Authors note: reworked chapter 10! Hope you like it
Recap: the Marauders, minus James, are sat around in the common room waiting for
James to return from his first patrol as Head Boy, Remus gets annoyed when Sirius avoids the subject of Hestia, yet again!
James and Lily have their first patrol as Head Students, James notices that Lily is very quiet and wonders why. Lily opens up to James when he asks her what is wrong, Lily admits to James the verbal abuse that she suffers at the hands of her sister Petunia, and her horrible fiancée Vernon Dursley. She confides that she feels like she doesn't belong anyway, she doesn't know why she is telling James all this, but she feels like she can trust him. She thanks James for all his help and kisses him on the cheek – they return to the common room, where the Marauders can scarcely believe it when James tells them, before heading up to bed.
Chapter 10 –
Minerva McGonagall rubbed her forehead exasperately, the two boys had been sat in the far right corner of the room talking in hushed tones for the whole class and they showed no signs of stopping as she concluded the lesson. How either of them passed a single exam, she would never know. The two Marauders were still whispering between the two of them, both oblivious to the scathing glances shot their way by the Professor and several of their peers as their conversation continued. Minerva may at times detest the Marauders, but at least two of them were listening– Remus Lupin was sat two desks in front of the pair and was hurriedly scribbling down notes along with Peter who was sneaking glances at Remus' parchment and then returning to his own. She sighed in desperation at the sight the Sirius and James' parchment; Sirius' was completely blank and James' only bore his name in the scrawled in the top left hand corner, they continued to confer showing glances towards the table of girls sat at the front who were unaware of their importance to the two Marauders.
"But what do you think?" James whispered, his confusion expressed across his features as he wriggled his nose to rearrange his slipping glasses.
"I dunno Prongs. You seem to be pretty close, but then you can never read her…" Sirius' eyes wandered over to the table of girls sat at the front, although his eyes lingered on the brown haired witch as opposed to the red head that James' eyes seemed to be drawn to every few seconds.
"But she kissed me!" James hissed "that's got to mean something!"
"I. Don't. Know. Prongs." Sirius replied through gritted teeth, James' none stop talking was beginning to grate on him. Last night, James had seemed euphoric, ecstatic, on cloud nine as the muggles would say. However, this morning he seemed on edge, he'd been evaluating Lily's actions in greater detail than Sirius believed humanly possible. Sirius was about to add that he didn't really care and that James should just snog her and find out the answer that way when he was unexpectedly interrupted.
"Mr Potter, Mr Black, will you please be quiet!" Minerva McGonagall finally snapped. The two boy's heads shot towards her in unison. Sirius flashed a grin but the other Marauder looked uncomfortable at being caught out, pink flush crept up his neck and towards his cheeks.
Daring to glance around the room, James noticed the whole class seemed to be staring at him, including Lily from her table at the front of the room, Hestia, Jessica and Alice by her side. Lily was shot him a fairly amused smirk, although James could tell her mind was somewhere else.
Attempting to swallow his embarrassment, James found himself staring down at the blank parchment in front of him. Slightly ashamed at not having taken a single note, bar the untidy scribble in the corner that bore his name, he eyed his quill with distain, trying to distract himself from the way Professor McGonagall was staring at him – like she was ready to tear him limb from limb them, regardless of him being Head Boy or Quidditch Captain. Sirius, it seemed, did not share James' guilt at being caught out, on the outside at least. His perfect grin remained in place, and flashed a wink at the Ravenclaw Prefect Samia Rain, who sat across the room, but Sirius' attention was diverted from the Ravenclaw to the eye roll of a Gryffindor girl sat next to Lily, who was exchanging glances with James. Sirius noticed that Hestia had turned her attention back to the front of the classroom, disregarding Sirius and James. The turn of her back stung – but Sirius put her dismissal to the back of his mind, instead focusing on sending the fuming Professor a dazzling grin that would only further her irritation towards the pair of them.
She knew she was the only student in the room that was facing the front, bar James and Sirius, but she didn't care, she didn't want to see the looks Samia was sending Sirius, it made her want to be sick. Pathetic, stupid girl, all she ever does is flirt with people; at the thought Hestia resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. She could feel his eyes on her once again but she refused to turn back to him, he didn't deserve her attention she told herself, she didn't need him; although as she read the notes written across the board in her Professor's neat handwriting for the fourth time, she knew she was just kidding herself.
