Sorry for the wait!
Professor Kettleby turned and faced the class, smiling broadly, and making them all a little scared. They knew that he enjoyed teaching them, but the grin that he had donned looked a little maniacal, and the way that he was shaking in anticipation made them curious.
"Tomorrow night, we will be taking a little excursion, just this class, myself and Hagrid." He explained, still smiling. James, Lily and Sirius exchanged excited looks, and he continued.
"Professor Dumbledore, Hagrid and myself have been planning this for many years now, and we hope that you will enjoy it. At first we were going to include an assignment, however…" the faces of the class, already strained by NEWTs, lit up again.
"However, we thought that with your exams coming up you could all use a night off, and so I would like you all to meet me here tomorrow night, at sunset, where I will take you to our camping place in the forest. That is all! I will see you all then!" he finished, his face alight with a boyish excitement.
James, Lily and Sirius made their way down to the edge of the forest, high spirits racing with anticipation. Their good moods weren't even savaged by the look of pure loathing that was shot at them from Severus Snape. The corners of James' mouth tightened slightly, but Lily squeezed his hand, and they carried on as though the whole encounter had never happened.
"You're all here!" Professor Kettleby boomed, beaming around at them all jovially, when everyone had reached the edge of the forest. Snape was standing the furthest possible way away from Lily and James, and every so often Sirius would notice him peering their way menacingly, clearly not wanting to be seen.
"When we go into the forest I want all of you to stay calm, and stick together, no matter what any of you hears or sees. Nothing will harm us on the path that Dumbledore has cleared for us, nor where we are sleeping, but the sounds and shadows that the forest holds may be enough to scare more than one of our number if we don't stick together. Now follow me."
Kettleby walked up to a part in the edge of the forest and pulled back the branches of two, overgrown trees. Sirius and James gasped, amazed and delighted. This was a part of the forest that they had never before seen or explored, and that though made them very excited indeed.
Lily rolled her eyes, as they exchanged over enthusiastic looks, and James took an old piece of parchment out of his pocket and tapped it with his wand, winking at Sirius. Lily rolled her eyes, and decided not to ask.
They walked for what seemed like an hour, til their destination was distinguished by two excited squeals emitted by two pretty Ravenclaw girls, as they found the campsite and ran to throw their things in a tent.
Lily, James and Sirius walked into the clearing, impressed. Kettleby stood proudly at the entrance, greeting each of the students happily as they stepped into the grotto.
Five or so tents were set up around the edge of the clearing, as well as one slightly larger, which they supposed was Kettleby's, for it sat right in the middle of the rest of them. A blazing campfire sat roaring in the centre of the semi circle, surrounded by roughly placed logs. Hagrid sat on one of these, smiling at the students as they passed, excited, and greeting James Lily and Sirius with a merry wave of the hand. They ran over to him, and Hagrid turned from where he sat on the log.
"Not a bad set up Hagrid!" James said, giving Hagrid a pat on the back. Hagrid beamed humbly. "You do all of this?"
"Kettleby and me 'ave had it planned for years now." Hagrid told them, pleased with the idea. "Came and set it all up the smornin'!"
"Which tent should we take then?" Sirius asked, winking. Hagrid raised his eyebrows at him, and pointed to the one behind him.
"Looks like you don't have a chose! While you lot 'ave been 'ere talkin' to me the rest of 'em have been smart and chosen!" Hagrid laughed, and James and Lily dove for the last tent, which Snape was eyeing greedily. Sulking, he went off and joined up with another group of Slytherins, who begrudgingly let him inside.
James grumbled as they neared the tent. It was clearly the smallest in the space, and the rattiest. Lily didn't really mind. She went camping in the holidays with her parents…
"Wow." Said Sirius simply, when they opened the flap of the door a tad, to reveal what was inside. Lily gasped. Maybe this wasn't going to be like camping in the summer with her parents…
Three large beds sat side by side, a small bathroom off in the corner of the room, and red curtains and linen separating everything and giving it a very welcoming look. Red carpet adorned the floor, and there was even a small fireplace, which was giving off heat, but not seeming to burn anything, over in the corner.
"I got the middle bed!" Sirius roared, throwing himself down onto the bed just as Lily took the one closest to the fire. James laughed.
"Sure mate, Haha." James said. Sirius blinked.
"No, I really want this bed." He said.
"But I want to be next to Lily!"
"You always get to be in the middle though! I want to be in the middle!" Sirius argued. Lily smirked at their childish game, of changing each other's sheets and throwing pillows back and forwards.
"Well, when you to decide to grow up then I will meet you outside." She said, standing up and leaving for the campfire. Sirius and James looked at each other.
"Scissors paper rock?" Sirius said, and James stuck out his hand. They played.
"What the hell is that Padfoot?" James asked, when they drew and Sirius had stuck his hand under James', twiddling his fingers avidly, and grinning like maniac.
"It's fire! Beats everything!" he commended. James got an evil glint in his eye, and threw his hand above Sirius'.
"Yeah! But does it beat water bomb?" James yelled. Sirius shrugged, and threw his things back down onto the middle bed. James went to automatically pick them up and throw them, but found that he couldn't get his hand past the edge of the bed.
"Oi!"
"We're wizards James, I don't know why we were bothering." He said, aloof, and strutted from the tent.
