“Do you want to know a secret?” James asked her and she nodded. “I think I did too.”
“James!” Lily squeaked. “Come on. Boys don’t cry about that kind of thing.”
“I don’t think you quite understand what you did to me. Look at it from my side.”
James Potter and the three Marauders walked into the Three Broomsticks sometime around mid-afternoon. The place was almost empty, with just a few tables occupied, but they strode to the back where they would be less conspicuous. They say down near a table of third year Slytherins, who were engrossed in a seemingly important conversation.
They sat down and ordered a round of Butterbeers as they tried to think of something they could do.
“We could play ‘Guess that Cup’,” Peter suggested.
James made a face. “Nah, we played that yesterday.”
“And besides, Sirius always wins,” Remus said, causing Sirius to grin widely.
“What can I say? I have a way with the ladies,” Sirius said confidently.
“Yeah, a way to make them run,” James laughed.
“Why don’t we play ‘Dare or Doubledare’?” Remus interrupted them.
“Sure,” Sirius answered, taking a swig of his Butterbeer.
“Sounds good,” James agreed.
“Fine,” Peter answered glumly. He never thought of good dares.
“Sirius. Dare or Doubledare?” Remus asked.
“Double,” was the instantaneous reply.
“I dare you,” Remus began slowly. He looked around the room for inspiration and his eyes landed on the Slytherins at the table next to them. His eyes darted back to Sirius and the mug in his hand. “I dare you to chuck your cup at one of those Slytherins.”
“What’s my double?”
Remus looked at James and Peter. “Any ideas?”
“They have to see you chuck it,” Peter said, “and-”
“And you have to blame it on someone else. But not one of us,” James finished.
Sirius nodded, pushed his chair back, stood, and drained the remainder of his mug all in one fluid motion. He quickly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and he tested differed grips on the mug.
“Oy, mate!” he shouted loudly, and all the Slytherins looked up. He wound up and pitched the mug full force at one boy’s head. It hit him squarely on the forehead, leaving a big red mark, and bounced off.
The Slytherin boy, with his greasy black hair, narrowed his eyes and glared at Sirius. “What are you on about?”
Sirius inspected his fingernails. “Don’t know what you’re talking about chum.”
The Slytherin boy stood up and drew his wand. “Perhaps I could jog your memory.”
“Now that you mention it though, I do remember seeing that git,” Sirius gestured to one of the Slytherins still seated, “taking his cup and smacking you across the head with it.” Sirius pulled his own wand out of his pocket, but twirled it casually between his fingers.
The Slytherin kicked his chair over with a loud crash. “Sit down Black,” he hissed, “before I have to hurt you.”
“Well, you could try,” Sirius corrected him.
“You’re a disgrace Black. How can you call yourself a pureblood?” Snape snarled, trying to bait Sirius into anger.
James stood up and drew his wand. That was going too far. Remus and Peter followed his lead, and the other three Slytherin boys copied them and stood behind Snape. James glared at them with a fire in his eyes. They had no right to think they were better than anyone else. James noticed that a silence had fallen over the room, and everyone was staring at them, but he brought his attention back to Sirius, who was talking to Snape.
“I generally don’t “ just call myself a wizard. What do you call yourself: a piece of shit?”
James vaguely noticed a crowd gathering around them, but his attention was drawn back again as Snape spoke.
“You filthy blood traitor. You should be in Slytherin,” Snape said.
“And be with the rest of you wankers? No thanks.”
“You bloody bastard!”
Sirius shrugged, keeping his cool perfectly. “Probably.”
“Incendio!” Snape yelled. Sirius ducked in time to avoid the curse, and sent one of his own flying back. Spells flew back and forth, but James could hardly hear them because the crowd around them was cheering and shouting wildly. Although he wasn’t even the one dueling, his adrenaline was pumping, and he could hear his heart pumping in his ears.
