I am soooo sorry I took so long and I really really hope you didn't all desert me but I wouldn't blame you if you had.
But this is cool. Looks like we've got ourselves a two-part chap. This one goes out to my mom, who would probably disown me if she knew I was wasting my time on HP ff, and to all the real fans who like it despite a COMPLETE LACK OF FAMILIAL SUPPORT. Gah!
Disclaimer says yes yes! J.K. wrote the books, we write the fiction squared.
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Chapter Tweve: Not Quite As Good As Lifesavers, But Pretty Damn Close (Part II)
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Dreams should never, never, never involve Snape.
But lately, mine had been.
It started innocently enough. A curse here, a hex there, no biggie. A little worrisome but not too shab. Then one night I woke up screaming.
"For Christ's sake!" Padfoot bawled as he smothered me with his pillow, "put a Silencing Charm on if you're going to – oomph!" I pitched him off and threw his bedclothes after him. " – foresee anything horrible, I need my beauty sleep!" he went on.
"Yes, I've noticed the unseemly blotches marring your complexion," Remus mumbled from his bed. I coughed. Or rather, choked at his use of three-syllable words at this hour.
"I'm sorry, guys, but –"
"Shut the hell up," Peter said, in an unprecedented show of confidence.
"Take your own advice, Pete," I said, pulling on my trainers, "you make a fine doormat."
I hastened out before he could retaliate; I had a schedule that couldn't afford interruptions. First, I wanted to strangle Snivellus, and then torture him, and then find out the Truth of the Matter, and then cut him into bits and then stomp on them. After that I would owl my parents for the key to our villa.
Trudging down the dungeon stairs made me thinking of something Evans once told me, long before our hearts were joined as one: that Snivellus, though he be gross (obvious; I don't think anyone with eyes would deny it, except maybe that cousin of Padfoot's of whom we do not speak)…
Next I addressed the moral issues of taking points from a nearby couple, but wrote the idea off as hypocritical. Instead I reemed them out for doing such a poor job of hiding. And by then, my train of thought was far from Snivellus.
Instead I went to the kitchens, where the house-elves provided cake and parchment. The cake I saved as a peace offering to my friends; the parchment I used to write a charming letter.
Dear Parents, it said, I am writing to request your assistance in securing grandchildren for yourselves, by means of the key to the Potter Plantation in Venice. The love of my life and I wished to spend a day or two there later this week, so at your liesure. Please notify me if you'd like anything while we're there. Your loving son, James.
My friends were pretty well appeased by the cake, and promised to keep their mouths shut about my letter, so as to avoid bungling my cover story. This was unnecessary, though, as proved by the letter my father returned that evening.
Nice try, James. When you start siring children I expect you to be at least thirty. As always, I remind you what your ancestor Boris the Mostly Brave told his son: 'Don't make mistakes, and if you do, don't forget to name them after your father.
Your mother would like some of that lovely Parisian Chardonnay (THIS IS ME, DARLING. IF YOU DON'T MIND STOPPING OVER IN FRANCE, I'D ADORE IT. AND CHECK THE SECURITY CHARM ON THE SERVANTS' QUARTERS, PLEASE, THEY'VE HAD A SPOT OF TROUBLE. TA!) Behave yourself.
Your father,
Harry Potter.
Followed by his best business scrawl, a note of excuse for Dumbledore, and the key taped on a nice 65 degree angle as always.
"Unbelievable," Remus said. "They trust you that much."
"Nah, they just don't care. Did you say we could bring our friends?"
I glared at Padfoot. "This is a romantic weekend. You're not coming."
"Oh, go on."
"I've got to seal this deal with Evans while I've got the chance. Besides, Mother and Father are touring East Asia next summer, we can all go then." I put on my best winning smile.
"We would anyway, don't hedge. Just because you're not taking your girlfriend to Italy for an innocent day trip doesn't mean you have to cut us out."
I laughed heartily. "What nonsense! Of course I am."
"What are you going to be doing?" he demanded. I stared. Remus and Peter, who were pretending not to be involved, also stared.
"I always knew you were a pervy bastard, but –"
"What are you going to tell Dumbledore?" Padfoot cut me off, rolling his eyes.
"We have business to handle."
"What sort of business?"
"What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? It doesn't matter. I'll just make something up on the fly."
Padfoot frowned, but dropped it. Digging into his omelette he said, "You're going to miss the full moon."
"I'm sure Remus will underst –"
"Damn it, James, we're Order members! It's not like we won't find out what's going on."
Padfoot and I glared at each other, until something bumped my head. Distracted, I looked around and saw Snape oozing away. My morning's abandoned mission came back to me, and I said, "I'll tell you when I know what's confidential," and leaped away.
