Right! Here's yet another sweet chapter! (I'm really quite fond of this one!)
P.S I don't own J.K Rowling's beloved characters, nor am I responsible for any cavities you may receive after reading this chapter!
(But apologize to your dentists for me anyway please!)
The next week everything seemed to become more colorful than it had been before.
The dull hues of the corridors seemed to glow and even lessons were easier to handle when your mind wandered away from them.
It was good, feeling sure about something for once, even if I didn't admit it properly.
Willa and Alice didn't force the confession from me, they didn't need to.
Willa was more cheerful than usual, and it wasn't a destructive kind of joy either. Alice seemed less high strung and breezed easily through potions, her face staying a normal shade of peach.
When asked how she had developed an ease over a boiling cauldron, that seemed near impossible for her to achieve last year, she simply averted her eyes and mumbled something about Frank Longbottom.
Willa and Alice also seemed to make as many excuses as possible to get me alone. Then as soon as they disappeared James would come into view, looking just as confused as I was and equally red-faced.
But we never complained.
He would plop down next to me and start an essay, furrowing his brow, chewing on the end of his quill and fiddling with the strap of his bag, his eyes darting my way every few seconds.
We never finished any homework when we were together.
I would lean over to help him and we would veer completely off topic, talking about Quidditch teams, family, how long the other could hold their breath, treacle tart and Professors.
Sometimes we never talked at all, but the silence was filled with so many thoughts, that sometimes, it felt like my head would burst.
I wasn't sure what we were exactly.
My mind said friend and nodded in a wise way, but sometimes it felt a notch higher than just friends.
I decided to stay seated and see where this wild train ride took me, after all, who could it hurt?
I also found myself with Black, Lupin and Pettigrew often, which surprised me- it was sort of an unconscious decision.
In the common room I just seemed to gravitate towards their usual corner and slip in next to James.
Sirius, I noticed, was incredibly funny, but his humor was sometimes on the sarcastic and cruel side. He was reckless, but friendly in a curious just-met-you-so-you're-interesting kind of way.
I couldn't help but suspect that there was a past to him that I didn't know about.
I knew that I would learn it by staying silent, growing closer and reminding myself not to judge too quickly, even though I wanted to put him down as immature and stick the label onto his forehead.
I found my study partners consisted not only of a complaining Willa, but a quiet Remus as well.
Alice always apologized profoundly when she couldn't make it to the library to finish homework with us- we didn't mind.
She was perfectly entitled to switching partners every now and then- especially if that partner had managed to calm her nerves in potions.
Remus's discussion was much more in-depth and interesting than the kind I could get with Sirius.
Of course, he had no idea that I knew about him being a werewolf. But, I'm sure he'll work it out eventually, if I'm not as discreet with the cards I plan to send him annually.
Peter seemed, to me, like an alright person. He was often teased, but James, Remus and Sirius seemed to have completely and utterly inducted him into their group, even if Peter still seemed to worship the shoes on their feet.
He was sweet, when you gave him a chance, I decided.
I spent around a week in Marauder territory.
Most of that time went into telling Sirius off with no real conviction.
I could see why James thought so much of them though- they were beginning to grow on me too.
The grounds had been buried in the annual blast of thick snow and students were turning blue in the corridors- Christmas was fast approaching and would soon knock homework and responsibilities clean out of everyone's minds.
That could only mean one thing for the Prefects and Heads... decorating duty.
"Peeves! Hand over that tinsel! No-I didn't mean try to strangle a first year with it!" I yelled furiously as I flew down the corridor, skidding onto my knees and untying the tinsel from around the neck of a small boy from Slytherin- who looked like he was about to faint- or tattle, either one.
"Don't worry, he's usually not this violent," I said kindly, patting the boy on the shoulder and giving him a reassuring smile before threatening Peeves with a shaky fist.
"Do you think the Bloody Baron would be pleased if you hurt a student from his house Peeves? Do you?" I practically hissed the last part.
"Alright, Alright! Don't get your knickers in a twist, Little Miss Lily Evans, with two good girl shoes!" Peeves cackled, but his already pale face had gone even whiter.
He then flew down the corridor, belting out a rude version of Jingle Bells.
I put my hands on my hips and huffed for a few moments before stringing the tinsel around a portrait of a Knight and a Fat Pony.
"Hark! A fair Maiden! Do you, lovely lady, need rescuing? I shall smight-"
"No, I'm good, thanks for asking Sir Cadogan; don't injure yourself for my sake," I interrupted, stifling a laugh as the portly Knight hoisted an enormous sword above his head and toppled over backwards. The pony, however, was less polite about it. It whinnied with amusement until it was wheezing and out of breath.
Suddenly a bunch of mistletoe appeared in front of my eyes. I whirled around and bumped foreheads with James.
