The Marauders: Year Four

Another Chance

Another Chance

The night of the Yule Ball was coming quickly, December a bit of a blur. James snogged Annalee McKinnon in the common room every night that month, but only while Lily stayed downstairs, trying to concentrate on her homework and getting more and more agitated. "If I was a prefect, he'd be sorry," she muttered to Ali at the table while they were working on finishing a star chart for Ali's astronomy class. "I mean, it's just not proper to be sitting about in public kissing somebody like that!" Lily complained.

Ali shrugged, "Everyone does it... I mean, look at Woodhouse and Carly Shaw, they're snogging way more intensely than Potter and Annalee are." It was true, Andy Woodhouse was getting a bit handsy in the corner. At least James sat on his hands or else kept them right where they could be seen - on Annalee's hips or her back. Even Frank and Ali had been caught in more questionable positions.

"Well he'd have a detention if I could serve him one, for inappropriate behavior," Lily replied, turning back to her homework.

What she didn't know was that as soon as she left the room, James would excuse himself from Annalee and rush off to his own dormitory as quick as possible.

Sirius meanwhile had done nothing but talk about his stereo since coming back from the Shrieking Shack. "You wouldn't believe what Remus gave me for my birthday," he could be heard telling anybody and everybody that would listen, "It's an 8-track stereo! Top of the line! You should hear it, brilliant sound, like you're in the room with the real artists! I've never heard music as wonderful as it sounds coming out of that stereo!" Remus always smiled as people marvelled at how lucky Sirius Black was for having such a grand friend as Remus Lupin. "He's my bestfriend," Sirius would emphasize.

Remus kept thinking about the feeling he'd had when he had first woke up in the Shack and realized Sirius was asleep beside him, with his arm around him. The memory of it burned inside him. He kept stealing glances Sirius's way during classes and at the table in the Great Hall.

Remus wanted to say something, but he was afraid that he'd upset Sirius again and they'd end up in that awkward stage they'd been in all last year at this time and following his faux pas with the kiss. He'd spent a good deal of time repairing his relationship with Sirius and the last thing he wanted to do was muck it up again. So every time he was about to say a word, he'd bite tongue. But he couldn't be expected to stay completely silent...

"It's killing me, Lily," Remus said desperately one night, sitting on the steps where they always went to talk.

Lily concentrated very hard on the hem of her uniform skirt. "Maybe you should talk to him," she said.

"But what if I do and it makes things weird?" Remus asked, "What if I say something and he stops being around me altogether? Like last year?"

"I think Sirius would be... very understanding," Lily said.

Remus took a deep breath. "You don't know Sirius like I do," he said, shaking his head, "He gets... weird... about things like this, really easily. I don't want it to get weird between us."

Lily said, "I just think that you need to be brave and... and say something."

"Maybe." But they both knew by the tone of his voice that he wouldn't do it.

Lily's other obsession, besides loathing Potter's snogging and trying to get the boys together, was attempting to get herself a date to the Yule Ball. She wanted somebody impressive, somebody that would really boil Potter right up, but everyone seemed to have already gotten a date. The only person left that she could think of that would get James's attention was Severus Snape. James's voice echoed in her head, "You give uncountable chances to a slimey grease ball like Severus Snape..." There was on way James wouldn't notice it if she went with him. But then again, Severus had tried to force her into loving him last year with the Amortentia and Lily wasn't fully certain if she had forgiven him yet.