Disclaimer: I own nothing that is JKR's, obviously.
SUMMARY: How does Sirius help James realize Lily Evans is the one? "Does it have to do with how to destroy Voldemort?" James asked unflinchingly…Sirius grinned. "Close." R&R?
"You make me sick, Potter!" Lily Evans roared. Barely any Gryffindors looked up. As a matter of fact, some of them, who had been peacefully reading a book or playing chess, sighed, irritated, and promptly ended their respective activities to witness the argument without interest. Some first years, who after being introduced to the new Heads, were wondering why they were suddenly at odds with each other.
"Yes, well, sometimes you make me sick too!" James shouted back, his glasses slightly askew, glaring at her so hotly his glasses threatened to fog up.
"If you're sick of me so much, then leave me alone and never talk to me again!" Lily retorted hotly. A first year stared unabashedly at the feud gaining fire before his eyes.
"You're not the boss of me, Lily Evans!"
"You're right, I'm not. Youare! You're the boss of James Potter, bloody Gryffindor, and the whole bloody world!" Lily screamed hoarsely.
"Is that after you relinquish your control?!" James asked loudly, sardonically, looking at her impossibly beautiful face.
"You're insufferable!" Lily said heatedly, and threw her hands in the air exasperatedly. She felt the eyes of her peers on her, and was suddenly hit with a startling realization that she was Head Girl and she was openly quarreling with her counterpart. She closed her eyes and tried to find her cool zone, the zone where the world was bigger than her and stupid James Potter's argument; in other words, the real world.
"And you're bossy," James said coolly, raising an eyebrow, ready for a petty name-calling competition.
Lily opened her eyes. He was tickling her magma-zone again. "I don't have time for this," Lily said briskly and turned around in a huff to walk up to her dormitory. "And fix your glasses, Potter, they're askew and you look ridiculous," she told him icily as her voice faded.
"I'll show you ridiculous," James mumbled, fixing his glasses roughly and knocking them off his nose in the process.
A round first-year giggled and quickly hushed at the look on James's face. Naïve as he was, according to the older students, you do not want to be on the receiving end of any of the Marauder's wands.
He sauntered forward and handed James his glasses, to the surprise of the latter.
"Remind me to give you a SYS pass, Harvey," James mumbled.
"What's that?" Harvey asked, his face contorted into confusion.
James chuckled weakly and said, "A Seventh Year Superiority pass. We, the cruel seventh years, take advantage of you, ickle first years."
Harvey beamed.
---
James quietly opened the door and shut it as softly as humanely and magically possible. He winced when he heard the faint click,and he looked nervously at the beds to see if any of the marauders had even twitched. Or rather, at Remus and Sirius, because he could count on Peter to be sleeping soundly at any time of day as soon as his eyes were closed for a brief amount of time.
He tiptoed across the room and carefully took off his robes and his shoes. Leisurely, James climbed onto his bed and knew by the strong presence of heat that it was too good to be true.
"Good morning, mate," Sirius whispered, his face about an inch from James's own.
James groaned silently and then sighed. "Go to sleep, Sirius," he pleaded.
"As soon as you kindly step back," Sirius said. Then he raised a finger and leaned in slightly to sniff. "Fire-whiskey? Without me?" he asked, insulted.
James stayed silent and climbed off his bed. He figured it was going to be a long night and aimed his wand at all the candles to light them. It radiated a soft, comfortable glow and James suddenly felt warm, and finally at home in Hogwarts.
He glanced at Remus's bed, and wasn't surprised to see him move. It amazed James that a sudden shift in wind or a degree in temperature could wake him up. Which made James getting to his bed without Remus moving such a remarkable feat.
"Turn off," Remus started, but stopped to yawn and stir uncomfortably in his sheets, "the candles," he finished tiredly.
"Yeah, because you can turn off candles, Moony," James humored quietly. "None of the candles are lighted," he whispered.
Remus yawned again and raised a brawny arm. "I may be sleeping, James, but I'm not blind. And I meant extinguish." His arm dropped again.
"Would it help you sleep better if you were?" James asked seriously.
Then it all happened too fast for James to react. His wand was firmly in Remus's hand in a split second, and the werewolf's head was now up, looking weary and apologetic at the same time.
James could barely speak as he looked at his best friend in utter and complete shock. He managed to sputter, "Did you just disarm me?" He didn't know what was more surprising: the fact that Remus just - and completely unprovoked! - disarmed him, or, the fact that he reacted quickly enough that James didn't feel a thing, until of course, he noticed the absence of his most powerful weapon.
Sirius was holding his stomach in a close embrace as he struggled not to laugh out loud.
"Well, you were threatening to deprive me of my sight so I reacted instinctively," Remus said quite casually, now almost fully awake; his eyes darted from James and his empty hands to his own almost comically, as if he himself couldn't believe what had happened. "I did so, blindly, of course," he said jokingly, finally settling his eyes. James didn't laugh.
"Well," James said, looking Remus in the face. "Can you give me back my wand!" Then he looked at Peter briefly, and looked back again holding his breath.
Peter laid still in his bed, almost lifeless. Sirius went quickly to check his pulse and curtly raised his thumb, indicating his good health. James exhaled and glared at Remus again as if nothing had happened.
"What were you planning, exactly?" Remus asked cautiously.
"Obscuro," James said impatiently. "Hand it back, Moony. I feel naked without it." He held out his hand expectantly.
Remus rolled his eyes and threw it back at him. "Why did you come in so late?"
"How'd you know?" James asked curiously.
