Sirius now knows why James' favorite color is green

Disclaimer:
The Characters and situations of Harry Potter depicted in this fan fiction are the legal property of J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and AOL Time Warner, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. In addition, the majority of the dialogue under the 5th Year section of this fan fiction is taken from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix No profit is being made off this fan fiction and it is for entertainment purposes only.

James' favorite color has always been green, which I could never understand.

…

1st Year

September 18th

"Mate, are you off your rocker?" I asked him, perplexed. "It's a Slytherin color! Why not crimson or gold, show some house pride!"

He simply smiled, and said "I like red too, but I like green more."

Barking mad, that one.

We became friends the first day of school, on the train. My so called family had warned me not to mix with "That Potter boy, which made me all the more eager to befriend him.

Within our first week at Hogwarts, he quickly fell for a girl named Lily Evans, a bossy girl in our year and house. Quite a know-it-all, in my opinion.

For the past ten days, he has been doing everything in his power to impress her, and failing dismally, in my opinion.

All that his endeavors seem to do is infuriate her, causing her face to turn as red as her hair, her green – or as James insists, emerald – eyes sparkling with hatred.

It's a right laugh to watch her hit him over the head with her potions book, but I do feel a bit sorry for him.

Sometimes.

…

2nd Year

October 30th

"James," I ask cautiously.

"Hm?" He looks up from Quidditch through the Ages

"Your favorite color still –"

"Green? Yeah."

"But why?"

He raises an eyebrow. "And you fancy yourself clever?"

Well. No need for that, mate.

"But," I persuade, with the air of a parent telling a child that no that brown stuff the flowers are in is not chocolate, "What good things are green? I can't think of one type of candy that's green. The Avada Kedavra curse is green. Broccoli is green, James, broccoli! Just that should be enough to put you off green!"

"Sod off, Sirius."

"Will do."

He hasn't exactly been in the best mood, ever since his 317th attempt to ask Evans out failed dismally.

Er…what do you mean how did I come up with that number? Lucky guess, that's all! Completely random, eh, Peter?

Y-yeah.

Put away the betting list! Before someone sees!

S-sorry…

"Black! Pettigrew!"

Uh oh. Speak of the devil, if it isn't…

"Evans!" I call jovially, hiding revealing parchment behind my back.

"What is that behind your back?" she asks suspiciously.

"What is what, exactly?"

She snatches it from my hand.

"Black…" she hisses, speaking slowly and pronouncing each word with quivering anger running through her voice, "Are you running a betting pool on when I will 'give into the Potter charm?'" Her face is livid, one eye twitching in fury.

"Er…no, 'course not…what makes you say that?"

She shoves the parchment in my face. The title reads:

Betting Pool on When Evans Will Give into the Potter Charm

"That's why." She slaps me in the face, and stalks off.

Temper, temper.

Another reason to hate green

It's the color black eyes turn after all the boys in your year have laughed at you for a week for being given a black eye by Lily Evans.

…

3rd Year

December 23rd

"Remus…" I whine again.

"Yes, Sirius?" he asks, looking up from his reading and sounding a tad annoyed if you ask me.

"I need your help."
"If this is with your neglected Defense homework, the answer is no."

"It's about James."

He puts down his book. "Is something wrong with him?" he asks concernedly.

Bless him.

"Not really," I assure him, "But his favorite color is," I wrinkle my nose, "Still green!"

Remus rolls his eyes. "You can't make him change his favorite color, Sirius," he says exasperatedly.

"I know, I know, but green?"

"I'm sure he has his reasons…"
"Like what?"

"Look around you."

I do as I'm told, taking in the scene of the Common Room at Christmas time.

James and Evans are rowing in a corner, her eyes flashing angrily. He looks slightly sheepish, running his fingers through his hair and grinning nervously at her.

I roll my eyes and chuckle to myself, passing over the pair of them.

Ooh. Alice Edwards. Looking particularly lovely if I do say so myself.

Okay, focus, Sirius, focus.

Green…what's so great about green?

Maybe it's the Christmas factor?
No, that can't be it, because red is a Christmas color too.

This is really starting to bother me.

When James and Evans have finished their quarrel, I approach him.

"James?"
"Yes, Sirius?" he asks, voice slightly strained.

"So, how'd it go with Evans?"

"Not so well, okay?" he exclaims angrily, "Or did you think that she was shouting words of love, and not obscenities?"

Touchy, touchy.

"Aren't you a little low on galleons right around now? And what with Christmas fast approaching, that can't be too good now, can it?"

"What's your point?"

"I will pay you ten galleons if you change your favorite color, James. That is, if it's still that horrible green."

James rolls his eyes.

"No, thank you."

"Your loss." I shrug. Well, I wouldn't want to lose out myself, and Alice is looking particularly lonely over there…

…

4th Year

January 6th

We were just returning from a late night out at Hogsmede, courtesy of the Marauder's Map. Coming to Hogsmede when we're supposed to be in bed, asleep, does have its advantages, particularly in areas such as a certain drink known as…

"Firewhiskey," James moans, wiping the vomit from his mouth, "Too much firewhiskey."

Remus shakes his head, and whispers, "You think he would've had the sense to quit after four bottles."

"Since when have James and sense ever been used in relation to each other?"

"Good point."

James vomits again, emitting a putrid pile of green slosh.

"Now do you hate green?" I ask James mischievously.

