Ward Management

'Mate, you do realise that it's going to be the best weekend ever: Halloween on Friday, we'll trash the Slytherins on Saturday, then Hogsmeade on Sunday. What more can you ask for?' Sirius crowed sweeping his arms wide as if daring the world to try and contradict him.

'A little peace and quiet?' Remus groaned, covering his head with a pillow. He was still suffering after the full moon.

It had been a strangely subdued night; the werewolf reluctant to leave the Shack, and the Animagi had been wary of every sudden move it made. No one had any inclination to repeat last full moon's events; so it had been an odd night of creeping along, being a lot quieter than usual and almost, well, boring. The October full moon had also fallen on a Monday, which didn't help anyone and they were all exhausted in the aftermath.

Sirius was practically glowing though at the thought of a Feast, followed by the Quidditch match of the year, followed by a day in Hogsmeade. He had a plan for the day; spending some time with the Marauders and then meeting up with Lizzy. It was going to be a damn good weekend, and of course, they'd have to stock up on fireworks. It was Dorcas' birthday on the fifth of November, as well as Muggle Bonfire Night, and the Marauders never missed a chance for a party.

Sirius was looking forward to food, violence and certain activities that a day when most of the teachers thought everyone would be at Hogsmeade, would entail. Hopefully the Prefect's bathroom would be free; he had to remember to thank Remus for giving them the new password.

'Come on, Padfoot, I said I'd give Wormy a hand with his Potions,' James said, trying to coax Sirius out of the dorm so Remus could sleep, he patted his pockets, 'I'm sure I've got a biscuit here somewhere…'

Then he turned and ran as Sirius dived for him.

A few seconds later there was a scream from the Common Room, then the door banged shut and Remus lay back, closing his eyes. Hopefully he might be able to get some sleep now, he rolled over, exhausted muscles groaning in agony and almost immediately lost himself amid the duvet and pillows.

James sprinted down the stairs, Sirius hot on his tail and dived over the top of the first sofa, rolling across the floor and almost knocking over a first year girl. She screamed hysterically, a little over the top, James thought as he came to his feet and made for Peter, only to hit the floor suddenly as Sirius dodged the sofa, dived full length and tap tackled him.

He rolled over and found himself staring up at an angry looking Lily Evans.

'Hey, Lily, I can see right up your skirt from here,' he said without thinking.

Bollocks, he thought and said hastily, 'Just joking, sorry, that's the Padfoot in me speaking,' as she blushed and stepped quickly away from him.

She glared at him then actually spoke politely; not a demand, or shouting, or even a telling off. She asked, nicely, with only the hint of a glare in her eyes, 'Can you give me a hand with my Transfiguration?'

Sirius got the hint before Lily had even finished speaking; he jumped to his feet and headed across the room towards Peter, playfulness cast aside like a wet jacket. He went without even a cocky, 'Is that all you want a hand with, Evans?' and James was incredibly grateful. But then Sirius had been a bit different ever since the full moon incident; he seemed to react to James' least emotion and was spending a lot more time with Lizzy lately than he had any other girlfriend.

Lily was walking across to Alice to ask for help with her Transfiguration, when something flew across the room, just missing a First year and landed at her feet. It was James Potter.

He looked up at her from where he lay and told her quite frankly that he could see up her skirt. Then he suddenly apologised as he clambered to his feet, not a hint of a flush on his cheeks and Lily realised just how tall he was; she wasn't small, but she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. She stammered the first thing that came into her head; he was quite intimidating up close.

'I… er… Can you give me a hand with my Transfiguration?'

'Sure,' he said, and Lily knew she shouldn't have asked; he probably had far better things to do.

'I… Oh, don't worry, really; I'll ask Alice.'

'No, it's fine. I'll help; Alice looks busy.' He said without even looking round at where Alice and Frank were ensconced in an armchair near the fire. How had he had time to see them while fighting across the Common Room?

'I… err, okay,' Lily replied, blushing even further, 'Um, I'm working over here,' and turned away for a relatively quiet corner of the Common Room.

