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Don’t Forget the Face That Snogs You


Admittedly, James had a feeling that he had forgotten something.

It had been nagging him half the evening, as he sat on the stairs in the Gryffindor common room with Sirius, waiting for Remus to appear. But he’d done his homework, and even written a letter to his mum and dad. He’d unpacked his robes so they wouldn’t be wrinkled (at least not for the first couple days anyway) and he’d brought the first years up stairs for Lily, like she’d asked. He’d even been so kind as to help them set up a study session in the common room at the table, helped them organize their time tables, and shared some of the popcorn Peter made with them -- and answered questions they kept asking, like incessant little seagulls. “James, James, help us with this, James Potter help us with this one, too!”

He’d done all that, but still -- there seemed like there was something else. Something he was supposed to do that he hadn’t done.

It occurred to James very suddenly exactly what it was when he was sitting at the Gryffindor house table the next morning at breakfast and he looked up and promptly choked on his bacon.

Sirius turned and whacked James on the back heartily, “Don’t go dyin’ mate.”

“Cover for me,” James hacked.

“Say what?” Sirius asked, confused.

But the next moment he knew exactly what James had been talking about.

“So. The Astronomy Tower was just lovely last night,” Maryrose said in a very sarcastic tone as she walked over and stood beside the table, her arms crossed over her chest. “Positively lovely! Bit lonely though. See, I was sitting up there for nearly an hour, waiting for my boyfriend, who bloody invited me to go along up there himself, with this stupid little paper bird --” she chucked the bird onto the table, “-- but he never came. Certainly, he must be ill, I thought, so what do you think I should be thinking, when I come in here this morning, and there he is, laughing with his mates, clearly feeling quite well?”

Sirius looked at James, then back at Maryrose, the back to James. He so desperately wanted to come up with something witty to say, something that would clear James’s name but he had nothing.

“I’m sorry Maryrose,” James said helplessly. “I - I dunno what happened, I --”

To everyone’s surprise - it was Peter that spoke up. “No. James. I won’t let you take the blame.”

They all looked at him.

Peter looked up at Maryrose. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault he’s missed your date. I - I did something stupid and… and James helped me.” His face turned bright red.

“Something stupid?” she asked, eyeing James.

Peter took a deep breath. “I… I was messing about, with the Transfiguration book.. And…” he took a deep breath, then announced, “I tried at transfiguring my steamer into a dragon and -- oh blimey, it was so bad, Maryrose. Our dormitory’s got a proper singing. But please, don’t tell anyone! Professor Minnie will give me a detention and --” his eyes were moist. “I’m such a failure. Practically a squib.”

Daaaaamn, Sirius thought. Pete’s good.

Maryrose looked from Peter to James.

“I had to - to fix it,” James said, catching on and, with his vivid imagination, he went adding details like mad. “Had to transfigure it back. Had to catch it first, of course. The steamer, I mean. It seemed to have only got parts of the dragon, you know. The firebreathing and the wings. Flapping about the room and every time the lid opened fire came out. Lucky most of what it destroyed was either fixable with a good reparo, but not all of it. And the dorm’s a positive mess. By the time I got up to the Astronomy tower, you’d gone and -- and you know how it is, trying to get into one of the other common rooms, right impossible…”

Maryrose seemed hesitant.

Lily came down then and slid onto the bench next to Remus.

Maryrose looked over at her. “Lily,” she called.

“Yes?” Lily asked.

“Did the boys have a fire breathing steamer trunk in their dormitory last night?” she demanded.

Lily blinked, “Who knows with Potter?” she asked.

“Well James missed our date trying to fix one Peter set to flying about. Thought you might’ve heard about it if that were true.” Maryrose said the name emphatically, remembering James’s name preference. She fleetingly wondered why James never corrected Lily Evans on his name.

James’s eyes were pleading as he stared at Lily from across the table, behind Maryrose’s back.

