Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I am deluded about many things, but that is not one of them.
Author's Note: Just a little Lily and James fluff to warm the heart. Writing this made me smile. All reviews are hugely appreciated.
A Little Quality Time
It had been almost a whole week, but James Potter still found it almost impossible to believe: Lily Evans had finally agreed to go out with him! She had actually said yes. The very thought of this made him want to dance down Hogwarts shadowy and twisting corridors, sing form the astronomy tower and laugh and anything and everything. Even Snivellus Snape seemed a tad less slimy and repellent than usual. He felt like their was a joyous bubbling stream threatening to burst out of him at any moment, or as if he was permanently a little drunk. He would have been completely happy if it hadn't been for one thing- he had barely had a chance to speak to her since that glorious afternoon when (his stomach jumped just thinking about it) she'd decided at long, long last, that he wasn't such an idiot after all.
The trouble was that they both always seemed to be with people. Sirius, Remus, and Peter seemed to hover around him like a swarm of buzzing flies, and he hadn't even got around to telling them that he and Lily were now "together" (if you could count one afternoon as "together"). She was never without a gaggle of girlfriends, all shrieking and laughing so hard it was almost impossible to get near her. Although they were doing roughly similar classes he never sat with her in any of them, so that was no good. He was limited to giving her significant smiles across the table at breakfast, or pressing her hand quickly as they passed in the corridor. While this was wonderful in its self, and far superior to the jibes and sniping he'd had to endure previously, James couldn't deny that wanted, well, more. It was frustrating to say the least.
The opportunity to rectify the situation occurred sooner than he had dared to hope. He came down into the Gryffindor common room earlier than usual one morning to find a small crowd gathered round the notice board, chattering eagerly. He squeezed his way between a group of excitable third years (it was one of the advantages of being a seventh year, and a head boy at that- people automatically made room for you) to get a better look. There was a creamy white card stuck ostentatiously in the middle of offers to swap chocolate frog cards, or announcements of missing items, and in very black officially writing it announced
"Hogsmead weekend, 12th of October.
Students from third year upwards, who have permission from their Guardians, may attend."
James felt a lurch of excitement. This was it- the perfect moment! He would take Lily into Hogsmead, they would talk, and if the talking led a little bit further, well, he wouldn't be the one complaining. He turned a round full of his brilliant new idea to see the dazzling person of the head girl herself standing behind him, for once completely alone.
The shock seemed to knock the wind out of him for a moment. His breath caught in his chest. Why in God's name did she have to creep up on him like that? She was looking fresh out of bed, sleep clouding her eyes and her dark red ponytail messy. He gave her a slightly awkward smile, cleared his throat vigorously, and then said as brightly as he could "Morning Evans."
"Morning Potter." She replied a little hazily, yawning and smiling in a crumpled sort of way. "What's up?"
This was the moment, the perfect moment. If he didn't ask her now, he never would. He took a deep breath, searching for the perfect words. "There's a Hogsmead weekend next week." He began hesitantly, staring down at his scuffed undone shoes, his voice coming out a little hoarse "And I was wondering if, um, maybe you wanted to go with me?" the last came out in a long rush of air, and he thought in despair, that she couldn't possibly have understood him. He was making a complete fool of himself. To his very great surprise, a warm slow smile broke out on her face, lighting it up. "James Potter," she exclaimed in mock astonishment "Is that a date?"
He suddenly felt a whole lot more confident and flashed her a cocky light-bulb grin in return. "You bet it is Evans!"
"Of course I'll go with you" she replied reassuringly, laughing. "I thought I'd implied that last week when I said I'd go out with you."
It was if a champagne cork had popped inside of him, he was suddenly bubbling up and overflowing. "So I'll meet you at about 11 o'clock on Saturday morning then? I know this really great place just outside Hogsmead where…, or we could go to the Three Broomsticks, or Madam Pudifoot's, or…" he trailed off at the amused expression on Lily's face
"Slow down Potter," she said gently "I'm sure whatever we do will be just perfect." Then, like a goddess from a dream, she turned and melted away into the throng of Gryffindors now going down to breakfast. James was left staring open mouthed after her. Then suddenly it hit him- he had a date with Lily Evans! He gave an excited whoop then turned and ran all the way down the stairs to the great hall for breakfast.
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James was still bursting with excitement when Sirius, Remus and Peter came into breakfast to join them. He couldn't wait to tell them all, he had an actual date with Lily Evans!
"So, Hogsmead Weekend this week" Sirius said sleepily, shovelling a large pile of bacon and eggs onto his plate "What shall we do, visit Honeyduke's? I need to stock up."
