IN REALITY
“That will be the last time I take the blame for you,” Sirius said, throwing himself down onto an armchair while glaring murderously at James. “Your Head Girl Disarmed me, then made me write bleeding lines! Lines, James, lines! You know how I feel about lines!”
“I’m sorry,” James said, not really apologetically at all, because he was too busy signaling for Gemma to come over to join them in planning what should be done for the WOLE Plan Number Two. (Yes, he had decided to adopt the name that Gemma had come up for their little scheme.) She came over, sitting beside James.
“Here’s your wand.” Sirius snatched the wand from Remus’ hands at once.
“Can we proceed with WOLE Plan Number Two?” James asked impatiently.
“I don’t want to participate in any plans of yours!” Sirius said disgustedly. “I wasted a perfectly good Monday evening writing lines, and it’s all your fault, Prongs!”
“This time no one will get blamed,” James wheedled. “Well, except me, maybe.”
“Oh, yeah?” Sirius said, starting to look less irritated. In fact, his face bore a smile, a smile that seemed to want James to get blamed. James tried not to take it too personally. It was, he reasoned, quite his just deserts even if he did get blamed for this plan. “What’s this plan, then?”
“Read this,” James said tersely, pushing the parchment roll into Sirius’s hands. Sirius read through it, then looked up.
“What kind of cheesy ending is this?” he said.
Gemma was beside herself with fury at Sirius’ lack of tact. “It’s called fluff, you numskull! But, oh, of course, you wouldn’t understand anything outside of pranks, would you?”
Sirius rolled his eyes, then, turned them onto James.
“And what am I supposed to do about this?” he asked coolly.
James leaned over, and started whispering into his ear.
*
“Where is he?” James hissed to Peter and Remus agitatedly. “He was supposed to have come in long ago!”
“Don’t ask me!” Remus said, trying to concentrate on his Herbology textbook (Professor Sprout had set them reading two chapters for homework). “All I know was that he went off early after Defence Against the Dark Arts and wasn’t at the Gryffindor table at tea!”
And finally, Sirius Black made his grand entrance. “The snow’s nice and thick!” The Gryffindors who were in the common room looked at him eagerly, relying on good old fun-loving Sirius Black to provide some means for entertainment for them.
And that was exactly what was planned for them: some means of entertainment in which James could finally win over Lily Evans. Or so James hoped.
“So what should we do?” James said, trying to look relaxed, as though he hadn’t just been furiously questioning the whereabouts of the friend who was bringing him his happy ending.
“Something traditional, maybe?” Remus asked right on cue, although he seemed more interested in the Herbology textbook” he hadn’t looked up once. James inwardly scowled. He would have to reprimand Remus later. WOLE schemes were not to be taken lightly.
“A snowball fight!” Peter said perkily, which wasn’t hard at all, seeing as he was always cheerful when participating in some Marauder scheme.
“Excellent!” Sirius beamed at everyone in the common room. “A snowball fight, to welcome the beginning of the end of the school term! What say you, Gryffindors?”
Everyone shouted, “Yeah!” and ran upstairs to the dormitories, ditching everything on hand. Peter shot upstairs alongside Sirius, but James had to give Remus a couple of prods before the other boy grumpily put down his book and went upstairs.
James looked about the room, hoping to see Lily somewhere, but she had disappeared” along with her friends, James thought disappointedly. He trudged upstairs dispiritedly, and pulled on his winter things, making sure he looked okay in the mirror before going downstairs, where most of the Gryffindors were waiting.
Sirius then proceeded to explain everything that “he” had done in Gemma’s little story, as James had told him to. Satisfied with the way the plan was going, James craned his neck to look for dark red curls framing a face with startlingly green eyes. He finally found that right next to Gemma. Lily was paying Sirius no mind, instead talking and giggling with her girlfriends. She caught James’ eye and gave him a smile that elevated his heart rate, then turned to Mary and continued chatting animatedly.
Leaving James to spend the rest of the time Sirius was talking to daydream about those green eyes staring right into his own. By the time Peter had prodded him out of that blissful dream, he had already been sorted into Group A, and the people in Group B had already put on their ribbons, Lily amongst one of them.
“Ready?” Sirius yelled. “And go!”
He quickly dodged out of the common room, and a stream of people dashed after him. James had to laugh a little; it was indeed a comical sight. To his pleasant surprise, Lily was also lagging behind, but she was still talking to Mary. James edged up to Gemma.
“Nothing’s going as planned,” he grumbled.
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking at him as though he was mad. “Everything’s going according to plan. At least no one preferred studying to playing in the snow, although I thought Remus Lupin was one dangerous candidate.”
“No,” he said impatiently. “I mean about me walking alongside Lily and having some insightful conversation with her.”
Gemma shot him a withering look. “Well, of course,” she said. “I’m not Cassandra Trelawney, am I?”
“No, I suppose you’re not,” James conceded reluctantly. They reached the open grounds outside the Great Hall, where Sirius and the rest were waiting.
