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What’d it Mean?


“Sirius.”

It was two in the morning. Sirius was Sirius again, hanging half off Remus’s bed. James was kneeling on the floor, his glasses smashed onto his face, staring into Sirius’s face as he shook his shoulder as he balanced on the very edge of Rey’s mattress. Sirius groaned.

“Sirius wake up, this is important.”

“Whhhaaaaaattttt Potter? Bloody helllll.”

“Evans called me James.”

“What?” Sirius’s eyes were only just barely opened as he peered beneath his eyelashes blearily at James’s messy hair, which was currently all sticking up in one direction, like he was standing in a great wind and it all had done to the right in a great sweeping arch.

“She called me James,” James said, “What do you reckon that means?”

“I reckon it means she knows your name,” Sirius groaned and he pushed James’s face away with his palm, “Go the fuck to sleep.”

James swatted Sirius’s palm off his face. “No, listen. In the hallway after you and Rey went to Dumbledore’s office and Professors Prewett left, Lil and I were all alone and we were standin’ there and she like apologized for being a prat to me and then she said my name. Like just my name. She as like --” and he used a high voice to imitate Evans’s voice, “James, and I says, what and she - she paused. Sirius, I think there was a pause. Bloody hell, there might’ve been a pause. Do you think there was a pause? What’s it mean if she said my name...and then paused? Is that something? Do you reckon that means wsomething? What’s it mean, Sirius?”

Sirius moaned, “It means I’m never going to sleep.”

“Sirius,” James hissed, “This is very important.”

“So is sleeping.”

“Sirius.”

“James.”

“See - yes, just like that. That’s exactly what she said. What’d it mean for you just now to call me my name?”

“That I’m going to bloody murder you if I can just find my wand,” Sirius said, grappling about.

James discreetly grabbed the wand off the nightstand and put it on the floor, safely out of Sirius’s crank reach. “Sirius… I’m serious.”

“No, I am.”

“Even half asleep and cranky? You dog.”

“You dope.” He put special emphasis on the doe sounding part.

James chuckled, “That was a good one.”

“I’ve been saving it for awhile now,” Sirius confessed.

“Well it’s brilliant. I’ll pretend I haven’t heard it yet should you choose to deliver it a second time in the Great Hall sometime before Moony and Wormtail so you can get optimal laughage from such a brilliant joke.””

“Thank you.”

“But, for real, Sirius. Do you reckon Evans using my name means something? Or do you think she just… let it slip? I literally don’t recall the last time she called me anything but Potter. Reckon it was early on in first year, but I dunno.” James looked at Sirius hopefully.

Sirius asked, “If I say it means something, will you leave me alone?”

“Probably not,” James admitted.

“And if I say it means nothing?”

“Sirius, I’m probably not going to leave you alone no matter what you say.”

“Even if I said Potter, leave me alone?”

James shook his head.

“Alright. Fine. Fuck it. Moony’s asleep, so why not. I’m up.” Sirius carefully slid out from beneath Rey’s arm, dropping onto the floor over the side of the mattress like he was made of liquid. He landed on his wand and picked it up, reaching back and twisting it into the half-fallen out knot of his hair in the back. He grabbed Remus’s red sweater with the arm patches from the desk chair and swung it ‘round his shoulders. “C’mon then, down we go.”

“To the common room?” James asked, grinning, “Am I pathetic enough then that I’ve scored one of our legendary tea in the common room during the night chats? Oh blimey, I’m good.” He scurried for the door.

Sirius muttered to himself, “Ought to shut the door and lock him out, let him sleep in the ruddy hallway… let him go down stairs and bother Frank Longbottom… Better yet, let Evans get her ruddy arse downstairs and she talk him through it, seeing as she bleedin’ started it and everything…”

“What’re you on about?” James asked, already halfway down the stairs as Sirius reached the top.

“Just muttering about what a wonderful individual you are for waking me up for this,” Sirius said sarcastically.

