James had promised to meet Sirius in the Three Broomsticks on Sunday morning. It wasn't what he'd hoped to do with his weekend – he had a term paper to work on and a date to retrieve, after all – but this was an emergency. The poor guy had been in a very un-Sirius-like funk all yesterday, and it would be up to James to snap him out of it... definitely up to James, because Remus had vanished. Again.
Despite his friends repeatedly denying that they were conspiring to do something without him, James was feeling more and more as if he'd missed something important. For starters, he had no idea what had gotten into Sirius yesterday. The Hufflepuff seeker was alive and well – sure, the accident must have hurt, but Madam Pomphrey could cure just about anything that didn't kill you outright. Sirius' reaction had been all out of proportion to what had actually happened. And then there was Remus, and his rather pathetically obvious crush on the Ravenclaw girl. What was wrong with the pair of them?
James had nothing against crushes. He'd been crushing on Lily Evans since first year, and if Remus was lucky enough to crush on a girl from a rich and influential family, good for him. But his expressed interest in asking Miss Calibourne to the ball was worrying. Didn't he understand the difference between dating and romance? Dating was public, and it was therefore something you did for status; the marauders and the Black triplets had no romantic designs on each other at all – James didn't even particularly like Narcissa – they went out because everybody expected them to. He'd thought Remus understood that.
Apparently not. And as for Sirius... James had no idea what was going on with Sirius. And even Peter, who was usually very dependable if you wanted company, even if he was generally only a last resort, had wandered off, too. Who could blame James for being a little paranoid?
So there he was, waiting in the Three Broomsticks... and by the time Sirius was half an hour late, James was well and truly fed up. He finished his butterbeer, stood up, and started back up the hill to Hogwarts, intent upon dragging Sirius kicking and screaming out of the common room if that was what it took.
On the way, he happened to pass The Brew, a small coffee shop that most Hogwarts students didn't frequent... it was mostly little old witches in crocheted shawls that sat in there, and thus the marauders avoided it like the plague. But today, for some reason, James found his eye drawn to the window as he passed... and he did quite an impressive double-take when he saw who was sitting at the front counter.
No wonder Sirius hadn't showed up. He was sitting in The Brew with a girl.
James stood with his mouth open as he stared at the scene. Sirius looked normal enough; he was dressed in the conservative black robes his parents insisted on providing him with – James like to joke that it made him look like a priest – and his hair was in its usual windblown disarray. But the girl he was talking to... she was dressed like a sort of belated hippie, in a patterned peasant blouse and a pair of embroidered bell bottom jeans. There was a barrette in her hair with a big cloth flower on it. The idea that Sirius would let himself be seen with somebody like that was ridiculous enough even before James recognized the Hufflepuff seeker.
What the hell was going on here?
James pushed the door open and stuck his head inside.
"So then," Sirius was saying to the girl, "she asks him, 'okay, what are you studying, then?' And Potter is drunk silly, so he just gives her this big, stupid grin and says, 'your breasts!'"
The girl laughed out loud. "What did she say?"
"Nothing," replied Sirius. "She punched him in the face."
Cups of coffee and slices of cake materialized on the table in front of them as the establishment's house-elves filled their order. Sirius picked up his fork and dug in.
"What about the other one?" asked the girl. What was her name? James couldn't remember... who cared about the name of some ugly girl in Hufflepuff? "The short one?"
"Remus?" asked Sirius. "Shy as hell. I think he's actually scared to death of Bellatrix. He's never said two words to her except when he's had to answer a question... not that I can remember anyway."
James stepped inside, closed the door, and walked up to stand behind the two, waiting for them to notice him. But they didn't... Sirius just went on telling embarrassing stories about the marauders, and the girl went on laughing at them, and James might as well have been wearing his invisibility cloak for all the attention they were paying him. Eventually he was forced to clear his throat to make them look up – and even then, he had to do it twice.
"Oh. Hi, James," said Sirius. He glanced at the girl, and gave James a nervous grin.
"Hi, Padfoot," said James.
"Hello, James Potter," said the girl. "Nice to finally meet you. I've heard so much about you."
Sirius snorted in the effort to suppress laughter.
"Thanks," replied James. "And you are...?"
"This is Rosalie Cranmer," said Sirius. "Um, James, look, I'm sorry. I meant to meet you, but it kind of slipped my mind. Can you give me a minute, and I'll be right there?"
"Actually," said James, "I was just heading back to school anyway. But if you can spare a minute, I think we need to talk."
"Er... Okay," said Sirius.
James got up, and he and Sirius went into the men's room to speak in private.
"Look, Prongs," said Sirius. "Don't start in on me, okay? This isn't what it looks like, I swear. I'm just apologizing to her for what happened yesterday, and that's all. It took a while to even talk her into accepting it, so if you could just leave us alone..."
"Sure," said James. "But one question, please: what is the matter with you two lately?"
