I'm really sorry it's been so long since I updated! Ever since school
ended, I don't have my friend Whit2fargone harassing me to finsih my
stories. I miss you whit! Haha. I have had this done for over a week
but never felt like posting, but today you're in luck. Enjoy!
CHAPTER 5: Falling for You.
Peter, Remus, James and Sirius slowly made their way up to the castle, while Remus silently fumed that, despite his prodding, Sirius had not even begun his Potions essay.
"Who cares about Potions, honestly, I'll do it tomorrow. Get Grace to help me with it, or something." Sirius had said after Remus reminded him once again that, now would be as good a time as any to get his homework finished, because they weren't really DOING anything. They walked up to the castle, and were stepping inside the doors when Peter saw her. Her red hair was blowing in the wind, shining brightly, like a mandorla around her fair face, and her green eyes flashed, the light from the brilliant mid day sun reflected in her corneas, causing her eyes to appear even brighter, and more beautiful than normal. She noticed them standing there, and flashed one of them a smile. Peter, being a tad presumptuous, thought that she was looking at him. As the others started filing through the door, Peter stepped back for just a moment.
"Hi, Lily." He said, walking slowly into the castle and showing her a wide silly grin. She gave a kind half smile back before replying.
"Oh, Hello Parker!" She said cheerfully, walking down the steps towards the lawn, where a small group of students sat with Arithmancy text books in their laps. She smiled and turned to face the group, then continued walking. Oh, THAT was promising. She had gotten his name wrong. Again. Would he ever learn? No, that lovely Lily Evans was way out of his league. Sure, he was in the most popular group of boys at Hogwarts, but he was really just…there. The other boys would talk to him…sometimes. But he didn't really get the recognition the other boys received. He wasn't on the Quidditch team, he didn't have black hair and brilliant eyes, he wasn't the top student, and he certainly wasn't any sort of traditional "cool." He was an animagus, but he didn't really belong to any school groups, and well, his form was a rat, and girls don't dig rats. Well, he was in one school group, he supposed; He was treasurer of the charms club. Though this DID look good on a resume, it wasn't the kind of thing one would mention on a date and receive a "Wow!" response. Not like Quidditch. Harry had girls hanging all over him, because he was the star chaser on the Quidditch team. Sirius was also on the team, a beater, and received similar hero worship, though girls had been hanging all over him since long before then. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome, and everyone knew it. Especially Sirius. But in reality, he had not had as many girlfriends as one might have expected. Sirius knew that he could have anyone he wanted, and did not want to come off as looking "desperate" by hooking up with the entire student body. But when he did like someone, winning them over was never really an obstacle. He had had 5 or 6 girlfriends at most every year since 3rd or 4th year, the longest lasting a few months. Harry was probably a close second on the scale of desirable males at Hogwarts, after Sirius. He had not had many girlfriends at all, 3 or 4 in 4th year before setting his sights on Lily Evans more fervently, at which time he became mostly celibate. Though, between then and now, he had perhaps one or two relationships, but neither had lasted more than a few weeks before James began harassing Lily again. Peter wasn't sure how many times James had asked Lily out, he had lost count at 57, but that was a long time ago. Remus was next. Though, there was quite a big gap between Remus and James. Remus was quite bookish, and received top marks in all his classes. Few girls showed a real interest in him as a potential boyfriend, but at least most of them knew his name. Peter wasn't sure that Remus had a girlfriend the whole time he knew him. There had been an occasional mutual attraction, but Remus never decided to do anything about it.
Peter, however, was at the bottom of the proverbial list. He was short, and a little bit stocky. His father had been tall and a bit broad, and his mother had been short and thin. But in truth, peter had not figured on getting suck a dreadful combination of genes as he had, short and broad.
"You'll grow Peter, don't worry. Look at me, and your uncle, and your grandfather! I'm sure you're just running late. You're a little younger than some of those boys at your school anyway." His father tried to reassure him whenever he got down on himself about his size. And if that didn't work, his mother would make a batch of cookies, and tell him, "Maybe if you'd gone to a normal school, you'd be taller like your father. HE went to a normal school." Which really didn't make any sense, but magic was, of course, the cause of everything unpleasant in their household.
