Ex Intempestivo Pax
Chapter 8
Rivalry To Last Ages
I truly love James, but sometimes I really hate him...
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, nor do I own the Harry Potter Series.
"Padfoot, please explain to me why I was stupid enough to agree to go to Lily's sister's party. I must have been out of my bloody mind!"
"Let's face it, Prongs, you've been out of your mind since about third year; out of your mind with 'love' that is. I mean, what else could have possibly possessed you to go into the same house as the person who hates you so much that only SNIVELLUS hates you more!?"
"Very true, Padfoot; I mean, she is almost as unforgiving as Lily, and twice as thin-skinned! I mean, in hindsight it could have been done better, but it was all just a prank!"
Sirius chuckled in remembrance of what happened last month; James had been getting shown around the Dursley's house by Petunia, who had been acting all hoity-toity and mocking him for his ignorance, when she showed them the Dursley's bedroom. It was a fairly normal bedroom, but James had been truly shocked to see just how many clothes there were in her just-barely open closet, as witches rarely bothered with having THAT much clothing.
Petunia had then started laughing at him and James, quite annoyed, had charmed all of her clothing to fly at her, covering her from head-to-toe. Unfortunately, that incident had taken their relationship from overprotective sister and sister's fiance to mortal enemies as she had never forgiven him for it. In fact, she had even shouted to Lily in front of him once "I never thought I'd say this, but I think I might prefer that nasty boy from Spinner's end to your fiance and his goons! And THAT says a lot!"
Mind you, that incident had been after Sirius had used a tripping jinx on her, sending her crashing to the floor; still though... James sighed ruefully, as Petunia had never forgiven either of them when it had only been a harmless prank or two; James and Sirius had apologized to her, but the damage had already been done apparently, as she would glare at them as soon as either of them entered the room. Suddenly, Sirius said, "You know, Prongs, it says in this magazine here that Muggle women really 'dig' this guy and how he looks..."
Glancing over, James saw that Sirius was holding a very faded Muggle magazine for women while pointing to one picture in particular. It was about some Muggle guy by the name of Elvis Presley, wearing a black leather jacket. For a moment, James thought that Sirius might have gotten more banged-up than he thought in the the battle against those Death Eaters last week, but then he understood and grinned, saying aloud, "Padfoot, you're a genius! If Muggle women like this guy, then this could be my ticket to being liked by Lily's sister!"
Quickly, the two of them transfigured their suit-and-tie combos into exact replicas of the clothing worn by that Elvis Presley person, then Sirius said with a smirk, "See? You can always trust Padfoot...except when it comes to cooking, then you're screwed."
James then hit him lightly on the shoulder as the two of them apparated into the Dursley's house. While normally it was considered rather impolite to apparate inside a dwelling without knocking first, when one had already been invited, or was family, it was considered to be acceptable. Nonetheless, James and Sirius apparated into one of the upstairs closets out of worry that one of Lily's sister's friends might see them, breaking the Statute of Secrecy.
Unfortunately, neither of them had remembered that in houses with families that were less wealthy than their own, the closets were generally smaller, as such, it took several minutes to exit the linen closet with both of them as crushed as they were. However, after brushing themselves off a bit, they grinned and walked downstairs to join the party...
As she watched her sister's fiance and his sidekick walk down the stairs, Petunia moaned in despair at the sight of what they were wearing; she had specifically asked that everyone dress formally, as this was to be a big day for her. Apparently, those nitwits had decided that that meant black leather was a necessity, and one of them hadn't even been invited to begin with. 'If Snape is anything like those two and walks in here wearing an Elvis Presley imitator's costume, then I am going to go positively berserk...'
Still, she had to look on the bright side: if Snape were successful in his plans to get Lily to dump this meat-headed moron, then she would never have to see the prat again. When Lily had introduced him to the family, although Petunia was very apprehensive about the fact that her sister's boyfriend was a wizard, she had decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Of course, then this Potter fellow had decided to make all of her clothes attack her, covering her to the point that she was having difficulty breathing while he was busy laughing his head off.
