Chapter 1 “ In Which A First Year Is Lost, An Argument Ensues And A Bet Is Made
“So,” Lily smiled, and patted the girl reassuringly on the shoulder. “Do you think you can remember all of that?”
Charlotte nodded up at her, beaming. “Up the marble staircase after breakfast, turn left, walk to the end of the corridor, turn left again and then immediately right, and that’s it!”
“And what did we say about Peeves?” Lily questioned.
“To just ignore him; he’s nasty to everyone and it doesn’t mean anything when he says horrible stuff about us.”
“Good girl. Now if you have any other problems finding your way around just come and find me. Hogwarts can be pretty tricky at first “ I remember!” Lily mock shuddered, grinning at the little first year, who laughed in delight.
“What’s going on over here, then?” said an obnoxious voice to her left, and, turning, she sighed heavily as James Potter swaggered up to the pair of them.
“Trouble getting around Hogwarts?” he smiled superciliously down at the little girl, who blushed and mumbled something unintelligible. “Well,” he sighed, “I suppose it could be daunting for those who don’t know it as well as I do-”
“James!” Lily interrupted, furious, even as she put one hand reassuringly onto Charlotte’s shoulder. “How dare you be so condescending?”
Glaring, she turned her back smartly on him to address Charlotte. “Don’t worry about him “ he got himself even more lost and into even more trouble than you when he first arrived,” she said, conspiratorially.
Behind her James spluttered, choked and opened his mouth indignantly to retort. Whirling, she turned to face him, pressing a finger gently to his lips. James froze in shock, and then became mildly cross-eyed as he attempted to stare at her finger.
Lily smiled wickedly at him. “Now, Potter, I want to tell my story without any of your usual jibes, comments or other unhelpful additions, and then you can have your say “ deal?”
He winked at her. “Only if you leave your finger where it is to shut me up…” he leered slightly as his lips became rather more interested in said digit. Rolling her eyes at him, she yanked her hand away, and made a show of cleaning it with the hem of her robe.
Perching comfortably on the arm of the younger girl’s chair, she slung an arm around Charlotte’s shoulders and began telling her tale. “Now, let’s see if I can remember this rightly. Potter, here, decided he’d make a bit of a name for himself in the first few weeks of school.”
She leaned in towards Charlotte, and lowered her voice just enough to appear secretive, while allowing James to hear every word. “He fancied himself a bit cooler than the rest of us, you see, and didn’t much like the fact that no-one seemed to pay him any attention.”
She winked down at the little girl, who grinned back up at her. “So, a few weeks after the sorting ceremony, he decides to sneak out and impress all us Gryffindors by breaking into the Slytherin common room and hexing a few of them.” Lily gave James an amused look, and added in an aside to Charlotte. “Well, he tried to in any rate.”
Charlotte had wide eyes as she stared up at James Potter, who preened slightly under her gaze. Lily ignored him and continued. “Potter, here, had already managed the impressive feat of infuriating a large number of the Slytherins after only a few weeks. I suppose it must be one of your natural talents, eh, Potter?” she asked slyly.
James grinned back at her, and winked. “‘Impressive feats’? Glad you think so highly of me, Evans.”
Lily smiled coolly. “I was thinking more of your limitless aptitude for annoying others actually, but we’ll move on…”
Turning her attention back to the first year by her side, Lily continued her story. “So Potter sneaks out with the intention of earning a name for himself; no doubt he was imagining the cheering awe of his housemates on his celebrated return, and the glory he would receive from all of Gryffindor…” she mocked the older boy.
James folded his arms as he watched her, but said nothing.
Lily stifled a laugh. “Anyway, Professor Slughorn found him the next morning - cold, hungry and completely and utterly stuck, with half his body sticking out of a wall, and the other half disappearing goodness knows where!”
Charlotte stared for half a minute, gobsmacked, before breaking out into nervous laughter. “But… but… how does something like that happen?”
“It was a trick section of wall,” replied James, haughtily. “I’d cleverly discovered it the day before-”
“Yes, very cleverly,” Lily muttered, interrupting him.
