Default B/N: subliminal message: Sev is a gorgeous god. WORSHIP HIM!!!
...except for Light of Eos as she is proving resistant to mental
manipulation. time for the neuralyzer *muahahahahahaha!!!* um, ok, maybe
watching men in black was a bad idea... no, really, Light of Eos, if you
think my taste in men is bad you should see my taste in women!!! (except
Lourdaise who really is wonderful *ducks punch from Lourdaise*) oh yeah,
apologies for the mistakes I left in the previous chapter. it won't happen
again, I swear! *ducks another punch from Lourdaise*
A/N: Sorry about that... honestly, these rogue internet hackers/story
hijackers! Anyway, thank you to First Light of Eos, no matter what Eihwaz
says, and Chocoliciouz, Wind Whisperer, Sirius Obsession (I'm 15 or, er, 79
if u believe the profile...), vietgurl0607 and CoronaCALIgurl (England, or
also if u believe the profile Switzerland!) and Egypt's Star, or NB, or
woteva u want to be called!
And especial thanx to evry1 who kindly wished me a happy birthday :D
Chapter 18
"No - no -" Peter said, beginning to redden. "No-one in particular, I just wondered in general..."
"Come on, tell us, Pete..." Sirius coaxed.
"Or we'll hex you senseless," I added.
"Look, it's honestly no-one. Maybe Annie Griffiths, or - or - Juliet Prewitt."
"There's quite a difference between them, mate," I said. "One wouldn't touch a man with a bargepole and one wouldn't touch a bargepole with a man. Wait, that doesn't make sense. What I mean is, Juliet's a feminist who doesn't believe boys exist, and Annie's a complete whore."
"But you went out with her!"
"Indeed I did, but a) that was before she was quite as bad and b) I didn't mind at all."
Sirius sniggered.
"So which is it? Slapper, or..." I couldn't find a word.
"Oh, all right. But don't laugh. I know she's not very pretty but she used to help me with some of my charms. It's..."
My heart leapt into my throat before he even said the name. Sirius shot me another look, but it was far from amused this time.
"Lily Evans," Peter muttered.
What would you do? My blood was boiling at the very thought of Peter asking Evans out, not that she'd go, of course. Would she? He was Peter Pettigrew, stupid, fat little Peter Pettigrew. And she'd turned down me... She didn't like boys any more than Prewitt did, or that other girl, Brown. Rebecca Brown. Did she?
I realised that it wasn't just jealousy I was feeling now. It was deep- rooted fear. Imagine if she accepted Peter when she'd flung me aside... In fact, no, it didn't even bear imagining. I knew Peter was expecting me to speak but what should I say?
"Er," I forced out.
"I wouldn't," Sirius said helpfully. "She's another feminist, she won't want you either. She particularly hates us, I believe she called me and James chauvinistic pigs the other day because we each had new girlfriends. No, mate, not a good move. Try someone else."
"But I like her! And anyway, it's only you and James she hates, I think."
"But you're our friend. Seriously, Pete, how about Annie? If it's snogging you're after, she's the best bet. Evans is probably frigid. Besides, she's too clever for you by half."
Peter looked wounded. "Unlike you I'm looking for a more steady girlfriend," he said, unusually firm. "And so I'll ask out who I like. Starting with Lily Evans. Now." He stood up.
At last my voice came back. "Don't you dare!"
He looked back. "What?"
"Sit down and stay there!" I ordered.
His eyebrows raised. "Why should I?" Trust him to answer back now.
I grabbed my wand. "Petrificus Totalus!"
He keeled over backwards and stared up at me reproachfully. "James!"
"I asked you nicely, before," I said roughly, sitting him in a chair. "Promise me you won't ask her out, and I'll take the hex off."
Peter looked angry. "I don't think that's fair! You have a new girlfriend every month - just because she's one of the few girls in the school that doesn't want you to take her up North tower, or South tower, or whatever!"
This was clearly going to be embarrassing. "Okay, Peter, we'll play it your way. I am asking - begging - pleading with you not to ask out Lily Evans because I have... a problem with her."
"And that problem is that she won't go out with you?"
"In short, yes."
Peter's eyes bulged. "I was joking," he stammered.
