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James looked up at the ceiling of the compartment, thinking. "Uh... the map..." He muttered uncertainly

Of course he had brought the map! Sirius obviously had little faith in him. He was just toying with his friends a little. James figured continuing to do so was evetually going to get him a very sound punch in the face.

He continued looking sheepish and uncertain, and pretended to be taking a mental inventory of all he had packed. "Socks..." He muttered. "And underwear, toiletries, school books, robes, shirts, pants, my lucky watch", which was broken, but James still carried it around with him. For some reason he never thought to bring it with him when attempting to get on Lily's good side. He made a mental note to do so next time. "hat, mitts, scarf, winter and spring jackets, uh..." James looked very thoughtful, but at the same time a little nervous. "Did I put it in after that?"

James looked worried for a moment or two, for dramatic effect, then rolled his eyes. "Of course I brought it! Do you really have that little faith in me?"

Although his best mate's face looked genuinely worried, Sirius had known the Potter boy for years and he could see past the act. His shoulders lost their anxious stiffness and the handsome Gryffindor leaned back in his seat while James continued his charade, probably for the sake of Peter. The corner's of Sirius' mouth raised in a partial smile, the kind of smile that he usually had on his face when they were running about doing their little pranks. Some poor lasses were in love with this smile. Unfortunately, the Black heir knew it all to well.

"Quit taking the mickey outta me, you tallywacker. I'm just making sure." Sirius shook his head softly, the smile never leaving his face. "We should set up our first meeting now, while we're all here and focused and Remus is out doing the round about with Evans. It's killing two birds with one stone. Er... kind of."

Sirius' fingers subconsciously played with the hem of the white button-up shirt that his mother had forced over his head when he started to think about a time and day that they three of them could get together without being noticeably absent. The shirt was like some sort of horrible fancy garment that muggles wore to funerals and the like, but it had it's slight differences. As soon as he had been free from his mother's grasp, the fifteen-year-old unbottoned the first few buttons so that he could actually breath. It now allowed all his admirers a few of his nicely tanned neck and a little of his collarbone. The simple black trousers he wore made him feel even more like he was attending some sort of entombment.

It might be a smart thing to change into his school robes.

"How about... this Thursday? Remus hates staying up late on school nights so once he's asleep we'll just sneak on by. Do you think he's too clever for that?"

"Thank you," Remus smiled, increasing his pace to catch up to Jared.

Although Remus enjoyed Lily's company, and loved to talk to her about almost anything, he always hated it when the subject of his friends popped up. After Lily stat him down and tried to make him explain how he could put up with James and Sirius, and Lily saw how very uncomfortable Remus was, it had become a taboo subject. But even a casual assessment made his heart drop to his stomach, and his stomach try to jump out his throat.

Jared heard Remus' 'thank you' and slowed his pace a little, assuming since he was allowed to hear it, he was allowed back into the conversation.

((Blarg. Sorry. It's crap. Will write better after exams. Can sleep then.))

((20 minutes?! That was a short journey.))

Prefect duties had taken much longer than Lily had expected. Several first-years had decided to try for the post of Troublemaker-in-Chief, not aware that the post was already filled by one James Potter and his best friend, one Sirius Black. After the twenty-ninth Fanged Frisbee, Lily had to wonder how Remus (and, to be fair, Jared), managed to keep their composure, even though Lily herself had been very tempted to practise her Bat Bogey Hex on a group of particularly troublesome first-year students.

"Well," Lily said finally, "I'm glad that's over. I suppose we'd better go and find our respective friends, Remus."

((Sorry for my prolonged absence, by the way. I'll try and remedy the situation as soon as I can.))

When informed that they were so close to Hogwarts, Sirius had figured that changing into his uniform was the smart thing to do. He changed right in the compartment, not ashamed of himself whatsoever, and pulled off his formal muggle clothes the second that his robes emerged from the black leather trunk. He had a few bruises here and there, from rough play with Regulus, but he didn't have anything that he wanted to hide from his two mates. The fifteen-year-old didn't have an ounce of fat on his entire body. If anything, he might've looked slightly underweight. His ribs and shoulder blades poked out as he pulled the white uniform shirt on but they quickly vanished from sight.

When the compartment door slid open, Sirius was just buttoning up the last buttons on his shirt but his fingers stopped when he saw Remus in the doorway. The taller boy grinned boyishly, noting the lack of school uniform on his wolfy friend. "You might want to get changed, Moony. We're almost there."

Black sent a glance to James, informing his best mate that the conversation was done. Leaving his uniform undone and his robes lying on the seat, Sirius put his hands into his pockets and turned around to face Lupin again, his usual grin plastered onto his face and any sign of mischief gone from sight.

"What are we up to? Well, we were just discussing the first prank of the year, weren't we lads?" Sirius barked a laugh. "We were thinking... victim number one... everyone's favourite slimeball. What do you think, Remi?"

((Lily would like to apologise for her absence. Turns out, being on holidays means that I can't get online because I don't even have the "I'm doing research!" excuse any more. Still, I'll try to post once or twice a week from now on.))

Lily changed quickly into her uniform, fixing her tie and straightening her collar by looking at her reflection in the compartment window. Making sure her hair was neat and out of her eyes, she sat down and waited for the train to slow down, indicating that they had finally arrived at Hogsmeade.

The sky outside was almost totally black now, and she found herself marvelling at the field of stars breaking the darkness. Living in a big city where the sky was often obscured by pollution and street lights, it was not often that she saw a night sky as perfect and unobscured as this. She sat back and let her thoughts wander.

She thought of Petunia with a sad little sigh, and wondered if their relationship would ever stop being a tense one. Then she thought of Remus, and wished for what seemed like the millionth time that he wasn't friends with the two boys she couldn't stand at all.

Then, more disturbingly, she thought of James Potter.

Prat though he undoubtedly was, Lily found herself thinking of him more and more over the past half year. Her fellow Gryffindor girls thought she was mad for ignoring him - after all, Potter was intelligent, good-looking, talented and very charming (when he wanted to be). However, she couldn't get over his behaviour towards one other person in particular, a face she tried not to think about, because all it seemed to do was complicate things.

Lily didn't know what she'd do about her odd relationship with Severus Snape.

He was perfectly polite when they were alone - he'd even helped her with fourth-year Potions one or two times, to the amusement of Professor Slughorn, the Potions Master, who liked to see his two best students working together so well. But when there were other people around...Lily simply couldn't understand why he changed so much then.

The train was slowing down, and Lily got to her feet with a sigh, realising that she'd have to help supervise the younger students on their way to the carriages. Thoughts of James Potter and Severus Snape would have to wait for another time.

"Why would we leave him be?" James asked incredulously. "It's not like he'll have changed dramatically into a decent person over the course of the summer."

Maybe they were a little too hard on Snape. He wasn't really that bad as long as they left him alone.

Maybe that was just Lily's voice talking. But, if he wanted to win her over, he was going to have to start being a lot more mature... even if that meant reducing the amount of pranks pulled on Snape.

James sighed at this thought, and decided that one last one to celebrate a new school year couldn't hurt. After this one he would actively try to stop being so mean to the Slytherin.