alotofgood | 030. 3 october 1976. mad breakfast party.

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030. 3 october 1976. mad breakfast party.

October 3, 1976 — 08:35 hours.
Hogwarts, Scotland
Dining Hall

It's a Sunday at Hogwarts, and while there are a good deal of early risers, a greater part of the student body appears to still be asleep, completely oblivious to the shameless display of public affection going on right next to James Potter and the other Marauders.

James rolls his eyes for the hundredth time that morning alone and leans into his toast.

"This could use more jam," he says conversationally to Remus, who is staring at Sirius Black and Perdita Pennifold snogging with an expression of helpless disgust.

Prefect or not, Sirius is their best friend and it's terribly hard to tell someone off on a weekend morning as it is.

"Pass me the jam, Moony," James prompts, snapping his fingers in front of the other boy's face.

"Uh — oh. Right." Remus blinks, grabbing the jar of apricot jam and sliding it forward. He turns back to his eggs and pokes at them with his fork, very purposefully focusing on them.

Peter looks as though he wants to drown himself in his porridge. He's hunched over his bowl, both elbows on the table.

James gives him a sympathetic look when they meet eyes.

This is honestly a bit pathetic. Look at the three of them, he thinks, reduced to embarrassed husks of their former selves.

"Mm — that'sh a bhit too much bread, Perdi —" Sirius says, laughing as he struggles to chew the chunk of bread she had just hand-fed him.

Perdita giggles. "Oh, I'm sorry, Sirikins," she says, adopting a cloyingly apologetic tone.

Then she brings her thumb up to wipe at some invisible crumb from his mouth.

Ugh.

"They're just so loud about it," Remus mumbles.

James rues the day they ever woke up this morning to find Sirius and Perdita already in the Common Room, holding hands and snogging. When he checked the clock, he was utterly flummoxed to find that it wasn't even eight o'clock yet.

Before eight and the two of them were already at it.

James accidentally stabs his toast with his knife, all the way through to the ceramic plate at the bottom. It makes a distinct chinking sound. "Bugger."

"— wait," Sirius is saying. "You've got syrup from the pancakes on your face."

Perdita blinks, staring at him with an obvious doe-eyed expression of obliviousness.

James wants to hex them both.

"What?" she asks. "Where?"

Sirius laughs. "It's right there!"

"Here?"

"No — here, let me get it. On your chin. Right —"

Sirius leans forward and licks it — bloody licks it — from her chin.

Right.

James puts his knife down.

That's it.

Remus' eyes have widened to the size of saucers. Peter chokes on a spoonful of his porridge and starts to cough.

James gets to his feet.

"Yeah, we're going over there now," he says, gesturing towards the other end of the table where Lily, Cliona and the other girls are seated, having breakfast in peace.

Remus and Peter rise to follow without a word of complaint or otherwise.

Remus shakes his head. "I'm almost tempted to take 50 points from Gryffindor for that. But we're all in Gryffindor."

"Right." James approaches the girls. "Good morning, Evans. D'you mind if we take you up on sitting here?"

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"Um," Lily says, exchanging quick glances with all of her roommates who are not currently dating Sirius Black, "sure, go ahead."

The tone is more surprised than unwelcoming.

Offer or no offer, Lily never really thought Potter was going to get up and walk away from a meal with his best friend.

(Never mind bringing Remus and Pettigrew trailing along in his wake.)

Cliona's the one who grins at the three new arrivals.

"Couldn't take it any more, then, Captain? Boys?"

"Sirius was demonstrating a rather unnecessary method of cleaning syrup off of Perdita's chin," Remus says rather matter-of-factly, as if this explains everything.

(And, in James' opinion, it does.)

"I thought I was going to throw up in my porridge," Peter grumbles.

James plops down next to Cliona, dragging his cup of tea and toast with him.

"There comes a point when even we can't take anymore," James says.

Glynis looks slightly pained.

Mary frowns. "I can certainly see why you'd feel you were ... intruding," she says, though she sounds less than completely certain that's the word she wants.

Lily glances back down the table at Black and Perdita.

Perdita is giggling over something (possibly still the unnecessary syrup cleaning method), but Black is staring back at them.

His expression is a little hard to read, but if she had to go out on a limb, she'd say he does not look well-pleased.

James can see his best mate's reaction from the corner of his eye.

He does his best to ignore it.

"Intruding, yeah," James says, picking up his cup. "So how are all of you this weekend?"

Lily turns her attention back to her immediate company amid murmurs of 'fine' and 'good.'

