James hid the Invisibility Cloak more carefully after that, successfully enforcing the new rule of the Marauders: No spying on Lily.
Absolutely no spying on Lily. Not even James himself was allowed to spy on Lily. Not even if his curiosity was killing him with wondering where she was during his Quidditch practices and instead of breakfasting with him on Sunday mornings and otherwise vanishing like smoke when he wasn't looking.
So he was emphatically not following Lily for any such purpose this evening -- he merely wanted to make sure his Muggle-born girlfriend was safe from hex-happy Slytherins. Duelling with her in DADA classes had taught him how fast she was; she'd probably gotten that through vast experience. Hell, she was probably bloody near as fast as that serpent Snape, but James still didn't like the idea of a real skirmish between the two taking place without him handy to interfere. She might be as fast, but she was nowhere near as nasty.
He trailed her up to the seventh level, wondering what on earth she'd found to do up here -- the only feature of even the remotest interest was the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, which she seemed to be ignoring. She strode down the corridor, pivoted suddenly to face him with a look of concentration that made him almost certain she'd heard him, almost walked right over him, then swung away for a third pass. Had she dropped something? Frozen in place, James glanced down to check. Then Lily turned to a door he'd never seen before and entered a room he didn't know, in this castle he thought he'd known intimately.
He blinked at the door, puzzled, and went to try the knob. It, and the door, vanished before he'd taken two steps. He searched the wall with his fingers, then with his wand. Nothing. Well, she had seemed to know what she was about. Pace the hall three times, thinking... what, exactly? Some incantation? A wish? The castle architect's mother's maiden name? Lily had vanished into an unknown part of Hogwarts and he could no more resist trying to follow her than he could resist hexing Snape.
He paced briskly down the corridor almost back to the stairway, turned, went back to where Lily had stopped the first time, did the same, and froze again. Apparently thinking of Snape was a bit like shouting Peeves' name. The infernal nuisance was no more than four paces behind him, wearing a distressingly thoughtful expression. James held his breath.
Snape paused, one finger at his lips, so close that James probably couldn't draw his wand without elbowing his foe, and studied the tapestry, the dark gaze roaming as if the trolls clubbing their ballet teacher might give him some inspiration. It seemed they had. Snape drew his wand, sketched an idle-looking shape with it, nodded to himself, and resumed his prowl.
James decided he could breathe again and wondered what Snape was up to since Snape up to nothing was inconceivable. Hopefully the first trip up the corridor still counted despite the interruption. He started off again and rediscovered something important -- a Snape no longer in sight was not necessarily an absent Snape.
The air around James thickened into some impossible gel, encasing him gently from the neck downward. It might have felt comfortable, if someone else had done it to him and he'd been in no hurry to go anywhere. Under the circumstances, he might as well try politeness as anything. "Nice one."
"Thank you," Snape said from behind him, and seemed to be willing to leave the conversation there.
Twisting his head around gave James a sore neck and the vaguest view of a Hogwarts uniform at the edge of his peripheral vision. It wasn't worth the effort. "I suppose there's no point asking you to teach me that one."
"I dislike teaching."
James disliked long silences, especially long silences while he was held practically immobile in front of an enemy's wand. "Are you planning to do something interesting back there, or see how long it takes me to die of boredom?" Silence. "And how did you even know I was here?"
There was a soft sound of mirth behind him. "Potter, you would need to add an Inaudibility Cloak to the one you have -- and perhaps to give up that alleged cologne -- to be remotely discreet."
"Lily gave me that cologne."
"One might suspect she was kidding, as with the Cockroach Cluster."
James had to think about that -- oh, right, five years previously, when he and Snape vaguely got along, they had wound up in hospital together and James had tried to pass off a Cockroach Cluster from Lily. If he was referring back that far, it was probably safe to assume he'd remember the next conversation they'd had as well. "The other thing everyone bloody hates about you is that you remember bloody everything."
"The other? I had believed the list rather longer."
"You mean, such as prowling about jinxing people in the corridors? I can't imagine why that would bother anyone."
"You probably cannot. Otherwise I would have to suspect you of a sense of irony not previously demonstrated."
And that dead-ended the conversation again. "What are you doing up here, anyway?"
"Nothing that needed to interest you."
That simple sentence sounded as though it had at least four layers of meaning. James tried to decide which one he wanted. "Simple tapestry appreciation, then?"
"And what was your purpose in this empty bit of Hogwarts?"
"Trying to keep my girl safe from hex-happy bastards like you." As soon as James said that, he realized he'd blundered. Aubrey and Gilbert hexed Lily, yes, if they could get away with it or thought they could, and Rosier and Wilkes could be outright nasty about it, and Carter the prefect had done it a couple of times, though even Lily herself thought that was mostly to keep from looking too odd. But, now that James really thought about it, not Snape. Knowing Snape, of course, that could have been some subtle and complex ploy to look undeserving of the Marauders' attentions and trick Lily into being on his side -- if, of course, Snape had ever shown any grasp of the concept of 'sides' or any desire for anyone's pity. And there were two perfectly reasonable things that Snape could be saying right now, a denial of the accusation or a polite inquiry into where exactly this alleged girl might be, and yet he was saying nothing. James added everything twice, checked his figures, and felt smart. "Brick sandwich," he said, and thoroughly enjoyed saying it.
