DQTMIM: This is just a cute little one-shot about poker and Lily/James. I wrote this and wasn't going to post it...but, I guess I am...
Just a Little Game of Poker
aka The Poker Game of Death (well, not really)
When he had mentioned the game, everyone thought he was just joking, or maybe that he was insane. Why would Sirius Black want to play a muggle game anyway? But he seemed as if he did, conquering up a stack of cards and sitting down next to the table in the common room. Now all he needed was people to play against.
"Oi! James!" Sirius shouted to his friend all the way on the other side of the common room. A couple seconds later, James Potter walked up, looking at the cards on the table curiously.
"What's up?" he asked, sitting down on the couch next to Sirius.
"Do you know where Remus and Peter are? I wanna play some poker," Sirius said simply.
James stared at him. "Poker?" he repeated, an eyebrow raised, "Why poker of all things? Are you on something?"
Sirius just grinned, with a very mischievous look about it, and responded with, "So where are Remus and Peter?"
James shrugged. "Up in the dormitory I guess. Want me to go get them?"
Sirius just nodded, too busy shuffling the cards to say anything else. James left up the staircase, and Sirius looked up to notice two girls talking and one reading a textbook on the other couch across the room.
"Oi! Hatcher!" A brunette looked up from her conversation with her blonde friend.
"What do you want Black!" she yelled back, obviously annoyed that he had interrupted her conversation.
"Do you wanna play a game?" he shouted. By now, the whole common room was watching the two shout their replies back at each other.
"If that was a hint at something dirty-"
"No! A card game!"
The brunette looked at Sirius as if he was crazy, and then dragged her friends over to where he was sitting.
"What's this about Black?" she asked as soon as she became within speaking distance.
"Well, I was bored, and decided 'hey, why not do something fun?'. Finally, after many choices of things that are fun, I decided on poker."
"You mean you chose poker over snogging some girl in a closet?" James asked jokingly, sitting in his previous seat. Remus and Peter came up behind him, immediately sitting down in the first chairs they found.
Sirius noticed that everyone was looking at him like he was crazy. "Maybe I just decided poker was the better thing to do." Everyone was still looking at him skeptically. "Or I found out that with poker, when you win, you win a jackpot!"
Everyone sighed, and sat down around the table, silently agreeing that there was nothing better to do. "Who doesn't know how to play?" The brunette known as Ellyn Hatcher asked, stealing the cards away from Sirius (of course, not without a silent protest). She looked around at the people. "Sirius obviously does. James? Okay. Remus, Peter. Umm...Kady, do you know how to play?" Ellyn asked her friend.
"What makes you think I don't? Of course I do," Kady Stuart answered, rolling her eyes in reply to her friend's statement.
"How about you, Lily?" Ellyn asked.
Lily Evans looked up from her History of Magic book, just barely peering over the top of it. "I'm not playing," Lily quickly answered, glancing back down at her book.
"Not playing?" James questioned, as if he was shocked to hear her say such a thing. "Come on, Evans. What's wrong with a harmless game?"
"Everything. I never liked it, so I never learned how to play."
"See. That's why you don't like it. You've never tried it," James reasoned.
Lily sighed, putting her book face down on her lap to keep the page. "I don't want to play," she said clearly, and then looked over at her friends for support. Instead, she got the opposite.
"Lily, this could be fun!" Kady said enthusiastically, "We'll teach you how to play, and help you throughout, even if I'm not quite sure how to teach it to someone..." She trailed off, looking over at Ellyn who was agreeing with her.
"I'm not playing if no one's going to help me!" Lily said, thinking that that would end the conversation.
"I'll help you."
Everyone slowly turned towards James in shock.
"Oh, no. No, no, no," Lily said, laughter of disbelief mixed in with her words. "No possible way. I'm not playing poker with you."
"Why not? I'm a great teacher," James answered, looking at Lily with a serious look.
"Because I don't like you!" Lily said.
