For the last week before Easter break, Lily avoided James and Sirius at all costs, and Remus and Peter treated them very coolly. Sirius didn't know what to make of it, not realizing that Remus had told Lily about the billywigs, and thought that if they were mad at James about standing Lily up then they could have at least welcomed him. He wasn't the one going around missing Very Important Dates, after all.
During classes, Remus sat exclusively with Peter, which annoyed James and Sirius and delighted Peter, as he was now always close enough to copy Remus' work. Every so often, Remus would turn to look at James or Sirius, and when he caught their eyes, he would just stare disapprovingly. Lily did the same thing, and while James tended to enjoy her constant eye on him, because at least she was looking, otherwise it was very unnerving, and caused both boys to start avoiding eye contact with anyone altogether.
When they weren't in class, James and Sirius hung out in Gryffindor Tower or stung themselves, all the while wondering where Remus and Peter had gotten to. Whenever they asked, Remus would do his stare again. Peter would start to say something, but after a nudge from Remus, would think better of it and keep his mouth shut.
Remus and Peter spent a lot of their time in the library with Lily, looking through book after book for help with their plans. Lily found several books on Billywigs and spent a lot of time copying from them. Remus looked for books on how to stage an intervention, but to no avail. The closest thing he found was a suggestion that perhaps he should use the Imperius Curse, and also a recipe for a Coercion Concoction. Lily advised him to stop looking in the Restricted Section after that.
Eventually, they gave up looking for a wizarding form of intervention, as apparently that sort of thing wasn't important enough to write a book on, and Lily owled her parents for help. She asked specifically for books about drug rehab and different '12 step' programs, although she didn't give any real reason why.
Lily, Remus and Peter sat around a small table in the library on the last Friday before break. Lily had just received a reply from her parents. They'd sent a large parcel of books and a note which she was now poring over.
Lily,
We found as many books as we could, darling. Your father is rather concerned at your subject of choice, and is telling me to ask if there is anything you need to talk to us about. Are you alright? Petunia sends her love. She is very busy in school. It's her final year, after all. She's met this wonderful boy, Vernon Dursley. They've been dating for some time now.
Are you sure you won't be coming back for Easter break? How are your friends? Is Matilda doing well?
You father and I are in a hurry, so I'll wrap this up. We love you, darling, and just know that the whole family will always be there to support you if you need it.
Love,
Mum
Remus watched as Lily harrumphed and tossed the letter down on the table.
"Something wrong?" he asked curiously.
"Nothing," Lily said grumpily.
"What?" Peter asked, looking up from a copy of Passionate Trousers he had hidden behind a large spell book.
"What did your parents say?" Remus pressed.
"They want to know if there's 'anything I need to talk to them about', and that they'll 'always be there for me'." Lily said sarcastically, pushing the letter toward him.
Remus raised an eyebrow and said, "They think…?"
"They think I've got some kind of drug problem or something!" Lily slouched down in her chair. "I try to help a fellow student, and this is what I get? Suspicion from my own family?"
"I'm sure they're just concerned," Remus said, trying to mask his amusement with concern and fidgeting.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Let's just do this. Now that we've got all the information, we can actually make a plan." She started flipping through the books, pausing every now and then and taking down notes. Peter went back to Passionate Trousers. Remus flipped idly through a random book before Lily snatched it away from him.
He peeked over at Peter and smirked, reading a few lines of his book.
"Rhiannon," Tristan said, taking her hand gently, "You know I can't live a day without you by my side. When you aren't with me, I'm nothing. Lower than a flobberworm. I love you!"
"Oh, Tristan,"Rhiannon said, eyes filling with tears. "I love you too!"
Remus snorted and went back to watching Lily work. Growing bored of that, he began tapping his fingers rhythmically on the table. When Lily raised her eyebrows at him irritably, he blew his cheeks out and glanced up at the ceiling, then down the rows of books on either side of them.
"Remus," Lily finally asked, snapping her book shut and glaring at him. "Do you need something to do?"
"Oh, no, I'm fine." he said politely, smiling at her.
"Well, I've got something anyway," she said pointedly. He nodded with a small embarrassed smile and she passed one of the papers she'd been scribbling on across the table at him.
Looking down at it, he saw it was a list:
We need people to attend the intervention who:
- Are close to James and Sirius
-Will worry about them
- Care about them
- Can convincingly pretend to care about them
- Have had experience with Billywigs or similar
- People whose opinion can sway theirs
Remus frowned and reread it a couple times. "Convincingly pretend to care about them?" he asked incredulously, looking up from the list to stare at Lily, who was blushing slightly.
