FIC: The Oracle of Gryffindor - 2/3
Title: The Oracle of Gryffindor
Rating: R for what is implied and discussed, nothing explicit written
Pairing: Remus Lupin and Sirius Black
Warnings: Slash, some crude language
Genre: Romance, Humour
Length: 10,067 (total fic)
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
Summary: James Potter believes he is having visions of the future. But what happens when he sees more than he ever wanted to of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin?
Chapter 2
“You didn’t tell me you were going to make him ‘see’ a wedding!” Lily complained. “With me as the bloody blushing bride!”
“You wouldn’t have helped me with the potion if I’d told you,” Remus replied sheepishly.
“You should have told me,” Lily accused with a glare that made Remus wonder, not for the first time, whether James would ever get the girl to date him.
“I had to make sure that the first vision was something he’d believe,” Remus explained.
“Why would he believe that?”
“Because he’s…” Remus’s voice trailed off as he tried to think of a way to describe James without making him sound like an obsessed stalker.
“Because he’s an obsessed stalker?” Lily supplied, since she knew James almost as well as Remus did. “I thought the whole point of this prank of yours was to sort out you-know-what?”
“It was.”
“Was?”
“Is.”
“You chickened out didn’t you?” Lily accused, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
“…”
“Remus!” Lily threw her hands in the air and began pacing the empty Transfiguration classroom where she had finally pinned Remus down to demand an explanation as to why James had, since the previous evening, told everyone from Professor Flitwick to Mrs Norris about the upcoming wedding.
“I just…”
“Chickened out,” Lily repeated.
“…”
“Oh Remus,” Lily sighed as she sat down on a chair next to the table where Remus was perched. “What happened to ‘this is the perfect way to find out what James would think of the idea’, and ‘I can find out if it’s just me without actually asking’ and ‘I can see if those moments mean what I think they do’?”
“It would have worked,” Remus muttered. “I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was going to. But I changed my mind at the last minute.”
“You’re supposed to be a Gryffindor,” Lily pointed out impatiently. “All brave and gung-ho and rushing in recklessly.”
“I’m a terrible Gryffindor,” Remus sighed. “I really wanted to use the prank to find out all that but…”
“But…?” Lily prompted after a few minutes of silence from Remus.
“What if I’m wrong?” Remus whispered. “What if it is just me? What if I’m the only one who keeps obsessing about those moments?”
“Well you’ll never know if you don’t make an effort to find out,” Lily pointed out reasonably.
Remus nodded silently and they sat quietly for a few more minutes.
“So what other visions have you got planned for James?” Lily asked. “Please tell me you haven’t given him the vision of a wedding night or anything else that involves me?”
“Why does everyone seem to think I’d want to imagine something like that?” Remus asked.
“Everyone?”
“Sirius,” Remus clarified.
“Ah!”
“I promise the rest of the stuff was general visions, like pranks and post arriving and…well stuff that I can easily set up to come true within a few hours. Oh, and I put in one of a surprise party for Peter since you just know that James is going to forget his birthday again. I wanted stuff that would convince him he was really a seer. I just left off the last one.”
“The important one.” Lily snorted. “The one the rest of the visions were supposed to be building up to.”
“It’s better this way,” Remus sighed.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because this way I can still imagine that I’m right and that those moments are what I think they are. Because if I’m wrong and he finds out what I thought then I won’t have even them to look forward to.”
“I probably don’t really want to know, but just how often do you obsess about this?”
Remus looked at Lily curiously. It wasn’t so much the question itself, as the tone of voice it was asked in. It was the same tone of voice James had used when asking him if he really wanted to read the book that he’d accidentally dropped out of the Astronomy Tower window. It was the tone of voice that meant there was something Remus didn’t know, something important and something which would no doubt cause him some degree of aggravation.
“Not that often.”
Lily raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe once or twice a day.”
A smirk joined the raised eyebrow.
“All the bloody time! Happy now?”
“You did read the footnotes in the spell book, right?”
“Huh?” Remus tried to figure out the direction Lily’s quick mind had gone in. It wasn’t that he was particularly slow at getting from point A to point B. It was just that Lily often went from point A to point E and expected everyone else to figure out the route she had taken.
“The footnotes,” Lily repeated with a trace of impatience. “The note that said that if anyone casting the spell had seer blood in their family, then strong subconscious thoughts could manifest themselves as visions in the person who drinks the potion.”
