mean, at times. Her head is on boys and make up and clothes... I'm sure it'll only get worse before it gets better. Mel, on the other hand, only looks in the mirror to make sure she hasn't got toothpaste on her face in the morning, and even then that sometimes slips her mind. She's crazy about books, any kind, and probably knows more about the world political situations than the Ministry of Magic and Parliament combined. Can you conceive a stranger match for two best friends?"

Peter grinned. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe two loud, smart, obnoxious pranksters, a quiet bookish boy and an agreeable, if somewhat slow, Muggle born wizard?"

"I guess that answers your question, Becca. He's as daft as they are," Alice gestured lightly towards the staircase Melissa and Cortessa had just ascended.

"There are worse things than being daft," Peter commented.

"That there are, Peter," Rebecca agreed. At that point, a certain red head made her way through the portrait hole and over towards her friends, looking as thoroughly disheveled as she had the first time she'd spoken to James and his friends. Before she even managed to sit down at the table, Peter noticed Sirius and James had made a hasty retreat from the Common Room, leaving Remus alone, looking slightly puzzled.

Remus glanced over at Peter, who gestured towards Lily, and his puzzled look melted away into one of exasperation. For the past month and a half, since the fateful 'Day of the Dragon' as the Marauders referred to it, neither Lily nor James had uttered so much as a syllable to one another. Remus gathered up his books and walked over to where the girls were seated.

"May I join you? It looks like I've been deserted," Remus said, shuffling his feet next to the table.

"Of course," Alice moved several of her parchments out of the way, to clear a spot for him. He sat down next to Peter and pulled back out his Transfiguration book and notes. The group worked quietly for a few minutes, Rebecca trying to teach Peter the correct charm for changing something's color. After a few tried, he succeeded and he began to concentrate on a charm that had similar effects to the Wiggling Writing potion that had given Sirius such a headache a few weeks earlier.

Nearly two hours later the group looked up as they heard the thuds of footsteps on the girls dormitory steps. Melissa came bounding into view wearing her pajamas, her hair, usually pulled back in an extremely messy ponytail that made her head look very odd, was billowing around her face. She bounded up to the table and looked at Remus, cocking her head to get a better look at what appeared to be his hand.

"Is that my quill, then?" she asked him and then yawned sleepily.

Remus's eyes went wide as he stared at her. He normally found her quite pretty, but now. Her hair was longer than he'd thought, and when it was out of that stupid ponytail, it looked stunning. His gaze dropped a bit and he realized that she slept in boxer shorts. He could see her legs. Sweet Merlin, she has legs! he thought and then fought the urge to laugh. Of course she has legs, you dolt, she walks, doesn't she? He looked back up to her face framed by that hair and her hazel eyes, surrounded, as always, by those familiar glasses.

"Remmy, is that her quill?" Peter nudged him and repeated. Remus took in a breath sharply and then looked down at the table.

"Uh, no Mel. This is my quill." He picked up the quill lying near his parchment. "This one yours?"

"Yes," she said and smiled sleepily. Remus decided right then and there that he could stare at her smiling sleepily forever. "Thanks." She reached to take the quill and brushed his fingers retrieving it. Her touch shot through her like lightening. When he looked up again she was already halfway up the steps. She stopped and turned back to the group. "You lot do realize how late it is, don't you? You're supposed to get a decent night's sleep before a test." She grinned again and disappeared from sight.

Apparently their whole exchange had not been noticed by most of the group. Rebecca looked over at the grandfather clock against the wall. "Great scott," she exclaimed. "It's nearly one thirty!" Rebecca and Alice both quickly gathered their things and headed towards their dormitory.

"Coming, Lil?" Rebecca shouted over her shoulder.

"In a bit, Becca," Lily said, gesturing towards her notes. "Just want to finish this bit."

"Right then. Night boys," Rebecca said and started up the stairs.

"Goodnight, Remus," Alice said. "I'm sure you'll do just fine tomorrow, Peter. See you in the morning."

The moment they were out of sight, Lily rolled up her parchment and looked up at Remus. "Well then," she said with a trace of a smile.

"Well what?" he muttered. "I thought you wanted to finish your notes."

"I'm just concerned about you, Remus." Peter looked up at this and then over at Remus.

"Huh? Why?" Remus looked honestly confused.

"Well, when someone is as red as you are right now, they've either got an insanely high fever that will probably kill them, or they're in love," Lily said, sitting back as she crossed her arms and grinned.

"Well, I'm not in love," Remus said firmly and reached for a new quill even though his current one was fine.

"Then we'd best rush you off to Madame Pomfrey, eh Peter?" Lily commented.

Peter tried to bite back a grin.

"I'm quite alright, thank you very much, Lily Evans." Lily chuckled when Remus used her full name, a habit he had when he was annoyed with whomever he was addressing. "It's just a bit hot in here, is all."

"Right Remus," Peter said, as he shivered and slipped into a sweater. He chuckled at the excuse since earlier some overzealous upperclassman had attempted to put a cooling charm on the Common Room and had outdone themselves.

