Dwelling on Dreams (A Marauders Fan Fic)

Love Problems

“I just don’t understand,” said Cassie as she sat on the train with Lily. “I mean, he’s so changeable! He’s like a girl! He went from ignoring for years to annoying me to friends and back to ignoring me! And they say girls are hard to understand!”

“Maybe he likes you and he’s jealous,” suggested Mary.

“He would never like me,” Cassie said derisively. “By the way, where’s Alice? I need to give her Christmas present to her.”

“She’s with Frank in his carriage; she said she’d come back in a bit.”

“Oh yeah! They’re so cute!” said Cassie happily as the doors to their carriage opened and James and Sirius barged in.

“What are you doing in here?” they exclaimed in surprise as James and Sirius jumped onto the seats, bouncing up and down. Sirius pulled Cassie onto his lap, revelling in the feel of her in his arms as he wrapped them around her. Cassie struggled to get free, wriggling against him incessantly until she finally gave up after about ten minutes. With their arrival the conversation became a lot louder and the carriage was filled with boisterous shouts as they invaded it.

“Please leave,” Lily begged from underneath James’ arms. Their fight was interrupted by the arrival of Rob, Cassie jumping up as soon as he entered, taking advantage of Sirius’ arms loosening. “Hey beautiful,” he said as he kissed her, Sirius retching behind them, the untameable jealousy rearing its head. “I’ve got a present for you,” he said as they pulled apart, Sirius elbowing Rob in the side as he and James left.

“So do I,” she said as she pulled out a small gift, “but don’t open it here; I don’t want to see you open it.”

He sat down next to her, wrapping one of his arms around her as he talked to Lily and Mary, joining in with their conversation easily, more welcome by far than James and Sirius had been.

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“I don’t know what she sees in him!” complained Sirius as they returned to their carriage.

“Maybe she likes him,” said Remus from the other side of the carriage.

“No! She can’t! She can’t possibly like that… annoying, pompous, do-gooding…”

“Do-gooding?” queried Pettigrew.

“Yeah. I bet he’s never broken a school rule in his life.”

“You never complained about him before Padfoot,” said Remus. “Anyway, why can’t she like him?”

“She just can’t!” he replied.

“Yeah well that was before he started going out with Cassie, wasn’t it?” said James knowingly.

“Aha!” said Pettigrew. “You finally admitted it!”

“Well it was pretty obvious before wasn’t it? I mean, Prongs figured it out ages ago and look at him.”

“It is true that he barely has two brain cells to rub together,” agreed Remus.

“Hey! I would like you to know that I have three and I am rather proud of them!” argued James as he grabbed another Chocolate Frog and threw himself down on the seat of the carriage. “And you’d better watch it Padfoot or I won’t take you home with me!”

“I’m seventeen now Prongs, I could buy myself a house.”

“Yeah but it wouldn’t be as fun would it? I mean, I know the first thing that I’m going to do is to build myself a snow fort. Provided you’re up for the challenge it presents, of course.”