Peter followed Sirius, James and Remus into the Gryffindor common room, and sat on a tall armchair. James and Sirius had finally taken Remus suggestion, and had begun their potions essays, but were interrupting Remus from his musings every few minutes to ask him "Where murtlap essence comes from" and "How many Knarl hooves are in a Perk Up Potion." He could really use a perk up potion, Peter thought to himself. Bad moods were no stranger to Peter, but usually, he hid them from his friends as being "boring" and "uninterested," because being bored and uninterested was incredibly cool. Hey, it worked for Sirius. Sirius was running his hand through his hair, and sitting by the fire with a thin white button down shirt on, with the first 5 or 6 buttons undone, and his black Hogwarts pants. A group of giggling 4th year girls stopped in the stair way, staring and whispering at Sirius, who mouthed "WHAT?" and gave them a harsh look. The girls looked surprised, and ran into their dormitory, giggling louder than ever. Peter heard one girl say, "He looked at me! Mary, did you see it? I can't believe he looked at me! I have to tell Susan about this; she'll be SO jealous!" Sirius muttered something along the lines of, "Ugh, Girls…" before returning to his potions essay, and asking Remus what kind of animal produced "Haldorf." A few hours later, after they had eaten dinner and finished most of their homework, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter went up to bed. He checked his watch, and it was about 10:30, the others would have plenty of time to get up in the morning and "study."
"You know, maybe I'll come with you to that group review," Remus said, throwing down his large history of magic book, "This Roman Empire material is really complicated, and studying with the Ravenclaws would be a great opportunity to-"
"Snag a smart girl!" Sirius interjected, thinking about his new prospects with Grave.
"Actually, I was going to say, 'study with some of the smartest people at Hogwarts," Remus gave Sirius a look of frustration, and Sirius shrugged, half grinning.
"Well, if all of you are going, then I'd like to come! What is it?" Peter chirped enthusiastically.
"Oh, Peter, you can't come, it's tomorrow morning at the same time as your Charms Club meeting." James replied in a whiny, sing-song kind of voice. Peter nodded, defeated. James was right, it was the same time as his important charms club meeting.
"Well, I have some prefect duties to attend to." Remus announced, "I'll be back soon."
"What do you have to do at this hour of the night?" James asked, looking surprised.
"Make sure the younger students are in their beds." Remus shrugged.
"Why do you have to do that? You've never had to before." James looked quizzical and Sirius seemed to be in as deep of thought as he was capable of being in.
"Well, apparently some younger students have uh, been sneaking around lately. It's all quite a big to do." Remus blurted quickly, as Sirius was still thinking it through, as if it were a particularly hard transfiguration problem. Remus gave them an uneasy look, Smiled at James, but his smile quickly became an unusual sort of frown, and he turned and left the room, heading in the direction of the girls dormitories.
"Remus is the only one of us who doesn't care about girls, and he's the only one who gets to go into their dormitories like it's nothing!" James said, indignant, while Peter and Sirius nodded. Peter knew that James wanted to go into the girls dormitory so he could find Lily, sweep her off her feet, make out passionately, and eventually get married and produce offspring. Sooth to say, Peter would have very much liked to do the same, though he liked to hope that he would do it more subtly, and with a bit more tact than James.
Peter turned to Sirius to say something, but Sirius was now sprawled out on his four poster bed, potions essay under his right arm, papers crinkled and askew. Only Sirius could fall asleep that quickly. Peter's mother always said that it was people with a clear conscience who could fall asleep most easily, though in Sirius case, Peter was almost sure that his conscience had nothing to do with it. Unless, perhaps, his conscience was clear because Sirius didn't think to feel bad about all of the crazy things he'd done. James looked around the room, huffed slightly under his breath, and sat on his bad, leaning back onto the pillows, while Peter dipped his quill in some black ink to finish writing up his essay. About 30 minutes later, at 11:10, Remus returned, yawning, and grinning slightly.
"What are you happy about?" James said a bit snappily, "See any girls in their skivvies when you checked on them?"
"No, not at all!" Remus said, laughing slightly. "I just….love to help…Dumbledore. Of course!"