Lily wasn't sure what made her smirk, but something about the whole scene amused her greatly, James blushing and looking thoroughly apologetic, next to Sirius who didn't seem in the least part fazed. It was only when James' hazel eyes had settled on her face did she forget to breathe. It was only the sharp movement of Hestia in the seat next to her that brought her back to the world of the living and reminded her that's he was staring at James Potter, and her mind had been wandering to places it really should not have been wandering to.
James sent the Transfiguration Professor an apologetic glance and elbowed Sirius deep in the ribs, he looked at his friend and shrugged back at her, there was really nothing he could do about Sirius. Minerva McGonagall tried not to smile – it seemed she'd shamed the James into silence, a feat which she was virtually certain had never happened before, Sirius it seemed was an exception, but James had taken care of that for her, quite attentively too she thought as Sirius, now silent, shot his desk mate daggers, rubbing his ribs.
"Now," she added, returning to the rest of the class and regaining their attention. "Homework." The whole class groaned – the amount of work they'd already received was huge and they were only a few days into the new term, it seemed previous 7th years had not been exaggerating when they said that NEWT year was the hardest they'd ever faced. "We are reviewing our work on animagus next lesson, so I would like a scroll on animagi, the youngest ever recorded, the registration process, the difference between an animagus and a werewolf and how to distinguish and animagus from a regular animal etc." James sighed with relief, that was something he could do, animagus? Easy. "Also, a consolidation essay on today's notes. Those of you who haven't taken adequate notes may struggle with this." She added, a slight smirk forming on her lips as she tossed a look toward Sirius and James who were wearing matching sheepish looks. The class began to pack away their things and the Professor strode purposely from the room, happy she might have actually made the Marauders embarrassed at their behaviour.
"Meow." Sirius called out into the classroom, miming a cat's paw clawing at the air, maybe he wasn't as embarrassed as McGonagall would have liked him to be. The class giggled quietly and continued to pack away their things before leaving the classroom in small groups. "What's got her knickers in a twist?" Sirius asked, stuffing his blank parchment back into his satchel.
"Erm… you?!" Peter replied from the desk two in front of theirs, carefully folding his parchment and storing in his file that he tucked away for reference later. James clipped Sirius over the back of the head with the flat on his hand.
"We're lucky we got off with a warning you idiot. She should have probably given us detention." James replied to Sirius' questioning look.
"And what would Lily think of that?" Remus hissed with a satisfied smirk, heat crept into James' cheeks, but the majority of his blush was hidden by tanned complexion. Sneaking a glance towards the Head Girl, James was surprised to find her scribbling away at her parchment, her hand pressed hard into her quill as she furiously wrote whatever was spilling from her brain.
"Come on Lil, lessons over." Alice reminded the red head with a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. Lily noted how messy her notes had become, as she scribbled the homework down on the edge of her parchment, her handwriting had become increasingly more italic throughout her notes and ink blots were scattered around her page making it look as if a spider had jumped from her ink pot and decided to tap dance around her parchment. She inwardly sighed, damn that James Potter! 'If only James hadn't been so distracting, I might have actually been able to take decent notes!' she thought 'If I fail, I'm blaming him.'
Eventually the students spilled from the Transfiguration classroom and into the filled corridor, dispersing into the rest of the student population, mixing with students of all ages and houses. The girls had been quicker to exit the classroom than the boys had been, Remus had wanted to catch Benjy before he left the room, their conversation had held the boys up, but on finally leaving their lesson, James instantly picked out a familiar lock of red hair against the sea of brown and blonde and black that filled the corridor. James took off in that direction, the other Marauders hot on his tail.
Lily halted as she heard her name being called frantically from somewhere behind her, her heart began to race as she saw who was flying down the corridor towards her, his three friends only a step behind him.