After the incident had finished, Potter had quickly apologized for it, saying that he had just meant it as a harmless joke. However, Petunia could tell that he wasn't REALLY sorry, just worried that she might tell her sister. Lily might have a hard time telling genuine apologies from fake ones, but Petunia wasn't hampered by her sister's belief in the basic goodness of humanity.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the time for musing over her sister's worthless fiance, as she had to play the part of the good hostess and greet him. Also unfortunately, Snape had forbade her from antagonizing the man as he had something else up his sleeve, so Petunia pasted on a smile, walked over to him and said, "Mr. Potter...I'm sure my sister will be very glad to see you; she's been rather twitchy up until now..."
At that, James gulped; he had been worried about something like this ever since last night. Even though it was for a good cause, the excuse he had made to go out marauding with the boys under the full moon had probably not endeared him much to Lily. He knew that he probably should have told Lily about Remus being a werewolf some time ago, but she probably wouldn't care much for the fact that he had been lying to her about it for so long.
Frowning, James decided that he would tell Lily as soon as possible...after the wedding of course. If he told her beforehand, then it was possible that she might call off the wedding or push it back, and he wanted to get married to her before this short period of calm in the war wore off. Nodding as he came to a decision, he walked over to Lily and saw something that made him absolutely sick: the legendarily greasy git, Severus Snape, TALKING to LILY. Obviously he was the cause of Lily's twitchiness, as his mere presence had that effect on smart people, such as James.
James would have probably hexed the arrogant, slimy berk, but there were Muggles nearby. As such, he was limited to walking over and saying coldly to the probable Death Eater, "I believe that you are bothering my wife, Snape, so get lost!"
However, rather than being happy at his rescuing her from a slimeball like Snivellus, Lily looked quite annoyed until her eyes widened as she took a good look at his clothing. James smirked slightly and turned around once to let her take a good look at him, only for him to suddenly wince when she grabbed his ear and whispered, "Remind me to ask what the hell you were thinking when you got dressed this morning, OK?"
Although Severus didn't show it on his face, inside he was smirking as Lily whispered angrily to Potter; Things had apparently gone better than he hoped, considering that Potter had clearly made a complete fool out of himself. As such, he frowned slightly, then said with a tone of mild disappointment, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize, Lily; I'll leave you and your husband to yourselves..."
Lily, as if on queue, quickly responded as she put her hand on Potter's shoulder to calm him down, "James, don't worry, Severus and I are doing just fine..." She then smirked mischieviously, and Severus had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as she said, "...However, I've been meaning to ask Sirius about the raid at St. Michael's last week. Why don't the two of you talk to each other? We're all adults here after all, even if your clothes were popular when we were about five, James..."
Sirius could only look on in an expression of horror that was only exceeded by those worn by James and Snivillus as he allowed himself to be lead a few feet away. He was thankful for only one thing: if it came to a pitched battle between James and that Death Eater piece of garbage then as least it was only's Lily's bint of a sister's house.
As soon as the two of them were far enough away not to be overheard by those they had just left, Sirius whispered frantically, "Er, Lily, are you INSANE!? Putting Snape and James in the same room as each other is like putting Voldemort in the same room as the Muggleborn Rights group leader!"
Sirius was beginning to think that the answer to his first question was 'YES!' when Lily grinned and said nonchalantly, "Well, you know how Severus and James have never really gotten along...and I just made the understatement of the decade? Well, I've been thinking; it's high time that Severus got over his rivalry with James, don't you think? I mean, even though Sev kept attacking him at least twice a month, James NEVER retaliated beyond the level of self-defense. I mean, if I'm going to be friends with him again, he and my husband will probably have to get along, won't he?"
