Disclaimer: Harry Potter (technically James Potter in this story :P ) and all associated characters belong to JK Rowling and co., not to me! I own all the original characters, which along with the story cannot be used without permission. Not that you'd WANT to, geez, but you know... :p
A/N: Sorry this took so long...it was written and everything! I promise to get the next chapter up sooner :D And I promise there's not gonna be any Voldemort or murder or anything like that...it's just total...not dark stuff...:P
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Chapter Two: I Don't Care About the Redhead!
During lunch the same day he'd met the redhead in the hallway, James was feeling considerably better. With the redhead to ponder about, and her comment concerning Lauren running through his mind, James felt nearly himself.
Nearly.
He tried searching for her at the other tables during lunch, but saw no sign of her, much to his disappointment.
Sirius and Remus, however, had forgotten all about what had happened at breakfast, and were chatting happily about the next Quidditch match that Sirius was to commentate.
'Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw...it's gonna be GREAT!' Sirius exclaimed. 'We defeat them, we're in the running for the Cup...again! Heeheehee!'
'Damn straight!' James said, pulling out a chair. 'Don't you believe anything else!'
'Hey, James! Take a seat!' Sirius called to him cheerfully, and James paused in pulling out the chair, eyeing it suspiciously. Sirius was his best friend, but no one could be too careful. Especially since there hadn't been any revenge since James had slipped a fast wearing-off Veritaserum in his juice one morning, so Sirius had spent two hours answering all of James' questions...highly embarrassing. James grinned as he remembered it...ahh, the look on poor Sirius' face. Priceless!
However...James continued to study the chair carefully, trying to find the hint of a trick. But if Sirius had done it properly, James wouldn't be able to see a thing wrong with the chair.
'What's up, Prongs? Take a seat!' That did it! That and the would-be innocent smile convinced James there was something wrong with the chair, and he had the feeling he knew what it was. Looking around for something to test his theory with, he grabbed a plate and piled it with food.
'What're you doing?' Remus inquired, exchanging a glance with Sirius that James saw. Grinning inwardly, James placed the plate of food and sat it on the chair.
'Hey!' he shouted, jumping back as the chair shivered and gave an almighty leap into the air. The chair started going completely beserk, running and jumping around, sending the plate of food flying, where it hit Snape who had been attempting to walk past the psycho chair at the time.
James and Remus nearly fell over with laughter, and Sirius had tears in his eyes as the chair bounded and leaped after Snape as he fled the Great Hall.
'Run, Snape, run!' Sirius managed to stammer out through his laughter.
Everyone in the Hall was pointing and laughing, and it was quite a time before everyone had calmed down. However there were still bursts of laughter that could be heard every now and then as someone remembered the chair.
'Nice one,' James commented, taking a seat (from a normal chair, which he tested just in case). 'But you're gonna have to be better than that.' Sirius adopted a mysterious air.
'How do you know that's what I was gonna get you with?'
'Good job, Sirius!' A blonde haired girl collapsed into the seat next to him, her cheeks slightly flushed. 'Man, I'm starving. Pass the rolls, please.'
'Where've you been, Callie?' Sirius asked her, obediently passing the rolls, grabbing one for himself as he did so.
'Oh...you know...not here. I'm so hungry, man...we have Quidditch practice tonight, yeah?' she asked James, who nodded.
'Yep...be there or be ready to face my wrath.' Callie laughed.
'Yeah, sure James. Wrath.'
'Why does no one ever believe me?' James asked Remus, who gave him a sympathetic smile.
'You seem too...I don't know, not serious?'
'No, because...' Sirius started to say, and Callie groaned.
'Please, get a new joke already!'
'Excuse me.' Sirius looked offended. 'How do you know I wasn't going to be creative that time?'
'You never are!' Ignoring his arguing friends, James challenged Remus.
'Too not serious?'
'You're too much of a prankster, always in a good mood...except this morning,' Remus added as an afterthought. 'No one takes you seriously.' James sighed happily.
'Which is something I am eternally thankful for.' He paused, wondering whether he should ask this next question. 'So, uh, did you ever found out who that girl was?' he asked Remus, who shrugged. Sirius shook his head, holding up a hand to stop Callie talking.
'Don't argue with me, please, I know I'm right...'
'Elephants aren't green!'
'That redhead this morning? Nah, don't know who she is, why?' His eyes glittered suddenly and he leaned forward. 'Do you like her?' James scrunched up his nose and shook his head. 'You do!' Sirius crowed triumphantly.
