![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thirty2flavors) wrote2005-05-15 08:32 pm
chapter four
I'm back. To be honest, I'm getting tired of editing the older chapters because I have a strong, itching urge to move forward... So my editing is getting lax. Sorry. I promise the older chapters are better?
Chapters are big enough now that they don't need to be compressed.
Chapter Six – Partridge in a Pear Treexml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /
On the first day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
A partridge in a pear tree
-twelve days of christmas
“If your intention is for any reason to rope the Head Girl into dancing with the Head Boy I swear I’ll circumcise you.”
Five minutes past the end of the prefects meeting, the library had cleared of everyone but James and a very irritated Lily. She wasn’t an idiot, of course – the only reason he wanted a dance was to further his ability to flirt with her come hell or high water.
She wasn’t sure about the high water, but she was sure she could give him some hell.
“How do you know I’m not Jewish?” he mused aloud with an amused grin, leaning backwards on his chair on the hind two legs.
“Point taken; castration it is, then.”
James flinched and shook his head. “You really are vicious, you know. That’s like me saying I’m going to cut off your--“
Lily slammed the library door shut on her way out.
--
Word of the first dance Hogwarts had seen in years spread like wildfire. As with any school, anything slightly out of the ordinary spread through the student body so fast it was almost incredible. Rumours in a school ran laps around the truths that explained them away.
The concept of recently-deemed Head Boy James Potter instilling a dance was bizarre enough that it caught the attention of the gossip mongers. Apart from half the student body thinking he was insane and the other half frantically searching for dates, it was the general census that it would be a most dramatic of dances. Because, after all, everything James Potter did was dramatic.
--
“A dance?” Sirius remarked incredulously, sending a pointed stare in James’ direction. “Why not just invite us all to the Great Hall for a spot of tea, Jamie? Maybe we can curl our hair, paint our nails and eat truffles.”
“Quiet, you,” James replied with a half-glare, obviously restraining a grin. “It’s an excuse for you to have two girls on each arm.”
“Already do, mate,” was the swift reply with a wink.
There was a derisive snort from Remus, James, and Peter.
“Shut up, the lot of you,” Sirius replied with a smirk. “Women aren’t exactly fawning over you three.”
“I question that,” Peter noted, casting a James a sidelong glance, “Jamie’s got his own gang of Quidditch groupies.”
“I think that Hufflepuff girl likes you, Wormtail,” Remus added, casting a meaningful glance in the direction of the Hufflepuff table. “What’s her name? Marianne.”
Furthering to prove Sirius wrong, James added: “And I’m sure there are plenty of librarian types who’d die to go out with Remus.”
Sirius rolled his eyes and held up his palms in a mock surrender. While he remained sure the other three didn’t have near the women after them that he did, being the resident heart throb, but it sufficed to say that getting a date probably wasn’t impossible. Remus, however, was staring at James with an eyebrow raised.
“Librarians, James?”
“Oh, come on, Remus,” James said, grinning as he dodged the hand that came out to swipe him across the head, “There’s nothing wrong with librarians. I’m sure they’re dead sexy, too. You know, hardcore librarians.”
“You’re an idiot, Prongs.”
--
“I swear he lives to make me miserable.”
It was not the first time Lily had made this complaint to Melanie and Anna, angrily stabbing a piece of pancake off her plate with her fork. She was, of course, referring to James Potter. Lily Evans had a fairly high tolerance level when it came to most people – but most people, unfortunately, did not encompass the four obscenely obnoxious males dining a few seats from her and her friends. The redhead sent a look of pure resentment in their general direction before devouring the pancake irritably.
“Really, Lily, it’s just a dance,” Anna pointed out, currently helping herself to a syrup-slathered pancake. “It’s not like he’s trying to organize a massive gang-bang in the great hall.”
Melanie and Lily stared at her.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Melanie pointed out with a snicker as she shook her head. “Dances with hormonal teenagers and gang-bangs are essentially the same thing.”
“Dances have more makeup.”
“Gang-bangs have less clothing.”
“I dunno about that, Melanie, have you seen some of the dances they talk about on the new—“
Lily cleared her throat loudly and the two of them fell silent. Anna, mind you, was still giggling in a distinctly feminine way behind her orange juice, and Melanie’s face was a picture perfect I swear the grin tugging at the corner of my mouth has nothing to do with you.
“He got into a fight, too,” Lily pointed out. “Actually, he got the whole table into a fight.”
Somehow, James Potter starting a fight amongst several underclassmen who were the elitists of their year didn’t seem too far fetched. Melanie simply arched a mildly interested brow. Keeping up on the latest gossip was always helpful.
