Dates, Pranks and Marauders

Chapter III- The Date or The Worst Experience of James' Life

Lily stood in front of her vanity frantically brushing out her long, silky, auburn hair. It had seemed like ages before her date with James, but now there was only a minute remaining. She rifled through her drawers searching for her mascara, with only forty-five seconds left. At the thirty-second mark, she found her mascara, and held it up with a look of triumph on her face, before beginning to apply it.

As she was just finishing up her left eye, she heard a sharp knock on the door, causing her to make a sizable smudge appear across her face.

'Is Lily there?' She heard James' voice call from the other side of the door.

'Yes,' Marsha Higgins and Rebecca Duffy said in unison, dissolving into a fit of giggles. Lily rolled her eyes at them then said,

'I'll be out in just a moment,' turning back to the mirror to madly scrub the huge black smear that now dominated her face. After continuing in this vein for about a minute, she suddenly realised aloud,

'What I am doing, I'm a witch. I know magic!' She drew out her wand and made the stubborn mark vanish instantly.

After checking herself once more in the mirror, she ran to the door, threw it open, and then exclaimed breathlessly,

'My James, you are punctual. Sorry for taking so long.'

Had James not been preoccupied with his problem, he probably would have said something to the extent of, 'It was well worth the wait.' However, what came out of his mouth didn't resemble that in the slightest.

'Your door looks lovely this evening,' he said distractedly.

'Right, uh, what's with the hat?' Lily replied, slightly annoyed that he was more interested in a piece of wood than her. She eyed the multi-plaid patched old man cap with disdain.

'Yeah, Remus said that I should wear it,' he said trying to look like it was no big deal, and putting on what he hoped would look like a winning grin.

'Oh, OK. So, where are we going?' she asked, trying to change the subject.

'Aha!' James said, regaining his usual composure, 'Now that, my lady, is a surprise. Oh and you'd best get your cloak, it's quite chilly out.' She quickly returned to her room and emerged with her cloak folded over her arm and a crimson and gold Gryffindor scarf wrapped round her neck. James offered his left arm to Lily, who gratefully accepted. With his other arm, he patted his knapsack, which was slung carelessly over his shoulder containing a certain map and his Invisibility cloak.

James then ushered Lily towards the portrait hole, too busy to notice Peter and Remus watching him from the sofas by the fire. He was also too busy to notice a shiny black muzzle sticking out from under one of those sofas.

****

'Alright Sirius, you can come out now,' Remus told the space between the floor and the couch as the portrait hole clicked shut behind James and Lily. Padfoot wriggled free from the dark confines of the couch's underside, then, after checking to make sure no one else was hanging about in the common room, he changed back into Sirius with a pop.

'What were you thinking?!' Remus berated, 'Just how mean could you be? This is their first date and you've slipped a potion into his mouthwash that has made a filthy great thing grow right out the top of his head!'

'I'm sorry?' Sirius said, hoping to sound sincere.

'You know Sirius; I just don't believe you. I really have to wonder about your judgment when it comes to dealing with pranks especially when they involve your friends. I don't think sorry is going to cut it. Besides you shouldn't be apologising to me, James is the one who is suffering because of you.'

'Alright, alright. Stop your lecturing. He didn't seem to be suffering too terribly much last time I saw him,' Sirius said, slightly annoyed. Everyone quieted down for a few moments, Sirius looking pensive. Then, without warning, he stood up suddenly and, with a manic gleam in his blue eyes, proclaimed to the others,

'I've got it! I'll follow them!'

'I don't think that's such a-' Peter began.

'NO!' Remus interrupted vehemently.

'Oh, come on now, Moony. I feel responsible, I want to make sure that nothing else goes wrong,' Sirius said, trying to look as apologetic as possible.

'No you don't,' Remus scoffed, 'you just want to see what happens. This is just another one of your half-baked schemes.'

'It's not! This one is fully baked!' Sirius protested, with a smile.

A few giggles began to escape from behind Peter's hands, but were quickly stifled after Remus gave him a piercing stare.

'Man, Remus, you're being so grumpy. Is it that time of the month already?' Sirius asked.

'So what if it is?' Remus snarled in reply.

'No wonder you've been studying so hard lately,' Sirius muttered under his breath. Moony always seemed to get very touchy when the full moon approached, and studied much harder than usual, knowing that he would have to catch up with the rest of the class. He really felt the need to prove himself, so that his attending Hogwarts would be well justified. Remus, sensing that he had created some tension among his friends, put a smile on his face and asked jovially of the other two,

'So, d'you think Lily's discovered what's under James' hat yet?'

'I think we'd be able to hear her scream if she had,' Sirius said. They all went quiet out of respect for their friend, then burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

****

James looked at the sunset reflecting off of Lily's eyes and glanced out of one of the mullioned windows they were passing on the way to the statue of the one-eyed crone. The thick blankets of snow reflected the fading colors of the darkening twilight sky, and the Forbidden Forest loomed ominously in the background, seeming mute of color in contrast.

'Where are we going?' Lily asked again innocently.

'Don't want to ruin the surprise,' James whispered mysteriously.

'Neeeeeeeeeee!'

'What was that?' Lily asked suddenly stopping mid-stride.

'I don't know,' James said, looking uncomfortable. He could say this with perfect honesty, because he really did have absolutely no idea what it was that was growing from his head.

*****

Lily and James walked into the Three Broomsticks followed by a large flurry of snow. The pretty young barmaid noticed James and waved him over.

