A/N Thank you so much to all who have reviewed and story alerted! This is for you guys!
The first weekend seemed as though it would never arrive, but was received graciously by Jacquelyn anyway. She and Lily didn't head to the Gryffindor common room until around noontime, and they weren't the only ones either. They were still yawning as they finally headed downstairs from their dormitory and were greeted by Alice (who was such a morning person it was uncomfortable, and in Jacquelyn's opinion: inhuman.)
"Damn, I thought you two would never come down, figured you sniffed too much of the Drought for the Living Death in Slughorn's room yesterday," mused Alice.
"Always the optimist, aren't you?" retorted Jacquelyn, flopping unto the common room couch.
"Where are the guys? We're supposed to have Quidditch tryouts in an hour."
"Those bums are still upstairs. I reckon they probably think it's still morning, the idiots."
Jacquelyn groaned, it wasn't the first time she had to drag James's ass from his own bed unto the Quidditch field. "What's the point of making the trials so early if you can't even wake up for it?" she yelled as she stomped up the stairs to the boy's dormitory noisily.
Lily began to be concerned, mostly for the boys safety rather than her friend's "I don't think this is…" she started.
"Don't spoil her fun, Lily!" Alice said, shushing her unease, "This should be interesting, I've been meaning to see a show…" she said sounding rather amused.
The boy's dormitory was a little over half empty by this time.Parfum au le teenage boy,which would usually make the unsuspecting female gag, ceased to affect her after all these years with an older brother and past expeditions into the boys' dorms. She marched directly into James's four-poster and whipped open the velvet curtain.
James was lying on his stomach, his glasses still on, sleeping only in checkered boxers. His dark hair matted his face and flew in all sorts of directions, his mouth slightly open, and he was drooling on his pillow. His comforter covered only part of his legs as most of it fell to the floor. He snored slightly, still oblivious and unsuspecting of the havoc Jacquelyn was about to wreak upon him and Sirius.
She ripped open the curtain to Sirius's four-poster, finding him in a similar state. Also shirtless, Sirius laid on his back, giving Jacquelyn a full view of his well-built upper body as his comforter lay completely on the floor beside his bed. Sirius had the look of a lesser immortal in his sleep, possessing rather large forearms and chiseled abs, evidence of playing years as a beater. Jacquelyn could see why the girls he brought up to his dormitory ever so often never gave complaints. Though to her disappointment, his lower half was more covered than James.
She chided herself for getting distracted she had work to do. Jacquelyn rolled up her sleeves and muttered "levicorpus" at the two of them. A moment later, the two were hoisted into the air, dangling by their ankles, very, very much awake.
"AAAAAAAUGH! WHAT THE FUCK?" yelled Sirius hoarsely, thrashing around upside-down, trying to reach his wand, which was sitting merely inches away on his nightstand.
"JACKIE? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" screeched James, his glasses falling off his face and unto his bed. His face glowing red as he attempted to prevent his boxers from riding up his legs any higher.
"Oh, good your awake!" she said walking over to the windows and letting some light into the dorm. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" she said, leaving them hanging in every sense.
"Why does it, matter? Dammit, Jaccquelyn, put us down!" yelled James, still thrashing uselessly.
"Jackie, if you wanted to see me shirtless you could have just asked," mused Sirius, causing her to blush.
"Shut up, Sirius. There are Quidditch trials in half an hour,Captain Potter,and you were still sleeping until only a minute ago. Now both of you haul arse and get dressed!".
With that said, Jacquelyn dropped them suddenly, causing Sirius to drop unto his bed violently and hit his head on the headboard and James to miss his bed completely and fall on the floor.
She headed down the spiral staircase to the sound of Alice and Lily's laughter, both almost on the floor doubling over, completely breathless.
In between the mirth, Alice managed to wheeze out "Wha-what did y-you do to them?",
Lily managed to recover long enough to form a sentence. "We could hear them cursing from here!"
"Does it matter? They're awake now. Now move before I do the same to you," Jacquelyn said, grabbing her Quidditch bag and Nimbus 500.
It took Lily and Alice nearly 5 more minutes to compose themselves before they were able to follow her through the portrait hole.
