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Paragons
of delight and uncertainty
by Raven
PG-13, het, Lily/James. James likes Lily. Maybe not as much as he likes Quidditch. She might like him, too - but unfortunately, Sirius, Remus and Peter have got it in their heads to be helpful. The Slytherins are less than amused by proceedings. Complications ensue. With grateful thanks to Pirate Perian for the thorough beta, to Hathor for the loan of her personality, and to Leigh, Tory and Meredith for the ideas.
The retelling of some events that did take place at Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the summer of the year nineteen seventy-six, Anno Domini.
Chapter Three - in which there is an excess of Christmas spirit
Exactly what the plan was did not become clear until some days later. It was approaching new moon, so Remus was rather inclined to be mischievous, and with the help of the Invisibility Cloak, he helped James liberate a basket of chocolate éclairs from the kitchen. When they retired to the common room to eat them, they found Sirius waiting impatiently for them. “Where have you two been?” he demanded crossly, helping himself to an éclair.
“Forgive us, Padfoot, we knew not what we did,” replied James dryly.
“Ours not to question why, ours but to provide the refreshments,” added Remus with a grin, eating an éclair with slightly more delicacy than Sirius. “Out with it, then. What’s the great plan?”
“It’s like this,” began Sirius, sitting cross-legged by the fireplace. James was curled up in an armchair, with Remus sprawled carelessly on the floor by his feet. Peter was currently folding back the cover on the basket of éclairs.
“I have a very simple plan,” Sirius continued. “Simple, but characteristically brilliant.”
James groaned. Sirius ignored him. “I propose we break into the Slytherin common room and do a little decoration.”
“What kind of decoration?” asked Peter suspiciously.
“Christmas,” said Sirius.
“Christmas decoration?” James repeated.
Sirius nodded happily, but Remus seemed to share James’s feelings. He counted off on his fingers. “Firstly,” he said, “we don’t know how to get into the Slytherin common room. Secondly, how are we going to decorate without anybody seeing us? Thirdly, where will we get the decorations? And fourthly and most importantly, for the love of Merlin, why?”
Sirius waved him away with a careless hand. “We’ll work something out. As for why… just picture it, Moony. You’re a Slytherin. You wake up to an ordinary day of debauchery, death and despicable deeds.”
“Sounds just like us,” Peter murmured.
Sirius ignored him as well. “And you get out of bed,” he continued, “tripping over your big ugly Slytherin feet as you do so. You yawn and stumble your way downstairs into your common room. And lo and behold! There have been angels at work during the night! The common room is filled with colour and joy and Christmas spirit, and you can feel your dark Slytherin heart fair melt at the sight, until all is sweetness and light, and you feel those Gryffindors aren’t so bad after all, merely paradigms…”
“Paragons.”
“…paragons of virtue and courage…”
“Or, more likely, you have more intelligence than a Chocolate Frog and are quite aware of the fact it is the middle of June,” James cut in ruthlessly.
Sirius looked crestfallen. It was, James was sure, an entirely insincere display. He was proven right when he said, “On the other hand…” and Sirius’s habitual expression of extreme smugness manifested itself once again. James hid his own smile as he went on, “It’s not such a bad idea. The Slytherins won’t know what to make of it. They won’t believe all we did was decorate, and they’ll be paranoid for weeks.”
“Even if they trace it to us, we won’t get thrown into detention or anything,” Peter remarked. “We won’t have done anything that’s against the rules.”
“Beyond sneaking into their common room, which we have yet to discover how to do,” said Remus.
“There’s ways and means,” Sirius told him.
James found himself worrying about it. He wasn’t exactly sure why. Sirius’s plans almost always worked, and when they didn’t, well, what was another detention on top of the hundreds they had had already? That was the beauty of his plans. Sirius had even given him half of a pair of two-way mirrors so they could communicate when separated, so detention became less of a chore and more of a time to plan their next prank that would then lead them into another detention and so on and so forth.
James had been told by many people that he had a certain lack of respect for authority. Which wasn’t as bad as it sounded – he respected his parents, who repaid it with interest, allowing him almost everything he wanted, including allowing Sirius to live with them. He also respected Dumbledore, who had a way of looking at him that made him feel that anything other than due respect might cause him to be whimsically Transfigured into a sherbet lemon.
No, his lack of respect for authority generally manifested itself in other ways: for example, the time he and Sirius had dyed McGonagall-the-cat’s fur tartan, or the time they’d pulled away Binns’ chair as he’d been about to sit down (admittedly, that hadn’t succeeded as well as they’d hoped – Binns had merely gone on lecturing from floor level).
