James wakes up in his bed at Voldemort's with Harry reading on a nearby chair, only for Harry to then glare at James over the top of his book.
"He started it," James tries.
Harry stands sharply. "Get dressed, we are going straight back to school."
After they get back to Hogwarts through the floo, Harry storms off to go calm down now that James is safe.
Remus and Sirius aren't in the dorms and James has no idea where the map is so instead he goes and dramatically mopes around in a visible area where his friends might later see him and come to ask what's wrong.
James lounges in a fork of the whomping willow's thick branches, the tree not quite flexible enough to hit him and so it's settled down into an angry sway after giving up. James reads from the book propped up in his lap, snacking on the open bag of cookies in a pocket because he treats himself well even while moping.
While maintaining an eavesdropping charm just to entertain himself, he overhears Lily and her friends pass by to have a picnic out by the Black Lake like so many other students do, just over the hill a fair distance away.
"-first date though," a female voice says nervously. "Or is it a date? Can you, like, come too and make it a more friend thing?"
"She asked you to Madame Puddifoot's, it's definitely a date, everyone goes there for it," Lily replies. Madam Puddifoot's cafe is a renowned dating spot for lovesick teenagers. "But if you're not comfortable of course I'll come. I can duck out halfway if it's going well too."
"We can set up secret signals!" Lily's friend cheers.
Lesbian, says one part of James' teenage mind. Nice.
The other half is already planning how he's going to crash the friend's half date and steal Lily away.
James is bouncing in the tree branch, waving his arms around wildly as Remus and Sirius walk over. "I know where we're going on the next Hogsmeade weekend!"
"I think this should be an obvious no but let me struggle with it a bit more," Remus muses, coming to a stop and crossing his arms, just out of range of the violently whipping branches skimming centimetres from his face.
"No, you have to come! Harry is upset at me and I need to make him happy again," James complains.
Sirius rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I heard what you did. You never back down from a challenge, do you?"
"Not one that I can win," James smirks. "You're also going to have to help with the plan, by the way. I have two weeks before I need to make Lily say yes to dating me and it'll go faster if you two play along and seduce her friends."
"You're very optimistic that this won't crash and burn horrifically," Remus muses.
"But now I really need her to date me, so it'll work," James insists. "You know how I get – it's all procrastination until I have to hand that essay in and then straight Os across the board, easy."
"Merlin," Sirius sighs. "You're lucky I love you."
James cheers and slides down the tree trunk, kicking the knot in the bark so he can run over unimpeded by life-threatening branches, and hug Sirius and Remus.
Remus comes to a stop in front of the library table. "Connors, do you mind showing me where you got that herbology book about the carnivorous species? For the life of me, I can't find that section in here."
The Ravenclaw glances towards Lily and then he raises an eyebrow at where James is standing innocently by Remus' side.
"You go," Lily offers. "I can take Potter any day."
"Out on a date?" James chimes in.
Remus elbows him and then walks off with the Ravenclaw. He glances back when the privacy ward goes up, just in time to see James' expression become serious as he explains what's been happening with Voldemort.
Lily raises an eyebrow when she sees the Potter cousin get hustled along in the corridor before James shoves him for the final step and the older boy almost tumbles straight into Lily.
Lily still feels that fraction of sharp of anger at what happened on the train but it's dulled now that she knows why James didn't want to explain. She even offers up a small smile because she's not going to make James' Hogwarts life difficult when he has to deal with a Dark Lord.
She can't even imagine having her parents get threatened like that, spending days having to avoid the Dark Lord in the halls of his own manor, all because the Dark Lord picked someone on a whim to use as a political pawn.
James is holding it together surprisingly well, though Lily still sees peeks of quiet moments where he writes his parents letters in the common room with a worried expression so unlike him.
"Um," the cousin begins. "So, I – well James actually, he overheard-"
"Harry is fantastic at defence!" James chirps, eye wide and hopeful. "He can help with the tests coming up."
Lily's friends start nudging her because it's free real estate.
Lily shushes them. "Potter, are you really selling out your cousin to get on my good side?"
