Chapter 11
The next morning, James was not amused. Not only did he have Potions with an obese perverted professor, but his friends had been acting unusually edgy and kept their eyes on him at all times - which was mainly because they were worried that James would have a sudden spontaneous suicide attack. But James told them he was past that 'suicidal phase', as if he would try doing that again-
"James, back away from the window," Remus commanded.
James glowered, put his hands in the air and backed away.
"Good Prongsie," Sirius patted him on the head, and then dragged him to the middle of the corridor away from windows and any sharp objects.
"I was just admiring the scenery," James fibbed.
"I don't think you're supposed to stretch your head that far out of the window," Peter said. "Or put your leg out either."
The Marauders trudged along to the dungeons very unenthusiastically.
"Potions," Sirius said with a scowl. "God, how I hate Potions."
"She hates me," James said miserably, his mind totally focused on the girl with red hair who shall not be named because everyone knows who he's on about. "She hates-"
"Yeah, yeah," Sirius interrupted, waving a hand to dismiss any more miserable mutterings that were contagious. Sirius was not feeling his cheery self and Remus and Peter had faces full of displeasure. "We know, Prongs. Evans hates you, blah blah blah," he gestured a yapping hand, "We'll sort it out later. As I was saying: Potions...God, how I hate Potions."
Remus was a little confused at Sirius despising the subject. "What are you talking about, Padfoot? Slughorn likes you. He invites you to his dinners, which you don't attend by the way." His tone suggested annoyance in Sirius purposely ignoring the professor's persistent invitations.
"You know me, Moony," Sirius said, "Things to do...Friends to see..."
"You have other friends?" Peter questioned - a little hurt that Sirius possibly had a bigger social circle of companions.
James scoffed. "Padfoot's lying. He has no other friends except us. Everyone else finds him annoying."
Remus and James exchanged a look that said they both found Sirius annoying but were still his friend anyway.
"Well, I have opportunities of making much better friends," he stuck his tongue out boldly. "Anyway, I don't exactly like being in the 'Slug Club'." He made air quotes with distaste.
"Same here," James agreed, frowning at the name of the clique.
"You've never been to one of his suppers either," Remus pointed out.
"Much too busy with Quidditch practices." James made an athletic stretch to prove his point. Remus threw him a suspicious look at how James conveniently had Quidditch at the exact time and day of the Slug Club gatherings. "I dunno why you go, Moony. It must be boring surrounded by all those snobs and freakishly studious people."
"You must fit in with the latter though," Sirius added thoughtfully.
"I'm being sociable," Remus said, ignoring Sirius' comment. "The company's not too bad. Sometimes Lily comes-"
"Evans?" James said, his head snapping at the sound of her name. He grabbed Remus by the shoulders. "Why didn't you tell me she came?" He made a strangled cry. "If I'd have know she came, I would have come!"
"Sorry, James," Remus apologized, dusting off his shoulders. "I go because the suppers are interesting. Not because of the specific company."
"With company like The Slug, I don't blame you," Sirius said.
"The food is good too, isn't it?" Peter asked, thoroughly depressed by the fact that he was currently failing Potions and had never received a violet-ribbon invitation, or was even acknowledged by the professor correctly who continuously mistook him for 'Paul'.
Remus was about to protest that the suppers were interesting because of the conversations, not the food, but he eventually gave in to the fact that Peter was quite right.
"Well, there are nice pumpkin pastries," Remus said feebly.
"Ha!" Sirius pointed a finger disapprovingly at him. "I knew food was involved somehow!"
"Yes, Padfoot," James said in a patronizing tone. "Food is normally involved in supper."
"I don't like it when you're depressed, you get all witty," Sirius frowned at James. "Anyway, it's alright for you, Moony, you got in the Slug Cub for being intelligent and all. I got in for being in my famous, Pureblood, Muggle hating family of inbreeds."
Remus winced, knowing not to evaluate on the subject of the Black family before Sirius started ranting and cursing everyone to Bulgaria. "Well, that's understandable why you don't go," he told him sympathetically.
"What about me?" James asked. "I got in also for being in a famous Wizarding family. I don't exactly want to be interrogated by The Slug about why I am quite well known and also who I know is well known so he can meet them."
"Don't you just dislike him because he has a particular interest with Lily?" Remus said sceptically.
"That has nothing to do with it!" James protested, glaring at his friends who tried to hide their chuckles. "Perverted old man," he muttered.
