Chapter 5
They had planned to get to the Great Hall early the next morning, but Remus had collapsed on his bed immediately after they returned to the dorm and forgot to set his alarm clock. He woke with a start 10 minutes after breakfast had started and quickly dressed in his uniform, accosting the others awake in the meantime.
By the time they made it down to breakfast, the Great Hall was buzzing with chatter, no doubt everyone was talking about the sopping wet Slytherins, many of which gave them a death glare as they walked in. The enchanted sky above them was full of gray rain clouds that made the Slytherins look even more pitiful in their sogginess. They tried not to admire their own work too openly in case any of the professors started to catch on to them. They knew they were already at the top of the suspect list.
“What happened to them?” Sirius asked, nodding his head towards the Slytherin table as they took their usual spots.
“As if you don’t know,” Lily muttered icily from behind her copy of the morning paper. Her brow was wrinkled but the Marauders didn’t dare ask her what bad news the paper held. The papers only hold bad news nowadays. They would go back to reality tomorrow, but James’s birthday was a no-bad news kind of affair. The owls had already dropped off the mail for the morning and a shrunken package with gold wrapping and red ribbon lay on the table. Lily pushed it towards James as he sat down. It was from his parents. He slipped the package into his messenger bag with the intent to open it after classes.
“I don’t know what you mean, Evans,” Sirius said, making the redhead roll her eyes.
Moments later, Mary and Marlene came running up the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables with their robes flapping behind them. The latter held up a lopsided cupcake with goopy pink frosting and a singular candle sticking out the top of it. Marlene set the cupcake in front of the birthday boy and lit the candle with her wand. “Happy birthday, you wanker,” she said cheerfully.
“So, let’s see it,” Mary clutched his shoulders and gave him a hearty shake.
“Mary—” Lily started but James was already rolling up his sleeve with a pleased smirk. The Gryffindors, along with the Prewett twins who had strolled up to the table shortly after Marlene and Mary had made their entrance, gathered around closely to study the soul mark. Only Lily, and the Marauders who had the mark memorized at this point, glanced at it quickly and looked away. Remus tried to get Lily’s attention with a pointed look, but she was too focused on her egg scramble, or simply felt like ignoring him. He couldn’t help but think that she looked slightly disappointed.
Gideon let out a low whistle. “That is one massive mark, mate.”
“Yeah, always knew you had a lot of love to give, Potter,” Fabian teased as he started to pile food onto his plate.
“Thanks, I guess,” he said.
“Happy Birthday, James,” a petite girl with cropped black hair called from a ways down the table.
“Thanks, Alice,” he called. “Coming to the party tonight?”
“I think the whole house is coming tonight, James,” she replied with a girlish giggle that made her sound younger than she was. Alice was a year older than them, the same as the Gid and Fab, and could usually be found with her roommates or the group of Hufflepuff girls that she had grown close to due to being in the Herbology club. She was a bit quiet but incredibly kind, and quite funny once you got to know her.
“More like the whole school,” Gideon barked.
“Don’t forget to make a wish,” Marlene pushed the cupcake closer to him. The wax from the candle was dangerously close to dripping onto the frosting. He closed his eyes tightly while making his wish, most for the show, and blew out the candle.
“What did you wish for,” Mary asked.
“I wished for the Chudley Cannons to win the World Cup,” James answered, making the entire table groan.
“You’re insufferable, Potter.”
…
The four of them left the Great Hall after breakfast, trailing behind the girls and the Prewett twins. Sirius was digging around in his book bag as he walked, making sure he had his quill and parchment before it was too late to run back up to the dorms when he felt someone shoulder-check him. Hard. He whipped his head up in time to catch a boy with dripping black hair that was starting to curl around his ears storm past him and their group. His face fell. He had forgotten. “Wait, Reg wait,” he called out, but it was too late, the boy had already slipped between groups of students exiting the great hall and was gone.
The other three marauders paused when they saw their friend had stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes were wide, and his fist was clutched to his mouth. The flow of students leaving the great hall diverged around them, some of them giving them dirty looks for blocking their way. Hogwarts housed fewer students than the typical secondary school, but the halls were old and small and became cramped easily.
“What’s going on, Pads?” James asked, worried at his friend's obviously distressed expression.
“I fucked up,” Sirius stated dreadfully, shaking his head from side to side as if to dispel the negative thoughts from his head.
