IN REALITY
“Hang on, your plan is to get under a mistletoe and kiss her just like that?” Gemma asked incredulously, snapping her fingers for effect.
“Yes,” James said. “We don’t have mistletoe under the giant Christmas Tree in the Great Hall, and the bottom branches aren’t tall enough for Professor Flitwick to stand under the tree. The hallways are full of holly and mistletoe. Is there anything wrong with that?”
Gemma had a horrified look on her face. “Yes, there bloody is! James, you can’t just grab her and plant a kiss on her lips, it’s most undignified. You need to create a sort of atmosphere that makes it right for you to kiss her.”
“Like what?” James asked, looking at the rest in a silent plea for help. They had no answer to his question.
Gemma sighed. “You know, to tell you the truth, I don’t quite know. You can’t just plan these things. They just happen. But what you have to take in mind is that you can’t just grab her and kiss her. It’s just totally unnatural. If there’s chemistry between the both of you, then there will come a time when it’s perfectly natural for you to kiss her. The mistletoe only adds to the atmosphere.”
James sighed, too. “Nothing is definite, huh?”
“Look, I know you’re upset that three of your plans have backfired, but I already told you, my plans are just a version of what could happen.”
“All right,” James said, and got off his armchair in front of the fire.
“Oy, where’re you going?” asked Sirius.
“To the Owlery. I’ve got some matters to arrange,” said James conspiratorially, and before anyone could answer, he had sprinted upstairs to duck under his invisibility cloak.
*
“Hey, James, how come you’re on the same patrol as me?” Lily asked, her green eyes looking at him questioningly as he came running down the corridor towards the Prefect’s Lounge to meet her.
“Hey,” he smile-panted. “You were supposed to be patrolling with Claire Newt, but she sent in a message saying that she was feeling sick.”
“She did?” Lily asked, now narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
“Yeah, she did,” James said, and whipped out a letter. Remus had written it, altering the handwriting just a little. Meanwhile, Claire Newt was back on her bed, in her dormitory, reading her Transfiguration textbook and enjoying some Chocolate Cauldrons which James had just sent to her through owl post in order to thank her for her cooperation.
Lily scanned the letter. “Yeah, that seems to be in order. Poor girl. I hear that the fifth years have a killer Transfiguration quiz tomorrow.”
“Yeah, the poor girl,” James echoed, trying not to let his smirk show.
They walked in companionable silence for quite a while, James looked at the decorated ceiling, but amongst the hollies there was no sign of mistletoe.
It was so unreal. He didn’t understand it. Just an hour ago the hallways and corridors were full of it. Where could it have all gone to?!
“Hey, why’re you looking so gloomy?” Lily asked in a teasing voice.
“Huh?” he said automatically, and immediately gave himself a mental kick. Real smooth, Prongs, real smooth. “No, I’m not gloomy,” he said quickly.
“Liar!” she laughed. It sounded like little soft bells.
He always liked bells.
“You were looking all brooding…” She paused and stopped a while, seemingly examining him. He stopped, too.
“Yes?” he asked, grinning slightly. “Stared enough yet?”
She blinked and blushed. “Er, yes,” she said, and continued walking, though at a faster pace than usual.
“So, why the examination?” James asked, keeping up with ease.
“No, nothing,” she said.
“Oh, come on,” he said, starting to grin. “It wasn’t nothing, was it, the way you were looking at me…”
“You aren’t very moody now, I see,” she huffed.
“I never was,” he said, lifting up a finger.
Just then, Peeves the poltergeist came floating by, cackling to himself. James, who got along rather well with the castle’s devout troublemaker, looked up at him and asked amusedly, “What’s so funny, Peeves?”
Peeves gave a smile James knew was reserved for one of the better troublemaking schemes. “Nothing, just a little something involving mistletoes,” he said, and promptly vanished.
James frowned slightly. The most likely scenario was that Peeves had taken down all the mistletoes and done something bad with them. Now the only trouble was to find out what that something was.
He didn’t have to wait long to find out. Milliseconds later, the door to the Teacher’s Lounge down the corridor was flung open, and three teachers burst out of it.
Lily raised her eyebrows at him and together they sprinted towards the teachers.
“What happened, Professor?” Lily asked Professor McGonagall, when they were near enough.
“Mistletoe!” Professor Flitwick cried dramatically. “At least a thousand mistletoe, hanging from the ceiling!”
Professor McGonagall looked at James sternly and said, “I trust this isn’t the work of you and your friends, Potter?”
“No, Professor,” he said quickly.
She looked at him shrewdly. Lily hurriedly cut in, saying, “He’s telling the truth, Professor. We just passed Peeves along the corridor just now and he admitted to having done something with mistletoe.”
James edged over to the door, and sure enough, sprigs of mistletoe practically wallpapered the ceiling.
