Chapter Thirteen: Lazy Sundays
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Sunday, 4 MarchThree months, twenty days
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Lazy Sundays were rare.
There was always work that needed to be done, people who needed to be seen, places that needed visiting, and for some reason, Sunday was always the only day those things would be done. So naturally, when there was a Sunday available for sitting around, the pounced on it.
Today was the first lazy Sunday in months.
They were pouncing on it.
In a sheerly lackadaisical manner, of course.
Lily was lying in bed, propped up against a stack of pillows, reading the Sunday Prophet and sipping a cup of tea. James was lying horizontally, his head resting on her stomach, doing a crossword puzzle in the laziest way possible: he had levitated the page so that it was floating directly above him, the puzzle side facing him. He wasn't actually writing the answers (that would really tire out his arm, raising it like that), but was telling his Quick Quotes Quill the answers and where to put them. The only downside to this otherwise brilliant procedure was that the ink often dripped down from the page, and James had to dodge it, lest it get in his eyes or on his nose or something. Luckily, Lily was immersed in a story about Azkaban security or else she would've noticed that there were several drops of black ink on her gray silk camisole.
"55 across is 'blasphemy'," James told the quill. As it skittered across the page, scribbling the answer, James said to his girlfriend, "Lily, I'm getting bored."
"What do you want me to do about that?" she asked from behind her paper.
"I don't know," James replied. "Entertain me?"
"Finish your crossword," Lily suggested.
"I just did."
Lily lowered her paper in surprise and looked down at him. "You did?" she asked.
He snatched the page out of the air and showed her.
"James, you've only been working that for fifteen minutes, and you've already finished it?"
He shrugged. "Crosswords are easy. In fact, I think they actually insult my intelligence with their easiness." He tossed the page carelessly behind him, allowing it to flutter to the floor, and turned back to her, brightening as he thought of an idea. "Let's play word association!"
She sighed and set aside the paper. "I don't think Gideon should've taught you that game," she smiled.
"It's a good game," James insisted. "It teaches us about each other, you know?" He lifted his head from her stomach and sat up.
This amused Lily. "Really?"
"Yes. Come on, let's play."
She laughed a little. "Are you five years old or something today?"
He frowned. "Did you seriously just say that?"
Lily raised her eyebrows. "Did I accidentally touch a nerve?" she asked.
"Well, you just asked if I was five years old when we were sitting in bed, both in our underwear. It makes me nervous."
Lily smiled and reached up to put her hand on the back of his neck. She applied pressure, effectively pulling him to her, at which time she kissed him. "I absolutely do not think of you as five years old at times like these," she told him.
James smiled and kissed her again. "That's good."
"Do you still want to play word association?" she queried softly, threading her fingers through his very tangled hair, which she knew was going to require some very quick movements and possibly scissors to get out of later.
James deftly kicked the pillow separating the two of them out of the way and positioned himself on top of her. "Not so much," he replied. A thought occurred to him as he was kissing her, and it was that thought that caused him to pull away abruptly. "Was that your intention all along, you tart? To distract me from word association?"
Lily grinned. "It's possible." She lifted her head to meet his mouth again. "Do you care?"
"Not even a little bit, surprisingly."
**
"So, I think I'm going to ask Hestia out again."
Remus dropped the bag of wizarding crackers he had been looking at. As he scrambled to pick them up, he said, "You are?"
Sirius idly picked up a silver party hat and held it up so as to smooth his windswept hair. "Well, we've been getting along really well lately, and it's been a really long time since I asked her last." He shrugged and set down the hat. "Party hats are lame, right?"
Sirius was in charge of James's bachelor party, whether James liked it or not, and he was very much behind on the party. He had no ideas whatsoever, except that there was to be much alcohol and even more strippers. So, on the first day available to him, he had decided to drag Remus with him to plan the party. Peter had been invited, of course, but had declined to come, citing a 'previous engagement' in his return owl. It was ridiculous that just when Sirius had all this free time on his hands, Peter had absolutely none. It was unfair. Sirius had always had a better social life than Peter. Even when they were eleven and therefore too young to even be thinking of having a social life.
Perhaps he had peaked at seventeen.
This thought horrified him, and he immediately discarded it and turned his concentration to Remus across the aisle from him.
"I don't know," Remus responded, keeping his eyes on the rows and rows of miscellaneous party favors. "It's not like I go to that many parties." He cast a glance in his friend's direction. "People like me aren't exactly at the top of anyone's invite list." It was clear to Sirius that when he said 'people like me' he meant the whole werewolf thing.
Sirius shrugged again and said, "Anyway, about Hestia."