The sense of amused menace behind him faded considerably, though it might have been imagination all along. "I beg your pardon?"
Puzzling Snape was an event for the diary, and James deeply regretted that he could never share this moment with anyone, ever. "At the beginning of the term, Lily told me she was interested in someone who wasn't interested back, and I said he had to be as thick as a brick sandwich. And if he knew she was interested and overlooked her anyway, I upped it to two."
There was a faint rustle of robes hinting of a shift of weight. "And?"
If James had added incorrectly, he had his back to a very deeply insulted Slytherin who knew some nasty tricks. He might even if he had added correctly. "And," he continued, still feeling smug -- after all, he seemed to have won Lily -- "she meant you."
A silence followed, so long James thought he might have been left. "You do tend to choose the simplest and least flattering explanations," Snape said eventually.
"All right, what's the complex and flattering one?" Not that James had any right to ask personal questions, but Snape had left him damn-all else to do with this air-gel stuff holding him in place.
"They are legion. The one you would probably understand best is that I do not wish to see Lily hurt. Something you might also keep in mind, by the way."
James would have preferred to have his skin stripped off rather than hurt Lily; Snape's tone suggested a closer relationship between the two possibilities. "I would never hurt Lily."
"If you knew just being with her put her in danger, would you leave her?"
James tried to turn to see Snape's expression, to see if that was hypothetical for himself or a restatement of Snape's own situation, or some other complicated statement, but was held fast. "Assuming I believed you?"
"You would not, of course. And Potter? Even I find it morally dubious for you to spy on your girlfriend." The silence that followed took on a gradual difference, a certain empty quality.
"Snape?"
No thoughtful pause, no feel of a sneer drilling between his shoulder blades. Just ordinary empty-corridor quiet.
"Snape! If you don't undo this spell I'll 'morally dubious' you into next week!" Shouting threats might not be the best bargaining strategy, but it was a bit late to think of that now. "Snape? I passed you a few good things along with that Cockroach Cluster, remember?" Five years ago. There had also been a few stunts involving immobility and Filch's mop cupboard, come to think of it. And a few humiliations in front of Lily. Quite a lot of humiliations in front of Lily. Quite a lot of stunts. "Severus?"
Well. It seemed there was nothing to do but try to draw a little power from the wand in his pocket, with no luck, and try to make up a good story for the next person to happen along, who would almost certainly be Lily. Well, she might as well know about the Invisibility Cloak, and maybe she could even think up some new uses for it. The hard part would be explaining what he was doing here in the first place.
At least he was calm in his cozy little prison. The Midnight Marauders had once confessed their deepest dislikes to each other, and this spell could almost make him think Snape had managed to overhear them in their own dormitory. Peter hated to be helpless, and Remus hated to be confined, and Sirius just plain hated Snape, but James could only define his hatred as of "icky things," which the others had found nebulous and unsatisfying. This spell would have made his three friends very unhappy, but...
Apparently it had some sort of time limit and revealed its true nature in its dissipation. James had considered it to have made the air softly solid. Now it seemed instead to be a bath to his neck of lukewarm and stiff slime on which someone had just pulled the plug of a very small drain. The uppermost edge slid from his Adam's apple to the hollow of his throat clingingly, seeming to leave a residue of raw egg, slithering against him and oh Merlin's beard and thickened toenails how long before he could reach his wand and break himself free? He was certainly going to faint, throw up, or scream before then, and none of those would do him the least good.
The bright side. There was one. He would think of it hard. Snape disliked using his little inventions over and over. James would probably not have to stand rigidly trying to shrink by two clothing sizes in the company of an angry Sirius, a panicky Peter, and a distressed Remus at some later date. Poor Snape, wasting an admittedly good spell on just one of them. Had James really just thought 'poor Snape'? He was coming unhinged. Never mind admitting even in his thoughts that this was an excellent if ghastly spell.
Every bit as ghastly as the thought of Lily having anything to do with Snape, or Snape with Lily. On the other hand, Lily had been disappointed, and said bricks made good solid friends. So why had the two been meeting in secret as though...?
Well, obviously, because a Slytherin and a Gryffindor could not be at all civil to each other in public and still survive Hogwarts as it was. Especially that ugly git of a Slytherin and pretty popular Muggleborn Lily.
James shuddered as the spell oozed its way to the middle of his chest. Why hadn't Snape stayed around to watch and gloat a bit longer? Well, the spell was invisible and so was James; watching would have been about as interesting as watching mould grow. And as for gloating, well, this spell seemed to give enough time for that and a clean escape.
And that was about as kind a thought as James was going to manage as he became intimately familiar with the feel of a gooey fluid trickling away from each pair of his ribs. He could just about almost credit Snape with a small helping of brains before making another futile effort to break free. Oh, yes, a very clever son of a --
Presumably there was a side of Snape that Lily saw and James did not. Had Lily ever had a good look at this side? The cursing, swearing, slime-creating, snake-summoning...?