Remus was eyeing Sirius' plate with an expression of mild disgust "I would say you have an ample supply of food right there Padfoot old friend. Enough to last you, oh I don't know, a month."
"Ooh, want some do you?" Sirius challenged.
Normally James would have joined in this sort of banter eagerly, today however he had more important things to say to his best friends. Feeling a wide grin break out on his he began "Look, I don't think I'll be able to go into Hogsmead with you three. You see, I'm sort of already going with Evans."
There was a moment of stunned silence. Three mouths dropped open in complete astonishment. Finally Sirius spoke, as if wrapping his head round a particularly difficult transfiguration problem, blue eyes wide in disbelief "So, let me get this straight, you have a date with Evans, that is Lily Evans, her royal highness the Head Girl?"
"How many times have told you to stop calling her that? But yes, I guess I do." James snapped a little irritably.
Remus was also looking at him with an expression of innocent puzzlement "But, when did it happen Prongs, when did she go completely raving mad?"
"Oh shut up!" said James, grinning in spite of himself and flicking his fork at Sirius.
"Look" said Remus, his expression softening, "We think it's great, really. Hope it goes really well mate." Peter nodded vigorously through mouthful of toast, and James, mollified, left to pack his books for class.
The instant he'd gone Sirius put on a wicked expression his friends knew only too well. "Honestly, can you believe it, just abandoning us like that!" he said in a voice of mock horror "and us his oldest friends as well. I think we should take revenge." Here his took on a diabolical gleam
Remus narrowed his eyes suspiciously and said "what exactly did you have in mind?" He was only too familiar with Sirius' mad schemes and the havoc they could cause. Peter was already looking nervous.
"We'll ruin his date of course," said Sirius as casually as if he was suggesting they take a stroll in the grounds.
Remus' face hardened, "No, absolutely not. You know how much he likes her. If you muck this up for him, I swear I will curse you into bloody oblivion." He said in a low growl, pointing his knife at Sirius in a threatening manner.
They stared at each other for a long fierce moment, during which Peter grew steadily more fidgety and uncomfortable, and then Sirius turned away with a shrug. This had been happening more and more often recently. Once Sirius would never have backed down from a challenge, but he'd grown a little more cautious since the unfortunate incident involving Snape, Remus and the Whomping willow at the end of last year. It had taken a long time for Remus to trust him again after that, and Sirius wasn't about to blow that on one stupid prank.
"Alright Moony," he said with a grin "but can we at least spy on him a bit?"
Remus laughed, then sighed and nodded.
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At 10: 45 on Saturday morning James Potter stood in the Hogwarts entrance hall feeling extremely nervous. Her ran his hands through and through his hair, desperately trying to give it the semblance of neatness, but it seemed that the more he struggled with it the more wildly dishevelled it became. The minutes seemed to be stretching on and on unnaturally. Why wasn't she here yet? Perhaps she had forgotten, perhaps she just wasn't coming at all. The fact that it was still a good quarter of an hour before they had agreed to meet, or indeed before any sane seventeen year old got out of bed on a Saturday morning, was no stop to his paranoid whirl of thoughts. The cheerful chatter of people going down to breakfast, or leaving for Hogsmead, discussing their plans for the day only served to frustrate him; none them were Lily after all.
Then suddenly there she was in front of him, and for the second time that week he nearly jumped out of his skin as she appeared. How did she do that, just materialise out of thin air? She was looking very different from her usual neat school girl self. She was wearing Muggle clothes. A soft pale green jumper and grey corduroy trousers. Her hair was out of the familiar severe ponytail, and instead hung loose to her shoulders, framing her pale face. She looked younger somehow, less sure of herself.
"Morning Potter," She said with a slightly wobbly smile
"Morning Evans," he replied, grinning back at her.
"So, you ready to go?" she asked. Did she sound a little nervous, surely not?
"Yeah, I think so."
They began to walk towards the heavy wooden doors of the castle entrance in silence unnaturally far apart. Then she gave him a look and a grin as if to say why are we being so stupid? She put her arm through his and cheerfully said so "So, have you done Slughorn's essay on antidotes yet?"
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Up in Gryffindor Tower Sirius was attempting to wake a very deeply asleep Peter Pettigrew, without much success, while Remus rummaged frantically through James' trunk looking for his invisibility cloak. Peter groaned, rolled over and tried to push Sirius away. "Get up you lazy rat!" Sirius yelled in his ear, startling Peter into sitting bolt up right as if he'd heard a gun shot. Remus emerged from the trunk with a yell of triumph, waving the light and fluid material of the cloak above his head.
