Secret Keeper - Chapter 3

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James found it hard pressed to remember a time when he'd felt more buoyant. Not even the time he and Sirius had rigged the ceiling of the Great Hall in their second year to spell out rude words with it's clouds and stars, the teachers being unable to rectify it for a week nor find the culprits, came close. He was certain that, for the rest of his life, all he would have to do was think of the first evening he spent strolling through the snow-dusted grounds of Hogwarts with Lily Evans on their first official date, and he would be able to produce a patronus that could fill up the entire school itself.

Not that he would have admitted it to any of his friends. Wild Thestrals could not have drug this private elation from him.

He was pleased to see that Lily looked similarily happy, cheeks flushed with (he hoped) more than the chill in the air. "So," she said now, hands clasped behind her back as she walked beside him, "you really weren't planning on doing anything else today?"

Thinking only briefly of Sirius, Remus, and Peter, now undoubtably filling their pockets with good-natured but havoc-wreaking Dungbombs for his bed later, James shook his head. "Not at all. I was just going to catch up with my studies, I mean, you know how seriously I take those. Spent all last weekend finishing up that essay on the properties of Monkshood for Frewin, three days ahead of time, just so I could have this weekend free."

"Remus Lupin told me the reason he was late for Divination last week was because he had to hunt you down and get his notes back from you for that essay when you'd finished copying them at the last minute after nicking them out of his bag." she said mildly.

"Oh, well," James said with a grin, unpertubed, "I mean I was finishing it up in spirit, you know, and aren't you always saying, Lily, that it's the thought that counts?"

She laughed and smiled slyly up at him. "Just don't try to convince any teachers your very best well-intentioned wishes is better than a completed NEWT exam." Her own words seemed to have a sobering effect on her, and her brows knit suddenly. "Have you been studying for your NEWTS, James? Remus told me he was worried about you and your dedication to your studies."

To avoid answering the question, James said, bracingly, "So, you've been talking to Remus about me all the time, have you? Can't get me out of your head, eh?" The embarassed sort of grin she gave him was better than any spoken response, and James felt as though he'd just taken a swallow of warm Butterbeer.

They walked in comfortable silence for a while. This close to Christmas, Hogwarts was mostly empty, all of it's students in their third year and above down in Hogsmeade for last minute shopping before they went home for the holidays. James himself had hunted Remus down just this morning, pressing a bag of gold on him and a hastily written Christmas list in the hallway outside the Ravenclaw common room after he'd made his plans with Lily. Somehow, he didn't think Sirius would have appreciated "the thought" for Christmas quite as much as he would have that handy new penknife he'd been eyeing.

He did feel a little guilty that the only gift he had bought himself had been the one he'd gotten for Lily, several weeks prior at the last Hogsmeade weekend. He'd done most of the shopping under his Invisibility Cloak, not wanting to chance being seen. As fond as he was of Lily, he wasn't quite ready to endure the relentless teasing from Sirius and the others just yet; he wanted all his embarassments to be as contained (and preferably non-existent) as possible for as long as possible.

"Did you see the Daily Prophet this morning?" Lily was saying now, expression once again serious as she looked up at him. A frost was beginning to form on her blue and black knitted cap, and James reluctantly admitted it would be time to go inside soon, before they both had to pay a visit to Madam Pomfrey, the pretty young new nurse in the Hospital Wing, for a warming up potion.

"No," he said, "who won the last Quidditch match? I hope it was the Cannons . . . not bad for newcomers, are they?"

"I don't know," Lily replied with a trace of her old impatience, "I'm not talking about that, James. I'm talking about the latest attack."

Just like that, the cold that James had thus far only been feeling in his boots had suffused his entire body and destroyed the pleasantly warm sensation that had been inside him the whole afternoon. "No," he said quietly, "what happened?"

Looking forward again, Lily scowled into the tangle of bushes at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. "The Longbottoms were hit while they were doing some last-minute holiday shopping in London last night. You remember Alice going on about how her sister loved anything Muggle-ish."

James stopped walking abruptly, siezing her by her arm. "Are they alright?" he asked urgently, paling. "What happened? Did they catch who did it?"