Snivellus was haunting my dreams and I was going to get to the bottom of it.
"Snape!" I called, slowing to a saunter in the Entrance Hall. "A word."
He rounded on me with a sneer, already bristling. "What the fuck is a cock-eyed Quidditch Squib doing talking to me?" he said in his pleasantest tones. I overlooked it.
"I'm a touch concerned about your feelings toward my girlfriend," I said, still advancing. "I don't like you looking at her."
"I look where I please," he said, trying to sound casual whilst eyeing his escape routes.
"It's not where you look, it's how." I pressed my wand into his stomach, not giving him room to fight back. "Be careful."
"I didn't think she'd be your girlfriend so much as a temporary fuck-buddy," he sneered. I put him in a headlock fast as a winkling.
"Take that back!" I started to bellow – but the words were lost as a scroll of parchment fell out of his cloak. "What the –"
"Hand it over, Potter!" Snape spat, brandishing his wand and hurling a few curses at me as I dove. We wrestled for it for a moment before McGonagall charged in.
"What on earth do you think you're doing! Snape, remove that hex. Potter, release Snape."
I let go of his arm, which I had twisted to keep away from the scroll. He snarled and made a grab for it, but I tucked it away.
"I'm so sorry, Professor." I folded my hands behind my back and looked as angelic as I could. "I was defending my lady's honour."
She snorted, recovered, sniffed, and said, "That is no excuse for fighting. You will both serve detention with Mr Filch on Saturday evening." She started to turn away, but I stepped after her.
"Professor," I called. "I have a note from my father – I'm to go away this weekend. I'll have to make the detention up some other time."
She sent my a suspicious look. "Where are you going?"
"I'm sorry, that's between myself and Dumbledore," I said. I lifted my chin and looked straight at her, willing her to fall for my 'heroic young figure' pose. If I did, the boys owed my fifteen galleons each; they were sure it wouldn't work. I didn't blink, or breathe, or move in any way.
"Go discuss it with him now," she said at last. Ha! Forty-five galleons! That'd pay for their Christmas gifts for years to come. I knew all my practice would pay off.
"Thank you, Professor," I said; and, shooting Snape one last dirty look, returned to the hall.
Snape could leer at Evans all he liked now. I had his secret correspondence.
--
"I love you!" Dori cried, kissing me. "You're the most amazing thing that ever happened to this planet!"
"Yeah, I know," I said, wrapping an arm around her waist and gently guiding her to the nearest chair. "Now, Dori, you have to promise me something before I let you see this."
She nodded, practically slavering after the post in my hand.
"No more kisses, okay? Evans is getting jealous."
"Sure, fine," she said, and grabbed it from me. "How did you get this, anyway? I've been trying to intercept Death Eater information for months!"
"It was a brave struggle, but my godly character prevailed."
"He means he was dangling Snivellus upside down and it fell out of his cloak." Padfoot shrugged at my mean stare. "Sorry, mate, you were right in the middle of the Hall. I couldn't help by spy on you."
"Whatever. What does it say, Dori?"
She was wrinkling her forehead over it and clearly getting nowhere. "It really looks like Potions notes."
"No no. It has 'secret correspondence' stamped all over it."
"Yeah? Where?" Padfoot said skeptically. "Listen, why don't we drop this and go to Italy with that manti –"
"He was fighting tooth and nail for it! There's no way those are notes."
"It really really looks like –"
"Shut up, Dori. There's some kind of charm on it. We have to break it."
"James," Evans said cautiously, "you don't think maybe he was fighting tooth and nail for it because of that time you covered his Potions notes with porn and handed them in, do you?"
"Of course not. Give it to me." I snatched it from Dori and started waving my wand over it.
"He's gone bonkers," Padfoot said wisely. "Here's the plan. Wormtail, you head down to the Slytherin dorm in disguise. Sneak in and see if you can't find anything out. Tail Snivels, whatever. Moony, you go catch the manticore and put it in something we can travel with. I'm going to get cake for when Prongs realizes what an awful mistake he's made and starts to cry."
"Ha!" I exclaimed. "Got it!"
"What?" They all crowded around me, clamouring for my attention. "What's it say?"
"'Yardbrook sales meet wide closet ramparts.'" I slapped my palm onto the table. "They must mean they're going to trade chimaeras in Northern Italy."
"You figured that out from that?" Dori asked, clearly impressed.
"He's making it up," Padfoot said. Clearly, he was gnawing at the ol' chains of envy. "He wants an excuse to take Lily to Venice and shag her."
"Hey!" the lady in question cried.
"Shh, shh. He's exaggerating." I put a comforting arm around her shoulders. "Or at least jumping to conclusions."
