AN: Basically the Marauders without magic.

Rated M for non-explicit sexual scenes, violence, abuse, tragedy, and some offensive language.

Chapter One: James Potter: Nice and Friendly

Like soldiers, the schoolchildren trudged through the corridors, exchanging lacklustre rumour and complaining about the overwhelming sunshine. They manoeuvred themselves in a sticky, uncomfortable manner due to an unfortunate combination of close walls and an abnormal amount of heat for an English summer.

The following months would be unbearable.

This hostile environment was brightened only by the odd burst of laughter.

"I am funny!" cried one giggling teenage girl upon entering the hall.

Her friends did not dispute this, but they did not exactly support it either. They merely took their places on the stiff wooden benches and fell silent, trying to ignore how the sweat glistening on the backs of their thighs fused their skin with the bench.

All the students ceased conversation as the doors closed behind them. The only sound that filled the hall was the rapid click of their headmistress' heels against the varnished pine floors.

Miss McGonagall was renowned for that sound, that clicking. The clicking that instilled fear into the hearts of even the most rebellious of her students, letting all who heard it know that Miss McGonagall was not a headmistress to be messed with.

Only when she reached the very front of the hall did the clicking stop.

She positioned herself next to a blackboard on which was written, "Farewell Class of '76."

"Blazers please," she ordered, in a tired voice; it had been a very long school year.

There was a low grumble of objection for it was far too hot to add extra layers.

"Might I add that you should have had them on before you entered the hall," said Miss McGonagall, drowning out all complaints. "Are you or are you not year 11 students?" A few students nodded but that was all the reply she received. "Well," she continued, unperturbed, "While you remain secondary school students I expect you to abide by the uniform rules. Those of you who return for sixth form in September will be able to frolic about in whatever you wish."

Sniggering followed this which she quickly silenced with a cry of, "Within reason!" Before she pressed on, "Now, as you know you will receive your O-level results in August"

It was then that a side door burst open and a very flustered receptionist, known by a few students by the name of Rosie, came into view.

Rosie made an attempt to hurry across the hall, hindered somewhat by her tight skirt and high heels. All eyes were on her as her footsteps filled the hall with a cacophony of uncoordinated clicks, drastically different from those of Miss McGonagall.

Upon reaching the headmistress, Rosie received a stern look. Smiling apologetically, the receptionist put her weight on the very tips of her toes so she was made a reasonable height and could thereby whisper in McGonagall's ear.

After approximately six seconds McGonagall's lips thinned and her eyes narrowed. She murmured a quick "thank you" to Rosie before turning to face to the students.

"You are dismissed," declared McGonagall.

Then she hurried out of the hall.

(Twenty Minutes Earlier)

Seven shops. He counted seven shops. Well, seven shops and a pub. Given that the last shop he had seen was over eight miles ago, he suspected that these seven shops were the only shops in the vicinity. Oh, and the pub of course. Did that make eight? It didn't really matter. Overall, the car journey had not revealed any promising aspects of Sowsworth so far.

"It's very... quaint isn't it?" Ilene Potter stammered, her eyes flickering nervously between the road and her teenage son. "James?" He grunted. "It's pretty, don't you think?"

"Stunning," said James in a bored voice.

"Excellent."

Sighing, James turned to look out of the car window once more. Sowsworth did appear to be very peaceful. Peaceful, though, had never particularly appealed to him as an adjective. He didn't trust peaceful.

As they turned down an incredibly narrow road, they were soon graced with the rather unimpressive sight of St. Albus' Secondary School. It was a very square building with an overwhelmingly large quantity of windows and faded paint.

Once her hands were no longer required on the wheel, Ilene took James' right hand in her left one and gave it a squeeze.

"Do you need me to go in with you?" she offered.

James shrugged, not really looking at her.

"If you like," he said.

"I won't if you don't want me to," she added quickly. "I know you don't want your old mum embarrassing you in front of all your new classmates."

It might have been true that Ilene Potter was older than most mothers. She had given birth at the miraculous age of forty-two and the following sixteen years of raising a rowdy young man had not exactly done wonders for her aging appearance. Yet none of this embarrassed James in the slightest.

"Come off it, mum," he said, flashing her a toothy grin of reassurance. "Come in if it'll make you feel better."

"No, don't worry about it. I'll wait here."

"Abandoning me early are you?" he teased.

Ilene flinched.

"James, please don't say that."

