The Easter holiday was over faster than anyone could have imagined. Decima, Sirius and James were on their way back to Hogwarts sooner than they would have liked. Mrs. Potter assured them that she would be there to pick them up at the start of the summer and all would be well, that no one could hurt Decima, but she knew that Sirius's father's threats weren't ringing in her ears alone. Sirius never let her out of his site, even though they never left the grounds of the Potter Manor.
On the train ride back, Lily rode with their group once more, this time next to Gwen instead of James, but still, the compartment wasn't so big that she wasn't uncharacteristically near him. She was even being remarkably civil toward him, and James looked so shell-shocked that he didn't know what to do. Gwen and Decima caught each other's eyes and made a silent pact to work on those two lovebirds as soon as possible.
Sirius whispered in Decima's ear as they were climbing into the carriages to go back up to the castle, "You know I think we didn't use all of the things you packed."
"We didn't?" she said with a pensive frown. "I could have sworn I didn't pack too many…"
"Not at all, love," muttered Sirius, moving his hand to cup her breast as they scooted across to make room for their friends. "We simply didn't have enough sex."
Decima snorted happily.
"And what would have been enough sex?"
He wriggled his eyebrows as the others made their way into the carriage.
"We wouldn't have stopped at all," he muttered, nipping at her ear playfully.
The moan that escaped her lips earned her a disapproving look from Lily Evans, but that gave her a plan for getting her and James together. Pushing that thought to the back of her mind, however, she ground back into Sirius's lap and he let out a strangled moan himself, which caused a few of the boys in the carriage to snicker, and Gwen to give a cheer of approval to her best friend.
"Still shagging like bunnies, I see?" said Gwen with a wink.
"Oh, like you two do any differently," said Decima with a satisfied smirk. Gwen smirked back and Remus turned an incriminating shade of pink, which caused more snickering and Decima turned her head to bury it in Sirius's hair and whispered, "I'll deal with you later."
He bit his lip eagerly.
"Of course, love," he purred.
Somehow, the trip up to the castle seemed to take longer than usual. All Decima wanted was to get back into Sirius's bed. It didn't help that he pulled her right back into his groin for the entire bumpy ride, and that his fingers were playing with the hem of her skirt, brushing teasingly across her thighs in the process. She was so aroused, in fact, that as soon as the carriage came to a stop, she literally climbed over the other occupants of the carriage in her haste to be sated, dragging an incredibly willing Sirius along behind her, running up the stairs into the castle with wild abandon, where Sirius overcame her and picked her up, carrying her at a run the rest of the way, not stopping until they fell over each other into his bed, clumsily ripping off their clothes as soon as they had crossed the threshold into the boys' dormitory. He had barely gotten the curtains closed around their naked bodies and didn't bother with silencing charms when the others finally arrived in the room.
Sirius pinned Decima down to the bed, pressing his lips savagely to hers as his hands eagerly kneaded her breasts. Forgetting there were others on the outside of the curtains around them, Decima didn't even fight the moans and whimpers of pleasure that were rising up inside of her at his attentions. Many of them were caught in his hungry kisses, but as their mouths worked against each other, there was enough noise that escaped the caverns of his mouth that there was awkward silence amongst the boys outside of their bed.
As Sirius began to thrust into her, and her cries were uninhibited by either politeness or an obstruction of her mouth no Sirius's part, there was a faint sound of whispering outside the curtains. When her screams finally died down and Sirius's moans of pleasure died with them, there was an incredible awkward silence that descended on the room.
"I need help!" came as a cry from the other side of the curtain and Sirius and Decima chuckled as they spooned, knowing James was referring to Lily.
"Of course you do, James," said Gwen. "But I didn't think you wanted us chucking you into St. Mungo's at these relatively early stages."
Decima snickered as Sirius's eyes widened.
"GiGi, don't joke!" cried James. "I'm in absolute distress!"
"We get it James," called Decima. "You're a bloody lovesick mess. Don't worry. We'll take care of it. Just keep on behaving yourself and don't act like too much of a dumb idiot and we'll take care of it all."
"But what do I do?" he moaned, and it sounded as though his face was in a pillow.
"Nothing," said Gwen. "Like CiCi said, leave it to us, silly!"
"Are you really going to help James get Evans?" murmured Sirius softly into Decima's ear.
"It's the least I can do," she whispered, "after nearly ending all his chances with her."
"I thought we had agreed that was all my fault and that I need to fix it," muttered Sirius as he began to run his hands along her chest lightly, causing her to shiver.
"Yes, well," Decima murmured, gasping at the contact. "That's not working out particularly well."
"What d'you mean?" said Sirius, frowning, pretending to be hurt. "I think it's going absolutely spiffy, myself. She actually sat with us on the train!"
"I don't think that had anything to do with you, dear," said Decima patronizingly, patting him on the top of the head. The patting turned to petting, which turned to running her fingers passionately through his hair as he began kissing her neck hungrily.
