“Where are we?” asked Peter, trembling as he stood up. The sunlight filtered in from dirt streaked windows, bouncing off the flooded floor. Remus could have answered Peter’s question, since it was quite obvious where they were- Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.

“It didn’t do a bloody thing!” Sirius cried, leaning against one of the sinks. “We’re just in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Is that where James and Lily were? Hiding in a stall?”

Remus sighed and looked around. “Well, it was the spell James and Lily used.”

“I know that-” began Sirius, but was interrupted by a large wailing noise as Myrtle flew out of one of the stalls. “Oh great,” he moaned.

Myrtle turned toward the threesome, face puckered into a disgusted scowl. “Oh, new students, eh? Coming to torture Moaning Myrtle, I guess. What are you going to do this time? Try and throw stones at me? Because I assure you, it won’t work… because I’m… dead!” At this she started to wail again, and threw herself into a stall.

Remus furrowed his brow lightly. “Myrtle, we’re not new students.”

“Well, you have to be. I’ve never seen you around,” she sniffed, peeking over the bathroom door.

Sirius gave an inquiring look to Peter, who shrugged in response. They knew Moaning Myrtle knew them. Why was she denying it?

“You don’t remember us, Myrtle?” Peter asked, finally bringing up the courage to speak. The ghost floated over to him and began to peer closely into his face.

“Well,” she began, “now that you mention it, you all do look a bit familiar…”

Rolling his eyes, Sirius stepped forward. “Of course we do! This is Peter Pettigrew- remember him? And over there is Remus Lupin, you know, the only one who ever calls you Myrtle instead of Moaning Myrtle, or Moping Myrtle, or Miserable Myrtle, or Mega-Whiner Myrtle, or…”

“She gets the point,” Remus interrupted, giving a pointed look at Sirius. But Moaning Myrtle apparently didn’t hear this as she swooped closer at the two men Sirius named.

“Peter Pettigrew…?” she said wonderingly, getting unusually close to Peter.

“Holy crap, Pete, she fancies you!” Sirius howled, clutching his sides as he nudged the scared Pettigrew. “I thought you had it bad that you hadn’t hooked up with anyone yet… this is worse!”

Myrtle scowled at Sirius, glaring through her thick glasses. “That’s not why I’m looking at him. It’s just because…”

“Listen,” Remus said, turning to the ghost, “Myrtle. Have you seen James and Lily around? You see, what happened was yesterday; they cast a spell and disappeared. Now we’ve gone to find them. Do you know where they are?”

Myrtle giggled. “Oh, I see,” she said, smiling. Of course! It had been the talk of the day, where that Potter and Evans had gone. Then, the next day, the rest of his gang disappeared too. And now she knew the answer- they’d time traveled right into the future. “You know,” she whispered, getting close to Remus, “I’d forgotten how adorable you used to look.”

Now, Sirius began to laugh even louder at that while Remus shot him a dirty look. “We’ll find James and Lily on our own,” he said firmly, practically dragging the howling Sirius out the door.

-

James, Lily, and Harry walked around the corridors, trying to ignore the growing silence between them. The halls were deserted (who really cares if you skip classes when your dead parents come back to life,) but it was a bit odd walking around in broad daylight in empty halls.

“So, Harry, I heard you’re a really good Quidditch player,” Lily said softly, as Harry nodded. James beamed.

“Yeah… I mean, I guess I am,” Harry replied, blushing.

“Of course you are! You’re my son! You’re Sirius’s something or other! Except that doesn’t really work, since he doesn’t play Quidditch…” James trailed off, pondering.

Rolling her eyes, Lily whispered to Harry, “Please, ignore him. Sometimes he makes no sense.”

Nodding, Harry had to give a smile at James, whose brow was still furrowed in thought. “So… how did you guys get here?”

James shrugged as he repeated the whole rather anti-climatic story.

Harry accepted this as they walked around, each one silent. He wanted to say something, desperately. But would they think it was ridiculous?

“Um… you know…” he started, feeling extremely uncomfortable.

“Yes?” Lily turned her green eyes on Harry- unnerving, exactly like his eyes- and looked at him intently.

“I’ve sort of… missed you. A lot, over the years…” Harry felt more and more stupid as he went on. “It’s just like, a miracle that you’re here. And I’m really glad.”