"Oh." She chewed on a nail but stayed quiet. I patted her back.
"Atta girl. Wormtail, your part of Padfoot's plan was pretty good. Go to it."
He shot me a nasty look – leftover from this morning, I supposed – but went off to do some spying. Padfoot went to get cake; Moony, not being an Animagus, was less constuctive, but made himself useful with a couple of books on code-breaking.
"Bad luck, Prongs," he said at last. "It just doesn't make sense."
"Well, it proves that Snape's a Death Eater, at any rate, and we can always take it to Dumbledore. In fact, I should go right now."
"It's four o'clock in the morning," Moony pointed out.
"Yes, well, the wise never sleep." I got up. "I've got to talk him into this Italy thing anyway. Or you know what? Come on, Evans, let's just go." I grabbed her hand and hauled her out the door.
"James, what do you think you're doing?"
"Getting us off Hogwarts grounds. Can't Apparate from here."
"We can't just GO, we need PERMISSION, we need LEGAL TRANSPORTATION." She took a deep breath. All those caps must have been hard on her lungs.
"Ever tried riding off into the sunrise?" I cut in. She shook her head. I snatched her up into a piggy-back and said, "Come on, babe, ride me."
And and and then I transformed.
The guys were going to kill me.
--
We got to Venice in time for breakfast. Because she was so moved by my immense trust in her (that I would reveal our Deepest Darkest Secret) she loved me straight through until lunch, and even then we only stopped for sandwiches.
If by 'loved me' I were to mean 'shouted at me'. Turns out she's allergic to deer.
I'm a stag, for Christ's sake! Not a deer! What the hell is the problem?
--
So then we got to my parents' place and that did appease her. Though my mother be neglectful of her darling child, she certainly has talents elsewhere; that place was designed for c-o-m-f-o-r-t. Evans wasn't into the eight-date sex plan, but she let me scrub-a-dub-dub in the big marble tub with her. There I posed the idea of children, and showed her the wedding brochures I had picked up while she was screaming at me. This she found a bit daunting.
"What are we going to do about the chimaera situation?" she asked, by way of changing the subject.
"Do you think wreaths or bouquets would be better to hang on the pews?"
"Because Dumbledore just didn't sound too confident, and that always makes me nervous. Does that make you nervous?"
"What makes me nervous," I murmured as I massaged her back with one hand whilst flipping through leaflets with the other, "is the thought of you in a skimpy white dress. What do you think of this one?"
"That is a WEDDING dress, Potter."
"Yes, what have we been talking about for the past half hour?"
"Chimaeras!"
"Huh. Maybe you have." I dropped the leaflet. "Okay, chimaeras. I think that Dumbledore is absolutely right, and that we need to use this weekend to track down the culprits, reform them, contain the chimaeras and rid the world of evil. Savvy?"
Silence. Evans made a half-hearted attempt to meet my eyes, but unfortunately I was directly behind her.
"How many kids did you say you wanted?"
Great, now she warmed up to it. What was with women and compromise? "Twelve."
"That's what, two Quidditch teams?"
"Plus us," I said, kissing her shoulder. "Seven per team."
"So if there was only one team…"
"That would be five."
"Hm." She thought about that. "Nope, not interested. Back massage?"
I went on kissing her spine instead, working my way on down. "Realistically, though, how much can we accomplish in two days?"
"Um… James, there are no twins in my family. We might manage one at best."
I poked my face around to see her. "Chimaeras?"
"Oh. Right."
"My thought is that we first break into the government buildings and try and track down whoever they're buying off."
"YOU'RE CRAZY!"
"Ah, and my eardrums have exploded." I shook my head and popped my jaw. Nothing. "Damn it, Evans, will you watch the volume on that thing?"
"Sorry," she whispered. "But you're joking, right?"
"No. Should I be?"
She opened her mouth to protest, but the risk to my ears was too high, so I quickly kissed her. "All that in good time, love. Instead do you wanna make out?"
"Okay," she said.
I wanted to make it good. The next day we would face Voldemort.
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A/N: Oh gosh! How will they make it out of this one? And how on earth did James know? Read on to find out!
Further disclaimer: the 'you wanna make out' line is swiped cold-heartedly from my darling friend lils03 and also the lovely Tom, in a joint parody they wrote (v funny); the kissing back massage thing can be credited to a Former Boyfriend, who, it may be said, could despite all other flaws give a mean massage; the 'and and and then' thing is from (I think) the Princess Bride, (great book) or possibly the foreward of it. The cake, as always, belongs to bluebottlebutterfly. I think. Unless someone else came up with that first. What is it with James and cake?
This story is getting really complicated so if anything important falls into a Plot Hole please tell me in time for me to excavate it. Rest and relaxation, kids!