“Protego!” he heard Sirius shout. A weak beam of light fell from the tip of his wand bit dissipated quickly. Sirius ducked quickly, just in time, and James had to twist sideways to avoid being hit. He stayed turned, and noticed a girl standing on a table to watch the duel.
“Protego!” Sirius shouted a second time, and James looked back in time to see a spell bounce off a shimmering film in front of Sirius. He watched as the spell flew through the air towards the girl on the table. She sidestepped to avoid it, but lost her balance, and toppled off the table with a thud. She didn’t get back up.
“Shit!” he cursed. “Hey, guys!” No one heard him over the crowd and the shouted incantations. He stepped forward, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. “Game over!” he shouted. The crowd fell silent, and Sirius and Snape paused, wands still held ready, but looked to him.
“You just hit a girl over there with that spell,” James accused Snape.
“What do we care?” Snape asked.
“We care, because depending on who it is, she could go back to the castle, squeal, and get us in loads of trouble,” Sirius answered.
Snape nodded, and the boys walked over to the girl and her friends while the crowd dissipated.
“Look what you lot did!” one of the girl’s friends shrieked at them.
“Oh, relax,” Sirius said.
Snape took a look at the girl lying on the floor, and turned away. “Stupid Mudblood. Serves her right,” he muttered.
James took two long strides to where Snape stood and threw a punch into his chin. Snape reeled backwards, and one of the other Slytherins jumped on James’ back, and another punched him on the left side of his face, connecting with his cheek bone. The other Marauders joined in a pulled the boys off James, and a brawl started. Just then the bar tender came running over, her high heels clicking.
“Stop this!” she pulled Sirius off of a Slytherin. “Get out of her, right now!” she screamed. She threw Sirius out the door and held it open for the others. They all filed out but James hesitated and looked back at the group of girls who were staring at him, horrified.
“Out!” the woman barked at him.
“All right, all right! Keep your knickers on,” James muttered.
“We have to get her back to the castle,” one of the girls said.
“How are we going to do that?” another asked.
“I’ll carry her,” James offered.
“Thanks. That would be great, seeing as you’re half the reason she can’t walk out on her own two feet,” the first girl said, and tucked a piece of blonde hair behind her ear.
James picked up the girl, who weighed practically nothing, and went out the door with the three girls trailing after him.
“How are you blaming me for this?” James asked the blonde girl as they left the pub. “I wasn’t the one dueling.”
The other Maruaders were waiting for James across the street and the two groups conjoined, becoming a large mob sauntering down the road towards Hogwarts.
“There were two parties involved. You lot, and the Slytherins. You are all equally to blame,” a girl with dark brown hair said.
“Well, you lot ruined our game! We didn’t get past the first person!” Peter whined.
“Game? The whole thing was just some ruddy game?” the third girl turned on them. She was short, and had light brown, almost golden hair.
“Of course it wasn’t,” James said.
“We were playing ‘Dare or Doubledare’,” Sirius explained.
“Things just got a little out of hand. It was really all Snape’s fault. Can’t take a little joke,” Remus soothed.
“’Dare or Doubledare’? Never head of that before,” the blonde girl said.
“That’s because we made it up,” Peter said, puffing out his chest proudly.
James glanced at Sirius who rolled his eyes, and mimed shooting Peter in the back of the head with his fingers. Peter used the term “we” rather loosely. James and Sirius had made up the game. That didn’t keep Peter from trying to get the credit, though.
“Well, whatever. We still blame you gits for giving Lily a concussion,” the girl with dark brown hair said.
“You don’t know that she has a concussion,” Remus pointed out.
“You don’t know that she doesn’t,” the blonde girl retorted.
“Do you think she’ll be ok?” James asked the two of them, half to stop them from fighting.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Remus nodded.
The blonde girl nodded her agreement. “I hope so, anyway.”
“Well, I must say, even though it made Lily fall off the table, that shield was bloody brilliant,” the dark-haired girl said to Sirius.
Sirius grinned. “I always have been good with my wand.” He lifted his eyebrows suggestively.
