“I just saw the weirdest couple on my way back from Care of Magical Creatures,” said Lily as she collapsed onto the bench beside Cassie. “Actually, thinking about it they weren’t weird but it was pretty disgusting.”
“What! Who?” she asked as all interest in her Charms work disappeared.
“That Slytherin prefect Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black,” revealed Lily as Cassie’s eyebrows travelled higher and higher up her forehead.
“Is she Sirius Black’s sister?” asked Mary as she tried to make the cup they had been given play music.
“Cousin,” answered Cassie as she changed her cup from singing ‘Love Potion’ to a Christmas carol medley.
“Cousin. That makes more sense now. He doesn’t get on with his family does he?”
“No, I saw him arguing with Regulus the other day in the fourth floor corridor,” said Lily as she bewitched her teacup to dance in tune with its song.
“Brilliant! Brilliant!” said Professor Flitwick as he examined their teacups. “Perfectly in tune as well Lily and it dances! I don’t know why I even bother coming to check that yours is correct! I’d better watch out or you’ll take my job!” he laughed as he walked on.
“What were they arguing about?” asked Alice absentmindedly.
“I don’t know I didn’t stop to listen; I was going to be late for Potions.”
“Lily you wouldn’t even have to turn up to Potions to get top in the class,” said Cassie.
“Slughorn loves you anyway; his eyes light up whenever he sees you.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration!” she laughed.
“Lily he told you that you were the best pupil he’s ever taught. How was Slug Club last night anyway?” asked Cassie as her teacup began to waver on a particularly high note.
“It would have been nice if Lucius Malfoy hadn’t kept whispering to that Nott boy all evening while I was talking to Sev.”
“Poor you Lily, life is just full of hardships isn’t it,” teased Alice.
“Please can you come to the next meeting Cassie?” Lily begged. “They’re really not as bad as you think and Slughorn really likes you. He’s beginning to get a bit suspicious of all your excuses though; what was the last one?”
“Couldn’t make it because I had… got locked in a bathroom by Peeves, I think it was.”
Mary and Alice sniggered and Lily smirked as she tried to hold in her laughter. “How on earth did you manage to convince him of that anyway?”
“Well I pretended to be really excited about it when he invited me; I was like ‘I’d love to come, I’m finally free that day’ and stuff like that so then I got one of the second years, some distant relative of the Head Healer at St. Mungo’s or something, to tell him I was trapped in a bathroom. It sounded really genuine because I’d told him I was going to be there,” she said as she cackled evilly.
“He was really worried about you when she said that, wanted to send someone down to rescue you.”
“And no one volunteered? Ouch, that hurts.”
“Well you know, it’s hard enough for me to get rid of you as it is, I wasn’t exactly going to go and fetch you,” giggled Lily as her cup blew up.
“Oops,” said Cassie, not at all contrite.
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“James,” called a voice from behind him.
“Yes?” he called as he turned around. Not seeing anyone he continued to walk to Quidditch practice before he felt a hand on his shoulder; turning round he came face to face with a leggy blonde whose heart shaped face was very nearly level with his, her blue eyes wide. “Er hi? Who are you?” he asked, a little alarmed.
“Someone who’s deeply in love with you,” she said with a little giggle.
“Er are you?” he said as he attempted to disentangle himself from where she had him trapped against the wall of the corridor.
“Yes and I have been ever since I first saw you, but you never talked to me,” she said, her voice sad.
“Sorry. I think we’re a bit young though-”
She ignored him and continued, “So I knew I had to do something but I didn’t know what until I saw you just now, and then I thought to myself, ‘I’ll go and talk to him.’ So that’s what I’m doing.”
“Right, yeah,” he said, as his mind supplied, ‘and while you’re at it, you can scare him away too.’ “Well I’m sorry, er…?” he paused, not knowing her name. “I’m sorry but I actually have to go to Quidditch practice so I’ll, um, see you later.”
“I’ll be cheering for you in the match next week.”
“Right, thanks.”
“James?”
“Yes?” he asked, refusing to turn round and face her again.
“Will you go to Hogsmeade with me?”
“I’m not actually going to Hogsmeade,” he lied quickly. “I have… detention that weekend.”
“Already? Who with?”
“Yeah… with um… Professor McGonagall.”
“Well what can I say; I suppose girls love a bad boy.”
“Right,” he said as he ran away as quickly as possible.
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“It’s not that I hate the attention or anything, but she was really creepy,” said James as he explained what happened to the others.
“What is it with girls and James these days,” asked Lupin sarcastically. “Between you and Sirius we can barely walk down a corridor without being mauled and jumped on.”
“And then she asked me to go to Hogsmeade with her!” he said.
Sirius laughed. “What did you say?”
“I told her I wasn’t going because I had detention with McGonagall that day.”
“Oh well done.”
“What?”
“Well now we can’t go to Hogsmeade in case she’s there,” Sirius pointed out.
“Damn.”
“What did she look like?” asked Peter.
“Blonde hair, blue eyes.”
