Cherchez La Femme

Cherchez La Femme: Chapter 1

"Black! Potter!"

Like everyone else in the Gryffindor common room, Remus looked up from his homework at the screech. The source was Lily Evans, crawling through the portrait hole with murder in her eyes and what could only be defined as 'goo' all over her person.

"She looks really pissed off," he said to...nobody. The two chairs that moments ago had been occupied by Sirius and James were now empty. Looking back, he saw Lily bearing down on him and gulped.

"Where are they?!" she shrieked, her hands on her hips.

"Under the table, most likely," Remus answered. The quill that jabbed him in the leg at this statement proved its veracity. He kicked back at the jabber, feeling a surge of satisfaction as his foot made solid contact. That's for leaving me holding the bag. Again.

Lily whipped out her wand and pointed it at the table. "Get out here, you two. Now."

Remus scrambled away from the table. She didn't look like she was in the mood to take innocent bystanders into account.

"Will you curse us if we do?" Sirius asked from under the table.

"Yes," Lily snarled.

"Right then. Not a chance."

"If you aren't out here by the time I count to three, I'll destroy the bloody table. One." All over the common room, students took cover.

"You'd willingly destroy Hogwarts property?" James' voice sounded muffled and appalled. "Evans, don't tell me we're rubbing off on you."

"If not," Sirius said cheerfully, "I hope you'd at least be willing to let us rub off...OW! Dammit, Prongs, I was kidding!"

"You two are disgusting," Lily spat. "Two."

"She wouldn't really do it, would she?" James asked nervously.

"Of course not," Sirius scoffed.

"Three." Remus covered his head with his schoolbag as the table exploded. No debris rained down, so she must have used a fairly contained spell. In fact, when he looked up, the only two people in the common room who looked the worse for wear were Sirius and James, sitting on the floor covered in woodchips and looking rather singed. James was coughing. Sirius was slapping him on the back with one hand while the other waved a white sock tied to the end of a broken quill.

"Alright, alright, you got us," he said. "No need to blow the whole place up."

"Come. Here," Lily said, arms crossed.

Looking as if they weren't sure whether it would benefit their safety more to do as she asked or to make a break for it, they cautiously extricated themselves from the rubble.

"Thanks for covering for us there, Remus," James muttered sarcastically.

"Yeah, way to keep your head in a moment of crisis," Sirius added.

"Just for the record, I had nothing to do with this," Remus said quickly, glancing at Lily. He had long ago learned to leave the room once Sirius and James started plotting. The less he knew, the less likely he was to be dragged in as an accessory. Or a lookout.

"I know you didn't," she said crisply. "It was these two." She said the last two words as if she were spitting a pair of poisonous slugs out of her mouth.

"In our defense, it wasn't intended for you," Sirius said, holding up his hands and flashing the infamous grin that could reduce most females to mush at fifty paces. Even McGonagall blushed a little when he broke turned it on full wattage.

Unfortunately, it didn't work on Lily Evans. If anything, it seemed to anger her more.

"It was meant for Peter," James said, reaching up to mess up his hair while putting on his best rascally puppy-dog look. "It's his birthday, you see. Just a little prank, ha ha."

"Buddy to buddy," Sirius added. "All in good fun."

"Unfortunately, his tutoring session appears to have run a bit long."

"That kid's never on time," Sirius sighed.

"I don't care," Lily said through gritted teeth. "Just get whatever this is off of me."

Remus watched his two friends exchange a panicked look. A nasty churning sensation sprung up in his stomach. They wouldn't be that stupid, would they?

"Well..." Sirius cleared his throat. "You see...about that..."

Apparently, they would.

"GET IT OFF NOW!" Lily roared, flourishing her wand again. Both boys flinched. When she had a wand in her hand, Lily Evans wasn't somebody you wanted to mess with. It was well known that she'd been pegged for Healer training, and she knew some decidedly nasty curses. Not only how to heal them, but how to dish them out.

"Evans," James said in a soothing voice, "you have to understand, we meant that for Peter. That wasn't just a normal stinksap bomb. We sort of...added some things."

"You know, for fun," Sirius said, trying out the blinding smile again. Seeing it fail for the second time, he scowled. "Oh, right. Fun. You wouldn't know what that is."

Lily paled noticeably and her voice took on an edge of hysteria. "Joke's over, okay? Just get this off. I won't even tell McGonagall if you take it off me right now."

"We can't," James said, visibly preparing himself for the explosion.