"Yes, what about her?" Remus asked.
"Has she mentioned anyone else?" Sirius inquired, leaning against the displays to face Remus, who had his back to him. "Is she seeing anyone?"
"Why are you asking me?" Remus wanted to know. He seemed intent on the crackers he was studying.
"Well, you two are all friendly—which I think is great," Sirius said quickly. "Because, you know, it works out for me. She tells you stuff, you report it back to me. It's great. It's a system. A cycle."
Remus sighed. "From what I know, she's not seeing anyone," he said heavily. "She isn't seeing anyone, she lives in the same place, and has the same job. She likes chips but not fish. She likes white wine but hates red. She likes bacon but not eggs."
"Salt but not pepper?"
Remus glanced at Sirius again. "Pepper but not salt, actually."
Sirius grinned. "That is insane," he said happily.
Remus shrugged, turning back to his crackers. "Not really. I don't like salt much, come to that."
"Not about the salt, you twat. How you pick up on things like that! How do you even do that, Moony?"
"I actually listen to what she's saying because I am not interested in how many more drinks it'll take to get her properly drunk," Remus replied absently. He turned quickly to Sirius once he realized what he had said and rectified, "Not that I assume that's what you'd do if you were on a date with her."
Sirius brushed this off. "Yeah, whatever. Do you think she'd go out with me, though?"
Remus bit his lip. He didn't really think so, but he couldn't just say that. Sirius would go feeling all sorry for himself. Then, naturally, he'd go drown his sorrows in a bottle of vodka or something, and Remus couldn't have Sirius getting alcohol poisoning again. Partly because it was expensive to check him into the hospital, partly because he never really could get the vomit stains out of his carpet, and partly because it had been right scary when it happened the first time. "I don't know," he said idly to compromise.
"You don't know?" Sirius repeated. "You know about the whole freakish salt-and-pepper thing but you don't know whether or not she feels less than amicable towards me?"
"I'm sure she feels amicable towards you," Remus assured him. "At the very least."
Sirius threw him a very cross look. "That's a figure of speech, Moony," he said dimly.
Remus was surprised. "It is?" He had never heard anyone use the phrase 'feel less than amicable' before now, and he considered himself fairly well read. This disheartened him a little.
"Well, not really," Sirius admitted. "But…you're having dinner with her tonight, right?"
"Why would you assume that?"
"You told me," Sirius reminded him, raising an eyebrow. "You do that on occasion."
Remus shook his head. "Right. I forgot."
Sirius regarded him curiously. "Um, sure. Anyway, I'm thinking you could maybe insert me—in a favorable manner, of course—into your conversations. See how that goes over."
Remus nodded slowly. "Okay."
"Okay? Awesome." Sirius glanced around the store. "This place doesn't have anything fit for a swinging bachelor party. Let's go somewhere else, yeah?"
**
Peter was to meet Regulus again at another dim, dank bar, this time in Dorchester. He had Apparated over here about fifteen minutes ago, and it was getting difficult to resist the allure of a nice, tall glass of firewhiskey. He thought that Death Eaters certainly didn't care much for punctuality. Then it dawned on him that this was probably a defense tactic of some sort. Like, maybe they were always late just to throw people off. You would be expecting a dark, cloaked figure to pop out at you at exactly 12:00, but when they came at 12:48, you were totally unprepared for it. And therefore, easier to kill.
Peter wondered if he was going to have to come up with stuff like that when he became One with the Evil.
He'd never been good with the plans. He was better at, you know, being the lookout.
Peter was an awesome lookout.
He wondered if that would come in handy with the whole Bringer of Evil position he was about to take.
It probably would, he reasoned to himself. Even evil overlords needed lookouts.
Peter picked up the red paper napkin in front of him and began to twist it, starting at the outer corner and moving inward. He was looking out the corner of his eyes for any sign at all of Sirius's brother as he methodically turned the napkin into a rope. He didn't see anyone, and while he fully supported his whole defensive (or was it offensive? He wasn't good with sports, either) tactic theory, Peter was beginning to think that maybe this was a test. Maybe the Death Eaters wanted to see what he would do in the face of…abandonment.
Peter felt self-conscious and nervous. Was he supposed to go kill someone or something?
He'd never killed anyone before. He wasn't sure he knew how.
But then what if Regulus came in and saw he'd killed the whole pub and got mad because the whole pub was full of Death Eaters and they were observing what kind of person he was by himself?
But then Peter remembered that this was real life, and that would never happen, because he could not take on a pub full of Death Eaters. He probably couldn't even take on one Death Eater.