"Ow! A simple 'no' to the kiss would suffice!" he said, rubbing at his head, his eyes laughing. He was still holding the mistletoe; it was tied with a red ribbon.
I rolled my eyes, reached up and moved his hand away from his forehead, standing on my toes to kiss his temple.
"There. It wasn't a 'no' at all James," I said with a broad smile, before turning on my heel and heading back to the Great Hall at a run. James followed soon after.
"Hey! I think you missed by, like, a lot Lily!"
"Oh did I? My bad!" I called as I dodged around the corner and flew down stairs, nearly bumping into Hagrid, who was dragging a tree across the entrance hall.
He poked his bearded head through the bristly branches.
"Doing alrigh' there, Lily?" he asked, his beetle black eyes amused.
It was then that James cascaded into me, sending us both rocketing into the tree, squashing Hagrid underneath.
I found myself choking on pine needles and laughing harder than I can ever remember laughing.
"Lily, are you ok? Oh no, I broke my girlfriend! Great, this has got to be some kind of record-"
Well, at least my mind can stop kidding itself, I know where we are now- I'm his girlfriend.
"James, I'm fine, get a hold of yourself," I said, searching for his hand through the branches. He found me first, grasping my arm and pulling me out of the broken explosion of bark and pine needles.
He looked extremely relieved, physically relaxing. I simply smiled and picked some needles out of his hair, laughing a little under my breath.
That was when Hagrid emerged, spluttering and checking the tree over.
"Nuthin' the professors can't cover up nicely," he muttered then, with a pause, he looked over as us. We smiled sheepishly up at him, James waggling his fingers in a comical wave.
"So, you two're finally together, thought it'd never happen! I'm happy for the both of yeh!" Hagrid said beaming and pulling us into a quick bear hug that almost shattered our ribs, before dragging his ruined tree into Great Hall, still smiling behind his beard.
He said it loudly enough to get every passer by's attention.
There was an explosion from every student in our year.
"Finally!"
"I knew it!"
"Aw, I always knew they'd be a cute couple!"
"You owe me two galleons Jones!"
People walked by James and clapped him hard on the shoulder and girls giggled and squealed, some looking crestfallen, some giddy.
It seemed every seventh year had been expecting us to happen.
James leaned over and whispered in my ear, lacing his fingers through mine.
"Our relationship is a secret, so, of course, everybody knows."
Remus and Sirius thought life would get a whole lot easier with James and Lily dating.
It did, but honestly, Sirius had learnt more than what he found comfortable about Lily. He even knew what her favorite dessert was, and to Sirius, this was just a step away from knowing what kind of drapes she had in her home.
Of course, James had begun toning down the Lily talk and apart from that, hadn't changed much. Except for the fact that he was truly happy, bright and ready to laugh and muck about like the old days.
He was a better version (morally) of the old James; the one Sirius had instantly become best friends with.
The cracks that the summer had created had been filled by Lily, and to Remus and Sirius, this was the best thing that had come out of this whole James and Lily deal.
So who were they to complain?
Remus was enjoying getting to know his friend's girlfriend and Sirius was having fun making her annoyed. Peter also seemed to enjoy her company- she treated him fairly, ruffled his hair and was kind enough to help him with his Transfiguration homework when Remus was busy.
James had found the three of them in the common room, looking a little worse for the wear for just coming back from decorating.
"What happened to you mate? Did the Christmas tree swallow you alive?" Sirius asked, snorting with laughter. James grinned and plopped into an armchair across from him.
"Something like that, yeah."
"Did the mistletoe work? I don't need mistletoe to get girls to kiss me, but, you know, I hear it's romantic."
"Sort of," James said, shaking pine needles from his hair. "I'm seeing her again tonight."
"And what exactly is tonight?" Remus asked, marking his page and shutting his book with a snap.
Sirius smirked.
"Well, she's a Marauder's girlfriend. She's got to learn the ways of the prankster."
Remus looked skeptical.
"You're not replacing the Slytherins' shampoo with frog spawn again are you?"
James and Sirius burst into laughter at the memory.
"That was a good one," Sirius said breathlessly, whipping away tears of amusement from his eyes.
James shook his head.
"Don't worry Moony, we're not going to pull off a prank together, that's me, you, Wormtail and Padfoot's specialty."
Remus settled slightly, but he still seemed a little weary.
"Alright, as long as you don't enchant everyone's goblets to throw out peoples pumpkin juice onto the table again."
"Hey, at least we didn't make them spit it back out at you, we opted for making the table sticky instead," Sirius said with a chuckle.
"Oh, I'm sure everyone was very grateful to you Sirius," Remus answered drily, the corners of his mouth twitching.
It was rather hard to concentrate on homework that evening.
I might have been able to force myself to work, if it hadn't been for the badly folded paper crane bumping into my head over and over again.
"You're not going to stop until I read you, right?" I said out of the corner of my lips. The crane halted in its tracks and gave a small nod.
