Hello everyone. I'm sorry it took so long… well again… but I'm a busy person and my beta too. Hope you enjoy this chapter because there is just one more left.
Thank you again for all your reviews! It makes me so happy to find them in my inbox.
Love you all!
Cheers!
Tanja
Chapter 5- In the Beginning Was... Pea Soup
When James woke up, he was sure of one thing. He would never again drink and eat with Sirius and Remus after a bad day at work because the mean fact was that Remus drank and ate much more slowly than Padfoot and himself, and when he and Sirius were already filled up, Moony was only just getting started. The result was a bad hangover and a fat belly for James and Padfoot the next day, which would have to be vanquished in weeks of hard training.
Carefully, as after each of these nights, James opened his eyes.
Oh, good. I'm lying in my bed, he thought, relieved. Good ol' Moony, and he rolled slowly off the mattress. Briefly, he lost his balance and had to hold on his bedside table.
"Merlin... never again!" he groaned and walked slowly into the living room. There lay Sirius, scattered over the sofa with a leg up to a close armchair. A blanket was thrown over him, and he breathed calmly.
"You sleep the sleep of the fair ones," James croaked and went into the kitchen to brew a Hangover potion. After half an hour, he came back into the living room with a glass in his hand.
"Good MORNING, Padfoot!" he called.
A growl sounded but was absorbed under the covers, which now hid Sirius's face.
"Come on, Siri-poo. Rise and shine." James laughed and poked him in an uncovered toe.
"Oh, is that necessary? I told you not to do that to me when you've already drunk your glass!" complained Padfoot, disgruntled.
He sat up leisurely. His hair was more than messy, and his puffy eyes were witnesses of the previous night.
"Has a woman ever seen you in this state?" James inquired. "I wanted to ask you that last time."
"Are you mad?" his best friend asked, outraged. "My reputation would be ruined. You know how women are. Well, at least I'll look better again in a few seconds. Think of your neighbor's cat. There is no hangover cure for her," Sirius called into the kitchen.
Seconds later, James emerged with his own glass and took a large sip of the brown liquid. But suddenly he stopped, hazel eyes observing the room. He then ran hastily to his desk and grasped a sheet paper that Remus had put there the evening before upon his instruction.
His neighbor had rung and brought a bill from an animal hospital?
With one hand, he opened it while taking another sip from his glass, but he immediately spat it out.
"What's the matter? Did you screw up the potion?" Padfoot asked fearfully, eyeing his glass distrustfully.
"No!" James coughed. "Oh Merlin, you must hate me!"
"I don't hate you," Sirius said and took a sip.
"I mean Merlin must hate me!"
"Because you have to pay a bill?"
"Yes! ... I mean no!" Prongs sank slowly to the floor and stared at the paper in his hand.
Sirius rose gracefully from his night camp and squatted beside him. With a mock smile, he snapped the bill away.
"I ask myself what's gotten into you..." but then he broke off. "Oh, shit."
"You said it."
"Calm down. Perhaps it's another Lillian Evans. This name is like white hair in Dumbledore's beard."
James looked at him disbelievingly.
"Let's check," Padfoot finally suggested.
"What? Are you mad? I can't go over and ask her if I can borrow some sugar."
"No, we'll look over the balcony into her flat. Nothing will happen."
As though stung by a tarantula, both fled onto the balcony.
"Okay, stay completely calm. She may not see us!" James reminded Sirius.
"Believe me, she isn't your Lily!"
Carefully, both bent around the partition. At first they didn't see anything, but then they saw Lily on the sofa with a cup in her hand. Beside her lay Minerva, whom she patted carefully.
"What is she wearing?" Padfoot wanted to know.
"A kimono."
"Merlin, she has legs... "
James pulled Sirius away. "Hold it. You know what this means?"
"You are neighbors," his friend observed sharply.
"Yes, that too, but she will hate me if she gets wind of who lives next to her. She will curse me and do only Merlin knows what!"
"Oh, calm down. She won't do anything."
"Sure she will!" Prongs slowly lost his head.