“-but it changed from the opening of a staircase to a solid piece of wall at the wrong moment.”
“But... but,” Charlotte stuttered once more, “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Dreadfully!” James sighed, placing one hand across his chest in dramatic fashion. “But I bore it heroically and didn’t make a sound the entire night; I suffered in silence!”
“Ignore him,” Lily sighed. “It doesn’t hurt a bit. It just feels like somebody’s giving you a really tight hug. You can’t move at all, and there’s a heavy pressure all around you, but it’s not painful in the slightest.”
“Oooh,” murmured Charlotte, who to Lily’s great annoyance, seemed slightly star-struck by this story.
“Anyway,” she continued, “the up-shot is that he has no right to look down on you for feeling confused and lost at first “ he was a lot worse when he first arrived.”
The cocky retort that must have been jumping up and down for attention on the tip of James’ tongue seemed finally to have gotten the better of him. “Now, look here, Evans,” he began, affronted, “that bloody staircase may have trapped me, but at least I had the guts to go out looking! I bet I’ve found more hidden passages and secret tunnels in Hogwarts than the whole school put together!”
“Oh, you do, do you?” ground out Lily, enraged by his attitude. “Could your head get any larger? I have no idea how it manages to contain your ego.”
“There is nothing wrong with the size of my head! It’s all true “ ask Sirius, Remus and Peter just how many we’ve found.”
“Oh, of course,” scorned Lily, tossing her head in irritation, “because they’ll give me nothing but the complete unadulterated truth of all your silly little adventures.”
“Fine,” James snorted, crossing his arms angrily. “Don’t believe me, turn your nose up and walk away, Evans, just like you always do!”
Lily shot to her feet, furious, while Charlotte quietly slipped off the chair and darted into the centre of the common room for protection. “If my nose is turned up, Potter, it’s only to try and breathe some fresh air “ otherwise the stench of testosterone surrounding you would choke me!”
“Ha!” he snorted at her, and fumbled for a moment, before smirking back. “I think you’re jealous.”
Lily’s stilled completely, before letting out an astounded laugh. “Jealous?” she gasped. “Of you?”
Shaking her head, an action that sent her long crimson looks swishing across her shoulders, she carried on, scornfully. “Of an immature, arrogant, conceited little teenage boy?”
James cheeks reddened, and he became aware that the common room had gone oddly quiet. When he chanced a look around the room it seemed that a great many people suddenly found very interesting things to look at “ like their fingernails or the shoes of the person sitting next to them.
“You’re jealous that I know so much more about Hogwarts than you,” he shot back, unpleasantly. “You’re the bookworm, Lily, you’re supposed to know more than everyone else, isn’t that what you think?”
“How dare yo-”
“In fact,” James continued, bolstered by all the students staring at the pair of them, “I can prove it. I bet I know Hogwarts so well I could walk around the entire school blindfolded! What d’you say to that, Evans?”
Lily stared at him for a moment, seeing only an infuriatingly cocky grin, smug pose and the look in his eyes which screamed I’ve won, I’ve won again and they all know it.
Arching one eyebrow, Lily Evans lifted her chin and replied, “I’ll take that bet, Potter.”
In Which Disagreements Are Had, Shouting Occurs, And Conditions Are (Finally) Set by whatapotter
Chapter 2 “ In Which Disagreements Are Had, Shouting Occurs, And Conditions For The Bet Are (Finally) Set
James’s eyebrows shot so far up his forehead that Lily was amazed they didn’t give his fringe a haircut on the way up.
“You’re challenging me?” he asked in disbelief.
Lily crossed her arms and nodded belligerently. “Why shouldn’t I? It’s about time someone had the nerve to cut you back down to size.”
James gaped at her for a moment, and then promptly burst out into loud guffaws. “Well, prepare to be embarrassed then, Evans.”
“Oh, I won’t be the one embarrassed,” she assured him with complete confidence, “don’t worry about me.”
Daintily, she sat down on the chair Charlotte had recently vacated and crossed her ankles primly. After removing a piece of parchment and quill from her satchel and laying them upon the table in front of her, she gestured at James impatiently and indicated he be seated opposite her. “Well?”
Still chortling slightly, he did as ordered.
Irritated, Lily quickly scribed, ‘The Blindfold Bet: co-participants, James Potter and Lily Evans,’ across the top of the parchment and lay down her quill expectantly.
“I think we should set conditions.”
James shrugged, eyeing her with amusement, and ran a hand through his hair to mess it up a little. “Go ahead, Evans.”
“When you lose, I’d like you to publicly announce - to the entire student body of Hogwarts - that not only have you lost this bet, but that you are frequently in the habit of giving out cocky and entirely fictitious boasts about yourself.” She paused, and then smirked at him across the table. “Let’s allow everyone a laugh at your expense for once, shall we?”
James gaped. “Are you mad?”
“No, quite sane actually,” she fired back. “What do you say, Potter?”
“Absolutely not!”
Lily sat back, triumphant, and laughed quietly. “So His Mightiness, James Potter, is worried he might fail, after all?”
James clenched his teeth together, and angrily seized the quill, scribbling her stipulation down in a messy scrawl that made Lily wince.
“Fine! If I lose “ and I’ll be a gentleman and warn you now, Evans,” he added in an undertone, “that I won’t “ I will announce I’ve failed.”
“To the whole school,” Lily reminded him.
“To the whole school,” he growled back.
“But if I win-”
“But if you win, you get the satisfaction of being triumphant,” Lily interrupted, sweetly.
“Oh no, Evans,” he mocked, chuckling deviously. “You got to set the conditions if I lose, so I get to lay down what happens if I win. It’s only fair.”
Lily huffed, but acquiesced sourly. “Fine. What do you want?”
“One kiss,” he leered. “From your good self “ if you’ll be so kind!”
There was a moment of deafening silence, and then Lily shot to her feet.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Potter,” she gasped out, fuming. “There’s absolutely no way I would ever agree to that!”
“Fine,” James shrugged, nonchalantly. “Then the bet’s off, I suppose. And since no-one here will ever know what the outcome would have been, they’ll just have to take my word for it that I can do what I say “ walk around Hogwarts blindfolded.” He paused to meet her eyes and, giving her a small smile, played his crunch card. “After all, aren’t some of your favourite sayings, ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and, ‘right until proven wrong’? Wouldn’t want to be deliberately hypocritical, would you now, Evans?”
Enraged, Lily balled her hands into fists and whipped away from him, but just as quickly whirled back. “Fine-”
“Fine?” James interrupted immediately, a delighted smile spreading over his face. “You mean you’ll kiss-”
“But I’m adding to my condition,” Lily continued, vehemently ignoring him. “When you lose, you must also give a public apology to Severus Snape.”
James yelped, the smile dropping from his face as quickly as a stone plunging into water. “What for?!”
“For everything you’ve ever done to him, of course. For all the fights you’ve needlessly picked purely because your arrogance led you to believe that you were better than him!”
“I am better than that slimy worm!” James roared.
“You’re worse!” Lily shouted back.
They didn’t get much further, however. At that precise moment Heather Dreamwright, best friend of Lily Evans, hurried forwards, wrapped an arm securely around her friend’s waist, and dragged her backwards towards the stairs to the girls’ dormitories.
Simultaneously, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, best friends and co-marauders of James Potter, placed a hand on each of his shoulders, while Sirius Black muttered, “James, mate, I think we need to have a talk.”
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“Lily, what are you doing?” Heather implored her, anxiously wringing her hands. “Challenging that idiot... making a colossal commotion in the common room... it’s not like you, Lily!”
Sitting down on her bed, safe inside their dormitory, Lily took several deep calming breaths. “I know, I know, Heather,” she replied, heaving a big sigh and running her fingers wildly through her hair. “Thanks for coming and saving me. I don’t know what came over me; I think… oh I don’t know... he just makes me so angry! I lost control for a moment.”