James appeared a bit startled at all the emotion Harry was outpouring, but Lily understood. “It must have been hard, growing up without us. And I wish I could have been there,” she said quietly, while James looked on with tears in his eyes.

“Why does everyone have to be emotional?” he asked, wiping at his eyes furiously.

Harry once again grinned, when he saw something- or someone- he wished he hadn’t. “Oh, no,” he breathed, looking at the blonde haired head approaching them. “Great.”

“Who is it?” Lily asked, trying to figure out who it might be.

“Draco Malfoy,” clarified Harry, ushering his two parents into the door to the bathrooms. “I guess you could say my arch-enemy.”

James grinned wildly. “Cool- got to love arch-enemies.”

Snorting, Lily pulled James into the boys’ room, and was about to enter the girls’ room herself, when James stopped in his tracks. “You mean, LUCIUS Malfoy’s son?” he asked, turning to Harry. His son nodded, and then jerked his head toward the bathroom.

“No- I have a plan,” James said, an evil look spreading across his face. Shaking her head, Lily tried to reject the idea, whatever it might be, but it was too late. Harry had switched places with James already and hid the bathroom. Whatever James was going to do was going to be done, if that made any sense.

“Potter,” Malfoy said smoothly, greeting James as he leaned casually against the wall, looking at the sole of his shoe.

“Oh, hey, Malfoy,” James replied, waving his hand in greeting. “What are you out here for? I had to throw up.”

Harry, peering out of the crack in the bathroom door, could have died at the face Malfoy was making. A mixture between disgust, shock and something else that looked quite funny, Harry couldn’t tell.

“Anyway, you’re going down at the Quidditch match tomorrow,” Malfoy smirked, recovering from his shock. James raised his eyebrows, and then went back to examining his shoe.

“Cool,” he said.

Malfoy began to get a bit riled up, as he leaned forward heatedly and spat, “You’re a stupid, egoistic pet, Potter, riding along on your little broomstick, saving the day. Oh, Potter! Come and save me!” Malfoy mimicked a little girl screaming as he dramatically put a hand on his forehead.

James scowled and said, with a thick, corny French accent, “You don't frighten me, English pig-dog! Go and boil your bottom, son of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called Malfoy-boy, you and your silly hair… gel!”

Malfoy looked at James with the most quizzical expression on his face. “You know what, Potter,” he started, but then his voice failed. Finally, he found something to say. “Oh yeah? Why are you calling me an English pig-dog? You’re English too. And what the heck do you mean by- pig-dog? That doesn’t even make sense.”

Putting on a “look-at-that-idiot-I’m-much-smarter-than-he-is” look, James laughed out loud. “I’m not English, I’m French! Why do you think I have this outrrrrageous accent, you silly… um…?” For a moment, James fell out of character, but soon recovered and continued, “You silly Sllll-why-there-in!”

Malfoy’s face screwed up in complete disbelief at what James was saying. “I think you’ve finally snapped, Potter.”

James couldn’t have been happier at the way things were going. “I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed food trough wiper! You’re mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”

“My mother is NOT a hamster!” Malfoy said, still a little scared of James. “And how would you even know if my father smells like elderberries?”

Noticing the smirk on James’s face, Malfoy hastily covered up, “Not that he does… only sometimes… No! He doesn’t! Now… you’re… just… making… me… really…”

“Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-ah!” James flourished, and with a final dramatic pause, he stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry while putting his thumbs in his ears and waggling his fingers.

“You’re really scaring me, Potter,” Malfoy whispered, and started to back away, faster and faster, until he had completely fled from sight.

While inwardly congratulating himself on a job well done, James saw that Harry and Lily had emerged from their hiding spots, one looking very pissed off and the other one grinning like mad.

“That was brilliant!” Harry crowed, eyes bright. “How did you do that?”

“He took it from a very messed-up movie, that’s how,” Lily responded, arms crossed. Apparently, she hadn’t liked the show.

“Hey, it’s not messed up!” James protested, but fell silent under Lily’s piercing gaze. “All right. So it is sort of messed-up. But I saw it at when we were at Remus’s one day. It was pretty cool.” He ignored Lily’s snort.