She led the way over and sat down in her chair before realising there wasn't another one nearby for James, 'Oh, um…'

'It's alright,' he said and pulled out his wand, a second later a hard-backed, wooden chair with a seat cushion appeared next to Lily's.

She stared.

'I… when did you learn to do that? We haven't done Conjuring yet…' She really seemed to have a speech problem this evening.

'Oh, was bored one evening and it's really not that hard,' He muttered offhand, leaning across the table to look at her notes.

'You were bored one evening? So you learnt advanced Conjuration?' Lily asked, amazed.

'It's not advanced,' He muttered something else under his breath that Lily didn't catch, before clearing his throat, 'Right, first of all; you've got Silas' Formula all wrong, it's got nothing to do with Ossein Transfiguration; that would be Yasov's Dichotomy.'

'Oh,' Lily managed, marvelling once more at the change from laughing Marauder to business-like student; it was a side of James she had never actually seen.

James was scribbling notes across a piece of parchment that he had produced from somewhere, 'You see, Silas' Formula is to do with the sub-effects of Tissue Transfiguration on the nature of Inter-species Switches, which is essentially vital if you're doing any kind of Human Transfiguration.'

Lily felt just as lost as before she had gone to ask Alice for help, but something about the concentration on James' face as he sat beside her and sketched out an odd looking diagram made her refrain from interrupting him.

'Alright?'

Lily jumped; he was looking right into her eyes, 'Um, yeah, got it.'

She blushed again as she realised she had been staring at his lips as they moved, 'Good, I said I'd help Peter with his Potions; but if you want anything just shout,' before she could answer this he leant back in his chair and called across the room, 'Oi, Padfoot! What page was the Silas Formula on?'

Sirius looked up and shouted back, 'Three, Five, Six.'

'Cheers!'

He turned back to her and gave her an uncharacteristically reserved smile , 'If you want a slightly less detailed explanation, look at page three hundred and fifty six.'

Then he was up and walking away towards Black and Pettigrew, who was frowning beside a pile of scrunched up pieces of parchment. She realised she was staring and tried to snap out of her stupor, wondering how in God's name James knew all of that; he hadn't once referred to her notes and only had to ask Padfoot, no, Black, she mentally corrected herself, for a page number.

She looked down at the diagram and realised it was a flow chart of Transfiguration mechanisms, and on the other side was a simple, but detailed explanation of the Silas Formula. She hadn't even noticed him turn over the page.

A little note at the bottom read, 'I noticed you were looking a bit bored with me waffling on, so I wrote it down for you.'

Lily looked up at the boys who were now huddled around Peter and his essay. How did Black remember things like that and when did Potter have the time to learn Conjuration?

James walked away from Lily; she had looked bored to tears from the moment he had started talking. She had just been staring vacantly at him, probably tired and fed-up with Transfiguration, so he had written it down for her to read later. He wasn't entirely sure why she had asked him in the first place; maybe she was just trying to make an effort.

He sat down beside Sirius and Peter and said, 'So, did we get anywhere with the Runes?'

Sirius raised an eyebrow and completely failed to answer his question, 'Prongs? How do you do it? You just had the girl of your dreams drooling over you as you explained Silas' sodding Formula.'

'What? She was bored to tears; even I could tell that.'

'Bollocks, Prongs; she was just about ready to snog you by the end of that.'

'Padfoot, stop taking the piss.'

'God, if I could make working that exciting, me and Lizzy would never stop doing homework.' Sirus replied with revealing grin.

'Padfoot, we don't want to know about you and Lizzy,' Peter sighed.

'Fine…' Sirius rolled his eyes at them, 'Bunch of poofs,' he muttered.

'So, Runes.' James prompted.

Peter looked up, from shuffling through a sheaf of parchment, the top page of which was covered in his Potions notes, 'We've established the major ones. We've also found some pretty nasty wards that can be activated to defend the castle if the Headmaster so chooses.'

'Awesome! What about them?'