“With who?”
. To this Lily glanced over towards the Slytherin table. “Narcissa and Regulus,” she replied nonchalantly.
Anna and Melanie exchanged a glance before nodding. The rivalry between the two Black boys was easily apparent even to an outsider – Regulus was everything a proud, pureblooded Slytherin should be and Sirius was the exact opposite. The scowls they sent each other and the way Sirius purposefully ignored Regulus in a display quite different from the way he treated the other Slytherins, and it spoke for itself. Sirius never spoke of his family – that is to say in a polite way – and it seemed everyone knew well enough not to ask.
And frankly, sibling rivalry was something Lily could relate to.
“I’m not surprised,” Anna replied with a shrug. “They’re Slytherins, after all, and it’s obvious he’s made it his life-long goal to antagonize Slytherins.”
“Still,” the Head Girl replied firmly. “Regulus made prefect, which is more than I can say about Potter at that age, so you would think a little more respect would be in order.”
The girl’s compatriots merely shook their heads.
“Lily, hon’, respect and James Potter don’t mix.”
--
The first class of the day was transfiguration. Apart from saddling the class with one of the strictest teachers in the school, and some of the hardest work, the class wasn’t that bad in itself. The main thing that irritated Lily was that it wasn’t her strongest point – but James and his gang were bloody brilliant at it.
In truth, she had to admit, however reluctantly, that James and his gang were bloody brilliant at almost everything. If one of them lacked in prowess in a subject there would be someone to detract from that by being the best in the class. Dismal though Sirius was at herbology, the ‘tutoring’ (which Lily was convinced was simply copied homework) Peter gave him was plenty payback for all those times Sirius charmed whatever object of Peter’s to work properly in Charms class. In Defense Against Dark Arts, the lot of them seemed to shine, but without a doubt Remus absolutely mastered that class.
And transfiguration, as luck would have it, was quite clearly James Potter’s forte.
“Since it is the start of the year,” Professor McGonagall addressed the class, “I have decided a little bit of reviewing will be in order. You will be changing the quills provided into doves – and since this is review, after all, I expect top results from the best of you. Any questions?”
The class did what every body of people does when asked something like this – they all glanced around the room. It was human instinct, perhaps, to not simply wait for a question to be asked – the eyes were relied on heavily and everyone decided seeing for themselves was the only option. The class as a whole was not overly surprised to see Sirius Black with his hand in the air.
Here we go again… thought Lily as she groaned, turning back in her seat to face the front of the classroom again. There was some peculiar dynamics between Sirius, James, and Professor McGonagall. Lily was quite sure it had everything to do with the strict teacher in her battling her internal desire to like the boys. Lily was also quite sure that it was only their ‘charming’ (oh please… ) smiles that got them out of the nasty wrath of McGonagall most students were up against.
“Yes, Black?”
“What if the doves are naturally growth-stunted? I think it’s a bit politically incorrect that you be prejudiced against midget-doves.”
“If you can produce no better than a midget-dove, Mister Black, I should like to know how you got an O on your OWL.”
“I am merely asking for the well-being of all those unable to produce doves apart from those with growth anomalies,” Sirius replied with his most sincere contrived look.
“I see you only the interests of others at heart,” McGonagall replied sarcastically, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Of course, Professor.”
Irritated with the routine, McGonagall ignored the latest of Sirius’ comments and checked to make sure none of the class had any pressing questions. The response was a crystal-clear ‘no’ as silence reigned in the classroom, until McGonagall set them to work as quills appeared before them all.
Concentrating, Lily pulled out her wand and tapped the end of it with the tip of her quill. The quill, much to her displeasure, did absolutely nothing. Damnit! This was what summer always did to her, with the inability to practice – okay, so she had the ability to practice now, for the last bit of the summer, but turning quills into doves wasn’t a daily hobby of hers. Muttering under her breathe she wished in vain that the first subject were Charms – above all Lily excelled at charms.
A half-dozen tries later Lily was working fervently to give her dove a beak instead of a nib, growling in frustration every time it failed to work. There was a cooing coming from somewhere in the room, irritating her because it seemed to say ‘look! I’m better than you!’. What irritated her even more was to see, from the corner of her eyes, James Potter stroking said cooing dove, and grinning in his ultimately condescending way.
Stupid arrogant prat consumed the girls’ mind for a moment, and a second later she’d set her dove’s tail on fire.
