FIC: Halloween Mayhem IV [Harry Potter, Marauders]
Chapter Four; This Is Called A Collision
Remus had to remind himself to keep breathing.
Am I sure I just heard Sirius ask me if I was trying to seduce Lily?
He checked.
Yep, sure did.
If he hadn’t been so angry, he would have laughed. Hard. It was the epitome of irony; when he found a solution to one problem, that solution would create another problem. Lily wanted to help him, and because of that, Sirius was now standing here with the crazy idea that it was her Remus was trying to woo. Brilliant. Just bloody brilliant. Why, why couldn’t he, just for once, do something without half the wizarding world falling over him?
Something rose up in his chest, something big and wild that wanted nothing more than to burst out and lunge at Sirius, who was still looking at him with that ridiculous, preposterously grave expression.
"What if I was?"
Oh, that must be it. Funny, Remus thought it would have been a shout of sorts. A spontaneous smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as Sirius paled. At that moment, he understood exactly why Sirius enjoyed to shock people so much. It felt good to act his anger out like this.
"What is it, Sirius, did I say something wrong? I don’t see why I wouldn’t wish to make Lily my girlfriend." he said, taking sadistic delight in the contortions of Sirius’s face.
"She - you know James fancies her." Sirius said incredulously. "He has for ages, even if he only realised it recently."
"So? It’s not like she fancies him back." Remus snapped his fingers, like something had just occurred to him. "As a matter of fact, she can’t stand him! Unlike me. We get along quite well, actually. My, it seems I’d have a far better chance to ‘seduce’ her than James does."
If he’d told Sirius he liked the taste of dragon dung, he probably wouldn’t have looked more shocked - and certainly not as enraged. "What’s wrong with you, Remus? He’s your friend! Going after his girl is - is -"
"Hurtful? Callous? Something only a completely insensitive prick would do?" Remus supplemented. He sneered, his own bottled up pain and anger drifting closer and closer to the surface. "Good grief, that would be horrible, wouldn’t it? Now where have I seen such actions before?"
"W - what are you saying?"
"You need to ask?!" Remus spat, disgusted and, though he refused to show it, hurt.
"James and I have been nothing but the best of friends for you, Moony." Sirius flared up indignantly. "We stuck by you when you turned out to be a werewolf, we even became animagi for your sake -"
"Really? To be honest, I’ve always wondered about that. Oh, I know you consider yourselves noble and good for doing that, but isn’t it possible that you did those things just because you thought it was cool? Think about it; how many people can say they have a real live werewolf for a friend? How many people become Animagi at age fifteen? You guys are urban legend material. Isn’t that what you call ‘one of the main ambitions of every Marauder’?"
Sirius looked horrified, but Remus wasn’t finished yet. His voice was getting increasingly louder.
"And besides, do you think that’s all it takes to be a good friend? All that really comes down to is pity. You treat me like an underling, just like Wormtail. All you and James care about is yourself and each other!" he shouted. He was surprised he wasn’t crying yet. "Everybody else is just there to amuse you. To be used. Are you proud of yourself for what you did to Peter? Well, are you?!" His voice had gained a hysterical edge by now, but he didn’t care. If he didn’t get this out now, he felt like he would choke on it. "What kind of friend would do something like that? No, don’t answer that, I already know; the same kind of friend who believes stupid rumours from girls he’s snogged for a filthy deal, and doesn’t know his so called friends well enough to trust them."
He made another move for the stairs, and this time, Sirius let himself be shoved out of the way. Once in the dormitory, he headed straight for his bed and, ignoring James altogether, pulled the curtains closed and cast the most powerful colloportus and silencio charms he could muster on them. Fisting his hands in his hair, he let out an unintelligable cry, long and painful and sounding unhinged even to himself. But it was a release to transfer the chaos in his head to the air, even if the sound was confined within magical boundaries. So Remus howled.
Cry like a wolf.
Remus buried his face in his pillow, shaking and breathing heavily, when he could finally identify his own emotions again. He tried to get them under control and keep them all in, but the urge to cry was too strong, and soon tears came and soaked his pillow.
