Buy One, Get All Four

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BUY ONE, GET ALL FOUR

Summary:

"Your mates have been after me for months to go out with you," Lily said. "Why, didn't you put them up to it?"

"Me?" James sounded affronted. "You know I'd never stoop to such underhanded methods."


Characters: Lily, Sirius, Peter, Remus and James

Warnings: None

Words: 2,700

Acknowledgements: JKR for the characters, of course, and Jewels5 for a conversation between Lily and Sirius (in "The Life and Times") that inspired this particular story.


Story:

    Lily Evans opened the door of the seventh year girls' dormitory to find one Sirius Black, leaning against the doorframe and scowling.

"Black!" she yelped. Then, more composed: "How did you even get up here?"

Sirius pushed himself upright and crossed his arms. "Listen, Evans, I just came to say I guess I wouldn't mind if you went out with James."

"You came up here to – Look, thanks for the seal of approval, but I'm afraid I'm not planning to date James. Now or ever. Also, did you forget he's got a girlfriend?"

Sirius gave an exaggerated shudder. "How could I forget?"

Lily gave him the kind of look she usually reserved for third-years stupid enough to play with Fanged Frisbees in the corridors, where she'd see them and be forced to confiscate. "Look, I get that you don't like having your mate's time taken up by someone else, but Clara is a nice girl –"

"She's not a nice girl!" Sirius burst out. "She's done nothing but find ways to turn James against us. She's a conniving bint, that's what she is."

Then he broke off and had the decency to look slightly embarrassed.

Lily raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure she'll be up from dinner soon. Do you want me to tell her you said so?"

"No," he muttered.

"Then what do you want? Did you truly sneak up here just to whinge at me about James' girlfriend?"

Sirius regained his poise and leaned in closer, making his tone persuasive. "No, see, what I'm saying is, you wouldn't be a terrible choice. You're an okay sort, Evans. You're clever as all get out and dangerous in a duel, and you're honestly not bad-looking. You've certainly got practice putting up with all of us. I reckon you'd be tolerable, as girlfriends go."

"I'm flattered and all –" Lily paused. "Actually, in a certain bizarre way I am sort of flattered that you've changed your mind after six years of detesting me. But somehow your arguments haven't yet quite got me convinced to go steal your mate from his girlfriend."

"Never detested you, Evans," Sirius protested.

"Just jealous for James' attention, hm?"

"Something like that," he grumbled.

Lily leaned against the other side of the door, her posture mirroring his. "You know what, Sirius Black, I think you may finally be growing up."

He grinned at her. "Don't tell anybody, though."

"Wouldn't dream of tarnishing your reckless reputation."

"Ta for that. And listen –" Sirius leaned in again. "Just think about what I said, all right?"

"Yeah," Lily replied sarcastically. "If Clara ever does allow James out of her lip-lock for more than thirty seconds, I'll be sure to grab my chance."

Sirius looked over at her in surprise. "Saint Evans – do I detect jealousy?"

"Oh, no, no, no. Don't you dare paint me with that brush."

"Paint you – What?"

"Muggle saying. Now look, don't you have somewhere to be or something?"

"So eager to get rid of me? Afraid of the tidings of inevitable truth I bear?"

"How did you get up the girls' staircase, anyway? I don't need to dock points, do I?"

"All right, Evans, keep your hat on, I'm going!"

Lily watched Sirius scamper down the staircase and wondered just what kind of temporary counter-hex he'd cast to make the stairs stay stairs. "Mad, the lot of them," she muttered, and shook her head.

– – – – –

About a month later, Peter fell into step beside Lily on the way to Charms, his stride just a little too casual to be casual.

"D'you hear that James broke up with Clara?" he asked.

Lily looked toward the ceiling and sighed, "Why, why does everyone seem to think this is a matter that concerns me? You're the fifth person who's told me, and we're not even halfway to lunch."

"Oh, I'm just spreading the glad news to everyone," Peter assured her, and he was so good at playing wide-eyed innocence that for a second, she actually believed him. Then she remembered Peter was also, as those boys were always calling themselves, a "Marauder."

She turned without breaking her pace and pointed a warning finger at the boy beside her. "All right, listen, you. You're not setting me up with your mate, do you hear? None of you."

Peter's wide-eyed innocence went a shade wider. "Lily, what do you take me for?" he protested. "Only someone totally daft would try to get you to go out with James. You've made it clear enough you've never fancied him."

"Too right," Lily agreed firmly. "Besides, I'm sorry it ended between him and Clara. She's a nice girl."

Peter rolled his eyes, pretence gone. "Come on, even you don't believe that."

