Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR. I am not making any money off of this fic.

AN: This fic is dedicated to TheNextFolchart, for winning 2nd place in the Blindfolded Competition on the Harry Potter FanFiction Challenges Forum, and who requested a Marauders friendship fic.

########

This Pudding Is Cold by luvsanime02

########

As usual, the Gryffindor table was a bustle of activity and raucous merriment. At first, hardly anyone noticed one student drifting through the doors and walking mechanically up to join his group of friends. The three of them looked up at his arrival, puzzled by him not sitting down and joining them.

"She said yes."

At those words, the whole table fell silent. Eyes all up and down the Gryffindor table turned to observe the stunned and quite pale-looking young man standing in front of his three shocked friends. Time stood still.

"She said yes?" Remus asked, breaking the moment. He sounded much like a flyaway Quaffle had just knocked him soundly over the head. Unfortunately, Remus knew exactly what being hit over the head by a Quaffle felt like, due to an unfortunately-timed lapse of attention during the last Gryffindor Quidditch match.

James Potter nodded, not focusing on anything in particular, and almost swaying back and forth where he stood. He looked like any second a strong breeze, or a stealthy Slytherin, could knock him over. Sirius gestured to the bench next to him, where there was an open space for James to sit down, but he didn't seem to notice. His eyes were glazed over, staring ahead at nothing, and he still wasn't sitting down to eat. In fact, even after James finally seemed to realise that he was in the Great Hall during dinnertime, he looked at the food spread out along the table as though it was all poisoned. Instead of looking eager about supper, he seemed close to fainting.

"Right," Sirius said briskly, standing up and slinging an arm around James' shoulders, most likely to stop his best friend from actually collapsing and dashing his head open on the floor. "Are you sure it wasn't like the time she said, 'Sure thing, Potter, as soon as you grow a kneazle tail'? Because that wasn't a yes, mate."

"Though it was a decent bit of partial human Transfiguration," Remus pointed out fairly. "Professor Dumbledore was impressed with how bushy you got the hair."

"McGonagall wasn't all that spiffed about it, if I recall right. Seemed offended, for some reason," Sirius mused, contributing to the conversational tangent while not loosening his hold on James, who was drooping worryingly.

"That was a few years ago," Peter chimed in. His food was going uneaten. All of them had stopped, dinner forgotten in the wake of this exciting news. In fact, most of Gryffindor was ignoring their plates. All eyes were now turned away from them, though, which was a sure bet that everyone was listening in closely. "Evans likes Prongs well enough now."

Sirius snorted, but nodded in agreement. "Right you are, Wormtail." He went to remove his arm from around James, but the other stumbled into him when released and Sirius quickly put his arm back, supporting his weight again.

Still keeping his arm around James, Sirius started slowly lowering himself back onto the bench, forcing James to follow, not that he seemed to mind. Carefully, they moved as one, and eventually were both seated down without anyone being strangled or tripped or their face forced into some food item. It was apparently a day full of miracles.

Once they were seated, Remus loaded up a plate with some of the dinner foods while they were still there, and carefully nudged it across the table until it was placed in front of James. His friend blinked at the food, which was better than he'd expected, really.

They all waited to see what he would do next, but after about five seconds of nothing Sirius sighed impatiently and stuck a fork in James' right hand, which Remus thought was both brave and not particularly thought-out, but lucky for Remus he was sitting on the opposite side of the table near Peter.

"Tell us what happened," Remus encouraged, still keeping most of his attention on the fork.

"She said yes," James reiterated, only louder than before, practically shouting it. This sudden burst of noise was made louder by how quiet the rest of the students at the table were being in order to hear the story better. Some poor Ravenclaw over at the next table choked at the unexpected commotion, and their friend had to reach over and start pounding on their back.

"You said that already," Peter mentioned patiently. He looked as though he wanted to go back to his dinner but didn't know if it was safe yet, staring worriedly at the still-coughing Ravenclaw. Remus could relate. "Tell us about what happened before she agreed."

James took a deep breath, tightened his fist around the fork, and then to the relief of everyone present he set it down absentmindedly on his plate in order to run his fingers through his horribly-messy hair and ruffle the back up in reflex. Then, James let his hands drop down onto the table with a quiet 'thud,' and he pushed the full plate in front of him off to the side without looking at it, where Sirius only just managed to grab the dinnerware before it could slide off of the table. An empty space now in front of him, James slowly leaned his body forward until his forehead was resting on top of the wooden surface, his hands sliding back and off of the table to hang listlessly at his sides.

"Okay," he started, and all three of them leaned in closer in anticipation, their heads forming a loose circle above James'. "Just before. Just now. We were just- We were patrolling. Before dinner. Just now. You know. Head Boy and Girl. Patrolling. Like usual. The two of us. Together."

"Right," Remus interjected, when he could stand it no longer. He knew from experience just how long James could ramble on in stilted sentences if left to his own devices, circling around and repeating himself without getting anywhere, and Remus' inner grammar critic cringed at the abuse of the English language. "So, you two were patrolling. Where were you assigned to?"