"Not if you don't let her know who lives here."
"Ehm? How can I do that?"
Sirius looked pitying. "And they said you were the smartest of our class. Take your name off the bell and mail box!"
Less than a minute later, James sneaked under his invisibility cloak and safely floated downstairs to remove all traitorous traces. He felt like a criminal who had returned to the scene of the crime to hush everything up. Only when he had closed the door behind him and had the cloak back in his traditional place did James slowly feel the relief in his stomach.
"Now, I may not show myself outside until I move to a different place." He sighed and sank into an armchair.
"Move?" Padfoot asked, surprised.
"I can't stay here," answered James naturally.
"But... but..." Sirius stuttered.
"No buts. I have to move," his best friend said resolutely.
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Lily sauntered comfortably through the park, which led to Artemis & Verne. For the beginning of April, the trees were still unusually bald. However, some crocuses and snowdrops had already fought their way up through the soil. A red-brown squirrel scampered over the lawns and then ran rapidly up a tree. Far away, near a bush, she could see antlers. Lily starred directly into the bushes and saw a deer. It seemed to examine her. Unusual, she thought as she continued down the gravel-covered paths. Other people would have remained to admire this imposing deer, but Lily had other problems that had to be solved.
She had chosen this way to calm down, to free her head. She knew that if Melanie Mosag met her, she would need all the self-control she could muster. Already, Lily had spent the whole weekend pondering how she could pay her colleague back. Minerva had not been particularly helpful. Again and again, Lily's thoughts had been interrupted by a meow from Minerva.
"Minnie, for the hundredth time, I won't put rat poison in her coffee. I only want to pay her back, not kill her."
"Meow!"
"I know that I said I wanted her head on a silver platter, but I didn't mean that literally!"
"Meow!"
"Minerva!"
After that, Lily had ignored her cat for the remainder of the day. Her patience was worn thin, and Minerva had driven her clearly to the edge of insanity since she had overcome her hangover.
Lily laughed at that thought. A cat with a hangover. But then the memory of her neighbor crossed her mind. If he should do anything to her cat again, she would use... the disembowelment curse she had found some time back in Salem.
Meanwhile, she had left the park and now ran leisurely alongside the glass covered office buildings. Still, she pondered over her revenge. Perhaps James has a good idea or maybe Sirius, she considered and entered the company headquarters of Artemis & Verne.
Who knows what today will bring, Lily thought resignedly and breathed deeply to calm down. The elevator opened, and Lily stepped out. But what her eyes saw left her stunned for a second.
Melanie Mosag stood perfectly happy at the reception desk and conversed, laughing, with Estelle, the receptionist. Said receptionist giggled like a small girl and constantly held her hand in front of her face.
As soon as the two women saw Lily, they stopped cackling. An embarrassing and, at the same time, hate-filled air hovered in the room.
"Morning, Lily. Had nice weekend?" Melanie asked with an ironic sound in her voice, while Estelle began to giggle again.
Lily, who had wanted to pass them without a word, stopped. Her green eyes sparkled with anger. Her hands clasped tightly to her brief case, only to prevent it from falling down. She knew that if she had the possibility to have a free hand, it would leave a hand free to strike Melanie's face.
"Don't you dare speak to me..."
"Morning, ladies!" She was interrupted. Without her noticing, James had appeared from one of the elevators. "Come, Lily, we have much to do." And he pushed her into the office before himself. Hastily, he closed the door behind them.
"James! I actually wanted to..." she began.
"Hush, Lillian. Calm down," he spoke reassuringly and removed her briefcase from her hands. She had been fidgeting with it, and James thought it more secure to remove this possible weapon. Still calm, he waved his wand and two cups of coffee appeared. He shoved one into her hand.
"James, I'm completely calm. I am in complete control of myself!"
"I see," he commented dryly.
"Okay, maybe not. But she dared to speak to me as though nothing had happened! That... that... "
"Snake?" Prongs offered.
"Not exactly what I was looking for, but close." Still furious, she took a sip of coffee.
