Chapter 6: The Trouble with Marauders
"No fair."
"Life isn't fair."
"Humph." Sirius pouted on his bed for a couple more minutes. "This is entirely that wench Lawrence's fault. What is her problem anyway? Most girls would have died if I gave them that kind of attention." Just at that moment Peter came in and heard what he said.
"Don't say that about Lizz." Sirius head snapped around in surprise and he reached over and grabbed James's wand. Peter however had turned bright red. "Ohh do you like her now, Wormy? You're a bigger idiot than I thought! Poor fool, all you'll get from her is acne!" Sirius left and slammed the door behind him.
Peter scrambled about the room muttering something like excuses and wondering if he had upset his role model, though they sounded more like whines and caused extensive relief when he left.
"Finally, he left." James sighed.
"What a whiner. Did you hear him muttering, Prongs? I think there was something about Sirius being a good role model," Remus replied.
"He needs therapy Mr. Moony."
"Or a good whap in the head."
"Or a good prank?"
"We're talking about Wormtail, not you, Prongs my boy."
"Humph, I think a good prank does everyone good."
"Depends on which side you're on, in our case we're always on the good side. Speaking of pranks is that one for Thursday all set up?"
"No worries mate. Here take the sheet, it's all written up." James handed Remus their prank sheet. At the time of prank these were immediately burned, but Remus, being organized teenager he was, demanded there be one for reference and prevent mess-ups that usually resulted in detentions. It was amazing the science they had gotten pranking down to.
"Can you believe Sirius? Do you think he likes Lawrence? He seemed pretty pissed off when Wormy defended her." Remus pondered
"Not, he's just upset because she didn't melt under his touch like any other Barbie around here."
"Still thinking of how Lily dumped you for Sirius? At least the boy had the decency to shove her off."
"Shut up, I don't even see her anymore." James crossed his arms in defiance.
"And I hope you aren't including Jamie, or even Annie Martin, in that statement." Remus said and put his hands on his hips, a well known Remus stance.
"Relax lover boy; I am not insulting your woman. Speaking of Bilden, don't you have prefect duty with her, like now?" James pointed out. Remus glanced at the clock and sped out the door at top speed.
"Talk about zero to sixty in under five seconds." James grabbed his can of Zeppo's broom polish and took care of his precious Nimbus 600.
"Hey Remus!" Jamie called from the other side of the common room. She beckoned him over to her table and continued to fold up the parchment that was in her hands. Remus made a move to sit next to her, but a sharp peck on the head stopped his efforts. He looked up to see a large hawk perched on the chair he wanted. Rubbing the now growing bump on his forehead, he moved quickly to other side of Jamie to sit in the hawk-empty seat next to her. The hawk gave him an equally incredulous glare.
"Oh stop it William. Remus is a friend." Jamie scolded the large bird of prey. She laughed though. "Sorry Remus, he's a little nasty to those he doesn't know."
"He's not yours is he? I thought you had an owl."
"I do, he's Ryan's. He brought me a letter"
"Who's Ryan? Your brother?"
"Didn't I tell you about Ryan? No? He's my boyfriend in California." She finished tying her letter to William's leg and carried him to the open window. Meanwhile, Remus was having trouble breathing. He felt like someone had punched him in the stomach.
Jamie opened the large window and let William fly. "Hurry William." She whispered after the bird with a smile. She also took the moment to touch her wand to her ears and nose, enhancing her Animagus gifts of hearing and scent for prefect duty. Lizzy had accidentally figured out they could change specific parts of their bodies to Animagus form after she had been stuck with a lioness tail for a week. Jamie fought the temptation to wear full wolf ears, as she preferred, but they were bound to gain some unwanted attention. Finally she took a few gulps of fresh air and turned around to find Remus very, very close. Enough so that she noticed a few gray hairs in his dark brown and that his eyes were an overcast grey. He seemed to regain his senses and backed up a bit.
"We have duty… now." He said, spun on a heel, and strode towards the portal. Jamie managed to grab her dark purple cloak (not uniform but like she cared) and call out to Annie,
"I'm going on duty see you later!" Annie waved from her spot at the fire and turned back to her writing. Jamie heard her sniff as she wrote the proposal between her two favorite characters. The blonde rolled her eyes, knowing it was the seventh different proposal that Annie had written/ cried over in the past two weeks.
"Remus! Remus wait!" Jamie breathed heavily as she caught up with Remus, who had rudely walked far ahead for over ten minutes, not waiting for her at all. "God Remus, what the hell! That was bloody rude, you could have waited!" Remus flinched when she yelled.
"Sorry Bilden, I just wanted to see if you have learned your way around the castle." Remus said, a seasoned liar.
"Bilden? Come on Remus I told you, you can call me Jamie, we're good friends right? Plus I hate this whole last name thing it gets me flipping' confused!"
"Yes… we're good friends, slip of the tongue I guess. I keep hearing James and Sirius refer to you guys that way, it just gets stuck in my head." He replied. Jamie took a second to close the silver, leaf-shaped clasp on her favored cloak. She swept her hand over the fabric and smiled. It had been a gift from Ryan and he knew her so well when it came to presents.
"Well you can tell them to call me Jamie as well, and extend the invitation to call Annie and Lizzy by their first names as well. We're all a little confused by the whole business and we're all good friends." She said and smiled.
"Well come on we have duty Jamie, where are the other prefects?" Remus glanced around as they hurried down the vast hallway. Jamie almost collided with the other prefects, the Slytherin prefects. Remus sneered as Severus Snape glanced down at Jamie in mild surprise.