“What, how?” James asked. He thought the prank had gone well and they hadn’t even gotten in trouble for it, yet at least.
“He can’t swim Prongs,” he said quietly, his voice quivering with the weight of the guilt. It was almost too quiet to hear over the chaos “He’s afraid of water.” His mind started to spiral. His mother’s voice in his ear as she tried to pit them against each other, calling him a bad brother. The memory of his mother punishing Regulus for something he did and telling him that it was all Sirius’s fault—that he didn’t care enough about his brother to stay out of trouble for his sake.
“Who? Who can’t swim?” Pete asked.
“His brother, Pete,” Remus answered the boy quietly.
“I thought he hated him,” Peter said, rather insensitively. Remus put a hand on Peter’s shoulder and pulled him away when Sirius shot him a fuming look. His eyes met with James’s, and something seemed to pass between them—a mutual understanding that James would take care of Sirius and Remus would get Peter out of there before Sirius lost it on him.
“I just don’t get it, he says he hates him all the time,” Peter said puzzledly once they were far enough down the hall.
“It’s his brother, Pete. It’s not always as easy as just hating him,” Remus answered, quietly, because the student body already knew too much about Sirius’s personal business. Sirius often said things he didn’t entirely mean, just to save face or pretend like he was doing ok when he really wasn’t. It was easier for Sirius to say he hated his brother when he repeated all the evil things their parents would say or hung out with the wrong crowd, but the real answer was that it was complicated. Regardless, Remus and James both knew that his brother was a sensitive topic for him. They had been close before Sirius started school, but something had changed when Regulus was sorted into Slytherin. Remus suspected that he saw it as a betrayal, even though it wasn’t the younger boy’s fault which house he got sorted into.
Pete dropped the subject after that, but he did seem a bit put out that they all knew something he didn’t. He was always out of the know. Peter and Remus sat next to each other in their first class of the day and the other two were notably missing. They just shrugged when the professor asked where their other halves were and pretended like nothing was wrong.
…
After Remus and Peter left for class, James clasped his hand around one of Sirius’s wrists and guided him to where he knew there was a good hiding place, somewhere he could let his friend cool off. If he went to class now, it would just fester, and James wanted him in good spirits for the party. He knew he would feel bad later if he spent the night brooding. The halls were starting to empty by this time, so it was easy for the two of them to walk in the opposite direction of the crowd and slip behind a tapestry that covered an alcove that could comfortably seat the two of them. There were no classes in that part of the castle but James cast a silencing charm around them just in case.
“Do you think I’m a bad person, Prongs?” Sirius asked, chewing on his fingernails.
“No, that’s ridiculous,” James assured him.
“I’m a bad brother, though.” James started to disagree, but Sirius cut him off. “I am. How could I forget he doesn’t know how to swim? He could have drowned, James.” He said that last part in a whisper, but James heard him loud and clear. It was too dark in the alcove to see, but he was sure that there were tears in Sirius’s eyes.
“Pads…” he started and then trailed off. He didn’t know what to tell him to make him feel better. “Listen,” he started again, “We can’t take back the prank now, but I promise your brother will never be involved in a prank ever again.”
Sirius sighed. James could sense him nodding his head. “Alright,” he agreed. “I need to fix this, Prongs,” he added quietly after a moment of silence.
“We’ll work on it,” James promised. “Do you want me to try to talk to him?”
“Wouldn’t work,” Sirius snorted. “I’ll try once he’s dry.”
“Yeah.”
“I know he hangs out with those wankers but he’s not like them, I know it. He’s good. He has to be.”
“I know, Pads.”
Silence.
“Sorry, I ruined your birthday,” Sirius said after a while.
“You didn’t ruin anything.” There was more silence after that. Sirius seemed to be deep in his thoughts, but he had calmed down for the most part. “Do you want to head to class now?”
“No, let’s go run around in the forest for a bit.”
….
The party was already in full swing in the common room, and the Marauders were still in their dorm, late for one of their own parties. Remus and Peter were already dressed and playing a game of cards on Peter’s bed. Remus was more bored than anything and not paying full attention to the game as he glanced up time after time to watch Sirius primp in the bathroom mirror.
“Hurry up in there, Pads. We don’t have all night,” Remus complained with a red face when he noticed James had caught him staring.
“I’m trying, the forest made my hair frizz all up.”
