"Psst, Lily. Over here!"
James, his black, untidy hair standing up straighter than usual, which was quite a feat, gestured violently, his palm face up and pointer finger beckoning for her to come over.
Lily sighed, irritated. That boy would be the death of her, the way he always would look at her and manage to make her mad, but yet make her feel so… exhilarated. Yes, James Potter was an arrogant git, but there was something about him…Flipping her red hair behind her back, she walked over to him as she hissed, "What? I was trying to get the spell done!" She shot a look over at her partner, Remus Lupin, who had raised an eyebrow in question. Professor McGonagall was still glancing over paperwork, granting Lily at least an extra minute with James.
James smirked at Sirius Black, who was sitting right next to him, talking in low tones to a particularly pretty Ravenclaw. "You owe me ten sickles," he whispered to Sirius who turned toward him quickly.
"You got her to come over?" he asked in disbelief, looking at Lily doubtfully. "God, you actually did." His gray eyes widened in respect at James, who appeared very smug. Suddenly, Sirius's mouth dropped as he remembered something…
"I believe we had a bet, Mr. Padfoot?" James said, staring straight at the nervous Sirius.
"You were joking about that- right?" Sirius begged, his face twisted into exaggerated plea.
James grinned. "Sorry, but I'm serious, Padfoot." Across the room, Remus had buried his face in his hands. Prongs had just done the unthinkable- he actually paved way for a Sirius joke. The horrified werewolf bit the inside of his cheek as he switched his gaze to the triumphant Sirius.
"No," pressed Sirius slowly, relishing every moment of the event, "as you can clearly see, I am Sirius." Once James realized what he had done, he groaned loudly though Sirius laughed happily. It had been a while since he was able to pull off a Sirius joke, as the Marauders had been very careful about saying the word around him. At last he had caught them using it!
Lily's eyes sparkled like firecrackers, the green hue crackling dangerously. James Potter had called her over for a bet. A bet! Pushing her face close to his, she snapped, "I don't know who you think you are, Potter, but making me come over here for a gamble is nothing a real person would do. Is that all I'm worth to you? A toy, to be played with? Well, I'm more human than you'll ever be." With that, she stalked off toward her seat again and sat down heavily beside Remus.
"What did they do?" he sighed, quill paused an inch above his parchment. She was trembling, as Remus could see, though she had hastily laid her hands down in her lap.
"He bet I would come over," she whispered fiercely. "And I played right into their hands. I went." Her green eyes met Remus's dark brown ones that were filled with apology- maybe guilt?
"He loves you, Lily," explained Remus reasonably as he began to write, "But sometimes, I'm afraid, he doesn't quite know how to show it."
She snorted, pulling out her quill violently. "Doesn't know how to show it? You've got that right."
Remus closed his eyes and opened them again, trying to rid the headache coming over him. "He really does. Did you know that he never looks at any other girl besides you?"
She frowned slightly. "I don't believe it."
Remus pushed on gently, "I think you hurt him. Just look at his face! Lily, give him another chance. He'll pull together if all the Marauders join in." James was glancing over, worried looks. He really did care.
Lily gave a small smile as she said, "How did you end up with those apes over there? You're much better than them- civilized, I should say."
Now it was Remus's turn to give the smile, but wryly as he replied, "They're really good people. In the matter of fact, I would call them much more civilized than I." Or at least on a full moon, he thought.
"Modest," she commented, beginning to pen down the notes on the board. "And Remus? Thanks for being here."
"Always will be," Remus replied as he felt himself relax. He'd patched things up between Prongs and Lily, but he felt that his work was flimsy hemming and only had a few moments before it tore right in two again. These fights came quickly and were short, but did the damage of a much longer clash. Well, at least something good came out of it- Sirius had to dance to James's choice of music at dinner this evening. Hopefully, it would teach him some discipline, but most likely he'd just gamble recklessly again.
The scratching of the quill next to Remus stopped abruptly as a shadow passed over his paper. Not now, James, he begged himself, please, not when I just fixed everything…
The apologetic face of James Potter loomed close to the partners', hands placed on each one of their papers, forcing them to stop writing. "Look… I'm sorry, Lil," James said, running his hand through his hair. Remus shook his head curtly and James hurriedly stuffed his hand in his pockets. "I… don't know what came over me… I shouldn't have done that… I was an idiot. I was wrong to bet that you'd come over… I didn't think you would. Honestly. But I do have something to show you."
