home :: fanfiction :: links :: livejournal :: recs :: about
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 One - in which we meet four boys (and a girl)
“Point number one,” Sirius said. “She’s pretty.”
James looked gratified.
“Secondly, she likes Quidditch.”
James nodded. “Always a good thing.”
“However, she has a drawback. She’s intelligent.”
“Why is that a drawback?” asked Peter guardedly.
“She’ll never go out with James,” Sirius said calmly.
Remus grinned; the set-up for this little gem had been as obvious to him as it had been to Sirius. James groaned. “Thanks, Sirius,” he said. “A real help, you are.”
“Pleased to be of service.” Sirius sat back and looked smug. The four boys weren the grass by the lake, draped in various attitudes of relaxation. Purely to irritate James, his well-known fondness for a certain Gryffindor girl had been made the topic of conversation. At least, James was fairly sure it was purely to irritate him. It could also be to annoy, aggravate and embarrass him, all of which were things his three closest friends were disturbingly good at. A pleasing thought occurred to him; stretching out, he addressed no-one in particular, a slight smile on his face. “I don’t know why I’m asking for advice from you three, anyway. It’s not as if you’re paradigms in the romance department.”
Sirius looked indignant. “I resent that remark,” he began, and James also noticed that Peter suddenly seemed to have become very interested in watching the giant squid moving over the surface of the lake. A score to me, he thought with satisfaction.
His eyes moved to rest on Remus; the other boy smiled enigmatically and proceeded to burst his bubble. “The word you’re looking for is ‘paragons’, James,” he said smoothly. “Sorry about that; you almost sounded profound for a moment there.”
“Sod off and die, Lupin.” James threw a hastily-uprooted tuft of grass at him. It fell to bits in mid-air and landed on Remus’s head, seemingly bothering him not a whit.
“Seriously, mate,” Sirius said (no-one dared make the obvious pun – the last person to try it, a worryingly flirtatious Hufflepuff girl, had been sent running to Madam Pomfrey with bunny ears poking out of her hair), “we may not be paragons, but that doesn’t mean we’re stupid. To be honest, I don’t see what you’re so worried about. Go up to the girl, say, ‘My name’s James Potter, will you go out with me?’ and wait and see what happens next.”
James thought about it. “But why would she?”
“Why would she what?” asked Peter logically.
“Go out with me, for heaven’s sake!”
“Well…” Sirius looked contemplative. “You’re… well, you’re you. You’re a Quidditch player, you’re somewhat attractive…” He was interrupted by sniggering from the other two. “So I’ve been told,” he continued grimly. “You’ve got some things going for you. Even if you are a complete prat.”
Even James laughed. “Fine,” he said. “You’re not paragons, and that doesn’t mean you’re not stupid, and if asked to repeat this, I will deny all knowledge and refuse to admit I ever said it, but…”
“Well?” prompted Remus.
“Frighteningly, Sirius, that makes sense.”
If it were possible, Sirius looked even more smug than he had until this point. Remus twirled a finger around a blade of grass and tugged sharply so it came away in his hand. He dropped it absent-mindedly into one of his boots before breaking the silence. “There you go then,” he said. “Ask her. It won’t kill you.”
James would have said something to the contrary, but he was interrupted by a frosty Scottish voice drifting across towards them. “What are you boys doing?” asked Professor McGonagall.
“Talking,” said Peter.
“Hmm,” she said suspiciously, but she seemed content to leave it at that. The boys were about to resume their conversation when she paused and turned back to look at them.
“Lupin, you have grass in your hair.”
With that, she left.
Remus smiled. “As if I’m not used to it by now,” he said, threading his fingers through his hair. Sirius reached up and stayed his hands. “Stop that, Remus, it suits you.”
“I’m sure,” said Remus dryly, but nonetheless, he stopped pulling at the green strands.
James allowed himself a smile at this small exchange, and with a prodigious yawn he stretched and stood up. “Sorry to leave you high and dry,” he said, “but I have to depart. Got to go and discuss the problem with the Gryffindor team. Don’t wait up.”
“What problem?” Peter asked, noticing Sirius and Remus seemed to know what was being talked about.
“The problem of no Seeker, of course,” James replied. “Kit Marlowe is leaving at the end of this year, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone who can take his place. Unless one of the first years turns out to be spectacular…” He shrugged, making it clear that he doubted such a thing could happen. “And of course,” he continued, “I know exactly who should be Gryffindor Seeker and yet I’ve got to sit there and look stupid.”
