Circle of Friends
*Chapter Three*
First Day Records
by Hype (Ashley)
*****
The next morning, Sirius Black woke to find an empty dormitory. Panicking, he checked his watch to find that it was nearly a quarter of the way into breakfast. Not wanting to miss the first day of school (or rather the events), he quickly pulled his robes over his head, grabbed his wand and books, and dashed off to the Great Hall.
Sirius soon reached the Great Hall and flung the massive doors open, causing many heads to turn in his direction. The few students that had noticed him laughed before returning to their breakfasts. Sirius strolled over to the Gryffindor table, where James Potter had saved the seat next to him for Sirius. Sirius sat down and helped himself to toast and marmalade, taking no notice of his disarrayed appearance. Lily looked up from a large book that was neatly laid against a pumpkin juice jug. She raised an eyebrow at Sirius.
Sirius, noticing the look on her face, asked innocently, "What?"
Lily simply giggled, causing Remus to look over at them. The boy that had been talking excitedly about Quidditch to Remus rambled on, not noticing that Remus`s back was facing him. Lupin caught sight of Sirius and smiled calmly. "Sleep well, Black?"
Sirius`s eyebrows knitted together in confusion as he noticed a few people giggling and pointing all down the Gryffindor table. "Er...yes?" he said uncertainly. Becoming a bit frustrated at the growing laughter, he added, "What is it? Why is everyone laughing?" This only caused an uproar in the laughter, as students from other tables started laughing, too. James, laughing into his plate of eggs, was rendered useless to Sirius`s aid. "What is it?!" Sirius repeated. James let out a snort of laughter, his face (or what was visible of it) looking oddly red against his black and wild hair.
Lily Evans, between howls of laughter, said, "Your- face- is- is- GREEN!"
The Great Hall erupted with laughter.
"WHAT!" sputtered Sirius indigently. A girl next to him quickly pulled out a mirror from her purse and handed it to Sirius, laughing all the while.
A long, piercing bellow of outrage sounded from Sirius.
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"Don`t talk to me," Sirius huffed at Remus Lupin.
"What, are you still sore about the face thing?" Remus asked innocently, quickening his pace to match Sirius Black`s.
Sirius stopped dead in the middle of the fifth corridor and turned to look at Remus. "Yes, Lupin, I am still sore about the face thing. I`ll put five Galleons on a bet that I am the first person to enter the first day of school at Hogwarts with a green face!"
Remus shrugged. "Well, I was just practicing a bit of magic before classes..."
Sirius crossed his arms, his blue eyes bulging slightly. "Just practicing?" Sirius retorted. "Just practicing? Your just practicing landed me an hour and a half in the hospital wing while Madame Potts tried to figure out what you did! I looked like a bloody alien!"
Remus laughed, which didn`t help the situation. "Really? A whole hour and a half? Wow, I amaze myself-"
"Don`t talk to me!" Sirius repeated, walking away again. Saying this was rather pointless, as all of the Gryffindor first years had Transfiguration at this time.
Much to Remus`s disappointment, their Transfiguration class was shared with the Hufflepuffs, which meant that Peter Pettigrew would be there. Furthermore, when Remus checked the seating list outside the door, he saw that he was to be sitting next tp him. Remus groaned and banged his head on the door a few times before entering the classroom, and a few students that passed by stared as he did this. Nonetheless, he took his seat next to an ecstatic Peter, trying to focus his attention on the professor.
Minerva McGonagall looked exactly how she would act. She stood at an average height, hair pulled back in a tight bun, thin lips, and kept looking over the rim of her black-framed glasses sternly. She was not a force to be reckoned with. What was more, she was the head of the Gryffindor house and took no hesitation in deducting points from her own house.
"Now," she began, "I am your professor. You will treat me with the utmost respect," she said, eyeing James, who was quietly sniggering. "Today, we will be turning a twig into a piece of straw."
The class groaned in unison, all save Lily and Remus, who had spent the night practicing magic up in their dormitories. Transfiguration was a subject most of the students were eager to learn, for it wasn`t everyday that you could turn your mother`s old coat into a new pet. However, it looked as though it would be a long time until any mothers` coats would be changing.
The only people who managed to make their twigs turn into a piece of straw where Lily, James, and Sirius. In fact, Sirius had gotten the gist of it right away, which Remus only thought this to be even more discouraging, as his twig would simply roll back and forth before turning into a large brown snake that would quickly burst into flames and slither across the room while on fire. Professor McGonagall was not amused.
