Chapter 10 - First Dates
Remus was used to the last week of term before the Christmas holidays being relaxed; last year, even McGonagall had neglected to give them any homework, and the most taxing thing they're had to do in any of their lessons was transfigure small objects into Christmas tree decorations.
But apparently NEWTs were Very Serious (not to mention Nastily Exhausting) and so, three days before the end of term, they had to sit through a Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson about the cruciatus curse. They'd all worn grim expressions for the whole class, and even though they'd only had to listen to their professor talking for an hour rather than doing magic or writing essays, it had been far from an easy lesson.
Though Remus wasn't as into Christmas cheer as Sirius – who'd spent yesterday evening enthusiastically singing carols and decorating the entire common room in tinsel - unforgiveable curses didn't exactly fill him with the holiday spirit, so at the end of class he searched for a lighter topic of conversation.
"Have you asked anyone to Slughorn's Christmas party yet?" he asked Sirius, shouldering his bag of heavy books and joining the stream of students heading out into the corridor.
"Slughorn's Christmas party," Sirius repeated, as he followed his friends towards the door. "Which is on Saturday. Bollocks, I completely forgot about it!"
He scanned the hallway hopefully for a suitable candidate, but no one immediately popped into his mind. It was a little annoying that they were allowed to bring dates at all – it made the whole thing seem very formal and awkward. Plus, other than the Quidditch team and Lily, Sirius didn't really know a whole lot of girls.
This momentarily puzzled him. As a charming and obviously good looking sixth year, Sirius shouldn't have to think particularly hard about who to take to a silly Christmas party.
"Oh," he said, shrugging his shoulders back confidentially as Lily and Mary passed them on their way down the hall. "Mary seems cool, right? She's a great Quidditch player and she was fun at the party the other week. I should ask her!"
Without waiting for a response, Sirius sped up his pace to catch Lily and Mary before they entered the Great Hall, calling out, "Hey MacDonald!" as he went.
Amongst the sea of students, the girls stopped and turned. Feeling suddenly awkward, Sirius loosened his tie and said, "Um, hi."
"Hey." Mary smiled, looking at him expectantly. "What's up?"
The annoyed looks of fellow students as they tried to navigate around them to get to lunch was rather off-putting, so Sirius thought that it would be best to get right to the point. "Do you want to go to Slughorn's do with me?" he asked bluntly
"Oh," Mary said, blinking at him, "I-"
"It's just," Sirius ploughed on, "Those things are boring at the best of times and I don't want to ask someone I don't know so..." he shrugged. "Up to you of course."
Lily was staring at him as if he'd just grown another head, as was James, who had arrived at the scene just in time to hear Sirius embarrass himself.
"Actually," Mary said, glancing from Lily and back to Sirius with what might have been a small smile. "I don't see why not. It'll be a laugh."
"It will!" Sirius grinned smugly, looking victoriously back at his friends.
"What about you, Evans?" James asked, leaning an arm on Sirius' shoulder in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. "Who're you going with?"
Lily and Mary exchanged a look and Lily pressed her lips together to hide a smile. "I've not asked anyone yet, actually."
"Oh yeah? Well maybe-"
He didn't get to finish his sentence, as Lily looked straight past him to where Remus and Peter were waiting for them. "Hey Remus, what are you doing on Saturday night?"
Startled, Remus simply managed to say "err" before the wide-eyed look on James' face spurred him on. "I'm busy," he said firmly. "With, uh, prefect duty."
Lily raised her eyebrows. "Funny how you have prefect duty and I don't."
"Yes, well, uhm, McGonagall must know you're in the Slug Club, mustn't she?"
"Hmm." Lily sighed, knowing full well that he was lying for James' sake. She shrugged and turned back to Mary, who was looking at her with an irritatingly expectant expression.
"Not you as well?"
"Sorry," Mary smiled, completely unapologetic, "I think you should give him a chance."
"Me too!" James interrupted rather too enthusiastically. "Sorry - erm, I think you should give me a chance too."
Casting a last, murderous look at Mary, Lily turned to James, who was, it seemed, holding his breath.
"I suppose," she said at length, "If everyone else is taken, I could be persuaded to give you one chance."
James grinned at her, equal parts delighted and amazed. "Knew you had good taste after all, Evans."
"See you Saturday, idiot," Lily said, rolling her eyes as she turned to walk away – and immediately collided with someone. Not quite the exit she'd hoped for.
"Sorry!" Alice said, stepping back and rubbing her arm where she'd bumped it. "I just heard you all talking about the Slug Club and I absolutely have to tell you who I'm going with."
"Do you have better taste than I do?" Lily asked, shooting a look at James, who was being forcibly dragged away by Sirius.
Alice looked somewhat bewildered by that question, but she carried on anyway. "Frank asked me!"