'So, Mr. Potter, where's Mr. Black tonight?'

'I suppose he's up at the castle. Right now I don't really care,' James spat acidly.

'Oh? Did the two of you have a row or something?' Miss Rosmerta replied looking slightly disappointed.

'You could say that,' James said sulkily.

'Too bad,' she said, 'you two always make me laugh.'

With that, she handed Lily and James a couple of Butterbeers, and walked off to serve another customer. James led Lily over to a secluded table near the merrily crackling fire.

'Did you and Sirius have really have a row? I've never seen you two fight,' Lily asked concernedly.

'Oh, we fight,' James stated.

'What about?' Lily asked politely.

'Mostly about him being a stupid ugly git.'

'Oh...' Lily sighed and began to look around uncomfortably. Noticing her discomfort at where the conversation was going, he hastily ended that topic. After all, Sirius was Lily's friend as well as his, and probably didn't enjoy hearing people talk badly about him.

'He just pulled a really stupid prank, that was totally out of place tonight,' James said quickly.

'What was it? Or was it so bad that I can't hear?' Lily replied with a smile, she was always interested in hearing about her friends' antics, and even sometimes participating in the rarest of instances.

'It's definitely too bad to tell you,' James told her.

'Knowing Sirius, it probably was.' Both of them chuckled appreciatively at this.

'Even though Sirius is an evil prat, he does come up with some of the best pranks 'cause his mum is a Muggle.'

'How so?' Lily asked, not understanding how having a Muggle for a mother would result in good pranks.

'Well, in the wizarding world, we don't really understand how to deal with a lot of Muggle things, like hair death,' James told her, looking as if this would be obvious, and at the same time proud of his knowledge of Muggle things.

'You mean hair dye?' Lily asked.

'Precisely, but how did you know that, you're not in Muggle studies?'

'My parents are Muggles, remember?'

'Oh yeah,' he replied, 'I kind of forgot about that for a second. You know, now that I think about it, we don't really know that much at all about each other.'

'Yeah,' Lily replied, 'you'd think that after living nine months out of twelve with someone for six years you'd know a lot about that person. I guess it just never really comes up.'

As this was slightly a conversation-stopping sentence, they both fell silent and looked away from each other. After a few moments, James started to chuckle, then he laughed outright.

'What's so funny?' Lily inquired.

'You've just reminded me of the first time I saw you. You were standing near the platform with your parents, you looked so excited, and your parents looked as though they feared we all were going to come take out our wands and beat you with them.'

'Yeah I remember that, too. And you were the one who helped me onto the platform...then Sirius threw a dung bomb at me,' Lily stated with a smile as James laughed at the thought of Sirius' clowning around.

'I did get him back though...' she trailed off.

'Really? How?' James asked with interest.

'I put a charm on him that made him think the room was unbearably hot,' Lily smirked, looking down into her Butterbeer and looking slightly embarrassed.

James had chosen a very bad moment to take a drink, for her confession caused him to snort into his Butterbeer, sending it back onto his face.

'That was you?! But I thought Snape did that! And Sirius and I cursed him for it. His hair was pink for a month. Wow, that explains a lot.'

'Neeeeeeeeeeee!'

'There's that sound we heard in the castle again,' Lily said with a jump. 'Peeves couldn't have followed us here, could he?'

'No,' muttered James as he grabbed his hat, which seemed to be floating in midair above his head, and jammed it back down.

Lily gave him an inquisitive stare as his hat once again began to rise up.

'Sirius pranked me,' James explained, 'now this hat just can't seem to stay on.'

Lily opened her mouth as if to ask more, but James interrupted to keep her as far away from the subject of his hat as possible.

'I still can't believe that you pulled that prank on Sirius- in first year! Most girls don't have enough guts to do that.'

'Well, I guess that's why I'm in Gryffindor,' Lily replied with a slight twist in her smile.

Now, this was the time when James was expected to say something dashing and romantic, however, he couldn't think of anything that didn't sound like something Sirius might say, so instead he smiled at her in adoration. As the fire played softly on Lily's hair, James realised that she was the most amazing girl he had ever met.

'Neeeeeeeeeeee!'

He knew then that she was the only girl for him, and that her friendship had meant very much to him all these years, but he hadn't noticed just how much he loved her.

'You know James,' she said softly, 'you've got just a bit of Butterbeer on your glasses.' She reached into her pocket and pulled out a delicate handkerchief, which James noticed had lilies embroidered into it. Just as she reached across the table she dropped it, and it fell down to the floor.

'I'll get it,' Lily and James said at the same time. Both of their hands touched the handkerchief at the same time, and as they looked into each other's eyes and their bodies started to lean into each other, James' hat toppled from his head. A strange creature snaked its way from the top of James' head and headed straight towards Lily.

If Lily had had time for reflection, she might have even thought the thing was cute. It had a large mouth, with only one triangular tooth protruding in a bucktooth fashion. It had large, black, lazy eyes that were framed by inch-long eyelashes, and a fluffy tuft of bright orange hair topped off its scaly head. The head was mounted on a long, thin, accordion-like neck, poking out of James' unruly hair. Upon reflection, Lily would have thought that it looked quite like a Muppet, and would have noticed that James was just as shocked as she.

Unfortunately, she didn't have time for reflection; because the thing lunged at her with such ferocity, she didn't have time to do anything but scream.

'AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!'

And then...

END OF CHAPTER 3