Remus wasn`t the only one who was making their twigs do odd things. Peter had somehow managed to turn his twig into a large, live bat, which fluttered across the room wildly while its creator was jumping from desk to desk trying to reach it. McGonagall, beginning to think this lesson was not a good idea, had frozen the bat just as a Gryffindor girl by the name of Arabella turned her twig into a vicious and quickly-growing plant. Havoc began to break in the room as students began to scream and run from the vicious, man-eating plant (which turned out to be slightly venomous) and a new, giant, fire-breathing butterfly; all the while, Professor McGonagall was trying to control the room, students, and various creatures. Eventually, the room was evacuated and the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was brought in perish the trouble.
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The Gryffindor`s next class was Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins. Those who weren`t burned from the butterfly or intoxicated with the plant`s venom stood outside of the classroom door, anxiously awaiting the moment the third year class would be let out and they would be let in. If Defense Against the Dark Arts was as interesting as their last Transfiguration class, they were in for a ride.
"McGonagall was nice, wasn`t she?" Lily asked.
James snorted. "Yeah, as nice as a raging gorilla. Did you see the way she was looking at me? I thought she was going to bite my head off!"
Sirius nodded in agreement. "That woman is going to be breathing down our backs the whole of this year."
"I don`t see what you`re all bothered about," said Remus, digging in his bag for a spare quill. "She didn`t do much except for fend off beasts... Even then she had to bring in this bloke," he said, sticking his thumb at the door of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Just as he did this, the door swung open and third year students quickly charged out of the classroom, knocking down Remus in the process. After the classroom had trampled over Remus, James offered his hand to pull Remus back up to his feet.
Remus dusted his now-battered robes off and walked in the classroom, taking a seat in the front row next to his best friends, who were staring with undivided attention at the tall wizard in front of them, which was indeed an amusing sight. He stood around six feet tall, wore midnight blue robes and half-moon spectacles, and had an extensively long beard that was graying from it`s faded auburn color. More importantly, he was smiling.
The professor waited for his students to finish taking their seats before he cleared his throat. "Well, I suppose you are all nice and ready for me after the incident in the Transfiguration room, aren`t you?" he asked amusedly. A few people laughed a bit. "Right, down to the matter at hand... I am Professor Dumbledore and, obviously, I will be teaching you Defense Against the Dark Arts this year. In this class you will learn interesting spells in which will enable you to do a lot of really neat things and, more importantly, defend yourself against the Dark Arts."
Again, the students laughed a bit. Sirius and James were beginning to think that this Dumbledore fellow would be a lot of fun.
"As you all know, we are in the midst of the darker times, so I will teach you a very useful spell that will...ah, give you light. Alright then, repeat this after me," he said, raising his wand at shoulder length and aiming it in a Slytherin`s direction. The Slytherin clenched the sides of his desk, fearing the oncoming spell. "Lumos!" shouted Dumbledore, and a thin jet of light shot out from the tip of his wand and landed square in the middle of the Slytherin`s forehead, illuminating it with a patch of bright light. This time, nearly everyone laughed, save a few sour Slytherins who did not find the dark/light joke amusing. Dumbledore simply smiled before saying Nox and making the light disappear.
Dumbledore grabbed for a pair of muggle sunglasses on his desk and put them on, making him look oddly out of place. "Right. On three now....One...Two...Three!" Forty or so lights shot towards Dumbledore. "Did everyone do it? Yes? Alright then, say 'Nox' and the light will go out. Try it." They did. Forty lights went out.
The class went on with useful, hands-on, easy spells that would help the students around their way to classes. By the end of the class, they had learned Lumos, Nox, Alohomora, Expelliarmus, and Finite Incanteum, just in case they were to mess up horribly on a spell. Indeed, the students left the classroom excited to have actually done magic on their first day of school.
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Next, much to the relief of Sirius and James, was their lunch hour. Students of all years filed into the Great Hall for their first lunch. James and Sirius quickly made their way to the Gryffindor table, sat down, and began to shovel huge amounts of shepard`s pie, curry, mashed potatoes, and radishes onto their plates. Lily and Remus calmly trailed and eventually sat across from them. Almost immediately, a bouncy blonde girl sat down next to James Potter. James looked up quickly at her, then at his potatoes, and then back up at her before shoveling his potatoes in his mouth.
