I Loved You More

One Night of Gallivanting

Chapter #10

Lily whirled around and a feeling of great stupidity struck her like a brick as her pale face colored deeply in the dark.

"Bloody hell, Evans! We were just messing around! I thought for sure you'd know it was us!" gasped James, who was doubled over clutching his stomach.

Sirius had been holding Summer's arms behind her back but was weakened by hysterical laughter at the outcome of James' sneak attack and let go of her. Summer refused to let him off so easily and angrily slapped him across the face.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, but only giggled harder.

"Sorry, but we were expecting you to come out of the portrait hole!" said Lily anxiously, her heart still pounding heavily. "Are you alright?"

"I think I'll live but blimey, you hit hard!" said James, finally straightening up.

"Why did you guys do that?" asked Lily. "We were already twitchy enough with out you sneaking up on us!"

"You two were just standing there...didn't even hear us coming! It was too good an opportunity to pass up!" said Sirius, rubbing his cheek and grinning.

"Are we going to go or stand around here all night?" demanded Lily testily.

"You're not worried, are you, Evans?" asked James with an annoying smirk, seemingly recovered.

"No! I just want to get started..." Lily said weakly.

"Of course," James replied, winking. "Shall we go then?"

He pompously held out his arm and Lily skillfully pretended not to see it. She walked close to Summer and they were able to grip each other unnoticed by the boys every time they went around a shadowy corner.

James and Sirius strolled along in front of them, looking very at ease and comfortable with their surroundings. Lily supposed she shouldn't be too awed by this. After all, they must sneak out practically every night. Of course they'd be used to it. They didn't even care if they got caught anyway as they basically tried to get in as much trouble as possible.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" asked Summer uncertainly.

Lily glanced around at the shady corridor. It was so dark that the only reason she knew it was actually a corridor was because they had been walking in the same direction for quite some time. Otherwise, she felt as though her ability to touch and feel was the only one of her five senses that was working. Darkness stretched out before her like a world of nothingness and she had never known the castle to be so deathly silent.

"We know every inch of stone that this castle is built of, my dear," Sirius said in a tone that suggested he was speaking to a very ignorant young person who required a lot of patience. "No need to worry."

Normally, this way of speaking would not have gone over well with Summer but being in such deep, seemingly endless darkness where she had not the slightest inkling of where she was having given that responsibility to two very irresponsible boys must have a pushed her out of her wits a little and she didn't reply.

"We've been walking for ages, aren't we nearly there? Surely the kitchens are something near the Great Hall," Lily spoke up as they turned another corner.

She immediately bit her lip.

All she saw was a glimmer of lantern light before James and Sirius swirled around, walking steadily into the girls.

"Filch," murmured James hurriedly as he grabbed Lily and forcefully directed her back around the corner while Sirius did the same thing to Summer somewhere to the left.

"What was that?" Filch's sickly voice snapped quickly. "Students out of bed! Come back here, you little varmints!"

"Damn."

They all began to run. The corridor was long and didn't appear to have any means of escape or concealment until the very end.

Lily cursed herself for her own blind foolishness. She, Lily Evans, was about to get caught wandering around the castle at midnight with a couple of guys! And to think that she was usually the one doing the catching.

Still running aimlessly, she looked behind and saw Filch rounding the corner, looking deadly in the eerie light that his flickering lantern cast upon his grotesque face. All of a sudden James or Sirius-it was impossible to tell which-pulled her roughly to the side and through a doorway. He slammed the door shut and muttered several locking charms. Then he stood back with Lily, Summer, and Sirius, (Lily could see that it was James who had pulled her in and locked the door because of a faint sliver of light reflected on his glasses). They stood facing the door, waiting breathlessly.

"Oh brilliant! Now we're going to be expelled and what-" Lily began to rant madly under her breath.

"No we aren't. He can't get in," James whispered.

"What do you mean? All he has to do is say a few simple countercurses and bam! We're goners!" hissed Lily rather vehemently.

"Ha! Filch can't do magic. He's a Squib."

Lily wasn't surprised at this. Why else would he bother with a lantern?

The doorknob suddenly began rattling violently.

"Come on out, you pesky brats!" screeched Filch as he pounded on the door. "There's no way to escape the belt this time! Don't worry, my sweet, we've got them. They've got to come out of there sometime and we'll be here, won't we?"

