Chapter Four : Gryffindor Tower

On the way up to the Gryffindor common room James was silent and brooding, Amy worried that Fillip's attitude had rubbed off on her friend but she didn't say anything. Hopefully James would come out of his trance-like state when they arrived at the tower.

James and Amy were both so late, that there were no prefects to guide them and they had to make do with asking random students for directions. Most of these students were not Gryffindors and some of them even attempted to lead James and Amy the wrong way.

James also knew that there was a lot of murmuring behind hands about how, 'Potter and Bones make the cutest couple don't they?' which was rather irritating because of course he hadn't seen Amy in that way and every time he overheard someone say it he flushed the deepest tone of scarlet imaginable.

It was as Amy and James thanked yet another pair of Hufflepuffs for their directions and wondered off that James realised that he was being rather silent. He attempted to make up for it by being overly bright and cheerful for the next five minutes. It didn't work though it only served to make Amy very suspicious.

When he was done babbling Amy turned to him and asked, "What's wrong James?"

James felt his ego deflate a bit, he'd always considered himself a good actor, but Amy had been able to see through his act with ease. He sighed and set about explaining Fillip's behaviour in the hall, he finished with, "So here I was, trying to extend the hand of friendship to him and he just walks off with me still not done talking," James had worked himself up into an angry state about Fillip by this point in time and the bitter thoughts that swirled around his head were unleashing themselves in his conversation with Amy. The boy who had once intrigued him was now his enemy, someone to be despised.

James had not meant to influence Amy's thoughts about Fillip, but he had a very persuasive way of speaking, that made people instantly empathise with him and Amy was no exception to the rule. By the time he was done she was cursing Fillip to the fiery depths of hell.

Her long string of curses was interrupted when she walked headfirst into a wall. There was a loud cracking noise. To James' surprise it came not from Amy but from the wall. James' curiosity was awakened and he proceeded to examine the wall, pausing only to ask his friend if she was alright.

Amy was nursing her head between her arms, but she claimed to be fine, with just a bit of a bump to the head, so James went ahead and examined the wall. It had been constructed of a shoddy paper-like material, so it was no wonder it had cracked when Amy had bumped into it.

James' fingers scrabbled against the paper-like material as he tried to rip it away, he was quite sure that he had seen something beneath the paper and he was determined to find out what it was. "Help me Aimes?" he implored her, at the same time coming up with a brilliant nick-name for his friend.

She released her hold on her head and James was glad to see that there wasn't even a mark on her head. It must have been one of those things that hurt heaps, but left no mark, like Albus' pinches. Amy then began to pull away at the material that covered what she and James could now see was a painting.

Their fingers moved faster and eventually the portrait that adorned the wall behind the paper was completely revealed. Its inhabitant was a sleeping bar-tender who woke abruptly when James leaned in and said, "Hello," his breath fanning over the intricate brush strokes.

"Oh there is no password anymore! Leave me alone…" he grumbled.

This short sentence set the cogs in both James and Amy's brains working furiously. What on Earth did the portrait mean? It was Amy who figured it out first.

"Which houses' common room do you lead to?" she asked startling the bar tender out of his sleep.

"Well, which house are you in?" he asked them.

"Gryffindor," James replied, "We just got sorted and we're lost. We can't find our way to the tower." It was the truth they had been wandering aimlessly for the past hour, lost in conversation about Fillip.

"Oh well in that case, unhinge me, my dear fellow!"

James stared perplexed for a moment and then he caught sight of the gold hinges that had been latched to the wall on the side of the painting. Moving quickly he unhooked them. "I'm Derique, I used to be the portrait to your house common room, but then I got sick of it and the Fat Lady took over. I retired for a reason you two, so don't you go telling anybody about me!" The man in the portrait explained a bit about himself as James worked.

"You know you remind me of someone, he used to call himself Prongs…" James turned at the name. Of course Harry had told him way too much about the Marauders for him to not recognise the name.

"He was my grandfather." James' reply was short. He hated the feeling that he would always be walking in the shadow of not only his father, but the 'other' James Potter.

With that short exchange he and Amy walked through the portrait and shut it, entering the dark small room that lay beyond it. James managed to find a door and opened it, tumbling out into what he was grateful to find was the Gryffindor common room, or so he assumed due to the scarlet and gold house colours that adorned the walls.

James walked out and exclaimed, "Would you look at that! It's a broom cupboard." Amy nodded, and then glared at James as she heard whispers break out through the common room, 'Wow, Potter's fast, he's already got Bones in the broom closet. I wonder what those two were doing in there?'

Amy glowered at James and said, "Nice, you just had to announce that, didn't you?" she spoke softly though, so no-one could hear her, unlike James who had been speaking in an extremely loud voice, when he'd made the comment about the broom cupboard.

He merely shrugged apologetically, "I didn't mean to Aimes," he said smiling disarmingly.

Amy felt her annoyance fade, it was impossible to be mad at James, "Ok," she said with a smile, "Just think a bit next time." Besides she couldn't really be mad at him considering that she would have done the same thing, if she had been the one to walk out of the cupboard first.

"So, Aimes, I don't know about you, but I'm in the mood for bed. So I'll see you tomorrow morning," James smiled once more and walked off up the boys dormitory stairs. Amy saw several girls behind her glance towards James admiringly. She rolled her eyes and headed up the stairs to her own dormitory.