Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
A/N: Sorry for the gap between chapters, I've had so much going on lately. Here's an update though :) Here's the prompt that I used for this chapter:
- A truth or dare chapter (From: life1428)
There are two prompts that I haven't used yet, (Prompts: the girls pulling a prank on the boys – library themed, and a prank from the Marauders where the Great Hall rains whenever it rains outside.) but I set it up so that they will be the in the next chapter. Don't worry – I haven't forgotten!
Thanks for sticking with the story, hope you enjoy the chapter!
Sunday night in the Head's common room proved to be more boring than the group that were lounging around in it would have imagined. Lily and Remus were helping Alice complete her Charms essay, whilst James, Sirius and Peter played a thirty-fourth game of exploding snap.
"Guys, this is by far the most boring evening I have ever spent with you people. And Sirius Black does not have boring evenings. So, I vote we change things up a little."
Peter and James voiced their agreement immediately, hoping for anything that could make the evening more enjoyable. Alice, however, had other ideas.
"Sirius I have to finish my essay! Just another half an hour and then I'll be done. Please?" She asked, pouting and putting on a cute puppy face.
Sirius yelped and covered his eyes,
"NO! DON'T GIVE ME THE PUPPY DOG EYES. That's an unfair advantage God gave to girls."
Alice just smirked as she dipped her quill into the bottle of ink, and listened as Remus offered her suggestions on what she should write about.
"Hey!" Sirius yelled, completely cutting across Remus. "I wasn't done here! Alice, put your work away. You can do that tomorrow morning before class, don't worry about it. Evans, Moony, get your asses down on the ground with us, and we'll figure out a way to entertain ourselves.
Alice groaned and said,
"But Siriu-"
"No buts Alice. Live a little." Sirius cut across, something he had been doing a lot lately.
Eventually Alice gave in and rolled up her parchment. Muttering a word of thanks to Lily and Remus for their help, she joined them in the circle they had formed on the ground. After everyone was ready they all looked to Sirius, wondering what to do next. Sirius took the attention in his stride, and racked his brains for something to do.
"How about we play a game of truth or dare?" He exclaimed enthusiastically.
The other five looked around at each other slowly, trying to reach a mutual agreement. They had all had experience with Sirius' truth or dare games, and their stories were horrific – never to be mentioned again. Peter nodded hesitantly, while others just shrugged their shoulders uncertainly. Seeing that no one outright rejected the idea, James spoke up.
"Alright Padfoot. We'll play – but we have to agree on the rules first! None of your making up rules on the spot business, agreed?" James said, as he looked around at the others.
"Yeah, I agree with James. We all get to decide the rules this time, as a group. When we leave it in your hands then the game usually goes downhill for us." Remus grimaced, as his mind strayed back to the last time they had agreed to play the game.
"Alright, whatever." Sirius said, rubbing his hands together in glee. Grabbing a quill and parchment from Lily's study desk, he quickly scratched out some rules.
If a truth is not revealed or a dare is not completed then the person has to remove a piece of their clothing. The others choose which - shoes and socks count as one!
Once a person is picked to do a truth or dare, they get to pick the next person.
No one can be picked twice in a row, and you can't pick the person who picked you.
Since none of us has veritaserum with us right now, Remus can place a truth charm on the person to make sure they don't lie.
If the dare is to be completed outside this room, then the person who thought of the dare goes along with the person who is going to complete it, but under a disillusionment charm.
"Is this okay with everyone?" Sirius asked, as they all tried to make out what was written in his untidy scrawl.
One by one each person in the room nodded their consent, and Sirius was nearly bouncing in excitement.
"Okay! Prongs – go get the empty bottle of firewhiskey from your room. Everyone else, get comfortable, we might be here a while!" He winked mischievously.
"What empty bottle of firewhiskey James?" Lily asked, her tone dangerously low.
"Um..nothing... I don't know...Sirius. It belongs to Sirius." James stuttered, before deciding to dump the blame on his best friend.
No one in the room bought his excuse, especially not Lily. However she accepted his mutterings and motioned for him to hurry up and get the bottle. Grateful for his escape, he ran to his room and fished the bottle from where it had rolled under his bed. The bottle was snatched out of his hand on his return to the group, and Sirius spun it eagerly.
