002. december 1975.

[alotofgood]

December, 1975 — 11:00 hours.
Hogwarts, Scotland.
The Library.


There was something very wrong with James Potter that weekend.

He doesn't know at what point he decided to believe that what he'd seen and the people he met that night were real, but that's not even the strangest part of his mid-morning routine.

He packed up his quill and parchment paper, stuffed them into his book-bag, and announced - to the vast surprise of the Marauders - that he was heading to the library.

He didn't wait for them to carry on about the pub they were convinced he imagined (due to far too much alcohol), a conversation he'd sprung upon his best mates as soon as he got back to the Gryffindor tower smelling like warm food, cigarettes and space dust.

Honestly, he can't even say he blames them. He did look a bit delirious. And he would've passed all of it off as a dream induced by far too much alcohol, but it couldn't explain away the fact that of all things he wanted to do that morning, finding a muggle he could trust or a book on muggle mythology was top priority.

... and there was also the slightly crumpled napkin with a Milliways logo, which he'd taken from the Bar.

Comments

[lilium_evansiae]

Is there a weekend there's not something wrong with James Potter?

Sunday morning is an excellent time to use the library, if you actually want to get some work done. The true panicking doesn't usually set in until after lunch, at which point it will get more crowded, but right now, there can't be more than another half dozen students here, all people Lily is used to seeing on Sunday mornings -- Macmillan from Hufflepuff, Root and Flourish from Ravenclaw, Jennings who walked down with her from Gryffindor Tower, and a tiny Slytherin first year she thinks might be named Garnett.

Lily gets dictionary she needs to finish her homework for Ancient Runes, arragnes her things across the top of a table, and sets to work.

[alotofgood]

That would depend entirely on who's being asked.


When James enters the library, it takes him a moment to get his bearings; he ... doesn't spend a lot of time in here.

A quick chat with Madam Pince, who impatiently directs him to the Muggles Studies portion of the library, has James quickly filling his arms with several thin textbooks on Muggle mythology and religion.

When they start to become a little heavy, he sets them on the nearest table ... which, by some crazy, unexpected happenstance, happens to be the edge of Lily's table.

[lilium_evansiae]

Yes, the whole thing just screams 'crazy, unexpected happenstance.'

Lily looks up from her essay.

"Potter?

"Are you carrying ... books?"

[alotofgood]

James, looking a little guilty, jumps at the sound of Lily's voice.

The fact that he's here, looking for books on his own, is one of those things he would consider reputation-damaging.

"Evans!"

Said books still in James' grasp get dumped on the table rather quickly and abruptly.

"I'm not - it's not what it looks like."

Beat.

"All right. Maybe it is. But - you know. I'm a man of many skills."

[lilium_evansiae]

"It looks like you're doing homework.

"So, frankly, I'm quite prepared to believe it's not what it looks like."

[alotofgood]

He laughs.

"You know, Evans, you should really consider comedy after Hogwarts," he says, moving to shift his books into a straight stack.

[lilium_evansiae]

"Right," Lily says.

Two tables away, Amity Root looks up at the sound of the laughter, and glares. Lily mouths the word sorry and Amity goes back to her work.

"Well," Lily says to Potter, quietly, "if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

[alotofgood]

There's another reason why he doesn't like libraries, and it's sitting two tables down from them.

Stuffy girls from Ravenclaw who can't appreciate his humour.

"Yeah," he says, nodding. "You do that."

That doesn't mean he's moving, though.

There are a lot of books.

And they're heavy.

He takes the empty seat across from her and starts to open the first book.

[lilium_evansiae]

A library full of empty tables, and he's decided to sit there?

Lily fixes her eyes on her translation.

If she ignores him, he'll go away, right?







Right?

[alotofgood]

Apparently not!

Before any further reading can be done, James shifts a little in his seat, reaching for his robes pocket where he pulls out the crumpled Milliways napkin.

He'd written down a couple of names, including Demeter's, before leaving as something of a reminder. It also reassures him that he really did go to some pub at the end of the universe.

(Which is really, really brilliant.)

[lilium_evansiae]

You know, if a person is going to shift in his seat, and his seat is directly across from the seat of a person who was minding her own business before he showed up, he might at least have the decency to shift in his seat in such a manner that he avoids kicking her in the ankle.

"Ow!"

Lily's pen jumps across her parchment, and she looks up, annoyed.

