Notes: A Marauder's-era fan-fiction set during seventh year. Told from James's POV with a focus on Remus/Sirius ('Wolfstar') and some background James/Lily. Featuring clueless James, fluff, humour, discoveries and romance.
Not So Invisible
James Potter couldn't help the amused giggle that escaped his lips as he hid himself away in the Restricted Section of the school library, concealed by his Invisibility Cloak, on what was a cold winter's Saturday afternoon.
He was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Sirius, whose name he had spotted only a few minutes ago on the Marauder's Map. The Map had suggested that his best friend was heading in this direction, and James had also made a point of quickly walking past Sirius in the nearest corridor just moments ago, still hidden under his Cloak, just to check that he definitely was walking this way. Of course, the Map never lied.
And, if Sirius really was heading right into the library this afternoon, then James assumed that he would probably only be interested in visiting the Restricted Section, which is why James had chosen to hide here.
Again, James smirked to himself. He was thinking about how funny it would be to hide around the corner of the nearest bookshelf and jump out at Sirius and scare him with a loud cry of, "Boo!", before he pulled off the Cloak and revealed himself to the sound of loud laughter.
It would be worth the angry shouts of the librarian in reaction to all the noise that would no doubt be made, along with the irritation of the students who were actually in the library to study, and also the rant from the caretaker that would probably follow all the upcoming commotion.
James knew that Lily wouldn't approve of something like this, as she would take it as yet another hint that James hadn't in fact grown up at all, in spite of being in his seventh and final year at Hogwarts, but James couldn't help himself-he and Sirius had been doing things like this ever since they became friends in first year. As hilarious as it was when the two of them teamed up to carry out elaborate pranks, sometimes, it was just as much fun to pull pranks on each other.
It was not unusual for the two of them to sneak up on each other and jump out from their hiding places all over the castle, usually with a little help from the Cloak. Often, they hid around the corners of corridors, or behind tapestries and suits of armour, or behind classroom doors and under desks, waiting for the other to conveniently walk past.
Out of all of the Marauders, James knew that Sirius was the best person to try and scare, as his reactions were always priceless-he would make a big show of shouting and shrieking and swearing, flailing his arms around the whole time, before he finally saw the funny side and burst out laughing, vowing to get James back the moment the opportunity arose. And every time, James knew that Sirius really would get him back-it was all a part of the game that the two of them had happily played for years, and the promise of revenge only made the whole thing even more amusing.
It just wasn't the same with the others: Peter was surprisingly not so easily startled now that they were in their final year at Hogwarts-he often anticipated James and Sirius's pranks in advance, and barely seemed to react much anymore, and Remus always gave them both boring lectures about responsibility whenever James or Sirius tried to sneak up on him in the corridors while they were wearing the Cloak, meaning that the fun of scaring him wasn't always worth it, in the long run.
At the sudden sound of approaching footsteps, James quickly suppressed even more giggles. Adjusting the Invisibility Cloak one more time to check that he was definitely fully concealed, he crouched down a little at the side of the bookcase and waited with a smirk, already imagining the look on Sirius's face when he jumped out at him.
Much to James's disappointment however, it was not Sirius who arrived at the Restricted Section of the library. Instead, Remus appeared next to the bookshelf, looking especially anxious at the moment, although James wasn't sure why. Normally, Remus was the kind of student who actually came to the library to study, and being in the library, surrounded by old books, often helped to calm him down, but today, it seemed like he had other things on his mind.
James sighed to himself; he'd been so certain that it was Sirius heading this way and not Remus. He was just debating whether he should jump out at Remus instead and risk facing a long lecture about how he should be more mature, now that they all had N.E.W.T. exams coming up, when Remus suddenly leaned around the other side of the shelf and whispered, "Hurry up, we don't have much time!"
James felt a sudden rush of curiosity. There was something so urgent, and so secretive about Remus's words and his body language that James was intrigued to know more. What was Moony up to? Who was he talking to? Did he have something to hide?
Suddenly, with his eyes darting from left to right, Remus reached his hand around the same shelf, as though he was about to grab hold of someone. Then, to James's surprise, Remus pulled Sirius, of all people, from around the side of the shelf and into James's line of vision.
So James had been right in his guess that Sirius was heading to the library after all. But why was he here with Remus? James hadn't even seen the two of them hanging around together today.
Sirius looked more relaxed than Remus did, but still, there was a look of…something written all over his face-it looked like he was also in a hurry, or like he was in on some sort of secret with Remus.