What have I done? What have I done? he kept thinking. The anger had left him, dissolved in the heat of reality for what it was; an insubstantial subsitute for the real emotions he had suppressed; and now he just felt the sting of Sirius’s words and the ever-present guilt over his own existence, made worse by the fact that he now had something that really was entirely his fault. I didn’t mean it like that... not really. Why did it have to come to this? Why can’t they just be happy for me? Why does everything have to be so complicated - being a teenager is complicated enough without being a werewolf to boot! Why does that stupid moon always have to ruin everything?
The cold, unfeeling voice of reason that lurked in the back of his mind told him not to blame everything that went wrong in his life on his lycanthropy, but it didn’t manage to convince him this time. He always tried to dismiss the effects of his condition as much as he could, but in the end, it still caught up to him. Pretending like nothing was wrong, that he was every bit as confident as his friends and that he wasn’t over-sensitive didn’t work. He was scarred inside and out, and he knew it. As much as he tried, he would never be normal, he would never have normal friendships or know normal love.
He curled up into a small, shaking ball, now attempting to hide the sounds of his anguish despite the fact that nobody could hear them either way. I can live with that! My life doesn’t have to be perfect. But - I just want to be happy, some way... any way. Make the best of things with my friends and the girl I love. Is that really too much to ask for?
Fearing his knees might give out from underneath him, Sirius sat down on the bottom steps of the staircase. He realised he was shaking. That... had not gone as expected. Staring blindly into the dying fire on the other side of the room, he carefully kept the words Remus had hurled at him at an arm’s length, lest they would overwhelm him. His thoughts were going every possible direction without getting anywhere, like a frantic dog on a leash.
Remus is wrong. Was he really that angry? How could I not have noticed? I thought he was just cranky. He’s wrong. How did he get that idea, it wasn’t like that! He was wrong.
He wasn’t wrong.
Despite his best efforts, Remus’s harsh words snuck up on Sirius and pounced him from behind, shook him up and left him in insecure bits and pieces.
Lousy friend, you don’t care about us, you don’t trust us, you only care about yourself, you insensitive prick.
He was wrong!
It’s not like that at all!
...was it?
Sirius Black did not like having to do in-depth soul searching. Whenever he was forced to do so, it was usually the result of something nasty, and what he found would be equally ugly.
No, he didn’t like this one bit.
When James came down to look for him, Sirius checked the clock and thanked the small amount of luck that had made it a Saturday by then.
Breakfast the next morning was a bleary-eyed affair; James had been kept awake all night by worries over Sirius and his uncharacteristic silence. He had tried to pry something, anything from his friend, but much like during lunch, the dog animagus avoided the questions directed at him.
Sirius himself had hardly gotten a wink of sleep in between worrying over Remus, or Lily and James, or Remus’ words and the remaining question of whether or not Remus was trying to make a move on Lily. Come morning, when fatigue finally claimed him, Sirius decided to sleep in and skip breakfast in favour of an extra large, early lunch.
Remus had yet to open his curtains, and Peter was still in the hospital wing.
Thus it came to be that James went down to the Great Hall all on his own for the first time in a long while. The murmuring had started again, James observed, his suspicions raising to new heights. It was obvious from the covert looks, not-so-covert pointing fingers and the suppressed giggles that were sent in his direction that it had something to do with either James himself, the Gryffindor Quidditch team, or the Marauders.
James was going down their list of recent pranks, scuffles, Quidditch practices and public appearances in general again in his head, all the while chewing on a piece of sausage that had long since been reduced to mush. And then it hit him. Sirius and the Ravenclaw girl. Sirius had been acting strange ever since they’d snuck off together. She had said something that had upset Sirius, he was sure of it. Now that he thought about it, the possibility that it had something to do with the recent suspicious murmurs was rather big.
Sirius kept to a tight schedule when it came to girls, consisting roughly of: ignore them around Hogsmeade weekends (reserved for the Marauders), around regular weekends (reserved for the Marauders), Quidditch matches (reserved for emotional support of Prongs and celebrations), holidays (reserved for trying to sneak off to Prongs’s house, or, more recently, Moony’s if full moon happened to occur during the holidays), festivities (reserved for having fun with the Marauders), and full moons (reserved for Moony) - let them come if there are no schemes scheduled - and feel free to reap the benefits of your natural charm when the house-elves take away the porn (nb, never try the latter without good reason, girls are such a bother in everyday life).