"Whatever floats your boat, mate." James said, shrugging as he went to brush his teach and come his hair. Though, Peter and he both couldn't figure out why he still decided to give it a go almost every day. Peter slinked back in his armchair, and blinked. For a very long time.
The next morning, James, Remus and Sirius got dressed, packed their book bags and went to breakfast quickly, leaving Peter behind in the dorm. He rounded up his charms papers, and searched for the collection tin, finding it under a large stack of papers about the Goblin uprisings in Colonial America during English occupation. Today was a big day for the Charms Club; with the cooperation of the house elves, Charms Club was having a sort of "Bake Sale" to raise funds for new Charms books. After Peter zipped through breakfast, he ran to the Kitchens with the help of a few students, and got a large array of sweets and rolls. They decided to set up their stand outside, and, at the suggestion of Peter, set it up very close to the History of Magic review group, so more people would buy sweets as they became hungry from studying.
Peter had originally volunteered to work the stand, but because Joseph Abbot, a 5th year Hufflepuff, had offered to take over, Peter decided to be the head of the marketing department, and go ask his friends if they wanted anything. He trotted over to James and Sirius, Remus was standing behind near Lily and some Ravenclaws, and waved vigorously.
"What is it Peter, is everything all right? Why aren't you at your charms club meeting?" James asked, noticing his smallest friend.
"No, not at all! We're just um…having a bake sale for Charms, and I was wondering if you wanted anything. You know, like a roll or a cake or something." Peter finished smiling at them.
"Um..yes." Sirius replied matter-of-factly.
"Yes to what? Which do you want?"
"Both."
"Both?"
"Both."
"Well, what kind of cake? We've got chocolate cake, and carrot cake." Peter tried to narrow it down a bit.
"Both."
"Are you sure?"
"Yep."
"Ok, that'll be…about 10 sickles."
"James, can you get this one?" Sirius asked, turning to James.
"Sirius, this is YOUR food, why would I pay for it?"
"Because you love me and you know I left my money upstairs."
"Fine. But you're paying me back." James said, rolling his eyes at Sirius and digging through his robes for the money, handing it to Peter.
"So…get it!" Sirius said, rather impatient with Peter.
"That was kind of rude, Sirius." James interjected rather coolly as Peter ran off to get their food, and put the money in his rusty blue collection tin. Peter traipsed back over gleefully, and stood by a tree watching the others set up, having given Sirius his food. There she was, Lily Evans in all her radiant splendor, walking towards him. What would he say? Her brilliant red hair flew in the wind, like a cape of silk fibers trailing her soft ivory face.
"Hello, Lil-" Peter began, but Lily walked right past him, not even noticing that he had tried to talk to her, or say her name. "Foiled again." Peter thought to himself. Sure, he had little chance with the flaming haired vixen, but a boy could try! Peter knew what she'd have said if she had heard him call her a vixen, someone had tried it earlier that year.
"A vixen? Hah! Calling me a vixen is like…is like…calling SIRIUS a VIRGIN!" She had almost shouted. Sirius just stood there, mouth agape, looking completely appalled.
"If Sirius where coherent, he'd say something along the lines of, "how would you know that?" James replied for his friend, who was just now beginning to gain composure.
"Well, it's obvious isn't it? Sirius hasn't been celibate since like, 3rd year." Sirius was taken aback by the fact that she thought this; the truth couldn't be more different. "Hey, don't tell me about my sex life until you've been in the bed, Miss Evans." Sirius replied sharply, with a hint of sarcasm.
"Now there's a mental picture I could have done without." Lily shuddered involuntarily after saying this.
"There's a mental picture we could ALL do without." Said James, giving Sirius a strange look. Lily had stormed off, not feeling like a fight. She could be a little feisty, but she knew when to drop something.
The students gathered in a circle by a tree, with a 6th year Ravenclaw boy at the head of the group. Sirius was sitting next to his new girlfriend, Grace, holding her left hand in his right, as she leaned on his shoulder a bit. Peter sat in the background for a moment, but as the Ravenclaw boy started talking, Peter went back over to the booth, and put a couple of dollars in the collection tin from other people's orders.
