Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 2 - I Told You That

Arriving at Godric's Hollow, James' first reaction to it was no better than anything else he had seen that day. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside, literally. All the windows were shattered with practically no glass left on any of them. The door was hanging off to the side by one hinge, swinging slowly back on forth as the wind caught it. The entire house seemed to be consumed in ivy that had crawled up it in the past 20 or so years.

To top it all off, the owner, who was waiting right outside for them, didn't look in much better condition than the house. He made the old witch who owned the last apartment look like a beauty queen. His hair was a stormy grey that was greased down into his round head. He was wearing an eye patch over his right eye, his left eye bloodshot and inflamed. His clothing was torn in several places. He was not wearing and type of shoes, but rather was perched in an enchanted wheelchair so it rose a few centimeters off the ground. Sufficient to say, it looked like a bomb had literally hit him as well.

Upon seeing them appear, the man immediately guided his batter wheelchair to them, his face wearing a scowl and his wand gripped tightly in his hand.

"You sure about this, Sirius?" James whispered to his friend as they saw the man approaching, James' eye focused particularly on the wand the man was holding.

"Newspaper said he was legit, though now that I think of it, Godric's Hollow was one of he prime spots during the start of the war. I heard a battle was fought here once."

"I told you that," Remus murmured to them both.

Sirius flashed him a grin but couldn't reply, because the old man was now situated right in front of them.

"James Potter?" The man said with a gravely voice that reminded James of Mad Eye.

"That's me." Milliseconds after he said it, James realized how stupid that must have sounded.

The old man's nostrils flared as he gave James a hard look. "So, you want it or not?"

James was surprised by the man's forwardness and tried to find the right words to say so he wouldn't sound like such an idiot again. "Well, I would like to look inside a bit an-"

"Look, Potter," the man said quickly, cutting him off. "Tell me yes or no, or I'll take my business elsewhere."

"You don't expect him to pay you money when he hasn't even seen the house!" Sirius said with alarm. James, while grateful for Sirius' help, winced as the man's eyes narrowed again.

"He's seen it," the man growled, his head slightly jerking in the direction of the house.

"What about the inside?" Remus interjected. James was glad he wasn't the only one feeling cheated about this arrangement. He hadn't figured on buying an actually house in the first place, but now with the man's rudeness, he was feeling a bit of his stubbornness come through.

"How much do you want for it?" James asked quickly before the man could reply.

The old man's gaze came back around to land on James, and James did his best not to fidget under it. Moody often scrutinized him like this, making him feel more nervous by a look, than an entire raid of death eaters.

"Take it for free," the man said suddenly, shocking the four boys. James shook his head slightly and turned to look at his friends, all of them wearing identical looks of bewilderment on their faces. That must have been a little detail that the Daily Prophet left out in their ad.

"You don't want anything for it?" James asked in bewilderment as he turned back to the old man.

Surprisingly the man smiled grimly. "You actually think she's worth something?"

James focused back on the old ruined house and had to admit that the man had a point. It didn't seem fit to put a price on a house like that. But, there was something about it that made James want it even more.

An only child and, what Sirius liked to call, a spoiled child, James had grown up with everything that he had ever needed His family had house elves, his mother and father had good jobs, and James role had always been to get good grades in school, which he had accomplished without many problems. Now, the mere possibility of ownership of something he could work on, get his hands dirty with, was creeping into his head, and he quite enjoyed the thought.

"Yes, she is," James said after a moment, realizing that he was taking a risk and that might make the man actually want money, but something told James he had made the right choice.

The old man grinned and reached out to shake James' hand.

"Very well, Potter, she's yours."

James' forehead creased. "Just like that?"

"Of course," the man twitched his wand and a small roll of parchment appeared, along with an ancient brass key. "This is the formal stuff right here." He handed James the parchment and key. "That's the deed, and key to the house. Not sure how much you'll actually need the key, but giving it to you makes the contract final. Congratulations James' Potter. You are now the proud owner of Godric's Hollow.

--*--

After James had thanked the old man and had finally learned his name (Mr. Lawrence Portly), Portly left them in a considerably lighter mood then when they had met, and apparated, wheelchair and all, out of sight. Grinning like a fool and clutching the deed and key in his hands tightly, James finally turned to his friends.

"What do you think, guys?" he said with a wide grin.

All three of them were focused on the house beyond that, for all they knew, could fall down if they so much as breathed on it.

"I think you're nuts," Sirius blatantly admitted, his eyes not leaving the house.

"I'm not going inside," Peter mumbled.

"Do you realize what you just did James?" Remus asked him cautiously.

James' smile widened. "Of course I do!" He threw his arms up and started running towards the house sideways so that they could hear him as he continued shouting. "I just bought a house for NOTHING! It's mine! It's my very own house!"