His voice fell to a low mumble as he continued to tell his cat all the things he would love to do to them when they emerged. They didn't move until they heard him slump down against the door.

"Oh no. How are we going to get out? He'll wait there all night! You guys are supposed to the experts on this!" demanded Summer in a restrained whisper.

"You underestimate us again. We have a way of knowing any and all routes out of here and whether or not there's someone out there guarding the door," said James. "Check the map, Padfoot."

"Map? I thought you knew every inch of stone that this castle is built of. What would you need a map for?" asked Summer with pronounced interest, her arms folded expectantly across her chest.

Sirius lit his wand and rummaged through his robes. At Summer's words, he chuckled.

"The Marauders Map is like one you've never seen, I'll reckon. It can show you a little more than how to find your way from the Owlery to the North Tower," answered James slickly. "Shall we show it to them, Padfoot?"

"Perhaps if I could find it-" said Sirius irritably, digging his hands into his pockets. "I don't have it."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't have it!" he cried. "It's not here. Must have left it somewhere."

"What's so special about this stupid old map anyway?" asked Summer.

"Stupid old map?" repeated James. "This map is probably the cleverest you'll ever have the honor of seeing-if we ever see it again-" he glared at Sirius "-and it could show us whether or not that git Filch is gone!"

"Well, it's not much help now, is it?" snapped Lily, joining the argument. "How are we going to avoid getting expelled?"

"I suggest we inspect our whereabouts," said Sirius. "See if there are any other exits."

They all lit their wands and looked around. It was a small classroom that hadn't been used in a few years judging by the blanket of dust that covered all the desks. There was no sign of a way out.

"Lovely," muttered Lily. "Just wonderful! Nearly five years of slaving at this school gone because of one night of gallivanting! One night! Filch will eventually get a teacher to open this door and throw us out!"

She sat down at a desk and tangled her fingers agitatedly in her hair.

"Maybe not. Filch usually doesn't bother the teachers this late at night because if he does they get pretty angry. He's almost caught us so many times and when he runs to a teacher, we go back to the Gryffindor tower and they think that he imagined us!" said Sirius gleefully.

"That makes it ten times worse!" cried Lily, paling. "They'll catch us in the morning and see that we've stayed locked up in here all night together! That'll go over real well, I'm sure."

"Well then, we'll have all night to come up with a good excuse!" replied Sirius just as cheerfully, talking a seat across from Lily and reclining backwards in the chair.

Lily groaned miserably. Summer sat down next to her and leaned her head comfortingly on her shoulder.

"Hey, you're the one who agreed to come along!" Sirius said in response to her groan. "Now stop wallowing in your own self-pity and make the best of this because we're going to be spending the entire night in this room together."

"Fine then...at least it's not a broom closet," retorted Lily dryly.

Summer yawned then shivered. The castle was cold place at night especially when all you have on was a thin sweatshirt over your clothes.

Sirius stood up and silently opened one of the cabinets on the back wall. He took out a jar filled with some yellowish dust, emptied it out carelessly on the floor and conjured up some electric blue flames inside the jar with a flick of his wand.

"Here's a nice cozy fire. We might as well be warm if this is to be our sleeping chamber for the night," he said elegantly as he placed the jar on a desk in the center of their small circle.

"Thanks mate," said James who was sitting next to Sirius as he moved his chair closer to the flaming jar. "It's such a comfort to be warm while knowing that Filch is freezing."

"Cheers," said Lily, who hated Filch passionately at the moment.

They relaxed around the source of warmth, trying to make themselves comfortable in the hard wooden chairs.

"I can hear him snoring by the door," said Sirius in a lazily amazed tone. "That prat is actually going to sleep in front of that door just to make sure we don't get out. He really needs some kind of purpose in his life."

"What is he going to do when we've graduated?" James asked Sirius, grinning. "He spends all his time chasing us."

"Who knows, maybe he'll marry that evil cat of his," yawned Sirius. "He'll get a little vacation before our kids come in and take over."

"We'll train them up to be little Marauders and carry on the legacy their fathers began," said James with exaggerated passion, beaming with pride at the thought.

"I pity the kid who gets one of you for a father," Lily said, having no gift of Divination or she may have held her tongue. She even added, "One set of Marauders is too much; how dreadful it will be when you reproduce."

