Written for the International Wizarding School Championship Season Two Round 5

School: Hogwarts

Year: 7 (Exchange 1 standing in for year 7)

Theme: Madam Puddifoot. Look at romance and love in the wizarding world.

Main Prompt: [Emotion] Anticipation

Additional Prompts: [Setting] An empty classroom, [Word] Drama

Special Rule: Incorporate the colour green and the meaning behind it in your story: Envy

Word Count: 2941

A/N: A Marauders Era short story set sometime in their fifth year.

James woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. His fingers fumbled for his wand on his bedside stand. He sat up and a quick Tempus showed that it was just past one.

'Huh,' he thought to himself, 'I'm feeling hungry.' The kitchens would be a nice place to visit.

His eyes instinctively searched the bed next to him, but Sirius wasn't there. In previous years, they would often go out for aimless walks at night when one of them wasn't feeling sleepy, or when they had to prepare for some prank. They would terrorise portraits and before it was made, look for new corridors and shortcuts to add to the Marauder's Map.

It would be just the two of them. Remus rarely condoned it, and Peter would be too scared of getting caught. Granted, they had got quite a few detentions, but even Remus had agreed that the making Slytherin wear sparkling Hufflepuff colours for a week was worth a few months of detention.

James personally thought that gold would have been much classier, but it was unanimously agreed that the Slytherins were unworthy.

Nowadays, Sirius would often be missing at odd times at night and come to breakfast the next day with a huge grin on his face. Plenty of prodding and teasing would ensue, but Sirius would uncharacteristically say as little as possible. He claimed it was his "mysterious dark side", but everyone always thought he was hiding something more than he let on.

Back in the dark of the dormitory, James quickly got out his Invisibility Cloak and wrapped it around himself. His feet crept down the stairs and paused at the entrance of the common room. The fire was crackling merrily. Somebody was talking, and his heart skipped a beat.

'You had a nice time, didn't you, Lils?' Sirius was saying in his usual playful voice.

Lily chuckled. She actually chuckled. James couldn't remember the last time she had smiled in his direction. He quickly positioned himself at an appropriate distance from the couple. He wondered what was going on at this time of the night. Suddenly, he didn't feel like revealing himself and confronting them about whatever it was. His mind was jumping in the wrong direction as usual, but he knew Sirius better than that, didn't he? Right?

'You were better than I thought you would be, actually.' Lily said, standing a few feet away from James. He could see her emerald green eyes shining and a faint hint of colour in her cheeks.

Sirius smiled roguishly. 'Aren't I always? I have to say… you surprised me too. A lot of times, actually. Your style is… unique.'

Lily shrugged in uncertainty. 'It's always a matter of what goes in, I suppose. It just feels right sometimes, you know?'

'I think I do now,' Sirius said and grinned wickedly as he remembered something. 'Your screams were something else, though. I never imagined a Prefect of all—'

'Sirius!' Lily was blushing a bright red now. 'I was ex—' She cut herself off. 'We are not talking about this anymore.'

She had a stubborn look on her face which James found strangely endearing. But then again, he felt the same way about most things about her. He also felt annoyed she didn't complete her sentence. What was she about to say she was? Excited? Ecstatic?

'We'll see about that tomorrow,' said Sirius. 'We're still on, right?'

'Yeah,' Lily confirmed, 'I wouldn't miss it for anything. I'll see you. Same time, same place?'

Sirius nodded and hugged Lily briefly. 'See ya around.'

Lily said something back to him, which James didn't quite catch and then proceeded towards the girls' dormitories.

James got out of the way just in time as she passed close enough to him so that he could actually smell her hair. Strawberry… Mmmm. She also seemed to be perspiring a bit even though it was quite cold inside the castle. Strange that. She paused at the first few steps, patted down her clothes a bit and there seemed to be a little spring in her step as James watched the hem of her skirt vanish into the darkness.

He missed Sirius softly whistling a merry tune as he went to occupy his previously empty bed.

James trudged back, sat down heavily on one of the couches in the common room and removed the Invisibility Cloak. He slowly rubbed the soft material with his fingers as he struggled to settle an internal debate. On one hand, everything inside him was screaming at him to ask Sirius what the hell was going on. On the other hand, there was an unfamiliar feeling bubbling up inside his chest. He looked at the green flowery design above the fireplace and felt his heart constricting. He had never really felt envious of anything or anyone before. He had never had much of a reason to.

But Sirius was his best friend, and he was spending time with his girl, doing Merlin knows what. He hadn't even told James and was in direct violation of the Marauder's code.

"Rule #7: Do not flirt with Lily even if James asks you to. In case James does ask you, stun immediately and question under the tickling charm since it is clearly not James but an imposter using Polyjuice Potion."

James hoped to Merlin it was just flirting that Sirius was doing. Things sounded pretty bleak from the brief conversation he heard. He felt hot, burning envy and the deception was devastating. He couldn't believe Sirius would do such a thing, he was the best friend who had never left his side, even in the darkest of days.