"Oy, will you two unhook for like, ten minutes so I can borrow my dearest CiCi?" said Gwen's voice from the other side of the curtain, although clearly right next to the fabric.
"Go away, GiGi, Sirius is busy," moaned Decima.
"Yes, but Sirius can be busy without you, darling," said Gwen, with an obvious smirk in her voice. "Sirius, release your girlfriend, or I'm coming in after her."
Sirius growled, but he seemed to decide that Gwen would act according to her word, because he gave Decima a quick peck on the lips and let go of her.
"Let her get dressed, maniac, she'll be right out," he snarled at Gwen.
"Are you really mad at her?" whispered Decima as she pulled her clothes back on.
"What part of 'we don't have enough sex did you not get'?" he whispered back, completely serious.
"Oh, I understand love," she whispered earnestly, pulling her shirt back on, and moving his hand to the fabric, silently asking him to do up the buttons. He obliged and she whispered, "but the sooner she and I finish our work, the sooner I get back and the more uninterrupted sex we get to have."
He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and closed his eyes blissfully as he finished the top button.
"Get it over with, then, and get your ass back in bed."
"Yessir!" she said with a giggle, before slithering out of the curtains and joining Gwen, who looked at her with a knowing smirk and raised eyebrow.
"Comb your hair, darling," she drawled. "You look like sex."
Sirius barked with laughter from behind the curtains and Decima groaned, walking over to the mirror next to Remus's bed, sorting out her hair quickly.
"All right, we'll be off to sort out Miss Evans, I'll be back soon, love."
"You'd better be!" Sirius hollered at her as the girls left the boys' dormitory wearing identical smirks of the hunt, as Decima had come to call them. It was the smirk reserved specifically for matchmaking. They hadn't been pulled out of the box since Christa and Gwen set Decima up with Regulus. The best friends marched all the way up to the sixth year girls' dormitory, knocking, and silently hoping Lily Evans was in, and even better if Lily Evans was alone.
And surprisingly, she was. Lily Evans was sitting alone on her four-poster, the curtains cracked juts enough that Decima and Gwen could see that she was crying. They looked at each other, confused. Were things not well at home? Had she gotten in a fight with one of the girls in her dormitory? Was Severus stalking her again? All of the above? They gave each other a quick nod, silently agreeing to proceed with extreme caution. Decima's life sucked more. She would begin the peace offering.
"Lily?" she whispered softly, moving slowly and steadily toward the bed in question. "What's up?"
Lily looked up at them, shock splattered across her face with the tear stains, and her eyes wide, puffy, and very red. She had an expression that reminded Decima very much of a lost puppy.
"It's nothing, don't mind me," muttered Lily.
"Lily, it's obviously not nothing," said Gwen softly as the girls slowly approached the bed. "I haven't seen anyone look so broken since Decima got raped."
Decima winced and Lily's eyes widened instantly.
"No, no it's nothing like that!" she moaned. "No, it's really not a big deal. Please, don't worry about it."
"Lily," said Decima with a frown, "I spent years telling my friends that there was nothing wrong when I was sad because it wasn't as bad as being raped or beaten, but maybe if I had just said something sooner, it never would have gotten to that point."
Lily picked at a freckle on her knee and pursed her lips together in a desperate sort of way, tears streaming madly down her face. For the longest time, she didn't say anything. Then, she looked up at Decima pathetically and muttered, "If I say it out loud, you'll think I'm crazy."
Decima snorted.
"Lily, darling," she drawled in perfect pureblood fashion, "I'm dating Sirius Black. I honestly doubt there's anything you could say to me that would make me think such things about you. Trust me, I'm a pureblood. I've seen and heard crazier."
With a sad sort of chuckle, Lily sniffed and nodded.
"Well, the thing is, it's not one thing. It's a lot of things. Since we found out I'm a witch my sister… well, she sort of changed. She and I used to be best friends and now we hardly know each other. She's dating this awful man… Vernon." Lily screwed up her face as she spat out the hateful name. "From the sound of things, he's likely to propose when she's eighteen. And he knows about me. And he hates me, he thinks I'm this abnormal freak of nature, and she agrees with him!" The girls just nodded at her sadly. That would make anyone upset, but it was clearly not the whole story, because then Lily took a deep breath and went on.
"And Sev and I used to be such good friends and now things are different there too. He keeps trying to apologize, as if I don't know what he does when I'm not there to see. Remus and I found them at one of their meetings the other day, one of the Death Eater wannabe club meetings. Regulus was there, and Sev, and Christa's brother Evan. The things they were saying about blood purity and… and…" Lily shuddered. Decima didn't want to know what they were saying. She didn't want to think about it.
"A-and then Mary and I are fighting, and Merlin only knows how long this will last. I'm not entirely sure what I did to make her so mad at me, but she was being so unreasonable that it got me completely upset and then I said all kinds of horrible things I didn't mean. We're too mad to apologize for anything, and we keep screaming at each other every time we're together, which only makes it worse. But that's not even the worst of it."
