Chapter Four: The Ambiguous and Misinterpreted Loisoning of James Potter

Lily's plan to Get-Truthful-Answers-From-James-And-Not-Get-Caught was simple. On Saturday morning she would approach the section of the dining table where Potter and his friends sat, lean over between James and Peter (because they were boys of habit and always sat in the same formation) and ask Remus a question about the most recent DADA essay. Then, under the cover of passing her essay for Lupin's approval, she would surreptitiously drop some Veritaserum into Potter's cup, take back her essay after a moment and sit down for breakfast further down the table so she could watch when Potter took a drink of his drugged Pumpkin juice. When he did she would walk back up to them with another question for Remus, holding her own drink in her hand, which she would spill all over James. She would then offer to fix it outside with a drying spell, and when they were out of everyone's view she would ask him her questions, dry him, and hand him a new goblet of drink with a tiny bit of sopophorous bean liquid in it so he would forget he told her anything.

Alright, so maybe it wasn't simple. Maybe it was unnecessarily complex and convoluted. Maybe she could have bumped Potter as she walked past and spilt his juice, offered to get him a new one and put in the potion when she poured it. But she felt like that would draw attention to the act of her pouring his juice, which would make it hard to stay undetected, and she would only get one shot, because if they realised she had out something in his drink they'd be on the lookout and she would never be able to do it subtly. Maybe she could have just confounded him, stuffed him in a cupboard and force-fed it. But there were several reasons she had dismissed that idea.

Unluckily for Lily, and most of her luck seemed to be going that way recently, her convoluted scheme to remain unnoticed was in vain thanks to the melodramatics of Sirius Black.

Sirius had had a terrible morning, and it had only been an hour since he woke up. James had been out early for a quidditch practice, and when he got back to the dorm he had thrown his broom in the general direction of his bed and gone for a shower. However his broom sailed past his bed in a graceful magical arc and had landed hard in the middle of Sirius' forehead, jolting him out of a rather pleasant dream. Then, in his frustration at being woken rudely and early he discarded James' broom on the floor, and promptly tripped over it when he stood up. A right awful headache, and the fact that he just argued with James about broomstick etiquette (whether it's alright for your best mate to throw your broom on the floor after you inadvertently threw it at his head (Sirius: yes, James: no)), as well as the knowledge that he detention that evening, made him dramatically slump down with his head on his arms when they all eventually arrived for breakfast.

It was this slumped position that allowed Sirius to see Lily drop the veritaserum into James' glass under her essay while the others could not.

For a while Sirius was tempted to just let James drink whatever horrible potion she had put in, as a form of passive revenge for the broom incident. But, as surely amusing as it would be, he couldn't let his friend drink some drugged drink.

"Oi James, I don't want to worry you, but Evans put something in your drink," he said casually, sitting up after Lily had left.

His friends looked at him with varied expressions of confusion. He stoutly bit down on a slice of toast and jam, meeting their stares confidently.

"Alright, did someone cast a confundus charm on Sirius?" James asked Remus, with a worried glance at Sirius.

Remus started to respond but Sirius stuffed his half-eaten slice of toast in Lupin's mouth. "I'm not crazy. I saw her do it Prongs."

"Okay, let's imagine for a moment that he'd telling the truth," posed Remus, after wrenching the toast out of his mouth and wiping away the jam that lined his upper lip. "What would she have ever wanted to put in Prongs' cup?"

"Our dear Lily loves to hate James, the possibilities are endless. Some kind of revenge potion to embarrass him? A babbling beverage to stop his eternal infernal flirting with her?" Sirius said eagerly.

"An invisibility potion so she'd never have to look at him again?" Peter added jokingly, with an appreciative chuckle from Sirius.

"A jawbind potion so he'd stop talking?" Sirius continued, with an expectant look at Remus. There was a pause.

"A deflating draught so his head would stop being so big?" suggested Remus, giving in. Sirius grinned and opened his mouth to add more, but James cut them off with a glare that would silence He Who Must Not Be Named himself.

"Alright, you guys are hilarious," deadpanned James, "but this is Evans we're talking about. She wouldn't do something so blatantly blameable. If she was going to get her revenge or whatever she would do it in a way where there was no risk to her shiny prefect badge."

"Or her perfect nose," Sirius mumbled into his reclaimed slice of toast. With a sly glance at James he coughed, "Sorry, did I say perfect? I meant prefect."

"Oi! No," said James defensively, "You know it was a slip of the tongue. A mistake. Easily done."

"Easily done," Sirius repeated gravely, with a knowing nod to Wormtail, who nodded seriously back. "Easily done."

"Her nose is… Y'know… I don't know, turned up, and freckled, and– and– not that I think freckles are bad or anything. Actually on Evans they're pretty darn cute."

Sirius shook his head despairingly. "I should know better by now, shouldn't I. Any mention of Evans and he goes completely moony. No offence Remus."

"None taken. But for someone who apparently hates public confrontation Lily sure does it enough with you," said Remus, bringing the boys back to the topic at hand. James bristled at the betrayal. "Why couldn't putting something in your drink be part of that?"

"I thought you were on my side Moony!"

"Hey, I'm on no one's side," he said, lifting his hands up. "I'm just saying that Padfoot presents some convincing ideas, and he shows none of the signs of being confounded. Except maybe forgetting that you get all stupid at the mention of Lily."

"The signs of being confounded are confusion and delusions. What's more delusional than the idea that Evans would poison me?"

He shook his head and grabbed his goblet, determined to enjoy his pumpkin juice.

"Go on, drink it," said Sirius offhandedly, "see if I care when you've been turned into an erumpent who can't wear his glasses because his head is too big."

