Chapter 15: At Peace
"Remus, what am I supposed to get James? I can't think of anything! What kind of girlfriend am I, not able to get her boyfriend she's known for six and a half years a proper present?" I whined in defeat, sitting on a bench outside some store. We'd gone through several shops with no avail.
"You'll think of something, Lily." Remus assured me, patting my shoulder sympathetically. He and Peter sat down on either side of me. I managed to find presents for the both of them. For Peter, food obviously. Nothing would make him happier. Although, I did add a book on weight loss. I hoped he would pick up the hint. For Remus, it was harder. I actually got him two presents, one for his birthday next week, and another for Christmas. For his birthday, I got him a few sweets from Zonko's and a few new quills. For Christmas, I got him a muggle series of books called Sherlock Holmes. Mum gave me them last Christmas and I thought he might enjoy them.
"He's not even a girl! I can't get him jewelry either!" I added, putting my head in my hands. I heard Remus mutter something like 'Oh, as if that weren't obvious. I have seen him without any clothes' I snickered a little. I don't think I've heard Remus use sarcasm once. It's probably Sirius' influence. I got Sirius a book on how to get rid of fleas, he always complained about the 'bloody fleas' after animagus transformation, and I figured he might actually read for once. I also got him a new set of Exploding Snap cards since Filch took his away last week. Filch hated Sirius even more than he did before because of all the detentions. He often went out of his way searching for an excuse to expel him.
"You know, you could always get him food." Peter suggested unhelpfully. I glared at him. "What? We men like our food." He said defensively. I snorted and rolled my eyes.
"Well sitting here isn't exactly going to help. We should keep looking and walking around." I said, rising to my feet. Remus and Peter groaned. I didn't exactly blame them. I found shopping really boring too, but this was an important cause. "Here, why don't we go into this store?" I asked them, pointing to the store behind us. They groaned even louder. It was a clothing store. I pulled them by the arm anyway. I pushed open the door and shoved them inside. I moved through the racks of clothes. I went to the back of the store, where the men's section was. I moved up and down it, trying to find things that would catch my eye. I finally found a nice, blue shirt. It was ordinary and completely plain but there was something about it that had its own charm. So, I went ahead and bought it.
Mum always complained about how I did things like that. She said I was my own species of an implusive shopper. I rarely had any impulses or gut feelings to buy something, but when I did, I bought it without a second's thought. I went back to Peter and Remus, who were relieved to know that we were leaving already. They were so happy that they agreed to go into another store. This one was mostly a decorative item store.
The second I pushed open the door, I saw exactly what I needed. It was a doe and a stag figurine. There was wildlife surrounding it and a large, red heart in the middle. There were clouds that floated above the doe and stag and an angel coming out of them. With a bit of simple charmwork, I'd be able to turn the angel's hair red and engrave something into the gold plate at the base. I quickly walked over to it. It was in perfect, great condition, and it was a little expensive, but worth the money. I went to pay for it and the cashier put a protection charm on it that would prevent it from breaking.
"Okay, we should get these back to our dorms." Remus said with a sigh of happiness. "Misty?" Remus called out. The little house elf I'd seen back on my first date with James appeared with a pop!
"Yes, master Remus?" She asked in her soprano voice. Remus cringed at the word master, but didn't say anything.
"Take this to Lily's dorm," He told her, giving her my bags, "and these to my dorm." and gave her his and Peter's bags.
"Okay!" She said, her eyes twinkling in a way that would give Dumbledore a run for his money. Clearly she like being told to work, which I would never get, but I guess it was in their nature.
"Thank you, Misty." Remus told her with a smile and she disappeared with a pop!
"Alright, now what? When are we supposed to meet Sirius and James?" I asked. Remus looked at his wristwatch
"Right now." I nodded and started walking the way of the Three Broomsticks. I looked upwards. They sky was grey and there were dark clouds scattered everywhere. It looked like it may snow at any moment. I looked around some more, watching happy couples go for a walk, friends talking and laughing. It seemed as though the world was oblivious to the dark forces outside the safe protection of Hogwarts.
"Remus, I said, suddenly as the thought struck me. "Don't you think it's a little too happy right now? Where are the Junior Death Eaters? Why aren't they at Hogsmeade like everyone else? Dow you think they're planning something dangerous?"
"No Lily, they're probably serving detention for their nighttime wanderings." Remus replied logically.
"Oh." I replied weakly, feeling slightly stupid because I freaking out over nothing.