Seeing that James was not about to make conversation, she said, "Hi! I`m Baylor."
Sirius piped up a bit in his chair. "And I`m Sirius."
Baylor frowned a bit at him before turning back to James, who was now working on his shepard`s pie. "Um," she began, twisting a lock of blond hair around her index finger, "I`m Baylor...I`m in...um..."
"Ravenclaw?" Lily offered, stifling a snigger. Remus laughed and whispered something that sounded suspiciously like yeah right into Lily`s ear. Sirius stopped his eating to watch.
"I`m in Gryffindor," she said.
James finally looked up. "Really? What year?"
"Um...Third."
Remus said bluntly, "Tell me, Baylor, how did you manage to get that far?" Lily burst into giggles and tried to cover her reddening face with her Potions book to pretend she was reading, which was not working well considering that it was turned upside down. Baylor did not understand Remus`s comment, so she bit her highly-glossed lips and turned back to James.
James took a long swig of his cold pumpkin juice. "I`m in first."
It wasn`t long before Baylor was completely engrossed with James. To be precise, it took about a whole of fifteen seconds before she was infatuated with him. Baylor soon called a few of her friends over to sit with them. Sirius, Remus, and Lily soon grew bored of the conversation (if you could call it a conversation, for Baylor kept giggling idly) James and Baylor were having and their eyes wandered elsewhere.
Remus cast an amused look across the table at Davis Barbecus, who was in the process of laughing while shoving green beans up his nose while some people around him cheered him on. Remus Lupin turned to the left to look at James, who turned from the giggling Baylor and her friend to face Remus. "Promise me you will never do that, James."
"No need to fret, Remus," James said in a matter-of-fact voice, "I don`t think I could fit five green beans up my nose, let alone thirteen. Diane and Baylor reckon I have a cute little button nose... Funny, eh? I always thought my nose resembled an enlarged jellybean. Leave it to them to declare it a button."
Remus laughed a bit, then stopped short when he noticed Lily was gone. "Oy! Si! Where has Lily gone?"
Sirius stopped listening to a guy who was babbling endlessly about Quidditch and looked over at Remus. "I don`t know...Wasn`t she just next to you?"
"Yes, but she just disappeared. Shall I go look for her?"
Sirius let out a laugh. "In this place? I`d reckon you`d die before you found her. She probably went to use the toilet or something. We`ll see her in Potions anyway, Remus. Don`t bother."
But it did bother him. It wasn`t like Lily to not excuse herself... She had been rather quiet during their first two lessons.
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Lily Evans sat in the back corner of the library pretending to read a thick book on spells. To Madame Winsten, the librarian, Lily looked as though she was indeed reading the book. However, Lily had her mind on other things; or more namely, James Potter. Ever since he had said that he liked her, Lily had been fighting the urge to like him back. She hated him, did she not?
Lily sighed and turned another page of the book to keep her disguise. No, she thought, I don`t hate him... Not really...We used to be best friends, right? But then my mum died... and we fought...We fought! Lily mentally slapped herself for fighting with James...What he was trying to do was really the best for her and she knew it. I`m such an idiot! she thought, snapping her book shut and shoving it back into her bag. She stood up and quickly flung her bag over her shoulder and hurried off to her next class.
The Potions class was in the dungeons, and the Gryffindor`s legs were a bit weary from going down seven flights of steps under the main floor of Hogwarts. The fact that they had Potions with the Slytherins did not heighten their spirits. Indeed, it only made them sink lower and sulk more, making them appear to almost be Slytherins themselves. What was more, the Potions Master was the Head of Slytherin, and all of the older students had claimed he was shrewd and cared only for his own house members.
They were right. As soon as the Gryffindors and Slytherins entered, he directed them to separate sides of the room. "Alright," he snapped, "Lets get this over with! I am Professor Vinicar and you will obey me at all times or points will be deducted. If you are late for class, five points are deducted from your house," he said, looking sternly at the Gryffindor half. Sirius involuntarily gulped. "If you make a potion wrong, I will tease you."
"Why, sir?" asked Remus.
"If I do not call on you and you say something, I will deduct five points." Remus gulped. "And because I am in such a good mood today, I will only deduct four from Gryffindor for that outburst," said Professor Vinicar, scowling horribly.
