"Are you certain they haven't arrived yet?" I asked Remus, who sat next to me at breakfast. "That they haven't already eaten and left?"

"Positive. James and Sirius insisted on being here from the very beginning of breakfast so that we'd be sure to see them when they came."

I shrugged. "I didn't think so. I honestly doubted they'd have come earlier anyway."

"Were they still sleeping when you left the dormitory?" he asked me.

"When I left they were... but I went down to the common room and... sort of got... distracted." I lifted up the current book I was reading. "To be fair, I was only planning on reading one chapter, but I got lost in it."

"I get it, it happens to me sometimes," said Remus.

"Anyway, for all I know, the girls could've crept down here without me knowing. Honestly, though, I knew they most likely hadn't. Having been roommates with them for the past five years, I know that Marlene loves sleeping in. You should see what happens when they try to wake her up... Not a nice sight. But I also know that they always come down to breakfast together, so they could be a while."

"Well I certainly hope they don't take too much longer... These three are getting impatient," Remus whispered to me, his eyes cutting to the other three boys, who were engaged in a conversation of their own. "James hasn't torn his eyes from the Entrance Hall since breakfast started. It's almost like he's anticipating the ways in which the girls are going to murder him... and especially Lily..."

He and I sniggered; Sirius and Peter looked over to see what we were laughing at, but James didn't notice at all.

My eyes darted to James, who, as Remus had said, was staring at a fixed point near the front of the Great Hall, unblinking. He looked anxious and excited at the same time.

I turned back to Remus. "Maybe he lives for the thrill," I suggested, shrugging.

"The thrill of being killed?"

"Yeah, definitely, that sounds cool. After all, we are talking about the guy who once said that the threat of death makes everything more exciting... Remember when he said that after we forbade him to sneak into Hogsmeade during our first night at Hogwarts?"

"Oh, how could I forget?" He broke off suddenly and nodded his head towards the entrance.

We all perked up the minute Lily, Alice and Marlene appeared in the doorway, walking through the Great Hall straight to their usual seats at the Gryffindor table. They weren't too far down the table from us, so when we spoke we had to do so in whispers.

The five of us watched them carefully, but they didn't seem to be acting out of the ordinary. Marlene was the first to sit and immediately began stuffing her face with food; Lily made a face at Marlene's bad manners and said something to her, causing the two to giggle; Alice greeted Frank and settled down next to Lily.

"Why aren't they scratching?" Peter asked impatiently, his fingers drumming against the table. He shovelled some breakfast into his mouth with his other hand, chewing and mumbling something else with his mouth full.

"Give it a minute," said James, putting his head in his hands. "I am confident that we did not screw this up."

We waited and waited and waited, and just as I began to think that perhaps the Marauders had miscalculated something with their prank, Marlene scratched her arm.

"And so it begins," said Sirius, a smug smile on his face.

It took only a few minutes for the other girls to begin scratching. At first, they didn't seem to notice that they all had the same problem, but when the itching became more frequent was when they started to worry. I opened my ears to their conversation, knowing that James, Sirius, Remus and Peter were all eavesdropping as well.

"Why am I so itchy?" Alice complained. "It isn't just me, right?"

"No, same for me," said Marlene, scratching her neck. "I feel like I've got an allergy or something. But if I was allergic to something, we wouldn't all be feeling the same thing..."

"Do I have a rash on my arm?" Alice asked, holding her arm out in front of Marlene's face.

Marlene looked at her while clenching her hands together as if to avoid scratching herself any more. "Oh... hard to tell, because it's sort of red, but that could be because you were scratching so much."

"I'm starting to feel it too! Maybe we've got bed bugs or something..." Lily suggested, shuddering. "Oh, that can't be good..."

James snorted and stood up, leaning across the table so he could get closer to them. All three girls were too distracted to notice him until he spoke to them.

"Or maybe," he interjected, sliding towards Lily, "you've somehow caught fleas. I've heard it's flea season..."

Lily glared at him, her green eyes narrowing. "Sod off, Potter."

"Prongsie, I'm pretty sure you must've heard wrong," Sirius piped up, appearing on the other side of Lily. "It's probably flu season."

"Oh, gosh darn," James replied, "I must be getting all mixed up with these damnー"

"James Potter, what the hell did you do?!" Lily suddenly shrieked, interrupting James as she realized before the other two girls that James had had something to do with the itching. She stood up abruptly from her seat as she scratched her forearms frantically.

"I did nothing, dear Lily-Flower. Why would you accuse me of such a thing? Why must I always be to blame when something goes wrong?" James threw himself across the table dramatically. "Why not blame Wilberforce? Or what about Bathsheba? Why must I always be to blame?"