"Wormtail, would you please stop eating. We're here." Remus said with an impatient sigh. He opened the door to the Three Broomsticks.
"Actually, you guys go ahead. I'm going back to the castle. I still haven't finished the Potions essay." He said. Remus and I glanced at each other and shrugged.
"Alright, see you later then." Remus said with a wave.
"Bye, Peter." I said, my teeth chattering a little because of the cool breeze. He turned around with a final wave and headed back towards the castle. Remus and I entered the pub, which was presumably warmed up with a few simple charms. I needed to remember to put that on my bed tonight. We took a table in the back near the corner and ordered two hot drinks while we waited.
"Moony, as irresistible as she is, I hope you kept your hands off my girlfriend." James joked as he slid in the seat next to me. He slipped his arm around my waist and gave me a peck on the lips.
"Lilyflower, as irresistible as he is, I hope you kept your hands off my boyfriend." Sirius said, attempting to mimic James. Remus cringed when Sirius tried to lean in and kiss him. Remus pushed him away and scooted away from him. I rolled my eyes at the pair.
"Lily, you found everything alright?" James asked, stopping a potential conversation about Sirius' sexual orientation.
"Yeah, we did." I replied. "Well, all except your gift." I corrected.
"She actually dragged me and Wormtail into a clothing store at one point. Luckily, we left quickly." Remus said, shuddering at the memory.
"Speaking of Wormtail, where is he?" Sirius asked, looking under the table, as though Peter might be hiding from him.
"He went to go finish his Potions essay." Remus told him, taking a sip of his drink.
"What? We were supposed to finish that together, tomorrow!" Sirius whined.
"Look at it this way; At least you can copy off of his now, without doing all that extra work." James pointed out.
"Don't give him ideas!" Remus and I protested.
"Pssh. My genius mind would've thought of it anyway!" Sirius said, puffing his chest out. I rolled my eyes.
"You know, we all have a trademark-move thing." Sirius said randomly. "Like, Prongs has his whole hair-ruffling thing, Lily rolls her eyes, Wormtail eats, I hug, and Moony…" His voice trailed off. "You don't have one." He told Remus. "You have to have one! We all do, even Lily and she's only an honorary Maruder." Sirius exclaimed. I rolled my eyes. Remus raised an eyebrow. "That's it!" Sirius screamed enthusiastically, turning a few heads. "You can raise an eyebrow as your trademark." Sirius exclaimed. Remus sighed in defeat. "And Lily, we need a nickname for you, since you're now an honorary Marauder." Sirius said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. I rolled my eyes.
"I'm touched." I replied sarcastically. Sirius didn't seem to pay attention. He was too busy thinking of a name.
After twenty minutes of discussing Quidditch with James and Remus, he finally had some sort of breakthrough.
"Okay, I have an idea!" Sirus yelled, which once again, turned a few, now irate, heads. "I don't have any real ideas, too much thinking," He explained. "So we'll just call her Red." He finished. I rolled my eyes. Red? Really? Could he get more unoriginal?
"Real original." I muttered sarcastically. James snickered.
"Hey guys, look, it's snowing!" Remus yelled, jumping up and running to the window. I looked outside. He was right; Little, white fakes were falling and quickly covering the ground.
"Nice try Moony, but I'm not falling for your childish antics." Sirius said, crossing his arms over his chest and turning the other way. I rolled my eyes. It was becoming an hourly habit with him around.
"Padfoot, he's right." James assured him. I nodded in agreement.
"Red, you too?" Oh alright." He turned around and his face lit up. "AWESOME!" He bellowed, pumping his fist. He jumped up and ran out the door with Remus following, equally excited.
"I have heard him yell like that in a while." I realized out loud.
"Yeah, I only realized over summer that he gets quieter when he's sad, on the inside, of course. Ever since I first met him, his voice was obnoxiously loud. I thought that was just how he talked until he quieted over summer and stayed liked that until recently. I realized it was because he was sad." James explained, only slightly morosely. I smiled. I was really glad Sirius was happy. He deserved to be. As much of a prat he was, he's friendly, smart (although, I'd never admit it to his face), brave, hilarious, and had a good morale. None of us had to rebel against a family of Death Eaters. I laughed silently at the thought of Sirius being a "bad boy". His dark hair, good-looking features, looming figure, troubled household, and yet a sensitive heart would make it perfect.
"Let's go play in the snow!" I exclaimed, breaking out of my reverie. I pulled James up. I loved the cold and the snow a lot more than summer. I hated the heat. James smiled brightly and let me drag him to where Sirius and Remus were.
