Written for Hogwarts' History of Muggles Assignment: Write about someone following directions, the Writing Club - Television Show of the Month: Logan Echolls: (character) James Potter (action) flirting (dialogue) "So this is staking out, huh? It looks sexier in the movies." (object) deck of cards, the Love in Motion Event: LilyJames, and the Roald Dahl Day Event - Write about a secret using creepy, quiet, empty, blink.
Word count: 2559
follow me and I'll lead you home
"So, this is staking out, huh?" James asks, looking around the car dubiously for the third time, shuffling a deck of cards in his hands helplessly, putting it back down when Lily shoots him an unimpressed look when he pulls a card from behind her left ear—the first (and only) magic trick he's ever known how to use.
He shifts in his seat, trying to get a little more comfortable, but it's useless—there isn't enough space for him to put his legs in a way that doesn't make them cramp, and he has to twist his head to look through the window and see the buildings, which isn't exactly painless either. Add to that how dark the street is, despite the flickering yellow streetlights, and this is the perfect setting for a horror movie. "It looks sexier in the movies."
He wrinkles his nose again, trying to find where the unsavory smell is coming from, and finally spots the white plastic bag at the bottom of Lily's feet. "And what even is this smell? Did you bring an egg sandwich in here? Lils, come on, you know I can't stand that smell!" he moans.
"Don't be ridiculous, James, we're not 'staking out' anyone," Lily retorts sharply. "We're just… Looking around, trying to figure out what Sirius is hiding from us." She pauses for a moment, craning her neck to see around James and spot the door to Sirius' apartment building? "And hush, it's late and I was getting hungry—I packed you some of last night's leftovers, though, so you can stop complaining already."
"Thank you," James breathes, ravenously snatching said leftovers from Lily's hands, who snorts fondly. "But also, we're currently in an unmarked, rented car parked right across the street from his place, at night. But sure, Lils, whatever you say, this is absolutely not a stakeout," he adds, munching on his food quickly.
"Look, Sirius told you that he had a thing tonight," Lily says, crossing her arms. She's frowning in a way that only makes her look fiercer—her green eyes sharpen a little, her hair seems to turn a little fierier. "And that that was why he couldn't come to our place for dinner the way he usually does, and obviously with Sirius that can only mean one thing—he has a date. Considering how badly it ended with Sherman-"
"Sherryl, her name was Sherryl-" James corrects through a mouthful of pulled pork, barely resisting a smirk.
"Cherry, whatever—considering how badly things ended with that bimbo, and the guy before that, Larry-" Lily says, rolling her eyes. She purses her lips a bit.
"I thought his name was Mike?"
"No, honey, Mike was the one before that," Lily laughs. "You know, the one who tried to steal Sirius' bike when he left? Larry was the creepy blond asshole who thought Sirius should bleach his hair so they could match."
"Oh god, I had forgotten about that," James states, horrified. Sure, he had teased Sirius mercilessly about that (and still did sometimes), but that was only because Sirius hadn't gone through with it. "Christ, I'm glad Sirius finally wised up after that and dumped his sorry ass. I mean, why did they even stay together for, what, almost six months?"
"Well, Sirius did mention that the sex was amazing," Lily teases.
James blinks and splutters, "W-what? How do you even know that? Why do you know that—why would Sirius talk to you about his sex life, and not with me, his best friend? I knew him first, this isn't fair."
"Clearly, he loves me best, then. Also, get down and be quiet, I think someone's coming out of the building!" Lily hisses, suddenly sliding down in her seat as far as she can go.
James manages a quick look outside the window—just enough to spot that it is in fact Sirius coming out of the building—before Lily's hand on his head push him down as well. "Is that Sirius? What is he wearing?!"
"You're one to talk about clothes, James—I literally had to stop you from going to work in your pink pajamas last week," Lily retorts, though James can see from her incredulous look that she's as bewildered as he is by Sirius' choice of attire for the evening, which seems to be have way more leather than James thought was possible to combine in a single outfit.
"I'll have you know that I look amazing in pink," James protests automatically, because there's nothing else Lily can be referring to. "Also, we agreed never to speak of this again, and that nothing I did before I got my third cup of coffee could be held against me."
"Oh, I didn't agree to anything. You decided that on your own, I just nodded along," Lily smirks, expression pitying.
"It was a nod of agreement!" James splutters. "Like when you nod at what someone says because you agree with them!"
