"You're using the mug I got you," James said, gesturing to the cup on the table. He chuckled at the phrase printed across it: 'friends are like bras, close to your heart and there for support'. Anything mentioning the word 'bra' was funny to him. He had momentarily forgot the fact that Sirius had stopped any chances of he and Lily 'getting intimate' due to the ridiculous Remus Lupin replacement Marauder auditions, more focused on grinning because his Christmas present had been put to good use. Lily, however, had not forgotten, but was busy recovering from the image of Frank Longbottom seconds ago being pulled out by his girlfriend Alice, claiming he had wanted to be a Marauder. She was also trying to decipher Alice's statement that marrying a Marauder would be a bad thing...

"Yes," Sirius rubbed the mug clean with his sleeve, "You're a big fat bra, Prongs."

"Harharharharhar, bra! Wait, I'm supposed to be mad at you!" James realized, punching him in the shoulder.

"Ow!" Sirius growled, punching his arm in return. "You punch like a girl, Prongs! Your girlfriend can hit harder than you!" He stuck out his tongue, and his teeth nearly clamped down on it when James knocked the wind out of him, wrestling him to the ground.

Lily watched the exchange between the boys with her nose scrunched. She just couldn't understand the play-fighting of boys. It didn't look like much fun, judging from the wrathful expressions of James and Sirius as they attacked one another, kneeing, elbowing, and whatever possible action to do with a limb that didn't come across as sexual.

"GERROFF!" Sirius cried out, his stomach currently crushed by the buttocks that was James Potter's arse. "Aaargh, you mork!" He kicked out his legs. "You dare let off your bloody derrière gas and I shall make you eat cat pubes!"

"That is grotesque," Lily commented on that particular threat, watching the spectacle with her arms crossed. "James, for the sake of our relationship, remove your bottom off Sirius before I start to question your heterosexuality."

"Just a sec, Lils," James promised. Sirius let off a wail, slamming his fits to the ground like a child in a tantrum.

Peter scooted up to Lily, trying to make conversation. "Isn't it funny how this same scene involving two girls, rolling in mud, would come across as erotic to men, yet this image seems plain idiotic to you?"

Lily arched a brow at such a question. "I don't know about that exactly...I'm kind of getting turned on right now."

At Lily's statement, James and Sirius froze in horror. They took one look at each other and jumped to their feet, brushing their clothes and keeping a fair distance away from one another. James noticeably shuddered, looked at Sirius, and then shuddered once more.

"You'd so French me if you were gay, Prongs. Don't give me that look."

"Mental images, mental images, mental images," James chanted, rubbing the temples of his head. "Make them go away, Lily," he begged. She gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek and he brightened in an instant.

"You know, if Moony was here, I'd probably make the joke of him kissing me to make it all better," Sirius frowned.

"Which leads me to the question of why you are replacing him," James said.

Sirius narrowed his eyes at him, which made James inwardly groan at what inane thing he was going to get told off for doing now. "You'd have known if you'd BEEN HERE," he blew a raspberry at him.

"I have been here," James said firmly.

"No you haven't. You weren't here last night."

"Padfoot," James sighed. "I was with Lily in the hospital wing last night, and I got back late and went straight to bed, here in the Head Tower. You know, the apparent free lodging for your auditions," he ended dryly.

Sirius gave him a look which clearly said that no excuses would save him. "Pete was here." Sirius slung an arm around Peter's neck and tugged him to his side, where the boy squeaked and gasped for air.

"Is that supposed to make me feel guilty?" James enquired. "Pete is everywhere...not to imply you're fat and fill a lot of space, Wormtail. I just mean you pop out of places very quickly."

Peter jabbed a finger to his chest and grinned, "Stealth."

"You should've been here, Prongs," Sirius repeated, shooting him a dark look.

James grinded his teeth in return, "I was with Lily because she was ill, you berk!"

"I'd like to mention that I feel very uncomfortable right now..." Lily muttered awkwardly, holding onto James' arm as she eyed the boys. "Maybe, I should, you know, leave..."

"No, don't leave, Lily. There's no need to feel uncomfortable. Sirius is just being a TWAT."

"Oh, that is it!" Sirius pointed at James. "I am so kidnapping Mrs. Norris and I am going to pluck every hair on that cat and sprinkle it on your Yorkshire pudding!"

"Oh stop with the cat pubes," Lily put up her hand, squirming. "Please, just tell us why you're replacing Remus?"