Remus breathed a sigh of relief. “I don’t have any seer blood in my family.”
“Are you sure?”
“Er.”
“What were the names of your great-great-grandparents?”
“Er…”
“See!” Lily crowed. “You don’t even know their names. You can’t be sure that there isn’t one in your family tree somewhere. That’s why it’s important to clear your mind of all thoughts when mentally picturing the things you want the potion drinker to see in their visions.”
“You don’t think that I might have accidentally…” Remus’s voice trailed off and he felt his stomach lurch.
“Could be interesting if you have,” Lily replied with a grin.
“Not the word I’d have chosen,” Remus muttered as he buried his head in his hands.
-o-xXx-o-
Remus couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the first ‘moment’ had happened. Nor could he recall when it was he’d first started to look forward to them. He just knew that for some time he’d been wondering…or more like obsessing…about them, and about the boy who was in the centre of them.
Whenever he was in one of those moments he was invariably with Sirius, and only vaguely aware of anything or anyone else around them. That Sirius seemed to be completely oblivious to the rest of the world only added to his confidence that it wasn’t just him who was aware of the nameless ‘something’ between them.
Whilst rummaging through an old textbook Remus had stumbled across the potion and spell to induce visions and the idea of planting a few visions in James’s mind had been too much to resist. It had only been later that he’d decided to use the prank to plant within James’s mind the idea of himself and Sirius as a couple. All he needed to do was to make him have a vision of himself and Sirius in one of those moments and for Remus to imagine taking things just a fraction further than either of them had gone.
But he’d turned Slytherin when the time came and hadn’t dared to implant the one vision that would put an end, one way or another, to all his obsessing. Instead the last vision would be the one of Peter’s party which was a nice climax to the week of visions but not what the way he’d once wanted to end it.
He pushed aside the horrible thought that Lily had put in his own mind…the thought that James might have an unplanned vision of himself and Sirius without his having set it up.
-o-xXx-o-
“I’m thinking a white tux,” James was saying when Remus entered the dorm later that day. “I know it was black in the vision but perhaps this is just so that I can make the appropriate changes after seeing things from an objective point of view. What do you think Padfoot?”
“Moony, save me!” Sirius wailed for what Remus was sure was the hundredth time that day.
“And the three of you will have to wear matching suits,” James ordered as he pointed a finger at each of them.
“I’m a pureblood wizard,” Sirius pointed out. “I don’t even own a muggle suit!”
“Well you’ll have to order one,” James replied with a wave of his hand.
“Mooooooneeeeeeey!” Sirius wailed again before trying to suffocate himself with his pillow.
“Now what about the flowers?” James continued. “Would it be too cliché to have Lilies?”
“I’d go for Amaryllis if I were you,” Remus suggested with a smirk. Three blank faces stared back at him and he groaned and shook his head as he explained the meaning of the flower. Sirius and Peter grinned and agreed that the flower that meant pride was the perfect one for Prongs.
James on the other hand ignored the suggestion and turned to Sirius. “Have you made a start on your speech yet?”
“Speech?”
“The best man has to give a speech.”
“Oh that speech,” Sirius replied, shooting another glare at Remus. “No I haven’t. Thought I’d leave it until the stag night, which incidentally is the only thing I’ve heard so far in the planning that sounds even remotely interesting.”
“That won’t give you enough time to catalogue all my virtues,” James pointed out frantically. “You really need to get started right away.”
Sirius glared at James, glared at Remus, threw a pillow at James and stood up. “I’m going to go take a shower. And if I hear a single word about bloody bridal showers for Evans I’ll not be held responsible for my actions. Is that clear?”
Remus chuckled to himself as Sirius stalked towards the bathroom. It was a moment before he realised that James wasn’t answering. Apparently Sirius had the same realisation and when he reached the door he turned back for a moment.
“Prongs?” Peter asked curiously as he waved a hand in front of James’s face.
Remus frowned and mentally backtracked over Sirius’s last words. The words to trigger the visions could be said by anyone but he was sure that Sirius hadn’t said one of them. He’d made sure that the words were ones that wouldn’t crop up in a normal conversation. He hoped that the word bridal might have triggered a repeat of the vision that the word bride had caused but the lurching in his stomach betrayed his anxiety at the possibility that Lily might have been right and that he’d subconsciously given James an unplanned vision.