Peter stood by the stand leaning on the table and watching Lily. She was taking notes with a quill that wrote by itself, and reading the History of Magic Text book at the same time. She looked so cute when she was studying. Well, in Peter's opinion, that could be applied to almost anything Lily was doing. His gaze wandered around the group, stopping at Sirius, who had his arm wrapped around Grace, with his hand gracing her back. She swatted at his hand when his fingers inched a little too low on her back, but laughed at the confused and almost hurt look on his face. Peter leaned over the counter, forgetting that he was supposed to be working the stand and gaping at Lily with a goofy expression on his face, eyes glazed.
They were in the Gryffindor common room, Peter had set a lovely spread, with assorted meat pies, iced tea, it was Lily's favorite, scalloped potatoes, salad greens, and a lemon meringue pie Peter made. The fire crackled and rolled in its furnace as it incinerated the cedar logs, leaving the room pleasantly warm like the ivory sand on the beach when the orange sun sinks down over the water. Her eyes, green as Irish shamrocks, glistened like polished silver reflecting the firelight in her emerald iris.
"Peter, I know I've never told you this but, I can't live without you." Lily said, grabbing his hand across the table.
"Oh Lily, I can't live without you either! Marry me, Lily!" Peter jumped to his feet, brandishing a scintillating ring with diamonds to rival the Queen's jewels. Slipping it onto her dainty polished finger, he saw a tear trickle down her cheek, as she turned to look at him.
"Oh, Peter! Of course I'll marry you!" She ran to him, jumping into his arms, he was locked in her soft embrace, picking her up into his arms and kissing her pink lips.
"Oh Peter." She said sweetly as she kissing him.
"Oh, Lily." He replied, kissing her lips and touching her cheek with his fingertips.
"Peter."
"Lily."
"Peter!"
"Lily!"
"Peter!!!"
"Lily!!!"
"PETER!!!!" Peter snapped out of his romantic dream sequence when a 7th year Ravenclaw girl smacked him on the back of the head with the pad of her hand. "What are you doing? You're supposed to run the register, or get people to buy stuff! Don't you care about the Charms Club? We need knew books, Peter, and I'd like to see them before I graduate!" She gave him an angry look, but left when Peter promised to get back to work.
"Everyone's always telling me what to do. It's not like anyone's buying anything anyway. It's not MY fault they decided to have this in the morning when no one's hungry. We should sell them during Transfigurations in Professor McGonnagal's classroom, we'd have LOADS of sales then." Peter fumed watching the rest of his friend studying. James was scratching a hole in his head and trying to make notes on things that sounded important, while making googly eyes at Lily, who kept rolling her eyes at him. Sirius was writing notes to Grace who was trying to pay attention to what the group leader was saying, but Sirius was making the task very difficult. He was bored with studying and was trying very hard to make sure that Grace was entertained, rather than enlightened. Remus however, was genuinely participating in the lesson. He was taking extensive notes on a 3 yard long piece of parchment, and was already more than halfway down it. However, Peter noticed that Remus had an unusual smile on his face, that was kind of like his "I know something that you don't" smile, but a little bit different. Peter leaned a little further over the counter to decipher what it was, but before he got the chance, there was a loud crashing sound, and he felt himself being disassociated from the ground.
He had leaned over so far that the cart had fallen over, sending the money box, some of the sweets, and Peter to the floor. Looking around, he saw most of the study group had been disturbed, and many of them were laughing. Even Sirius and James were chuckling gleefully. But not Lily, she looked concerned as she tried to figure out who had fallen.
Peter's left leg had been crushed under the cart, but he wasn't about to get chewed out again, he pulled his leg out from under the cart, and picked up the money box, stuffing the galleons, knuts, and sickles into their compartments. He picked up the boxes of sweets that were salvageable, which was fortunately most of them, as the had been packaged in various Tupperware containers, and threw away what was ruined, a plate of iced sugar cookies, and a yellow cake, which had landed icing side down in a mud puddle. Using what little strength he had, he flipped the stand upright, putting the cookies and money box on the stand, and tapping a fifth year Hufflepuff yelled, "Lucy, take over," and limped to the hospital wing passing Madame Gurkins, the Hogwarts nurse, with his leg suddenly throbbing with the most horrible pain he could ever remember experiencing, and passed out on an empty bed.
