A/N: Be warned, this is a product of my brain ignoring a dangerously close final deadline. Make of it what you will.
For Jilytober Prompt 5: Study Groups.
Warning for language and a mention of underage drinking.
"Evans!"
Lily pauses at the sound, glancing over her shoulder, and her eyebrows lift in surprise when she sees who it belongs to. She'd recognised the voice but assumed her ears were lying to her; without the addition of an 'oi!', 'hey!', or 'watch this!', there was some doubt over the matter.
"Should we run?" Marlene asks, grinning slyly. Lily sighs and shakes her head.
"It's fine." She stops now and moves to the side of the corridor, waiting for him to catch up. His tie is loose, but present, strangely enough, and his hair is a little less rumpled than usual, despite the growing spring heat. It seems wrong for him to look almost put-together; like an evil twin has taken his place.
"Lily," he pants, shoulder to the wall, bookbag - he has books with him, one of Lily and Marlene's agreed signs of the apocalypse - and smiles. He's been on the first-name kick for a while too. If it weren't for him sitting through multiple lessons without drinking anything, she'd think he's been Polyjuiced. Not that she's been watching him. It's just something you happen to notice when you spend most of the day together. "Marlene."
"Potter," she greets, unwilling to change the status quo.
"Captain," says Marlene, and James grimaces. Lily does too.
"You're contributing to his bigheadedness," Lily chides. Marlene shrugs.
"With each greeting he gets a bigger head and therefore closer to explosion," she says simply. "It's a slow assassination process."
"Very slow, considering it's March already," James agrees. His friends hang back behind him, Remus shooting her an apologetic smile and Sirius waving enthusiastically. She briefly returns both gestures before focusing on the nearer problem.
"What's the matter?" she asks, adjusting the strap of her satchel with her thumb. He looks down and smiles, almost shyly, which unnerves her. She shoots Marlene a bewildered look, and Marlene only shrugs in response. There's nothing else for it. "Potter, have you been hexed?"
"What?" James snaps his head up, glasses coming askew, and one hand roams to his hair and fucks it up, bringing it closer to his normal state. It's kind of relieving. The tension in her muscles eases; for some absurd reason, he's more trustworthy like this. She wants to vanish the tie too. Or at least undo it. There is no reason for James Potter to have a knot in his tie. "Am I not allowed to be nice?" he asks.
"You were being weird."
"I was being normal."
"Which is weird for you."
"Lovely Lily," James says, rolling his eyes, which is meant to be her bit. She folds her arms across her chest but it ends up being rather more self-soothing than she intended. She shifts uncomfortably.
"Seriously, I have Runes in a minute. What do you want?" The moment she asks, she realises, and she nearly laughs. "I didn't realise your birthday was invite-only this year."
"It always is," James frowns. "I just don't believe in persecuting gatecrashers. The more, the merrier, and all, Lily." If she remembers correctly, the reason it got shut down last year was because a group of third-years made off with a bottle of Firewhisky, got caught by Professor McGonagall in the corridors, and subsequently turned James and his friends in, losing Gryffindor two-hundred points. It was possibly the only time in the past six years that James had not been one of the most popular people in the school. Of course, he had still had his infamy.
"Lovely philosophy. I look forward to seeing Snape there." The name is brittle on her tongue. James looks at her and he might see right through her, brown eyes too serious.
"You don't want him there," he says, certain but not overconfident, nor questioning. Marlene exhales a laugh. Lily's gaze flicks between the tow of them, briefly wondering if they've teamed up against her. It's all too weird.
"What I want is to get to my lesson on time," she says. "Whatever it is, hurry up, please."
James drums his fingers on his leg, apparently thinking. It's a miracle, but he seems to pull off a lot of those lately.
"You have a study group, don't you? You and Marlene and Mary, and that dickhead from Ravenclaw -" Lily raises her eyebrows again. James squints at her. "Come on, even you thought he was a dickhead. That's why you dumped him, isn't it?" Lily shuts her eyes, attempting patience.
"What do you care about my study group?" she asks slowly. He's silent for too long, and she half-expects to end up with a bucket of horned slugs being dumped on her, so she opens her eyes. Now he tugs the knot out of his tie, wincing all the while.
"It's mainly for Peter," he says, very casually, "but he…well, you know, he wants to come along, and I'd be a shit friend if I let him go on his own…so. I need to know when it's on." Lily's head nearly spins off her shoulders. What? She looks around, but there's no sign of dead people rising from the grave up to heaven, or fires, or floods, or earthquakes, so if this is the end of the world, the C of E school she'd gone to had got it a little wrong. (Well, to be fair, they hadn't taught them about that bit, they'd just encouraged the ten-year-olds to read a Bible that did include all that).
"You want to come to my study group?" she repeated incredulously. James screwed up his face.
"No. Peter does." Marlene shoots Lily a look that clearly says, 'holy fucking shit', and Lily is inclined to agree. James rumples his hair again. "Look -"
"I can look after Peter, if you like," Lily says, glancing at the round-faced boy behind him. "So you don't have to come. You're always going on to everyone about how clever you are, and I'd hate to waste your time." James opens his mouth, closes it, and then tries again.
"Well – that's – it's for Peter," he says. "It's not a waste of time if I'm with my mate." Lily and Marlene have a silent conversation, only using the slightest inclines of eyebrows, squinting of eyes, and twitches of mouths. What do you think?
"Wednesdays, seven o'clock," Lily tells him. He watches for a second, as if waiting for a punchline, then nods.
"Right. Cheers, Lily. I'll let Pete know." James smiles. "See you around." He meets her eyes. Lily's stomach contracts. For a second, it's like they're frozen on one another, two Medusas. Then she manages to pull herself out of the trance.
"See you," Lily says, turning away as quickly as possible. She hurries down the hall, Marlene's footsteps behind her. When they get around the corner, she slows, breathing hard.
"What the hell was that all about?" she demands, rounding on Marlene. "Wasn't that strange? He was being so weird!" Marlene looks at her, eyes popping out of her head, and then bursts into laughter. Lily is bewildered. "What's wrong with you? Has everyone gone mad?"
"Holy shit," Marlene whispers, between giggles. Lily elbows her.
"What? What is it?" Marlene shakes her head. Lily elbows her again. "You bitch, what am I missing?" Marlene attempts a straight face. It's not very convincing.
"Nothing."
"What?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Marlene says, beaming from ear-to-ear. They start up a flight of stairs. Lily shakes her head.
"I think I've gone round the bend."
"Potter at your study session," Marlene agrees, wiggling her eyebrows. "Won't that be fun?"