"Isabel... you know it doesn't really matter-"

"Shut up, I'm concentrating." I said to Remus and flipped through the pages. I was reading underneath the tree near the Black Lake. Remus was looking over my shoulder, Sirius was working on some homework (well that's what he said he was doing), James was playing with a snitch and Peter watched him with glee.

"I already have these three helping with my transformations-"

"I know, I know." I sighed. "I would just feel better if I knew there was a way I could help. Another way. And sorry Remus, but I'm not breaking the law for you. Not yet anyway."

"I'm glad you're not breaking the law."

"Me too. Isn't there a potion or anything?"

"There's no cure for lycanthropy."

"Nothing at all?? Fine, I will find a cure for lycanthropy." I tied my hair into a ponytail and sighed. I flipped through the book again.

"Isabel-"

"James, can I use your Potions book?" I asked. James looked at me.

"Why can't you use your own?" He asked, frowning. He caught the Snitch he had and pocketed it.

"I left mine upstairs." He sighed and gave me his book. "Thank you." I flipped through the pages rather quickly.

"Hey we have that Potions homework we need to do-"

"And unfortunately I have to do it with you..." Professor Slughorn had told us to list all the Potions and ingredients that we had learned with our partners. Unfortunately, I had to do it with James...

"Isabel, I told you." Remus said again. "There's no potion for lycanthropy." I sighed and closed James's book before passing it back to him.

"Why do you care so much anyway?" Sirius asked, lying down.

"How would you like it if you found out your friend was a werewolf?" They looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "You did find out your friend was a werewolf..."

"You don't have to do anything. You know that?" Remus stated.

"But I want to. That's the thing."

"Oh I just realised something!" Sirius exclaimed suddenly. We looked at him.

"What?" Peter questioned. Sirius sat up and grinned, looking at me.

"In Hogsmede. Remember Isabel?" My eyes widened and I groaned.

"Oh my Merlin no!" I put my head in my hands. "I can't believe-"

"Wait, what happened?" Remus asked. I sighed and Sirius and I explained what happened in Hogsmede, when Sirius appeared to me and the girls in his animagus form.

"Then James came and dragged Sirius away." I finished.

"You were playing with them?" Remus said, holding back a laugh. "And licking them?"

"Yep!" Sirius said proudly and nudged me. I pushed him away and glared at him.

"If I had known it was you I wouldn't have touched you!!" I yelled. Remus, Peter and James started laughing, almost rolling on the floor. "Oi it's not funny!!"

"You do know..." James started in between laughter. "That you were technically... kissing Sirius right?"

My eyes widened and I screamed in horror. "OH NO NO NO NO!!!!" I screamed, almost pulling my hair. The Marauders laughed, rolling on the floor. Sirius put an arm around me and grinned.

"You know you liked it."

"SIRIUS!!" He grinned and ran off. I stood up and chased him around the lake. He laughed and ran faster.

"Remus! Where's your camera??" I heard James ask. Remus rummaged through his bag and grabbed a camera. I continued chasing Sirius as Remus took the photo.

"Hey!!" Sirius yelled, pointing at Remus. Remus slowly put the camera down. I managed to catch up with him. I grabbed Sirius's collar and dragged him back to the Marauders. "Hey! What did I do to you?!" I rolled my eyes and pushed him next to James. Remus, Peter and James laughed. "Ow... hey it's not my fault-" I glared at Sirius. "Never mind..."

He sat up and looked at the girls on the other side. Sirius winked at them and you could hear the girls' giggles.

I sat back down and grabbed my book again.

"Hey look who it is." James said, pointing to the other side. "Something to cheer you up Padfoot?" Sirius looked up and grinned.

"Oh yes." They both stood up and grabbed their wands. "Snivellus." I looked over and saw Snape, sitting on the other side reading a book that was rather close to his face.

"Well I'm going." I stated and started packing my stuff. The two boys looked at me.

"Why?" James questioned.

"So if Lily comes, I won't be the one to blame."

"Oh that's not fair!" Sirius complained.

"Yes it is."

"And we still need to do Potions!" James added. I stood up and started to walk off.