"I thought it might be the best you could do…"
Remus shook his head, then shook Peter, who had fallen asleep. Passionate Trousers lay forgotten on the floor, along with the copy of Weird Wizarding Dilemmas and their Solutions that had been masking it.
"Peter, wake up." He looked back at Lily, who was once again engrossed in her books. "When and where is this intervention taking place?"
Lily paused in her reading and looked up at him thoughtfully. "Gryffindor Common room, er…noon on Saturday."
"Tomorrow?"
"Yes. The books say we need to do it as quickly as possible." Lily nodded solemnly. "They could overdose. Then possibly die."
The next day, at quarter to twelve, Lily, Remus and Peter had annexed the common room, setting up chairs in a semi-circle against one wall, and directing the people Remus and Peter had gathered to sit in said chairs.
"Couldn't you find some students? At least the person I invited knows what's going on!" Lily whispered, sounding disgruntled after two overemotional house elves had burst into tears upon her directions to 'sit down, please.'
"James and Sirius hang out in the kitchens all the time." Peter said reasonably, using a quill to copy his lines onto his hands. "They know these elves pretty well. I'm sure they'll be helpful enough. And who did you invite? Matilda, d'you mean?" Lily shook her head 'no'distractedly.
"No, no dear, it's alright. I won't be needing a chair," Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-Porpington said courteously as Lily pulled up a winged armchair for him. She shrugged and offered it to James and Sirius' owls to perch on. Remus immediately hurried forward and draped James' cloak over it, just in time too.
"Can Tippy clean that sir?"
"Oh, no, Tippy." Remus said, wrinkling his nose at the white spot on James' once pristine cloak. "That's why I put it there. And Lily, we did invite a couple students." He pointed at the open portrait hole, where a third year, Galvin Gudgeon stood, looking around at the rather eccentric group he would apparently be meeting with today. Lily rushed over to him and ushered him into a chair far away from the owls, at his own request.
Matilda wandered in a few minutes later, looking shocked at the small party.
"Hi guys! What's going on?"
Lily looked up at the new arrival, then sighed in exasperation. "Matilda, I told you last night! The intervention, remember?"
"Oh, yeah! That was today?" Matilda frowned and bit her lip. "Well, I looked my lines over…did you want me to go get them, just in case?"
Lily nodded crossly and went back to persuading the elves to sit quietly and stop trying to help.
After the entire entourage had arrived, she stood and addressed them all nervously.
"The point of this is to convince them that they're hurting themselves and should stop, alright? We're supposed to express unhappiness at their choice, and show them how they're hurting themselves and everyone around them by continuing with said choice," she said, sounding as though she'd recited it straight from the book.
Nearly Headless Nick frowned and asked, "And what choice is that?"
Lily stared at him for a moment, then turned on Remus and Peter. "Did you even tell everyone why they came?" she asked in disbelief.
Remus shrugged and said, "Hey, look at the house elves. We had enough trouble finding people to come, let alone convincing them to help those two sods. Not many students stayed over break this year."
Bertha Jorkins raised her hand and asked, "Which two sods, precisely?"
Lily sank down into her chair and lowered her head in defeat.
"James and Sirius, of course!" Matilda piped up, noting her friend's speechlessness. "Essentially, they're doing billywigs, it's bad for them, and we're going to yell at them till they agree to stop."
At this, Lily's head popped back up again, and she stood to face the group. "We aren't supposed to yell at them, Matilda! We're just supposed to tell them how bad an idea it is and…what is that noise?"
James and Sirius were spending the time Lily was using to set up their intervention to do billywigs. They'd done the deed in the forest, then boldly wandered up to the castle and roamed the halls.
Floating away from the kitchens, arms filled with pastries and snacks, Sirius commented on the lack of their favorite house elves.
"Where'd Tippy go?" he slurred sadly. "She always gave me the best éclairs…"
"Bick wush gon 'oo," James commented around a mouthful of cake.
"That's weird."
"Yesh id ish."
They floated up a set of stairs, and while James automatically skipped a trick step, Sirius paused and called him back.
"James! Lookit this!" He stood, or rather, hovered directly above the trick stair, grinning madly. "Stupid stair. You can't get me! Ha ha ha!"
James watched in awe. "Wow, Sirius, that's amazing. Really, I mean it. Just, wow. Can I try?"
"Sure, Jamsie, c'mere and look."