So, no. Neither fear of detention or the wrath of the teachers were the cause of his worrying.
Who else might disapprove of what Sirius was planning? he wondered. The prefects wouldn’t like it – but then, that didn’t make sense. There were only two Gryffindor prefects and one of them was Remus.
Which made the whole thing a mystery. He spent a few days mulling over it, causing Remus to decide he was coming down with something and Sirius to decide he was becoming moonier than Moony, but eventually he sat up in bed and gave himself a stern talking-to.
Get a grip, Potter. You’re playing practical jokes on the Slytherins, not murdering them.
This accomplished, he snuggled down and went back to sleep. He dreamed a strange dream of green light and green eyes, but when he woke up in the morning, Sirius had stolen his pillow and he didn’t remember the dream at all.
– – – – – –
Elsewhere in the castle, Severus Snape yawned hugely and sat up in bed. It was too early. Seven thirty in the morning. Much too early. No self-respecting teenager ought to agree to be somewhere at such an hour, but Snape was a prefect, and prefects’ meetings were held at eight o’clock sharp, even on Saturday mornings. That wasn’t by his choice. That was by choice of those two damnable Gryffindor prefects, and the thought of it made him inwardly seethe. The Hufflepuff prefects, useless waste of space as they were, were too stupid to complain, and the Ravenclaws never had their noses out of their books long enough to notice the way the Gryffindors were running the show. And out of the whole of Gryffindor house, it had to be those two. That despicable Mudblood girl, Evans, and… and… Lupin.
Snape always ran out of words when trying to express the extent of his loathing of Lupin.
Muttering curses under his breath, he got out of bed. Always light on his feet, he managed to get dressed without disturbing any of the other inhabitants of his dormitory, but as he slipped out the door and went down the stairs, he suddenly realised he’d forgotten to pick up his wand from where it lay on his bedside table. Ordinarily he would simply have shrugged it off and gone on, but not this time. He refused to face Gryffindors without a wand in his hand.
He retrieved it, closing the door carefully behind him, and went down to the Slytherin common room, carefully tracing his hands along the cold walls of the spiral staircase. There was very little light, and if he stumbled, he could very well fall painfully down the stone steps.
The common room itself was little better. The house-elves had been in, but it was still too early for them to have lit the lamps. Snape was glad. Lack of sleep had given him a headache, and the darkness was oddly soothing. He made his way along, and was about to let himself out through the concealed exit to the dungeon corridor outside when a sudden voice called, “Who’s there?”
Snape wheeled around. And stepped on something. Something small and soft. Something that moved.
He cried out in surprise. The voice called, “Snape? Is that you?”
“Who else would it be, you imbecile?” Snape demanded, irritated at himself for showing weakness. The darkness flowed all around him, hiding both the other speaker and whatever it was he had trodden on.
“What’s up with you?” called the voice, ignoring the insult.
“Trod on something,” Snape answered curtly. “Something alive.”
A snigger. “Wearing a pillowcase, no doubt.”
“No…” Snape wondered why he was even bothering with this conversation. “A mouse, probably.”
The other voice said clearly, “Lumos.”
Snape inhaled sharply as the room blazed with light. He shielded his eyes with his hands, staring straight down, away from the lamps and sconces. He heard a dim squeak, and saw the mouse disappearing across the floor. He considered aiming a hex after it, but decided against it when he remembered that that would involve taking his hands away from his face.
“Holy…” breathed the other voice. “Snape.”
“What?” snapped Snape, still staring at the ground.
“Snape, for Merlin’s sake… look.”
Snape looked up to see wide, startled eyes in a pale face. Rosier. His blue eyes reflected clouds of colour and sparkle, and Snape wheeled around.
His mouth dropped open. The common room walls, normally dull grey stone, were draped in festive finery, garlands of tinsel and magically engineered glitter covering them in long swathes. The predominant colours were red and gold, but there were touches of dark green holly hung at strategic points along the ceiling, and one place near the fireplace where the berries were not red, but white.
Mistletoe, thought Snape with an internal groan. He moved across, fully meaning to take it down before Bella and Lestrange got near it, but just as he reached it, he was distracted by very heavy footsteps coming from somewhere above him. Snape knew just one person with the gait of a young elephant. It could only be…
“Crabbe,” said Rosier as the door opened.
Crabbe stood there and blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Blinked again. It was a while before he spoke.
“How long,” he asked in hushed tones, “have I been asleep?”