Chapter 4 – Surprising Events
"It will be very useful having so many faithful servants at dear old Hogwarts," he hissed looking at each of the new death eaters in turn. There was Narcissa Black, Rabastan Lestrange and Severus Snape.
They were all only 16, the youngest of all the death eaters. But he had been assured by Rudolphus Lestrange, Lucious Malfoy and Bellatrix Black that they could be trusted.
There had been three others Hogwarts students, Scott Zabini, Timothy Parkinson and Regulas Black, who were only 15. He had told them they had to wait until at least 16.
"Master," said Rabastan, "We are overjoyed to be serving you."
Voldemort glanced at Rabastan, before addressing his older brother.
"Lestrange, I have your assurance that Dumbledore will not notice anything suspicious about have three death eaters at Hogwarts."
"No, Master, Dumbledore is to engrossed in organizing the Inter-School Quidditch Tournament to notice what's going on under his nose," replied Rudolphus, his face down cast in respect to his master, who was hardly less older than himself.
"Still, I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore. He is a… clever man," replied Voldemort, more to himself that any of the death eaters. He turned to face his three new death eaters. "You will not draw attention to yourselves. You are to nothing out if the ordinary. I will summon you in weeks to come if you are to execute any of my plans. I will be extremely unhappy if any of my orders ar disobeyed. Now, leave." He turned away from his death eaters when he remembered something.
"Lestrange," he called at Bellatrix's retreating back, "Where is your dear cousin Sirius? I was looking forward to having him as a death eater."
Bellatrix turned; head bowed "He is not in Slytherin, master. We have not talked in a very long time and it would have seemed suspicious had we suddenly come up to him and taken him away. Besides, I do not think that he wants to become a death eater anymore."
"Very well. I will work on a way to bring him here myself," replied Voldemort, incensed. He turned away from Bellatrix and remained so until he heard her disparate.
You had better hope that what your cousin told me is a lie, Sirius Black. If it is true… well, we'll just have to wait and see what sort of mood I'm in.
And he too disaperated.
ooooooo
"YOU WHAT!" screamed Sirius, jumping up from the floor where he had been sitting, reading one of his magazines. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT JUST HAPPENED! YOU JUST KISSED LILY EVANS AND ALL THAT YOU CAN SAY IS THAT 'IT JUST HAPPENED!"
"Shut up Sirius," said Remus Lupin from his bed, "if you want the whole school to know about James' little kiss, then keep up the yelling. But I'm sure that would appreciate it if it was only us who knew." Typical Remus. Always calm, even in the strangest situations. However, Remus' comment quieted Sirius down so that he was at least no yelling.
"When did this happen," asked Sirius, trying to refrain from yelling.
"Just now, in the library," replied James, "when she asked me if she could have a word ."
"And…" prompted Sirius. Neither Peter nor Remus seemed alarmed by this new development in the Lily/James relationship.
"She told me not to get any ideas from the dance on your birthday and that she still wouldn't go out with me," replied James. Great, thought James, I hadn't told about the dance either.
Sirius exploded again. "WHAT! YOU DIDN'T TELL ME THAT YOU DANCED WITH HER AS WELL!"
"Sirius," warned Remus, this time not even looking up from his book
"Why didn't you tell me that you danced with her?" asked Sirius in a would be calm voice.
"Because you were too involved dancing with Miss Natalie Mercury to notice anything other than that she's incredibly hot!" replied James, sounding fed up.
"Alright, what ever," began Sirius, but Remus, finally taking an interest in the conversation, cut in
"The point is, James, that she doesn't like you. I thought she made that pretty clear last year," said Remus, a slight frown creasing his forehead. "And so far this year," he added.
"Yeah I know," replied James. James heartily agreed with Remus on this point. Yes she had made that extremely clear.
"So why did you kiss her," asked Remus, sounding exasperated at the fact that he had not penetrated James thick head.
