This story has NO relation to the Legacy series. In fact the characters and their actions are VASTLY different. Do not be surprised.

I was really fighting writer's block on my After the War series and this idea popped into my head. I would like to see it play out!

This is in varying POV though mainly in James'. If it is someone else's I will notate it!

Chapter 1

Blowouts, Buddies, and Back Home

He was so pissed that his head hurt. How in hell could she be mad at him when Snape was the one that bloody called her a mudblood? He hadn't done a damn thing to her ever and she was always mad at him. He couldn't do anything right by her standards.

Something of his thoughts must have showed on his face because he felt his best friend and brother smack his back affectionately.

"Cheer up mate. Evans is just being a bitch as usual. I don't know what you see in her honestly." Sirius said as he swept his dark hair from his eyes.

James closed his hazel eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

"Sirius," Remus chided. "She isn't a bitch, you two just drive her crazy. And honestly to you really think asking her out in the middle of the only class she has trouble in was the way to go? You have to come up with smoother ways Jamie."

Again James shrugged as if he didn't care. He hoped they thought he didn't care.

"Well I think she is being ridiculous. I mean James practically has his own fan club. He can get half the girls in the castle and she is this stubborn" Sirius replied as he turned to watch two particularly pretty girls walk down the hall.

"Hey beautiful, I don't have detention yet tonight, how about we meet in a broom closet…Say 8, on the 4th floor?" he called, smiling as the one with short blonde hair giggled and nodded her head.

"Was that even the one you were talking to?" Peter asked in a quiet voice.

Sirius shrugged and continued his lazy walk towards Charms.

"Sure, whichever one shows up, doesn't matter to me."

James and Peter rolled their eyes and Remus glared at him from the side.

"You are terrible, you know that right."

"It isn't like it matters. I am 16 they don't want to marry me Remy, they want to snog me. I know it they know it. Does anyone actually thing that I Sirius Black want to be in a relationship that takes longer than a detention? Who has that much time?" Sirius replied as he turned into Flitwick's corridor.

The three remaining marauders said nothing, though James looked quite thoughtful behind his glasses.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Lily's POV

That evening the common room was crazy. Today had been the last lessons of their 5th year and everyone was overly hyper. Even Remus Lupin was bouncing around like he had been given a silly solution, everyone that was except a certain messy haired menace.

Lily frowned as she watched him stand up and walk away from his friends and towards her. She could feel her blood starting to boil just as she could see his friends watching him, shaking their heads morosely. Merlin didn't he get sick of this, was he put on this planet to torture her?

He walked up to her table and opened his mouth to speak after running his hand through that dreadful head of tangled hair. Before he could speak Lily lost her temper.

"Seriously Potter? Can we stop this please? I am so sick of this stupid game. I am tired of hearing the question, I am tired of saying no. I am tired of dealing with you. You are nothing to me, you never ever will be. You are nothing but a stupid, immature, little boy and I want nothing, get that, nothing to do with you. Do you know how many times I have said this?

Leave me ALONE! Forever! Don't talk to me, don't ask me out, don't help me, just stay the bloody hell out of my life!" She yelled as she stood up.

She noticed the look of shock on his face. Her best friend Alice's face was a mirror image of his. They both seemed stunned. Though they had to see this coming, he was obsessive. In the silent seconds following her outburst she glanced at his friends. Peter's mouth was dropped onto his chubby chest, Remus had laid his head on the back of the sofa and he was gently shaking it back and forth, Sirius looked ready to kill. She actually cringed at his expression.

At least twenty seconds had passed before James spoke the words he had come over to say, though she had never heard him speak in that tone of voice. It was almost dead, as if he was fighting to hold back his emotions.

"Allie, my mum sent word with Shadow that you are coming to my house off the train. Our parents will be on a mission and you are staying at my house. I was told to let you know since your mum and dad had to leave suddenly without telling you."

He looked quickly at Lily and turned and walked away before turning around briefly with a look that froze her on the spot.

"And yes I do know, 117 times, thank you for the reminder."

Alice looked up at her friend wide eyed and Lily felt embarrassed and ashamed of her outburst immediately.

"Potter…. James! Wait" she called as she watched him turn and disappear through the portrait hole.

She sat back down, her head dropping into her hands as she heard Sirius jump off the chair he was in and rush out of the common room yelling for his best friend. She could feel someone standing over her and she looked up at Remus.