"I'll be in the Common Room tonight!!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I sat in the Common Room on the couch in front of the fire that night, starting the Potions homework. I opened my textbook and started reading through it.

Someone placed something on my shoulder and started moving it, like it was crawling. I froze and bit my lip. I shuddered. The person laughed and the crawling thing was removed off my shoulder. "You really are afraid of spiders aren't you?"

I turned around and saw James, his hand was shaped like a claw. "Not funny. What are you doing?"

"Aren't we working on Potions?" James questioned and sat down beside me, not having anything with him.

"Huh, you actually came..."

"Yeah, why? Is that surprising?"

"Very."

"You thought I wouldn't come?"

"Yep."

"Wow. Anyway I need to go get my stuff-" He started to stand up again.

I sighed with annoyance. "Why didn't you get it before?"

"I was busy." I rolled my eyes.

"Doing what?"

"What do you think?" Then three boys walked through the portrait hole.

"That was epic!" Sirius gave Peter a high-five, grinning. I groaned and leaned back on the couch.

"What did you four do?" I asked. "And Remus you're a part of this?"

Remus put his hands in the air in surrender. "I'm innocent!"

"Sure, sure." I rolled my eyes. "Anyway, what did you four do?" Remus sighed with defeat and walked upstairs.

"Just a small prank on Minnie." Sirius said. I sighed.

"Of course. Now, Potter, go get your stuff." James rolled his eyes and walked upstairs slowly. "Quickly! We don't have all night!" James ran upstairs quickly.

"Yes Mother!" He called out. "Bloody Hell, someone is impatient." I glared at the stairs where he walked off and rolled my eyes.

"I can't be bothered to do this essay." Sirius said, plopping down next to me.

I frowned. "Why not?"

"Well firstly, I don't want to." I rolled my eyes. "And secondly, my Potions partner is Avery. He's in Slytherin, he's a jerk and he hates me."

"You poor child."

"I consider myself lucky. You have Prongs."

"True. It's very upsetting." James came back downstairs with his textbook, a quill and some parchment. "What took you so long?"

"What? Do you have an appointment to go to or something??" James asked with annoyance as he sat down. I glared at him and put my glasses on.

"No! I would just like you to hurry up! Now, the first potion we did was the Hate potion-"

"Good bye." Sirius said and walked upstairs with Peter.

"And the ingredients for that was-" I stopped when James yawned loudly. I glared at him.

"Sorry, this is just too boring, can we do something else?"

"Fine, we'll do another potion-"

He groaned. "That's not what I meant."

"Well quit complaining and deal with it. We're doing the next potion whether you like it or not."

He groaned again and grabbed his book. "There I found the ingredients. We're done."

"No you have to write them down you idiot."

"But I don't want to!"

"Stop whining like a baby and write the ingredients down otherwise at the next Quidditch Match I will tell the whole school that the Gryffindor Captain James Potter is a lazy jerk!!" I yelled and he eyed me carefully.

"Well you already tell them that I'm an arrogant toe-rag-"

"Well you are!"

"I am not!"

"Yes you are!"

"Okay fine! But I'm still not doing this essay!"

"Just do it!!" I yelled with annoyance.

"Fine I'll do it!" James glared at me and grabbed his quill, before starting to write his answers.

"Thank you! Gosh, finally."

A few minutes later, James yawned and put his quill down. "I'm too tired to do the rest let's do it tomorrow."

"We're almost finished!" I stated. "And it's due tomorrow."

"Yeah well can we take a break?" He asked, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

"Fine, we can take a break. But you better not fall asleep."

"You better not fall asleep." He grinned as I groaned and rolled my eyes.

"I hate my last name sometimes."

"No, you secretly love it. So many puns could come from your name."

"Exactly. We better continue this homework before-"

"That was so short!"

"It was only five minutes-"

"Less!" I rolled my eyes.

"Come on Potter. You really don't want to be working on this until 3 o'clock in the morning do you?"

"No..."

"Exactly now do it."

James rolled his eyes and took out a snitch. He let it fly then he caught it. I looked at him.

"Are you serious?!" I exclaimed loudly. James looked at me.