"Oh shut up," I said. "The point is, I don't really want to see her going out with anyone else, but particularly not one of my best friends."
Peter looked stumped. "Sirius, do you think it's fair of James to do this?"
Sirius shrugged. "James is my best mate. If it makes him happy, I don't care what he does."
"But you're supposed to be my friend too!"
"That doesn't make any difference to me. James comes first. Sorry if that sounds harsh."
"Then surely... but... aha! Remus! Remus!"
Moony came wandering over. "Peter, what happened to you?" He sounded amused as he took out his wand to unhex him.
"Don't!" I said. "Please. Let us explain."
"With him in the full-body lock? I don't think so." He muttered the counter- hex and sat down to listen.
"I want to ask out Lily Evans and James won't let me," Peter whined. "Sirius says it's up to James but you think it's unfair, don't you? There's no reason for it."
Remus glanced at me shrewdly. "I'm sure there's a reason for it," he said dryly. "But no, James, you can't stop someone else having something, just because you want it and can't have it."
"Haven't you heard of loyalty to your friends?" Sirius demanded hotly. "I know James and I have had plenty of girlfriends but every time they've tried to interfere with the group, or said a bad word about one of you two, we've dumped them! Au revoir! But now, something James feels really strongly about, you back Peter in just hurting him?"
Remus sighed. "Yes, but you two were just having passing flings on a whim. It's not something you anguish about endlessly."
I didn't know how to respond to that. Sirius ignored it. "Look, fine, ask her out - but don't expect me and James to rescue you from Snape as soon as he sees you're free of protectors, Peter. Come on James, let's go."
Peter came crawling with apologies that evening - effusive apologies, and flattery of me that bordered on hero worship. It didn't take me long to guess that Evans had turned him down - more gently than she had me, but rebuffed him none the less. Apparently next time he would 'listen to my and Sirius' advice, as we were clearly better at judging girls than he.' Too true, I muttered sourly - I was still feeling cool towards him. Remus did not apologise, and neither did Sirius or I. Perhaps we had been out of order, but I stuck to the view that friends should come first. Remus, of course, had never really done anything wrong, bar upsetting me by backing Peter, but I suppose he was only being fair. There was a rift between us for a few days, a new coldness and formality, but it soon wore off. Although the potion was basically made, it now needed stirring and incantations said over it every night - it was hard to sit for about an hour with someone in the darkness and not heal wounds. Remus succeeded in making me, through pointed silences, feel occasionally ashamed of my lording it over Peter, but I in return 'helped' him see how he had been unfair to me. We reached a new understanding.
As the end of year exams drew nearer, Sirius and I took over going down to the potion each night. It was simple again now, so we could cope, and both Remus and Peter wanted more sleep and time to study. Sirius and I never bothered. We didn't need to.
My current girlfriend started to moan. "But James, it's ages since we went out... it's ages since we went up North tower... it's ages since... since..."
"Since what?" I snapped.
"Since you've talked to me!"
"Talked to you about what?"
"Anything! Even Quidditch. You've got a match soon, haven't you? Against..."
"Ravenclaw," I supplied.
"Yes," she said. "Ravenclaw. I'll support Gryffindor, of course."
"I should hope so." She was a Hufflepuff second year, pretty but always fairly inane. And she would never listen when I explained that I had other things on my mind. Oh well, it was nearly June, just a couple of weeks to go and then I could dump her, finish the potion and sail through the exams. Then it was only a matter of weeks until summer.
It was a close match against Ravenclaw. I was a stronger Chaser than any of their players - I was rumoured to be Captain next year, although I was sure that couldn't be true, as I was so young - but they had better Beaters and a more even team of Chasers. Even though I was scoring goal after goal pretty much single-handedly, they were scoring just as quickly using all three Chasers. Gryffindor was leading ninety to seventy when our Seeker caught the Snitch. It was over - we had won the Quidditch Cup for the third year running. A large cartoon lion paraded down the steps and strolled around the pitch - I recognised Peter's style of drawing and probable magic by Sirius and laughed. I saw Dumbledore point it out to Professor McGonagall and even she seemed amused, as far as I could see. When I took the Quidditch cup to her office later that evening, she gave me a scarily fond look and said, "I don't know whether I'll be able to live without the Cup on my desk once you've left Hogwarts."