"I wouldn't mind going to one of The Slug's suppers," Peter mumbled.
"Well, Pete, all you have to do is become famous, or be in a repulsive family of Muggle haters who despise anyone with less than a hundred percent magical blood," Sirius said.
Peter was somehow glad that he was his usual pathetic self.
"Hey guys!"
The Marauders whipped round at the call and were faced with Frank with an unusual elated grin, his arm wrapped around the waist of Alice who was nuzzling his neck.
"Hi," the boys greeted the couple.
"I'll see you later, Allie," Frank told Alice, beckoning for her to leave him for 'man talk'. She gave Frank a seductive smile and a goodbye departure of tongue waggling that lasted at least five minutes -a very squirming and painful five minutes for the Marauders- until the girl finally left.
"Everything alright with the misses, then?" James assumed, not hiding his dejected mood.
Frank looked a little taken aback by James' bitter face, but nonetheless smiled that shit-eating grin.
"I found Whiskers this morning!" Frank announced. The boys gasped falsely to the news which they'd been practising for at least ten minutes in their dorm after discovering Whiskers back to his cat body and delivered him to Frank's bed.
"He was by the bottom of my bed!" Frank carried on explaining. "Can you bloody believe it?"
"I'm simply astounded," Remus said.
"Amazing," Peter squeaked.
"It's like Father Christmas delivering early!" Sirius rejoiced.
James was too down-beat to fib a surprised reaction.
"Alice and I are fine now. Actually, more than fine, if you know what I mean..." Frank raised his eyebrows mischievously. "Y'know what I mean? Right? Ri-"
"Yes," James cut in, grimacing. "We guessed from the tongue waggling."
Again, Frank looked confused at James' sombre mood. "What's up with you, James? You seemed to be doing your own 'tongue waggling' yesterday." James felt himself start to crumble. "Are you feeling better?"
"I hate life," James declared, then walked off in a huff to the dungeons, whilst his friends watched him drag his feet with extra pathetic demeanour.
"Merlin, so bent," Sirius emphasised.
"You're being inconsiderate again," Remus told him off.
Frank scratched his head in bewilderment. "Er…was it something I said?"
The boys rolled their eyes at him, confirming the answer to be a definite yes.
"Oops," Frank cringed. "Well, I better get going." He hurried off to his first lesson, luckily not with the Marauders, and more specifically not with James, who was not in the particular mood to be around people who were in happy relationships.
On that note, the remaining Marauders walked to Slughorn's classroom, entering with the rest of the sixth years. James was already inside, his forehead pathetically resting on his desk.
"Quickly now, sit down and settle!" Professor Slughorn called over the murmurings. His moustache fluttered and stomach jiggled as he spoke.
The second Sirius and Remus arrived; Slughorn spotted them and strode forwards, grinning from ear to ear. Unfortunately, Peter was pushed aside as Slughorn's stomach flung him away without the professor's awareness.
"Oho! M'boys!" Slughorn greeted them.
Remus forced a smile. "Hello, Professor."
"Hel-lo professor!" Sirius sang and pressed a hand to his mouth in fake surprise. "Have you lost weight, sir?" A few classmates snorted. "You're looking buff, sir!"
Remus and Peter looked horrified; James still sat with his head on his desk, looking on the verge of heaving his guts out.
"I had thought I've been slimming down lately." Slughorn proudly smiled and rubbed his stomach, making the class slightly heave.
"Oh, Professor! With a figure like yours, you don't need to!"
Slughorn made an ear-splitting laugh that was a cross between Father Christmas' ho-ho's and a stampede of wailing elephants.
"Such a charmer, Sirius. I was like that at your age," Slughorn insisted.
Remus finally took notice that Peter was on the floor and helped him to his feet. Peter wanted to be involved so tried to engage in the conversation.
"That must have been a long time ago, right, sir?" Peter said, which wasn't the wisest thing to say - his words seeming to be blatantly reminding the professor that he was not young in years.
"Yes," Slughorn said sceptically. "Yes, Paul." He turned his attention to Remus.
"It's Peter," he mumbled painfully, then took a seat next to James, who's face was so depressed that it looked like his seat was stuck to his arse...no wait, it was. Sirius had stuck Wizard Icky Sticky Glue to his stool.
"Remus, I trust you will be attending another one of my suppers tomorrow?" Slughorn assumed.
