Chapter 83
Rejection
J: This is the single greatest idea we've ever had. I'll never have room pay attention in class again!
Remus rolled his eyes as James apparently saw the need to draw a smiley face.
R: James you never payed attention in class in the first place. And you always have someone to talk to during class.
S: He's kinda socially dependent. Isn't he.
J: Hey
R: Honestly, I've never seen anyone require so much attention in my entire life. And that includes you.
J: That's not true.
S: No point in denying the absolute truth, Jamie.
J: I am not socially dependent!
P: Are too.
J: Peter! You're supposed to be on my side!
Peter wrote really fast making his writing very hard to read.
P: Not that there's anything wrong with it.
S: Lucky you, you've got Peter on your side. I'm sure he'll be a valuable addition.
J: Sirius, leave Peter alone.
S: Sure, sure.
J: I'm ser... solemn, Sirius.
R: Nice save.
J: Thanks.
S: Moony, what is a primary school?
There was a pause before the answer came.
R: It's a school kids go to before they go to a boarding school such as Hogwarts, if they do go to a boarding school. I thought wizards went to primary school too? My arithmancy teacher made it sound like they did anyway.
J: Most do. We have to learn maths and grammar somewhere don't we? Most purebloods are home schooled though, I was, Peter did, Sirius definitely did.
R: Oh, okay.
There was a small pause before the conversation continued.
J: Guess what, Remus.
R: Umm, Sirius is actually taking notes?
P: That's a little far fetched...
R: That was kinda the point, I guessed the least case scenario in order to let James know that there is absolutely no way I can guess correctly without a hint.
S: Excuse me? oh and congratulations, you just got James a detention for disrupting the class by laughing too loudly.
R: You're welcome, James.
J: Thanks. (James drew another smiley face) Actually, Moony, that is exactly right. Sirius is actually taking notes. Yeah, I might just die of shock too.
S: In your face!
There was silence on all sides for a very long time.
A very long time.
S: Fine, they are very cruddy notes and they won't help me remember anything at all, in fact most of them don't even pertain to the lesson.
R: Oh, thank Merlin! I seriously began to think the world was ending, or you had been kidnapped by fairies and replaced with a substitute. That one is a little more likely.
S: Not nearly as likely as me being hit with a really bad imperius curse.
R: Oh, I suppose that was an option too.
J: Really Moony? Fairies?
R: It can happen!
J: The chances of getting kidnapped by fairies after you're five years old is like nill. You know how many fairies it would take to cart off someone Sirius' size?
S: Excuse me? What about my size?
J: I meant height, idiot.
S: Then why didn't you say height?
J: I didn't say anything, I wrote it.
S: You know what I meant!
J: Fatty!
S: Moron!
J: Mutt!
R: Um, guys, bell rang.
S: Loser!
J: Idiot!
R: James, you used that already.
S: Hah!
J: Git.
S: James, you've already lost.
J: Nutter.
S: Fine you want to continue? I'll continue.
J: Prat.
S: Stag.
J: I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!
And once again, for a completely different reason there was no new writing appearing on the page as Remus shook his head at it. He wasn't sure what Sirius' new favorite insult was about, but he had looked up other definitions of the word and was surprised that James actually understood it was an insult.
He headed towards the muggle studies classroom knowing the two of them weren't likely to come to him any time soon.
Alice was still in their classroom watching their wrestling match.
Remus greeted her as though there was absolutely nothing weird about the two of them rolling around on the floor, one trying to calm his laughed and the other trying to calm it for him.
The teacher had conveniently left the room.
"Who's winning?" Remus asked casually.
"Well, Sirius isn't trying to fight back, he's too busy trying to breath."
"Alice? You still in here?" Lily Evans asked as she entered the classroom. James immediately leapt to his feet.
"Yep." Alice replied with a smile. She walked over and joined Lily as she left, not even giving James or Sirius a glance, despite the latter still on the floor.
Sirius was watching James, his face unreadable.
James' face had the strangest expression on it, it was like he was actually thinking.
"That's it!" James exclaimed causing Remus to jump.
"Um, what?" Sirius finally stood, dusting himself off.
"I'm gonna do it! What's stopping me anyway? Nothing that's what." He said not pausing for them to give an answer, which was good because they didn't have an answer.
"What are you going on about?" The expression on Sirius' face made it obvious he thought James was going mad.
"I'm really gonna do it this time, Sirius."
"Than do it already." Sirius replied, now rolling his eyes and waiting for James to properly explain himself in his own time.
"I will."
"Do what now?" Remus asked, not as content to wait.
"I'm going to ask Lily Evans out." James finally explained.
For a moment the two of them just looked at him, realizing he was perfectly serious about this.
Sirius was the first to recover. "Are you stupid?"
"Of course not, why wouldn't she want to go out with me?"
"Um, she hates you." Remus replied, trying to be the voice of reason. He already knew it was futile.
"Sure James, I'm sure she'd be ecstatic." Sirius said with no hints of sarcasm in his voice. If Remus hadn't remembered that Sirius had Divination with Evans, he might have thought that Sirius actually meant it.
James didn't connect the dots.
"You don't think it'll hurt my reputation do you? She's kinda, you know, future prefect material." James looked at Sirius, who gave him a surprisingly innocent smile.
"Anyone says anything and we'll deal with them. You know that."
James nodded and ran off to where Evans had disappeared to.
"That was cruel." Remus said to Sirius as they followed James, much more slowly than he'd gone.
Sirius gave a sinister smirk. "I hope she slaps him."
Remus laughed and shook his head peering from behind a corner to watch James' imminent failure.
"Hey Evans." James greeted as though he hadn't just followed her.