Lily laughed quite hard at that comment and began to gather her things. As she stood up from the table, she stopped. "I don't know what you're angling for with her right now, Lupin, but since you don't seem to be up for any sort of commitment at the moment, I feel quite secure assuring you that she didn't notice your attitude towards her. God bless her, but Melissa can be really out of regarding such things most of the time. Evening, boys."

With that, Lily exited the Common Room, leaving behind one shivering, laughing eleven year old and one thoroughly overheated and confused twelve year old.

~~*~~

"It's official," Sirius stated as they walked out of their last exam, History of Magic. "I'm abysmal at that class."

"Abysmal?" James pondered. "No, I've got to get a slightly higher grade than I just did to achieve a rating such as abysmal. We'll talk when you hit lower than flobberworms on the food chain."

"I didn't think it was that bad," Peter comment cheerily.

"The bloody boy's got a death wish," Sirius said, turning on him.

"Professor McGonagall, hello," Peter yelled happily and waved over the other three boys shoulders. Sirius and James stopped dead in their tracks and spun around to say hello to the head of their house.

"Hello, Prof..." James started to chirp, quickly realizing that Professor McGonagall was nowhere in the area. "Pete!" he thundered and looked at the slowly shrinking form of one of his best friends running towards the Entrance Hall, cackling madly.

"Get him," Sirius roared and turned to Remus and James. "The penalty for dissenting during the required 'I failed that test' rant is death by tickling hex." He pulled out his wand and started off after Peter, James quickly drawing his wand and following him.

"You've got to be kidding me," Remus said, more to himself than anyone else, then shook his head grinning.

"Kidding you? Why never!" Frank had just walked out of the classroom. "If I never hear about another Goblin Revolt or Giant War it'll be too soon."

"Or it'll be September," Remus quipped back with a grin. "See you in the Great Hall, Frank." Remus took off at an all out run and rather quickly caught up to Sirius and James, who had nearly caught Peter.

"How do you run so bloody fast, Remmy?" James asked. For someone he'd never consider very athletic, Remus could run faster than any of the others in the group.

Remus turned midstride and began to run backwards as James and Sirius ran forwards. "Natural talent," he grinned, not even winded.

~~*~~

As the came upon the lake, the three were so intent on catching Peter that the other two didn't even notice for a second when Remus fell, until something caught James around the ankle and he went flying, followed half a second later by Sirius. The three lay on the ground for a moment getting their bearings.

"Gerroff me," a voice came from below Remus and he felt something sharp dig into his arm. He yelped and jumped up. Below him was a Slytherin girl, she looked familiar, but he could only see the back of her head.

"Let me go, or I'll hex you," came the sound from under James, who quickly jumped up looking apologetic.

"Hex me? I'm not holding you on purpose," James said, looking bewildered.

Sirius was already standing at this point and was glaring at the sight before him. Two Slytherin girls were sprawled across the ground. Remus, although he had initially had a hand pressed to his arm where the girl had dug in her finger nails, was now offering his hand to the girl he'd knocked over. She ignored him and stood on her own, straightening her robes. The other girl was still on the ground, but had pulled herself into sitting position. Both girls had heavy lidded eyes and far too much make up on. Although either one could be considered pretty, there was something about them that made them, to the three boys present at any rate, ugly, in a way. One had blonde hair so blonde it was nearly white, while the other had thick black locks. Leaning against the tree they'd just run around were two other girls. One was tall and thin, like you could snap her in half if you had the mind to, with straight black hair. The other was very large and seemed to be sporting a unibrow of sorts, with greasy, dirty blonde hair.

"Put your wand down, Bella. It was an accident," Sirius said coldly. "And stop glaring at him Cissy," he addressed the girl with the blonde hair now, who was straightening her robes still. She made a face at him. "I just said it was an accident."

"Do not call me, Cissy, you disgrace," she nearly spat at him. She had a look on her face like someone who had just stuck their hand into a dirty toilet to unclog it.

"Fine, whatever. Come on guys," Sirius muttered.

"Well, well, well, whatever have we got here?" A cold voice came from behind the group. Remus winced and thought What a lovely end to a dreadful day of testing... and where the bloody hell is Peter?

"Malfoy," Remus addressed him while glaring. He could see Sirius reach for his wand and James grip his own more tightly.

"Are these little boys bothering you, Narcissa?" he looked to the blonde girl. "Bellatrix? Shall we take care of it for you?" Malfoy gestured to his group of cronies. Crabbe, Goyle and Nott all stood behind him menacingly.

Narcissa put a pout on her thin lips and her hands on her hips, "That one knocked me down." She pointed to Remus.

"Well for Merlin's sake, you've just about scraped a layer of skin off my arm with those nails, I'd say we're even," Remus retorted, glaring at her.

"It was an accident," Sirius reiterated.

"I'll show you accident, Black," Malfoy spit on the ground and then lowered his voice, "This is payback for the incident by the kitchens." He pulled out his wand.