Was James waiting for an answer? Lily thought for a moment, eyebrows furrowed. Normally, she would give a flat out no, but Remus told her that James really loved her… She knew she was going to regret it, but she said it anyways. "The Gryffindor common room, 7 o'clock tonight- got that?"
James's mouth dropped in surprise, but quickly composed himself. She actually agreed… she actually agreed… "You won't be sorry, Evans," he promised with a cocky grin, and swaggered back to his seat.
Lily found herself smiling as she turned back toward her paper. Looking at Lily with concern, Remus tore a small bit of his parchment off and scribbled,
Mr. Moony would like to ask Mr. Prongs what he is going to do tonight, since he previously had nothing planned.
Passing the note easily up to Prongs, the addressed flipped over the paper and penned the reply. Mr. Prongs assures Mr. Moony that he DOES have something planned, though he doesn't know quite what it is yet.
When Remus received the answer, he sighed but dutifully wrote back, Mr. Moony offers his assistance on Mr. Prongs's quest to impress the fair Miss Evans. Holding out the paper to Sirius for him to pass on to James, Sirius instead read the exchange between Remus and James before scrawling his own reply.
Mr. Padfoot would like to know why he was not included in this deep tête-à-tête.
Mr. Prongs is astonished that Mr. Padfoot actually knows that word.
Mr. Padfoot begs to know which word Mr. Prongs means.
Mr. Moony believes that Mr. Prongs is referring to tête-à-tête, or otherwise known as "talk" or "chat."
Mr. Prongs asks that we forget about this whole tête-à- whatever and please get back to the subject of the divine Miss Evans and what Mr. Prongs plans to do this night.
Mr. Padfoot remembers a charm that enhances your appeal- Mr. Prongs will most certainly need that.
Mr. Moony pleads that this conversation end, due to that Mr. Padfoot's precious Minnie is glancing our way.
Mr. Padfoot corrects Mr. Moony, doesn't he mean tête-à-tête instead of conversation?
Mr. Prongs differs, the word is French and none of us are skilled in that area of expertise.
Mr. Padfoot has an idea- he suggests that Mr. Prongs learn French for the beautiful Miss Evans, also known as the "language of love." J'aime la vache et Monsiuer Dumbledore est chaude, mademoiselle…
Mr. Moony wonders when Mr. Padfoot has acquired such vast knowledge, especially with such a handicap. He would also like to add that the sentence Mr. Padfoot had penned in French translates to, "I like cows and Dumbledore is hot, ma'am."
Sirius wisely decided to ignore Remus's previous statement. So what if he had only heard a bit of French here and there? He wasn't exactly fluent, but that could be expected. Anyone could make a mistake.
Mr. Padfoot politely asks which handicap Mr. Moony might be thinking about- the one that plagues him with incredible handsomeness, or the one that gives him a sweet exterior that no one can overlook?
Mr. Prongs thinks Mr. Moony was referring to the one that gives Mr. Padfoot an inflated head and enormous ego.
Mr. Padfoot was not aware of such a trait.
Mr. Moony assures him that everyone else is.
Sirius laughed out loud at Remus's comment as he started to scribble his reply, but Professor McGonagall's stiff voice stopped him cold.
"And what, may I ask, are you doing Mr. Black?" she asked, mouth pursed as the whole class looked at him expectantly. The room had gone silent as Sirius hit a revelation that was sure to get him out of this fix.
"What does it look like?" he replied, letting his eyelids droop half closed as he leaned forward. "Writing a love letter to you, Minnie. I cannot believe you didn't respond to my last one… you near broke my heart."
The class broke into laughter and McGonagall flushed pink. "Oh, you mean that letter," she said coolly. Once again, the class erupted into titters. "I vaguely remember that… I have an extra copy. Perhaps I should put it on the board, Mr. Black?"
James started to snicker, knowing very well that Sirius had written McGonagall a rather fluffy love letter last year on a dare. McGonagall had looked at him oddly the first couple days after sending it, and the teachers always chuckled when Sirius walked by the Transfiguration teacher. It had become a running joke between the staff and Sirius, much to the unhappiness of the Marauders- they didn't need any more constant gags. The serious-Sirius jokes were enough to last them until eternity.
"I would be delighted, Minnie," Sirius grinned. "But you might want to erase the 17th line- it gets rather… descriptive."
"I can't believe you got us all detention, Padfoot," muttered James as he slapped his scrub brush to the Transfiguration room's floor. "And we didn't even do anything!"