Lily joined him at the door, and gave a little laugh. “Peeves is one of the biggest troublemakers I’ve ever known,” she said in a low voice to him. “And one of the best, too.”
“Hey,” James said, affronted. “How about us, the Marauders? Aren’t we the best?”
And as the Slughorn, Flitwick, and McGonagall began Banishing the mistletoe (while discussing how dangerous it was to have mistletoe around and that they ought to do something about it), Lily Evans chuckled and said, “Yeah. You guys are the best mischief makers, all right.”
Plan Number Five
James Potter feverishly cleared his cauldron and hastily mopped away any potion he had spilled. There were only a few students left in the dungeons and Slughorn was sitting there with a parchment roll tied with a violet ribbon and there was something about the focused, determined look on the Potions Professor’s face that James didn’t quite like. He quickly packed up his equipment and was about to leave with a cheery goodbye when he saw that the front desk, where Horace Slughorn usually sat, was empty. Frowning, he was about to turn around when someone gave him a hearty clap on the back.
“James, my dear boy!” came the loud, booming voice of Professor Slughorn. James suppressed a groan.
“Hello, Professor,” he said.
“Christmas is coming, James, and what say you to a little Christmas party of mine?” Slughorn said, twirling his moustache. “Come now, m’boy, it’s your seventh year! And you’ve been missing my parties for years now!” He prodded James good-naturedly in the chest.
James allowed himself to give an apologetic grin. “Sorry, sir, just a couple of Quidditch practises and detentions,” he said.
“Aha, no more of those, now!” Slughorn said genially. “It’s snowing outside, so you can’t possibly have any practices arranged, can you? And I’ve talked to all the teachers, so your detentions will simply be postponed to some other dates!” He beamed, as though this was the best gift James could ever receive.
“Er, thanks, Professor, you shouldn’t have,” James said, and he meant it. About the part where Slughorn shouldn’t have postponed his detentions, that is.
“It was no trouble at all, James.” Slughorn winked, handing him the invitation. “I’ll see you there at my office on twentieth December, seven in the evening, then!” he said, waddling out of the dungeons, leaving James alone.
James dragged out a sigh, and followed after him, balefully looking at the invitation in his hand.
*
“I can’t believe I’m wasting a whole evening just to attend Slughorn’s little Yuletide party,” Sirius grumbled as he threw on his misty grey dress robes. “I’d rather brainstorm for our graduation prank.”
“What are you complaining about?” Peter asked as he moodily picked at the sheets of his four-poster bed. “At least you’re invited. Also, girls fall before you and kiss the ground on which you walk.”
“Dunno why they bother, though,” James said, who was also not too happy about having to show up at Slughorn’s party. He adjusted his dress robes, which were the colour of midnight blue. “They should’ve noticed by now that Padfoot’s only got fluff and cotton bits where his brain ought to be.”
Sirius looked affronted. “Excusez moi?” he asked in French, but his accent was off.
James shook his head, grinning slightly. “I rest my case.”
Remus entered the dormitory, fresh from a shower. “Sirius, I advise you not to go down the stairs. There are a bunch of girls who are engaged in a catfight.” Then, spotting the quizzical looks on the three faces, he added, “All of whom want to go with Sirius as his official date.”
Sirius moaned in exasperation. “You know,” he complained, “it’s nice when you get treated like a star. It’s even fun, for the first few months. But it’s been seven years, and can’t those ruddy girls leave me alone?”
“Never mind, Padfoot, you can borrow my cloak,” James said.
Remus gave a smirk. “Don’t be so sure you’re not in danger, Potter,” he said knowingly. “I overheard a girl say that if she couldn’t have Sirius, she’d take you. And the rest agreed.”
“Blast!” James said in disgust. “Forget it, I’ll just go under the cloak with Padfoot. Hang on… why weren’t you mobbed by them, Moony?” His eyes narrowed. “I know they like you a lot too, because of your ‘rugged good looks,’ or so they say.”
“I told them I had the flu,” Remus said brightly. “And no one wants to go with me badly enough to catch the influenza.”
“And you couldn’t have told them that Prongs and I had the flu too?” Sirius groaned.
“Nope, I couldn’t,” Remus said with a grin, and ducked as Sirius threw a comb at him.
James sighed, and withdrew his invisibility cloak from where it was hidden, in his trunk. Then, walking over to Sirius, he threw the cloak over the both of them.
“Bye, guys,” he said to Remus and Peter and then led the way downstairs, while Sirius stumbled awkwardly behind. At the bottom of the staircase there was a ruckus, where a few girls were either scratching one another or tugging another’s extensions.
“Bye, suckers,” he heard Sirius whisper gleefully as they exited the portrait, the girls none the wiser.
