Hello once again! Although I don't have many reviews, I know people are at least clicking on the convenient little sign that tells you to read this fic. Anyway…I hope you enjoy this chapter.
I just have to hope and pray that the reason for that is you people really are reading this.
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"Cheer up, Jamsie!" Sirius tried to encourage his friend as they got off the Hogwarts Express. "It's not as if it's the end of the world or anything." Sirius stopped on the platform for a moment. "On second thought…"
"Shut up," James muttered, but not nearly as loud as he usually would. His mind was still reeling from his encounter with Lily on the train that had just sent his entire vacation down the drain.
Remus shoved past Sirius and laughed. "Be careful, Padfoot, or he might reconsider having us over for the summer!" James said nothing, but mumbled something that sounded vaguely rude under his breath.
"Like spending the entire train ride stuck outside in the hallway wasn't enough torture," Sirius sighed dramatically, putting his hand to his forehead as if he were about to faint. Peter laughed as he bounced off the steps onto the platform.
James glanced around nervously, as if maybe Lily would suddenly appear from around the corner somewhere and kill him. Realizing that Peter was talking, he began to tune in. "…parents really going on that trip without you?" Remus caught James' dazed expression.
"Sorry you couldn't come Peter, but we understand," Remus said sympathetically. Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, we're real sorry that your mum is overprotective and won't let you come just because we'll be all alone in James' big old house all summer long while his parents have the time of their lives." He snorted at his own sarcasm. "By the by, Prongsie, have you decided on how to tell Lily when she comes to spend the summer with us-"
"Which she will," Remus added.
"-that your parents are never going to let all of us go with them and we'll be spending the entire summer with her whether she likes it or not?" Sirius finished.
"And that she'll have to stay there whether she likes it or not-" Remus continued, enjoying berating James alongside Sirius.
"Which she won't," Sirius cut in.
"-no matter what you told her on the train when you were tongue-tied and trying to impress her at the same time."
"We did quite well in divination, did we?" Sirius asked, totally off topic.
"Quite."
"Good, because I keep having this re-accuring dream where girls are chasing after me down the corridors and I can't seem to shake them off."
"Sirius, that happened just last week." Peter explained, spotting his parents and waving goodbye. Sirius and Remus waved back, but James didn't notice that Peter was leaving. He was trying his best to ignore Remus and Sirius' stupid banter while twirling his wand in his hands.
"By the way, are we ever going to be leaving?" Sirius asked with feigned curiosity. At this, James finally smiled, beginning to prepare what he was going to say to his mother and father.
"We're apperating, so don't get left behind." He said, disappearing with a POP!
Sirius shook his head sadly, "Poor boy," he sighed, clamping his hand on Remus' shoulder and holding in a laugh.
"What do you mean?" Remus puzzled, slightly pulling away from Sirius' grasp.
"He's being delusional again."
~~~~
"Absolutely not!" was the instant reply that James' mom gave to him. She was still packing for the trip, even though they weren't leaving for another couple of weeks. James' dad sat lying back on the bed, reading the newspaper. "What makes you even think that we'd allow four extra people to go with us?" she laughed slightly hysterically, looking around a little too frantically for her wand.
James' dad held it aloft (A/N: for the sake of propriety, let's give them some names, shall we? Hmm…Laura and Jon.) and twirled it in his fingers. Laura half sighed and smiled, walking over and trying to grab it out of his hands. He was too fast for her and snatched it out from her hands at the last second. James watched in disgust as his mom chased his dad around the room, but no matter how hard she tried, Jon was always one step away.
"Mum…dad…" James whimpered, massaging his forehead and running his hand through his hair simultaneously. His parents instantly stopped acting like four year olds and looked up at him, identical giggles frozen on their faces. "You don't understand…how do I tell her I lied to her?"
Even though the last sentence was said under his breath, his parents still heard. Jon sighed and gave Laura back her wand, which she promptly used to throw even more stuff into the bottomless pit of a suitcase. James' dad sat back on the bed, sitting on the edge of his newspaper.
"I'm reminded of the way your mother and I met," he began, and Laura snorted, trying to hide it behind a cough. Jon turned toward her. "It wasn't that funny!" he said, turning beet red.
She laughed, gathering up some of the bottles sitting on the vanity. "You're absolutely right," she chuckled and her husband's face calmed down a little. "It wasn't just funny, it was hilarious!" Jon scowled, gathering up the newspaper and throwing it across the room where it landed perfectly, folded in a chair. He patted the bed beside him, indicating that James should come sit.
"A heart to heart? You're joking, right?" James raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest.
"He's only heard the story a hundred times, dear." Laura called from the inside of the closet.
His father continued nevertheless. "It was the start of the term in seventh year," he began, much to the groans of both his wife and his son. "And there she was, sitting lonely at the Ravenclaw table-"
"I was hardly lonely; I had about forty people sitting around me." Laura laughed, throwing a shoe at James, which he caught and put into the suitcase.