"Lily," Ellyn said softly, "Just let him teach you. It's not like he's trying to frisk you or something."
"Why do you all want me to play poker with you so bad? I'm probably not even good at it or anything."
"Because seven is a lucky number!" Sirius said, getting up from his spot on the couch and going over to pull Lily onto her feet.
"You guys! I don't want to play!" Lily protested as Sirius dragged her over to the couch and forced her to sit where he was sitting. "Alrighty then. Since we got that all worked out-" Lily scowled at him. "I believe we can start the game." He sat down on the floor next to James (since there was no more room on the couch) and shuffled the cards. Then he started to deal them out, going around the circle of people two times, to give them two cards each.
"Lily, you can look at your cards," James whispered to her. She looked at the table where her two cards lay, and then picked them up staring at the nine of spades and the four of spades. "Okay." Lily then noticed how close James was, whispering in her ear. She shivered automatically. "That's a pretty good hand. I mean, both your cards have the same suit." Lily just nodded, staring at her cards as if she didn't want to be. She looked over at James to see him showing her his hand. "Mine's not as good."
They looked up to see Sirius smirking. "Now, time for things we're gonna bet on. Poker chips are lame. Let's try something better."
Ellyn shook her head. "Black, if you tricked us into strip poker or something-" She stopped immediately when Sirius' eyes lit up.
"Didn't think of that Hatcher, but what a great idea-"
"No strip poker," Kady explained, "If you don't want to use poker chips, we can gamble. Just no stripping."
Sirius sighed, and then reached in his pocket to bring out all the money he had. The rest of them did the same (though somewhat reluctantly). "Right. So, does anyone want to start the gambling?"
"Alright, Lily. Now, because you have a good hand, you should gamble this turn and don't fold. I could fold if I wanted to, but I'm feeling somewhat lucky..." James said, raising the person before him, Sirius, a knut.
"I don't know what to do," Lily said, looking at her cards. "I don't get this stupid game!"
James grabbed a sickle from what she had and showed it to her. "Gamble this," he said clearly, letting her take it from him. She looked at him, and then at the sickle, finally putting it in the middle of the pile.
"Righty-o," Sirius exclaimed, dealing out the cards, "This is the burn card," he put a card face down, "And this is the next card." A nine of hearts. Everyone looked at their cards, trying not to make a sound to give away what cards they had.
"Okay. Now you have two nines," James whispered to Lily.
"And is that good?" Lily asked, squinting at her cards, trying to make sense of them."If you get another nine, you could have three of a kind. And then if you get a fourth nine, you could get four of a kind."
"Wow, obvious names. Is poker really this obvious?" Lily asked, sitting back onto the couch, never taking her eyes off her cards.
"Nope. You need skill, luck, and knowledge to play the game of poker. It's a very challenging game-"
"James, shut up," Lily said, "It's your turn to gamble."
James looked at the pile of money, and then up at everyone staring at him. "I fold for this round. It's work enough coaching Lily," he said, setting his cards down.
"Hey! I'm not that bad!" Lily said, taking his comment as an offense.
"Stop arguing and get on with the game!" Ellyn said, almost throwing down her cards in exasperation.
The first round was a bit confusing, with people finding out what they could and could not do, and not sure what to gamble. The person winning was Sirius for the first couple rounds, which made everyone think he charmed the cards to make him win. Also, as the game went on, more interesting stuff was tossed into the gambling pile.
"This lip gloss," Kady said, tossing in a pink colored tube. "Oh, and this scrunchie."
The guys just stared at her. "Umm...what are we supposed to do if we win that?" Remus asked.
"Wear it, of course!" Kady giggled.
The guys lost that round. Ellyn, who won, definitely had a feeling that they had lost on purpose.
"Umm...this quill. And, umm...look! A string!" Sirius threw in his objects.
