The Marauders: Year Seven Part One

Extra-Curriculars

Dora Potter was a flurry of excitement and nervous energy by the time James ducked home later that afternoon. He made quite the mistake of checking into the kitchen to let her know that Remus was going to be staying at the hospital with Sirius and would therefore not be needing a place setting that evening... for she was elbow deep in magically preparing food and things were flying about every which way. James only just managed to dodge out before a platter of mashed turnips. 

James went out to the dining room, where Charlus was magicking the table setting, shrinking the table down to a more personable size for the 6 seats they needed, making it round so there was no one stuck sitting alone at any side. "James," he called, "Thank Merlin. Your mother told me to put the off-white cloth down, not the cream, the off-white..."  Charlus held up two different cloths. "And, well."

James shrugged. They looked about the same to him.

"I'd ask your mum but..." Charlus glanced at the kitchen door.

"Yeah, don't," James said, "Nearly decapitated me with turnip a moment ago." He studied the cloths a moment then, "I s'pose you could go with the one on the left."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," James said, "I mean, it doesn't really matter, does it?"

Charlus shrugged, then, magicking the left cloth over the table, he said, "Not to anyone but your mother, but if it matters to her, then it bloody matters."

James smirked. "Hopefully that's the right one, then."

"Yeah, hopefully." Charlus chuckled and went on with setting the table while James ran upstairs to neaten up.

He reached the bedroom and looked into the mirror, dusting off and straightening up his jumper and tie. He retucked his shirt into his trousers and bent down to tug his socks up into their correct position at the ankles and retied the trainer that had come undone at some point. He ran a hand through his hair, re-messing up his hair in the correct messy way (for there was a correct way for it to be messy, he'd decided long ago) and he swooshed some mouthwash about in his cheeks for several long moments as well -- just in case there was a moment of privacy for a goodnight kiss.

When he was finished, he sat down on the edge of the bed for a moment and pulled out his Headboy badge, looking it over in his fingers again, tilting it this way and that to make it gleam in the light. He'd intended on telling Lily, Remus, and Sirius when they'd gone to Diagon Alley that day, but of course plans had changed and he'd ended up not bringing it up. Then he was going to tell them all, including Peter, when they were at Sirius's bedside, but then Peter did the weird thing with running off and James had been distracted after that and by the time the conversation had come anywhere near around to a place he could've told the others, they were getting ready to leave to do the dinner. James decided he would tell Lily tonight at the dinner, and he smiled at the thought of how surprised she would be, and tucked the badge back into his pocket with excitement.

Back downstairs, Charlus was about to floo over to get Lily and Mrs. Evans - they had to be disapparated to the road in front of the Lupin house in order for Mrs. Evans to be allowed through the Fidelus Charm. Dora was complaining about the cream cloth being on the table, and James gave Charlus a look of apology for having picked the wrong one of the two options. "Mum, I doubt Mrs. Evans is going to be looking at the table cloth that closely," James said, trying to comfort her.

Dora shook her head, "You don't understand, James," she said, "That is exactly what she's going to look at. It's exactly what I would look at."

"Look, I'll help you change it out then while dad's gone," James offered and Charlus hastened through the floo to avoid getting in anymore trouble while James worked at casting a wingardium leviosa on the entire table setting so Dora could switch the cloths real quick underneath.