"It was a 'go on' nod, as in, 'I'm not listening, go on', actually," Lily corrects playfully. "Wait—Sirius is gone! Do you see him?" Leveraging herself on James—a situation that James had always imagined wouldn't be this painful—she scrutinizes their surroundings, cursing softly when she finds the street empty.
"No, Lily, I can't see him since you've shoved my head down like two minutes ago," James says, extracting himself from beneath his girlfriend with a wince and looking out the window for himself.
Lily's earlier smile turns somewhat sad and frustrated. "You do realize that this means we've just lost him, right?"
"Come on, Lily-flower, who do you take me for?" James scoffs, fishing his phone out of his jeans' pocket. "This may be my first stakeout, but that doesn't mean I didn't come prepared—I tagged his bike, and we have the 'find your friend' app. If he took either, we're set. We can just follow him, and see where he's going."
Lily blinks, licking her lips slowly. "I honestly don't know if I'm more attracted to you or disturbed by you right now."
"Let's go with attracted, then—you know you love me," James replies without looking up from his phone, shouting in excitement as he manages to pull up the proper app and see that Sirius is indeed moving.
"See?" he gloats. "I told you me downloading all these 'stupid apps' would come in useful one day."
"Yes, yes, you did," Lily says, rolling her eyes. "Now, buckle up, stop talking and tell me where we need to go."
"Yes, ma'am," James quips, doing just that as Lily starts the car and gets it on the street. On his phone's screen, the red dot that symbolizes keeps moving, its blinking a mesmerizing song James finds himself drawn to inexorably. "Turn right on the next street over," he orders, "then left and right again."
"You're sure about this?" Lily asks, accelerating. "Because I seem to remember that the last time you gave me directions we ended up getting lost on the way to your parents' house, and they had to come and get us."
James flushes pink. "Yes, well, that was different. Very different. I was distracted—I'm not distracted now."
"You better not be," Lily threatens, almost hissing the words between her teeth.
"It was your fault anyway," James mumbles mulishly. After all, if Lily hadn't worn that green dress—when she knows full well how gorgeous she looks in it—James wouldn't have lost the map beneath his seat.
"What was that?" Lily asks, tone overly sweet.
James shivers and pastes on a false smile. "Nothing. I was just saying that you should turn left again now."
Lily huffs but turns the wheel accordingly. "Can you see him yet? How far are we?"
James shakes his head, and then, remembering that Lily is probably keeping her eyes on the round, says, "We're coming up on him, but we're not quite there yet. I'm pretty sure he took his bike, and you know how Sirius is on that thing."
"Stupidly reckless and a danger to the general population?" Lily quips, smile playing on her lips.
"I was just going to say that he likes to go fast, but that works, too," James laughs.
Lily keeps going straight for a few more seconds, cursing as they hit a red light. "Where to next?" she asks, foot tapping restlessly against the floor.
James hums softly as he considers the map on his phone and the street in front of them. "Straight for five hundred meters and then second exit on the traffic roundabout."
The light goes green but Lily curses as the car stalls. "Oh, come on!"
"Hey, you're the one who suggested we rent a car," James shrugs.
"Well, you're the one who picked this one," Lily counters, but there's no heat to her words—she's having fun.
The car restarts and Lily follows on James' earlier instructions carefully. "Where do you think he's going anyway?" she asks.
James shrugs. "I don't know—maybe he's meeting someone at a bar, or a club? I mean, there's only so many places you can go to wearing that much leather."
Lily laughs. "You're just jealous you can't pull it off half as well."
"I'm not," James lies blatantly.
"Don't worry," Lily laughs, "I still love you even if Sirius is prettier than you."
James pouts. "You know, just for that I should send you in the wrong direction."
"You'd be sending yourself in the wrong direction as well, though," Lily replies steadily, eyes twinkling with mirth. "Left or right now?" she asks as they come up to an intersection.
"Neither—just keep going, and turn right at the next intersection. We should see Sirius then."
Lily nods, and sure enough, the familiar dark silhouette of Sirius on his motorbike appears on their horizon.
"Finally," Lily heaves in relief. She accelerates a little, getting their car closer to Sirius, but then seems content to keep two other cars in between them.
"What?" she asks defensively when James points that out. "You think you're the only one addicted to crappy spy movies?"
"James Bond isn't crappy," James counters.
"Now, I never said anything about James Bond," Lily smirks. "Besides, for a spy he never seems to do any actual spying—seriously, you can't tell me nobody notices the explosions that follow after him!"
