CHAPTER 3: ANONYMOUS
The morning came only too fast for poor James, who had barely had any shut-eye all night, his mind wandering the pathes of the future, for instance, his marriage.
With the rising sun's rays blinding him, and his friend Sirius tickling his feet, he decided his good mood had gone, at least for a little while. Being an optimist, James never kept grudges very long. He growled and released the tension of his feet, pretending he was stretching. Sirius fell to the floor with a thud, holding his now-bruised jaw.
"That should teach you not to wake a man when he's sleeping" Remus chuckled softly as he also stretched his limbs. "You call that a man?" Sirius retorted, pulling himself back up. He sat on James and added, with a satisfied expression: "A real man would've kissed his girlfriend goodnight, Moony."
James raised his head and opened his eyes. "You were watching!?" He shouted, talking about last night. "Every bit of it." Peter cut in " but it was his idea." The one they nicknamed 'Wormtail' spat quickly, pointing to Sirius, who didn't flinch.
Rolling his eyes, James pushed Sirius off the bed, with great difficulty and dropped to the ground. He stumbled down the stairs, having forgotten some clean clothes down in the common room and hopped not-so-merrily back up where his friends still stood, waiting for him, before going to the Great Hall for breakfast. They were all starving. Quite a typical morning for the Marauders, something they would miss as soon as they'd have graduated from Hogwarts.
"Mornin', Lil." Sirius laughed as he took a seat right beside her. Since his best friend had started going out with her, he had taken certain...liberties. For instance, calling Lily, "LIL' ", and getting uncomfortably close to her. Of course, this was all just for fun, if Sirius was...well...serious, James already would've done something about it. After all, Lily was his girlfriend.
"Honestly, Padfoot, she's not YOUR girlfriend." Remus stated, only a little too loudly. "Oh!" Sirius replied. "And I suppose she's yours?" "No, but-" Remus tried to justify. Unfortunately, Peter didn't let them finish their little argument. As was his usual habit, he tried to change the conversation: "Oh, look at you two, arguing like an old married couple." "How adorable." James added, a immense smirk on his face.
"I'm heading to the library."Remus said abstractedly. "Oh, no, Moony, I want to know something first." "Yes, Sirius?" Remus sighed, looking over his shouldder. There was a long silence, as if he was seriously thinking, for once. "Who would be the female?" At this point, the Marauders burst out laughing, covering every other sound from the Hall.
Remus sat back down after they had wiped their tears, and poured himself (and Sirius) a bowl of Cheerios.
Lily, who happened to be sitting right beside them, and had been following the conversation, smiled and rolled her eyes at the four of them, who were making more noise than perhaps anyone else in the Great Hall. She smiled specifically at James before taking another drink from her goblet and a bite of her toast.
"I personally think Sirius would be the wife," she said after a moment, with a slight grin. "He's just got that sort of feminine charm." She smiled sweetly at Sirius and returned to her breakfast.
Everyone who happened to have heard them conversing burst out laughing again, agreeing completely to Lily's opinion. Sirius fluttered his eyelids and smiled sweetly, crossing his legs under the table. "Come 'ere, Remmy Poo!" He laughed, pulling toward him a panic-stuck Remus. "Lemme give you a kissy kissy." "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" the other cried. "Anything but that!" he shrieked, terrorised.
He knew Sirius wasn't serious at all, thus why he attempted to fight his way out of Sirius' grasp, thrashing around, as his body was forced closer to his friends'. To his surprise, he was released, without having been touched. "I understand..." Sirius sighed. " You're not ready to take that step yet. It's alright." He patted Moony, who flinched everytime his head collided with the massive hand that was Sirius'. "I can wait a bit longer." "I'd prefer if you waited forever." Alright. Bad joke, but at least it closed the matter.
They finished their breakfast merrily, and made their way to the common room to fetch their stuff for first class. It was a Thursday morning: Charms was first, then Divination.
The classroom where professor Flitwick taught his classes was bright enough; two long, narrow windows carved out from the back of the room illuminated the dark, elm wood structures that served as seats and desks. The equally dark walls were littered in complicated and confuzing images pinned to burgundy red paint.