“So what’s he seeing now?” Sirius asked as Peter looked at them curiously.
Remus took a moment to explain the prank to Peter, who was sworn to secrecy immediately.
“So what is he seeing?” Peter asked as Sirius clicked his fingers in front of James’s face, hoping for a reaction.
“I don’t know,” Remus admitted. “He shouldn’t be seeing anything at the moment.”
“Well clearly he is,” Sirius pointed out. “Seems to be lasting a while too. We must have used a word that triggers one.”
“No we haven’t,” Remus insisted as he pulled the list of words out of the pocket of his robes to double check.
“I think he’s coming out of it,” Peter said, leaning forward in anticipation.
James blinked slowly a couple of times as he looked around the room. All the colour had drained from his face and he looked from one boy to the other in turn.
“Prongs?” Sirius asked with a grin. “Did you have another vision?”
“What did you see?” Peter added.
“I…I…” James shook his head wildly before leaping up from his bed and bolting from the room.
“What the hell?” Sirius asked.
Remus squirmed on his bed and rubbed his nose nervously.
“What did he see?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know,” Remus admitted quietly, wondering just what subconscious thoughts had been running through his mind at the exact time he’d cast the spell.
-o-xXx-o-
“Potter?”
James looked up at the familiar voice of Lily Evans and for the first time in his life he didn’t know what to say.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked as she sat down next to him on the courtyard bench.
“I had a vision,” James muttered.
“So you said.”
“Another one.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“It was…I saw…they were…oh Merlin…”
“They?” Lily asked with a concerned frown that didn’t give away that she already knew, or at least suspected, exactly who ‘they’ were.
“RemusandSirius,” James blurted.
“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.”
“Remus and Sirius,” James shouted.
Lily hesitated to ask what precisely it was that James had seen. She could already tell from James’s reaction that it was something from Remus’s subconscious mind, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know what sort of thoughts Remus had been having about Sirius.
It seemed however that James didn’t want to know about those thoughts either, but he did and now he’d started talking Lily was going to hear about them too…whether she wanted to or not.
“I saw them together.”
Like they aren’t in each other’s pockets all the time anyway.
“In the boys’ bathroom.”
Well really Potter, you have shared the bathroom with them for over six years now. Chances are they’ve used the facilities at the same time before now.
“In the shower.”
Why don’t I like the sound of where this is going?
“Together.”
I really don’t need to hear this.
“Naked.”
You can shut up now Potter.
“And Sirius was…he was…”
Wow, the power of the mind is really something. He’s actually shutting up. No, wait a minute…I guess he was only pausing for breath.
“He was on his knees in the shower and he was giving Remus a blow job.”
This is karma. I help Remus pull a prank and this is my punishment.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” James asked after a moment of silence.
“It’s bad karma,” replied Lily, saying the first thing that came into her head.
“What? How do you figure that? What could I have possibly done to deserve seeing my two best mates like that?”
“Er James,” Lily hesitated, partly because she rarely used his Christian name and partly because she wasn’t sure what to say without firstly betraying Remus’s confidence and secondly incriminating herself.
“What?” James mumbled from where his head was buried in his hands.
“Um. Not that I believe these visions are real or anything…”
“You think I’d make this up?” James shouted. “That I’d be thinking about my friends doing stuff like that with each other?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Just if you forget about the vision for a moment and think about your friends. Have you never thought, even for an instant, that maybe there’s something more between them than friendship?”
“I must have blocked it out,” James declared suddenly.
“What?” Lily asked, completely confused. If Remus had been privy to the conversation he would have considered pointing out to Lily that she and James were on the same type of route planners when it came to conversations. Unfortunately he wasn’t and all Lily could do was open and close her mouth a few times as she tried to figure out what James was talking about now.
“I must have seen them together, walked in on them or something, and blocked it out of my mind,” James explained. “Now my seer powers are kicking in, it’s bringing it all back.”
“Well, as long as that’s sorted,” Lily smiled and stood up. James had jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion but at least he seemed to be recovering from his initial shock and she had the opening to make her escape.
-o-xXx-o-
Lily marched into the boys’ dormitory, and gave the overwhelming impression of a girl on a mission.
“Peter, James needs you down in the kitchens.”
Peter looked back at her mutely.
“That means bugger off,” Lily explained, pointing meaningfully at the door.
