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It’s a Duck


Lily packed her pyjamas and her present for Remus and sat with her bag at the foot of the boys dormitory stairs, waiting for the boys to come down to go watch the film in the Shrieking Shack, reading over the Care of Magical Creatures assignment she’d already resigned to the idea of the five Gryffindor fifth years skiving off the next morning. The clock on the mantel read after eight o’clock and she looked over her shoulder, leaning back, trying to see if she could see the defaced door of the Marauders’ Dormitory. “Where are they?” she murmured, growing impatient.

Suddenly the portrait hole opened up and in came James Potter. He looked about the room, spotted her, and hurried over. “Evans,” he said, “Hi.”

“Well it’ about time one of you shows his face,” Lily said, closing her book and standing up, “What’d you lot do, forget I was invited and go off without me?”

James shook his head.

“Get caught by Filch stealing the video tape?” she guessed. James shook his head again and opened his mouth to answer and Lily said, “Get distracted by some other prank you needed to play on someone? You better not have been hexing Severus Snape or I’ll fix you with a bat bogey hex you’ll never forget, Potter.” She smirked at him.

“Actually,” James said, finally able to get a word in edgewise, “We were seeing Remus to the hospital wing.”

Lily was so shocked she very nearly dropped her text book. “The what? Whatever for? Is he alright?” She grabbed her bag from the floor and started for the portrait hole, James trotting along beside her. “Was he attacked? I’ll bloody the bastards that touched him. Who’s done it?”

“Whoa, Evans!” James laughed, his eyes dancing at her feistiness, “Don’t get your knickers in a bunch -- he’s attacked himself.”

“Attacked himself?” Lily stopped and turned on James abruptly, making him nearly run into her. “WHAT IS WITH YOU BOYS? Bloody hell! First Sirius, now Remus. What’s next? Peter going to bloody his own nose? You going to hex yourself?”

“I’ll leave the hexing of oneself to certain greasy headed apes, thanks,” James replied.

Lily glowered at him.

“It’s his appendix,” James said quickly, seeing Lily wasn’t amused by his snide remark about Severus Snape. “Seems his appendix has gone and gotten as big as my ego and he’s just not used to that sort of pressure, see, and it’s apparently nearly exploded.”

Lily’s eyes widened, “He’s got appendicitis? Oh poor baby!” She turned and hurried along the corridor, a worried expression on her face as she went, “And on his birthday!”

James paused, smirking to himself at how worried she was about Remus, then hurried to catch up with her. “Evans. Wait.” He caught her arm and she paused at the top of the stairwell. “Pomfrey’s kicked us all out, she’s not going to let you in to see him… Newt Scamander’s performed the operation, they said he’s alright and all, but she doesn’t want anybody in there - so… since we can’t see him anyway ‘ti morning… I - I thought maybe you’d want to go out to the shack to watch one of the films we stole from the Muggle Studies classroom.”

Lily stared up at him.

He stared at her with as innocent a face as he could possibly muster. The slightest bit of mischief twinkled behind his thick-lashed eyes.

“What film is it?” she asked.

James grinned and reached for his book bag slung ‘round his shoulders from earlier still and reached inside, “We have a fine assortment here… but this is the one I had in mind.” He handed her a plastic cased video tape box, encasing Bambi.

Lily laughed and took the cassette box from him and ran her hands over the lid of the cool plastic. “Oh Porter, you git.”

He laughed, “I know you like that film, Evans, you can’t pretend to me you don’t. You’ve recommended it to me once. Back in Third Year. In Divination class.”

“I did not.”

“Did so!” James answered, “I remember it like it was yesterday Evans… You were wearing your Gryffindor cardigan but not your tie, and you had the top three buttons undone and your hair was in a braid.” His eyes got this far-off look to them, “And Professor Vablatsky had us analyzing dreams in journals we were assigned to keep. You wrote about a dream you had where you ran into the woods and met a stag and I was teasing you that you were snogging the stag and you argued back that I was ridiculous.”

Lily’s face turned red. “I can’t imagine what an idiot you thought me, talking about it when you were the stag…”

“Oh Evans, this was way, way before I knew my animagus form.”

Lily looked surprised, “It was?”

James nodded. “So then, being the nosy pain in your arse that I am, I asked you what was so special about stags and you said they’re majestic creatures, and that Bambi was the Prince of the Forest and I ought to see it, as I’ll like it. Well.” He held the cassette tape box up for her to see again. “Here it is.”

Lily stared at it.

She remembered it, too. She could almost feel the warmth of the stuffy old Divination classroom…

“I can’t believe how you have a knack for remembering the most mundane little details about things, yet still struggle with History of Magic.”

James’s eyes lit up. “I suppose I have to really love the subject to remember it.”

Lily stared up at him for a moment, her face quirked into a look of amusement, “You’re an arse,” she laughed and she started down the stairs.