Sirius looked neither of them in the eye when he answered, "He left us," in a rather quiet mumble.

Lily groaned, placing her hands on her hips. "What did you do wrong now?" she demanded.

"AUGH!" Sirius made the sound of indignation at being pointed the blame. "Why must you papooses always assume that it is always my fault?"

"Because it more than always is."

"Oh, and you're always so perfect, Miss I'm-going-to-run-off-with-a-blonde-spikey-hedgehog-for-attention!"

Lily's eyes bulged. "He's getting on my tits, James," she rolled up the sleeves of her robes, threatening to seize her wand, "Getting. On. My. Tits."

"Maybe I should explain," Peter suggested, interrupting Lily's thoughts of murder, "It's about The Sex—"

"I beg your-bloody-pardon?" Sirius cut in, looking horrified. "Wormtail, I think you're very much incorrect—"

"—dreams," Peter continued. "I hadn't finished, Padfoot. It's about Remus and The Sex Dreams."

"Oh," James nodded, making a sound of understanding as a smile tugged at his lips, "The Sex Dreams about Sirius."

"Why did you just capitalize that?" Sirius asked.

James looked at him peculiarly. "How can you even tell I capitalized in speech?"

"Only people with The Inner Eye can tell," Sirius quoted Professor Cockett and her Divination gibberish, "And plus, your eyes do a little spasm thing." James' start of 'My eyes do what now?' was ignored as Sirius carried on, "Why did you say Sex Dreams as a plural? From what I'm aware, there was only one sex dream, and I don't even know the full details of that... There were noises apparently, and I'm not completely sure how explicit it was or the exact destination...you know, whether it was a bedroom or a bus shelter—but we should probably discuss this at another time..."

"Or never," James added.

"Yes, I'd prefer 'never' also," Sirius agreed, looking embarrassed.

"So, basically, Remus left because he thought spending less time with Sirius would make the nightmares go away," Peter carried on to explain, and Sirius glared at him for using the appropriate word of 'nightmares' instead of 'dreams'.

"I'd think having sex dreams about myself would be rather pleasurable, you know?" Sirius grinned.

"What, dreams about having sex with yourself?" Lily misunderstood. "Oh, you are a disgusting little pervert, Sirius Black."

Sirius looked as though he was about to argue, but eventually sighed. "I'm just going to save five minutes of my time arguing with you, redhead, and just agree," he said, and Lily nodded in satisfaction.

"I don't blame Moony for being scared about those nightmares," James snorted.

"I prefer to call them Flight of Fancies." Sirius glared at James this time for using the 'N' word.

"I imagine seeing Sirius naked would make niffler crap magnetize to my eyeballs, therefore blinding me," James smirked at his own vulgarity.

"But you've already seen me in the nude."

Much staring was aimed at Sirius and James, including the portrait of the Fat Man who opened, shouting, "WHO IN THE WHAT NOW?"

"Sirius," James tittered and stopped almost suddenly. "Shutupshutupshutup," he hissed at him with imploring eyes.

"O-kay," Lily stared back and forth between the two boys, not finding the situation humorous, "I seriously want an explanation to why, James, you have seen Sirius unclothed, now."

"It was for fun," Sirius said, quickly realizing that could easily be misinterpreted the wrong way. "For a bet, I mean. Summer of fifth year, we stripped naked in the Great Lake at midnight...though I swear someone touched my genitals—"

"Before you accuse me, it was the Giant Squid," Peter clarified. "You got sexually abused by a squid, man!"

Looking greatly puzzled, James asked Peter plainly, "Are you high?"

"Frank gave me chocolate." Peter ended it on that.

"Sirius, I can't believe you did all this," Lily referred to the auditions with an awed expression, which Sirius misunderstood for one of delight. "You're just-" Sirius prepared himself for welcomed praise "-a fool."

Sirius had definitely not expected that. He sulked, sticking out his bottom lip. "I wish someone would give me a compliment once in a while."

Giggling, Peter whispered in his ear, "You smell like fresh pine cones on an autumn day..."

Sirius blinked, "Geez, I don't know how much chocolate I have to consume to get to your high state, Pete, but give me some and I shall find out." He made a grab for the last pieces of chocolate in Peter's hand, but the boy shrieked, "No! Mine!" as he stuffed the last chunks into his gob.

"Git!" Sirius stared at Peter's chocolate covered mouth.

