Note: Please look to prologue for disclaimer and additional notes about the story.

A Dance With Fate

Canopus Carina

Chapter 8 of 20

To most people, it wouldn't seem of any importance with the exception of the Hufflepuff blazon in the lower left hand corner with 'Helga' in flowing script. He had doubted Voldemort actually had the book as he couldn't think of anything that would stop the dark wizard from wreaking havoc in the past if he was given the chance. But upon opening the book, he could see that Helga Hufflepuff had written the entire journal in a strange symbolic code.

Somewhere in these pages had to be some mention of a time travel spell if only he could read it. Attached was a long list of spells someone had used to unravel the messages in side. Another had some notes that same person had written when trying to decipher the code by hand before they apparently gave up or ran out of time.

If anyone could break the code, it was Hermione.

Monday: 19 September 1977

"How was your summer?"

Remus, Sirius, and Peter nearly winced as Lily turned her icy glare to their fourth member. They were e watching from a stack of books out of sight from the other two in safety. Lily's temper was widely known and James was practically poking a sleeping dragon. But instead of throwing a book as they predicted, she spoke with actually made the Marauders cringe.

"No, I will not go on a date with you. No, I will not study with you. No, I will not partner in class with you. No, not even if you r life depended on it."

"Oh, that was harsh." The others jumped as they noticed Harry had joined them in their hiding place. "I didn't think Lily liked James much, but that was just amazing."

"But Lily, my flower!" James practically wined, "We are Head Boy and Girl, so we are supposed to be together!"

"He's dying out there," Harry added softly. "Is he always so bad at this?"

The other Marauders nodded slowly, not able to take their eyes off of the gruesome sight in front of them. It reminded them of a car wreck, something that was horrible to see, but impossible not to look at and stare. As they watched James make a bigger fool of himself, Remus filled Harry in what let up to this embarrassing scene.

Ever since third year when James first started going through puberty, he started on his master quest to find his true love. He was never raised in the traditional pureblooded sense though the was a pureblood, but he still learned some of the traditions on his own. By searching through his family's traditions book and evaluating his ideals and compatibilities to those ideals, he came up with a list of traits his perfect partner would have. She would have to be smart, loyal, and strong willed. By those traits alone, he had crossed out most of the long list of available girls in first to fifth year, as he figured that those would be the age range that would work the most. Then he thought about physical appeal when looking over his shortened list. He didn't want to be shallow, but given his age, he wasn't quite thinking of marriage at that point.

He went down the list of girls, skipping any that didn't seem to be able to hold a simple conversation with him. Lily was one of the girls skipped. By the time he realized he held a very strong attraction to the fiery read head, he had already developed a name as a lady's man around the castle. He attempted to woo Lily, but as he had a habit of dropping girls after they fell for him, she refused to play his game. That only made him want her even more.

By the end of Remus' retelling, Lily had slammed his fingers under a ten pound book and stormed away. James remained sitting at the table, fingers still under the heavy book.

"What did I miss?" Remus asked as they ran to save his fingers. Once when Lily poured the flowers he gave her on his head, therefore soaking his upper body, he remained in the snow for thirty minutes. He almost got frost bite as the water froze. Anytime Lily was involved, James' brain just shut off.

"She said he was mature as always," Peter said as Sirius busied himself with transfiguring parchment to bandages, "but he didn't get she was being sarcastic and said it was because her love for him tamed his wild spirit."

"She recognized the line I had told Amber Tamblin before the summer when we were going out," Sirius continued, "next thing we know, James here is in a Lily Coma and she is out the door in a flash."

"Rule number one: NEVER let them know it's a line," Harry moaned, putting a hand up to cover his head, "girls want to think that you are sincere when you are talking to them. A line equals lust, a conversation equals love." When he finally looked back to the Marauders, he noticed they were giving him a weird look. He quickly smiled and shook his head. "You don't know how many times one of my best friends gave me lectures about how girls think. She thought I needed to know for whatever reason. I think it's because she wanted me to teach my other best friend so he wouldn't embarrass himself when trying to ask her out."

"You never knew you understood girl!" Peter exclaimed, as if 'girl speak' was the hardest language to understand. "Maybe now you could give James some pointers."

James only glared at the rat animagus, but even Remus had to agree. At the rate he was going, James was going to loose a lot more than just the nerves in his fingers if he continued pestering Lily the way he did. And he wasn't just thinking about James loosing his heart either. "That's actually not a bad idea." James turned his glare to him now.

"Why don't you come back to my table for a sec?" Harry asked, motioning to the other side of the library. "I had seen you walk in and decided to investigate. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have seen such a funny scene."

"What are all those?" Peter asked, pointing to all of the books that were on the table Harry had claimed for the day. The table was filled with so many opened books that Sirius joked that he was competing with Remus for the record.

"Oh, some research that I'm going over. I can't stay long now, but come by my office on Thursday after your classes," Harry said, rearranging the short stack of books he had accumulated during his library stay, "We'll try to get James ship shape so that the next time he sees Lily, he will be ready to sweep her off her feet."

They had decided to head over to Harry's office two hours before dinner as they had an open period and after dinner was a dueling lesson. Sirius joked that they would need a much longer time than two hours to fix his lady problems. James only pushed him into a wall. So they walked down to Harry's office on the fifth floor, ignoring the suits of armor they had hidden behind the first night of the year. Remus knew that Harry knew it was them that sent the niffler on his office. He wondered how his office had been changed since that night.

Before when they were in his office, the lights were all off but they could still tell that there was only a desk, set of chairs, and set of cabinets inside. Since Harry moved in, he had moved those pieces of furniture against one wall to make way for wide tables that had several books Harry had taken from the library strewn across the surface. Numerous sheets of parchment covered the rest of the tables with Harry's indistinguishable scribble with notes about some person. Dobby sat in one of the chairs casting a spell that searched for a certain word in a book to a large stack of additional books.

Harry motioned for them to wait a while before he was able to finish the chapter he was on. Dobby gave them each a large toothed smile before disappearing with a SNAP! They sat next to Harry's desk as they figured Harry would be quite protective of his research. But they didn't have to wait long before Harry organized a few papers and turned to them with a light clap.

"Okay, let's get started, shall we?"

Remus didn't think it was possible, but Harry actually knew a lot about the female psyche. He said it was because he practically lived with her for the past year that it would be impossible for him not to pick up on a few things. The lectures she apparently was famous for taught him the other pointers when it came to 'girl talk'.

They had sat in his office going over possible scenarios that James could talk to Lily without her automatically putting up a barrier around herself. Remus thought it was perfect irony that Sirius was to play Lily during these scenarios as Sirius joked that it was impossible. But Sirius could never keep a straight face long enough to get through the skit before they all cracked up.

These extra lessons lasted even through dinner, but they didn't mind missing eating. But Dobby had reappeared with snacks and insisted they eat them. Dobby was extremely pleased with himself when they found they loved the food as he apparently had made it himself. It was only when dinner was over did they end their lesson and head over to the Great Hall for the dueling lesson.

Even when they were quickly dodging the added spells exploding around them, they were smilingly deeply. Nothing seemed to erase the fun they had just had in Harry's office.

End of Chapter 8 – 1,516 of words

Posted: 6 June 2007