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Picnic in the Rain


James and Sirius were shouting and running across the rain-soaked grounds, their crowing laughter echoing off the castle as Lily and Remus followed along. Peter stumbled halfway down the hill and rolled along on his side shouting until he’d caught up to where Sirius and James had come to a stop beneath the shade of an old tree by the edge of the lake. Looking back, Lily could see the castle looming above them in the misty grey light, the spires hidden by low clouds. She shivered as James pulled out a blanket - it looked to Lily as though it might’ve been one of the boy’s bed duvets. “Go on, Remus,” he said, holding it up.

Remus cleared his throat and pointed his wand at it, “Impervius.”

“What’s that spell do?” Lily questioned as James and Peter spread the duvet out over the ground.

“Makes it water resistant!” Explained Remus.

“We had to do that to all of Peter’s sheets,” joked James, smirking.

Peter punched his arm, “Shut it! You did not.” He looked at Lily, “They did not.”

Sirius meanwhile had climbed the tree and was perched on one of the lower branches that hung over the water, straddling it, facing the forest on the far side. He cupped his hands ‘round his mouth and shouted, “HULLO!” The echo that came back was magnificent and reverberated several times before fading off. He grinned, “Brilliant!” (-illiant, -illiant, -illiant) “I could bloody do this all day,” he laughed.

“Well you aren’t,” James said, “We’ve got food. Get down here.”

Peter had opened his bag up and started pulling out the sandwiches he’d nicked as James dumped his bag of pasties and Remus arranged the butterbeers. “We had more butterbeers,” he said apologetically, “But we dropped a couple coming up from the kitchens.” He didn’t go into detail, figuring Lily needn’t know it was Snape who’d caused them to smash the bottles all over. “Luckily we’ve got six left so we each have one and we’ll have to split the last.”

“Or fight to the death for it,” Sirius said as he swung down from the tree, hanging by his hands over the water for a moment before dropping down onto the edge of the grass, only just keeping his balance from falling in.

James said, “Fight to the death? I’d win a duel against you any day, Black.”

“In your dreams, Potter.”

“Well I wouldn’t win, that’s for sure,” Peter said, twisting the cap off his bottle as Remus handed them ‘round. “I should think it would be either Remus or Lily,” he added, smiling sheepishly at Lily.

Remus laughed, “Well I’m not going to be in the running. I’ll be fine with just the one. So I guess that makes you the winner, then,” he held the extra bottle out to Lily.

She took it, but said, “I doubt that! I wouldn’t win against you lot.”

“You’re the brightest one in the whole school,” offered James, “Of course you would.” His cheeks warmed and he quickly turned to make a job of opening up the wrappers on one of the sandwiches instead of looking at her.

“I might give you a go if I get thirsty enough later,” Sirius joked.

Lily smiled, “Oh really? And you think you could beat me?”

Sirius’s eyes twinkled, “No I doubt I could, but I’m just stupid enough to try anyway.”

Lily was surprised by how good of company the boys turned out to be as the five of them ate and laughed and talked about the teachers of Hogwarts - Remus did a marvelous impression of Professor Slughorn, while James had heard quite a lot of exciting stories from his father by owl about Professor Moody’s work as an auror. “I think Moody’s bloody fantastic,” James said enthusiastically, “Being an auror must be the best job in all the world. I should like to catch dark wizards myself one day…” he stood up, brandishing a breadstick as a wand, “I’d do a little of this and a little of that… I’d fill the walls of Azkaban with their ruddy hides.”

Sirius chortled, “Make a bear skin rug of ol’ Voldey, would you?”

“Damn right, I would!” James grinned, “One day - I’ll be remembered as the reason You-Know-Who is dead!”

“He’s a very powerful wizard,” Lily said, “You’ll have to study hard if you want to be the one that defeats him.”

James looked ‘round at her, a grin slowly spread over his face, “Maybe you could help me, Evans. Give me a spot of tutoring.” He winked. “I’ll be sure to mention you helped me when I’m giving my interviews.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh please.”

“Perhaps with your help I could take him out by the end of term!” James boasted.

“You can’t even face the bloody mirror,” Sirius accused, smirking.

James said, “You couldn’t defeat You-Know-Who with that thing anyway, could you?” He said with an eye roll, “Bloody mirror’s useless!”

“Of course you would think a mirror that doesn’t show your reflection to be useless,” Lily said with a laugh.

The other boys laughed, but James didn’t, his mouth quirking up a bit at the corner. “Oh and I s’pose you have a better idea what to do with the mirror, then? How would you defeat the Dark Lord with it, oh wise and all-knowing one?”

Lily nibbled her sandwich for a moment, thinking on the answer, then said, “I’d use it to trick him into apparating into an ambush.”

James opened his mouth to argue but found he didn’t know what to argue about it. He looked at Sirius. Sirius, too, looked at a loss for words or argument, a grin slowly spreading across his face, “That’s rather brilliant actually,” he said.

Peter was shaking his head, “Oh no you don’t. No. I know that grin. Stop planning right now.”