“Sure, blame the forest,” he said before dodging the hairbrush Sirius chucked at him.
James rolled his eyes at their obvious sexual tension and dug through his trunk, a pile of clothes and trinkets and junk forming around him as he tried to do a million things at once. James and Sirius had lost track of time during their romp in the forest and then they decided to sneak all the way to Hogsmeade to pick up some party favors. It had been well after classes when they arrived back to the dorm and Marlene, Mary, and the twins were squeezed into their disaster of a dorm room with gifts for him. They seemed unbothered by the dirty clothes that littered the room and sat cross-legged on the floor around James’s bed. They left shortly after the exchange in order to get ready for the party and finish up a transfiguration assignment that came with a warning of detention from McGonagall if turned in late.
The gifts were now stacked on the foot of his bed, and he smiled as he thought about how much he loved his friends. They were like the brothers and sisters he had always asked his parents for. James paused what he was doing, one shoe off and his shirt half unbuttoned, when he remembered he had yet to open the gift his parents had sent him that morning. “Who’s that from?” Sirius asked from the open doorway as he took out the shrunken package from his bag and reversed the shrinking charm.
“Mum and Dad sent this for me in the post.”
“Well let’s see then,” Peter chimed in.
The was a card attached to the top with a red ribbon, ‘Read Me’ in his mother’s curly handwriting on the envelope. “Dearest Jamie,” he read to himself as he ripped the card from its envelope.
We are so proud to call you our son. You have truly grown into such a
wonderful young man. Send our love to the boys and give our thanks
to Remus for helping us pick out your gift.
Love, Mum and Dad
P.S. The muggle shopping mall was such a hoot! We must visit again
when you’re home for Easter hols!
James put the card down and ripped into the gift. “Those are just like Moony’s, only red” Peter said as he pulled a pair of brand-new high-top sneakers from the box.
“Alright! Cheers, Moony.” He kicked off the one shoe he had forgotten to remove in his haste to get ready for his party and went to pull on the new pair.
“You’re not going down in your school trousers, are you?” Sirius cut in.
…
James was enjoying his party. A lot of people had come up to him and wished him a happy birthday, most of which he knew but there were some new faces mixed in too. He didn’t care, he was just happy that people knew his name.
It was late when James got a moment to himself. He sat in a velvet armchair that had been pushed back all the way to the hearth of the fireplace to make room for the festivities and looked around the room at everyone having a good time. There was nothing better than seeing his friends have a good time. Peter was on the dancefloor with Mary and Marlene; they seemed to be playing a game that consisted of the girls joining hands and spinning around Peter. Gideon and Fabian were entertaining a gaggle of Hufflepuffs with stories of their most recent pranks, some of which put the Marauders’ pranks to shame. Frank was talking to Alice by the punch bowl (spiked of course) and they seemed to be having a laugh.
Then there was Sirius and Remus, possibly his best friends in the entire world. They were sitting on the floor in front of the record player, no doubt guarding it from anyone who dared to play anything they deemed uncool. Their knees were pressed against each other’s, and James could tell they were way passed tipsy by the redness of Sirius’s face and the way Remus sat more relaxed than usual. They were in their own little world and James would have to tease them for their obvious smitten-ness later. They had been like this for as long as he could remember; always touching or hanging off each other in one way or another. Of course, Sirius was always touching James too, but it was different, less tender. He couldn’t say he was surprised when Sirius broke the news to him in the One-Eyed Witch’s Passage. He didn’t know if he could watch them dancing around each other for much longer, though. He would have to do something to get them to hurry things up between them.
“Mind if I sit?” James looked away from watching his lovebird friends to see Lily Evans standing in front of him. She was in a pair of light-wash jeans and a green tee shirt. It was a short-sleeved tee shirt and, while it wasn’t completely out of place in the warmth of the firelit common room, James understood that she was trying to tell him something without actually telling him. Her forearm, except for a splattering of freckles and light-colored hairs, was bare.
A wave of disappointment washed over him, no doubt showing on his face, but he was able to recover quickly. “Sure, Evans,” he said, then thought of a better idea. “Actually, would you like to get some fresh air instead?”
“Yeah, sure.”
James felt eyes on him as they went through the portrait hole together. The party had spilled out into the hallway. Groups of students loitered, some trying to sober up, some just trying to get away from the noise and chaos of the common room. Someone he didn’t know by name wished him a happy birthday as they passed and James nodded to him with his signature goofy smile though it didn’t exactly reach his eyes.
