The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

The New Quidditch Captain

The New Quidditch Captain

The next few days, Sirius Black was really short with Lily Evans. She couldn't figure out what was the matter with him, but he would glare at her sometimes during regular conversations with this sort of angry twist to his jaw. It was weird, though, because one day when she came down for lunch, she sat on the bench beside James because that was the next spot available and Sirius actually left Remus Lupin's side to come over and squeeze himself between her and Potter, even though it meant practically sitting on James's lap. James got annoyed at this, and even asked Sirius what the hell he was going on about, but Sirius only laughed and asked, "Does it bother you, being this close to me, Potter? What do you think, my gayness will rub off on you?"

"At the moment all of you is rubbing on me," James answered.

Sirius only laughed harder.

Lily had no idea what was going on, but she didn't really have the patience to ask. Sirius, after all, was not the only one being weird lately. Severus Snape had started being weird again, too. She found him lurking about in the Entrance Hall twice more when going outside to see the stag on the grounds and both times he insisted that she was going to meet James Potter and that she was lying to him about it, which really irritated her. One night, he actually grabbed onto her hand and refused to let her go, even when she struggled to get away.

"You're acting like I'm cheating on you, Sev, but honestly! Even if I was going with Potter, it wouldn't have anything to do with you!"

Severus Snape had glowered, "He's not a good person, Lily. You don't want to go getting involved with him and Sirius Black. They're very cruel people. He'll hurt you."

"Right now you're hurting me," Lily answered, wrenching her wrist out of his grasp.

Lily didn't notice the whispered stinging charm that cut across Severus's arm to make him drop her hand that sent him turning and grabbing at the empty air desperately, certain that James was right there.

But the time outside with the stag was worth the struggle it took to get out there. She always felt so much better when she was with him and it was funny because sometimes when she was talking to him, she felt like the honks and nuzzles meant something, as though the stag had a human heart and was communicating with her. She felt positively insane, and there were many days that she sat doodling deer on her notes that she would catch herself wondering what the stag would say about this or that and she'd realize how insane it was to expect a deer to talk. She would scribble out the drawings quickly and convince herself that she wasn't going to go out to see the stag anymore.

But she always ended up out there again.

"I dunno what it is about you," she said quietly one night as the stag was giving her deer kisses, nuzzling his leathery nose against the side of her face by her ear, honking in a way as though he were laughing and his eyes glowed brightly, "Sometimes I forget that you aren't a person." She stared into one of his great big eyes and ran her palm across his snout, smiling up at him.

Merlin, how she wished he was a person.

Lily trusted nobody else with the secrets of her heart, nobody except that stag.

"Miss. Evans," McGonagall's voice broke through her daydream of the stag... and she looked up to find Minerva McGonagall staring down at her with raised eyebrows and a stern mouth. "Sleeping is best to be done in your bed at night, and not in class." Across the room, Sirius and James snickered. "I recommend you stay awake, we're covering important information that will be on your O.W.L.s for certain..." and with that, McGonagall turned and continued walking about the desks, talking and flicking her wand to change the slides projected on the front of the room depicting a horse being transfigured into a motor-car.