Too Little Too Late

Chapter 21 | Edited

It was the day before the school Hogsmede trip when the death eaters attacked the village in midday. It seems that they had gotten the day wrong, thinking that the students were going on the Saturday and not the Sunday. The death eaters had wanted to attack the Hogwarts students, to significantly damage the next generation of witches and wizards who could possibly fight against them.

Dumbledore gravely told the student population that they would not be having another Hogsmede trip while the war was still going. They could not afford to put the students in that danger now that they were aware that the death eaters actively wanted to attack the students. While disappointment could be heard in the voices of everyone who spoke about the matter, none of them would have wanted to visit the village knowing that they would be in danger now. The village itself was in mourning. Many of its occupants had been killed in the death eater's anger, including the old man who owned the three broomsticks. He had left the pub to his daughter, who had been a barmaid in the pub for the last couple of years since she had left Hogwarts. She refused to open the pub back up until after her father's funeral. Other occupants of the village understood this and helped to support the grieving girl, her mother had died when she was a child and so she had just lost the only parent that she had ever know, like so many other people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This tragedy also meant that Sirius had to plan a whole new first date for himself and Layla the next day, as he had not counted on not being allowed to visit Hogsmede and thus hadn't had a backup plan set up.

"James what do I do? What sort of dates have you taken Lily on?" Sirius asked with anguish Saturday night. He had run out of ideas, and he had wanted their first date to be special.

"Uhm I'm not sure what you could do without going to Hogsmede." James answered honesty, looking apologetic.

"Take her to the room of requirement. Have the elves cook spaghetti carbonara. Have some Elvis on in the background, and a fireplace going. She'll like it, trust me." Came a voice from the corner of their dormitory. Remus, it seemed, had decided to help him once again, 'for the last time' he had told himself. 'Besides, it's not like Sirius could have helped this one, and he had planned a date for them already. It wasn't his fault that Hogsmede was closed for them. And, he wanted them both to be happy, even if that meant that he couldn't be.'

Sirius seemed to inflate with the idea, a smile spread quickly across his face as he began to imagine how their date tomorrow would go. "Thank you Moony, that's absolutely brilliant. She will love it."

James shot Remus a concerned look as the boy disappeared again behind his transfiguration text book. Remus had been withdrawing himself more and more as of late. James could remember how Remus acted during their OWL year, and he had withdrawn into himself somewhat, but he had more wanted to be quizzed by the other boys. He had also believed that teaching was the best way of learning and thus had been tutoring the others as much as he could, which obviously helped them all greatly. Especially Peter. Now though, Remus didn't talk to anyone, he didn't even try to help the others study. 'In fact', James noted, 'he only really seemed to talk to others about their exams when they asked him.'

Unfortunately, Remus wasn't the only friend that James was worried about. Peter had been disappearing for hours at a time. James thought that he was probably just nervous about the upcoming exams (that were only three weeks away) and what they were going to do after they had graduated. He had to admit to himself that he was nervous about what they would be doing post-hogwarts too. He knew that he wanted to be with Lily, forever if he could be, and that he was trying to get the grades to become an auror. Apart from that however, he had no idea. Would he continue to live with his parents? Probably. What would he do until he got his exam results in late June (the NEWT students always got their results before the OWL students as they were needing the results to get a job, whereas OWL students would just be going back to school. Despite James' own nerves and concerns for the future, he found that his biggest worries at this moment were his friends. Remus was withdrawing from everything and everyone, Peter was disappearing and constantly worried, Sirius could only focus on Layla despite needing good exam results to be an auror. 

The end of the year drawing closer really was playing on James' mind. 

Yet there was one silver lining. Lily. He still couldn't quite believe that she was now his. She was the girl that he had always dreamed of, the girl that he knew was destined for her since the moment that they had first met. And now, she liked him nearly as much as he liked her. They had been steadily dating for about a month now, and it was the best month of his life. He had loved every second of being hers. 

All of James' worries seemed to disappear as he thought of Lily. She really was everything he could have ever asked for.