Lily, who wasn't getting as much coaching from James since she had gotten the hang of it, grinned at Sirius' stupidity. Sirius noticed, and asked her 'what?' pretty quickly.
"Who gambles with string?" she asked, still smiling.
"Oh! I see what you're doing! You have a good hand! And you're trying to cover it up!"
And Sirius began betting more things, including a packet of Chocolate Frogs that he stole from a third-year walking by. The only person who knew what hand Lily had was James, who was just watching all this plan out with an amused expression. They all watched the pile before them grow larger. And Sirius was running out of things to gamble.
"I'll tell you what," Lily finally said, "If you win this round, I'll do something of your choosing. But I'll have to agree to it."
"Interesting..." Sirius pondered on what to bet on. Something that Lily would hate. What did he know about Lily? Hmm... "I got it! If I win, you have to snog James."
Lily raised an eyebrow. James raised an eyebrow. Everyone else just stared at them. Lily looked down at her hand. "Alright. And if I win this, you have to take that scrunchie and lip gloss, put them on tomorrow, and then go over and kiss Snape on the cheek."
Sirius looked positively horrified. "But...it's Snape!"
"I thought you were pretty confident in your hand. Unless you were bluffing..." Lily said.
"James, why did you have to teach her poker? Now she's gonna be obsessed with it!" Sirius whined.
Lily just crossed her arms. "So, are you going to gamble on this hand or what?"
Sirius took a deep breath, and then assured himself with, "Well, I have been lucky tonight. And, you know, there's a lot gambled here. So, alright. I'll-umm...take your gamble." He couldn't even bring himself to say what his gamble was. He laid his cards on the table. "Four of a kind! Oh yeah!" Sirius did a little dance on the floor.
Lily's expression immediately saddened. "That's not even fair," she said, laying her cards down, "All I got was a straight flush!" She immediately grinned and imagined Sirius kissing Snape the next day.
Sirius stared down at her cards in part shock, part horror. "No. You-you cheated! James! Tell me that Lily here cheated!" Sirius' voice had gotten panicky at the thought of the gamble.
"Nope. She won fair and square," James answered, also grinning at the thought of Sirius snogging Snape. Of course, the other side of the gamble wasn't that bad either...
"Good going Sirius," Remus said, getting up to leave, "That was a great game. We'd better get to bed. You'll want your beauty sleep for your kiss tomorrow."
Sirius scowled as everyone walking by congratulated him on the kiss he would have to give. Why was fate so cruel?
Lily spotted James next to the boy's staircase and hurried over. She grabbed him before he left and made him turn around to talk to her. "Hey, James, thanks for teaching me the game. Who knew it would lead to Sirius humilating himself?"
James laughed along with Lily. "He always finds a way to humiliate himself in games." He paused, and then said, "That was certainly a gamble back there."
"Oh, you knew what cards I had! I doubted Sirius could even beat that," Lily answered, shrugging.
"Well, what if he had a royal flush? What would you have done then?" James asked teasingly.
"I doubt Sirius would have had a royal flush in the first place, and second, it was a gamble I chose to take. If I would have lost, then he'd get his gamble." She shrugged, and immediately felt out of place and awkward. She knew she would have won, so why was the gamble making her feel awkward all of the sudden?
James leaned forward over the staircase railing and whispered, "I kinda wish Sirius would have had that royal flush." He stopped a couple inches away from Lily's face, and then leaned back. "Well, good night Lily," he said simply, disappearing up the stairs.
Lily stood there for a second, wondering what had just happened, what James had just said, and then shook her head. Maybe tomorrow she'd figure it out. After all, it was going to be the day of Sirius's lovely kiss.
Lily left for the staircase, leaving a grumpy Sirius in the common room, wondering what had possessed him to decide on this game in the first place. The poker game of death. He had chose this over snogging some girl. And for this awful decision, it wasn't a girl he'd be snogging tomorrow. It would be Snape. Why, oh why, was fate so cruel?
DQTMIM: Review please.