"Padfoot, the way you're looking at Wormtail right now makes me think you're contemplating stuffing your hand in his gob to grab the chocolate.Don't do it," James warned. "His mouth isn't like a cookie jar where you pick out a double chocolate chip surprise. You'll get a surprise definitely, of phlegm-y chocolate mush."

Sirius' gaze looked hard with determination, but he eventually gave up. "...Fine."

Chewing happily on his chocolate, Peter stepped out of the conversation, looking over the Remus Lupin applicants forms on his clipboard.

"He doesn't know the rules!" Sirius shook his head at Peter, behind his back, "Stepping in and out of the conversation, not knowing whether he's coming or going. Its plain rude! He can't just go in and out whenever he pleases, like, say—"

"Sex," James finished, looking bored.

"How did you know I was going to say that?"

James shrugged. "I don't know. Simple guess, I suppose. It seemed like an obvious crack, and sex seems to be major topic of the conversation. Speaking of libido," he remembered, "Thanks to you, Padfoot, Lily and I will not be having sex. Insert automatic slap in the forehead by lovely girlfriend-" Lily slapped him on cue "-Thank you Lily, love."

She smiled, flexing her fingers, "My pleasure, darling."

"Oh, are we doing Posh Talk?" Sirius asked excitedly. "Scrumptious! Jolly well done! And tally ho, now!"

"...Yeah, we stopped now, Padfoot."

"Everyone stops once I join in..." Sirius looked in what could be described as 'a funk'. "I hate it when that happens..."

The portrait of the Fat Man interrupted their somewhat digressing conversation. "The applicants are getting kind of boisterous outside here!" he shouted over some impatient voices in the corridor. "Do you want me to send the next one in?" he asked Sirius. Sirius was about to answer with a "yes" and a royal wave of the hand, but James clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Tell them the auditions are cancelled and to get back to their common rooms, Fat Man," James answered instead.

"Oh." The Fat Man looked surprisingly disappointed. "Alright, then." The portrait shut and the group could distinctly hear a polite yell from the Fat Man of "GET LOST!"

"What are you doing?" Sirius asked, once he'd managed to unclamp James' hand of his mouth. "We haven't finished seeing all of them yet!"

James now understood what it felt like to be Remus, trying to handle Sirius' insanity. In any normal occasion, if Sirius' psychosis got a little too much too handle, he would dump the potential St. Mungo's patient on the poor lad Remus and go play some Quidditch. Unfortunately, their werewolf pal was gone, and James had the distinct feeling he was going to play babysitter for a while.

"Lily," James massaged his forehead in a Remus Lupin fashion, "Do you think you can leave me and Sirius alone for a bit? I want to talk to him in private...guy talk, you understand?"

She eyed him suspiciously. "You're going to murder him, aren't you?" Sirius was quite offended to find slight glee behind her suggestion. "I just want to make sure so I won't be surprised to see your Azkaban picture in the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning. Don't worry though; I can give you an alibi and everything. If they ask, we were baking together."

James chuckled, finding her automatically cynical thoughts of assassination rather cute. "I'm not going to murder him, Lily. I love him like a brother," he said, though unsavorily, and saying the 'unfortunately' part in his head afterwards.

"Aw, shucks, Prongsie!" Sirius wiped a fake tear and stepped forward to hug him.

"Touch me and I will tell my parents."

Sirius backed off.

"I know," an idea sprung to Lily and she nodded to herself, "You're going to discuss penis sizes, aren't you."

"We're not going to discuss our manhood."

To say Lily was stunned was an understatement. "Bu…that's all you ever talk about," she stated.

James kissed her forehead. "I'll see you later."

"Alright..." Lily looked a little worried, but made her way to the portrait. Noticing Peter out of the corner of her eye, she asked kindly, "Do you want to come, Peter? We can go feed the Giant squid mouldy bread if you want?"

Peter looked up from his clipboard and smiled. "No thank you, Lily. I have applications to look over." He tapped the parchment.

Lily was quite sure she heard James dismiss the auditions as over, but shrugged, stepping through the portrait hole.

"I suppose we're going to have to pick a Moony from the people we've seen this morning," Sirius told Peter, while James looked at him with an incompressible expression. "Which means we'd have to pick from...well, Frank, really. Personally, I think Frank's the best since he's less scary than the others—"

James halted him with the palm of his hand. "Are you even listening to yourself?"

"Yes, that's what ears are for, Prongs."

