A/N: Plot? What's a plot? I have no idea... Just some more Marauders, with a bit of Jily thrown in! Partial credit to my little sis, who read this whole chapter over my shoulder and helped me when I got stuck. Love ya, kiddo! Big thank you to all my reviewers (so many! It's awesome!). Kudos to you if you get any of my references and tell me in a review!

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Peter had lost the Map. Peter had lost the Map! James was absolutely furious. So were Remus and Sirius.

"How could you have lost it?" Sirius was bellowing.

"I don't know!" Peter whined, cowering. "It must have fallen out of my bag in Transfiguration!"

"Check your bag again," Remus ordered, mouth tight. Peter scrambled to do as he said. "Sirius," Remus continued, turning to him, "stop shouting. We're nearly to class."

"It had better be in his bag," Sirius muttered darkly. "Suppose someone picked it up?"

"You did wipe it, didn't you, Pete?" James asked, trying hard to keep his voice even. The Map was gone.

"Yes - yes," Peter said, nodding very quickly, trying to walk and thoroughly search his bag at the same time.

"Least you didn't botch that, then," James said, and Peter winced.

"Find it yet?" Remus asked, an edge in his normally friendly voice.

"No…"

"Suppose someone chucks it in the fire?" Sirius was hissing as they walked into the Divination classroom. "Three years of work, up in ashes, because some lazy sod couldn't keep track of it - "

"Boys!" Professor Octavian snapped, as Peter flinched away from Sirius. "To your seats!"

James, Remus, and Sirius spent the rest of class ignoring the miserable Peter.

At dinner, it was made very clear that Peter would not be sitting with the rest of them until he had recovered the Map, or found it in his things. Peter did tend to collect things - scraps of loose parchment, string, quills, wax seals - on the grounds that they might be useful at some later date. One of his more rat-like tendencies, James reflected, still irritated.

The next morning, however, Peter ran up to them, his face shining. "I've - found - it," he panted, out of breath from trying to catch up. "It was in - my - bag - the whole - time."

"You're bloody joking," Sirius said, and Peter pulled out the Map.

"No! I found it in Transfiguration!"

"Well," said James, "why don't you just give it to Moony to hang on to, yeah?"

"Good idea," Peter and Sirius said together. Remus took the Map.

A couple days later, the four boys were loitering around the fourth-floor staircase when Lily Evans happened around a corner and started telling them off for skipping class.

"It's only Divination, Evans," James tried to explain, but she wasn't having it. Sirius made some smart remark - he couldn't even remember it now, only that it was hilarious - and the four of them burst into laughter.

Evans was unmoved. Crisply, she replied, "If you were half as clever as you thought you were, Black, you'd be twice as clever as you are now."

James blinked. That was one of Sirius' comebacks. He exchanged a glance with Remus - when had she picked that up? Peter looked confused.

"Not bad, Evans," Sirius said, and pushed himself up and off the staircase, striding towards the Divination tower. James, Remus, and Peter all scrambled after, leaving Lily dumbstruck in the hall behind them.

"D'you think she had the Map?" Peter asked, wide-eyed, when James mentioned his suspicion that she'd got the line from Sirius, under cover of tea-leaf predictions.

"Well, but you found the Map in your bag again," James started, frowning.

"Maybe she just fancies Sirius," Remus said, a tiny smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

James glared at him. "She does not."

"You never know. Anyway, she's clever - she could have come up with it on her own," Remus said, fairly.

"Or," Sirius interjected, "she had the Map, tried to get a look at it, it used that insult, she thought it was good, and stole it."

"Maybe," James said.

o0o

She fancied him. She fancied him! Lily Evans fancied him! Or, well, she said she almost fancied Mr. Prongs. But she was clever - she could probably tell that Mr. Prongs was him - so she'd basically said she fancied him!

"We're not hearing the end of this, are we?" Sirius groaned, when Peter reported the afternoon's events to the other half of the Marauders. "And Evans had the Map. Why'd you let slip that it wasn't just insults, Pete? Now she'll never give it up! And he won't be any help," he went on, gesturing with mild disgust toward James.

"Yes, I will," James said, coming down to Earth momentarily. "I wouldn't tell Evans about the Map. You lot still come first."

"And you're still incapable of talking to her without making an enormous prat of yourself," Remus added. "You ought to work on that first."