It didn't come. Instead, Lily's eyes widened and her hand gripped her wand until her knuckles turned while. "Okay, this isnt's isn't funny anymore. I've got my first interview tomorrow morning with the St. Mungo's Review Board, and I can't go looking like this. Just get it off of me! I'll forget about the whole thing if you just get it off!"

James looked as if he'd been punched in the stomach. "We can't," he said thickly. Lily just stared at him, her wand slowly dropping to her side.

For a full minute, you could have heard a pin drop in the Gryffindor common room. Then came the unmistakable sound of someone clambering through the portrait hole.

"Sorry I'm late, you guys," Peter sighed. Everyone turned to look at him, still silent. Surprised and obviously uncomfortable at having the undivided attention of Gryffindor tower focused entirely on him, he shuffled his feet a little, a nervous smile fluttering across his round face. "Er... did something happen?"

*******

"And another day's detention for each of you for every counterspell I have to use," McGonagall said sternly, bustling around Evans, who sat on a chair, apparently frozen in horror. James shifted in his chair guiltily. He'd almost rather she cry about it.

"Professor, it was an innocent prank," Sirius said in the specific tone of voice he reserved for trying to get out of trouble with McGonagall: half arse-kissing and half flirtatious.

McGonagall was having none of it. "Innocent pranks do not have potentially dangerous effects, Black. Did you two even know what you were doing? What if you'd miscalculated and burned her face off? Would that have been an innocent prank?"

"We didn't mean for it to hurt anybody," James mumbled, looking away from Evans' face, frozen in shock. "It was just a joke."

"A joke on Peter," Sirius informed her. "It wasn't supposed to explode on Evans."

"And yet it did," McGonagall snapped. James could see Sirius rolling his eyes behind her back. McGonagall had always been fond of Evans. They couldn't have picked a worse person to inadvertently prank. They'd be in detention for the rest of term.

And James was fairly sure that he'd lost any hope of getting her to go out with him.

"Evans, I'm sorry," he said to his shoes. James wasn't particularly good at apologies. Frankly, if it weren't her, he wouldn't feel it deserved one. "I'm really, really sorry."

She didn't answer. He hadn't really expected her to. "Are you alright, dear?" he heard McGonagall ask gently.

"You will be able to get it off, won't you, Professor?" Evans asked. Her voice was shaky, and James got the impression that if he and Sirius weren't present, she actually would be crying. "I mean, the clothes don't matter, but my hair, at least?"

"With the help of the two masterminds behind it, I should hope so."

James could feel McGonagall's glare boring through the top of his head as the guilt burrowed deeper. He honestly didn't remember everything they'd done to the stinksap.

"We'll do everything we can, Professor," Sirius said with a distinct note of chivalry. "I just want you to know that we didn't intend for this to..."

"Mr. Black," McGonagall interrupted him. James winced. He knew that voice. That was the 'no-amount-of-flirting-and-arse-kissing-and-boo-hoo-stories-are-going-to-get-you-out-of-this-one' voice. "You are far too old for this. So are you, Mr. Potter. Your intentions may not have been to harm anyone, but the fact remains that you could have harmed someone, and if this behavior continues, I honestly fear that you eventually will harm someone. And how would you feel then?"

James buried his face in his hands. Even his Mum didn't lay it on that thick. There must be some sort of guilting course that all women were required to complete at some point.

"Depends on who was on the other end of it," Sirius muttered under his breath. James repressed the desire to elbow him. This really wasn't the time.

"We'd feel terrible," James said, looking up. He immediately wished he hadn't. McGonagall had her disappointed face on now, and that was worse than the guilt trip.

"I would certainly hope so," she said sadly, "considering you're two of my own students. Now, if you wouldn't mind telling me what I'm dealing with here?"

"Propulsion charms, obviously," James provided. "A gelatinous charm to keep it from hardening. I distinctly remember upping the smell quotient, but that doesn't seem to have taken. I mean, it doesn't seem to smell at all, so we must have botched that up..." Realizing that he was babbling, James shut up. That was the extent of what he'd done, anyway. Everything else had come from Sirius.

"If that's all, it ought to be easy enough to remove," McGonagall said, her eyes on Sirius. "Is that all?"

"Er...no, Professor."

"Hmph. What else, then?"

Sirius mumbled something, looking guilty for the first time in James' memory.

McGonagall turned the eagle eye on him and James shifted a little more. Sirius shouldn't have done it, and he shouldn't have gone along with it. "Excuse me, Mr. Black, but I don't believe I heard that."

Sirius coughed. "Sticking Charm."

Their head of house raised an eyebrow. "Which one?"

"Permanent."

Evans finally showed a reaction, spinning around in her chair, her gooey hair flopping against her face, her bright green eyes wide. "A Permanent Sticking Charm?!"