“Bet he would have said yes if she’d been a red head with green ones,” Lupin whispered to Sirius, making his laugh echo throughout the room.
She accosted James again as the four boys walked down to lunch the next day. “I just thought I’d let you know that McGonagall just gave me detention for next weekend as well, so we’ll be together anyway.” James’ eyes widened and he felt Sirius’ elbow in his ribs.
“Yeah about that… McGonagall actually pushed my detention forward so now I don’t have one,” he said as he fled into the Great Hall.
“That was classic!” they laughed as soon as they got away from her. “Your face was brilliant! And now she can’t go to Hogsmeade!”
“Alright, I get the picture,” he said grumpily as he saw Lily Evans walk past to sit with her friend Cassie Jones.
“She’s not interested,” said Sirius from the other side, sounding bored.
“You never know.”
“You know, when you told us last week, I thought you were crazy; still do actually. I would bet ten Galleons that she never, ever goes out with you.”
“Deal,” said Remus from across the table.
“How could any girl not want to go out with James?” asked Peter.
“Yeah Sirius. How could any girl not want to go out with me?”
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Cassie rolled her eyes as she walked past them eating their lunch, then saw the space beside Sirius. She gravitated towards him as if he were a magnet, the whole while her brain screaming that she would have to put up with all four of the Marauders and probably be ignored if she sat there. ‘It won’t achieve anything!’ her mind whispered as she dropped her stuff down beside him, knowing full well that Lily would be livid when she arrived after Care of Magical Creatures.
“Um… Black, is this space free?” she asked, faking confidence as he looked up at her in surprise.
“Yeah of course,” he said as he shuffled along the bench a little to make some more room for her. “Where’s Evans and the rest of your entourage?” he asked, making her laugh a little.
“I’m going to ignore that unnecessary comment Sirius,” she said, “anyway they all have Care of Magical Creatures.”
“And you don’t?” Potter asked curiously.
“No you do Arithmancy and Ancient Runes don’t you?” Sirius said.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“I know everything; I am Sirius Black,” he said cockily.
“It was a mistake to sit here,” Cassie said, but inside she was rejoicing. She knew her infatuation with Sirius was stupid, after all in his own words, he was Sirius Black, not to mention the fact that she really didn’t know him or particularly like how arrogant he was, but she couldn’t deny that he was gorgeous and she found herself inexplicably wanting to be near him and to talk to him.
“No don’t go!” they all said at once, their area of the table erupting into noise.
“Come on Jones, you haven’t even had any pudding yet!” said Sirius, thrusting a lemon tart under her nose. “I know you love lemon tart…”
“Cassie? What are you doing?” asked Lily from behind her. “Why are you sitting with them?”
“There wasn’t any space anywhere else!” Cassie lied quickly as she saw James mess his hair up out of the corner of her eye.
“Well we’re going to sit up there, do you want to come with us?” asked Alice as Cassie stood up. She would rather keep her friends than be on better terms with the Marauders anyway.
“Oh okay then,” said Sirius and James, their voices sounding hurt. “Goodbye Jones,” Sirius said with a fake wave before whispering to James, “What in the name of Merlin’s pants was that all about?”
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“Purus optimum est,” whispered a voice out of nowhere in the middle of the night, the door to the Slytherin common room sliding open for it. The four of them slipped in through the wall and pulled off the cloak. “Such a pity we won’t be around to see their faces.”
“No one will be around at this time will they?” asked Lupin cautiously.
“Nah, it’s four o’clock in the morning,” said James as he pulled his wand out casually. “Where shall we begin?”
“I’ll do the furniture; sofas and stuff like that,” said Sirius.
“Cool. I’ll do the lights, I got Flitwick to teach me that spell that he used to conjure Christmas decorations,” said James.
They all began to work, Lupin changing the colour of the stone walls to varying garish shades of pink, James and Sirius doing the furniture and lighting. Suddenly a loud bang echoed throughout the room and they froze. “What was that?” hissed Sirius.
“It was me, sorry,” said Peter.
“Quick under the cloak,” whispered James as he gestured frantically to the others. He pulled the cloak over them just in the nick of time as Slughorn, Malfoy and a number of other Slytherins entered through the door to the dormitories. “What was that-” someone said before turning speechless.
Even by the Marauders’ standards the common room looked good. Every chair had been turned red, almost every stone that the room was made of was pink, although there was one wall which Lupin hadn’t reached yet, fairy lights hung from the walls and the lights which had once lit the room with an eerie green glow had been changed to a rosy pink. All in all it looked like the inside of Madam Puddifoot’s, a supposedly romantic tea shop in Hogsmeade.
“What happened?” gasped the Slytherins who stood staring at their common room in shock. “Who did this?”
The four Gryffindors stood in the corner of the common room wishing that they had a way to preserve the Slytherins’ faces forever; their particular favourite being when Regulus turned pale and looked as if he was about to faint.
“Right, off to bed all of you,” called Slughorn. “We’ll get this fixed in the morning,” he said as he bumbled back.