James couldn`t help it: "You`re in a good mood today?!"
Vinicar`s lips thinned and his brows pushed forth in an angry knot. "Any disrespect shown to the me will result in punishment! Ten points from Gryffindor!"
Sirius found this to be extremely unfair. "Ten points? But Professor-"
"Shut up, you! Detention for the both of you! Return here at half past seven to carry them out!" he shouted, then turned to take the list of roll call on his desk. A Slytherin boy with greasy black hair laughed loudly, but the professor smiled smugly in his direction and began to read the roll call.
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"I can`t believe it!" Sirius shouted loudly at dinner. "Detention on the first day of school! That`s got to be some kind of a record!"
James smiled pleasantly. "It`s great, isn`t it? We`re already breaking records." Remus laughed and Lily paid them no mind, as Daniel Barbecus had started a conversation on the complexes of Transfiguration.
Sirius, however, simply huffed. "That Slytherin didn`t even get in trouble, and he was making more noise than we were! He was laughing his bloody head off!"
"Well, those older kids said he was that way... He favors the Slytherins. He was one himself," said Remus in a matter-of-fact tone,
James looked at him over the rim of his black-framed glasses. "Tell me, Remus, do you research everything? You are never short on information."
Remus grinned. "No, I just have a highly retentive mind."
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Retentive? That`s a wholly terror of a word... Where`d you learn it?" Remus sighed. James looked up from his plate. "Remus, what time is it?"
Remus pulled up the sleeve of his robe and looked at his watch. "It`s half past seven. Why?"
Sirius and James exchanged disbelieving looks and shouted in unison, "DETENTION!" With that, the jumped out of their seats, Sirius nearly tripping over his, and sprinted out of the Great Hall at break-neck speed.
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Having ran down seven flights, Sirius Black and James Potter were looking quite a sight when they entered the Potions room in the dungeons. When the opened the door and stumbled in, Professor Vinicar was waiting for them with the black haired boy that had laughed loudly and gotten away with it. "You`re late," he snapped, apparently having acquired a permanent scowl.
"Sorry," James apologized, running a hand through his unruly black hair. "We got caught up at dinner and-"
"Shut up. You two...James Potter and, ah...Siru Blacked?"
"Sirius Black, sir."
Vinicar waved his hand dismissively in the air. "Whatever... You two will serve your detentions with Mr. Snape here. I want you to be scrubbing the dungeon floors."
"All of it?" James asked, his mouth dropping slightly.
Snape sneered while Sirius was thinking along the same line as James was. Vinicar snorted. "No, you twit. Follow me," he said, taking a few strides towards the door. He looked back over his shoulder at Sirius and James. "Black, Potter, grab the toothbrushes and bucket by the door on the way out. Severus, follow me, please." Severus Snape sneered while he passed James and Sirius and followed the Potions Master out the door. James spat after him. "Slytherin piece of smug shit," he added before grabbing one of the two toothbrushes on a nearby desk and a bucket. Sirius followed the suit, frowning all the while.
As it turned out, Professor Vinicar had a terrible detention for them to serve. He had led them to the filthiest room any of them had ever seen. James, not being accustomed to any dust at his posh estate, wrinkled up his nose in disgust, only to sneeze three times afterward. Sirius simply sighed, already becoming exhausted before he even begun to serve his detention.
"Now," said Vinicar, wheezing slightly from the overwhelming amount of dust, "You are to use those toothbrushes you have to clean this entire room. I want it to look like new."
"Er...Professor? There are only two toothbrushes..." Sirius trailed off.
"I know that, boy."
"Then what`s this bloke to do?" asked James, jabbing his thumb at Severus Snape, who had his arms crossed squarely across his chest.
Vinicar ginned nastily. "He is to supervise you...make sure you don`t make any mistakes-" James opened his mouth to protest, but Professor Vinicar held up his hand to make him silent. "You are to do as I say. If this room is not as I have requested by the time I return, you will finish serving your detentions tomorrow during my fifth year class."
"But we`ll have to skip a lesson for that!" Sirius exclaimed.
Vinicar smiled nastily again, making James shudder. "Then you had best finish it before I return, hadn`t you?" Sirius let out an indigent sound. With having said that, Professor Vinicar stalked out of the room, his black robes billowing behind him.
