Sirius Black sighed as he lost his best friend's attention for the umpteenth time. Weren't Hogsmeade weekends supposed to be for hanging out? What was the use of stalking a girl, anyway, when dozens of girls would flock to you? There were some things about James Potter that Sirius just did not understand.
"See you later," James muttered, pulling his well-used invisibility cloak out of his pocket and stepping into the shadows to throw it over his head. He loved spending his time this way; how awesome was it that he got to watch Lily Evans for hours on end in Hogsmeade, when there wasn't anywhere else he had to be, and she never caught him or hexed him or screamed at him? This was shaping up to be the perfect day—The Three Broomsticks, Honeyduke's, Zonko's, Lily Evans, and Padfoot all in the same 24 hours.
Lily was oblivious to the current stalking situation. She had just exited The Three Broomsticks and was looking kind of lonely without her friends Mary MacDonald, Marlene McKinnon, and Alice Prewett by her side. James longed to walk up to her, visible, and strike up a conversation, but he'd tried that hundreds—thousands!—of times, and it had always ended badly. Now he decided it was better to tail her, unnoticed, and just get to watch her—the way she walked, the way her hair moved as she strode up the street, her expressions as she looked in the windows of the various shops . . . there were so many things to watch when it came to Lily that James could have spent all day just gazing at her.
A little boy around four years old suddenly ran out into the street from one of the alleyways; Lily and James, upon seeing him, both figured that he had probably come from one of the houses off of Hogsmeade's Main Street. His foot caught on a loose brick and the boy took a spectacular tumble, somehow managing to scrape both knees, both elbows, both hands, and various parts of his face as he rolled head over heels over the cobblestones. As he came to a halt, the boy started screaming and wailing in obvious pain. Lily immediately ran to him, scooped him up in her arms, carried him into the shadow of the nearest building, and sat down, still holding him. "Shh, shh," she whispered soothingly, stroking the boy's hair as he cried. "Are you okay?"
"No! No! Hurt!" the child screamed.
"Do you want me to take you home, or to the hospital wing at my school?"
"Mama! Maaaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
"All right, all right. Shh, it's okay. It's all going to be okay. Where's your Mama?" Lily soothed.
"Mama! Mama! Home!" the boy yelled.
"Yes, home. Where's home?" the prefect girl prompted.
The boy pointed miserably toward the alley he'd just run out of. Lily stood and, still carrying the boy, strode through the alley. "Where next?" she asked once she'd gotten to the other end of the alley. Following the child's pointed directions, she made her way down several streets until at last she had reached the building the boy claimed as his residence. All the while, she was comforting the still-crying boy, soothing him until his sobs had diminished into mere whimpers. Once at the selected house, Lily knocked on the door. "Excuse me?" she asked when the door was opened. "Is this your child?"
"Yes," replied a smiling woman, only perhaps ten years older than Lily. "Oh, dear, is he all right?"
"Well, he took a pretty bad fall," Lily explained. "I asked him where he lived and he pointed me here. Can you clean him up by yourself?"
"Of course I can. Thank you for bringing him to me. I'm sure he was a right piece of work after falling," the woman responded, taking the child from Lily's arms. "Thank you so much for your help." This saying, she gently closed the door.
James took off his invisibility cloak and stuffed it into his pocket, unable to resist commenting on what had just taken place. "Wow, Evans, I didn't know you could be so nice."
Lily shot him a burning look. "Don't bother worrying your inflated head about it," she snapped. "I assure you it's a side of me that you won't see often."