To say I forgot about this story would be an understatement. I didn't realise it'd existed.
Thanks to everyone who favourited and followed and reviewed, they meant so much to me (but I'm supposed to do my hw right now so I don't have time to write down a proper thank you to everyone, just know that I love you all)
Part two: The Art of Seduction
Or, seventh year brings about many new perspectives
Chapter five
Peter was going to kill them all. Best friends, they called each other. Marauders, the masters of the school, greatest wizards of their age, animagi at 15, who knew more about the school than anyone else alive. And above all else, loyal to one another, never throwing one another under the bus, always best friends; family.
And then they just conveniently decided to forget the small detail of James being Head Boy. And being on speaking terms with Evans. Better speaking terms than Peter was with Evans. Of course, he was alright with not being the first told, and he understood why they didn't owl him, but he'd been home during the holidays for three days before September 1st, and he didn't get a single word from them, about anything.
No, instead of knowing about it beforehand, he had to arrive at their usual meeting spot on Platform nine-and-three-quarters and given a quick hug and hello by a harried James Potter before he ran off, pulled by Lily into the train as she yelled to Sirius and Marlene to save her and James a seat.
At least Alice looked pretty shocked, too.
"Does this mean we have to share a compartment with them?" She demanded, turning to Marlene. (Peter decided not to take offence in that statement.) "Does she suddenly expect to come into our compartment to see us jolly good friends just because she's decided to be all chummy with 'James'?"
"Ah, don't think too much on it, Mrs. Longbottom," Sirius declared, throwing his arm around her, "I seem to recall having your company last train ride, and you ignored me completely." (Peter briefly wondered at his being just so suave, but then again he'd always been suave, so he soon forgot about it.)
"I'm not Mrs. Longbottom," Was Alice's smart reply as she extracted herself from Sirius' hold. (Peter didn't believe that.) "And I'm going to ignore you this time as well." (But he did believe that.)
"Won't be so easy, Longbottom, since you don't have Frank there this time to distract you from my irresistible charm." Sirius teased. Alice kept to her word and ignored him as they headed onto the train. (Peter figured it was just as well.)
"Marlene, did you know of this?" She asked her friend instead. (Peter hoped she hadn't, and then maybe they could be angry at their mates together with Alice.)
"Of what?"
"Everything!"
"Oh, you mean Lily being Head Girl and her and James being friends? She mentioned it in her letters to me—you know how encrypted they have to be, so I didn't quite get the Head Girl thing, I just assumed and from the assumption figured out what she meant in her letters, but on the part of Potter she was quite open about it. Apparently her sister, getting married, drove her mad to the point of writing letters to him."
"So we'll just see this as poor judgement on her part, and assume she'll come to her senses soon?"
"No, my dear Mrs. Longbottom," Sirius interrupted, loudly speaking over Marlene, "She says that Prongs has fully changed for the better, and they've actually become quite good friends." (Peter had a hard time believing his ears, but then again, Evans did have good judgement, and why would they all lie? Surely not simply to play a prank on him and Alice.)
"I must admit he's right, Alice, she seemed pretty good friends with him in her letters." Marlene admitted.
"And here we are, ladies." Sirius declared, opening their usual compartment and walking in, waving his wand expertly and magicking all their suitcases up—Peter saw Moony's suitcase go up too, and gathered that his friends had made up and one was already in the Prefect's compartment.
With a disgruntled look and a few low mutterings to her friend, Alice walked inside and set herself down beside the window—Peter's usual spot. He stood for a few seconds, unsure of what to do, before simply sitting down by the door, which was usually James or Sirius' spot, but he was sure they wouldn't mind. Then again, it seemed like he didn't know them all that well anymore.
Sirius kept the conversation going, almost single-handedly, with the occasional response from Marlene and a snide comment from Alice. Peter tried to help him out, but found himself uncertain over what could be said around them and what couldn't.
It felt like days, sitting there by the door, looking for the approach of Remus or James and keeping one ear on Sirus' one-sided conversation with the girls—currently about the possible couples in this coming year (It didn't go unnoticed by Peter that James and Lily were not mentioned.)—but finally, Peter saw Remus making his way down the train.
"You should have been there!" He exclaimed as he came in. "Everyone was so shocked at seeing James there, some Slytherins actually threatened to leave, until he set them in his place."
