Authors Note: Thank you so incredibly much to my wonderful reviewers, this chapter’s for you! I’d also like to apologize for this update taking so long, but, although its not much of an excuse, I have been battling with depression recently, and haven’t really had any inspiration. Please forgive me, and press that little button down there and review!
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything you don’t recognize.
Warning: This story is AU because of the fact that Lily is a Marauder, an Animagus, and is friends with the Marauders.
Once everybody was asleep, James grabbed Sirius out of bed, and dragged him to the Room of Requirement, bringing the invisibility cloak and the Marauder’s Map with him. The Room of Requirement was a room that few people knew about. It was hidden, and it would manifest itself to fulfill the wants and needs of the person entering the room.
When James and Sirius arrived, the room became a smaller version of the Gryffindor common room, complete with a crackling fire, cosy armchairs, and some… interesting… magazines. Sirius sat down tentatively on the arm of one of the chairs, as he could see that James was still fuming from being forced to tell the group about his feelings for Lily.
Sirius grabbed a magazine as James sat there glaring at him, pretending to be thoroughly absorbed in it, although he didn’t realize that it was upside down.
After a few minutes of pretend-reading and glaring, James finally broke the silence.
‘Why did you have to do that, Padfoot? You knew that I didn’t want anyone to know, especially Lily!’
‘Well, you see, Prongs,’ started Sirius, thinking quickly, ‘There was this really hot alien girl, right, and she flew down from outer space, and she told me that if I made you tell Lily, then she would give me a….’
‘SIRIUS! I’m serious here!’
‘Uh, I know it’s an out-of-date joke, but, no, I’m Sirius.’
James now seemed to be foaming at the mouth.
‘SIRIUS! Are you going to explain, or am I going to hit you until you do?’ Threatened James, getting out of his seat and advancing on Sirius menacingly.
‘No, seriously, Prongs! And she did, she gave me a…’
‘SIRIUS! I will hurt you, believe me!’ yelled James, moving closer.
‘No, but it was all worth it! Maybe I can get her to give you a….’
‘Sirius! I am this close to…’ Said James, nearly at Sirius’ armchair.
‘All right, all right.’
‘NOW EXPLAIN! PROPERLY!’
‘Well, they aren’t going to know just because you picked Lily,’ he said cautiously, knowing that every word he was saying was a lie, and hoping that James wouldn’t see through it.
‘I mean, you could’ve picked her because she was the first person that came to your head…or something. I mean there were only three girls in the compartment…and, uh, we all knew you wouldn’t pick Candace unless you wanted me to kill you,’ he said stalling, thinking that James was going to see right through him, and probably punch him in the face any second.
But James appeared to take it all in, hook, line and sinker. It seemed that he was so desperate for nobody to know, that he would believe anything. A look of relief crossed his face, and he said: ‘Ok Padfoot, you’re lucky then, but next time you decide to do something like that, I’d think about it first, or you might find every girl in the school hating you… oh, the things I could tell them!’ He gloated, a smirk on his face. Sirius sat there, with a look of horror on his face, but there was relief and satisfaction as well. Relief that James wasn’t going to punch him then and there, and satisfaction in knowing that he could still pull the wool over his best friend’s eyes.
They spent the rest of the night discussing everything, from Quidditch, to the next full moon, to Lily, whether James was ever going to tell Lily about his feelings for her, (he wasn’t) and if Sirius would ever convince Candace to go out with him (James doubted it- Sirius thought he could.).
Lily and her two best friends were sitting on the floor of the dormitory that they shared together in their pajamas. They were speaking about the incident on the train, just as James and Sirius were.
‘I think he really does likes you, Lil’,’ said Candace, grinning.
‘No way!’ said Lily, almost screaming. ‘That’s, like, impossible! I’ve known James for six years! There’s no way that he could like me… I mean, he probably only picked me because I was the first name that came into his head. I mean, well, he couldn’t say you, Candace, ‘cause everyone knows that Sirius likes you and I dunno, maybe Remus or Peter likes Sammy or something… I don’t know, but there’s just no way that James would like me, that’s absurd!’ she said, babbling on, trying to convince her friends as well as herself.
‘Yeah, sure, Lily, wouldn’t all that be a bit of a coincidence?’ said Sammy, ‘I mean, you do realize that he could have just refused to answer? And did you see his face when he was saying it? He was embarrassed! James Potter was EMBARASSED! I didn’t think it was humanly possible!’
‘Nah, there must be a proper explanation for this, I mean, James can’t like me, and I don’t like him,’ she said, even though while she said that, she realized that was a lie. She couldn’t like James- could she?
The Next Day
Lily awoke to Sammy and Candace throwing pillows at her head, rather forcefully too! ‘Mmmmph’ mumbled Lily, rolling over and trying to go back to sleep.
‘C’mon Lils, there’s only twenty minutes left of breakfast, and we’re hungry!’ said Candace.
‘Yea, get your lazy ass out of bed this minute, or we’ll go and tell James that you’re in love with him!’ said Sammy, grinning.
This made Lily bolt out of bed as fast as her legs could carry her, mumbling something that sounded like ‘lousy no-good evil friends’ under her breath. Her best friends just laughed at her. It only took Lily five minutes to get ready, although she was still tying up her hair as they got to the hall.
The other Marauders were already there, eating as if there was no tomorrow.
‘Hey Fire Eyes, hey, beautiful one…and Candace,’ called Sirius, winking at Sammy. Fire Eyes was Lily’s Marauder name, as when she transformed under the full moon, she became a sleek orange tiger, with fiery red eyes.
‘Oh, hello, darling,’ called Sammy back, playing along with Sirius’ little game.
Candace just rolled her eyes and sat down next to Remus. Sammy sat next to Sirius, as they continued their little role play, and Lily sat next to James.
‘Hey James,’ murmured Lily softly, piling food onto her plate.
‘Oh, hey, Lils,’ he said, avoiding her eyes, and examining his toast intently. They continued like this, in awkward tension for the rest of the day- James saying a grand total of ten words to Lily the entire day. Their friends noticed this too, but decided not to interfere, because they all knew that James and Lily couldn’t continue like this for much longer.
Sure enough, once they’d all eaten dinner and were walking back to the common room, James pulled Lily aside.
‘Lils, we have to talk…’