"What do you think you're doing?" A high pitched voice came from behind the entire group. A Hufflepuff prefect came storming up to them. "Have you all lost your minds? Split up this instant before I start taking points from your Houses!" The thin, blonde girl glanced around at the motley group in front of her, then her eyes widened. "You let him and his friends go, or I'll tell mom. I'll owl her the instant I get back to the castle." Most of the others looked slightly taken aback.

"Like she'd care, he's a disgrace to the family name. As are you, nothing you say matters anymore," Bellatrix spat out.

"Well, come on then," the prefect said to the boys and pushed them ahead of her.

As they departed the three boys and the girl could hear Nott say loudly, "Sister? In Hufflepuff?!?" and Narcissa's quiet comment, "Well now you can see why we don't speak of her." Remus looked at the girl and saw her wince at the other girl's remark.

"We could've gotten ourselves out of that, Andie," Sirius muttered to the girl.

"Right, like last time, huh? You're not going to come out on top every time, Sirius," the girl said as they made their way across the lawn back to the castle.

"You know one another?" James asked.

"This is my cousin, Andromeda Black," Sirius told the others. "She's graduating this week." He smiled up at her. "Top in her House."

She patted Sirius's arm and grinned at the other two. "We're the black sheep. The only two in the family in eons not to be in Slytherin... Don't have much of a chance to talk here though, do we?" A look flitted over her face. "I didn't tell you!" She gasped.

"Is everything alright?" Sirius asked her, looking worried.

"Yes, yes," she beamed. "I'm getting married. I went home over Spring Holiday and well... I told the family. They blasted my name right off the family tree. Proudest moment of my life, perhaps."

"To that Muggle you met last summer?" Sirius asked with a grin.

"Yes, Ted," she looked ecstatic.

"Do they know?" he jerked his thumb over his shoulder gesturing towards the Slytherin group back by the trees.

"I told the two of them when I got back. They asked what House he graduated from, I think they were almost hoping Slytherin... but maybe I'm kidding myself. They probably didn't even care that much. I think I got half of the word Muggle out of my mouth before they turned tail on me and walked right out of the room," Andie gave a sad glance backwards.

"They're not worth it, Andie," Sirius said.

"They're my sisters, Sirius... no matter what, they'll always be worth something to me," she said sadly as they entered the castle. "Avoid the whole lot of them though, alright? I'd rather not have to take points from my favorite cousin's House for fighting right before graduation." She gave him another pat on the arm. "I'll owl you over the summer, maybe you can come for the wedding. We're going to do it the Muggle way, since it matters so much to his family and ours... well..." She looked away.

"I'll do whatever I can to get there, Andie," Sirius said as he and the other two Marauder's headed towards the Great Hall.

She grinned and disappeared in the direction of the Hufflepuff Common Room.

"I had no idea you had so much family at Hogwarts," Remus commented.

"Only her," he said quietly. "And she's leaving anyway. I don't count the other two..." He trailed off and stalked towards their table where the three were surprised to find Peter working his way through a heaping plate of treacle.

Sirius smacked him upside the head.

"Oi," Peter said, coughing of some of the treacle.

"Where were you?" Remus asked him as he and James sat down across from Sirius and Peter.

"Just now?" Peter asked, looking down at his plate.

"Yea, just now. With the Slytherins," James said, dumping several chicken legs on his plate.

"I thought I'd just get in the way, so I came in here to save us all seats," Peter said, gesturing to each of them as though to indicate they had seats, didn't they.

"Bloody loony, you are," Sirius said. "You wouldn't be in the way, we could've used you."

"Well, you all got out of it alright," Peter replied.

"Yea, cause Sirius's cousin saved us," James muttered.

"Bellatrix saved you?" Peter asked as his jaw dropped.

"No, Andromeda," Sirius said, digging into a bowl of vegetables.

"And who?" Peter asked.

"My cousin Andromeda, she's in Hufflepuff. She's a prefect, showed up and saved us. Even you could see why I wouldn't wish to associate with a prefect, Pete," Sirius grinned and dug into the food.

At the other end of the table, still staying as far away from James as she could get, Lily and her group slid into their seats and began to eat.

In the library, Frank Longbottom and his friends Rob Cage and Rob Davis marveled over how destructive the Cruciatus Curse could be and discussed how their Defense Against the Dark Arts exams had gone.

Sitting on a couch in the Hufflepuff Common Room, Melody Smith, twin sister to Alice Smith, was discussing the merits of Crabby Christie's Cover-All Curls potion versus Sleekeasy's Hair Potion with Elizabeth Fortescue and Olivia O'Brien.

Out by the lake, seven Slytherins were listening to Lucius Malfoy make jokes about Mudbloods, Gryffindor and the Marauders.

And in Minerva McGonagall's office sat one small Ravenclaw First Year, curled up in a chair crying tears she never thought would stop while her aunt hurried around the desk to try and comfort her.