Feeling intrigued, James took a few steps towards them, to see if he could overhear what they were saying. It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps the two of them were planning some kind of prank of their own. This was a common occurrence at Hogwarts, even though most of the teachers (with the notable exception of McGonagall) seemed to think that Remus was so sweet and so innocent and couldn't possibly be influenced by Sirius Black's strange schemes. Even now, as he was standing a few feet away from James wearing faded jeans and an old Gryffindor jumper, James could understand why so many of the teachers were so easily deceived by Remus's appearance.
Yet James knew the truth. Remus could be just as devious as the rest of the Marauders, when he wanted to be, and when he and Sirius teamed up, they were a force to be reckoned with: Remus's intelligence and tendency to keep things secret along with Sirius's daring and bravery and complete disregard for the rules often made for an unstoppable combination.
James hesitated for a few seconds, trying to decide between two possible options of either revealing himself in the hope of startling them both, or attempting to listen in on their conversation for a little while longer, to see if they would reveal any secrets about an upcoming prank.
But in those few seconds of hesitation, something happened that temporarily removed all hope of logical thought from James's mind. Because one moment, Remus and Sirius were talking in frantic whispers about how they didn't want to get caught, and the next, Remus was backing Sirius against the bookshelf, and then he kissed him full on the mouth!
As their lips met, James was unable to prevent the loud gasp of shock that left his lips. It was lucky for him that Remus's gesture of pushing Sirius up against the shelf had caused a few books to dislodge from their place and fall very loudly to the floor, as the noise of the books hitting the ground just about managed to cover up the shocked noise James made.
Apparently oblivious to anything else that was going on around them, Remus and Sirius continued to kiss, with their kisses looking so passionate that James couldn't deny the fact that the two of them were full-on snogging now.
James removed his hand from his mouth, but he wouldn't have been able to speak right then even if he'd tried. Instead, he watched his two friends with his mouth open and his eyes wide. He felt like his whole body had frozen in his shock and his surprise; it was as though somebody had put a full Body-Bind curse on him, and now he was rooted to the spot.
Remus and Sirius. Moony and Padfoot. Together. Kissing. Snogging. How had this happened? When had this started?
It was shocking enough, just seeing Sirius and Remus kissing in the first place: Remus had always looked a bit terrified at the very ideas of snogging and romance, and Sirius had always remained quite distant and aloof whenever girls flirted with him. It was as though he enjoyed the fact that all the girls thought he was so handsome, but had little real interest in the physical payoff to this attention.
Neither of them looked nervous or distant or inexperienced right now however, judging by the way they were enthusiastically kissing each other's lips and cheeks and jawlines…
It seemed that James's belief that he had the most experience out of all the Marauders when it came to snogging had been completely wrong. What a way to find this out!
Stupidly, James pinched himself, just in case he was dreaming. Maybe he'd eaten too many sweets in the common room yesterday evening and was now having strange dreams as a result…But no, he could feel the pain of his pinches-he was definitely wide awake.
Perhaps he was simply hallucinating? Seeing things that weren't really there? He wouldn't put it past the Slytherins to have slipped something into his potion in class yesterday that could cause him to have strange visions. Or maybe his long nights of lying awake, thinking about Lily Evans and writing love letters to her were finally catching up with him.
But, no, that wasn't it-James felt perfectly fine; he didn't even feel tired at the moment. There was no excuse, no explanation. This was really happening, and right in front of him, too.
"Wanted to do this, all day," Remus managed to whisper to Sirius during a brief pause in their kissing.
"Me too, Moons," Sirius whispered in reply.
James blinked rapidly at their words. Something about the way they kissed, and the words they spoke to each other, told James that this was not the first time the snogging had happened between them. In fact, it looked like they had been doing this for quite a while.
James shook his head, still feeling a sense of total and utter disbelief. He'd never even heard of two blokes snogging each other in the wizarding world before now, especially not at Hogwarts, so he was finding all of this a bit difficult to process. His struggle was only heightened by the fact that he was watching one of his male best friends snogging the boy who was practically James's brother.
To make things even more uncomfortable, shy, nervous Remus seemed to have found some sort of inner dominant side in the time since he'd started sharing kisses with Sirius, as he was currently running a hand firmly through Sirius's long, dark hair while he tugged insistently on the buttons of Sirius's expensive white shirt with his other hand, looking eager to expose the bare skin on Sirius's neck, for some reason.
"Make sure you leave a mark there," Sirius suddenly muttered, sounding rather bossy himself as he smirked smugly at Remus and raised his eyebrows almost challengingly at him. "Then everyone will know I'm yours..."
