Hello everyone. Oh my God, I know, I'm the worst. My excuses will be at the end of this chapter. For now, let me tell you that I have not abandoned this story, and that I'm actually doing a bit of rewriting to get inspired again, so I will be uploading some chapters again with some new scenes and corrections. I love you all and thank you for sticking with me! (Also, I will be uploading this story to AO3 as well, my username is Tardislocked, so you may find me like that)

"Sirius, I don't like this plan. At all."

"Come on, Remus! Don't be such spoilsport!"

"I don't think this is a very good idea."

"Me neither." Peter's voice was a murmur.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "James, stop it, I know you want to. Don't be a coward."

"It has nothing to do with being a coward!" James yelled at him. "I'm the Head Boy! I can't afford to get into much trouble now."

Sirius' eyebrows raised high. "Much, huh?"

Remus snorted. James glared at both of them.

"Cut the act, mate. Evans is not here, it's not like she's going to suddenly appear and give us all a lecture about responsibility and all that rubbish." Sirius rolled his eyes.

"I'm not acting, and I don't fancy Evans telling us off." James responded indignantly. Since the start of the year, he had tried to live up to his new title; winning Lily Evans' trust was also a perk of the situation. Years ago, he had finally accepted that she may never like him romantically but for the sake of the students of Hogwarts, they should at least get on.

"Ok, enough. Sirius, we're not doing that weird potion. James, we know you're not acting. Peter," Peter winced at Remus' voice. "Just... stay there."

Peter nodded fervently.

"Listen to me; this is not something you two can just debate like that. This potion is dangerous, and anyway, most of the ingredients are not even at Hogwarts." Remus continued.

Sirius smirked. "Well that's why I ordered them about a week ago."

"Are you serious?" Peter asked.

The Head Boy sighed. "Of course he is, do you really think he wouldn't buy dark magic stuff with the money his family has.

"They even have a private vault for that." Sirius shivered and then cleared his throat. "But anyway, this is not 'dark magic stuff', I wouldn't go near that even if Evelyn McGrath gave it to me."

"Not even Evelyn McGrath?"

"Not even her, Peter." That was enough to make them laugh joyously. "No even when Evelyn McGrath is the most gorgeous Ravenclaw to have graced these halls."

Remus crossed his arms. "You said the same thing about Mei Chang last week."

Sirius ignored him. "Back on topic, this is our last year, we were supposed to be interrupting classes with jokes from Zonko's, snogging girls in cupboards, and getting out of school with a little help from my friends." He winked and put his hand in his pocket where the Marauder's Map rested. "But then," he paused dramatically. "James gets cursed with having to be in charge of maintaining the school peaceful and boring."

"Why don't you write to Dumbledore filing in your complaint, then, and shut up?"

"He did send him a letter; you should have read what Dumbledore answered." James answered Remus. "In fact, I'll go and fetch it."

James walked towards the boys' chambers, but just before he could start climbing the stairs Sirius said:

"So, can we do the potion?"

"NO!"

Lily Evans woke up. It was normal for her to wake up at six am, take a shower, dress, do her hair, and read a book until breakfast started.

And today wasn't different. After taking a hot shower, putting on her uniform and brushing her wavy, dark red hair, she sat down on her bed, and opened her old copy of her favourite Muggle book: Pride and Prejudice.

Skipping through the pages, she stopped at the chapter she had been reading the night before, but couldn't finish because a certain group of boys had been yelling at each other down at Gryffindor's Common Room.

The Marauders, as they called themselves, had always being at the top of Lily's black list, especially their messy-haired, glasses-wearing ringleader, James Potter. With his good looks and prankster reputation, James was one of the two most popular guys at school. The other one was his equally annoying best mate, Sirius Black, who had the title of Hogwarts' biggest womaniser and three times winner of Witch Weekly's most charming smile, best body and most beautiful eyes.

The only Marauder Lily, somehow, respected and had talked to before this year, had always been Remus Lupin, whose lycanthropy she had found out last year. He was the nicest of the four, and was studious and mature. Lily had to admit that she had had a small crush on him in her second year at Hogwarts, but after realising he could be as much of a troublemaker as his fellow Marauders, she had given up on him.

And then, there was Peter Pettigrew, who worshipped Potter and Black as heroes, and always stood close to them, admiring their successful pranks. Peter was the shortest and chubbiest member, and was always seen trailing after his troublemaking friends with a face full of wonder that screamed 'I am so lucky to be here'.

Lily sighed. After remembering them, she couldn't read in peace anymore. The person in the bed next to hers stirred and sat up.

"Hey, Lils."

"Hey, Alice." Lily gave her friend a small smile, and watched her get up, and close the bathroom's door.

By the time Alice came out, Lily's friends, Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadowes, and Emmeline Vance had already woken up, and dressed. As soon as Alice put a foot into the bedroom, the three of them threw themselves into the bathroom, shouting at Alice and exclaiming they were going to be late for breakfast and for class.

"You could have woken us up, Lily!" Marlene said as Dorcas tried to comb her hair into a loose ponytail.

Emmeline was tying her tie around her neck. "You are always up before us."

Lily tried hard not to grimace. "Ok, ok, it's my fault. Just hurry up, will you?!"

They finally got ready, and ran to the Great Hall. The Marauders were already there, sitting in front of the only empty seats in the whole Gryffindor table.

Great, Lily thought, now I have to seat in front of Potter.

Lily and her friends sat down and filled their plates with food. The Marauders were so deep in discussion they didn't even notice them. She caught some words like 'potion', 'we said no, Sirius' and 'I want more cake' among their hushed whispers.

