The Marauder's Fourth Year

Chapter three

When James potter entered the Great Hall for breakfast one February morning, he thought that perhaps he was still asleep and having a very bizarre dream. The Great Hall had been turned pink. Pink candles floated unsupported in mid-air, pink banners adorned the wall and hung from the enchanted ceiling; and vases of roses were centrepieces on each of the four House tables. With a groan, James realised that today was Valentine's day. He headed over to the Gryffindor table where his three friends were sitting, looking sickened. Sirius in particular looked very uneasy.

"Hey, Sirius, what's wrong?" James asked, as he sat down and began spooning scrambled eggs onto his plate.

"It's Valentine's day!" cried Sirius, from behind his hands which were covering his face. "Worst day of the year!"

"I thought it was the best day of the year for you?" said James, in confusion.

"It's not the fact it's Valentine's day, it's the card-getting I don't like."

"But you get loads of cards!" Remus spoke up. "Isn't that flattering?"

"Not if you're trying to eat and you get snowed in 'til spring, from all the cards you get."

"I wish I got Valentine's cards," muttered Peter, gloomily. "You're lucky."

"Well, you can have some of mine and pretend they were sent to you, okay?" said Sirius.

"Gee, thanks," sighed Peter, sarcastically.

"It's a stupid Muggle tradition anyway!" cried Sirius, emphatically. James and Remus grinned at each other. "Oh shut up, you two!"

"Hey, James!" said Remus, suddenly. "Did you send Lily a card?"

"Shuuuuush!" hissed James, lest Lily, who was sitting nearby, overheard. "No, actually, I didn't."

"Why not?" asked Sirius. "I thought you two were..."

"We're not," James interrupted. "We're just friends, and friends don't send each other Valentine's cards."

"They do, if they fancy each other." Remus pointed out.

"We don't fancy each other," James lied. Sirius and Remus raised their eyebrows. "We don't!" James flushed.

They were interrupted by the screeching, flapping noise of the many owls now flying in to deliver that morning's mail.

Sirius began to panic. He covered his head with his arms and cried "Incoming! Incoming!"
Remus rolled his eyes as the owls began to circle overhead, ready to drop their letters in front of their owners, "One...two...three..."
as Remus finished counting to three, Sirius was buried to his neck in quickly growing pile of Valentines.
"Next year I really should remember to bring an umbrella to breakfast," Sirius deadpanned.

As Sirius sighed and began to open up his cards, James picked up a card in front of him, his name written on the envelope in swirly red writing.

"Hey! Jamesie's got a card!" Sirius noticed, over his mountain of cards.

"Who's it from?" asked Remus

"No-one," James blushed, trying to hide it, but Sirius snatched it off him, opened it and began to read:

I see your smile, it lights my day,

I watch a single sunbeam fly,

You are the sun that I look for,

And the sea, the sand, the sky,

Yet who am I? I'm not unknown,

Think hard, you know my face,

The colour of my hair reflects

The morning's fiery grace

My eyes, my eyes are drawn to you,

Like leaves reach to the light,

I see your smile, it lights my day,

But will you light my night?

"Wow," said Sirius after a shocked silence. "That was...really beautiful. There's no name?"

"No," replied James, equally as stunned.

"Bet it was from Lily!" Sirius grinned.

"I told you..." James began, but too late, Sirius was already shouting on Lily.

"Oi, Lily! Did you send James a Valentine's card?"

Lily looked up, as did several others at the Gryffindor table. James felt his face grow hot.

"No," Lily replied, shrugging her shoulders. James felt himself go even redder. Some of the girls around him giggled. Sirius was silent.

"Give me that!" James snapped, snatching the valentine from Sirius' hands.

"Sorry," Sirius muttered, after another short silence. "I honestly thought she would have sent it."

"Well, she didn't, did she?" snapped James. "Come-on, we have to go to charms." In a foul mood, James stood up from the table. The others got up to follow him. Before they could leave the Great Hall however, Severus Snape had stepped in front of them.

"How many valentines did you send yourself this year, Black?" he sneered.

"Shove off, Snape," James answered instead, while Remus held back a swearing, furious Sirius.

"What's this?" asked Snape, snatching James' valentine card out of his hand.

"Give that back, Snape."

"I'm reading it,"

"Give it back!" James lost his temper and made to grab the card back, but Snape was too quick for him and agilely jumped onto the Slytherin table where he proceeded to read the poem aloud, stopping at the end of each sentence to allow his fellow students a good laugh. Other tables had stopped talking to listen too. Many were crying with laughter. James felt his face grow hotter.

