Chapter 17: To Soon
"I couldn't have wished for better friends." James whispered as they sat in his sitting room. The fireplace illuminated five faces, solemn and tired. It was the Easter holidays and only five days had passed since James had sent the letter.
James ran a hand through his hair and sighed as he remembered the days events. It had been a long tiring day, first with the funeral then with the wake. His friends were going back to school tomorrow having only left for the funeral and he would certainly miss them. He glanced at the newest member of their group. Lily was curled up on the sofa by the fire dozing with a book in her hand. He so wanted to go over and comfort her, ask her to comfort him. His thoughts wandered back to the hug she had given him almost two weeks ago. It wasn't a particularly moving hug it was just different to being hit by her or by being jinxed.
He thought back over all the times he had written to his mother asking for advice on what to do. Her advice was the same as Marlene, Sirius and Remus' to treat her like a human being and not some object of desire. It worked; six months ago Lily wouldn't of even been in the same room as him, now she was always with them. It had partly to do with the fact that Marlene never left Sirius' side and Lily and Marlene were best friends, but Lily had other friends yet she decided to spend her time with them.
James tore his gaze away from the gorgeous red-head as she stirred slightly the book falling from her lap.
James wouldn't be back until Sunday but the boys were already in thoughts for what they could do. James needed a little pick-me up and they had the perfect idea, they just needed to prepare for it. First thing they did when they landed in Marlene's fire place on Thursday morning was head straight for Zonko's. They thought, that seen as they had permission to be in Hogsmeade that day they might as well use it to their full advantage. They tried to get the girls involved but Lily was determined to start studying for the end of year exams and as much as Marlene would've loved to stay she was falling behind in her practical potion work and needed Lily's help. Not for the first time that year did she wish Lily was still friends with Severus Snape and his lovely potion books.
"Lils can you help me with my antidote?" Marlene asked as they made their way across the lawns and up to the castle. Lily nodded and Marlene grinned, "and my Charms and Herbology? Oh and maybe my Transfiguration and Runes..."
"Do you want me to help you in all your classes?" Lily was smiling she knew how her friend got when it was nearly exam time.
"Can you sit next to me in the exam and whisper me the answers using that muggle invention... a cup on a string?"
Lily cracked up and linked arms with her friend. "Come, we'll go to Library and I'll help you study, we'll do what we did last year, you did pretty well in your OWLs."
Marlene smiled, "says the girl with ten Os." Marlene hadn't done too bad with her OWLs, enough to make her parents happy at any rate. Her lowest was an A (for History of Magic and Astronomy) she then got 4 Es (for Potions, Herbology, Charms and Muggle Studies) and the rest (Transfiguration, Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Defence Against the Dark Arts) were Os. "I'm dreading next year though."
"That's why if we start now, it'll be easy we won't be cramming it at the end."
"I hate end of year exams." Marlene muttered but let Lily drag her to the Library all the same.
Within half an hour of being back at Hogwarts, James had, had enough he couldn't walk anywhere without people coming up to him and saying how sorry they were and giving him sympathy. His friends were no help, they were in the library working on their homework – or rather getting Remus to do their homework for them. James would have joined them but he had finished his at home using his homework as an excuse to escape reality – only to find out out when he arrived that McGonagal had exempt him from all homework and the detention he was supposed to serve nearly two weeks ago.
He rounded a corner escaping from two 5th year Ravenclaws girls - who looked as though they would tie his shoelaces if he asked them to – and ran head first into Lily.
"Ouch. Oh Sorry Lily-Fl.... sorry Lily." He bent down to pick up the books that had been dropped in the collision and handed them back to her.
Lily glared at him, he had nearly called her Lily-Flower. She took back her books and gave a slight nod of her head in thanks before turning and walking back the way she came. She didn't really want to speak to him she still didn't know what to say.
James stared after her. He hadn't meant to call her Lily-Flower it just came out. He took off at a run hurrying to catch up with her, instead of grasping her hand and pulling her back he skirted round her and blocked her path. Lily raised her eyebrows but stopped all the same.
"Can I talk to you?" He had be meaning to talk to her for months but whenever he saw her, he just concentrated on acting normal around her and not show off.
Lily looked at him as if he had sprouted rabbit ears but nodded and allowed him to walk side by side.