Remus forced another smile. "Yes professor."
"And Sirius, you have not had the pleasure-" Sirius coughed "-of being present at one of my suppers," he said with a hurt expression.
Sirius looked abruptly nervous. "Oh, er, I am otherwise engaged in...Detention with...Professor McGonagall," he lied.
"Oho, that is unlucky," Slughorn said. "I'm sure the detention could be revoked once I inform Minerva of the circumstances!"
Sirius did not like the sound of this. He did not want any more trouble with McGonagall who was still annoyed after being pounced on in the corridor by Double Agent Padfoot and his pointing finger Gun of Doom. She was especially displeased when she heard Sirius pretend to shoot people in the Great Hall that morning and had forbidden Sirius and the rest of the Marauders from playing the 'Secret Agent' game ever again.
"Oh no, no need to bother, professor! Her decision cannot be budged! You cannot argue with Minerva, after all. She gets highly stressed. She surely needs a holiday. All she ever thinks is 'Work! Work! Work!' Such a focused witch." Sirius spoke with such a grace that made him sound like another teacher having a casual chat at lunch.
"Yes, yes," Slughorn agreed, "Minerva does work too hard." He nodded thoughtfully and turned his attention to James. "James, m'boy? I haven't seen you at one of my suppers either."
"Quidditch," he grunted, then replaced his head back on his desk with no other explanations.
Slughorn peeked at James worriedly. "Is he ill?"
"No, sir," Sirius scowled with disapprove at James. "Woman problems, sir. Puppy love. I bet you have no problems in that department, right, sir? I bet you have to fight back the woman after you, sir!" He shadow boxed.
"If only that were true, m'boy," Slughorn sighed and glanced around the classroom at his students. "Oho! Lily!" He rejoiced, spotting the red hared girl chatting with a friend as they took their bags off their shoulders.
"And then Potter just—" Lily paused in the middle of talking, cringing at the sound of her name called from the professor's lips. "Oh no, he's coming," she whispered to her friend, and then to her horror, discovered her friend had disappeared.
"Nicole!" Lily hissed, glaring at her comrade who had suddenly abandoned her and was sitting on the opposite side of the classroom, waving apologetically. "You bitch! Don't leave me with him! When I get a hold of you I'm gonna fuc—professor!" She broke off, smiling at Slughorn who petted his moustache. "Good morning!"
"Good morning! How's my favourite Potions student?" The professor asked with bulging eyes.
A couple of seats away, Severus Snape grumbled to himself about Slughorn's favouritism, writing notes furiously into his book of Advanced Potion Making.
"Simply spiffy," Lily gritted through her teeth.
After at least ten minutes of the professor chatting to specific Slug Club members, the class finally settled onto making their sleeping potions assigned by Slughorn.
"Now's your chance to talk to Evans," Sirius murmured to Remus, elbowing him in the side, which nearly caused Remus to topple over.
"You have the most unusual pointy elbows," Remus said, rubbing his hip.
"C'mon, Moony, James is getting deprived by the second." Sirius tilted his head to James who was adding his ingredients to his cauldron, looking highly low-spirited; not only by what happened to Whiskers and Lily, but by the fact that his stool was stuck to his arse.
"Did you have to do that prank now, Padfoot?" Remus sighed. "It wasn't one of the most appropriate times."
Sirius shrugged his shoulders. "Jokes normally cheer people up. Not Prongs, though."
Remus looked at him with indignation. "How on earth does sticking a stool to someone's arse cheer them up?"
Sirius tried to make a guilty face but eventually erupted into giggles, of course making Remus roll his eyes and return back to his potion.
"C'mon, Moony. All you have to is convince Lily to go out with James. We'll take it in turns," Sirius compromised.
Remus gave him a ridiculous look. "Padfoot, if you haven't noticed already, this is a Potions lesson. And I am busy trying to make a po—"
But Sirius had already grabbed him by his collar and pushed him into the aisle between the desks where everyone stared at him. Nobody normally ventured out to aisle between the desks because it was Forbidden Land and you had an army of eyes on you. Those people who ventured only went to make necessary trips to the potions cupboard, which Remus quickly did and grabbed a few random ingredients to make it look like he was busy.
Casually he made his way back from the cupboard and stopped at Lily's desk, making a clear cough to show he was there as her head was busy down and mesmerized in her Potions book.