Sirius had broken free of Remus' grasp. "He said 'give it back'!" he yelled, and he pulled out his wand and cried "accio card!" the card shot out of Snape's hands and James caught it.

"SNAPE! BLACK!" came Professor McGonagall's roar of rage from the other side of the Great Hall.

"Let's go," muttered Remus, pulling on James' arm. James nodded his agreement and left the Great Hall where Professor McGonagall was proceeding to give Sirius and Severus detention. James made a mental note to thank Sirius later.

Once Sirius had returned from being given detention helping Hagrid care for some kelpies, they began to discuss the poem again.

"Perhaps there's a clue in the poem. Maybe it's a riddle?" suggested Remus. "Give it here," James handed it over.

"Right," said Remus, after studying the poem for several minutes. "There's a lot of reference to the sun and the morning. So the sun is a clue."

"What kind of a clue?" asked Peter, frowning and moving behind Remus to get a better look.

"Well, when you think of the sun and the morning, what do you think of?"

"Not wanting to leave my bed!" Sirius grinned, "especially when it's Monday and it's double potions!"

James laughed and nodded in agreement. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Well, it's pretty obvious."

"Care to tell us anytime soon?" James snapped, stopping his laughter to glare at Remus.

"Perhaps Lily can help us?" Remus asked, gesturing to Lily, who was sitting at a table at the other end of the common room, doing her Transfiguration homework.

"Good idea!" cried Sirius, clicking his fingers. "Lily's a girl! She'll know who it is! OI! LILY!" he yelled over at her. Several studious heads looked up in annoyance at the noise.

"WHAT?" Lily yelled back, just as annoyed.

"GET OVER HERE!"

"WHAT FOR?"
"SHUT UP!" yelled several other voices.

Lily Evans crammed her books back into her bag and walked over to where the boys sat.

"What can I do for you boys?" she asked in an exasperated voice.

Sirius thrust the valentine poem into her hands. "You're a girl and you're smart. Any idea what this poem means? You know how girls' minds work."

Lily rolled her eyes at him. Then studied the poem, frowning slightly. "Well, the poem is full of clues..." she began.

"You and Remus should really get together," snapped Sirius, "you both love keeping us in suspense. Just tell us what it bloody means, will you?"

Lily slapped the back of his head. "Do you want me to help or not?" Sirius yelped and clutched the back of his head. "I'll take that as a yes. Now..." she went back to studying the poem. "There's a lot of talk about the sun, so the sun means something."

"Like what?" asked James frowning.

"Well, there's a line here...' The colour of my hair reflects the morning's fiery grace...so she probably has red hair. Fiery equals red or orange."

"So she probably has red hair, like Lily," Remus inputted.

"Right," said Lily, smiling at Remus.

"So who has red hair besides Lily?" asked James.

"There's Allison Banks...in Slytherin, can you imagine that?" shrieked Sirius. "Fat, bad-breathed Allison!"

"Oh shut up!" snapped James. "What about that fifth year Hufflepuff chaser, Niamh Allison? She's quite pretty."

"What about that other line?" asked Peter. "The one where it says 'my eyes are drawn to you'?"

"So the colour of the girls' eyes are important," concluded Remus, "the must stand out...like Lily's do,"

"well, Niamh's blue eyes stand out like Lily's do...," said James, taking the poem from Lily and studying it again.

Remus finally lost his famous patience. "Maybe it is Lily you idiot!"

There was silence as all four boys turned to look at a blushing Lily.

"You? You sent this?" James asked, in bewilderment.

Lily nodded again, going even redder.

"No, she didn't!" laughed Sirius, "she's just pulling your leg. She said at breakfast she didn't sent it!"

"That was only 'cause you shouted at the top of your voice, Sirius, so the whole school could hear," whispered Lily. "I wasn't going to admit to it there and then, I'd be teased mercilessly."

Sirius turned to look at James, for once lost for words, but James was staring at Lily. Remus gave another exasperated sigh.

"Perhaps you and Lily should have a chat?" he suggested.

"Yeah...yeah..." muttered James, absentmindedly, still staring at Lily. He got up, and he and Lily moved to another part of the common room.

"Sorry," Lily said at once, before he could speak.

James was taken aback. "Sorry for what?"

"Sorry that the poem came from me, and not from Niamh Allison,"

James gave a quiet laugh. "I didn't want the poem to come from Niamh. Sure, she's pretty, but she's quite stuck up. I wanted the poem to be from you, but you said it wasn't. I was a bit disappointed."

"I only said that..."Lily began, but James held up a hand to silence her.

"I know why you said that, and it's okay." She smiled at him. "I was wondering...I was...wondering..." he stammered.

"You were wondering what?" she asked gently.