“He’s been making us both angry for six years, Lily,” Heather replied, her voice filled with worry for her friend. “Don’t let him start getting to you now.”
“I know, I know, you’re right,” she sighed. “I just really want to teach him a lesson, show him “ and everyone else “ that he’s just a pathetic little attention seeker at heart.”
“Well, maybe they already know that,” Heather reasoned. “We figured it out, after all.”
Lily snorted. “Have you seen the way people look at him in the common room? Him and the other three mugs he hangs around with? The first and second years are especially vulnerable; they idolise him, and nothing I say seems to get through. Sometimes, I just want to shake some sense into them “ get them to realise that he’s really not worth their adoration.”
“Well, that may be true,” Heather acknowledged matter-of-factly, sitting down next to her, “but all you succeeded in doing out there was embarrassing yourself. You’re a Prefect, Lily! And you’re behaving worse than a second year on love potion; shouting and fuming in front of the whole House, making up ridiculous bets, and generally making a massive spectacle out of yourself.”
“Oh God,” Lily cringed, fighting the urge to bury her face in her hands.
Heather stoked her friend’s hair and wrapped her into a hug. “Now don’t worry, we’ll sort this out. If you behave properly we can have this all cleaned up in no time and the gossip will probably have died down completely by tomorrow morning. All you need to do is go back down there, apologise to the students in the common room, tell them to forget the entire thing, and try and restore some order.”
Lily looked at her aghast. “I can’t do that!”
“What else can you do? You can’t go through with it!” Heather retorted.
“But if I don’t, he’s won,” she replied, frustrated.
“Does that matter?”
“Yes!”
Heather sighed, and gently ran a hand down her best friend’s crimson hair. “Lily, you’re never going to get people to realise what he is, love. He’s the Quidditch star of Gryffindor, the boy every first year girl has their earliest crush on and the ringleader of a group of lads that every first year boy aspires to be like.” She snorted, and then continued. “Fighting that opinion would be like trying to push a mountain troll up the marble staircase, with one hand tied behind your back.”
Despite herself, Lily smiled at her friend. “I know. I know all that, I really do, Heather. I’m not quite that blind yet.”
They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, before Lily sighed roughly, clenching her fists in her lap. “But I can’t let him win this one, Heather,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I just can’t. And I know it’s idiotic, immature, very slightly vindictive and very largely pathetic, but I just can’t back away now.”
Heather sighed, and gave her friend a weak smile. “Well, my shoulder’s here for you, Lily. I have a feeling you’re going to need it before this is over.”
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“Prongs, mate,” announced Sirius, as soon as the three of them had tossed the black haired boy through the entrance to their dormitory. “What’re you playing at?”
“What?” replied James, innocently. “She promised to kiss me!”
“I don’t really think,” began Peter, slowly, “that manoeuvring her into kissing you is the best plan if you eventually want to go out with her.”
“Ha!” proclaimed James, rapturously. “She’ll change her mind about dating me as soon as I’ve kissed her.”
Remus shook his head in disbelief. “You think one kiss is going to undo six years of squabbling?”
“You obviously have no idea of the power my kisses hold, Moony,” boasted James.
Remus rolled his eyes at his friend. “Look, you’ve got the perfect opportunity to change her opinion of you. Just go back downstairs, apologise, and tell her that perhaps she was right and that you did get a bit carried away. She’ll thank you for getting her out of a sticky situation, and you won’t look like the arrogant bastard she obviously thinks you are.”
James pouted. “I’m not an arrogant bastard.”
Remus sighed. “Then prove it to her by dropping this whole charade.”
“You’re such a spoilsport, Moony,” James huffed, before turning to Sirius for support. “You think this is a great plan, don’t you, Padfoot?”
Sirius looked torn. “Depends how you look at it, mate.”
Then, when James looked hurt, he carried on. “I think it’s a great idea for a laugh “ Marauder-style “ and if you were betting against Snivellus then I’d be right there with you doing a blind three-legged race around Hogwarts.”
“But..?”