Decima and Gwen looked at each other and blinked. Some of that stuff was bad, and it was understandable that all of it together was causing her to break down. What could be the worst of it?
"J-James."
Decima blinked again. Did Lily just use the boy's first name? Yes, yes she had. She had stuttered, but she had still used his given name without being prompted to. Yes, there was certainly something fishy going on here.
"What about him?" pushed Gwen gently.
"He… I… I'm not sure how it happened, exactly… I suppose it's been coming for a long time… but, then he… I just… ugh."
Yes, Decima thought, blinking again. Very fishy.
"Lily, full English sentences are usually the best way to go," Decima said softly.
"The prat had to go and make me like him," moaned Lily in a miserable sort of way, the way one might say something more along the lines of "The prat had to go and steal everything I own and feed it all to the giant squid." Not that James would ever do such a thing. Not on purpose, at least.
There was more blinking and silence and Lily fell back onto her pillows, wailing and sobbing as though in some sort of horrible, grieving pain. There was nothing for it.
"That's bad?"
"Horrible!" groaned Lily. "Absolutely the worst. I've spent the whole time I've known him begging him to leave me alone, telling him to sod off, reminding him how annoying and detestable he is! And then he went and slept with you without ever stopping pledging his undying love for me! What kind of stalker is he that he can't even refrain from pursuing others?"
Decima frowned.
"Lily, I pursued him. He was a not-exactly-willing participant. We've gone over this. Sirius overreacted exactly as I wanted him to. And James felt horrible. Do you know why he felt horrible?"
"Because he slept with his best friend's girl!"
"You would think that, wouldn't you," said Decima with a fond smirk. Ah, those boys. "Actually, it was because he felt he had betrayed you. Sirius was a bit of an afterthought. But don't tell Sirius that."
Gwen had just erupted in a fit of giggles and fell of the bed, rolling on the floor, trying in vain to suppress them. Thankfully, the big girls on the bed had more pressing things to consider, so Lily hardly noticed.
"But even if I did agree to go out with him," said Lily, "and I'm not saying I would… Decima, I've never… He would expect… I'm not you!"
Decima raised an eyebrow.
"What does that mean, exactly?"
"Just that I've never…" Lily blushed. "I didn't mean you're…"
"I know," said Decima. "Look, Lily, I may not have had a lot of good examples of it growing up, but my ordeal with the Black family has taught me a thing or two about love, and unconditional love, and let me tell you, if that boy so much as thought of shagging another girl, which I truly doubt he would, I'd hex him thoroughly on your behalf and remind him what his hands are for."
Lily blinked, horrified.
"Th-thanks… I think."
"What she means to say," said Gwen, who had recovered herself and was now sitting up on the floor, "is that James absolutely loves you, biased though he may be, and it's worth giving it a go since you've suddenly found yourself attracted to him. You could always go back to saying no if it doesn't work out."
"But–"
"No," said Decima, holding up a hand to stop Lily. "You are not questioning, second guessing, or in any other way talking yourself out of this. Now you are going to sit here and think happy, hopeful thoughts about life and love and mankind and all that warm fuzzy stuff and we are going to inform James that you two have a date next weekend at Hogsmeade. No Marauders. Just the two of you. Wear something nice, but not fancy. We'll be planning your locations carefully so he doesn't do something stupid just out of pure guy nature, and if you don't end up wanting to stab yourself after one date, the rest is up to you two, do I make myself perfectly clear?"
Shocked, Lily nodded.
"Good," said Gwen. "And for the future, Lily, if you need a friend or just someone to talk to, you've always got us, even if it takes you longer than you'd hoped to patch up things with Mary."
They left the pretty redhead on her bed, shocked, with swollen, red eyes and returned to the Marauder's dormitory, where James was lying on his own bed, practically catatonic, staring at the ceiling as though trying to find some answers to his Lily dilemma on it.
"It's a date," said Decima swiftly as they entered and all jaws in the room dropped, stunned. "Next weekend, James, you'll be accompanying one Miss Lily Evans to Hogsmeade. Gwen and I will give you a list of acceptable date locations, I'll be picking out your outfit. She's allergic to slimy Slytherins and currently to a Miss Mary MacDonald, so avoid them at all possibility. No fights. No taunts. Focus your attention on her. If you behave like a big boy and things work out, you'll not only have to thanks profusely, by us expensive presents, name your daughters after us, et cetera, but you'll also be on your own in the dating department."
"So behave, because we're not doing this again," said Gwen with a frown.
"Now if you'll all excuse me," said Decima, crawling onto Sirius's bed and kicking off her shoes, "I believe I was in the middle of something before I was so rudely interrupted with the quest you pushed upon me."
Sirius smirked and closed the curtains as she pushed him back down onto the bed, ignoring the sounds of gagging and groaning from the room around them. All that mattered was Sirius, and she thanked Merlin she had him with every kiss he placed on her bare, hungry skin.