"Better now that practice is behind us for the weekend," Cliona says. She leans forward, as though confiding in Pettigrew. "Your friend here is out to out-Quentin Quentin."

"Oh, it can't be that bad, Cliona," Lily says.

"You only complained for five minutes when you got back from practice yesterday," Glynis adds.

"With Quentin March, it was never less than ten," Mary says.

"It's early in the season yet," Cliona adds, with a faint air of martyrdom, and then starts to laugh. "I suppose you're not that bad, James."

Peter blinks.

Remus glances up, a look of amusement crossing his features.

James joins in Cliona's laughter.

"No, I'm not.

"Besides, we've only got about a month — no, less than now — to get our team ready to beat Hufflepuff in our first game."

He sips his tea, sparing a quick glance at the other end of the table. Sirius is getting up.

"Though I've got to admit, I'm starting to really appreciate what March had been through."

"Well, having responsibilities is no easy feat," Remus says. "Which, if you remember, is something I've been telling you for years."

"How does Hufflepuff look this year?" Lily asks.

Or at least she starts to, before a high-pitched voice cuts across the general din of the Hogwarts Great Hall, and Lily stops.

A lot of conversation stops.

"Sirius! Sirius, where are you going?" Perdita demands.

Oh, this is about to get interesting, isn't it?

Sirius lets out a loud sigh, but doesn't seem intent on answering his girlfriend's question.

"Oy," he says, coming up to them. He looks from James to Remus to Peter and ignores the girls. "What are you lot doing all the way here?"

"What does it look like, Padfoot? We're having breakfast," James says.

It's hard not to notice the slight terseness in his tone of voice.

Perdita comes up behind Black and takes his arm. "Sirius," she hisses (less quietly than she thinks she does), "I told you. We can't sit here, we'll ... "

She trails off, with a meaningful (and not all that subtle) glance over at Glynis.

Glynis flushes. "I have to go," she says. "I should get started on my Divination essay. Excuse me."

Glynis leaves so quickly there's not even time to say good-bye.

"Now look what you've done," Cliona snaps, standing up to face Perdita.

"Me?" Perdita demands. "I didn't want to come over here. It was Sirius. Anyway, maybe she really did need to go start working on her essay."

All three of her remaining roommates give her more or less the same incredulous look. (Six years of shared living space will do that, occasionally.)

"Maybe we should all just sit down," Lily says. People along the Gryffindor table (and at the others) aren't even bothering to try to hide their interest now.

Perdita drops into the seat Glynis has just vacated, with a small 'huff.'

Cliona stays on her feet, though, watching Black.

Sirius decides to do what he meant to, and what Evans suggested, and sits down.

Next to James.

"Yeah," he says, giving Perdita a slightly annoyed look, "blame it on me, then. I'm just trying to figure out why my best mates decided to leave for this end of the table."

"Surely you could figure that out, Pads," James says.

"You weren't exactly ... being subtle," Remus adds.

Peter nods, but he looks quite careful not to get directly involved.

Honestly, this clueless act is a bit irritating. James knows Sirius isn't stupid. He knows exactly why the three of them left him and Perdita at the other end of the table.

Cliona sits back down, too, between Perdita and Potter.

At least until Perdita gets up and moves to sit on Black's other side.

She puts her arm through his. "So you're jealous."

"That was a joke, right?" Cliona asks.

"I'm going to go check on Glynis," Mary says, and stands.

"D'you need help?" Lily asks, a little hopefully.

"No, I'm sure it's fine."

"Well, if you change your mind ... " Lily says, waving a hand between herself and Remus Lupin. "Prefects."

They could totally help.

"I'll let you know," Mary calls back, over her shoulder.

Remus looks as though he would very much like to resume his Prefect Duties as well. He nods with a little more enthusiasm than is probably necessary.

But he seems to have noted that neither he or Lily are needed.

James scoffs. "Well, joke or not, it wasn't funny. You two have no idea, do you?" He looks at Sirius meaningfully. "Well, you have an idea, Pads. I know you do."

"I didn't know you had such a big problem with my girlfriend," is what Sirius finally says.

"Maybe we should go, Sirius," Perdita says. "I don't think we're wanted here."

"Not if you're going to cling to each other like that," Cliona mutters.

"What was that?" Perdita demands, leaning forward to look past Black and Potter at Cliona.

Lily takes a moment to seriously consider hexing everyone at the table.

Peter, on the other hand, looks as though he wishes he could transfigure — right now — into Wormtail and scurry away.

If James weren't so bloody angry at Sirius, he would probably want to do the same.