The girl let out a cry of surprise, instinctively reeling backwards from the combusting bird. The animal, it seemed, was rather feather-brained, without the idiotic pun intended, and settled for flailing around helplessly on her desk. It took her a second to rack her brain, try to remember a simple spell that would put fire out, but ‘incendio’ was the only thing springing to mind and she was intelligent enough not to try it to see what would happen.
Mercifully, mind you, it would seem someone else hadn’t quite lost their mind, and from the tip of a foreign wand came a simple jet of water. The water did the trick, and the bird was no longer burning; apart from the blackened tip of it’s tail, in fact, it was no worse for the wear. With a sigh of relief Lily sank back into her chair, this time in a more relaxed position, ran a hand through her mahogany hair and glanced up to the person who’d helped her.
“Thank yo…”
Oh, how convenient.
It just had to be James.
“You’re quite welcome, mademoiselle,” he replied with a smile and a nod, clearly ignoring the fact that she’d trailed off upon actually seeing him.
“I could have handled that myself, you know,” said Lily, staring blankly ahead and attempting to save face.
“I’m sure you could have,” was the offhanded reply. It sounded to Lily like something a mother would tell her kid without really paying attention to what they were saying, but wanting to look as if they had been. He wasn’t looking at her, now; he was reaching forward for a new, un-transfigured quill, and upon receiving one he drew back. The half-dove upon her desk, flustered, half-hopped and half-flew onto the floor.
Holding the quill in one hand and producing his wand in the other, Lily wondered for a moment if he were going to transfigure it into a dove to further show off. She also wondered if her dignity could handle it. He did no such thing, however.
That is to say, not really.
As he tapped the quill with his wand he drew his thumb and index finger up the vane of the feather. The barbs fell back into place once his fingers passed, although no longer as barbs of a feather; Lily was quite sure they were wooden – twig like.
And then it dawned on her they were branches – miniature branches sprouting from no longer a shaft but a trunk; the entire quill had turned into a tree, actually. An expert arborist would have informed the girl it was in fact a pear tree, evident vaguely from the miniscule pears dangling from the even smaller branches.
Perched in the ornate pear tree was a partridge.
For a moment Lily just gaped. It’d been a rather impressive trick, although it left her wondering what it meant, really. A second later the child in her sprang to life and sang in her mind on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
That little twerp!
She looked up to send him an incredulous stare only to find he had returned to his seat. Surprised at both his stealthiness and the fact she’d been that entranced by the partridge in a pear tree, it took Professor McGonagall asking to see her finished dove to fully jolt the girl back to present time.
Blast it, she thought as she instantly remembered that she didn’t have a finished dove. Mumbling something she leaned over in her chair to scoop the bird up. Finding that, miraculously, it hadn’t flown away (perhaps because it wasn’t capable of full flight), the head girl scooped it up in her hands.
As she was lifting it from the floor, she furrowed a brow in slight concentration. Funny, it’s tail wasn’t black anymore..
And it had a beak. Almost as if on cue the bird gave a ‘coo’ and fluttered towards Professor McGonagall, who informed Lily she’d done a superb job and would be receiving full marks.
Still looking somewhat dumbfounded as she blinked, sitting back in her chair, Lily suddenly got the impression someone was staring at her. Her gaze turned to her side to see her suspicions were correct. James had been staring at her – no surprise there. The young man winked at her, quite suddenly, and a split second later was rising along with the rest of the class to leave the lesson as McGonagall declared it dismissed.
Dumbfounded, Lily’s almond-shaped eyes narrowed in concentration before something clicked and she sent a disbelieving glance at the retreating form of James Potter.
no subject
Chapter 4
(Anonymous) 2005-05-16 01:38 am (UTC)(link)Anyway, keep up the good work and Happy Writing!
'mistress editor'
no subject
no subject
Chapter 4
(Anonymous) 2005-05-17 07:53 pm (UTC)(link)-CA
no subject
There's just nothing else to it. You capture him perfectly, did you know?
chapter 4
no subject
no subject
“If your intention is for any reason to rope the Head Girl into dancing with the Head Boy I swear I’ll circumcise you.”...
“How do you know I’m not Jewish?” he mused aloud with an amused grin, leaning backwards on his chair on the hind two legs.
“Why not just invite us all to the Great Hall for a spot of tea, Jamie? Maybe we can curl our hair, paint our nails and eat truffles.”
“And I’m sure there are plenty of librarian types who’d die to go out with Remus.”
...
“Librarians, James?”
“Oh, come on, Remus,” James said, grinning as he dodged the hand that came out to swipe him across the head, “There’s nothing wrong with librarians. I’m sure they’re dead sexy, too. You know, hardcore librarians.”