"You're completely reckless, you know that?" Remus practically growled in response, although he didn't seem to be particularly upset or angry about Sirius's recklessness at the moment (even though he usually hated Sirius's reckless behaviour)-not in these circumstances, anyway. If anything, he was full of admiration for Sirius right now, and Sirius's words only seemed to be offering him further encouragement.
Again, James struggled to cover up a gasp of shock. How had he ended up here, seeing this? Of all the things he'd ever thought he'd see at Hogwarts, this one had never even crossed his mind! He felt like shouting, swearing, screaming, maybe even flailing his arms around, the way that Sirius always did.
"I love you," Remus suddenly blurted out, pausing in kissing Sirius's neck so he could look Sirius right in the eye, as though he suddenly felt it was very important to share this more intimate thought.
"Love you too, Moony," Sirius responded with an exasperated-looking grin and a roll of his eyes.
Sirius's response briefly reminded James of all the times when Lily had suddenly declared her love for him in the middle of their snogging sessions. As much as James loved to hear her say it, he often put up some kind of act of bravado whenever he responded, acting like he was simply saying the words back to her so that their snogging could continue. It seemed like Sirius was doing something similar right now, although the sincerity behind his words was obvious, and there was a definite fondness in his expression when he looked at Remus, which caused James to soften a little, in spite of his bewilderment.
And James felt like his world had tilted again in light of this declaration. Sirius and Remus loved each other. They weren't just messing around behind the bookshelves in the library. This wasn't some experiment in snogging that the two of them were carrying out. They had real, genuine feelings for one another. There was some sort of romance going on between them.
How had James not worked this out before now? Why had it taken until today, in these very uncomfortable circumstances, for him to finally find out?
Merlin, how had it come to this? He'd only been planning on carrying out a little innocent prank in order to get a laugh out of his best friend. He hadn't planned on discovering his two best mates snogging and declaring their undying love for one another!
For a few more brief moments while he still felt unable to move due to his shock, James cast his mind back to Remus and Sirius's interactions over the last few years.
He knew that Remus and Sirius had grown a lot closer since they'd made up after their argument in fifth year, but James had never even imagined that they were that close.
Of course, they talked to each other a lot, sharing deep conversations, and they hugged, sometimes. James had even been certain that he'd spotted them holding hands as they walked behind him yesterday, but Sirius was such an affectionate person that James had simply assumed that this was just some new, dynamic way of expressing his fondness for the Marauders that Sirius had come up with.
Besides, Remus and Sirius bickered all the time, and Sirius had always been James's best friend-he'd never been as close to Remus as he was to James.
And yet, in spite of all of this logical evidence, Remus and Sirius were still sharing passionate, heated kisses up against the bookshelf in the Restricted Section, looking as in love as James and Lily were, and James was still standing close to them, watching this play out, wearing his Invisibility Cloak…
As though finally coming to his senses, James slowly started to take a few steps back, putting a distance between himself and Padfoot and Moony. He still couldn't think completely clearly, but he was now vaguely aware of the fact that he shouldn't be here; he knew he shouldn't have seen this in the first place…
"Moony, do you really think James will be all right about this…about us, when he finds out?"
At Sirius's words, and the mention of his name, and the uncharacteristic hint of nerves and uncertainty in his best friend's tone of voice, James was stopped in his tracks all over again.
It seemed like this idea was something that was really bothering Sirius; it seemed like it had been playing on his mind.
"Sirius, I'm sure he'll be fine about it," said Remus as he ran a hand slowly through Sirius's hair, the touch a lot gentler, a lot more reassuring now.
Although, James couldn't help picking up on the uncertainty in Remus's voice, too. It seemed like he was simply putting on a brave act for Sirius's benefit. James got the feeling that they had discussed this issue many times before, and hadn't come up with a good enough answer just yet.
"It might take him a little time to get used to it, of course," Remus continued, sounding wise beyond his years, as always. "You know what he's like. But I'm sure he'll understand, in the end."
"It's just," Sirius mumbled, as he looked down at the floor, "he's my best mate. I don't want him to be weird about it…"
"He won't be," Remus told him, still sounding a bit unsure.
Feeling a bit guilty now, James shuffled nervously from one foot to the other. They were worried about telling him. They weren't sure how he was going to react. Was that why they had been sneaking around and hiding away in the first place? Because they were afraid of his disapproval?
They shouldn't have to feel that way, James decided. The change in dynamic in their friendship now that there was a romance going on in the group might take some getting used to at first, but they would get used to it, eventually. The Marauders had faced much more serious issues before now, and their friendship had always survived; it always would survive, no matter what. Besides, there were much more worrying matters going on in the wizarding world at the moment; a bit of snogging between two wizards was nothing in comparison to what they all might be facing in the near future.
