The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Bickering

Bickering

Remus Lupin looked restless already by Saturday morning, when James came back from the girls' dorms. He took off his glasses, dropping them carelessly on the night stand, and threw himself onto the bed, hiding under his duvet, clearly hurting. "Prongs, I can tell you're upset," he said, "And I would come over and badger you 'til you told me what the matter was if it wasn't for the fact that I'm shackled to the bed over here."

James had curled up on his side, hugging his knees, staring blankly at the side of Sirius's empty bed. "I'm fine," he lied.

"You don't look fine," Remus argued. Sirius snored loudly and his head shifted on Remus's shoulder.

"Looks can be deceiving, Moony," James murmured.

Remus wiggled his wrist, making the chains clink loudly and Sirius murmured, "Don't you go trying to escape, Moonshine."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Remus sighed.

James felt terrible, though, whether he would admit that to his mates or not. Really, there was nothing to admit to them. They didn't believe him that Lily Evans had been snogging him to begin with so to say that he was hurt because she'd basically said that she didn't still like him wouldn't really be surprising to them at all. He could almost hear Sirius making some joke ("Like that's a shocker!"). So he lay in his bed staring blurrily at the wall pretending he couldn't hear Remus whispering to Sirius later, when he woke up and asked what was going on, that James had come back upset ("no, I don't know where he was at all night").

James didn't understand what he was doing wrong. Sometimes Lily Evans was so, so, so nice to him - sometimes it seemed like she liked him back, like she wanted him around. She'd say things that made his stomach turn to butterflies and it would leap about like a gazelle inside of him, bouncing off his ribs... but then she'd suddenly go quiet and she'd push him away...

He loved her so much... and he still wasn't sure if she liked him at all.

She hadn't said she did when he told her that.

Perhaps she didn't.

Perhaps she never would.

The thought made James sick.

He didn't reckon he could ever love anyone that wasn't Lily Evans. Other than Maryrose, he'd never even been distracted by another girl, despite how they threw themselves in his path.

It occurred to him suddenly that to Lily Evans he might just be one of those people throwing himself in her path. Like Annalee did to him. Like Carly did to Sirius.

James didn't want to be Lily Evans's Carly Shaw.

He wanted to be Lily Evans's Remus Lupin.

He hugged his knees to his chest even tighter and wondered what would happen to him - to his heart - if he never was that.

The lie-in protest was lasting longer than anybody - excepting Sirius, that is - thought it would.

On his bed Monday morning - after having spent Sunday sneaking about the castle, avoiding anything that might mean he would see Lily Evans - James sat on the edge of his bed, his tie hanging undone around his neck, "C'mon you lot. Don't make me go to Potions alone. It's team day and if you lot don't go I'm going to have to sit with Evans and ---"

Sirius interrupted, "Prongs. Last term you would've slit my throat for trying to keep you from getting paired off with Evans in Potions, first off. B, even if we did go, do you really think I'm going to pair off with you when I could sit with Moony? And fourth of all, we're protesting. We're busy."