“But Professor-” they shouted at his retreating back.
As soon as the four boys got outside they high fived, grinning madly as they ran upstairs. “That was amazing!” said Peter.
“I can’t wait to hear what they say about it tomorrow!” crowed Sirius.
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“Potter’s staring at you,” said Cassie as she examined a bag of Fizzing Whizzbees in Honeydukes.
“Do I have something on my face?” asked Lily paranoid.
“No.”
“I can just tell they’re going to do something to me; turn my hair green or something. Can we go to The Three Broomsticks?”
“What now? Just because Potter’s looking at you? I haven’t bought anything; at least let me buy some fudge.”
“Fine but be quick.”
In the few minutes they were out in the snow their faces went numb from the biting wind, their noses turned red, and Cassie could have sworn that she got halfway to developing frostbite even through the many pairs of socks and gloves she wore. “I could really do with a Butterbeer now,” she said as they trudged up the lane. “When did Alice and Mary say they’d meet us at The Three Broomsticks?”
Lily checked her watch. “Ten minutes.”
“I’m not going to hang around waiting for them for ten minutes, I’ll die of cold; can we go in anyway?”
“Yeah,” she said as they opened the door, immediately being hit by the warmth of the pub, the chatter of pupils inside drowning out the moans of the wind outside.
They sat down on a table by the Christmas tree and ordered two Butterbeers, sipping the warm drinks happily as they quickly recovered from the cold outside. Maybe five minutes later Alice and Mary entered the pub, looking a little lost until Cassie and Lily waved at them.
“How was Scrivenshaft’s?” asked Cassie as they sat down at the table with their own Butterbeers.
“It was good; look at my new quill,” said Alice as she produced an elegant blue black feathered quill. “It was only four Sickles as well!”
“Are you sure you didn’t mind us going to Honeydukes without you?” Lily asked concerned.
“Yeah of course, it was fine. We practically bought the whole shop last time and I still haven’t eaten half of it.”
“Unlike some people,” said Lily with a meaningful look at Cassie.
“What? It’s not my fault I have a sweet tooth!”
“Or a sweet mouth,” said Mary.
“Regardless, being a chocoholic is a serious affliction which you shouldn’t make light of. In other news, we left Honeydukes early because Potter was ‘staring’ at Lily.”
Both the other girls whistled and laughed. “Potter loves Lily! Potter loves Lily!” they sang as he walked in the door.
“Shut up!” she hissed, turning bright red.
“No, she thought he was about to hex her,” Cassie corrected with a smirk.
“Well he looked at me really weirdly!”
“He was probably just eyeing up the sweets Lils. Lord knows no one in their right mind would fancy you!”
“Thanks for that show of support Cassie. Anyway, I wouldn’t go out with him if he was the last person alive.”
“If he was the last person alive then you’d be dead too, so I’d find that a little weird,” said Cassie as she swigged her Butterbeer.
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t know, maybe he’s into dead people,” mused Alice with a wink.
Lily choked on her drink. “Ok can we just stop this now? It’s getting a bit weird!”
“You’re only saying that because it’s your future husband we’re talking about.”
Lily grimaced and mimed throwing up. “Stop it or you’ll make me waste my Butterbeer.”
“Now that is not in the Christmas spirit Miss Evans. What happened to your Christmas cheer?”
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“I just don’t understand,” Lily complained, searching through her ingredients for the Valerian sprigs. “I mean, he’s my best friend and I hate to think that we’re growing apart, but he keeps hanging out with some of the really nasty Slytherins. I mean, I saw him with Avery and Mulciber last week!” she said as she shot them a furtive glance.
“I know,” said Cassie as she stirred her potion and waited for it to boil. “It does say medium heat doesn’t it? Mine’s taking ages to boil.”
“You forgot to add the beetle eyes. I mean, he’s fine when I see him alone but I’ve walked past his friends bullying people and I really don’t like it. I suppose he doesn’t know.”
“Mmm yeah,” said Cassie as her potion finally turned yellow.
“Why is mine black?” asked Mary panicked.
“You have to boil it for ten seconds then stir it anti-clockwise. Then you can add the porcupine quills. Anyway as I was saying, he must not know what they do because Sev would never bully people.”
“I don’t know about that, I’ve seen him attack James Potter,” said Cassie as she flipped through her book.
“Yeah but Potter provoked him. He’d never attack anyone unprovoked, especially when he knows what it’s like to be bullied.”
“Time’s up everyone!” called Slughorn as he walked round and inspected their potions. “Well done Cassie; that looks very good. Oh brilliant as usual Lily, absolutely brilliant! Another perfect potion,” he said beaming as he moved past them to Mary and Alice. “Well done Alice, almost there. You too Mary, although yours might need a bit more water.”
“Another perfect potion Lily!” giggled Cassie as Lily rolled her eyes.
“Well done Mr Potter, that’s almost as good as Lily’s; and yours Mr Black! Oh dear,” he said as he moved past Peter Pettigrew’s potion very quickly, “not quite up to scratch I’m afraid.”
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