I'll Follow You Anywhere

And owl swooped in carrying a bouquet of red roses. Lora jumped up and ran over to receive the fragrant flowers. She pulled out a small white note and read it to herself. Her eyes grew big as she closed the letter and set it back amidst the flowers.

"Who's it from?" Lily asked curiously.

"My masked man," Lora replied, giggling as she said it. While Lily and Lora read over the note together, James looked at me with a confused expression on his face.

I just smiled and winked at him.

-19-

"We shouldn't be in here, Lora," a quiet voice spoke as footsteps padded across the old stone floor of the boy's dormitory.

"Oh, I come in here all the time!" Lora replied, reassuring and excited. I felt someone sit on my feet, sending a sharp pain up my leg as my ankle bent.

"Merlin, get off my ankle!" I grumpily said as I sat up still groggy from waking up with such a rude awakening.

"My name's Lora, not Merlin. If you haven't figured that out after knowing me since first year then I think something might be wrong with your-"

"Oh, quiet Lora," I interrupted, moving my feet so that she could have a place to sit. I looked over at Lily who was standing in the middle of the room, wringing her hands and not really knowing what to do with herself. I saw her peering over at a sleeping James and I immediately through a pillow at the dark haired youth to wake him up. It worked.

"Leave me alone!" he shouted as he pulled the pillow around his head and curled himself up into a little ball underneath the sheets.

"Okay, Lily. I guess James doesn't want to see you," I said loudly as I winked at Lily. James shot up in his bed and threw his glasses on. I laughed loudly with Lora (which made us wake a scratched up and tired Remus) as James looked around the room excitedly, his glasses hanging precariously on the tip of his nose.

"Lilykins!" James exclaimed as he reached out his arms for her to come hither.

"Don’t call me that, James," Lily declared as she walked over and sat down in his arms. They shared a quick 'good-morning' kiss as Remus and Peter staggered over and perched themselves around us; Peter on James' trunk and Remus on mine.

"Morning," Remus yawned to us.

"Morning, Remy! Tough night?" Lora asked, glancing at the obvious scars that Remus had collected that previous night. Remus blushed as he nodded to her.

"What happened last night?" Lily asked, worry radiating from her words.

"Oh, erm, nothing. Just didn't sleep good-"

"Where did you get those scratches, Remus?" she interrupted, concern striking a cord in her voice as it furrowed in her brows.

"Uh-"

"Just joking around with the guys," James broke in, stretching his arms and wrapping them tightly around Lily. He pulled her down and planted a big kiss on her cheek, making her blush so furiously that her face now matched her hair.

"Oh, take me Lily," James exclaimed, stretching his arms out onto his bed as he closed his eyes.

"James!" Lily stated, laughing with the rest of us. James laughed along too and resumed his place holding Lily.

I'm going to go take a shower," Remus muttered as the pair canoodled. He got up and hurriedly excused himself from the room.

"So what brings you to this end of the Gryffindor tower?" I asked Lily while Lora wrapped my blanket around me. She tied it in the back so that I couldn't move my arms. I sighed at her and just layed my head down onto her shoulder.

"Oh, Lora brought me with her-" Lily replied.

"Well, I brought her along because Lily had an idea as to what we could do today," Lora cut in sharply. She gave Lily a look that could only be read as telling her to just say what she wanted to say.

"I just thought it would be a good idea if we all started studying today," Lily said quickly as she sent us a bright smile. Silence swept over all of us and the sound of Remus' shower seeped through the bathroom door.

"Why?" James asked Lily slowly.

"Well the finals are only three months away," Lily reassuringly said to us.

"That just means three more months 'til we have to cram," I replied, disgusted with Lily's suggestion of our days activities. Why would anyone voluntarily waste their time studying?

"Why do you want to cram? You could just start studying sparingly now!" Lily exclaimed, trying to convince us to join her.

"You could just start studying sparingly now," I said, mocking Lily. I laughed as Lily glared at me.

"Come on, guys. It could be fun!" she said, ignoring my groans.

"No Lily. I am not studying," James said firmly.

"Neither am I," I chimed in, clawing my way out of my blankets.

"Look! Sirius is coming out of the womb!" Lora yelled. We looked at her and James burst out laughing.

"What? She's right. That's what it looks like," James said as I glared at him.

"Are you studying with me, Lora?" Lily asked, turning towards her friend. She was clearly mad that her beau wasn't going to study with her so she was really glaring at Lora to say yes.

"Sure," she replied happily as she hopped off my bed.

"Why?" I asked her, scratching my head.