"Wormy, excellent!" Peter groaned as the bottle stopped at him, and also because of his new nickname.
Not wanting the name to stick, he quickly piped up,
"It's Wormtail, Sirius. Not Wormy."
Sirius batted Peter's reply away with his hand and grinned.
"Potato, tomato!"
Remus caught Lily's eye and they both shared a laugh over Sirius' complete lack of concern about the fact that he said the phrase incorrectly.
"Anyway Peter, what do you pick?"
After a few seconds of consideration, Peter ended up picking the safer option.
"Truth." He said.
Sirius groaned as he had been hoping for a dare, but Remus just waved his wand and cast a spell to only reveal the truth.
"Fine. Out of all our current teachers, which one would you most like to get with? Male or female, we don't discriminate." He finished with a wink.
James roared with laughter, and Remus just chuckled appreciatively. However Lily and Alice seemed a little more shocked, and giggled with each other, as Peter turned a light shade of pink.
"Well female obviously." He said. "Hmm, I think I would have to say Professor Sprout."
Once again everyone in the room burst into laughter, though Sirius stopped quite quickly and asked,
"Not Minnie? She's got some appeal, there's no denying!"
All the laughter halted quite abruptly as everyone turned to stare at Sirius. Once they had determined that he was not being serious, but instead just joking, they sighed in relief.
"Why Professor Sprout, Peter?" Alice asked, "I would've thought you would say that Muggle Studies Professor, what's her name?"
Peter just shrugged uncomfortably before saying,
"Well, Professor Sprout is... attractive. Kind of."
All the others exchanged amused glances but chose not to embarrass Peter any further, so they moved on.
"Well Peter, it's your turn to pick someone!" Lily spoke up.
"Oh right, Prongs." He said.
James looked up as his name was spoken, having being unusually quiet since the game started.
"I pick dare."
Sirius and Alice whooped excitedly, the latter getting more caught up in the game than expected.
"Alright, calm down you two!" Peter said to Sirius and Alice and they glared at him before quieting down. "Okay Prongs, I dare you to kiss Lily."
Suddenly all eyes were on the pair, wondering what would happen next. It couldn't be clearer that Lily was uncomfortable with the dare, and looked like she would like nothing more than to be sucked up into the floor. However James looked more like a deer caught in headlights. He was shocked, not expecting a dare like this – least of all from Peter! However it had been said, so he had no way of getting out of it.
James replayed the words over and over in his head. I dare you to kiss Lily. I dare you to kiss Lily. I dare you to kiss Lily. I dare you to – wait what? Peter hadn't specified where to kiss her, so he could just as easily kiss her cheek or hand. James was surprised with himself, because for more than three years he had wanted nothing more than to just kiss Lily. Though now he had the opportunity handed to him on a plate, and he was trying to get out of it? But it struck James that the reason he was trying to find a loophole wasn't because he didn't want to kiss Lily – because he definitely did. He realised that he was doing it because Lily didn't want to be kissed.
Even though he may have wanted to kiss Lily for years, he still didn't want to force it upon her. He would kiss her when the time was right, when she would respond with as much enthusiasm as he would. Not when she would be squirming uncomfortably and hoping she was somewhere else.
It was this thought that drove James to move closer to Lily and place a soft kiss on her cheek.
"There, done. You didn't say where to kiss her Peter, so technically I completed my dare." He said, and avoided looking at Lily.
Just like everyone except for James, Lily looked shell shocked. Apparently she too had thought that James would've pounced on the opportunity to kiss her, and would have done it without a second thought. And yet he didn't, he proved them all wrong. Lily released the breath she didn't even realise she had been holding since Peter had spoken the dare, and she relaxed her shoulders. She had really not wanted James to kiss her, and for some unknown reason – he didn't.
After a moment of awkward silence, Remus cleared his throat and reminded James that it was his turn to pick someone.
"Alice." He said immediately, looking straight past Lily and instead at of her best friend.
"Dare!" Alice giggled nervously, not knowing what James would tell her to do.
