Recap: James and Lily stopped fighting, agreed to ask Dumbledore about the Order after N.E.W.T.'s are over
Chapter 45: A Few Surprises
I yawned loudly and trudged downstairs. Through my blurry, watery vision, I saw James at the foot of my stairs.
"Happy Birthday, James." I said groggily, stifling another monstrous yawn as I hugged him.
"Uh, Lils?" A voice that sounded awfully like James said from behind me. "I'm kind of over here."
"What?" I said, pulling back from the person I hugged instead. I rubbed my eyes and blinked a few times. Remus was smirking at me, and behind me, so was James.
"Right." I said, blushing. "Well, uh, Happy Birthday." I said awkwardly. Remus started laughing. I turned even redder. "I'm going to go take a shower." I said, and quickly went back up my stair case.
I came back down stairs after twenty minutes, and only James was in the room, sitting on the couches. He was looking blankly at his hands. Instantly, I knew what he was thinking about. I sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"It's difficult, I know. First time, ever, that they're not around for this. But after a little bit, that initial sadness goes away." I assured him. To my surprise, he chuckled.
"Your birthday…None of us remembered, except for Dumbledore." He reminded me.
"Still, though. Afterwards, I did remember, even though I was mostly concentrated on you and Sirius. It's like the after shock, when you realize that they're not here anymore. Being at Hogwarts, everything seems normal, until something like this turns up, or you think about writing to them, because you haven't for a while, and then you realize, they're not there anymore." I sighed. He pulled me on to his lap.
"Yeah, I get what you're saying. It just hasn't completely and fully hit us yet." He said. "But I'm just really glad you're here with me." He whispered so quietly, I wasn't sure if I was meant to hear it. He'd been saying things like this recently, after our little fight last month. I figured it was because he already spilled it all out, and he had the need to remind me so often.
"Me too." I said.
"Alright, come on, you've got a nice patrolling date later today, which is when you can take your alone time. This is the time to spend with us!" Sirius declared, coming in.
"We really need to change that password." I muttered, reluctantly getting off of James' lap.
"So Lily-flower, had a bit of a confusion this morning, eh?" Sirius smirked.
"Oh, be quiet." I turned red and hit him on the head. "Like you haven't done it before!"
"Actually, he has. The summer after our fifth year, my dad and I were the same height, and looked pretty much identical from the back. So one morning, he was really tired, and forgot to check who it was. He ended up slapping my dad on the back, and had an embarrassing conversation with him. Then I came down, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He thought he was going insane." James laughed.
"I remember that day!" Peter said, laughing. Sirius frowned.
"It was a perfectly reasonable mistake!" He protested.
"Oh, we're going to eat in the kitchens today. And visit Misty again." James said, leading us towards the kitchens. We visited Misty almost every day, if we could manage. Unfortunately, we haven't visited her in three days because of our intense N.E.W.T. studying. But, our frequent visits have been healing her, and she definitely stopped drinking and crying. There were a few people who stopped us to say Happy Birthday to James, and only then I realized, the Marauders never had any friends outside of themselves. I suppose running around, doing illegal things with three other people every month built a bond that no one can penetrate.
"Happy Birthday Master James!" Misty said as soon as we entered. She and two other elves were holding a cake larger than them.
"Wow, um, thank you, Misty." James said, clearly shocked by the size of the cake.
"Oh, good, this'll spare us getting a cake for you." Sirius said, clearly relieved. I rolled my eyes. They all pulled out their gifts and set it next to the cake. I sat down next to him and held his hand.
"You're getting your present tonight when we patrol." I whispered to him.
"You shouldn't have, I didn't get anything for you!" He protested.
"Circumstances were different. I promise you, anytime you forget your own birthday, I'll be sure to not give you a gift, okay?" I laughed.
"I guess I can live with that." He grinned. We started singing a horribly-off key 'Happy Birthday,' except for Sirius, who actually had a good voice. "Turns out your ridiculous music actually taught you how to sing." James said.
