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A Matching Set


James spent the morning before Patronus class hunting down all the members of the Order of the Phoenix to inform them that they would be meeting the next day in the Secret Meeting Room after lunch. He was eager to get started on trying to figure out exactly what was going on with the Ministry and how to find Harold Minchum before all of the Muggle-Borns had been forced to register and have to submit to being scrutinized - partly because Lily Evans would be one of the people forced to be registered, should it happen, and James felt that Lily had been through quite enough already. She didn’t need that, too.

He was fiercely defending Lily every chance he got - snapping at people who tried to say anything derogatory about her or attempting to give him a high five. “Stop talking about it,” he snapped at Annalee McKinnon, who was whispering to a fourth year Ravenclaw girl in the hallway on the way down the Defense Against the Dark Arts corridor. “Nothing happened, alright?” he glared at her, “The rumors are a load of tosh and your fat mouth going on about it is hurting people. So shut it!”

Annalee scowled. “Rude,” she hissed and she shoved on down the corridor.

Sirius came up behind James, slapping his mate over the shoulder, “Every time I hear Annalee’s voice, I’m reminded again why I snog boys.”

James smirked over at Sirius with bright eyes. “I know, I can’t believe I used to go with her.”

“Well she wasn’t as much of a bitch then, was she?” Sirius said.

“Or maybe I didn’t care as much,” James answered with a shrug.

“Possibly. We were a bit more concerned with the idea of snogging anything with breasts at that point, weren’t we?” Sirius grinned. “I’m mighty glad I’ve gotten over that particular addiction. You can snog all of them. Just leave one for Pete maybe.”

James said, “Pete can have them all, s’long as he leaves me the one…” his eyes followed Lily as she went into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom ahead of them, her head down, hugging her book to her chest, trying to appear invisible, even as Remus walked along beside her, talking, trying to cheer her up.

Sirius laughed, “Bloody hell, Potter. You’re a sucker for punishment.”

James sighed, “I know.”

Sirius wrangled his arm ‘round James’s neck and smushed up his hair as they ducked into the classroom, followed by Peter.

Fabian and Gideon Prewett put on their usual song and dance of a welcome to the Patronus session, reminding everyone of the method - happy memory, happiest memory you’ve got, cast the spell - and then set them all to practicing - some practicing in casting their Patroni more naturally, and others in producing it for the first time.

Everyone was working, crunching up their faces and waving their wands. Most of the patroni produced in the class were noncorporeal and nothing but hazy mists that hovered before their casters. James was only half-heartedly giving it a go, too busy thinking about the Order meeting the next day to concentrate fully on the patronus he was supposed to be casting. Suddenly a great ghostly dog ran past him, running in circles ‘round him and then off down the room to where Regulus Black was sitting alone on one of the desks, casting the charm with ease, simply letting the patronus bounce around before him, as though it were a real dog that he were playing with.

James glanced at Sirius, who was busy fighting with Remus over whose wolf patronus was nicer looking, and Peter, who was struggling to make his lizard emerge from his wand, and he snuck away down the length of the classroom to where Regulus sat, throwing himself up onto the desk beside him. “Hey mate,” he said quietly.

“Hullo,” Regulus answered glumly, waving the wand so that the dog laid down at his feet. He looked up at James.

It occurred to James that he hadn’t really spoken to Regulus since the day they’d rescued Maryrose’s body from the cave. A lot had been going on, granted, he’d been distracted, but still he felt bad that he hadn’t sought out the younger boy, if for no reason other than just to see how he was. So he asked, “How’re you doing, Reg?”

Regulus shrugged. Honestly, he’d been struggling with everything. Maryrose’s death was still sinking in, still working it’s way to being true. He still had moments when he ran up the steps from the dungeons, headed to Hufflepuff’s house table to tell Maryrose of something he’d thought up only to remember when he stepped through the door of the Great Hall that Maryrose wasn’t going to be there.

“It’s hard to believe she’s really gone,” James said, taking the thoughts right out of Regulus’s mind.

Regulus looked up at James, “Yeah.” He nodded.

James could feel someone staring at them and he glanced up and his eyes met Severus Snape’s from across the room. He gave Severus a rather rude gesture, then turned back to Regulus. “I just wanted to invite you to come with us to a meeting we’re having tomorrow.”

“A meeting?” Regulus looked up, “What sort of meeting?”

James answered, “We have a… a sort of club. An anti-Voldemort club. We haven’t done a whole lot yet, but we’re going ot be talking tomorrow about how to save Harold Minchum, the Minister for Magic from Voldemort - to stop him from controlling the Ministry. They’re looking to start a Muggle-Born registry and that could put people like Lily Evans in danger, you know, if Voldemort had a list of who to target…” James paused. “Maryrose was pureblood, but I’m sure if she knew that they were planning this… she’d have been greatly opposed to it. She was in the Order - that’s what we call ourselves, the Order of the Phoenix. It meant a good deal to her. She did loads of research and helped us with rescuing Remus Lupin last year…” James paused. “I know it might sound stupid, a bunch of teenagers up against the most powerful dark wizard of our time, but…” he looked at Regulus, “But I know we started it because we wanted to do something, because we were tired of just watching him get away with all the rubbish he was doing…”

Regulus stared up at James, his fingers bent over the hems of his green Slytherin sweater, holding it in place very carefully.

