Lily looked at Remus questioningly. "Are you absolutely sure?"

Remus nodded decisively, looking like a businessman in the empty Gryffindor common room the two were in. Beyond the closed door leading into the boys' dormitory, loud snoring could be heard, most likely from Peter. "It's now or never, Lil. Pad's birthday is in two days and if you want to help me get my boyfriend something for his 17th, it's this, I'm telling you."

"But Remus..." Lily said rather faintly, "I can't- we can't just go out and commit a crime for it! I mean, look at you! I'm Head Girl and you're a seventh year prefect, Rem, you're—"

"A Marauder, Lily, and a bloody good one at that too. If anyone can pull this off, it should be me, right?"

She heaved a sigh. "I suppose you've got a point. But if we get caught for this, I swear to Merlin that you'd rather be in Azkaban after the hexes I'd throw at you."

His scarred face twisted into a wry smirk. "Well then, Lily, you clearly have never seen the mastermind of the Marauders at work."

<•><•><•><•><•>

Remus let go of Lily's hand and looked around, willing everything around him to stop spinning. Apparation was always rougher on his sort of...people, but there wasn't time to pity himself now. They were on the clock. Stealing a motorcycle was the easiest part of the hastily-planned operation, but the hard part was figuring out how to get the thing back to Hogwarts without anyone, least of all Sirius, noticing.

Nevertheless, Remus Lupin was a Marauder, and if there was one thing Marauders were good at doing, it was wildly improvising until the desired result was achieved.

When he felt Lily's hand on his shoulder in an attempt to steady him, he inhaled and looked around at the place they had appeared in. The two were in a small alleyway, and he noticed that either side of his periphery obscured by two-story brick buildings. It was almost pitch black out, being a quarter past midnight, but a flickering street lamp out of view provided just enough light to see around in. The smell of stale bread and what somehow might have been butterbeer wafted ever so faintly through the chilly night air. "Wh—" Remus coughed sharply, interrupting his own spoken thought, "where is this, exactly?"

"Close to the Leaky Cauldron, I think," came Lily's whispered voice from behind him. So it was butterbeer he had smelled. "I remember there being a car park or something similar nearby, and I thought someone might just be foolish enough to leave a motorcycle there for the night."

"So you're saying someone's about to involuntarily contribute to the Sirius Black Birthday Fund?" He couldn't help but smirk at that. "Blimey, Lily, I thought you would've turned me in to the dementors an hour ago for this, what a change of heart!"

"Shut up, Lupin. Just be glad I'm helping you out on this instead of telling McGonagall." Lily rolled her eyes, but Remus could hear her smile even without seeing it.

"You know Minnie loves us and wouldn't dare do anything about it, especially if it's for Pads." He cut Lily off as she opened her mouth to protest, turning around to face her with an amused tone bordering on finality. "You're not winning this, Lil."

"Alright, alright," she huffed, crossing her arms but only to shield herself from the breeze. "What's the plan here, Rem?"

"Find a motorcycle."

"Yeah, I know, but what next?"

Remus shrugged.

"Remus!"

"We'll get there when we get there. That's the beauty of never planning anything: you never need a plan B."

She sighed but said nothing. Instead, the two walked to the edge of the alley, Remus stowing his wand inside his coat pocket for easy access. He saw the car park Lily had described almost immediately. It was small, yet the few cars scattered within it made it seem larger. The flickering light was originating from a street lamp hanging a little lopsidedly over the lot—not entirely dangerous in itself, but enough to make Remus feel a bit nervous that the whole thing would just fall on them. He ignored it for the time being and focused on the few vehicles present. A white car, a red one, a black one, a convertible, a van—

In the middle of the lot, looking not unlike a gift from the very heavens above, sat a sleek white motorcycle, the likes of which Sirius himself might never have even dreamed of. He blinked, then again, like he couldn't believe the sight before his eyes. Remus didn't know a thing about muggle vehicles aside from the basic function, but he knew instantly this was the perfect thing for Sirius. He quickly took a step into the road toward the lot, as if it were some fantastical hallucination that might disappear should he take his eyes off of it for too long, only for Lily's arm to fly out and smack him straight in the chest. He choked on his spit and stared at her, surprised more than anything, while she looked both ways for a few moments and then let her arm down. She raised an eyebrow at him, like a mother challenging her son to cross her, and the two strode across the street together.