"Hello, are you the other prefects on duty tonight?" said the green and silver clad girl standing beside Snape. Jamie smiled at her; she didn't seem to have grown the well known Slytherin sneer that was displayed horribly on Snape's surprisingly handsome face (considering what Jamie had heard about him, she honestly expected him to be disfigured). Well, at least he might have been good-looking if he didn't look like he had shit under his nose.
"Yes we are, so I guess we'll take north and you take south? Meet back here in two hours?" Jamie replied. She and the Slytherin girl smiled at each other and dragged their glaring and silent men down their respective hallways.
They both lit their wands with a "Lumos". Remus looked down at Jamie in her clashing purple cloak, "Where'd you get a cloak like that?"
"Oh, Ryan gave it to me as a going-away present, plus he figured I'd be wearing it a lot because he thinks I'm such a wuss when it comes to being cold, and I would remember him all alone in California when I wore it. At least that's what he said when he gave it to me."
"You're not a wuss. Are you?"
"No, but I've been wearing it a lot anyway." Jamie laughed. "Because it reminds me of him and that he knows me well enough to buy a completely clashing purple cloak." She glanced over at Remus and was surprised to find him tense and she tried to make eye contact. He closed his eyes and looked up at her. Her blue eyes were sporting purple streaks, but they were worried and her lips formed a small comforting smile as he looked at her. She saw his brows were furrowed but beneath them his gray eyes swirled anxiously. She found herself thinking how much his eyes resembled clouds before a storm, as if a downpour might come any second.
"What's wrong Remus?" he loved the way his name sounded. "Siriusly, Remus tell me about it." She gave him a warm smile. Remus found himself smiling despite his bitter mood.
"Oh nothing, I just remembered I had a Quidditch practice tomorrow and I wanted to sleep in." Remus said lightly. He smiled and continued down the hallway. Jamie smiled despite herself, Yeah right, she thought. She hummed off-key a little bit then said,
"Whenever you want to tell me about it you'll find I'm a really good listener." He stopped dead. She grinned impishly and hummed and continued down the hallway. She stopped and chatted with a portrait of someone or another, then Remus smiled and caught up.
Remus talked and laughed easier with Jamie as they patrolled the dark halls. They found a lost first year Ravenclaw, stuck in a slow-step, but otherwise it was a pretty quiet night. Jamie was a bit of a night owl and seemed to gain more energy. Finally, Remus took a deep breath and said,
"So tell me about Ryan."
"What's there to tell? He's my boyfriend and lives in California."
"Come on, what's he like, how'd you meet, what was your first date, do you love him?"
"Nice, in a bookstore, his cousin's wedding, I believe so."
"Jamie Bilden. You better tell me more or I shall have to use all my Marauder powers of persuasion to force it out of you."
"Guy, Remus! I thought only girls cared about that sort of thing! Ryan is a nice guy, but he's also a gentleman, like he'll open doors for me and stuff. He also has this great Buddha laugh those little pot-bellied statues."
"He's fat?"
"No! He's pretty skinny actually and even I envy his waist sometimes. His eyes are dark, dark green, almost black, which contrasts in a funny way with his blonde hair."
"He looks weird."
"No! He's really hot if you don't mind me saying, his eyes just catch you off guard."
"So how did you meet?"
"Our fathers are old college buddies and we've been friends since childhood."
"I thought you said you met in a bookstore."
"Well we hadn't talked to each other in a couple years because he had moved when I was ten. I was at Saldrons, you know my old school, and it has this kitschy little bookstore. I was looking at their pitiful collection when I spotted him on the other side of the store scanning magazines. The store was really small so he was like ten feet away anyway, but I said 'Ryan' really loud and ducked behind a shelf. He turned around all confused and even asked a girl if she had said his name. He eventually turned back to the magazines and I went to pay for my books. As I was headed out the door he opened it for me but closed it before I had taken a step. He accused me of saying his name and then not even saying hello after doing so. I laughed and totally denied it. He said 'The red in your cheeks tells me otherwise Miss Bilden, and though you didn't recognize me at first, I recognized you.' I laughed so hard and so did he, with his Buddha laugh."
"So he invited you to his cousin's wedding."
"Yeah, I accepted partly because it's my rule that if a guy can get me to laugh I owe him at least one date."
"So... how many do you owe me by now… hmm." Remus made a show of counting up how many times he had made her laugh while she laughed and begged him to stop. "You sound experienced." He finally said.
"Actually Ryan was the first guy who ever showed any interest in me. I was super amazed to get a rich, hot guy like him all to myself."
"What!" Remus looked at her disbelievingly.
"Well, there are a lot prettier and skinnier girls in California Remus, especially at Saldrons. Plus more are willing to pop into bed at any guy's convenience.
"Sirius would be in heaven."
"I figured he seemed that type."
"Oh don't be too hard, he just gets girls easier than the rest of us. Plus he's an okay guy once you get to know him, bloody immature, but still one of my mates."
"Not from Lizz's side of the story. According to her, Sirius is the scum of the Earth, not to mention a total womanizer."
"Wow"
"Yeah, well that's Lizzy for ya. Hey hold on a sec." Jamie motioned for Remus to be quiet and cocked her head a bit as if listening to something (she was). She swiveled around a bit to pick up the best perception and then grabbed Remus's hand.
"I will show you something hilarious, but you have to follow me and be absolutely silent." Remus nodded and followed her down the dark hallway.