AN: Thank you EnchantedWords17 and anyone else reading my story. But, reviews are especially nice and so EnchantedWords17 gets even more of my love. Also I bequeath her Joey Richter, so long as I can have Brian Holden. Because giving away Joey Richter is entirely within my ability...Entirely.
This chapter is very much dialoguey and James' parts are starting to annoy me. I might start just doing Lily's perspective. What do you all think? (Yes, that is a shameless attempt to get you to review)
The butterflies are passive aggressive
and put their problems on the shelf
but they're beautiful
~Ben Kweller, In Other Words~
They had planted the seed well enough and people appeared to be falling for it, but that wasn't all that impressive really. People love to accept gossip, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. And if the rumors come true, that's when they usually start to think outside the box. They're attracted to the unknown, to the rumors, to the uncertain. Not the facts. All, it would take is one person to knock down everything.
"Want me to do it?"
Sirius was looking at me almost pityingly. He knew Lily was going to go ballistic.
"Nah, I'll be alright, I suppose."
"You just got out of the hospital wing man!"
"She's not going to attack me," I reminded him. And myself, somewhat dubiously.
"But, you were just starting to be on her good side, mate," Sirius whined.
"How about I do it? She's probably the most friendly with me," I scowled at Remus, "... not romantically Prongs! Any, as I was saying, therefore I'm probably the least likely to get killed."
"I don't think Lily could take any of you," Peter added earnestly. I looked down at him for a moment, wondering if he thought any of us would ever really try to "take her on" in a fight or whatever he was exactly implying when Remus interrupted. He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.
"She's a good hand at duels."
"Oh, yeah," Peter conceded. I eyed them suspiciously.
"Wait! I know that, but how do you lot know that?"
"We're all in the same Defense class as you, Prongs," Padfoot reminded me.
"Yeah. Well, what? You're all watching her?"
"No, that's your job," He smirked, "We're just not all blind either."
I stared at him blankly.
"She's impressive, alright? We're bound to notice."
Sirius said it so casually, so entirely devoid of any ulterior motive, I was stunned for a moment. I think because I'm so in love with Lily that sometimes I forget others can see her too. Don't get me wrong, I know she's amazing. And others should know that as well, it's just... it really puts it in perspective. Of course she's beautiful, smart and funny—it makes sense others would notice that. It just... makes me a little nervous. Not about Sirius, Remus or Peter-these were just my mates, who are sworn to...well, not make moves on my future wife. It's the other guys I'm worried about. I unwillingly found myself glaring slightly at Jacobs. Peter huffed.
"Don't worry about Jacobs! He's not even on the team! No way he's better than you."
"Lily doesn't care about Quidditch," I sulked.
"Prongs, I'm sure it's fine."
"Remus!" I turned to him with a new found interest and suddenly he looked wary. "You know Jacobs." He nodded reluctantly. "Tell him to back off, will you?"
"No."
"Why not!"
"That's stupid, Prongs. And I doubt he would ask her out."
"Why not?"
"Don't sound so defensive, you would want to kill him if he did."
"Yeah, but..."
"It's not that anyway."
"Then what?"
"You." I nodded slightly.
"You think he's afraid that I would curse him or something?"
"Well, you have done it before," I looked at him sheepishly, as funny as those times had been I had outgrown that sort of thing. Even if I loved Lily that didn't mean I had the right to dictate who she dated. I puffed out my chest a little, feeling very much mature. Remus threw me a wry look before continuing,
"But, that's not why either."
"For Merlin's sake, Mooney! Get on with it! Why do your stories always take two days!"
Remus glared at Sirius, looking justifiably affronted.
"Ignore, him, Mooney. You know he has the patience of a two year old." Remus grinned.
"More like a goldfish," Peter amended. Sirius glared at all of us, but broke the mood by grinning. He spit out his tongue.
"At least I don't nod at people, like some sort of fucking lord-ship," he quipped turning to me. We all laughed, and I saw Jacob and Lily looking toward us at the noise.
"I'm going to go do it."
They looked up startled, sobering almost immediately.
"Are you sure?"
"Maybe it will work out and you don't have to do anything," Peter offered. I scoffed.
"They've been spreading that rumor around like wildfire. Everyone thinks that Craigs is going to be sneaking around tonight doing something. And, from what we've been able to deduce, they're going to set it up to make it look like he's trashed the halls and put up some posters supporting Voldemort." Peter flinched, Remus slightly winced, and Sirius' expression darkened at the name. We were quiet for a few moments before Peter finally resumed (or remembered) his question.