"You know, my friends just call me James. You can call me anytime."
Lily is not the only one who rolls her eyes.
"Oh come on, not even a smile?" James complains. "Fine, whatever. Harry was going to tutor me and Siri anyway so you might as well join in."
Lily hesitates and looks at Harry. "Is that okay with you?"
"Yep," Harry says quietly, peering down at her, and if Lily's eyes look that blazing bright it's no wonder people stare.
Sirius is leaning against the wall at the corner of the hallway leading to McGonagall's room, a fond smile on his face.
"-did that 'call me anytime' one-liner," James is saying.
"I love that one," Sirius sighs wistfully. "Especially when I'm not expecting it, it's hilarious."
"Not a single one even smiled," James whines. "I mean Harry did but he's perfect. All her friends are boring though, wish you were there."
"Babe, I'm here now," Sirius says solemnly, reaching out to James' shoulder.
"Babe," James gasps.
"Babe."
"Babe-" A door snicks open and James startles.
Sirius gets shoved around the corner and he peeks back out to see James walking down the hallway at a casual pace. Lily steps out of McGonagall's office and shuts the door behind her, Sirius ducking back right she looks up
"Oh, do you have detention?" Lily says, humour in her voice.
"You always think the worst of me, huh?" James chuckles. "No, just wandering around."
Sirius scoffs quietly and hastily waves off a gaggle of Hufflepuffs who side-eye him when they pass.
"And the other three?" comes Lily's voice, barely heard over the 'Puffs.
"They've got other stuff recently," James admits quietly. "I suppose it's fair, I've been -you know- disappearing a lot."
Sirius rolls his eyes at that subtle reference to Voldemort. Shit, is this how easy James plays him? That's embarrassing.
"I'd think they'd be around more than ever now," Lily huffs. There's a bit of shuffling. "Anyway…did you want to head to the library together?"
James makes a cute happy noise and Sirius knows for a fact it's because Harry makes the same sound when he gets hugged, and James just melts at it, so he's hoping it works on Lily too.
Apparently it does because Lily giggles softly. "Come on, let's go study!"
"Well I never said anything about studying," James protests jokingly.
Harry sits in the circle of the study group, all clustered around three oddly sized table shoved together to go over the defence spell they just learned in class today.
Harry does like the tutoring session, it makes him feel good to help others. He knows it's also so that he can spend time with Lily, because even if whatever ridiculous plan James has doesn't work, Harry still gets a friendship with his mum.
The Marauders haven't actually let Harry in on the plan but it's not hard to pick up on.
It's almost impressive how smoothly the three work together, ducking just around corners when Lily comes into view or passing around a conversation easily until it wraps right around and lands on the topic that makes James look most knowledgeable – or most pitiful if he wants Lily to correct him and feel like she has responsibility over him learning it now.
Harry has sat in on several session where the Marauders break down the characters of Lily and her friends to an easy game of how do we make them move like this and it works, terrifyingly well.
But James isn't James anymore when he interacts with Lily, instead he's more muted and polite, still laughs the same but thinks before he makes his jokes and it comes across slower, more controlled.
James watches while Remus and Sirius feed him information and suddenly James is sitting like Sirius in that careless slouch instead of falling all over whoever is closest. He's calmly discussing transfiguration theory like Remus, instead of how he usually fumbles over his words because his mind goes too fast - always ending with him having to pull out his wand to demonstrate instead.
James tilts his head wrong, sits strangely, stopped quidditch practice early, uses Remus' full name, hasn't slept in Sirius' bed since this whole game started.
It's almost impressive.
If it wasn't so horribly wrong to watch James act like a stranger.
It's the Hogsmead weekend and James is bouncing down the snow-covered ground alongside Harry and Remus, Sirius lagging behind – probably because he's rolling his eyes so much at James' excitement.
"It won't work, two weeks is too little time," Sirius says again.
"Oh ye of little faith," James scoffs. He pauses, nearly vibrating out of his skin as he stares up at the sign of Madame Puddifoot's. "I'm going to get you a mother today, Harry," James declares and then ducks into the tea shop.