"No I'm James." I glared at him. "Anyway, since I don't want to do this and since I'm not allowed to leave, let's talk about something else."

I rolled my eyes and ignored him, I started doing the homework without him.

"How would I make Lily love me?" James asked suddenly.

"By doing your bloody potions homework." I said, not looking up from my work. "That's probably why she's always with Severus."

James's eyes widened and he looked at me. "What?!"

I nodded, trying not to grin. "Oh yeah. I saw them today in the library, working on their Potions homework. Working peacefully... together... alone." James fumed jealously.

"No, but she wouldn't love him. Why would she love a slimy git?"

"Why would she love an arrogant toe-rag?"

He glared at me as I smiled innocently. James sighed with annoyance and grabbed his quill and a piece of parchment.

"Fine! I see how it is Snivellus." James muttered and started writing down the potions and ingredients.

The next day, in our Potions class, we handed in our essay. Thankfully, James had decided to write down all his answers and was finished before I was.

"Did you and James do the homework task?" Lily asked me.

"Yep." I replied. Her eyes widened and she looked at me.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"But how did James-"

I smirked. "I could thank you really."

"Why? What did you do?"

"Ahh... Jealously at its finest."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That weekend, we were in Hogsmede and we were looking around Honeydukes, the candy store. I had grabbed a packet of Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans - which I was planning on giving all the terrible ones to the Marauders - and some Honeydukes chocolate.

I purchased all the sweets and headed outside with Marlene, Alice and Lily. I started eating the Every Flavoured Beans, being careful on which one I ate.

"Hey look!" Marlene said suddenly. "It's that stray!" My eyes widened and sure enough, the black dog I had seen near the Whomping Willow walked over to us. I groaned silently.

"It came back?" Lily asked. The dog barked at us and I crossed my arms. It ran over to us and Marlene went down to pat it.

"What did you name it again?" I questioned Marlene, knowing it was a name Sirius wasn't very fond of.

"Um... Snuffles." Marlene replied and smiled.

"Right, Snuffles." I smirked at the dog. The dog ran and jumped on me, making me fall to the ground. I screamed as the dog started licking my face. "Oh no no no! Stop! Stop!" 

The dog looked satisfied and climbed off me, before going back to Marlene. I groaned and wiped my face, making a mental note to throw the biggest book I have at Sirius some time during the next week.

"How come you hate it now?" Alice asked. "Before you loved it-" I got up and dusted my clothes, glaring at the dog.

"No! I never loved it. Unfortunately, now I know stuff..." I muttered the last part.

"Well, I still love it." Marlene smiled at the dog as she softly stroked behind his ears. It was actually pretty cute and the dog looked rather happy.

"Of course you do..."

"What?"

"Nothing." If she had known the truth, she would love the dog even more.

The three girls kneeled in front of the dog while I stayed standing. They each took turns patting it, stroking it and playing with it.

"A shame James isn't here..." I stated as the dog started playing with Lily. The dog looked at me, frowning.

"Why would you want James to be here?" Lily asked. "He's going to ruin it." The dog nodded in agreement.

"Maybe he was right. The dog probably does have rabies and is probably harmful-"

"You're sounding like James. It's harmless!"

"Sure sure." I rolled my eyes. "I'm just saying you wouldn't want to catch a disease and that dog looks like it carries a lot." The dog barked at me and I grinned slightly.

"Aww it's okay Snuffles." Marlene said, stroking the dog. "You don't look like you have a disease." The dog nodded in agreement and continued to bark at me.

"What if it did? Do you really want to be sick just because you were playing with a dog?" They stayed quiet for a moment and the only thing being heard was the dog's barks. I glared at the dog. "Oh shut up! Before I buy you a leash!" The dog stopped and frowned.

"Who are you buying a leash?" I looked up and saw James, Remus and Peter walking over to us. "Hey Evans! Go out with-"

"No."

"You'll say yes sometime."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Anyway, who are you buying a leash for?" James asked again.

"This dog that appeared out of nowhere." I pointed to Sirius. James glanced at Lily and glared at the dog. Remus slapped his forehead and Peter laughed. The dog looked at them innocently.

Remus sighed. "You know, that would be very helpful."