Disclaimer:Yeah, don't own anything apart from Raisa Ramsey (my oc) and my slightly odd sense of humour. The genius that is J.K Rowling owns all and this is simply for my own personal entertainment.
Getting Over You
"POTTER!"
The terse, angry voice spat its sharp and angry sentence down into the Gryffindor Common Room, hanging in the air for a few seconds – mad and angry – before the two syllables familiar to all sixth year Gryffindors slowly solidified and crashed to earth with interest, sending fear into the hearts of everyone.
Everyone being more specifically in this case James Potter, who had reason to believe that this bloodthirsty war cry was directed at him.
"Oh God James,"
Remus Lupin looked up from his book with a sigh.
"What did you do now?"
James gulped. Audibly.
"We've only been back three days, Prongs."
Peter Pettigrew stared up at his friend in awe. Lily Evans in a rage scared the bejesus out of him, but three days into term was something of a record for his friend. Records were things to be celebrated and savoured.
The esteemed record-holder winced, choked out a: "nothing...?", and in his haste to vacate his seat and make himself disappear he tripped over a side table.
"When you phrase it as a question and trip over furniture it makes me doubt your words."
Remus winced and shrank further down into his armchair.
The words drifted down from upstairs again.
"POTTER - YOU'D BETTER-. What do you mean count to ten Alice? I don't want to count to ten. POTTER-"
"Hide me Moony," James wailed, swiping Remus' book from his unsuspecting hand and proceeding to hold it in front of his face.
"Because I'm sure Lily won't notice that the book has grown legs," he replied dryly and not a little resignedly as yet again James was misusing his literature for his own means.
"Although it could be a magic book,"
Peter nodded sagely at Remus and the Book with Legs, one of whom seemed mildly disturbed to hear this and one of them strangely delighted.
"Wormtail makes an excellent point."
A nearby chair swivelled round to reveal the softly smirking, chiselled features of the final member of the group…
Sirius Black – Marauder extraordinaire – who had until Wormtail's wise words been lurking in a corner, surveyed the scene with interest.
He was good at lurking. No, lurking wasn't the right word, because in fact Sirius Black had that quality of being able to seem perfectly placed.
James was incapable of lurking – Lily wouldn't notice him if he lurked. Of course Lily would probably prefer it if, on occasion, he did actually lurk and so leave her alone.
"Just a thought Prongs, but maybe you should stop planting things in her room,"
Sirius smiled wryly at his best friend, knowing full well that James wouldn't take a blind bit of notice of a single word that he said on the subject of Lily Evans. His sometimes-antlered friend seemed to take the view that the sure fire way to make you irresistible to women was to plant random packages on their bed. Sirius, however, took the view that if you needed to make yourself irresistible to women then you were doing something wrong, and besides -
"WELL MAYBE I DON'T WANT TO TAKE IT BLOODY EASY"
The four Marauders flinched in turn as the voice of the flame haired siren that haunted James Potter's dreams descended her way down the stairs from the Girl's Dormitory.
James flinched because he could sense that he was about to be let in for a whole world of pain…
Remus flinched because he had a sudden flash-forward of his fellow prefect in her rage perhaps misusing literature again…
Peter flinched because, as mentioned before, Lily Evans scared the bejesus out of him…
Sirius flinched because a shaking Peter has dropped a piece from Wizards Chess on his foot…
Anyway, after the red dragon of anger from her dorm, descended a pale and frightened Alice, carrying a hefty red tome, entitled:
"Seeing Red: How to Deal with Anger without Alienating and Scaring Everyone Around You…"
"Hi Lily," James gushed.
A collective intake of breath could be heard after this from the on looking crowd. It was as if they could sense that Lily Evans did not pop down to the Common Room just to say 'hi'.
Lily wrenched the book from Alice's unsuspecting hands (something that Remus highly sympathised with) and chucked it at James' head, letting out a wild yell of frustration when the Chaser and star player of Gryffindor's Quidditch team shockingly managed to dodge the book. Funny how alike in weight heavy books are to Bludgers.
"Sorry – reflex reaction." James winced apologetically at the red haired love of his life. "If you want I can hand you back the book and you can have another try?"
The wild "No!" let out by Sirius/Remus was necessary given that Lily was quite probably considering this as a viable course of action. As it was she let out a shriek, causing several first years to scatter.
"Do you think I like being constantly angry Potter?"
"But you arevery sexy when you're angry"
Sirius smacked him upside on the head.
"Come on Lily – remember what the book said,"
Alice pleaded, wringing her hands and silently wishing that her boyfriend Frank Longbottom wasn't off in some greenhouse in the Hogwarts grounds doing extra credit Herbology and instead was right next to her helping her with her very trying friend.
"Sod the book Alice."
Lily threw her hands up in the air with a flourish. "Sod the bloody book."
On a roll now she continued, pacing up and down the width of the Common Room for dramatic effect.
"Whoever wrote the book obviously doesn't know him.Hedeserves a whole book all for himself."
