Since their confrontation in Defense Against the Dark Arts, James Potter and Severus Snape had had little more interaction than the occasional dirty look. Between all the gossip about his rant in the common room and his own over-analysis of Lily's smile after his speech, Potter had been too busy to even notice Snape. Sirius was aching to pull something, but everyone knew that Sirius Black never did anything without James Potter.
While the boys had given up any thought of the incident, it still was fresh in Lily's mind. Perhaps it was because she had so much more contact with Snape than they did. He was in both Potions and Arithmancy with her and, at least in those classes, had been staring at her more than ever.
She glanced over her shoulder in Arithmancy one day. Sure enough, his black eyes were fixated on her. Remus followed her glance, and pursed his lips when he saw Snape.
"Rather intense," he whispered.
Lily nodded without turning around. Snape hadn't even dropped his head. He was holding the eye-contact and scowling angrily. Lily looked away quickly.
"Still thinking about Lily's grin, Prongs?" Sirius nudged James as they made to their way to Charms.
James glared at Sirius' smirk.
"All I can say is that when a girl grins at you like that, she wants to do a lot more grinning…if you know what I mean."
James punched Sirius lightly on the shoulder. Remus rolled his eyes at this far too typical situation.
"I'm glad to see she's finally warming up to you, mate," Sirius continued. He had been annoyingly happy in the days following James' now widely-known speech. "Now I won't have to worry about what was going to happen when she finally realized that she wanted to shag me."
The introduction of this topic caused Remus to suddenly grow rather nervous. He tried to be as invisible to James as possible. James, however, immediately turned on Sirius. "Take that back," he said, his wand pointed at Sirius' neck.
Sirius took a step backward and then chuckled at the anger in his best friend's eyes. James lowered his wand and stood down a little
"Relax mate," he said. "We all know that Evans is not going to be shagging me. Or the other way around. I'm not as stupid as old Moony over here."
Remus silently damned Sirius, but instead forced a rather awkward laugh as the tall boy threw one arm around his neck.
James did not look amused.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Come on mate," he said; releasing Remus from the death grip as they began walking again. "Evans will eventually go out with you. She'd be a total idiot not to. Honestly, if I was a bird…"
"I'd rather not think of you as a bird," James said flatly.
"Would it cheer you up?" Sirius asked, obviously getting awfully tired of this pensive James.
James didn't answer.
Sirius scowled and glanced at Remus. "Any ideas?"
Remus, still rather annoyed with Sirius, shook his head quickly. Letting out a loud stream of air, Sirius looked around the corridor, obviously unimpressed with what he saw. He frowned as a few Hufflepuff third years walked by. When Brigid Davies passed, he ran a hand through his hair. She smiled and he smirked back lazily.
As if on cue, Dorcas Meadowes popped out of the girls' loo just as the four boys were passing.
"Meadowes," Sirius acknowledged her with a small nod. "Off to Charms?"
"Well," she smiled slightly, joining the boys. "I don't have much of a choice now, do I? You might just tell Flitwick I've been skiving if I don't go now."
"Don't want you to get behind in your studies now, do we?" he retorted.
Dorcas' mysterious smile grew. "You seem to be doing fairly well in Transfiguration for never coming."
"Well," he said, shrugging and tilting his head slightly towards Dorcas. "That class is a complete lark. No challenge whatsoever."
"Is anything a challenge for you, Sirius Black?" She pouted a bit, her lips slightly parting.
Sirius' tongue flicked over his bottom lip, his gray eyes challenging the brown ones next to him. "Guess not."
Dorcas raised her eyebrows slightly, smirked, and turned her attention to James. "Alright Potter?"
"Sure," he shrugged.
"James has been in a bit of a haze lately," Sirius said, mocking a whisper. "I think it has something to do with a certain red-haired person."
"Does good news have a tendency to do that?" Dorcas was speaking to Sirius, but still looking at James.
"Apparently," Remus joined in.
"She did say it was "rather impressive," you know."
James turned and looked at Dorcas. His suddenly excited hazel eyes were aligned with her perfectly tranquil brown ones. "Honestly?"
Dorcas nodded. "Did you think that a smile like that meant she hated it?"
"It's just never happened before," he said, rather sheepishly. And then in a louder, anxious voice, "She really thought it was…impressive?"
Dorcas smiled slightly and acknowledged that that was indeed what Lily had said.
James' face turned on a dime. Dorcas Meadowes had just given him the best gift he'd ever received. Suddenly on cloud nine, James had an immense urge to broadcast it to the entire world. Luckily for him, a skinny hunched figure with lanky black hair and small black eyes had just turned the corner.