“I’ll come with you,” Remus offered.
Lily however had other plans in mind for him and shoved him backwards onto the bed. “Oh no you don’t,” she warned.
“I’ll leave you two to it then,” Sirius said as he crept towards the door.
“Black! Bed!” Lily commanded as she shot him a glare. Sirius, with almost canine instincts, sat on the bed abruptly.
Five minutes later and the two boys had still not dared to move from their respective beds.
“Evans?” Sirius asked impatiently. “Did you actually want something?”
“Want something?” Lily squealed. “WANT SOMETHING?”
“Lily?” Remus stood up and steered her towards James’s bed. Perhaps the knowledge that Lily Evans had once sat on his bed would help James recover from whatever it was he’d seen.
“I just had a lovely little chat with James,” Lily hissed through clenched teeth. “He is now convinced - and I am in no way to blame for him thinking this - he now thinks that what he saw in his vision has already happened and that he somehow blocked it out of his mind.”
“You know what he saw?” Remus whispered.
“What was it?” Sirius excitedly asked as he hopped off his bed in glee. “What did he see?”
Lily ignored him and turned to Remus. “You remember what we talked about earlier?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess you have seer blood somewhere in your ancestry.”
“Oh.”
“What’s going on?” Sirius asked. “What are you talking about?”
“How bad are we talking here?” Remus asked, ignoring Sirius entirely.
“Well you know what sort of vision you planned to include but didn’t?” Lily said with a wary glance at Sirius from the corner of her eye.
“He got it anyway?” Remus guessed.
“He got the x-rated version of it,” Lily hissed.
“…”
“What are you two going on about?” Sirius whined.
“You’re joking right?” Remus pleaded. “Lily, please tell me you’re joking?”
“The shower!” Lily snapped, glancing meaningfully towards the door to the bathroom.
“You’re not joking.” Remus paled considerably and he wondered how he’d ever be able to face Prongs again.
That one word - shower - told him all he needed to know.
Sirius was forever walking in on him when he was taking a shower. He’d be wanting to borrow his comb or checking what the homework due that morning was, or something equally trivial…something that could easily wait until he emerged from the bathroom. But Sirius had never been known for his patience and had taken to barging into the bathroom whenever he liked, just like he’d done on the morning Remus had cast the spell to go with the potion.
“Hey Moony? You in here?”
“No!” Remus called back as he reached for the shampoo.
“I’m not going to fall for that one,” Sirius said with a smirk as he peered round the door. “You alone in here?”
“What do you want Padfoot?”
“I wanted to ask you something,” Sirius said as he sidled over to the showers.
“Let me guess. You haven’t done your Defence homework and want to borrow my essay?”
“Am I that transparent?”
“Afraid so.”
“So can I?”
Remus sighed. “At least put it into your own words this time.”
“Thanks Moony,” Sirius gushed.
“It’s in my bag under the bed.”
“Thanks.”
“…”
“…”
“Padfoot?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you still here?”
Sirius had mumbled something Remus hadn’t been able to catch before heading back to the dorm. Remus meanwhile had turned off the hot tap so that he was doused in freezing cold water, and tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to push any and all thoughts of Sirius joining him in the shower out of his mind.
“Remus?” Lily’s voice drifted towards him through the sea of panic that was threatening to engulf him. “Remus, you need to breathe.”
“Moony?” Sirius’s voice joined Lily’s and the panic increased tenfold. “Evans! What have you done to him?”
“Me? I’m just trying to help!”
“By charging in here, screeching nonsense?”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“Does it look like you’ve helped him?”
“He’s just in shock.”
“That you put him in!”
“I just…”
“Just get out of here Evans!”
“But…”
“I’ll take care of Remus.”
“I’m not leaving him alone with you.”
“You’re the one who made me stay here.”
“I only did that because this is about you too.”
“What’s about me too?”
“This!”
“This what? You’re making even less sense than usual and that’s saying something. The last time you sounded this deluded was back in fifth year when you were harping on about how Snivellus wasn’t as bad as we thought.”
“This!” Lily exclaimed, waving her arms around in a frantic sort of gesture that only succeeded in clocking Remus around the head as he sat back up again.
Remus groaned and clutched his head. If he was expecting an apology from Lily though, he was sadly mistaken.
Lily and Sirius continued to yell at each other while Remus, keeping an eye open for flailing arms, ducked out of the room and left them to it.
Chapter 3
Rating: R for what is implied and discussed, nothing explicit written
Pairing: Remus Lupin and Sirius Black
Warnings: Slash, some crude language
Genre: Romance, Humour
Length: 10,067 (total fic)
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
Summary: James Potter believes he is having visions of the future. But what happens when he sees more than he ever wanted to of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin?
Chapter 2
“You didn’t tell me you were going to make him ‘see’ a wedding!” Lily complained. “With me as the bloody blushing bride!”
“You wouldn’t have helped me with the potion if I’d told you,” Remus replied sheepishly.
“You should have told me,” Lily accused with a glare that made Remus wonder, not for the first time, whether James would ever get the girl to date him.
“I had to make sure that the first vision was something he’d believe,” Remus explained.
“Why would he believe that?”
“Because he’s…” Remus’s voice trailed off as he tried to think of a way to describe James without making him sound like an obsessed stalker.
“Because he’s an obsessed stalker?” Lily supplied, since she knew James almost as well as Remus did. “I thought the whole point of this prank of yours was to sort out you-know-what?”
“It was.”
“Was?”
“Is.”
“You chickened out didn’t you?” Lily accused, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
“…”
“Remus!” Lily threw her hands in the air and began pacing the empty Transfiguration classroom where she had finally pinned Remus down to demand an explanation as to why James had, since the previous evening, told everyone from Professor Flitwick to Mrs Norris about the upcoming wedding.
“I just…”
“Chickened out,” Lily repeated.
“…”
“Oh Remus,” Lily sighed as she sat down on a chair next to the table where Remus was perched. “What happened to ‘this is the perfect way to find out what James would think of the idea’, and ‘I can find out if it’s just me without actually asking’ and ‘I can see if those moments mean what I think they do’?”
“It would have worked,” Remus muttered. “I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was going to. But I changed my mind at the last minute.”
“You’re supposed to be a Gryffindor,” Lily pointed out impatiently. “All brave and gung-ho and rushing in recklessly.”
“I’m a terrible Gryffindor,” Remus sighed. “I really wanted to use the prank to find out all that but…”
“But…?” Lily prompted after a few minutes of silence from Remus.
“What if I’m wrong?” Remus whispered. “What if it is just me? What if I’m the only one who keeps obsessing about those moments?”
“Well you’ll never know if you don’t make an effort to find out,” Lily pointed out reasonably.
Remus nodded silently and they sat quietly for a few more minutes.
“So what other visions have you got planned for James?” Lily asked. “Please tell me you haven’t given him the vision of a wedding night or anything else that involves me?”
“Why does everyone seem to think I’d want to imagine something like that?” Remus asked.
“Everyone?”
“Sirius,” Remus clarified.
“Ah!”
“I promise the rest of the stuff was general visions, like pranks and post arriving and…well stuff that I can easily set up to come true within a few hours. Oh, and I put in one of a surprise party for Peter since you just know that James is going to forget his birthday again. I wanted stuff that would convince him he was really a seer. I just left off the last one.”
“The important one.” Lily snorted. “The one the rest of the visions were supposed to be building up to.”
“It’s better this way,” Remus sighed.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because this way I can still imagine that I’m right and that those moments are what I think they are. Because if I’m wrong and he finds out what I thought then I won’t have even them to look forward to.”
“I probably don’t really want to know, but just how often do you obsess about this?”
Remus looked at Lily curiously. It wasn’t so much the question itself, as the tone of voice it was asked in. It was the same tone of voice James had used when asking him if he really wanted to read the book that he’d accidentally dropped out of the Astronomy Tower window. It was the tone of voice that meant there was something Remus didn’t know, something important and something which would no doubt cause him some degree of aggravation.
“Not that often.”
Lily raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe once or twice a day.”
A smirk joined the raised eyebrow.
“All the bloody time! Happy now?”
“You did read the footnotes in the spell book, right?”
“Huh?” Remus tried to figure out the direction Lily’s quick mind had gone in. It wasn’t that he was particularly slow at getting from point A to point B. It was just that Lily often went from point A to point E and expected everyone else to figure out the route she had taken.
“The footnotes,” Lily repeated with a trace of impatience. “The note that said that if anyone casting the spell had seer blood in their family, then strong subconscious thoughts could manifest themselves as visions in the person who drinks the potion.”