"Maybe someone's got to just come out and say it," he says. "I've seen you with girls, Sirius. We all have." He gestures to Remus and Peter as well. "But this is — I don't know what you're playing at with Perdita, but there's really only so much any of us can take, mate."

"'Playing at'?" Perdita demands, her voice hitting that same high, shrill attention getting whine.

"He actually just said that, didn't he? Out loud?" Lily asks Remus, quietly.

Remus nods.

"That's James," he says, shrugging helplessly.

He looks a bit pale.

"Yeah," James says. "Look, what you two are doing — it's honestly a bit out of hand. Snogging and dating, yeah, that's all fine. But you're both at it like you've got some competition to win."

He nods towards the spot where Glynis, then Perdita, had just been.

"And I reckon it's worse for her, seeing the two of you."

Sirius gets to his feet.

"I told you already, Prongs, no one's making you bloody watch. If Glynis' got a problem with it, that's for her to deal with.

"S'not like I've ever left you at the other end of the table when you've gone off about Evans."

Cliona has gone very still and very quiet, sitting next to Potter.

Pettigrew looks like he might yet throw up in his porridge.

"Okay, I think we all need to just take a breath and take a moment and calm down," Lily says.

Before someone says something they're going to regret.

Like her.

James wants to hit Sirius right now.

He wants to hit his best mate square in the face.

Of course, with a game coming up, it'd be stupid to do anything to his hands — or any other part of his body, really. Flying requires every limb to be intact.

He clenches his hands into fists instead, and says nothing.

"That's right," Remus says in agreement. He glances at Peter, then back at the other two boys. "Right. Um. James, Sirius, maybe we all ought to ..."

He trails off, unsure how to finish his sentence.

Edited 2011-06-20 03:29 (UTC)

"Well, I'm not staying here," Perdita says, standing. "I know when I'm not wanted." She takes Black's arm. "Sirius, are you coming?"

Just what they needed.

More melodrama.

It's quite clear that Sirius looks reluctant, maybe almost apologetic that he said what he did to James.

But as soon as James looks up, Sirius steels his expression.

"Yeah," he says. "Let's go."

Once they've disappeared, with a crowd of close-by Gryffindors watching, Remus turns his attention back to James, Peter and Lily.

"... that didn't go nearly as well as it probably should have," he says, defeated.

"He's a git," James says. He shakes his head. "If I wasn't Quidditch Captain, I would have —"

"James, he's your friend," Remus reminds him. "And hitting him wouldn't have helped. He'd just hit you back."

Cliona and Lily exchange glances across the table.

It really didn't go well at all, did it?

"It'll blow over," Cliona says, finally. "For everyone."

James picks up his teacup, downs the rest of it in one gulp, and gets to his feet.

He ignores the rest of his breakfast, having absolutely lost his appetite.

"I'm going to go," he says.

Because he doesn't know — and he certainly doesn't think so now — that it will blow over. Certainly not for everyone. And not for a while.

Remus and Peter look up at James.

Peter almost looks a bit lost. "We're still going to work on our Charms homework later, yeah?"

James nods. "Yeah."

Then he starts off towards the doors.

For a moment, the four of them just sit there, and then both Remus and Cliona start to get up.

"No, let me," Lily says, standing. "He doesn't have to live with me or play Quidditch with me. If he needs to yell at someone, I'm the best choice."

"I'll check on Mary and Glynis," Cliona says, nodding.

"All right. I'll see you all later," Lily says.

She's almost reached the doors when Elinor Perks stops her. "Lily," she says, "I don't want to bother you, but, well, okay, I don't really know how it happened, but I think -- "

"Elinor, get Remus to help you, would you?"

It will give him something to do.

Lily has to all but run, now, to catch Potter before he vanishes off in who knows what direction outside the Great Hall.

But she does.

"Potter?"

James pauses in his rather purposeful stalk-off (he isn't even sure where he meant to go to) and turns to glance over his shoulder.

He suddenly feels a little embarrassed for reacting the way he did, storming off like that.

"Evans."

"Hey," she says, catching up to him.

She searches his face for a second, green eyes a little wide, trying to figure out what to say.

In the end, she settles for the probably inadequate (if not downright inane), "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," James lies, running a hand through his ever messy mop of dark hair.

It's a lot better than admitting that he really, really isn't.

He wishes Evans hadn't seen his stupid behaviour. He'd been so good lately, too.

'Stupid' is not really a word she'd apply.

The whole situation had been a bit absurd, perhaps, but not stupid.

"Really?

