Chapter 2: Beginnings
James simply held up a finger that meant to say, Wait a moment.
For three years and some odd months he’d longed to do just this. Kissing Lily Evans had been made a goal for him, and he always achieved his goals. Even if it had been she who’d kissed him first, the point was that he could finally get drunk on the taste of her.
With what sounded like a muffled giggle, Lily broke away, making him groan in protest. She looked up at Sirius with the biggest smile he’d ever seen her work up, and it was genuine. His heart soured proudly with the knowledge that it was he, at long last, who could light up her angelic face that way.
Her heart felt like it would implode. Not caring to even think about covering up what Sirius had just witnessed, she simply greeted, “No, you’re not interrupting.” Then her mind caught up with her. She frowned and quickly walked to him. “Is everything all right?” She studied the scrapes he’d acquired. “Here, sit next to James. I’ll go get my supplies.”
As she dashed off up the stairs to her room, Sirius obeyed and sat next to his best friend. Clapping him on the back, he said, “Bloody good work, mate. You finally strung her.”
“Actually, I hurt her, and she comes on to me.” James shook his head. “Women. Imperceptible.”
“Especially that one.” They sat a moment, listening to Lily scurry around in her room and bathroom. “Ah, hell.” Sirius wrapped his arms around James, mindful of injuries on both accounts, and embraced him like a brother. “You got her, mate. What’d I tell you? Lay off, and she’ll start to miss you. I’ve got to say it, I’m entitled: I told you so.”
He let go. “So, how much did you tell her?”
James rubbed the back of his neck. “Everything up to the point that we’re Animagi. She freaked out, called me a liar.” He looked at his toes. “I”I didn’t like that. I got up and grabbed her arms hard enough to leave bruises.” Shut his eyes in shame. “I didn’t mean to, and I backed off as soon as I came to myself. It’s quiet a moment and I’m kicking myself. Then, what does she do, but comes over, tells me, in some fashion, that she forgives me, and kisses me. And in my opinion, you did interrupt.” He shot Sirius a dark glance.
Sirius grinned. “What’re friends for?”
At that moment Lily came back downstairs. She set out her stuff and thought, Now I have to get the last half of the story. She started to clean Sirius up. “Okay, Remus is a werewolf. You guys found that out in second year, and told him. He got gloomy. You two and Peter become Animagi so that you could form a little group of misfits.” She sighed. “Then what?”
Sirius picked up before James could. “Every full moon, we wait until Pomfrey comes back from leading Remus to the Whomping Willow. That’s why it’s there,” he added when her eyebrows furrowed. “There’s a tunnel that leads from that tree to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade. You heard the legend of the wailing ghosts that haunt it? It’s actually Remus when he claws at himself. Anyway, when Pomfrey comes back, James, Peter, and I sneak out under James’s invisibility cloak.”
“Just full of secrets, aren’t you?” Lily mumbled to herself.
James continued, “We go through the tunnel. Sometimes we make it before he transforms, sometimes not. Either way, as soon as we get into the Shack we transform.
“I can’t describe to you how it feels, Lily. It’s like you’re you, but yet… not. You feel washed clean; you still know everything you know, feel everything you feel, hear everything you hear. But it’s different.
“It was going fine”we weren’t getting caught, suspicions didn’t run to high. But then at the end of last year, Sirius is feeling pretty devious.” Sirius looked away when James glared at him. “Wanted to play the ultimate prank. Snape had been noticing our disappearances, and Remus’s, every month, and was starting to wonder. So, one night after dinner Sirius tells him that if he wanted to find out where we were always going, he should go down to the Whomping Willow around midnight, poke the special root, and go through the tunnel.
“Lucky for everyone involved, I caught wind of his master scheme. Just as Snape was disappearing down the tunnel, I caught up to him and pulled him back. He glimpsed Remus. Dumbledore made him swear not to tell a soul, and he also laid it on us for being out at that time of night and such.”
Lily had stopped sterilizing a nasty gash on Sirius’s shoulder to stare at James. “Well, I would hope so!” She smacked Sirius upside the head. “Idiot, you could have exposed Remus and killed many a persons right then and there!” With a huff, she continued on the shoulder.
Sirius went on, “Since then, though, nothing’s happened. But tonight, for some odd reason, he went ballistic on us. Started slashing around. Peter’s so small, he ran away fast as a blur first sign of trouble. James and I tried to calm Remus down, but he wouldn’t have it. James is probably better meat than me, so he went for him first. When James finally was able to limp away, thank Merlin, Remus turned to me. I shook him off the first time enough to come up and check on James, then when I went back he was calmer, so I stayed a while, and came back for the night. Don’t know where Peter got to. Probably went straight up to the Tower.”