“I’m not,” Sirius said, but he was. He turned to Remus, “What if we did that? Got the Dark Lord to apparate right into an ambush? All of us hit him with a stunner at the same time and --”

“You can’t apparate onto Hogwarts grounds,” said Remus, “Don’t you think he would’ve done by now if he could? Or that Lucius would be apparating back and forth, rather than talking to him with a mirror in the first place?”

Sirius didn’t let this deter him, “So we go off the grounds.”

Lily’s eyes widened with horror, “Okay you lot are mad. You can’t be serious.”

“What better way to shut Malfoy up than to see his precious Dark Lord behind bars in Azkaban? Let the bloody Dementors deal with him,” Sirius said, excitedly.

“Perhaps they’ll like him so much they’ll want to give him a little kiss,” laughed James, puckering his lips up and smacking one onto the side of Sirius’s skull.

“Gerroff, I’m serious!” Sirius said, shoving James off him. “We’d be ruddy heroes!”

Peter was worrying his hands, “That wouldn’t ever work, ever, ever, ever --”

“Stop being such a dandy, Peter,” Sirius snapped. He looked at Remus, “Certainly four stunners simultaneously could do the trick, yeah?”

Remus’s eyebrows were raised, “Lily’s right, you have gone mad.”

“Mad or brilliant?”

“Mad,” replied Lily, Remus, and Peter all simultaneously.

Sirius looked at James. “You don’t think I’m mad, do you?”

“Of course I do, but not because of this,” James replied. “It’s an insane plan and it shouldn’t be attempted by First Years by any means, but honestly that’s exactly why it might just work. You-Know-Who wouldn’t ever suspect --”

“Don’t go encouraging him!” Lily trilled. “You’re likely to get yourselves blasted out of existence if you try it!”

James turned to Sirius, completely ignoring this statement from Lily, and asked, “Where would we have him apparate to? Where could we go that’s off the grounds enough he could?”

“The forest is off the grounds isn’t it? At least part of it?” Sirius suggested.

“Do the walls go all the way about it?”

“I doubt it.”

Remus interrupted, “One problem. The forest you’re talking about? It’s strictly forbidden. Remember? It’s literally called The Forbidden Forest?”

Sirius waved this fact off. “So what it’s called that? It’s a stupid rule anyway. What’s so awful about a load of trees anyway?”

“I think it’s more about what lives among the trees than the trees themselves,” Peter chirped.

“Aw bloody hell, who gives a damn about all that?” James inquired, “If we’re going to defeat the Dark Lord, we’d be able to handle whatever it is hiding out in there! Obviously!”

Lily said, “Will you stop with the inflated ego already? You’re a ruddy first year and you struggle enough with your homework already!”

Remus nodded, “Defeating whatever’s in the forest - not to mention He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named - is going to be a lot tougher than your Transfiguration assignments.”

Sirius shrugged. “Transfiguration isn’t that hard.”

“Says the one whose rabbit tea kettle hopped out of the classroom the other day,” scoffed Remus.

“Actually, that was mine,” Peter supplied.

“See?” Sirius said, “Mine broke when James knocked it off the table.”

“It still had ears, though,” Lily said.

“We could actually do this,” Sirius insisted, turning to James, “We could be the ones that defeat the most powerful wizard in all the world.”

Fed up with them not listening, Remus stood up, “You are not doing this. You are not risking all our necks for this. You’re mental! Don’t be mental!”

Sirius looked up at him.

“I’ll bloody break the mirror in half before I’ll let you do this,” Remus added.

James shrugged, “Breaking it doesn’t stop the reflection from showing up, remember? We had that little bit and this is just a little bit of the whole thing we saw before. Obviously even if you broke it up we’d just be able to use the smaller parts.”

“Then I’ll blast it to smithereens so damn small you wouldn’t ever find it!” Remus ammended.

“Blimey, Re,” said James, laughing, “Relax. You don’t have to go with us.”

“You aren’t going at all!” He said.

“Yeah,” Lily agreed, standing beside Remus and dusting off her robes, “I’ll tell Dumbledore before I’ll let you.”

Sirius’s eyes were wide. “What are you, both secret dark magic supporters?” He demanded. He pointed at Lily, “This was your idea! And you’re both probably the worst off if You-Know-Who gets to power! Muggleborns and halfbreeds will be the first to go!”

Remus’s face paled and he glanced wildly at Lily a moment before snapping, “You bloody git!” He turned and rushed up the hill toward the castle.

“Halfbreeds?” Lily asked.

“Ignore him,” James said, rolling his eyes, “Sirius is being an idiot. It’s a joke we have.” He hit the back of Sirius’s leg with his palm and gave him an imploring look.

Sirius’s nostrils were flared with anger, but he said, “Yeah, just an inside joke is all. Bloody hell. I need a walk.” He turned and stomped off across the grounds in the opposite direction.

James sighed. “I better go after him.” He looked at Peter, “Can you clear this up?”

Peter nodded.

James looked at Lily. “This was a lovely date, Evans, thanks for coming on with us.” He grinned and then turned and jogged off as Lily stared after him, utterly appalled.

“This was NOT A DATE Potter!” She yelled.

He turned and walked backwards a few paces, just grinning at her, then winked in that unnerving way that he had done way back in the very beginning of term, when he went under the sorting hat. Lily felt a shiver go down her spine, but before she could think too much on it, James had turned back around and run off.