"-And me, being Quidditch captain of the Gryffindor team," he continued as if there had been no interruption, "decided to grace her with my presence."
"Now you see where you get it from." James looked incredulously at his mother, who was still throwing articles of clothing at him to do her dirty work for her.
"Get what from?" James muttered, knowing exactly what she was talking about.
"You, unlike Pompous Potter over there," She said, her eyes rolling toward her husband. He was still telling the story, not noticing that no one was listening. "You will most likely grow out of it after your last year at Hogwarts."
"Even though she didn't like me at first, `try, try again' is my motto," Jon went on, oblivious that his wife had taken over the heart to heart talk with James.
Laura smiled at her son, holding a skirt in one hand while putting the other on James' shoulder, bent down and whispered, "I think this Ms Lily Evans is going to be the one to deflate your oversized ego, Mr. Potter." She smirked and pushed him toward the door, leaving Jon still speaking about the images in his head.
James hurried quickly out the door, smashing head-on into Sirius. Sirius giggled nervously and James conked him on the head, making him laugh harder.
Once James was gone from the room Jon stopped talking, instead looking at Laura, a grim look on his face.
"What's wrong, dear?" she asked, sitting next to him and hugging his shoulders, putting her head on his.
"We're not really going to just leave four teenagers alone in the house while we're away, are we?"
Laura laughed, but he could hear the uncertainty in her voice. "Of course not…we have the house elves," she paused, thinking for a moment. "There's no certainty on whether she'll actually show up here, of course…but even if she does, then everything will be taken care of."
Jon kissed her and muttered, "If she's anything like you, then everything will undoubtedly be fine."
~~~
"So what happened? Are you going to tell her? Is she still coming?" Sirius bombarded James with questions, nursing the bump on his head as they walked back to James' room.
James sighed and almost laughed. "You tell me; you're the one who was eavesdropping."
Sirius looked slightly annoyed. "That's only because Remus is too much of a scardy-wolf to come. He bolted himself in your room and started to make his way through all the books on your shelf. Which are only three books, by the way."
"Well, I'm very glad you learned to count."
"Ha, ha." They opened James' door to find Remus twirling a box of tissues around and around with his wand.
Now it was James' turn to be annoyed. "Just because you're seventeen already doesn't mean you have to flaunt it."(A/N: This is the summer before seventh year. I know the last chapter said fifth year, but I keep forgetting to change that. This IS before seventh year.) He said, knocking the box to the ground. Remus just grinned.
"And just because you're not seventeen yet doesn't mean you have to be bitter about it." He shot back, enjoying seeing James' face change colors so quickly.
Sirius laughed, also pulling out his wand and throwing it up and catching it. He heard James mutter something that sounded like, "Just one more month," and quickly pointed the wand at James, who instantly was pulled into the air, hanging by his ankle.
"Hey! Let me down!" he shouted, also shouting some filthy things at Sirius, who merely laughed.
"I thought we agreed to use that only on Snape." Remus said, holding in a laugh as James struggled helplessly against the curse. "He is, after all, the one who invented it."
"Yeah, I figured that he could sustain a little more torture before his birthday next month."
On that note, the torture session continued until James' mom came in, giggled helplessly ("You're not being very helpful, mum!" James yelled.), called James' father in, who also laughed uproariously, (By this point, Sirius and Remus are sitting back, drinking tea.) and who ultimately let his son down. James was red-faced all day.
He finally forgave his friends after chasing Sirius around the house, throwing whatever happened to be near since he couldn't hex him, and avoiding Sirius' own hexes that he threw at him. (For two hours James was pink and frozen in a running stance. Remus and Sirius took advantage and used him as a coat rack.)
The boys finally fell asleep around 4 am, Remus muttering something in his sleep about chocolate.
~~~
James' problem seemed to have melted away over the next few days; there were no owls from Lily to tell of her doomed arrival and James' parents were set to depart in less than a week.
Everything seemed to be going great. That is, until one morning, two weeks after school had let out, an owl arrived in the late afternoon.
Remus, Sirius, and James had just come back from playing a quick game of Quidditch in the backyard when James spotted the tawny owl twirling around and around the house in effort to catch someone to take its letter. Instantly James' face went from heat-exhaustion red to having no color at all.
He stood frozen for a few seconds before Remus finally said, "Are you going to let itself drop dead from exhaustion or open its letter?" James didn't reply.
"I have the feeling that maybe Lily will be a little more than mad if she finds out that you killed her owl," Sirius added, leaning on his broomstick and smirking. James glared at him with malice and started walking closer to the house.
"You might want to hurry up!" Sirius teased. James pretended like he didn't hear, but sped up.