"Red, it's time to play in the snow, Marauder style!" Sirius exclaimed, flashing me a toothy grin.
"Alright, so first, we get more snow." Remus said, flicking his wand and muttering something. Four large mounds of snow about ten feet high appeared.
"Then we pick teams. I call Lily." James added, bringing me closer to him.
"And we make rules. I get to choose this time, so: You can only use the snow you have, can't transfigure or conjure up more, or taking it from the ground. You can only use anything you have on you, in other words, you can't Accio something. You can build the fort using magic, but only using the snow. The fort has to be 100% snow. When you run out of snow from your mound, you have to start taking it from your fort. When your fort can't cover you and your partner completely, you lose." Sirius told me. "Okay, five minutes to build the fort." Sirius said. "Timer, Remus?" Remus conjured a timer and set it to five. "NOW!" Remus clicked the timer. James took me a few yards away from them.
"Okay, first, do some warming charms on both of us." James instructed. I performed the charm and nodded so he would know. "Now, do that charm so my glasses will be protected and I'll still be able to see if the snow hits them." He said. I did that one, too. "Now, I like to make my forts fancy and symbolic. You can use our second mound to make some snowballs." He instructed. I nodded and turned around to start clumping the snow into snowballs, magically of course. I remembered seeing the Marauders playing this game dozens of times before. I wasn't stalking, I always thought the forts were extraordinary magic and the tactics were pretty intricate.
"Alright. I've made snowballs out of our last…" I started, but stopped, to gape at our fort. It was beautiful. It was a doe and a stag right next to each other, leaving no space in the middle. It was a good seven feet high, so it could easily cover James' 5 foot 11 inch frame. "Wow." I managed to say. James laughed.
"I'm especially proud of this one; it's turned out the best of all my other ones." He said. "Now, can you do that charm to protect it, in case they target the fort instead of us?" He asked. I did as he said, and reminded myself to teach him the actual names of the charms. Knowing the names of the charms themselves were as important as knowing the incantation, according to Flitwick, anyway. "So, Sirius forgot that I have my cloak with me. If you levitate me with my cloak on to the top of our fort, I can attack from up there and it'll take them a while to realize what's happening. When they do, they'll never be able to reach the height-It's too high." I nodded in agreement. I don't think either of them could throw about seven feet and at that steep angle, too. BRIIINNNNGGGG
"Red, Prongs, Time's up!" Sirius yelled from the other side of our fort.
"This is tradition; we walk up to them, shake their hands, glare for exactly a minute at the person standing across from us and come back, alright?" James told me as we walked in front of the fort. I nodded. These people and their silly traditions.
I looked at Remus and Sirius' fort. It was a large dog, presumably for Sirius' animagus form. It was only about one and a half feet taller than ours.
"Evans. Potter." Sirius greeted by nodding his head at each of us.
"Black. Lupin." James replied, in the same manner Sirius had. I shook hands with Sirius…or would he be Black now…? I shook hands with Black and glared, wondering how on Earth I managed to keep a straight face. The entire situation was too comical not to. He glared right back. It seemed like forever, but finally, James took my hand and led me back to the back of our fort. "Okay, we have exactly three minutes before we actually start. When we do, you need to make sure you aren't the first one to throw a snow ball, okay? I mean, unless like three minutes have passed, don't throw a single one. Now, quickly levitate me up there." He said, pulling his cloak out of his pocket.
"How am I supposed to know that you reached there if I can't see you?" I asked him, raising my wand to levitate him.
"Hmm…good point. Oh, I know, I'll just hold this snow ball out and then you'll be able to tell where I am." He said, covering his body half-way.
"Alright," I said hesitantly. It was worth a shot. He covered himself entirely, and stuck out the arm holding a snowball. "Wingardium Leviosa." I said, my wand pointing at him. I raised my arm and slowly levitated him to the head of the stag. I noticed the head was very flat at the top. He probably made it to suit the plan. I set him down and his arm put the snow ball down. He gave me a thumbs up. I smiled back. He pointed to the right of me. I looked where he was pointing and it was the stash of snowballs. He wanted me to levitate some up there. I set aside a pile of about twenty and levitated all of them right near him. He gave me another thumbs up. I figure I could keep a watch on him and levitate him some more if he ran out.
"Evans, Potter, it's time to begin. Hopefully you two aren't shagging back there. OW! Moony, did you have to hit me?" I heard Sirius' voice say.
"YES." Remus…er, Lupin and I responded in unison.
