Wizarding Betrothal

Chapter 11: Pete's Place

Lily couldn't feel her nose anymore. She had stubbornly refused to wear her scarf pulled up around her face, and her cheeks had begun to sting. At least she looked cool. Too bad they were invisible.

Christmas holidays having finally arrived, Lily was intent on having a good time. Thus far, she'd been successful.

A frosty layer of ice covered the roads, but clever James was flying his motorcycle only a few feet above the ground. He kept trying to scare Lily with last minute turns and dangerous moves - and Lily loved every reckless minute of it. The coolest thing about a flying motorcycle was that there was an extra option when dodging an object in the way: just go straight up! Lily's mother would have passed out if she had known what they were up to.

They were momentarily hovering over a traffic light in the middle of town, safely out of the paths of stressed out holiday shoppers. It was a good place to catch their breath.

James watched Lily over his shoulder. "I have a surprise for you."

"What kind of surprise?" she asked. She never really knew what to expect with James.

He smiled and winked. "If I told you, then it wouldn't be a surprise."

With a roll of her eyes, Lily rubbed her cold nose. "If you aren't going to tell me what it is, why do you even bother bringing it up?"

"Because now you can have fun anticipating it!"

"How can I anticipate something if I don't know what it...aaaah!" Lily forgot all about her retort when James accelerated and plunged the bike deeply between rows of oncoming cars.

Adrenaline pumped painfully in Lily's ears and a jumble of vehicles were blurring around them. Forcing herself to keep her eyes open, Lily gripped James and held her breath. With a sharp movement, James pulled up just in the nick of time, avoiding a lorry changing lanes. Lily breathed again as they levelled out and she giggled into James' back. That was incredible.

"That better not have been the surprise!"

"It wasn't."

Within a few short minutes they were cruising out of town just above a strange back road. Lily had never taken the road before, but James seemed to know exactly where he was going. Relaxing, she leaned against him and watched the trees running past in such a hurry; the forest was as pretty as it was unfamiliar. Lily wondered if her mother knew where James was taking her; she'd ask him later. It paid well to know what she could mention around her parents without causing trouble.

James pulled up in front of a tiny house on the edge of a little speck of a village. Lily hoped they were going inside; the wind was picking up, and she couldn't recall ever feeling quite so cold. Swinging her leg over the saddle, she found her legs frozen solid and stumbled when her feet hit the ground.

"Easy now." James steadied her balance and supported her with his arm. How embarrassing.

"Shake your feet around a bit," he suggested. "It'll get the blood circulating again. We should have stopped for a stretch break along the way to keep your legs from falling asleep. Sorry about that."

"It's okay. Are we going inside?" she asked. "I'm just really cold."

"Yeah, come on." James led her up to the doorstep, maintaining his grip around her back. Before he could knock, the door burst open to reveal two young men smiling down at Lily, and totally ignoring James.

"Hi there!"

"You must be Lily Evans!"

"Pleasure to meet you!"

"Come in!"

"You must be freezing!"

Somewhere amid their excited chattering they dragged her into the house and Lily felt dizzy as the heat from the roaring fire rushed over her. Her nose was beginning to sting.

"Nice to see you too!" A forgotten James trudged alone through the doorway behind them.

"Oh, hey Prongs," one of them called. The long-legged friend settled Lily onto the sofa nearest the fire, and passed her a cup of hot tea. Grinning like a maniac, he sat back on the footstool in front of her. Heat from the cup was seeping through her gloves and pricking her chilly fingers; she felt like she was melting.

"I'm Remus, by the way," he said, "and this is Peter." Glancing over, Lily saw the shorter young man perched on the arm of the sofa, also wearing a grin.

"Hi," she answered, feeling a bit small. They had to be James' friends that he was always talking about.

"What kind of idiot are you anyway, James?" A familiar voice approached behind her. "Bringing her on your bike in weather like this - she looks frozen solid!"

Lily craned her neck around to see Sirius leaning over her.

"Hey, sugar. Good to see you."

"You too Sirius." The heat from the fire was making her nose run and she sniffed. "Can I please have a tissue?"