"Don't call me that, and I know you did something! I can tell by the way you're acting that you did something! That's why Remus and Peter were in our dormitory yesterday, isn't it?!" she said furiously, pointing her finger at him accusingly while attempting to scratch her back through her clothes.

"It always works to strip, Evans," Sirius said pointedly.

The redhead looked completely appalled at Sirius's comment and drew her wand on him; Alice and Marlene both turned to look at him.

"OI! You shut up, Black!" Marlene yelled out, letting out a string of curse words directed at him. "Clearly you had to do with this as well!"

"Lils, Marls, we should—we should go to—Hospital Wing first," said Alice, frantically scratching her legs through her robes as she tried to divert the attention of the other two fuming girls. "Ouch, this hurts so much!"

"OHHHH NO, I've got to kill them first!" Lily yelled, trying to launch herself at James while he moved out of the way. She had attracted the attention of many others in the Great Hall, but didn't seem to care at all.

"Evans, really, since I care about your well-being, I would indeed suggest that you head down to the Hospital Wing with your dear friends to get rid of whatever fleas have attached themselves to you," James said, furrowing his eyebrows and giving her a sympathetic pout. "Don't keep the others waiting—that would just be cruel of you."

Lily's eye twitched, but Alice and Marlene were practically already out the door, so she quickly followed them. At the present moment, however, she looked as though she were doing a jig.

James, Sirius, Peter and Remus roared with laughter as Marlene gave one last roar of "I'll get you!" before leaving. I laughed as well, because even though I felt bad for them, I couldn't deny that the entire situation was indeed funny, and the comments James and Sirius had made to the girls hadn't made it any less hilarious.

"Trust the Marauders to make a commotion on a Tuesday morning," I mumbled to myself as the Great Hall grew louder and louder.

Lily, Alice and Marlene didn't show up to class for the rest of the day. I hoped they were all right, but a little itching powder could not possibly have caused them any real harm.

After class, once the Marauders and I had finished all of our homework, we decided to spend the rest of the evening until dinner relaxing in their dormitory.

We used magic to make ourselves some tea and we all sat on Peter's bed, sipping from our teacups.

"Now I feel so prim and proper," said Sirius, lifting his pinkie as he raised his cup to his lips.

"Sipping from a teacup like a good little boy when you're really a huge git," I said, pursing my lips and tilting my head at him.

"You're so mean to me," he pouted. "For your information, I adore tea. I know a lot about tea. I bet I can name more types of tea than you can! There's green tea, white tea, black tea, earl grey tea, oolong tea..."

"Oh Merlin, someone make him stop," Peter groaned.

"...chamomile, pu-erh tea, orange pekoe tea..."

"Mimble wimble," said Remus, pointing his wand at Sirius.

His tongue became glued to the roof of his mouth, which stopped him from naming the different types of teas he knew. James and Peter sighed in relief, but the spell Remus used hadn't stopped Sirius from making growling noises from deep within his throat.

"I keep forgetting that I can just use that one on James in Potions when he annoys me too much," I said to Remus and Peter.

James started to say something, but he was interrupted by Sirius, who mimed breaking his teacup over Remus's head.

"Now, now, Padfoot, good little boys don't pour hot tea over their friends' heads," Remus tutted.

Sirius growled again.

"Fine," he huffed, taking the spell off of Sirius.

Sirius continued to glare at Remus, who broke the silence and said happily, "I'll be right back!" He thrust his cup into Sirius's hand, who seemed to have quickly given up on being angry.

"Is he hiding under his bed?" I asked.

"No, I'm not, Bianca," Remus called to me before sticking his head under his bed and reaching forward to get something.

"Oh, I should've known... Chocolate," I said, my mouth watering. "Remmy, you've really got a never-ending supply, don't you?"

"No one knows how he does it," James stated, throwing his arms up dramatically to show his bewilderment. "He never runs out and has always got some in his pockets, but he still refuses to tell us how he owns so much chocolate."

"I think he has hiding places for it as well," Peter whispered. "Sometimes, when I get hungry at night, I go looking for chocolate, but I can never find where he keeps his stash."

I chuckled.

Remus came back with a few chocolate bars. "All right, I've got white, dark and milk chocolate... but mostly milk chocolate."

He tossed a bar to each of us. I set my teacup down on the nightstand next to Peter's bed, opening my own bar of chocolate and breaking off a piece.

"Ah, there's nothing better than tea and chocolate," Remus said, leaning his head back and sighing in content.

"I beg to differ... Butterbeer and Pumpkin Pasties?" I said suggestively.

James cleared his throat dramatically. "Ehem... Firewhisky and Cauldron Cakes?"

"OK, OK, so we've all got our own preferences," said Remus. "But the important thing is that... chocolate makes everything good."

"Fine, you're right," Sirius responded. "Also, I must say I make a good tea."