James slammed his goblet back down on the table. "Fine." He pushed his glasses off his nose in exasperation. "Without insults about the size of my head or my abysmal flirting, what could Evans have put in my drink?"

Peter ate a sausage. Remus wracked his brain. Sirius stared into James' goblet.

"A love potion?" Peter suggested, scooping some scrambled eggs onto his fork and feeding them to his owl.

James banged his head repeatedly on the empty stretch of table in front of him, making the goblet jump up and down.

"A love potion," echoed Sirius, thoughtfully.

James lifted his head incredulously. He looked at Remus for support, who only shrugged, then he looked around to see if a someone was holding a wand at his friends, having cast confundo on them all. He threw his hands up, giving in. There was an easy way to check for Amortentia.

James sniffed his goblet warily. He was relieved to find it smelled normal.

"Wormy, Padfoot, if it were a love potion I'd be smelling butterscotch, broomsticks, and the blueberry-and-pomegranate scented version of my dad's hair potion range. Took me so long to figure that last one out, but I still don't know why. I mean I love my dad, but not that much! Plus he's practically bald now. And he'd use the orange cinnamon scent—." James stopped rambling, noticing Sirius' sigh at this topic once more being rekindled. He brought the incriminated glass up to his nose and breathed in deeply. "I smell nothing but regular pumpkin juice. Not a hint of Sleekeazy's. So no Amortentia, I mean really, we did this just a couple of months ago Sirius!"

"Yeah, and you were clearly too busy trying to figure out what you smelled to listen to ol' Sluggy. There are tons of different types of love potions. They don't all do that weird smell thing."

"Oh. Okay." James looked thoughtfully at his goblet, as if he would be able to discern its magical contents by mentally questioning it. Then he shook his head suddenly and looked up with a raised eyebrow. "But why in the name of Merlin would Lily Evans try to— is there an equivalent to poison for love potions? Cause it's not poisoning is it? If you try to poison someone that's murder, and I know love potions are illegal and all, but it's not that bad. Loison? Ooh nah that sounds like some awful disease! Love poison? Does that work? Is it just Drug?"

Sirius just looked at him and shrugged as if to say "Who cares?" or maybe "Shut up please I get the idea" or even "You smell the hair potion in Amortentia because it's the one Lily uses and you're crazy about her and I can't believe you haven't realised that you fool". Maybe not.

"Right." James nodded sharply, getting the gist behind Padfoot's stare. "Back to the point. Why in the name of Merlin would Lily Evans try to love poison me? No–" he broke off again– "that doesn't sound right does it? Never mind. Why would she put a love potion in my drink?"

Sirius, it appeared, had given up on the conversation for the moment, and shook his head despairingly before crunching down on his now cold toast. Peter was quick to pipe up with some possibilities.

"Maybe… Maybe she's in love with you and doesn't realise you already like her. No. Maybe it was meant for Padfoot." James glared at Peter, who quickly backtracked with more ideas, speaking faster and higher as he went along. "Uh, maybe she was trying to get you to help her with Transfiguration. Or get you to do whatever she wants. Or– or what if she's trying to make you look stupid to get back at you for that blow-up in the common room the other day!"

"Or make you so magically infatuated with her that you would answer all her questions about where we go," added Remus, seriously. Peter's eyes went round and his head bobbed up and down, mouth hanging open slightly revealing some chewed sausage. Sirius reached over and lifted up his jaw so it closed before turning to James and nodding thoughtfully as well.

"He's got a point you know Prongs," Sirius said, his eyes flickering briefly over to where Lily sat pretending she wasn't watching them from behind her loose curtain of dark red hair, "she seems pretty damn determined to find out."

"Oh come on guys. Come on. Sure she was determined, but she said she would drop it, and I haven't heard another word about it from her." His friends shared guilty looks, each having been approached by Lily without telling James, not wanting there to be another dramatic fight and just hoping she would give up soon.

"Er, look Prongs, she might have continued asking us– not that we'd tell her anything obviously, but she hasn't exactly dropped it," admitted Sirius, carefully.

James frowned, looking over at where Lily sat down the table. "Anyway I already fancy her, Merlin knows why, but if I won't tell her now, why would giving me a love potion change that?"

"Magical infatuation is different from regular…" Remus waved his hand about vaguely between James and the general direction of his affections, trying to come up with a term that wouldn't belittle his friend's long-lived crush. He eventually settled on the simple "feelings. The subject would become your whole world and you would lose all sense of reason, you'd forget anything preventing you from doing what they want."

They all looked at James, who avoided their gazes and glared into his pumpkin juice, wishing he'd poured himself coffee instead. After an internal fight he pushed the goblet out of his reach, and reached for some toast in an effort to end the discussion.

Sirius however, didn't want to end it, and tried various things, including attempting to give some to Peter's owl, claiming that it was an foolproof experimental test. But Peter vetoed the foolish plan by not wanting to subject his pet to unrequited love. Remus refused to let Sirius do it by force, and none of the others had gotten any mail that morning, so the goblet of pumpkin juice remained firmly on the table, undrunk by owl or man, until it disappeared with the other remains of breakfast when everyone was finished (perhaps dooming some innocent house elf to love Lily as Peter suggested).

Now if Lily had been close enough to hear all of their discussion she would have learnt many things (and probably decided to use a different scent of Sleakeazy's), but alas she had situated herself a less incriminating distance down the table, and learnt only that her plan had failed once more.

Later, during Transfiguration, when Lily heard Remus absentmindedly wondering whether love potions would work when someone was in an animagus form, the comment meant nothing to her.

Well that was a super fun chapter to write, I hope it wasn't too confusing to read!

Let me know what you thought, I would love to know,

Your (in-love-with-James-Potter) Ravenclaw author