The Ravenclaw, what was her name again, Meadows?, fell outside the norm; they were working on paint-filled dungbombs, so tradition had it that Sirius should be too busy to notice her.
The question was, what had she told him that would trouble Sirius To-Hell-With-It-All Black so much? Only one way to find out...
James kept an eye on her throughout the meal, which he ate slowly (to his standards), and eventually poured himself another goblet of pumpkin juice, which he sipped sparsely as he continued to wait for her to move. The only time he let his gaze off of her was to admire Lily’s rear when she passed by in front of him, and even then the slap he received when he whistled made him look back to the Ravenclaw table almost immediately. When she finally left the Great Hall with one of her frizzy-haired friends, James followed her and called her name.
He put on his most flirtatious smile as he approached and said: "Hey Meadows, could I talk to you for a minute? In... private?"
Meadows exchanged glances with her friend, who grinned and said: "Two in as many days? Did you brew an aphrodisiac or something?"
Meadows looked mock-offended and shoved the other girl away. "You just go on ahead, Lady Scepsis. I’ll... see to what Potter wants, then I’ll come right after you." She smiled at him suggestively, and James made shooing motions to the other girl for emphasis. The frizzy-haired girl chuckled and walked away, leaving them with a final "You owe me, Dorry, and you’d better make it good.".
"Let’s go somewhere more private." James suggested.
"My, you don’t beat around the bush, do you?"
James said nothing as he led her to a deserted corridor. Once they were sure no-one was around, Meadows leaned against the wall and looked James up and down.
"Before you try anything, a few rules -"
"That won’t be necessary." James interrupted her. "I only want to know something."
Meadows raised an eyebrow, her inviting demeanour melting away. "Oh." she said coldly as she straightened and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "And what would that be?"
"What did you tell Sirius Black yesterday during lunch?"
Both her eyebrows shot up at this, and she let out a laugh. "My my," She looked at him with renewed interest. "You want to know that, huh? Oh my... That I’ll tell you in exchange for one date. Three hours in Hogsmeade, within the next month."
"No chance." was James’ immediate retort.
"Oh, come on, I know you can afford it."
"It’s not a matter of money, it’s a matter of commitance."
"But I wasn’t talking about money!" she said gleefully, clapping her hands together in mirth.
James glared. Though he knew perfectly well that Evans’s reactions to his advances could hardly be called positive, he still kept on asking her to go out with him. It was a laughable thing, he realised that too, but he didn’t care; he wanted Lily Evans, and he wasn’t going to give up until he had gotten her. Having someone else rub it in that that wasn’t going to happen any time soon was a different matter, though.
"Look," he said, drawing his wand. "Consider this information as being in the public domain. Do you know what that means? It means that you’ll have to share it fairly."
He could see that the implication that he would use force set her on edge, though she tried to hide it behind disdain. "Oh, grow up, would you. I’ll tell you, but don’t take your bad temper out on me once you’ve heard it."
James nodded apprehensively. Meadows seemed to have a hard time to keep from grinning. She leaned in and whispered: "Remus Lupin snogged your ‘girlfriend’, Lily Evans. It was yesterday morning, in front of greenhouse three. I saw them with my own two eyes. They were all over each other..."
Remus took his time. He listened carefully and waited for Sirius’s telltale snores before he got out of bed and went to the bathroom to make a half-hearted attempt at drowning himself in the water basin. He freshened up, changed into clean robes and went out to eat, hoping nobody would talk to him if only he kept his face blank enough. At least his red eyes could be blamed on lack of sleep.
He was right in time to witness something so extraordinary that it came close to lifting his mood; James getting what he had coming for him.
When he descended the marble staircase to the Entrance Hall, a shriek cut through the air. From a side passage two figures emerged, one obviously James Potter, the other a girl sporting a head of almost fluorescent lime green hair. James backed away, a string of obscenities flowing from his mouth, and the girl advanced on him with her wand raised.