"Hey Lily, you coming to the Quidditch on Saturday?" James asked, catching up with her, still slightly breathless. Lily felt the corner of her mouth curve into a smile, unaware of Jessica and Alice grinning between themselves; Lily hadn't said a word but they knew her well enough to guess what was going on in her head as those hazel eyes bore into hers.
Sirius, stood at James' side, took a sharp intake of breath as Hestia took one look at him and looked away, in apparent disgust. Remus and Peter exchanged exasperated glances: how much longer would their dancing round each other go on, this was beginning to grate on everyone and become increasingly tiresome.
"I don't know, I didn't know there was a game." Lily replied, attempting to keep her voice steady despite the unsteadiness that had suddenly come over her. She finally admitted it to herself, there and then. She admitted the butterflies that had been banging, hammering, drilling and setting off nuclear explosions in her stomach since the end of last year, the longing to be close to him, the counting down the hours until their next patrol were definitely the signs of her growing attraction towards Head Boy, she couldn't quite believe it, but it was true, she had a great big fat crush on James Potter. James was just about to retort a reply when he was interrupted by his seeker.
"They're holding Quidditch matches this early? It's only the first week back!" Jessica exclaimed, her long hair spilling over her shoulders.
"Yeah, that's crazy! You've not even picked your team yet Potter!" Alice added. James fixed the two of them with amused grins.
"It's just a practice game, Prewitt." James answered, looking at her directly as he addressed her. "And if you'd read the bulletin I put on the notice board this morning Silvers, you'd have noticed I've scheduled Quidditch try outs tomorrow evening and you as Vice-Captain need to be there to help me choose a new Chaser. Then we have a practice match, a friendly I think the muggle's call it, against Hufflepuff on Saturday. It'll be easy; we could beat them with half a team." Jessica blushed at being caught out, but nodded .The rest of the group seemed to agree; it was clear that Hufflepuff were the weakest quidditch team in the school; James had often commented though, it wasn't for lack of skill – it seemed they had many decent players within the ranks of their house, it was just they lacked the aggression to really tackle, as Sirius often put it: they were 'Just too nice!'
"We'll see Mr. Captain, now come on, I'm hungry." Sirius interrupted, as a reply was just about to leave James' lips. Pulling his best friend by the tie Sirius headed down the increasingly quieter corridor towards the Great hall, eager to get away from the looks Remus and Peter were sending him, as well as the awkward tension that was accumulating between himself and Hestia.
"See you later Lily!" James shouted over his shoulder, a genuine smile crossing his features. Despite her company, Lily smiled back and waved, a small giggle escaping her throat as James nearly tripped over a first year in his haste to follow Sirius round the corner. It was only when Lily turned back to the others did she realise what she had just given away.
"You so like him!" Hestia squealed. Once Sirius and James were safely out of ear shot.
"Do not!" Lily retorted with a snort. Remus let out a chuckle, although Lily had been trying to hide it, but her feelings towards James were quite obvious to everyone, except James it seemed.
"It is a bit obvious Lily…" Remus added. She felt the need to argue, to state her point and scream until she was red in the face, but with the look the other Gryffindor students were sending her, she knew she was defeated. Still, she had to give it a go…
"I really don't." she tried to argue, but she knew that her friends would sniff out her lie in seconds.
"Well if you don't like him, why did you blush the colour of beetroot when we asked you if you did." Jessica cut in triumphantly. Lily scolded herself, her pale skin always showed her blush, even if it was only the tiniest amount, she would flush scarlet, it was a dead give away.
"Awww!" Alice cooed, throwing her arms around Lily's neck. "Lily loves James!" she teased. Hestia burst into fits of giggles, Remus and Peter joined in too; Jessica that offered a supportive pat on the shoulder, although she too was struggling to contain a laugh that was fighting to burst out.
"Not that far!" Lily retorted, pushing her friend away from her; pouting, Alice crossed her arms in front of her chest with faux anger. Lily rolled her eyes, the rest of the group continued to laugh at her reaction.
"So you admit it?" Jessica inquired. Lily blushed again, and from the glances her friends shot her, she knew she had backed herself into a metaphorical corner.