"Snivellus," he said loudly. Sirius was wrought with anticipation, completely looking forward to whatever was coming.
Snape looked up at James and, oddly, didn't scowl. In fact, he smiled in a crafty way. Pulling out his wand, he faced Potter, who immediately cried, "Expelliarmus."
Snape's wand flew to James, but Snape looked completely unfazed.
"Ready for Charms?" James asked, smirking. He hit Snape with a babbling curse.
"You think you're so clever Potter," he began the expected rant. "Just wait, wait until you see first-hand what kind of power I have." Sirius and James were looking awfully bored. The babbling curses always started out this way. "You'll be regretting every single thing you ever did to me. Just wait until I prove to you that I am not only your equal, but your superior. You have no idea what I am capable of." Sirius scoffed loudly at this and the mumbled words, 'taking a shower?' were heard by a few students. Peter laughed loudly, James chuckled, Remus slumped against the castle wall, and Dorcas, characteristically, wore that semi-amused look.
"You won't even have to wait too long," Snape continued. "Everything will be ready by tom…." Suddenly he clamped his hands over his mouth. Snape kept talking, but his hands mumbled the words so that they were incomprehensible.
Sirius and James smiled at each other. This was the reason they used the babbling curse.
"Come on Snivelly," Sirius said, shaking his head. "You know you can't do that."
"Incarcerous," yelled James. Ropes snaked out of his wand, wrapped around Snape's wrists, and yanked his arms behind his back.
"You don't deserve her either," Snape's face was contorted with fear. "And I'm the one who found a way to get her. In a few days…."
But no one heard what was going to happen in a few days, because the commotion had reached Flitwick's comprehension. He burst through the door, pushing at student's knees to let him through. He performed both the counter-curse to the binding spell and to the babbling curse. Snape fell to he floor when he was released, rubbing his wrists where the ropes had cut in to him.
"Boys," Fitwick squeaked. "If you could step into my office, please…."
Frowning and shrugging, James and Sirius loafed into the empty room, followed by a rather twitchy Snape.
"So," Dorcas said a few days later in the middle of potions. "Do you mind if I ask about your feelings regarding a certain fellow?"
Lily rolled her eyes. For days now, Dorcas had been prying like a master. Ever since she had smiled at Potter, the other Gryffindor 6th year seemed convinced that Lily had completely changed her tune about James Potter.
"Not much has changed Dorcas," she said, exasperated. "He's still an arrogant git who absolutely no regard for other peoples' feelings. That being said, what he said was rather surprising. But we always knew Potter was intelligent and a bit of an attention-whore. My opinion of him has not changed."
Dorcas smiled smugly, turning back to her smoking cauldron and slowly adding her beetle eyes. The potion turned a bright magenta. It smelled a little like oranges.
"It's true," Lily continued when Dorcas didn't really accept her explanation, getting more and more passionate as she continued. "Potter went and hexed Snape for no reason only three days after his foray into maturity. He's still just a big bully. Sure, he's clever and charismatic and passionate and att…" Lily stopped halfway through a word. Dorcas turned and gave her a strange look. Recovering quickly, she continued, "see the point is that James Potter has not changed at all. He is still the same toe-rag he always was and therefore, I can not change my opinion of him."
"Alright," Dorcas smiled.
"You don't believe me, do you?" Lily's eyes were raging.
Dorcas looked back to her potion. "No, I believe you," she said in a rather disbelieving tone.
"Dorcas," Lily said louder, her hands now waving desperately. "It's true. I despise James Potter. He is a bottom crawler, a bastard completely devoid of any integrity, and no speech he makes is going to change that."
Dorcas just looked at her, a completely unruffled face. "Better watch your Hiccupping Solution."
Lily scowled at Dorcas and then turned to the cauldron in front of her. It was now billowing smoke.
"Bollocks," she yelled.
"Miss Evans," Professor Slughorn chuckled at his favorite student.
Lily was frantically pushing away the smoke pouring from her potion to try to get the beetle eyes in to her cauldron. The smoke caught in her throat and she coughed hard. Backing away from the desk, she recovered, but almost immediately began hiccupping violently.
"Oh Miss Evans," Slughorn exclaimed. "You must have inhaled some of your potion. Could someone please get Miss Evans a glass of water?"
Before anyone could move, Snape shot up and hurried to the sink. With his back to the rest of the class, he filled a glass with water. He walked quickly to Lily, who was now sitting down in response to the intensity of the action in her throat. Snape handed her the glass, clutched in his pale, bony hand. She took it without looking up and drained it.
"Alright?" Dorcas asked.
Lily nodded and looked up. Then she smiled broadly and said sweetly, "Thank you Severus."