Unofficial Portkey Archive

Awwww…you guys like me! You really like me. *wipes a tear and sniffles* All right, so…because of the very GREAT demand for my Lily's Story (well, maybe great is not the word for it, but there has been some interest), I will start posting that as soon as I get it sorted out into chapters and such.

And I don't have time to write author's notes to every reader at the moment, so, thank you all for your comments! I read each and every one, and I love hearing what you have to say.

A special thanks to cheeringcharm, who was my beta, as always for this chapter, and Vicarious Leigh, who encouraged me to begin posting on portkey in the first place. You two rock!

Fifth Year

James flew up the stairs of the dormitory and burst into his room, searching madly for his friends. "Siri, Moony, Petey!" he shouted. "Sirius!" He went back into the stairwell, glancing up and down it, wondering where his friends were. The shower was going in the bathroom, so he stuck his head through the door.

"Sirius, is that you? Get out here! I need to talk to you."

"What is it, Jamesy?" Sirius's voice replied from behind the steam.

"Just get out here, and I'll tell you!" James replied.

"Fine, but this had better be good!" Sirius responded, and the sound of the water beating against the tile wall of the shower stopped. "Hand me a towel, will you?"

James reached out and set a towel into Sirius's outstretched hand. "I'll be in our room," James said, grinning giddily.

Sirius strolled in a few minutes later, damp hair uncombed, towel tied loosely around his waist. "What do you want?" he asked, walking over to the mirror and picking up a comb. "You interrupted my shower."

James stared at Sirius for a moment before shaking his head. He knew no other man who would be upset about his shower being cut short. "What's the matter Siri?" he inquired, laughing. "Didn't get completely through your conditioning regimen before I interrupted?"

Sirius glared at him. "Laugh if you will, but the girls love my hair," he said vainly, reaching for the gel and combing it through his hair with his fingers, before turning back around to look at James. "So, what's all the fuss about?"

"Where are Moony and Petey?" James asked, his eyes dancing in excitement.

Sirius shrugged and began changing into his robes. "Last I saw, Moony was dragging Petey off to the library to work on some Potions homework. I politely declined the invitation."

"Perfectly understandable," James agreed. "You had a hair emergency to take care of."

Sirius swatted James with his towel. "Too right I did. Now…WHAT is your news?"

James smiled, and ran his hands through his hair, trying to look cool. "Lily-," he began, but Sirius interrupted him with a groan.

"If I have to listen to one more plot by you to get Evans to go out with you, Jamesy, I think I'll go mad. No, I mean it. I'll go completely insane. Completely! And think of all the broken hearts that would result when I'm transferred to St. Mungo's. Please, I'm begging you, spare the women of Hogwarts their favorite Gryffindor." Sirius had dropped to his knees, and was clutching pathetically at the bottom of James's robes.

James rolled his eyes. "Get off of me!" he said, kicking at Sirius. "And I'm afraid their heartache is inevitable, Siri, now that their favorite Gryffindor is officially off the market."

Sirius's face registered confusion. "What are you talking about? I'm not seeing anyone right now."

"You know as well as I do that it's me, and not you, that's Gryffidor's most eligible bachelor," James said, his smile widening. He wanted to shout out the good news and dance around the room, but he was having entirely too much fun giving Sirius a hard time.

Sirius snorted. "Since when have you ever been eligible?" he asked. "Everyone knows that your heart belongs to Evans. And are you going to tell me what in the name of Merlin you're talking about, or do I have to curse it out of you?"

"I would, if you'd shut up for two seconds." Sirius motioned for James to continue. "All right, then. Evans. Agreed. To. Go. Out. With. Me." James said it slowly to keep from shouting and jumping around.

James was not expecting Sirius's reaction. "Nice try, Jamesy," Sirius said, hanging the towel on a hook by his bed. "I suppose you expected me to congratulate you, and then I'd go downstairs and ask Evans about it and look like a fool. Good plan, but I'm far too smart for you, mate."

"No, really. She agreed. She really agreed!" James exclaimed. His whole face was smiling now, and he felt like he would burst with the excitement. "We're meeting on the quidditch pitch tonight!" He faltered for a moment. "Of course, I told her it was to study astronomy-I claimed that I was falling behind in the class-but she's agreed to help me!"

