The Romeo and Juliet Dilemma

Isn't it romantic?

It had been silent in the common room for a bit too long, James thought to himself.  He took a long, drawn-out slurp of tea from his mug, fogging up his glasses as he did.  James pulled them off his face to begin wiping them on the bottom of his quidditch jumper, before slamming his copy of Romeo and Juliet shut.  

Sirius was the first to look up from his book, he raised an eyebrow at James and asked; "what's with the face Prongs?"

"Isn't it romantic?" James enquired, his face beaming.  "They died to be together, they would rather die than live in a world without each other there next to them-"

Peter cut him off by joining in with his babbling about the book.  James looked across the room to where Lily was sat with her head buried in a different book.  Smirking to himself, he called out "Hey Evans, this could be us you know."  This earned him a hard glare from her, but as soon as he turned back to Peter, her face softened into a small smile.  Thinking nobody had noticed, she settled back into her chair, however, Marlene quickly leaned over and shut the book for her.

"I saw that smile Lils, you can't hide it from me anymore!"  Lily went a deep shade of scarlet and stared the blonde girl down, as best as she could anyway.  Lily was a great deal smaller than Marlene, something she had envied every day since they met in their first year.  Marlene was tall, not the kind of tall that Remus was, but the kind where she held herself high and sort of floated wherever she walked.  Lily was only about 5'2 but by no means did she let that hold her back.  Everyone could agree that she packed a punch, especially James and Sirius who had received a fair few over the years. 

Regardless, Lily muttered to Marlene that if she didn't shut up she'd rip her blonde waves right out of her head.  Marlene giggled and sat back down next to Dorcas, who was swirling her spoon around her mug.

Remus got up off the sofa, pushing Sirius off his lap as he did, and yelled out "WOULD YOU TWO STOP PRATTLING ON ABOUT IT BEING ROMANTIC?  IT IS CLEARLY A STORY ABOUT THE STUPIDITY OF YOUTH, NOT ROMANCE!"

Everyone sat stunned for a minute before erupting into laughter.  Peter had even rolled onto the floor, beside himself at Moony's outburst.  Everyone was laughing, everyone except James.  He was staring straight at Lupin, full of confusion.  

After calm was restored, James frowned; "How the fuck is it about the 'stupidity of youth' Moony? How?!  It is clearly a play about love and commitment!  Romeo sees his lover's body lying on dead the floor and is so moved by the sight that he kills himself there and then, for what?  For love Remus, for love."  He refolded his arms and flopped back down onto the sofa, quite proud of his rebuttal.  

Marlene and Dorcas sniggered in the corner,  Alice giggled and murmured something about not pinning James as a Shakespeare type of guy, earning a soft elbow from Lily, who seemed to be fascinated by James' passionate speech.  

Sirius sat up and turned to Remus, "it is a little bit romantic Moony," he said.  Remus frowned and shook his head.

"For the love of Merlin, I'm going to hex all of you into next week if you say it's romantic one more time."  Lily shut her book and nodded, agreeing with Remus.  She went on to explain how killing yourself that quickly, especially considering how young they were is ridiculous.  

"How are we supposed to do this project when we can't agree on what this dumb play is even about?"  Marlene said, rolling her eyes.  "For the record, it is kinda romantic, and I can't believe I just agreed with Black."

Lily paused for a moment, before saying, "we'll just have to split into groups then, right?"