Having shed his outerwear, James dropped onto the sofa next to Lily and handed her a handkerchief.

"Thank you." She dabbed self-consciously at her dripping nose.

"Look what you did, Prongs," Sirius said. "You made her sick!"

"Prongs has a knack for sickening the ladies," Remus added.

James scowled while his friends chuckled at him, and then turned his attention back to Lily. He brushed her cheeks with the back of his fingers and frowned. "You should've told me you were cold, Lily." Taking her cup and handing it to Sirius, he peeled off her gloves and started rubbing her icy hands with concern. "Hey, Pete! You got a blanket?"

James was so confusing. One minute he was taking her along on crazy reckless stunts and the next minute he was anxious about her feeling a bit chilly.

"I'm okay," Lily contested. "I'm warming up already." He didn't have to treat her like a baby.

"You should get that damp coat off," Remus suggested.

Once her coat was put aside, a fluffy blanket was piled around her shoulders, and Sirius delivered a fresh cup of tea.

"Here, sugar, this ought to warm you up." Lily took the new cup from Sirius' hand and tasted it: tea with a splash of firewhiskey. It tasted horrible but it was clearing up her stuffy throat already.

"Are you trying to get me drunk, Sirius?"

He winked at her roguishly. "That depends on how much fun you want to have!"

"What did you give her, Padfoot?" James looked like he was going to take it away.

"Just a little love, James," Lily said, smiling. "No worries!"

With that, all of the guys, minus James, started cracking up. "When you're talking about him," James motioned at Sirius, "that's always something to worry about."

"You'd best keep an eye on your girl then, Prongs." Sirius clapped him on the back before taking a seat in the biggest armchair. "Hate to see somebody snatch her away from under your nose!"

"No kidding!" Peter said, and James glared. "Oh, lighten up James. He's just teasing you!"

Remus stretched out on the floor below the hearth. "He's just stressed because we aren't behaving like he wanted."

Speaking of bad behaviour... "James, do my parents know where we are?" Lily asked.

"Umm...Not exactly," he admitted. "But I asked your mum if I could keep you all day, and she said it was alright." They'd let her hitchhike to Peru if it were James' idea.

"Padfoot," Remus asked, "did Prongs just admit to asking somebody's mother for permission?"

"Good catch, Moony! He did!"

"Amazing!" Peter said.

"Well, he does have a girl to impress now," Remus said, "and Lily's probably a well behaved young lady that..."

Lily snorted. She couldn't help it. Well behaved? Four pairs of eyes were immediately trained on her.

"Did I say something wrong, Lily?" Remus wondered, his eyes beginning to sparkle.

"No. Just don't go saying stuff like that in front of my mum. She'd probably have a heart attack or something."

"Sugar!" Sirius leaned forward in anticipation. "Are you a troublemaker? I had no idea!" How was she supposed to answer that?

"That depends how you define 'troublemaker' doesn't it." That was sufficiently vague. Lily rubbed her hands over the hot teacup, soaking up the soothing warmth.

"I thought you were a Prefect," said Peter.

James chuckled with pride. "She is. So was Moony."

"Yeah," Remus replied, "a lot of Prefects are just good at not getting caught."

"So let's hear it, sugar," Sirius pressed her. "We'd love to hear about the baddest thing James' girl has ever done at Hogwarts." What kind of question was that...and why were they all so eager to hear what she had to say? And why did they have to keep referring to her as James' 'girl'? "We've been wondering if you can keep him in line. Come on. You can't shock us." Looking at James for help, Lily saw that he looked just as interested as the others did. The little git.

"Ummm...where should I start?" Howls of laughter erupted from around the room, and they urged her to share.

"How about this," Sirius said, "what's the furthest you've ever been out of bounds?"

"Okay, well I'm not sure if this qualifies as 'out of bounds' but I'm pretty sure it wasn't allowed." Her audience waited with bated breath while Lily took a slow sip of her tea. The whiskey was giving her a faint buzz. "One time in my fourth year we had a Hogsmeade weekend and my best friend and I broke into the Shrieking Shack on a bet."

