A/N - This is a story that is set in the Marauder era. It's my first ever Harry Potter story so I'm a little bit nervous about putting it out there but oh well! I may as well take the plunge. Let me know what you think. :D

Chapter one - Invaded compartment

I was sat in my compartment on the Hogwarts express.

Please note how I used the word 'my' instead of 'the' or 'a'. The word 'my' may sound really possessive when it comes to describing a compartment but the compartment that I sat in was most definitely mine. Every single year I sat in the same compartment all by myself. Ergo, the compartment was most definitely mine whilst I was a student at Hogwarts. I'd never even seen another person step foot in here. I most likely sound like a complete loner to you right now and I feel obligated to admit that it was true - I am a loner. Most people would despise the idea of going to a school without any friends or a single person to talk to but I rather enjoy my own company. Getting attached to other people can only lead to disappointment in the end. Don't get me wrong - I can have a conversation just as well as the next person. I just choose not to. It's much more interesting to sit back and observe people from a distance.

That probably made me sound like a stalker but I really don't care. Having no friends meant that I could concentrate solely on my studies, which is something that completely appeals to the Ravenclaw in me.

The annoying thing is that the sorting hat didn't place me in Ravenclaw. My mum used to tell me that the hat would 'always take people's choices into consideration' but that's just a bunch of cadswallop. After all, I begged and pleaded with the thing to put me into Ravenclaw but what did it go and do? It put me into bloody Gryffindor. GRYFFINDOR - The home of the most arrogant, self centered, pretentious students in the history of ever.

...

Okay, so maybe they aren't all that bad. Some of them are actually quite funny. However, the majority of them are stuck up their own arses. Honestly! Just because they were put into the house of the brave doesn't mean that they had the right to prance around the castle like Hercules. I still have no idea why the sorting hat put me into the brave house; I'm about as brave as the cowardly lion. My mother's family were all in Ravenclaw. Each and every one of them. I was the only one that wasn't which sucked.

Nobody at Hogwarts knew who I was, bar my roommates who seemed to despise me. Marlene Mckinnon and Alice Prewitt definitely had something against me. I guessed that it was probably the fact that I wasn't into things such as make up, fashion and girl talk. This fact most likely made me an alien to them. Lily Evans was the only one that was tolerable but because she hung around with the other two she didn't really acknowledge me much. I suppose that there have been times when she has started conversation with me but I haven't ever really spoke more than a polite conversation with her. We've only really ever said things like 'hello' and 'how did you do on the potions essay' to each other.

I don't mind though because I like being a loner.

It has its perks.

Like, for instance, I'm never dragged into dramatic situations.

Yeah, that's much better than having friends.

...

Okay. I'm a loser. Get over it please.

As I was saying before I went off on a tandem, I was sat comfortably in my compartment. My limited edition of Pride and Prejudice was resting on my lap and besides the occasional turn of a page I didn't really move much at all. I'd always loved reading books, ever since I was a little girl. Mum used to read me stories every night at bedtime and dad has even told me that she read to me when I was in her womb. She was even more of a bookworm than me and if you named a book then she probably would have read it more than three times from the front to the back. At home we have a small storage room where each of her seven hundred and fifteen favorite books sit. When she died neither dad nor I would even step a foot into her book haven. It wasn't until about two months afterwards that I decided I wanted to do everything possible to have a connection with her still. This meant that I was determined to read every single one of her books. I've read through four hundred and two of them so far and I plan to read the rest of them by the time that I leave Hogwarts, which happens to be in two years.

However, this certain journey to Hogwarts wasn't going as well as I had expected. Approximately half way through the journey there were loud noises of shouting and running from right outside the door. The sounds were enough to cause me to place my book to the side and listen out for a few moments, seeing as the space outside my compartment was usually deserted.

"Quick, Prongs, in here!"

Before I could even contemplate my next thought the door of my compartment swung open to reveal three quarters of the infamous Marauders. The Marauders were four boys - Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew - who were in the same house and year as me. Over the years the four best friends have somehow managed to build up a reputation for their 'excellent' pranks and schemes. Most girls at Hogwarts worshiped the floor that they walked on. I, on the other hand, didn't care too much for them at all. They seemed far too loud and boisterous for my liking. However, Remus Lupin was tolerable. He spent a lot of his spare time in the library studying and I knew that he was dedicated to his education.