The three marauders raised identical eyebrows and exchanged looks with each other.

"So, now that he doesn't have Lily anymore, he's lusting over a house?" Remus asked with a mixed expression of horror and humor.

"More like he's trying to find something to occupy all his time besides Lily," Sirius offered.

"Or he could just like the house..." Peter muttered.

Remus and Sirius shot him a glare.

James had now reached the house and the saw him cautiously test the front steps, testing each one before putting his weight onto it.

"He's such an idiot..." Remus murmured. "Doesn't even have his wand out."

"Who knows what's in there," Peter said with horror.

Sirius, however, did not say anything. Both Remus and Peter turned to ask him what was wrong, but he wasn't there anymore. Looking back at the house, they saw Sirius rush up to James, grinning. Both boys whooped and hollered excitedly and didn't bother to test the last step as the bounded all they way into the dusty house. Peter and Remus both stood still, smug looks on their faces as they heard Sirius and James scuffling around the house, Sirius' high pitched squeal when something was finally found, and both their friend's cries as they raced through the house away from whatever it was they had found.

"You can take the Marauder away of the stupidity..." Peter murmured.

"But you can't take the stupidity away of the Marauder," Remus finished their old quote that the four of them had created just after they had been caught for the first time after a prank. It had become their excuse to teachers whenever they were caught from then on.

"You know, we should probably change that from 'Marauder' to 'James and Sirius'," Remus said with a smile as the two boys finally rushed out of the house and Remus and Peter both saw what they were running from. A small mouse that seemed to be half caught in a trap raced out behind them, running much faster than Remus though was possible for a mouse.

"It's a bloody mouse!" Peter yelled to them, obviously amused.

"It's not a bloody mouse!" Sirius shouted back. "It's a bloody boggart!"

Remus rolled his eyes and jogged a little ways forward just as James and Sirius rushed past him. When Remus became closer to the boggart than the other two boys, it immediately changed into a large globe that hung suspended before Remus. A small spark of the usual fear shot through Remus at first, but it passed quickly, and he let his annoyance fuel his spell.

" Riddikulus!" he shouted, raising his wand at the orb. In an instant, there was a loud pop and the moon landed on the ground as a small ant. Not wasting any time, Lupin quickly reached over and squashed it under his foot. Then, turning his amused face back towards James and Sirius he managed a smile.

"You're going to need all the help you can get James," Remus said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. No matter how much people were convinced that Hogwarts had successfully matured Sirius and James, Remus knew better. At heart, both the boys were still 11 years old and setting off dung bombs in the Slytherin common room.

James, who was now over his fright of the dead boggart and was once again lusting over his house, snapped out of his trance and glanced towards Remus with a raised eyebrow.

"Is that an offer of help, Moony old pal?" James said with that obnoxiously smug grin of his. Out of the corner of his eye, Remus saw Sirius sling an arm around Peter who was desperately trying to leave.

Sighing again, Remus started trudging towards the house.

"What are friends for?" he said softly as James and Sirius whooped with delight and raced down the hill after him.

--*--

The cleanup didn't go as bad as Remus had expected it would, though the house was in awful shape. By the end of the first week they had managed to clean out most of the live things, which was a feat in and of itself since their schedules were so hectic.

James was the busiest of the lot, being at Auror training six days out of the week. He was always enthusiastic to help when he came home at night, but was often so tired that he fell asleep on the job. Sirius and Peter once found him being attacked by a pair of bright red trousers that were in the closet he had been cleaning. When they got him out of the mess, they found that he had fallen asleep. Sirius, who was also training, was gone just as often as James, but wasn't so exhausted when he came home, and had the weekends off, whereas James only got Sundays off. Remus, though out of a job, was still on a permanent job hunt, so he was gone for a few hours of the day, but spent most of the day at Godric Hollow. Peter was there almost 24/7, though he often didn't do much if he was there alone.

As the second week rolled around, they started tackling the upstairs cleaning job. Although the living members of the house were disposed of, there were quite a few enchanted objects that seemed to spring on them during random points of the cleaning process. Remus and James tackled a rather large floorboard that seemed to not want to let people across it without springing out and smacking them in the legs, or between the legs. It took them both nearly an hour and a half a box of dung bombs until they wore it down to the point where they could take the enchantment off. At the same time, Remus and Sirius were on dust duty, which didn't take more than flicking your wand and muttering the cleaning spell. Yet somehow, Peter managed to get bitten three times on his hand by some rather nasty dust mites that had hid themselves underneath an old frame that was stuck to the wall.

The hard part didn't come until the third week when they began to move out all the old and decrepit furniture from the house. Much of it had been moved out during the first week, but there was still plenty of it to get them ticked off. To help on that Sunday when all four of them were there, Sirius managed to round up Frank Longbottom, Alice Prewet, Nikkie Hallstead and, to James surprise, Lily Evans.