"Remus," she greeted him. Said boy smiled with caution. "Or is that really you, Remus?" He inwardly groaned. "Or are you really James? Or even Madam Pomfrey? I don't know what to believe anymore." She slammed her cutting knife into her board, making Remus flinch and take a step back.
"So, you haven't forgiven James for that, then?" he asked dreadfully.
"Oh, I'm dealing with it," she gritted through her teeth, making another harsh cut with her knife. "I don't know why you aren't mad, Remus. He lied and said he was you; you should be a little annoyed. And after what he did to me yesterday...just jumping on me like that and...k-ki...y'know." She broke off, reddening a noticeable tint.
"He was just being stupid."
"Was he born that way or did he just inherit it off Sirius?"
Remus winced at the harsh remark, but couldn't help but say: "A bit of both actually."
Lily snorted and continued back to stirring her potion.
"Look, Lily, will you please-"
"Three, four, five..." She carried on counting in her stirring.
"Just give James a-"
"Six, seven, eight, nine..."
"Chance, because he really-
"Ten, eleven, twelve..."
"Likes you and-"
"I don't, thirteen, fourteen, want to, fifteen, sixteen, hear it, Remus." She said in between counts.
Remus cursed. "But Lily-"
"I don't, seventeen, eighteen, want to, nineteen, hear it, TWENTY!"
Remus knew not to push it, and this was one of those times. He knew when girls were pissed off that you basically had to leave them alone – he was an intelligent guy.
"Well, this doesn't look like a good time..." He cowered under Lily's glare. "Bye then!" He hurried off back to his seat. Sirius gave him an inclining look but Remus simply just shook his head. Sirius grimaced, knowing that one Marauder was down and only two remained.
"How's your potion, Sirius?" Peter asked, mainly because he wanted anything to compare to his potion which was spitting and giving him sunburn.
"Not good, Wormtail," Sirius replied. He scooped a spoon into his cauldron which broke, leaving the bottom of the utensil stuck in his potion of sludge.
"When it does that, it is a clear sign that you are not supposed to drink it," Remus acknowledged.
"You may be right," Sirius wagged a finger at him. "I call it," he suddenly took on an impressive French accent, "Potion a La Crap!" He raised his hands in the air. Knowing he was doing exceptionally poor at the class, he quickly made another comment to Professor Slughorn.
"If only I were twenty years older and a woman, sir!"
Slughorn laughed.
"Will you stop sucking up to The Slug." James scowled for the hundredth time that morning. "Major vomiting-ness."
"Prongs, you know how much I suck at Potions. This is the only way I can get my grades up," Sirius murmured to him. "Oh, Professor," he turned to Slughorn again, "You are the best teacher ever, Horace!"
Slughorn heightened his stance, which didn't make him any taller. "Well, I do have great knowledge in the Wizarding field of Potions making, and my teaching techniques are rather envied by others."
"Maybe I should try sucking up to The Slug," Peter said, prodding his potion that had oddly turned solid.
"Sorry, Wormtail," Sirius patted him on the back, "Only I can pull it off."
"Instead of sucking up, why don't you just study more?" Remus suggested, and then regretted the suggestion when Sirius barked a laugh and remembered that Sirius and endless hours of studying would only be something he would see in a parallel universe - which was also too bad because he didn't believe in them as he thought they were scientifically incorrect.
"Okay, your turn, Pete," Sirius informed the boy.
"W-what? W-what's my turn?"
Sirius rolled his eyes, "Your turn to talk to Evans."
"What?" Peter said shrilly. "M-me t-talk to a...g-g-g-g-"
"Girl, yes, Pete." Sirius finished and pushed him away from his desk and into the deadly aisle. He walked over to Lily's desk, head bowed as he concentrated on looking at his shoes, which was pretty stupid as he only realised he was at Lily's desk when he knocked into it, causing her to go into hysterics.
Lily gave Peter a quick glance and returned back to reading her Potions book, hoping the boy to simply be a horrible mirage. She was not best pleased to see Peter there when she took a second peek.
"What do you want?" she demanded.
Peter turned an abnormal white. "Er...Uh...um," he fumbled, saying all the words that were ever acknowledged when a person tries to make words with their mouths but only bits of it come out. "WillyougooutwithJames?" He said in one breath.
Lily gave him a disturbed look, before saying a toneless "no..."
"Okaysorryforbotheringyou!" Peter squeaked, and then sprinted back to his seat, his head still bowed as he counted his shoelaces.