Each of them were known for different things at Hogwarts. Sirius Black was the heart throb of the group with his boyish charm, stormy grey eyes, muscular physique and hair that was swept in a perfect manner. He was Hogwarts' womanizer and was often found in broom closets with a different girl every week. James Potter was known for being in love with Lily Evans. He had hazel eyes, which were framed by glasses, a muscular build, messy black hair and an impish smile. Remus Lupin was, as I previously mentioned, the only tolerable one. He was the voice of reason within the group and often voiced his opinion if a prank was going too far. The teachers respected him because of his punctuality, dedication to learning and polite mannerisms. He was also good looking but he had a mysterious air about him. Remus had sandy blonde hair, green eyes and a tall build but he also had faint scars and pale skin. I'd often wondered where he got his scars but of course I'd never ask such a question to somebody who I didn't even know. Finally, there was Peter Pettigrew. Peter was often overlooked by outsiders but it was obvious to anybody that the Marauders treated him as one of the same. He was slightly chubby, short and had beady eyes but his face also had an adorable air to it that reminded me of a small baby.

I pulled myself back out of my thoughts to see Peter, Sirius and James staring incredeously at me, which caused me to raise my eyebrow. "Is there a reason that you've rudely burst into my compartment?" I'd probably get murdered in my sleep by their fan girls if they had heard but I didn't really care.

The three of them glanced between each other and then James Potter stepped forward, his hand sweeping across his hair. "Sorry," He began with a sheepish smile. "Do you mind if we just lay low in here for a while? It's not really safe for us to step outside yet."

I turned my attention to Sirius and Peter, who were already sat down in the chairs opposite me, before answering. "Why isn't it safe?"

"There may, or may not be, a herd of fifth year girls searching the train for us." Sirius stated inconspicuously as he glanced out of the window.

My eyebrow probably popped right up into my hair at that point. If girls were searching for them then that meant that there was a possibility that they would come bursting into my compartment. I really couldn't deal with that much noise or company all in one day. And if they see me with three of the Marauders then rumors could go around. RUMORS! I had managed to dodge those pesky things right up until that point in my educational career. "Do they know you're in here?" I questioned, my voice, admittedly, a little higher than usual.

James shook his head before sitting down beside his friends. "Nope. We managed to dodge them by the candy trolley."

All I could do was nod as I picked up my book again. There was an awkward air between the four of us and I tried to block out the fact that they were whispering and looking at me.

"Who are you?" Peter Pettigrew questioned with a rather blunt tone.

I looked up from my book to see all three of them eyeing me curiously. The moment was truly a testament to how much of a loser I was. These boys were in my year, and house, and yet they didn't have the slightest clue as to who I was. "Elizabeth Jones." I stated politely.

Sirius raised his eyebrow as he looked me up and down. "Did you just transfer here or something?"

I felt like crawling out of the compartment and flinging myself off of the train. "No, I've been in your house and year since we started at Hogwarts."

"How come we've never seen you around then?" James demanded, obviously not believing what I had just said.

Godric, was this twenty questions or something? Because I really wasn't up for being interrogated by these three buffoons.

Honestly. What did I do to deserve this torturous Q&A?

"Well, I'm not exactly the type of person that you would speak to," To illustrate this fact I waved my book around in the air. I then proceeded to turn my attention back to the beautiful story of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy. The main protagonist of the story was actually the inspiration for my name. My abrupt exit from the conversation obviously put a point across because the three of them started to chat and laugh between themselves. It got a little bit annoying but I managed to successfully be drawn into the book without being distracted too much by them. However, I only managed to get up to the part where Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth when I was rudely interrupted once again.

The compartment door had swung open for a second time and I initially panicked at the thought of the intruder being a girl from one of their crazy fan clubs. Honestly. The fan clubs that these boys have are absolutely bonkers. Some of the girls have even been known to smuggle their used tissues into their weekly meetings. I shuddered at the thought but was more than relieved when Remus Lupin poked his head in. "There you are," He muttered as he stepped into the compartment with his trunk. "I had to dodge at least twenty of your obsessed 'fans' whilst I was looking for you!" Remus then turned in my direction and his eyes widened slightly when he saw that I was also in the compartment.

"Yeah, we had to hide. She let us lie low in here though." I almost rolled my eyes at the notion that Peter had most likely forgotten my name already. But then I couldn't exactly blame him; I wasn't exactly 'Hogwarts royalty' like they were.

