A/N: So I lied (well, not really, if you count Lily blowing up at everyone Jily). This is the Jily chapter (at least, I think so). Happy reading!
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Sirius, despite being raised by parents who were blatantly anti-muggle, anti-muggle born, anti-halfblood, and anti-everything-but-pureblood-non-blood-traitors, has watched movies before, and by going with movie logic, he supposes that this would be when all hell breaks loose, with blood and gore galore.
Fortunately, this is not a movie. Instead, what happens is that the common room still stays completely silent, as if no one has heard Peter's awkward comment (Peter doesn't attempt to repeat what he said). Further deviating from movie logic (or maybe not. After all, Sirius has only watched a handful of horror and action movies), instead of Evans doing something even more violent and anger-fueled, she bursts into tears.
James, although he has a prominent red hand mark with five distinct scratches on his cheek and absolutely no knowledge whatsoever on how to deal with bawling girls, is actually attempting to comfort Evans.
"Hey, hey," he says to her. "The slap wasn't that bad. Your nails weren't that long. I've had worse from, um, Sirius!"
Sirius has just added James to his kill list, because does he look like the type to slap someone? Spells are a whole lot more impressive, and besides, his nails aren't long enough to do any real damage.
Evans doesn't look a whole lot impressed by James, either, as she's actually crying harder now.
James tries a few more words of comfort, but as most of them are of the variety "I'm not actually that hurt, but hey, do you want to maybe kiss me to make up for it?", Marlene takes charge.
"Pettigrew, you take Potter to the infirmary," she orders. "His face is going to start bleeding any second now, and I don't think the house elves want to clean his blood off the carpet. Lupin, you take Lily somewhere and read her romance novels, or whatever it is you girls do together. Black and I will stay here and continue this kissing booth thing, since Potter will probably actually die if we close it down."
This arrangement seems to please no one but James, who looks at Marlene gratefully (for not letting him bleed to death? Continue to force Sirius to be assaulted by girls?). Everyone follows her commands, though, even as Remus mutters something unsavory under his breath about dictators and Peter tries to walk as far away from James as possible ("This shirt is white, James. Do you know how hard it is to get bloodstains out of clothes?").
Now that Sirius is officially the only person at the booth, since Marlene has appointed herself the "money woman", the line of girls seems to have gotten even longer. The only comfort is that the booth has to close at five, and he keeps a steady mantra in his head of ninety minutes to go, eighty minutes to go, seventy minutes to go, an hour to go.
"Ten Knuts," Sirius says to the next girl, not bothering to look up (he wonders if he could get away with a kiss on the cheek, but most of the girls he's tried that on turn their head so he gets their lips instead).
"I'm flattered, Black, that you would want to kiss me, but I wouldn't do that even if it meant you would die," a cold voice says.
"Snivellus," Sirius growls. "You—"
"I didn't exactly plan on witnessing another cat fight today, but by all means, continue!" Marlene interjects. For once, Sirius is almost grateful for her annoying and usually insulting comments, as long as it keeps him from hexing Snivellus into oblivion for the next five minutes (he really doesn't want another Saturday night scrubbing the Potions classroom).
"How did you get in here?" Sirius asks, his hands gripping the table. Let's see, how would Snivellus look with a greasy beard as long as Dumbledore's and spots covering his face?
"Potter's little door-greeters aren't exactly the most intelligent," Snivellus replies, sneering. "They can't seem to tell the difference between green and blue."
"Would anyone ever mistake you for Ravenclaw?" Sirius shoots back. "I mean, I wasn't really sure if you had any brains at all."
"Very witty, Black," Snivellus replies. "I'm sure you'll be Minister of Magic one day with those smarts."
Sirius tries to recall the spell to cause a person to relieve their bowels on the spot. Examenti? No, Exomento. Wouldn't that be a sight, Snivellus soiling his pants in front of all the girls in the school.
