Disclaimer: Love ya, J.K.R. Not stealing, just borrowing.
Chapter two
Another night spent in detention. This was nothing new for Sirius Black. He had no less than a dozen detentions every year. As usual, he had taken the seat behind James where they could easily pass notes or talk if the professor sitting in on the detention left the room or, in Professor Flitwick's case, nodded off. Lupin sat next to Sirius, leaving the seat beside James free in hopes it would be occupied by Lily Evans once she arrived. Half a minute after the three friends were seated, the girl walked in.
James gave her a wide grin, leaning back in his seat as cool and casually as he could manage. Lily shook her head, exhasperatedly. She walked past the desk saved for her beside James, as expected. To everyone's surprise, she didn't take the furthest seat she could find from the three, but the one directly beside Lupin. She sat, setting her small bag down on the floor beside her desk. She turned to the three staring boys and quite deliberatly frowned in James's direction, then turned to Lupin and gave him a bright smile before turning to face the front of the class.
Sirius saw James's jaw drop open from what he had just witnessed. Lupin slowly turned to his two friends, just as surprised. James snapped his mouth shut and moodily turned to face front in his desk. Lupin glanced over at Sirius, grimacing.
"Now then, boys, you know how it goes. You'll be writing the lines I put on the board until the detention is over," Professor Flitwick said, followed by a stifled yawn.
The little man wrote tapped the board with his wand and a set of lines appeared. Sirius sighed and took out his quill, ink, and parchment. He knew that Flitwick would be asleep within the hour, but he still hated lines. Even if lines were simpler, he prefered cleaning rooms. At least then he was moving around. About forty minutes later, Flitwick's head drooped forward onto his chest. Sirius, James and Lupin all watched hopefully. When a tell-tale snore sounded from the sleeping man, they all let out relieved sighs.
"I thought he'd never nod off," James said quietly.
"I hate lines..." Sirius muttered, taking out his wand and magically finishing his assignment.
"You two are lucky Flitwick trusts us for some reason," Lupin said, repeating what Sirius had done, a little guiltily.
Sirius leaned back in his desk, with his hands behind his head. Now there was an hour to kill. Even though Flitwick was a very sound sleeper, they couldn't do much more than talk or play a card game (so long as it wasn't Exploding Snap). Once Sirius suggested altering the hour hand on the wall clock then waking Flitwick and telling him they'd been there an hour too long, just to see the professor's reaction. Lupin had been quick to warn that their next detention Flitwick may be careful not to nod off if they went through with Sirius's idea.
"I say we just leave," he sighed. "He never wakes up."
"He falls asleep every time you have a detention?" Lily asked.
"Unless it's a daytime detention," he replied, looking over at her. "I thought you would spend the whole hour and a half refusing to talk or look at us."
"That can be arranged," she retorted coldly.
"Why don't you come sit up here, Evans?" James asked, gesturing to the seat beside him.
"I'm fine here, thanks," she said, continuing to write her lines.
"There's an easier way to do that, you know," James said.
Lily didn't respond. Sirius saw James give him a look that said 'watch this', then get up out of his seat amd heads toward Lily's. As much as Sirius supported his best friend's actions, sometimes he wondered if he tried too hard. James took out his wand as he stopped beside the girl's desk.
"Here, let me," he said.
Lily yanked her parchment out of his reach. "No thanks."
"Come on, do you really want to sit here and write for another hour?" James asked. "It's a simple spell, really. No one's detected it yet."
"I don't want your help, Potter. Now sit down where you were," Lily told him. "The only reason I have detention is because I did you a favor. The least you could do is leave me alone."
James grinned at her glaring hostility. She returned to her lines, but he didn't move from the spot in front of her desk. A minute later she looked up at him, agitatedly.
"Do you live to torture me, Potter?" she muttered.
"Torture? Is that what all this is to you?" he mused, looking over at Sirius and Lupin. "She thinks I do all this to bug her, mates."
Sirius shrugged. "No one's ever told her different, I suppose."
Lupin didn't say a thing. He seemed strangely preoccupied with a small hole in his old, worn, school robes. James let his eyes stay on him a moment, then lookd back at Lily.
"I have an idea. All this 'torture' I'm putting you through can end. Just go out with me next Hogsmede weekend and I'll never bother you again," he offered, grinning.
Lily green eyes flashed. "Sit down, Potter! Sit down now or I swear I'm waking Flitwick and telling him what you three do every detention with him!"
"Woah, woah, not so loud," Sirius said, glancing over at Flitwick.
"I can be louder!" she exclaimed.
"Sit down, Prongs!" Sirius snapped.
James threw up his hands and returned to his desk. Lily lividly splashed her quill in her inkpot and scratched away at her parchment. A second later a crack was heard and Lily was holding a pointless quill. She stared at it a moment in disbelief.
"That spell looks pretty good about now, doesn't it? I'll still be willing to perform it for you," James told her.
"I rather serve another detention," she grumbled, hurling the useless pen across the room.
James shrugged and sat back in his seat again. It was unusually quiet in the room. Sirius fidgeted in his seat. He had an idea of what was about to happen. Lupin was staring at his perfectly whole quill sitting on his desk, brow furrowed in thought. James was pretending not to watch Lily and his friend sitting beside her.
"Here," Lupin said quietly.
Lily looked over surprised as he offered his quill to her. She raised a brow at the gesture.
"I don't need it," he said, dropping it on her desk.
"Thank you, Remus," she replied, brightly, returning to her assignment with a pointed quill.
Lupin sat there, doing his best not to look over at James. Sirius never expected him to act as he had. Usually, Lupin would just sit by and let himself and James do as they pleased, even when he didn't agree with it. Now he saw James fidget in his own seat. He turned around to Sirius.