"Wormy! She has a name." Sirius scolded before smiling apologetically at me. I did raise my eyebrow at the use of Peter's nickname though. It was no secret to even me that the four of them gave each other odd nicknames all the time. I guessed that each of their nicknames had a special meaning behind them but I'd obviously never find out as they kept it all top secret. "Isn't that right Ella?"

I rolled my eyes this time. Ella. Seriously? Ella and Elizabeth sound nothing alike! Sure, they start with the same letter but it's not as if they even rhyme. Before I could correct him, Remus shook his head. "She's called Elizabeth, Padfoot. Merlin, she is in our year and house." Remus knew my name? He knew that I was in their year and house? These facts caused my eyes to widen a little bit. We'd never even had a proper conversation. Maybe he was just way more observant than his other friends. He then smiled at me. "Sorry about us ambushing your compartment. You don't mind, do you?"

I really did mind.

But for some reason I just shook my head and let out a quick and squeaky 'No'. It was like I couldn't control myself. Remus looked at me a little bit strangely as he took a seat on the same side as me but James, Sirius and Peter simply laughed 'subtly' between themselves. Merlin. If I wanted to throw myself off of the train before then right at that moment I wanted to skin myself alive with a blunt spoon. So I did the only thing possible to pull myself away from their conversation; I picked up Pride and Prejudice.

"What are you reading?" Remus asked with a tone of interest.

"Pride and Prejudice."

"Oh, I haven't read that one yet. What do you think of it?"

Merlin. Why was he talking to me? Don't get me wrong - he was perfectly decent to have a conversation with, not at all as rude as his friends, but I was still confused as to why he wanted to converse with a boring fart such as myself. "I've only just started reading it but it seems really great. I definitely recommend it."

"Was my Lily flower at the prefect meeting?" James asked Remus.

Remus sent me a smile before turning back to his friends and saying something about James knowing that Lily was in the meeting. They all feel into a conversation and I decided to attempt another try of reading my book. After all, I didn't really want to listen to their conversation and I'd much rather go back to the comfort of my book than talking to them anymore than I had. Everybody knew that James Potter was infatuated with Lily Evans. I had an inkling of a feeling that they would most likely end up together eventually, and that he actually did genuinely care about her, but Lily was a very stubborn person.

Ten minutes later, I was startled out of my book by the sounds of squealing. Very girly squealing.

"Merlin!" Sirius whispered loudly as the footsteps began to creep closer. James Potter jumped up from his seat, ran over to his trunk and then proceeded to pull something out of it. Except, there was absolutely nothing in his hands. "Prongs, are you absolutely insane? There's someone in here!"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures Padfoot."

"But what about the Marauders codes?" Peter demanded frantically as he glanced between James and I.

I simply raised my eyebrow as I watched James lift his arms up in the air. But then I was astonished because now I could only see his head floating in the middle of the compartment. "What the bloody hell?" I demanded loudly.

Sirius rushed over to me and covered my mouth with his hand. "What the hell?" I questioned, though it just sounded like a muffled sound.

"Be quiet! They're getting closer." I was actually amused to see that there was fear in Sirius's eyes but I couldn't laugh because his hand was restraining me from doing so. Instead I glanced in the direction of James to see that he wasn't there anymore. In fact, neither was Peter.

"Padfoot, let go of her and get under the invisibility cloak."

"Moony!" Sirius snapped at the same time as I squeaked out 'Invisibility cloak?' They had an invisibility cloak? Sirius glanced down at me, his eyebrow raised.

He moved his hand away from my mouth. "You have an invisibility cloak?"

"Yes, we've got an invisibility cloak. But you can't tell a soul! The only reason that you know is because this is a very deadly situation for us. If those girls find us then we could quite easily be murdered via their bloody annoying squeaky giggle-"

"I won't tell anyone." I sighed as I watched Remus get under the invisibility cloak. "Just get under there before they kill you."

"You'll cover for us?" Sirius seemed awfully surprised that I'd just randomly cover for people that I didn't even know. To be honest, I didn't even know why I was doing it. I just thought that being caught in a compartment on my own would be so much safer than the psycho club catching me with all of the Marauders.

"Just get under there!" The footsteps were getting closer and closer and the squealing sounded awfully near so I shoved him in the direction of the middle of the compartment.