The girl giggled and James and Remus looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
“I’m Jess, by the way. Jess Reynolds.”
“Sirius Black. And while we’re doing introductions, that’s Remus, Peter, and James,” he pointed to each of them in turn.
“Kylie,” the blonde girl said lightly.
“Emma,” the short one piped in.
On the walk back, they all chatted and got to know one another, but James was tuned out of the conversation entirely. He couldn’t stop looking at the girl in his arms. He recognized her from the train in first year, a prank they played in second year, and various other times around the castle. He thought it was odd how he was always running into her. By the time they reached the castle, James had memorized her lips, her eyes, the thirteen tiny freckles on her nose “ her entire face. The face of an angel.
James looked up and noticed all his friends had stopped walking. They had reached the castle gates.
“So, uh, what do we do now?” Sirius asked.
“Well, I think we go inside,” James said sarcastically.
“We should take her to the hospital wing,” Kylie said.
“No!” Remus protested. “We can’t do that. If we take her there, they’ll ask us what happened. And we don’t have a cover story,” Remus explained.
“What, what’s your suggestion?” Emma asked.
“We’ll take her to Gryffindor tower. I’m sure she’ll be just fine once she wakes up,” James offered.
“If she wakes up,” Kylie corrected.
“Bloody hell! The girl is not concussed! Get over it!” Sirius yelled at her.
“Fine,” Kylie pouted, crossing her arms. “But she’s going to your room.”
“Let it go, mate,” Remus cut off Sirius from answering with what would have been some rather unkind words. “It’s fine. And it really does make sense.”
“How does it make sense?” Peter asked.
“We can’t get up the stairs to their dorm, Pete. They won’t let us,” James explained.
“Oh, yeah.”
“And I doubt any of them could carry her up the stairs,” Sirius said.
Sirius opened the door to the room and James gently laid Lily down on the closest bed, which happened to be his, and the girls filed in through the door.
Once James had laid her down and covered her with a blanket, Remus came over and shook his hand. “Congratulations.”
“What are you talking about?” James asked him.
“You’re the first one of us, including Sirius, to get a girl in your bed,” Remus grinned. Sirius and James both scowled at him, for different but equally obvious reasons.
“Does anyone know if we missed dinner?” Jess asked. James looked at her. Her friend was knocked out, possibly concussed, and she was asking about dinner.
“Let’s go find out,” Sirius suggested.
“Last one there is a snarflaxed-dinglehopped!” Jess shouted and spun towards the door.
“Hang on a second! We can’t just leave her here,” James said.
“Yeah, if she waked us here, not knowing where she is, I’m pretty sure she’ll spaz out,” Emma agreed.
“But I’m hungry!” whined Peter.
“Well, you lot go down to dinner. I’ll stay here. I’m not really that hungry anyway,” James suggested.
“Great! Let’s go,” Kylie nearly shoved everyone out of the room, and closed the door behind them.
James set out a piece of parchment and his potions book on the desk against the wall, upon which was a large mirror. He sat down with every intention of working. He rested his head in the palm of one hand and picked up the quill in the other. He dipped it into the inkpot and glanced into the mirror. He could see Lily perfectly in the glass. Her chest moved up and down slightly, along with her shallow breathing, and her perfect hair was famed out on the pillow. She was beautiful.
The door swung open then, and everyone came bounding in. James jumped up and looked down at the parchment in front of him. He had let the ink drip off the quill and form a large blot on the page.
“What’re you doin’ there, James?” Remus asked him.
“Productive few minutes you’ve had, I see,” Sirius joked.
“No, I was, ah, just trying something new for, well, you know,” James said, hinting at the map of Hogwarts they had begun to make.
“Oh! The Marau- Mmph! Mrr emm mph!” Peter exclaimed as Sirius clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Shut it, Pete,” he said.
“So, you all get dinner? That was fast,” James distracted them.
“No,” Jess said glumly. “It was over.”
“So let’s go down to the kitchens,” James suggested.
“The kitchens? Where are the kitchens?” Kylie asked.