Specific details tended to jar James' memory and ground him in the here and now, and Remus' question thankfully worked, turning his friend's thoughts back onto the right track again. "We were just walking up from the dungeons-"

"Hardly the most romantic of places to ask a bird out," Sirius couldn't help but mutter. Some of the other Gryffindors around them started nodding their heads in agreement before they suddenly remembered that they were supposed to be pretending interest in their suppers, not James' love life, and instead quickly bent their heads back to their plates and scraped some cutlery around in a simulacrum of productivity.

"-and she was laughing," James continued on, likely not even hearing Sirius, but if he did, ignoring him just the same. "Laughing, and at something I said! You know what her laughing does to me." At this, he tilted his head to the side just enough so that one of his eyes was now visible and he could appeal to Peter and Remus sitting across from him.

Peter nodded solicitously. "Her hair does that thing, and she smiles, and you can't control what comes out of your mouth next."

James nodded firmly in agreement, his cheek getting scraped across the table. His hands, which had been dangling at his sides, rose up to smack flatly onto the table on both sides of his head in emphasis. "Yes, that! That's exactly what she does! So, she was doing the hair thing, and the laughing thing, and before I knew it I'd just- opened my mouth and asked her out."

Anybody still listening in - which was everybody - winced, knowing that James Potter had a problem with spontaneously asking Lily Evans out at random times. It was something of a common occurrence, and so were her often-scathing responses.

"And she didn't threaten to hex you?" Sirius asked encouragingly, when it seemed like James had momentarily lost himself in the memory and wouldn't be resurfacing on his own anytime soon.

At this question, James sat up swiftly; a look of awe had returned to his face. "No, she didn't. Not at all. She stopped laughing, and for a minute I thought I'd cocked it all up again, yeah? That she was going to go back to hating me, and I'd have to go live with the Giant Squid or something because I'd never be allowed into the Head rooms again. Only, she said, 'Let's try the next Hogsmeade weekend, then, and go from there.' That means yes, right?"

Suddenly, James grabbed Sirius around the back of his collar in a desperately strong grip and heaved him closer. This move was surprising even for Sirius, if the way that he yelped when he found his face unexpectedly thrown forward into James' chest was any indication. "That is what she meant, right?"

His voice was getting louder again, and Remus bravely reached across the table and patted James on the arm. The one not hanging onto Sirius and cutting off his air supply, or so Remus assumed from the way that Sirius was now gasping and clawing at the hand still smashing his face into James' robes. "Yes, Prongs," he agreed calmly, "that means yes."

James released Sirius just as suddenly as he'd grabbed hold of him. Sirius sprang back, gulping down some much-needed air, and in his desperation to get out of grabbing reach of James, practically threw himself across the lap of the unfortunate person sitting at his other side. He almost succeeded in knocking both Frank Longbottom and himself to the floor, only Frank managed to steady them at the last second by snatching the edge of the table with a flailing hand. James didn't seem to notice all of this commotion, still sitting in his spot in a daze.

Remus and Peter watched out of the corner of their eyes as Frank tried to remove Sirius from his lap, only for their friend to cling stubbornly to the other boy's shoulders. After a moment, Frank clearly gave up, which Remus thought was the wiser course of action, and instead asked Sirius to hand him his plate. Unfortunately for Frank, the dinner foods chose that instant to vanish and be replaced with the desserts.

"Here, have some pudding," Peter said temptingly. He, like Remus, was keeping most of his attention on James, and he pushed a lovely treacle sponge pudding closer to their befuddled friend. James blinked at the dessert for a bit before he finally reached forward and took up a serving spoon, numbly scooping a serving onto his plate and then staring at it. Slowly, he lifted some onto his fork and took a bite.

"This pudding is cold," James muttered through his mouthful of food, nevertheless swallowing and eating some more.

"We can't have everything," Remus informed him philosophically, though not unkindly. "The pudding had to be cold today." James nodded at this sage advice, though whether he was paying any attention or not remained a mystery.

Sirius, apparently deciding that sitting next to James might possibly be safe again, scooted off of Frank and back onto the bench. Then, when no arms tried to grab him and James only continued to docilely eat his cold pudding, Sirius inched closer and served himself some too. Taking that as their cue, Remus and Peter quickly chose their own desserts and dug in, since dinner was long a thing of the past.

After a few minutes of quiet, Sirius abruptly stood up and snatched his goblet of pumpkin juice off of the table. He raised it high up in a toast, face solemn as though officiating at someone's wedding. Or a funeral. "To James Potter, my best friend. May he be forever known as the brave Gryffindor who never gave up, and who proved that brash persistence in the face of daunting but attractive adversity will, in fact, eventually conquer."

"To James," echoed Peter and Remus, and the rest of Gryffindor. If there were some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs also raising their drinks, no one could blame them. Remus might have even caught Professor McGonagall's voice joining them in their toast, but he wouldn't dare ever say so.