James spots Lily at first glance, hard not to with hair like that, and swans over – stealing a chair right under a Slytherin and dragging it a few more steps to place it right by Lily.
Lily raises an eyebrow. "Can I help you?"
Her friend and the (potential) girlfriend also pause. As does most of the tea shop, wanting to see what James does because he always makes a spectacle of himself. Remus and Sirius linger near the wall behind and Harry just stays outside because he's very shy (and dying of second hand embarrassment).
"Hey ladies, date going well?" James cheers.
"Not bad," the girlfriend says, clearly the more confident of the two because she shoots Lily's friend a smirk.
"Fantastic, you two are cute together," James admits and means it because they're so hesitantly touching fingers on the table like hand holding in public is too much and that's adorable. (James says this like he doesn't sleep with Remus every other night.) "You hear that, Lily? Date is going great, how about you and me bounce?"
"I'm not going on a date with you, James," Lily huffs.
"Not here you won't," James says readily enough. "Madame Puddifoot's is so overdone. No, you need something worth your time."
James hooks a hand under Lily's chair and drags her closer over the wooden floorboards with a smooth, controlled movement that he practiced on Harry. James tilts his head so his hair flops and smirks at her.
"Our first date," James says over Lily's protests. "Will be a night-time broom ride over the still waters of the Black Lake, which will reflect the stars above, and I'll look you in the eyes and swear-"
James leans in, peering at Lily through his eyelashes. "I swear, there's not a single star in this universe that shines brighter than you." He grins, wicked. "And not a damn one hotter either."
There are a lot of 'aww's going around, some girls nudging their dates with hints. The boyfriends look jealous at not having through of that first, or otherwise pissed that their girlfriends are distracted.
A Gryffindor third year stands so sharply his chair slides backwards with a screech. "If you want James Potter so badly why don't you date him instead?" he snaps at his Ravenclaw girlfriend.
The Ravenclaw shrinks back at all the attention and hurries to pack up and race after the retreating Gryffindor.
"Gah!" James pulls away and hunches over, hand over his face and knocking his glasses askew. "I've lost it, fuck, I'm ruined."
"What do you mean?" Sirius leans over and pats James on the shoulder. "You're doing great, keep going!"
"I've lost the flow, I don't know what to do now!" James panics.
Lily takes a deep, steadying breath and looks away, face heated but thankfully blushes don't show on her. That was a close one.
Remus is the only one who sees this when the whole store is focused on James' breakdown. He frantically tugs at James sleeve and gestures him up.
James peeks up at Lily through his fingers. "Um. Hi."
"Hi," Lily says and puts a hand over her mouth because she's about to break into a smile. This kind of shy James is much cuter than the loud, arrogant version who swaggered in. It's also a bit adorable that he's so nervous, it's nice to know she can affect him compared to James just brushing it all off like usual.
James quickly looks away. "I can't do it!"
"Why not?" Lily asks. "You've had no problem so far."
James sits back and adjusts his glasses before crossing his arms, pouting. "I really tried today, I don't want to get rejected again."
Lily smoothes out her skirt, looking down. "Ask me anyway."
James sits up, then slumps back down. "No, I'll try again tomorrow."
"Fine," Lily tsks. "I'll do it." She turns to James, head high. "Hey, Potter, go out with me."
The entire cafe explodes in noise, incredulous that James is actually getting somewhere for once. Is this a prank?
James squeaks out a, "Yes."
Lily smiles, wide and bright and James leans toward her, giggling.
"So he'll see you tonight then," Sirius says and grabs James, dragging him up and out because if they leave him here Lily might change her mind.
"Hi, Lily," James says with a dopey smile on his face.
"Hi, James," Lily says, fondly exasperated.
Sirius needs to sling James over a shoulder to weave between table easier and James sets his elbows on Sirius's back, chin in his hands, staring after Lily as he's carried out.
Lily's friend paws at her arm, eyes wide. "You finally said yes! I though you never wanted to go out with him."
"I don't know," Lily muses. "He's been different."