'No, he doesn't, he likes Lauren, remem...or do you?' Remus asked James, suddenly highly interested.
'No, I don't! Like the redhead, I mean. Lauren, yeah, a little, still.'
'Who do you like?' James' fourth year cousin, Lucy, asked.
'No one.'
'Liar! What about Lauren?'
'She rejected him.' Sirius coughed and sat up straighter. 'Ahem...' He opened his mouth to start singing, and James through a bread roll at him. 'Aargh, my spleen...noooo...I shall avenge you for this...' Sirius tried to stagger while remaining firmly in his seat, making him look extremely stupid. Callie laughed and patted him on the back.
'Oh, no! What shall we do without you? Someone, please! We need a doctor!'
'Too...late...'
'It can't be!' James gasped, hoping they'd forget all about what they had been discussing. He didn't need any jokes about the redhead, and he knew Sirius would never give it up. 'I didn't mean for this to happen! I was only trying to critically injure you! Tell me he'll be alright!' Sirius gave an almighty gasp, and collapsed off his seat backwards.
'Noooo!' Callie howled, covering her face with her hands. She then lunged forward and grabbed James' robes. 'You killed him! I swear, I will destroy you for this! If it's the last thing I do, his death shall not go unavenged!' Remus applauded dutifully as Sirius stood up and took a bow.
'Thank you, thank you...' A few of the Gryffindors that had been sitting near them started applauding as well, and Sirius grinned. 'I'd also like to thank Callie, who played the lover, and James, who played the murderer...but sorry, Prongs, old boy, we still have to deal with what we were talking about earlier.' Sirius skidded into his seat and leaned forward. 'Not getting out of it that easily.'
'James...James, if you could stop pretending to be Sirius' murderer for a moment, Lauren rejected you?' Lucy asked, highly interested.
'Well, yeah,' James told her. 'Now can we drop it? Better yet, we can play the murder game. I'll be the murderer, you be the murderer's cousin that spoke too much and had to be silenced.' Sirius put his hand up.
'Ooh! Ooh! I'll be the boyfriend who swears he'll destroy the murderer of his girlfriend! But in the process he gets himself critically injured, and while in the hospital...'
'He meets a nurse who's a spy in disguise! And together they attempt to track down the murderer,' Remus suggested.
'Honestly!' Lucy cried. 'Did she dump you? Oh, my God, I've gotta tell...'
'Excuse me?' James grabbed her arm. 'You're telling no one, it's none of your business!'
'Only she's not just a spy for their side...she's a DOUBLE-CROSSER! Can't remember the term for it...double-spy? Whatever, she's one of those!'
'And is just luring him out of the hospital and into her trust so that she can get information from him that will tell them the location of the top-secret Super Weapon!'
'But Anne really...' Lucy persisted.
'How old is she?' James interrupted, rolling his eyes at Sirius.
'But he discovers what she's doing in time...a high speed broomstick/curse chase has to be in it at some point...and he Apparates her to where he tells her the Super Weapon is...but it's actually just a secluded place, and before he tries to get information from the other side, the murderer turns up and tries to save her!'
'And in the process he gets himself critically injured!'
'You've already used that...'
'She's fourteen,' Lucy told him, biting her lip slightly. 'She's at the other end of the table. Come on, James, she's really pretty and really nice.'
'Is she a redhead?' Sirius asked slyly, abandoning his and Remus' story for a moment. James shot him a warning look.
'You watch it. Lucy, no.' Lucy frowned.
'James!'
'No!'
'You really are an idiot!' Lucy lowered her voice. 'She really likes you, James. You'd make a great couple.'
'No,' James replied through gritted teeth. 'And that's final.'
'But...'
'Lucy!'
'Okay, okay! And no, Sirius, she's not a redhead.' Lucy looked quizzically from James to Sirius.
'Pity,' Sirius commented, popping a piece of bread into his mouth and grinning.
'Ooh, I know! The girlfriend isn't actually dead, she faked it...SHE'S on the other side as well...'
* * *
'Alright, here's the final line up for Ravenclaw,' James announced to the Gryffindor Quidditch team, of which he was Captain and Chaser, that night. They were all standing on the pitch with their brooms, ready for practice.
'Who's the Seeker?' a petite fourth year girl called Serena Matthews asked. She was the Gryffindor Seeker, and a damned good one at that. She'd hardly ever missed the Snitch, and James was proud of her.