James looked at Sirius who grinned and winked at the girls. “It’s a secret.”
“So tell us!” Emma said.
“I don’t think so,” Remus told her.
“What? Why not?!” Kylie asked angrily.
“Because it’ll be more fun if we just show you.”
Kylie glared at him.
“Are we going all at once?” Emma questioned.
“Sure,” James answered. “Why?”
“Well, if we all go together, there’s more chance of us getting caught,” Jess pointed out.
Sirius shrugged. “We don’t really worry about that.”
“Whatever,” Jess shrugged in response.
“I think I’ll stay here in case Lily wakes up. I hope you all get caught,” Kylie said.
“You know, we’re not technically doing anything wrong,” Remus informed her.
“I’m sure we’re not supposed to be in the kitchens.”
The boys all shrugged.
“Whatever. I’ll stay here,” she said.
James led the expeditions down through the school and they came to a halt in front of the painting of the bowl of fruit, which the girls all eyed with curiosity.
“Proceed, mon ami,” Sirius said dramatically, and bowed slightly towards the painting James grinned and stepped forward. He paused there, arm outstretched, waiting.
“James! Go already!” Emma whispered excitedly.
“All right, relax,” he laughed, and reached out and tickled the pear. It squirmed and giggled beneath his fingers, and the painting swung open. The boys smiled proudly as Jess and Emma gasped together.
“Shall we?” Remus asked, and they ushered the girls inside.
James looked around the enormous Hogwarts’ kitchens, with all the tiny house-elves scurrying about. It was hard not to laugh at them, running around with trays bigger than they were, squeaking in their high-pitched voices. James was surprised when one came bustling over and unloaded a pile of sweets into his arms. He hadn’t asked them to bring anything yet. He looked over and saw Jess had taken charge, asking the elves for a variety of things, and they hurried off, returning with armfuls and handing them off to him and his friends. Once they all had a load, they exited the kitchen and started back, tromping loudly towards Gryffindor tower. They talked at first about classes and marks and such, but as they opened up more, the conversations branched out and they had the beginnings of friendships.
James was the first to reach the top of the stairs and the door to their dormitory. He reached for the handle, but paused, thinking. “I wonder if she’s awake.” He had mostly been talking to himself, but Remus answered him.
“”Don’t know mate. We won’t find out until we go in, though.”
“I bet she is awake,” James said, again mostly to himself. “But I think we should go in quietly, in case she’s still sleeping,” he said to the others.
“James! Just go in already!” Jess said angrily.
“Ok, but be quiet, in case she’s sleeping.”
“Crimedy! James, yes, we will be quiet! Now move!” Sirius pushed past James to open the door.
“You’re awake!” Emma cried as the door swung open, and James saw Lily sitting up in bed. His bed. He watched as her eyes scanned over them all and the loads in their arms. When she reached him, she paused. Their eyes connected and James felt he was looking into her soul. Not only was this girl beautiful, but in her eyes you could see a depth, a complexity of character far beyond that of most third years. James was sure he was in love.
“What did you lot bring me?” When she spoke, James was no less sure. Her voice was clear and sweet, like a bell pealing out in his head.
“Some of everything,” Jess answered from next to him. “I was in charge.”
Lily smiled. “Of course you were.”
Following Jess’ lead, they all stepped further into the room and deposited their goods on the floor, directly in the middle. Lily hopped out of bed and plopped down next to the pile of sweets, picking one out. James and the others quickly followed suit. The talk and laughed soon turned to teasing Lily for her recent gracefulness.
“So, are you always such a klutz, or is it just when me and James are around?” Sirius directed towards her. James laughed, thinking also of first year on the train.
“It’s pretty typical,” Lily said laughing. “Last week I actually walked straight into a door. Fell completely over onto my bum and everything.”
“Graceful one you are,” James joked, trying to keep himself from thinking about her lovely bum.
Lily nodded. “I can’t help it. I’ve never had really good balance.”