'Oh, the usual,' Sirius muttered, 'Decapitation, incineration, disembowelment, oh, and an exciting one that made your head implode.'

James just nodded, 'Sounds great, but what about detection wards?'

Sirius leant across and yanked the sheaf of parchment out of Peter's hands, flicking through them for the one he wanted, 'We think we've got the one we want; reckon it monitors movement within the castle.'

James' eyes lit up, 'That's exactly what we want!'

'But it doesn't monitor where,' Peter added, eyeing the tear Sirius had just carelessly made in his Potions essay.

'Ah, well, in that case, that's where we make adjustments.'

Sirius' face took on a slightly doubtful look, 'Yeah, mate, there's a slight problem with that; a lot of the nastier wards are designed to activate immediately if anyone tampers with, well, any of them.'

James' face fell, 'Oh.'

'There's also the small matter of the pensieve idea; Remus is more than a little worried about the whole "taking years to recover".' Sirius said with a frown, to be honest, he felt a bit off about it too. With the whole Snape incident only just over, it seemed a little soon to be throwing their lives around again. James didn't appear too bothered though.

'Come on, Padfoot, it's not like it's going to hurt us or anything; one person builds a pensieve. Four of us are making a map…'

'Hey! Potter!'

James head snapped up; Mary MacDonald was approaching. Sirius shuffled Peter's essay to the top of the pile.

'Yeah?'

Mary stopped a metre or two away, 'Can I have a word with you?'

James frowned, 'Sure,' and he got up to follow her. Sirius gave them a wolf-whistle that made everyone in the Common Room looked up.

James played up to par though, and gave the room a wink, "I'm just going outside and I may be some time," he quoted to the room with a wink as Mary led him through the Portrait Hole. A few people grinned back, and Mary tutted at him.

The Portrait Hole closed, Mary turned to him, glaring and said aggressively, 'Potter, leave her alone.'

'What?' James asked, completely confused.

'Leave Lily alone.' she repeated, annunciating each word with zeal.

James just about reeled at the sudden onslaught, 'I've barely spoken to her.'

'Look, Potter; just drop the pretty boy act, we all know you're not like that.'

Little Mary actually looked angry, and James tried not to grin.

'Come on, MacDonald, stop playing the fool,' he tried.

'No, Potter; just leave her alone before you do something stupid like you did to Carson!' She spat venomously.

That was a low blow and James felt himself pale with anger and shame, 'I never tried to hurt her,' he said as honestly and truthful as he could sound.

'Yeah, and look what you still managed to do.'

James' temper snapped; he wasn't going to stand and be lectured by some tiny little girl who had no idea who he even was, 'How about you mind your own business, MacDonald. She was the one who asked me for help; I didn't go out of my way to get her attention.'

'You practically threw yourself at her feet!'

James' chest swelled in outrage, 'Look, MacDonald, things happen and if she wants to spend time with me, then that's her decision. If you were a better friend you'd accept that.'

Immediately he regretted his words; it wasn't her fault she didn't know what he was thinking, it wasn't her fault he had spent years building some ridiculous persona. But suddenly she had tears in her eyes, 'You know what, Potter, you are an arrogant bastard. Lily was right in the first place. And if you knew anything of friendship you wouldn't have broken Sophie's heart!'

Then she turned on her heel, snapped the password at the Fat Lady and disappeared into the Common Room leaving James with the empty feeling in his stomach that their conversation could not have gone any worse. Something bad would come of it.

Yes, he had enjoyed spending half an hour or so, simply sitting beside Lily and trying to explain Transfiguration laws. Even if she wasn't listening. Being close enough to simply glance across at her face and almost feel how smooth her cheeks were with his eyes was intoxicating.

MacDonald had no idea what he felt, and even less about friendship.

Suddenly angry at her, himself and the whole world, James stalked away down the corridor, ignoring the fact that Sirius and Peter were waiting for him. He didn't care.

A/N: For those of you who don't know, this is being rewritten, but reviews are still appreciated!