“And here comes the last of the pigs, prize pig being James Potter,” Sirius said in a magically magnified voice, obviously enjoying the way he could insult James without any retaliation. James stifled a growl, knowing it would be useless packing a snowball because he would be forbidden to throw it, anyway.
“Now, if any of the other Houses join us, it’s us against them, all right?” Sirius yelled.
“All right!” the younger students yelled back eagerly.
“Ready, set, GO!” Sirius shouted, and James was ready. He made his way through the throng of warring people in search of Lily. After a long while of dodging snowballs and throwing some back, he finally spotted her. She was laughing unrestrainedly as she hurled snowballs at Mary, her friend. Making sure he was close enough, he packed a snowball, and then got ready to throw it at her.
But he found that he couldn’t.
He was in the correct stance, the snowball was perfectly round, and his aim would definitely be precise, but he just couldn’t launch the snowball at Lily, no matter how hard he tried.
C’mon, he said to himself, just do this. You wouldn’t exactly be hurting her, would you? Throwing a snowball at her would just help you to start flirting with her.
Oh, yeah? said another voice in his head. Well, how’d you know the snowball isn’t going to hurt her?
Well, he thought, that certainly cleared things up. Now he really wasn’t going to be able to hurl that snowball at Lily. Dejectedly, he threw the snowball at the ground, watching it splat into formless snow.
“Having second thoughts, Prongs?” came Sirius’ voice behind him. James turned around.
“Yeah,” he said moodily. “For some reason, I just can’t seem to let a snowball fly in her direction!”
Sirius came up to him, giving him a one-armed hug. “It’s all right,” he said, ruffling James’ hair. “Actually, it’s more than all right! This just shows your devotion and unwillingness to hurt your girl!”
As James gave his best mate a half-hearted smile, Sirius grinned.
“But just in case you really don’t know how to throw a snowball…”
James already knew what was going to happen before his brain comprehended the situation.
“… here’s a demonstration for you!” Sirius ended gleefully, and then hurled a snowball into James’ face.
And, just like in Gemma’s story, James found himself spluttering, spitting snow out of his mouth. When he finally opened his eyes, everything was a blur. That meant that his spectacles flew off somewhere. Groaning, he was about to draw his wand and croak “Accio spectacles,” when he heard a voice, saying, “Prongs, aren’t these yours?”
James squinted and saw Peter waving his spectacles in front of him.
“Yeah, they are,” he said in relief. “Thanks, Wormtail.” He grabbed the glasses and shoved them up his nose. At once, everything became defined. “Now, where’s that arse Padfoot?”
“He ducked underneath a couple of fourth years,” Peter said. “Now, Prongs, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get back to my snowball fight with that cute Ravenclaw girl. I only came over because your spectacles flew into my face.”
Without waiting for a reply he reentered the battle scene around them.
Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students had come down to join them, too. James saw Sirius fighting with the Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain, and finally, he spotted Gemma, who was in the midst of furiously pelting a Ravenclaw with snowballs. He made his way towards her, and then grabbed her hand, giving her enemy (who looked relieved) an apologetic glance, and dragged her away outside the battlefield.
“What’s the meaning of this, James?” Gemma snapped. “I was just about to”” Then she saw the look on his face and softened her tone. “What’s the matter?”
“I can’t seem to bring myself to hit her with a snowball,” James told her miserably. “I was all prepared to do it, but then I couldn’t throw the effing snowball at her.”
Gemma listened, a smile forming on her face. “James, you sweet, sweet boy!” she squealed, and then hugged James.
“What?” James asked, fearing for Gemma’s sanity.
“You’ve got to be one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met,” Gemma told him, grinning. “You were unwilling to even, so to speak, lay a snowball on Lily.”
“Yeah,” James said moodily, “that was so dumb of me””
“No, it isn’t dumb, James,” Gemma interrupted. “It’s sweet. Girls love boys like you” except, of course,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “me.”
“Girls” meaning, Lily too?” James asked. A little spark of hope was building up.
“Lily, too,” Gemma affirmed, and the flame was ignited. “Well, I’ll be getting back to my fight now, James, but don’t feel so sad, we’ve still got four more plans to go, remember?”
And she was gone, back to hurling snowballs at the Ravenclaw, but James remained at the sidelines, a hopeful smile on his face.
*
As soon as James had toweled his hair dry, he sprinted back to his dormitory from the prefects’ bathroom and withdrew the parchment rolls from under his four-poster bed. Picking the one with “No. 3” written neatly at the bottom right corner, he then sat down to read it.
Because there was no way James was going to give up on Lily Evans. Absolutely no way at all.
Plan Number Three
“He was making eyes at you!” James said aggressively as he and Lily walked out of the prefect’s lounge where they had just adjourned a prefect’s meeting.
“He wasn’t,” Lily said absently, looking through her sheaf of notes.
James rolled his eyes. “Lily, I absolutely admire the fact that you try to believe the best of everyone, but there’s no denying this. Nicholas Lewellyn was flirting with you,” he said slowly and clearly, “with his eyes!”
