Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, places, magic or anything to do with the world of Harry Potter that you recognise.
In The Beginning (Chapter 1)
"James?!" Sirius waved a hand in front of James' face. "Earth to James."
James was staring at Lily, who was on the edge of a conversation with some of her friends. Sirius elbowed James hard.
"What?" James glared at Sirius.
"I said, oh idiotic one, do you get a different dorm?" James shrugged, he hadn't really thought about it – he'd read his head boy letter, but he hadn't really taken in the words. He pulled the letter from his pocket and scanned the text.
"Yeah. I get my own dorm, bathroom and there's a head pupils common room."
Sirius' eyebrows furrowed. "Are you sure? That would render our map outdated!" He sounded scandalised.
"What map would that be then?" Lily asked from her position behind Peter, who jumped out of his skin in fright and let out a rather high pitched shriek, much to the amusement of those around him.
"Erm……"
Lily had her eyebrows raised and her foot tapped the floor rather impatiently.
"Well?"
Remus looked from Sirius' hopelessly blank face to James' I'm-just-about-to-laugh-hysterically grin and decided to take control of the near hopeless situation. "His Hogwarts map. It's crap. He wanted to be a map maker in our third year, but, alas, he has absolutely no skill in that area."
Sirius flashed Remus a dirty look before giving Lily what he hoped was an I'm-completely-innocent smile. "What he said."
Lily tried not to laugh at Sirius dodgy grin, which he obviously thought made him look innocent, and decided not to waste her time.
"James – we have a meeting with Dumbledore."
James stood up to leave.
"Eighths." Announced Sirius, who had continued devouring food after the map incident.
"I'll tell you if he manages tenths James." Said Remus.
"Thanks."
Dumbledore, the old, long bearded one, briefed the head students of their duties and showed them how to reach their common room and new bedrooms via the Gryffindor common room. Part of the wall opened up with a password, but would only allow head students through or people that had permission to enter (given by the head students).
When Dumbledore had departed, Lily and James uttered the password to the section of the wall and walked through a short stone passageway to their common room. Leading of from the left of the common room was a staircase, which moved up and down like an escalator, depending on which way the user wanted to go. On the left at the top of the stairs was a wooden door with a thin, engraved gold plaque. It read:
James Potter
Head Boy
An identical thin gold plaque on the door to the left read:
Lily Evans
Head Girl
Each bedroom had a double four-poster bed adorned with gold drapes and red covers. They each had roaring fireplaces and en suite bathrooms. The bedrooms contained no desks, as the common room had plenty of space for the head students to work in.
James unpacked his things (well, he just chucked his clothes into the wardrobe and everything else on the floor to make it seem like home) and travelled back downstairs to the head's common room. A few minutes later he decided to read, and had to venture back upstairs to get a book from his junk pile. Lily reached the top of the stairs when James was halfway up. An evil grin arose on her face and she stood on the top step to see which way the stairs would go. James found himself travelling backwards down the stairs, misinterpreted where the bottom was, and fell flat on his back at the foot of the stairs. Lily was giggling, though her eyes looked unhappy.
"I guess it's ladies first."
She held out a hand to help James up. James didn't take it.
"I refuse to accept help from the so called 'lady' who purposely stood on the stairs to watch my downfall."
Lily grinned. "You're okay?"
"Sure," James replied, "but you're not."
"What?" Lily looked annoyed.
"You're upset, and you've been upset about something since last year."
"No I'm no and no I haven't."
"Yes you were and yes you have. I notice it because I can see it in your eyes. You always seem to be half out of it, like you don't really care anymore."
Lily flinched and frowned. "Honestly James, I'm fine."
James sighed. "Well, if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here. Okay?"
Lily's almond shaped green eyes briefly searched James' hazel eyes as though she were trying to work out it he was being serious. James heart fluttered as she did so.
"Thanks, I suppose."
Lily turned and exited the head's common room, leaving a worried James standing alone.
