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Jealous James


The boys did not talk to one another as they raced through the castle, careful not to run into Peeves or Filch a second time. They got through the portrait hole and up to their dormitory without any further incident, however, and James whipped the cloak from over their heads. “Blimey!” he cried.

Sirius held up James’s wand, “That was bloody close. How did you lot end up there? Where did the pit go to? We thought you were goners!” James took the wand from Sirius and tossed Peter his wand back. Peter fumbled to catch it.

“We were going to get Dumbledore when we ran into Peeves,” Remus explained.

“We were going to come find you,” Peter offered.

“But then we ran into somebody in the Entrance Hall,” James tacked on.

“Did you see who made that great big mess then?” Sirius asked, excitedly.

James shook his head, “We were too bent on getting out of there without getting caught!”

“Wish we knew,” Remus commented.

“Me, too,” Sirius said. “Think it was Hagrid?”

“What would Hagrid be doing up at this hour, trudging mud about the entrance hall?” Peter asked.

“What would anybody be doing up at this hour, really,” Sirius said, “Other than doing suspicious stuff.”

We were up at this hour,” Remus pointed out.

“And we were doing suspicious stuff,” James pointed out right back.

Remus nodded, “True.”

Sirius climbed onto James’s desk and pressed his nose to the window there, peering down at the lawns. “Think whoever it is came from outside?” He couldn’t see a thing out there, but that didn’t stop him from craning his neck again.

“Where else would they come from if not from outside?” Peter inquired, looking up at Sirius with an eyebrow raised.

James laughed - extra hard because it was Peter who had got Sirius in saying something as stupid as all that - and said, “It probably is Hagrid. You know how much he likes stomping ‘round in the mud out there!” He threw himself on the bed, “All I know is we didn’t get blamed and in the end that’s what matters, isn’t it?” He was studying his wand, quite thankful Sirius had found it.

“So where did the pit go then?” Remus asked holding up a hand to help Sirius down off the desk.

James grinned, “The pit turned out to be a slide, almost. It brought us right down to the Hogwarts laundry room.” His eyes sparkled with excitement. “We went sliding down and landed in a big pile of Ravenclaw bedclothes. You should’ve seen it, though, all magically operated - the whole business!”

“I wonder why they don’t have the house elves doing that?” Peter wondered.

“House elves wouldn’t be able to, would they?” Remus asked, “They’d be free. That’s how a house elf is freed - when he’s given clothes. Even incidentally.”

They all got changed into their pyjamas and went to bed. The night had been full of such a lot of adventure that they all slept quite soundly, but not for long. Morning came and they were all exhausted as they went down to the Great Hall for breakfast, in states of disarray.

“What happened to you lot?” Lily asked as they settled onto the benches at the Gryffindor table. She reached up and smoothed Remus’s hair a bit with her fingertips, a look of concern in her eyes. “Looks as though you’ve been getting into trouble again,” she added.

Remus blushed, but James said, “Trouble? Us? Never. We’re quite innocent.”

Lily snorted, “Yeah. Right. And I’m the Queen.”

“Hail, your majesty,” Sirius said, giving Lily a sweeping bow before sitting down next to James at the table.

Lily rolled her eyes at him.

When Lily was distracted in a conversation with Remus about the homework they had due in Astronomy, James nudged Sirius and nodded toward the faculty table. Sirius looked, “What is it?” he asked.

“Well, Hagrid doesn’t look tired at all, so I reckon it wasn’t him in the entrance hall after all,” James pointed out.

Sirius’s eyes skimmed the row of teachers and landed on Professor Blythe. “She does, though.”

Professor Blythe did indeed look quite tired and considerably messier than they’d yet seen her, with her hair in a messy braid that was slung over her shoulder carelessly, a lot of loose ends sticking up from it. Usually, Professor Blythe was a very well kept woman, with beautiful curly hair and bright eyes. She dressed fashionably and wore bright colored shoes like Sirius had seen muggle women do in magazines.

Chriselda Blythe had, thus far, proven to be an alright Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, though not at all as good as Moody had been the term before. She was young, so it was odd to hear her talk of things like how to defend oneself against a dark spell because it was quite obvious that she was talking from pure theory. She’d never done this stuff herself before, not in real life anyway. James had felt as though he were being deprived of some real learning in Defense lately. After all, if all she was going to do was teach them from what books and theories said, he could learn just as much from Remus Lupin as he could from her. In fact, he was doing most of his learning for Defense by reading over Remus’s essays rather than paying attention in class.

“I can’t picture her doing anything that involved mud,” James said.

“Well, neither can I,” Sirius admitted, “But maybe whatever it was she was doing, she wasn’t alone.” His voice carried a hint of suspicion.

James picked up on it, “Maybe,” he added darkly.

“What are you lot whispering about over there?” Lily asked.

Sirius grinned, “Just commenting on how lovely this porridge is,” he said.

James swept his spoon through the thick stuff and took a big bite, “Mmm,” he hummed.

After breakfast was time for Potions, so they all got their books and headed down to the dungeons to Slughorn’s classroom, where the Slytherins were already waiting around in the corridor. Severus Snape was leaning against the cool stone wall closest to the stairwell, watching for Lily to arrive. She came down the stairs talking animatedly to the Gryffindor boys and Severus grit his teeth.

“Morning Snivelly,” Sirius greeted him as they approached, “You know the wall will stand up on it’s own without you holding it up like that.”

Lily gave Sirius a look and Sirius shrugged, but continued on past Severus, headed for the door into the classroom. James and Severus exchanged glares, but James kept his mouth shut as he walked by.