He was and had always been her friend. He had always tried to get James to leave her alone. They did prefect patrol together. They did homework together. And he was leveling her with a look that was unmistakably disappointment.

"I will not be doing patrol tonight. I will send someone in my place." He said coldly before grabbing Peter by the scruff of his neck and dragging him after Sirius Black.

She jumped up and ran out of the room, vaguely aware of her own best friend's presence behind her as she slumped onto the side of her bed.

"Lils…" Alice said reproachfully.

"I know," she replied without lifting her head. "I just, I mean, he is always bugging me! He is so arrogant! He can't leave me alone. How was I supposed to know he was coming over to talk to you and not to ask me out? When does he not ask me out?"

"Well, my friend or not, right now you sound arrogant Lily Elise Evans. James has been my friend since I was born. For Merlin's sake there are pictures of us in the bath together. He talks to me all the time. I listen to you treat him like crap, all the time. I stick up for you and I, never, NEVER say a word about it. But that was uncalled for." Alice replied flipping her long blonde curls out of her face and sitting down on the bed opposite Lily.

"I know, I tried to apologize but he wouldn't come back." She moaned.

"I wouldn't have either." Was Alice's honest reply. "Come on, let's go to dinner. He will be there. Merlin knows that boy never misses a meal."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Sirius' POV

He was in shock. James was missing a meal, an entire meal. They had looked everywhere but in a castle this size there was no way to find him. Damn it if they had only perfected the map already. They had been working on it for a while but they still hadn't figured out how to track everyone, or to make it retain their memories. So far they had the entire castle, all of the passages, and there were a ton of footprints walking about but no one knew who the prints belonged to.

James never missed meals, no matter what. He had even snuck out of Pommy's hospital wing to make it to dinner once. Stupid Lily, he couldn't understand what he saw in her. Sure she was pretty, really pretty but there were tons of pretty girls at Hogwarts. This was getting ridiculous.

OoOoOoOoOoO

Still Sirius' POV

"James, please, just…" Lily was cut off as the door to the compartment slid shut in front of her face with a snap.

Remus looked up quickly when he heard the snap of the lock and frowned at the sight of Lily through the glass…

"James…" He started before Sirius cut in.

"No, Rem, just no." he said with a firm look at their friend.

This was the first they had really seen James since last night. He hadn't come back to the dorm and he had only met up with them right before they left out of the castle. It was a huge show of trust that he had known his three friends would pack his trunk for him. He smiled half heartedly at the sleepy face of his best friend.

"Are you ready to go back home?" he asked.

James pulled his shoulders up in a shrug.

"No one is going to be there but Allie and I… Well and the house elves but that is pretty much it, unless y'all come over I am not looking forward to much. What about you?" He mumbled, obviously trying to keep the subject away from why he had been absent for the last 12 hours.

"Prongsie, you are spending your break alone in a big house with a girl…A hot girl…A single, hot, girl! Alone, all alone, I think you should think on the bright side of this situation. At least you aren't coming to my house. My dear mum is out for my blood after we got Lucious and Reg suspended. I may not live to see tomorrow. This is going to suck." Sirius replied as he laid his head back against the cool leather.

"First off, that is Alice you are talking about. That is gross, and her older brothers Fabian and Gideon might kill me if I mess with her.

Secondly, maybe you can sneak away and come to my house. I don't know how long it will be just the two of us. How about you Rem?" James said silently hoping his best friend wouldn't end up bruised this summer.

Remus shrugged, his shaggy blonde hair falling into his stormy gray eyes.

"I don't know, Da will be there, I guess that is good. I don't know if I will get to see maman or not. She hasn't come around much these last few years." He said guiltily while looking out of the window at the falling rain.

Sirius knew that Remus felt guilty for his mother leaving his father and him. He felt like it was his fault, the werewolf had forced her to a new life and away from the horrors in her old one. France was not the place Remus thought of as home anymore.

"Er….Pete, that just leaves you." Sirius said trying to awkwardly get the subject away from his friend's pain.

"I think we are going on a family vacation….Somewhere in the north. Just what I wanted, to spend the summer in the cold." The small boy replied bitterly.

oOoOoOoO

After realizing that all of their summers looked pretty dismal the rest of the train ride passed in a quiet manner, with Peter actually battling hard in a chess match against Sirius, Remus doing what Remus did, reading a book, and James staring quietly out of the fuggy window.

It didn't take long before they had pulled up at the platform and the four boys were pulling their trunks off of the racks, and heading off the train back into their separate homes.