"Oh, you'll still win it, I'm sure," I lied.
"Look, Potter, even I can see you're holding that team together," she smiled. "But I admire your new found modesty."
As predicted, the exams were easy and dumping Helena was no harder. The only difficult part of the last month of term was finishing the potion - it required one last ingredient, both hard to procure and add and then a verse read out over it with no mistakes. We had squabbled over who should do that - Peter with his stutter was out and Remus got too nervous, but out of Sirius and I it was merely that neither of us wanted to do it. The task had fallen to him in the end, when I noticed that the mixture had to be stirred throughout - and I was the official stirrer, after all.
As far as we knew, the whole potion had been made to perfection - it fitted the description in the book and we had followed the recipe to every last word, but still we all eyed it nervously as we left it for the last time until September. Ridiculously, I found myself whispering 'good luck' as I stepped out of the mirror.
The last feast was unusual in that it was held in a hall decorated in Gryffindor colours. A few people said that black drapes should be used, really, as many people were mourning but Professor Dumbledore was obstinate. House colours would be used as normal. So Gryffindor had won the double, House cup and Quidditch cup, for the first time while I was at Hogwarts. I surmised from the fact that we led by only ten points that it had been, in fact, due to me and Sirius that we had won. Because of the potion, we had played very few pranks during the day and had thus lost only twenty or thirty points each; from our party, from being caught up the towers and from the time that Sirius had 'accidentally' thrown a bag of Dungbombs at Snape walking alongside Pringle. The opportunity had been too good to miss. But apart from that, we had been reasonably 'good' this year. Even though we had actually been preparing to do something illegal, we had got into less trouble - our caution had been exemplary.
Remus had shrunk the cartoon lion from the Quidditch match so that it fitted in a box and gave it to me for keeps on the train going home. "He's easy to control, you just put a paperweight on top of him," he laughed. "I just thought it was too good to get rid of. Keep it as a memento."
I grinned. "I could set it free in my muggle neighbourhood. See what happens."
"I wouldn't," Remus replied. "We're doing enough illegal things without you getting the 'Anti-magic-in-front-of-muggle' squad on your tail."
I chuckled. "True," I said.
"And here we are," said Sirius. "Beautiful platform 9 and 3/4. Well, at least, it's beautiful in September," he added glumly.
"Oh, Si..."
"You'd better owl me," he said fiercely. "Or else..."
"Of course I will. Won't I, Neptune?" I said as she twittered in my ear.
"Yeah, well... you'd better," he repeated.
Chapter 18
"No - no -" Peter said, beginning to redden. "No-one in particular, I just wondered in general..."
"Come on, tell us, Pete..." Sirius coaxed.
"Or we'll hex you senseless," I added.
"Look, it's honestly no-one. Maybe Annie Griffiths, or - or - Juliet Prewitt."
"There's quite a difference between them, mate," I said. "One wouldn't touch a man with a bargepole and one wouldn't touch a bargepole with a man. Wait, that doesn't make sense. What I mean is, Juliet's a feminist who doesn't believe boys exist, and Annie's a complete whore."
"But you went out with her!"
"Indeed I did, but a) that was before she was quite as bad and b) I didn't mind at all."
Sirius sniggered.
"So which is it? Slapper, or..." I couldn't find a word.
"Oh, all right. But don't laugh. I know she's not very pretty but she used to help me with some of my charms. It's..."
My heart leapt into my throat before he even said the name. Sirius shot me another look, but it was far from amused this time.
"Lily Evans," Peter muttered.
What would you do? My blood was boiling at the very thought of Peter asking Evans out, not that she'd go, of course. Would she? He was Peter Pettigrew, stupid, fat little Peter Pettigrew. And she'd turned down me... She didn't like boys any more than Prewitt did, or that other girl, Brown. Rebecca Brown. Did she?
I realised that it wasn't just jealousy I was feeling now. It was deep- rooted fear. Imagine if she accepted Peter when she'd flung me aside... In fact, no, it didn't even bear imagining. I knew Peter was expecting me to speak but what should I say?