Sirius looked away, then said, "Err, I suppose that he will have to I guess..." He then turned and looked at her, "...But Lily, you gave up on the git for a good reason, remember? He's still Slytherin, and probably a Death Eater too; he might have been your friend a long time ago, maybe, but he and his kind torture and kill Muggleborns such as yourself because they enjoy it. Honestly, do you really want a friend like that?"
Lily opened her mouth and was about to respond when she remembered Dumbledore's message from last week, when Severus had told her about his joining of the Order. Dumbledore had made it especially clear that under no circumstances was she to reveal the fact that Severus was a member to ANYONE, and that doing so would likely result in a slow, painful death for her friend. Even James wasn't exempt from this instruction according to Dumbledore.
As such, Lily quickly deflected the subject, saying pensively, "Hmm... Oh, Sirius, how do you think things are going at Ye Auld Ministrie? Think that Bagnold has actually managed to slow the Death Eaters down like she claims?"
Her scheme worked perfectly, as Sirius then scowled, before starting off on a long rant about how Bagnold's pussyfooting around the Death Eaters was doing more harm than good. It was rather illuminating, even if Sirius spent half of the time complimenting himself or James about their brilliant schemes as Aurors.
It had been quite a surprise to Lily when James had told her that he wanted to be an Auror to catch Dark wizards, rather than going on to play Quidditch like she had always supposed, but he was undeniably effective at predicting the actions of criminals.
Lily suspected that the reason that James had such a skill was because of how he had always been such a arrogant, bullying prat during his early school years, but she was proud of how he was taking advantage of the opportunity to show that he could be a major force of good and a hero like he had always claimed to be...
Meanwhile, Petunia had snuck over by Potter and Snape in the hopes that Snape's plan might have gone into action; while she couldn't say that she cared for the man, Snape wasn't ALL that bad for a wizard apparently, based on what she was hearing. Apparently, from what Potter had said, he was enemies of all good wizards; as that list probably included Potter and his thugs, that was definitely a good thing...
'I do wonder what he means by 'Aurors' though. Still, if he's threatening to have them investigate Snape if he doesn't leave Lily alone, then that cannot be a good thing...' Petunia mused to herself for a moment.
Then Petunia remembered that she had invited all her family and her absolute closest friends here for a reason beyond merely letting them mingle, and hopefully breaking off Lily's engagement with Potter once she got the chance to compare him to some good, NORMAL people. The latter would hopefully make Lily realize what a huge mistake she was about to make, however...
Mind you, this was all very important, as Petunia dearly wanted her sister to return to being a normal person. Still, she had been planning all of this for months in order to let them all know something very important and special to her. As such, she then walked over to an obviously pleased Vernon and cleared her throat, before saying, "Now that we've all had time to mingle, would everyone be willing to move into the dining area? Vernon and I have an announcement to make..."
Author's Note: In case any of you are wondering, it isn't so much that Petunia LIKES Severus, as that she truly hates James for his actions and how she thinks that he isn't truly sorry for his actions. She is a woman who cares very much about appearences, at least as far as clothing and manners, so is it particularly surprising that she would hate a man like James?
Don't forget, Petunia's opinion of James is biased in this chapter, so be warned and don't take everything she thinks/says as gospel...
In contrast to James, I view Petunia's opinion of Severus as comparable to Harry's opinion of Cormac McLaggen in book six: she can tolerate him, but she dislikes him greatly. After all, in spite of the issuest between the two sisters, I'm sure that Petunia would have had to be able to coexist with him for at least six or seven years, considering his friendship with Lily.
Lastly, remember how Sirius said that Severus never missed an opportunity to jinx the Marauders? Assuming that Lily didn't know of Severus' continued bullying by James, imagine how that must have looked to her... I mean, it probably looked like Severus was just continually attacking the Marauders for no reason other than past grudges and his own hatred...
The contents of James' conversation with Severus will be revealed in a later chapter=).