"James, I spent the whole weekend thinking about what we could do to pay her back, and I simply have no idea!" she said desperately and in a tone as though it were the worst thing in the world to have no outstanding idea at a time like this.
"Lily, we could nevertheless..."
"And Minnie was of no assistance. First, my neighbor made her drunk, and when she was better she almost robbed my last nerve."
James listened to her strained voice. She calls her cat "Minnie," he realized, shocked. Actually, her cat isn't absolutely bloody "Mini"! But he saved his breath by not saying anything.
"Lily, stop!" he interrupted. "Sirius wanted to come over and think something up with us."
"Really?" She asked, hopeful. "When?" She sat down beside him on the desk.
"I guess around lunchtime."
"Well, at least it's something." She sighed and leaned to him. "When do we want to redeem our bets?"
"If we have a plan." He smiled down at her and put an arm around her. Against his expectations, she didn't protest in the slightest, and they sat in harmony and ease on his desk drinking coffee. Nothing could disturb them. Not shaking doors, ringing telephones or wild knocking.
Their features would have fit a couple freshly fallen in love on a cliff where the sun sank into the sea and a wonderful color play illuminated the landscape. But instead, they looked from the window into the opposite office building and watched other people at work.
"Do you think it's okay to be so lazy?" Lily considered aloud.
"Oh, I think this time will be okay," laughed James quietly. "There is much to do, so we must be well rested."
"Do you know what comes to me now?" she asked suddenly and straightened up from his shoulder on which she had been leaning.
"What?" He grinned.
"I saw a deer this morning."
"Where were you? Apparated to the Highlands?"
"No, I was in the park nearby." Her eyes lit up when she described the deer to him. "Isn't it unusual? I mean, we are here in the middle of London, and you don't see things like that every day."
Suddenly a crack sounded, and Sirius stood before them.
"What you don't see everyday?" he asked curiously. "You can see anything in London. One must only know where and whom to pay."
When Lily again told what she had seen, Sirius looked impressed.
"What you can see here in London… I'm astonished. You too, James?" he asked with a tone that Lily didn't know how to interpret. "In London you go around a corner and you don't know what to expect."
"Yeah, sure. Whether pickpockets or old women who will flog you to death only because you bumped into them by mistake," James replied.
"I don't know where you go around..." Sirius shook his head.
"That was in front of your house!" his best friend reminded him.
Lily laughed, amused, when she thought about this small tiff and took her briefcase.
"Can we go now? I'm almost dying to make up a pay back plan." She smirked. "I'm also dying because I'm starving."
Sirius and James grew immediately silent until Padfoot seized her hand and James's and disapparated. Seconds later, they were located in a cozy pub with cracking halls, a smoky barroom, and all kinds of exotic creatures at the surrounding tables. A bareheaded man with a light embossment came hobbling to them and welcomed them with a bow.
"What I can do for you, gentlemen?"
"Not so formal, Tom!" James scolded. "We need a table for us and the lady."
Lily followed the three men and looked around curiously. A mop wiped past her and left a wet trail while a broom hurried ahead and catapulted a small heap of dirt before it. Pictures on the walls waved, and in a painting a jug fell off of a table. A tray floated by and disappeared behind a swiveling door. It was simply wonderful to be in a typical Wizarding pub.
After they had taken seats in a corner, Tom handed them menus and hobbled off.
"Where are we?"
"In the Leaky Cauldron. Do you want to go elsewhere?" James asked anxiously.
"No!" Lily said, impressed. "I love pubs like this one. In Salem, there is a similar pub, The Broken Wand. The Halloween parties are legendary! Once I..." She stopped speaking when the bartender came back.
"What you would like?"
"Do not get the pea soup," Sirius whispered to her. After this helpful warning, every one of them selected something to eat, although James did order the pea soup, and Tom went of again.
Padfoot shook his head sadly. We will see how he feels later on, he thought and inquired about the current ideas. "Did you already think of a plan?"
"I thought about it all weekend, but nothing came to me," Lily said, tormented, and sipped her butterbeer.