"I haven't heard much of it, thankfully." I said teasingly. Sirius pouted.
"Actually, Wormtail and I have. He always plays it in our room now." Remus muttered resentfully.
"Oh, deep down, you two like it." Sirius grinned. Remus glared. Apparently, not even deep down. "Mine first!" Sirius yelled, causing all of us to jump. Sirius shoved his present forward and James opened it.
"Uh, mate, I can't use this?" James said, thoroughly confused, and slightly embarrassed. I turned bright red, and Sirius started laughing.
"Of course not, it's for Lily-flower!" Sirius said after he calmed down a bit. I turned even redder and hid my face in James's shoulder.
"How did you even find this, Sirius?" I whined. He scoffed.
"I just walked in. And using my charming good looks, I told the girl there what I wanted and she gave it to me." He said happily. I glared at him and glanced down at the lingerie bitterly.
"You're insane." I told him.
"I know." He said proudly. My face seemed to return to normal color, so I sat up again, in time to see Sirius take it away and pull out his real present. "This one's your real one." He told James. James gave him a hesitant look before carefully and slowly opening it. It was a picture of James and his parents. All three of them were smiling brightly.
"Wow." I said quietly. It was a Muggle one, the pictures didn't move.
"Remember two summers ago? I just bought a muggle camera and wanted to try it out? I took a picture of you three." He said, coughing slightly. "And I figured, since you didn't have any, you might've wanted…" Sirius continued, since James hadn't said anything. He finally looked up from the picture.
"T-Thanks." He stuttered. "I really do like it."
"You're welcome." Sirius said uncomfortably, scratching his nose. James stared at it for a little bit before moving on to the next one, from Remus. James opened it, and it revealed some chocolate, and two tickets to see a Quidditch game over the summer.
"Thanks." James grinned.
"The chocolate is from my own stash, by the way." Remus said.
"I feel honored." James laughed.
"You should." Remus said seriously. Next was Peter's, and everyone was surprised when James opened it. The gift wasn't food, it was actually a book.
"Lord of the Rings?" I gasped. "Wait, how'd you come across this?" I asked.
"My grandfather was a muggle." He shrugged.
"What's Lord of the Rings?" James asked.
"The most famous fantasy trilogy ever written!" I told him. "It's one of my favorite series."
"He's a great author." Remus added.
"I'll be sure to read it then." James said, amused. Misty pushed forward her gift.
"It was Master James' father's." She said quietly. James opened it, and it revealed a wand. "He wanted Master James to have it."
"Oh." James said quietly, picking it up and twirling it around a little bit.
"Misty can take everything back to Master's dorm." She offered.
"Thanks Misty." He replied, putting the wand down. She gathered everything in her arms and apparated with a loud pop! "I can't believe he actually left me his wand! It's supposed to be buried with him!" He said, shaking his head. We all looked on, kind of concerned. "I mean, yeah, I was kind of fascinated with his wand when I was younger, and I actually still am, but I didn't think he'd leave it to me." Misty appeared again with a pop!
"Misty is back." She said. "And Master really must clean his room." She smiled.
"I'll get him on it by tomorrow." I promised her.
"And Miss needs to sleep better." She added.
"What?" James asked, looking from me to Misty." I looked down.
"Miss has been sleeping at her desk for the last five nights. Misty sees her when she goes to clean." Misty explained.
"I thought you always go to sleep at the same time I do!" He said, shocked that he missed something like this.
"Well, yes, I go up my stairs at the same time you do, but I change, and come back down to study more." I muttered quietly. He sighed.
"Please, go upstairs at exactly 11 from now on, and don't go back down. I'll sleep in front of your door, if that's what it takes to stop you." He said stubbornly.
"But that's not enough time!" I whined. They all laughed.
"For you, that's more than enough time." Remus said, and the others nodded in agreement. I frowned in response.
"Ready?" I asked as James came down his stairs.
"Yeah, are you ready?" He asked looking at my homework on the table. I nodded. He looked closer at my work. "What is this!" He panicked, picking it up. "Wait, don't tell me this is the extra, optional work McGonagall told us about?" He asked, shocked.
