**This chapter takes place spread across November! After every time skip it's a completely different day!

The leaves rustled across the quidditch pitch as the Gryffindors lined up awaiting their name to be called by Lily Evans. James had so pleasantly asked her to check in the team hopefuls even though he was set on the idea of having the exact same team as last year.

Kayley Harden, who happened to be a chaser last year, but had since graduated, was the entire reason they had to hold tryouts. James had almost sent her a howler asking her to come back, yet Lily had shut that down before it had even started.

"Annie Potter," Lily grinned as she knew James would be proud of his younger cousin for just trying out.

"Here!" Annie grinned back, then went back to whatever conversation she was having with Julia.

Marlene yawned and took the group of four kids that James had assigned her "because he could" and watched as they flew down the pitch.

"Fucknuggets! It's cold and far too early for this!" Marlene muttered under her breath as the wind picked up.

"Agreed, I'm only doing this for Prongs," Sirius came up behind her as he led his group forward.

Sirius's group was much worse than Marlene's as hers made it back, while his group could hardly get off the ground.

"Merlin's beard," Sirius said rolling his eyes.

"Good luck with that," Marlene smirked as she walked towards Lily.

"Alright, Marlene's group is done! I'm sorry, but you're just not what we're looking for! Good luck with all of your classes!" James shouted over everyone.

"Can we just name Annie the chaser and move on with all of our lives?" She whined to Lily.

"That's nepotism!" Lily responded watching James smirk as Annie was the best flyer, by a lot.

She wasn't surprised because Annie had been flying since she was a small toddler, James had made sure of it. It was hard not to be a great flyer with James's presence around all the time.

"Sirius's group is done too! Make sure to come try out again next year!" He muttered the next part, "since I will not be here."

"I'm cold and hungry, so I don't care about damn nepotism!" Marlene replied visibly shaking from the cold.

"I suspect you won't have too much longer until James calls it," Lily said as Sirius also walked over to them and collapsed into Marlene's arms, who promptly fell over.

"Nice jumper," Sirius remarked from the ground where he and Marlene both still laid.

"Why thank you," Lily responded, remembering she had chosen to wear James's jumper proudly displaying the word Captain.

"Thank you for everyone coming out this morning, the results will be posted sometime later this week," James's loud booming voice could be heard above the whistling wind.

"Thank Merlin! Let's go get some hot chocolate!" Marlene said jumping up off the ground.

"That's a good idea."

...

November chugged on with classes giving off loads of stress, tests, and extra NEWT homework, which proved to be a challenge.

Lily, Craig, and Alice found themselves swamped with work in the library, yet something that was missing was the motivation to do it. So, their textbooks surrounded them as did quills, ink, and parchment, but they just sat and cracked jokes with one another.

"Where's James? Usually he would be dragging you out of the library by now," Craig joked, although he could've been completely sirius because that was something James had been doing.

Ever since James and Craig had been acquainted in the hospital wing, they've been seeing much more of each other. Whether it was in the corridor or in the library, they had quickly become great friends, which was easy to do with James as he was a friendly guy.

"He's at quidditch practice, which Marlene will be complaining about later because I looked over the practice plan and it was pure conditioning," Lily said shivering at the thought.

She couldn't remember the last time she had gone running, minus the times she went with Marlene over summer holiday before sixth-year, but she hardly would call that fun.

"Blimey, why they play quidditch I will never know," Alice responded reading the letter Frank had sent her.

"Secret boyfriend Alice?" Craig asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Hardly a secret, they've been dating since last Hallowe'en and they've been in love since before that," Lily remarked earning a shy glare from Alice.

"His name is Frank and he graduated from Hogwarts this past year."

"And now he's in fancy auror training," Lily spoke with a chuckle.

"Isn't that what your boyfriend wants to do in the future?" Alice asked starting to write her response.

"Yes, he definitely wants to become an auror and I can even see him being accepted into the early training thing that Frank did."

"You really think he will?" Alice asked looking up at Lily, who got lost deep into thought.

If James was accepted into early training, she would not only have to graduate Hogwarts on a separate day than him, but she probably wouldn't even see him for months. She got sad at the thought, but she also figured that they would make it work whatever happened.

