Priori Incantatem [HARRY POTTER FANFICTION]

Chapter 35: Secrets Part II

Chapter 35: Secrets Part II

"Oy! Sirius! I don't see them, they must have - OUCH!"

"Shhh! Shut it, you git! Do you want to wake them up?"

"They're not here, that's what I was trying to tell you!"

"Not NOW they're not, they heard YOU making enough noise to wake the dead and had plenty of time to get away!"

"Don't lay into Wormtail, Padfoot, it's not like it matters anyway; they aren't here."

Lily and James, still curled together under the invisibility cloak, woke to the familiar sounds of Sirius and Peter arguing over how to best embarrass them while Remus mediated and were forced to smother their laughter when they realized that for once they had gotten the upper hand.

"You were wrong," a familiar but completely unexpected voice called to someone out of Lily and James' line of sight, "they aren't in the common room again."

"Oh, bugger," Alice sighed in response to Morwenna's observation, "I thought for sure that we'd catch them this time." Lily stiffened in indignation as she realized that two of her closest friends had come to embarrass her and her boyfriend. So much for solidarity among witches, it seemed. She'd bloody well remember this.

"Where are they, then?" Kathleen added her voice.

"Maybe they finally got creative," Dorcas piped up smarmily. Make that all four of Lily's closest friends.

After a few minutes of discussion, the seventh years, minus Lily and James, of course, set out for breakfast, all of them a bit disappointed not to be able to take the mickey out of their friends for spending yet another night in the common room. As soon as they were sure the coast was clear, James threw off the invisibility cloak and he and Lily glanced at each other in mutual indignation.

"Our friends are a bunch of perverts!" James exclaimed irately.

"I don't know why we're so surprised, after the way they were last time" Lily huffed.

"You slip up and spend the night in the common room one time and you're branded for life," James shook his head.

Of course, Lily and James' anger might have been a bit more convincing had they not just spent another night in the common room together and if they could have stopped grinning ridiculously as they expressed their outrage.

Now that the coast was undoubtedly clear, James and Lily, after a lengthy good bye that bordered on the absurd after the amount of time they had just spent together, dashed up to their respective dormitories to change their clothes for the Hogsmeade trip. They had agreed to meet in front of the library so that it would appear to their friends that they'd come from doing some very virtuous early morning studying instead of from spending a night squashed in an armchair in the common room.

Lily dashed toward the library a scant ten minutes later, arriving at the entrance out of breath. James hadn't arrived yet, so Lily took the opportunity to stretch her cramped muscles as discreetly as possible. Even though she had cricks in her back and neck, sore muscles in places she hadn't known existed, and had had only four hours of sleep, Lily couldn't remember ever feeling better in her life. She loved James and he loved her, and nothing would be able to ruin that for them.

James arrived a few seconds later, out of breath and grinning euphorically at Lily. "Have you seen them yet?" he asked, still trying to catch his breath.

As if on cue, Sirius' voice echoed down the hall behind them. "Overslept again, eh, James?"

"Overslept?" James inquired smoothly, his tone innocently perplexed. "Why do you say that? James wrinkled his forehead for good measure.