He sighed and put his chin in his hand. Maybe just a small firewhiskey. Peter could hold his liquor. Sirius always said that was one of his best qualities.
Peter signaled the waitress.
**
James yawned and turned the page in his book. He was reading A Complete Guide to Wooing Witches by some Australian wizard. Had this book existed when he was seventeen, it would have helped him out with Lily quite a bit more than Remus had, but that was neither here nor there. The book interested him, though, because the guy who wrote it reminded James very much of himself.
He had an idea. "Lily!" he called, lowering the book.
"What?" she yelled back. She was in their bedroom, writing a letter to her old friend Charlotte, inviting her personally to the wedding and basically telling Charlotte all about her life since they had last seen each other, which was a year ago. Charlotte lived in France with a boyfriend, but they traveled a lot, as Charlotte's boyfriend was mildly famous. There was no telling where they would be at any given time. Lily was being very girly about this letter. The last James had seen of it, the letter was six pages long. That was when he had decided to go read his book.
"D'you think I could write a book?"
Lily paused. "Whatever would you write a book about?"
She emerged suddenly from the hallway and stood next to the arm of the couch he was lying on. She began to play with his hair as he formulated a response.
"I have had many exciting experiences in my life, Lily," James told her. "I could write a chronicle of all the pranks we ever played on Snape. Or on anyone. That would be entertaining." He paused and angled his head to look up at her. "You like my prank stories."
Lily smiled. "Your prank stories are nice, love. Except when they involve the humiliation and possible injury of an innocent."
"Nice? Just nice? My prank stories are brilliant, Lily. But you know what would make for good reading?" James's eyes were wide and he sat up abruptly, grinning ridiculously. "I could publish my Stalking Lily Evans journals!"
She burst into laughter. "You cannot publish those journals!" she exclaimed, giggling.
"Why not?! Lily, those journals could make me rich!"
"James, honey, you are rich."
"You called me honey," James immediately said, grinning.
She smiled. "Artistic license." She paused.
"What?" he demanded. "What are you thinking? You're thinking something. You've got the thinking face."
"I suppose it wouldn't be that bad," she said slowly.
James stared at her. "Are you seriously saying that?"
"Well, it could be interesting," Lily said, turning away from the couch and heading down the hallway. James got up and followed. "I mean, it could be viewed as…a 'what not to do' type guide. Or a look inside the mind of seriously disturbed teenage boy." She flashed him a smile. "And an incredibly stubborn girl."
"Where are you going?" he asked her as she turned into one of the other two bedrooms in the house.
"Well, this is where the diaries are, aren't they?"
"Not diaries," James quickly corrected. "They are journals."
Lily tossed her hair. "Whatever. This is where they are, right?" She went to the closet and magicked herself a footstool from across the room. "We could look over them tonight, see what you'd want in and what I definitely wouldn't want in." She stepped onto the stool and ran her fingers over the row of boxes on the top shelf and pulled down the one labeled 'James's school stuff'. "In here, right?"
"Probably," he replied, a little dazed. "What wouldn't you want me to keep in there?"
She set the box on the guest bed, lifted the lid, and sat down cross-legged in front of it. "I don't really know," she admitted. "I haven't read them since…I don't know. I think since that time we broke up after Christmas that one year, remember?"
"Oh, yeah," James said wryly. "When you threatened to burn them. That was fun."
She grinned. "You made me very angry. Anyway, I don't know. Maybe there's nothing." She shrugged. "Come on, help me look."
James joined her on the bed and they rifled through what seemed like several thousand pieces of paper (the box never filled) before James lifted the book.
He sighed. "Memories."
Lily smiled. "Read something."
James opened the book and said, "Why not the first entry?" He cleared his throat importantly and began:
"Monday, 20 November
Saw Subject at breakfast. Said, "Hi."
She glared at me over her toast and said, "Potter, don't you have somewhere to be?"
I smiled in that very attractive way that, it has to be said, only I can smile, and replied (v. suavely, if I do say so myself), "Where else would I want to be than right here?"
Subject rolled her eyes, bit into her toast, and responded coldly, "Well, I rather thought you'd be polishing your broom or admiring yourself in the mirror or, I don't know, hexing someone because they looked at you for too long."
Actually, I did do that this morning. Hex someone, that is.
It was a Slytherin, and I swear he sneered at me.
He'll be out of the hospital wing in a few days; I don't see what the big deal is.
I didn't say that, though. I said, "No. I thought I'd maybe ask you out?"
Subject started to laugh. "Go play with your friends, Potter," she said.
I really think she's warming up to me."