Flitwick was waiting for the kids by the door, the same welcoming smile on his face. "Good day, professor." Lily greeted, taking a seat closer to the teacher's desk, situated beside the windows. The Marauders followed soon after, behind some Hufflepuff students, also in their last year.
The bell rang and professor Flitwick ordered silence before he started speaking. The exams were over and there was nothing left to learn, so he decided to have a discussion on the advantages of learning charms, which turned into more of a debate on who was good at certain spells and who was worse. Flitwick seemed to be enjoying listening to out-of-control teens, occasionally trying to reduce the amount of noise resounding in everyone's ears, and falling back into an avid conversation on the different effects of spells with the studious part of the class, which included Lily Evans and several Hufflepuff students.
Meanwhile, the Marauders had an 'intimate' 'chat' with Padfoot. "Very well proportionned, that Amber, though very fragile." "So she's your new girlfriend, eh?" "Well, not yet." Sirius whispered, leaning in.
"What house is she in?" Remus asked, seeming somewhat interested in the subject. He himself had never had a girlfriend, mostly because he was afraid to reveal his secret to anyone, or maybe the fact that Sirius went on a date with a different girl every week, hardly ever getting satisfied traumatised him. "Huffelpuff, I think." He replied. "You don't even know?" "I said Hufflepuff. There, you see?" getting irritated, he pointed to a short, thin woman, wavy caramel colored hair that fell lightly upon her shoulders, big and bright hazel eyes, a bit like James'. She looked like a skeleton with a bad makeover.
"Padfoot," James gulped rather loudly. "Are you sure? I mean, wasn't there someone else available?" Sirius turned to him, eyebrow raised. He pondered for a moment. "Well, now that you mention it, a certain Lily Evans was free at the time." He answered, a malevolent flame burning in his eyes. Knowing it was a joke, James stayed unmoved, but a feeling of jealousy over-took him nevertheless. He quickly shook it out of his mind, and changed the conversation.
"The Headmaster wants to meet us tomorrow night." He announced, lowering his voice to an almost imperceptible whisper. In the same tone, the others revealed their astonishment. "What? Why?" "Something 'bout work after graduation." James replied, shifting uneasily. He ran a hesitant hand through the ebony strands on top of his head, shrugging. "I really don't know." He stated. "But I think it's s-" He was cut of by the resounding echoes of the bell, the ones announcing the end of first class. "Let's go fore-tell our futures in crystal balls." Remus sighed. As eager as he was to pass all his classes, this one was by far the least important. He proclaimed to believe living life one step at a time was simple, and much better than if you knew what was coming.
"After you." Sirius showed him the door, resting his hand on the rugged handle. "I'd really rather play quidditch." "We know, Prongs, we know." "James! Sirius!" The Marauders whirled around to find, to their dismay, a group of girls who were heading in their direction. The fanclub. "What do we do, what do we do?" James panicked. "You go this way, I'll take that hall. We split and meet at the divination tower when we've lost them." "'Kay." They sprinted in opposite ways as the horde closed down on them.
Remus and Peter had long gone since then, Sirius had been chased down to the dungeons while James, poor James, had been forced to hide outside amongst the infinite field of boulders somewhere abut the grounds. He had finally, after a great deal of effort, managed to run away from his raging fanclub, and he was seriously starting to believe being as popular as handsome as he, was a bad idea.
James ran a hand through his dark, un-tidy hair and grunted. The bell had probably already rung, and he'd get yet another detention. Great. He glanced around, thankful for the fact that no girls had followed him.
Or so he thought. "There he is!" The throng screeched, quickly gaining on him. James ran back to the castle, turned a corner, went up a flight of stairs, etc. If only he could reach the divination tower before... "Oh, no." They had cornered him. They were ever so slowly creeping up on him, fingernails just tickling his skin. "No, no. Gir-ladies" He gasped, "I'm sure there's another way to settle this..."
"Mister Potter! What are you doing at this time out of class? I know exams are over, but it's no reason to skip!" Thank goodness. A teacher. "Come to my office. Now." The professor shoo-ed away the gals that surrounded him and sent them back to their classes as well, before adressing James again. "What class do you have?" "Divination. Just over there." He pointed to the spiral staircase at the other end of the corridor. "I'll see you at four then, I believe." James sighed as the older man walked down the hall. "Yeah, sure." He muttered, turning back to the tower and climbing up the stairs.