Chapter 6: The Perfect Birthday
Lily and the Marauders reached the Whomping Willow around midday. Remus turned to James.
“Do you think we can all fit?” he asked.
James shook his head. “We’ll have to go in two groups. You three go first, then one of you come back and get me and Lily.”
He reached into his satchel and pulled out a silvery, flowing cloak and turned to Lily. “This is my invisibility cloak,” he said. “If we squash up, we can get out unnoticed.”
“You’re just full of surprises today, aren’t you Potter?”
James smiled. “Well, we can’t risk going out without it. Someone less trustworthy than you might catch us at it this time.”
Sirius, Remus and Peter gathered together, and James threw the cloak over them. “Bend your knees,” he said. “I can see your feet!”
The three boys left slowly and carefully, leaving James and Lily alone together in the tunnel. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Lily cleared her throat to break the tension and James smiled at her nervously. “Where do think they are?” He asked. “It’s taking them ages!” He cursed himself for sounding like he wanted to be out of Lily’s company. She smiled at him reassuringly, and James looked away to stop himself from seizing his impulse to grab her and kiss her.
Finally, the knot opened and Peter came through the hole that emerged. “The others are waiting in the trees. There’re quite a few people out in the grounds, so it’s good we have the cloak. Here.” He threw the cloak over James and Lily, and pressed his hand against the wood so that it opened. It took a rather tiresome few minutes to choreograph their way out of the tree without the cloak slipping off and revealing a limb or a torso to passing students on a Saturday morning stroll. Once they were out, and the tree had been frozen, they hurried over to the shade of the trees to meet Sirius and Remus, with bent knees that were becoming ever more painful, where they were able to shrug off the invisibility cloak.
“Are we ok now?” Remus asked. “Sirius? Peter? You guys alright?”
Sirius smiled. “Of course, Moony. Let’s get on our brooms.”
“Yeah I’m fine,” Peter said. “I’m not in a Quidditch mood though. I’m going back to the common room for a bit.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked in the direction of the castle.
“You don’t think-?” Sirius began.
“Padfoot,” Remus cut in, “Whatever you may think of Peter at the moment, he’s not going to do anything stupid. Besides, there’s nothing stupid for him to do. Bella hasn’t got anything on him.”
“I guess.”
The four that were left began making their way to the Quidditch pitch. It wasn’t until they were almost there that James noticed Lily was still with them, chatting away to Remus about a rare and dangerous plant she had read about in The Hidden Plants of Asia.
“Lily, you’re coming?” he asked, bewildered.
She turned to him. “Sure. That’s ok, right?”
“You are coming to watch me muck around on a broom?” he asked again, disbelieving.
“If that’s ok,” she repeated, more slowly this time, with a confused frown. “I would have thought it wasn’t that difficult a concept to grasp…”
“It’s not that, it’s just… sure ok, that’s cool.” He ruffled his hair unconsciously.
Lily left the boys to get brooms and made her way to the stands. When they emerged from the changing rooms, James called up to her. “Evans! Come down here, I’ve got you a broom!”
“You what?! I can’t play Quidditch!”
“Its easy, come on!”
She begrudgingly climbed back down to ground level and crossed the pitch to where the boys were standing, ready to mount. James threw her a broom. “Its not anything special, just a spare, but it’ll do. Let the snitch out, Sirius.”
Sirius opened the chest of balls and released the tiny golden snitch. He grabbed the Quaffle and kicked off with Remus, who flew over to the Goalposts at the far end.
“You ready?” James asked.
“I dunno, James, I’m not much good at this.”
“We’ll soon see about that. Lets go!”
He kicked off and went soaring up like a bolt towards the sky. “Show off,” Lily thought, rising somewhat more slowly and wobbly into the air. She flew gently towards Remus, who was attempting to save goals from Sirius.
“I’m not very good at Goal keeping,” he panted, as the Quaffle sped past his outstretched left hand and through one of the posts.
“Goal!” came from Sirius, who promptly dropped to catch the falling Quaffle.
“Never was any good at Quidditch,” Remus said, turning back to Lily. “I prefer to watch it really, but it’s nice to get on a broom for the fun of it.”
Sirius called from the other end of the pitch. “Moony! I’m going to speed to about half way and then throw long!”
“OK!” he called back. “Lily, if you tilt you’re broom up sharply, you can speed upwards. Its more effective.”
“Thanks,” Lily said. She tried and remarkably she shot up a few metres without any trouble. Trying again she moved more steady, and faster still. Soon she was flying high above the grounds, and James flew over to meet her.
“Having fun?” he asked, smiling. “There’s nothing like this. Nothing in the world.”
“Careful, Potter. Lets keep this cheese-free, if you don’t mind.”
James smiled. “Sure.”
Lily caught sight of something glittering down by Remus.
“There’s the snitch! Race you!” She shot off downwards, in the way Remus taught her, but she had not gone far before James shot past her like a blur and caught the snitch. ‘There’s a reason that boy is the best seeker in years’ she thought.
***
Lily ended up spending the whole day with James, Remus and Sirius. To her surprise, James didn’t try any of his usual tricks. Without his constant mention of her ‘beautiful eyes’ or her ‘charming personality’, or his insistence that they would and will end up together, she found he could in fact hold a decent conversation.
Lily looked for Yves at dinner, having not seen her since breakfast, but she wasn’t there. She felt bad for not trying to find Yves sooner, but ever since the trip down the tunnel, her head had been on other matters.
At dinner, Sirius apologised to Peter. “That witch just gets to me, that’s all. I didn’t like the idea of her using my friends like that. Trust me, once she’s out of this place, the first thing she’ll do is join You-Know-Who’s ranks. Just… keep away, it’s all I ask.”
Lily walked back to the common room with the Marauders. She had completely forgotten what day it was, until James confessed, “Oh no! Lily I’m so sorry I didn’t remember to wish you Happy Birthday!”
“Its no big deal. Don’t worry about it. Wrackspurt,” she said, and the Fat Lady swung open to admit them.
Climbing into the common room, a great roar filled her ears. The room was filled with people with bottles of Butterbeer and handfuls of sweets. A banner was flying by the fireplace that read, “Happy Birthday Lily!”
“Wow!” she exclaimed. “What’s all this?”
Yves came towards her and gave her a hug.
“I’ve no idea where you’ve been all day, but it sure made it easier to set all this up!”
“Thanks Yves!”
“Oh it wasn’t my idea, I just put it all together. It was Potter’s.”
“Potter?” She turned to find him. “James?”
“Happy Birthday, Evans.”
Lily smiled. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Now go and have some fun.”
It was a great party. Someone had managed to get hold of several small fairies, which, it was rumoured, Dumbledore had obtained for the Christmas period. They glided around the room, occasionally swooping to someone’s ear and humming softly, leaving a contented feeling in the buzzing through the brain. Lily didn’t know whether it was the fairies or the Butterbeer or the fact that her birthday had been better than usual, but she certainly went to bed very contented that night.
Love Conquers by dumbly_dorr
Chapter Notes: Lily finds that by giving James a go, he can be quite surprisingly normal! Hope you like this one, it was fun to write! Please review! Thanks...