“I think you’re a bit off balance Lily,” her friend Jess said.
“Hey! At least I don’t eat 24/7,” Lily replied tartly.
“How dare you!” Jess faked offense.
“Maybe if you ate more, you would be weighed down and wouldn’t fall over so much,” James laughed. Lily looked at him, and he smiled nervously, hoping he didn’t look nervous. He watched her eyes roam across his face and land on the nasty bruise on his left cheekbone where one of the Slytherins had hit him. He wanted to turn away, to hide if from her, but he was caught in her eyes. They shined as she inspected his discolored, puffy skin, and betrayed her sympathy.
And then her hand was moving towards his face, her slender fingers softly brushing his cheek, and quickly pulling back. His skin tingled where she had touched his face.
“What’s that from?” she asked softly. She couldn’t possibly didn’t know they had a fight over her.
James shrugged and looked away. How could he tell her the truth? That he had punched a Slytherin for calling her a Mudblood and started a pub-brawl. “Quidditch probably,” he muttered.
She nodded, and he could tell she didn’t exactly believe him, but of course didn’t know the real reason. After that, she seemed to avoid him. She wouldn’t talk to him directly, and she never looked at him. Did she know? James wondered. Does she know I lied? He watched her all night, wondering, trying to figure out what he had done to upset her.
Finally, Remus announced that he was going to bed, and the girls followed his lead, leaving the room after Lily had voiced a general “thank-you.”
The door closed with a click behind them, and the other three boys started towards bed, but James was having an internal battle. Should he talk to her about it? Would that just make it worse, if she was angry that he had lied? After a few minutes of debating, he ran, threw the door open, and stepped into the hallway. He started down the stairs a step, but stopped, because it was so dark.
“Lily?” he breathed softly.
“Potter?” she answered back from the darkness. He realized from the sound of her voice, that he was maybe a step away from her.
“Yeah. Listen, I don’t know if I said anything that upset you, or did something, but, um, it kind of seemed like you were avoiding me. I just wanted to say sorry. If I did something, I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry.” His hands were sweating, and he wiped them on his pants as he waited for her to answer.
“No, you didn’t say anything. I’m sorry, I just, well, I, I don’t know really,” she answered back, without really answered him.
“Well then, I was thinking. Maybe you’d like to go out sometime?” he tried to keep his voice casual, but his insides were churning. He knew his face was red, and he hoped she couldn’t tell in the darkness.
“Oh, well, I can’t. Right now. I have to focus on my marks, and I can’t.”
His insides roiled even faster. She had left a glimmer of hope in her answer. He grabbed onto it and held it to his heart. “You said ‘Right now.’ Does that mean later, maybe?”
“No, Potter. I can’t. But it’s not you. It’s me.”
His insides finally froze, stopping his heart. He had to convince her. “I know it’s you I like. It’s you I want to take out,” he said softly. She just couldn’t say no. She couldn’t!
But her voice came back angry and loud, unlike all her previous responses, which had been soft, almost regretful, unsure and hesitant. “Damnit, Potter! I said no!” He heard her run down the stairs, and he stood rooted in place, his eyes burning, waiting for his heart to start again.
“You did not think all that about me in third year!” Lily said accusingly.
“I did so!” James retorted.
“Why, though? Why did you ask me out? I mean, other than that I was a complete klutz and I was serious about my school work, you didn’t know anything about me at all!”
“It was Fate. Destiny. True Love.” Lily looked at him skeptically. “Girls believe in all that mess, right?”
“I suppose. I was just expecting a more, guy-ish answer,” she confessed.
“Alright, I’ll give you a guy-ish answer. Ask me again.”
“Why did you ask me out that night? You knew nothing about me!” Lily repeated.
James shrugged. “You were cute.”
Lily laughed and pretended to be offended. “Were?”
“Yeah,” James replied. “Now you’re gorgeous. And sexy. And, Lils, well, you’re perfect.”
Lily grinned. “Well, one does one’s best,” she said laughing.