Hats off to Jill for this one, I've just realized that she's provided the first word of every story I'm working on right now. She's like my founder.
And of course J.K. for, you know, creating it.
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Chapter Two: Common Sense
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Cards were not my forté.
For instance, they were the reason I spent an evening running around the Common Room with my knickers on my head, singing 'God Save the Minister'.
No, let me be honest here. They were Evans' kickers.
They were also the reason that, to date, I have lost seven hundred galleons, forty-two sickles and twelve nuts. Not to mention the days, sometimes weeks, of listening to Padfoot rub in my often fantastic losses. And they were also the reason that I found myself patrolling the halls one fine October evening with none other than Snivellus Snape.
I should have known better than to assign Remus to work with him. Rather than listen to Snape's greasy hair drip on the floor, or (more enjoyably) start up a fight – with the added plus that Evans seemed instantly drawn to any scene of my crimes – I reminisced of days gone by. In particular, the day that I assigned Remus to work with Snape.
I had gone to Dumbledore to tell him everything that we Marauders knew about the giant situation. He listened carefully, thanked me and sent me away. I wasn't too pleased that he didn't tell me what he thought; but he didn't ask questions either, which saved us about ten thousand detentions.
What he did tell me was to let the prefects know everything, and to triple their patrols. I expected to be tromped on, denounced, and generally lose Marauder status when I gave that announcement. To my surprise, the night turned out to be great.
When I told the prefects, they were terrified. When I tripled their patrol they tromped on me. When I assigned our times, myself and Evans together, they shouted, stood on their chairs, denounced me, turned the table over and made an all-round hellish ruckus.
But Evans didn't say a thing.
We would be spending five nights a week together for the next three months, and she didn't put up even a token protest.
It was the high point of my life.
I floated up to my room, pirouetting here and there. When Padfoot told me to explain myself or get a grip on my queer mentality, I just grinned at him. Peter begged to be let in on it; I told him to ask Remus. Remus was asked; he told Peter to piss off, in Italian. I might have defended Pete, but I didn't want to open mouth, for fear (as Evans would so glibly put it) of losing air from my over-inflated ego.
Remus did tell them about my pairing him with Snape, which led to a rambunctious pillow fight, which led to a two-day marathon of 'Flame-Throwers Extraordinaire' culminating in my setting fire to my own pants, which led to my being shamed into playing blackjack at five in the morning, which led to my bet that if I lost, I would take over Remus' patrols with Snape.
Looking back, I do realize what a foolish mistake this was. All I want put on record is a note from Section 3C in the Guidebook to Playing 'Flame-Throwers Extraordinaire' (written by moi; after all, I did invent the game). To quote:
When thou art playing 'Flame-Throwers Extraordinaire', thou shalt not partake in sleepeth. This is partly for fun and partly for survival, thus, thou must abideth or suffer the effects of mortal dangereth.
Thus, I had not yet sleepethed in fifty hours and counting and did not know what I was doing. The long and short of it being that I had to give up my special time with Evans in favour of Snape, who was currently smelling his own footprints.
To his credit Padfoot does the same thing with his piss. When he's a DOG.
However, it was a great excuse to hex him. I started with a nice, easy Impedimenta and worked my way up to the uber-fashionable Levicorpus, preceded by a Silencing Charm to stave off the lecture courtesy of Evans.
No cigar. Snape had just started to go blue in the face from being upside-down for too long, when she pelted around the corner, waving her wand and no doubt wishing she could shout the non-verbal countercurse. Believe me, she made up for it.
"POTTER!"
"Evans," I said politely, making good and sure not to lose eye contact with Snape.
"HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR NIGHT-WATCH AGAINST THE DARK ARTS TO PERFORM THEM?"
"Hang on," I said, "I didn't do anything that wasn't Ministry of Magic approved, and I withhold the right to –"
Actually, I'm not sure Levicorpus is Ministry of Magic approved. It sort of just appeared.
"AND AGAINST SOMEONE OF A DIFFERENT HOUSE? WHEN INTER-HOUSE RELATIONS ARE MORE VITAL THAN EVER BEFORE? YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THE IMPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING THE PEACE EFFORTS WITHIN HOGWARTS, WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT'S OUTSIDE IT!"
At this point I think shouting was just habit. She was lecturing me on inter-housal relations at the top of her voice whilst showering me with spit, which, though I am not at all adverse to her and I sharing it under romantic context, was rather gross.
I think she realized what she was doing, because she had started to calm down by then. She had reached the furious-muttering stage; hopefully, from this point, I could stave off the weeks-of-silence by a few well-placed words.
"Lily," I said gently. I know from experience that the girls love it when I say their name. "Don't worry. I understand you completely and will try to make a more solid effort in future."
I smiled winningly. She took a deep breath.
"THAT'S WHAT YOU SAY EVERY TIME AND QUITE FRANKLY I DON'T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. YOU'VE BEEN CURSING SNAPE SINCE THE DAY YOU WALKED THROUGH THIS DOOR –"
"Yes, but I have stopped hexing random students in the halls. Give me that much."
