Chapter 14. Anybody reading? If so, tell me what you think of it! Thank you in advance.
After a particularly boring History of Magic class, Lily, Brianna and Samantha went up the stairs chatting animatedly. The two girls seemed relieved by the fact that the redhead was already in a better mood, which wasn't really a surprise. Despite having a strong character, Lily's bad mood never lasted too much. Once in the seventh floor, the Gryffindors headed to the West Tower instead of going to their own Common Room, and before they could make themselves comfortable to wait, they heard Rebecca's singsong laughter. The girl was leaving Ravenclaw's Common Room hanging off Eli's arm.
"Shall we go?" The boy asked offering her left arm to Sam, who laughed at the gesture. Bree looked at them raising her eyebrows and commented with a smile:
"Such a gentleman" The boy, still holding one girl with each arm, got closer to her as if he was going to tell her a secret and whispered:
"It's the only way of improving my reputation. People already think I'm a bit abnormal" Bree and Sam laughed, while Lily rolled her eyes and Becca pinched his arm, smiling.
"You've earned that reputation on your own," she said, "Considering it's strange that the rest of the Ravenclaws think you're odd. After all, we all are."
"What class did you just have?" Eli asked, changing the subject after childishly sticking his tongue out at his friend.
"History" sighed Brianna, raising her eyes to Heaven as if the word was a synonym of "Deadly boredom".
"You're so exaggerated. History is very interesting" Replied Becca, and everyone rolled their eyes this time. "Come on! You enter the class biased against it, that's the problem."
"Becca… the subject might be interesting, but Professor Binns is just incapable of giving a dynamic class. He's deadly boring" Lily answered. Rebecca was probably the only student in years who enjoyed Professor Binns' classes.
"He probably was boring even when he was alive" Eli added laughing.
When they reached the third floor, Eli freed his arms and opened the Charms Classroom's door, letting his friends in and closing the door behind him.
"I still think there should be some kind of shared Common Room" said Lily, frowning.
"Even though Dumbledore would like it too, they would never make it… There would probably be more fights than anything." Sam answered wisely, shrugging her shoulders.
"At least Professor Flitwick lets us borrow his classroom" said Bree, "He's adorable! He even left us some cushions this time."
At the end of their Second Year, when the Charms Professor had found out that the five friends hanged out at the grounds or the library to chat after class, he had offered them his classroom for their meetings. "I wouldn't want you to freeze during winter!" he had said. "But I must ask you not to stay until late. Otherwise, Professor McGonagall will kill me!"
Rebecca laid on the floor on her stomach over one of the cushions, and her friends made themselves comfortable around her. Lily, Sam and Eli took out their books and parchment in order to make some progress with their homework while they talked. The blonde sighed with resignation.
"Nerds. You can do that when you go back to your Common Room" Finally, Sam was the only one who took notice of her.
"I think we all know what we should talk about today" Becca announced, staring suggestively at Lily, who looked up giving a start.
"I don't fancy Lupin and he doesn't fancy me!" She exclaimed getting on the defensive, provoking the whole group's laughter and blushing after realizing about her mistake.
"That wasn't what I meant, Lils" Becca cleared up, drying the tears from her eyes once she could breath normally again. "I meant the detention."
"Oh" said Lily, lookind down at the book again. "There's not much to be said about it."
Rebecca looked at her half closing her eyes.
"Could you start by telling us what happened?" asked Eli so politely that the redhead knew he was messing her around,, and glared at him. The boy raised his palms, smiling. "Just asking. We weren't there, remember?"
Lily sighed and left her quill aside.
"What happened was that Potter and Black pulled one of their stupid pranks, I got mad and made their cauldron explode. Happy?" She answered wearily.
Knowing she wouldn't add anything else, the Ravenclaws looked at the other two girls.
"They stuffed Snape's nose with Shrinking Solution" clarified the dark-haired girl, while Bree looked at Lily with an expression hard to decipher. Anybody said anything for a moment: they didn't understand who would risk to get a detention for someone like Snape, but they weren't going to reproach her for it.
"Well, Lils, it's not that bad. He's Slughorn, he'll make you classify some potions or something" The boy calmed her down.
"Ah, that's 'cause you haven't heard the worse part. The detention is with Potter and Black." The redhead answered with resignation. "They'll make my life impossible."
"Or, we can find a way to get you to make their lives impossible." Becca said, and they spent the next out planning infinite ways of messing with the Marauders, many of which consisted on cutting, dyeing or setting their hair on fire. Obviously Lily wasn't going to do any of that, but it was fun. At least she could use them as a threat.
When it was time to go back to their respective Common Rooms, they put e+everything in its place and went to the seventh floor again.
"See you tomorrow" Bree said to Eli and Rebecca, waving and turning around to continue walking with her two friends.
When they reached the Fat Lady, they didn't have time to pronounce the password, because someone was leaving the portrait hole at that moment.
"Whassup, stunners?" Greeted them Sirius with a seductive smile, but only Brianna smiled back. Peter walked behind him, staring at Lily with a bit of fear, and finally James and Remus appeared through the hole. The latter looked really sick and had his arm on the dark-haired boy's shoulders. The boy in glasses messed up his hair when he saw the redhead and smirked when he noticed she was approaching to him.
"Remus, are you Ok?" She said placing the back of her hand on his forehead with concern. He smiled at her and nodded.
"Do you want me to call Madame Pomfrey, Lupin" Sam asked frowning. Bree seemed as worried as Lily, and she looked at Sirius in the eye, questioning.