"I think I'm through here tonight, Padfoot," he told him. "Maybe now's the time to try jinxing the clock. I have an idea of something I'd rather do with the next forty minutes."
Sirius took out his wand. "About time you let me try this! If he wakes up or realizes what we've done we'll only get another detention."
Sirius stood up and went to the back of the room where a wall clock hung. He waved his wand in a strange semi-circle and muttered a short phrase. As he moved the wand, the hour hand followed it's motions until it was an hour later. He turned to his friends, grinning.
"I told you it would work," he said, going up to Flitwick's desk. "I know Dumbledore's always one step ahead of us, but who would really take the time to charm every clock in every room of this place? Ah, you aren't going to say anything about this, are you?"
"I don't want to be here any more than you," she sighed, writing faster.
"Right then," he shook the professor a little. "Professor, our detention has been over a while now."
"Hnn?" Flitwick straightened up, blinking a few times, sleepily. "Oh, dear... Yes, you have been here a little longer than intended... Alright. I'll get those papers. You can all go. Sorry about that."
James stood up and gave a mock stretch, rubbing his hand. "That was a long assignment."
Sirius smirked in his direction for the comment. Lily gathered her things and stood up. Before anyone there could say a word to her she nearly ran out the door. Lupin watched her go, frowning.
"She kept my quill..." he realized.
"Well, you can have her broken one," James replied, a little shortly. "Come on."
"Come on to where?" Sirius asked, glancing over to see Lupin's reaction to James's sharpness.
The boy's frown deepened a bit, but he didn't say anything. James led them out the classroom and down the hall. He reached into his robes and pulled out a gray folded up cloth.
"I think we need a little trip to the library," he said, shaking the Invisibility Cloak open to it's full size.
James lifted the cloak from the three friends' heads once they were in the Forbidden aisle of the library nearly fifteen minutes later. He didn't say a word to his companions as he went to work searching through the rows and rows of books. Once he disappeared behind a tall shelf, Lupin turned to Sirius.
"I think he's mad at me," he whispered.
"Maybe," Sirius replied with a shrug.
"And you think he's right, of course," Lupin muttered, turning away.
Sirius turned over the last hours events in his head a few times while Lupin observed a bookshelf, frowning to himself. Padfoot made his way over to lean on the shelf beside him.
"You didn't do anything wrong, as far as I can see," Sirius said quietly.
Lupin looked up at him in a little surprise. "What...?"
"All you did was give the girl a quill, sure. But ... Prongs was trying to get through to Lily and I suppose it must have seemed like you were taking her side," he explained, slipping a book off the shelf and examining the cover. "'Great Werewolves and Animagi and Their Contributions to a Wizard's Society'. Aquila aught to read this, the slimy git..."
"Are you saying..." Lupin said, all his attention now on Sirius, "that in this particular situation, you think that... James is wrong?"
Sirius gave a slight snort. "No. It did seem alot like you were trying for Lily, mate, don't get me wrong. It's not wrong or right that he's angry. That all depends on how he handles it."
"I wasn't trying for Lily," Lupin defended. "You know that."
"Yea, but when someone likes a girl like Prongs likes Evans, they tend to be a little overly jealous," he pointed out.
"So you are still on James's side," Lupin sighed, turning back to the book shelf. "Just like always."
A scowl crossed Sirius's face. "What's that supposed to mean, Lupin?"
"Nothing. Nothing. I'm just a little upset about this, too, I suppose," he muttered. "Sorry."
Sirius didn't respond. He knew what he had meant. Lupin thought he was playing favorites. As hard as he tried to give his three friends all the same amount of devotion, Sirius couldn't help but feel closer to James somehow. He didn't want to slight Lupin, but... he couldn't help it.
Before Sirius could begin to coax Lupin into telling him what he had meant so he could explain, James came down the aisle.
"Found it. I knew there was at least one in here," he said, grinning.
"What did you find?" Sirius asked, raising a brow at the hotpink book in his friend's hand.
James held up the feminine looking text so both his companion's could read the front cover. Lupin nearly dropped the book he had been skimming through. Sirius felt his stomach flip.
"No. Don't even think about it, James," he said, firmly.
"What? It'll be fun. You see, love potions are illegal to use within Hogwarts, but these spells can't make anyone fall in love with you," he told him. "There's a spell in here that leads you to the person you're in love with and causes a series of events to occur to allow you to --- of your and your partner's own free will, of course--- come together."
"There's a reason that book's in the Forbidden section, James," Lupin reasoned.
"Well I think you two both need to find girl's of your own. Don't you agree?" he asked, looking pointedly at Lupin.
He opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again, deciding to let James win this one. Sirius shook his head.
"I don't want to," Sirius refused.
"Why? I mean, I know you don't need any help with girls, but this brings you right to 'the one'," James said, opening the book up.
Sirius eyed the hot pink covered text with great dislike. He had his reasons for not wanting to find 'the one' right now. James looked to him over the top of the book, grinning.
"You'll do it, won't you, mate? I'll do it, too, to be fair if it doesn't work," he said.
James looked genuinely pleased with his idea. Sirius forced himself to grin back.
"I'll give it a try," he gave in.
"I suppose it's worth a shot," Lupin agreed. "Where are we going to perform the spell?"
"Think anyone would notice if we did it here?" James thought aloud, looking around at the library as if considering it.
"Let's use the girl's bathroom. That worked when you were becoming Animagi," Lupin said.
"Right. Well, let's go then," James said, taking up the Invisibility Cloak again.
Sirius sighed and went to stand under the cloak, dreading the spell in that pink leather bound book.