Hello people. As you can see, I am starting another fic. Hopefully it won't fail. Don't get started on the fact that I'm insanely sirius.
"Moony, something terrible is happening!" James Potter yelled, barging into the dormitory.
Haha, that seems to be happening a lot.
Frowning upon seeing his destination not moving an inch, keeping his eyes glued on his novel, he tried again. "Remus, this is actually urgent, I swear. That Ravenclaw fifth year-"
Oh no. Remus paled, still not taking his eyes away. "Lima Bean?"
James stopped. "What kind of name is Lima Bean?"
"Her nickname," Remus said sheepishly. "I can't and won't remember her real one."
James cracked a grin, which disappeared quickly as a crash resonated from downstairs. "Look, she's asking for you-no, demanding for you, again-"
On cue, a girlish shout of, "What do you mean, he's not interested?" floated through the open doorway.
"Yeah, that," James said, acknowledging the bout. "And I still can't believe she's not even remotely interested in Padfoot, I mean, what sane girl wouldn't be interested in his dashing looks-"
"-Don't you lie to me, Black! You don't even know what love is-"
"Get back to the point," Remus snapped, hands trembling on the sides of his still-open book.
"Right. She says would you like to go on a date with her and to hurry up with the wedding papers-"
"Tell her no," Remus demanded.
"-and she won't accept a 'no' either," James ended.
"Well, it's too bad," Remus snarled. "I'll-" He stopped for a moment. A slow smirk spread across his face. Getting up, he crossed the room and started down the staircase, leaving a bewildered James to call out and hurry behind him.
The common room was only halfway filled, but with people watching the commotion at the entrance of the portrait hole-a struggling Sirius trying to close it, somebody on the other side trying to open it (who must be really strong-they were head to head with Sirius), and the Fat Lady yelling at them.
Remus approached the space between wall and portrait edge. "What's going on?"
A voice outside gasped. Then, with an almighty shove, the Fat Lady's portrait crashed sickenly against the wall, flinging Sirius into a parchment-covered table. The occupants of said table scrambled for cover.
The Ravenclaw fifth year looked up at Remus, oblivious to the commotion. "Hi, Remus."
"Hi, Lima," Remus said, playing along. "How're you?"
"It's Lina, and don't play dumb with me, Rem!" she shrieked, pouting and stomping her foot.
"What do you want?" James cut in sharply, standing beside Remus. "You're disturbing our common room. Get what you want, and leave."
She sniffed daintily. "Rude." She turned to Remus. "Are you free for a date sometime?"
Remus nodded thoughtfully. "Let me set a time. How about the…thirty-first of November?"
The girl brightened. Tucking a strand of blue hair behind her ear, she fluttered her long, long, probably fake eyelashes. "See you." With that, she walked off the hallway.
Remus shut the portrait hole gently and turned around to see the whole of Gryffindor staring at him with silent awe.
Sirius was the first to speak. "You do know that there is no thirty-first of November, right?" he asked faintly.
Remus smiled. "Yes, I did."
The room exploded with chaos as people congratulated Remus for his 'spiffing' performance. His friends shook his hand pompously for becoming 'Future Heartbreaker', or Sirius Black II. Lily Evans even came over and commented, "I hoped I didn't have to let her down. Remus definitely deserves better than her."
The next day, however, Remus was immediately bombarded with Lima Bean, who confronted him on his 'mistake' on choosing the date for their date.
"Remus! We need to change the time for our picnic-look, says here that the thirtieth is the last day of November. I'm packed, obviously, most days a week-" She showed Remus her calendar, which was filled with "Do makeup" and other vain topics. "So…how about the twenty-second, at four?"
"He's got Transfiguration," Peter piped up.
"Okay…what about Sunday the twenty-fifth, six?"
"That's dinner," Remus pointed out.
"Ah, so it is. But you can make an exception, right?" Lima looked pointedly at Sirius, James, and Peter, who were hanging around.
Remus shook his head.
"Then how about the twenty-ninth?"
"Going home to see his mother," Sirius said promptly.
A small crowd had started to gather around-probably had heard of the incident through the Gryffindor witnesses.
"Second of December?" Lima tried, glancing down her list of Free Time.
"Tutoring midget first year Hufflepuffs," James said helpfully.
One by one, people began adding their own excuses for why Remus Lupin cannot attend a picnic.
"Going home for Christmas!"
"His pet rabbit's funeral!"
"Chickens rampaged his house!"
The final result was that Lima looked at her watch, screamed that she was meeting the Makeover Club in the fourth floor girls' bathroom, and ran off. She came back in January. Apparently, the second week of that month was where she had stopped abruptly (Makeover Club, remember?), so she had postponed it to now. The Mauraders spotted Lima marching over bossily from the other side of the Great Lake. When she arrived, she inquired whether or not Remus had time on the next Hogsmeade visit.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm going with Sirius, James, and Peter."