They made their way across the Hogwarts grounds, past the Herbology green houses, and to the Quidditch field. Lily took her usual spot in the stands, where she had been watching them play for years. The late September air, already slightly windy as autumn was quickly moving in. Alice and Jacquelyn headed to change into their Quidditch uniform, where they met up with Melody, a bubbly 5th year that played as their 2nd chaser.
"Where are James and Sirius?" she asked them.
Alice very poorly disguised her laughter and explained vividly the horrors they were subjected to that morning. "If I were you, I wouldn't bring it up. Sirius can throw a mean bludger."
"Holy shit! You actually did that? And you didn't call me?"
"You already in the Great Hall! I didn't have time to receive an audience."
"But still!" cried Melody, annoyed that she had missed the show.
"Don't worry next time, I'll make sure you can help too," promised Jacquelyn, smirking as she tied her hair back. "How many people have we got on the field?" she asked after she threw on her red and gold uniform.
"Er- last time I looked we got some 3rd years, a handful of 5th years, maybe 2 or so 4th years, and a bunch of 6th years."
"You think we can beat a third chaser and chase a beater in 'em?"
"I think so, they look more promising than the lot we go-"
Melody was interrupted as Sirius and James finally stormed in to the Gryffindor Locker room.
They gave Jacquelyn a dark scowl each, to which she smiled charmingly. The grabbed their brooms and headed out onto the Quidditch field in silence, still radiating hatred. The girls followed them out struggling to stifle their laughter.
The first lot were useless fliers and were kicked off when asked to simply lap the field, cutting the crowd almost by a third. The whole team was very busy for hours trying to weed out anyone with talent. Jacquelyn and Melody tested out the potential chasers and narrowed it down to two fifth years, a fourth year who had shown some decent talent with the quaffle, and a 6th year after most couldn't aim better than a drunken house-elf.
Quidditch trials ended in the evening, and by then Sirius and James managed to have forgotten they were ever strung up by their ankles that morning, as they invited the girls to head down with them to the common room to celebrate the beginning of the Quidditch season before dinner. After all their troubles, the beater who joined them was a 5th year by the name of Robert Finch-Fletchly and their third chaser without much competition was the 4th year, Samantha Giralde.
"Okay I got the list from Mcgonagall. The first game is Ravenclaw versus Slytheryn right before Halloween, then Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff two weeks after that," reported James. They were all up in the Gryffindor common room, lounging around and finishing some homework before heading to their dorms, all exhausted and treating minor bruises from the tryouts earlier.
"When's our first Hogsmead trip?" asked Alice, not looking away from her game of exploding snaps with Lily.
"Er, if I remember correctly it should actually be weekend of Halloween, right around the time of the first match." answered James.
"Excellent! I've been meaning to go to Zonkos, ran out of sugar quills last week."
"You think they'll have those endless gobstoppers?" asked Lily, yawning as she began packing her bag. She looked down at her pile of parchment and made an exasperated noise, "This potions essay is killing me! I'm heading upstairs, I think I'll just review it in the morning."
"Did you finish it?" Jacquelyn asked her delicately.
"More or Less. I might have to rewrite my statement regarding the bezoar and ashwood substitute, but pretty much."
"And you wouldn't just happen to love me enough to help me be more or less done like you and lend me your essay, would you?" she asked, her eyes wide and pouting.
Lily eyed her, scrutinizing and finally going against her better judgment "Fine," she huffed, "but you owe me, mind you!" she handed her essay reluctantly to Jacquelyn, who was bouncing happily in her seat at her luck.
"Hey, Alice you heading up too?"
"Yeah might as well, see you guys upstairs," yawned Alice, stuffing the remainder of her books nonchalantly.
Sirius began shuffling his things too "Oy, James I think I'll head up too. See you later, mate. Oh, and Jackie? Try not to hoist us by the ankles anytime before one, will you?"
"No promises, Padfoot. G'night!"
The common room was near empty as Jacquelyn was trying not to copy Lily's work word for word, Jacquelyn looked up to surprisingly find James still sitting across from her, playing with his snitch, a habit she learned he took up whenever he was nervous or self-conscious.
"Hey, what's up? Didn't you already finish your essay for Slughorn?"
"Erm, yeah. Yeah, I did."
"So…What're you still doing down here?" she asked curiously, she'd never known James to be one to pass up extra sleep.
He looked away for a moment and played with his bag.
"Why does she say no?" he suddenly asked, exasperated.
"Come again?"