“But,” replied Sirius, “and I never thought I’d say this, mind, but Evans didn’t look too happy with you out there. If you really want to impress her, then I’d stick with Moony’s plan.”
There was silence for a moment, as James looked backwards and forwards between his three friends.
“But if I do that, then I don’t get a kiss,” he said finally, his voice plaintive.
The marauders looked at each other.
“Oh, by Merlin’s spotty underpants,” exclaimed Sirius, suddenly. “Are we the famous Marauders or aren’t we? Do we run from competition? Do we bow down to a girl? Do we throw away the opportunity to have a bit of fun and make a bit of mischief? No! We don’t!”
Peter looked around at the others and grinned slyly. “I think it’s time we came up with a plan, boys.”
In Which the Marauders Spring a Trap, and Lily Becomes Ensnared by whatapotter
Chapter 3 “ In Which the Marauders Spring a Trap, and Lily Becomes Ensnared
Contentedly ensconced in her favourite fire-side armchair, Lily rolled her eyes as she watched James Potter enthral his pandering crowd. His antics wouldn’t be amiss in a Muggle amateur dramatics society, from the rate he was carrying on. He’d be a director’s gem; with a bit of scrubbing up he could be making inspirational speeches to the masses in no time.
She sighed as she watched her peers, as predicted, fall under his spell. They were hanging off his every word as he described tales of bravery and cunning and heroicism worthy of a warrior leaving for war, rather than a schoolboy with a blindfold. She snorted angrily, imagining all that bravado deflate immediately if he were ever faced with the dangers of actual battle.
Forcing her mind to more humorous matters, Lily smiled as she imagined the conclusion of this bet. It would be James Potter’s worst nightmare to admit his failings to the peers that admired him so. Maybe then, when they realised their wonder-boy wasn’t everything he cracked himself up to be, they’d see through his propaganda to the arrogant bully underneath.
She dearly hoped so. She couldn’t take much more of his attitude “ and he’d be absolutely insufferable if he won this. She steadfastly refused to think about the other consequence.
Well, there wasn’t long to go now; the bet would begin in half an hour, as the clock struck nine o’clock, and would end precisely twenty-four hours later. Thinking back over the evening before, Lily still wasn’t sure how things had spun so wildly beyond her control. How, in Merlin’s name, she had managed to end up in direct competition against a boy she’d strived to be the antithesis of since their arrival at Hogwarts? It was ludicrous!
Shaking her head at her own behaviour, Lily chanced a look upwards just in time to see Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew all making their way towards her. She immediately narrowed her eyes suspiciously at them; this was bound to mean trouble.
“Lily!” Remus greeted her in a voice full of false cheer, as he seating himself on the arm of her chair. The others strategically positioned themselves around her so that she had no immediate avenue of escape. “How are you this morning? Nervous? Excited? Scared, even?”
“Feeling like I’m under interview for the Daily Prophet,” she retorted, causing Remus to grin and drop the act. “Shouldn’t you three be getting ready to wave Potter off - giving dramatic speeches and playing up the crowd?”
Peter shrugged, and looked over his shoulder. “He seems to be managing to do that just fine by himself.”
Lily leaned back in her chair and surveyed them suspiciously. “What do you three want with me, then?”
“Want?” asked Sirius, looking shocked. “Now what could possibly make you think we wanted something from you?”
Lily raised a droll eyebrow. “Apart from the fact that you’re James Potter’s three best friends, and are all wearing identical, and not remotely convincing, expressions of innocence?”
Sirius shrugged. “Yeah, apart from that.”
“I’m stabbing my wand in the dark, then, and surmising that you do.”
He winked at her. “Knew you were top of the class for a reason, Evans.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Spit it out, Sirius. What do you want?”
“It’s not so much that we want something,” he began airily, “we just thought we’d come over and give you some friendly advice “ point a couple of things out, you know.”
“Gryffindor to Gryffindor,” Remus added.
“Such as?”