Remus, kneeling next to him, stopped for a moment, thinking to retort but decided against it and went back to work. "What were you going to say, Moony?" asked Sirius.
"If I said it, my head would be torn off by Prongs in an instant so I remain silent," responded Remus, concentrating on the floor. He never realized how hard it was to wash the floors the Muggle way, especially at seven o' clock.
For a few moments, they worked as hard as they could, concentrating on the stone blocks. Finally, Sirius turned his head around. "Where's James?" he asked.
Remus and Peter exchanged glances as if to confirm Sirius was a looney, but as they looked around, they also noticed that James was gone. "Bloody sneak," Sirius grumbled, giving the floor an extra good rubbing with his brush.
James turned to Lily, giving her a smile. "Hey, sorry I was late…"
"It's fine," she said. Was she actually looking forward to this moment? Hope surged in James's stomach. He was going to tell her that he loved her, right now.
This was the time.
"Lily, I… I lo… I lo… I lost Sirius's birthday gift from his aunt," James blurted, then felt like hitting himself. Why didn't he just tell her? "I'm going to go put it back in his bag, right now."
"All right…" Lily said uncertainly as James raced up to his dormitory room. Quickly taking the book and stuffing it into Sirius's bag gave him time to think the situation over. He was going to calm down, then tell her, and show her how much he loved her. He'd show her all the drawings he'd done of her, all the poems he'd written about her bravery, her kindness and her beauty. The plan was as simple as that. He gave a grin at Sirius's book. Surely it deserved some recognition for getting him out of a tight spot.
"Sorry about that," James muttered as he slid beside Lily.
The girl nodded a bit doubtfully.
"I… I can…" James could say this, he knew he could. "I can… speak Italian."
Lily stared at him blankly.
"No! No, I mean I can… I love… you know what? I know this really neat spell. I'll show it to you, it goes like…"
James took his wand out of his pocket, and did what he remembered of a spell from one of Sirius's old spellbooks."Then I say 'Post… hac ab' and-"
But before James could say anything else, a blue light had engulfed them. The floor rumbled ominously as Lily shouted, "Potter, what did you do?"
He would have said, "Trying to impress you" if they had not been swallowed up into the bleak darkness.
"Ron, I'm going to run ahead. I need to get something from Dean before I go to Potions." Harry pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose, attempted to smooth his wild hair and waited for the reply from Ron.
Ron stopped walking. "Fine by me. Just don't be late; Professor Snape will give us detention if we are!"
"He does even if we aren't."
"You know my point. Hermione and I will be waiting."
Waving goodbye to Harry, Ron sprinted ahead to catch up with Hermione who never stopped her tread.
"Why do you even talk to each other about that? You knew Harry had to get something from Dean, he's been complaining about how he NEEDS that stupid thing he borrowed... I still really don't understand you too," Hermione grumbled, the bags under her eye a darkish purple.
"Really Hermione, you must get some more sleep. Have you seen those purple-ish bags? My god, woman, do you know when to stop?"
"I had essays, Ron, and it takes more than five minutes to get an O!"
Ron stopped walking again. "I do mine in that amount of time."
"Yes, but do you get O's?"
He shrugged this off and kept walking. "Well… sometimes I do if I work ten minutes."
"If I help you," Hermione grunted and shuffled along the hall that would take them on the path to Potions.
There was an abnormal silence as they followed each other.
"I heard Snape's giving a lesson about flobberworms and their uses. Or something," muttered Ron, trying to get some conversation. Hermione sighed. She really did appreciate Ron's effort, but she didn't want to talk. Not right now. Staying up all night for her Charms essay was not her idea of fun. So instead she asked him, "How was Quidditch practice? Did you block any goals?"
"Yeah! Tons! I'm really getting better, Hermione!"
Ron had started spewing off about the inquired topic, and how much better 6th year was than 5th, when a feminine scream and a thud cut him off short.
"What was that?" he asked nervously, and started glancing around.
Hermione, who was in the mood to fight an ogre, boldly stared and stomped around until she finally stopped in dead silence.
"Oh no! It's a spider! Kill it, Hermione! Fast!" Ron cringed, holding out his hands in front of him.
"No, Ron. Come over here." Her previous killer temper had diminished to a soft glow.
Ron was hesitant in his trek but when he rounded the bend he froze.
"It can't be," he murmured.
"I think it is!" Hermione whispered, a sob catching in her throat as they gazed upon the unconscious faces of James Potter and Lily Evans, lying, tangled on the wooden hall.