It was a sunny and calm day on the grounds of Hogwarts. Well, calm other than the small spat going on between James Potter and a certain redhead...

"Come on, Evans, you won't regret it!" James pleaded.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Fairly sure there's no way I'd possibly not regret going with you."

James just turned back to his friends, thinking he'd persuade her to come with him to Hogsmeade later.

"And Evans rejects Potter for the eighteenth time this term!" Sirius said, mimicking a sports announcer's voice and writing something down in a notebook he was carrying.

"And it's only been less than two weeks since school started!" Peter added.

Remus snatched Sirius' notebook out of his hands and looked at it, sighing.

"Must you keep track of how many times Lily refuses to go out with James?" Remus pointing to the tally marks on the first page, which added up to eighteen. At the top of the page, Sirius' messy handwriting spelled out "How many times will Evans reject Prongs?"

"Of course!" Sirius took the notebook back and flipped to the final page, scribbling something down. Peter peeked over his shoulder, but Sirius snapped the book shut before the boy could see what was written. He did, however, catch a glimpse of the word "Moony" written at the top.

Remus just sighed and rolled his eyes. Turning to James, he said, "You really ought to stop pestering her, you know."

James turned head from Lily's direction to look back at the Marauders. "Huh?"

Remus shook his head at his friend's short attention span. "Lily. You should stop annoying her."

James scoffed. "I'm not annoying her! I'm just repeatedly asking her out until she agrees."

"Which'll be never," Sirius smirked.

"Nah, she'll come around."

Sirius turned back to the notebook's first page, wrote something down, then showed it to James.

He had written an equation. "eighteen times you've asked her out-" he pointed to the first number, an eighteen "-over twelve days-" he pointed below in at a twelve "-is the same as four over three-"

Remus interrupted. "I think you mean three over two. I genuinely thought that you were correctly doing math. I was worried there for a moment."

"Shut up," Sirius muttered. "Anyways, you've asked her out..." he squinted at his equation "...two times for every three days-"

Remus opened his mouth, about to correct him

"I mean- three times every two days! And that means..." he paused and looked up at his friends. "I actually have no clue what I'm doing. So much for sounding smart."

James and Peter started laughing, while Remus just smiled at Sirius' attempt to "sound smart".

"But he's right, you know," Remus told James. "Lily's not likely to be going out with you in the next..." he took the journal, looked at the equation, wrote a few numbers, then announced his final product, "162.43 years. Unless something changes."

"W-what the-" James stuttered, and grabbed the notebook. "There's no way that's-" he glanced at Remus' complicated equation. "On second thought, I do NOT want to proofread that."

Remus frowned. "You can't proofread a math problem."

Sirius looked at it and whistled. "Certainly not that one."

"No, what I mean is the proofreading-"

"Looks like I need to change my strategy," James cut him off.

"Hey! I was talking, you know!"

"'Course I know, Moony. I just didn't want you to get all nerdy!"

"I don't get 'nerdy'!" Remus protested.

The four continued their pointless talk as they wandered around the Hogwarts grounds.

About an hour later, Sirius and Remus were discussing something while James cast random spells at first years and Peter watched. Suddenly, a portal appeared. It was made of swirling black and gold light.

All four boys turned to look at it. 

"What is that?!" Peter asked, alarmed.

"Um... a portal?" Sirius said.

"Well, obviously!" Remus contemplated the swirling doorway. "But to where?"

"Only one way to find out!" James said cheerfully and stepped into the light.

Remus cursed. "Of all the stupid things..." He muttered, right as Sirius and Peter followed James.

"I guess I don't have much choice." He carefully approached the portal.