Lily shrugged, “I was busy with the first years, but I did hear some strange noises upstairs. I dunno what they were up to - nobody ever does. Their dorm is a warzone. You know, they once stuck half the furniture in their dorm to the bloody ceiling? You’d be sitting in the common room and hear a great bang! and Sirius or one of them would be like well, there goes the bloody desk again. Like it was normal to have furniture stuck to the ceiling!” She rolled her eyes.

Bloody hell, I’m surrounded by excellent liars, Sirius thought proudly.

Remus laughed at the memory of the time Sirius really had said that, sitting about the fire when James’s desk had fallen off the ceiling in their dorm and scared half the bloody house with the resulting crash. He looked down, his shoulders shaking with the laughter. Sirius kicked him under the table and Remus kicked him back and they started at playing footsie from there as Sirius slid his palm over Remus’s thigh discreetly.

Maryrose turned to Peter, “Well, bloody hell Pete, don’t go doing things like that, unless you know how! What if James hadn’t been there to fix it?” And just like that, she’d gone soft on him again and she came ‘round the table and hugged him from behind, kissing the top of his messy haired head. “You’re so brave!”

James’s eyes met Lily’s. Thank you, he mouthed.

She smiled in a way that James thought might mean you owe me Potter, then turned and took a danish and said, “Gotta go,” and got up, leaving the breakfast table.

“So very, very brave,” Maryrose was saying.

“Get a room,” Sirius said.

“Why don’t you two get a room?” James asked and he kicked them both under the table, just so they knew he was perfectly aware of what was going on down there.

Remus blushed at the table top and quickly shovelled some of his oatmeal into his mouth, diverting his eyes as Sirius grinned evilly.




Later that day, between Herbology and Care for Magical Creatures, the boys spent their free time out on the lawn, sitting under the tree by the shore of the Black Lake. Remus was standing up on a rock right at the edge - Sirius was in the tree, hanging over the water, upside down by his knees.

“How exactly do you completely forget to go on a date that you organized, exactly?” Sirius snickered, “I mean… I’m forgetful plenty, sure, but-- bloody hell, James, that’s snogging you forgot.”

“No, it was conversation that I forgot,” James replied. He was laying on his back in the grass, engorging a water bug and shrinking it back down as it sped across the surface of the water and stealing crisps from a bag Peter was crunching on beside him. “Conversation’s boring. Snogging I would’ve remembered.”

“Conversation isn’t boring,” Remus said.

James muttered, “Moony, your gay is showing.”

“Shut it,” Remus said.

Sirius patted Remus’s head. “Sorry, Moons, but I gotta go with James on this one.”

“Depends what the conversation’s about,” Peter intoned, though nobody had asked him. “I’d have a grand time having a conversation about some things, and less so about others.”

Sirius grinned, “Still. Conversation or no… You don’t forget the face that snogs you.”

James looked miserable. “I mean, there was just so bloody much going on last night. Between the first years and you two having your fight and all the homework and getting back in the swing of being at school -- you know? I was stupid to try and organize a date for the first day of classes. Should’ve waited a bit. But it’s taken care of - thanks to you, Pete, you’re a life saver, you and Evans - we’re going to have our date Thursday now.”

“Very good,” Sirius said. “Just don’t forget that one, mate.”

“I won’t. It cost a dear bit forgetting the first one. Now she reckons I owe her two conversations before a snogfest,” James said sadly.

Sirius snickered.

“I think you’ll survive a bit of conversation,” Remus said, and he chucked a rock across the water, making it skip several times across the surface before it sank. “Nobody’s died from it yet.”

Sirius said, “Not that we know of.”

“Well. Binns has never taught it if they have,” Remus said.

“Perhaps it’s an undocumented death,” Peter suggested.

“Yeah, boring way to go - conversating to death,” James said.

“Conversing,” Peter corrected.

“Sounds like Binns’s class actually,” Sirius said.