A/N: Wow! I am restarting this story after years and years! I have only a year left before I graduate college, and I promised myself that I would complete my portfolio of fanfiction before graduation and then depart from the site. So this will be finished within the year, because I certainly can't imagine abandoning the project! I always envisioned this as a trilogy: Unfortunately, Fortunately, and Definitely (Happily Ever After.) So we'll see.
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Fortunately
Chapter 2
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It's weird, how little things can change your life. And suddenly everything's happening, and it's out of your control and beyond every possibility you've ever imagined—but, simultaneously, you can't quite fathom going back to the way things used to be.
Lily was sitting in front of me in class. Her hair was hanging softly down her back, in a prim ponytail that she refused to touch or toy with. It was Charms class, NEWT level, and one of the more boring classes that I had ever attended in my seven years here, and yet she was ogling Flitwick as if he spoke in spells, scribbling something on her parchment as fast as her hand could move.
Moony was watching me out of the corner of his eyes, an unusual occurrence.
I turned slightly, so that he had a clear view of my lips. Pay Attention! I mouthed with mock ferocity, and saw his eyes narrow.
Behind me, I felt Padfoot snicker.
He shoved me as we were leaving the classroom. "Hey Prongs, did you fall asleep in that lecture or what?" I noticed Lily Evans heading in the opposite direction, and quashed the urge to follow her.
"Uh—yeah. That was terrible."
"Merlin, Flitwick can put you to sleep sometimes, huh?"
"Not as infallibly as Binns, though," I quipped, eliciting a laugh from Padfoot.
"The one class I could always count on for a nap…" He said fondly, sneaking a look around the corridor. Students were streaming around us, and with the chatter of conversation rising high to the ceiling, he clearly felt confident to quietly discuss more important matters.
"So…tonight?" He leaned closer, saying the words in a low tone.
I nodded. "How's Moony doing?" My tone was equally low. We weren't exactly quiet about our nicknames, and it wouldn't do to have anyone hear.
At that moment, a few sixth years walked by, giggling loudly. Padfoot recoiled from me as if burned, straightening his posture and running a hand through his hair.
I watched him for a minute, watched him watch the girls as they sauntered by, chattering idly about homework and hair products and the possibility of being invited by a seventh year to the infamous graduation ball. I wasn't even sure if this ball existed, honestly, it was a rumor sort of thing, but we had already started making plans for how to disrupt it as much as possible. Unless, of course, Lily Evans were to be my date, in which case things would be very different.
But I'm getting way off topic. Heads probably have to go together, anyways. Can you believe that Lily and I are Heads together? You'd think that my charm and seductive ability would have already wooed her in to bed with me, wouldn't you? Not quite.
Fortunately, though, I had plenty of contingency plans.
So here I was, watching Sirius watching ladies, and noting how his posture got all funny-like when he was trying to impress people. Except, that the strange thing about Sirius (and I only refer to him as Sirius when I'm being serious, haha) is that he generally doesn't really notice girls on his own. They notice him, and giggle all the more voraciously and whatever it is that girls do, but he doesn't see them like that. They move around him like currents in the air, and fuck me if he doesn't give two shits about any of them. Padfoot has astronomical standards, I think.
We strolled off, and the girls slipped out of both our minds. Padfoot started blabbering to me about plans for tonight, but we generally always did the same exact thing despite exhaustive discussion so all I had to do was make sure the invisibility cloak wasn't lost.
Fortunately, I always knew exactly where it was—sort of like Lily Evans. Although it did have this strange, peculiar, I guess you would call it a propensity, to do really annoying and odd things, like disappear and reappear kind of inconveniently. So it was actually a legitimate task, keeping track of it.
"Hey Padfoot," I said, interrupting Pad's monologue. He grunted, which I took as a sign to continue. "How long do you think it will take for Lily to love me?" I had intended for it to sound arrogant and confident, a masculine man making a blasé observation on their lady love…But I'm worried it came off more as plaintive. Not that worried, though.
Pad smacked me upside the head. "Mate, you need to get it together."
"How long?"
"Forever. And that's being generous."
I glared at him, and pulled out the Marauder's map. "Wonder what Filch will be doing tonight?"
"Feel like some Mrs. Norris bating?"
We bared our teeth at each other. Mrs. Norris hated Pad's animagus, and we loved it. "Do we ever miss an opportunity?"
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"Yo, Prongs, hit me!"
I tossed Worm the pig-shaped marshmallow, that Pad had just spent like an hour transfiguring. He was getting pretty good, despite ostensibly never doing his course work, because the marshmallow had even taken on a faint pinkish tint, and had little ears and beady black eyes. I wondered if it would taste like pig or marshmallow. Maybe bacon flavored marshmallow. I was about to grab it back from Worm at that thought, but he shoved it into his mouth before I could.
"Yum," he said. "I love marshmallow." Obviously he had no appreciation for the finesse of potential bacon flavoring.
"Your animagus should have been a pig instead of a rat," I grouched, and Pad laughed a high pitched hyena laugh from the other bed, where he sat transfiguring my shoe.
"Hey!" I leapt up. "I like that one. Give it here!"
"Finders Keepers," Pad said smugly, as my shoe shimmered and began to look definitively scaly.
"The Fustenberg Finders have the worst Keepers in all of Quidditch," I snapped. "So it's a dumb expression."
"It's a figure of speech," Worm interjected. I glared at him.
"So, James," Moony began. It could only be him, because Moon is the only one who tries to call us by our actual names. I haven't told him about how sometimes when I'm thinking seriously, I think about us in our real names. I guess my parents also call me James… and Lily Evans.
"Yeah?" I said.
"What do you want most, in your life?"
Fortunately, I always have a rapid answer for this one. "Lily Evans."
Pad threw the transfigured shoe at my face, but I caught it before it broke my beautiful nose. "No, dumb arse, she doesn't count."
"No," Worm interrupted. "Surely there's something that, at this particular moment, you want more."
This is true. "This is true," I told them. "Because I know that Lily and I will end up together, and make beautiful children and live a life like a dream. So you see, occasionally, my desire to be with her is superseded by my material passions in the present."
"What does 'superseded' mean?" Worm asked.
"Beaten by," Moon explained. I cleared my throat.
"So, actually, what I want most, in this precise moment," I paused for dramatic effect, and Pad groaned.
"For Merlin's sake, Prongs, it's no wonder Evans can't stand you. When did you get so bloody preachy? You sound like Binns. Enough with the dramatic pausing."
"Fine," I huffed. "I want the Nimbus 800."
"That's not even in stores yet," Moony said.
"So that's like an invalid desire," Pad agreed.
"What's 'invalid,'" Worm asked, and I threw the scaled shoe at him ("OUCH!") as Moon sighed exasperatedly.
"Yo, Moon, get this one," Pad nodded in the direction of Worm.
Moony sighed. "If you're going to insist on calling me by my nickname, at least call me by my full nickname. Moon-y. Not Moon. Moon is a noun. My nickname is an adjective, thank you."
We all snorted and then asked Worm what he wanted most, and he told us more marshmallows.
"That's stupid," Pad told him.
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