Hello Fam :)

Happy Reading...

It was 14th February and Lily woke up to a bunch of letters and flowers on her bedside table. The girls in her dorm were already reading them. Marlene, who was the first one to notice her awake, came to sit beside her. "Evans, don't you want to open the list of your admirers?"

Lily rolled her eyes but sat up properly as the other two too made themselves comfortable around her.

"Do you think you would beat Marlene this year?", asked Dorcas.

"I am not interested in beating anyone any year", muttered Lily. Marlene was gorgeous and a pureblood with ancient money. Half of the Hogwarts want to marry her.

Marlene bumped their shoulders. "Why, Evans? Do you only want to win the heart of one messy-haired boy?"

She groaned. It was too much drama so early in the morning. "I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid this year. I would seriously punch his face if he goes back on his word."

"Word?", asked Mary.

"We are trying to be friends", said Lily and skimmed the names of the people without actually reading anything inside the letter. These weren't important when you don't know if you would be alive after the next five years. If Voldemort would be as powerful as everyone was expecting him to be, she could be dead right after graduating from Hogwarts.

"Only friends?", teased Marlene.

"Only friends", she repeated and was pleased to see no letter from the said messy-haired boy.

Marlene rolled her eyes. "If you don't want to read them, why do you go through the names?"

"It would tell me whom to avoid", she said and chuckled when Marlene threw a pillow on her face.

XXX

When they went for breakfast in the Great Hall, they found Remus at the entrance, flushed with embarrassment and discomfort as James and Sirius knelt in front of him.

"Your handwriting is like pearls scattered on the paper", said Sirius.

"Really, guys, my handwriting is like a chicken scratch", muttered Remus.

Lily agreed. For a person who was really smart, Remus's handwriting was the worst. But she thought, he writes fast to catch up with his thought process or the intelligence wouldn't bother about handwriting while gaining knowledge. Sirius and James, on the other hand, actually had the best handwriting. When she asked Sirius once, he had said it was part of their pureblood training.

"As Sirius said, as pearls scattered", said James.

"You blush like a tomato and I really want to pull your cheeks", said Sirius.

"Sirius, you hate tomato", pointed out Remus.

Sirius ignored him, as expected. "You are the most beautiful person on this planet that if we had control, we would hide the moon forever behind a cloud so that the world would appreciate you more."

"I say the muggle poets haven't seen you. Otherwise, they would have written verses on you instead of the moon", said James, agreeing with him.

It was something special to Remus, probably, because his eyes started watering.

"Remus, you skip meals, you fold your socks."

"You help us with homework and you are so bloody brilliant that the world wouldn't ever know what they are missing if they haven't been your friend."

"You are obsessed with chocolates and you curl up on the couch, getting lost in a stupid novel."

"You look so peaceful during that time that we would hide you so as not to let anyone hurt you ever."

Finally, when the tears were freely flowing from Remus's eyes, Lily patted him quietly on his back and Sirius and James looked at each other before grinning at him.

"Moony, honor us with being our friend forever and no there's no question there because you are the most important in our lives", said the both of them, together before tackling the boy in a hug.

Even though they made Remus a blushing and crying mess, this had become a tradition on Valentine's Day every year ever since a girl commented on who would even propose to Remus, looking at the scars that he would never explain early in their first year. Remus had a late growth spurt but before the handsome and confident bookworm was the guy who would think a lot to even voice out his opinions. Lily had noticed him covering his scars with his oversized robes and thought maybe it was a case of child abuse but then Sirius, with a smile so sweet, told her no, it wasn't and he would know if it were. It distracted her into thinking if Sirius had the perfect childhood. Marlene was the one who had told her everything about the Blacks in their 3rd year and Lily had just stood up once she was done and hugged the boy for a good ten minutes. She had considered him friends since then. Coming back to Remus, once they got to know about what the girl said, during dinner, James and Sirius went down on both knees, just like now, and proposed in front of the whole school. Since then, they would sing poetries on random things about Remus every Valentine's Day.

Another sweetest thing about these two was, after Remus, they had started somehow to keep a track record of people, both girls and boys, who didn't get any proposal letters or gifts during Valentine's Day and would write the letter themselves in Lunch. Dinner time was reserved for the perfect closure of the day. James and Sirius would randomly propose to any of the teachers. Last year, when they chose Professor Dumbledore for their grand scheme of events, the Professor laughed out loud and even danced with both the boys under the wary glances of the other Professors.

Admiring the three boys, Lily never noticed the two people frowning from the Slytherin table.

XXX

During dinner, instead of the two marauders, it was only James who was kneeling in front of Professor McGonagall. The other three were sitting at the Gryffindor table as their friend blocked the path of the Professor, preventing her from going to the staff table. To everyone's amusement, the boy also had a bunch of tulips in his hands.

"Potter, stand aside", muttered Minerva, her lips thinning in anger as she looked at the boy but the said boy was unfazed.