"Blimey, that was quick, Pete!" Sirius said with mild awe, watching as Peter collapsed on his stool, hyperventilating. He noticed Peter looked a very odd white colour. "Oi, Wormtail, you look like you've seen a—"
Sirius stopped, realising the next word 'ghost' would not match the sentence because seeing a ghost was a daily occurrence in Hogwarts. "Er, like you've seen Snape naked!" He corrected himself, applauding himself in his mind.
"Padfoot, why are you clapping?" James asked him, glancing from his potion.
Sirius looked down from his happy thoughts and realised he'd been physically clapping, instead of mentally.
"Crap, not again," Sirius said embarrassingly, folding his arms.
"Were you applauding yourself out loud again?" Remus asked knowingly.
"Har-sodding-har. You know me too well, Moony…Anyway," Sirius turned to Peter. "So Evans said…?"
Peter shook his head grimly.
"Bollocks," Sirius cursed, looking displeased. "Looks like it's my turn, then." He rubbed his hands together as if he were about to do a common household chore.
"Sirius," Remus spoke with caution. "Try and not make Lily more hysterically enraged. She has a knife," he warned.
"Yeah, yeah, like she'd use it," he laughed, skipping over to Lily's desk.
Remus watched and did a mental countdown of: "Three...two...one."
"JESUS!" Sirius screamed, wrapping his hands together in a ball as he looked at the place where they had been milliseconds before; a silver cutting knife was now speared into the desk. "You nearly IMPALED that into my HAND!"
"Oh," Lily smiled without concern. "I'm sorry. I didn't realise." She grabbed the knife, taking it out of the desk with ease. She tilted her head down and continued back to reading her Potions book. After thirty three seconds of Sirius' foot tapping, waiting for Lily to come out of her trance of reading, she finally snapped. She flinched, her wand knocking against her desk and causing a slight sparkling fire that singed Sirius' hair.
"Bloody hell," Sirius swore, blowing on a strand of his black tresses.
"What is this?" Lily demanded. "Some sort of recruiting act? Calling in the reinforcements one by one?" She glared at the boy who was the third to interrupt her potion making. "Can I have one hour without seeing a bloody Marauder!"
Sirius was slightly hurt at Lily's lack of welcoming. "All this attention on you! You should see it as privilege, you know."
"More like a nuisance," she muttered. "What exactly do you want, Sirius?"
He brightened with surprise, "Since when were we on the first name basis?"
"Since I had detention from McGonagall for apparently being racist! Now I have to be careful what I say!"
"Oh yeah!" Sirius laughed. "My surnames Black...and the colour black! What a weird coincidence. Haha. Ha."
"You're insane," Lily declared.
"We'll all do respect, Lily, but I'm not the one threatening with a knife."
"I am not threatening," she said menacingly, making another slam of her knife into her cutting board. "I am purely warning you. There is a difference." Sirius was about to interrupt but Lily had hushed him. "I would just like to, again, warn you, that whatever you say next is something I don't want to hear, then I can consequently slice something off." She cut the air with her knife, which made an impressive "whoosh" sound. "Understand?
"Er, you mean...no Sirius babies?"
"No Sirius babies," Lily confirmed.
He winced but nonetheless carried on bothering her with the risk of losing his manhood.
"Lily, you can't keep turning James down. It's like this," Sirius grabbed the knife from Lily's hands. "You are the knife," he said, then snatched a root from her ingredients, "And James is the root." He started to stab the root with the silver knife until only miniscule root crumbs were left.
"Will you stop destroying my ingredients!?" Lily grabbed the knife back and blew the root crumbs into Sirius' face, blinding him. "YOU-you...ingredient-destroyer!" She shrieked.
"C'mon, Lily-silly-billy." Lily deeply frowned at the ridiculous nickname. "Just go out on one little date with James? Please?" Sirius pinched with his thumb and little finger to signify how 'little' going out with James was.
"How many times do I have to BLOODY SAY?" Lily yelled, causing Professor Slughorn to look over from his desk. "I'm fine, Professor!" She reassured him. "Just getting the creative, er, potion juices flowing!" She turned back to Sirius with an indignant look and said a simple but effective "no."
"But, Lily," he decided against using the nickname as it only got the girl more aggressive, "You have to go out with him! Do you have any idea what you're doing to him?"
"I'm not doing anything to him!" She said furiously.
Impishly, Sirius winked. "Exactly."