"Thanks, Moony," James scowled, and Sirius grinned.

"Just think, Prongs," he said, "she'll never marry you if you can't talk to her."

o0o

"So, Peter," said Lily Evans, sliding into the empty seat next to the shortest Marauder. "I was wondering if I could have a word, real quickly?"

"S-sure, Lily," Peter stammered, shooting a look at James that screamed Help me! as he got up.

"Oi, Evans, where are you taking him?" Sirius shouted, before James could say anything.

"I just want to ask a question, Black!" Lily shouted back.

"Do it here, then!"

"No!" And her red hair, followed by Peter's worried face, was the last thing James saw before the doors to the Great Hall slammed shut behind them.

They didn't see him until their next class, coming in and sitting down heavily at their Herbology table.

"What'd she want, Pete?" James wanted to know.

"To know how the Map works, I'll bet," Sirius said, shrewdly. Peter nodded.

"You didn't tell her, did you?" James asked, concerned.

Just then, Evans herself swept into the classroom, just as the bell rang, mouth a thin line and brows furrowed. Peter managed half a smile.

"I'd take that as a 'No'," Remus murmured.

"Hey, Remus, I've got an Arithmancy question for you," Lily said, after dinner a couple days later. "Have you finished that problem set for Vector yet?"

"Yes…" said Remus slowly. James suspected a trap.

"I haven't," she continued, brightly. "Would you mind helping me with it?"

"All right," Remus said, still sounding suspicious.

"Library, then?"

"Sure."

o0o

"I've got to hand it to her," said Remus, that night in their dormitory. "She's remarkably persistent."

"Dunno why she thought you'd be a better shot than Pete," Sirius remarked.

"Hey!" Peter protested, bristling. "I can keep my mouth shut."

"Sure you can," Sirius agreed equably. "And Moony can keep his mouth shut even better."

"She did actually have an Arithmancy question, too," Remus continued, sounding amused. "But mostly she wanted to know what else the Map did."

"She knows it's a map?" James demanded.

"No - " Remus paused. Then his eyes widened. "She did call it a map! Well played, Evans," he said, admiring. James narrowed his eyes at Remus momentarily, then turned the full force of his glare on Peter, who had gone astonishingly white.

"You didn't tell her anything," James growled.

"Well - "

"I can keep my mouth shut!" Sirius mimicked. "Honestly, Worms!"

"I mean - I didn't - "

"Please tell me all you let slip was the 'map' bit," James pleaded.

Peter sighed, defeated. "That's all! I promise."

o0o

"So, James, I hear you're better at Charms than you let on," said Lily, suddenly appearing at his left during dinner. James nearly dropped his chicken drumstick.

"Merlin, Evans, you - " Then her words sank in. "Wait. James. You just called me James."

"I did not!" she said immediately, blanching.

"Yes, you did," he said, a slow grin building on his face. "Not 'Potter'. Not 'insufferable idiot'. Not 'Head Boy Whom I Still Slightly Detest' - you called me 'James'."

"You're hearing things, Potter," she insisted. "Anyways, I was wondering if you knew how to do a Incoluntus Charm - it came up in class the other day and I can't figure it out."

James started to say, Of course I do, Evans, when he remembered that that was what they had used for the Map's defence mechanisms, and she probably would have looked it up when she realised that Mr. Prongs had his personality (assuming she'd figured it out, which he was pretty sure she had. She was quite clever, after all).

"No, sorry," he told her, making himself look apologetic. "Haven't heard of that one. You know I'm rubbish at Charms."

She gave him a skeptical look. He kept his eyes wide and innocent. Finally one corner of his mouth twitched up. "Your face looks ridiculous like that, James," she said. "And don't think you're off the hook, Mr. Prongs." Then she stood up and walked away with a slight smirk on her face.

"You called me James again!" he shouted after her.

She didn't reply, only walked a little faster.

"It's your turn next, Padfoot," Remus predicted with a smirk. "She's going after us all in turn."

Sirius swallowed a massive bite of shepherd's pie, looking supremely unimpressed. "She won't get anything out of me, and she knows better than to try," he said. "She'll keep working on Prongs."

"A Sickle says you're wrong," Remus challenged.

"A dip in the Black Lake says I'm right," Sirius shot back.

