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A Moral Dilemma
She didn't see James properly for the next three days. They had no shared classes on a Friday, and with the quarter final match against Hufflepuff coming up the Quidditch Captain had scheduled long training sessions across the weekend. As to how he managed to train when the Quidditch pitch was booked by the three other houses all weekend Lily would never know. She was further baffled when on Saturday afternoon she passed the entirety of the glum-looking Gryffindor team standing at the end of a corridor on the seventh floor as James paced, muttering to himself in front of a blank stretch of wall. Confused or no, she found herself commenting quite loudly – and within earshot of Sirius Black – to a bemused Alice Prewett, that she really admired and respected that kind of determination in a wizard.
With the exception of a moment at lunch on Sunday - she found herself seriously evaluating whether or not to partially transfigure Mary's bottle of Cheeky Cherubim Yellow into a butter dish near Daisy Abbott's plate. She couldn't decide whether the inevitable consequences would exceed the happiness she'd get from watching the witch spread her toast with nail polish - the weekend passed without event. Thus, it was with a false sense of security – having been able to safely and happily fantasise about a certain Marauder all weekend – that Lily headed down to breakfast with Alice and Dorcas on Monday morning.
Marlene had reserved a spot for them at the Gryffindor bench by spreading the Daily Prophet across more table than was probably necessary. She and Mary were loudly debating the ethics of the Prophet advertising discount sleepwear right next to an article about a woman in Leeds who was strangled by her pyjamas last Friday. From the sounds of it, Marlene thought it was all 'just business' and not to read too far into it, and Mary thought it was 'most insensitive'. Dermot Weasley and Frank Longbottom, sitting either side of the witches, were both trying to contribute to the conversation and failing to get a word in.
Rolling her eyes at the scene, Alice moved around the table to perch in Frank's lap and Dorcas shuffled in next to Marlene. This left Lily next to Dermot, who was in turn right next to Peter Pettigrew, who had employed a similar technique to Marlene's of reserving bench-space. Instead of a newspaper, however, he had removed his trainers and put one on either side of the table, obviously expecting that the stench emanating from the footwear (and most probably the rumour put about by Stephen Pringle in third year that the Marauder had noxious foot-fungus) would dissuade unwelcome benchwarmers. After a moment's hesitation – are you a weak bint, Lily Evans? – Lily slid in next to Dermot, who began to tell her about his brother's promotion; 'now he's assistant to the head of the Improper Use of Magic Office,' he was saying enthusiastically before she knew what he was talking about.
By now Mary and Marlene's conversation had evolved into a deep and heated argument about consumerism. Very soon it had expanded to include most of the surrounding Gryffindors, including a vastly amused and now well-distracted Lily.
When a particularly swotty second year by the name of Adella Creevey stood up to give an impassioned speech about corporate greed in the Ministry of Magic, Dermot, turning to share a raised eyebrows-type of look with Lily, accidentally elbowed her plate of toast off the table. It was only when she had risen from under the table with the dusty toast, laughingly dismissing Dermot's fervent apologies, and reached for the toast rack in front of Peter that she noticed that his shoes were back on their respective feet. And in their place were Remus, Sirius and James Potter.
Sirius was complaining that the smell of Peter's feet had got into all the surrounding food and that he was too disgusted to eat, all the while shovelling porridge into his mouth. James, chin in hand and elbow on table, had adopted a simpering expression and would try to smooth the irate Sirius's hair out of his eyes whenever his defending hand was busy with the porridge spoon. Lily felt her cheeks heat and her throat tighten. Whatever it was she had been saying to Dermot trailed off into nothingness.
'What a rubbish day,' Sirius was moaning. 'We've got – stop doing that, you absolute twat – listen, we've got Potions first and then – Merlin, Prongs, I'm about to castrate you!' He slapped James's hand away. 'Tell him to stop!' he said to Remus, who was peacefully reading his newspaper. 'Get the great prat in line!'