CHAPTER 5: Falling for You.
Peter, Remus, James and Sirius slowly made their way up to the castle, while Remus silently fumed that, despite his prodding, Sirius had not even begun his Potions essay.
"Who cares about Potions, honestly, I'll do it tomorrow. Get Grace to help me with it, or something." Sirius had said after Remus reminded him once again that, now would be as good a time as any to get his homework finished, because they weren't really DOING anything. They walked up to the castle, and were stepping inside the doors when Peter saw her. Her red hair was blowing in the wind, shining brightly, like a mandorla around her fair face, and her green eyes flashed, the light from the brilliant mid day sun reflected in her corneas, causing her eyes to appear even brighter, and more beautiful than normal. She noticed them standing there, and flashed one of them a smile. Peter, being a tad presumptuous, thought that she was looking at him. As the others started filing through the door, Peter stepped back for just a moment.
"Hi, Lily." He said, walking slowly into the castle and showing her a wide silly grin. She gave a kind half smile back before replying.
"Oh, Hello Parker!" She said cheerfully, walking down the steps towards the lawn, where a small group of students sat with Arithmancy text books in their laps. She smiled and turned to face the group, then continued walking. Oh, THAT was promising. She had gotten his name wrong. Again. Would he ever learn? No, that lovely Lily Evans was way out of his league. Sure, he was in the most popular group of boys at Hogwarts, but he was really just…there. The other boys would talk to him…sometimes. But he didn't really get the recognition the other boys received. He wasn't on the Quidditch team, he didn't have black hair and brilliant eyes, he wasn't the top student, and he certainly wasn't any sort of traditional "cool." He was an animagus, but he didn't really belong to any school groups, and well, his form was a rat, and girls don't dig rats. Well, he was in one school group, he supposed; He was treasurer of the charms club. Though this DID look good on a resume, it wasn't the kind of thing one would mention on a date and receive a "Wow!" response. Not like Quidditch. Harry had girls hanging all over him, because he was the star chaser on the Quidditch team. Sirius was also on the team, a beater, and received similar hero worship, though girls had been hanging all over him since long before then. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome, and everyone knew it. Especially Sirius. But in reality, he had not had as many girlfriends as one might have expected. Sirius knew that he could have anyone he wanted, and did not want to come off as looking "desperate" by hooking up with the entire student body. But when he did like someone, winning them over was never really an obstacle. He had had 5 or 6 girlfriends at most every year since 3rd or 4th year, the longest lasting a few months. Harry was probably a close second on the scale of desirable males at Hogwarts, after Sirius. He had not had many girlfriends at all, 3 or 4 in 4th year before setting his sights on Lily Evans more fervently, at which time he became mostly celibate. Though, between then and now, he had perhaps one or two relationships, but neither had lasted more than a few weeks before James began harassing Lily again. Peter wasn't sure how many times James had asked Lily out, he had lost count at 57, but that was a long time ago. Remus was next. Though, there was quite a big gap between Remus and James. Remus was quite bookish, and received top marks in all his classes. Few girls showed a real interest in him as a potential boyfriend, but at least most of them knew his name. Peter wasn't sure that Remus had a girlfriend the whole time he knew him. There had been an occasional mutual attraction, but Remus never decided to do anything about it.
Peter, however, was at the bottom of the proverbial list. He was short, and a little bit stocky. His father had been tall and a bit broad, and his mother had been short and thin. But in truth, peter had not figured on getting suck a dreadful combination of genes as he had, short and broad.
"You'll grow Peter, don't worry. Look at me, and your uncle, and your grandfather! I'm sure you're just running late. You're a little younger than some of those boys at your school anyway." His father tried to reassure him whenever he got down on himself about his size. And if that didn't work, his mother would make a batch of cookies, and tell him, "Maybe if you'd gone to a normal school, you'd be taller like your father. HE went to a normal school." Which really didn't make any sense, but magic was, of course, the cause of everything unpleasant in their household.