"Hello, Lily? Earth to Lily?" Craig said amusedly waving his arm in front of her face.

"I'm sorry, what were we talking about?" She responded looking down at her notes from Transfiguration.

"It's not important, were we interrupting your daydream?" Alice asked smirking.

"Oh sod off."

...

Her broom whirred fast around the pitch, clutching a quaffle to her torso, she winds up her arm to shoot and-

"Annie! It's time for dinner!" James bellowed from the ground.

A smile adorning her face, she flew down to her older cousin, and gracefully landed. Flicking her dark brown braids behind her, she threw the quaffle to James.

"Ready for the match coming up?" James asked locking the ball box up and levitating it in front of him.

"I'm a bit nervous since it's my first one, but I know all the plays by heart and you'll be there, so I should be fine."

She spoke with a surrounding air of confidence that was in her Potter blood. For just a second-year, she seemed far too comfortable with being a starter on the quidditch team.

"Now, when you get out there, they're all going to be talking about how you're only on the team because of me and-"

"I'm on the team because everyone else sucked at flying," she said bluntly making him laugh.

"True, but people talk, so let them. You've just got to ignore them."

"Anything else, Captain?" Annie asked with pure curiosity.

"The Ravenclaws are going to target you because you're smaller than the rest of us, it's your first year playing quidditch, and because I've got beef with the Captain."

"Why do you have beef with the Captain?"

"She's Pete's Potions partner and I may or may not have ruined their potion once or twice, but that's besides the point! The point is, just be careful."

"I'll be fine, don't go all protective older cousin on me," she whined as he rolled his eyes.

...

Bones crack, muscles stretch, and brains change from human to wolf. The pain had started again for the two wizards, which meant it was time for Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs to make an appearance.

Slick, black hair covered the dog, who had whimpered at the sight of his best friend in front of him.

Prominent antlers sprout from the stag's head as boy changed to king of the forest. Hazel eyes searched the wolf's face for even a hint of a trace of Remus, but all he got back was a cold hard stare from both wolves.

The rat scurried under a upturned floorboard as to not get in the way of the four larger animals.

With the first joint howl, the three animagi knew it was time to keep their friends safe. It was time for yet another full moon.

...

James walked around the corridor, almost completely unaware of his surroundings. His eyes were dropping close, the only thing keeping him in an upright position was Lily, who had one of his arms slung across her shoulders.

The full moon had been a particularly tough one, trying to tame two wild wolves was as hard as it sounded. Lily had been up awhile healing Sirius and James's wounds, she had fallen asleep on the heads' couch waiting up for them.

"What's this meeting about?" James asked yawning through his words.

"Don't worry about it! I'll run it, you just stand there and appear to be listening," Lily trying her best to walk quickly supporting a quarter of James's body weight.

The boy in question was trying to process her words, but with so little sleep it took him a few extra minutes.

"How're your ribs?" She asked, eyes filled with concern.

"Sore, but for the most part they're fine."

They walked the rest of the way to the empty classroom the prefect meeting happened to be and Lily let James fall asleep in a chair the minute they walked in.

Prefect meetings were usually every prefect listening to new announcements the heads had, but Lily decided to hold something new where she would meet with a prefect one at a time to listen to their concerns.

So far, she had gotten through all but five prefects with the help of James, who had made the process much less boring.

Talking with the five prefects took Lily an hour, but could've taken less if the prefects hadn't cared so much about James and why he was asleep.

Did you drug him? Why does he have a black eye? Did he not sleep last night? How come you're doing all the work?

She shut down every single one of those questions with a quick counter-question, especially the last one because it was just downright insulting to James, which he did not deserve at all. James had been out all night doing something dangerous and brave, not to mention illegal, and he gets slander, yet they could never learn the truth.

"Love? Let's go visit Remus in the hospital wing," Lily said gently waking James up from a deep sleep.

"I had a dream Sirius turned into a giraffe instead of a dog and he couldn't change back. So, he had to live the rest of his days as a giraffe," he said jumping out of his chair rather quickly.

"Interesting, we'll have to relay that information to him later."