'They decided not to change,' he told Serena, checking his notes. 'Nope, still Sanders.'
'What's the full line up?' the Keeper, fifth year Tom Atkinson, asked.
'Why do you care?' Lisa Wang, also in the fifth year, asked, poking him. 'All you have to do is defend goals.'
'Well, I've gotta make sure their Chasers aren't too good!' he retorted. 'Although I'm sure with your Chaser skills they won't even get the Quaffle.' Lisa shot him a look as if unsure of whether or not he was being sardonic. James quickly jumped in before a full-scale argument broke out between them.
'Good or bad, their Chaser's are gonna shoot goals all the same. Now Serena has to know...but Sanders is a duffer, he never gets the Snitch. Pity their actual Seeker quit.'
'Yeah, that was weird,' Callie Williams commented. She was also a sixth year, a good friend to the Marauders, and Beater on the team. 'Why'd he quit, James?'
'He was too intimidated by Serena,' he told them, and Serena snorted. 'Oh, alright, fine, he got put off by Sirius' commentary.'
'Sirius was quite vicious that day,' Lisa remembered. James grinned wickedly.
'I wonder why,' he said in a voice that would sound innocent had it not come from him.
'James! That's cheating,' Callie pointed out, a grin on her face. 'I like it!'
'Still, Ravenclaw are pretty good. Their Chasers are excellent,' Liam Walsh, the other Beater, admitted. He was the only third year on the team, and the youngest player.
'We've played them before, I'm sure we'll be fine,' Callie pointed out. 'And if they dare start winning, I'll break their noses!' She and Liam exchanged high-fives while everyone laughed.
'Alright, then,' George McCauley, the other fourth year, grinned. 'We've got this in the bag. The rest of us distract the Ravenclaw team while Callie and Liam break their noses.' The team laughed again, and Callie cheered.
'Whoo! Yeah!'
'How could we distract them?'
'I don't know...James, how about you just fly around smiling at everyone? That'll be the girls gone...' George joked, and James laughed.
'Sure.'
'And you can fly around smiling at everyone too, George,' Lisa told him sweetly. 'That'll be the boys gone.' George tried to poke her while everyone laughed, throwing around suggestions to distract the Ravenclaw team.
'Okay, guys, owing to the fact that not one of those ideas is legal...not that that really matters, but we've gotta keep it clean...we might just start the practice,' James announced as Liam suggested they turn the Ravenclaw team into the animal that represented their house, the eagle, as it would probably make them fly better.
After the practice, James felt his team was ready for Saturday.
'Now, it's Thursday today...'
'No, really?' Callie said. 'I could've sworn it was Sunday.'
'I thought today was April, actually,' Lisa said, sounding confused. 'James, are you sure it's Thursday? I'd check your calendar if I were you.'
'You're right, I was wrong,' James told them. 'It's actually Get-Yourselves-Back-to-the-Common-Room-Before-I-Kick-You-There-Day.'
'Yeah, I knew it was that,' George agreed. 'You're a smart one, James.'
'AS I WAS SAYING!' James shouted, and they all stopped talking, grinning at him. 'Today is, as I pointed out before, Thursday. The match is on Saturday afternoon, and if I hear one duh, I am going to curse you until you beg for mercy!'
'Duh,' Callie said, and laughed. James shot her a glare, and she stopped. 'Sorry.'
'I think we're all gonna be prepared...I'd like to practice tomorrow, but Ravenclaw booked it.' He frowned. 'They booked it weeks ago, damn it!'
'They just wanna make sure they get all the practice they can get,' Tom said.
'Yeah, but we can't get too confident, guys,' James reminded them. 'The minute we're over-confident, we'll lose.'
'Alright! Nice and optimistic words from our leader!' Callie bowed down to him. 'All hail King James!'
'Can I have a pay-rise?' George asked in a shaky voice. 'See, I got kicked out of my home...'
'You're a monarch now, eh? SCANDAL! Who've you slept with? I want names, places AND dates. Oh, and what they said afterwards.'
'Scandal?'
'He's royalty, we've got to get black points against his name to bring him down.'
'Why do we want to do that?'
'Honestly...so we can take over! Insert evil laugh here.'
'Can I invade your country? We need more space. Not to mention you as a King...' Callie whistled.
'QUIT IT!'
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Again, next chapter will be up sooner!
Thanks for reading! Please review! :D
Blue jelly for all!
Jolinar of Malkshur