He thought hard for a moment before coming up with an idea.
"I dare you to write a love letter and leave it in Slughorn's office – but you have to sign it as Professor McGonagall!"
"I'm no good at writing poems and things James, can't I do something else?" Alice moaned, already knowing what the answer was going to be.
"Wait! I have this book in my room which has a really corny romantic poem, you can use that! Otherwise you could always do the chicken..."
Alice shook her head quickly, not wanting to do the chicken at all. So Lily walked over to her dormitory and returned a minute later with a book in her hand.
Alice quickly copied down the poem onto a spare piece of parchment and wrote Minerva McGonagall at the bottom, with a love heart just for the fun of it.
Alice got up to go deliver the note, but Sirius reminded her of rule #5.
"Prongs has to go with you Alice dear! We can't have you pretending to do the dare but actually throwing out the note." Sirius grinned.
Alice looked at James and shrugged, so the both of them left the Head's common room to go to Professor Slughorn's office. Luckily it wasn't too far away, and they returned within five minutes.
"Alright, Remus. I pick you." Alice said as she sat back down in her spot.
"I think I'm going to pick truth. I can't be bothered getting up or going anywhere."
Alice laughed lightly before thinking of a question. There weren't many questions that weren't clichéd truth or dare questions, such as 'who do you like?' or 'who would you prefer to go out with?', so instead she thought of one that was completely different.
"Who made up your nicknames, and what do they mean?" She asked, quite proud of herself. It had been bugging her for a while, but she had never asked.
Remus froze up, and Sirius, Peter and James also went oddly quiet. They all glanced nervously at each other, not knowing how to evade the question. Alice noticed the tense atmosphere and wondered what secret the boys were hiding. Surely there nicknames couldn't be that big a deal? She looked back at Remus and raised her eyebrows, waiting for his response.
"I... I think I'm going to stick with the chicken." He said nervously, glad that Sirius had made that rule.
Alice sighed, she had hoped to hear the answer. Yet she knew that it happened to be a touchy subject, and so she didn't push it. Instead she just nodded, and shrugged her shoulders slightly.
"Okay fine, take your top off then." She smiled wickedly.
The previous atmosphere seemed to have lifted, and Remus' nervousness had disappeared. He groaned and pulled off his top, revealing a fit body. It wasn't as athletic as Sirius' or James' since they both played quidditch and he didn't, but he still liked to exercise regularly.
"Okay, Lily I pick you. Actually I pick you and Alice, can I do that?"
The others nodded their agreement and Remus continued.
"Okay, since the two of you think that our pranks aren't all that great, I dare you two to play a prank within the next two days. There are two rules: you can't play it on a particular person or group, but you have to do it on the whole school in general. The second rule is that you have to do it during lunch or dinner, where the teachers are present." Remus said, glancing at everyone in turn. "Meanwhile, Sirius, James, Peter and I will also play a prank with the same rules as yours, and then we will see who plays better prank."
Lily and Alice looked at each other and grinned, both of them equally as excited about the prank.
"Okay, sure thing! We'll do it!" Lily exclaimed, and Alice nodded enthusiastically.
Remus turned to face the other Marauders, hoping they wouldn't be too mad that he just signed them for a prank. However the others were already talking in hushed voices, planning for their prank. Remus just smiled and shook his head slightly.
"Look out boys, Lily is an evil genius!" Alice giggled.
"Lily, evil?" Sirius scoffed, "Never!"
Alice just smiled mysteriously and said,
"Fine, but don't say we did warn you when our prank totally beats yours!"
"Well, both teams have 48 hours from now." Remus said, making sure the rules were totally clear.
"It's on!"
A/N: That's it for now! As I said earlier, the other two prompts that I haven't used yet are coming up in the next chapter. I was planning on having them at the end of this chapter, but it was taking too long to write and I wanted to put an update up today. So definitely next time!
I also would love some feedback, - I'm trying to show that James is maturing as he's getting older, and this is the reason Lily ends up going out with him. Can you see the change slowly coming through, or should I change the way I'm writing it?
Please leave a review, it motivates me to update more regularly! Thank you :)