“What movie is it?” Harry asked eagerly.

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Those movie things are kind of weird, you know? Just like a photograph, only with sound, and it tells a story. Honestly. What kind of things will the Muggles come up with next?” James again became immersed in thought, before realizing that he had forgotten to finish his tale. “Oh yeah. Anyway, Sirius, Remus, Peter and I all saw the movie together - and when I saw the opening credits-” James put a hand over his heart. “I was in love.”

Lily once again snorted, this time so hard that she had to cover her mouth, and then began guiding them away from the topic, as well as the place. “Now, tell us, Harry, who was that Malfoy boy?”

“Well, he sort of hated me right off the bat, I guess,” Harry started, and the threesome walked toward the Great Hall. “I never liked him, anyway. But he’s the one who started the whole, “arch-enemy” thing…”

“Like Snape,” James added.

“Sort of,” Harry said hesitantly. “Anyway, his mother is Narcissa Black…”

“No way!”

“I know I couldn’t believe it either. So, we met in the robe shop, where he started to ask about…”

-

Remus and Sirius looked at each other. “What?” Peter asked, coming between them. “What did they say?”

The Marauders had hidden themselves in a small niche on the corridor Malfoy had walked through to approach the one where James and Lily were. It had been a close call.

“If I heard correctly,” Remus said, brow furrowed, “James made it clear that we’re in the future.”

“What?” Sirius flew forward so abruptly, he hit his head on the wall. “I never heard a bloody thing about the future! James was just talking from the movie to Lucius Malfoy, not saying, ‘Oh, hi, look, I’m in the bloody future!’”

Remus shook his head. “No, no. If you’d been listening, then you would have heard James talking to another person… Harry, they called him… And there certainly is no Harry in our school. I think they mentioned Lucius Malfoy’s son too.”

“So? Maybe James is talking crazy,” Sirius shrugged, calming down. “I mean, all I heard was that we all loved Monty Python.”

“I’m glad you listened to so much of the conversation. So let’s figure out how to get James and Lily back,” said Remus patiently.

“I bet I’m a world famous singer now,” Sirius said dreamily.

“What?” Remus said incredulously, not sure if this was a joke or not.

“A singer! You know I’m great at it…”

“And hippogriffs can fly,” laughed Peter.

“Actually… Peter... they can,” Remus reminded him gently.

“Peter, you’re just jealous that I’m a singer and you’re… like…a Ministry of Magic sanitation worker, or something,” Sirius scoffed, turning back to his daydream.

“AM NOT!” cried Peter loudly.

“Will everyone stop?” Remus shouted, silencing Sirius, who had decided to test his singing ability and was wailing at the top of his lungs. If the two of them continued like this, there is no way they’d be able to be hidden for long.

“Okay, right now, we have to decide something to do,” said Remus gently, trying to exert a calming influence on the others. “We’re in the future, and we need to get James and Lily here with us, without anyone else seeing us.”

The two wizards looked between them, deciding whether or not to agree with Remus. Finally, Peter nodded.

“Good,” Remus said, businesslike. “We can’t reveal ourselves, we could alter time. So, for now, we wait for James and Lily.”

It didn’t even seem like the future. Everything looked the same, but they could screw everything up if they showed their faces… He already decided he was going to tread very, very cautiously.

“So we just wait,” Sirius said slowly.

“Yes. I think that it might be safe to go out at night, just to see where James and Lily are. But it would be much safer staying in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. We’ll go there at sunset.”

Looking bored, Sirius leaned against the wall. Suddenly, his face lit up. Grinning manically, he whispered, “Hey. Do you think our legacy has lived on?”

“It’s been twenty years from when we were here, Padfoot. I really don’t think anyone knows who we are, besides maybe our kids, if we have any,” Remus sighed, sitting down.

“Damn.” Suddenly, Sirius’s eyes lit up with inspiration. “I have an idea. I swear to you, Moony, we will not be forgotten. Not while I’m here. Hogwarts… meet the Marauders!” And with an evil laugh, Sirius had slipped out of his hiding spot.

Remus really didn’t want to know what those words meant.

THE END

Author's Note: Look for the sequel, "Hogwarts, Meet the Marauders!" in a week or so!