"Who? Me and Rosalie?" asked Sirius. He seemed honestly confused about it.
"No! You and Remus!" said James. "He's out following some owl-eyed Ravenclaw heiress like a little lost puppy, if you'll excuse the term, and you're hanging out with a member of the losing team. We're supposed to be getting the triplets back, remember? Is this some misguided attempt to make them jealous? Because if it is, they're just going to laugh at us. Have you looked at your little friend there? She's got no tits, I'll bet you can see every bone in her body, and she's dressed like a flower child! What in Merlin's name possessed you to go out in public with her?"
"Well, why do you think I'm here instead of someplace where people are going to see me?" asked Sirius. Then his expression changed suddenly. "And since when are you the boss of my love life, anyway? You can't just walk in and tell me that the girl I decided to spend my weekend with doesn't have big enough tits for you. That, right there, Prongs, that's why the rest of the school thinks we're assholes."
James stared at him. "Excuse me? Since when?"
"Since always," said Sirius. "Have you ever seriously asked anyone what they think of us and gotten an honest answer? People like Lucius Malfoy better than us! He's just a rich snob. We're a bunch of jerks with our heads so far up our bums we can see out our own mouths."
"Don't change the subject," said James. "Padfoot, we're the marauders! What is seeing Miss Peace And Love out there going to do to your reputation?"
"I was just telling you," said Sirius.
"No, you weren't," said James. "You were telling me that everybody thinks we're jerks, and that has nothing to do with..."
"Yes, it does," said Sirius. "It has everything to do with it. My 'reputation' can't possibly get any worse, so why should I care?"
James couldn't believe he was hearing this. "Are you on some medication I should know about?"
Sirius sighed. "Look, James," he said. "Last night, after the party was over, and I went and talked with Rosalie in the hospital wing again..."
"And she told you all that?" said James. "Well, no wonder! You nearly killed her with a bludger! Of course she's going to think you're a jerk! One girl with a grudge isn't..."
"But she doesn't," said Sirius. "That's the thing! I couldn't' believe it, but I apologized and she forgave me! How many people do that and really mean it, huh? Most people say sorry isn't enough, but it was for her!"
"Well, that's her problem," said James. "Padfoot, you're... um... you're not making any sense."
"I know," Sirius confessed. "It doesn't make sense to me, either. Here: yesterday, after the game, I went and talked to her, and I thought about what she was saying, and I kept thinking that she couldn't' be right, because if she was right then I was an asshole who didn't matter, and then suddenly I realized that I was. And you know what?"
"What?" asked James warily.
"It seemed like the most horrible thing in the world," said Sirius. "But halfway through the party I kind of had this... what's the word, when you suddenly figure something out?"
"Epiphany?" James guessed.
"Epiphany, yeah. And I realized I didn't even care."
"Oh," said James. "And this is... good?"
"I don't know," said Sirius miserably. "But... you know, I really don't care anymore. I don't care if I can't get Andy to go to the ball with me, because Remus is right; it doesn't matter! We're almost adults, James. You really thik that in ten years, anybody's going to care who we went to the graduation ball with? Nobody who matters will, and those who care won't matter."
James still couldn't begin to follow any of this. "You... asked her to the ball?"
"Not yet," said Sirius. "I mean... not not yet as in I'm definitely going to, but..." he sighed. "Forget it, Prongs, it doesn't make sense to me either. But I hurt her pretty bad yesterday and I'm trying to make it up to her. Is that okay with you? Or do I have to just leave her sitting there because you said so?"
James shrugged. "I give up," he said. Remus was out with a girl and Sirius was talking about how image didn't matter... it was like the Pod People were invading or something. "You do what you want. I'll be in the Three Broomsticks if you want me."
He pushed the washroom door open and stepped back into the main part of the coffee shop, just in time to see Lily Evans and three friends walk in. Well, hey, the day was looking up.
"Hey, Evans!" James waved to her. "Too embarrassed to show your face after rooting for the losing team yesterday?"
"Oh, for crying out..." she groaned. "What are you doing here, Potter?"
He grinned. "Apparently finally figuring out where you've been all my life. Can I buy you a coffee?"
"Read my lips," she replied. "Fuck off."
Too easy. "I can think of lots of things I'd rather fuck," he said.
Lily clenched her jaw. "Don't you ever say that to me again. That is rude, crude, and socially unacceptable even for you." And she turned around and left.
James laughed, and looked back at Sirius expecting to be able to share the amusement with his friend... but Sirius wasn't even smiling.
"Why do you do that to her, Prongs?" he asked.
"Because it's funny," said James. "Why else?"
Rosalie Cranmer stood up. "Sirius," she said, "since my broom kind of got broken I was thinking I'd go look at the second-hand place up the street. Want to come?"
"Sure," said Sirius, and he actually looked relieved by the offer as he grabbed his coat. "See you, Prongs," he said. He grabbed his coffee and cake to take with him, and walked out with Rosalie on his arm.