By the time that James had reached the bird, it had dropped to the ground. James gasped as if his worst fears had been realized. He could hear the others laughing behind as he bent down to cuddle the owl in his arms, scared out of his wits. Then he noticed that the bird wasn't dead; it was stupefied. James turned around very slowly, giving his most evil death glare that he could and shouted at the nearing Remus and Sirius, "Alright, who did it?!"
Remus and Sirius pointed at each other, giggled, and then both pointed at James. James sighed, wishing he had something to hit his head on. Instead of throwing the owl down like he wanted to, he laid it on the ground and pried the letter from its beak.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Potter,
While we are extremely grateful for your offer to our daughter, Lily, I'm afraid that we simply cannot accept something of this magnitude.
James' eyes popped out of his head. Whooping for joy and throwing the letter down, he never even noticed the rest of the writing on the page. Remus and Sirius looked at each other, alarmed, and ran the rest of the way to him. Sirius contented himself to giving James a strange look while Remus picked up the letter.
"Uh…James…?" Remus asked semi-calmly, trying to keep a straight face at the same time. Sirius leaned over his shoulder and burst out laughing.
Putting his arm over James' shoulder, Sirius began dancing with him, singing, "Lily's coming to James' house…Lily's coming to James' house…He's going to freak out and lie some more…He's going to-" James stopped dancing.
"What did you just say?" Sirius stared at him, grinning his I-know-you-love-me-so-you'll-forgive-me-later grin.
" `…However, if your young James is really as insistent as Lily says he is,' " Remus read, not even trying to hide a smile anymore. James' face changed colors again. " `We would be delighted to allow Lily to stay over at the house for the summer, provided that there is appropriate supervision. The only problem as far as we are able to see is that my wife and I are leaving to go on a vacation with our other daughter, Petunia to celebrate her graduation from High School.' " Remus stopped reading. "Then it just goes on for a while about the other sister. It's quite boring, actually."
"I wonder why they sent it by owl?" Sirius mused. "I mean, I thought that Lily was a muggle-born." Remus pointed to a P.S at the bottom of the letter.
"They didn't think that James' parents would understand how to send it back any other way."
Sirius smirked. "Well…it they're anything like James, they wouldn't." His smile faltered when he saw that James was no longer standing beside them. Remus pointed toward the house's opened door. "How do you know everything?" Sirius whispered under his breath.
"It's a gift,"
They found James standing on the staircase, hitting his head furiously against the mantle. Remus seemed alarmed, but Sirius just shook his head. "Jamsie, my boy, that will give you what is known as a concussion, which is actually not good." James didn't seem to hear him and continued making a bruise on his forehead.
Remus rushed over and pulled him away from that side of the staircase, forcing him to sit down on the steps. Immediately James began to hyperventilate. Remus sighed. "It's just one emergency after another, isn't it?"
"For…your…information…" James tried to speak, holding his now purple head in his hands. "This…wouldn't…have…happened…if…Sirius…"
"Wasn't so loveable?" Sirius went into a victory pose.
"I don't think so," Remus answered for James, who was still struggling to talk.
"Aww…why not?"
James grunted in frustration and then started again. "If…Sirius…Hadn't…started…making…finger…puppets…"
Sirius smiled, as if remembering some fond memory. "Ah, yes…Puffin the Bunny and Billy the Pig…"
Remus gave him another look. "You're weird." Sirius' smile almost fell, but came back within a millisecond.
"Yes…but I'm funny," he pointed out, raising his eyebrows up and down.
"Don't ever do that again."
James looked up from his pathetic state. "New subject. Please." Remus and Sirius grinned at each other, looked down at the letter in Remus' hands simultaneously.
"I think we'll go have a little chat with your mother…" Without another word, the two bounded up the stairs, headed toward James' parent's room. (Sigh…his mother is STILL packing…)
It took a few moments for James to catch on. "Hey! Where do you think you're going with that letter?!" his two best friends started to run faster up the stairs. James stood up quickly and then fell back down, feeling the worst head rush that he had ever had. "You're going to get it later!"
Remus and Sirius laughed, waving the letter high above their heads, knowing full well that they'd get away free from James' wrath.
And, almost as proof, a few minutes later there came uproarious laughter that sounded very much like James' mother and father. James pounded the floor with his fist, and then proceeded to think up the most horrific revenge to pull on his friends.
*~*~*~*
Yes, I know the ending was a bit weak, but since it is, I'll give you a couple hints on what happens in the next chapter.
James pulls a prank; and it's not the typical shaving cream and feather trick-especially because James is turning seventeen soon.
Lily shows up. (Horror upon horrors!)
Last, but certainly not the least, the boys and Lily spend their first night together all alone in the house. Hmmm…I wonder what hilarity will ensue with that story plot?
Thank you all for reading this and giving it a chance. I hope that it wasn't as boring to you as I thought it was! Lol…no, really…review…
Emmablk1
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