"Because it's better than hanging out with you two wankers," she replied, winking at me. I felt my heart flutter for a moment. I love it when she makes my heart do that.

I watched Lora and Lily exit our dormitory and head towards the old Hogwarts library.

"Uh, I think I'm going to head down there too," Peters said quietly as he got up off of James' trunk.

"Sure you don't want to hang around here with us?" James asked him. Peter nodded and muttered that he should study.

"Right after the dormitory door shut behind him, Remus emerged from the bathroom. He was fully dressed in some jeans and a sweater.

"Where'd the rest of them go?" he asked as he folded his pajamas on his bed.

"Library to study. So I guess it's just the three of us today," I said, trying to stir up some enthusiasm.

"Nope. Just the two of you," Remus replied, setting his newly folded pajamas in his trunk.

"Why?" I asked, getting annoyed quickly.

"I need to start studying for the finals. They're only three months away, you know," he said as he tied on his shoes.

"Three months, Moony! THREE-MONTHS," James yelled. I could see he was annoyed that everyone would rather study than relax today.

"And look how fast three months goes by. You two can fail if you want but I'm going to go study. I'll catch up with the two of you later," he said calmly as he exited our dormitory.

"Well, Padfoot, looks like it's just the two of us, unless you plan on going to study too," James said, looking up at me.

"Nope, I had other plans for the day," I replied, a mischievous tone in my voice.

He smiled and asked me what I had in mind.

"Well, I was going to go take a little glance into Moaning Myrtles bathroom to bother her a bit but we could go bother the little study group in the library if you want," I suggested.

"Let's go see what Lily's doing," he replied. In unison, we stood up and headed out of the dormitory.

-10 Minutes Later-

Tiptoeing, we entered the ancient library and snuck behind a tall row of large volumes of books. James pushed aside a few of the books quietly so that we could spy on what our comrades were doing.

"So the treaty for the elf thing was in 1072?" Lora asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Yeah," Lily replied quietly as she glanced over at one of the many books that were scattered over their table.

"But then a few witches had a riot for the elves in 1213?" Remus asked, as Lily ducked behind the book again. She nodded and turned the page.

"Watch this," James whispered to me suddenly. He lifted his wand slowly and motioned for me to look at Lily. I muffled a laugh as I saw what he was doing. The back of her hair was standing up slowly on ends, to the point where her ginger hair was standing straight up. We chuckled I suppose too loudly because Lily's head poked up out from behind her big book and looked around the room. We quieted down and James let Lily's hair drop again. She patted the back of her head, puzzled at what was going on. She shook it off though when Lora asked her a question about the Troll wars. They buried themselves in their hardbacks once again.

"Check this out," I said quietly to James, barely audible. I poked my wand through our peep hole and swiveled it around a little. Lora's hair immediately glided into the air like a snake emerging from a basket. It twisted and turned itself in the air until it formed a snake. I let it fall when she got a confused expression on her face and touched her hair cautiously. I saw her pondering about it for a second before returning to look for her answer.

"They occurred in England, France and Germany," Lily said, finally finding the answer to Lora's question.

"My book says they also happened in small regions of Russia," Remus piped in. Lora nodded as they returned to their books.

"No, no, look at this," James whispered to me. We were trying hard to hold back our laughter now. He lifted his long wand once again and pointed it towards Moony. His hair went straight up in a heartbeat and started to shake. It was vibrating quickly when Remus, out of nowhere, reached up and grabbed his hair. He bit his lip as he let go of his sandy locks and grabbed his wand instead. He motioned the long, wooden stick towards our bookshelf. The volumes hiding our faces slid away to reveal us.

"Surprise!" James said, letting his laughter get out. We burst out laughing at the annoyed looks on their faces. After our chuckling had died away, we strode over to the studying threesome.

"James," Lily said, annoyance showing plainly on her face like words on, well, a book.

"I just came to have some fun," James muttered, realizing how mad she was.

"We are trying to study," Lily growled, cutting her eyes at her beau.

"Lily-"

"Is there a problem here?" the stout librarian interrupted.

"Yes," Lora answered from her side of the square, pine table. "They are interrupting our studying."

"Lora!" I yelled, aggravated with my friend for ratting me out.

"Let's go boys, out of the library," the small, fat woman said, grabbing our arms and yanking us to follow her. After she threw us out the door and told us not to come back for the rest of the day, we stumbled down the hallway, heading for the warming outdoors.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" I asked James, a thought occurring in my head.

"Sure," he said, glancing over at me.

"Did you see Peter in the library?"