"But I don't see why that won't work."
"Well, knowing Lily, they've done it so that nobody will actually see it. Wouldn't want to scare any first-years, would we?" Sirius said it sardonically, but I felt a surge of affection for her wanting to protect them.
"What that means is that they're going to have to do it late enough that nobody's up, but not too late so that nobody will see it. The last patrol is at one in the morning. The next isn't till five, and by then at least a few crazies will think it's morning."
"What Sirius is taking forever to get to," Mooney smirked as he took over, but Padfoot only rolled his eyes, "is that they have a very small window to operate in, a good chance of getting caught, and a main suspect who is going to end up looking pretty damn innocent come the realization that he's in a hospital with a broken hand."
"It will be fixed by morning," Peter objected.
"Too late to make him look suspicious, though," Peter seemed to finally undergo a moment of understanding.
"Oh! And then they'll start looking for actual suspects and will probably find something weird or fishy and..."
"Exactly. Lily will get in trouble. It's not like this is just some silly prank. She's going to be suspended. Which is why I have to go and tell them..." I looked over to the middle of the common room where everyone was all huddled together. Lily was smirking as Jacob told a joke to the crowd. I could hear whispers of "I bet Craigs..." and "He wouldn't! Would he?"
Here goes nothing.
"James, don't. I'll do it. Like I said she probably won't mind if it's me..."
"Man, she already hates me... let me just..."
"I'd offer, but it would probably be weird."
I ignored my friends' rather valiant attempts to save me. This was something I had to do on my own. Besides, Lily's and my friendship can survive this... I think.
Without allowing myself time to reconsider I broke into the conversations going on, and let my naturally loud voice power over the others'.
"It couldn't possibly be Craigs. .."
Stupid Potter and his stupid ideas.
...
Oh, hell. I still shouldn't have done it.
Well. You know what they say, give a guy a cloak and he'll use it to trick you. Not really. But he could use it to trick you. Which is obvious by what Potter did. What did Potter do? you're probably asking me all innocently. Now you sound just like the idiot.
"I didn't do anything Lily!" He insisted with big blinking doe eyes and his other half giving me a knowing smirk.
Yes he did! I know he did. I just don't know what... yet. But he did something.
"Why do you think I did something? All I did was hand you back your cloak."
Sure, sure. Use logic why don't you.
I honestly can't explain how exactly I knew he did something, but I just knew.
I'd been planning on him having an overreaction of some sort. On being upset with me for having tricked him. In short, I'd assumed he would have finally saw reason and realized that I'd given him a cloak. To watch over. I had taken advantage of his weird tendency to like my things and gotten him to leave me alone. I thought he would be irritated or at the very least upset. Yet, here he was acting downright chipper.
I eyed him suspiciously through my glare. He'd obviously done something. The question is: what?
"Whatever, I'll find out soon enough." He shook his head, and his floppy dark hair fell over his glasses. He smoothed it back, running his fingers through to make it even more messy. I fought back a groan.
"You're killing me, Lils," Potter echoed my thoughts exactly. Well, minus the Lils part. Mine would have just been James. I mean Potter.
"Right back at you, Potter." Sirius was still smirking at me.
"What now?"
"I thought you were going to start calling me James," Potter broke in randomly, just as Black was starting to speak. He closed his mouth like a goldfish and turned back to his eggs. I looked at Potter startled.
"Er... no. I don't think I ever said that."
"But we're mates, right?"
"Yeah."
"And remember what I said about mates?"
"That wasn't even true. And, if I remember correctly that was the time your own best mate licked my ear. I'd like to stay clear of that subject, please. It seems to make him act even more wolfish than usual."
"Wolfish? Who's wolfish?"Remus sat down next to me, his voice far too fast and with his eyes unusally wide. I'm not an mind reader, but if I were I'd say he was asking "what the hell?" So I did what any friend would do, I pretended I didn't notice how oddly he was acting.
"You, you big coot."
James and Sirius snickered into their breakfasts.
"Me. You were talking about me?"
"Yep. We all shared everything we know about you." The two morons across from me looked like Christmas had come early. They thought I was unwittingly sharing a joke with them. Well, let them think that. Like I'd ever let them think I was knowingly doing that! Ha. Not me. Not Lily Evans. Not with Potter and Black.
Still, this was too much fun and, I loathe to admit it, but I liked making them laugh. They were such pranksters, it was nice to be the funny one every once in a while.