"Now, do you really think that, Evans?" asked James, looking at her with a strangely thoughtful expression. "I think we make Hogwarts interesting...we break the dull monotony."

"You may make it interesting but you also hurt a lot of people in the process," Lily said composedly.

"No," James shook his head. "Maybe we get a little carried away on old Snape once in awhile but the others are just in fun. They know that."

"I'm not sure being publicly humiliated or spending the week in the hospital is what your victims consider fun," said Lily coldly. "You've no idea how many people you've upset or hurt...But that doesn't matter, of course, as long as James Potter and his cronies have their laugh and manage to keep the spotlight on themselves."

Surprisingly, Lily wasn't getting angry. She had raged about this to James on countless occasions, leaving no impression. She now saw that he really was blind to the effect he had on people and she sincerely wanted to enlighten him.

James sat staring at her for a long time after she finished speaking. He did not appear angry either...or upset or amused. He simply stared. Lily grew uncomfortable and looked down at her lap for a minute. When she thought it was safe to glimpse up, she saw that he was still gazing at her and she began to feel very self-conscious. He appeared so uncharacteristically solemn, with the eerie blue light illuminating his face. She desperately wished for him to say something and return to his usual, cheerful, confident manner.

Lily frantically turned to Summer only to find her dozing off, her golden head drooped against her shoulder and then to Sirius who was sound asleep with his head leaning on his hands as he sat reclined in the old chair. How could anyone fall asleep so fast?

"Err- looks like they had no trouble falling asleep," she observed stupidly, not meeting James' eyes.

At this, James finally turned his head, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes wearily.

"Sirius can fall asleep anytime, anywhere. It's amazing, really," he said quietly, smiling distantly.

Very much relieved, Lily looked up at his face from across the desk.

"I guess he and Summer have that in common," she said softly, not really thinking about Summer and Sirius' sleeping habits at all.

There was another lengthy silence. Lily kept pretending to get comfortable and fiddling with her clothes and hair absently. She felt so awkward and simply needed something to make her at least look preoccupied. After playing with everything that was possible while sitting in a dark classroom full of desks with three other people, two of which were asleep, the other staring intently at her and acting very out of character, Lily gave up. She cuddled up in her chair next to Summer and chanced a look over the brilliant blue fire at James. He seemed to be very interested in fixing his robes and thankfully wasn't staring at her.

Had Lily possessed another pair of eyes, she would have seen that he had only turned away from her when he saw her look at him. When he looked back, their eyes caught a swift gaze and they both quickly bent their heads so that they had a nice view of their own laps.

Lily could feel a strong tension in the room that she couldn't understand. Had she made him see the truth at last or was this all just her imagination? Why was she finding it so hard to make eye contact with him? Why couldn't she find anything to say? What was he-?

Sirius gave an enormous snore so abruptly that James and Lily both jumped.

They looked at each other and burst out laughing. Suddenly all the pressure that had been rapidly swelling between them deflated and seemed to shrivel up completely like a dead balloon. They sat and giggled wildly for several minutes before they finally regained their self-control.

"That was the...loudest...snore...I've ever...heard," breathed Lily tipsily between giggles.

"My heart...is still beating...like mad," gasped James, looking incredulously at his best friend who was totally oblivious to the uproar he had caused.

"I have a new respect for you," said Lily. "You have to share a dorm with him."

"Well, it is rather like falling asleep to some bizarre symphony," replied James, his mouth twitching.

Then they both collapsed into another fit of helpless laughter.

Lily felt utterly insane. She had been feeling so much stress and anxiety in one night that it was fortunate that she was venting it out through foolish laughter or she would have exploded into another form of hysterics. She hadn't laughed this hard and carelessly for such a long time and truthfully, it felt wonderful.

James had also been tired, confused and a little worried and as soon as Sirius grunted that incredible snore, he just couldn't stop. Seeing Lily giggle so riotously only made him laugh harder on top of everything.

Soon they were rolling on the floor, positively breathless, and looking like two idiots. Lily felt as though she must have lost her mind and all her dignity but found that she didn't care. It was a very new experience for her; not to care. She was having fun, whether dignified or not, and she wasn't going to stop until the aches in her sides became literally unbearable.

* * *

Lily shivered. For some reason, she was extremely cold and very uncomfortable. Her bed felt as hard as a rock. That was strange. She was too tired to get up, though.

Without opening her eyes, Lily rolled onto her other side and gently bumped into something warm and soft. She snuggled up close to it gratefully and wrapped her blankets closer around her. Then, as she was about to drift back to sleep, something happened that made her nearly jump out of her skin.

The thing that she was huddled against moved.

Lily snapped her eyes open, not even blinking in the blinding winter sunlight that was streaming through a window in her urgency, and sprang up. Suddenly recent events came pouring back to her all at once as though her brain had just remembered to start working with such force, that it left her very disoriented for a moment.

She was on the floor of the cold classroom snuggled up close to none other than James Potter, using his robes as a blanket. Lily knew she must be dreaming. With horror, she recalled all she had done in the last seven hours. Sneaking out with James and Sirius, wandering the dark school, getting seen by Filch and chased into this classroom...then sitting around the blue fire talking to James, dodging glances, Sirius' snoring, laughing hysterically...with James.

Lily was frankly amazed at what she'd done and let herself smile softly at the memory of their ridiculous laughing fit. Had she really done all that? And could she actually be feeling pleased about it. She felt as though she didn't even know herself.

Then she heard some muffled movement outside the door and remembered how Filch had been keeping guard all night. White hot fury dug into her little ray of pleasure, killing it. She was going to be expelled all because of one careless night of fun!

"Lily! How'd you get down there?"

Lily twisted around and saw Summer arising from where she had been curled up across three chairs. She looked stunned at the sight of Lily sitting up next to James and sharing his robes for blankets. Sirius was stretched out across a row of five chairs with his face buried in his folded arms, still soundly sleeping. The blue fire in the jar had worn out and it sat there, dark and cold.

"Oh-" Lily threw off James' robe. "We didn't mean to...err...we were..." she faltered, unsure if how to explain the odd situation that she never dreamed she would find herself in.

Summer raised an eyebrow meaningfully.

"Summer Blisse! You know it wasn't anything like that!" Lily exclaim angrily, squirming away from James as though he were some kind of frightening insect. "We were just laughing at something funny and ended up on the floor. We must have fallen asleep soon after that."

Summer nodded slowly, seeming to be at a loss of what to say, then yawned, checking her watch.

"Soon someone will walk by, Filch will make them get a teacher, and we'll be gone before dinner," she said in an emotionless tone.

James stirred again. He stretched out his long, gangly, arms and rolled onto his back.

"Morning ladies," he grinned sleepily at them as he leisurely opened his eyes. Then he put on his glasses and looked at Summer. "We probably won't have to leave till tomorrow so we'll have at least one more dinner here."

"How long were you listening?" demanded Summer.

"Oh, I woke up when Lily cuddled up against me," James replied, his dimple deepening.

Lily blushed and ignored Summer's gaping expression of shock.

"Do you think we should wake him?" Lily asked, indicating Sirius and quickly changing the subject.

"Good luck," James chuckled.

"Bet you a hundred galleons I can get him up," said Summer. "I used to have to wake my brother up everyday which is like reviving the dead. I'm an expert."

"If you can, you'll be the first ever to ever succeed," James said doubtfully.

Summer grinned confidently and marched over to Sirius. She placed her hands on each side of Sirius' waist and pinched hard and suddenly. He jerked up with a strange grunting noise and fell off his row of chairs. Summer sat back down in her chair looking satisfied as James and Lily snickered. Sirius got up quickly and rubbed his backside, shooting daggers at her.

"Wow, you are good," James said in awe.

"Oh yes, I'll be put in the history books as the girl who could wake up Sirius Black," answered Summer dryly.

"That was painful," said Sirius indignantly.

Summer shrugged and Lily laughed.

"Hey, I don't think Filch is out there anymore!" announced James, who had gone to the door to listen for the caretaker.

They all crept up behind him as he said the countercurses to the locking spells and waited anxiously as he turned the brass knob. Slowly, he cracked it open and peered into the dimly lit corridor.

"No sign of him," he proclaimed.

"Yay!" breathed Summer in relief.

James carefully pushed it out further and they all stepped out, bracing to jump up in down in celebration of their freedom.

But something stopped them.

Standing next to the door was a girl with a glistening Prefect badge pinned to her robe and a malevolent smirk on her face that gave Lily a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was Bellatrix Black.