"Must you always talk like a sadistic pervert?"
"It's the only language I know, but back to the point: just go out with James! You're killing the guy!"
Lily couldn't believe the nonsensical words that came out of Sirius' mouth and went back to reading her Potions instructions. "He's not dying from some sort of life threatening disease, for Christ's sake."
"Yes he is!" Sirius said, grabbing her Potions book and slamming it to the floor, just to get Lily's attention. She tilted her head up with deadly malevolence. "You're the disease!" He pointed his finger at her as she frowned with confusion. "You're slowly killing him!"
Lily scoffed. "Now that is an exaggeration."
"Lemme go!"
Lily and Sirius turned to the sound of the shout which predictably came from James' desk, where he was currently trying to dunk his head in his boiling potion whilst being restrained by Remus and Peter. Once James finally calmed down and reassured his friends he was 'fine', he quickly snatched for his silver knife he'd used to cut his ingredients. Remus and James were now caught in a scrambling wrestling match on the floor as James tried to grab the knife and stab it in his eyes.
"Wow, sn example couldn't have come at a better time," Sirius commented. He turned his attention back to Lily who was staring over at James, eyes full of guilt and sadness.
"Every time you say 'no' to him he loses a part of himself."
Lily carried on staring.
"What harm can one measly 'yes' do?"
A lot.
"Okay, Sirius, I'll think about it." Lily eventually answered, slightly regretting the words that were coming out of her mouth.
Sirius was dumbfounded.
"Who would have thought, out of all the Marauders, you would be the one to make me consider," Lily said in amazement.
"Well," Sirius arrogantly laughed, "There wasn't much competition, was there."
"There was Remus," Lily reminded him.
"Shit yeah," Sirius realised, his mouth agape. "How the hell did this happen?"
Lily shrugged her shoulders and returned back to examining her potion, expecting Sirius to make his departure. She sighed when she looked up to see Sirius still there.
"Was there something else you wanted?"
"Actually, yes." Sirius sniffed Lily's sleeping potion which was the exact colour and perfectly mixed, as every other potion she had created. "Would you swap cauldrons with me? I twatted my potion. Exchange so ol'Sluggy can kiss my arse for a change."
"Hey," Lily said, insulted, "I don't particularly like my arse kissed by obese perverts, thank you very much."
"So swap?"
"No," Lily shook her head, "I like his suppers. They have the most gorgeous pumpkin pastries."
"Yes, I've heard," Sirius said. "Oh well. Food over thought, every time, I say."
"Most definitely," Lily agreed, then bent down to pick up her Potions book that'd been thrown selfishly to the floor. Feeling as if she had abandoned a loving pet, she gave the book a soothing stroke and then returned it back to her desk. As she brought out her wand out to carry on stirring her potion, she discovered-
"Gimme back my cauldron, Black!"
-------------
"Lily!" James called across the Gryffindor common room, chasing after the girl who was apparently deaf to his loud shouting.
It was the end of the classes and Lily had been pointedly avoiding him, including hurrying off to the girls bathroom to escape him when he wanted to talk to her. James told himself he wouldn't go back to Myrtle's bathroom after the whole I-tried-to-drown-myself-in-my-dirty-loo-water-sorrows. And also, Myrtle had took a particular shine to him and tried to snog him when he was emotionally upset over Lily. He most certainly did not want to be taken advantage by an ugly ghost - or any ghost, in fact.
"Lily, will you wait up," James said, managing to grab on to her arm as she was about to take a step up the common room stairs. Lily whipped round.
"Oh, it's you," she said in fake surprise, when of course she knew exactly who'd been calling her name and had been purposely ignoring them. "Are you aware that a stool is stuck to your arse?"
James sighed and slowly nodded. Sirius was most definitely in his bad books as he hadn't managed to detach the stool from his trousers and was going to change in to another pair, but had then spotted Lily in the common room.
"Long story," James said vaguely.
He pulled her over to a corner of the common room beside a table and fixed Lily with a questioning expression.
"I can't help but feel you've been avoiding me," James said.
"Me? Avoiding you?" Lily forced laugh which did not match the serious atmosphere. "I don't know what makes you say that! I have to go wash my hair now," she fibbed hurriedly and stepped back to hurry to the stairs leading to the dormitories. James, however, had other ideas, and grabbed her hand to stop her.
