1My First Snog

Chapter 1

A Fateful Beginning

James was staring at Lily again. It was impossible for him not to. He just could not help it.

"Oy, James, what cha you looking at," Called the seemingly far away voice of his friend, Sirius Black.

"What..," James snapped up, trying to look as if he had been paying attention the entire time. Sirius turned his head and looked in the direction that James had been staring in. A mischievous smile slowly spread across his face. He looked at James with a secretive look.

"No, Padfoot, mate, really, it's not what you think..." James trailed off miserably, desperately stammering in an attempt to convince his friend.

"Really? What do I think then? Come on! Don't try and hide it! It's completely obvious, mate."

"I know and that's what really annoys me about this whole thing." James stared off into the distance, obviously thinking about a certain "special someone". Sirius watched him with a somewhat annoyed look for a moment and then remembered what he had called James out of his daydreaming for in the first place.

"Ok, so back to business," Sirius said, looking excited again, "what are we going to do for this week's prank?"

"What? Oh…err…I don't know..?" He was staring at Lily again. Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Come on. Honestly. Let's get out of the common room and go somewhere where we can actually concentrate.

"Do you mind if I stay here for a bit?" Remus asked, "Unlike James here, I'm actually kind of studying."

"Yes. I think I need to get down to some of that, err, studying too," James said eagerly.

"Oh come on! This is MUCH more important than studying!" Sirius spat the last word out as if it were poison. Throwing his arms in the air, he pulled at James's arm.

"And you are getting out of here no matter what. It's bad for your health."

Wanting to keep up and feel as if he was part of the pack, Peter came with them up the spiraling staircase. When they made it up to their room, with Peter panting heavily, they sat in a circle.

"Get out the Sticks and Dots," Sirius commanded. Peter got up and pulled from under his bed a paper bag of mix. It was a little like Chex Mix, but none of the boys had ever heard of that before. They had nicked some from a 3rd year Muggleborn one day and put a spell on the bag so that it would keep refilling after it was eaten. They had christened it Sticks and Dots, since that is what it looked like to them. It was their weekly prank-planning brain food. Sirius often reminded the boys that he didn't really need any brain food, that he merely ate it because it was a ritual. They all had heard that one many times before, however, but none of them said anything.

Reaching his hand into the bag, Sirius thought for a moment. They all watched him as he rolled the Sticks and Dots around in his mouth. It was a rare sight. Sirius never chewed slowly or ceased talking even when he was chewing. A little thing like eating never stopped him.

"Well", he said after he swallowed, another rare sight, "It's not Wednesday." He looked at them. "Come on mates. Don't leave all the thinking to me."

"Sirius, mate, first of all, it IS Wednesday. Second of all, we never leave the thinking to you. Third of all, since when do you swallow?" James said, as if Sirius had committed a crime.

"That's not the point. The point is that it's Wednesday and we still haven't thought of a prank for the week. James, I'm starting to think that Lily is getting to your head. What's happened to you lately?"

"Starting to think?" Peter added, "I think that this has been going on for awhile now."

"Never mind that. Nothing has happened to me. You're just taking things to seriously. You're becoming paranoid. It's as if you're jealous of Lily. And we haven't even started dating yet. I mean, I've never even snogged her!"

"Sad to be the one to tell you this, mate, but you never will snog her. She hates you incase you haven't noticed," said Sirius bluntly.

"That's only a small obstacle that really is quite easy to overcome."

Remus walks in but the boys did not notice as they were too engrossed with their conversation. They also did not notice that Peter had fallen asleep and was sucking his thumb, again, as he rolled back and forth on the floor. Remus sat down next to Sirius without saying anything.

"What is only a small obstacle?" Asked Remus, hoping he could catch up on the part of the conversation he had missed.

"Nothing," said Sirius as he snickered.

"You say whatever you want, Sirius. I'm going back to the common room to do some more of that…err…studying," James said as he got up and left the room.

"Who are you studying, James? Huh? Who are you studying?" Called Sirius but James had already run down the stairs in hope of finding a good seat where he could...err...study.

"Remus… I have had an idea. I believe that I am about to tell you what we are going to do for our weekly prank. But we are going to have to break a few rules, as usual…"

The next morning at breakfast…

With purple-circles under their eyes from planning...or in James's case...err...studying, the four boys sat down at the long table and, coincidentally, directly across from Lily. She rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the fact that James had been talking exceptionably loud in order to gain her attention and that whenever he made, in his opinion, a particularly witty comment, he got food all down his front by waiting for her reaction. Unfortunately for him, it never came.

It was just then that James was saying something abnormally loud to Remus about chipmunks that all the buzzing around them stopped. It was one of those random and awkward silences where everyone just decides to stop talking all at once. The exception was James of course who was usually lost about what was going on around him, especially when Lily was there. Everyone stared.

"So...err...yeah...um...I think that chipmunks should, you know, become...err...more able to fly to escape predators so that...yeah..." said James half enjoying the attention and also wanting to be caught talking about something funny that people would find intelligent and witty. This was not one of his strong points however. He bowed and sat down.

Everyone was still staring when a third- year Ravenclaw stood up and concentrating really hard on what he was about to do, shouted, "BLAST OFF!"

With his arms straight out in front of him, he ran out of the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything. It has been heard that she whispered the name "Clarkus" under hear breath, though. A.N. (We assume this was the boy's name, but our contacts are not sure).

"Bloody hell," said James, Sirius, and Lupin in unison as they stared after the boy.

Peter looked from side to side, confused about the situation altogether.

"What was that about?" He asked.

"As if we would know." answered Sirius, with an exasperated look on his face, "let's find out."

All of them went out to follow as the boy we now refer to as "Clarkus", but there was no sign of him whatsoever.

"Well, if we can't find him, we will at lunch," said James, "we might as well get started." He ushered Sirius and Lupin out the door and through the portrait to the Gryffindor common room.

20 minutes later…

"RUN LITTLE BROCCOLI! RUN!" Cheers from crowd were spreading among all the students lounging in the common room and eventually, everyone was crowding around the racing ground to catch a glimpse of the vegetable action.

"Any last minute bets? We got 3:1 on Broccoli, 1:2 on Carrot and 1:3 on Turnip. Come on, mates. Turnip can run too." Sirius's face saddened as he looked back in the corner at the limp enchanted turnip. He was obviously very emotional about this.

The vegetables, or the ones that were able to stand up, walked to the starting line and got into their positions. James raised the starting flag and looked over at Lupin who was waiting at the end of the racetrack with a watch. When Lupin gave the signal, James dropped the flag and the fruit, I mean vegetables, were off.