"Ungrateful bastard!" she yelled, and a blast of electric blue light hit James square in the face. With a hoarse cry, he put his hands over his eyes, and the girl stormed off. The corners of Remus’s mouth tugged up into a small grin. That spell would sent jolts of static electricity through his body for the remainder of the morning and, if the girl’s jinx had been powerful enough, maybe even well into the afternoon. Having caught it in the face, the effect would be strongest there. Remus let out a sigh of disappointment when after a moment’s struggle, James put his wand to his forehead, stuttered a finite incantatem and the dancing sparks disappeared.
Remus resumed his descent, intend on silencing his growling stomach so Madame Pince wouldn’t kick him out of the library, where he planned to spend the remainder of the day. He only got halfway, though, before James shook his head and looked up, straight at Remus.
"You!" he yelled, extending an accusing finger to him. He started walking toward Remus without lowering his arm. "You traitor!" A group of third years coming out of the Great Hall quickly hid behind the double doors. Remus froze.
James broke into a run once he reached the stairs, and before it could register in Remus’s foggy mind, the black-haired boy grabbed him by the scruff and shook him wildly.
"You dirty traitor, how could you do that to me!"
"What are you talking about?" Remus stammered. Though he thought he knew, he wasn’t able to utter anything else.
"Evans! You bloody snogged Evans! She’s mine, Remus, you know how I feel about her! How could you do that? Ungrateful bastard!" he echoed the girl that had jinxed him moments before. Remus grabbed James’s wrists to steady himself; the rough treatment on top of the fuzziness of his mind, due to his recent lack of sleep, almost knocked him off his feet. It was hard to tell while trying to keep his head from bobbing back and forth, but he thought James looked like he was ready to burst into tears. "I thought we were friends! Friends don’t do that to each other, you ruddy traitor!"
"What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything!"
"Like Hell you didn’t, there were witnesses!"
"Witnesses of what?" Fear gripped Remus’s insides, more tightly even than James gripped his collar. Had that blasted rumour spread this far? So quickly?
"You and Evans s- sn- outside, by the greenhouses." James spat, unable to utter the offensive word. "You two were seen - seen - damnit, you bloody well know what you were seen doing! You stole her from me! Is that why you were so secretive the other day, huh? Because you knew you were a filthy turncoat?!"
"I didn’t do anything! You’ve got it all wrong -"
"Oh yeah? The way I see it there’s not mistaking it. Trying to impress a girl with self-conjured flowers, huh? Going to McGonagall to learn how to do that? And then Sirius ruined that, so you opted for the next best thing instead - flowers from the greenhouse!"
Remus stared at him, wide-eyed and out of breath. "Bloody Hell, Sirius was right. You really are paranoid. Nothing happened, you twit! How many times do I have to keep saying that?"
"You only have to confess!"
"HEY! STOP IT! POTTER, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!"
The heads of both boys snapped to the top of the stairs. It was Lily, and she was livid. She stomped down the stairs to where they stood, raised her hand, and slapped James’s cheek.
"How dare you, Potter?" she hissed. "That’s twenty points from Gryffindor. Let go of Remus at once. Let go or I’ll make it fifty!"
James let Remus’s robes slip from his fingers as the latter stumbled backwards. He looked between the two Prefects, his expression a mixture of hurt, confusion, anger, and embarrassed apprehension.
"I am not yours or anybody else’s, Potter." Lily stormed. "What I do, with or without Remus, is none of your damn business. Do you understand? Leave me alone, and do not ever think you can tell me or any of my friends what to do. If I find out you’ve harassed Remus again, I will take the issue up with McGonagall and I swear I’ll do my utmost best to get you expelled!"
With that, she grabbed Remus by the arm and dragged him off, leaving James amidst a suddenly buzzing crowd, with a storm of emotions whirling through his mind.
Chapter One: Take Your Positions!
Chapter Two: And Lose Them Again...
Chapter Three: Regroup ASAP
Chapter Four: This Is Called A Collision
Chapter Five: I Did Warn You Guys - That Hurts
Chapter Six: We’ll Be Playing Blind Today
Chapter Seven: Bet You Didn’t See That Coming
Chapter Eight: Somebody Tell Me I’m Dreaming
Chapter Nine: Please Play Nicely
Chapter Ten; Surprise, Surprise
Remus had to remind himself to keep breathing.