James himself would be fine about it, soon…eventually. Of course, he would remain in a state of stunned shock for the rest of the day after what he'd just accidentally seen, and he would take a little while to process it all, but he would tell no one about what he'd witnessed-oh, okay, he would probably confide in Lily, and he would no doubt end up accidentally blurting something out to Peter, but after that, he would tell no one else, however much Alice and Marlene and Frank pressed him for details, and he would act very calm and cool and mature about the whole thing.
In fact, he would pretend that this afternoon in the Restricted Section had never happened. Then, when Remus and Sirius finally announced that they were together, James would make a big show of acting totally surprised by the news, and he would tell them that he was happy for them, and everything would be fine. They would never have to know that he had seen them in this intimate moment. Maybe he would also make a subtle suggestion about keeping future snogging sessions in the library to a minimum, especially when James was going to be in the library at the same time, just so there would be no repeat of this moment ever again.
With all of these resolutions in mind, James slowly started to back away from Remus and Sirius, who had returned to kissing each other on the lips.
More than ever, he felt like an idiot for even thinking that hiding away in the Restricted Section in his Invisibility Cloak was a good idea in the first place. Apparently, nobody else even cared about practical jokes and possible hilarious reactions to these jokes today. All of his friends seemed to be too busy thinking about snogging.
Perhaps James was not in fact as mature as he always insisted he was.
He would think about that idea later. Right now, all James wanted was to get away, as quickly and as discreetly as possible.
Of course, as usual, fate must have been conspiring against him-perhaps karma was finally catching up with him after years of tormenting Snivellus-because somehow, a part of James's Cloak managed to get caught on a loose bit of wood on the bookshelf as he attempted to walk away. He stopped in his tracks and tugged at it frantically, desperately trying to get free without making too much noise or accidentally revealing himself.
Unfortunately, he pulled so hard that the second the material of the Cloak came free from where it had snagged on the bookshelf, James suddenly lost his balance and tripped over his own feet, before he started to fall to the floor, his arms flailing wildly the whole time.
He might have got away with it, as Remus and Sirius were still rather distracted by their snogging, if not for the fact that on his way down, James attempted to grab hold of the bookshelf to break his fall, but all he managed to do was to dislodge even more books from their place, and these books proceeded to fall to the floor, too. One of the books sprang open the moment it hit the floor and it let out a piercing shriek.
At the exact same moment, James had the bad luck to fall into the large globe that was displayed on a stand between the shelves of the Restricted Section. Instantly, the globe crashed to the floor with a loud bang, along with the books.
Before he hit the floor, James was vaguely aware of the sight of Remus and Sirius, frantically springing apart from one another.
Feeling suddenly horrified, James pushed himself up from his position on the floor, ignoring the distant shouts of the librarian as he turned back to look at his friends. He was in no doubt as to the fact that at least part of his body must be visible now, after a dramatic fall like that.
As he got to his feet, Remus and Sirius were watching James with expressions of mingled shock, confusion, anger and total and utter horror.
The guilt of being caught was also written all over their faces. Remus's cheeks were bright red, and he seemed to be taking deep breaths, while Sirius looked very pale.
The two of them still had hold of each other's hands, James noticed, as though they needed the physical contact right now to help them get through this, but it seemed that even this gesture was doing nothing to erase the awkwardness of the situation.
Remus opened and closed his mouth a few times, as though he wanted to say something to explain, or to ask James why he was there, or maybe he just wanted to shout at James, and Sirius seemed to have been temporarily rendered speechless.
Feeling unable to look them in the eye right now, James slowly got to his feet and surveyed the mess around him, including the fallen globe and the open books, one of which was still wailing pitifully.
He could only imagine how strange all of this would seem to Sirius and Remus, especially as James now realised that his Cloak had only fallen down a little when he fell and hit the ground, meaning that the two of them must now be staring right at James's head, which, from their point of view, was floating in mid-air, while they listened to the noise of the shrieking book and the angry librarian in the background.
James could tell from the look on both of their faces that they were slowly working out that James had been here the whole time; that he was responsible for the noise and the mess; that he had seen everything.
Say something! Do something! a voice in James's head urged him. Say something cool, or funny! Do something to make the situation less awkward! Say…anything!
"Er…" James muttered pathetically, trying to grin as Remus and Sirius continued to stare, wide-eyed, at his head, the only part of his body that was currently visible. "Boo?"