"Lily," said James, still fidgeting with his snitch. "How come she won't go out with me?"
"Aah, I see," said Jacquelyn, slouching back into the arm chair and propping her legs up the side "Why is this bugging you now? She's been saying no to you for years."
"Well that's kinda the point! Why does she always push me away? It's driving me bloody insane!"
"You want me to list those reasons chronologically or alphabetically?"
James moaned and flopped face first into the couch in front of the fire "I'm being serious, Jackie," he said, his voice muffled by the cushions.
She propped up her head on her hands, facing James directly.
"Okay then, why do you think she's rejecting you?" she asked him carefully. She didn't have much experience with relationship advice, at least not with guys.
"Now if I knew that I wouldn't be here, now would I?"
"I see I'm going to have to do the work all by myself then. I hope you're taking notes then, 'cause I'm not repeating myself."
James stopped moping immediately.
"Okay first things first, try to talk to her. It doesn't have to be about anything specific but get used to talking to her on your own. You know, without Sirius and me being right there."
"That's it? Talk to her?" he asked, slightly confused.
"You'd think you would have learned a thing or two watching Sirius all these years. Okay, talking to her is one thing, but what you're talking about is the important part. For starters, never, and I mean never, talk about yourself for longer than ten seconds total. Girls are confusing, but shallow none the less. You tell her exactly what she wants to hear. Compliment her on everything, and go out of your way to do things for her. Oh-and if it's covered in clothing you better not be staring at it."
James was having trouble taking all of this in at once, but seemed like a fast learner, "Okay so talk to her, compliment her, go out of my way for her. You think that'll work?"
"Definitely, just stay cool headed and you'll be surprised."
"Oh, Jackie, I owe you so much! Ho-"
"That you do, my dear boy, that you do. Now I have five rolls of parchment for Defense Against the Dark Arts that I'm not particularly fond of doing. If I'm not mistaken, that's whereyou come in. Have fun lover-boy." With that said, she picked up her bag and dumped five empty rolls of parchment in James' lap and walked up the spiraling staircase leading to the Girls' Dormitories.
Lily was still awake, brushing her smooth, ginger hair with an Arithmancy book in front of her. "Hey, what took you so long?"
"Nothing, really," she replied dumping her books with a thud next to her bed and began to change out of her clothes lazily.
"What were you and James talking about?"
"Not much. He just needed some help with something."
"And that was...?"
"Don't you seem awfully interested in James," Jacquelyn said playfully.
Lily blushed and reacted defensibly "I am not! Whatever, it doesn't concern me. 'Night"
Little do you know Jacquelyn smiled to herself, and fell very quickly to sleep.
The Forbidden forest began changing its leaves to the gold, red, and brown colors of autumn as Jacquelyn, Sirius, Lily, James, and Alice struggled to keep up with their work. The older students all looked forward to the first Hogsmeade weekend, a weekend that seemed to be taking its sweet time.
Finally, on a particularly dreary Friday were they released from their last period, Potions with the Hufflepuffs, and were able to savor the idea of two days completely work-free. Lily, Alice, and Jacquelyn were taking a stroll outside to relieve themselves of a double period in the dungeons, sniffing strange odors and cutting up screwts.
"Is it just me" Alice started "or has James seemed…more bearable lately?" she said slowly, slightly at a loss for words.
"Yeah I've definitely noticed that too. But hey, I'm not complaining," said Lily
"I'm not either, it's just… don't you think it's a bit, y'know, sudden?"
"Does it matter? It's a good thing, let's not jinx it," said Jacquelyn quickly, regretting speaking up as soon as she stopped.
"You taking anyone with you to Hogsmeade, Jackie?" asked Alice, thankfully oblivious to her comment.
"Nope, we're just gonna hang out with the guys like usual. Are you coming?"
"Actually me and Frank are heading out together," she said excitedly. Alice had been going out with Frank Longbottom since the summer and had been quite taken with him. Jacquelyn had been all for it, he was a really sweet guy and they were a very cute couple, though she and Lily didn't know too much about him.
"Sounds awesome! You need to tell me all about it!" Lily bubbled.
The girls headed back to Gryffindor tower later that evening, working out what they were going to wear together, excited for the trip to Hogsmead village the next morning.
Next chapter is coming up after a bit more polishing with the beta, story alert for more and tell me what you think in a review!