Am I sure I just heard Sirius ask me if I was trying to seduce Lily?
He checked.
Yep, sure did.
If he hadn’t been so angry, he would have laughed. Hard. It was the epitome of irony; when he found a solution to one problem, that solution would create another problem. Lily wanted to help him, and because of that, Sirius was now standing here with the crazy idea that it was her Remus was trying to woo. Brilliant. Just bloody brilliant. Why, why couldn’t he, just for once, do something without half the wizarding world falling over him?
Something rose up in his chest, something big and wild that wanted nothing more than to burst out and lunge at Sirius, who was still looking at him with that ridiculous, preposterously grave expression.
"What if I was?"
Oh, that must be it. Funny, Remus thought it would have been a shout of sorts. A spontaneous smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as Sirius paled. At that moment, he understood exactly why Sirius enjoyed to shock people so much. It felt good to act his anger out like this.
"What is it, Sirius, did I say something wrong? I don’t see why I wouldn’t wish to make Lily my girlfriend." he said, taking sadistic delight in the contortions of Sirius’s face.
"She - you know James fancies her." Sirius said incredulously. "He has for ages, even if he only realised it recently."
"So? It’s not like she fancies him back." Remus snapped his fingers, like something had just occurred to him. "As a matter of fact, she can’t stand him! Unlike me. We get along quite well, actually. My, it seems I’d have a far better chance to ‘seduce’ her than James does."
If he’d told Sirius he liked the taste of dragon dung, he probably wouldn’t have looked more shocked - and certainly not as enraged. "What’s wrong with you, Remus? He’s your friend! Going after his girl is - is -"
"Hurtful? Callous? Something only a completely insensitive prick would do?" Remus supplemented. He sneered, his own bottled up pain and anger drifting closer and closer to the surface. "Good grief, that would be horrible, wouldn’t it? Now where have I seen such actions before?"
"W - what are you saying?"
"You need to ask?!" Remus spat, disgusted and, though he refused to show it, hurt.
"James and I have been nothing but the best of friends for you, Moony." Sirius flared up indignantly. "We stuck by you when you turned out to be a werewolf, we even became animagi for your sake -"
"Really? To be honest, I’ve always wondered about that. Oh, I know you consider yourselves noble and good for doing that, but isn’t it possible that you did those things just because you thought it was cool? Think about it; how many people can say they have a real live werewolf for a friend? How many people become Animagi at age fifteen? You guys are urban legend material. Isn’t that what you call ‘one of the main ambitions of every Marauder’?"
Sirius looked horrified, but Remus wasn’t finished yet. His voice was getting increasingly louder.
"And besides, do you think that’s all it takes to be a good friend? All that really comes down to is pity. You treat me like an underling, just like Wormtail. All you and James care about is yourself and each other!" he shouted. He was surprised he wasn’t crying yet. "Everybody else is just there to amuse you. To be used. Are you proud of yourself for what you did to Peter? Well, are you?!" His voice had gained a hysterical edge by now, but he didn’t care. If he didn’t get this out now, he felt like he would choke on it. "What kind of friend would do something like that? No, don’t answer that, I already know; the same kind of friend who believes stupid rumours from girls he’s snogged for a filthy deal, and doesn’t know his so called friends well enough to trust them."
He made another move for the stairs, and this time, Sirius let himself be shoved out of the way. Once in the dormitory, he headed straight for his bed and, ignoring James altogether, pulled the curtains closed and cast the most powerful colloportus and silencio charms he could muster on them. Fisting his hands in his hair, he let out an unintelligable cry, long and painful and sounding unhinged even to himself. But it was a release to transfer the chaos in his head to the air, even if the sound was confined within magical boundaries. So Remus howled.
Cry like a wolf.
Remus buried his face in his pillow, shaking and breathing heavily, when he could finally identify his own emotions again. He tried to get them under control and keep them all in, but the urge to cry was too strong, and soon tears came and soaked his pillow.