Apparently panic just made the stuff move more slowly, or seem to. Relaxing, taking deep breaths, and trying to remember when the gel had seemed rather comfortable all seemed to help. This was, after all, temporary, no matter how gross. His wand hand would be free soon, and then he could just end the spell. He'd been caught with that hand partway up, and the edge of the ooze seemed to slide caressingly over a knuckle of his thumb. Soon, he reminded himself. Very soon.
And the confoundingest part was, he was pretty sure he couldn't exact the sort of vengeance he craved a friend of Lily's. James was pretty sure that by now he would normally have a perfect prank in mind even with this vile distraction creeping down him. Lily's friends were off-limits, even this one he supposed. He waved a few fingers, aware of the way his wand's weight distorted his still-unreachable pocket. Soon, he promised his shrinking skin. What had he done to deserve this?
A treacherous corner of his mind offered up several stored-up possibilities, quite a lot of them pranks that had seemed a lot funnier at the time.
All right, maybe he had deserved it. Maybe believing that would make the spell end.
Maybe really, really believing that would make the spell end.
He would soon be able to move his arm. At least Snape hadn't performed a Full-Body Bind on him and stashed his invisible self somewhere tricky, which come to think of it would also have been fair. Assuming James kept his sanity, Snape had done him no lasting harm. Lasting embarrassment was usually more the goal, and James thought he might just avoid that too.
Two experimental heaves, and his arm came free with a distinct sucking sound that made goose pimples form. James grabbed at the handle of his wand. "Finite Incantatem! "
The transparent goo became suddenly, horribly magenta, trailing over his freed parts in long slobbery lines. It was one of those spells. "Evanesco slime! " The magenta turned to a colour James could only think of as toad-bogey green. Spell disruptions were coming to mind very poorly for some reason. "Finite! " James was now waist-deep in mealworms, with more in his cloak and clothes. He used one of the words he would have punished Snape for using. The mealworms turned to an ochre pudding-like mass.
It responded to swearing. The curse would be undone with the right curse word, used enough times. Was the level still falling? It was, slowly, so if James couldn't find the correct pick from Snape's rather phenomenal vocabulary, he'd still be free eventually. He certainly didn't know that many himself, did he?
James tried quite a few colourful words, getting varying responses from his nasty imprisonment, none of them a step back along the chain of transformations. This was a Markov Charm -- any incorrect attempt to remove it would simply nudge it along a path of increasing chaos. Irena Markov earned a few rude remarks that also failed to improve matters. Hip-deep in what appeared to be puree of rotten banana, James announced to the world at large, "Oh, bugger."
The puree retreated back to glowing turquoise sludge.
"Oh, bugger?" James tried again, and got another retreat, to something like semi-liquid tepid cheese sauce. "That's the best you could do?" he said in disbelief to an absent Snape, and was right back to turquoise. The trailing edge was almost to his private bits; James hastily recited, "Oh, bugger!" a shocking number of times. Was his own vocabulary really that large? Eventually his entrapment turned toad-bogey green, then magenta, then invisible, then disappeared, except --
Except for a clinging residue on and in his cloak and robes. James said, "Oh, bugger!" one more time with extra fervour and changed nothing. How would he have felt saying that a few dozen times in front of Sirius and Peter?
He took off the Invisibility Cloak and surveyed himself. Which would be worse: waltzing into the Common Room looking as though he'd been rolled in last week's kitchen leavings, or gliding through the halls as a heap of garbage smells with an invisible centre? There wasn't a hint of cologne remaining, that was certain. No, Snape meant to pay him back for everything.
James could just go let the others know he had been bested, leave them to their amusements, and get his revenge without attacking Lily's friend himself. No, he couldn't. He closed his eyes and mouth tightly, took a deep breath, and pointed his wand at himself. Scourgify!
After his unpleasant coating, the soapy vacuuming of the spell almost felt good. Almost.
He sulked back to the dormitory, thinking that love could make a man put up with a lot and he hoped he'd done his full share of tolerating tonight.
When Lily returned just before curfew, James was revising dutifully, looking up new Defence spells and memorizing them. At present, knowing how to defend oneself was smart -- both outside Hogwarts and inside. Sirius was beside him with a Muggle magazine from Heaven-knew-where. Lily dropped into a chair across the table from them, gave Sirius' feet a mild glare where they rested, and smiled at James with the same expression he was pretty sure he was wearing himself. She had plainly had a perfectly boring evening, about which there was absolutely nothing to say. So had he.
Sirius lowered his magazine, looked from one to the other of them, and swung his feet off the table. "There is way too much innocence at this table for me. I think I'll go upstairs and let you two discuss whatever you haven't been doing."
James gave him a puzzled look that would have been worth a lot more if Lily had not done the same. He was beginning to wonder how much she had gotten away with, and for how long, wearing that expression. Sirius shook his head at them and left.