The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

Invitations

"I was rather starting to think you might have stood me up."

James threw himself into the seat opposite Lily at the little pub she'd asked him to meet her at. She looked up from a stack of large, rather mangy-looking books that were spread out before her on the table top. Her hair fell over her shoulder in a long, fiery cascade, and James smiled because the lighting in the room fell on her skin so that her cheek bones were accentuated and her freckles stood out against her nose.

"Never," he replied.

The pub was nice, though distinctly muggle-run. Sirius would like the music, James thought, as he looked around. The rafters were drafty (there would have been all sorts of owls in them if this were a wizard pub, he thought), but the booths and tables were quite cozy - close enough to feel homey, but far enough apart to keep a conversation private. There were posters of holiday destinations on the walls, and loads of pretty pictures of exotic locales - volcanoes and palm trees, ancient Greek ruins and pillars, blue skies and even bluer waters... The crowd there was a friendly mixture of ages and sorts, families with children kneeling beside their parents on bench seats and young people about their own age in leather jackets and ripped up jeans that Sirius would have been good mates with.

Nodding to the books Lily was looking over, James asked, "What's all that?"

"Some extra curricular studies I'm working on," Lily answered.

James raised an eyebrow, "Those books look as if they've been mucking about in a hippogriff pen for the past three decades. What's it on?"

"Magique Amore," Lily said with a lilting accent. Then, when James looked confused, she laughed and translated, "Love Magic."

James looked interested and reached for one of the books, turning it to look at the pages himself as he ruffled through carefully, respecting the old parchment it contained. "It's written entirely in runes?"

"Ancient runes," Lily answered, nodding. "It's rather difficult to translate... I'll need to polish up on the intricacies of rune-reading. It's been ages since I've even looked at those old textbooks... perhaps Remus will recall better..."

James nodded, "Most likely. The Remcyclopedia remembers everything."

Lily laughed. Then, turning serious, "There's a lot more to love magic than I expected. Professor Laurie said that it's actualyl rather dispised by much of the wizarding community."

"Dispised? What for?"

"Professor Laurie said that all of the most powerful magic requires a sacrifice of sorts. He said that the Dark Arts requires the sacrifice of something other - another person, a creature, or something of that sort - but that Magique Amore requires a sacrifice of self." She mused over the runes on the page for a moment, running her finger along the rich, dark-red ink on the page. "Apparently most witches and wizards find very little worth sacrificing themselves for and therefore this strain of magic is often underutilized or misunderstood."

"Nobody wants to sacrifice themselves so I very much doubt that there are many lining up 'round the block to do it," James said, shaking his head. "Most seem to think that magic is about getting something for themselves."

Lily nodded, "Most of humanity is like that, Potter."

"Yeah, well," James murmured. He flicked through the book aimlessly. There were no pictures anywhere, though, and he became bored and closed the cover, pushing the book back to Lily. She stacked them neatly and put them aside. "So is this a duck or a date, Evans?" he asked with a smirk.

"A duck, I'm afraid," she answered. "I've got an evening class tonight, so I only have a small bit of time, but I wanted to see you, I know you're working tonight, and I thought we could spend a couple moments together in between... without all the ruckus that goes on at home."