"Thank you for coming to my mother's funeral. I know you must have felt really awkward and out of place but I really appreciated you being there." He watched her carefully gauging her reaction. She looked momentary stunned but then just nodded her head again. They walked in silence for a while not really bothering if the stairs changed and where they were going.
Lily listened to the sound of their shoes as they hit the stone, the sound of the portraits making idle conversation, anything to keep her thoughts from going the way they were going. Never in a million years did she think she would walk side-by-side by James Potter and have a semi-decent conversation – okay so James talking and her listening, but could you really call James' sentence a conversation? Her mind went over what he had said, "appreciated you being there." What was that suppose to mean, was that him being his normal arrogant self? He had sounded and looked so sincere and Lily so wanted to believe he had changed.
She felt his hand on the small of her back and whirled around surprised. "Did you just put a HEX ME sign on my back?" She accused shifting her books so she could feel for a bit of parchment.
James looked bewildered and shook his head. "I was just guiding you, if you had continued down this corridor you would've have ended up outside the Slytherin common room. I kind of figured that would be the last place you'd want to be."
Lily blushed and turned down the corridor James had been trying to lead her down. Normally an act like that would equate to some sort of prank being played on her. "Thanks." She muttered still blushing.
James gave her a small smile and they continued walking in silence. He was a bit disappointed he had done that for two reasons, one was to guide her out of the way of the Slytherin common-room, the other was to see how she reacted. If she hadn't of reacted then he would have asked what he's been wanting to ask for five years. Only she reacted like she still didn't trust him. He started to raise a hand through his hair to purposely mess it up – an old habit – but stopped when he caught her looking at him.
"Thanks for walking with me." He said once they reached the entrance hall.
"Thing's are going to be all right." Lily said quietly fiddling with the spine of one of her books.
James looked at her. Nobody had said that to him, people always asked him how he was. To hear that and coming from Lily made a huge difference. He didn't feel as lonely any more. He smiled. "Thank you."
Lily gave him a small smile back but her green eyes were still wary of him. She nodded her head for a third time and started up the main stairs.
James sighed and finally allowed himself to mess up his hair. It was still to soon to ask her out. But he was getting close. They had walked – albeit in silence – for a good hour and half without feeling too uncomfortable.
"Lily where have you been?" Marlene exclaimed when Lily climbed through the portrait hole. "You went to the library for those books hours ago."
Lily shrugged not really wanting to explain she had been with James. "I just took a walk." She said plainly knowing Marlene would leave it at that.
She was right, Marlene just shrugged and grabbed the pile of books and added them to the already cluttered table.
"Walking with who?" Lily hadn't noticed Mary and Becky looking at her curiously.
Marlene rolled her eyes. "Leave her be. Hogwarts is a big place."
Lily was glad that Marlene had interjected as it gave her a few moments to hide her blush. She had been blushing a lot lately.
She was spared further questions from her classmates when the portrait opened and the marauders clattered through looking thoroughly pleased with themselves. Lily looked over at James surprised at how happy he looked, with his boyish grin and the bewildered look in his eyes. He caught her eye and sent a soft smile in her direction. Still blushing Lily busied herself at the table.
Sirius walked over to the girls and placed an arm around Marlene waist, scrunching his face up at the amount of books he turned her round and kissed her forehead. "Books rot your brain." He whispered.
Marlene raised an eyebrow and looked into his grey eyes. "What's your excuse?"
Sirius pouted, "Just because I don't read at school doesn't mean I don't read."
"Willy Wizard's First Alphabet doesn't count." James said from where he Remus and Peter had claimed their usual seats by the fire. He was referring to a popular child's book that taught young witches and wizards the alphabet by having a picture for each letter that wrote it's self and called out it's sound.
Sirius scowled and sat down on the sofa next to his friends.
"You dropped your self into that one mate." James said still smiling.
Sirius just muttered incoherently and gazed into the fire.
By the time Dinner came round the boys were nearly beside themselves, Peter was as giddy as he was when James was playing with his snitch and Sirius was eager to get down to the hall. Remus was excited but hid it behind his prefect exterior. Only James, Marlene and Lily were unperturbed by the fact that it was just dinner.
"Why are you guys so happy." James asked once they were all seated at their usual place for dinner.
