Author's Note: I started to write this before Christmas, then finished it after Christmas. I decided to put it up even though the holidays are over.
Cover Art: taken from Wikipedia's page on Pocket Watches.
Disclaimer: the Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K Rowling
Stalling For Time
Seeing as most of the students (including his girlfriend) had gone to the last Hogsmede trip before Christmas holidays, it gave him the perfect opportunity to surprise her when she got back.
James was going to decorate the Heads' common room for Christmas. Lights, a tree, garland – all of it. Unfortunately, he was only half done when he lost his wand. After searching for half an hour, he concluded that the bloody cat had most likely run off to hide it (just like a dog). Stupid cat.
So James was now in the middle of a torn up room, decorations everywhere, and a mess of lights sitting in the corner.
But, no matter – he could finish this without magic. Muggles did it all the time, and they managed just fine. And, seeing as Lily was Muggleborn – she would probably appreciate the non-use of magic. Besides, how hard could it really be to flip the furniture back over, hang the decorations, and untangle a ball of lights? An hour, maybe? An hour and a half, tops.
Smiling at his new plan, James set out to work on finding the room he had previously destroyed.
.0.0.0
Three hours later, the furniture was back in place (mostly). The decorations were hung up (more-or-less) and the ball of lights had moved from one corner of the room, around the couch, to the other side of the room.
James sat beside the lights, trying to find the end of the strand. Lily's cat, Gizmo, however, was making it extremely difficult to do so. Three times James had found an end of a strand, and three times Gizmo had jumped off the bookcase, almost landing on James' head, causing him to drop the end in surprise; allowing the cat to grab it and run around the couch with it, making James chase him and trip over the loose strand. Finally, James picked the kitten up and locked him out of the dorm.
So there he was, trying to navigate his way through the mess, while listening to the kitten cry and scratch at door. Lily was going to be pissed if she came back and found out James had purposely shut the kitten out of the dorm. But she wasn't due back for a few hours.
James looked at the clock and cursed. She would be back any minute!
Frantically, he ran into his room and tore around until he found the two-way mirror he was looking for.
"Sirius Black!" he yelled into it. When he didn't get an imitate response – he yelled at it until a startled looking Sirius Black appeared.
"What the hell-"
"Has Lily left the village yet?!" James all but yelled at him.
Sirius stared a him, "why would I know that? She's your girlfriend."
"You have to find her!" James said talking over whatever Sirius was going to say next.
Sirius frowned. "Why? Has something happened?"
"Of course something happened! The cat stole my wand, there's lights around the couch, the tree looks like it's going to fall over, there are sticks and pine needles everywhere, and I can't hear the cat outside anymore so I'm pretty sure it's run away. And Lily's going to back any minute, only nothing's ready yet!" James rambled hysterically.
Sirius glared at him, "you can't yell into the mirror saying the something's wrong when all you've done is destroy the dorm and loose a cat."
"How did you know I destroyed the dorm?"
"I can see the tree leaning against the bookcase behind you."
James looked behind him and groaned, "stall her!"
.0.0.0
Lily, Alice and Marlene had just walked up to a carriage that would take them back to the school, when Sirius Black came skidding to halt in front of them.
"What do you want?" Marlene asked, rolling her eyes as he made a show of catching breath. When he dramatically gulped in more air and didn't answer, she shoved him out of the way.
"Leaving so soon?" He asked as Lily had one foot on the step.
"We've been here all morning." Lily answered.
"So why not make a day out of it!" He said pulling her off the step.
Lily frowned. "Why? This isn't the first time we've been here. I think we've seen all there is to see."
"Surely you haven't seen everything though," he pulled her further away from the carriage, "how about the Shrieking Shack?"
"Yes."
Sirius let go of her arm in surprise, "you have?"
"You can see it from the road."
He relaxed, "but you haven't been inside it."
Lily slowly started walking backwards to the carriage. "No. That would be trespassing. And besides, who knows what kind of animals could be in there. Rats? Dogs? Wolves?" She winked at him then ran to her friends.
It took a minute to pull himself together. Did she know? She couldn't. But what if she did? Could she be trusted? Did James know, that she knew. He was suppose to be doing something for James ... stall Lily ... who was heading back to the castle ... opps ...
.0.0.0
"Evans!" Peter called the second Lily walked in the Entrance Hall.
She turned, "oh ... uh ... hi Peter. I thought you were still at the village ... how did you get back before us?"
"Funny story really. Lets sit down and I can tell you," he said, motioning to the Great Hall.
"That's okay. I want to put these bags away and –"
"It's really quite an interesting story." Peter interrupted, ushering her towards the doors.
Lily grabbed Marlene's wrist and dragged her with them. If she had to listen to Peter's story, then so did somebody else.
.0.0.0
"You really made a mess in here." Sirius said, leaning against the door frame.
"I though you were going to stall her!" James glared.
"And I did – kind of – don't get your wand in a twist! I've got Pete on it."
James stared at him.
"What? At least if he starts getting nervous, she'll take pity and talk to him."
"Not if McKinnion's there! She doesn't like him and will drag Lily wherever she goes!"