James grinned, knowing it was sarcasm, finding Sirius’s annoyance amusing more than offensive. He climbed onto the chair by the fireplace and petted the arm of it, “Here, like old times.”

Sirius went over and slouched onto the chair. “In old times, we both fit,” he accused. “What is it with you and Moony both wanting me to only have one cheek on the cushions?”

James snickered, “Well, Moons may be thinking of easy access. Me, I just want you to be uncomfortable.”

Sirius snorted and magicked a kettle over the hearth and shot a fire into burning. He looked at James in the chair, then said, “Alright Potter, you wanna share a chair, let’s share a chair.” Before James could stop him, Sirius had flung himself over James’s lap like a child with a department store Santa, his long legs hanging over the side of the arms. He wrapped his arm around James’s neck. “I want a pony for Christmas, James.”

“Would you settle for a stag?”

“That depends. Can I ride the stag?.”

“No. That’s what your werewolf is for.”

Sirius grinned wickedly. “Well I can’t argue that, so I suppose a stag will do.” He paused, a twinkle to his eye. “Oi, James, I’ve just had a brilliant idea for a Christmas prank.”

“Does it involve painting my nose red and calling me Rudolph?”

“Yes, actually.”

James snorted, “Well no you can’t do it.”

“But it would be brilliant. Picture the firsties! They’d go hysterical.”

James laughed, “You’re an idiot.”

“We’re all idiots, Moony said so.” Sirius closed his eyes. The kettle hissed and he waved his wand and the tea poured itself into two conjured cups, then floated over to them and they caught the cups from the air. James felt about for his wand, but he’d left it in the dorm so he held his cup up for Sirius and Sirius rolled his eyes, “Typical, you forgetting your bleedin’ wand, Potter,” and he rapped the edge of James’s cup and two lumps of sugar fell out and a spot of milk the way James liked his tea and the tea stirred itself as James brought it to his lips.

Sirius sighed and sipped his tea slowly, staring at his toes as he kicked the air over the side of the chair. “Alright, now tell me what happened with Evans?”

James lowered his cup, laying his arms across Sirius’s stomach like he was a lap table. “Well as I said, we were alone in the hallway because everybody else left, and I started to leave and she caught me up, grabbed my arm and she gets in front of me and she apologizes real nice-like for being rude about Hogsmeade and all that. Then she says she told Andy to pick me over Frank as Captain for Quidditch - she lied that she didn’t think I should be Captain.”

“Of course you should be Captain, you’re bleedin’ brilliant.”

“And then she’s like just standing there all close and stuff and she said my name. Just James,” he did the voice again.

“That sounds nothing like Evans, Potter.”

“You know what I mean. She said it all… all throaty and odd.”

“Okay, then what?”

“Then I looked at her ‘cos that’s what you do when people say your name, you look at them.”

“And?”

“Well there was a pause and she looked sort of… like a terrified animal. I thought… I dunno. It’s madness, Sirius…”

“What is?”

“What I thought.”

“What did you think?”

“I thought she… might’ve been thinking of… of kissing me,” James confessed.

Sirius straightened up a bit. “Did she? Humping horny hippogriffs, James, did you and Evans snog?” He looked excited.

“No, no we didn’t,” James said, shaking his head. “No it was just a very long pause that’s all. My mind went about twenty million directions all at once, like all my brains exploded. Like an atomic bomb inside my skull. And then she just said I was off the detention she gave me earlier in the entrance hall.”

“And then?”

James sighed, “Dunno, then we came back up here and Peter was all angry with me and you and Rey got back and we did all that stuff out there and all. But she didn’t act any different then. She called me Potter again and --” James realized what he was saying and he shook his head, “Sirius, I’m an idiot.”

“We’ve established this already, yes,” Sirius said, nodding.

