Nightly Wanderings
James ducked behind a statue and listened as Filch ran on a head, wheezing and gasping, in pursuit of a student who was no longer in front of him.
It wasn't James's fault he was out of bed after hours. He had snuck out to go to the kitchens, as he had been locked in a cupboard (curtesy of Lily Evans) during dinner and, Sirius upon hearing his plan to go get some food decided then was the opportune moment to find some bimbo to shag in a broom closet, taking The Marauders Map and the cloak with him. Sirius's bad timing had meant James had to fumble along to the kitchen not caring of the trouble he could get in, the pull of a teenage boy's stomach was too much. Therefore it was Lily Evan's and Padfoot's fault that he had rounded a corner, on the way to the kitchens, only to come face to face with Argus Filch. That was just logic.
He waited three minutes, which was another thing The Marauders had learnt, you waited three minutes in your hiding place, as Filch liked to jump out on students that thought they had slipped through the slimy man's finger tips. When he was sure the coast was clear he ran back along the corridor and behind a statue of Bernard the bemused that led to the seventh floor corridor.
He walked along the corridor and would have continued along had he not noticed the door in the wall that meant one thing.
Someone else had found The Room of Requirement.
It could only be a novice or just someone not seeking a place to hide as they had not hidden the door but James was curious to know who else had unearthed one of The Marauders favourite discoveries. He pushed the plain door ajar and was astounded by what he heard.
Music.
Beautiful sweet music that flowed so elegantly. It was no secret that James loved music, brought up in a house with a large grand piano, he would sit and listen to his mother play to him for hours. The piano music that filtered through was Mozart's Piano Concerto No.20, one of his favourites and he couldn't help himself but slip through the door and close it carefully behind him, silently.
He looked over his shoulder and saw that the room was a moderate size, but concealed by the millions of instruments everywhere of every size, shape and colour; flutes, clarinets, violins, cellos, double basses, percussion, trumpets, cornets, trombones, bassoons and many more that James could not name. A harp sat in the corner, partially hidden by a purple cloth and there was an organ against the wall, sat under a layer of dust. But sat proudly in the middle of the madness was the most beautiful grand piano James had ever seen, much more delicate than the one he had played on at home, and perched on the stool, with her back turned to him, was a redheaded girl, her hands delicately sweeping over the keys, playing so beautifully he was sure his heart stopped for a second.
"Lily?" He gasped out.
The music stopped with a fumble as Lily's jumped, and she turned round quickly to look at him with a jerk, shocked.
"James?" She looked over timidly, with a guilty smile. "Please don't tell McGonagall" She moaned.
He was so surprised that it took him a moment to answer. She had never mentioned anything about music before, if he had known… He didn't know what he would have done but it would have involved buying her a piano or something equally as dramatic.
"Seriously? Lily I'm not gonna tattle on you, I'm just out of bed as you are right now." He reasoned to her, enjoying as her face became more relieved but still slightly suspicious.
"But you'd have the perfect blackmail, I'm out of bed at…" She glanced down at her watch and grimaced. "…one in the morning."
Wow James thought to himself, I spent a long time running away from filch.
"You're really not going to use that against me?" She questioned sceptically but could not help the relief flooding into her voice.
"I promise." He told her resolutely, watching her smile, a little awestruck that he had made her smile and liking it very much. "You never told me you could play." He told her, shifting from leaning against the door to walk over to her and sit on the bench next to her.
"I never told anyone, it was kind of private," James looked up at her with a guilty smile. "I've come down here almost every night since third year, I learnt the piano when I was seven and missed it dreadfully here. Then one day, it was probably after an argument with you, I was pacing along here and missing playing so awfully and then the door materialised and well here I am." She finished, although not quite sure why she was telling Potter all this, even Alice didn't know. "What are you doing Potter?" She asked. He had placed a sheet of music on the stand.
"Albert, Eugen d'- Waltzes for Piano Four-Hands, Op.6?" Lily questioned.
"I'll take the top hands." James said, Lily raised her eyebrows but shrugged, placing her hands on the keys. "You'll have to bear with me, I haven't played since September." James reminded her.
They played for what seemed like an age and James couldn't stop the little spark of happiness that occurred every time their fingers touched, grinning to himself as the music seeped through the room, they played well together.
But once again James had to ruin the moment. His stomach rumbled and Lily stopped playing abruptly.
"Wow, you are really hungry."
"Well I missed dinner," She rolled her eyes. "Because I was locked in a cupboard." Lily looked up quickly.
"Sorry." She murmured quietly.
"I'm sorry, I missed that." He teased cupping his ear, laughing as she slapped it away. "I was on my way to the kitchens when I ran into Filch, literally."
"Well come on then, I'm hungry too." She jumped off the bench and walked to the door as a shocked James trailed after her. Lily actually wanted to spend time with him, what magic was this?
As they darted outside James noticed Lily checking her watch many times, in fact she seemed more interested in her watch than where she was walking, although she had little problem navigating her way.
"What are you doing?" James questioned finally.
"I've been sneaking out of bed since third year, Filch doesn't just wander around, he's in certain places at different times… unless a student gets caught because then his timing gets mucked up," She added after a thought. "I'm trying to work out what part of his patrol he's on. How do you get round the castle without getting caught?" She said, challenging him to have a better method, the unfortunate thing was that Sirius had all his tricks.