The thick coat of white paint on the motorcycle felt as glossy and smooth under Remus' touch as it looked. The owner had even been foolish—kind, really—enough to leave the keys on the seat. He whistled lowly in sheer appreciation of the thing, taking the keys with one hand and stowing them in his wand pocket, and Lily shook her head at the noise. "Rem, you're just asking to get caught and expelled at this point," she hissed. Of course, he ignored her and continued ogling it. In the back of his mind, he vaguely wondered at how fitting it was that Sirius Black, always the outcast in his family, would soon be the owner of such a pure white motorcycle.

Remus physically jumped at Lily's voice a few moments later, abruptly startling him out of his thoughts. "I take it this is the one that's making it into the Sirius Black Birthday Fund?"

He nodded mutely. "So let's haul this back to Hogwarts and call it a night, then," she said.

Suddenly, Remus muttered a string of obscenities under his breath and groaned. "Bloody hell, Lil, I just realized—it's gonna take us all night and the rest of tomorrow to drag this thing across the country with us, there's no way we're gonna be able to safely apparate while holding onto this."

He expected Lily to share the same shocked disappointment as him, but instead she stared at him blankly as if he'd just told her he wasn't actually a werewolf. Neither said anything for a moment until Lily rolled her eyes, waved her wand at the motorcycle, and muttered "Reducio."Almost instantly it shrank to the size of a teapot and Remus could feel himself turning red with embarrassment. "Who's the best, Rem?" Lily smirked, pocketing the now-tiny motorcycle.

"Well, I'm legally obliged to say that Pads is, you know, but you're a close second right now," he fired back without missing a beat.

"Second is the best, goes the muggle saying," she shrugged.

"Don't tell Sirius that," he laughed, "or else he'll have a fit of jealousy about his sudden lack of importance in my life. Now shall we head back before we run into anyone else interested in stealing this motorcycle?"

<•><•><•><•><•>

With a loud crack, Remus and Lily appeared on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. By her watch, it was a few minutes past one. "That was a bit exciting, wasn't it?" she asked, a sheepish grin spreading across her face. "I mean, a lot of exciting things have happened this year, given the pranks you lot are always doing, but this was a completely different level of rule-breaking! Not to say that it's right or anything," she added hastily.

Remus chuckled knowingly, and the two began the slow walk back to the castle. "Well now if I live the rest of my little life alone because my friends ditch me, it's your fault. Prongs is going to be absolutely furious that we pulled off this little caper together—I reckon stealing a muggle vehicle was next up on his list of date ideas for the two of you."

"Okay, so next time you want to commit a muggle crime you can call up the Marauders and I'll tell my girls, that way nobody gets left out on illegal activities," she winked in return.

They shared a laugh and continued the walk in comfortable silence. The brightly lit streets cast an orange glow over them, a crescent moon hanging lazily in the sky. Stars were dotted across the sky in the blurry formations of constellations, smudged by thin clouds that blanketed parts of the heavens above them. A few minutes later, they reached the Shrieking Shack, and Lily glanced at it hesitantly as the two approached.

"You're not really scared of that old building, are you?" Remus asked, the corner of his mouth turning upwards in faint mockery. "You know the truth, Lil, there's nothing bad in there now. And besides, this is the only way we're going to be able to get back onto the grounds, so unless you want to stay here for the night and potentially miss class..."