"All right, break it up," Marlene says lazily, seeing Sirius's expression. "As entertaining as this conversation has been, I don't want Potter and Evans 2.0. Snape, why are you here? As much as it would pain me to kick you out, I don't think provoking people is a legitimate reason for you being here."
"Lily," Snivellus says shortly. "Avery told me she was crying, and I've come to pick her up."
"If you've forgotten, Snivellus, Evans is a Gryffindor, so she shouldn't have to leave—"
"Just let him take her," Marlene says, waving her hand in the air. "I don't think even Lupin should have to keep being subjected to her crying."
"Thank you," Snivellus replies, glaring at Sirius. "Where is she?"
"Boy's dormitory," Marlene says. "It's only Lupin that's up there, so you shouldn't see them doing anything but reading Witch Weekly together or something."
Snivellus follows Marlene's directions, and five minutes later he's outside with a still-sniffling Lily Evans, rubbing circles on her back and quietly talking to her (Sirius has to grudgingly admit that he's better at comforting people than James, but it isn't as if that's some large feat).
He sees Evans turn to Snivellus and say something he can't quite make out to him, to which he sighs and nods. A few moments later, she's running over to Sirius.
"Um, Black," she says awkwardly, "Can you maybe tell Potter that I'm sorry? For slapping him, and well, everything."
"Sure," he replies. "In your defense, though, James kind of deserved it."
She gives him a half smile, then walks away quickly back to Snivellus. He watches her leave, and figures that Evans might not be that annoying a person as he thought she was.
"Well," Marlene says, "Now that a crisis has been averted, I think it's time for you to get back to work, Black!" Sirius sighs, and looks to the still-long line of girls. Fifty minutes to go, forty minutes to go, thirty minutes to go...
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After Sirius is finally through with the line of girls, it's six already (Marlene forced him to finish kissing every girl in the line, even as he protested that the booth was slated to close at exactly five). She made Remus come out and help him, too, since "You're like a skinnier, brown-haired version of Potter that's swottier and more boring.".
"Do you think we should go check on Peter and James?" Remus asks. "Peter's probably had to listen to James recite the starting lineup of Puddlemere United ten times now."
Sirius agrees with Remus, and Marlene reluctantly comes along, "Just to make sure Potter hasn't died yet.".
"Thank Merlin!" Peter cries when he sees them. "Where have you been? The booth was supposed to close an hour ago!"
Sirius and Remus look at Marlene, who tries her best to pull off the "innocent" look.
"You know what, I don't want to know," Peter decides. "James is over there."
Sure enough, James is sitting on a white bed, the left side of his face bandaged.
"Hey," he says. "Pomfrey said that she healed me as best as she could, but to keep this thing on my face just to make sure it doesn't start bleeding again."
"It was kind of cool, actually," Peter explains. "His face just started gushing blood all of a sudden. It was like a fountain or something."
"Person in question right here," James says. "And it was not "cool". It actually hurt. And how was it like a fountain? Did Evans stay afterwards?"
"She did," Sirius replies. "By the way, she said to tell you that she was sorry about slapping you."
"She did?" James asks, eyes bugging out of his head. "She said sorry?"
"It's kind of the polite thing to do when you bodily injure someone," Marlene says, but James ignores her.
"Sorry," he breathes out. "She apologized. I need to remember this moment forever."
"Oh!" Remus exclaims. "I almost forgot. While I was talking to Lily, she gave me this." He digs something out of his pocket, and gives it to James, who's eyes seem to become even bigger, if it was possible.
"A Sickle," James sighs. "She gave me a Sickle. This is the happiest day of my life. Do you not see the implications of this Sickle? She wanted to buy kisses from me! She did!"
"Um, no, actually," Remus says. "She was going to use it to buy a card for Mary MacDonald's birthday. It just so happened that she felt sorry for you and wanted it to be an apology gift. And a bribe to stop you from asking her to Hogsmeade five times a day."
"Mate, we've lost him already," Peter says. "He's probably planning their wedding in his head now."
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This is the last official chapter, but there's still an epilogue to go! Feedback, review, favorite, follow?