At each reference to him and himselfJames perked up considerably. Lily rarely addressed him as anything but "POTTER", "ASSHOLE" and "PRAT", so "him" made a change.
"Lily, if you could just tell us what the problem is here…" Remus begun in an infuriatingly calm voice.
"PROBLEM? PROBLEM?" she shrieked, each repetition sending her voice even further into the realms of that special pitch that only dogs and some well trained cats can hear.
"The only problem is 'El Doofus' over there," she pointed at James, who waved sheepishly.
"SIRIUS," squeaked Alice as she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the Dog-Star moniker-ed Marauder had jumped out of his seat and was reaching for his wand.
"He is not a Doofus," Sirius growled, and he probably would have been content to add a lot more than just words to the argument had the portrait door not crashed open at that very second.
The portrait door slid open and a petite, dark haired girl tumbled through –the tumbling here coming from the fact that a small, random Gryffindor with glasses had his hand on her back and was pushing her forward.
"Make it stop," he breathed, pointing a quivering hand towards the impending Armageddon by the Dormitory stairs.
"This had better be good," said dark haired girl murmured under her breath, smoothing down her simple tee and making her way towards the tableau of fellow seventeen year olds.
"Superwoman coming through," she muttered again, motioning with her hands for the small crowd of onlookers to part for her. Lily and James fights had a similar quality to car crashes in that they were full of impact and morbidly fascinating.
"Raisa!"
Alice greeted her friend with a hug that suggested more the greeting of a long lost friend than simply a friend she had seen half an hour ago at dinner.
"Told you the book wouldn't work Ali,"
Raisa Ramsey replied with a sigh as she caught sight of the poor, mangled book sprawled by the fireplace that had been an unsuccessful Christmas present gifted to Lily no doubt by someone hoping to curb her temper. "You owe me a galleon."
Turning away from her gaping friend Raisa now addressed the assorted crowds who had gathered for their evening entertainment.
"Okay, show's over folks"
Raisa frowned as it seemed that the Gryffindor onlookers didn't seem that inclined to listen to someone who was planning on cutting off their supply of fun.
"SCRAM THE LOT OF YOU."
Raisa mouthed a grateful "thank you" to Sirius, who tipped her a wink as he jumped down from the table with a flourish and watched the onlookers disappear. She composed herself quickly and then turned to the scene she had been brought to fix…
"Lily honey, what did James do this time, and James what nice gesture of yours is Lily now not appreciating?"
The red-headed one turned to her friend, seemingly more subdued now her anger had had a chance to settle.
"He wrote me a card."
"Well that's nice of him…isn't it?" Raisa backtracked with a question when she saw the look of pure horror on her best friend's face.
Alice intervened at this point and handed her peacekeeping friend the offending item.
Raisa took the proffered card with a sigh and began to read:
"To Lily Evans,
How was your holiday? Mine was good and I hope yours was too. Did you get my Christmas present? I don't know whether you did or not because you didn't owl me back like the gift card said to but I don't mind as long as you got it. Did you get it? Did you?
Lots of Love
James Potter
P.S Will you go out with me?"
Both Sirius and Remus (who hadn't seen the card because James had guessed correctly that had he showed them they would have tried to talk him out of sending it) let out ill-concealed snorts.
"Lil', I don't see the problem,"
"Neither do I," James interjected with a frown.
Lily spluttered, opened and closed her mouth several times without a single sound coming out, before flouncing back up to her dorm.
A collective sigh was let out by all those still present in the Common Room as the vast majority of it's occupants consecutively decided that now would be a good time to do a lot of things they had been meaning to do but had never got around to.
Lily/James arguments kind of made you appreciate the value of your life more.
Raisa sank into a nearby chair with a contented sigh – peacekeeping sure took a lot out of you, and there was nothing she liked better than an empty Common Room..
"Nice job Ramsey"
Okay so not completely empty then…
"Black," she nodded in greeting.
He was doing the staring thing again. God she hated it when he did the staring thing.
"That was some pretty impressive crisis management you pulled just now."
"Thanks." Raisa grinned
"Are you noticing that her reasons for being pissed off with James are becoming increasingly irrational?"
Raisa's head shot up. "Do you think she's softening up to him?"
Sirius shrugged.
"She'll never admit to it though." Raisa sighed
He chewed this statement over in his head for a few moments before replying with a grin: "I can't think of anyone else who would have him"
They sat in silence for a few minutes, contemplating women who could survive living with James...
"So you're carrying on with Defence then?"
Raisa lifted her head slightly.
"Um, yeah," she replied.
"You know, 'dark times' and all," she finished, wrapping the phrase snugly in air quotes.
"If you need a hand with the practical stuff again like last year you know where I am."
Sirius jumped up from his seat and mock-saluted his Gryffindor classmate goodnight.
He paused for a moment at the stairs before turning round with a smirk...
"I take it you don't want us to tell Evans that you put the package up there for Prongs then?"