"I told you, it just happened!" replied James, sure that they had had this part of the conversation before. "I don't know what made me do it, she was just standing there, with her arms crossed and…." He couldn't put it into words. Feeling exasperated himself he added, "She kissed me back you know."
"WHAT!" shouted Sirius again, but he stopped when James and Remus' glared at him.
"She reacted when I kissed her," James repeated slowly, as if he were talking to a four year old, "She kissed me back."
"So she likes you know," said Peter, looking up from his Potions homework, and jumping to the very conclusion that James would have loved to find was actually reality.
"I don't know," replied James. He turned and stared out the window.
ooooooo
The next day, Sirius still hadn't gotten over James and Lily's kiss. It was continuously their topic of conversation. James found this particularly annoying as he didn't want the whole school finding out.
Lily had so far avoided talking to him. She was unusually quiet during breakfast, even with her friends, and James suspected that she had not told them about last nights events.
They had just left the Great Hall and were returning to the common room to get their cloaks for the journey to Hogsmeade, with Sirius muttering away, rather loudly, about the events of the previous night, when
"Well, well, well," came a silky voice from behind them, making all of The Marauder's jump. They whipped out their wands and turned around to find Severus Snape leaning against the wall, looking thoroughly relaxed.
"What's happened in Potter's life that Black should be so interested." He wore a smirk that made James' particularly worried. Snape had heard every word of their conversation, all the way from the Great Hall.
Sirius also seemed to think so. "If you tell anyone else anything about what you just heard, you'll wish you'd never been born, Snivellius."
"Watch it Black," countered Snape, his smirk disappearing slightly, standing up from the wall. "You have no idea who you're dealing with."
"Of course we do," replied James, "You're a sniveling little twerp that's always got his nose buried in some book about the Dark Arts."
"Petrificus Totalus!" shouted Snape, but The Marauder's were too quick.
"Stupefy!" roared Sirius
"Impedimenta!" James yelled
"Expelliarmus!" yelled Remus
Peter went to also shout a jinx, but lost his grip on his wand and it fell to the ground.
Next second, Snape was lying on his back, arms snapped to his side, legs unable to move, stupefied.
"Levicorpus!" yelled a female voice.
The spell shot past James, narrowly missing him and hitting the wall behind him.
Around the corner came Narcissa Black and Rabastan Lestrange, their wands raised.
"Your back up has finally arrived, has is Snivelly," taunted Sirius, as Snape struggled to raise himself into a sitting position.
"Where as you aren't brave enough to take on one individual without your three friends standing behind you," retorted Snape, getting gingerly to his feet, the jinxes having worn off. Rabastan threw Snape his wand and he turned, along with Narcissa and Rabastan, and faced The Marauders.
But before one more spell had flown, there was a scream of rage from the opposite end of the corridor.
"What do you think you are doing!" screamed an enraged Lily. She raced down the corridor and was soon standing squarely between the two parties.
"It's against the rules to…" she began, but Sirius cut her off.
"Lily, I think that we know what the school rules are, you having yelled them at us more than a dozen times a year."
"That's only necessary because you don't seem to get them!" retorted Lily, her hands moved to cross across her chest and James found himself forcefully reminded of the previous night.
"And Remus," began Lily again, when Sirius had no reply to her previous comment, "I would have thought that you would have thought to stop James and Sirius from getting involved in these fights."
"Don't bring Remus into this," snapped James. But he regretted entering into the conversation seconds later when Lily rounded on him.
"Don't you dare tell me what I can and can't do, Potter," she whispered in a deadly voice. No one dared reply. Even the three Slytherins were silent. No on had ever seen Lily in such a rage.
"I thought," she continued, still in a deadly whisper, "That all of you would have matured by sixth, after the events of last year." She paused and glared at Snape, who also shrunk back slightly under her glare. Everyone present knew about the Marauder's confrontation with Snape the previous year, just after they had finished their OWLS.
