Disclaimer: Don't own anything apart from Raisa

Chapter 9

"You bastard," Rai hissed, arms folded tightly in order to keep from lashing out at the idiot in front of her. God knows he deserved it, but she was going to be mature – at least that would make one of them.

Her captor frowned, looking very much put out. "That's a needlessly harsh assessment."

"You came up behind me, gagged me with your boy hands, whispered menacing words in my ear and then dragged me across half the school." Raisa stated plainly, fixing Sirius Black with a suitably withering stare.

Maybe she was just being pedantic, but in her eyes this was perfectly reasonable grounds for anger.

However Sirius merely shrugged nonchalantly and leaned against a Common Room armchair, whilst giving her a look that suggested she was overreacting considerably.

"I bet McGonagall would have been really interested to hear what you were up to," he mused, as though he were thinking about a very complex and difficult mathematical puzzle.

Raisa paled; quite understandably not wanting to have to explain to her Head of House why she was wandering around corridors at night (it had been bad enough having to explain to Sirius, putting up with his systematic bursts of laughter, akin to a machine gun). Shockingly she had the vague suspicion that McGonagall would find it somewhat less comical that she had decided to go round pushing students into broom closets.

Accordingly Raisa changed tack, hoping to distract Sirius from any desire to have a long chat with the Transfigurations Professor in the near future: "An invisibility cloak! What the hell were you thinking swanning around the school with a bloody invisibility cloak?"

Sirius snorted. "I was thinking that you were intending to do something stupid..." He paused, taking in Raisa's indignant expression. "...and it turns out I was right."

"Lily will kill you when she finds out." Raisa replied smoothly, resorting to the somewhat childish threat of tattling to the teacher (or in this case Prefect).

"Lily won't find out," Sirius calmly prompted. "The cloak belongs to James, and given your deranged wish to see them end up together I think this is one piece of information you don't want to be telling Evans."

Raisa scoffed, both because she couldn't think of an intelligent or witty comeback and because Sirius did, in fact, have a point.

"So, how do you think Lily will take the fact that her best friend locked her into a cupboard with her worst enemy?" Sirius began conversationally, swinging his legs round to sit on the arm of the chair in the manner of a girl gossiping in the toilets.

Raisa glowered and Sirius took this as invitation to continue because goading her was turning out to be almost as entertaining as goading Prongs.

"For that matter, how is James going to feel when he finds out that he was stupefied by a girl? Sirius paused and then, unable to resist, added as an aside: "...Nice move, by the way."

Rai beamed, before toning this down slightly when she remembered she was meant to be pissed off at Black. She focused on perceiving his comment as meaning that the female of the species was incapable of casting decent spells.

Try as she might though, Raisa found that she could not remain mad at Sirius Black any longer. James had once commented the same thing to her – it was almost like he exuded an aura that left his body and turned to stone around him. Even the Energizer Bunny would eventually get tired of continually coming up against a cold stone wall in a disagreement.

She tried to look grudging and as if she was the one still in control of the conversation. "Okay Black - you've made your point. No one finds out about the invisibility cloak."

He gave her a grateful smile, evidently glad he didn't have to resort to some kind of complicated memory charm to erase her recollections of the night. (This would have been markedly inconvenient too as Rai was the only one who knew which closet Lily and James were in).

Raisa smiled back, struck by the fact that for practically the first time in all the years she had known him he seemed to be emitting a genuine emotion. Of course she didn't mean Sirius was like one of those completely impossible plastic people, just that

In a gesture of compassion Raisa proffered a hand for him to shake. Sirius took it quickly in case she decided to retract her offer of friendship, holding on too for slightly longer that strictly necessary.

"Bed?" he questioned, gesturing with an incline of the head towards the glimpses of jet black sky visible through the window.

Raisa's eyes goggled out of her head.

"Separate beds," he confirmed with a throaty chuckle, cannily side stepping to avoid Raisa's outstretched knee doubtlessly aiming for his little Sirius and observing with interest her subsequent sheepish expression.

Before turning in for the evening Sirius turned to face her again, a fairly pertinent thought having just occurred to him: "How long are you going to leave them in there for?"

Raisa grinned. This was the really sneaky part of her plan…

"For the last time, how could I have possibly pushed you into the closet when I was already in here myself?" James sighed as for what seemed like the millionth time in the past half hour, he attempted to explain to a scowling Lily Evans the blindingly obvious.

"Oh come on Evans, I'm not the root of all evil." James continued as he rubbed his head tiredly, reflecting that somewhere out there someone was punishing him for something.

Lily gave him a look that suggested the above statement as being anything but the case. Frankly, the whole situation was new territory for her, so she was clinging on to her anger for dear life – this being comforting and familiar. However, somewhat unusually Potter was refusing to take her bait. It was no fun trying to be irate when the hapless victim of your rage was gazing blankly at the wall.

"I know – Black did it!" she proclaimed triumphantly. "This is exactly the type of warped, crazy stunt that only someone like Black could come up with."

Yes! Lily nodded to herself, happy with her new conclusion. Maybe James Potter was not the root of all evil, but Sirius Black sure as hell was. She stood up with a flourish to emphasise her frankly ironic theory and promptly tripped over James' outstretched leg, falling into his lap.

Lily blushed the colour of her hair and tried to rearrange her features into something remotely dignified, as if she had meant to swoon gracefully into his lap in the manner of a romantic heroine. She hadn't, of course – she was just really clumsy. Also, for the scenario to be viable the hero would have to not be squirming uncomfortably.