James glared at him. "This isn't the time to be a smart arse, Padfoot. Are you taking note of what you're saying? This is the most idiotic, not to mention selfish, thing you've ever done!"

"Selfish?" Sirius spat indignantly. "I'm not the one who buggered off! Blame Moony!"

"You're hardly making the situation any better, Padfoot!" James threw up his hands. "Bleedin' hell, one of our best friends of six years, aMarauder, has left us to go on a break to sort out his head for a while, and you're setting up auditions to replace him! How do you think he's going to feel once he hears of this? It's just going to drive him more away!"

"I'm just facing up to the reality that maybe he won't come back."

James furrowed his brow. "Of course he's coming back," he said firmly.

"Oh really?" Sirius replied, aloof. "How do you know for sure?"

James faltered a bit. "He just will, alright."

"Maybe I don't want him to come back," Sirius continued with a scowl. "Maybe if he's so prepared to drop us all of a sudden, he should just stay away for good."

"How can you say that? We're the only friends he's got!"

Sirius crossed his arms, growling, "Were."

James parted his mouth in confusion. "Were?" he repeated. Instead of asking Sirius what he meant, he asked Peter instead, "Wormtail, explanation to Sirius' folly please?"

Peter looked up from his clipboard. "Sirius is now talking in past tense whenever he mentions any means of friendship with Remus."

James smacked his forehead, on the brink of laughter. "You have got to be kidding me," he muttered low under his breath. He looked suddenly stern when he talked next, remembering Frank Longbottom. "You think slapping some props and accessories on a stranger will replace a friend of nearly your whole Hogwarts life?"

The question lingered in the stillness of the room. Sirius looked intently at James, before looking elsewhere.

"Yeah," he answered eventually.

"So you'd easily replace me with a visually impaired guy with messy hair?" James wondered, unsmiling.

"Well we might actually have to do that with the amount of time you spend with the redhead lately—"

James shook his head in frustration, knowing exactly where this conversation was going. "She's my girlfriend, Padfoot."

"Yeah, I know," Sirius understood. "But you should save time for your friends too."

"I do, and we're not having this same discussion again." James turned defensive. "What is your problem with Lily? Do you not like her?"

"No, no, she's a lovely bird and everything," Sirius trailed off quietly, and James urged him to say what was in his mind. Sirius sighed, giving in. "Well, come on, you have to admit, she isn't exactly nice to me is she?"

"I find her slight animosity towards you understandable somehow."

"Slight?" Sirius scoffed. "First day back, she impales the heel of her shoe into my forehead," he pointed to the small, fading scar on his fetching forehead, "Coincidence, I think not."

James laughed, "That was an accident and you know it!"

"Well...maybe," Sirius admitted. "But what about her constant insulting of 'wanker' directed at me?"

James laughed again. "You find that name affectionate. You told me! Not to mention you went through a brief period of calling her, rather loudly, 'VAGINA'."

Sirius made rather shifty eyes. "I just don't like it when she calls me 'wanker' in public places, you know," he murmured. "It implies to the other ladies that I masturbate on a regular basis or something—"

"And?"

Sirius pinched his finger to his thumb. "You are this close to not having green eyed, messy haired children, Prongsie." James took the threat extremely seriously.

"I'll talk to her, if you want," James shrugged, trying to appear sympathetic. "I'll tell Lily to make more of an effort to be nice with you." Sirius nodded eagerly, as though he was never in the wrong. "And you likewise, Padfoot," James added sternly. "Don't think you're not to blame here; associating her by the colour of her hair and nothing else does not do wonders for our relationship, to be frank. If she's not in the snogging frame of mind it's probably because you've somehow put her in a mood by annoying her."

"Or maybe the idea of snogging you makes her want to vomit." Sirius winced the second he blurted out the comment.

"There you go again: not thinking before you speak. Its remarks like that which gets on her nerves."

"Yeah, I'm sorry, its years of automatic retorts against Slytherins. Can't stop the almighty lips."

Peter eyed his two friends exchanging discomfited glances. "I think it's time for a Marauder group hug!" he said, spreading his arms out wide. As he stepped forward to embrace his two friends, they simultaneously took two steps back.

"You did not just say what I think you just said." James eyed Peter's outspread hands with a judder.

"I have lost all respect for you, Wormtail," Sirius informed.

"No, really, hugging makes all hostility go away," Peter said, gesturing them to come forward. "Come on, let's try it. It's always good to try new things—"

James immediately scowled at that phrase. "Yes, but we are not a couple of thirty years marriage, lacking fun in the bedroom," he remarked.

