"Padfoot! I'm so glad I found you here! Just the man I was searching for."
James walked over to Sirius' bed and hung an arm awkwardly on one of the posts. Sirius looked at James through squinted eyes, suspicious at what his best friend was up to.
"Where should I be?"
"Ha, nowhere. Nowhere in particular … move over."
With a good shove, James moved Sirius' legs to the other side of the mattress and sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed. If Sirius was being honest, James had been acting strange for a few days. And there was only one being that made James Potter stumble over himself – Lily Evans. So either he'd been stricken with some jinx or he was panicking for the fifteenth time that day about his date with Lily that evening. Sirius would put ten galleons on the latter. James was giving him those puppy eyes, a trait he'd picked up from Peter, in hopes his friend would take pity on him. Sirius sighed and sat up. James took this as his cue to speak.
"So like, girls, yeah?"
"Yeah?"
"They like … chocolate cauldrons?"
"You're pathetic, Prongs!"
"I – but – I'm not! You're … yeah."
"You've had every detail of this date with Lily planned out since fifth year."
"But that was two years ago! It's child's play, definitely not good enough now." James threw his arms up in defeat. He took a chance with his puppy eyes again but Sirius was staring back unimpressed. "Help me!" James said finally.
"You two are going to be the death of me, I swear. She agreed to go out with you because she likes you. Merlin knows why."
"Oi!"
"Just a small joke! I mean, I'd date you but, oh, you're not pretty enough so our dear friend Lily will have to do."
"I'm prettier than you!"
"You're not, but that's not the point! See, I reckon you'll be snogging before you even make it to dinner."
James considered this for a moment and a smile crept over his face.
"Black!"
Sirius sighed and hung his head. Would he ever get a break?
"Lily flower!" he said as she spun around with open arms. She rolled her eyes at the nickname. Between Sirius and James, the garden-related nicknames were completely out of hand.
"We're friends now, right?"
"Anyone who puts up that great of a fight in a prank war is my friend. I still can't get that pair of trousers back to normal."
She smiled. The pair walked out of the castle arm in arm – passersby would surely think they were up to something.
"Where's James?"
"Up in his room running every horrible scenario about things that could go wrong for your date tonight."
Lily replied with a thoughtful "oh."
"You dragged me out into this awful sunlight for a reason, what is it?"
"I can't just go for a walk with my friend?"
"No, not really."
"Fine. So, James, yeah?"
"I can't do this again."
Lily ignore him and continued, "He likes Quidditch, butterbeer, and oddly enough a good book."
"Ah, ah, ah, you've forgotten his favorite thing."
"You?" she asked with a sly smile.
"I wish," Sirius snorted. "You, obviously."
"That's what I was afraid of!"
"Lily, he worships the ground you walk on."
"But I don't want him to! I'm afraid he's built up this idea that I cannot possibly live up to and we've been dancing around this for such a long time and it's finally happening and – "
"Evans, take a breather," Sirius cut her off. "He'd watch you stare at the fire in Gryffindor Tower for six hours straight and then he'd tell me about how great it was the next three weeks."
Her eyes lit up though she'd later deny showing any attachment to what Sirius had said.
"Why," he continued, "did you come to me instead of Remus or Peter?"
"Remus basically told me to get over it and kiss James already. Peter merely echoed the sentiment."
"And you thought I'd be more helpful because …"
"The pair of you practically share a brain!"
Lily threw her arms up in frustration. Sirius tried so very hard not to show his amusement at her predicament. She'd really grown on him in the past year or two, which he thanked anyone he could think of for because James was never going to let his feelings go. Would've been awkward if he hated Lily. But having this conversation with her now, Sirius realized how alike the two of them really were.
"You're both so worried about impressing each other when you should just put everyone out of this misery and just. Snog. Already."
"It's about a little bit more than snogging, you know!" Lily insisted.
"Shagging?"
"SIRIUS."
"It'll be fire, trust me. Now go find James, if I have to listen to him worry about this date one more time I'm going to hex myself just to get out of it."
While roaming the halls later that evening, Sirius saw a distinctive messy, dark haired boy share a quick kiss with a redhead before the two of them tumbled into a nearby broom closet for some privacy. Sirius laughed a little bit and shouted "it's about time" at the closed closet door as he passed by.