Lily turned at the sound of her name, pausing her conversation with Alice.
"Do you need something, Potter." She replied, attempting to be polite, despite how much she disliked him. She didn't like Black after all, but he turned out to be a surprisingly good conversational partner.
Besides maybe she could convince him to lay off Severus.
"I wanted to ask you a question." James said casually, his hands finding the pocket of his cloak.
"And that would be?" Lily asked, her eyes flickering to Alice who'd begun to smile and slowly walk away, eventually ending up where she was pretty sure James' friends were hiding.
It made Lily a little nervous actually.
"Are you busy Saturday? It's a Hogsmeade weekend." He added when she gave him a confused look.
"Why exactly do you want to know?" her eyes narrowed.
"Well, if you're not busy, we could go together." James shrugged, his smile not fading. His confidence made Remus a little jealous, then again... watching him making a fool of himself make him pity James and anyone with a similar blind confidence.
She barely had time to give him an irritated look before there was a crash behind her.
James peered over her shoulder as she quickly turned to see Snape surrounded by fallen school books giving James a look of pure loathing.
Evans apparently didn't see the look on Snape's face, or the look James returned to the Slytherin.
Remus wasn't sure which face held more hatred.
"Sev? Are you okay?" Evans quickly walked over to him to help pick up his things, somehow managing to think he'd dropped them accidently. He didn't move to pick up anything, his eyes didn't leave James'. She began to comment but James interrupted, with his attention directed at Snape he hadn't noticed.
"Here, let me help." He pulled out his wand, Snape instantly responding likewise, but James was faster, a lot faster.
"Appicci."
Evans gave a surprised yelp as everything around Snape instantly clung to him, minus her of course. It was as though he was covered in a ultra sticky quick drying glue.
"Potter!" She said angrily, both of them trying to pull the books off of him, with James just watching clearly happy with his handiwork. "Undo it! Now!" She was now fully facing him standing in between him and Snape, her face getting red with anger.
He even had the nerve to give her a confused look.
"That kinda defeats the purpose of doing it, doesn't it?"
"Potter." She said his name sounding for the world like she'd just threatened him, or at least cussed him out, despite the name sounding perfectly innocent on it's own.
Remus noticed her hand reaching for the wand in her pocket, he also noticed Sirius' eyes also watching the position of Evan's hand, his wand already clutched tightly in his own hand.
"So about Hogsmeade, we could go..." James continued as if Snape had never shown up, she interrupted him, clearly horrified at the idea that he seriously thought she'd still go out with him after that display.
"Potter, I would never go out with you. If you were the last male on the planet I would let the human race die out completely." She said through her teeth. He hand rested on her wand, but she did not pull it out.
Remus was impressed, she was clearly angry enough to hex him, anyone else would have without a second thought, and he was pretty sure he had a good enough picture of her personality to know that it wasn't the thought of breaking the rules that was stopping her.
She knew full well he and Sirius were hiding out somewhere nearby watching, she probably thought that Peter was with them and she knew that they would get involved if she tried anything.
Through her anger she still had enough reason to realize that this was not a fight she could win, and good enough judgment to not try anyway.
He was very impressed actually. But the moment they started to leave, talking about going to Madam Pomfrey and McGonagall, he walked over to James and helped his friend with his very first rejection.
He was impressed with Evan's self control, but James was his friend, and he would always side with James. Even though said friend was at the moment trying his hardest to comprehend how he of all people could have been rejected by a girl.
Sirius' uncontrollable laughter wasn't helping him understand at all.
A/N) Awww, it's true love. ^_^ lol
Anyways, my beta is really busy this week, and I didn't want to make y'all wait this long so I kinda jumped the gun a little, I'll reupload the chapter with any corrections he gives me when he gets a chance.
I didn't like the formatting in the beginning at all, if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them because I love the note passing stuff, it's so much fun to write. I tried to avoid using bold or underline to identify each of them because when ever I read someone else's not passing (for lack of a better term) stories those always annoyed me because I'd forget who was bold and who was bold and italics and it was just a mess. So I think I did a good job avoiding that. But it feels really crammed in there when it comes to formatting. And I can't think of how to fix it.
Now for Top Ten Marauder Fanfic Pet Peeves.
#10 Sirius using serious puns, or copious amounts of said puns
# 9. Marauder's falling in love with Lily's 'imaginary' friends
# 8. Any of the Marauders dating Lily
# 7. James dating anyone but Lily.
# 6. Sirius' dad drunk/lazy/out of the job/ or otherwise cliche abusive.
I'm not demeaning the seriousness of any of these things in real life at all. But in stories they're overused and are usually little more than a means to add drama. I have found a few good ones, but usually they are good in spite of this trope, rather than because of this trope. I usually find it conflicts with cannon even. First of all the lazy or out of the job excuses... the Blacks had solid silver cups... I don't need to elaborate further. As for the drunk, this is usually relatively believable as an excuse, wizards do seem to drink a lot, until it actually shows the abuse. Why on earth would a wizard talented enough to put nearly ever protective charm known to wizard kind need to punch and/or kick his underage son... yeah, Wilburga seems to be the only one to actually perform any magical abuse on Sirius, every time his dad does it, he does it the muggle way. Weird considering, according to Sirius, he was just as prejudiced against muggles as Voldemort.
Besides Sirius hardly even mentioned his father when complaining about his family. Why would this be if Orion was the one doing the most damage? It isn't like Sirius is afraid of him after he's already dead.
I think making either of them physically abuse him regularly is a stretch of cannon considering his personality, but when all these other things add up, it's pretty annoying.
Repeat, I am not demeaning the seriousness of abuse in real life. Just in fiction.