James sighed and then turned to Severus Snape. "What are you in here for?"
"I set a snake on the Herbology teacher," said Severus, his chest swelling proudly. "Much better reason for a detention than yours, isn`t it? Yet here I am, about to watch you two do the dirty work," he said with a sneer. It was all Sirius could do to stop himself from punching Snape right in the face. James must have sensed this, for he grabbed a handful of clothing in the back of Sirius`s robes to hold him back. "Come on, Sirius, we had better start. I don`t want to miss Defense Against the Dark Arts tomorrow." Sirius drew back and grabbed the remaining toothbrush.
"That`s right, you knaves. Now get to work," commented Snape.
As it turned out, the dungeon room they were assigned to clean had approximately one quarter of an inch solid dust on everything in it. At first, James and Sirius had scrubbed a desk, occasionally dipping their toothbrushes into a bucket of water; this took about twenty-five minutes. During this time, Snape had grown tired of throwing insulting lines in their direction and has dusted off a book on one of the shelves and was now sitting on top of the only clean desk in the room, throughly engrossed in its pages.
James noticed the title read The Book of Black. His brow furrowed and he nudged Sirius in the ribs. "Hey, Si, what do you reckon that Snape fellow is doing with a book on Dark Arts?" Sirius looked up from his scrubbing at Snape`s book. "I don`t know and I don`t care. It`s his own business, not mine," he answered. Sirius sighed and threw down his toothbrush. "Oh, who am I kidding? I do care. I`ll bet he`s going to follow Voldemort."
James gasped. "You said his name!"
"So? It`s just a name."
This struck James. "I never thought of it that way before... I guess you`re right. It`s only a name, isn`t it?" James bit his lip, looked up at Snape, who was still engrossed with the book, and down at the bucket of soapy water between he and Sirius. Somewhat hesitantly, James reached for the bucket, grabbed it and splashed it across the floor; the dust was instantly washed away. James looked back up at Snape, who appeared to have not noticed. Sirius simply gaped, then reached for his own bucket and splashed it across the floor.
Detention went much faster using this method. When Professor Vinicar returned, he was astonished to see the room sparkling, though probably not as much as Severus Snape. When the Potions Master reappeared, Snape snapped The Book of Black shut and threw it over his shoulder and opened his mouth, poised to criticize James Potter and Sirius Black. When he realized his surroundings were positively clean, he appeared to have taken on the characteristics of a common fish, opening and closing his mouth, his eyes unearthly wide open. There was nothing to criticize.
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It was nearing the end of the month, and Sirius and James had begun to break a long list of rules already. After ten detentions in three weeks, the two were becoming even more renowned than Witch Weekly`s article had made them. In fact, Sirius was almost as well- known as Potter was. In several article clippings, both Sirius and James were noted for there high abilities and talents in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration and the promising of one of them being the valedictorian of their class.
Lily Evans, however, had not been mentioned, though she was currently at the top of their class. Indeed, she did pour over loads of books for her grades, but she was also as mischievous as her friends. On one than more occasion, she had thrown the Hogwarts Groundkeeper`s cat out of her dormitory window, hoping just once that the cat would run away. She had also been to see the headmaster, Professor Dippet, upon doing this. She had also acquired a growing hate for the Potions Master and Severus Snape. During breakfast one morning, she had cursed Snape to the point that his greasy hair had burst into bright purple flames, though no one knew (besides he friends) who had actually caught his hair on fire. All of this, or she claimed, was to experiment in her magic abilities. If her father known how to send a Howler, Lily was most certain that he would.
Remus was at the top of his class in one subject: Defense Against the Dark Arts. Indeed, he was always in the top running for valedictorian, but Lily had beaten him in everything but this one subject, though she was only trailing behind Remus by a few points. Quite frankly, Remus did not care at all about his grades. Truth be told, the only thing Remus truly cared about was getting as far away as possible from a certain Hufflepuff. Peter had been waddling after Remus and his friends every time he saw them, thus acting as an extremely talkative shadow. Remus didn`t like shadows.
In fact, Remus didn`t seem to be so prone to the end of September, either. He seemed to be coming down with a violent case of some type of flu, and had stayed up all night howling in pain. The next morning, Minerva McGonagall, upon seeing his disarranged state and hearing the concerns of his room mates, had ordered him off to the infirmary, where he would be fussed over by a very flustered Madame Potts. Most of the Gryffindors were concerned about him, though not nearly as much as James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirius Black, and Petter Pettigrew. These four had decided to give up their lunch hour in order to go visit him during his stay in the infirmary.