"I don't think I'd be, if I'd just had a fight with my best friend during breakfast."

At that, James shrugs.

"You know, Sirius and I have been friends for so long, I don't even think about the sorts of things I tell him anymore. He knows just about everything, including nearly everything about Milliways," he starts to say.

He resists the urge to kick at the wall.

"So, for him to use you and —" He takes a breath, because while what he says is true, he doesn't make it a habit of actually saying it into words, "what I obviously feel about you, against me?

"It's one of the worst things he could have said. I'd rather he jinxed or hexed me."

It takes her a moment to reply, because there's so much there, and the part of it that's about her kind of isn't the point. (But it's also hardly gone unnoticed.)

"You know," she says, finally, "I got some very good advice once. About not judging a person you've been friends with for years too harshly over one stupid thing they say or do.

"And, yeah, maybe that was a low blow, but ... it was just one stupid, impulsive thing, James."

Edited 2011-06-20 16:35 (UTC)

James, who had gone to looking down at his shoes at his confession, lifts his head.

A very faint teasing smile crosses his features.

"You're not supposed to be sticking up for Sirius," he says. "I know he's not really a git at heart, but what he said was a bit like taking my confidence in him and throwing it right back at me.

"I don't even wonder whether the bloody Slytherins in the back heard every word.

"Not to mention the fact that I really don't understand what he and Perdita are doing. They can't possibly be that serious, can they?"

"Well, no, of course not," Lily says. "If they were that serious, they wouldn't feel the need to remind us about it all the bloody time. I mean, think about Cliona and Fenton. When you see them together, you definitely know they're together, but it's not ... like they're out to prove something.

"And I guess it kind of makes sense. D'you know anyone whose reaction to Black and Perdita was 'yeah, I can see how they got together'? And we're not talking about people who are exactly lacking in pride, are we?"

They both have it in spades.

"So they can't back down, right? So they just have to ... be 'unnecessary' with it all.

"The good news I don't think either of them is quite prideful enough that you're going to be asked to be Black's best man any time soon."

"Yeah. I'd have to contract a pretty convincing case of Dragon pox if I wanted to avoid that situation," James says.

He runs a hand through his hair again, for lack of something to do with himself and his hands.

"Bugger his pride, I still want to hit him."

"You could make it a tradition. Punch a member of the Black family before every big Quidditch game," Lily says, faintly amused. "But it's probably not the best idea.

"Better idea. Come on. Let's go for a walk. Until you don't feel like hitting him any more.

"Or we collapse from exhaustion.

"Whichever comes first."

"Yeah, all right," James says.

He smiles.

"Thanks, Evans. You know, you're pretty good at this sort of thing. No wonder Dumbledore made you prefect."

"You're welcome," she says.

"And thank you.

"So, let's talk about something else, yeah?

"How does Hufflepuff look this year?"

"They're going to be really good competition," James says, as they head out towards the Hogwarts grounds.

He's seen the team; there are some tough Quidditch players there.

"Which, I think, is a good way to get started for the Quidditch year. The new Beater and Keeper need to learn that there's a lot of hard work that goes into being on the Gryffindor team. If we had an easy victory, the lesson might be harder to learn for when it really counts."

"Which is to say ... Slytherin?" she asks.

Because there is always a difference in losing ... and in losing to Slytherin.

James rubs the back of his neck, slightly sheepish.

"Yeah," he says. "Slytherin."

It's still a sore topic, losing to Slytherin.

He'll never forget the way they rubbed it in their faces after winning.

"One game at a time, though, yeah?

"Cliona seems to think you chose pretty well, with the new players. They're working out pretty well?"

"Yeah. They've been brilliant so far. Our first practice was encouraging," James says.

And relieving.

It reassured James that he was doing a good job as Captain.

"And I get to look forward to hearing Cliona complain about many more, in the coming month, don't I?" Lily asks, laughing a little.

James shrugs innocently.

"Well — someone's got to uphold the Quentin March legacy, yeah?"

"Hmmmm," Lily says, considering.

"Well, at the risk of saying something that will go to your head, and with no disrespect meant to March ... I'm reasonably certain you'll leave your own legacy, instead of just upholding his."

He just seems the sort.

James looks away, then back at her.

He lets out a soft laugh.

Sometimes ... he just can't quite believe his luck.

(But he's slowly trying to be careful not to get too caught up in his thoughts.)

"Thank you, Evans."

Beat.

"Lily.

"I promise not to let it get to my head."

She laughs, and smiles at him.

"See that you don't, James."

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030. 3 october 1976. mad breakfast party.

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