'But people change,' a small voice inside his head said.

James quickly shut this voice down and settled on a compromise. He would confront Sirius at breakfast the next day. He deserved a chance to prove him wrong.

The Next Morning

Chatter filled the great hall as students exchanged the latest gossip and complained about their latest assignments. It was unreasonable how much teachers expected a meer Hogwarts student to accomplish in a day. Simply preposterous.

The Marauders sat at the exact centre of the Gryffindor table, with talk mainly focused on their upcoming Quidditch match against Slytherin. James waited until there was a lull in the conversation and casually asked Sirius,

'You haven't talked to Lily recently, have you?' He looked at Sirius' face intently. There was a slight hesitation — an almost imperceptible pause. But the recovery was quick.

'Not since last week at Charms, I think,' he said.

James caught an undercurrent of embarrassment in his friend's voice. He was hiding something, there was no doubt about that. He was ashamed, a very un-Sirius thing to be.

'Why?' asked Sirius, his voice almost as casual.

Peter snickered while taking a sip of his water. 'Prongs probably couldn't sleep all night again... thinking about her.'

James almost sighed in relief as he slowly guided the conversation to safer waters. But all the same, it was unnerving how close Peter had hit the mark. He hadn't been able to sleep the rest of the night because he had been thinking about Lily, just not the way Wormtail envisioned it.

However, after breakfast, the Potter heir still couldn't believe the signs, despite that nagging voice inside of him telling him otherwise. He was almost consumed with envy and resentment, both of them directed towards Sirius. Lily was the one he had wanted all his life and couldn't have, and now Sirius was having late night liaisons with her. His mind unconsciously began to plot creative ways to get revenge on the traitor.

'You know, maybe they simply weren't meant to be.' James recalled a smug girl with the frizzly hair who he had overheard speaking about him and Lily the year before. It had taken the combined efforts of three Marauders to stop him from committing something along the lines of cold-blooded murder. It hadn't seemed at all unreasonable at that time. Several nightmares and sleepless nights later, James would still hear her haunting voice, mocking him. In hindsight, he should have probably called in a favour and set the Bloody Baron after her, at the very least. Sirius deserved something at least ten times as worse.

But in the end, James eventually decided to give Sirius one last chance to prove it was not as it seemed. What if it was all some sort of an elaborate prank? It might have been more for his benefit than Sirius', but he had to be sure.

He decided he would follow the two of them that night to wherever they went, catch them red-handed, and relinquish his friendship forever. That seemed the right kind of dramatic way to go about it — something truly befitting of James Potter.

James sat down in the corner of the common room at about ten at night with his cloak wrapped securely around him. At around eleven he noticed Sirius creep down the stairs. Lily arrived a few minutes after. The common room was unusually deserted except for them, and he was easily able to slip after them unnoticed through the portrait.

He trailed them at a close distance with a Silencio on his feet. He could only catch small snippets of their conversation, mostly about random stuff as far as he could make out. It was maddening trying to figure out which one of Sirius' favourite haunts they were going to visit. James could almost hear his heart thumping loudly in his chest. Every time they paused or slowed down, James could feel his pulse quickening. His breath was ragged. They went a couple of floors up and took a few sharp turns before entering an empty classroom. Not the Astronomy tower then — interesting.

James took off his Invisibility Cloak and pressed his ears against the door in anticipation. There was some creaking as if something heavy was being moved around. Then he heard Sirius' voice.

'Take it off, Lily. Gently, there.' he said.

'Yeah.' Lily replied in a soft, slightly strained voice.

Thick, jagged rocks scraped across his raw wounds. That was it for James. He couldn't take it anymore. He silently unlocked the door and strode in, ready to denounce the world as he knew it.

He was met with the shocked expressions of two people he had once considered to be friends. Lily looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and Sirius looked just… he looked more afraid than anything, to be honest.

It looked as if they had been trying to take the stopper off some green coloured potion bottle.

But James' eyes were on the two of them for only a moment before he got a good look at the place. He couldn't believe his eyes. There was a cauldron sitting in the centre of the room. The empty classroom had been transformed into some sort of a makeshift potions lab. There were ingredients scattered on the floor on one side, and there was another cauldron at the far corner of the room which was giving off purple fumes.

Another person was stirring that particular cauldron. Somebody who looked suspiciously familiar. Pungent smells wafted across the dozens of candles which lit the room, and a thin mist hung in the air distorting the various colours which intermingled above the flames. James suddenly felt lightheaded and sank down in a convenient chair with his head in his hands. All this was far weirder than he could ever imagine. It was too much to take in. The world spun.

'What are you doing here?' He suddenly heard Lily shouting at him in a distressed voice.

He looked up and ruffled his untidy hair. 'What are you doing here?' he shot back.

Lily glared at him. 'I asked you first. How did you even find this place? And it's past curfew.'

James blinked, trying to take in the image of a fully clothed Lily berating him while she was breaking a few dozen school rules herself. She was too cute for words.