"It was a joke, Mum."

"Well, it's nothing to joke about. I don't want you to think I'm abandoning you."

She looked tired and this made James feel both guilty and frustrated.

"I know, I know. I'm a grown up now, why should you and dad hold back on your dream? Especially since you've been wanting to retire to France for such a long time," he recited, having heard this very reasoning countless times over the previous year.

A brief silence hovered in the humid air between them, broken only by the distant buzzing of insects.

"You better get going," she said after a while.

Nodding in agreement, James leaned over to give his mum a quick peck on the cheek before undoing his seatbelt and beginning to clamber out of the car.

He was just about to slam the door behind him when she cried out, "James!"

"Yes?" he inquired, sticking his head back in the car.

"Be friendly."

He frowned.

"I'm always friendly."

"You know what I mean, James," she said. "Be nice."

"Always, mum. James Potter: nice and friendly. That's what they all say."

She looked back at him with her tired, pleading eyes.

"I'll be nice, Mum," he reassured her. "I promise. I'll only be gone ten minutes anyway. I doubt I'll have much opportunity for not-niceness"

"Good luck!" she called after him, his head withdrawing from the car once more.

Ilene watched James stroll up to the front doors, exuding his usual confidence. She sighed to herself, knowing full well that ten minutes was more than enough time for her son to exhibit 'not-niceness.'

The reception area was the obvious place to wait, James knew this, yet his curiosity disagreed with this simple logic and so dictated that he wander towards the mass of students filing into the hall.

The interior of the building was no more impressive than the exterior. In fact, the only impressive quality he deemed the school to have was the astoundingly impressive amount of pine it had managed to incorporate into its decorating.

The student body seemed small to him, although James' counting ability might've been somewhat compromised by the fact that it looked as though not a single girl had put on tights under their skirts this morning.

Summer was a marvellous time of year.

After a quick surveillance, his eyes settled on a gaggle of girls just a few inches away. Amongst them were some very nice legs, the longest of which belonged to a chatty blonde.

"I'm serious!" she cried. "He said he was really going to miss me when he left and that we should meet up for a drink some time!"

The other girls just laughed at this.

"Why is that so hard to believe?" the blonde inquired of her friends. "Because he's older? Because he's successful?"

"Because he was our Geography teacher?" said one another girl, sounding amused. James gave what he had intended to be a quick glance over to the owner of the voice, but his gaze lingered on her.

This girl had very dark red hair, a mercifully short skirt and a nice set of legs to go with it. Objectively, she was a pretty girl. But that wasn't what was captivating him. It was something in her stare. The way her eyes widened, her head tilted, and the corners of her mouth twitched as she looked at her friend. It was almost as if she was saying 'come on now, be serious' with her face alone.

There was a certain coolness about her that suddenly made him a little self-conscious.

He had grown a lot over the past year and his body had yet to fill out his new frame, thus leaving him looking rather gawky. His hair was a mess of black and a pair of glasses sat upon his long nose.

It wasn't that he was unhappy with his looks or personality, but this girl had made him acutely aware of his overwhelming averageness.

This made his uncomfortable so he immersed himself in the girls' conversation again.

"Yeah, Cas, it seems unlikely that Mr Barnes would ask you out for a drink," said a small girl with very thick, short, dark hair and a bored expression.

"Just because he's a teacher doesn't meant that he can't fancy me!" The blonde girl, whose name appeared to be 'Cas', replied, becoming indignant.

"Yeah, but Barnes always hated you."

"You never did your homework."

Cas huffed, "Yeah, well I think you're all just jealous!"

"Oh, no!" cried the redhead. "However did you guess?"

"Oh, shut up."

"Or what?" she asked innocently.

"Or I'll tell your mother on you."

"Oh, please don't!" she pleaded dramatically. "She might punish me for the entire summer!"

Cas narrowed her eyes, saying, "You think you're so funny."

James never heard whether or not the girl with the red hair went on to confirm her hilarity or to deny it because there was a tap on his shoulder.

When James turned to face the tapper the first thing he saw was empty space. Then, upon looking down a few inches, he saw a round-faced blonde woman who was incredibly short despite wearing heels higher than any he had seen before.

"Excuse me," she said, her voice sugary. "Are you James Potter?"

"I am," he replied.

"Come with me."

He did as he was told but gave one last look over his shoulder. The redheaded girl was gone.

"I'm Rosie, the receptionist," the blonde woman informed him.