Sirius grinned broadly. "Well, all right!" he said, high-fiving James. "All right!" He plopped down onto his bed. "So…what are you going to do tonight to make her forget that you manipulated her into agreeing to go out with you?"

That's a good question. What AM I going to do?

Hey, I got her there. Now you have to woo her!

James felt a wave of panic wash over him. "I've absolutely no idea," he said, staring at Sirius, his heart racing, and his palms feeling sweaty with fear.

Sirius's bark-like laughter rang through the room. "Never fear, Jamesy. We'll help you plan a night for Evans that she will never forget!"

Bouncin' around from cloud to cloud
I get the feeling like I'm never gonna come down
If I said I didn't like it then you know I lied

Sirius pulled a book from the nightstand beside his bed, and lay on his stomach, flipping through it. "We've just got to find some good romance charm-Hang on."

James gave Sirius a quizzical look. "What?" he asked.

"It can't be," Sirius said, said, sitting up, and hauling the book up with him. "It can't have been this that we've been missing. It's too simple."

James stared at him, wondering what his best friend was talking about. "Just what are you on about, Siri?" he finally inquired, as Sirius didn't seem to be explaining anything.

"I've figured it out," he said. "Why it hasn't been working. Why we haven't been able to properly transfigure ourselves yet."

"You mean…" James asked, his heart jumping.

"Yes," Siri responded. "That's exactly what I mean. And tonight's a full moon. We can join Moony tonight."

"Let me see!" James exclaimed, all thoughts of Lily for once fleeing completely from his mind at the prospect of their finally successfully becoming animagi. He sat down beside Sirius, and read through the description of the self-transfiguration. It didn't look any different than what they'd been doing all along.

"Thanks for getting me excited Sirius," he said, tossing the book aside and shooting an angry glare at his friend. "We've already looked at this one. It didn't work for us, remember?"

"I know that," Sirius said, "we didn't do it right. Read through it again."

James read carefully through the description, and then looked up at Sirius, his eyes beginning to dance in excitement. "We weren't facing east," he said. "You have to be facing east the first time you do it, in order to summon your animal form."

"Exactly," Sirius said. They stared at each other for a moment, and then both let out loud whoops of excitement.

After they'd high-fived a few times, and celebrated for awhile, James looked at Sirius. "Let's not tell Moony we've figured it out. I want to surprise him."

"Better not tell Petey about it either, then," Sirius answered, nodding his head in agreement. "We'll just show him before we get to the Whomping Willow to join Moony."

They spent the rest of the evening working out their plan for the night. Peter joined them after Remus had left for the Shrieking Shack, where he went to transform into a werewolf during the full moon, but they shooed him off to the common room so that he didn't know what they were doing. When ten o'clock rolled around, they went downstairs to retrieve him, James's invisibility cloak tied around his waist, under his robes. Now all they had to do was wait for the common room to empty out.

Around 11:30, the last straggling Gryffindor went up to bed, and they were about to slip under the invisibility cloak, Peter whining loudly that he wanted to know what was going on, when the portrait hole swung open, and Lily crawled into the common room. She smiled when she saw James.

"Ready for your astronomy tutoring session, Potter?" she inquired.

Uh-oh.

Sod off.

James hesitated for a moment, looking back and forth between his friends, and Lily. While Peter was completely oblivious to everything that was wrong with the current situation, it seemed to James that Sirius knew immediately what was going through James's head.

Sirius smiled winningly at Lily. "Evans!" he exclaimed. "How was prefect patrol tonight?"

Lily sighed heavily. "Don't ask. I was on by myself because Remus got sick, and I had to break up a fight between two Slytherins and a Ravenclaw. I nearly got hit with a bat bogey hex, and…" She looked at Sirius suspiciously. "What are you three up to tonight, anyway?"

James was still staring at her, unable to think of anything to say, and Sirius seemed to have decided to take over the situation.

"Nothing, nothing at all Evans. I'm just sorry to hear that Remus was sick and that you had to deal with all of that by yourself. It sounds terrible. And now, if you'll excuse us, I need to talk to Jamesy for just a moment."

James felt Sirius grab him by the cloak and pull him roughly away from Lily. Peter followed behind them.

"What is it, Siri?" James asked, finally tearing his eyes from Lily.