That night the forest clearing seemed the ring with happiness and laughter, the blazing fire the source of many jokes and camping songs, while Hagrid played his roughing carved wooden flute, and they toasted marshmallows. Lily remembered the way that she had felt at Christmas, and smiled, thinking back.
She had thought that that would be her last chance to have fun…when she had gone back to school that everything would change…the fiasco with Snape only seemed to highlight her point, however, as she sat around the fire with James and Sirius and Hagrid, she realised that the whole world didn't have to be happy for her to have a moment of fun…she could still find tiny pieces of paradise, even when the times looked grim…
"I'm going to bed James." She announced, when all but the three f them and a few Ravenclaws were sitting by the fire, drinking butterbeer. James smiled and took her hand.
"I'll come in too." He said, and they went back into the tent, leaving Sirius to laugh with the Ravenclaw girls.
"James! Help me!" said Sirius, slipping back into their tent at one in the morning. James and Lily looked up form their position on the floor of the tent, where they were bundled up in blankets and pillows, giving them the impression that two fat caterpillars were lying in the tent.
Sirius caught sight of them and burst out laughing. "What are you two doing? I mean, I stay out of the tent so that you two can have some, 'alone time' and I find you wrapped up, not in each other, but looking like that." Sirius laughed.
"Your problem Sirius?" James asked dully, Sirius, having the attention span of a goldfish, had already misplaced the reason for which he had entered the tent in the first place.
"Oh! Right." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Well, I was out there then right, and you know those two Ravenclaw girls? What are there names again?"
"Sirius! We have had classes with them since we were eleven and you still don't know their names!" Lily said incensed, raising her eyebrows at him. Sirius looked as though he were to scorn her, but only for a moment, because he couldn't take either of them seriously when they were looking like that…
"Anyway, the names don't matter! The problem is that they are both incredibly hot, and they were all over me! It was like a flirting buffet out there!" he exclaimed, and looked off into the distance for a moment, perhaps imagining what a flirting buffet would really be like, be continuing. Lily didn't like the sound of thins…Sirius was going out with her best friend and-
"And I turned them down! I told them off!" he finished, as though it were the most ludicrous thing in the world. "I turned down the hot Ravenclaws! I don't know what's happened to me! Do you think maybe Dani's put some spell on me? All of a sudden I don't want any other girls!"
Lily laughed. "I think Sirius is in love." she said smiling. James laughed, and Sirius looked taken aback.
"Love? Really? You think so?" he said, intrigued. "So she didn't curse me?"
"Some might say that it's a curse Padfoot." James said knowingly. Lily burst her arm free of its material prison and slapped him over the head.
"But I am not one of those people!" James corrected himself, and smiled sheepishly at Lily.
"Wow. Well, now that that's sorted, why are the two of you on the floor?" Sirius asked, looking from them to the perfectly comfortable bed s that sat behind them.
"Lily told me that this is how muggles camp, I thought that it might be fun." James said.
"And is it?" Sirius asked. They nodded. Sirius threw himself down onto the floor next to them.
"I thought that you wanted the big bed!" James said, outraged. Sirius shrugged.
"Meh, I just did that to annoy the hell out of you Prongs." He said, and before they knew it he had stolen half of James blankets and was wrapped up in a simular fashion to the other two campers.
"Do you think that it ruins the experience a little seeing as we have carpet?" Lily asked, laughing at their idea of 'ruffing it'. James looked shocked.
"Do you meant that when muggles go camping they don't have carpet?" he said, eyes widening. Lily laughed, and nodded. Sirius laid his head on James' stomach.
"Sirius, get off." James said, awkwardness etched into every syllable. Sirius snuggled lower into James.
"No Prongsie, I'm comfortable!" he whined. James rolled his eyes.
"Hmmm. Remember back when you two wouldn't even look at each other?" Sirius said, smiling, staring up at the canvas roof. James snorted.
"I would look at her! Only problem was that she wouldn't let me!"
"Sorry about that." Lily said, laughing. "But you were an arrogant prat."
"Hey! Was not!"
"You kind of were Prongs…" Sirius added, smiling. Lily sat up, giggling.
"Oh Sirius, you were just as bad, only you didn't ask me out every chance that you got."
"Mind you, I didn't get much of a chance…"
"Why? Because you were too busy hexing Snape?"
"No! Because you were too busy hitting me!"
"But you fell in love in the end." Sirius added sweetly, looking at the roof. Lily grinned, knowing that he was far from thinking about her and James.
"I know Sirius. Remember when you too were too stubborn to go to the ball together?"
"You can talk!"
The three friends carried on this way right until the early morning, when they drifted into a peaceful sleep, full of reminiscent dreams.
A/N: sorry it took me so long guys! Don't blame my oneshot, I wrote that a while ago, but this took so many rewrites that it's not funny! I was never happy with it! I needed it, because they're almost left school now, and there's a lot about to happen, so I thought that I should show that James and Sirius will still be stupid, and Lily will still be happy, and all that. Yeah, I need something light after all that other stuff, so I hope that you guys liked it and if you did PRESS THAT LITTLE BLUE BUTTON AND REVIEW THE STORY! Thanks! Also, thanks to Mezo and Moony for reviewing and emailing me so regularly! Ur comments really help! And thanks also to all of you who have even read this much, it means the world to me! The next chappie should be up soon, and A LOT of questions will be answered in it. Ok, one big one, but neways, I'm excited to write it, so…
Luv u all, Ella Evans xXx