Lily's eyes widened. "You're holding my hand," she said tensely. "My hand. Your hand. Much holding happening."
"Sorry," James immediately apologized, dropping her hand in an instant as he recognised the tension. "I suppose you don't really want to be anywhere near me ever since yesterday when I...er, well, y'know...I-"
"Sexually molested me?"
"WHAT?" James spat in horror, turning red. "Well, er, I wouldn't say it was like that exactly..."
"Potter," Lily began fiercely, "You jumped on me. Licked my face," James cringed, "And then you...you k-kissed me." She flushed an unimaginable red and avoided James' eye contact.
"Yeah," he ran a hand through his hair in humiliation. "I would just like to mention that if my kissing standards were...er, sloppy? Then they aren't normally that bad."
Lily gave him a ridiculous look. "After everything that happened yesterday, you're worried that your kissing standards were sloppy?"
"I'm really, really sorry about that. I'm sorry about lying and saying I was Remus before because that was just a Complete Twat Moment. It's just, uh, you make me so nervous, and I er, get so tongue-tied. And nonsensical...and er, illogical...and uh, other words with the definition of insane-"
"Hysterical?" Lily suggested.
"Yeah, sure," James pointed a finger, "See, you're amazing! You can think of the perfect word just like that. And I am a twat and I'm sorry. Especially about the thing yesterday. It was a stupid mistake-"
"Mistake?" Lily echoed, mouth tilting downwards. "You think it was a...mistake?"
James was very confused. Looking at Lily, he could somehow recognise the feelings of hurt and disappointment at his words of saying Whisker's kiss was an error.
"Not if you don't want it to be," James murmured, bewildered at how Lily's mind worked.
She looked away, obviously caught on the spot and flustered. "I dunno," she shrugged her shoulders.
"Look, Lily, you know how I feel about you. Just give me a chance," he pleaded. "Just let me take you on one date so I can show you I'm not really an insensitive prick."
Lily stared on in silence.
"You're going to say 'no' again, aren't you?" James assumed, annoyed. "Well, I won't give up!" He said stubbornly. "I won't give up on you. I'll keep asking you again and again. Like those annoying kids in those Muggle cars, and also Sirius, who keep asking "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" in those whiny voices-"
"Okay."
"-Until their parents, or in Sirius' case, me, are really pissed off, and shout at them to shut the hell up and—w-what?" James broke off, realising what Lily had answered.
"Okay," she said louder, face unreadable.
"Okay what? Okay you're going to…massacre me?" he asked in fear.
"You must be acting because you cannot be this clueless," Lily sighed. "Okay I will go on a date with you."
James narrowed his eyes. "Are you taking the piss?"
"If you ask me one more time if I am joking, I will most certainly be taking the piss," Lily warned him. "When will the date be?" James was still frozen with shock and was contemplating whether he had been cursed with a 'Stupefy' spell. "Please stop gaping at me," she said feebly.
He picked his jaw up from the floor, pinched each arm and finally realised that this wasn't a dream - besides, his dreams involving Lily included a lot less clothing and a lot less talking.
"There's a Hogsmeade trip this Saturday," he remembered.
Lily nodded coyly. "Okay."
"O-kay," James echoed, in a way a person says 'okay' when they are very, very confused. He wondered at which point of the conversation Lily had lost her mind.
"Well, I better get going," she interrupted the silence.
"Oh, right, yes." James realized he should probably do something to signify his goodbye and her departure - a goodbye hug, maybe? Or how about a goodbye kiss to make up for the sloppy one that Whiskers did?
Again, James seized her hand.
"You're holding my hand again," Lily stated, trembling. "My hand. Your hand. Much holding happening."
Before James had time to comprehend what he was doing, he started shaking her hand, as if he were at some sort of business meeting. Lily opened her mouth in confusion as she watched him shake her hand eagerly and with much enthusiasm.
"So...I'll see you on our date...that's happening...between you...and me? Yes..." He dropped Lily's hand finally, realising it'd been at least three minutes of the handshaking and Lily was loosing the blood circulation in her fingers.
"Right, er, bye then...James." She smiled in embarrassment and hurried up the common room stairs two at a time.
James was funnily enough not thinking about the fact that Lily had called him by his first name for the first time, but how much teasing he was going to get from Sirius for shaking a girl's hand, as if he were getting votes for an election.
He sat back on his stool, which he thanked gratefully was stuck to his backside, as he felt dizzy with Lily-ness.