"Are we going to stand and argue about this, or are we going to fix the room before your girlfriend gets back and sees what you did?"
.0.0.0
"And that's when I said, 'no, I'm positive'!" Peter exclaimed before doubling over laughing.
Lily stared at him, clearly not understanding why he was banging his fist on the table, unable to catch his breath.
"Look, Peter ," she started, "it's been a long morning and-"
"We really don't care about the rest story," Marlene interrupted. "So we're going to go and, hopefully, it will be a few days before we talk to you again." She said, pulling Lily off the bench and hitting Alice who had her head rested on the table with her eyes closed.
"Are you sure?" Peter asked startled. "Because the ending is really the best part. I'll give you a hint. I-"
"Goodbye, Pettigrew." Marlene said raising her voice above his.
.0.0.0
"Why are you tangled in Christmas lights?" Peter asked.
James looked up from inside the pile of lights. "You're suppose to be with Lily!"
"I was! And I was really on a roll with my story telling. You know, I think I'm getting better with how I tell stories now-"
"Where is Lily now?"
Peter shrugged. "Probably on her way up."
"And you let her go because...?"
"Because if I tried to stop her, it would have looked suspicious."
James waved his hand around the room. "And her coming back to this, isn't going to look suspicious?"
"Relax. I got Moony to buy you more time."
James closed his eyes and breathed out while he slowly counted to ten.
.0.0.0
"You should have let him continue," Alice said yawning. "I was almost asleep"
Marlene rolled her eyes. "B all means, go back and hear the ending."
"I don't careabout the ending. I about sleeping."
"Why would he even want to talk to us?" Lily wondered aloud.
"He didn't," Marlene said. "He wanted to talk to you. Not us."
Lily and Alice looked at each other.
"Oh come on! He was calling your name. He was looking at you almost the entire time; and he didn't seem too concerned about me leaving, but when you got up: he panicked."
"You really pay attention to what he does." Alice said.
Marlene turned and glared at her, "I wasn't going out of my way to notice. I just did. Shut up." She said when Alice started to smirk at her.
Lily grinned as the two of them continued to bicker up the flights of stairs. When they came to the trick step, they found it blocked.
"Lupin?" Marlene said stopping in front of him.
"Oh, hey, McKinnion." He said casually
"What are you doing?" Alice asked.
"Well, you see, I was coming back from the library -"
"I thought you went to Hogsmede." Marlene interrupted.
"When I forgot about the stair and stepped on it." He continued loudly as thought he didn't hear her.
"How could you forget about it?" Marlene asked. "It's always been there."
He was silent for a moment for a moment. "Because I was reading and walking and didn't realize where I was."
Marlene raised her eyebrows. "So you fell into a step, but still managed to keep your place in a book?"
Remus looked down at the book that was still in his hand. "Oh. Ha ha. Would you look at that? Guess I'm just lucky."
"Mmhmm." She said as she sidestepped him.
Lily rolled her eyes and held out her hand. Together, her and Alice manged to pull him out of the step. Marlene stared at him, her eyes slightly narrowed.
Remus did a double take then frowned. "What?"
She said nothing, but turned and continued up the stairs. Lily shrugged and started a pleasant conversation as they made their way to Gryffindor Tower. Remus began to fidget as they neared the Heads Dorm door.
"Alice?" Lily said suddenly. "Can we stop at your room first? I forgot that I wanted to see if this new shirt matched the jacket you have."
"I didn't think you-"
"I know we'd be backtracking a little, but I don't see much point in putting it away if it doesn't match."
Alice frowned but agreed.
Lily turned to Remus. "Can you tell James that I'll see him in twenty minutes or so?"
"Absolutely." Remus answered quickly looking slightly relieved.
.0.0.0
Thirty minutes later, Lily walked into the Common Room. Lights had been strung around the room. A tree was decorated and sat in the corner. Her cat was perched on the mantel with a ribbon tied around his neck.
Lily grinned, "it's beautiful."
James came out from behind the tree.
"What were you doing-" Lily stopped short when she saw all the tinsel that was tangled in his hair. She bit back a laugh and reached to pull the mass of silver out.
"Sirius said it was all out!"
"And you believed him?"
James shrugged. "I knew you would be back soon and I didn't have time to check before I had to kick him out."
Lily laughed and lead him to the couch and sat down. At least, she was sitting for half-a-second before reaching under the cushions and pulling out a wooden stick.
James grabbed his wand from her, "I knew it was around here somewhere!" He glared at Gizmo sitting innocently on the mantel. "Damn cat."
Lily raised her eyebrows in question.
"Doesn't matter," he muttered.
She smirked but lay her head on his lap and didn't say anything. As he played with her hair, she told him about her day.
"And it's not everyday that three out of hour Marauders find ways to integrate themselves into my walk back to the Dorm, therefore giving you time to put the room back together."
James' fingers stilled. "You knew? Remus said you were going to see it some shirt matched something else."
"I lied. By the way he was squirming, I figured you needed more time. And it's beautiful, I love it." She leaned up and kissed him. "Thank you."
He grinned back her. "I love you."