They tugged off the cloak as soon as the Fat Lady’s portrait swung shut, and James stuffed it behind the first statue they came across. They reached Slughorn’s office without incident, as most of the Hogwarts population was at the Great Hall eating their dinner.
Slughorn’s party was extensively decorated with sparkling snowflakes hanging from off the ceiling. There was a huge Christmas tree which stood at the side, and people were everywhere, sipping drinks from flutes.
“Hey,” Sirius asked, poking James in the side. James doubled over in pain. “Oops, sorry, mate. D’you reckon he’ll serve us Firewhiskey?”
James frowned. “I doubt so. Look at the young kids about this place.”
Sirius snorted. “He could easily set up an Age Line. I’m going to suggest that to him.”
“You go ahead,” James said. “After all, you’re his favourite.”
“I am, aren’t I?” Sirius said with an arrogant smile, at which James rolled his eyes.
When Sirius was gone, swallowed by the crowd, he felt strangely alone. He’d never been to a party at which there weren’t any friends by his side. It wasn’t a nice feeling. He looked around for someone or a cluster he could join, and felt someone tapping him on the shoulder. Thinking it was either Remus, newly arrived, or Sirius, not able to find Slughorn, he turned around in relief, only to find”
“Oh, hello, Lily,” he said, the relieved look dropping off his face. His heart began to pound ten thousand times louder than it should, as it always did when Lily was within five-metre radius of him. She noticed him looking less-than-relieved, and frowned slightly.
“Not happy to see me?” she questioned lightly, but James detected a little worry.
“No,” he said, a little too loudly. “I mean, no, I’m always happy to see you.” And then he kicked himself mentally for sounding so stupid. Why is it that, he asked himself angrily, I have to sound like a complete vegetable when I’m with Lily? And that wasn’t just the case, either. He would be unable to stop staring at Lily. Sometimes it was utterly embarrassing.
For example, in this case, where he had been focusing on her for the past few seconds.
She was wearing robes of green which matched and brought out the colour of her eyes, and her dark red curls were straightened and pulled back into a high elegant knot. Her cheeks were flushed with a tinge of pink and the cute little freckles across her nose and cheeks were absolutely… delightful.
If the James Potter of three years ago had heard the current James Potter describe a girl this way, he would have thrown himself off the Astronomy tower in disgust.
Not that James Potter really cared about how his past self would have reacted to his current lovesickness, because Lily Evans was just too gorgeous for him to think about anything else.
“This has got to be one of the best parties Slughorn ever threw,” Lily said, gesturing at the snowflakes and the Christmas tree, and bringing him back to earth with a bump.
“I wouldn’t know,” James said. “I’ve never attended most of them.”
“Yeah, you and your friends would rather use the time to plan for one prank or other,” she reminisced. “Oh, speaking of your friends, where’s Sirius? There was a crowd of girls waiting for him to go down to the Common Room, d’you know?”
“Yeah, I did,” James said. “We managed to get down safely, though.”
“You did?” said Lily, beginning to smile. “How?”
James winked. “Marauder secret.”
She laughed, her smile becoming a full one. “Of course,” she said.
At that moment, Slughorn came by, and gave them a delighted welcome. “Oh ho,” he said, “oh ho! Getting cosy already, are you?”
They shot each other awkward looks and mumbled something about discussing patrol routes.
“Of course,” Slughorn said affably. “We’re opening up the dance floor for some ballroom dancing, and the Head Prefects would make a nice first couple, wouldn’t they?”
He was answered with a roar of “Yes!”
It was then James realised that everyone was clustered around Slughorn, Lily and him. He caught sight of Sirius raising a bottle of Firewhiskey to his health and then downing it. So Slughorn had provided alcohol.
“Oh, no, we couldn’t,” James said, half hopeful, half embarrassed.
“Oh yes, you could,” Slughorn said merrily, before steering the both of them out to the middle of the room. The lights were dimmed, and a slow romantic song issued from somewhere.
And James found Lily Evans pushed into his arms.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” she said, and it was hard to tell what she was feeling.
“Me neither,” he said. Her right hand found his left hand and her other hand lay lightly on his shoulder. And then James realised where his right hand was supposed to be placed.
On her waist.
He gently placed his hand on her waist, and heard her breath catch. He looked down at her, and upon finding her green eyes, tried to smile. The crowd broke into applause and some wolf-whistles, waiting for them, so he resolutely began dancing with her across the floor. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…
*
Dancing with Lily Evans, James decided, was absolutely divine. She was a great dancer, not to mention absolutely gorgeous. And the way they danced had certainly set butterflies flying about his stomach, batting at the walls of cells.
Or maybe the butterflies were due to the fact that Lily was in his arms.
But either way, he felt that he was on a high. A Lily-high, to be precise.