Remus breathed a sigh of relief. “I don’t have any seer blood in my family.”
“Are you sure?”
“Er.”
“What were the names of your great-great-grandparents?”
“Er…”
“See!” Lily crowed. “You don’t even know their names. You can’t be sure that there isn’t one in your family tree somewhere. That’s why it’s important to clear your mind of all thoughts when mentally picturing the things you want the potion drinker to see in their visions.”
“You don’t think that I might have accidentally…” Remus’s voice trailed off and he felt his stomach lurch.
“Could be interesting if you have,” Lily replied with a grin.
“Not the word I’d have chosen,” Remus muttered as he buried his head in his hands.
-o-xXx-o-
Remus couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the first ‘moment’ had happened. Nor could he recall when it was he’d first started to look forward to them. He just knew that for some time he’d been wondering…or more like obsessing…about them, and about the boy who was in the centre of them.
Whenever he was in one of those moments he was invariably with Sirius, and only vaguely aware of anything or anyone else around them. That Sirius seemed to be completely oblivious to the rest of the world only added to his confidence that it wasn’t just him who was aware of the nameless ‘something’ between them.
Whilst rummaging through an old textbook Remus had stumbled across the potion and spell to induce visions and the idea of planting a few visions in James’s mind had been too much to resist. It had only been later that he’d decided to use the prank to plant within James’s mind the idea of himself and Sirius as a couple. All he needed to do was to make him have a vision of himself and Sirius in one of those moments and for Remus to imagine taking things just a fraction further than either of them had gone.
But he’d turned Slytherin when the time came and hadn’t dared to implant the one vision that would put an end, one way or another, to all his obsessing. Instead the last vision would be the one of Peter’s party which was a nice climax to the week of visions but not what the way he’d once wanted to end it.
He pushed aside the horrible thought that Lily had put in his own mind…the thought that James might have an unplanned vision of himself and Sirius without his having set it up.
-o-xXx-o-
“I’m thinking a white tux,” James was saying when Remus entered the dorm later that day. “I know it was black in the vision but perhaps this is just so that I can make the appropriate changes after seeing things from an objective point of view. What do you think Padfoot?”
“Moony, save me!” Sirius wailed for what Remus was sure was the hundredth time that day.
“And the three of you will have to wear matching suits,” James ordered as he pointed a finger at each of them.
“I’m a pureblood wizard,” Sirius pointed out. “I don’t even own a muggle suit!”
“Well you’ll have to order one,” James replied with a wave of his hand.
“Mooooooneeeeeeey!” Sirius wailed again before trying to suffocate himself with his pillow.
“Now what about the flowers?” James continued. “Would it be too cliché to have Lilies?”
“I’d go for Amaryllis if I were you,” Remus suggested with a smirk. Three blank faces stared back at him and he groaned and shook his head as he explained the meaning of the flower. Sirius and Peter grinned and agreed that the flower that meant pride was the perfect one for Prongs.
James on the other hand ignored the suggestion and turned to Sirius. “Have you made a start on your speech yet?”
“Speech?”
“The best man has to give a speech.”
“Oh that speech,” Sirius replied, shooting another glare at Remus. “No I haven’t. Thought I’d leave it until the stag night, which incidentally is the only thing I’ve heard so far in the planning that sounds even remotely interesting.”
“That won’t give you enough time to catalogue all my virtues,” James pointed out frantically. “You really need to get started right away.”
Sirius glared at James, glared at Remus, threw a pillow at James and stood up. “I’m going to go take a shower. And if I hear a single word about bloody bridal showers for Evans I’ll not be held responsible for my actions. Is that clear?”
Remus chuckled to himself as Sirius stalked towards the bathroom. It was a moment before he realised that James wasn’t answering. Apparently Sirius had the same realisation and when he reached the door he turned back for a moment.
“Prongs?” Peter asked curiously as he waved a hand in front of James’s face.
Remus frowned and mentally backtracked over Sirius’s last words. The words to trigger the visions could be said by anyone but he was sure that Sirius hadn’t said one of them. He’d made sure that the words were ones that wouldn’t crop up in a normal conversation. He hoped that the word bridal might have triggered a repeat of the vision that the word bride had caused but the lurching in his stomach betrayed his anxiety at the possibility that Lily might have been right and that he’d subconsciously given James an unplanned vision.