"Her?" James hissed in Sirius' ear as he saw the group walk up to the house, all of them wearing identically frightened faces. Despite how much work the Marauder's had done on the inside of the house, the outside still looked just as bad. "You just had to get her didn't you?"

Sirius winked playfully at James and grinned. "What's wrong, Jamie? I though you were over her?"

"I hate it when you call me Jamie..." James said through gritted teeth as he walked to the front door to let them in, a phony grin coming to his face as he turned to open the door.

"Hey guys!" Sirius called to the group as they filled in, most of them casting doubtful looks around the house.

"I don't know how you talked me into this, Sirius," Frank said, shaking his head sadly as he surveyed the foyar which, even for all the cleaning thy had put into it, still looked rather shabby.

"Leave it to you to drag me to this for a date, Frank," Alice said with a scoff. "I supposed this is your idea of romantic?" She eyed Frank dangerously who when slightly pink and shot a scowl at Sirius that clearly said 'screw this up for me and you die'.

As always, Sirius was never bothered by death threats. Clapping his hands together, he turned to James.

"What's first, Prongs?"

Remus and Peter burst through the back door as Sirius said this, both of them out of breath and looking scared for their lives.

Open mouthed, James turned to look at them and noticed that Remus had a large cut through his right arm and Peter was sporting a black eye.

"Do I even want to know?" James groaned, walking toward them.

"Probably not," Remus said between breaths. "But whatever is living in that shed in the backyard is either really hungry or has some serious PMS."

All the boys chuckled, the girls glaring at Remus who shrugged under their gaze. "Can't hide the truth."

No one moved for a moment, their eyes resting on James as he thought about what he could do about the problem.

"Didn't we get all the creatures out, like, two weeks ago?" He finally said with exhaustion in his voice.

"That was inside the house," Peter wined. "Your Quidditch Pitch in the back is a mess, and we were trying to find the balls in the shed when we got attacked."

"So what is it?" Frank asked with a raised eyebrow. It was clear he wasn't too worried but James noticed that he had just noticeably moved himself in front of Alice.

"I'm guessing another boggart," Remus concluded, his breathing back to normal. "Pete saw it first so I think that's why it changed into a...well whatever that thing was..." he turned to Peter. "What was it?"

Peter went slightly red. "I'm not really sure, but I'm guessing it was Voldemort..."

Nobody gasped as the name was said. Many wizards of the time understood how dangerous Voldemort was, and often flinched at his name. But luckily, everyone who was currently there had faced him once already, and no one was scared of his name. Peter obviously still had some fears though, since Voldemort was the form the Boggart took.

"You two got beaten up by Voldemort?" James asked with a skeptical eyebrow.

This time Remus went a little red and hung his head. "Actually, I tripped over the hedges as I was running away and Pete ran into the side of the shed."

Because Peter and Remus were their friends, James and Sirius kept themselves from laughing, the others muffling their chuckles with their hands.

--*--

Pairing up seemed the quickest way to get things done, and since James was still mad about Lily, Sirius put himself in charge, doing all the things a best friend does best. He didn't bother to hide his laughter as he saw the looks on James and Lily's faces when he announced that they would be paired together.

"Well it makes sense if you think about it," Sirius said casually. "Frank and Alice are together, as always. You know for a fact that I would pair myself up with Nikkie, and Remus and Peter work so well together, don'tcha think?" He ended his reasoning with an evil grin that showed James how much of a jerk he was really being.

Gritting his teeth and cursing at Sirius under his breath, James trudged up the stairs behind Lily who seemed to like this no better then him. As they marched up to their assigned room, James heard everyone downstairs start to laugh loudly and distinctly heard the words "James", "Lily", "get over it". Lily must have heard it to, because the minute they reached the room she whirled around, her eyes narrowing at him.

"Listen, Potter. I don't like you, and you don't like me. It's obvious we're going to have to get around that little problem. I'm not here for you today; I'm here for Nikkie who is here for Sirius, who just happens, for some reason, to be your best friend."

James scowled at her and held up his hands in defeat. "Chill out, Evans, stop acting like the world's going to end if you say something nice to me!"

Lily's eyes narrowed and she flushed slightly, but, to James' surprised, didn't make a come back.

They were both silent for a moment until James finally walked over to the bed and pulled out his wand.

"Are we going to do this or not?" he said through gritted teeth.

In response, Lily flicked her wand out, pointing it at the bed. A second later it shrunk down to the size of a snitch and Lily calmly walked over to it, picked it up, put it in her pocket, and walked back out of the room, James following in her wake with a definite scowl on his face and his temper rising.