James stood carefully next to Sirius on the stair, and when he too was not stuck, grinned and yelled, "Blimey! I beat Hogwar's! Your bloody stair can't keep me down! No sir!"
Sirius grinned and joined in berating Hogwarts.
"Yeah, Hogwarts, think yer so great, trying to keep us down! You can't do a thing, you can't!" He began chanting it over and over, and soon James joined in.
"You can't, you can't, you can't, you-hey!"
As they chanted, they had begun to sink, until James' toe was stuck fast in the stair.
"How long ago did we sting?" James asked fearfully, trying to pull his rapidly sinking toes back into the air, even as the rest of his body dropped slowly toward the floor.
"Er, an hour or two ago?" Sirius answered thoughtfully, having already shifted and landed on the step above James.
"Well, pull me out!" James said frantically, reaching for Sirius.
Sirius gripped his arm and pulled. It didn't do much.
"James, Hogwarts is mad at you! She's getting revenge for yelling at her!"
"What do I do?"
"Ah…apologise!"
"I'm sorry, Hogwarts!" James cried sadly. "I didn't mean it! I love you! Really, I do! I'm nothing without you! A flobberworm!"
Nothing happened. He continued to sink into the step, even now that he was half hanging off Sirius, who was holding onto the banister for dear life.
"I wasn't thinking! I was hopped upon Billywigs!" he hesitated. "Sirius, that's it! Give me a billywig!"
Sirius pulled their mossy jar out of his pocket and grabbed two, one for James, one for himself. He passed James a billywig, which James immediately stung himself with.
"Alright, now that I'm lighter, pull me out!" James demanded.
Sirius gripped his arm again and pulled. This time it was much easier to hoist James out of the stair. He came free with a small 'pop', and both boys stumbled into the banister behind them.
Sirius stung himself and came floating up to sit with James on air, just above the stair. James was staring at it suspiciously, and drifted carefully away from it.
"Let's get outta here." he said, glancing over his shoulder at it.
"Okay. Hey, James?"
"Yeah?"
"You read Peter's copy of Passionate Trousers too?"
A little later, James and Sirius floated back up to Gryffindor Tower, giggling at random intervals. They bobbed up and down in front of a disapproving Fat Lady for a few moments, trying to guess the password.
"Pear grass?"
"Per internim?"
"Wingarrrdium Leviooosaa?"
Lily stood inside the door, giving last minute instructions.
"-And just tell them what a bad idea it is and…what is that noise?"
She opened the door. James and Sirius were standing there, still trying to guess the password.
"No, no, James. It's Wingaaarrdium Leviosaa. Make the 'gar' nice and long."
"It's still not the password, boys." The Fat Lady sounded rather irritated.
"Oh for heaven's sake…" Lily shook her head and pulled them inside by their sleeves.
"Hey! It's Lily," James exclaimed, trying to mess up his hair and instead poking himself in the eye. "Ow…What brings you here?"
"This is the common room, James," she said coolly.
"Oh…Hey, listen, Lily, I just wanted to say I'm sorry about missin' our date last week."
Lily raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, James, you're in luck. I thought that since the date went all pear-shaped, we could do something else."
James grinned and ran a hand through his hair (missing his eye this time). "Really?" he asked suggestively, sidling a little closer. Lily rolled her eyes for the three thousandth time that week and stepped slightly away from him.
"Yes. I thought we could go right…over…here." As she spoke, she took James by the arm and pulled him toward a large group of chairs near the windows. She pushed past the occupants of said seats and put him in one of two lone wooden chairs in the center of the circle.
"Hey, what about me?" Sirius asked forlornly from the doorway.
Lily sighed and walked back to lead Sirius to his spot next to James. "Yes, Sirius, you can come too."
"Alright! Guess you just gotta share, eh mate?" he asked James cheerfully, settling down a foot above the chair and making himself comfortable.
James glared at him, highly annoyed. Both had yet to notice the eccentric group surrounding them.
Lily changed that by clearing her throat and beginning an obviously prepared speech. "We are all here today because we all agree that James and Sirius need help."
There was some muttering from the group, Remus and Peter in particular, and James and Sirius looked around themselves with a start.
"Lily," James began, bewildered. "What's goin' on?"
"James, we're staging an intervention," Remus said quietly. James looked at him, bewildered.
"A what?" Sirius asked with an expression to match James'.
"An intervention." Lily interrupted. "You two are addicted to Billywigs, and we're doing something to help you break out of your bad habits."
Oh, and 'Passionate Trousers' is Cassandra Claire's.