"I refuse to have you playing hard-to-get," she announced. "That means you three won't try to crash our date, let alone come with us. And I've cleared my schedule for the next two weeks."
Guess you'll fail your N.E.W.T.s then, Remus thought.
"Ten prompt," Lima answered, smiling rather largely. "Be there!" She turned and marched away without checking to see whether or not Remus had agreed to.
On the third Sunday of January, Remus descended the marble staircase to the Great Hall. Lima was already there and had been waiting for thirty minutes early, according to the Map. Remus shook his head mentally as he walked up to her. She should cut back on the highlights, and the dyeing, and the eyelash, and-yeah, pretty much everything.
"You look nice today," Remus said to be nice. Actually, he was always nice, but this time he might be spoiling those people he complimented.
Lima beamed.
Remus offered his arm and they set off along the road to Hogsmeade. Halfway along the trail, when they were fifteen feet away from a professor, which conveniently was named Professor Slughorn, who had an unbelievable mass of pineapple cakes in his arms, Lima cried out in shock as the feeling and sight of many fake spiders appeared and began crawling on her.
Uttering a long string of obscenities (**%$#*%$#! &^%*#&$* ! #), she flung them off, missing a lot of them and throwing the ones she didn't miss onto a surprised and angry Slughorn. The encounter caused Lima a month's detention ("I won't be able to make it to the Makeover Club!"),and a scarred, pale hand returned a wand to his cloak pocket.
Then, in front of the Three Broomsticks, Lima suddenly started announcing to the whole world, "I like to go to the Makeover Club even though it's full of those vain Hufflepuffs. I also spend half my Hogwarts life in front of the mirror-"
A surge of angry Hufflepuffs emerged from every possible nook and dog-piled Lima, even the first and second years, who weren't even supposed to be in Hogsmeade in the first place.
"Children!" Professor Flitwick squeaked, running as fast as he could toward the commotion. "What is the matter?"
The Hufflepuffs backed away from Lima, who stood up shakily and red. She opened her mouth and-
"$*&^%!* ^%*&$^! ^%!^ #!^# %!" She immediately clapped a hand to her mouth, mortified.
"100 points from Ravenclaw, and two months of detention!" Flitwick thundered, furious.
"You can't do that, you shorty!" Again, Lima turned even redder with embarrassment.
"Another fifty points for insulting a professor, and three months of detention instead! Ah, yes-two hundred points to Hufflepuff for defending your honour." With a wink at Remus and the Hufflepuffs, he walked away.
"That old bat!" Lima hissed, still red and fuming, grabbing Remus' arm and dragging him into the side alley to Madam Puddifoot's, where a black-haired sixth-year was just entering it without suspicion.
Half-blinded by the pink-ness (he didn't even know it was St. Valentine's Day!), Remus had a little difficulty finding James, Sirius, and Peter. But he did, after all, and so slid in on Sirius' side. Mentally slapping himself upside the head at forgetting his 'date', he called Lima over.
When she was three feet away, she ran into an invisible wall. Horrified, she began looking around suspiciously for the source.
"Above your head," Sirius sneered, hand in his pockets.
She looked, and screamed.
"I don't want to be kissed by Malfoy! Or a girl! Who did it? Rosmerta, you never seemed that nice anyway! Oh, I know! Black!" She glared at Sirius. "I'll kill you, so you better be running right now."
"I'm scared," Sirius drawled. After all, Lima had no authority to threaten him when she herself was stuck under a mistletoe. Ironic, wasn't it?
Nobody moved.
"Who'll kiss me?" Lima demanded, turning pink. "Stop looking at me, you perverts!" Indeed, the whole room was staring at her. "Remus!" she tried again, leaning over with the part of her that could move and trying to grab him.
Sirius stood up and said loudly, "Lima Bean, go follow someone else. Can't you tell that Remus is sick of you sticking to him like Spellotape?"
"It's Lina Bens! And we're on a date, so you have to kiss me, Rem!" she pleaded.
"First things first. He never said yes, you forced him. Secondly, stop following him around like a stalker. Thirdly, who likes someone that tries to cut in the way of their personal business?"
James stood up too. "He hates nicknames, can't you tell? He's been trying to tell you for ages since last year that he doesn't like you. I don't think you're that evil, but this has to stop."
Lima looked over at Remus for her last hope. He said softly, "They're right, Lina. I…don't like you. In fact, I think you probably should focus more on your studies instead."
Her eyes welled up with tears as she nodded in understanding.
"I'm glad that was over," Sirius commented.
Remus sighed, slumping over.
"Don't tell me you're falling for her just when you've gotten over her!" Sirius exclaimed.