'Poor baby.' Remus muttered, eyes still glued to his copy of the Prophet. 'Is it very hard?'
'Yes,' snarled Sirius. 'It bloody well is. We've got a rubbish day, I've got a hangover, Pete's feet stink and I'm in a moral dilemma. It bloody well is hard, you tosser.'
'A moral dilemma?' Peter chimed in with shock. 'Do you know what that is? Can you spell that?'
Looking up with a smirk, Remus said, 'I'll admit that is a first, Padfoot. And the hangover is entirely your own fault.'
Sirius was about to respond, but James flopped a limp wrist in his face, cooing, 'is precious feeling poorly?'
Bellowing mightily, Sirius leapt up and shoved his mate bodily from the bench.
At this moment, Dermot, who seemed to have been drawn out of the debate to their left, muttered in Lily's ear. 'I didn't know Black had such a temper on him. He always seemed like the pinnacle of ennui to me.'
Lily didn't know what ennui meant, but Dermot was the intellectual type and probably thought she was too, so she just nodded and hummed. Almost crying with laughter, James had collected himself off the flagstones. He stood, panting, hands braced on his knees to keep himself standing.
'Now, now… precious–' he wheezed between laughs, jumping back to avoid Sirius's vicious right hook. 'We mustn't… exert… ourselves!'
Since happenings to Lily and Dermot's right had become violent, Mary and Marlene had lost a good portion of their audience. They were left to happily chew the other's head off while their previous spectators now enjoyed Sirius losing his nut as their light mealtime entertainment.
'Come on, you've got me interested, Black – what's this moral dilemma?' Andrew Hopkins called to Sirius, who was daring James to take his seat again with raised eyebrows. Shooting a last filthy look at his mate, Sirius sat down again and said, 'Since you asked so nicely, Hoppy.' He straightened his back, stole James's glasses – 'They're a necessary prop for story time, you selfish bastard' – licked his palms and slicked his hair back in a truly disgusting manner.
'Well –' he coughed and deepened his voice to a rumbling bass '-young Hopkins. My moral dilemma is this: a friend of mine –' he frowned, thinking '- in a younger year really loved… Divination… and – but he wasn't any good at it.' The rumbling bass was abandoned somewhere toward the end of the sentence as Sirius realised that impromptu storytelling took a bit more brainpower than he had to spare. 'So he dropped the darn subject – and about time, I say – and took up… Muggle Studies… which he found he's really good at, though he doesn't like it nearly as much.'
Bloody hell. Understanding was filtering like cold water through Lily's mind. Oh, my Lord.
Sirius's eyes remained on Andy, but Lily just knew that he knew she was listening by now. Bloody fecking hell. Her face was steadily reddening and her heart was thumping like mad, and as much as she wanted to rail Sirius with an incendiary and hysterical glare, she couldn't shift her eyes from James Potter's face. He was grinning down at a piece of toast he was buttering as he listened, completely unaware of the double meaning of the anecdote.
'Anyway,' Sirius continued heavily. 'I somehow found out from – from Trelawney – that he could do Divination again if he wanted. And my dilemma, Hoppy, is that I'm torn between telling him and keeping it a secret, because he's doing so well at Muggle Studies and he's safe – I mean… I mean, guaranteed to do well in it.'
That soulless bastard. Lily knew her face must be scarlet by this point. Her heart was in her throat. I'm Divination and Daisy's Muggle Studies. Her eyes were flickering between Sirius and James, who, finishing his toast in three bites, had hooked his feet underneath the rim of the table so that he was hanging off the bench. Let him not realise, please, she prayed desperately. Bloody hell. I'm a goner.
Sirius carried sagely on. 'Divination's just too risky a bet, you know? I mean, he loved it, but it didn't seem to love him back. Figuratively speaking, of course. So I don't know whether I should tell him or not.'
'Muggle Studies is easier,' Peter mused. Lily choked on a mouthful of pumpkin juice and Dermot had to thump her on the back. 'How do you know so much about this bloke's timetable, anyway?'