Lily continued after a short pause "But obviously I am very much mistaken. I have never met a more idiotic group of boys in my life. One could wonder how you ended up in Gryffindor. I could go straight to McGonagall and report you to her…" she said with a convincing look of false consideration on her face, "but I think that it would only ruin my day and make me later for the Hogsmeade visit. But if I see or hear about you being in another fight, I will," she emphasized the will "go straight to McGonagall."
And she swirled around and walked in the opposite direction.
Both the Slytherins and the Gryffindor's remained dumb-founded, staring at lily's retreating back. The Slytherins were the first to lower their wand. They slipped silently around the corner, without the Gryffindor's notice.
ooooooo
"What the heck was that about," commented Remus, the first of the boys to speak, as they climbed out of the portrait hole, their cloaks tied tightly around their necks.
The four Gryffindor boys had eventually lowered their wands and turned to the Slytherins, only to find that they had disappeared. They had eventually, after severally minutes of stunned silence, continued on to the Gryffindor common room
"I have no idea," replied James. That was partially a lie. He thought that Lily had had a pretty good reason to yell at them.
There was a light rain falling as the boys made their way down to Hogsmeade. As they entered Hogsmeade, the light rain turned into a heavy downpour that was rapidly increased in severity. Thus the four Marauder's decided to go to the Three Broomsticks for a Butterbeer. Unfortunately, most of their fellow students had also decided the same thing.
The Marauder's spotted Lily and Nat sitting in a corner booth. Nat waved her hand in welcome as the boys made their way over to their booth. Sarah was no where in sight.
"Hi," said Nat, smiling broadly, as the boys sat down opposite her and Lily. Lily was not happy that the Marauder's were sharing their booth and made it plainly obvious that she intended to speak to none of them.
"Have you seen Sarah at all this morning," enquired Nat, concern was etched in her features, but that was soon replaced by a small smile, for after glancing in Sirius' direction she had discovered that he was, again, looking at her.
"Not sure," replied James, looking slightly concerned himself, for he and Sarah had grown up together, "but I think that I saw her heading out of the castle with one of the Prewetts."
"What," said Nat, looking extremely surprised, "Sarah didn't say anything about going to Hogsmeade with Fabian." She turned to Lily, who shook her head in reply.
"Hang on," replied James, "who said anything about Sarah going with Fabian? I was pretty sure that it was Gideon who she was with. Fabian likes her sister Anna."
"That's weird," remarked Lily talking to Nat, not the boys. "Sarah and Fabian were sitting together at Sirius' party. I thought that they liked each other."
"I remember Sarah saying that Anna had told her that she liked someone older, but when I asked Sarah who Anna liked, she wouldn't say," said Sirius, who, to Lily's annoyance, replied to her statement instead of Nat.
"Shhh," said Remus, nodding his head towards the door. They all turned to see Sarah and Gideon entering, laughing together.
Sarah spotted the group and pointed them out to Gideon. He nodded his head and they began making their over to the table.
"Hi guys,' said Sarah, as she slid in beside Lily. I was wondering where you'd all gone."
"Sarah," said Gideon, glancing across the room at a distant table, "I think that I'll go and lave you with you're friends. Daniel's over there, so I'll go sit with him. Is that alright?"
Sarah smiled to herself. "Ok, I'll see you at school." With a wave goodbye, Gideon turned and made his way over to Sarah's brother, Daniel.
Once Gideon was out of ear shot, Nat began to whisper,
"What's going on with you a Gideon? I thought that you and Fabian were, you know, 'together."
"No, Fabian likes someone else," replied Sarah, purposely answering only half the question.
Nat raised her eyebrows. She knew Sarah would not answer the remainder of the question if she didn't want to. Especially not with the Marauder's sitting opposite them.
"Well, I have some shopping to do," said Lily, nudging Nat slightly, "So we might leave."
She glanced at Nat and Sarah. They'd got the message, and slid out of the booth.
