Hey, guys. I started writing this chapter as the Harry/Ginny kiss scene, but it ended up slightly long-winded. Rather than erase almost everything and start over, I decided to just post this one first and make the Common Room Kiss next chapter. I'll try to have it up soon. Sorry for the slightly longer wait on this one - I've been out of town.
It was an agonizing thing for James Potter to watch his son walk in the opposite direction of the bustling crowds of students on match day. Maybe as agonizing as it was for Harry Potter to do so. "This is wrong," he said, watching, with Lily beside him, their son descend his way to the basement as the sounds of Quidditch excitement faded behind him. It looked almost physically painful for him.
It was almost physically painful for James.
Lily opened her mouth to speak, but ultimately had nothing to say. She did not disagree with Serverus' punishing Harry with Saturday detentions for the rest of the year after the Sectumsempra fiasco, but she truly did feel for her son in that moment. She closed her mouth again with a helpless sigh.
James shook his head. "This is so wrong."
Harry reached Snape's office and was given a greeting warm as a midwinter blizzard. He walked in and took in the space. A pile of dusty boxes sat stacked atop a table, waiting for him.
"Mr. Filch has been looking for someone to clear out these old files," the potions master told Harry in a soft voice, "They are the records of other Hogwarts wrongdoers and their punishments. Where the ink has grown faint, or the cards have suffered damage from mice, we would like you to copy out the crimes and punishments afresh and, making sure that they are in alphabetical order, replace them in the boxes. You will not use magic."
"Oh, yes. That sounds so relevant to his education," James drawled sardonically.
"Right, Professor," Harry replied, pronouncing the second word like an obscenity.
Snape went on, a cruel smile crossing his face now. "I thought you could start with boxes one thousand and twelve to one thousand and fifty-six. You will find some familiar names in there, which should add interest to the task. Here, you see …"
He pulled dramatically from the top box at random, producing a card from which he read, "'James Potter and Sirius Black. Apprehended using an illegal hex upon Bertram Aubrey. Aubrey's head twice normal size. Double detention.'" He sneered at Harry then, "It must be such a comfort to think that, though they are gone, a record of their great achievements remains…"
"You bet your greasy underpants it is," James said. He remembered the event fondly. Harry looked downright murderous, but he—wisely, Lily thought—held his tongue and sat down, pulling one of the lower boxes toward him.
It was dull work, and watching it wasn't much better—for Lily anyway. James rather enjoyed reading over each card of his and his friends and remembering the great deal of trouble they'd regularly gotten themselves into. He'd laugh and comment at random intervals:
"I'm still proud that we pulled that off!"
"That was a good prank. Took a whole night of planning."
"I'd almost forgotten about that one!"
"Ha! His hair was green for a week!"
"We nearly got away with that one."
It continued on like this for several hours. Every few minutes was punctuated by Harry's discovery of another card containing a familiar name. Every time he did, he stiffened for a moment, reading through the latest offence of James Potter and company. Seeing this sobered James slightly. Snivellus knew exactly what he was doing when he assigned Harry this job and the greasy git watched occasionally from his desk his reactions with a glint of cruel satisfaction in his eyes. The sight made James' blood boil.
After a while, Lily found herself rather amazed at the sheer amount that contained the "Marauders'" names. She knew they'd caused a great deal of trouble during their years at Hogwarts, but still. "You must not have been as good at pranking as you thought you were," she commented after yet another card was discovered—this time of a midnight joyride taken by the four on a magic carpet. "If you got caught this often."
James snorted. "We hardly got caught at all."
Lily looked at him. "James, that's like the thirtieth card we've seen from this box alone."
"We were there for seven years, Lil. We really weren't caught that often. You were there. I'd say we were about ninety percent successful. And anyway that was before the map."
"Wow," she replied dryly, shaking her head.
"It's impressive, I know," James said with a grin.
"It's something all right. I don't think impressive is the word though."
Sirius wandered over after a while and stood on James' other side. "Snivellus has got Harry doing this instead of playing Quidditch?" he demanded, appalled. James nodded. Sirius shook his head, watching the young Potter rewrite a card for a Sarah Everly, who'd been caught out of bounds past curfew. He was clearly sorely disappointed that Harry's exceptional Quidditch skills were being wasted for such a menial task. Sirius, as James knew well, had never had much patience for detention. It had never dissuaded him, after all. His enthusiasm did increase, however, when the next card was pulled and contained his, James', and Remus' names. Professor Slughorn had caught them out of bed and attempting to brew a babbling beverage to slip into Severus Snape's pumpkin juice. They'd only been found out because they'd accidentally added one too many drops of Bulbadox Juice and the whole thing had exploded in their faces. In the confused daze that enveloped them, they hadn't gotten away in time.
"That was an unfortunate night," James said.
"We should have been more careful," Sirius agreed, "But we went back a few nights later and completed the task then. Snivellus was babbling for two straight days!" He added this last part for Lily's benefit, as James knew what they did very well. Lily shook her head. She remembered the effects of that prank just fine herself. Hers and Serverus' relationship had been growing rocky by that point as he'd gotten ever deeper into the Dark Arts, but she'd far from fancied James yet and she remembered being more than a little cross with him and his cronies in the aftermath of it all.
"Moony tried telling us it was only three drops the first time. But I was certain it was four. Probably could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we'd listened to him," James reminisced.
"That's shocking," Lily said sardonically. The men ignored her. Harry had pulled another card from the box. This one also contained their names, sans Remus' this time, and was dated several weeks after the last one.
"Ah, that was a good one too!" James said, "Totally worth detention with Dumbledore."
"Dumbledore never gave bad detentions anyway," Sirius replied, "I've always said he secretly liked our pranks."
Lily had stopped listening to their conversation. Harry, finished with yet another card, risked another glance at the large clock on the dungeon's wall. He'd been sneaking glances at it every few minutes and seemed disappointed every time he turned away. Clearly he was hoping to find the minutes ticking by quicker than they were. She couldn't really blame him, though a few hours' boredom was not an unreasonable punishment after what had happened. It was obvious from Harry's expression as he moved on to the next card that his mind was elsewhere.
His stomach began rumbling with audible huger after a while, but the potions master, who had been utterly silent after setting Harry his task, gave no indication of releasing him from his duties just yet.—this grated on Lily. And sure enough, it was almost exactly another forty minutes when the finally looked over at him.
"I think that will do," he said callously, "Mark the place you have reached. You will continue at ten o'clock next Saturday."
"Yes, sir," Harry answered. Moving swiftly, he stuffed a bent card randomly in the closest box, far from where he'd stopped—James snorted—before standing and taking his leave as if afraid the professor would change his mind and call him back.
Harry raced up the many stone steps. The castle and the grounds were utterly quiet. The match was clearly over. Apparently reaching this same conclusion, the teenaged Potter looked suddenly nervous as he navigated the stairs up to Gryffindor Tower. As captain, the team was his responsibility and he'd let them down. If they'd lost, it was his fault.
James, Lily, and Sirius waited with him. They could have easily learned for themselves the outcome of the match—they could even have watched it for themselves if they'd felt so inclined, but neither had wanted to do so if Harry wasn't playing. Instead they would learn with him the results, whatever the outcome.
"Quid agis?" Harry said tentatively to the Fat Lady's portrait outside the common room. In his uncertainty, the password came out like a question.
"You'll see," the painting replied before opening to allow him entry. It didn't take very long at all for the outcome to become clear.
The Fat Lady swung forward and deafening sounds of celebration poured out of the hole behind her.
Thanks for reading!