After the first song ended, everyone whooped and clapped for the Head Boy and Head Girl. Sirius brought forth two bottles of Firewhiskey and a bottle of Butterbeer. When Lily laughed and refused the Firewhiskey, Sirius just smiled in an “I-knew-it” sort of way and proffered the Butterbeer, which she drank.
While they were walking towards the side of the room, Sirius got asked to dance by a beautiful brunette (he agreed; even in the case of Sirius Black, dreams of Harley Davidsons could be postponed by good-looking girls). So James and Lily were left together again, James taking small sips of Firewhiskey, and Lily, her Butterbeer.
“That was a great dance,” she said brightly.
“I thought so, too,” he said happily. “You know, you dance pretty””
There was a tap on his shoulder. He whirled around only to see a gorgeous blonde who he vaguely remembered as Camilla Nott, a Slytherin. She was wearing rather revealing dress robes that left almost nothing to the imagination. It was a wonder Slughorn hadn’t thrown her out. Then again, Slughorn was pretty easy-going. James tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help it.
“Hey,” the blonde said in a smoky voice, and, cocking her head slightly to look coyly up at him, fiddled with his collar. “You wanna dance?”
“Erm,” James said, his eyes still riveted on you-know-where. “I””
“You know what, I’ll get some more Butterbeer, the stuff’s really delicious,” said Lily with a touch of asperity. James turned around to see her stalk away. Panicking, he turned back to Camilla Nott, said, “Sorry, another time perhaps,” and, shoving his bottle of Firewhiskey into her hands, ran off after Lily.
Camilla Nott stared at the bottle and then after James Potter, shrugged, tilted the bottle to her lips and drank.
*
“Lily! Lily!” he called after her. She was a few corridors ahead of him, and it didn’t seem as though she planned to stop anytime soon. “Lily, wait!” Angry at himself as well as his slow speed, he accelerated until he was right in front of her. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he made her stop and said, “Lily, why did you run away?”
Lily didn’t answer at first. She smiled bitterly and James could see her green eyes sparkle with tears in the dim light of the corridors. “It’s rather like Cinderella, don’t you think?”
James was nonplussed. “Cinderella?”
“Oh, never mind,” she said in what was meant to be a brisk tone, and tried to shove him away, but James stood steadfast. “Will you move, please?” she asked evenly, but this was broken by a sob.
“No,” James said in a whisper. “I will not move. You, Lily Evans, are going to tell me why exactly you are crying. And why you ran off, too.”
“Actually,” she said, wiping her eyes furiously with the back of her hand, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t?” he asked disbelievingly.
“Well, maybe it had something to do with the way you glanced at her.”
“At who?” he asked, this time perplexed.
“Her!” Lily snapped. “Camilla Nott.”
“Oh,” James said, slightly ashamed. “Well, I don’t really feel anything about her. And besides”” he allowed himself a grin “” this means you’re actually jealous!”
“What?” she spluttered. “Jealous about what, James Potter? That you were looking at Nott like she was” oh, I don’t know, Madame Rosmerta’s oak-matured mead?”
James nodded gravely, now trying to hide his smile. “Yes.”
“I’m not” was it that obvious?” she asked, all the fight gone out of her.
James chose not to answer her question. “Lily, what makes you think I even like Camilla Nott?” he asked, crossing over to lean against the wall.
She turned to watch him. “I…” she began, but was unable to continue.
“Do you want me to look at you like you’re oak-matured mead?” he asked. Then on a more serious tone, he said, “But the thing is, Lily, you’re more than just oak-matured mead.”
Seeing her look at him, silently inviting him to continue, he took a deep breath and went on, “You’re really nice, and you’re beautiful, and you’re smart. You’re perfect. And hey,” he shrugged, “I’m only human.”
“Actually,” Lily interrupted, “I’m not perfect.”
James looked down at her for some time before he walked up to her slowly. “And why is that?”
“Perfect people don’t fall in love with troublemakers.”
He hardly dared to breathe. “Oh?” he asked, in a lower voice than usual. “And who might this troublemaker be?”
“James Potter.”
His heart leapt, and he kept his face down so she wouldn’t see that foolish, delighted grin he was sure was on his face at the moment.
She must have misinterpreted his mood wrongly, because she asked sadly, “I’m too late, aren’t I? You’ve already fallen in love with someone.”
He paused. “Actually, yes, I have.”
Her eyes were dull. He had just snuffed out any hope in her. “Oh.” A pause, then” “Who is it?”
He smiled down at her and grabbed her, covering her lips with his. It was a long time before they broke apart. This time, her eyes were sparkling not with tears, but with surprise and hope.
Such a beautiful shade of emerald. He could look in them forever.
Then again, that option wasn’t exactly impossible.
It was in fact, come to think of it, highly possible.
“You.”
A/N: I hope you guys aren't disappointed in this chapter! Feedback (coughcough) would be very appreciated. :D