Once outside, they noticed that everyone was heading in the direction of Hogwarts. They stopped a second year as he ran by and asked him why everyone was heading up so early.
"Dumbledore has called everyone back up because he says that it's time for the Quidditch teams to be named," he replied, his face wild with excitement.
The girls followed the crowd back up to Hogwarts, not at all upset that they hadn't gone shopping.
Once everyone was seated in the Great Hall, Dumbledore stood up, along with the Heads from the three other schools.
"The panel of teachers has made their final decisions about the Quidditch teams for each school," said Dumbledore, smiling at all the students.
"The team for Braveheart is as follows… Alex Furnick, Matthew Trest, Derrick Lorton, Albert Oregon, Terrance Fagan and Richard Gregorio."
Claps and whistles echoed through the hall as the seven members of the Braveheart team rose in their seats. They sat when the applause had subsided.
"The Beauxbatons team consists of…" continued Dumbledore, but Lily chose to tune out while Dumbledore named the Beauxbaton and Durmstrang teams. Finally, Dumbledore announced the Hogwarts team.
"And the Hogwarts team is… Fabian Prewett, Gideon Prewett, Sirius Black, Amos Diggory, Rudolphus Lestrange, James Potter and Natalie Mercury."
Wild cheers erupted from three of the four Hogwarts tables, but the Gryffindor table cheered the loudest. Five out of the seven players selected were from Gryffindor.
ooooooo
Dream:
James was walking out of the castle, down to the tree by the lake. Sirius, Remus and Peter were with him. They had just finished their OWLS at the end of fifth year.
Sitting under the tree, James pulled out a golden snitch and began to play with it, all the while glancing across the lake where he knew Lily Evans and her friends were sitting.
Minutes passed before any of the Marauders realized that Severus Snape was sitting in the bushes behind them. He rose to his feet and began to walk away when James called out to him.
He whirled around, wand at the ready, but he was to slow (again). There was a flash of light and seconds later Snape found himself dangling upside down from the tree.
Lily Evans raced around the lake. Upon reaching the place where Snape was upside down, she asked James to let Snape down. He refused, but said that if she would go out with him, he would change his mind. She refused and commented that she would rather go out with the Giant Squid. She pulled out her wand and pointed it directly at James. James, using what little common sense he had back then, knew that Lily was extremely good at charms and hexes, so he let Snape down saying, 'be glad Evans is here to save your neck.'
'I don't need your help, Mudblood, Snape replied, getting to his feet.
'Apologize to Evans,' roared James
'I don't want you to make him apologize, Potter,' replied Lily coolly and she turned and stormed away.
End dream:
James was lying on his back in his four-poster bed, staring up at the ceiling. He had just had a dreamed about last year and thinking about what Lily had said today.
He had matured, to some degree, since the previous year. Lily just failed to see that. Ok, so he kept on asking her out, so what. Why could she see that it wasn't some childish thing and that he really did like her. If she only knew what I was really like, thought James and he rolled on his back and fell back to sleep.
Hey everyone!
I'm finally on holidays! This chapter has taken me a while to write cause of all the things that happen at the end of a school year, but I'll have heaps more time to write now I'm on holidays. Also, I've written a Ginny/Harry one-shot. i'm trying to write about as ay of the characters as possible, so let me know what you think.
PadfootsLuva: i changed the names cause i didn't like them and I thought that they were boring. I changed the big blocks of writing into smaller ones.
majik man: thanx for the review. Your review made me laugh. Keep reviewing
softlove91: ive gone back and changed the huge paragraphs and made them smaller. The new girl may or may not end up making an appearance. Sorry about the name change, I hated the names. ;)
riduculouslyriddikulus: thanx for the review. Plz keep reading.
chixsta: thanx for the tip about writing big blocks. I went and changed the huge blocks. Also I have changed the name of the head of Beauxbatons. The 4 schools are Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, Durnstrang and Braveheart. Yes this is my first fanfic. I'll try to write about lily/james thing in a bit more depth.