"Thank you Emma." He nodded to me before climbing under the invisibility cloak with his friends.

"It's Elizabeth!" I muttered back before falling back on my seat.

Just as I did so the compartment door swung open to reveal four Hufflepuff girls. I recognized them as people that I had passed randomly in the halls of Hogwarts but our acquaintances didn't run any further than that. The leader of the four of them, a blond haired girl with over sized breasts, stepped into the compartment and shot daggers at me. "Have you seen the Marauders?"

"Of course she hasn't," One of her other friends cackled as she joined her side. "She's a complete loser. Why would they talk to the likes of her?"

Ouch. No wonder that they were running from these psychotic bints...

The blond girl obviously agreed with her friend's statement but she still stepped closer to me. "Well, have you seen them?"

"Nope."

The two other girls, who were obviously twins, jumped into the compartment and raised their eyebrows in a freakishly identical way. "Why are there so many trunks in here then?" They demanded shrilly as they flipped their long, red hair in sync. It was obvious who their favorite marauder was just by looking at them; Their hair was almost exactly the same as Lily's.

"Because I happen to take a lot of stuff to Hogwarts every year."

The mean cackler walked over to the trunks and pulled a broom to her side. "You play Quidditch?"

"Duh..." I drawled out, even though I'd never played the game in my life.

"What position?" One of the twins asked.

"Beater."

"What-"

"Would you all mind getting out of my compartment?" I demanded suddenly, fed up with the twenty questions. "You're looking for the marauders but they are obviously not here. Put my broom back where you found it and go and look for them somewhere else." Then I added, "They're probably in Lily Evan's compartment."

"Of course!" The blond one gasped. "Why didn't I think of that? Come on you lot, she's no use to us!" They all pegged it out of the compartment and I sighed in relief as I watched them go. Talking to the Marauders was one thing but being interrogated by their fan club was something else.

I closed my eyes for a brief second and when I opened them the Marauders were suddenly sat back down in their seats. This, naturally, caused me to flinch seeing as I'm not exactly a brave person. "Bloody hell." I muttered as I waited for my heart beat to slow down. "You could have given me some warning as to how loopy your fan club is before you came and hid in here." It was an understatement to say that the confrontation had gotten me a little bit crabby.

"Sorry about that." Remus stated genuinely. "You really didn't have to cover for us."

I shrugged. "If I didn't then I'd probably get killed by the bints for even being in the same compartment as all of you." Even Lily Evans used to get hexed by some of their fan club for James taking a liking to her. Naturally she was furious and upset about this, as was James. He went right up to them and gave them a right telling off and they haven't hexed poor Lily ever since.

James looked up from his trunk. "You won't tell anyone about this, right?" He asked, motioning to his invisibility cloak. Of course I couldn't really see it because it was invisible but I assumed that was what he was talking about. He looked rather defensive and protective of the item but also extremely worried that I would go blabbing about it.

"Of course not. It's not any of my business."

"Pinky swear."

I raised my eyebrow as James walked over to me and held his pinky out.

"Prongs, is that really necessary?" Remus asked with a raised eyebrow that matched my own.

"Of course." James pouted, rather childishly. "She's just found out one of our biggest secrets Moony - and we don't even know her. If she doesn't pinky swear then I'll just get paranoid."

I sighed and then locked my pinky with his. "There."

He grinned with satisfaction before unlocking our pinkies and moving back to his space in the compartment.

"Thank you Elizabeth." Sirius stated with a boyish grin and I, for one, was thankful that he had finally managed to remember my name.

But then I began to panic; People weren't supposed to know my name! I was supposed to be invisible. Helping the Marauders out and sharing a compartment with them wasn't really keeping me hidden. "Uh, it's okay." I muttered as I picked up my book. "Just don't let it happen again."

They all nodded before turning back to their conversation. Thankfully I wasn't severely interrupted from my book again. Although, they did ask me the odd question about my opinion on some teachers, lessons and even about some of my summer. I answered them but inside I was screaming at myself to stop. I, Elizabeth Jones, was one hundred percent invisible and I liked it that way. It was like I had my own metaphorical invisibility cloak and every time they asked me a question it was ever so slowly fading. How could this happen on a train ride in my compartment? I had no idea.

All I knew was that I couldn't wait to get back to Hogwarts and go back to being completely invisible once again.

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Should I continue? Let me know what you think and drop a review! :D