"That's great!" Lily smiled.
Alice looked delighted, flushed in the face and so excited that she was practically bouncing. Her and Frank would work well together, Lily thought when she looked back on their first encounter at the Slug Club.
"Well then," she smiled, putting a hand on Alice's shoulder, "why don't the three of us get lunch and you can help Mary and I discuss how we're going to control our frankly questionable choices of dates."
Lily was self-conscious. The dress she'd chosen to wear felt too tight, the strands of hair falling down around her face were tickling her uncomfortably, and she was fairly certain that high heels had been a bad idea. Mary looked considerably more comfortable in her flatter shoes and long, dark blue dress with her hair pulled back into a messy bun on top of her head. Lily felt a momentary stab of jealousy, before she remembered that Mary had agreed to go with Sirius, and was therefore just as much of a fool as her.
They arrived at the party to be greeted by a student Lily was sure she recognised, dressed in over the top white robes and holding a tray of drinks, which Lily grateful took – only to be disappointed that they were filled with pumpkin juice rather than mead. She wasn't entirely sure how she'd let her friends talk her into giving Potter a chance. Remus had been the much safer option – even though she didn't particularly want to date him, at least they would have had fun without Lily fussing over what she was wearing, and what on earth she could find to talk to James about.
"You look great," Mary reassured her, as they entered the room full of other 5th-to-7th years, all milling around with drinks in their hands. Some people were already swaying slightly on the dance floor to the songs floating out from the wireless in the corner. Lily hoped James didn't want to dance – dancing was definitely not on the cards.
She spotted Alice and Frank first, holding hands and talking to James and Sirius over by the fireplace. Shaking herself in frustration at her reluctance, Lily pulled down the hem of her dress and headed over.
When he saw Lily and Mary approaching, James elbowed Sirius in the ribs harder than he'd meant to. "They're here," he hissed.
"Don't screw it up, Prongs," Sirius muttered in reply, before grinning at Mary and suggesting that they go to dance. She looked surprised but she agreed, giving Lily a gentle shove towards James before slipping away.
"Er, hi," James said, trying to subtly wipe his sweaty hands on his trousers. "You look nice. I mean, you look gorgeous. But that sounded cheesy in my head so I said nice, and then that didn't sound good enough so I said gorgeous anyway. Uhm."
He was blushing furiously, and Lily felt her cheeks getting warm as well.
Alice glanced at each of them and raised her eyebrows at Frank, who said quickly, "Shall we go and dance too?"
"Definitely," she replied. "Let's leave them to it. Have a nice time, you two!"
They left hurriedly, just as a slightly faster song started playing, and Alice laughed as Frank span her around.
After watching them for a moment, James and Lily turned back to each other and smiled awkwardly. "Er, do you want to dance?" he asked nervously.
"Dancing isn't really my thing."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank Merlin, because I'm 99% sure I'm the worst dancer in this room. If you'd said yes I probably would've had to find some polyjuice potion and get someone to fill in for me."
"That bad, huh?" Lily asked, the corner of her mouth twitching. "Well I'm pretty terrible, too. The only way I'd get on that dance floor is if someone replaced this pumpkin juice with firewhiskey. Which, by the way, I am definitely not suggesting you do."
"Believe me, I am perfectly aware of the terrible dancing that ensues after a bottle of firewhiskey, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
Lily smiled, which James considered something of a success.
He didn't, however, seem to know what to say next. He just looked at her, then to the dance floor, before opening his mouth and failing to produce words.
"Erm," Lily said, after witnessing this for a few minutes. "So, what are you doing for Christmas?"
Relieved to have something to talk about, James said, "Well we always have this big Christmas dinner at my house with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and everyone. Mum makes the best roast dinner ever and Dad makes loads of mince pies so it's great and I always eat too much. And we get a huge tree as well, as tall as the ceiling, and my parents charm all the decorations so they glow and spin around and stuff. Obviously I can't do magic at home but I did some today that I can take with me so hopefully they won't try to fly out my suitcase or something on the train. And everything will be even better this year because Sirius is coming too and he loves Christmas but his family never really do anything for it. I just hope he doesn't find it weird being with all my family instead of his, because I know they're happy for him to be there but I think he worries he's intruding or something."
Suddenly aware that he was probably talking way too much, he stopped and shrugged. "So, yeah, it'll be good. What about you?"
"That sounds... really nice, actually." Lily said, surprised by James' sincerity. "Christmases at home kind of lost their appeal for me after a certain age. I'm just going to stay here this year and avoid the inevitable arguments with my sister."
"You won't get lonely here?" James asked. "'Cause not many other Gryffindors are staying – just Remus from our yeah, as far as I know. Sirius normally stays too, so I hope Moony's okay without him. At least you and him are sort of friends now, right?"
