Priori Incantatem [HARRY POTTER FANFICTION]

Chapter 23: Harsh Realities

Chapter 23: Harsh Realities

James hung about the Gryffindor common room on a Saturday morning two weeks after the infamous Halloween pumpkin debacle, waiting for Lily to come down so that they could go to breakfast together. The rest of the Marauders and most of Lily's friends had gone on ahead, but James had decided to wait for Lily, who was apparently off to a slow start this morning.

The weeks following Halloween had been the best ones Lily and James had spent together since the beginning of their short relationship. Finally clear about each other's feelings, neither of them felt quite as awkward with the other as they had felt previously. Simple things like making plans or being together in front of other people were a bit easier now that neither of them was constantly worrying about being dumped.

James had gone about in a constant state of euphoria since that night. Not only had he not been dumped over the jack o' lantern incident, Lily had officially become his girlfriend. Consequently she relaxed a bit more around him, allowing him to see for the first time ever a Lily Evans who neither hated him nor felt awkward round him, and James was finding that he fancied this person very much. Lily was much less uptight and rigid than he'd thought, and was unexpectedly funny. He'd always known she was brilliant, but the more time James spent with her the more he realized how genuinely kind she was as well. Most of Lily's concern for people like Snape and for first years and prank victims didn't come from some sort of obsessive penchant for following the rules, James noticed, but because she didn't want for anyone to be at a disadvantage or to be miserable. James admired this compassion a lot, he found. Never having been a person who thought much about how certain actions or comments might affect other people, Lily's sympathy was something of a revelation to him.

James looked up to see Lily coming down the last step, smiling her brilliant smile at him, and of course James' insides responded with their usual gymnastics.

"Thanks for waiting," Lily kissed James in greeting.

"Naturally," James replied loftily, smirking winningly at her. Lily rolled her eyes, but took James' hand nonetheless and the two made their way to the Great Hall.

*** 

"Took the pair of you long enough," Sirius greeted Lily and James as they slid into the seats he had saved. 

Lily shot Sirius a sour look. Ever since James had told them about what she had said about their pumpkins, the Marauders had been ribbing Lily continually about her interest in their prank and about her knowledge of things like Hurling Hexes. So quite naturally, Sirius, who was not surprisingly the ringleader in all of the teasing, was not one of Lily's favourite people at the moment.

James' lips twitched over this exchange between his best friend and girlfriend but knew better than to laugh. His mates' teasing had reminded Lily how dangerous the pumpkin incident could have been and she'd been a bit shirty with James over the whole thing. More than a bit, really, especially after learning that the joke had backfired and the pumpkins hadn't been meant to smash into people. They'd had a fairly magnificent row over the whole thing until they'd remembered that the whole thing HAD actually been rather funny and that no real harm had been done.

Peter, however, sniggered in support of Sirius, happy simply because he was no longer being blamed for the whole practical joke mishap and because the teasing had been diverted from him. He'd found the right spell, after all, he'd just written down the wrong incantation, mistakenly substituting the incantation they'd wanted with the one from the facing page. The Marauders had long since forgiven him after making it perfectly clear that next time he wouldn't be trusted with such an important task and that they would never let him forget it.