"I know, I know," Lily sighed. "And it's nothing on you, I swear—it's just a really creepy-looking building on the outside and I was positive that was something straight out of a muggle horror novel when I was a first year."

He took in the sight of the dilapidated facade that had housed his secret for seven long years, the wood paneling peeling off the side, and some kind of new emotion, a curious mix of bittersweetness and anger and nostalgia, rose into his chest. He cleared his throat and pushed the feeling away. "Yeah, well, we can make it quick."

<•><•><•><•><•>

The door creaked open noisily, but the inside was modestly furnished and maintained. Only a thin layer of dust gave clues as to how long it had been since the last full moon. The walls were painted a light baby-blue, and a couch lined one wall of the room. A round wooden table—or rather the remains of it— lay broken on the floor in the center. Remus smiled slightly as the two passed by it. "Wormy thought it was a good idea to have that ugly thing in here. Needless to say, I didn't like it very much when the full moon came around."

"But it's cozy in here, never mind that," remarked Lily absently, roaming to a wall covered in black-ink drawings and writing and squinting to see it in the dark. She waved her wand, its tip lighting up, and asked, "What are all these from?"

"Just from over the years, really. Some of them are actually quite funny."

She nodded in agreement, her wandlight revealing a fairly detailed sketch of Professor McGonagall captioned "Queen Minnie!!" in Sirius' half-print-half-cursive scrawl, a line that read "ship wolfstar" written by James, stick figures likely drawn by Peter that represented the Marauders, a reminder from Remus that they should all be studying for OWLs that were, according to the writing, only next week.

The wand in her hand paused as she read the next marking on the wall: it simply read "Lily Potter" in James' untidy penmanship. She could tell Remus was behind her, watching for her reaction, and she turned to him carefully. "Rem—when'd he write this?"

The look on his face was hard to read. "Fifth year, I'm pretty sure. Right after the lake incident."

Lily looked at it for a long moment before extinguishing the light on her wand. "Don't tell James I saw that," she said softly, a wave of emotion she couldn't quite identify in that moment filling her.

"I won't, don't worry." Remus's smirk was back; she knew how much he loved having all the secrets to himself.

They crawled through the tunnel and could hear the Whomping Willow swishing peacefully in the breeze above them.

<•><•><•><•><•>

The Gryffindor common room was nearly entirely packed with people waiting to celebrate Sirius Black's birthday, but the Marauders group was currently hidden in the Room of Requirement, which had rearranged itself to become much smaller and cozier. A fire crackled merrily in one corner of the room, and the boys, as well as Lily, Marlene, Dorcas, and Mary, lounged on separate beanbag chairs. On one wall, a banner reading "Happy 17th Padfoot" hung over their heads. Sirius was opening gifts from the other seven, all of them breaking into light conversation between each one.

After what felt like an eternity to Lily, he finally reached the box from her and Remus. Sirius tore the yellow and green paper off it, opened the lid, and very nearly burst into tears, tilting the box so the others could see while he literally squealed in excitement.

The white motorcycle, still in its tiny form, seemed to glow in the cardboard box it was in. The others made various shouts of approval and excitement, and James pouted from his seat. "Come off it, I got Pads a broom and everything and you lot had to go and show me up like that!"

"Boyfriend knows best, Prongsie—better luck next time," grinned Remus teasingly across the room, and the eight of them broke out in laughter.

Another day, the two would regale the others with the full story of obtaining such a gift over a simple lunch in a London cafe, and James would pretend to be jealous (and maybe a part of him wouldn't be pretending) that he hadn't gotten to go on this adventure with Lily, and Sirius would laugh loudly at Remus' witty retelling and brag that he was dating the best guy in the world, and Lily would insert her own commentary about how illegal and against the rules the whole thing was while trying to hide her smug grin. But that would be a story for later. For now, there was a birthday party in the Gryffindor common room to attend to and more gifts from the school to be contributed to the Sirius Black Birthday Fund.