James stood at the top, contemplating this, grinned, and jogged down after her quickly. “I may be an arse, but I’m good at it.”

“At being an arse? Yes, you are.”

James said, “And you bloody love it.”

“I don’t love you.”

“The Nile ain’t just a river, love,” he announced and he puffed his chest out.

“What?”

“The Nile.” James stared at her. “Denial. You. Me. Love. Denial. You’re in it.”

Lily rolled her eyes.

James grinned and caught her arm, saving her from taking a trip step. She looked down as the step vanished and up at him. Together they jumped over the gap in the stair.

“See, you aren’t even denying it now!” James said, grinning, “You do love me. That’s why you’ve agreed to come watch this film with me. Isn’t it?”

“Bugger off.”

James grinned. “Oh deer.”

“If you try anything funny during this movie, Potter, I’ll hex you.”

“I solemnly swear I’ll not try anything fawny, Evans.”

She looked over at him.

“You just hoof to believe me, love.”

“Stop calling me love.”

“Evans.”

“Potter.”

James beamed.

They were nearly to the bottom of the stairs - nearly to the front doors of the castle - when it happened. They came ‘round the corner of the corridor from the moving staircase, headed to the final set that went down to the entrance hall, and James was walking backwards, staring at Lily as they walked, continuing on with their banter, when he slammed into somebody, not looking where he was going and there was a colossal thump and both he and the other person went down in a heap of robes and limbs and James’s glasses fell off and he had to pat the ground looking for them… Then they were handed over by a blurry shape and he pushed them onto his face to find himself staring into the eyes of Jasper Odair.

Jasper was extending his hand to help James up from the floor.

James took his hand and Jasper tugged him up from the carpet.

They stared at one another as Jasper let go of James’s hand the moment they were upright. James felt his throat go rather tight and he murmured, “Sorry.”

Jasper nodded, “No, don’t, uh, don’t worry ‘bout it.”

“I wasn’t looking where I was going,” James said.

“It’s alright.” Jasper shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the floor, avoiding eye contact with either James or Lily. “I better --” he thumbed over his shoulder. “See you lot about.” He turned away quickly and darted down the hallway.

Lily stared after him, feeling sick to her stomach from the guilt that twisted its way through her.

James stared after him, too.

Lily bent down to pick up the Bambi tape, which James had dropped, and looked at it, running her fingers over the deer on the cover. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Is this what it felt like, breaking up with Maryrose like you did?” she asked quietly.

James said, “Yes.”

Lily bit her lip.

James hesitated, then, “I… um…”

“Yes, Potter?”

“It’s just that I imagine he’s feeling a bit worse than Maryrose did… she only lost me, where as Jasper’s lost… Jasper’s lost you. Bit more earth-shattering..”

“Potter, shut up.” Lily rolled her eyes and started walking again.

James stared after Jasper another couple seconds, then swiftly bounced after Lily again.

“Does this count as a date?” he asked suddenly as he caught up.

“No,” Lily replied.

They’d reached the staircase that went down to the entrance hall and Lily hurried down the steps to get away from the date question, her face as almost as red as her hair and she didn’t want James seeing it. He slid down the bannister to show off, landing at the bottom cleanly as though he’d done that a hundred times (and he probably had, she realized, picturing him and Sirius and some of the “race you to the Great Hall” moments they’d had in the halls). He stood at the bottom, grinning up at her.

“Well. It feels like a date.”

“Well it’s not.”

“You know what they say, Evans… if it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck…”

“It isn’t a duck, either, Potter.”

“Well if it isn’t a duck, then it’s gotta be a date.”

“What?” Lily was at the front entrance doors.

“Evans… there are two kinds of things in this world,” he waved his wand and the entrance door unlocked and Lily looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “There are ducks… and there are dates.”

Lily laughed. “So everything in the world is either a duck or a date?”

“Yes.”

“Everything.”

“Yes.”

“That bush right there?”

“Duck,” James replied.

“The giant squid.”

“Also a duck.”

Lily shook her head, “Idiot.”

James grinned. “An idiot who’s on a date.”

“It’s not a date!”

“So it’s a duck?”

“Potter, it’s not too late for me to turn back, you know.”

James said, “I’ll stop.”

“Thank you.”

“If you admit it’s a date.”

Lily turned around.

“WAIT!” James caught her hand and pulled her back, spinning her so she was suddenly facing him and he was staring down at her and she was staring up at him, pressed against his chest from the velocity of how quickly he’d turned her about. “It’s a duck, then.”

“That’s better,” she smirked - she’d never intended to actually go anyway.

James continued staring at her.

She cleared her throat. “Potter.”

“Evans?”

“Let go of me.”

His hands fell away instantly and he backed up and she stepped around him and started on toward the Whomping Willow. James watched her walk a second and a slow grin spread across his mouth before he ran after her once again.