“Well, you know, Lily,” said Sirius, suddenly very solemn, “James is going to be roaming the whole of Hogwarts by himself…”
“Defenceless,” uttered Remus, shaking his head sadly.
“Vulnerable,” chimed in Peter.
When all three boys looked at each other with similar expressions of gloom, Lily began to sense two things. Firstly, that this was a very finely tuned routine… and secondly, that something very, very bad was about to happen.
“Who knows what dangers he might stumble across, what accidents might happen…” Sirius continued, trailing off warningly at the end.
Remus nodded. “It would only be right to have someone there with him to make sure he doesn’t actually get hurt...”
“It’s all very well taking a chunk out of his pride,” Peter added sagely, “ but how would you feel if something took a chunk out of him, Lily? It would be your fault, after all…”
Lily looked affronted. “It would not be my fault! He’s the one stupid enough to make such a boast in the first place. I mean, really, who brags about the fact they can navigate Hogwarts blindfolded?”
“Ah, yes,” smiled Sirius, putting an arm conspiratorially around her shoulders. She shrugged it off irritably. “Well, we all know what James is like “ tongue as big as his wand, if you know what I mean,” he leered.
Lily looked outraged, but Remus interrupted before she could utter a rebuke. “The fact of the matter is that James never falls short of a boast if he’s tested on it, Lily. He’ll make sure he goes to all the darkest, all the scariest, all the most dangerous places Hogwarts offers, completely blind, just to say he’s done it.” His features became stern. “As a fellow Prefect, can you really allow a student to do that unsupervised?”
Lily’s face shifted from cornered to horrified to furious in very quick succession. “You’re all his friends!” she hissed at them.
“And of course we’d look after him if we could,” Sirius quickly assured her, “but as it happens I’ve got detention with McGonagall,” he finished, shaking his head sadly.
“And I’m tutoring some of the first years,” added Remus, in a saintly tone that Lily didn’t believe for an instant. “Otherwise, of course, I’d be there and we’d never even suggest it to you-”
“Oh, very convenient,” she scoffed, turning to Peter and narrowing her eyes. “And what about you?”
He smiled innocently up at her. “Make-up lesson in Arithmancy “ apparently I’m failing so badly they want to give me extra lessons,” he laughed. “So sorry I can’t help out, Lily.”
“I bet you are!” she sighed, heavily. “Well, just go and ask one of his many admirers “ I’m sure they’d all jump at the chance. In fact, they’d probably swamp the Hospital Wing as they fought each other for the privilege.”
Peter smirked at her. “But you issued the challenge…”
Lily looked nonplussed, prompting Sirius to pat her hand condescendingly. “Wizard Law states that anyone issuing such a challenge is thereafter honour bound to see through all aspects of said trial, including any maintenance or supervision that must be undertaken.”
She glared, and poked him hard in the chest. “That’s a load of codswallop, Sirius Black! You’ve invented that for the sole purpose of putting me on babysitting duty!”
“Prove me wrong,” he challenged.
Lily glared at all three of them. “I am not traipsing around this castle for a whole day with James Potter!”
Peter sighed, and looked tragically at his two friends. “Ah, well, I suppose we’ll just have to pray he’ll survive then.”
Sirius sniffed, and wiped his eyes. “Such a good friend! So loyal, constantly had my back, always there when I needed him... to think that he’ll be blind, lost and confused, and that there’ll be no-one who cares enough to look out for him in his hour of need!”
“He’ll be okay, Padfoot,” Remus said, gripping his friend’s shoulder tightly. “We have to stay strong, now.”
Lily rolled her eyes.
“And if he’s not, well, there’s always Madam Pomfrey...”
“Yeah,” echoed Peter, nervously. “She’s a trained Mediwitch; I’m sure she’ll be able to… to… to put him back together again when something goes wrong...”
Sirius nodded. “Come on, guys; we’d better say our goodbyes, just in case the worst happens.”
Lily dropped her head into her hands. This could not possibly get any worse.
“Fine!” she growled out in frustration. “I’ll do it.”
She was not in the least amused to see all three exchange identical grins of triumph.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.