James nodded, pretending to absorb this information.

"Fantastic," he said dryly.

She led him down a narrow corridor to a door just past her desk ("that's my desk," she had said as they went passed, as though this might interest him. It didn't). On the door was a bronze plate which read "Miss McGonagall, Headmistress."

Rosie opened the door and nodded her head, indicating that he should enter.

"The headmistress is just holding the leaver's assembly, she'll be along in a minute," she explained.

And with that she closed the door behind her.

A quick scan of the office told him that this McGonagall was a fan of books, old volumes lining an entire wall. There was also an abundance of pine but he assumed that this was not down to the headmistress' personal taste but to that particular wood being the overall theme of the school's decor.

His eyes, after taking in the room, landed on a brown file that lay on the desk. He did not hesitate as he ventured towards the file and picked it up.

The symbol on the front was that of a lion, the logo of James' previous school to be exact. This told him that the file was exactly what he had thought it to be: his school record.

Flicking through it he felt a vague sense of panic. He had never realised how many of his misdemeanours had been recorded. James couldn't be certain, but he might have actually gulped when he came across a page that had been entirely circled in red ink.

"Oh, bugger," he murmured.

He acted quickly, without thinking through any possible consequences. Making his way over to the bin by the door, he pulled a purple lighter from his pocket and set the offending page alight.

Rosie was not particularly accustomed to seeing smoke emerge from Miss McGonagall's office and was therefore inexperienced at dealing with such a situation. After emitting a small shriek, she jumped out of her desk chair and hurried towards the hall, having decided it would be best to fetch the headmistress.

James swore loudly as the flame licked his thumb and abruptly dropped the paper he had been holding, leaving it to burn in the bin.

Giving the door a nervous glance, he sighed with relief, fully believing he was going to get away with it. Into the fire went another report regarding "violent" tendencies. He resented that. James had never viewed himself as particularly violent. He was perfectly in control of his emotions and was not one for fits of rage. He just got bored sometimes. Was it so wrong to relieve himself of boredom by... well, it wasn't important. Just as he decided to add to the fire a detailed account of why he had been banned from taking his O-Level German exam, the door opened.

"Shit!" he cried instinctively.

A stern looking woman, who James could only assume was Miss McGonagall, entered.

"Mr Potter, I assume. Might I ask why my bin is on fire?" she asked.

"It was like this when I found it," he said quickly.

She looked disbelievingly between the boy and the bin before sighing deeply.

"Mr. Potter, you have been on school grounds for no more than ten minutes and you have already lied, cussed, and set something alight. We're not exactly off to the best start here, are we?"

James smirked and opened his mouth to retort, but before he could she snapped, "That was a rhetorical question."

Miss McGonagall gave the dying embers one last glance before sighing again.

"Very well," she said, sitting behind her desk and motioning for him to take the seat opposite.

She picked up his report. Upon noticing it to be open and in a far messier state than she had left it in, realisation dawned on her.

"Now, Mr Potter," she began in an exasperated tone. "I'd like you to show me what it was you used to start the fire."

He gave a sheepish grin before diving into his pocket and pulling out the purple cigarette lighter.

"I thought so," she said.

Due to the questioning look on his face, she felt she should elaborate, "You should note that we do not tolerate smoking here at St. Albus'."

"Oh, no," said James. "I don't smoke."

"If you don't smoke then why on earth do you carry a cigarette lighter?"

"To set things on fire," he explained with a shrug.

"Well, that's terribly comforting," she said dryly. "I would like to know what on earth possessed you to set your own files on fire."

"Well..."

"I suppose it never crossed your mind that I might have read your records extensively before admitting you to this school?" she put to him.

"Ah."

"Ah indeed, Potter," said McGonagall. "I assume there were certain documents in here which you were ashamed of?"

James gave a small nod.

"Which is understandable, given that you have a clear history of... well bullying, for want of a better word."

"Now, Miss," he grinned, "I don't know what would've given you that idea. I've always been terribly popular, never been bullied in my life."

"Which has obviously left you with a very healthy level of self-esteem, but we both know that's not exactly what I meant."

"It wasn't?"

"No."

"What exactly did you mean then, Miss?"

"What I meant was that you seem to have caused a lot of trouble for the other students at your previous school," she explained.

"You could say that."

His arrogant grin remained but anyone with any sense could see that this conversation had entered a rather uncomfortable area for him.