"Er," I forced out.
"I wouldn't," Sirius said helpfully. "She's another feminist, she won't want you either. She particularly hates us, I believe she called me and James chauvinistic pigs the other day because we each had new girlfriends. No, mate, not a good move. Try someone else."
"But I like her! And anyway, it's only you and James she hates, I think."
"But you're our friend. Seriously, Pete, how about Annie? If it's snogging you're after, she's the best bet. Evans is probably frigid. Besides, she's too clever for you by half."
Peter looked wounded. "Unlike you I'm looking for a more steady girlfriend," he said, unusually firm. "And so I'll ask out who I like. Starting with Lily Evans. Now." He stood up.
At last my voice came back. "Don't you dare!"
He looked back. "What?"
"Sit down and stay there!" I ordered.
His eyebrows raised. "Why should I?" Trust him to answer back now.
I grabbed my wand. "Petrificus Totalus!"
He keeled over backwards and stared up at me reproachfully. "James!"
"I asked you nicely, before," I said roughly, sitting him in a chair. "Promise me you won't ask her out, and I'll take the hex off."
Peter looked angry. "I don't think that's fair! You have a new girlfriend every month - just because she's one of the few girls in the school that doesn't want you to take her up North tower, or South tower, or whatever!"
This was clearly going to be embarrassing. "Okay, Peter, we'll play it your way. I am asking - begging - pleading with you not to ask out Lily Evans because I have... a problem with her."
"And that problem is that she won't go out with you?"
"In short, yes."
Peter's eyes bulged. "I was joking," he stammered.
"Oh shut up," I said. "The point is, I don't really want to see her going out with anyone else, but particularly not one of my best friends."
Peter looked stumped. "Sirius, do you think it's fair of James to do this?"
Sirius shrugged. "James is my best mate. If it makes him happy, I don't care what he does."
"But you're supposed to be my friend too!"
"That doesn't make any difference to me. James comes first. Sorry if that sounds harsh."
"Then surely... but... aha! Remus! Remus!"
Moony came wandering over. "Peter, what happened to you?" He sounded amused as he took out his wand to unhex him.
"Don't!" I said. "Please. Let us explain."
"With him in the full-body lock? I don't think so." He muttered the counter- hex and sat down to listen.
"I want to ask out Lily Evans and James won't let me," Peter whined. "Sirius says it's up to James but you think it's unfair, don't you? There's no reason for it."
Remus glanced at me shrewdly. "I'm sure there's a reason for it," he said dryly. "But no, James, you can't stop someone else having something, just because you want it and can't have it."
"Haven't you heard of loyalty to your friends?" Sirius demanded hotly. "I know James and I have had plenty of girlfriends but every time they've tried to interfere with the group, or said a bad word about one of you two, we've dumped them! Au revoir! But now, something James feels really strongly about, you back Peter in just hurting him?"
Remus sighed. "Yes, but you two were just having passing flings on a whim. It's not something you anguish about endlessly."
I didn't know how to respond to that. Sirius ignored it. "Look, fine, ask her out - but don't expect me and James to rescue you from Snape as soon as he sees you're free of protectors, Peter. Come on James, let's go."
Peter came crawling with apologies that evening - effusive apologies, and flattery of me that bordered on hero worship. It didn't take me long to guess that Evans had turned him down - more gently than she had me, but rebuffed him none the less. Apparently next time he would 'listen to my and Sirius' advice, as we were clearly better at judging girls than he.' Too true, I muttered sourly - I was still feeling cool towards him. Remus did not apologise, and neither did Sirius or I. Perhaps we had been out of order, but I stuck to the view that friends should come first. Remus, of course, had never really done anything wrong, bar upsetting me by backing Peter, but I suppose he was only being fair. There was a rift between us for a few days, a new coldness and formality, but it soon wore off. Although the potion was basically made, it now needed stirring and incantations said over it every night - it was hard to sit for about an hour with someone in the darkness and not heal wounds. Remus succeeded in making me, through pointed silences, feel occasionally ashamed of my lording it over Peter, but I in return 'helped' him see how he had been unfair to me. We reached a new understanding.