Lily tied the last of the bandages around his torso. She straightened, stood before the two boys on the couch and examined her work. Not too shabby, she mused. She tilted her head to one side in consideration. “What animals do you lot turn into?”
James answered as he kicked back, “Peter’s a rat, which fits him nicely, Sirius is a big, black, shaggy-haired dog, and I’m a stag, like the one on the portrait.” He grinned at her. “Symbolic, isn’t it? Lilies for you, and the stag for me.”
“Figures,” Lily mumbled as she took her stuff back upstairs. When she came back down, Sirius was sprawled over the couch, staring into the flames. As she opened her mouth, he said, “In his room getting some fresh clothes for me.”
Raising an eyebrow, she asked, “What if I was going to ask how to make an origami swan?”
Sirius smirked, but still didn’t turn to face her. “I would have told you how to make an origami swan. If I even knew what that was, mind you.”
He was in his bathroom, technically, brushing his teeth. She met his eyes in the mirror and grinned softly. After he spit and rinsed, he gathered her in his arms and buried his face him her citrus smelling red hair, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. “You have absolutely no idea how long I’ve wanted to hold you like this,” he breathed, his warm breath tickling her neck.
“To be honest, I didn’t know how long I’ve wanted you to hold me like this.”
“Are you finally going to let me buy you a drink in Hogsmeade?”
She chuckled. “I think I’m warming to the idea.”
“Allow me to convince you further.”
He fisted a hand in her hair and gently tugged her back to face him. His hazel eyes roamed over her face, studying her, scrutinizing her, lodging her image into his memory. His eyes holding hers, he lightly rubbed his nose over the tip of hers, tilted his head and softly brushed his lips over hers. He nipped his teeth on her bottom lip, then closed his eyes and kissed her full on the mouth.
“Hey, mate, got an extra tooth brush… Sheesh, I do pick my times.”
Kill. Must… kill.
Lily growled dangerously. Someone was jumping on her bed.
Jumping.
On her bed.
She growled again, bouncing when the bed bounced.
“Rise and shine, my Lily-Flower!”
“This can only end in tears.”
The cheerful voice of Sirius and the squeaky one of Peter filtered through her mind. She peeked through one eye, and then quickly shut it again. Five… four… three… two…
She abruptly shot up, startling Sirius so that he fell on his butt on the bed. In a split second, she grabbed her wand from the nightstand, straddled his waist, held his wrists together above his head, and jabbed her wand in his throat. Leaning down until her face was a whisper from his, she hissed, “Do. Not. Ever. Wake me up. I am not a morning person. I will kill you. Do you understand?” His eyes wide with genuine fear, he nodded frantically. “I’m only sparing you now because I love your best friend. A lot.”
She let go of his wrists and climbed off. He stumbled for the door, and just as he reached it, she hexed him. As Peter snapped it shut, she called, “You’ve been warned!” and cackled evilly.
James came down from his room dressed and ready for the day to find Sirius pale and clutching the couch for support. Peter was hugging himself in a corner, twitching occasionally.
“Evil… evil… scary…” Sirius was muttering to himself. His left eye was involuntarily wincing. When James gripped shoulders, he started. Recognition passed through his gray eyes, then panic. Clutching James’s shirtfront, he said, “She’s evil, man! Save yourself!”
James eyed his friend warily. “Mate, I think you’ve finally gone mad.”
Sirius shook him a bit, then pointed toward Lily’s door. “Not me! Her!”
Lily chose that moment to come gliding out of her room, fresh as a daisy. She was humming a tune that was stuck in her head, and when she spotted Sirius, she threw out her arms and said, “Sirius, darling, how lovely to see you!”
Peter was already slamming the portrait shut behind him. Sirius shrieked girly, and tripped on his way out.
“What did you do to them?”
Smirking, Lily folded her arms over her chest and replied, “Nobody wakes me up and doesn’t pay the consequences.”
James slipped his arms around her waist. “Why, Miss Evans, I didn’t know you could be so vindictive.”
He kissed the top of her head when she rested it on his chest. “Only when called upon.” She could hear his heart beat in his chest. And knew it beat only for her.
A/N: Well, that's that. I'm rather proud of how much I expanded a one-shot. What I should do is just throw these two chapters together. The total words then would be 5,612. What do you all think? Tell me in a review.
Cheers,
Danielle