Their smiles disappeared and Remus sat straight up from the floor. Did they really believe it was haunted like people said? What wusses.

"You aren't afraid of that place, are you guys?" Lily asked with a trace of amusement.

"No," James answered. He did look very uncomfortable, though. "It's just not a safe place for you to mess around."

"We only stayed long enough to have a good look. The place was all torn up like some wild animal goes in there sometimes."

"A wild animal?" Remus said faintly.

"Laura and I think it's a werewolf."

"What makes you think that?" James asked.

"We found some old lunar calendars inside, and they had all the full moons marked."

"Did you find anything else?"

"Yes, actually. We found a secret passage inside that went all the way up to Hogwarts, only we couldn't get through there because the Whomping Willow was in the way. It'd be a really cool shortcut if we could figure out the stupid tree. Anyway, we had to go all the way back to Hogsmeade to get out. McGonagall was really ticked off about us being so late."

The guys were all looking glancing between one another and avoiding her eye. How peculiar. "Did I shock you after all?"

"Slightly," Sirius admitted.

"What did you win, by the way?" Peter asked. "For your bet?"

Lily grinned and sipped her tea. "Now the seventh years have to give us the best seats by the fire in the common room whenever we want them."

"Even this year? How did you manage it with the new seventh years?"

"Well, they didn't know how we won the bet last year, did they? We just did the same thing again. It's amazing how chicken a lot of Gryffindors are sometimes."

"You went back?" Remus asked with surprise.

"Sure."

"Even though you suspect a werewolf goes there?"

"It's not like we went during a full moon, Remus. Don't you know anything about werewolves?"

Remus opened his mouth, struggling for a suitable answer.

Ding, ding, ding! A bell started ringing in another room.

"Dinner's ready." Peter jumped up and headed for the kitchen.

"We thought you'd like something edible today, rather than Pete's usual cooking," James explained, "so we sweet-talked his sister into coming over earlier. She whipped up something or other and said we could eat it after the alarm sounded on the oven."

"Oww!!" A voice shouted from the other room. "Oww, oww, oww! Hot, hot, hot!" Remus leapt up to rescue Peter in the kitchen while James and Sirius chuckled.

"Sugar." Sirius slipped onto the sofa next to Lily and hooked his arm around her shoulder, drawing her close. James was watching him narrowly from Lily's left. "I've been meaning to ask you how things have been going at school. With Regulus, I mean. He's not harassing you anymore is he?"

"He hasn't touched me all term."

Sirius nodded his approval. "What about the other stuff. Does he still try to talk to you?"

Lily looked away and her eyes ran into James on her other side.

"How about it, Lily?" Between the two of them, James and Sirius, Lily couldn't get away with anything.

She fidgeted with the edge of the blanket and answered quietly. "He talks to me sometimes."

"What does he say?"

Mainly, he kept suggesting that he would tell James the rumours that she was going out with Benjamin - but there was no way they were going to drag that out of her. "He threatens to spread lies about me," she said.

"I told you," James said to Sirius without explanation.

"What else?" Sirius was ignoring James.

"He said a couple of really nasty things to me right before we left for the break." Lily nursed her cup awkwardly.

Sirius nodded again. "I'll take care of it, Lily."

"We won't be able to get anywhere near him while he's at home, Padfoot. You know how your folks are."

"We could always get him once he's back at Hogwarts," Sirius suggested.

James gave it some thought and nodded. "Sounds like the Marauders may be paying a midnight visit to the Slytherin dormitory in a few weeks." That statement raised a whole host of questions in Lily's mind, but she was a bit distracted by something else.

"Aren't you going to see him on Christmas?" Lily wondered. Surely he at least visited his brother on the biggest holiday of the year.

"Fat chance!" Maybe he didn't. Lily hoped he wasn't going to be by himself.

"What're you doing for Christmas then?"

"I dunno," Sirius said. He released Lily and stood up, stretching out his chest and yawning.

"Why don't you come over to my house with James and his mum? It'll be fun." Lily felt James slip a hand over hers and give it a squeeze. Apparently he approved.

Sirius looked over at her, deep in thought. "We'll see."