He glares at me, wiping his mouth.

"Shutting up." I say meekly.

…

5th Year

Following OWL examinations

"I'm bored," I say. We have just finished our OWLs, and me, James, Remus, and Peter are sitting under the shade of a beech tree. "Wish it was full moon."

"You might," says Remus darkly, looking up from his reading. "We've still got Transfiguration; if you're bored you can test me. Here." He holds out his book.

"I don't need to look up that rubbish, I know it all!"

We (We being James, Peter, and myself) had recently become animagi, so that we can accompany our dear friend Mr. Lupin when he transforms into a werewolf on full moon. You didn't hear it from me.

"This'll lighten you up, Padfoot," James says softly, "Look who it is."

"Excellent…" I say quietly. "Snivellus."

Severus Snape has been the object of many of our pranks over the past five years. The four of us hate him with every fiber of our beings. He is everything we are (gladly) not. A slimy Slytherin git up to his eyeballs in the Dark Arts. Deserves every second of the torture we inflict on him, if you ask me.

After the typical back and forth, we are interrupted by Evans.

"Here we go…" Remus moans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Peter hides behind the tree.

"All right, Evans?" asks James, trying his best to sound suave.

I try my best not to lose my lunch.

"Leave him alone," insists Evans, "What's he done to you."

"Well," says James slowly. "It's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean…"

Wormtail and I chortle, but Remus remains silent.

Evans flushes in anger, her almond shaped green eyes narrowing.

"You think you're funny," she spits contemptuously, "But you're just an arrogant bullying toe rag, Potter. Leave him alone."

"I will if you go out with me, Evans!" James jumps at his opportunity. "Go on, go out with me, and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again."

Speaking of Snivellus…But my attention is diverted to Evans' response.

"I wouldn't go out with you if it were a choice between you and the giant squid."

Yet another reason to hate green; the squid's skin (if you can call it that) is colored a pale yellow-green.

James doesn't seem to make the connection; he simply stares into Evans' glaring emerald eyes, trying to conceal his hurt.

I've known the bloke for five years, and I can tell when he's hurt, whereas Evans can't.

To cover the awkwardness, I murmur "Bad luck, Prongs…OY!"

It was a mistake to turn away my attention from Snape, while I was watching Prongs and Evans, he had crawled towards his wand, shooting a jet of green light out of it that slices open James' cheek, spurting blood all over his robes.

Chalk one up for the 'I hate green club.'

(Sign ups in Gryffindor tower)

…

6th Year

February 14th

"Potter, would you care to tell me what these…things on my back are?"

"Why, my dear Lily-flower, they are wings."
"And why have you attached wings to my back?"

"To display your angelic disposition for the world to see."

"That sentence made no sense, Potter."
"Yes, I often lose track of my senses when I am around you, my dear Li—"

Whack!

I stifle a snigger, and James staggers away with his hand clutched to his broken glasses.

"Well?" I ask innocently, pretending to have not heard James' latest attempts of wooing Lily Evans.

"Turned down again," he replies gloomily, muttering "Reparo" under his breath, "I just thought maybe, what with it being Valentine's Day and all…" he trails off, looking disappointed, but quickly slaps on a phony smile.

"Well, I'm off to bed. See you in the morning, Padfoot!" he says in a false cheery voice.

"It's only 6:30, Prongs…" I remind him.

"Yes, yes I know," he trudges off up the stairs.

Maybe this whole Evans business hurts him more than he lets on.

"Oh, you flirt," I look up. Evans is smiling 'shyly' and batting her eyelashes at a tall seventh year whose name I do not know. "Of course I'll go with you to Hogsmede for Valentine's Day."

I watch James watch the pair of them, his face turning green with envy and his eyes turning dark with pain.

Honestly, green will be the end of us all.

…

7th Year

March 31st

From our hiding place under James' invisibility cloak, Remus, Peter and I watch James and Lily on their patrol duty.

Yeah, the pair of them were made Head Boy and Girl. Imagine that. Well, I suppose Dumbledore has his reasons.

"Ssh!" I hiss, waving my hand impatiently at Peter, who is whining about being hungry, "I can't hear them!"

We inch closer.

"So…Ev—Lily…" James rubs the back of his neck nervously. "I haven't asked you this in awhile, and if you say no, I won't ask ever again. I promise…"

"This is boring, when can we go back?"

"Hush" Remus and I order simultaneously. It looks like he's going to go through with it. I cross my fingers, then my toes for good measure.

"What is it, James?"

"She called him James!" Remus informs us gleefully

"Yes, I heard."

"Would…" he takes a deep breath, his hands twitching at his sides.

Remus and I exchange knowing looks. James' hands are probably itching to run through his untidy hair, but he is relenting.

"Would you be…so kind as to grace me with your company, next Hogsmede weekend?"

Silence.

She is simply staring at him.

"Oh…okay…" James says awkwardly after several more moments of silence. "I guess that's a no, I mean I should have known better to ask you when I – mmmphh?"

His ramblings are cut short when she leans in, planting a long kiss on his lips.

The three of us whoop joyfully (but quietly)

When they finally break apart, James seems the happiest I have ever seen him.

I look between the pair of them, from James' delighted hazel eyes, to Evans' sparkling emerald ones. At last full of love, not hatred, for James Potter.

And I finally understand why James' favorite color is green.

FIN.