As the end of year exams drew nearer, Sirius and I took over going down to the potion each night. It was simple again now, so we could cope, and both Remus and Peter wanted more sleep and time to study. Sirius and I never bothered. We didn't need to.
My current girlfriend started to moan. "But James, it's ages since we went out... it's ages since we went up North tower... it's ages since... since..."
"Since what?" I snapped.
"Since you've talked to me!"
"Talked to you about what?"
"Anything! Even Quidditch. You've got a match soon, haven't you? Against..."
"Ravenclaw," I supplied.
"Yes," she said. "Ravenclaw. I'll support Gryffindor, of course."
"I should hope so." She was a Hufflepuff second year, pretty but always fairly inane. And she would never listen when I explained that I had other things on my mind. Oh well, it was nearly June, just a couple of weeks to go and then I could dump her, finish the potion and sail through the exams. Then it was only a matter of weeks until summer.
It was a close match against Ravenclaw. I was a stronger Chaser than any of their players - I was rumoured to be Captain next year, although I was sure that couldn't be true, as I was so young - but they had better Beaters and a more even team of Chasers. Even though I was scoring goal after goal pretty much single-handedly, they were scoring just as quickly using all three Chasers. Gryffindor was leading ninety to seventy when our Seeker caught the Snitch. It was over - we had won the Quidditch Cup for the third year running. A large cartoon lion paraded down the steps and strolled around the pitch - I recognised Peter's style of drawing and probable magic by Sirius and laughed. I saw Dumbledore point it out to Professor McGonagall and even she seemed amused, as far as I could see. When I took the Quidditch cup to her office later that evening, she gave me a scarily fond look and said, "I don't know whether I'll be able to live without the Cup on my desk once you've left Hogwarts."
"Oh, you'll still win it, I'm sure," I lied.
"Look, Potter, even I can see you're holding that team together," she smiled. "But I admire your new found modesty."
As predicted, the exams were easy and dumping Helena was no harder. The only difficult part of the last month of term was finishing the potion - it required one last ingredient, both hard to procure and add and then a verse read out over it with no mistakes. We had squabbled over who should do that - Peter with his stutter was out and Remus got too nervous, but out of Sirius and I it was merely that neither of us wanted to do it. The task had fallen to him in the end, when I noticed that the mixture had to be stirred throughout - and I was the official stirrer, after all.
As far as we knew, the whole potion had been made to perfection - it fitted the description in the book and we had followed the recipe to every last word, but still we all eyed it nervously as we left it for the last time until September. Ridiculously, I found myself whispering 'good luck' as I stepped out of the mirror.
The last feast was unusual in that it was held in a hall decorated in Gryffindor colours. A few people said that black drapes should be used, really, as many people were mourning but Professor Dumbledore was obstinate. House colours would be used as normal. So Gryffindor had won the double, House cup and Quidditch cup, for the first time while I was at Hogwarts. I surmised from the fact that we led by only ten points that it had been, in fact, due to me and Sirius that we had won. Because of the potion, we had played very few pranks during the day and had thus lost only twenty or thirty points each; from our party, from being caught up the towers and from the time that Sirius had 'accidentally' thrown a bag of Dungbombs at Snape walking alongside Pringle. The opportunity had been too good to miss. But apart from that, we had been reasonably 'good' this year. Even though we had actually been preparing to do something illegal, we had got into less trouble - our caution had been exemplary.
Remus had shrunk the cartoon lion from the Quidditch match so that it fitted in a box and gave it to me for keeps on the train going home. "He's easy to control, you just put a paperweight on top of him," he laughed. "I just thought it was too good to get rid of. Keep it as a memento."
I grinned. "I could set it free in my muggle neighbourhood. See what happens."
"I wouldn't," Remus replied. "We're doing enough illegal things without you getting the 'Anti-magic-in-front-of-muggle' squad on your tail."
I chuckled. "True," I said.
"And here we are," said Sirius. "Beautiful platform 9 and 3/4. Well, at least, it's beautiful in September," he added glumly.
"Oh, Si..."
"You'd better owl me," he said fiercely. "Or else..."
"Of course I will. Won't I, Neptune?" I said as she twittered in my ear.
"Yeah, well... you'd better," he repeated.