"Yes, fine! I like him! Now let's go, before I kill you all…" Lily replied, before anybody else could cut in. Striding in the direction of the Gryffindor common room, Lily was already regretting telling her friends as Hestia chirped in one ear about how she had always known Lily and James were destined to be together, and Jessica and Alice cooing like proud parents, must to Lily's distain. It was quite obvious they were not going to let this subject matter drop.
Skulking in the shadows, Severus Snape had heard the whole conversation. He'd also been privy to James Potter's arrogant grin that morning; something was obviously gone on between him and Lily the night previous or that morning before breakfast, from the grins they were shooting each other and the way he couldn't help but touch her, a squeeze of her shoulder, a brush of her hand, a bump of her shoulder, he'd not been able to stop touching her, and she'd let him.
James Potter?! The James Potter, she likes him, she's in love with him, I can tell. How could she betray me like this? She always swore she hated him! How could she betray me like that?! Potter, James Potter! After everything he put me through! When she swore she hated him, she lied! Feeling disgusted with Lily for going against her word, and partly himself for not stepping in to stop her before this happened, Snape took himself back down to the dungeons, trying to ignore the aching in his chest and the stabbing pains in the vicinity of his heart. At least he wouldn't see Lily in the dungeons, he wouldn't see anyone, and he'd be completely alone; he could banish her from his mind. Slipping into an empty classroom, he eyed the potion bubbling away silently in the corner. He'd been down here every spare moment he could, brewing a selection of potions, all for the Dark Lord. Since joining the cause the previous summer, he'd felt a reason to live; it wasn't the muggle baiting, or even the pure blood obsession, it was the Dark Lord himself who intrigued Severus Snape. Sharing a unique craving for eternal life they'd struck up quite a relationship, Voldemort cared for Snape, more than any of his other servants, more than Lucius Malfoy or even the obsessively loyal Bellatrix Black. Lord Voldemort cared for Snape, almost like an apprentice, and Snape would spend hours brewing potions, all in the quest for eternal life for himself and his master. Inhaling the fumes Snape felt his consciousness slip away and his brewing mind took over, engrossed in his potion, thoughts of Lily Evans now far away.
Darkness fell over Hogwarts, as the clock chimed eight. Lily and Remus sat in front of the fire in the common room, the half completed Prefect rota for the following week laid out in front of them across the table. James, who was supposed to be helping, had been banished to his room by Remus to await further instruction after trying to change the Slytherin Prefect's name's to something incredibly inappropriate.
"Done!" Remus announced triumphantly.
"Good! I hate doing these; they make me want to scream!" Lily admitted, there was nothing she disliked more than doing patrol rota's; none of the Prefects wanted to patrol with any other student from another house, especially if that house was Slytherin, so you'd never please everyone; trying to get a balance between the houses was a great skill, luckily one that Remus possessed.
"Can I come down now?" James shouted from what sounded like his room. It was a wonder that his voice travelled that far, from the dormitory, down the stairs and across the common room. Lily concluded he must have been using a Sonorous charm, even James wasn't that loud. A few of the younger students turned around to see where the shouting came from, the older students ignored it, it was James Potter's voice, it could be anything, sharing a common room with the Marauders with however many years they'd been at the school had taught them to not question the actions of the four boys, they were the Marauders after all. Before either Lily or Remus could reply, James had appeared at the bottom of the stairs and sauntered over to where the two were sat. James tried to concentrate on the Prefect rota in front of him, now completed in Remus' neat handwriting but the thought of sitting next to Lily Evans who was smiling at him made it nigh on impossible. James had noticed a subtle change in Lily over the past half a day or so, she was flirting openly with him and didn't shrug off his arm when he'd slung it casually over her shoulders after Charms, and she'd allowed him to touch her: his skin against hers. She seemed different but he just couldn't work out what. Looking up Remus, the sandy haired Marauder smirked; James beamed back, a secret understanding passing between them. Looking confusedly from Remus to James and back to Remus, Lily didn't understand. Finding her confusion mildly amusing James chuckled, however with a quick glare on Lily's part, James was silenced, unfortunately Remus seemed to be immune to her bet glare as he continued to chuckle to himself. .
