Another point of view

Chapter 3

James POV

It was an early Saturday morning at the beginning of October. Gryffindor's common room was quiet and empty. Almost.

On one of the red couches sat a pale boy who holds an open book on his knees and read. In fact, he didn't read but stared at the pages in front of him in boredom. He was tired, but couldn't go back to sleep after he'd already woke up.

Every other morning like that he would've spent on planning his pranks, or be bothering his sleeping friends. But that morning was different.

That morning he wasn't himself, but Remus Lupin and Remus sat in the common room and read early in the morning if he couldn't fall back to sleep. Or at least, that what James assumed.

James didn't know how to feel about this whole situation. On one hand, he was confused and didn't know how to deal with this trouble. He didn't know how to act like Remus and wasn't sure if people will actually buy it. Remus didn't love to talk about himself and always thought twice before he did something. But for James, it wasn't easy to control his instincts, and he didn't know if he was able to stop himself from saying some inappropriate things.

But, on the other hand, that situation had positive sides too. He could see the world from Remus' point of view and learn more about his friend. And besides, it was a great idea for a prank and a big challenge.

At first, he wanted to just tell Sirius and Peter about this, in spite of what Remus had said, but after he thought about it for a while he decided it would be funnier to see if his friends will figure out what was going on.

The sounds of footsteps made him come out of his thoughts and he raised his look from the book. In front of him stood a tall redhead girl in her red nightgown that fitted her hair.

"Hi, Remus," said Lily and sat next to him.

"Oh, hi, Ev- Lily. Good morning," he greeted her with a smile.

"What are you doing down here so early?" she asked and glanced at the book that lay on his lap, closed.

"I couldn't sleep, so I came here to read." He said and put the book on the near table. "And what are you doing here?"

Lily smiled at him, "the same, only I didn't bring a book. Say, do you want to go through the lists from September? We haven't finished them yet."

James didn't know what she was talking about but assumed it was something to do with her and Remus' job as being head boy and girl. James'd never asked Remus what they were doing. He knew Lily and Remus were good friends and talked a lot. James used to laugh at his friend for spending that much time on writing stupid lists and talking with the other prefects about the school rules, but inside he felt jealous of his friend for spending so much time with Lily.

Sometimes he feared something might happen between the two, but Remus had promised him they were just friends, and that he would never do something like that to his mate. And James trusted him.

"Ah, okay," he replied to Lily's question, even though he wasn't sure of what he was supposed to do.

"Great, I'll go get them," she said and ran upstairs to the girls' dorm.

James sighed and watched her back. At least one good thing comes out of it, he thought to himself, I get to spend more time with Lily, and maybe I can even show her that I'm not that bad as she thinks.

Lily came back after a few minutes with a package of sheets in her hand.

"There," she said and gave James half of it.