Lily covered his hand reassuringly with her own, although her expression remained dark. "They're okay. Whoever did it was sloppy about it . . . tried to put the Cruciatus Curse on them in the middle of a crowded department store . . . it was complete madness, I hear, they hit some poor old Muggle woman instead, they thought she was going to die before it was lifted. It meant a lot of work for the Ministry covering it up, memory charms left and right." she let out a deep breath, shaking her head. "But even if they didn't pull it off, it was still bloody bold of them . . . it's got people worried." she added, with a compassionate look at him.

Too late James tried to cover up the expression on his face, and settled for a weak smile as they resumed walking. Alice Leppington and Frank Longbottom had been two years ahead of him, both in Gryffindor. James himself had been especially fond of Frank, who, with his good-natured streak of rebelliousness and talent for Quidditch, had quickly become the sort of older brother James had always wanted. Frank and Alice had already been together by the time James had arrived at Hogwarts, and it came as no surprise to anyone that they had gotten married almost immediately upon leaving school. James still made a point of visiting them every summer.

He had always thought of them as the perfect couple, the sort of affection that passed between them in their gazes when they looked at one another something he hoped to share with . . . someone . . . one day. That didn't change the fact that he had thought they were both being abysmally stupid when they'd openly named themselves enemies of and joined the newly formed defense league against the newest threat to the wizarding world.

Voldemort.

"They're okay, James." Lily repeated now, after the silence had spun out between them. With a jolt, he realised her hand was still on his. "I knew Alice. She's strong." She smiled up at him.

"I know." The smile had more heart to it this time around. "I just worry, you know? They're putting themselves in danger . . . someone else could be handling all this."

"Well," she said, "it's gotten bad lately . . . haven't you noticed? Students are torn between staying here where they feel safest with all the teachers, and going home with their families. They don't know where to turn, and things just keep getting worse. I suppose . . . I suppose they just want to do their part. You know how they are."

They were heading back towards the school now, the sky taking on a bruised look as night approached. In the distance, a long line of straggling black shapes, Hogwarts students wrapped in their winter cloaks, made it's way slowly towards the warmth of it's halls. "I know." James said again. "I just don't want to spend the rest of my life worried about attacks and who might be waiting around every corner."

Lily smiled at him again. "Don't worry," she said, "we won't. Everything is being handled."

James looked at her and, suddenly uncaring of whatever teasing he might have to endure when he returned to the common room that night, slipped his arm around her shoulders. He walked with a definite spring in his step when she slipped one around his waist in turn as they walked up the castle steps.

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Peter watched James and Lily disappear, pressed close together, into the school. He was standing outside the gamekeeper's hut, red-cheeked from the snow and a sense of embarassment. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop on them, really. And he hadn't intended to find them, either. After leaving the Three Broomsticks, he'd spent much of his time merely wandering the snow-choked streets, finally returning to the school grounds when he was so cold he could hardly stand it, and out of breath.

He wasn't angry at James, exactly. More than anything, Peter worshipped him, and Remus and even Sirius to a lesser degree. He was more than aware that without their friendship, he would have been completely alone at Hogwarts. It was easy for poor, pudgy, shy Peter Pettigrew to completely escape the notice of the other students.

Except the Slytherins, he thought, darkly. He resumed walking towards the school, swinging his arms for balance as he lifted his short legs with difficulty above the deep snow. He soon found himself walking through the path Lily and James had cut, thinking once again of the way James had left them high and dry in favour of her. Remus and Sirius had been unconcerned, but for Peter, it had been deeply worrying. What if James abandoned them entirely, now that Lily had decided he was worth her time? What if Sirius and Remus followed suite? Sirius, as guilty as Peter felt at the thought, would be no great loss, as he knew Sirius viewed him as a minor distraction at best. But Remus had always at least made the greatest effort to include Peter in everything, and, as much as he admired James, Remus had always been the one who was kindest and the most patient with him.

At the foot of the stone steps, Peter stopped abruptly. He found himself staring up at the massive stone school, wondering if he could bear it if he suddenly found himself alone in it's long halls, once again reduced to slinking embarassed and unnoticed from class to class alone as he had in his first year before he'd met James and the others. True, he wouldn't be in school after this year, but that just meant facing a much wider world than the school on his own, completely alone.

You're being stupid, he told himself, but even his own voice sounded uncertain to him.

If he didn't have his friends, where would he be?