"Shh!" Sirius said, and then he pulled out his wand and performed a sound-proofing charm around the three boys. "I know what you're thinking, James, but you have to come with us tonight. Tell Evans you want to reschedule for tomorrow night. It's only ONE night you have to wait."

He's got a point.

A tiny, insignificant little detail! You are NOT going to turn down the chance to be alone with Evans on the quidditch pitch under a full moon.

But to his surprise, that was exactly what he was going to do. They'd waited too long for this, and James wasn't about to let his friends down. There was no reason he couldn't just ask Evans to switch their `tutoring session' to the next night. She wouldn't care.

"Siri, you and Petey take my invisibility cloak and wait out in the hallway for me. I just need a minute to talk to Evans by myself." James untied his invisibility cloak, and handed it to Sirius.

"But you are coming, right?" Sirius demanded. "You won't change your mind?"

"No, of course not! I wouldn't miss this."

"Miss what?" Peter asked, clearly confused.

"You'll see, Petey. I'll be right there, Siri. I promise."

Sirius nodded. "If you're not out there in five minutes, I'm coming back for you."

"Fine, go."

James watched as Sirius and Peter slipped underneath the invisibility cloak. A few seconds later, the portrait hole swung open, and he was alone with Lily in the common room. He walked back over to where she was standing.

"What was that about?" Lily asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"What was what about?" he asked innocently, standing a little bit closer to her than he ordinarily would. He was so close to her now that he could smell the light fragrance of her shampoo. It was intoxicating, and he felt his head start to spin.

She smiled at him, and he realized with excitement that she wasn't backing away. "Are you ready to go, then?"

Her proximity was making him feel heady.

Or maybe I could wait to become an animagus.

You PROMISED Sirius. You can't break a promise to your best friend.

"Yes, well, about that. I'm uh…I'm afraid that I can't make it tonight, Evans," James said, the regret in his voice sincere.

"You can't make it tonight?" she repeated, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Why not?"

"Because Siri's found something, and he really needs my help with it, so…"

"`Siri's found something'?" She took a step backward and when she met his gaze again, he was slightly startled to see the anger burning in her eyes.

'Siri's found something'??? You couldn't have told her you were sick? You had to say 'Siri's found something'?

Thanks. That's a lot of help NOW!

"You know, Potter, you have some nerve! You've been asking me out for two years, and I finally agree, and now you're blowing me off to go `help' Black with something?"

"Hang on, I didn't ask you out, I asked you to help me with astronomy!"

Lily sighed. "Potter," she said slowly, as if explaining something to a five year old. "You're the top wizard in our year, next to Black. I know you don't need help with Astronomy."

James ruffled his hair in confusion.

Lily knew I didn't intend to study astronomy tonight?

Lily knew I didn't intend to study astronomy tonight!

A thrill ran over his body as he realized that Lily had actually agreed to go out with him, and not just to help him get caught up in a difficult class. "You knew that I didn't really intend to study astronomy tonight?" he asked finally, certain that he must have misheard her.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Of course I knew! Just how thick do you think I am, Potter?" she asked. "Now, ARE you blowing me off for Sirius, or aren't you?"

Is there any good way to answer this question?

Right. Always the optimist.

Lily's eyes were still shooting daggers at him, and he realized that the question was not just rhetorical. "I, er…I…"

"You know what?" she snapped. "Never mind. I should have known. This so typical of you. Alice and Amelia wanted me to go out to the lake with them today, and instead, I spent my entire afternoon in the library, getting my homework finished so that I would have my evening free to spend with you, and now it looks like I wasted the entire day, because you're just blowing me off anyway. But why should you care what I gave up for you? It doesn't affect you right? And if it doesn't affect James Potter, then it isn't important, isn't that right?"

"That's not true, Lily, I swear it's not true. It's just that I made a promise to Sirius earlier tonight, and completely forgot-"

"Forgot? You forgot?" Lily asked, her voice increasing in volume with each syllable.

She took a deep breath, as though calming herself, and took a step closer to him. James drew in his breath, caught up, in spite of himself, in her nearness. "Then you can just forget," she continued, her eyes flashing, but her voice now dangerously calm, "about me ever saying yes to you again, James Potter."

She spun around abruptly, and stomped off up the stairs.

Apparently, that was not the right thing to say.

So it would seem.

Every time I try to talk to you
I get tongue-tied
Turns out, everything I say to you
Comes out wrong, it never comes out right