“James,” Lily said, finally ungluing her eyes from her notes and looking at him. James felt something indescribable whooshed though his entire being as always when her startling green eyes gazed into his own eyes.
“What?” he asked.
“Let’s look at it this way, James…” she said, her voice trailing off and her gaze returning back to her notes. “So what if Nicky was staring at me? I fail to see how it concerns you.”
James was momentarily stunned. She was right, as usual. It had nothing to do with him. But how did that explain the helium-like happiness that filled him whenever he was around Lily? The kind of happiness and contentment that made him fly without wings? And how did it explain the way Lily messed him up like nothing had ever done? The way how her smile could send a little explosion of fireworks in his brain? The way just sitting or being right next to her gave him a sense of inexplicable comfort?
No, it had nothing to do with him at all. So why did he feel this little surge of anger when he saw Nicholas Lewellyn flirting with Lily?
“But... but, he was flirting with you!” was his eloquent answer.
“You’re not answering the question, James,” Lily said drily.
No, he wasn’t answering the question. Nicholas Lewellyn flirting with Lily had nothing to do with him… except that he liked to think that Lily belonged to him. And him only.
Merlin, did he have issues with possessiveness.
But no way was any boy going to look at Lily like she was a steak he could sink his teeth into. Not when James Potter was on the scene.
“I just don’t like the way he looks at you,” James said, finally, with some conviction.
“What way?” Lily asked, shuffling the pages around in the correct order.
“Like you’re a steak,” he said defiantly.
“A steak?” she asked, looking up at him again, her mouth twisting into grotesque shapes as she (obviously) tried not to laugh.
“He looked like he wanted to eat you!” James said righteously.
“You mean, the way almost every girl looks at your friend Sirius?” she asked, now laughing.
“Yeah, that way,” James said, struggling to sound cross, which was hard when Lily was laughing. But then the image of that hungry look on Lewellyn’s face flashed before him, and suddenly trying to be angry was no longer a problem. Because he was angry. “It’s not funny,” he said, now struggling not to snap.
Lily stopped laughing. “No, it isn’t,” she said. “What is wrong with you, James? What’s wrong with someone staring at me like I’m a steak? Nothing. So why do you even bother so much? It’s none of your business.” The hand holding the notes was now at her side; she was giving James her full attention.
“It’s none of my business?” James repeated, in barely a whisper. “Lily, is that really what you think?”
“Isn’t that the way you feel?” Lily shot back, angrily.
“Well, you know what, Lily?” James snapped. “It isn’t what I feel.”
“What’s it to you, then?” Lily challenged. “I don’t see me acting all waspish when that air-head Morgan Rivers asked you out.”
“It isn’t the same,” James said.
“Morgan was looking at you like you were a… a steak, too,” Lily countered triumphantly, crossing her arms, albeit a little difficultly with the sheaf of notes in one hand.
James was delighted. “So you noticed it, did you?” he asked, wincing at how his voice sounded too eager, but he couldn’t help it.
“I” what?” Lily asked, her voice faltering.
“Noticed the Morgan was looking at me like I was a steak,” James said, promptly.
“So what if I did?” she snapped, marching up to him. “So what if I did?! The point is, you, James Potter, are being too” “ she prodded his chest” “effing” “ she prodded him again” “sensitive” “ another prod” “about one stupid glance!”
She glared up at him, her face flushing with anger. The dark red curls tumbled over her shoulders, and her green eyes were” there was only one word for it” intoxicating.
And suddenly, James didn’t care anymore. It was as if everything was nothing, and it was only Lily that really, truly existed. He grabbed her by the shoulders, dislodging the notes from her hand and, sending them fluttering all around them like doves’ wings, then leaned in to kiss her.
At first she went rigid with shock, but then she relaxed, and James was surprised to find that she was kissing with as much ardour as he was. When they finally pulled away, trying to catch their breaths, their hands were still around the other’s waist. He gasped in a hoarse voice, “Well, does that explain why I’m being too effing sensitive?”
She didn’t say anything, just blinked. Then she broke into a smile, said, “Come over here, James,” dragged him into the closest classroom, and shut the door.
What happened next was anyone’s guess.
*
Yawning, Lily snuggled up against James in the armchair closest to the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room.
“It’s so bizarre,” she told him. “We’ve only been together for two hours, and already everyone here knows we’re going out.”
He grinned. “What’d you expect? Bertram Jorkins saw us coming out from the Transfiguration Classroom, and we all know he’s as fond of gossiping as his sister is.”
“True,” she said sleepily. “Oh, by the way, James, that kiss did explain why you were being so ‘effing sensitive’, but I won’t tolerate anything as melodramatic as you were just now in future.”
“All right,” he said into her ear. She smiled and turned over so her right cheek was against his chest. After a while, her breathing became deep and slow, and James knew that she was asleep. Gently he brushed a lock of red hair out of her face, and kissed her forehead.
“All right,” he whispered again. There was a pause, then”
“But you’re still mine.”
A/N: I won't lie. I love reviews. I mean, we ALL do! (: