Deer to Me

Chapter Fifteen

Classes at Hogwarts had never passed so quickly for the eight in the Auror classes. Before any of them knew it, it was February and another Hogsmeade visit was upon them. Sirius knew that Valentine's day was approaching, as his owl was bombarded with secret admirer letters and proclamations of love beginning on the first day of term. It was an annual joke among the Marauders and they never failed to press Sirius on the issue.

"So, are we planning to break the Hogwarts record of 4,382 letters this year?" Remus asked casually one morning.

"Where'd you come up with that number?" James asked.

"It's in Hogwarts, A History. I looked it up the other day when I was researching for the DADA essay."

"Why do you need to research, Moony?" Peter asked. "You already know pretty much all there is to know?"

"Yes, well, I was looking up the trials and such," he said, quietly. James cleared his throat and continued on their previous conversation.

"So, whose got the magic number of things?" he asked.

"It was back in the 1500's, I do believe," Remus said. "What's your grand total now, Padfoot?"

"Oh, I dunno. At least 400 since January," he said, off-handedly, looking through the letters. "Who'da thought that so many girls had it out for me?"

"Are you sure they're all girls?" James grinned. "You never know these days...?"

Sirius closed his eyes and sent an apple flying at James, who ducked just in time. Then he packed all of his fanmail into the giant bag that he kept them all in protectively. "Yes, they're all girls. No guy could write this girly."

"How do you choose?" Peter asked. Sirius shrugged.

"The top ten who sound the most desperate and the most sane, I have dates every half-hour during Hogsmeade."

"That's so terrible, Padfoot," James shook his head.

"Hey, if they don't like it, they can find another date."

"Hey James, how are you coming along with Lily?" Peter asked. "I've noticed that you haven't been doing as much damage as of late."

James sighed and tapped his fork on his plate, looking down the table were Lily was sitting (again) with Emmeline. The Ravenclaw had broken from her table for once and sat with Lily at the Gryffindor table. They were talking over something that interested them both, from the way that Lily's eyes lit up. She'd been so pleased with him as of late, and then...disaster happened every time he was getting somewhere.

"James?" Peter asked. James tore his eyes away from Lily and gave Peter a tired look.

"Well, Wormtail. It seems as though Snape has it out for me lately," James frowned. "Ever since he's figured out that I'm trying not to be so much of a prat, he's been showing up and taunting me, right in front of Lily. Now, you can't expect me to just take that, can you?" He sighed and sat back. It was true, almost every day for the past three weeks, Snape had been lurking around every corner when James was in the vicinity of Lily. At first, James tried to ignore it, but then he'd done a few well-cast hexes, and James had no choice but to retaliate.

"And what does she say about that?" Peter asked. "I mean, to Prongs."

"We've been so busy that she hasn't ever gone out there. So I don't know. But from last we chatted, she can't hate me," he finished, proudly, then sunk down into his seat. "But who knows how much damage these past weeks have done."

"Are you going to ask her to Hogsmeade?" Peter asked. James thought about it for a moment and shook his head.

"I have to wait for the opportune moment," he said. "I mean, you know how pissed she gets when I ask her to go out with me."

"So you're just going to leave her alone?" Peter scratched his head in confusion.

"No, I'm going to subtly exude my presence during the next few days," James clarified. Peter, who was often confused by his big words, stared at him owlishly.

"What does that mean?"

"It means, Wormtail, that I'm going to, in essence, woo her," he grinned.

Single-Awareness Day (or as other people called it, Valentine's Day) was one of the worst days of the year for Lily. All throughout elementary school, she had to endure the torment of Petunia's many valentines (though Lily thought Petunia was horse-faced, she was more popular with the boys than Lily was). Lily despised it at Hogwarts too, simply because she loathed seeing public displays of affection in the hallways.

She was half-inclined to start docking points from snogging people in the hallway, but knew that the teachers would just brush it off and tell her to find someone to snog herself, which made her even more horrified. If it was one thing that disgusted her above all other things, it was the fact that the teachers had to break up snogging sessions in the hallway. For some reason, it made her cringe.

Speaking of Lily's love life, James Potter had been unusually silent during this time of love and lust. Usually, when they returned to the new year, James would double his efforts to get her to be his valentine, asking her sometimes three times a day. But now, he didn't even so much as hint to the day, and she was in close quarters with him for 5 hours a night nowadays. She was feeling a tad put-out, and, in awe of herself, wondered if James was still interested in her.

But one day after Auror class (she was feeling pretty badly because they were practicing some dueling spells and she hadn't been able to put a tear in the pillow they were using, when everyone else completely obliterated their pillows), she came to her room and found a single red rose lying on her pillow. No note, no anything except the single rose.

Something akin to relief welled in her chest, he hadn't forgot about her, even though she'd been horrible to him as of late. She touched the rose and then picked it up, mindful of the thorns, and quietly walked down the girl's staircase and up the boy's. She stopped at the door that was marked ‘6th year' and knocked quietly.

"Coming!" came the suave voice behind the door. Lily rolled her eyes. Sirius Black was probably expecting a girl to come visit him tonight. When he opened the door, he whistled.

"Look here, Prongs. Lily's finally come around!" When he came fully in the door, Lily could see that he was shirtless. He put his arms around her and grinned. "So, Lily, darling, shall I woo you first with some poetry, or do you just want to get down to-oof!" Lily looked to the ceiling in annoyance and slammed her arm into his stomach. She could hear water running in the bathroom from both the sink and the shower.

"Calm yourself, Black. I'm here to see Potter," she said.

"Somewone cawing me?" Came the voice from the bathroom. Lily felt her breath catch in her throat when James came out of the bathroom wearing naught but boxer shorts with little Snitches on them that flew around. She tore her eyes away from the moving Quidditch balls on his pants to the well-defined area of his chest, that she'd had the pleasure of rubbing with Vick's Vapor Rub not too long ago.

"Wiwy?" he said through his tooth brush. She cleared her throat and looked at him in the face. He was blushing a nice shade of red.

"I need to speak with you about something," she managed to stammer out.

"Owkay," he said. "Giwve me a miwnet." He went back into the bathroom and Lily heard the water that was running stop.

"I wouldn't go out there, Moony," she heard James warn.

"Why?" A voice responded. Lily must have turned three different shades of red then because out of the bathroom wearing a white towel was Remus Lupin. He jumped and yelled when he saw Lily and then went back inside the bathroom.

"Maybe, I'll just....wait outside." Lily scooted out of the room. She was trying to erase the picture of James Potter's Snitches, but they weren't going anywhere. He didn't help things when he came out wearing those boxers and no shirt.

"You wanted to see me, Lily?" James asked, putting his arms over his very pretty chest. She could see goosebumps raising on his skin.

"Er-Yes," she said, holding up the rose. "Did you give me this?"

James took the rose and looked at it. "Nope. But I can remedy that." He handed it to her and grinned. "Merry Christmas."

"James, I'm serious."

"No, he's in there."

"Stop." Lily wanted to get to the bottom of this soon. "I want to know who sent me this flower?"

"If I had to wager a guess, I'd say Frank Longbottom," James shrugged. "He's been making eyes at you lately."

"Frank? No, it couldn't have been him. He's engaged." Lily told him. James's brow furrowed.

"How do you know this?"

"He told me," Lily told me. "He's been giving me some extra pointers."

"Really?" James fought with himself not to be interested. "Any particular reason why?"

"Well, he's been trying to make me more prepared than the rest of you. I'm a natural target," she explained, amazed that James didn't fly off the handle. "Why do you ask?"

"I thought it was indecent," James said. "But I honestly don't know who gave you that rose, other than me just a few seconds ago." He stretched and Lily could see the lines of his muscles move.

"So, I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Yes, night." Lily was still transfixed on the muscles that she didn't notice that they were gone until the door shut and she was bathed in darkness again.

Two more roses found their way to Lily's bedside the next morning, and Lily pricked her finger on them when she tried to pick them up. She was worried for a moment that they may have been some sort of Slytherin trick, but then she reminded herself that nobody but Gryffindors had access to the dormitories.

After another Auror class, Lily found one on top of her bathroom things before she went to go take a shower. She had started a vase of them all and when more came (three with her owl the next morning, along with a letter from Oliver), she just added to the pot.

She started looking around for someone who might be looking at her oddly, but she realized that her secret admirer was a very good actor. She couldn't find anyone that even looked her way.

The final four that she got over the course of the Friday before the Hogsmeade visit (which happened to be a Friday the 13th), all had notes attached to them.

The first, which she received when she awoke, had a note which read, "I'm charming this flower so you'll have good luck today."

The second, which found itself into her Transfiguration book, read "You transfigure my heart into a bird because it soars every time I see you."

The third, which sprouted out of her pot in Herbology read, "Your eyes remind me of the greenest trees in the world."

Finally, when she went to dinner, she found one on her plate. She sat down across from Emmeline who was looking at it oddly.

"Did you see who put that there?" Lily asked.

"Nope," Emmeline replied. "Got a secret admirer?"

"I hope not, it'd be rather bothersome," she smiled, picking it up and reading the note attached. "Meet me at the Three Broomsticks tomorrow morning, and I'll reveal myself."

"So how many of those to you have total?" Emmeline asked.

"Counting this one, eleven. Maybe he's going to give me a dozen tomorrow."

"Hello ladies," Sirius crooned from behind them. "Since it's the day before Valentines, how about we be more friendly towards each other?"

"How about not, Black?" Emmeline glared at him.

"Come now, we're not asking you to marry us," James said as he plopped down next to Lily. "We just want to enjoy dinner with you. You're always sitting by yourself."

"Hello Lily," Remus said, sitting on the other side of her, which left Peter to sit on the other side of Emmeline.

"Oh, are we finally all sitting together?" Gideon (or Fabian) said, sitting down on the other side of Remus. His brother sat down next to Peter.

"What do you have there?" Peter asked Lily. She held up her rose.

"A secret admirer note."

"Are you still getting those roses?" James asked, biting off the edge of a roll. Lily's gaze pierced him.

"And you don't know who's sending them?"

James sighed. "No, I don't know who's giving them to you. I thought we went over this?"

Lily pondered his words during the rest of the Auror classes as she cursed her pillow into tattered feathers.

The next morning arrived cold and crisp and Lily put on her best robes to go out into the village. She was praying that it wasn't some first year with an infatuation, or Peter Pettigrew. She hoped it was someone nice that truly liked her and wanted to date her.

She sat down in a booth and ordered a butterbeer. She realized that the note didn't specify a time, so she could be waiting all day. Taking a light sip of her butterbeer, she looked around. She could see Sirius Black snogging a girl in the corner (funny, she thought she'd seen him come in with another girl) and Remus Lupin and Peter playing wizard chess in the corner. But no James Potter.

"He's probably snogging some other girl, but has the decency to go into a corner," she muttered to herself.

Suddenly white filled her vision. She blinked and made out the contours of a white rose and the fragrance hit her. She smiled and took the rose delicately in her hands, realizing that it was thornless.

"I daresay you've had enough thorns." The familiar voice said above her. Lily looked up and gave James Potter a slightly annoyed look.

"I thought that you said you didn't send them?" she asked. James was pleased to see that she wasn't too incredibly upset by the discovery.

"Correction. I said I didn't give them to you, with the exception of the first one," he said, looking very pleased with himself. "A random first year girl gave them to you. I just told her where to put them."

Lily smiled and looked at the rose in her hand. "So all of those little letters-?"

"I got bored just sending them to you," James shrugged. "So I figured I'd be a little creative."

"So I suppose you want me to be your valentine for the day, correct?" James was taken aback.

"Why no! I just wanted to give you some roses, that's all."

Lily couldn't believe it. "So all of that, was just because?"

"Of course, if you want to be my valentine for the day, that would be all right too."

Suddenly Sirius ran up to them, two different colors of lipstick smeared on his mouth. "Quick, have any of you seen Jennifer Graham?"

"No, why?" Lily asked.

"Damn!" Sirius cursed, running to the next table. James was chuckling.

"Sirius is trying to break his own record of snogging only 10 girls in one day. He's going for 20, one every quarter hour for five hours."

Lily gasped. "That's terrible!"

"Yes, well, he didn't make his quota with love letters this year, so he's trying to outdo himself in some way. From the looks of it, he's running a few minutes behind." He turned to her and looked out the door.

"So, since my best friend is busy with all of his lady friends, shall we take a walk around Hogsmeade?"

"Sure," Lily laughed and went for her purse. James stopped her.

"It's taken care of."

"James, you shouldn't-"

"But I want to," he came around to the other side of the table and offered his arm. "C'mon. Let's go explore."

Usually, Lily stuck to the Three Broomsticks and the surrounding stores, but James decided to take her all around the village to places she'd never been before. They stopped at the Shrieking Shack for a little while and James told her about it.

"Supposed to be the most severely haunted place in all of Britain," he told her.

"So why was it just built our first year?" Lily shot back. "How'd it get so haunted so fast?"

"Well..."James's face seemed to grow a shadow "...they say that the owners build the house over the portal to Hell. One day, a giant hand reached up and grabbed all of the people that were working on it, and the owners and pulled them all down to the depths. The shrieking sounds are their tortured cries as they are burned for eternity." He ended right in front of her face, trying to scare her. Lily stared back cynically.

"Then how come there wasn't a big hole before they built the house? And how come nobody'd fallen down there before?"

James ran his hand through his hair. "You're a tough one to scare."

"I just don't believe in ghost stories." Lily sniffed. She stopped to think for a moment. "Well, ones that don't have tangible ghosts, that is."

They heard running and looked to see Sirius running down the street, lipstick all over his mouth. He was out of breath.

"Mate, have you seen Gina Matthews?" He huffed.

"Nope," James said. "By the way, you've got some lipstick right around here." He made a motion that encompassed his entire face.

"Shut up," Sirius glared.

"Do you think that he'll be able to do it?" Lily asked. "Snog twenty girls in one day?"

James watched him go and said, "Who knows?" He turned to her and cleared his throat. "Though I don't think that he's snogging her innocently. I do believe that there is some tongue," he grinned.

"Potter..."