Summary: In which they are proved the depths of Peter's thickness and Lily's men have a good laugh. JP/LE
Characters: James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Peter.
Pairing: James/Lily on the side.
DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J. ; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment.
Neck Upwards
by shyangell and MorningDawn
May had already passed and with it the last days in which the stressed seventh years could afford an idle moment. June had brought in a wonderful weather they couldn't truly enjoy and had them sweating all over their notes as they struggled with all that pointless memorization.
By June, the usual was that couples would skive off to the grounds and make out on the outside, under the warm sun and in the merry atmosphere; and if you didn't happen to have a partner in crime would go anyway just to try and find one…
But that could only happen if said couple of love-birds didn't happen to have a certain very important exam by the end of the month, in which case they had to forget about the good weather and spend the afternoon inside, buried between piles of work. Lots of work.
And such was the case of Lily and James, as both were seated in the common room, working on the last sprint up to their NEWTs. They were studying Transfiguration alongside Peter. Lily had managed to convince James to play teacher for a while, and help her with her doubts (and there were a lot of them); and Peter had joined someway along the road. At times she was beginning to wish he hadn't because he was slowing them down a lot; although she had to recognize that finding someone who did worse than you was always consoling.
And so they were, James trying to make himself understood and failing miserably most of the time because he either explained it in the book-obvious way or started making bad metaphors which didn't help at all (and it was difficult while her proximity made his brain be somewhere else); and she tried to follow his explanation while trying really hard not to be distracted by some things outside the subject, like how extremely sexy he looked right now, when he was as frustrated as she and furrowed his brow.
The only one that didn't seem to be utterly distracted by some kind of external factor, was Peter. But he was wearing that look of utter bafflement that told you he was totally lost.
The group was missing two assets today: Sirius and Remus.
Said pair had, in a spontaneous streak of genius, managed to vanish into thin air the very moment Lily had mentioned they should be studying soon. They mysteriously disappeared (the mystery was not that they did, but how they did it) and managed to avoid a session that would have had Sirius bored out of his mind in half an hour and Remus exasperated (by Peter) in just twice as much.
Sirius was a badass brilliant student who needed zero effort to pull out impressive grades. In fact it would have been strange for him to actually act as a normal student and study. Remus though was another matter. He was the obsessively studious kind, but he also had a well concealed adventurous streak very well hidden most times, which led him to do totally irresponsible things now and them, especially in association with Sirius Black. If we add to the mix that he had been buried in homework for three weeks straight and it was his right time of the month, with the moon being the furthest it would ever get…
But at that point, their whereabouts and current occupation were unknown to everyone. Although, truth be told, everybody did know it couldn't be anything good.
Probably halfway through their transfiguration study session, the two aforementioned boys sauntered into the common room, talking and laughing rather loudly, ignoring all the murderous stares and the evil glares of their torture (cough) year companions.
"Have you traumatized enough little kids for today, Sirius?" asked Lily playfully. It was a private joke, but truth be told, Sirius did scare the living daylights out of the younger ones.
"I don't know what may have given you such an idea. The thought never crossed my mind."
"Now, now," said James. "What have you two been up to all this time?"
Sirius smirked maliciously and Remus mirrored his grin. Obviously they were dying to talk about it.
"We went down to the lake and sat back to enjoy the landscape… with the nice weather and all." said Sirius, sarcasm staining his voice as usual. Lily rolled her eyes at his antics.
"In plain English, you were checking girls out." said the red-headed girl. Sirius didn't answer and Remus pretended to be hurt.
"Oh my God! That we would never do!" said the boy with sandy hair dramatically. "But we were flirting for awhile," he admitted, back to his usual voice. "as at least half of the female population of Hogwarts wasn't anywhere near working today… apparently the weather was irresistible." added more quietly, causing all of them to snicker at his indirect gibe at Lily's obsessive studying.
"So, anything interesting?" asked Peter, causing Remus to snigger.
"The usual… lots of giggling and blushing and everyone babbling lots of bullshit…" at James' withering glare and impatient look he helpfully started on his report. "Desmond is as captivatingly beautiful as always…"
"That ought to be the shortest skirt ever… one must wonder if she does shrink it purposefully, because she's stupider than even appears if she thinks we'll buy that it has been caused by a growth spurt when she's been the same size since third year." Sirius remarked. "I don't want to be anywhere near close when McGonagall catches her and has to punish her almost-nudity."
"There is nothing to Belby that added any attractiveness to her…" continued Remus. Sirius did something that resembled a snort.
"Please, she was worse for the wear. She must've tried to remove a barb or two magically but has clearly not succeeded and almost chopped of her nose in the process." and just as he was talking he changed topics out of the blue "You must agree with me that Harper is absolutely gorgeous, specially today.