Sirius smiled wanly. "Otherwise, Peter could've just taken it right off. We...er..." his smile faltered as the two women stared at him. "It was a joke," he said, giving James a desperate look. "So he couldn't remove it so easily. That was all."

James felt a flash of anger as he saw how McGonagall was looking at his friend. So it was dark magic. How could Sirius not have told him? Hell, considering the way Sirius felt about his family, how could he have used something like that in the first place?

"I suppose I needn't ask where you learned it," McGonagall said shortly. "Nevertheless, I'd like to see you in my office tomorrow morning at seven o'clock, Mr. Black."

All of this had apparently just sunk in with Evans. "You can't do anything, can you?" she asked dully, touching a tentative hand to the greenish slime that covered up most of her red hair. "About this, I mean. Not with a Permanent Sticking Charm."

McGonagall softened perceptibly. "I'll write the Review Board a note explaining..."

Evans seemed not to have heard her. "Even before I knew I was a witch, I wanted to be a doctor," she said, a little dazedly. "I started worrying about taking my boards when I was ten. I knew what kind of grades I'd need. I've known what I had to do to become a Healer since first year. I did all of that, all of the extra-credit charms and potions work they don't require but you really need to pass the entrance exam..." she looked up at McGonagall. "I can't face the St. Mungo's Review Board like this. I won't even know what to say. I'll..." she gulped. "I'll mess it up. I'll mess it all up, Professor."

"Perhaps we can ask to reschedule," McGonagall tried.

"I can't," Evans said flatly, leaning forward and pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes. "It's the last date they're interviewing. I put it off. I suppose I shouldn't have, but I wanted to make sure I was prepared." She dropped her hands into her lap, looking at them. "They're...they certainly won't take me like this."

Every second of her speech, James expected her to blow up at them, but it kept going on and she kept not doing it and he just felt worse and worse until he could stand no more.

"I'll go with you," he burst out. "I'll explain it all..."

Evans looked up, her eyes hard. "You're the last person I want there," she said icily.

James blinked, surprised at this reaction. He was used to Evans reaming them out, but this cold sort of contempt was a new development. A very bad development.

"I'm just saying that I could explain what happened. Sirius and I probably know some people on the board, even. We can put in a good word for you..."

Evans stood, somehow managing to look chock full of wounded dignity despite the fact that her hair looked as if it were covered in bogies. "You've done enough already," she hissed. "I don't want or need your help. Just stay away from me, both of you."

With that, she turned around and stormed out of McGonagall's office. "Two weeks' detention," the Professor said as soon as the door closed.

Sirius turned to her, wide-eyed and pleading. "Professor, we didn't mean..."

"And if she doesn't get a second interview, detention for the rest of term and the first half of next term," McGonagall said stoutly. Sirius opened and closed his mouth a few times, but James remained silent. He supposed it was the least they deserved.

Sorry for ruining your life and all, Evans. Wanna go to Hogsmeade with me?

"What a disaster," he said glumly as they made their way back to Gryffindor tower.

"What, that?" Sirius asked, snorting. "I don't care how hung up on the girl you are, Prongs. We just got detention for messing up her hair. Bloody teacher's pet."

"I think we messed up a lot more than that, Padfoot. Why the hell did you have to put a Permanent Sticking Charm in there, anyway?"

"Without it, even Wormtail could've taken it off in a few minutes. What's the point?"

James glanced at his friend - his best friend, since first year. Every once in a while, Sirius' spontaneity embodied itself in ways that were outright dangerous. It worried him.

Unfortunately, it also wasn't a topic Sirius was willing to talk about. Even touching on the issue of Sirius' family caused his friend to clam up and strike out. James knew that his parents were the sort of parents that Sirius wished he had, and it made him less able to broach the topic at all. He could understand why Sirius was jealous of it, maybe even resented him for it. But he wished it didn't stand in the way. He wished that he could just ask why the hell Sirius had used dark magic without being treated to a sarcastic lecture on how he it was hardly his place to judge, lucky golden boy that he was.

And overlying all of it was a heavy, frustrating sense of powerlessness. James wanted to go back in time and not even pull the stupid prank. He wanted to be able to find the words to explain it all to Evans without her getting angry with him again.

Sirius stopped suddenly. "Merlin's sodding beard. Would you knock it off?"

James glared back at him. "Knock what off?"

His friend looked at him pityingly. "She's not Helen of bloody Troy, Prongs. She's a tight-assed, know-it-all, prissy little McGonagall pet who wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire, much less go out with you, much less actually do anything else with you."