Peter followed Sirius, James and Remus into the Gryffindor common room, and sat on a tall armchair. James and Sirius had finally taken Remus suggestion, and had begun their potions essays, but were interrupting Remus from his musings every few minutes to ask him "Where murtlap essence comes from" and "How many Knarl hooves are in a Perk Up Potion." He could really use a perk up potion, Peter thought to himself. Bad moods were no stranger to Peter, but usually, he hid them from his friends as being "boring" and "uninterested," because being bored and uninterested was incredibly cool. Hey, it worked for Sirius. Sirius was running his hand through his hair, and sitting by the fire with a thin white button down shirt on, with the first 5 or 6 buttons undone, and his black Hogwarts pants. A group of giggling 4th year girls stopped in the stair way, staring and whispering at Sirius, who mouthed "WHAT?" and gave them a harsh look. The girls looked surprised, and ran into their dormitory, giggling louder than ever. Peter heard one girl say, "He looked at me! Mary, did you see it? I can't believe he looked at me! I have to tell Susan about this; she'll be SO jealous!" Sirius muttered something along the lines of, "Ugh, Girls…" before returning to his potions essay, and asking Remus what kind of animal produced "Haldorf." A few hours later, after they had eaten dinner and finished most of their homework, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter went up to bed. He checked his watch, and it was about 10:30, the others would have plenty of time to get up in the morning and "study."
"You know, maybe I'll come with you to that group review," Remus said, throwing down his large history of magic book, "This Roman Empire material is really complicated, and studying with the Ravenclaws would be a great opportunity to-"
"Snag a smart girl!" Sirius interjected, thinking about his new prospects with Grave.
"Actually, I was going to say, 'study with some of the smartest people at Hogwarts," Remus gave Sirius a look of frustration, and Sirius shrugged, half grinning.
"Well, if all of you are going, then I'd like to come! What is it?" Peter chirped enthusiastically.
"Oh, Peter, you can't come, it's tomorrow morning at the same time as your Charms Club meeting." James replied in a whiny, sing-song kind of voice. Peter nodded, defeated. James was right, it was the same time as his important charms club meeting.
"Well, I have some prefect duties to attend to." Remus announced, "I'll be back soon."
"What do you have to do at this hour of the night?" James asked, looking surprised.
"Make sure the younger students are in their beds." Remus shrugged.
"Why do you have to do that? You've never had to before." James looked quizzical and Sirius seemed to be in as deep of thought as he was capable of being in.
"Well, apparently some younger students have uh, been sneaking around lately. It's all quite a big to do." Remus blurted quickly, as Sirius was still thinking it through, as if it were a particularly hard transfiguration problem. Remus gave them an uneasy look, Smiled at James, but his smile quickly became an unusual sort of frown, and he turned and left the room, heading in the direction of the girls dormitories.
"Remus is the only one of us who doesn't care about girls, and he's the only one who gets to go into their dormitories like it's nothing!" James said, indignant, while Peter and Sirius nodded. Peter knew that James wanted to go into the girls dormitory so he could find Lily, sweep her off her feet, make out passionately, and eventually get married and produce offspring. Sooth to say, Peter would have very much liked to do the same, though he liked to hope that he would do it more subtly, and with a bit more tact than James.
Peter turned to Sirius to say something, but Sirius was now sprawled out on his four poster bed, potions essay under his right arm, papers crinkled and askew. Only Sirius could fall asleep that quickly. Peter's mother always said that it was people with a clear conscience who could fall asleep most easily, though in Sirius case, Peter was almost sure that his conscience had nothing to do with it. Unless, perhaps, his conscience was clear because Sirius didn't think to feel bad about all of the crazy things he'd done. James looked around the room, huffed slightly under his breath, and sat on his bad, leaning back onto the pillows, while Peter dipped his quill in some black ink to finish writing up his essay. About 30 minutes later, at 11:10, Remus returned, yawning, and grinning slightly.
"What are you happy about?" James said a bit snappily, "See any girls in their skivvies when you checked on them?"
"No, not at all!" Remus said, laughing slightly. "I just….love to help…Dumbledore. Of course!"
"Whatever floats your boat, mate." James said, shrugging as he went to brush his teach and come his hair. Though, Peter and he both couldn't figure out why he still decided to give it a go almost every day. Peter slinked back in his armchair, and blinked. For a very long time.