"Lily was brilliant." James announced, bursting in behind Remus (Peter felt a bit of a shock at hearing him say Evans' first name), "She showed them, she did. Those Slytherins hated the Head boy and girl choices, but she showed them."
"You did a lot too, James." Evans replied, closing the compartment door behind her and settling herself down beside Sirius, who slung his arm casually around her shoulders. Remus, a bit confused with the new seating arrangements, sat down beside Marlene as James made his place beside Lily.
"So what did happen?" Marlene asked eagerly, seeming to think nothing of the seating arrangements. (Alice, on the other hand, Peter noticed, looked a bit pale with shock.)
"Well some people wanted to leave, others demanded an explanation, we gave them the truth." Lily shrugged. "And I might have yelled at them a bit for being pureblood fanatics, but in the end we all agreed that we're all here, ultimately, to help the school and while we're working for the school we might as well work together, but once out of school we can try to kill each other all we like."
"That was sort of Lily's point of view, though," Remus cut in, "I'd wager the Slytherins would rather kill her now and get it over with, but she's pretty intimidating and definitely, especially with all us Gryffindors backing her up, able to beat them in a proper duel, or at least a fair fight." Peter winced at the thought of anyone getting into a fight such as this, since many people would get injured or worse, and if any one of them got hurt—Peter pushed away the thought.
"We could do something before they try anything." Sirius suggested.
"Or we could just threaten them to the point where they won't try to do anything." James corrected, calling over Lily's head in a way that was so casual Peter wondered how many times they'd done it. "And then pull through with the threat if they did end up doing something." He glanced at Lily at this, as if to ask her if that was acceptable.
"I think we're good so far." Was her response. "Anyway, enough about earlier today; how were your summers?" This was directed at her girlfriends and (or at least Peter thought) at Peter. It was obvious she and the other three Marauders had spent most of their summer together.
"Great." Marlene deadpanned. "I was stuck in a house, fearful for my life and those of my family, trying to stay calm and practicing as much DADA as I could."
"France was great," Alice offered tentatively. "We stayed mostly in Paris, and I improved my French."
James made an exclamation and said something in French, of which Peter could not understand. Alice responded likewise, and Sirius joined the conversation.
"Have you any idea what they're saying?" Marlene stage-whispered, leaning over to him and Remus.
"Bits and pieces." Remus replied. "Not enough to understand everything, nor to be a part of the conversation, but they're talking about pureblood families forcing them to learn French, or something like that."
"Alright, enough." Lily demanded after a few minutes. "You can lament about your sad, rich, pureblood families in English, thank you very much."
"You understand French?" James asked, surprised.
"Yes, my dad's part French and his side of the family sometimes speak French." Lily replied. "I assumed that you were talking about purebloods, though, that's not in my vocabulary." There was some pointed way she said that last sentence, and James looked slightly guilty. (Peter marvelled in the fact that anyone could make James feel guilty.)
"I'd say that's a blessing, for you." Sirius declared a bit too insensitively, but Peter, who saw everything related to Sirius and James, noticed the way Sirius squeezed her shoulder with the arm still across her shoulders, and saw James' hand lightly touch hers. Had they become such good friends as to communicate with body language in the way that had taken Peter an entire year to do with these same people?
The subject changed again, Peter as silent as before, if not more, as Sirius and James stole away most of the conversation, and it revolved almost solely around their new favourite person: Lily Evans. (It didn't help that the short conversation in French opened Alice up to talking more and now Peter was the only one who felt a bit out of the loop.)
It crossed Peter's mind that Lily had been the one to bring the the three Marauders back together, that she had been the glue for them. He felt a pang of jealousy as he realised that he should've been the glue, by not being directly part of the Incident, but they had resulted instead in an outsider—true, it was Lily Evans, who wasn't really an outsider, but still was not a Marauder—and because of his lack of interest in his best friends, he had lost his seat at James' left hand, given up instead to a fiery girl with brains and an attitude Peter could only hope to have half of.