"Well, she's – you could certainly say she's –"

But Lily didn't manage to find a positive adjective to describe her classmate before they'd reached the Charms classroom. Peter ducked in first and grabbed a seat next to James and Sirius, who were already lounging in the back row. Sirius looked like the Kneazle that got into the Pixies, while James, well, James didn't look too broken up either. But then, apparently he was the one who'd ended it.

As Lily passed them, on her way to one of the seats up front, Sirius hissed at James loudly enough for Lily to hear, "So, when are you going to ask Evans out already? You've been a single man for, what, at least twelve hours now. Isn't that a personal not-asking-Evans-out record for you?"

Lily stoically ignored him, and out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of James getting in a good cuff to the back of Sirius' head – but not before James blushed, just a little.

Still, weeks passed, and he didn't. Ask her out, that is.

– – – – –

About a month later, Lily was scanning the library, despairing of finding a spot quiet enough that she would actually get work done.

Then her eye landed on Remus, alone at a small table in the back of the room. Thank Merlin for Remus.

"Hey, can I join you?" she asked, once she'd wended her way through to his table.

Remus looked up. "Yeah, of course." He pushed a few books aside to make room for her.

"What are you working on?" Lily asked, dropping her overloaded schoolbag onto the table with a groan.

Remus made a face too. "Potions. The theory part we're supposed to know for the quiz next week."

"I'll trade you help on any questions you have about Potions if you'll read over my essay for Transfig," she offered.

"Deal," Remus smiled.

They got in a solid hour on their respective assignments, then swapped papers. Lily checked to make sure he hadn't left out anything essential from his Potions notes, while Remus read her Transfiguration essay.

"This is good, Lily," Remus said when he handed it back. "Really good. I'd just say add maybe a couple inches on Vanishment. I know your topic falls under Conjuration, but it seems to me you can never talk about one without at least touching on the other."

"Thanks, Remus," Lily said. "And your notes are absolutely fine. I don't know why you think you're so rubbish at Potions."

"Because I'm just memorising it," Remus said. "I don't have that feeling for it like you do."

"Oh, come on, Slughorn's the only one who believes all that rubbish about 'natural talent.'"

"Be that as it may," Remus said, accepting his sheaf of notes back from Lily's hands. "Any other questions, or do you want to go down to dinner?"

"Actually –" Lily almost stopped herself, but then, if she couldn't ask Remus, who could she ask? "It's not about Transfiguration, though. Just sort of a question of idle curiosity."

Remus was already looking puzzled and Lily figured she'd better just spit it out. "It's just – James doesn't ask me out anymore."

"Is that a question?"

"Er – I guess, why doesn't he ask me out anymore?"

Remus' face took on an expression that was not quite a smile, yet somehow seemed like one. "Lily, I know this may be hard to fathom, but even a thick male skull is capable of getting a message through eventually. James may act like an idiot, I grant you that, but he's actually got his mental faculties more or less together."

"It's not – I mean, I'm glad he's stopped," Lily hastened to add. "There's a certain way in which it was flattering, but then, how terrible is that, to string a guy along just because it's a bit flattering, you know, that he keeps asking, but that's unfair to the bloke, right –"

"Lily," Remus said. "You know, it's okay if you fancy James."

Lily gaped at him. "I do not – I don't fancy James! Why would you think that?"

"I can keep a secret," Remus said, and Lily glared at him. He raised his hands in surrender. "All right, all right, or not."

"Circe's sake, Remus," she said. "Don't go telling people that. Anyway, it wouldn't even occur to me to fancy James."

"Maybe you should let more things occur to you," Remus murmured.

"I – No. Thanks, Remus, it's just that you've got it wrong, that's all."

"Okay, I'm sorry."

"Dinner?"

"Yeah."

– – – – –

About a month later, Lily was writing up her notes after a prefects' meeting, while James leaned against the desk in the Head Boy and Girl office, tossing a Quaffle from hand to hand and generally making a nuisance of himself, distracting Lily and making her laugh.

"Here, you do it," she said finally, and thrust the parchment into his hands.

To her surprise, James didn't protest, but simply reached over and plucked the quill out of her hand as well. He went around behind the desk and sat down, turning diligent attention to the notes.

Lily watched him, thinking about how, for the last several months, she'd worked more closely with James Potter than she ever would have thought possible. A bit strange, really, that she'd known James all these years, and he'd only now suddenly started to be tolerable. Maybe even a bit more than tolerable, since he did have a charming side, too. She wondered if he'd changed, or if she had.

"Done," James declared, dropping the quill to the desk after what couldn't have been more than a minute and a half.

"Let me see that!" Lily demanded and snatched up the parchment. But somehow he had indeed managed to summarise all the relevant points from the meeting in just a few clear, concise sentences.

Lily bound the parchment in a bit of thread, to be delivered to Professor McGonagall in the morning, then rolled her eyes at James. "I never would have believed it," she said, "but you manage to show off even at paperwork."