"I'm not," Remus said hastily, straightening. "Why're you suddenly so interested in my love life?"
Sirius shrugged, and plunged a hand into his bag. "Here-"
James said suddenly, "Doesn't it seem weird that Lima Bean's being unnaturally happy over there?"
They looked.
"Well," Sirius commented, "she is grinning rather stupidly and glancing at her food. That girl lacks subtleness."
"Maybe it has to do with Slughorn," Peter mused. "He's rather angry at the staff table."
"Probably the spider incident last Sunday," Remus guessed. "Or somebody stole potions from his storage."
"Hm," said James, suspicious. "The only ones he'll be really worried about are Amortentia and Manufesorum."
"Which one was that?" Sirius asked, puzzled.
"It's like Veritaserum, but it only answers one question about a person. Like Polyjuice, you need a hair or something from the person you want the answer from."
"And where did you learn that from?" Remus asked, impressed at James' bookworm-worthy knowledge.
"Er…Evans," he said, pink in the cheeks.
"And…why would she tell you?" Sirius raised an eyebrow; it was common knowledge that Evans disliked James very, very much.
"Because we had a common theory. And don't ask what that theory was!" he added quickly at seeing Sirius open his mouth.
Sirius thought about it. James allowed him to think, but then regretted his decision as Sirius began sporting a rapidly-growing, devilish smirk.
"Don't think about it!" James cried, shaking Sirius' shoulders.
"Ha," Sirius shouted, undeterred. "It was about whether or not you and Evans were soul mates, right?"
"No," James said, relieved and annoyed. "That's impossible anyways, you know that."
"I'll just excuse myself from you two's presence," Remus muttered, getting up.
"Wait," Sirius said, handing Remus a folded letter. "Somebody asked me to give it to you. Probably wanting a fantastic date with you." He winked suggestively.
Remus accepted it warily; he was used to Sirius' and James' weird antics, but he knew that they'd never intentionally prank him. Taking a swig of his drink, he picked up his bag and began to leave the Great Hall.
Two pairs of hazel and grey eyes swung around to stare at him. James took the initiative, leaping up and shouting, "Spit it out!"
Startled, Remus opened his mouth to show that he could not spit it out, it was already swallowed, and instead was forced to say in a neutral voice, "The question asked while on the second to last step of the Manufesorem Potion, on which the hair was added, was-" Here, a recording of Lina Bens' voice was added. "-'Who does Remus Lupin love the most?'"
Half the Gryffindor table, whose attention had been diverted from their breakfast, turned to look at Lina Bens, whose expression clearly said that she to had not thought that this would happen. Gulping at the glares she received from all four of the Mauraders, she stared at her plate, but strained her ears to hear the answer she had been waiting for.
"In answer to that question," Remus said, eyes widening and frantically trying to close his mouth, but to no avail, "The answer is-"
"Sirius," Harry said nervously to his godfather, who was sitting with Remus at the dining table, "I need to talk with you."
"And Remus?" Sirius inquired.
"Well…it's about relationships."
Sirius lit up. "Ah," he said, nodding sagely. "I might have some experience with that."
Remus snorted. "That's an underestimation."
"Can you...er, give me some advice? Like about your experiences."
The two Mauraders exchanged glances.
Remus raised an eyebrow, before turning back to the innocent teenager. "Harry, have you heard about the Manufesorum Potion?"
Harry racked his brain. "No. Hermione never talked about it either."
"That's because it was an extremely complex potion in N.E.W.T.s standards. It's like…Moony, how did James say it?"
"Something along the lines of 'Like Veritaserum, but only answers one question, and like Polyjuice in which you need a hair or something from the person's body.'"
"And Evans was studying Manufesorum with him," Sirius mused. "Maybe they already suspected…"
To answer Harry's confused look, Remus smiled slightly. "Me and Sirius."
"You and…" Harry repeated. "Oh!" Surprised, he turned to Sirius for confirmation.
"Smart, she was," Sirius continued, nodding. "And I already gave Remus a confession letter when he was about to leave the hall. You know, so he'd get curious and wonder, and I'd go from there. But then a Ravenclaw girl a year below us, had a James-Lily infatuation with Remus, slipped him Manufesorum at breakfast."
"Only succeeded in matchmaking skills," grinned Remus. "In fact, I wonder what happened to her…"
Harry knitted his eyebrows together. "There's a Ravenclaw fourth-year that was in my fan-club. Romilda Vane-the optimist of the group-tried to give me love potion."
"Oh, er…what was her name?"
"Meghan Nuts. Come to think of it, it sounds like…"
"Nutmeg?" Sirius supplied helpfully.
"Yeah. Her brother's name is Pinto."
"Pinto Nuts. Sounds like a hybrid between pinto beans and nuts," Sirius said, snickering.
~end~