"Done," Remus said, shaking his hand.

o0o

"Potter," Lily started one evening, when they were in the Heads' common room, both studying (for once). "How good is Remus at Charms?"

James looked up. "Well, he's best at DADA, but he's a fair hand at Charms, too. Why?"

"No reason. Just curious," she said, looking down at her notes. James looked at her for a moment, then gave a mental shrug and went back to his Transfiguration homework.

"What about Black? How's he in Charms?" Lily asked suddenly, several minutes later.

"What is this, the Hogwarts Inquisition?" James asked, mostly joking.

"Nobody expects the Hogwarts Inquisition!" Lily cried, then started laughing at James' bewildered expression. "It's a Muggle comedy sketch."

"What?"

"Never mind. My dad loves it. Is Sirius any good at Charms?"

"Probably, if he paid attention in class. What's this all about, anyway?"

Lily shrugged. "I'm curious."

"You're still on about the Map, aren't you?"

"So it is a map!"

James cursed quietly. "Would you let it alone? We're not going to tell you anything else. We worked long and hard on that thing, we're not letting out its secrets for the entire castle to know!"

"I thought you liked persistence, Potter."

"Only in myself!"

"What is it a map of, exactly?"

"None of your business."

"I didn't know you could map someone's business, Potter."

"I didn't know you were capable of being this irritating, Evans."

"I'm making up for all the time I've lost."

"And how much time is that?"

"About seven years - are you trying to change the subject?"

"Of course not."

"Right."

"I'm always right, Evans."

"Oh, hush," Lily laughed, and James grinned. Their banter was more friendly nowadays, more a thing they did to pass the time and less because they were actually irritated with each other.

"So you really won't say anything about the map?" Lily tried, one more time.

"Sorry, Evans," James replied, unrepentant.

"Fine," she said, and retreated into thoughtful silence for the rest of the evening.

o0o

"Ha, that's one dip in the Black Lake for Moony here," Sirius grinned.

"Oh, shut it." Remus scowled.

"So she just… gave up?" Peter wondered.

James shrugged. "Apparently."

"We should go right now," Sirius went on, glancing out the window. "It's sunny out, at least."

"I wouldn't trust her, James," Peter continued, looking worried.

"And the squid'll be on the other side of the lake this time of day…"

"I don't. She's almost as persistent as I am."

"Which is saying something," Remus remarked, wryly.

"Plus, Dorcas Meadowes is down by the lake right now, and we all know she wants to see Moony in his skivvies - " Remus punched Sirius in the arm.

"That just makes it worse," he said, grimacing. "I am not going down to the lake if she's down there."

"Have some pity on him, Padfoot," James interjected. "At least do it when Meadowes isn't around."

"Please," Remus agreed.

"Fine," Sirius conceded, folding his arms over his chest. "But I want it done this week."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, mate."

"Is no one else concerned over Lily Evans and the fate of the Map?" Peter exclaimed, outraged.

"How come you're so worried about the Map now, Petey?" Sirius said lazily. "I seem to recall you carelessly dropping it in the hall. Or have we forgotten the reason Evans is interested in the Map in the first place?"

"I - I - " Peter stammered, obviously at a loss for words.

"That's what I thought," Sirius said.

o0o

"Erm… James… I mean, Potter?" Lily asked in the common room one evening.

"Yes, Evans?"

"How'dyoudothatmapthinganyway?" she blurted.

"Sorry?" James asked, frowning.

"That insulting - parchment - map - whatever. I could tell there were lots of difficult enchantments on it. How'd you do it? I was of the impression that you all - well, except Remus - barely paid attention in class."

"I pay attention in class," James said, stung.

"You do now," Lily pointed out.

"Fair enough."

"But really - where'd you find all those spells? You must've been pretty young when you were trying them - how long did it take you to make it?"

"Three years," said James without thinking. Then he realised what he'd said and started mentally swearing.

"Exactly! Those are some complicated charms for a bunch of third- or fourth-years."

"Evans, you're going to swell my head even more," James said, grinning a little to cover his dismay. "Are you saying I'm intelligent?"

"I'm saying that maybe you should tell me how you learned an Incoluntus Charm in your fourth year over a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks this weekend," Lily said, then smirked at James' utterly flabbergasted expression.

"Did - you - I - we - what?" James stuttered.

"Is that a yes or a no, Potter? I'm only asking once."

"Yes!"