“So what’s he seeing now?” Sirius asked as Peter looked at them curiously.
Remus took a moment to explain the prank to Peter, who was sworn to secrecy immediately.
“So what is he seeing?” Peter asked as Sirius clicked his fingers in front of James’s face, hoping for a reaction.
“I don’t know,” Remus admitted. “He shouldn’t be seeing anything at the moment.”
“Well clearly he is,” Sirius pointed out. “Seems to be lasting a while too. We must have used a word that triggers one.”
“No we haven’t,” Remus insisted as he pulled the list of words out of the pocket of his robes to double check.
“I think he’s coming out of it,” Peter said, leaning forward in anticipation.
James blinked slowly a couple of times as he looked around the room. All the colour had drained from his face and he looked from one boy to the other in turn.
“Prongs?” Sirius asked with a grin. “Did you have another vision?”
“What did you see?” Peter added.
“I…I…” James shook his head wildly before leaping up from his bed and bolting from the room.
“What the hell?” Sirius asked.
Remus squirmed on his bed and rubbed his nose nervously.
“What did he see?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know,” Remus admitted quietly, wondering just what subconscious thoughts had been running through his mind at the exact time he’d cast the spell.
-o-xXx-o-
“Potter?”
James looked up at the familiar voice of Lily Evans and for the first time in his life he didn’t know what to say.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked as she sat down next to him on the courtyard bench.
“I had a vision,” James muttered.
“So you said.”
“Another one.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“It was…I saw…they were…oh Merlin…”
“They?” Lily asked with a concerned frown that didn’t give away that she already knew, or at least suspected, exactly who ‘they’ were.
“RemusandSirius,” James blurted.
“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.”
“Remus and Sirius,” James shouted.
Lily hesitated to ask what precisely it was that James had seen. She could already tell from James’s reaction that it was something from Remus’s subconscious mind, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know what sort of thoughts Remus had been having about Sirius.
It seemed however that James didn’t want to know about those thoughts either, but he did and now he’d started talking Lily was going to hear about them too…whether she wanted to or not.
“I saw them together.”
Like they aren’t in each other’s pockets all the time anyway.
“In the boys’ bathroom.”
Well really Potter, you have shared the bathroom with them for over six years now. Chances are they’ve used the facilities at the same time before now.
“In the shower.”
Why don’t I like the sound of where this is going?
“Together.”
I really don’t need to hear this.
“Naked.”
You can shut up now Potter.
“And Sirius was…he was…”
Wow, the power of the mind is really something. He’s actually shutting up. No, wait a minute…I guess he was only pausing for breath.
“He was on his knees in the shower and he was giving Remus a blow job.”
This is karma. I help Remus pull a prank and this is my punishment.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” James asked after a moment of silence.
“It’s bad karma,” replied Lily, saying the first thing that came into her head.
“What? How do you figure that? What could I have possibly done to deserve seeing my two best mates like that?”
“Er James,” Lily hesitated, partly because she rarely used his Christian name and partly because she wasn’t sure what to say without firstly betraying Remus’s confidence and secondly incriminating herself.
“What?” James mumbled from where his head was buried in his hands.
“Um. Not that I believe these visions are real or anything…”
“You think I’d make this up?” James shouted. “That I’d be thinking about my friends doing stuff like that with each other?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Just if you forget about the vision for a moment and think about your friends. Have you never thought, even for an instant, that maybe there’s something more between them than friendship?”
“I must have blocked it out,” James declared suddenly.
“What?” Lily asked, completely confused. If Remus had been privy to the conversation he would have considered pointing out to Lily that she and James were on the same type of route planners when it came to conversations. Unfortunately he wasn’t and all Lily could do was open and close her mouth a few times as she tried to figure out what James was talking about now.
“I must have seen them together, walked in on them or something, and blocked it out of my mind,” James explained. “Now my seer powers are kicking in, it’s bringing it all back.”
“Well, as long as that’s sorted,” Lily smiled and stood up. James had jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion but at least he seemed to be recovering from his initial shock and she had the opening to make her escape.
-o-xXx-o-
Lily marched into the boys’ dormitory, and gave the overwhelming impression of a girl on a mission.
“Peter, James needs you down in the kitchens.”
Peter looked back at her mutely.
“That means bugger off,” Lily explained, pointing meaningfully at the door.
“I’ll come with you,” Remus offered.