“Nice hair, Potter,” snarled Severus.

James ran a hand through it - it was sticking up at a myriad of different angles - and he answered, “Thanks, Snape; the secret is the shampoo.” Peter laughed too loudly, his guffaw echoing in the chambers, then scurried past Snape’s glare to catch up with James and Sirius, who were heading inside the classroom already.

Lily and Remus had come to a stop by Severus and when he turned to look at them, he felt a little sick to his stomach. Lily asked, “How have you been, Sev?”

“Busy,” he replied shortly, displeased that Remus hadn’t gone in the classroom already along with the other Gryffindor gits.

“Oh,” Lily said, a bit put off by the abruptness of Severus’s reply. She said, “Well, that’s… lovely, I suppose. Better to be busy than bored.”

Severus shrugged, glowering at Remus.

“Well,” Lily fumbled, “Better get inside for the lesson, then…”

Severus nodded curtly.

“Alright.” Lily hastened away toward the door of the classroom, followed by Remus.

Severus trudged along behind them to the room, staring at Remus’s back, imagining the curses that he could blast him with - something that would really make Lily keen to stop hanging ‘round him. But Severus knew better - acting out on the anger he felt down wouldn’t be a smart thing to do. There was nobody else that could’ve done it, and Slughorn was standing in the doorway of the room now, beckoning students into the room.

Slughorn slung an arm ‘round Remus’s shoulders as he walked into the room and pulled him closer. “Remus, my boy! Lily!” His voice was booming. “You’re both coming to the first official meeting of the Slug Club this week, aren’t you?”

Lily and Remus hadn’t known that the Slug Club would be continuing on - nor were they particularly excited to hear that it was. The Slug Club - otherwise known as a motley collection of students whose families, talents, and connections made them rather appealing to Horace Slughorn, the head of Slytherin House - was rather a boring affair. Lily tried to get out of it by deflecting the question, “I didn’t know we were having a meeting, Professor,” she said, “I scheduled quite a lot of homework this week.”

“Me, too; we’re doing it together,” Remus scrambled to get in on the excuse as Severus Snape shoved his way by the pair of them, “Loads and loads of it.”

Slughorn chuckled, “My star students,” he shook his head, “I understand, of course, but you simply must come next week.”

“Oh… you’re having a meeting next week, too, then?” Lily asked.

Slughorn’s grin widened, “Yes, every week this semester! Dumbledore’s said that the gatherings are a good idea for all the brilliant students, to encourage inter-house relationships. Networking. You know.”

“Oh… wonderful,” Lily said.

Slughorn guided them into the room, one hand on each of their shoulders, “As long as I see you next time, I suppose I’ll be able to overlook you missing this meeting.”

“We wouldn’t miss it,” Remus replied as Slughorn deposited them in their seats and continued off on his way to the front of the room.

“What’d you tell him that for?” Lily hissed when Slughorn was by, “Now we’ll have to go.”

Remus shrugged. He’d just noticed Severus glaring at him over Lily’s shoulder and his face turned rather red with heat and he turned away. He didn’t know what Severus Snape’s problem was, but it was clear that he had one. He turned forward again and opened his textbook up, staring down at it in concentration.

When Lily put her book up, their hands touched in the middle and Remus’s stomach felt bottomless quite suddenly, as though anything put in there would fall all the way to the floor without even a pause on the way down. He didn’t know if he was supposed to move away to give her more space or what she was trying to accomplish with the touch. He shifted his weight, suddenly very, very aware of how every movement of his body affected the way the rest of his was positioned and feeling as though every breath was a challenge.

Lily smiled over at him calmly, her green eyes bright.

Slughorn walked ‘round the massive desk at the front of the room and with a flick of his wand, the board suddenly had the recipe for the potion they would be brewing that day. Lily quickly flicked through her text book with her left hand, her right staying there beside Remus’s, until she’d found the potion and opened the book wide. “We can share mine,” she suggested quietly to Remus when she saw he hadn’t yet opened his book.

“Alright,” he said thickly, his throat nearly closed.

“Look at them,” murmured Sirius, two desks away from where Lily and Remus were sitting. He leaned closer to James.

“I’ve seen them,” James mumbled. He, too, had opened his textbook and was flipping through it lazily, not with the same urgency as Lily had done. He flipped past potions for waking up and one for whiter teeth.

Sirius smirked. He recognized the look of upset on James’s face. “You alright, mate?” he asked.

James nodded, “Peachy. Are you?”

“Course I am,” Sirius replied.

“I’m good too,” squeaked Peter from the next desk, looking rather lonely all by himself.

James looked up, “Well knocker for you.”

Peter quickly turned back around, not eager to be snapped at any more by James.

Sirius chuckled, “Well it isn’t him that’s with Lily, is it?”

“He’s a prat,” James glowered. “Doesn’t matter if he’s with Lily. Why should I care if Remus is with Lily? I don’t care. Good for Remus, then. And good luck to him, too. Evans is a bit of a know-it-all, have you noticed?”

Sirius shrugged and stood up. “I’ll go get our supplies from the storeroom.”

“Yeah,” James nodded and continued flicking through the textbook on the desk as Sirius disappeared off with half the class toward the storeroom to collect the stuff they needed to make the potion Slughorn had assigned. James, meanwhile, stared at the back of Lily and Remus, trying desperately to convince himself he didn’t care that their hands were touching on the desk like that…

Little did he know, but Severus Snape was doing exactly the same thing.