James Potter, who was flanked by his closest friends, reached out with his hand and rapped on the door of the infirmary. After a few loud crashes of metallic objects sounded from behind the large mahogany door, the door flung open, revealing a very out-of-sorts Madame Potts. "What do you want?" she snapped, looking at them with her hands on her hips. Lily noticed that bits of her hair was sticking out at odd places as though she had been in a fight.
"We...er... We wanted to see Remus?" said Sirius hesitantly, though it sounded more of a question.
Madame Potts threw up her hands in the air in a flustered manner. "Fine! You see if you can get him to cooperate!" she shouted, opening the door open wider, stepping aside, and motioning them in. Sirius heard her mumble something that suspiciously sounded like good bloody fecking luck in a strong Irish accent.
They immediately spotted Remus Lupin, sitting alone on a bed, surrounded by mounds of chocolate and Berrie Bott`s Every Favor Beans, his arms crossed over his chest and a sour, pouting look on his face. He appeared to have not notice them in the slightest.
Lily immediately rushed to his side and knelt down. "Oh, Remus! Are you okay?"
He looked at her and his brows knitted even closer together. "NO! No, I am not bloody okay! Madame Potts wants me to wear this!" he shouted, holding up a pink flowered hospital gown. James and Sirius couldn`t help it and burst into laughter, doubling over. Remus snorted indigently. "It is NOT funny!" he shouted, throwing the gown at them. Lily stifled a giggle.
Peter, who had remained quiet the whole time, spoke up. "Well, Remus, I think you should wear it. After all, Madame Potts is-"
"NOT MY FASHION COORDINATOR!!!" bellowed Remus. Lily burst into laughter openly now. "Besides that point, she expects me to eat all of this chocolate by myself!" he said, gesturing to a mountain of chocolate at his bedside that stood from the floor to Sirius`s full height. "I mean, I know I have a sweet tooth, but I don`t want to have my entire mouth be one!"he pouted.
Sirius, James, and Peter were looking odd. They did not notice anything else in the entire room except for the chocolate mountain. If there was one word to describe the looks on their faces, it was hungry. James looked down at Remus, he expression as if he was asking a question. Remus sighed and spread his right arm, gesturing for them to help their selves. "Do as you wish," he said, running a hand through his dark brown hair. The three boys made a mad dash around the bed and started shoveling the chocolate into their mouths as quickly as possible.
Lily, however, had not paid any attention what so ever to the heap of chocolate at Remus Lupin`s bedside. She looked up at him with her brilliant green eyes from her kneeling position. Her brows furrowed. "Remus, why are you in here?"
Remus suddenly looked a bit nervous and shifted his weight around in his hospital bed. "I`m sick, Evans. You know that."
"Are you really? I mean, you seem fine..."
"I`m fine, Lily, really. I`m fine... Just sick is all. It will pass."
Lily raised her eyebrow, making Remus nearly squirm under her suspicious stare. "Then why were you screaming last night? I could hear you, Remus, all the way from the girls` dormitory."
Remus Lupin bit his lip. "It was... I was just...It..." he stuttered.
But was it was Lily never found out, for at that precise moment, Madame Potts, who had be looming about them and casting disapproving looks at the three boys eating Remus`s chocolate, came over and said that they had to leave this instant or they would all have to visit Headmaster Dippet. Reluctantly, the four left the infirmary, the boys looking longingly at the remains of the chocolate and Lily looking at Remus with an eyebrow raised.
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Later in the Gryffindor common room, Lily, Sirius, and James sat by the dying fire in the late of the night alone. Sirius and James had not been able to go to bed, as they both were experiencing the worst stomach aches of their lives. Lily had not been able to sleep either, though not remotely for the same reason as Potter and Black. She had been wondering nonstop about Remus since she had left him. She planned to throughly scour the library the next evening in desperate search for anything that would help clue her on what Remus was experiencing. If he didn`t tell her, she would find out anyway.
James groaned. "I`m going to get fat," he said, rubbing his hand over his flat stomach.
Sirius chuckled, but stopped abruptly because it upset his stomach. "James, you can`t get fat... You`re too skinny."