The next morning, James, Remus and Sirius got dressed, packed their book bags and went to breakfast quickly, leaving Peter behind in the dorm. He rounded up his charms papers, and searched for the collection tin, finding it under a large stack of papers about the Goblin uprisings in Colonial America during English occupation. Today was a big day for the Charms Club; with the cooperation of the house elves, Charms Club was having a sort of "Bake Sale" to raise funds for new Charms books. After Peter zipped through breakfast, he ran to the Kitchens with the help of a few students, and got a large array of sweets and rolls. They decided to set up their stand outside, and, at the suggestion of Peter, set it up very close to the History of Magic review group, so more people would buy sweets as they became hungry from studying.
Peter had originally volunteered to work the stand, but because Joseph Abbot, a 5th year Hufflepuff, had offered to take over, Peter decided to be the head of the marketing department, and go ask his friends if they wanted anything. He trotted over to James and Sirius, Remus was standing behind near Lily and some Ravenclaws, and waved vigorously.
"What is it Peter, is everything all right? Why aren't you at your charms club meeting?" James asked, noticing his smallest friend.
"No, not at all! We're just um…having a bake sale for Charms, and I was wondering if you wanted anything. You know, like a roll or a cake or something." Peter finished smiling at them.
"Um..yes." Sirius replied matter-of-factly.
"Yes to what? Which do you want?"
"Both."
"Both?"
"Both."
"Well, what kind of cake? We've got chocolate cake, and carrot cake." Peter tried to narrow it down a bit.
"Both."
"Are you sure?"
"Yep."
"Ok, that'll be…about 10 sickles."
"James, can you get this one?" Sirius asked, turning to James.
"Sirius, this is YOUR food, why would I pay for it?"
"Because you love me and you know I left my money upstairs."
"Fine. But you're paying me back." James said, rolling his eyes at Sirius and digging through his robes for the money, handing it to Peter.
"So…get it!" Sirius said, rather impatient with Peter.
"That was kind of rude, Sirius." James interjected rather coolly as Peter ran off to get their food, and put the money in his rusty blue collection tin. Peter traipsed back over gleefully, and stood by a tree watching the others set up, having given Sirius his food. There she was, Lily Evans in all her radiant splendor, walking towards him. What would he say? Her brilliant red hair flew in the wind, like a cape of silk fibers trailing her soft ivory face.
"Hello, Lil-" Peter began, but Lily walked right past him, not even noticing that he had tried to talk to her, or say her name. "Foiled again." Peter thought to himself. Sure, he had little chance with the flaming haired vixen, but a boy could try! Peter knew what she'd have said if she had heard him call her a vixen, someone had tried it earlier that year.
"A vixen? Hah! Calling me a vixen is like…is like…calling SIRIUS a VIRGIN!" She had almost shouted. Sirius just stood there, mouth agape, looking completely appalled.
"If Sirius where coherent, he'd say something along the lines of, "how would you know that?" James replied for his friend, who was just now beginning to gain composure.
"Well, it's obvious isn't it? Sirius hasn't been celibate since like, 3rd year." Sirius was taken aback by the fact that she thought this; the truth couldn't be more different. "Hey, don't tell me about my sex life until you've been in the bed, Miss Evans." Sirius replied sharply, with a hint of sarcasm.
"Now there's a mental picture I could have done without." Lily shuddered involuntarily after saying this.
"There's a mental picture we could ALL do without." Said James, giving Sirius a strange look. Lily had stormed off, not feeling like a fight. She could be a little feisty, but she knew when to drop something.
The students gathered in a circle by a tree, with a 6th year Ravenclaw boy at the head of the group. Sirius was sitting next to his new girlfriend, Grace, holding her left hand in his right, as she leaned on his shoulder a bit. Peter sat in the background for a moment, but as the Ravenclaw boy started talking, Peter went back over to the booth, and put a couple of dollars in the collection tin from other people's orders.