Willa and Alice pretended not to watch as I caught the crane and unfolded it, smoothing out the creases gently and reading on.
Midnight, in the common room. I thought we could go for a stroll?
- James… (Hopes that he didn't sound like a total prat by using the word "stroll".)
I stifled a laugh and glanced across the common room to where James was sitting, pretending to whistle and check the time, his wand sticking traitorously out of his robe pocket.
I turned the parchment over and scribbled my reply before levitating it over the heads of the students in the room. I deposited it neatly in his lap.
Alright, see you then.
-Lily… (Thinks "stroll" is a perfectly good word.)
I gave a sigh, a small breath that told time to hurry up and turned back to my text book the size and thickness of a paving slab- whatever interest I had in its worn pages had evaporated.
Willa and Alice hurriedly shifted their gazes and dived back into loud discussion.
They had been trying to read the letter upside down.
"Real discreet you two."
"Discreet's my middle name," Willa said with a wide smile that almost reached her ears.
She had obviously deciphered the message.
"I thought your middle name was Emily?" Alice said.
Willa elbowed her, but they were both grinning like gnomes after having a thimble full of firewhisky each.
And a thimble was way too much alcohol for a gnome.
I was struggling to summon some annoyance at the two of them, when Alice leaned closer over piles of scrunched up parchment, dropping her voice to a whisper.
"We'll cover for you if someone notices you're gone."
"Yes, we'll say you sleep walk," Willa said brightly.
"Just as long as you don't tell them I've gone to the loo, I'm ok with it," I said with a glance over at Sirius.
That honestly was the worst cover up story ever and I wasn't forgetting it in a hurry.
I didn't sleep very much and at midnight, I was still in that place between sleep and consciousness that makes your vision blurry and your mind lazy.
I knuckled my eyes and rubbed away the non-existent sleep as I shoved my feet into my slippers before moving cautiously past my sleeping dorm mates.
I crept silently down the stairs, flinching when a stair creaked and fiddling with my hair nervously. It was a habit I had been developing.
I stopped touching my hair and instead took one deep breath.
The common room was comfortably toasty despite the dying embers in the fireplace.
I stretched as I moved into the room, yawning and shaking the drowsiness from my system, I wanted to be completely awake.
There was a light tap on my shoulder and I turned my head curiously, expecting James, but no one was there. I felt my eyes grow wide and registered a quick stab of fear to my stomach. It was quickly extinguished when a small chuckle reached my ears.
I fumed, my hands on my hips.
"James!" I whispered. "I know it's you!"
He appeared inches away from me, so close that I could see a hazy reflection of myself in his round glasses.
I didn't flinch, but I really hadn't been expecting him to be that near me.
"Hope I didn't give you a scare Lily," He said, grinning and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear gently.
"You didn't quite scare me, but the concern is appreciated," I said, putting my hand over his.
We stood still for a few seconds, barely breathing, before James seemed to yank himself out of a trance, taking his hand away and beginning to rifle through his pocket.
"How did you do that?" I asked, also shaking myself slightly.
"Do what?" He answered, not meeting my eyes.
"You know what."
He straightened up then, his smile becoming confident and much like the kind he wore around his friends.
He pulled out a bundle of shimmering fabric from out of his pocket, it had been rolled up tight so it would fit, but there wasn't a crease to be seen. It seemed to glitter like water in the summer. The surface of it looked glossy and smooth.
He let me reach out and run it through my fingers. It felt like it was barely there.
"An invisibility cloak," I said curiosity and impressed awe bright in my voice. It was more of a statement than a question.
James seemed to swell with pride.
"Exactly, it's been in my family for generations. You have no idea how handy it's been."
I looked up at him then, an eyebrow arching itself upwards.
"So this is how you've managed to cause so much chaos!" I said, attempting to sound accusing, but I didn't succeed. Instead, I sounded heavily amused.
James simply shrugged, his eyes twinkling in that self-satisfied way of his, but this time, there was tenderness in his gaze too.
"What can I say? I like the smell of havoc in the morning."
I laughed then, straightening up, and hooking an arm through his.
"Are we going for a stroll or not then, James?"
"Of course, m'lady, I just had to show off my darling cloak, you know, to get that off my chest."
I smiled up at him and patted his arm in what I hoped was royal way.
"It is perfectly fine my good sir, please, do lead on."
He threw the cloak over us as we made our way over to the portrait hole.
"Won't the fat lady notice that no ones there?" I asked as it swung open.
"She knows it's me by now, so she doesn't fret."
"How many times have you used this exactly?"
"Oh, who keeps count anymore?"
The next chapter should be out in a couple of days! I won't make you wait long- cross my heart and hope to cry! Like really cry until I'm dehydrated!
Oh and I won't spoil anything, but, you know, something big happens in the next chapter that I know most of you have been waiting for...
until then!