"Then the master must think of something himself," Padfoot grinned and closed his eyes. "Well," he spoke with still closed eyes. "You want to pay her back. If possible, she should completely disappear from A& V...." he hummed to himself.
Lily frowned when she saw Sirius sitting there in such a way. James had taken a similar position.
"Who in the company is Melanie closest to? With whom she is friends?" Padfoot asked.
"Estelle, the receptionist," Lily growled.
"Do you know if they trust each other?"
"They've know each other for eternities," reported Prongs. "I think they do."
"Then I have a plan; however, it can be complicated, and it's risky, and we will break probably around fifty school rules," Sirius said mysteriously.
Lily looked at James, confused. Break school rules, she considered. Someone in this room remembers old pranks at school.
"Were you good at school, Lily. I mean at Potions," the appointed Master of Pranks wanted to know.
"I had always an 'O'!"
"I figured that." Sirius nodded. "Then it fits."
"Can you enlighten us?" James pushed.
"Sure, I would be pleased to do so." He laughed again and his eyes sparkled. "You need Polyjuice Potion, you need to get Estelle out of the way for one day, and you need to strike Melanie with her own weapon."
"Thanks for your extremely detail-faithful explanations, Sirius. Now I am already smarter than before," Lily commented sarcastically.
"I will explain it properly. You must brew Polyjuice Potion, transform yourself into Estelle and David, and must trick Melanie into telling her glorious act in front of Estelle or Lily. Then James emerges in the shape of your boss and says that he heard everything and expects her abrogation on the very same day. Then she dismisses herself, and you both are again on top of things!" Pleased, he leaned back and waited for reactions.
Lily and James looked at him for a second, let his words sink in, and, without preliminary warning, jumped from their chairs and cheered.
"That is it. You are a genius, Padfoot!"
"I must admit that I agree," he murmured to himself when Lily and James lay in each other's arms but suddenly stepped apart as though they had been electrocuted. They were in the public, and everyone could see them here!
After clearing their throats, they sat down again.
"So, let's eat. I'm starving!" complained Sirius and bit into his steak and kidney pie.
During lunch, Lily was told of some pranks, which James and Sirius as well as a Remus had performed during their school time. And so Sirius's mysterious statement about breaking around 50 school rules could be solved. Sirius was still very influenced from these acts.
"I would like to meet this Remus!" Lily smiled and took her bag.
"Where do you want to go?" James asked, perplex.
"We will need a few things for the `drink,'" she whispered when a man with long dark hair and a large hooked nose walked past. "Diagon Alley is around the corner, isn't it?"
"I'll go with you." James jumped up. "Padfoot, next time I'll pay." He winked and led his colleague to the back door.
Together, they walked over the cobblestone of Diagon Alley, past bevel houses with their small shops, and squeezed themselves past old witches with their large shopping bags who had probably come from the country for a shopping trip in the city.
Prongs steered Lily skillfully through the crowed and into a small apothecary. When they entered, a sharp smell of different herbs and spices filled their noses. On the walls hung shelves made of dark wood that were filled with different things. In large glass containers swam livers, hearts, and other things, which James could not place.
They stepped up to one of the free counters and waited for a salesman to give them his attention. They didn't have to wait long until a man came by.
"Can I help you?" a cutting voice asked. In the first moment it seemed to Lily very impolite. She looked into a sharp-edged face with cold black eyes and a large nose. It was the man from the Leaky Cauldron.
"Snape," spat James just as cutting.
"Potter." the addressed answered. "But how can I be of your service, ahem...?" The salesman looked questioningly at Lily and spoke in a completely different tone.
"Miss Evans," said Lily self-assuredly and smiled. "I would like five grams of fleas, ten grams of leech, some boom slang skin...." she read down a list that Snape seemed to know. "And finally, powder of the horn of a two-horn." Lily still smiled charmingly.
The dark eyes studied her calculatingly. He knew exactly what they wanted with all of those ingredients.
"Doing something illegal, Potter?" the salesman scoffed.
"Oh, you know me, Severus. Constantly!"