He forwarded the flowers to her. "Minnie, I, James Potter, on the behalf of the whole Gryffindor and half of Hogwarts, want to confess that you are an angel on the planet and heaven cried on the day you were born from the pain of parting away from their best guardian angel."

The Gryffindors were trying to control their laughter. It was their head of the house. On the contrary, Sirius had hidden his face behind the morning's daily prophet even if Lily saw him peering over the newspaper from time to time.

"Potter, stand up or I would give you a detention", she warned.

"Minnie, time spent with you is so valuable that I would stay in detention forever with you. But alas, it is a shame, that wouldn't make me a graduate and how can I become someone you are proud to be associated with?"

Beside Lily, Sirius was muttering a silent 'Prongs, no' under his breath repeatedly. It confirmed her doubt that the whole ongoing theatrics was totally Potter and not the collective effort of the Marauders. She winced on looking at their transfiguration Professor. Lily had been one of the recipients of Potter's over-the-top and uncoordinated flirting. It was one of the things she had hated about him.

"Minnie, accept these tulips and my love for you, please?"

Right at the moment, the Great Hall was raining tulips and it was the last straw for the Professor. She pulled him up by his ear and dragged him right in front of Sirius, snatching away his paper. Sirius blinked owlishly at her. "You two, detention."

"What? Minnie, I didn't do anything", protested Sirius.

"Don't fool me, Sirius. Detention. And Potter, you two would serve the detention separately."

If Minerva expected both the boys to protest being separated, James surprised her by grinning at Sirius and the other boy only rolled his eyes. She threw away her hands in exasperation as she walked toward the staff table.

XXX

James returned to their dorm room and found Remus trying to help Peter with some charm. Sirius was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Padfoot?"

Remus rolled his eyes. "Went to see if he could sneak in a snog with Marlene."

James shook his head, laughing. Marlene was the first girl Sirius had shown any real interest in. She was also one of the only few who would totally punch Sirius on his face and call him on his bullshit any day. Yeah, James could totally see his boy falling in love with her.

As if aware of James's inner monologue, Remus groaned. "Prongs, don't try to be a matchmaker. You are terrible at it."

James bumped his shoulders with Remus. "Moony, I am the best matchmaker. Why do you feel otherwise?"

"Do you want me to answer that after what you had said in the Great Hall a while back?", said Remus. "Seriously, Prongs? Professor McGonagall?"

Peter laughed. "It was cool."

James leaned in to ruffle Peter's hair.

Remus swatted his hand. "Peter, not everything he does is cool. Stop encouraging him into even more stupidity."

In reply, James punched his arm. "Your analogies are terrible. Go snog a book. I will help Peter", he told, knowing full well, that Remus needed his rest before the full moon in less than a week.

XXX

Late at night, James was startled to awake when he heard shifting in his bed. "Sirius?", he muttered, as the other boy slipped beside him, buried his head on James's chest, and wrapped an arm around him. James muttered the silencing charm and drew the curtains around his bed before carding his hand through Sirius's hair. "Hey, you okay?"

"You proposed to everyone except me", said Sirius, without looking at him.

James chuckled. "Siri, do I need to say explicitly to you? It's a given that I would love you always."

Sirius was silent for a moment but then sighed. "I know. I just-"

"Hey, it's okay. You can always ask me and I would always tell you that I love you for however long it would take for you to believe me. You are my little brother, Sirius. You are family. You might make mistakes; you might do blunders but I would always love you even if I claim I don't."

"You never claim you don't."

James laughed. "There you are. You already know the answer to your fear." He thought Sirius had already drifted to sleep when he heard him again, a faint whisper as if he were talking to himself.

"Jay, I would kill myself the day you would start hating me."

James frowned and slapped his head. "Stop being dramatic, you idiot. I will kill you and kill myself if you are dying before me."

"Now who's being the dramatic one?", retorted Sirius.

James rolled his eyes. "Who had started being dramatic?"

"Hey, I am a Black. It's our family trait?"

"Shut up and sleep now", said James, before wrapping his arm properly around the boy.

A/N-1: James is totally fun. I might have made him say Professor McGonagall instead of Minnie in the previous chapters. It was the initial idea. Him saying Professor McGonagall and Sirius being the only one calling her Minnie but whom am I kidding? These two always pull up a double act. So, James would call her Minnie too. I would go back and edit my chapters again. 

2. I will tell you what's up with Sirius in the next few chapters. 

3. I was writing my own version of what happened between James and Sirius after Snape's worst memory incident and there was a paragraph where I was explaining why James is important to Sirius. After writing the lines, I felt 2-3 lines can't properly describe the precious friendship these two share so I had ended up writing a whole chapter of around 2500 words and still counting starting from how they met and some important scenes as they grow up. I don't know if I should post that chapter after this one or the next chap. But it would be soon. The problem is I could be posting three chapters during the weekend including this one. Would it be okay? or shall I wait a day or two? Let me know. :)

See you soon. :)