He clenched his fists in his pockets, forcing a shrug. "Yeah. So?"

Sirius leaned down close to his face, his face curling up into a smirk. "I know ten girls from Hufflepuff alone who would do anything you asked, no matter how dirty."

James scowled. He couldn't pinpoint exactly when, but sometime over the past year, his obsession with Lily Evans had become not only blatantly obvious, severely detrimental to his status among his fellow students. Sirius nailed any female who bothered to stay still long enough, and James knew that everyone had expected him to do the same. And then he hadn't. And then he still hadn't. And then everyone began wondering what was up with him that he wasn't. Was he gay? Did he have some horrible deformity?

Sometimes, he wished it were one of those things. Because those he could at least understand. This whole business with Lily Evans, he couldn't.

"Oh, for crying out loud," Sirius said digustedly. "You're mooning over her right now, aren't you?"

"Of course not," James said, scowling deeper. "I'm just pissed off about the detentions."

"She hates you. I sincerely hope you've managed to catch on to that."

"Yes, she's made it pretty clear," James sneered.

Sirius clapped a brotherly hand on his shoulder. "Get her out of your head, mate. Bed a girl. Bed five. Bed the whole female population of Gryffindor, if necessary."

"That's not what I want." And he didn't. She'd gotten in his head long before he'd had any actual thoughts about sex. He remembered watching the way her robes shifted when she raised her hand to answer a question fourth year, unable to look away. He'd progressed from that to noticing the way her face looked different in different classrooms, depending on the light and the time of day. Even the way she held her quill held an allure for him that he could neither ignore nor even begin to explain.

He couldn't help it. Every idea and fantasy he'd had about sex involved her. He couldn't imagine settling for anything less. Frankly, he wasn't used to settling for anything less.

"So bed the whole male population of Gryffindor, then. Whatever floats your boat. Honestly, mate. The surest thing to turn you dark is to make it to twenty-five without ever getting laid. Where d'you think Snivellus is headed?"

James made a face. "Unlike Snivellus, I could actually get it if I'd half a mind to."

Sirius held his arms out expansively. "So do it already! End the suspense!"

James shrugged, turning to continue their walk back to the common room. "I know what I want. I'm unwilling to settle. What's so bloody wrong with that?"

Sirius followed, shaking his head. "If 'settling' involves anything other than yanking the stick out of Evans' arse long enough to actually do the deed, then I hate to break it to you, but you're going to have to settle. That stick is up there with more than a Permanent Sticking Charm. You'd sooner knock down the walls of Hogwarts."

"So you say."

"So I know."

James didn't even know he'd moved until he had Sirius pinned up against the wall. Releasing him, James backed up a step, his hands curling into fists. "What is that supposed to mean?" he gritted out.

Sirius watched him with undisguised amusement. "Decaf, Prongs. Really. Dial it back a few hundred notches. I haven't done the nasty with Evans. I don't even think I could have without disguising myself as a Charms textbook and dosing her with Spanish Fly."

James apologized, shoving his hands back into his pockets.

Sirius shrugged. "It's okay. I think I actually get it now. You're not going to be able to do anything until you get to her first. You're bloody well obsessed."

"I'm not obsessed."

"Aren't you? What classes is she taking this term?"

James opened his mouth to answer before he realized it was a trap. "How the hell should I know?" he asked, lying far too late and far too badly for it to pass.

"Obsessed. And at this moment she hates you more than she ever has."

"Well, yeah..." James said, frowning and looking down, reaching up automatically to mess up his hair. "There's that."

"You're going to have to rectify that situation."

"Thanks," James said sarcastically. "How?"

"Make it up to her. Pull a few strings. Get her a new interview. And then...well, she's Evans for Merlin's sake. Sweeping her off her feet'll involve being as upstanding, boring and law-abiding as humanly possible. Surely you can pull that act off long enough to..."

"I get it," James said flatly. He scratched his head, staring down the hall. The idea was appealing. And he actually had tried to be more responsible this year. He'd pulled up his grades and tamed down the pranks, and barely ever went after Snivellus anymore.

Not that Evans had noticed, but maybe if he did this...

"Don't get me wrong," Sirius qualified. "It'll involve sacrificing a good part of your dignity. Of course - let's be honest - you haven't much left to lose at this point."

James looked at him. If nothing else, Sirius knew a hell of a lot more about women than he did. "Do you really think it'll work?" he asked.

"Prongs, mate," Sirius said, dropping a friendly arm around his shoulder and marching him the rest of the way to the common room. "I've never been more certain of anything in my life."