“I’m sure you feel the same way,” James finished.

Regulus nodded.

“So… so if you want to, you can meet us up after lunch tomorrow outside the Great Hall and we’ll show you the way, alright?” James suggested.

Regulus nodded again.

“Brilliant,” James said, smiling.

Suddenly there was the usual commotion caused by a new patronus being produced and James and Regulus looked up to see whose it was. Severus Snape looked up, too, from where he sat. Both he and James stood up when they saw it - the shimmering form of a doe, cantering through the room, her ears laying flat, her wide velvety nose twisting as she raced, her hooves not even touching the floor as she turned at the end of the room and made her way back to walk around Lily Evans, pushing her long snout into her caster’s palm.

James felt his heart stop. He lost his breath and his fingers clutched ‘round his wand as he stared at the doe, snuggling ‘round behind Lily Evans and his mouth felt very, very dry. A doe. A doe. A doe. It WAS a doe. Lily Evans’s patronus WAS a doe.

James was not the only one that had noticed Lily’s doe.

So had Severus Snape. And never had a person ever worn a more vindicated expression on their face than what he was wearing at that very moment as he turned from where he’d been leafing through his Potions textbook in the corner, standing up, and turning to see Lily. He drew his long, black wood wand from his pocket and waved it, a smirk playing over his mouth as his eyes darted to be absolutely certain that James Potter was looking. He had not been practicing hardly at all the entire class. He knew how to make his patronus - it was easy, even, to him. He had no reason to practice. But now - NOW he chose to make his own doe appear, to wave his wand and let his patronus canter the length of the room, too, and Lily looked up (so did her patronus), as the second doe ran toward them - much more slender and delicate than her own doe was. Severus smiled at her as their eyes met and the second doe ran to a halt before Lily Evans.

“We’re matching, Lily,” he said, breathless. “A matching set.”

A slew of murmurs went up through the room as everyone mumbled or whispered about what they were witnessing. The only other matching set so far had been Sirius and Remus and everybody already knew those two were together. But Lily Evans and Severus Snape? A Gryffindor and a Slytherin? It was a scandal.

The second scandal Lily had been involved in that week.

Lily stared at the glowing doe before her, unsure what to say. Her heart seemed to flutter in her chest and she blushed and his doe disappeared from sight in a puff of white haze as Lily continued on stroking her own doe’s snout as it nuzzled against her shoulder.

And then a great, big, majestic stag stepped into the clearing that the students in the room had made for the patroni. Both does turned to look at the stag, his antlers taller and his chest thick. The stag walked slowly amongst them, as though he were on an everyday stroll through the woods, as though he were not some incredibly rare bit of magic. He walked along, glancing this way and that way at the students surrounding him. People were pointing at him - and Vivian Warshaw let out a loud shout - “ohhhh pretty!”

The stag walked right past Severus Snape’s doe and right up to Lily Evans’s and it lowered its face and bumped its nose against her doe’s nose and the doe bumped back.

Lily stared at the point where their noses touched, transfixed… and then the stag turned and cantered back across the room… and disappeared. In the afterglow, there stood James Potter.

Severus waved his wand and his doe disappeared and a sour look crossed his face as James and Lily stared at one another from across the room.

Gideon and Fabian Prewett were going positively mental, shouting and slapping James and Lily both on the backs, yelling praises at their excellent casting of the Patronus charm, dismissing everyone… Sirius was hooting and shouting, “Oi! What a manly buck you’ve got there, James! MANLY, not some little girl doe like some blokes have got!” and Remus was congratulating him and Peter was already asking if James could give him some tips to get his lizard to come back and there was a flurry of sound and movement all around as the students streamed out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts room, but James and Lily stood exactly where they’d been…. just staring at one another.

“Occulus damnum,” Snape whispered under his breath - too quiet for anyone to hear - and with a crack, James Potter’s glasses snapped clean across the nose bridge, falling to the two sides of his face lamely, breaking the spell between him and Lily.

Sirius glared about for Severus, sure that’s who’d done it, but Severus had smartly bolted into the hall the moment he’d cast the spell, and he was no where to be seen.

By the time Remus had repared James’s glasses - Lily had gone as well.

“Bugger,” said Sirius, “You bleedin’ showed that bastard up, didn’t you? You slayed!” Sirius was beaming as he rapped James on the back. “That was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Did you see Snape’s face? Tosser looked like he’d been hit by a double decker in the face!”

“Bloody stag was as big as a double decker, wasn’t it?” laughed Remus, “I got chills, James, absolute chills.”

“Yeah it was great!” squeaked Peter, “I’m really jealous! A stag again! And I’m stuck with a bleedin’ lizard!”