"Last time I was hugged, the hugger stuck a sign to my back saying 'Kick me if you think I'm a poof...or just plain kick me for the fun of it'," Sirius retold the memory, wearing a frown. Silently, James giggled, and Sirius glared at him in return; James had been the hugger.

"You'd think after the second kick, you'd be suspicious," Peter said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, but I thought it was some kind of new tradition, like pinching and punching people on the first day of the month! You know," Sirius punched Peter in the shoulder and he fell ungracefully on the couch, onto his stomach, like a rag doll, "Pinch, punch, first of the month!"

"There was no need to demonstrate it," James rolled his eyes as he helped Peter to his feet; "We did know what you were talking about. If we don't automatically comment on something you say within two seconds, it doesn't mean we don't understand." James suddenly thought of something, "Was it even the first of the month that day?"

Sirius shook his head, unsavorily, "Nope, the twelfth. I admit, I was debating the idea of a new ritual of: 'kick in the backside and laugh at Sirius Black, it's the twelfth of the month'." He eyed Peter who was especially pouty after the batter, and had outspread his arms hopefully again, thinking they'd change their minds. "No Wormtail."

Peter huffed. "I think the males who refuse to hug other males are the ones who are unsure on their masculinity."

Sirius immediately looked wide eyed, while James pointed and laughed at him.

"Merlin damn it, you bloody women. Give me a damn hug," Sirius ordered. "But a manly bear hug. A heterosexual hug. With masculine thumps on the back."

Awkwardly, the boys did the customary actions involved in bear hugs and dusted themselves off after.

"Not a word to Lily about this," James told his friends, looking sheepish. "She already questions our close friendship."

Sirius sighed, laughing inwardly at how he, James, and Peter were positioned in a corny triangle of friendship all of a sudden. "So...and then there were three, eh?" he said sadly. "I don't like the Marauders being a trio. It's not right; the Marauders are supposed to be a foursome..." He looked upwards, analyzing that sentence, and backtracked. "Let me rephrase that: the Marauders are supposed to have four members. This isn't right."

James silently agreed. "I have to admit, trios normally consume of two boys and a girl."

"It's decided, then. Pete, you will have to be a girl," Sirius proposed.

Peter looked horrified. "But...I don't want a vagina!"

"Nor did Eve in the Garden of Eden, but you didn't hear her complaining, did you?" Sirius retorted.

"No," James disagreed, knotting his brow. "I'm pretty sure she nagged to Adam. Girls like to nag, and all."

"...I'm so glad you said that when Lily wasn't present," Peter commented.

"Hell, me too," James agreed. "I think...I think I can physically feel her kicking me in the balls right about now, from the other side of the castle, telepathically, at that sexist comment."

Sirius was still headset on the idea of the Marauders not being a foursome. "We can't be a trio, damn it. It's not how it works. Everyone knows-" James mentally prepared himself for Sirius revealing something he did not know "-there's a trio with a girl, and one of them ends up banging her brains out." He looked at Peter, and he squeaked in return. "Oh, hell no," Sirius said.

"As much as I'd like to ramble all day about crude subjects of banging, one of us needs to leave," James said simply. "Seriously, my brain can only handle so much babbling. It's on mental overload."

"Oh." Sirius grabbed his bra mug. "I was going to leave anyway," he mentioned, gesturing to the portrait exit. "I'm gonna go to the kitchens and top up my drink with some tea."

James eyed him skeptically. "...You're going to fill up that mug with water and fling it in Slytherins' faces, aren't you?"

Sirius gawked. "Am I that predictable?"

"No, I just know you too well," James grinned. "See you later." James and Peter waved off Sirius as he climbed through the portrait hole. James' gaze lingered on the portrait for a few seconds, before he turned to Peter. "I'm not sure if he's really okay about the Remus thing, Wormtail. Follow him, will you?"

"No."

James nearly coughed on his own phlegm. "What do you mean no?" Although he was used to Lily Evans telling him 'no' on a numerous number of occasions, hearing it from Peter was a different matter.

"No, I have to look over applicants," Peter tapped his clipboard.

"Jesus, Womrtail, Moony is not getting replaced! The auditions are off. Now go follow Padfoot!

"...Kingsley auditioned."

There was a brief pause before James' eyes lit up amusedly, "Tell me all the details."