"It is." I said quietly, but defensively as I left our common room.
"Why!" He asked, unable to fathom why I would do extra work.
"Because," I started as we made our way to the first floor. "It's good practice, and I'm not as good in Transfiguration as I'd like to be." I said, fidgeting slightly.
"But, I'm the only one ahead of you! You were first until sixth year when I decided it was time to start working!" He pointed out.
"Exactly, which means I technically didn't deserve being first for those five years." I explained. "And especially with what you three have done, you're pretty much set for half of what these N.E.W.T.'s are on." I muttered to him in an undertone, in case anyone happened to hear. After a few seconds, a thought occurred to me. "Do you think Dumbledore knows?" I asked him.
"We think about that a lot, actually, but I honestly have no idea." He said.
"I-I don't think he knows, but it's weird, the idea of Dumbledore not know something like this big," I pointed out.
"That's exactly what makes us think he does." He said.
"But the more I think about it, the more I feel like he does."
"It doesn't matter," He chuckled. "We haven't gone to Azkaban, so we really don't care if he knows." He added.
"That's true." I laughed. We walked in silence for a long time, trying to hear anything going on, watching for people outside, and keeping an eye on the main gate.
"Can you believe this Lily? We're almost out of here." He sighed, putting an arm around my waist. I looked up at him. He wasn't saying it like he was scared; he was saying it like it was a bittersweet feeling.
"A scary yet exciting thought at the same time." I muttered. "OH! Before I forget," I said, pulling his present out of my pocket, and gave it to him. He undid the bow on top and opened the box.
"What's this?" He asked, taking the small vile out of the box.
"It's Felix Felicis." I told him. "Slughorn let me have some, but I already have some…from when he gave a vile to me a year ago." I shrugged.
"You earned it both times." He laughed. "And thanks." He said, hugging me closer to him as he pocketed it.
"Oh, what have we here? We haven't seen you two out of class in a long while." A sneering voice said. I could recognize that voice anywhere. Snape. I reached for my wand in my robes and pulled it out as James and I turned towards them.
"It's after curfew. You should be in your Common Rooms." I told them, slightly surprised by the number. It was Snape, Mucliber, Avery, Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott. James took out his wand, too, and tightened his grip around my waist.
"We can and will report you." James added.
"And who will you report us to after Hogwarts? Your mummy and daddy? Oh, hold on, they're gone!" Mucliber laughed, causing the others to join in as well. I was careful not to say anything, and sincerely hoped James wouldn't either.
"What, nothing to say to that?" Avery added, looking between the two of us.
"No, I think we hit home!" Mucliber said happily, reminding me of Bellatrix.
"You are sick bastards." I snarled. Mucliber bowed low.
"Why, thank you." He smirked, making me want run forward and punch him in the face. James beat me.
"Silencio!" He yelled, pointing at Mucliber.
"Petrificus Totalus!" I yelled, pointing at Avery, who had raised his wand.
"Using first year spells. How weak." Snape sneered at us.
"I don't see you doing anything!" James yelled, his face red with anger. They both raised their wands at the exact same time.
"PROTEGO!" I yelled, coming between them, creating a shield. My shield pushed them apart, causing them to go flying. "Okay, I hope you were going back to your Common Room, since it is in this direction. So, just get these two, and leave. James, our time is over now." I said, tapping my watch with my wand, thankful that we were on the first floor. If you patrolled First floor, you only had to patrol for an hour. I slowly lowered my shield glaring at both of them. I walked over to James, grabbed his wrist, and quickly walked away from them.
"Is it smart to put our backs to them?" He asked, worriedly looking over his shoulder every few steps.
"Not really, but choice do we have? Do you honestly want to walk backwards?" I asked him, still slightly irritated.
"Well, actually, it sounds like fun." He grinned. I couldn't help but smile along with him.
A/N: A note of warning: Unfortunately, I will not be updating until two weeks from now.
Review?
Love,
SAM :)