What have I done? What have I done? he kept thinking. The anger had left him, dissolved in the heat of reality for what it was; an insubstantial subsitute for the real emotions he had suppressed; and now he just felt the sting of Sirius’s words and the ever-present guilt over his own existence, made worse by the fact that he now had something that really was entirely his fault. I didn’t mean it like that... not really. Why did it have to come to this? Why can’t they just be happy for me? Why does everything have to be so complicated - being a teenager is complicated enough without being a werewolf to boot! Why does that stupid moon always have to ruin everything?
The cold, unfeeling voice of reason that lurked in the back of his mind told him not to blame everything that went wrong in his life on his lycanthropy, but it didn’t manage to convince him this time. He always tried to dismiss the effects of his condition as much as he could, but in the end, it still caught up to him. Pretending like nothing was wrong, that he was every bit as confident as his friends and that he wasn’t over-sensitive didn’t work. He was scarred inside and out, and he knew it. As much as he tried, he would never be normal, he would never have normal friendships or know normal love.
He curled up into a small, shaking ball, now attempting to hide the sounds of his anguish despite the fact that nobody could hear them either way. I can live with that! My life doesn’t have to be perfect. But - I just want to be happy, some way... any way. Make the best of things with my friends and the girl I love. Is that really too much to ask for?
Fearing his knees might give out from underneath him, Sirius sat down on the bottom steps of the staircase. He realised he was shaking. That... had not gone as expected. Staring blindly into the dying fire on the other side of the room, he carefully kept the words Remus had hurled at him at an arm’s length, lest they would overwhelm him. His thoughts were going every possible direction without getting anywhere, like a frantic dog on a leash.
Remus is wrong. Was he really that angry? How could I not have noticed? I thought he was just cranky. He’s wrong. How did he get that idea, it wasn’t like that! He was wrong.
He wasn’t wrong.
Despite his best efforts, Remus’s harsh words snuck up on Sirius and pounced him from behind, shook him up and left him in insecure bits and pieces.
Lousy friend, you don’t care about us, you don’t trust us, you only care about yourself, you insensitive prick.
He was wrong!
It’s not like that at all!
...was it?
Sirius Black did not like having to do in-depth soul searching. Whenever he was forced to do so, it was usually the result of something nasty, and what he found would be equally ugly.
No, he didn’t like this one bit.
When James came down to look for him, Sirius checked the clock and thanked the small amount of luck that had made it a Saturday by then.
Breakfast the next morning was a bleary-eyed affair; James had been kept awake all night by worries over Sirius and his uncharacteristic silence. He had tried to pry something, anything from his friend, but much like during lunch, the dog animagus avoided the questions directed at him.
Sirius himself had hardly gotten a wink of sleep in between worrying over Remus, or Lily and James, or Remus’ words and the remaining question of whether or not Remus was trying to make a move on Lily. Come morning, when fatigue finally claimed him, Sirius decided to sleep in and skip breakfast in favour of an extra large, early lunch.
Remus had yet to open his curtains, and Peter was still in the hospital wing.
Thus it came to be that James went down to the Great Hall all on his own for the first time in a long while. The murmuring had started again, James observed, his suspicions raising to new heights. It was obvious from the covert looks, not-so-covert pointing fingers and the suppressed giggles that were sent in his direction that it had something to do with either James himself, the Gryffindor Quidditch team, or the Marauders.
James was going down their list of recent pranks, scuffles, Quidditch practices and public appearances in general again in his head, all the while chewing on a piece of sausage that had long since been reduced to mush. And then it hit him. Sirius and the Ravenclaw girl. Sirius had been acting strange ever since they’d snuck off together. She had said something that had upset Sirius, he was sure of it. Now that he thought about it, the possibility that it had something to do with the recent suspicious murmurs was rather big.
Sirius kept to a tight schedule when it came to girls, consisting roughly of: ignore them around Hogsmeade weekends (reserved for the Marauders), around regular weekends (reserved for the Marauders), Quidditch matches (reserved for emotional support of Prongs and celebrations), holidays (reserved for trying to sneak off to Prongs’s house, or, more recently, Moony’s if full moon happened to occur during the holidays), festivities (reserved for having fun with the Marauders), and full moons (reserved for Moony) - let them come if there are no schemes scheduled - and feel free to reap the benefits of your natural charm when the house-elves take away the porn (nb, never try the latter without good reason, girls are such a bother in everyday life).