"I`m not skinny!" piped James, a touch of whining in his voice.
Sirius looked over at James. "Look at you... You`re an absolute twig. You can`t even get chubby, let alone fat. Your metabolism is too high."
James looked very confused. "My what?"
Sirius sighed and ran a hand through his black hair. "Forget it. Look, I`m going to bed, all right? Who knows, I might even fall asleep," he said, looking from James over to Lily. "Hey Lil`, don`t stay up too late, all right? Remus`ll be fine." Sirius reached his hand out and awkwardly patted her on the head. He turned and walked up the staircase that lead to the boys` dormitory. James, not wanting to be left alone with Lily, got up and stretched. "Yes, well, I think I will retire to the dorm too," he yawned, though Lily could tell it was completely fake. She watched James stumble up the stairs.
Lily Evans sighed and looked back at the nearly extinct fire before her. She curled up in the red pouf and stared at the glowing coals, thinking of how she and James had been. They had been absolute best friends and seemed as though they were joined at the hip. Of all of her memories of them, one of them was extremely prominent.
They had been about seven and a half and had wandered off over the hill side of the Potter Estate, carrying a small basket between them. James had led the way, for her had known the area better than Lily. Eventually, he had led them to a small meadow of wild flowers that had a very old tree in the center of it. They had climbed the tree and sat on the largest branch they could find. There they opened the basket and had eaten a small lunch, their legs dangling ten feet in the air on either side of them. It was a warm, sunny day and a slight breeze had blown, swaying the leaves, branches, and the meadow of flowers below them.
"So, Lily," said James, "what are you doing this weekend?" he asked, taking a bite of his peanut butter sandwich.
Lily took a sip of her tea from her flask. "Nothing, really. Thought I would come and visit you, actually."
James smiled a toothy grin which showed quite a bit of peanut butter from his sandwich stuck on his teeth. "We can play hide and seek with Jeeves!" he laughed.
Lily laughed along with him. Hide-and-seek was one of their all time favorite games; especially when it was played in the Potter Estate, for it was so massive. Adding Jeeves to the game only heightened their spirits, for it was quite amusing to see a fellow in his mid- fifties attempting to chase two hyperactive children.
"You know what?" said James, taking another bite of his sandwich.
"What?"
"You`re like my sister."
Lily giggled. "James, you don`t have a sister!"
James shook his head and swallowed the remainder of his peanut butter sandwich. "No, I mean you are my sister, you know?"
Lily smiled. "Really? I`ve always wanted a brother... Petunia is so mean."
James dusted the crumbs of his hands. "Hey, watch this," he said, standing up on the branch. Lily giggled as she watched him teeter against the breeze. "My cousin taught me this," he said, jumping for a nearby branch. Lily clapped and James grinned. He made another jump, but a stronger breeze blew and the branch James had been aiming for was blown out of his reach, causing James to plummet ten feet into the meadow of wild flowers. A loud, sickening crack was heard and Lily screamed at the top of her lungs. She quickly raced down the tree, climbing the branches as fast as her petite legs and arms would allow her.
James was at the base of the tree, howling in pain, his black hair becoming plastered to his forehead with sweat, clutching his bleeding leg. Lily dropped to her knees beside him and flung herself on to his chest, crying. "James...James...No, you can`t die! You`re my only brother! You can`t die! I love you!"
Lily`s own words echoed in her head as she fell asleep on the large red pouf in the Gryffindor common room.
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NOTE: I`M SOOOO SORRY!!! It has been such a long time since I posted this story! *whacks herself across the forehead* Bad Ashley! Bad Ashley! Well, now that that`s out.... Mmmm... Thank you to everyone who reviewed and (hopefully) everyone who will review! In other news, I would like to welcome sakura to our bandwagon!:) She is my first beta (YIPPIE!:) Also, a special note to Static, who I would like to remind to hurry up with the sequel to Voices. *grins evilly* No pressure or anything, Static....:) I have now completed the series Grey Gaze if you would like to take a gander at it... Also, I will be posting the next chapters of Dark Wind and But Only The Moon Looked Down (ah, the long-lost-but-certainly-not-forgotten beginning of a series) VERY SOON!!! Yes, it is true... I have gotten over my two- month writer`s block:) Well, enough of my rambling... Get reviewing!!!