"It gets covered up, Lils, come on, how many times must we have this discussion?"
Lily snorts, unimpressed. "Sure—I still say it's just lazy storytelling, though."
James growls, but his answer gets cut off when his phone rings, Sirius' face suddenly flashing on his screen. In his surprise, James almost drops it on the floor.
"Lily!" he hisses.
"What?" Lily answers distractedly. "Just pick up!" she says, rolling her eyes, when the catchy tune James set for his best friend rings again.
"But it's Sirius," he moans.
Lily looks at him incredulously. "Pick up," she repeats.
Reluctantly, James does. "Hi Sirius. How are you doing by this fine evening?" He chuckles awkwardly, returning Lily's disbelieving 'what are you doing?' look with an 'I don't know' shrug.
"Hi James," Sirius replies. His voice sounds tiny through the receiver, but it is still undeniably his, even if it is muffled by the sound of wind.
"Is he calling while driving?" Lily asks, offended, glaring at Sirius' back that they can see not too far ahead.
"Are you calling while driving?" James repeats, amused. "Lily wants to know."
"Bluetooth kit," Sirius replies, and James can hear the eyeroll in his voice. "But anyway, I called because I wanted to ask you something…"
"Ah, yes?" James replies, wincing as his voice comes out too high. He shifts in his seat uneasily. "What did you want to know?"
"Well, I'd love to know why you thought it'd be a good idea to follow me around for the night, for one," Sirius laughs. "And also, that car, really? You do remember that I was there when you were fifteen and said you wanted one just like it, don't you?"
James fakes a laugh. "Oh, that," he says. "Well, you see, it's kind of a funny story, we-"
Rolling her eyes, Lily snatches the phone from James' hand, ignoring his cry of protest. "Friday nights are family dinner nights at our house, and you can't blow us off for no good reason," she states into the phone. "Also, you have crappy taste in boyfriends and girlfriends, so we decided we'd have to veto them first."
"If this is about Tiffany," Sirius starts, but Lily cuts him off.
"It's not about her, it's about her and everyone you've been dating for the last five years," she says. Her tone softens. "You have to know they weren't right for you. You don't have to date just because James and I are dating, you know—we don't mind that you don't bring anyone with you for dinner."
James takes back the phone, putting it on speaker and setting it down on the armrest—he's not about to let Lily driver and be on the phone at the same time.
"Look, we're sorry we sort of stalked you tonight, but we were…"
"Worried," Lily says.
"Concerned," James corrects, glaring half-heartedly at her. "We were concerned."
"That's cute, guys, but there's really nothing to be worried about. I'm fine," Sirius says.
"Where are you going, anyway?" Lily asks suddenly, just as James was about to tell Sirius that no, he clearly wasn't as okay as he said he was.
"I have a thing," Sirius replies after a short moment of silence.
"Yes, we know that," Lily replies, rolling her eyes. "That's why we came—because you said that you had a thing but wouldn't say what it was."
"Like I said, man, we're concerned," James adds, picking at his nails nervously.
On the phone, Sirius barks out a laugh. "Alright, alright, you win. I'll tell you—I have a gig."
"At midnight?" James replies, dubious.
"Yes, James, at midnight," Sirius laughs. "I was keeping it a secret in case it didn't work out, but, well, since you followed me anyway, I guess I don't have a choice, do I?"
"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to," Lily replies kindly, hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel.
"It's fine—I, err, I have a singing gig tonight. Late night concert."
James feels his grin threaten to split his face in two. "Wow, man, that's awesome! Congrats!"
"Yes, congrats, Sirius," Lily repeats warmly. "Would you, err, maybe, like some support?"
"You mean you two won't follow me if I do say no?" Sirius teases.
Lily blushes and stutters, "N-no. Well, I mean, maybe not—probably not." She clears her throat, sending James an almost panicked look. "We'd try not to, is what I mean. If you didn't want us to."
Sirius hums loudly, pensive. "Well," he finally says, "I guess I might need at least two people cheering for me in the crowd."
James whoops loudly, Lily cheering beside him. "You bet you do!"
The line goes quiet for a few moments, before James asks, "But really, where are we going?"
"Why don't you keep following me and find out?" Sirius laughs.
James scowls. "I guess we do deserve that, don't we? Well, Lily, you heard the man—keep following that bike."
Lily snorts, raising her right hand in a mock salute. "Will do, sir."