Peter stood by the stand leaning on the table and watching Lily. She was taking notes with a quill that wrote by itself, and reading the History of Magic Text book at the same time. She looked so cute when she was studying. Well, in Peter's opinion, that could be applied to almost anything Lily was doing. His gaze wandered around the group, stopping at Sirius, who had his arm wrapped around Grace, with his hand gracing her back. She swatted at his hand when his fingers inched a little too low on her back, but laughed at the confused and almost hurt look on his face. Peter leaned over the counter, forgetting that he was supposed to be working the stand and gaping at Lily with a goofy expression on his face, eyes glazed.
They were in the Gryffindor common room, Peter had set a lovely spread, with assorted meat pies, iced tea, it was Lily's favorite, scalloped potatoes, salad greens, and a lemon meringue pie Peter made. The fire crackled and rolled in its furnace as it incinerated the cedar logs, leaving the room pleasantly warm like the ivory sand on the beach when the orange sun sinks down over the water. Her eyes, green as Irish shamrocks, glistened like polished silver reflecting the firelight in her emerald iris.
"Peter, I know I've never told you this but, I can't live without you." Lily said, grabbing his hand across the table.
"Oh Lily, I can't live without you either! Marry me, Lily!" Peter jumped to his feet, brandishing a scintillating ring with diamonds to rival the Queen's jewels. Slipping it onto her dainty polished finger, he saw a tear trickle down her cheek, as she turned to look at him.
"Oh, Peter! Of course I'll marry you!" She ran to him, jumping into his arms, he was locked in her soft embrace, picking her up into his arms and kissing her pink lips.
"Oh Peter." She said sweetly as she kissing him.
"Oh, Lily." He replied, kissing her lips and touching her cheek with his fingertips.
"Peter."
"Lily."
"Peter!"
"Lily!"
"Peter!!!"
"Lily!!!"
"PETER!!!!" Peter snapped out of his romantic dream sequence when a 7th year Ravenclaw girl smacked him on the back of the head with the pad of her hand. "What are you doing? You're supposed to run the register, or get people to buy stuff! Don't you care about the Charms Club? We need knew books, Peter, and I'd like to see them before I graduate!" She gave him an angry look, but left when Peter promised to get back to work.
"Everyone's always telling me what to do. It's not like anyone's buying anything anyway. It's not MY fault they decided to have this in the morning when no one's hungry. We should sell them during Transfigurations in Professor McGonnagal's classroom, we'd have LOADS of sales then." Peter fumed watching the rest of his friend studying. James was scratching a hole in his head and trying to make notes on things that sounded important, while making googly eyes at Lily, who kept rolling her eyes at him. Sirius was writing notes to Grace who was trying to pay attention to what the group leader was saying, but Sirius was making the task very difficult. He was bored with studying and was trying very hard to make sure that Grace was entertained, rather than enlightened. Remus however, was genuinely participating in the lesson. He was taking extensive notes on a 3 yard long piece of parchment, and was already more than halfway down it. However, Peter noticed that Remus had an unusual smile on his face, that was kind of like his "I know something that you don't" smile, but a little bit different. Peter leaned a little further over the counter to decipher what it was, but before he got the chance, there was a loud crashing sound, and he felt himself being disassociated from the ground.
He had leaned over so far that the cart had fallen over, sending the money box, some of the sweets, and Peter to the floor. Looking around, he saw most of the study group had been disturbed, and many of them were laughing. Even Sirius and James were chuckling gleefully. But not Lily, she looked concerned as she tried to figure out who had fallen.
Peter's left leg had been crushed under the cart, but he wasn't about to get chewed out again, he pulled his leg out from under the cart, and picked up the money box, stuffing the galleons, knuts, and sickles into their compartments. He picked up the boxes of sweets that were salvageable, which was fortunately most of them, as the had been packaged in various Tupperware containers, and threw away what was ruined, a plate of iced sugar cookies, and a yellow cake, which had landed icing side down in a mud puddle. Using what little strength he had, he flipped the stand upright, putting the cookies and money box on the stand, and tapping a fifth year Hufflepuff yelled, "Lucy, take over," and limped to the hospital wing passing Madame Gurkins, the Hogwarts nurse, with his leg suddenly throbbing with the most horrible pain he could ever remember experiencing, and passed out on an empty bed.