“I mean for getting excited just now. Of course it doesn’t mean anything! She wouldn’t have gone back to calling me Potter if it did.” He shook his head, “It was just a slip of tongue, you’re right.”

Sirius’s eyebrows raised, “James. Do say that again, I rather enjoyed the ring of it on your tongue.”

“You’re right, Sirius.”

“Ah that’s marvelous.” Sirius grinned, drained his tea cup and tossed it over his shoulder carelessly, flicking his wand to make it disappear just before it shattered on the floor. He stretched and used his arms to cushion his head, closing his eyes.




“What are you two doing?”

James blinked awake. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep. His tea cup had fallen from his hand and slid to the floor, spilled on the carpet. Sirius was curled in a ball on his lap and James had slouched to one side in the chair. He was staring up at Lily Evans, and over her head he could see the tall common room windows stretching away into the ceiling, the nearly-full-moon behind her. The hearth crackled with the dying fire.

“Blimey what time’s it?”

“About four,” Lily answered.

“We were… talking about stuff… needed tea… tradition with us.” He shifted and nearly spilled Sirius off his lap so he stopped and held onto Sirius by a fistful of the Moony Sweater. He looked up at Lily again.

“Mobilicorpus,” she said, waving her wand. Sirius floated safely across the room and landed on the couch, where he promptly spread out and continued on snoring.

James sat up and rubbed his neck, which had a kink from sitting funny with Sirius on his lap like he had been. “Handy little spell that is, I reckon.”

“Yeah,” Lily nodded.

“What are you doing up?” James asked.

Lily flushed. She’d been tossing and turning half the night thinking of what had happened. It had been a very eventful, very emotional day and she couldn’t process it properly, she needed to talk to somebody, somebody she trusted… and she’d decided to try and see if she could find the stag. So stupid, you trust a ruddy woodland creature over your friends, she thought, but Ali would gloat because she’d said all along Lily liked James Potter and Annalee would be weird because she had once been with James herself… Once, there’d been a time she would have wanted to tell Petunia. But those days of telling Petunia everything were gone - long gone. She stared up at James, half tempted to tell him about the stag… But she was afraid he’d make fun, so she replied, “Nothing, I heard a sound down here - it was probably your tea cup falling.” She bent down and picked the cup up. “Just investigated.”

James looked at the cup as she handed it to him. Sirius’s recognizable ebony teacup with the white trellis pattern along the edges… He was glad he hadn’t conjured the cup, suddenly, because his tea cups had the stag and doe upon it, like the one in McGonagall’s office, and she surely would have noticed that… He looked up at her. “A teacup landing on the carpet - not even hard enough to smash - woke you up?”

“I’m a light sleeper,” Lily lied.

James stared at her. Her piercing green eyes stared back. He leaned forward and put Sirius’s teacup down on the coffee table. “I reckon so if that’s all it took…”

Lily looked around awkwardly. “Well. Since you’re… you’re alright and there hasn’t been any… incidents or any reason for me to stay down here now that I know you’re fine, I’ll, uh, be going back to bed. Good night, Potter.”

“Alright,” James replied, “Good night, Evans.” He watched as she climbed the stairs to the girls dormitory. She was halfway up when he stood up and went over to the steps. “Oi. Evans.”

“Yes?” she turned around, “What is it?”

“You called me James earlier.”

“Well it is your name, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes, but you always call me Potter. You never call me James.”

Lily asked, “So?”

James shrugged. “Dunno… suppose I just… was observing the… uh… oddity of it?”

“Do you prefer I call you James?” she asked.

“You can call me anything you like, Evans.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

Lily laughed and rolled her eyes. “Good night, Potter.”

“Alright, but you’re committed to that now. I shall assume I’m in trouble if you ever call me James again,” he warned.

“Well bloody hell, if it’s when you’re in trouble that I’m to call you James, then I best be calling you that always, don’t you reckon?” She smirked and she turned away, rushing up the last few stairs and disappearing from sight.