"D'you mind?"

[alotofgood]

"What? Mind what?" James asks, genuinely oblivious to what he'd just done. He'd just opened the textbook to the index, in search of the D's.

And then he glances at her parchment and her gone-astray pen.

"Oh, bollocks. Sorry, Evans.







"Oy. You're from a muggle family, aren't you?"

[lilium_evansiae]

Lily looks at him warily.

That question isn't always asked innocently these days.

"Yes.

"Why?"

[alotofgood]

He slides the napkin across the table to her.

It's a small square of white with Milliways neatly printed in its own logo-form. Beneath that are three names scribbled in black ink: Demeter, Pan, Apollo.

"D'you recognize these names? They're apparently from some muggle mythology I'm not familiar with."

[lilium_evansiae]

Lily looks down at the paper.

And her eyebrows nearly hit her hairline.

She recognizes all four of the names on the paper, three because she's the daughter of a man who teaches literature.

One because she's been there.

"Ancient Greek," she says, finally. "Well, and then Apollo has the same name in Roman mythology, too, but with Demeter and Pan, ancient Greek."

[alotofgood]

"Ancient Greek," James repeats. "You know, I really should've figured that bit out. She did look a bit Greek."

Maybe.



Actually, he has no idea. Goddesses can probably change their appearances to fit their fancy. They're goddesses, after all.

"Do you know much about them?"

[lilium_evansiae]

Her eyes are on the logo at the top of the napkin.

Because she has no idea what to make of that.

"A little," Lily says. "Demeter's the goddess the harvest and seasons and so on, her Roman name is Ceres. Apollo's the god of music and medicine, prophecy, poetry, the arts, light and the sun. And Pan is the god of shepherds and the woods and such, and he's got goat legs and horns, and he plays the flute."

She looks up.

"Chatting up Greek tourists, were you?"

[alotofgood]

"Pan's also apparently got an impressive sex-drive," James adds, only slightly cheeky.

So what Demeter told him matches exactly what Lily just explained, which means - well, he isn't exactly sure what that means. But it's interesting.

"More like chatting up Greek deities. I met her, you know. The Greek goddess, Demeter. I met her, Evans. It was ... mad."

[lilium_evansiae]

"Well, it certainly sounds it."

Except in the ways that it doesn't.

[alotofgood]

"That's what the others said when I told them," James says, sighing.

Well, they said he was mad, but that's basically the same thing.

"And I started to wonder whether I did dream up the whole thing. But I'd never read about Demeter or Pan or Apollo before."

He taps his fingers against the table, pointing to the napkin.

"And that. This napkin alone proves I've been there. This bloody pub at the end of the universe."

[lilium_evansiae]

"A pub at the end of the universe?"

If he's been rooting around in her trunk, she will hex him within an inch of his life.

"What happened?"

[alotofgood]

If he tells her the whole story, he'll have to explain the fact that he and Sirius (and Remus and Peter) had all gone drinking after classes at Hogsmeade, which is quite against the rules at Hogwarts for so many reasons.

They could all get into a lot of trouble. In fact, he's certain it might make Dumbledore reconsider Remus as a prefect.

He couldn't do that to his best mate, even with someone like Lily Evans.



He'll go for the slightly condensed version, then.

"All right, I'd been trying to get back to the Gryffindor tower last night," says James, "when this door in the middle of the hallway sort of appeared and brought me there.

"It was like the Room of Requirement or something. Only I knew that it couldn't be." It wasn't in the right location, for starters. "It sounds completely bonkers, I know, but you've got to believe me."

[lilium_evansiae]

Lily studies him for a very, very long moment.

(Two tables over, Amity uses the break in their conversation to glare her disapproval of it again.)

The thing is, Lily doesn't especially want to have things in common with James Potter, and certainly not things like Milliways.

But it would appear that she does.

"We can't talk about this here."

[alotofgood]

"What - why?" James lowers his voice. "What do you mean?"

Is that because she believes him? Or because she doesn't?

James closes his book and picks up the napkin, folding it into small squares.

[lilium_evansiae]

Lily sighs.

And then finds a scrap of parchment, and writes,

I've been there, too. I will meet you in the owlery in ten minutes. If you tell anyone, including and especially Black, I will hex your nose off if it takes me the rest of the year to figure out how.

She folds it into quarters, slides it across the table, then picks up her book and leaves.