"First class today, is Potions." Marlene said huffing. "What potion are we doing?"

"What about Amortentia, that's a difficult one, and Slughorn will be delighted." Lily suggested after taking a sip of pumpkin juice. Alice and Dorcas nodded.

"Alright, Amortentia, then." Emmeline said.

After a short and hurried breakfast they hastily headed to the Potions dungeon, where they sat and waited for Slughorn to arrive. James kept stealing glances at the back of Lily's head, as she took out the ingredients to prepare her love potion. He had always loved her hair, deep red and luscious. It looked so soft he wanted to bury his hand in it and caress it, feeling the long tresses graze his skin...

"Well, students!" Slughorn had just entered the classroom carrying two heavy books. "Today, we're preparing an Advanced potion as I said last class, so get together in groups of four or five, and start."

Slughorn passed every student quickly in favour of walking up to Lily's group and asking which potion they were doing.

"Amortentia, sir." Emmeline said.

"Very good, very good, indeed. You'll tell me how it smells for all of you after you've finished it!"

The girls paled. What? Tell him, in front of the class?

Then, he padded over to the Marauder's table. "And so, lads, what is your potion?"

Remus opened his mouth to answer, but Sirius, with a smirk on his face, put a hand on his mouth, and said firmly. "The Timeless Potion."

James, Peter and Remus gaped at him. Wait, what?

Slughorn's eyes grew considerably big. "Well, I certanly hope you can do it. I can't wait to see it done!" And he bounced to another group.

"Sirius!" James growled.

"You promised." Remus said sternly.

"I never promised. And we know we'll be able to do it! Come on!" Sirius beamed at them. James smacked him on the head as his friend started to extract the ingredients for it from his backpack. Finally, Remus sighed.

"There's no going back now, let's just do it."

They started brewing the potion, and after two hours, the slightly yellow glow coming out of the top of their cauldron indicated they had finished. Slughorn walked to the girls' place, and they prepared themselves for the simple question.

"What do you smell?" Slughorn asked Alice. Frank Longbottom, who was at the other end of the dungeon, raised his head at that.

Alice sniffed. "It's not a flowery smell, but it smells like plants, and forest." Her team-mates smiled at each other. They knew Frank was very good at Herbology.

Then it was Emmeline's turn who muttered, "wood and soil." while looking at Amos Diggory. Marlene murmured hers so low, that nobody but Lily heard. She knew her friend was in love with Sirius, even though he had never shown any signs that he reciprocated the feeling. Dorcas only said "your cologne." to Benjy, her boyfriend, and then came Lily's turn. James, who hadn't really being paying attention until then, tensed.

"What do you smell, Lily?"

Lily took a deep breath and got a dreamy expression. "Cinnamon, and broom shed." She frowned before turning back to Slughorn who was grinning widely.

"Full marks!" He exclaimed and he muttered a spell to clean the cauldron. He continued with the groups, and vanished the potions as he passed by.

So happy was he about the cleverness of his students, that he did not notice Sirius Black taking out a little bottle, filling it with his Timeless Potion and putting it in his robes' pocket.

Later that night, Lily and James were in a Heads meeting in the now empty Common Room talking about the Halloween Ball, since they had been assigned to plan part of it. Being in close proximity, Lily could feel the warmth of James' skin; she could smell his sweet cologne and musk. She could not deny Potter was handsome; she had always thought so, but his attitude had always put her off. This year, however, he had changed. There was something about him that made her really wonder what had happened that had made him different, she wanted to know if it was only because he had finally understood bullying was not funny or because something in particular had opened his eyes at last.

Trying to turn her full attention back to the paper in front of her, she glanced at his friends. The Marauders were around them; Remus and Peter were playing chess while Sirius read a Muggle motorcycling magazine and commenting on their game.

"And... Peter wins again."

Remus pursed his lips and glared at Peter. "Are you at least going to let me approach the middle of the board?"

Peter gave him a smug smile. "Nope."

"I'm exhausted." Lily said yawning.

"Let's call it a night, okay?" James said standing up.

"No, wait! Not yet!" Sirius took out the bottle from his pocket and held it up for everyone to see. They stared at it.

"Sirius, why the hell do you have that? Give it to me."

Sirius gave James one of his famous 'stop being so dull' looks. "Did you really think I was going to let Slughorn get rid of the only perfect potion I've ever made?"

"Black," Lily thumbed her wand on the right side of her robes. "Give the potion to Potter. Now."

"What?" The curly haired teen gaped at her. "Of course not. I'm keeping this for when one of my crazy, Death Eater wannabe cousins try to kill me, which might be pretty soon."

"Give it to Potter!" Lily took out her wand and pointed it at him.

"No!"

And then Lily was yelling a spell, and Sirius was running, and the little bottle was falling from his hand and braking, spilling its contents and tainting the five teenagers who had jumped abruptly when they saw what was happening. The room around them twisted and turned, and they knew no more.

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaay, excuses:

1. I totally forgot about Harry Potter (and that's really sad bc I used to swear to myself that I would never abandon this fandom)

2. I got into tv shows rather than books (yes, pretty much I'm all Sherlock, Doctor Who and all that) (btw, if you like them, I've got a tumblr where I post a lot about that: billywigins . tumblr . com without spaces)

3. I've been incredibly busy with school and now with university (God help me)

4. And I clearly forgot how it feels to be left with a cliffhanger (I'm a terrible person, sorry)

All in all, I'm back! And I will write chapter 14 and post it. I love you all!