James just grinned and held open the door to the corridor for her, and they walked toward Gryffindor Tower in companionable silence.

"Are you going to Hogsmeade this weekend?" Lily asked after a bit.

"Yeah, probably. You?"

"I figure. Hogsmeade weekends do get a little less…wondrous after a few years, don't they?"

"Spoken like a jaded seventh year, Evans. I'm disappointed in you."

Lily smiled at that, because she was fairly certain she remembered James in the common room at some point the previous year, complaining to his friends that there was hardly even a point to Hogsmeade weekends anymore, when they'd already explored everything there was to explore and knew the village better than any of the professors.

They ascended the last flight of stairs, then turned a corner. "Do you want to go together?" Lily asked.

James stopped dead and Lily, next to him but half a step behind, bumped into his shoulder. He turned to face her.

"What?" he asked.

"To Hogsmeade. Should we go together?"

"As a –" James couldn't seem to bring himself to utter the word.

"As a date? Yeah. I mean, just the one, you know. Just the Hogsmeade weekend."

James opened his mouth, then closed it again, but annoyingly it was Lily who felt herself starting to blush. "I don't think I've ever actually seen you speechless," she joked to cover her embarrassment.

"Yes," James said.

"Yes, you're speechless?"

"Yes, let's go to Hogsmeade together."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Lily said, and they started walking again.

"Just to clarify…" James began.

"Yes, I did say 'as a date.' No, I'm not just having you on. Anything else?"

"Nah, I think that covers it."

James glanced at her sideways and Lily felt herself start to grin. He grinned back.

"Your mates are going to absolutely gloat," Lily said.

"My mates? Why?"

"They've been after me for months to go out with you. Why, didn't you put them up to it?"

"Me?" James sounded affronted. "You know I'd never stoop to such underhanded methods."

"True. You're more the hit-a-girl-over-the-head-with-it type, aren't you?"

"Yeah." James looked mildly embarrassed, probably recalling some of the more juvenile ways he'd expressed his affection over the years. Then he brightened again. "Worked, didn't it?"

"Don't bottle your potion before it's brewed, lad," Lily said in her best Slughorn impression. "I only agreed to one date."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure you're the one who suggested it in the first place."

"Oh, you would see it that way, wouldn't you –"

James stopped and turned toward Lily so suddenly that she stumbled into him again, and he reached out a hand to steady her. Lily wondered why he'd stopped, then realised they'd reached the portrait hole. James' hand was still on her arm.

"So, Saturday, yeah?" he asked, his voice gone husky.

"Yeah," Lily said, feeling ineloquent. Was he going to –

But James' nerve apparently failed him, and he let his hand drop from her arm, just as Lily herself started to lean in.

Lily caught herself and leaned back again. James ruffled a hand through his hair and muttered the password, "Finit numquam," to the Fat Lady, but it was Lily he was looking at.

She opened her mouth to say something, when someone inside the common room said, "There you are, James. We were starting to wonder."

Lily turned to see Remus, flanked by Sirius and Peter, and realised how close to James she was standing. Peter was grinning, Sirius looked on the verge of cackling and Remus had that expression again, the one that wasn't quite a smile, yet somehow more than one.

"Hullo, everyone," Lily said, and took a dignified step back from James, who started for the portrait hole, then caught himself and ushered Lily through first.

When they were through, James cast a last look at Lily, then turned to his three friends and announced, "Let me say this right now: Lily and I are going to Hogsmeade this weekend, and I will hex any one of you who annoys her to the point that she decides to murder me before the day is through. Best mate status notwithstanding."

Peter snorted and gave a sidelong look at Sirius. "Good luck with that, mate."

Sirius stepped forward jauntily and grabbed Lily's hand. "Evans, Evans," he said. "You do realise you're stuck with us for life now, don't you? It's kind of a 'buy one Marauder, have to cope with them all' sort of thing."

"It's one date, Black," Lily laughed, gently disentangling her hand from his grip.

"You say that now," Sirius replied. "But I reckon we'd better started using each other's given names, hadn't we?" Lily raised an eyebrow, but didn't give him the satisfaction of asking what he meant, so Sirius explained, "Since 'Evans' won't be your name much longer anyway."

"Oi, you," Lily shook her head in amusement. "One date. And I'm going up to bed now, so anybody have other Divinations to offer before I go?"

The boys obediently shook their heads – Peter amused, Sirius with some other saucy comment poised on his lips, Remus with a gentle smile. And James…the way James was looking at her was really rather nice.

"Good night, Marauders," she said. "Good night, James."

"Good night, Lily," they chorused, and Lily shook her head again with a smile, turning toward the girls' dormitory stairs.