Then he turned to Sirius with a menacing expression on his face, brandishing the cloak like a deadly weapon. "Sirius, before we set off, I'd like to lay some ground rules for this expedition.
"Oh yeah?" drawled Sirius, turning away from Peter who was now rubbing his eyes sleepily and taking up a defiant stance, arms folded.
"Yes," hissed Remus "There will be no Jinxes, Hexes, Curses, loud bangs or any other kind of practical joke. This is strictly an observation mission."
"Oh come on Moony, you're taking all the fun out the whole thing! Just one little Hex, pleeeease?" Sirius protested his blue eyes widening in what he clearly thought was a pleading manner.
"If you even think of…"Remus growled, waiving the cloak under Sirius nose and frowning in a determinedly ominous way.
Sirius looked down at the cloak appraisingly then said "You know the whole threatening act worked much better with the knife. James cloak just doesn't give off the same aura of deadliness."
They both burst out laughing. Peter was now grumbling as he pulled on his robes "Honestly, why did Prongs have to start his date so early in the morning?"
"Quidditch energy my dear Wormtail," Sirius informed him lightly "but you've reminded me, we'd better hurry or he'll have already left." So saying he grabbed Peter by the elbow and dragged him out of the dormitory at breakneck speed, while Remus dashed after him, shouting that they'd forgotten to put the cloak on.
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It was a beautiful day. James found himself absorbing the sweetness of the autumn morning light in a way he never had before. It seemed to be turning the dull brown path to the village golden, and bring out an endless variety of autumn leaf colours in Lily's hair. He felt physically light as walked into the village, arm in arm with Lily chatting about lessons and Quidditch and other comfortable trivialities. He had never felt so deliciously at ease with her, for once everything seemed to be going right between them, she was even laughing at his jokes. It didn't seem to matter that they still had no idea what they were actually going to do together today; it was nice, for the moment to just to be. Then, as they were passing a shop painted electric blue, with a shimmering gold sign swinging enthusiastically above the rickety, badly painted door proclaiming "Gladrags Wizard Wear" to all and sundry she gave his upper arm a sharp pinch. James took in with a sinking feeling the display of gaudy wizards' robes screaming for his attention from behind the slightly dirty glass of the shop window.
"Hey, you know what might be fun…" she said with a mischievous look on her face, nodding her head towards the shop.
"Please Evans, it's a clothes shop!" he began, giving the building a look like it had personally offended him.
"Exactly, it'll be a new experience for you." She told him smugly, beginning to pull him towards the door "besides, the clothes in there aren't for wearing; they're for gaping at in shock. We can try on all the truly hideous things and laugh at ourselves."
He grinned in spite of himself. "Now that I might actually enjoy. But no shoes, you have to promise me you will not spend two hours going goofy over strappy stilettos."
"Did you just say goofy? And strappy stilettos?" She giggled. A bell rang with a light Jangle as they stumbled into the shop together.
If James had been less absorbed by his, admittedly charming, companion, he might have heard a horrified voice say "Christ! She's got him completely whipped already!"
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Underneath the invisibility cloak the three marauders were pressing their noses up against the glass with the fixed fascination with which one gazes at a car crash. They knew they should look away, but somehow, they couldn't. They could only gaze open mouthed at the catastrophe unfolding before their eyes, powerless to move an inch.
"Padfoot," Remus whispered huskily "you've been on dates, please tell me they aren't all like this one."
"No," Sirius replied, with vague recollections of his last girlfriend Katy Middleton of Hufflepuff. "My dates mostly snogging, and the occasional giggle from her.Look, they're actually talking! This is seriously weird."
"What do they have to say to each other?" Peter asked in wonder "I mean, who wants to talk about clothes."
He pushed forward, trying to get a better look at the amazing scene, Sirius and Remus both found them selves elbowed to the sides.
"Wormtail! What do you think you're doing?" Sirius snapped "I know you're shorter than us, but that's no excuse."
"Oh leave him alone," Remus said wearily "It's not his fault he's vertically challenged."
Peter wasn't sure whether he should be pleased by this or not. He was rather sensitive about his height, and always felt a little resentful when his fellow marauders made jokes about it.
"Sorry," he muttered, turning a little pink. "There's just not really room under this cloak is there."
"You're completely right," Sirius said with feeling "It's bloody crowded. Wait- they're snogging now, see- that's much more like it!"
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Lily emerged from the cramped and untidy dressing room of Gladrags clad in a rather eye-catching set of billowing green and yellow dress robes and an acid green hat. James gave a snort of laughter as he caught sight of her, stuffing his fist into his mouth to disguise it from the extremely attentive sales witch who was fluttering from the behind the counter to help, pushing her gold rimmed spectacles higher up the bridge her nose and tucking a flyaway strand of mousy brown hair behind her ear.