Sirius rolled his eyes and Remus looked uncomfortable. James smiled wryly. “Save me some dinner, Kit’ll have me there all night.”
He strolled away, hands in his pockets, whistling quietly. As he crossed the Hogwarts grounds, he heard a splash behind him – wondering if Peter had been dragged into the lake by the giant squid, he turned around. Sirius and Remus were now both dangling their feet in the water and flicking droplets at each other. The squid was nowhere in sight. James paused for a moment, watching his friends, then carried on walking.
He’d have a hard time keeping a straight face, listening to Kit bewailing their lack of Seeker. James hadn’t been lying when he’d said he knew the perfect candidate for the position. While not as good as James himself, or even Sirius, Remus Lupin was nevertheless slightly built, agile and a very neat, precise flier. The slight problem, James reflected, was the fact Remus had never tried out for the team, and if he were to be believed, never would. James and Sirius had argued, fought, pleaded and finally got down on their knees and begged, but Remus stuck to his guns. Quidditch matches had been known to last for more than a month, he said. Sirius said this was utter rubbish, that it was theoretically possible but would never actually happen, and then had his credibility dented slightly when the next match, Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw, had lasted five days.
Sirius had made one last-ditch attempt, saying how nice it would be if out of the four of them, two were on the team (he himself was a good flier and a natural Beater, but he wasn’t on the team due to an unprepossessing tendency to use the bats to hit people’s heads rather than the Bludgers) but not only had this failed to convince Remus, it also failed to convince James or Peter.
Peter and James had then taken a turn themselves, saying there would be sure to be substitutes brought on if a match lasted for a month, and besides it wouldn’t, couldn’t last that long. But with the same indomitable stubbornness that would have made him such a good Seeker in the first place, Remus refused to back down. When they all decided not to talk to him at all and see if that worked, he’d quietly asked them what would happen if a match were scheduled to take place the day before or the day after the full moon, and no-one had been able to reply to that.
Which was why James was off to tell the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain that no replacement was forthcoming, and they’d just better cross their fingers and hope for the best. However, he was so lost in thought he failed to notice where he was going, and walked straight into something. Or rather, someone.
“You would think,” said Lily Evans in amused tones, “that with the Hogwarts grounds as large as they are, you could avoid bumping into anyone by a fairly large margin. But no, due to some sort of sheer animal magnetism, James Potter manages to walk straight into the only person in a hundred-metre-radius.”
James blinked. Lily. The Girl Herself. “Mmmrgh,” he managed, before falling into complete incomprehensibility. For a moment, Sirius’s advice rang in his ears – just ask her! – but the seconds stretched on and he hadn’t said a word.
“Are you all right?” Lily asked. “You look a bit… ill.”
“I’m all right,” James tried to say, but it came out as, “Urrgggle.” Stammering slightly, he walked on, stumbling over his feet as he went. She watched him go with some amusement.
“Paragons!” he said to himself in despair as soon as he was out of earshot. He briefly considered telling Sirius about this encounter, but thought better of it. Sirius would only launch into a list of things he, James, had done wrong, and the many, many better ways in which he, Sirius, could have handled it.
Sirius filled his thoughts for a few moments, presumably in an attempt on James’s part to squeeze out the crushing embarrassment that threatened to make its presence felt any moment soon. Sirius was right. He did know what he was talking about, to some extent. He’d always seemed to have his own female fan club, which he had done nothing besides breathing to deserve. Girls were falling over themselves to get to him.
And failing that, there was the other paragon. James didn’t quite see it himself, but Remus did seem to have a certain something. He was a walking enigma, pale and wide-eyed, and permanently exhausted. Add that to a string of mysterious disappearances and a lot of cuts and gashes on his hands and arms that might or might not be self-inflicted, and he’d practically got copyright on the tortured soul look. Even James, who knew perfectly well that Sirius considered all girls to be “like forest fires – pretty from a distance, but you don’t want to get too close” and also knew what Remus’s secret actually was, had to admit they were a nice pair in the eyes of Hogwarts’ female population.
That was, of course, until the moment James had embarrassed himself in front of Lily Evans, whereupon he had suddenly and irrationally decided he might take a certain perverse pleasure in seeing them both celibate for the remainder of their natural lives.