"He's a damn lot better than you most of the time," Lily smirked, watching James' smile flicker slightly as he tried to work out if she was teasing him or not. "I'll be fine, and so will Remus. Or Moony, as you say – you all have weird nicknames for each other, it's like you're in a gang."
"Yeah? I think you're forming your own gang, Evans - all you lot from the Slug Club. Never thought Sirius would fit in here but he seems to like it."
"He seems more cheerful than the first time he came," Lily agreed, scanning the room for Sirius and Mary. They'd stopped dancing and were now sitting close together by the window on the other side of the room. She spotted Frank and Alice still on the dance floor, holding onto each other and swaying in time to the slow melody. Before she could turn back to James, someone else caught Lily's eye. Dressed in long, sooty black robes that were at least a few years out of date, Snape was striding towards her looking murderous.
"Lily," he greeted curtly, "what are you doing with him?"
"What?" Lily asked, completely taken aback. She turned briefly to James, who was glaring at Snape with his hands balled into fists beside him. "He's my date, Severus. You know, those things you go on with people you like? So if you wouldn't mind leaving us alone-"
"You can't be dating him," Snape argued. "He'll use you! Come over here and -"
"No!" Lily said, stepping back from Snape as he reached towards her. Instead, she took James' arm and said quietly, "Come on James, let's go and join the others."
"Don't you dare touch her!" James snapped, ignoring Lily. His voice was so loud that several people turned towards them, but he didn't notice. "She said to leave us alone, Snivellus, so do us all a favour and get your massive nose out of our business."
Snape had gone even more pale than usual and seemed to be shaking with barely-suppressed rage, which he directed not at James, but at Lily. "Is this the best you can do?" he sneered. "Is he the only one who'd have you? Because I see no other reason why you'd choose him over me."
James didn't even bother to reach for his wand, just lifted his fist and punched Snape hard in the face. There was a loud crack as Snape's nose broke and blood began to trickle from his nostrils as he staggered backwards. He looked too dazed to retaliate, and before he could recover enough to aim a curse at James, Slughorn got in the middle of them.
"What in the name of Merlin is going on here?" he demanded. "Mr Snape, you'd better get yourself to the hospital wing to see to that nose."
Glaring at James and trying to stifle his nosebleed with his sleeve, Snape stalked out. Slughorn frowned at James. "I'm quite disappointed in you, Mr Potter. Fighting right in the middle of one of my little parties - it's unheard of! I'll have to give you detention for this, I'm afraid, and perhaps you ought to leave early." He shook his head and gave Lily a faint smile. "Fighting over you were they, Miss Evans?"
Lily turned away from Slughorn without replying, glaring at James so furiously that she felt just about ready to explode.
"What is wrong with you?!" she demanded. "Couldn't you just leave it alone? We were having a nice time and you had to ruin it!"
She saw Slughorn inching away from them as she shouted, knowing she was making a scene but feeling too frustrated to care. James started to defend himself, but Lily didn't have any patience left to listen.
"Don't!" she said. "Don't even bother. I'm sure you think you're very noble James, but don't you see? This is why we can never work together. You only think with your fists – and I don't need you defending me."
"I know that," James said quickly. "I know you can take care of yourself, but I just – what he said – he was being horrible to you!"
Lily crossed her arms and threw him a disgusted look, but just then Mary hurried over, dragging Sirius by the hand.
"Lily, what happened?" she asked. "You looked like you were having fun and then Snape..."
"Got socked in the face?" Sirius filled in, grinning.
"And of course you'd think that was a good thing," Lily snapped. "I'm leaving. Consider our first and only date over, Potter."
"Oh come on, Evans, we can't just end it like that," James said pleadingly, but she ignored him and spoke to Mary instead.
"You were enjoying yourself, right? You should stay and have fun."
"Are you sure?" Mary asked, looking concerned, although her gaze drifted back to Sirius. "I could leave too..."
Lily forced a smile. "No, it's okay. At least one of us shouldn't regret their choice of date tonight."
"Lily..." James said, but she didn't even look at him as she walked away, leaving him to stare at the door after she'd gone. He ran his fingers through his hair, looking as stunned as if he'd been the one to get punched. "I thought she hated him now," he said, mostly to himself.
"She does, basically," Mary said, giving him a sympathetic look and patting him awkwardly on the shoulder. "But her problem with him is hers, you know? It's not about you, or the whole rivalry thing you and him have got going on. You made it so she was a person you were fighting over, not someone who can fight for herself."
"But I didn't mean to. I just-" He shook his head. "Never mind. You're right. I'm going to bed. See you later, Padfoot."
"See you, mate," Sirius said, his grin having faded to a frown. Once James was gone too, he raised his eyebrows at Mary. "Guess it's just you and me now, huh?"