"Haha, yeah. Sure." He was looking around at each of us desperately. To Potter and Black it probably looked like he was asking them if they told me something, but I knew he was checking to see if I'd told them anything. Like, about knowing a certain fuzzy secret. I grinned.
"Cat's out of the bag, Mooney." Sirius was delighted to hear me say this, but Potter suddenly stopped smirking and stared at me. He looked confused, then suspicious.
Uh-oh. Too far with the nick-name bit. Fuck. Reverse! REVERSE!
"Haha. Kidding, Remus. We were talking about Sirius." Remus glared at me, and smiled apologetically at the others. James was still staring daggers at the both of us. Whoops.
"Why do you..."
Remus shoved a piece of toast into my mouth just as I was going to fix everything. I had been planning on asking Remus why he was so upset about being called wolfish. I was going to do it all innocent like and convince Potter that I knew nothing. Now, I was convincing him I couldn't eat properly.
I started choking and Potter changed quite suddenly from suspicious jerk to friendly knight in armor. Ugh, that boy. Really.
"Are you alright? Remus, what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you okay, Lily? Need some milk?" He'd practically hopped the table. Well, not practically, he must have jumped the table because he was sitting next to me patting my back and offering me a glass of milk. I took the cup gratefully and started gulping it down to stop the toast from scratching my poor darling throat.
Remus looked remarkably unconcerned for someone who had just tried to murder me. He shot James a look and then said tonelessly,
"You're not actually supposed to do that, you know. It doesn't help." James was still glaring at Remus, but he did quit patting me. Instead, his hand started rubbing my back. Now, don't go thinking I was enjoying this! Under normal circumstances I would have just about thrown my milk in his face for such nerve. But, I had almost died! And felt considerably weakened by my toast encounter. So I simply joined Potter on glaring at the fair-haired kid beside us, who was starting to finally appear a little sheepish.
"I really am sorry, Lily. Bad form. Are you alright?"
I nodded at him, to show my graciousness. For some reason Sirius snorted at this and even Potter smiled.
I saw Mary and Jacob approaching so I elbowed Potter in the ribs to make him stop. The last thing I needed was Mary interrogating me over letting Potter touch my back. He withdrew, and immediately I missed the contact. No, not because it was James' hand, but because I was still shaken up over my near-death.
Toast, you know, is quite dangerous. I must have said this last bit aloud, though, because the three marauders started cackling. Mary rose her eyebrows at me, and then shrugged, as if resigned to my oddities. Ha, talk about oddities, Kettle. Jacob merely threw me a wary smile.
Oh, what friends.
Lily had made me stop rubbing her back as soon as Jacob approached. I eyed him calculatingly. After that whole joke with the unrequited love bit I had began to feel a bit better about this relationship, but now I was once again unsure. I'd thought that someone really in love with Lily wouldn't joke about it, but the way he was looking at her when she wasn't paying attention made my heart clench. And, she had made me stop rubbing her back. I tried desperately to still the jealousy currently boiling in my stomach.
I had other things to think about any way, things to distract me. I really needed to figure out their plan. That should be easy enough. I already had my counter-prank good and planned thanks to Lily's cloak. Besides, they weren't exactly subtle or sneaky. I'd probably just tail them with the cloak a couple times and see what happened. And if I happened to overhear some conversations between Jacob and Lily then so be it.
It's not like there was anything to overhear, probably.
I bet he drones on about boring stuff like potions and Lily pretends to listen as she doodles in her notebook. Wait! Lily actually likes potions. Bleh.
Okay, focus, James! I need to get to the bottom of this, it's driving me crazy. I can't even focus on the prank. And that's important. Not that this whole potential romance isn't, but Lily can't get suspended or else it won't matter who she likes.
I've made up my mind, I'll talk to Jacob and see what he says. Just be forthright and honest. Jacob seems like he would appreciate that. And there was enough sneaking going on, as is.
"Hey, Jake!"
"Yeah?"
"Can I talk to you for a moment?" He cocked his eyebrow at me almost mockingly.
"Sure."
"Privately." He rolled his eyes. When did Jacob become such an arse? Probably when you started treating him like one, a stupid voice reminded me. Damn, conscience. "Please," I added on for good measure. He apparently appreciated that gesture because he stood up and nodded.
Lily looked confused, Sirius' face impressively passive and Remus was all too knowing. I tried to ignore all of them. We walked outside the great hall to an empty hall way, I turned around to face Jacob, who looked fairly irritated. This guy was usually renowned for his constant cheeriness. Not good.
"I do."
"I didn't propose, Jacob," I tried joking.
"Fancy her I mean."