"Is Padfoot awake yet?" Remus asked. Laughing, James shook his head in reply. Sirius had taken himself off to his room earlier, to think he'd explained, to which there were many "Don't do that Padfoot, you might hurt yourself!" "Well there's a first for everything!" jokes, Sirius had left the group and presumably fallen asleep in his dormitory, Lily failed to see what was so funny.
"Do you want me to wake him up?" James asked, a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes. Nodding enthusiastically, Remus could barely contain his laughter.
"Honestly, you boys." Lily sighed shaking her head as James jumped off the sofa and ran up the stairs to their dormitory at lightening speed. "Remus?" Lily inquired, once James was out of sight, her tone curious.
"Hmm?" Remus replied, looking slightly worried, Lily was a hard person to read at the best of times, and right now Remus couldn't decipher what was going on behind those emerald eyes, that unsettled him slightly.
"What made you becomes friends with them? I mean, I know we were only eleven year sold but… you were so much more mature…" Looking slightly embarrassed at her question, Lily blushed slightly, Remus smiled, then he broke into loud peals of laughter.
"You don't know the half of it Lil…" he chuckled.
"REMUS JOHN LUPIN!" Came a shout from the stairs. It was the voice of Sirius Black, who a second later appeared at the bottom of the stairs up to the dormitories, dressed him only his school shirt and trousers, his robes discarded.
The whole common room burst into fits of uncontrolled laughter, but Lily couldn't see why from her position away from the entrance to the stairwell. James, who appeared behind his friend, was overcome by a wave of hilarity, so much so he had to clutch on the wall for support to stop himself who falling over under the strain of all his laughter. Storming over to their sofa Sirius looked amused and horrified at the same time, now he was close Lily could see what had caused all the laughter from the other students. Covering Sirius' face in what looked like black permanent marker was an assortment of… illustrations. Across his forehead I love Remus Lupin was scrawled in handwriting similar to the man himself, stars and hearts dotted across his eyelids and through his eyebrows. A rather badly drawn dog covered his right cheek, but it was the left cheek that amused everyone the most. Drawn, fairly accurately, across Sirius' right cheek was a pretty exact drawing of Professor McGonagall, however instead of her usual green robes, she had donned a polka dot bikini… the sight was hilarious and yet visually scarring.
"I am never going to be able to unsee this!" Sirius whined, gesturing to his right cheek. "I'm going to have nightmares!" he exclaimed dramatically, at this point Lily burst into fits of giggles, she knew she shouldn't laugh but the temptation was too great and withholding the laugh was about to make her explode.
The other three girls, who had just entered he portrait hole, looked bemusedly over the common room, virtually every student was dissolved into quivering heaps of laughter and damp eyes, Hestia noticed Frank on the far side of the common room, a textbook and parchment set out in front of him, wipe a tear away from his eye as he continued to laugh. Jessica grabbed her friends by the wrists and dragged them over the where Lily and Remus sat, both laughing so hard that they had become silent snickering bundles. It was only then that they saw what was causing all the laughter. Jessica burst out into uncontrollable laughter, Alice snickered into her hand and politely tried to cover it with her hand, even Hestia managed a smirk.
"Remus. Lupin. How. Dare. You. Use. Permanent. Ink. On. My. Face." Sirius questioned, attempting to keep a straight face, but his inner amusement was betrayed by the corners of his mouth that twitched, itching to form a grin.
"It's permanent?!" Jessica squeaked. .
"Yup. It'll last a week at least." Remus beamed. Suddenly a thought entered Sirius' head and he looked like he might be sick.
"I've got McGonagall for transfiguration tomorrow morning!" he whined, holding his hands in his hands. Instead of making the group feel sorry for him, all he had done was provoke even more laughter. Unbeknown to the group of giggling seventh years, the portrait hole opened and a certain Professor had entered the common room.
"Mr. BLACK!" the Professor shouted. Spinning around quickly to the sound of the shouting. The group found themselves face to face with none other than Professor McGonagall.
AUTHORS NOTE: thank you for your reviews! Especially to Mione Ravenclaw, your review really made me smile! I had the morning off college so I decided to do a bit more writing! Glad you like it so far! Thank you and remember to review! xxx
PS – reworked chapter 10, there weren't too many changed I made with chapter to be honest! Remember to review!