EVENTUALITY

Part One

From the moment James Potter opened his eyes that morning he felt strange, as though something great was about to happen, something life-changing, something to push his life out of its mind-numbing drudgery into something spectacular.

It was a very strange day.

It began normally enough. Sirius woke him up by jumping on him as he did every morning, the toast was burnt again and Transfiguration was very nearly murder.

It was just preceding the fourth lesson of the day that something extremely important, which actually looked insignificant happened to put his strange mood into perspective. It was simply a conversation with his best friend that set the ball rolling.

--

She smelled of flowers and tasted like sin.

In your fantasies, anyway.

James sighed as he watched her stride elegantly down the corridor away from him. She refused to acknowledge his existence, yet he still insisted on torturing himself with watching her, wanting her. The very first time he had laid eyes on her he was done for. She had been sitting all alone in her train compartment, sporting blue dungarees and scuffed knees. It was her hair that had struck him first; a gloriously messy mane of red that had surrounded her like a halo. The worried frown and smudge of dirt that covered her face convinced him that she wasn't in fact an angel or a figment of his imagination, but a real girl. She had rips in her clothes, dirt on her face, leaves in her hair, and she was the first girl he'd ever seen who seemed like she'd prefer a good arm wrestle over a tea party any day of the week. He was besotted instantly, and all of his previous anti-girl ideas flew out of the window.

Despite his sudden infatuation, James had found himself inexplicably barging into her peaceful train compartment, loudly announcing his arrival, and demanding to know why she looked like she’d fallen out of a tree. It hadn’t gone well. Just a few moments after he’d decided she was the one for him, she had come to the conclusion that he was a rude, contemptible idiot who was beneath her notice.

So he had continued to make a fool of himself, tormenting and insulting her, unable to break out of the role that he had cast himself in. Her knees were no longer scuffed, her clothes neat as a pin, and her hair had mellowed into soft red waves that rolled down her back, but his devotion didn’t waiver once. He wish he could say that he’d changed as much, but alas he had found it surprisingly hard to jerk himself out of the pattern.

A specific incident just a month previously involving Snape, pants, and a very angry Lily had taught James that being arrogant, obnoxious, and mean was not the best way to win the heart of the girl of his dreams, and, at a loss as to what else to do, he settled on descending into silent awe whenever she was within a 200 metre radius. He knew his feelings were perfectly obvious to everyone but her, and he knew that they laughed at him behind his back. He didn’t care; she was worth it. To him, Lily Evans was heaven, she was perfection, she was-

Totally out of your league.

That was the sad fact of their relationship. He worshiped her; she thought he was a moron. It was unfair really, because he definitely had improved-

His thoughts came to an unwelcome halt as he was slapped rather viciously over the back of the head with a rolled up copy of the 'Daily Prophet'. "OW!"

"Pull yourself together, mate. She is never going to notice you." Sirius slung an arm around James's neck and proceeded to drag him in the opposite direction.

He tried in vain to pull himself away but after a few moments of struggling resigned himself to the fact that no one could escape the Black death hold. "I don't know what you're talking about! I was merely casually observing."

HA! What you were doing would be better described as ‘stalking’.

Sirius patted him on the head jovially. "Stop kidding yourself, mate. What about her?" He pointed to a tall brunette giggling madly and trying unsuccessfully to smoulder at them. "Kimberley Mulchester or Manchester or whatever. Something with chest in the middle. She'll do for you, mate- nice bum, nice face, bit annoying but can't ask for everything, can you?"

"She's not my type!" In fact, he considered her rather loathsome.

Sirius barked out a laugh. "Yeah, and what is your type? Girls who have red hair and green eyes and just so happen to go by the name Lily Evans?"

James went red- partly from embarrassment and partly because Sirius's arm was starting to cut off his air supply- and choked out, "What do you care?"

This seemed to surprise his captor enough that James was able to yank himself free and storm off in a huff.

"What? I care." Sirius was left talking to an empty corridor and yelled after his friend, "I CARE!"

--

"This is for you." Sirius waltzed into the Boys' Dormitory and dropped a tiny object wrapped in his school tie into his friend's bed.

"What is it?" James asked suspiciously. The last time he'd accepted one of Sirius' so-called 'gifts' he'd ended up with green hair for a week.

But Sirius just grinned smugly, extremely pleased with himself. "It's to show you that I care. It's to help you with Evans."

James unravelled the parcel and a small, gold hourglass dropped into his palm. He knew what this object was, he’d seen detailed diagrams in one of his Charms text books. He remembered being diverted by the shininess and spending at least half an hour daydreaming about the adventures that could be had if one was in possession of such a device. What he was utterly perplexed about was why one was now nestled in his hand. It wasn't the sort of thing you find just lying around. "A Time-Turner? But how did you…" he trailed off and suddenly gaped at his friend. "You- You- Tell me you didn't get this where I think you got it?"

"Yep." Sirius grinned.

James put his head in his hands, not quite able to believe it. "So when you…"

"Yep."

"You actually…"

"Yep."

"You idiot."

"What?" Sirius frowned. "I thought you'd be happy."

James laughed ironically and began to pace. "You thought I'd be happy that you set a fellow student's hair on fire-"

"You have to admit that was funny!" he burst in.

“- To get sent to the Headmaster’s Office. Then to round off a good day you steal from bloody Dumbledore! Of course I'm mad, Padfoot, you could be expelled!"

"Ooh," said Sirius, his eyebrows raised. "I knew you’d be no fun. The Top Nacho didn't notice anything so what's the problem?"

“First of all, stop calling Dumbledore the ‘Top Nacho’, and secondly, he definitely noticed. He doesn’t miss a trick.” But, James suddenly thought, if the Headmaster hadn’t wanted it gone, he would never have allowed Sirius to take it. Did he… surely not… could - could Dumbledore actually want him to use it?

"Padfoot, how did you think this would help me with Lily?"

"Erm…" Sirius rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. "You could just- well… maybe- if she… oh, I don't know!" he snapped, sitting down on his bed, sulkily. "It was just lying there on his desk being all tempting and shiny and practically screaming 'take me!'.”

You should return it. It’d be the proper thing to do.

James furrowed his brow, pursed his lips and began to pace. "So Dumbledore just happened to leave a Time-Turner lying around? Since when does Dumbledore do anything by accident? Every teacher in the school knows to lock away anything even vaguely interesting once a Marauder is in the room. So… did he want you to get it? For me? Interesting."

"Interesting?"

James grinned mischievously. "Very interesting."

Sirius flopped down onto his bed and asked, with a smile, "Do I sense a plan coming on?"

"Yes, my friend," said James. "I believe you do."

And yet why do I have a bad feeling about this?

--