"I'm a werewolf. Super-sensitive ears is one of the many perks," he said dryly. James smiled weakly and Sirius looked ready to burst.
"He drank fire whiskey!" Sirius said in a rush, grinning from ear to ear the same way a little brother would when he exposed his sister's sexual exploits to his mother.
James pursed his lips and just looked down.
"Lily?" Remus guessed. James nodded and heard Remus's head make contact with his pillow.
"I'm sorry," Remus said, his voice muffled by his pillow. "But it does get awfully repetitive after a while, and there's only so much I can do."
James stood up assuredly. "You're exactly right. Which is why tonight I officially declare that I, James Potter, am over Lily Evans," he said simply.
Remus put his pillow over his face and screamed, a bloodcurdling, wolf-like howl. His friends saw his chest heave slowly.
"Blimey, Moony," Sirius said, in awe. James had his mouth opened in ill-disguised shock.
"I'm through with this, Prongs. I'm passing the baton on to Sirius," Remus declared once he came back, flushed, from his mini-breakdown.
Sirius grinned brightly and said rather solemnly, "And I shall do my best to honor the baton and serve it's purpose faithfully."
"It's just an expression, Pad." James said, a flicker of concern in his eyes.
"Shush, James, and Remus, go to sleep."
"Sirius, as long as those damn lights are on, I don't see how -"
"Obscuro," Sirius snapped impatiently.
"- I can possibly go to sleep," he finished lamely. He rubbed his eyes and flipped around so that he was on his stomach and hugged his pillow. "Just leave me alone," he grumbled, slowly leaving the room to a serene slumber.
"Now," Sirius said in a business-like tone when he heard Remus's soft snoring. "What is your proposition?"
"To get over Lily Evans…and is that really necessary? It's not cool."
"Yes it is," Sirius said regally, conjuring a leather chair and sitting down comfortably on it. "What is not cool is that you're the one wearing the glasses."
James did a double take and looked at him like he'd dropped his mind somewhere in a bubbling cauldron.
"And what, dare I ask, does my glasses have to do with getting over the love of life? I mean, former?" he stressed.
"I'm the one helping you, therefore I should look crisp and professional, and you should look lost and sloppy. Mind you, you look like hell right now even with the glasses, so it doesn't seem like such a loss," he said bluntly.
On any other day James would have hexed him and enjoyed a good, fair duel, but now with new conviction he told Sirius, "I want to get over Lily. Now."
"I thought you said she was your former love of your life. But I get your point." Sirius nodded patiently and looked intently at James. "Why, how, and by when?"
"I don't need a bloody shrink, Sirius, I need my best mate!" James growled. "And why don't I get a chair?"
Sirius wagged his finger at an incensed James and shook his head. "You can sit on the floor. Young wizards with your temper can slash the fine material of these chairs or hack off an arm with one mighty hack of your jaws," Sirius said tersely. "And secondly, I am helping you, if you stop being a prick and let me do what I do best."
"Honestly, Pad, how the bloody hell do you expect me to take you seriously when you're wearing - my underwear?!"
Sirius blushed faintly but held up his nose as he said defensively, "The snitches on yours are more animated, they move with more gusto. My snitches lay limp, stranded on the printed grass like dead starlings."
"They sounds incredibly perverted."
"Only to the filthy minds."
"Okay, can we stop discussing my underwear?" James snapped.
"I didn't initiate it. But okay. First things is first…why?"
James looked at him, confused. Sirius snapped his finger impatiently and said, "Why do you want to get over Lily Evans?"
James gnawed on his lip and concentrated on Sirius's shoulder. "I don't think I can take anymore."
"Anymore of what?"
"Everything, the fact that she'll never love me back," James said almost impassively.
"I notice your deadpanned tone," Sirius observed, raising his eyebrow in a way that James felt uncomfortable with. "It sounds repetitive to you, doesn't it? Why should this time be any different than first year, second year, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth?"
James leaned back, remembered with a jolt that he had nothing to lean against, and swiftly felt a sharp pain in his skull. His head throbbing, he glared at Sirius who remained at his seat, undeterred.
"One who falls, must learn how to pick themselves up," he said with an air of ancient wisdom.
"Oh shut it," James mumbled, and winced when he tried to lift his head.
"So why should I believe that this year is different?" Sirius prompted, ignoring his best friend groaning in pain.
"Because," he said, wincing again as he raised his head. "Something just feels off."
"You think it's off because your heart is so damaged, you poor thing."
"And I'm not sure," he continued loudly, disregarding Sirius. "Maybe because like I said before, I can't take it anymore and I want to try different girls."
"Maybe that's why Lily can't stand you," Sirius said disgustedly, abandoning his ancient-wise man façade. "You act like girls are ice cream or something."
"You know I didn't mean it like that, Sirius," James said quietly, a little stung that Sirius would think he was that shallow.
"I believe you," he said simply, a complete flip from two seconds before. "So who did you have in mind? Anyone in particular?"
"Several," James admitted sheepishly.
"Really?" Sirius said. He was quiet, pensive, and tapped his wand against his lap distractedly. "Well, I've came up with a conclusion," he said finally.
"Does it have to do with how to destroy Voldemort?" James asked unflinchingly, thinking about the way Sirius exclaimed his epiphany, and how it sounded like he did. Sirius grinned.
"Close."
Second chapter should be up by tomorrow. Otherwise, review?
Please be honest, and be constructive (: I'd appreciate it.
Hm, that should be my new motto. Be Honest, Be Constructive. BHBC.
:D