Mischief Managed Y2 Part 2: The Truth of the Tournament

Chapter Thirty-Two: Ring of Fire

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Being able to see Remus after the full moon was what everyone needed and it had done wonders to lift the spirits of all the Marauders. Especially noticeable was the change in Remus who seemed back to his old self. This was evidenced by the fact that he wasn't sleeping through the whole day anymore and was back to providing his usual quick wit and comebacks to the amusement of everyone. James, true to his word, poured over books with Remus who had patiently lasted a whole three days before kicking Peter and Sirius out of the study group due to their lack of cooperation.

James found he didn't mind at all because Sirius has been extremely obnoxious, charming the chairs themselves to make farting noises whenever someone shifted in them and doing everything in his power to keep the focus on anything but studying. A brilliant result of Remus getting fed up with Sirius, which meant Peter also no longer attended, was that occasionally Lily would sit down and study with them now. From trial and error, James had learned if he spoke a word Lily would get up and leave without hesitation. But if he stayed quiet the fiery red head seemed content to ignore his existence as she studied beside Remus. 

James was happy with this, though it did sometimes annoy him how Lily would lean over to whisper something to Remus. It really felt like she was testing him, daring him to say something. But with Remus' encouragement and the occasional kick to the shin, James was now on day three of studying with Lily. James flinched as Remus' foot made contact with his shin and he quickly glanced down at his book on offensive spells. The chaser realized he had yet again been staring at Lily, who was absentmindedly twisting a lock of her hair around her quill.

Since Peter had broken up with Marlene, the Marauder who had seemed to have the most patience with James' gushing had lost all of it. Strangely, Sirius hadn't said one word about dating or girls and seemed to be content to ignore any semblance of romance whatsoever. Remus...well, Remus was a lost cause who couldn't seem to accept that one day he might actually date some girl, and even more foreign to the poor bloke was the fact that some girl could ever possibly like him. This left James in the rather unfortunate position of none of his friends understanding him nor even pretending to. It wasn't until after a particularly rough Quidditch practice in which he had overheard older players talking about girls that James realized he had other friends besides the Marauders to turn to.

So James found himself spending more time with the older Quidditch boys, who found the second year's infatuation with Lily as amusing as everyone seemed to, but who were at least open to pretending that their newest chaser might have some idea of what he was talking about. At one point in time James spending more time with the Quidditch team would have lasted in a full-out fight between Sirius and him. But Black seemed to have other things on his mind and said as much when Potter dared to ask about the fact they hadn't been spending much time together. The boy had just stated simply that James was allowed to have other friends as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

As far as the other Marauders went; with the second term in full swing Peter didn't have much time to hang out with anyone since he was doing his best to stay caught up with work and Remus was either hanging out with Lily or Mary-of all people, helping Peter study, or sneaking off by himself to do whatever it was that he did-most likely read. James wouldn't have seen Remus at all that week if it wasn't for the study sessions in the library, which had become a much more appealing place to James for some reason as of late. Even with all of them doing their own things there was less tension between the Marauders than ever. And James didn't think he was just being daft and not noticing the tension, there actually seemed to be none.

Potter closed his book and leaned back in his chair, stretching. He glanced at Evans and Lupin who were both absorbed in their reading and marvelled how on earth the two of them could manage such concentration.