"Yeah sure. Provably because without a tie she managed to show far too much of her breasts. McGregor is far more of a beauty than Harper." said Remus. "And far nicer." Lily rolled her eyes at their manly behaviour.
"Yes, yes, but you only say that because she makes eyes at you. And Oh! You should see Kendall's legs, impressive gentlemen." stated as if he was actually doing a political speech. James laughed.
"You will never change Pads, will you?" Sirius shook his head.
"I have absolutely no intention of doing so."
"Oh! Listen, this one's really good…" cut Remus before Sirius could start with how he would kill himself before marrying and so on, again (actually no-one could remember how many times he already had). "About half an hour ago, Sirius was talking to Enid Carlyle…"
"That hot sixth year Hufflepuff, Conrad's sister?" asked James. Remus nodded.
"Well, he was being his usual flirting self. And she, like half of the girls he talks to, was absolutely drooling over him, swooning and all, and the bastard pretended not to notice!" they all burst out laughing, except Sirius, who, yet again, rose his eyebrows. "I mean, being nice and all, and giving hints of a compliment here and there… and making her make a fool of herself! I wonder how they still fall for it…"
"You are cruel, you know that, don't you?" said Lily joking, he shook his head. "But they are stupid too."
"No, it's just the best way of getting a nice and full view of her cleavage." said with smug smile.
"Urgggh, men are disgusting!" exclaimed Lily, smacking playfully Sirius' arm.
"No, that's not being disgusting, it's being smart." stated the grey-eyed boy.
"Well… if something she has, is a nice bosom." explained apologetically Remus, with a mischievous glint to his eyes. Lily looked at him disbelievingly, Remus wasn't the kind of guy you imagined saying such things; but he clearly was having the time of his life scandalizing her.
"Can't you thing in anything else, but that?" asked the girl, still fascinated at the dark mysteries and inner workings of the male half of the world. Note the sarcasm there.
"No. That's how the world has worked since day one… so nope, he won't thing about anything else." said James as an authority in the matter (he should know after all) as Sirius pretended not to listen, he usually did that when someone pulled a joke at his expenses, or was patronizing him; and listening would actually require some sort of response from him, mainly and apology, an acknowledgement or try and defend himself.
"As I was saying, Carlyle is hot." started Sirius. "It's clear as the glasses on your face." Peter pulled a face.
"But she's ugly." he said naively.
It took them a few seconds to assimilate what he had just said and react. Remus had to try really hard to control laugher as Peter's rather stupid remark finally sunk in. Sirius looked at him disbelievingly and pinched the bridge of his nose as he softly shook his head. James, on the other hand, burst out in peals of laughter. Even Lily snickered.
"Peter…" said Remus in between laugher, "there's a difference between being pretty and being hot."
Peter shook his head, clear sign that he wasn't getting it. Now Sirius was pinching the bridge of his nose viciously. James chuckled and rose from his seat. He tugged at Peter's sleeve until he got him to stand up and held a hand on his shoulder. With a dramatic sigh of exasperation, he placed his hand beneath Peter's chin and moving his hand upwards said:
"Pretty." then moving it downwards, said; "Hot." and after releasing his grip on Peter's shoulder added; "a fairly decent combination of both: sexy."
"Very enlightening Prongs." commented Remus, causing James to bow like he had just finished a brilliantly a magic trick performance, with cherry on top. Sirius stopped shaking his head derisively and looked at Peter.
"Is it clear now?" he asked, and Peter nodded. "Carlyle's hot. I already know that she's ugly, I mean, her face looks like she had a door slammed on her face." he deadpanned.
"Now you are being cruel." said Lily in between chuckles. It was her job to stop cruel comments like this from spreading, but in truth, Sirius wasn't far off the truth.
"But you're laughing about it…" said Sirius with his usual smirk plastered in his face, and a creepy note of loud cheer in his voice.
"Still, it's…"
"But you're laughing, hard." he cut her again.
"That's not the point!"
"And it's the truth." Lily couldn't help laugh at that, because truth to be told, Carlyle face did looked rather flat.
"Ok, you're right." she conceded. Everyone laughed as Sirius returned to his usual self-satisfied smug smirk.
The world was alright as long as he was right, which he usually was. And if he wasn't, he would most likely be the closest of all them to the truth… which clearly invalidated any ideas of trying to discuss anything with him in too much depth. Really, she wasn't indulging him. She was just taking the smart way out, preserving her sanity, and saving her breath. Because she definitely didn't find him right. Well, she did. She just didn't think he was… correct?