"Only too well," he murmured when he went of to get the required ingredients.
"Oh, and Mr. Snape? I would also like some rattlesnake and catmint." Lily batted her eyelashes.
"As you wish, Miss," answered Snape charmingly.
Prongs's stomach turned when he saw Snivellus trying to be charming. I think I need to vomit, James thought, and his face changed color to a slight green. Was it because of Snape or his lunch?
"James, are you okay?" Lily asked anxiously. "You look so green around the nose."
"I'm fine."
"Perhaps it's envy," someone coughed almost incomprehensibly, and the salesman suddenly stood next to them, loaded with packages.
"Please, Miss," Severus said sweetly. "If I can have your attention to this herb," and he wagged a small box under their noses.
This smell made James finally lose control. From the very beginning, James had fought the nausea, but now…
"Lily, I think I..."
She turned around. "Oh, please, James. Please, please, no... That would be totally... Please not here in the shop... oh no!"
Her pleading had helped nothing, and James vomited behind the counter. The manager immediately came to them while Lily stroked James back soothingly.
"I guess you were in the Leaky Cauldron for lunch," determined the roundish man with a long beard.
"I'm terribly sorry" Lily apologized.
"That happens to us all the time," explained the wizard, and with one swish of his wand, James's lunch had disappeared.
James, however, didn't look good yet.
"I suggest you escort your husband home. There you can take care of him better than here with us in the shop. We'll give you something to stop the vomiting," and the manager ran off before Lily could tell him that James wasn't her husband.
Nobody else in the shop had noticed James's show, and Lily tried to persuade him to apparate to his flat because he insisted that he could take care of himself.
"Lily, I'm feeling better. I can get along fine."
"But you don't look at all like you can take care of yourself!"
"Don't worry about me. I'm a big boy..." he joked.
"Stop! That's enough! I won't leave you alone in this condition. You might faint and crack your head open!"
"If only," someone coughed again, and Snape stood beside them. "Here are the herbs to stop the vomiting. I wish you a pleasant day, Miss."
"That I will pay you back for that, Snivelus," James growled.
"Already totally beside himself, the poor man." He shook his head. "You had better bring him home."
"Thanks so much." Lily smiled again and then disapparated with James.
The first thing James did when he was home was to charm the windows so that Lily couldn't see the view of the road. Now, one looked on a green-grey landscape. Large fields stretched over numerous hills, and not far away was a little town with small houses and an oblique steeple.
"You know him from school?" she wanted to know and placed the package on a table.
"Oh, he wasn't my best buddy at Hogwarts," admitted James and ran to the bathroom when a green wave floated over his face again.
"James," she called after him. "I'll prepare some tea with the herbs. You will be okay in no time!"
When Prongs came back from the bathroom, he fell onto his bed, exhausted. I just won't learn, he blamed himself. Every time I eat at the Leaky Cauldron, this happens to me.
He could hear Lily in the kitchen humming a song. He imagined dreamily that it could always be like that. Only with the difference that he would wake up and Lily would be in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
"James... James, wake up," whispered a gentle voice and he open his eyes. He had fallen asleep.
"Come on, drink this. Then you will feel better." Carefully, she pressed a cup to his lips. Obediently, he swallowed everything and was put carefully back into the cushions.
"Thanks, love," he mumbled, taking her free hand and closing his eyes.
Lily looked perplex. What did he say? She was astonished. Did he really call me "love"?
For a while she regarded him, trying to memorize every line of his face and holding his hand. She could get accustomed to be called love by him, she thought. With her free hand, she stroked a few hairs off of his forehead.
"Oh, James," she sighed and bent down.
"I'll leave you alone now and will excuse you at work," Lily whispered, concerned she would wake him up. "I will start the potion today and I will call tomorrow. Bye." And she placed a kiss on his forehead.
Carefully, Lily released her hand and threw a blanket over James. Again, she regarded him, before she closed the door of his bedroom. Then she took her bag and the package and disapparated.
When James heard the door close, he opened his eyes. Yeah! She likes me!
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