"Sirius, it's hot water and a teabag," James pointed out.

"Details, details," Sirius scoffed, waving it off. He let his head fall back onto the pillow.

I broke off another piece of chocolate with one hand, holding the cup of tea with the other. Remus accidentally bumped my arm, causing me to drop the piece of chocolate, which fell... directly into my teacup.

I let out an odd, boar-like scream and jumped up from the bed, wondering where I would find something to use to scoop the chocolate out.

Peter and Sirius were the ones who saw the whole thing happen, but all four of the boys began laughing.

"I dropped chocolate in my tea!" I yelled. "Argh! It's ruined now!"

"Don't be so dramatic, it probably tastes good," said James, grinning. "Come on, try it!"

"But I can't, things are out of order now!" I said, shaking my head. "Chocolate and tea go separate, not together. You're supposed to have a bite of chocolate, then a sip of tea, but you can't have melted chocolate inside tea, it just... it doesn't work! Don't you guys have a spoon or something?" I looked down sadly into the teacup, seeing that the chocolate had already melted.

"You freak out over the strangest things," said Sirius. "Just try it."

I cringed and took a sip, pausing to decide what I thought of it. "This is actually... oddly delicious..."

Peter immediately plopped a couple pieces of chocolate into his own cup.

"Peter, are you sure you want to do that? You already put enough sugar inーah, whatever, it's too late now," Remus shrugged, putting a piece of chocolate in his cup.

"I've started something now, haven't I?" I said. "Cheers."

Going down to the Great Hall for dinner was the first time we say Lily, Alice and Marlene all day since breakfast. James grabbed my shoulders and cowered behind me as we passed by them on our way to our seats.

Marlene looked like she was in a horrible mood, and Alice wasn't smiling as she normally was, but Lily looked fine. In fact, Lily looked more than fine. She was grinning and her eyes had a mischievous glint to them. That was what worried James so much.

"Why is she so happy?" he asked, biting his nails. "I know that gleam... that gleam she's got in her eyes. It's the same gleam Sirius gets before he blows something up."

"So what?" Peter asked.

"Don't you get it, Peter?" James asked, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Sirius and Remus seemed to understand, but I, like Peter, wasn't following. "Retaliation!" he hissed. "She may be planning retaliation!"

"Oh, come off it. Lily Evans, pranking?" said Remus. "I know her... we have prefect duty together. She's all righteous and doesn't like rule-breaking. That doesn't sound right t—"

"Oh, hello boys..." a sweet voice said to the four boys.

I turned around to see Lily standing over them; her face appeared bright and happy. I scooted away from Sirius, who I'd been sitting next to, to make sure Lily wouldn't prank me along with them.

"Remus, Peter... Sirius... James..." she began, her lips pulling back in a smile to display her white teeth.

It was then that I knew something was up, because she never called James and Sirius by their first names.

James gulped as he looked at her.

"I just wanted to let you know that whether you did what I think you did or not... there are no hard feelings, right? Great!" she exclaimed without waiting for them to respond. She turned on her heel, her red hair hitting James in the face and flowing out behind her as she walked away.

"Yup, you're dead," I said to the four boys, nodding, amusement lacing my voice. I patted James's shoulder comfortingly.

***

Author's Note:

This is just a little aesthetic/collage that kavya54 made for Regulanca... I love it, thank you so much!

Anyone who wants to send me something they made, please feel free to Private Message me.

On another note, why the HELL do people confuse confidence and arrogance? I don't get why, when Bianca says something that shows she's confident in her own abilities, I get comments that she's arrogant, conceited and self-centred; but when James and Sirius say something cocky about their good looks or intelligence, those same people just casually shrug it off... Why is it all right for James and Sirius to be cocky, but people consider Bianca's confidence "being conceited"? Is it because she's a girl? Is it because guys can be confident, but when a girl does it she's self-centred?

I don't care what any of you think of Bianca. She's not nice. She's extremely rude, she sometimes says things in hurtful ways even though she doesn't mean it. She knows what she's good at and what she isn't, and though she says what she's good at, she also often makes fun of herself and points out her own flaws, which she is completely aware that she has. She's basically one of those people that you either love or hate... I honestly don't care if, for you, it's the latter because she will never change. If she's good at something, she will say it. If she believes she can do something, she will make sure she does it. That's just the way she is. That's the way I created her to be. It's not my problem if you mistake ambition/persistence/determination for cockiness. It's terribly risky to write about a character like this, because she's not completely lovable, but this is what I wanted to do and I don't regret my decision one bit.

If you're one of the people who commented about this, don't worry; I don't care and I'm not documenting who comments what so I can hold it against them. I've most likely forgotten who said it since I get many, many comments on my stories. Don't worry, I don't hate you. Sorry about that rant. Just makes me angry is all.