She looked like she was about to say more, but Sirius shushed her. He had an evil glint in his eyes.

'Wait,' he said. 'I think I know what's going on.'

'So, James...' said Sirius. 'You thought Lily and me—'

'Yes.'

'That we were—'

'Yes!'

'How? Why?'

James groaned. 'I overheard both of you in the common room last night.'

Sirius frowned for a bit, and a huge smile broke onto his face. 'I can imagine how it must have sounded.'

'Worse,' said James.

'Huh?'

'It sounded much worse than you can possibly imagine. What did Lily mean when she said: "whatever went in felt right sometimes"?' James had replayed the entire conversation in his head hundreds of times and could almost remember every word.

Sirius burst out laughing. 'We weren't kissing if that's what you're asking, or anything else.' Sirius waggled his eyebrows suggestively. 'She meant potions ingredients. She's got this way of knowing what to put in when without looking at the book or anything, and know what it does.'

'She was sweating!' James added, his voice hysterical.

'It gets hot when we're making potions and heating them,' Sirius deadpanned.

James buried his face in his hands again. 'And the screaming? She said something about being excited?' His voice came out muffled between his fingers.

'Exasperated.' Lily put in, finally joining the conversation despite Sirius' express instructions to be quiet and enjoy the show. 'I was about to say exasperated.'

'She has a right fit when the potion goes wrong.' Sirius explained. 'She goes completely mad and starts throwing stuff around... mostly at me.'

Lily looked at him darkly. 'You still don't understand how hard it is to make a potion.'

'Wait, wait.' James held up his hands. 'Make a potion, like design a potion or something? Why does she need you for that?'

Sirius put his hand over his heart. 'I'm not that bad at potions. And it's not just some old potion we're designing. It's for Moony's furry little problem.'

James' eyes flickered between the two of them.

'But… Lycanthropy is incurable,' he whispered, not quite believing them.

Sirius smiled proudly. 'Lily here thinks she can make something to at least control its effects. She had an inspiration, something to do with Hemlock and another unpronounceable thingy. She needs me to tell her some things about his transformation because Moony can't remember anything once he transforms.'

James ruffled his hair again and fell silent for a few moments. If this was true, then…

He looked at Lily with his hazel eyes. 'Is it true? Can you do it?' he asked quietly.

Lily felt self-conscious under his intense gaze. 'Ye-es, at least most of it should be—'

She was cut off by a teary-eyed James giving her the biggest hug she had ever got in her life. She felt as if all the air had been squeezed out of her.

'Air… James,' she managed to croak.

James released her instantly. 'Right. Sorry,' he said sheepishly, but the huge smile on his face remained plastered on.

He turned to Sirius and embraced him tightly too. 'Padfoot, can you imagine this?' he said in an awed voice.

Sirius smiled back. 'We might have to change old Moony's name now.'

Even Lily's lips curled up slightly at that. The initial excitement slowly wore off like a raindrop on the window pane.

'Why didn't you tell me?' James looked at Sirius accusingly. 'I could have helped. You knew I would have wanted this. Or Wormtail, for that matter.'

Lily coughed slightly and wrung her hands. 'We were worried about your obsession with Snape. You can't even look at him without hexing him nowadays.'

James looked confused. 'How does Snivellus come into this?' he asked.

Almost on cue, the shadows behind James parted to reveal a cross, greasy-haired boy, who looked as if he had just swallowed an eel. So this was the mysterious person in the corner of the room.

'Potter,' he sneered.

'Snivellus.'

'We couldn't do this without him,' Lily said, the words bursting out. 'He's the best Potioneer in Hogwarts besides me, and he was the one who convinced Slughorn to let us try this ourselves. Slughorn didn't even believe it was possible, but Sev convinced him to let us try.'

Sirius shrugged. 'That and he's crazy about Lily-flower.'

James regarded Snape with something which might approach grudging respect. Snape's skill as a Potions prodigy was well known and if he could actually help Moony, then perhaps he could tolerate him… somewhat. As far as he was concerned, he was probably doing it for all the wrong reasons.

James had just realised that Lily was not taken and a wave of euphoria had descended over his mind along with news that Remus might finally be relieved from his affliction. He could manage to not hex the greasy slytherin for the time being. Snape would also have to swallow his envy and be civil around him in turn.

Later that night, back in the dorm

James lay on his back on the bed with his eyes looking at the dark ceiling above. It seemed highly unlikely that he would get any proper sleep that night.

'Hey, Sirius. You awake?' he asked in a low voice.

Sirius' voice floated back from the adjoining bed. 'No, I'm Sirius. What's the matter?'

'You know I didn't actually really think you had let me down with Lily? Right?' James asked, not letting his concern show.

The answer came quickly in the most matter-of-fact voice possible. 'Yeah, I know. Of course you didn't.'

James could almost hear the grin in Sirius' voice as he settled down more comfortably in his bed. He was sporting an identical grin of his own.

"Rule #3: Never apologise for a prank between fellow Marauders, even if it wasn't intended as such."