Sirius just shrugged, "Wormtail stop looking you'll give it away."
Lily raised an eyebrow; "Give what away?" She asked using her prefect tone of voice.
"Nothing." Peter squeaked with a huge smile on his face.
Remus rolled his eyes; "Just watch."
"Watch what?" James asked slightly annoyed that his friends had planned something and he wasn't apart of it.
They didn't have to wait long, when a large group of Slytherins walked through the door to take their seats at the table Peter let out a huge squeak and jumped up and down in his seat excitedly. Sirius restrained him by spooning mash potato into his open mouth. James watched cautiously as the Slytherins all sat down and laughed with everyone else as they all landed on the floor.
Another group of Slytherins walked into the hall and sat down also ending up on the floor. The two groups of Slytherins looked at each other bewildered then down at the benches that lined their table.
A couple of the more thicker Slytherins tried the benches again just to make sure they hadn't actually missed judged, but when they fell through the bench as if it wasn't there they stood up and glared around. The students in the hall could hardly stop themselves from laughing.
One of the Slytherins pointed to a piece of string that was hanging from the ceiling. A note was attached to it: "Pull this string if you don't want your benches back." Avery and Mulciber looked at each other and made their way over to the string before pulling on it. A few of the smarter Slytherins who had noticed the negative tried to stop the two sixth years but before they could a loud fanfare rang out through the great hall and balloons and flower petals fell from the sky, including a huge banner suspended over the Slytherin table. "Welcome Back James Potter. Love from the Slytherins." The banner was written in red and gold paint and was decorated in hearts and kisses.
James was in stitches, "So this is what you've been hiding?" He asked glancing around at his friends.
Lily and Marlene held up their hands – they had nothing to do with this, they were as surprised as James.
"We hid the benches after lunch; they're basically pressed up against the wall with a disillusionment charm on them and a simple illusion charm to make it seem that the benches are still there. We knew the Slytherins would be dumb enough to pull on the string even though it said not to and volia a little welcome back present and a pick-me up." Sirius exclaimed puffing his chest out with pride.
"Thank you Mr Black for telling us where the Slytherin benches are and for admitting you were the brains behind it. You can come and see me tomorrow at 7pm for detention." Professor McGonagal had just been passing their table on her way up to the teachers table and had heard every word of Sirius' confession.
Sirius shrugged and turned back to his meal. "It was worth it for the look on Snivellus face. Look He's finally got Lily all over him." James looked over and noticed that Snape was indeed covered in Lily petals.
There was a clatter of plates as Lily stood up enraged, whipping out her wand she pointed it a Sirius who stood up bemused. "You arrogant pest, that was completely uncalled for."
"I thought you hated Snivellus?" Lily groaned in anger and flicked her wand at Sirius' face. Sending a silent hex she stormed out of the hall.
Marlene sucked her cheeks in and stared after her friend. She got up and looked down at Sirius. "You should go to Madam Pomfrey about that." She said coldly before running after Lily.
Sirius started after them confused, his face was covered in red angry boils and he winced when one of them popped. "What did I do?"
"You insulted Lily in that statement." James said swatting Peter's grubby hands away from the girls uneaten food. Grabbing a napkin he wrapped up some up a couple of Yorkshire puddings and a few slabs of roast beef before following after the girls.
Sirius glared at the three empty places and turned to Remus.
"You should get those boils checked out and maybe take some dittany to prevent scaring, then you should think about apologising to Lily and Marlene. I know it was just a normal comment for you, but you have to realise that Lily is now a regular member of our group and comments like that are offensive."
Sirius just groaned and placed his head in his hands yelping when a another boil popped.
A/N: This chapter took ages but now I have it finished I can speed forward as nothing really exciting happens For the next couple of chapters I recommend that you read (if you haven't already) J.K Rowlings Prequel about Sirius and James' run in with the muggle police as I will be referring to it soon. You can find it by Googling "Harry Potter Prequel" J.K Rowling wrote it in 2008 ( I think) for Chairty. You don't have to read it just be warned that I will be mentioning it in upcoming chapters :D oh and Please R&R also thank you for everyone who added me to their story alerts I was getting emails every five mins and a big thank you to everyone who reviewed including my regulars and a few new ones as well.