"Do you...if you'd like to, that is...would you...like to go...to...to...Hogsmeade with me sometime? Maybe...this weekend?"

Lily smiled at him. "I'd love to." He smiled back. As he moved to return to the other three boys, she called him back.

"Thanks for the card you sent me,"

"Oh and now James went bright red. "I...I didn't send that, Lily."

"It's okay, James!" she laughed, "I won't tell the other guys,"

"No, Lily, I really didn't," she looked up into his face and saw that he was serious.

"I mean, I wish I had," he said hurriedly, seeing the look on her face. "But I thought Sirius would find out and tease me and I thought..." he shrugged. "I thought you weren't interested in me, so I didn't see a point."

"Then...if you didn't send it..." she said slowly, "who did?"

At Hogsmeade that weekend, Lily accompanied the boys in shopping at the various shops. They went to the post office so Lily could send her parents an owl telling them what she had been up to. Lily didn't have an owl of her own, preferring cats instead. James would have offered to let her use his owl, Eejit, but it was away delivering an owl to his own parents. There were hundreds of owls in the Post Office, from Great Greys down to Scoops owls for local deliveries.

Then they visited Zonko's where James and Sirius stocked up on dungbombs. Sirius bought a book that never ended ("that'll keep Snape too busy to bug us") and James bought some super-smelly-fart-fudge. Lily rolled her eyes at the pair of them, while Peter giggled.

It was an extremely warm day and Lily's wishing she could "take some clothes off" led to whistles and cries of "get 'em off" from Sirius. She blushed furiously as she told him she wasn't serious. James punched him harder than usual in the ribs to get him to shut up. Since it was so warm, they decided to go for a few drinks in the Three Broomsticks.

The pub was extremely noisy and crowded with students and local residents. A young, curvy woman was serving at the bar as they approached.

"Mr Black, Mr Potter," she greeted them. "What can I get you young gentlemen?"

"Four butterbeers, if its not too much trouble for you, Rosmerta," said Sirius, putting on his usual charm.

"Never too much trouble for you boys, dear," she hurried away to get them the butterbeers. She returned several minutes later with five butter bears.

"Two galleons and fifty sickles please,"

Sirius fished in his pockets. "Ah...no! I forgot my money!"

Madam Rosmerta frowned, hands on hips. "Nice try, Black. Hand it over," she put out her hand. Sulking, Sirius handed over the payment and they took their butterbeers to a nearby table. Lily left them to go and talk to some friends. The boys sat drinking their butterbeer and chatting. Soon, they had drained their bottles.

"I'm still thirsty," Sirius complained. "But I really have run out of money now. Any of you guys got money?"

"Nope," said James.

"Nope," said Remus.

"Nope," said Peter.

Sirius groaned, then looked at James thoughtfully. "Well, we could always..."

Remus read his mind. "Sirius! That's stealing!" he hissed.

"Not necessarily!" Sirius hissed back. "We'll just give Rosmerta an extra large tip next time we're in. what do you say?" he asked James.

"Well..." James looked between Remus and Sirius. "I suppose if we give Rosmerta a large tip next time, it's not exactly stealing. We can use my cloak. I have it with me."

"I don't think..." Remus began, but the other two boys had already crept off to the boys' bathroom to slip the cloak on. Once under the cloak, they crept into the storeroom behind the bar and gathered up several bottles of butterbeer.

"Let's creep up behind Remus and Peter and slap them on the back of their heads!" giggled Sirius. "Give them a fright, what do you say?"

"Okay," James agreed.

They crept out from behind the bar, still under the cloak and crept towards the table where Remus and Peter still sat, chatting. Before they could slap either boy around the head, they heard part of their conversation, which made them stop and listen.

"Don't know...what you mean...Remiss," Peter was stammering.

"I'm not stupid, Peter," Remus said sternly. "I know it was you. I saw how red you went whenever it was mentioned."

Peter went red just then. "It doesn't matter now, it's too late. Don't...don't tell him, wi...will you?"

"No, I won't," Remiss promised. "But Peter, won't it be very hard for you to see Lily and James together if you have a crush on her?"

Peter shrugged. "Well...there's other...other girls. James is better looking and...and more talented..."

Sirius took James' arm and led him away from the table, back to the boys' bathroom. "Let's pretend we didn't hear any of that," he whispered to James.

"Okay," James whispered back, not wanting to fall out with Peter who was a good friend. Yet, James still felt somewhat guilty.

By walking away, they did not hear the remainder of the conversation.

"Are you sure you're okay with it?" Remus was asking with concern.

"Yes! Really!" Peter smiled, "I'll find someway to get him back, don't you worry!"

Finish