James and Lily didn’t talk until they got to the astronomy tower. They made the quick walk to the adjacent tower in companionable, yet somewhat awkward, silence. Lily, the prefect in training, kicked out a snogging couple when they got there and then sat on the stone windowsill looking out onto the grounds. “I don’t think I wished you happy birthday yet, so happy birthday.”
“Thanks, Evans.” The night air was beyond chilly, and James noticed her arms had erupted in goose pimples from the cold. “Accio jumper.” A moment later one of James’s quidditch jumpers landed on Lily’s lap. She thanked him as she pulled it on.
“I got you something, by the way,” she said. She pulled a shrunken gift bag from her pocket and returned it to its normal size with her wand.
James raised an eyebrow at her, surprised. She had never gotten him a present before and he wasn’t expecting her to start now. She nudged him, encouraging him to open the gift. “Dungbombs?” James asked incredulously as he sifted through the tissue paper to reveal a package from Zonko’s.
“For your pranks,” Lily explained.
“You hate our pranks.”
“Yeah but I know they make you happy.”
Oh—that was not what he had expected her to say. “Thank you. Really,” he said as genuinely as he could muster. A comfortable silence settled between them. There weren’t a lot of people James felt comfortable just sitting with but felt comfortable with her.
“Congrats on your soul mark by the way. It really is beautiful,” she said after several minutes had passed.
“Oh, I—thanks.” James shrugged and looked down at his arm which was currently covered by long sleeves. He was quiet for a moment, then “I know you don’t like to talk about it but do you…” James had been curious ever since she had her fifteenth birthday back in January, but everyone had been shot down when they asked her. Peter said it was probably because she didn’t get one. He knew he had a slim chance of her answering now, but—
“Yeah, I do.” James looked her over but couldn’t catch a glimpse of it peeking out from under her clothes. Must be somewhere hidden, he thought.
“Oh, congrats to you too then.”
“Thanks,” she said then looked out onto the grounds and then to the sky above them. James followed her gaze. The overcast from earlier in the day had dispersed and the night was clear. The moon was a crescent in the sky. “You know it really is a shame ours don’t match. I was just starting to fancy you.”
“Really?” he said, bumping her lightly with his shoulder. They were sitting close; James could smell soap and Mary’s infamous vanilla body lotion on her skin despite the strength of the petrichor from the morning’s rainfall. “Well, we can still try, right? You’re the one always saying how arbitrary the whole soul mate thing is.”
“James.” Lily sighed. “I don’t see this ending in anything other than heartbreak.”
“Isn’t heartbreak a part of life?” He tried but didn’t get a response. He never thought he would ever get a chance with her but now the possibility was slipping through his fingers like sand. “I guess you’re right,” he finally said.
“I would like for us to be friends, James.”
Aren’t we already? He wanted to say but kept that thought to himself. “Yeah, of course, Evans.”
Lily turned her head and gave him a quick peck on the cheek that made his neck break out in a flush. “See you later, Potter,” she said and then got up and left him alone in the astronomy tower. Her scent and the feeling of her lips on his cheek lingered after she left.
James stayed up there by himself for what felt like hours, lost in thought, replaying the events of the day. The sky had turned a lighter shade of blue, which meant the sun had started to rise somewhere in the distance, by the time he decided it was time to go back to the dorms. He made the walk back to Gryffindor Tower at a sluggish pace, without any concern about running into Filch or any early-rising professors. Detention was the last thing on his mind.
The Fat Lady was snoring when he got back to the portrait hole, and he had to knock briskly on her frame to wake her up. She grumbled and let him in with her eyes still half closed. Peter was passed out on one of the couches in the common room, as were a couple of other students. He didn’t bother to wake the other boy up; he would be fine there for one night.
He slipped back into the dorm as quietly as he could. Sirius and Remus were asleep on Remus’s bed together, after obviously drifting off to bed in a drunken stupor. If James had been in a better mood he would have snapped a picture for them to laugh about later. They looked ridiculous with their jeans and trainers still on, Remus hanging almost a whole foot off the bed.
James stripped down to his shorts and forwent brushing his teeth. He pulled back his bed curtains to see the pile of gifts from his friends and his quidditch jumper folded neatly on top of his rumpled duvet.