The Ravenclaw, what was her name again, Meadows?, fell outside the norm; they were working on paint-filled dungbombs, so tradition had it that Sirius should be too busy to notice her.
The question was, what had she told him that would trouble Sirius To-Hell-With-It-All Black so much? Only one way to find out...
James kept an eye on her throughout the meal, which he ate slowly (to his standards), and eventually poured himself another goblet of pumpkin juice, which he sipped sparsely as he continued to wait for her to move. The only time he let his gaze off of her was to admire Lily’s rear when she passed by in front of him, and even then the slap he received when he whistled made him look back to the Ravenclaw table almost immediately. When she finally left the Great Hall with one of her frizzy-haired friends, James followed her and called her name.
He put on his most flirtatious smile as he approached and said: "Hey Meadows, could I talk to you for a minute? In... private?"
Meadows exchanged glances with her friend, who grinned and said: "Two in as many days? Did you brew an aphrodisiac or something?"
Meadows looked mock-offended and shoved the other girl away. "You just go on ahead, Lady Scepsis. I’ll... see to what Potter wants, then I’ll come right after you." She smiled at him suggestively, and James made shooing motions to the other girl for emphasis. The frizzy-haired girl chuckled and walked away, leaving them with a final "You owe me, Dorry, and you’d better make it good.".
"Let’s go somewhere more private." James suggested.
"My, you don’t beat around the bush, do you?"
James said nothing as he led her to a deserted corridor. Once they were sure no-one was around, Meadows leaned against the wall and looked James up and down.
"Before you try anything, a few rules -"
"That won’t be necessary." James interrupted her. "I only want to know something."
Meadows raised an eyebrow, her inviting demeanour melting away. "Oh." she said coldly as she straightened and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "And what would that be?"
"What did you tell Sirius Black yesterday during lunch?"
Both her eyebrows shot up at this, and she let out a laugh. "My my," She looked at him with renewed interest. "You want to know that, huh? Oh my... That I’ll tell you in exchange for one date. Three hours in Hogsmeade, within the next month."
"No chance." was James’ immediate retort.
"Oh, come on, I know you can afford it."
"It’s not a matter of money, it’s a matter of commitance."
"But I wasn’t talking about money!" she said gleefully, clapping her hands together in mirth.
James glared. Though he knew perfectly well that Evans’s reactions to his advances could hardly be called positive, he still kept on asking her to go out with him. It was a laughable thing, he realised that too, but he didn’t care; he wanted Lily Evans, and he wasn’t going to give up until he had gotten her. Having someone else rub it in that that wasn’t going to happen any time soon was a different matter, though.
"Look," he said, drawing his wand. "Consider this information as being in the public domain. Do you know what that means? It means that you’ll have to share it fairly."
He could see that the implication that he would use force set her on edge, though she tried to hide it behind disdain. "Oh, grow up, would you. I’ll tell you, but don’t take your bad temper out on me once you’ve heard it."
James nodded apprehensively. Meadows seemed to have a hard time to keep from grinning. She leaned in and whispered: "Remus Lupin snogged your ‘girlfriend’, Lily Evans. It was yesterday morning, in front of greenhouse three. I saw them with my own two eyes. They were all over each other..."
Remus took his time. He listened carefully and waited for Sirius’s telltale snores before he got out of bed and went to the bathroom to make a half-hearted attempt at drowning himself in the water basin. He freshened up, changed into clean robes and went out to eat, hoping nobody would talk to him if only he kept his face blank enough. At least his red eyes could be blamed on lack of sleep.
He was right in time to witness something so extraordinary that it came close to lifting his mood; James getting what he had coming for him.
When he descended the marble staircase to the Entrance Hall, a shriek cut through the air. From a side passage two figures emerged, one obviously James Potter, the other a girl sporting a head of almost fluorescent lime green hair. James backed away, a string of obscenities flowing from his mouth, and the girl advanced on him with her wand raised.