She had to concede the point; she had made it herself once upon a time. She calmed down a bit more. I let her think on it this time.
"Well," she said, "well. What was he doing?"
"Smelling his footprints."
"What?"
"That's what I thought too. It was just fucking weird."
"You know, Sirius does the –"
I stared Remus down. The sheer coolness factor of being an illegal Animagus notwithstanding, IT WAS ILLEGAL. We did not speak on it.
Evans took over. "I saw Sirius sniff a log."
"It was for defensive purposes," I said, "he was double-checking that it was from the giants."
Right about then I realized that Snape was still listening, and that he was practically a Death-Eater, and probably shouldn't know that we knew what he knew. Or possibly didn't know. I aimed my wand over my shoulder anyway, intending to Obliviate him, but Evans practically leapt into my arms in time to stop me. Needless to say, this was sufficient distraction for Snape to get away. Needless to say, I didn't try to stop him.
"Why, Evans," I murmured, "I had no idea this was what you wanted. You could have asked."
She backed away, blushing furiously. Remus muttered something about taking over my patrol and disappeared. I smiled reassuringly at her.
"It's all right, you know."
She glowered. "Don't be stupid."
"Come on," I said, taking her by the chin and tilting her head back. I could feel her swallow against my palm, and my smile widened. "Are you nervous?"
"No…"
I'm sure she meant that to sound definite but it came out as a whimper. I slid my fingers under her hair and moved closer. She stepped back into the wall.
"There's no need to be," I said, "I'm very good at this."
"Lots… of practice, I suppose," she gasped, as my other hand stroked the skin of her lower back and my knees pinned her to the wall. She could have got away at any time. She wanted me. I couldn't help gloating a little.
"Don't be shy," I said, working my hand around to the front of her robes and seeing how far up I could get before I stuck. Pretty far, it turned out. "And feel free to reciprocate."
"Wh-what?"
Was this was all it took to shut her up? Hell, I should have tried it years ago. I licked her lips and then backed off enough to see her response. It looked good from my angle. I tried it again, and left it there that time. My tongue, that is. In Evans' mouth.
Ha! ha! ha! My tongue was in Evans' mouth. I'd have to thank Snape some time.
Ew, gross, I thought, pulling away. What was I doing thinking about Snape at a time like this?
I noticed her frowning and realized that I must have said it out loud. "I mean that was fantastic, keep it up." I grabbed onto her, but she had her senses back, and I guess her pride.
"EXCUSE ME?"
Ouch, and her vocal chords. I wasn't ready to let her go just yet, but I sure did rub my ringing ears against her chest.
Ha! ha! ha!
"HOW DARE YOU?" She took a deep breath, couldn't think of an argument, and let it out. "Okay, never mind," she muttered, pushing at me to get by. It was like the sexiest thing EVER.
"Keep it up, Evans, you're really convincing me to let you by."
She stopped, blushing.
"That's better," I said, reaffixing my hold. "Now, where were we?"
I kissed her eyes. She closed them most willingly. Ah, now I had her where I wanted her. I kissed her nose. I kissed her sweet cheeks, which was actually a little more prudish than I had intended, but it was nice all the same. Her skin is so soft, she must moisturize them faithfully every night.
If she moisturized me as faithfully as she moisturizes her sweet cheeks, I can pretty much guarantee that I would stay as faithful as she is. To her sweet cheeks, that is. I don't know how faithful she is as a lover, as that is not in my personal experience and no living male would ever approach me with the information that they, rather than I, were her lover, for fear of not remaining in the living category much longer. But if she is as faithful as I would be, then you could say that we would be equally faithful to each other.
I kissed her throat, and her ears, and a little below the throat but not too much because I didn't want a mouthful of cotton and these uniforms are bloody high-necked. Then I decided I had avoided her lips for long enough and kissed those too.
And she kissed me back.
Huzzah! I needn't have put it off for so long. Now we could snog as long and as often as I pleased and she would never protest because I was just that good.
We were snogging happily when a sad interruption occurred. It was not Remus, luckily for him. Nor was it even Snape or one of the other, slightly (but only slightly) less annoying prefects.
No. It was her Common Sense. That dreaded thing, so feared by every male in my position (in other words, myself. I don't know of any other male in my position. Or female, for that matter). It made her break free from my loving embrace. It made her slap me right across my mouth, still burning from her sweet, sweet kisses. And it made her scream,
"GODDAMN YOU, POTTER, WILL YOU STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME?"
It also made her run away sobbing. But I knew it wasn't her talking. It was only her Common Sense.
And fortunately, I had a plan.
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A/N: Whew, now we know where Harry got the talking-in-CAPS.
Next chapter, The Plan! In which Italian Lessons are (finally) incorporated, and the author wonders how to say "piss off" in Italian. Also, there may be more snoggage, depending on
a) my mood
b) (and slightly more important) James' mood
c) what kind of reviews I get.
So hit me up, folks! Tell me what you think!