Disclaimer: All characters here belong to J.K.Rowling
"Tell me again why we're doing this?"
"Because, Remus, you were stupid enough to buy skates for all of us."
"Oh, shut up."
James grinned at Sirius' and Remus' squabble, and went back to tying his ice skates. He had to admit, it was a perfect lake for skating.
It was big, and round, and empty, it being too late for most other normal people. For once in his life, James wanted to be normal. But, if everywhere Lily skated looked as beautiful as this, he couldn't blame her for loving to skate. No, what he could blame her for was for dragging him into it.
Sirius had strapped on his skates and was standing at the very edge of the lake, looking down and across it suspiciously. He wasn't so sure about this all of a sudden.
"Sirriuss! Come on, what's the matter?"
"I hate the water Lily!" Sirius whined, gleefully hating her for skating across the lake to him so easily.
"You? Hate water? C'mon, what ever happened to the gills James put on you in September? You loved the water well enough then!"
"Lily, if I was a man with gills I'd be a fish!"
"So you were…" murmured Lily, a tone of amusement surging up. She reached out and grabbed Sirius' jacket sleeve, and with one smooth jerk, Sirius was on his butt on the ice and whining again.
"Ok, rephrase it, I hate the ice!" re-whined Sirius (AN: subtle humor .. what a pun ^^)
"Oh, don't be such a wuss, Padfoot."
"I don't see you on the ice, Prongs!"
"Yea, well … I'm still … tying my skates, see?!"
Sirius snickered, but wouldn't say why when asked. James, getting an idea from Remus' guilty giggles, checked inside his ice-skates box. There was nothing inside, but a receipt. He thought nothing of it.
Standing up, he wobbled precariously and clutched an only slightly Remus. Hanging onto each other to avoid falling over, they stepped carefully onto the ice.
Remus then let go of James and started to half walk half skate carefully towards the other end of the lake, to see how much better he was than Sirius and James and silently gloat over it. (AN: lol…cute remus ^^)
James, finding his support had left him, tried to follow him, but misjudged how slippery the ice was.
Thus, one right foot went out far to his right, and his other left foot further to the left, and-
"OOOOWWWWwowowowowowowooooowwwww!" It came out in a girlish shriek as he curled up in pain. (AN: Poor jamesee…but it had to be done…it was just asking to be done … ;Þ)
While Lily rushed to go check if he was alright, Sirius clung onto Remus and whispered in his ear, "Lily isn't going to have any children, is she?"
"Not after that fall, anyway!" returned Remus.
James couldn't hear them, but he knew what they would be laughing about. Still whimpering slightly, he let Lily help him up, and she skated backwards, holding James hands as he followed her to help him balance.
She couldn't see where she was going, and James was steering her, so when she felt the impact with another body, she guessed what had happened.
As she wasn't expecting the bump anymore than Sirius, she lost her balance and, arms flailing, started to fall over backwards. Then she felt two hands encircling her waist.
However, James wasn't any good at balancing on ice with an over-balanced girl in his arms, anymore than he was good at balancing with just himself. Indeed, he turned out to be rather bad at it.
So, with an "Oof!" James found himself lying comfortably on top of his girlfriend, who looked slightly dazed at this arupt turn of events. Taking advantage of this was rather easy, and, let's face it, James is good at taking advantages with his girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Remus, who hadn't fallen over, was trying to help Sirius up, but he also had a slight amount of difficulty.
"Sirius!"
"What?"
"Stop poking me and get up!"
"I cant get up! You have to help me!"
"I will if you stop poking me!"
"Well, I'm sor-REE!"
At this, Remus gave up and started half walking half skating to where he was originally directed: the other end of the lake, leaving an increasingly cold Sirius screaming pitifully for help.
After many, numerous attempts to get up, and grumbling the whole time, Sirius finally made it onto his knees. Knowing he usually fell about here, he carefully put one foot in front of himself and tried to stay balanced with his hands. Then, he was sitting on his haunches, and trying to keep from falling over backwards.
Just as he was rising slowly, fully concentrated on not falling over, a snowball hit the back of his head. Hard.
Arms flailing, legs wildly moving to keep from landing like James had earlier, Sirius fell over onto the ice again, his arms stopping their flailing just in time to prevent him from landing on his nose.
Lifting his head and his hands as quickly as possible, ignoring the freezing pain in them, he scrabbled wildly on the ice to turn around to see who had thrown it when he had been so close. Finally managing, he saw there was no one there. A laughing Lily was now trying to get off a frozen looking James, protesting weakly when he pulled her down to kiss him again. Slightly disgusted, Sirius turned his head to look for Remus.
Remus was on the otherside of the lake – No, wait a sec. Remus' shoulders were shaking with silent mirth as he tried to escape fast enough from the scene of the crime.
AN: A cliffhanger! Sorta… woohoo! Well, there it is people, the 9th chapter. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, it was longer than usual. The next chapter should be out about Saturday… I hope. Anyway, please review!
Cheers and white ferrets!! ^^
