The Next Great Adventure (A Marauders Fan Fic)

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Lily collapsed in one of the armchairs by the roaring fire, almost completely engulfed by the squishy red cushions. Leaning forwards she spread her work out, covering the table in textbooks and parchment as she began to do her homework, not wanting to leave it until later. Outside, the sun shone weakly from behind the intermittent grey clouds, the grounds already preparing themselves for the cold winter which was to come.

"Lily!" cried a voice behind her. "What a surprise to see you here!"

Lily smiled as she ignored her, continuing with her essay until she felt Cassie's hands on her shoulders. "I was working Cassie," she replied as her friend pouted.

"You're always working Lily," she complained jokingly, "and you've been working since our lessons finished! It's time to take a break." Lily looked at her Charms essay before pushing it slightly aside, leaning her head to one side in indication that she was listening to her. "What happened?" she asked.

"What do you mean, 'what happened'?" Cassie asked.

"You look like you have something to tell me," Lily said, dipping her quill in her inkpot and writing another sentence.

"Okay so you'll never believe what happened! Basically I was walking back from Ancient Runes and Lupin started talking to me!"

"Remus Lupin?" Lily mumbled questioningly as she nibbled at the end of her quill.

"Yeah, Potter and Black's friend! Anyway, it turns out that he's actually quite nice but this random girl kept glaring at me and I had no idea why until that blonde in Hufflepuff, you know, the one with the short hair-"

"Rebecca something, I think her name is, isn't it?"

"I think so," Cassie agreed, "until she told me that this girl thought we were together or something! Which is ridiculous because I would never, ever go out with a friend of Potter's," Cassie finished.

"Oh dear, perhaps you're next in line to become 'Most Hated Girl at School,'" Lily teased.

"Why?"

"Well think about it, much as I hate it, Potter and his friends are the most popular people in school and practically every girl here would give her wand arm to go out with him or Black, but neither of them have ever gone out with any girl here-"

"Which is strange in itself, if you ask me," Cassie interrupted, shooting a surreptitious glance over to where the boys in question sat, Potter polishing his broom and Black lazily flicking his wand at something. "I mean, you'd think that, what with the number of pathetic girls who are so desperate to fawn over them, they'd have at the least taken advantage of it. Not that I want them to, of course," Cassie exclaimed in answer to Lily's shocked look her way, "but they're popular boys..."

"Yeah, popular boys," Lily said, wrinkling her nose in disgust, "and being popular has only made them more unpleasant. Anyway, what I was saying was that everyone is desperate to be friends with them and if people think that you're going out with Remus-"

"Which I most definitely am not!" Cassie interjected vehemently.

"Then all the girls here will be jealous. He's a catch just because he's friends with those two miscreants over there," Lily finished as she turned back to her essay, the pair of them completely oblivious to the covert glance that Potter sent her way, admiring the way the firelight trailed its flaming fingers along the dangling strands of her hair.

"She's fantastic," he breathed to Sirius, who just looked up at his friend, followed the direction of James' stare and sighed, shaking his head so that a couple of curls collided and fell in front of his forehead before raking his hand through his hair to push it back. He was preoccupied, first with the game of wizard's chess that he was playing against Moony, and second with despairing of his friend, completely oblivious to the greedy gazes of the girls who were eyeing him up as if he were edible; their stares were not restricted to Sirius, but James too was preoccupied, polishing his broom with even more care than he paid to his appearance, each stroke of the handle a soft caress of the shining wood.