Summary: Sirius, sick of James obsessing over Lily, puts him on a 12-step program to help him become a true Girl Scout. What has this authoress gotten herself into?
Disclaimer: Do I ever own anything? Ever? Ever?
Notes: Loosely based on The Catsitters by James Wolcott, especially on the character of Darlene and the girl advice and such. I have most of this written out since I am on vacation (and inspiration is merciless).
"I don't get it!"
Sirius glanced over at his best friend as James fell back with a sigh into the common room chair. Sirius smiled, holding back a laugh as James contniued ranting, oblivious to his friend's amusement. "I mean, day in and day out I try to be nice to her. I send her flowers and candy. I sent her a talking flower, a jeweled turtle, a silver owl, even a goddamn singing elf--''
"Watch your language!" Remus shouted from across the common room.
"Shut up Mommy Moon, you're BEING BORING," Sirius shouted, loud enough so even the Slytherins turned their heads down in their dungeony common room. "James?"
James had barely noticed. "And what? I send her notes with her breakfast. I mean, I had to special order that embrodiered scarf with that poem I wrote, and what does she do? Throws orange juice in my face!"
"Was that the poem with the 'her skin like bleached snows/oh the beauty of her gorgeous nose/her lovely jeweled eyes/ like green leaves under the skies'?" Peter asked doubtfully from nearby.
"Shut up, Wormtail," Sirius said loudly. "There is serous counseling going on here!" He turned back to James, who was settled on the traditional Freudian coutch, and looked down at his notepad while James yammered in the background. Right now, it had one angry-looking stickgirl, a stickman holding a broken heart, lots of squiggly lines, and a hand with a very rude gesture. There was also a ghostly-looking bunny rabbit and an oblong shape covered with dots that could have been a pickle.
"What do I do?" James asked finally. Sirius glanced up, reallizing he had completley lost everything after the 'orange juice in my face' line. He wracked his brain, and he vaguely came up with some phrases like "kicked me in the groin", "ink on my face" and "written on bathroom walls."
"I know exactly how to cure you, James,' Sirius said decisively, snapping his notebook shut. James, for the first time in months, gave Sirius his undivided attention.
"How?" he asked breathlessly.
"You, Prongs, need to learn the Ways of Women," Sirius said, the capital letters evident. James stared at him, raising one eyebrow. "It's true," Sirius said, leaning forward. "There is a certain way that girls act, which is very predictable to experienced girl scouts like me, which I can teach you to be. Now, you want to get Lily. You need to change. You need to look at the guys Lily's dated, look at Lily's friends. See what kind of people she likes. Start by helping Lily's friend, by getting them to like you. Prongs, old pal, you need the time-tested-boy-approved-girl-watching-12-step-Sirius Girl Scouting Method!"
James leaned forward, swinging his legs over the side of the couch and facing Sirius. "How? When? Where?"
"What, why, who?" Peter interjected wryly. James and Sirius both ignored him.
"I think you should start soon," Sirius said decisively. "You really need the total immersement treatment, but I can't do that at Hogwarts." He flipped open the notebook and scribbled down something, ripped it out with a flourish, and gave it to James.
"Um, Sirius, I can't read kanji," James said after a minute. "You also share a dorm with me, have all classes with me, live at my house during the summer, share an owl with me--"
"Hey, is James talking about something besides Lily?" Peter asked, sounding shocked. James actually focused on him long enough to throw him an evil glare. Peter pretended to have a heart attack from the shock, and Remus cracked up from across the room.
"Shut yer trap, both o' ye," James shouted in a good imitation of Hagrid. Even Sirius doubled over laughing, and Peter almost wet himself.
"This is the way the Marauders are supposed to be," Sirius grinned to himself. "Time for the 12-step Sirius Girl Scouting Method to live up to its reputation! Then James can get Lily, stop obsessing over her, and it'll be fine." He raised his voice. 'Hey James, it says meet me tonight in the dorm room for the introduction and step one to the program!"
"Yes, oh Sirius one," James said, bowing deeply with mock solemness.
"Very funny," Remus said dryly, picking up his books and coming to sit on the couch across from them. "Hey, is the counseling session over? Sirius, what did you do to get James to quite obsessing over--" he paused as Sirius made frantic gestures behind James's back not to mention the name, and changed in mid-word. "Li--Quidditch?"