~0~
Lily Evans hated rumours. In Hogwarts, of course, gossip was almost as important as passing a class or having the proper friends. There were some good things with regards to the rumour mill, of course, such as knowing who was on which side of the war, whose parents or siblings were fighting or part of the new ministry. Sometimes one could even get reliable information about the resistance, if one knew where to go. But when the word being spread was not of utter importance like news about the war, Lily hated rumours.
She hated them most of all in the beginning of her seventh year, because all of it was about her and James.
It wasn't like this was unexpected. In fact, Lily had anticipated it, and she and the Marauders (minus Peter, but she had ceased to think much of him as of late and had no problems calling her three friends 'Marauders' despite their missing member) had even laughed at the possible rumours that might start floating around at the beginning of the year. But they had spoken of funny rumours; the world had all gone mad—Dumbledore making James Head Boy; Lily Evans having a civil conversation with him—or James had bewitched her; and the probable yet untrue rumours; they were now going out; Lily had recognised her true feelings for the popular boy and was now trying to atone for her past actions; James was trying a new approach to woo his love and it was working; and, (the worst, in Lily's opinion) they weren't official, or even really going out, but shagging in their shared common room and single bedrooms. The rumours, however, were more than that; Dumbledore was a blood traitor and had to pick the two worst possible people (in terms of blood status) to head the school, and in light of their common beliefs, the two decided to become friendly; James was worse than just a blood traitor, he had vowed to marry Lily and to disregard his family and his duty just to be with her; Lily had realised that as soon as she left school, there would be nothing in this world for her and her kind, and if James was willing to be with her forever, would use him to be a part of the wizarding world.
"None of them are true." The two insisted the following night as they gathered around the Marauder's usual spot next to the fireplace. Their seating could have been a mirror to the time on the train, except that they were all (well, all except Sirius) trying to work on their homework and ultimately failing.
"Well of course none of them are true!" Sirius exclaimed. "After all, if Dumbledore were to pick the biggest blood traitor and the best muggle-born in seventh year, then I'd be Head Boy. And James wouldn't ever need to disregard his family and duty to marry Lily-flower; his parents love her almost as much as they love me! And as for that last rumour, well, Lily has many more options than that, being the best witch of our year." Lily sent a half-grateful, half exasperated look at him.
"Well, none of the rumours are true, funny, serious, or terrible." James declared, scribbling something down on his parchment.
"What, even the one about you bewitching Lily?" Marlene asked in mock shock. Lily sent her a dry look, and she grinned at her best friend.
"Even the one about you two being together?" Alice muttered under her breath. Lily wasn't sure if she had meant anyone to hear, but she did, and she took great offence in that sentence.
"Even that one, Alice." She replied bitingly. "You know the truth, and there's nothing more than what we told you."
"Aside from Dumbledore's personal reasons for choosing Prongs, of course." Remus said, talking to his parchment as he wrote furiously.
"How do you have so much?" Marlene asked disparagingly. She was at least as good in academics as Remus was, which was one of the reasons Lily was friends with her (and not those other girls, those airheads in her year) but in relating all she had heard from the famous Hogwarts rumour mill, she had fallen behind on their homework.
"Ask Lily, she's farther than I." Was his short reply.
"Shut up, all of you, I need to conclude." Lily said shortly. What had she even written in this entire essay? How could she have allowed herself to be even slightly distracted? If this kept on, she'd be utterly swamped with work in a month!
"Can I steal that from you?" A voice said in her ear—not softly, as if it were a secret, but as his mouth was near her ear, James had spoken quietly into it. He was pointing at one of her paragraphs, where she had stated the importance of changing your expressions and mannerisms when under disguise; that's what the essay was about: disguises and their uses and limitations. "Lily?" James asked quietly when she didn't reply.
"Oh, right, sorry, yeah." She said, shocked out of her stupor. "Just as long as you don't copy it. Just the idea." She felt rather than heard his chuckle, and she briefly wondered how they had gotten so close to each other, but then figured he had been reading her essay over her shoulder while she herself was submersed in it. James moved farther away, back to his own paper, and there was silence for a while within their circle as Lily finished her essay.
"Finished, love?" Sirius asked, slinging his arm around her shoulders again (she had shaken him off when he first tried it, claiming that she needed to move around to do her essay), "Took you a little longer than I'd have imagined, actually. Remus is on his conclusion already." Sirius continued airily. The said Marauder shot his mate (Lily really liked that word to describe the two, better than friends) a look that clearly said, shut up, but Sirius, of course, merely grinned and stretched his legs out.