"LET IT BEGIN!" Sirius bellowed. At first, there were no movements. Everyone stayed still, no snowballs were thrown. My heart was pounding, waiting for the first attack. After about two minutes of dead silence, the first snowball was thrown. It was aimed, as James predicted, at our fort. I could hear Sirius curse loudly when nothing happened to our fort. I saw a snowball launch at their side, and it was probably James. I knew the snowball had hit because I heard a girlish scream from one of them. I giggled and performed a disillusionment charm on myself. Sure the footsteps would show up, but only if they took notice. I wasn't going to go past our fort. I stepped carefully, trying not to make any clear imprints in the ground. I picked up a snowball from our stash that I brought with me and threw it and their fort, trying to go with the tactics they had. Of course, they didn't protect their as we did, so part of the dog crumbled. I quickly threw more snowballs and the dog's feet, hoping the entire thing would crumble if the base did. My last snowball did nothing to the fort, so I assumed that Remus finally put the charm on his fort that I did with ours. This was going to get difficult. I disillusioned myself and moved back, contemplating what to do.
"Lily, I have another idea!" James said, appearing next to me. I jumped a foot.
"MERLIN, James don't do that!" I yelped. He ignored me.
"Okay, so we both protected our forts, right? Why don't we just go on offense? Their fort is about two feet shorter than it was before, thanks to your brilliance, so we can afford to go on offense. We have the upper hand." He said. "So, we're going to weaken their forces…pelt as many snowballs as we can at them. You take left, I'll take right and above." He said. I walked over to the left of our fort.
"How are you taking above?" I asked. He brought out his wand and I nodded.
"Alright…go!" He said. I threw several snowballs to their side. I stopped for a few moments and felt a snowball hit my leg. I turned around no one was there…but there were footsteps in the snow leading about a five feet away from me. It was Sirius, Remus would've remembered to cover his tracks. I began rapidly firing snowballs at him, not stopping, until he decided to run back, shown by the foot steps. I smiled wide. My piled needed restocking once more and I looked to our master pile to see several snowballs being lifted off the ground. They were moving to the direction of Sirius and Remus' fort when they stopped suddenly. And it hit me, no, not the snowball. Sirius was just a distraction so Remus could take them. I threw several snowballs at Remus and he automatically dropped ours. I sent the snowballs that he dropped flying towards him with my wand. I made him reappear again and he fell on his back, I moved closer and pelted him a few more times. He covered himself as much as he could, but it was a lost battle.
"Do you surrender?" I asked innocently. Remus eyed the arm that still had a snowball in it. Remus smiled wide and I was confused for a moment, what was he so happy about? I felt two hands push me and I landed right on top of Remus.
"You know Lily, not that I don't like you or anything, but you're kind of with my best mate." He said cheekily. I rolled my eyes.
"Very funny." I muttered, getting off of him. "As I was saying, do you surrender?" I asked, once again threatening him with the snowball. He raised an eyebrow.
"HA! I GOT YOU NOW BLACK!" I heard James roar from behind me. I wanted to turn around, but I was afraid Remus might make a move if I did. However, I didn't need to. Sirius fell right next to Remus, probably because James sent him soaring. I was surprised it didn't hurt. After all, the hard land was still there. Sirius only smiled evilly. James came over.
"Nice job." He complimented.
"You did well too." I replied, smiling. He leaned in and kissed me, causing Sirius and Remus to groan.
"OKAY! We surrender, this punishment is bad enough! AUGH THE PAIN! MY INNOCENCE!" Sirius wailed, covering his eyes. James and I broke apart, but he put a warm hand around my shoulders. I rolled my eyes.
"Your innocence? I'm pretty sure you lost that about six years ago." I reminded him. He stuck his tongue out at me.
"HA! We win!" James yelled triumphantly.
"Don't be too happy. You only get bragging rights…at least until the next snowfall!" Remus said with a smug grin. We all broke out into laughter and James and I sat down across from them, enjoying this wonderful day. I was really glad everything turned out great today, and not a death eater or jealous girl in sight! We really needed more days like this.
A/N: Hey guys. I've been feeling kind of down lately.
My mom told me a few days ago she got breast cancer. Thankfully, she only had it for a month before she realized (good thing her closest friend specializes in breast cancer) so she'll be fine, but the news isn't something to take lightly.
I'm surprised I managed to write such a happy chapter. And the next one, which is already written is happy too. Funny how are brains work, eh?
So, please review, guys? It'll really make my day :)
Love,
SAM :)