...

One thing that Madam Pomfrey had drilled into Craig was not to ask questions about the patient's condition, not unless completely necessary, but that did not mean he wasn't curious.

Remus Lupin had appeared in the hospital wing at the end of the month ever since the start of the school year, but he was not the only student. Rebecca Cortell would also appear in a hospital bed like clockwork in the same or worse condition. Yet, the weirdest thing is that the other three Marauders also seemed to have wear and tear on those days with them falling asleep in classes and being quiet for once, it was hard to miss.

With that being said, Craig gave Remus and Rebecca their space, only checking on them once each hour he was interning as he was supposed to.

"Hey Craig, we're here to visit Remus if that's alright," Lily walked into the hospital wing with James in tow looking proper loopy.

"Yeah, that's fine. He's behind that curtain over there." Craig responded pointed at a curtain to the left while not looking up from the patient report he was filling out for someone that had fallen down the stairs.

Mary, who had taken this time to visit Remus alone, had heard the entire interaction and had since rolled underneath Remus's bed, in an attempt to eliminate suspicion. Remus had surprisingly successfully choked down his chuckle as they had made it a joke to "hide" their relationship for as long as possible. Their friends were the definition of oblivious.

"How ya fee-"

James hadn't even gotten through his entire question without tripping over a nearby stool and landing on the floor, startling everyone in the area. Craig's head shot up as did his eyebrows and then he heard a string of curses from Lily, which is when he decided to check out what was going on.

"Everything alright in here?" He asked hesitantly sticking his head in the curtain to see the situation.

"Yeah, James just tripped over this stool because he didn't sleep very well," Lily said with a nervous laugh.

Meanwhile, Mary was having trouble not dying of laughter underneath the hospital bed and was praying that she could get through the situation without Lily realizing she was there. It would be far more embarrassing to explain why she was underneath Remus's bed than tripping over a stool.

"Maybe you should take him back to the heads' common room, so he can get some sleep," Remus suggested for more than one reason.

"That sounds like a good idea," Lily replied looking at James, who had now decided laughing on a hospital floor was a good idea.

"See you tomorrow!" Remus yelled out after them and Lily waved without facing them, trying to focus on James.

"Have they gone yet?" Mary whispered with quiet laughter following her question.

"If your friends paid any attention at all, they would've noticed by now," Craig said in a sing-song voice as Mary crawled out from under the bed.

"Yes, but the beauty of it is, they don't."

While Mary and Remus laughed about how blind their friends were, James had had an idea pop into his sleep-deprived brain. What does Lily's ideal future look like?  It turns out, he had accidentally asked the question out loud, so Lily answered after a moment of thinking.

"My ideal future just looks happy, a house filled with laughter. If it were a flower, it would be a sunflower."

"Do I ever make an appearance in your ideal future, Evans?" James asked looking at a very happy Lily.

"Every time Potter, every damn time."

...

Author's Note:

(get ready for a long a/n)

This chapter was supposed to be named nepotism, but then arnoldthe-pygmypuff read my message board wrong and I changed it. 😌✌️

There was a bit of fluff at the end there. :) I hope you all survived lmao

I based their low levels of motivation on my own and I focused some of the chapter on James's sleep deprivation, which I believe would be a real problem for the Marauders sometimes as it is for me. I either get in a very giggly mood or I'm just a straight-up bitch.

Alright, there's some good and bad news. (I'm just going to bluntly put it out there lmao)

I'll start with the good news. We're almost halfway through the book and after they get back from holiday break, there are some exciting plot points. Just please stay patient. 🤠

Here's the bad news, my mental health isn't doing so well for a multitude of reasons that I wish not to share. This means I'm going to take a two-week break from Wattpad just to sort things out. So, that would mean I will start updating again on December eighth. I may come back before the two weeks is up if things get better before then.

If I have time I'll do some writing, I just won't be publishing or posting announcements. I will probably be responding to comments though.

I wanted to tell you all first before I post this all on my announcement board because I feel I owe it to you all.

My messages are always open, but during this time I can't promise I'll respond quickly. ❤️

Lmao anyways thanks for reading
-teddy🦋