Lily however had other plans in mind for him and shoved him backwards onto the bed. “Oh no you don’t,” she warned.
“I’ll leave you two to it then,” Sirius said as he crept towards the door.
“Black! Bed!” Lily commanded as she shot him a glare. Sirius, with almost canine instincts, sat on the bed abruptly.
Five minutes later and the two boys had still not dared to move from their respective beds.
“Evans?” Sirius asked impatiently. “Did you actually want something?”
“Want something?” Lily squealed. “WANT SOMETHING?”
“Lily?” Remus stood up and steered her towards James’s bed. Perhaps the knowledge that Lily Evans had once sat on his bed would help James recover from whatever it was he’d seen.
“I just had a lovely little chat with James,” Lily hissed through clenched teeth. “He is now convinced - and I am in no way to blame for him thinking this - he now thinks that what he saw in his vision has already happened and that he somehow blocked it out of his mind.”
“You know what he saw?” Remus whispered.
“What was it?” Sirius excitedly asked as he hopped off his bed in glee. “What did he see?”
Lily ignored him and turned to Remus. “You remember what we talked about earlier?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess you have seer blood somewhere in your ancestry.”
“Oh.”
“What’s going on?” Sirius asked. “What are you talking about?”
“How bad are we talking here?” Remus asked, ignoring Sirius entirely.
“Well you know what sort of vision you planned to include but didn’t?” Lily said with a wary glance at Sirius from the corner of her eye.
“He got it anyway?” Remus guessed.
“He got the x-rated version of it,” Lily hissed.
“…”
“What are you two going on about?” Sirius whined.
“You’re joking right?” Remus pleaded. “Lily, please tell me you’re joking?”
“The shower!” Lily snapped, glancing meaningfully towards the door to the bathroom.
“You’re not joking.” Remus paled considerably and he wondered how he’d ever be able to face Prongs again.
That one word - shower - told him all he needed to know.
Sirius was forever walking in on him when he was taking a shower. He’d be wanting to borrow his comb or checking what the homework due that morning was, or something equally trivial…something that could easily wait until he emerged from the bathroom. But Sirius had never been known for his patience and had taken to barging into the bathroom whenever he liked, just like he’d done on the morning Remus had cast the spell to go with the potion.
“Hey Moony? You in here?”
“No!” Remus called back as he reached for the shampoo.
“I’m not going to fall for that one,” Sirius said with a smirk as he peered round the door. “You alone in here?”
“What do you want Padfoot?”
“I wanted to ask you something,” Sirius said as he sidled over to the showers.
“Let me guess. You haven’t done your Defence homework and want to borrow my essay?”
“Am I that transparent?”
“Afraid so.”
“So can I?”
Remus sighed. “At least put it into your own words this time.”
“Thanks Moony,” Sirius gushed.
“It’s in my bag under the bed.”
“Thanks.”
“…”
“…”
“Padfoot?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you still here?”
Sirius had mumbled something Remus hadn’t been able to catch before heading back to the dorm. Remus meanwhile had turned off the hot tap so that he was doused in freezing cold water, and tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to push any and all thoughts of Sirius joining him in the shower out of his mind.
“Remus?” Lily’s voice drifted towards him through the sea of panic that was threatening to engulf him. “Remus, you need to breathe.”
“Moony?” Sirius’s voice joined Lily’s and the panic increased tenfold. “Evans! What have you done to him?”
“Me? I’m just trying to help!”
“By charging in here, screeching nonsense?”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“Does it look like you’ve helped him?”
“He’s just in shock.”
“That you put him in!”
“I just…”
“Just get out of here Evans!”
“But…”
“I’ll take care of Remus.”
“I’m not leaving him alone with you.”
“You’re the one who made me stay here.”
“I only did that because this is about you too.”
“What’s about me too?”
“This!”
“This what? You’re making even less sense than usual and that’s saying something. The last time you sounded this deluded was back in fifth year when you were harping on about how Snivellus wasn’t as bad as we thought.”
“This!” Lily exclaimed, waving her arms around in a frantic sort of gesture that only succeeded in clocking Remus around the head as he sat back up again.
Remus groaned and clutched his head. If he was expecting an apology from Lily though, he was sadly mistaken.
Lily and Sirius continued to yell at each other while Remus, keeping an eye open for flailing arms, ducked out of the room and left them to it.
Chapter 3