"Ungrateful bastard!" she yelled, and a blast of electric blue light hit James square in the face. With a hoarse cry, he put his hands over his eyes, and the girl stormed off. The corners of Remus’s mouth tugged up into a small grin. That spell would sent jolts of static electricity through his body for the remainder of the morning and, if the girl’s jinx had been powerful enough, maybe even well into the afternoon. Having caught it in the face, the effect would be strongest there. Remus let out a sigh of disappointment when after a moment’s struggle, James put his wand to his forehead, stuttered a finite incantatem and the dancing sparks disappeared.
Remus resumed his descent, intend on silencing his growling stomach so Madame Pince wouldn’t kick him out of the library, where he planned to spend the remainder of the day. He only got halfway, though, before James shook his head and looked up, straight at Remus.
"You!" he yelled, extending an accusing finger to him. He started walking toward Remus without lowering his arm. "You traitor!" A group of third years coming out of the Great Hall quickly hid behind the double doors. Remus froze.
James broke into a run once he reached the stairs, and before it could register in Remus’s foggy mind, the black-haired boy grabbed him by the scruff and shook him wildly.
"You dirty traitor, how could you do that to me!"
"What are you talking about?" Remus stammered. Though he thought he knew, he wasn’t able to utter anything else.
"Evans! You bloody snogged Evans! She’s mine, Remus, you know how I feel about her! How could you do that? Ungrateful bastard!" he echoed the girl that had jinxed him moments before. Remus grabbed James’s wrists to steady himself; the rough treatment on top of the fuzziness of his mind, due to his recent lack of sleep, almost knocked him off his feet. It was hard to tell while trying to keep his head from bobbing back and forth, but he thought James looked like he was ready to burst into tears. "I thought we were friends! Friends don’t do that to each other, you ruddy traitor!"
"What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything!"
"Like Hell you didn’t, there were witnesses!"
"Witnesses of what?" Fear gripped Remus’s insides, more tightly even than James gripped his collar. Had that blasted rumour spread this far? So quickly?
"You and Evans s- sn- outside, by the greenhouses." James spat, unable to utter the offensive word. "You two were seen - seen - damnit, you bloody well know what you were seen doing! You stole her from me! Is that why you were so secretive the other day, huh? Because you knew you were a filthy turncoat?!"
"I didn’t do anything! You’ve got it all wrong -"
"Oh yeah? The way I see it there’s not mistaking it. Trying to impress a girl with self-conjured flowers, huh? Going to McGonagall to learn how to do that? And then Sirius ruined that, so you opted for the next best thing instead - flowers from the greenhouse!"
Remus stared at him, wide-eyed and out of breath. "Bloody Hell, Sirius was right. You really are paranoid. Nothing happened, you twit! How many times do I have to keep saying that?"
"You only have to confess!"
"HEY! STOP IT! POTTER, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!"
The heads of both boys snapped to the top of the stairs. It was Lily, and she was livid. She stomped down the stairs to where they stood, raised her hand, and slapped James’s cheek.
"How dare you, Potter?" she hissed. "That’s twenty points from Gryffindor. Let go of Remus at once. Let go or I’ll make it fifty!"
James let Remus’s robes slip from his fingers as the latter stumbled backwards. He looked between the two Prefects, his expression a mixture of hurt, confusion, anger, and embarrassed apprehension.
"I am not yours or anybody else’s, Potter." Lily stormed. "What I do, with or without Remus, is none of your damn business. Do you understand? Leave me alone, and do not ever think you can tell me or any of my friends what to do. If I find out you’ve harassed Remus again, I will take the issue up with McGonagall and I swear I’ll do my utmost best to get you expelled!"
With that, she grabbed Remus by the arm and dragged him off, leaving James amidst a suddenly buzzing crowd, with a storm of emotions whirling through his mind.
Chapter One: Take Your Positions!
Chapter Two: And Lose Them Again...
Chapter Three: Regroup ASAP
Chapter Four: This Is Called A Collision
Chapter Five: I Did Warn You Guys - That Hurts
Chapter Six: We’ll Be Playing Blind Today
Chapter Seven: Bet You Didn’t See That Coming
Chapter Eight: Somebody Tell Me I’m Dreaming
Chapter Nine: Please Play Nicely
Chapter Ten; Surprise, Surprise