"No, no, don't worry. I'm fine" Said Remus trying to calm them down. The dark rings under his eyes darkened his expression, and his cheekbones seemed to stand out too much. Drops of sweat could be seen on his pale skin, and his honey eyes expressed tiredness. Sam looked at him skeptically, raising an eyebrow and making James smile.
"We got him, don't worry" The boy with glasses said, winking at Perks. "We're taking him to the Hospital Wing, it's probably an indigestion." Now it was Lily's turn to raise an eyebrow, but the boys retook their way before they could ask anything else. While she entered the Common Room after her friends, Brianna turned around, worried, and her big blue eyes met Sirius' grey look, who gave her a soothing smile before turning around again and continuing his way to the Hospital Wing.
...
"If I had to listen to Binns for five more minutes, I would have thrown myself out of the window" Sirius commented flinging himself into the comfortable dark red sofa and throwing his rucksack on the table. A blond first year girl let out a sharp squeak, blushed and jumped from the armchair, running towards the stairs that led to the girls' rooms. Her friend, who was sitting on an armchair next to her, watched her go up and then stared at Sirius, who was looking at the stairs with a smirk on his face. When the boy looked back at her, the little brunette went red as a tomato and stood up, holding her books tightly. Then she looked at James, who had sat next to his friend staring at her with a smile full of white teeth, and with a lot of self control, she went away walking slowly in the same direction as her friend. When they couldn't see her anymore, they heard her ran up the stairs, and Remus sighed sitting on another armchair. Peter made himself comfortable in the place where the brunette had just been sat on.
"Great" the chubby boy said, gaping at the dark-haired boys.
"We are, Petey" said James smiling smugly.
"We'll have to learn to live with it" commented Sirius with arrogance, stretching on his place and putting his hands behind his head.
"Save that for when we're in a public place." Remus asked lying back on his seat. "We got it. You're a couple of heartbrakers."
"Come ooon, ickle Remsie, you don't have girls because you don't want to" Sirius answered mockingly. The lycanthrope couldn't help smiling.
"You're impossible" He said.
"But you love us" James replied, making him laugh. The dark-haired boy straightened his glasses and looked closely at his friend. "You look bad, Remus."
"Today's full moon, right?" asked Peter.
"Lower your voice, Pete" said James,even though the Common Eoom was practically empty. "In a few hours we'll take you toMadame Pomfrey's."
"You don't need to go with me, James" Remus answered with a ghost of a smile in his face.
"Shut it, Moony" Sirius replied without looking at him, watching to fifth year girls who had just entered the place.
"Moony?" The lycanthrope asked with a smile, raising an eyebrow. Sirius looked at him innocently.
"I'll call you that every time you get annoying with this. It suits you; you're kind of a dreamer and have this sick relationship with the moon. It attracts you practically more than women." The dark-haired boy had to dodge a cushion, courtesy of Remus.
"Attracting attention is what doesn't really attract me, Sirius. And actually, girls like Mulroney or Baker don't attract me either." The honey-eyed boy answered. "Besides, who would want to be with me if they knew what I am? I wouldn't deserve anybody.
"And what type of girls attract you, Remus?" James asked ignoring his last comment.
"To begin with, girls that think. Girls that respect themselves and the others, that are good people; that are honest and have a personality of their own.
"Come on, Remus, he's not asking you whom do you want to marry. He means a girl to while away the time with: what kind of girls attract you, brunettes, blondes, redheads?" Sirius interrupted him
"Tall, short, skinny, curvy?" James continued. Remus rolled his eyes.
"So, you're saying you wanna marry someone like Evans, Boot, or one of those." Sirius said. The dark-haired boy in glasses got tense at that comment, and Remus looked at him cautiously.
"That's not what I said, Sirius" he said, looking at him raising his eyebrows. "But now that we're on the subject… Look James, we understand that you like Lily, but you don't have to go into a huff whenever you're close to her, cause we're the ones who end up paying for it. Besides, you won't get anything behaving like you do. Lily is not like the rest of the girls.
"And why the hell do you think that I…?" James started to say, sitting up and glaring at the lycanthrope.
"Save yourself, James" Sirius interrupted him with a bored expression on his face. "It's obvious. And you fancy her since first year. Don't lie to yourself, mate." He added when the dark-haired boy opened his mouth to complain. "You may tell yourself that you never paid her more attention than usual, and that it's just fun to bother her, but you know it's not true." James didn't answer and crossed his arms frowning.
"During first and second year you just pulled some pranks at her like at any other, but you know very well that she caught your attention since the beginning." Remus kept on as delicately as he could. "And that's fine. But we need you to admit it, at least in your mind, so that you stop sulking for no apparent reason when you see her with Snape, or when she ignores you." The dark-haired boy with glasses shifted in his seat and looked at the honey-eyed boy. "The way you behave when you're with her is a different kettle of fish, and it's not of our business."
"Basically, James, we're asking you to stop being an asshole to us or to any other persona round you when the redhead shows up." Sirius summed up. James looked at his friend in the eye and ended up smiling, laying back on the sofa, frustrated.
"That redhead is gonna drive me insane" he said. Remus smiled, satisfied, and Peter gave a hint of a shy smile. Sirius, on the other hand, patted his shoulder saying:
"You're a Marauder, Jamie. Very son, you'll have her at your feet."
After a couple of ours, Remus decided it was time to go to the Hospital Wing. He was very weak and his whole body ached, and James had to help him stand up from the armchair.
"Thanks, James" he said, looking at him in the eye. James smiled and winked.
"Thank you, Remus" he answered. Sirius looked at them with a fake disgusted expression.
"Come on, girls. Let's go, before you start shedding some tears."