Lily grinned. "Ah, now those were some good times."
**
"So, Remus Lupin,"
Hestia said as they walked along the dusty road leading up to her house, "what
did you want to be when you grew up? You know, when you were a kid?"
Remus paused. "Really?"
"Yeah."
He sighed. "I wanted to be anything but a werewolf," he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down at his worn brown leather shoes. "I thought if I could be…you know, normal…I'd want to be Minister of Magic." He grinned. "But doesn't everyone?"
She smiled back. "I used to want to be an acrobat. You know, like in circuses? I wanted to wear all the costumes and be able to fly. I thought that would be the neatest thing in the world, to just be float above the ground and weigh nothing and just…fly without wings."
"What happened to that?"
Hestia laughed. "I'm terrified of heights."
That made Remus laugh. "You wanted to be a acrobat but you were scared of heights?" he repeated, chuckling good-naturedly.
"Well, one sort of came from the other," she explained. "I decided, when I was six, that in order to become an acrobat, I was going to have some practice. No circus was going to take an inexperienced performer. So I got up on my roof when no one was looking and I…I jumped." Hestia was getting nostalgic; you could see it in her eyes and the soft smile creeping across her lips. "Our house at the time was three stories high, this old Victorian thing, and my bedroom was in a tower. It was nighttime, and my whole family was asleep—or so I thought, you know. So I slipped out my window and climbed up to the top and just…jumped."
"What happened?" Remus asked.
She grinned. "I bounced," she replied simply.
"Your first signs of magic?" Remus guessed.
"None other than," Hestia responded proudly. "My father was on the porch, he saw the whole thing and nearly had a heart attack. I was still so scared of the heights, though. Even though I knew if I fell, I'd just bounce."
They walked in silence for a while, but it was a comfortable silence. Remus wondered if he should tell Hestia about Sirius's aspirations to ask her out, but they were at her house before he could.
"So," she said, smiling at him as she reached into her robe pocket for her key. "I'll see you later?"
Remus nodded. "Yeah."
She turned the key in the lock, and turned to smile at him one last time—but she gasped instead.
"What?"
"You have a spider on your head," Hestia replied. "Here, let me get it." Remus sort of ducked his head and she stood on her tiptoes (even though he really wasn't that much taller than her; Remus was only 5'8") and brushed it off. "There," she said quietly. "Your hair is really soft, by the way."
Remus instinctively reached up to touch his hair. He'd never thought about it before. Did he have soft hair? For a guy, that is? He'd have to feel the hair of his friends to compare. "Thanks," he said. "I wash it."
She laughed. "You are so strange."
**
Regulus Black finally showed up, about thirty minutes and two and a half firewhiskeys later. "Drinking, Pettigrew?" he asked jauntily, slipping into the seat in front of Peter.
"You were late," Peter replied flatly. "I was bored."
Alcohol made him bold.
Regulus allowed a small smile. "So," he said quietly, leaning closer to Peter so as to make their conversation less likely to be overheard, "any information for us?"
Peter swallowed a little of his drink and set his glass back on the table as he tried to recall what was said at last week's meeting. "Nothing much," he said slowly. "I brought—I brought some addresses, though," he remembered brightly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a piece of parchment, folded over four times. "There's seven addresses on there."
Regulus frowned. "Addresses?" he hissed.
Peter faltered. "Yeah," he said, his voice quaking. "I—I thought if you wanted—wanted to…kill people in their sleep…you'd need their addresses."
"Addresses are nothing, Pettigrew," Regulus said dimly. "The Master needs plans. What is Dumbledore's next move? When is he planning to strike?" He leaned even closer. "That's what's important." He rose. "Give me the addresses, and I'll be on my way."
**
A/N: Okay, this took forever to come out (well, three weeks) but pretty soon it will be summer, and during the summer, I will have all day every day to update. That's how I got Deflating out so soon, because I was on summer vacation. Now, I have school. School=evil, and it's time consuming, but I am an updating machine today. I posted two "OC" fics and now this. So snaps for me. :)
And I hope you enjoy the return of the stalker journals. I tried to make it sound like they did in Deflating. I figure if I finish this story but I'm not quite ready to let this universe thing go, I can always write the stalker journals and make them a fic of their own. That'd be kinda cool, huh?
Thanks still for all the reviews, they still make me so happy and I do take criticism and work with it (did everyone notice the lack of the word 'like' in this chapter?)…everything is appreciated.
In the next chapter: Lily's wedding dress comes into play in an interesting way (well, sorta), more reminiscing over stalker journals occurs, and…that's all I wanna say. :)