"Well," said James, clearing his throat "The, err, yellow really brings out the colour of your eyes Evans. Very fetching."
Lily's face crumpled into a giggle, but she straightened up almost at once, turning it into a wide smile. "It fits perfectly, doesn't it?" She trilled happily throwing out one arm to demonstrate the inches of sleeve trailing over her hand
"You know, we have a really very nice cloak to go with that" the Sales witch twittered, "It's somewhere in the back. I'll go fetch it out for you if you like."
"Oh do!" cried Lily in tones of deepest excitement, clapping her hands (an action made difficult by the yards of sleeve.)
And the witch bustled off behind the counter, too the great relief of her two customers, who at once doubled up with laughter.
"Have you ever seen anything more ridiculous in your life?" Lily snorted, gasping for breath.
"Well there was the time we put an engorgement charm on Davey Gudgeon's head. That was pretty ridiculous." James replied with a grin.
She turned and caught sight of herself in the long Mirror that stood on one wall of the shop. "Christ! I look completely hideous." She exclaimed.
"I wouldn't say hideous. You could never look hideous." James told her, suddenly concentrating very hard on his shoes.
"Really?" she asked, her face suddenly glowing with pleasure. "I think that's just about the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me."
That of course was a challenge to James' marauder instincts. He might be many things but sweet was not one of them. "I'm not saying the outfit couldn't do with some improvement." He said wickedly. "This for instance," he said pointing at her hat "Would look much better… on me!"
With one swift movement he had snatched it off her head and was holding it high in the air and out of reach. Lily gave a shriek of indignation and began to grab at it calling "Hey! Give it back!" Soon James was hopping backwards to avoid her. It was almost inevitable that a chase in a small and extremely cluttered shop would lead the way it in fact did. Lily grabbed the hat just as James tripped over the rail containing vintage daywear, with the result that Lily, James and the vintage daywear landed spectacularly entangled in a heap on the floor. What moment could have been more romantic? He pulled her close to him through a heap of some electric blue material an kissed her. He was amazed that he had never previously discovered how much fun clothes shopping could be.
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Unfortunately the sales witch did not seem to see the funny side of the situation. "In all my life I've never seen such behaviour!" she squawked as they crashed laughing out of the shop door in a bid to escape her wrath, the bell still clanging in their ears, hopelessly mixed with sales witches' less than friendly farewell. It was a surprise to James, as he ran out onto the narrow Hogsmead street to find himself colliding with something that did not appear to be there, something hard and real.
He gave a sharp hoof of pain, staggered backwards, then stared in suspicion at the front of the shop, while Lily looked at him in astonishment. But he hadn't gone mad, there was definitely something solid there. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, there was only one way he could think of to make sold things disappear. Typical Marauder stupidity! James couldn't remember the last time he had been angrier with his friends, unless you counted… the night with Snape…but he didn't want to think about that. How dare they sneak around after him and Lily? This was supposed to be their time together!
"Padfoot!" he called "Take that stupid cloak off and get out of here before I give you a taste of my bat bogey Hex."
There was a noise of grumbling, and something that sounded suspiciously like Damn It. Then, as if out of nowhere, Sirius, Remus and Peter materialised, rubbing at bruises and glaring at each other. James held out his hand for the invisibility cloak which Peter, who had the grace to look a little shame faced handed back to him. Lily gave a gasp of surprise. "I told you to get of the way Padfoot!" Remus said in an aggrieved voice.
"Moony!" James said in the voice of shocked authority, "I would have expected this kind of immature behaviour from Sirius over there, but not you. Now if you would all like to proceed on your way, Miss Evans and I would like to continue our visit to this village, alone!"
"Alright, alright, we get the message" said Sirius grumpily. They sloped off down the road, while James glared after them.
Lily came forward to stand next to him, and put a hand on his arm. "They were spying on us!" James said hotly.
"Yes, it's quite funny if you think about it. How come you never told me you had an invisibility cloak?" she said smiling gently.
All the anger went out of him. He shrugged dismissing the Marauders and the all the irritation they caused him. "I wanted…to be alone with you." He muttered, going red.
Lily smiled and turned him towards her. "We're alone now aren't we?" she said.
A slow smile began to spread over James' face. "Yeah, I suppose we are."
She took the invisibility cloak out of his strangely limp hands and pulled over their heads. "There," she said very quietly"now no one can see us!"
James leaned towards her and kissed her. He felt like they could stay like that, safely hidden in their own private world, forever.
The End.