"Well I don't have any of our methods with me, but I'll show you sometime." He said, peering round the corner, and in doing so, missing her blushing grin.
Once they finally made it round the castle to the kitchens they sat, talked, laughed and ate for hours until the sun came up, when they realised the house elves had already sent breakfast up. They dashed out, to grab their bags from Gryffindor tower, skipping breakfast, neither of them needed more food.
"Lily! Lily!" Alice called out, catching up to her best friend. "Where the hell where you, you weren't in your bed this morning, and then you didn't show for breakfast!" Alice asked her, although in a slightly hushed voice so no teachers or nosy students would hear, she already had a theory where her friend had been, after all she had heard Sirius and Remus asking each other if either of them had seen James, she didn't want anyone starting rumour's.
"I got up early to quickly go to the library and it dragged into breakfast, sorry, I didn't mean to leave you alone." Lily lied. Alice knew it was a lie, Lily's eyebrow twitched when she lied but Alice also knew Lily would tell her when she was ready and obviously she was still confused over her feelings for James.
Oh yes there were feelings for James, once he'd sorted out his ego they had become friends and Lily realised she had fallen for the 'Potter Charm' as it had been named, however she was still unaware that James was still in love with her and they had reached a weird, love stalemate.
"Right," She murmured, tactfully dropping the subject. "Well we've got to shift, we've got to get to Flitwick's in two minutes." Alice said after consulting her watch.
"Two minutes!" Lily screeched. "That's not shifting that moving faster than light! Come on!" She shouted, grabbing Alice's by the wrist and dragging her away.
"Lily, we could be half an hour late and Flitwick would still love you!" Alice called to Lily, half exasperated and half out of breath
The students watched amusedly as they saw the two girls dash off, the latter being pulled along disgruntledly.
Lily couldn't help that day but be very distracted by James Potter. She had had a crush on him for a while but she had never allow it take her attention away from her school work, that's not about to change she told herself determinedly, pulling her eyes back to the board were professor bins was droning on. Everyone was asleep in the class, Alice was snoring loudly on her desk and Bins had yet to notice, James and Remus were using sticking charms on paper airplanes and throwing them into Sirius's hair, unbeknown to him, he had a collection of six paper airplanes in his hair half an hour into the lesson and none were showing signs of dropping out, planes and boys.
What is happening to me? She asked over and over again in her head, as she pulled the direction of her gaze away from the boy once again.
Lily and James both went to the room of requirement that night, hoping the other would be there and so began there 'evenings of nightly wanderings' as James liked to call them, once a week they would meet, every week without fail, it's what kept them both going, knowing that only a couple more days and they got to spend the whole night together.
In the beginnings they would just play music, then it stretched to the kitchens and as they learned more about each other they realised they had more in common, James taught Lily to play Quidditch, Lily showed James muggle films and foods. The entire school noticed how much better friends they were, long gone were the days of hexing the living daylights out of each other.
So it was only natural one evening when they were watching Romeo and Juliet that James looked over to Lily who was snuggled up next to him and pressed his lips down too hers. Then they found something they enjoyed doing more than the films and the Quidditch.
No one knew what was going on, not even Alice or the rest of The Marauders, or so they thought. Alice and ¾ of The Marauders had teamed up to find out what was going on and using the invisibility cloak, the map and their combined wit they realised Lily and James were technically dating.
So they were not shocked, unlike the rest of the school, when James and Lily were about to leave for different classes and James pressed a small kiss to Lily's lips. The students along the walls went completely silent and then they began whispering in earnest. The Hogwarts Gossip Mill went wild. They both looked at each other with wide eyes.
"James!" Lily squeaked, looking sideways at Alice who huffed.
"Oh hush Lily, I've known for weeks," She sighed. So do the rest of your gang." She added as an afterthought to James, who let out a string of curse words that Alice tutted at.
"Seriously, you knew all this time and you never asked me about it?" Lily asked touched by Alice's respect for her privacy.
"I knew you'd tell me when you were ready." Alice shrugged, laughing as Lily gave her a hug.
When they broke apart James spoke again.
"Well seeing as it's been three minutes, the whole of Hogwarts knows now that we're dating, might as well give them something substantial to talk about." He said grinning as he pulled her in for a longer kiss. When they broke apart The Marauders had caught up to James.
"Unconventional way of telling us, but I'll accept it." Sirius said, nodding his approval at James before grinning and clapping him on the back. "How does it feel to finally have 'the girl of my dreams'" Sirius joked, putting on a high and girlish voice for James line. James, by way of response, elbowed him in the stomach.
Lily checked her watch and squealed.
"One minute till class starts!" She squealed again. "I've got to go, she pecked James and grabbed Alice's wrist, once again dashing off down the hall. "See you tonight…" She called back to James.
"I swear to Merlin, I'm going to marry that girl someday." James told his friends, staring after his beautiful girlfriend as Sirius, Remus and Peter exchanged identical grins to one another…
Fini.
A/N I've been writing quite a lot of one-shots recently and I have ideas for more, but I was wandering if anybody wanted me to write a longer story and if so any particular imagines that you would like to see down on paper (…or on a screen I guess?...), if so send me a message ;)