"Don't look so worried," she said. "Whatever you did at your old school, though taken into consideration, will not affect your time at St. Albus'."

"Really?"

"Well, of course if you were to continue the behaviour you demonstrated at your previous school then perhaps we might have to revisit these records." She shot him a meaningful look. "I don't expect to have to though. Are we clear, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes Miss," replied James.

"Good," she remarked, pushing aside the file. "Now, I understand you'll be staying with your Aunt?"

"Yes."

"I trust that she'll keep you in line."

James chuckled, "My Aunt Angie is a good cook, not the best guardian."

"How so?"

"Well," he began seriously, "I once spent a summer with her in Cornwall and five girls ended up pregnant."

While he cracked a smile at his own joke, McGonagall certainly did not.

"Potter, while your future classmates might appreciate your humour, the staff will not."

"Noted."

"I expect to see a drastic change in attitude when you return to us in September."

"What attitude would you prefer?" he inquired.

"Respectful would be best."

He screwed up his face in contemplation before shaking his head and saying, "I'm sorry I don't stock that. I can give you cocky with a dash of enthusiasm."

"Potter, I will see you in September."

"Yes, Miss."

James stood up and made to leave.

"And, Mr. Potter," she called, forcing him to linger a second longer. "A change in attitude please."

James gave her a quick wink before closing the door behind him.

McGonagall's office had been so dark that James' eyes became overwhelmed by the sunshine. After blinking a few times, adjusting to the sudden daylight, his eyes immediately found the pretty redheaded girl. She was not accompanied by the girls she had been with earlier, but was instead in rapid conversation with a boy.

Not just any boy, but a boy with a truly horrifying face.

The boy had a large, hook nose and very long, black hair that looked as though it had neither been brushed nor washed since his birth.

James smirked as he noticed the scowl the girl was wearing. She was clearly not impressed with his horrifying face either.

Giving a small shudder, James brought his gaze back to the much more pleasing picture that was the pretty redhead.

The redhead, whose name was Lily, was arguing with the unattractive boy, whose name was Severus and also happened to be her best friend.

"It's not that I have a problem with them," she sighed. "It's just that I don't like what they're doing to you."

"They're not doing anything to me, Lily. I can make my own decisions," replied Severus.

"I'm not saying that you can't, but they're changing you, Sev."

"They're not as bad as you think they are. If you'd just give them a chance-"

She laughed out loud at that.

"I'm not joking, Lily."

Lily raised her eyebrows, challenging, "So you're saying in all seriousness that I should attempt to be friends with these people?"

"Y-yes," he stammered.

She gave another laugh of disbelief.

"Sev, these people look down on me. They look down on all of us locals! The other day Avery called me a grot."

"I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it."

"Except that I'm grotty?"

"Lily, you can't take everything they say so personally. They're nice people, I promise."

She rolled her eyes.

"Come on!" he persisted. "Don't you trust my judgement? I thought we were friends. Aren't friends supposed to trust each other?"

For a second it looked as though he was wearing her down, if only he'd kept his mouth shut.

"Besides," he continued, unknowingly screwing himself over as he did so, "They accepted me didn't they?"

"Yes, but when, Severus?" she snapped. "Not until your parents-"

"Lily, don't" he warned.

"What? You know it's the truth! If your dad was still around they'd still treat you like the rest of us."

With the silence that followed, Lily looked down at the floor and bit her lip. Severus, on the other hand, allowed his gaze to wander away, searching for some way out of the awkward aftermath of their argument.

What he saw did not make him feel any better.

A boy who he had never seen before was staring at Lily. His Lily. The stranger caught Severus's eye and received a sullen scowl. He didn't like boys staring at Lily.

The stranger did not scowl back and so, for a few moments of blissful ignorance, Severus allowed himself a flush of pride. This was soon knocked out of him, though. As the stranger walked past, he allowed his shoulder to collide with Severus' and almost sent him to the ground. He was rescued, however, by Lily, who had managed to grip onto his wrist and keep him from falling.

"Filthy git," spat Severus, glaring after the stranger.

"I'm sure it was an accident," said Lily bitterly, dropping Severus' wrist as soon as he was stable.

As soon as the words left her mouth she saw James Potter turn and make an obscene hand gesture, yelling, "Wanker."

"Then again," she mused, frowning after him. "Maybe not."

AN: Thanks so much for reading

Reviews are always welcome.