"You're not copying off me tonight." Remus said as he wrote another sentence.
"Write your own, Padfoot." James added as Sirius looked imploringly at him.
Sirius threw his hands up in the air, about to exclaim the unfairness of it all, Lily was sure, when Remus' head snapped up and he asked, with great surprise, "Where's Wormtail?"
There was a moment of silence as everyone looked up from their work and searched the common room for their friend.
"He did mention having something to do after dinner, I think." Alice said uncertainly.
"It's been an hour or so since dinner, though, he's never been gone for this long without telling us exactly where he is." Remus replied, worried.
"Especially with the homework that we have." James added.
The three Marauders looked at each other, and Lily wished, not for the first time, that she could be part of that understanding which passed between them, but communicating through looks was an act perfected by the brothers six or seven years ago, born of the secrets they shared, and Lily had only a few month's time to go on.
"Maybe he's upstairs." Sirius finally announced, springing up, and in a blink of an eye, disappeared up the staircase to the boy's dormitory.
Everyone went back to work, and after a few minutes Lily and Marlene, who had just finished, were able to trade papers and critique each other's work, as they often did. Lily was just past the introduction when Sirius came back down, a tiny frown upon his face. James and Remus immediately got up to talk to their friend, but Lily and the other girls decided against following them.
"Well, wherever he is, I'm sure he's fine." Remus announced as the three joined them again.
"He always is, whether he looks it or not." James added. "And he'll come back eventually."
"Probably just found himself a bird." Sirius commented in his flippant manner, one that Lily, at least, could now see through. "'Bout time, too." He snickered, and his two friends smirked, but Lily could see through that one too—she saw Remus' worry in his eyes and furrowed eyebrows, James' uncertainty by the pressing of his lips and erratic placement of his hands.
"Well then, might as well finish your essays so he'll be able to pass this year." Lily said, instead of pressuring them more to talk.
"And so that maybe I'll be able to pass this year?" Sirius added.
"You can do it yourself, we all know that." James scoffed as he sat back down to do his work. "So glad I don't have to stay up all night anymore because you insisted on keeping the lights on until you were done with your homework." He remarked.
"I'll still have to go through that." Remus said. "So maybe you can copy mine, if you'll only let me get a decent night's sleep." He put his quill down and sighed. "Just need to read it through once more, anyway." He muttered.
"Here, want me to read it through for you?" Lily suggested, having finished Marlene's paper (albeit a bit haphazardly).
"Would you?" Remus sighed, "I can't believe they're giving us so much work so early in the year. You're an angel." He added as Lily took his paper from him.
She made some sound of assent, and began to read his paper, correcting it when needed.
There wasn't much conversation as Lily read and finished with Remus' essay, trading it back for her own, which she then copied, with the corrections, onto a clean sheet of parchment. (Her hand began cramping and she wondered, not for the first time, why wizards didn't seem to know what typewriters were.) She then consented to read over James' essay as well, and offered to do so with Alice, but her friend declined in favour of Marlene's offer to do it sooner.
They all finished with their homework in less than an hour later, and Lily and James decided to go off to their own rooms, despite Peter not being back yet; James made the other four promise to tell him the details of Wormtail's whereabouts the next day, and they headed out.
Rooming was one of the subjects of their numerous meetings during the summer, and so when, the day before, the two had gone up to their shared common room, there had been no problems. Books, gladly, were put onto the shelves where they could both benefit from the variety of the other, and Lily had immediately placed a bowl of chocolate on one of the tables. They had already set up rules for the place: no entering one another's private rooms without express consent, and no allowing anyone, anyone, from going into their common room or their private bedrooms, including Marauders. Only the two of them were to know the passwords, and these rooms were to be their safe haven from the chaos that came with living in Hogwarts.
Shoot, I just thought of a flaw in the characters-a small one, but still one (and because I feel I have to be honest with you all): Alice was supposed to be sort-of friends with James. They were supposed to know each other from before, but now I'm changing it up-assume they were never really friends, despite her going to his new years parties and such. (which I'd forgotten about.) If you have no idea what I'm talking about, very good, carry on.
Review, please!