Lily's best friend, Ariadne Sapphire, was also worried about Lily. She had known that something was wrong with Lily when she'd come back to school after the Easter holidays in the Sixth year. She seemed more distant about things, and just went with the flow so that she didn't need to use too much effort to get through each day. Since Lily had left for a meeting with Dumbledore, the old, long bearded one, Ari had sat watching Sirius in disgust. Sirius happened to look up.
"What?"
"It's a miracle! Sirius stopped eating to say something!"
"Yeah, well I can't eat anymore."
"I'm not surprised."
Peter joined the conversation. "Sirius! You can't stop eating! You're already on ninths, you only need two more lots!"
Remus snorted. "One, Peter, one."
Peter started to count on his fingers as Sirius and Remus laughed.
"You're meant to eat ten courses?"
Remus rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Sirius and James had a bet of 5 Galleons that Sirius couldn't eat ten helpings of dinner."
Ari laughed. "You lot are so immature and," she looked at Sirius, "just generally disgusting, particularly in your oaf-like eating habits."
Remus subtly cleared his throat.
"Oh, you're not too bad Remus, but the fact that you hang around with such riff raff goes against you."
"Well, excuse me 'Arry Sapphire, but plenty of women find me irresistible."
"Right. Name one who isn't considered to be a virtually no-brained bimbo."
Sirius screwed up his face, and his friends sat in silence for a few minutes as he tried to think of someone who considered him to be irresistible, but wasn't a virtually no-brained bimbo. After a few minutes he gave a cheeky grin.
"Got one."
Ari looked completely stunned.
"Who?"
"Ariadne Sapphire."
Ari let out a huge laugh. "In your dreams Sirius Lee Black. I don't think my boyfriend would be too happy to hear that."
"Your boyfriend?"
Ari grinned. "Yeah. Andy Whiles."
Sirius seemed somewhat annoyed.
Ari persuaded Lily to let her see the head pupil's common room and her new bedroom and en suite bathroom when she got back from dinner. Ari howled with laughter when Lily told her about the stairs incident, and she and Lily tried going in opposite directions. The staircase shuddered to a halt. Ari and Lily sat in the head pupil's common room talking and reading magazines.
"Lily – what happened in the Easter holidays?"
"I don't want to talk about it, Ari. Drop it – okay?"
"Not okay, Lily. You've been different since then. It's like you don't care about stuff anymore, like nothing really matters."
Lily could feel her eyes filling up with tears that were threatening to spill over.
"Ari, I-"
Lily stopped short as the Marauders entered. Sirius sat down on the sofa next to Ari and swung an arm round her shoulder. "So, have you dumped your boyfriend yet?"
Ari gave Sirius the dirtiest look she could muster and pushed his arm off of her shoulder. "Sirius Black, you just interrupted an important conversation."
Sirius raised his eyebrows. "Really? Oh, well carry on then. I don't mind." He draped his arm around Ari's shoulder once more.
"A private conversation." Ari shifted away from Sirius, leaving his arm to drop onto the sofa beside him.
Lily stood up. "Well, I'm going to bed. Goodnight."
"Lily! You can't just-"
"I told you to drop it Ari." She took a few steps across the room towards the stairs.
"Lily, it won't just go away if it hasn't since Easter."
Lily carried on walking and didn't look back.
Ari sighed. "She always does that. She just avoids whatever it is, like nothing happened."
James had been staring at Lily's eyes the whole time seeing the pain, but not the cause. "Yeah, she wouldn't talk to me earlier either. She says she's fine, but her eyes tell a different story."
Ari didn't seem surprised by this; she could tell that James was in love with Lily. She never said that to Lily though, she'd either dismiss it or be really annoyed so there wasn't really any point.
"Well, I suppose I'd better be going too."
Sirius faked a downcast look. "But why?" Then he grinned. "To dump Andy? Oh good. You'd better be going then. Bye!"
Ari gave a sarcastic "Ha, ha." And exited the head's common room, walking round the back of the sofa and giving Sirius a swift whack around the head on her way.
Tanya*