'I look out for him,' Sirius said haughtily, piling bacon onto his plate. 'I'm his… mentor… of sorts.'
'Then God help him,' James said, hiding a grin behind a fist.
'That's awfully… conscientious,' Remus said darkly. 'But are you sure it wasn't Charms that he loved?' Lily's eyes widened impossibly. You're supposed to be helping me, you idiot!
Sirius thought about that for a moment. 'Actually, Moony, I think it might have been,' he said slowly. 'Yes, I think you're right! Charms, eh?' Though he didn't look her way, Lily knew that the grin he directed at Remus was meant just for her.
'Hang on.' James had heaved himself back onto the bench. 'You just said you spoke to Trelawney about it.' He frowned. 'I think this story's a load of rubbish.'
A few seats over, Lily began to panic in earnest. Oh shit, oh shit, he's realised. Please, please, please -
'You hate kids in other years.'
Lordy may. She had one moment of blessed relief before Sirius's eyes slid over to her. No, look away! Don't say anything. Her heart had made its way up her esophagus and was trying valiantly to get out of her mouth again. No, no, don't you dare, she tried to convey with her eyes. Don't bring me into this. You are dead. You are worse than dead, you demonic spawn of toe jam and asparagus soup – his eyes slid away. 'Call it a metaphor. You know, one of them things that stand for something else.'
'A simile?' Dermot put in. Being so absorbed in the conversation, Lily jumped at the sound of his voice behind her. When she looked around again, her heart seized in her chest. It felt like really enthusiastic heartburn. Because Dermot's input hadn't surprised only her; now all who had been listening to Sirius's dilemma were looking their way. Lily's way. Including James.
Sirius's grin widened impossibly. It looked predatory now. 'You have it, Weasley! A simile.' Although he was speaking to Dermot, he was staring directly at Lily, who was trying to school her features into an unaffected and innocent look.
But she could see James out of the corner of her eye. Merlin, look at him. The hand bearing his seventh piece of toast to his mouth was hovering above his plate. Behind his glasses, sitting crookedly on his nose, his eyes were wide with surprise. A hand darted up to his hair, and, skating from Sirius's face to James's, Lily's eye caught the tiny, soft movement of his lower lip falling out of contact with the upper.
'You agree, Evans?' Sirius's voice snapped her away from that darn lip. Immediately, her face began to heat as if someone had lit a fire under the bench.
'Right – yes. A simile. Yes. I mean… yep.'
The smile on his face dimmed and his forehead creased into a frown. 'And you understand my moral dilemma, then?' The question was for her alone. Oh, my Lord. This is the end. How is he not going to realise? She swallowed, eyes flicking across to James, who was watching her curiously, probably trying to figure out why Sirius was targeting her with this particular question.
She swallowed again and looked determinedly away from James. Feigning lightness, she said snottily, 'You're a moral dilemma.'
After a moment's pause – during which everyone laughed and Lily tried to give her adversary third degree burns with her eyes – Sirius turned aside, grin reappearing as if it had never been absent from his face. 'And there you have it, Hoppy. Don't listen to Evans: aren't I just the most – what did you call it, Moony? Conscientious? – aren't I just the most conscientious bloke you've ever met?'
Andy made some quip in return and the whole table went up in laughter, but Lily heard it as if at the end of a long tunnel. She was trying not to watch James, who was laughing along with the other Gryffindors, but would, every few moments readjust his position as if he, too, were trying not to look at her. She pressed both palms to her cheeks and exhaled. That was close. He hadn't figured it out.
Later on while pouring herself a hefty, revitalising pumpkin juice, she thought, I don't know how he didn't figure it out, though. Fifteen-year-old Lily was sitting, legs crossed, saying 'I told you so' in a very stern tone at the back of her mind. You're right, older-Lily ceded ruefully to her younger self. He's still an absolute dolt.
Have a lovely day, lovely readers!