The Romantic Heroine pouted. Was she really that hideous? If Potter's wheedling for the past five years was to be believed, Lily Evans falling into his lap was an event to thank the deity of his choice for. (On this subject she wasn't sure of the specifics, but she had always thought that the Chaos would be rather appropriate for a Marauder to worship.)

Lily stood up and brushed herself off, trying to move as far away from James Potter as humanly possible. This was difficult considering that they were stuck in three by four foot broom closet.

"Sorry."

"S'okay."

Sirius had to admit that he'd vastly underestimated Raisa Ramsey – when she schemed she definitely didn't do it by half measures. Using Lily and James' own stubborn natures against them was so sneaky; it was so ...Marauder-like.

The vague, unfinished thought crossed his mind that she wouldn't be the worst girlfriend material in the world. But no... Sirius shook his head hurriedly.

She grinned widely at him and held out an arm for him to take, soft bars of morning light framing their path through the corridor: "Shall we?"

Sleeping the night in a broom closet wasn't actually that bad if you ruled out completely the possibility of actually sleeping. James smiled to himself wryly, well aware that at the beginning of term he would have done just about anything to be in this situation. Now though, now he wanted to be anywhere else but in close proximity to Lily Evans.

Although luckily she seemed to have calmed down somewhat, having fluctuated from extreme anger to extreme unhappiness -

"I know you think I'm some kind of crazy, stubborn control freak," she murmured, looking so sad that James was compelled to contradict her.

"Hey, no one thinks that about you," he replied, even though he could sense that her words were meant more for her own consumption than his.

"James leaned forward animatedly, forgetting that he was not meant to be talking about one of his pet subjects anymore. "You're determined and organized," he affirmed.

Lily realised with a start that right at that moment she was receiving more eye contact from James than she had in a while and she'd missed it.

"Besides, people who just see the stubborn side of you aren't bothering to look beyond the surface," he continued, somewhat forgetting now that he was talking to the real Lily Evans and not merely a sunspot of figment of his imagination. "They don't see you at your most vulnerable, they don't see you in fits of uncontrollable laughter and they definitely don't see your true beauty – inside and out." James finished, letting out a slow, shaky breath at the torrent of emotion that he had managed to let slip.

All of a sudden Lily felt the urge to fall into James' lap all over again and spend the rest of her life gazing up into the smiling face and sparkling eyes of a guy who she knew would love her and protect her for the rest of her life. Before she even knew what was happening her heart seemed to short-circuit her brain and she was moving and acting of someone else's volition...

This couldn't really be her, could it? She couldn't truly have spent all this time fighting against something that was always meant to happen, could she?

Clumsily she leaned forward, only thinking how inviting his lips looked and how much kissing him right now would feel like coming home after a very long journey…

…With the awful light that the cupboard was emitting and the haziness caused by her rush of new feelings, Lily didn't notice that the object of her desire was inching further and further away from her, towards a door which was moving suspiciously too much for something that was meant to be locked.

The pair fell out of the closet with a crash, Lily landing on top of James and James landing at the feet of a mildly amused Dumbledore.

A murmur rose from the gathering crowd...

It seemed as though the student population of Hogwarts had turned out in their masses to witness Lily and James' 'rescue' from the broom closet-cum-prison.

Teenagers are funny creatures and, a little like a game of Chinese Whispers 'Lily Evans and James Potter tumble out of a the broom closet' very quickly morphed into 'Evans and Potter found making mad passionate love in cupboard'. Rumour is also a funny creature too...as the pair will be soon to find out...

They jumped to their feet hurriedly, Lily looking suitably cowed by the presence of their esteemed headmaster and James simply nodding in greeting to a man he spent rather too often in the company of.

"Lily, thank God." A much frazzled looking Raisa pushed her way past the rubber-neckers and hugged her friend tightly. "We were so worried about you."

"Yeah, we were worried." Sirius added in conformation.

Lily would perhaps have been less touched at Raisa's spontaneous display of affection had she seen the inconspicuous wink that passed between the pair.

"Professor, we're really sorry," Lily blurted out despite having done nothing wrong. It was an odd character quirk of hers that she refused to apologise to anyone her own age yet would beg the forgiveness of any figure of authority at random. "Someone locked us in the closet."

"The door was unlocked," Dumbledore offered kindly before drifting into the background to watch with interest how this scene would play out...

Lily paled, and then turned to James with murderous intent in her eyes. "YOU DIDN'T CHECK TO SEE IF WE WERE LOCKED IN?!"

"Well I was slightly more preoccupied with checking first that I was in one piece after being STUPIFIED," James retorted.

The crowd cheered as it became apparent that this scene would play out at high volume...

However before Lily could get her teeth into another really juicy Potter Rant, a voice from the crowd cut her off -

"James!!" A pretty, blond figure ran from the crowd and near threw herself around his neck, in the manner of a human necklace.

It was clearly intended to be a sweeping, romantic gesture, somewhat diminished though by the fact that James nearly fell to the floor, unused as he was to having a woman pendant around his spindly neck.

He gently set down the excited girl and twirled her round to face an ashen Lily. James cleared his throat, and announced defiantly to the startled red head in front of him:

"Evans, meet Ivy"

Don't hate me too much for this chapter...!!

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