"He's been introduced to the twelve-step Sirius Gi...Recovery Method," Sirius said, trying to steer the conversation away from Lily and girls in general. Remus managed a hacking cough that sounded strangely like 'Padfootispsycho'. "Bad cough?" Sirius asked sympathetically, and James laughed.
Sirius's tactic might have worked and things might ahve gone well if, at that exact moment, Lily had not entered the common room. Peter, Remus, and Sirius's faces all fell comically where James's rose just as comically. Lily had obviously just come back from the library, staggering under the weight of several heavy books, her bag crammed with papers, quills, and ink. James sprang up like a flower before the sun. "Lily! Let me help you with that!"
Everyone in the common room except Sirius sighed, and he began scribbling things in his notebook which looked like rather disturbing stickpeople, followed by a long line of writing that was unintelligable from squiggly lines.
"Go away, Potter," Lily said as she hurried towards the girl's dorm stairway. "Just--stop--right--there," she gasped, but it was to late. James had run forward, grabbing several books out of her hand and causing them all to fall. He lunged forward to catch the rest, but only dropped the books he was holding, overbalanced and plunged straight into Lily's bag, sending quills flying, parchment ripping, and ink crashing.
Everyone in the common room silmulatenously groaned and braced themselves. Sirius scribbled furiously in his notebook, writinmg things longer than any word Remus had ever seen. He thought briefly it might be Arabic.
"I'm so sorry, Lily," James gasped out, scrambling for her books. "I'm really sorry, I just wanted to help, I'm so sorry--"
Lily seemed on the verge of hysterial. She had her hands balled into fists and they were shaking--a piece of parchment fluttered out of her hair, already a short red static disarray. Her eyes were flaming, and with a quiet, shaking, barely controlled voice, she said through gritted teeth: "It's all right, Potter. Just go away." She exhaled heavily. Any dumber person that had been only a fraction less in love might have realized enough to back off.
But, alas, James did not.
"I think--ow!--I might have come on a tad too--ow! Moony!--strong," James said, wincing as Remus held the ice to the bruise on his forehead. The Marauders had been all for sending James to the Hospital Wing, but James, fearing for Lily's detention-free record, has dug his heels in with all his stubborn Potter pride, and they knew enough to give it up.
"I think that one 600-page hardback edition of Arthmancy in Daily Life caused that one," Sirius said helpfully, freezing more water with his wand for James's lip.
"I knew Arthmancy was evil," James muttered.
"What seemed most painful was the Advanced Transfiguration book smashing your glasses into your face," Remus pointed out, equally helpful.
"Really? Because I thought," Peter said, with sarcastaic surprise, "that the worst was the ink pot in the groin."
"I just don't understand," James said. "I mean, I tried to help her carry her boks. I apologized. Why did she start throwing books at me?"
"James, are you seriously that dense?" Remus sighed. "Well, it could be the three hundred incidents before that. The green Jello,"
"That was Sirius," James interrupted.
"Prongs, it might have been the demanding 'go-out-with-me-or-else' act, or the time you tried to impress her by flying to the top of the castle and got stuck on that statue, or the bad poetry that was os long it hung off each end of her bed and took three owls to lift, or the elves that followed her around all week singing--I think that one almost made her cry-- or that one time in Transfiguration when you turned the desks into cherubs that sang bad love songs, hoping to impress her but got us all detention, or the sabatoge of her mashed potatoes so they said 'I Love You Lily' in red food dye that looked like blood and made her faint, or the flashing sign on Valentine's Day last year, or the--"
"We get the picture, Padfoot," James interrupted, touching his busted lip, which was starting to swell.
"Really?"Remus asked sarcastically. "Then why do you keep doing it?"
"It's an addiction, Moony, a cycle of violence," Sirius said, freezing more water with his wand. "First it's a crush. Then it turns to obsession, and pretty soon it's every time you see that person. Then you start daydreaming about them, then night-dreaming about them. Then you have so much feeling it all overflows into oem form, then you, by now desperate for attention, start to buy her things to try to impress her, but you try too hard and she starts to think you're pathetic. From then, anything you do will backfire because the more you try to impress her, the more pathetic she thinks you look, which only makes you want to impress her more."
There was a short silence, then James said puzzedly: "I think I've just been insulted. But I'm not sure."
"I'm trying to help you here!" Sirius interjected, wounded, but Peter interrupted him.
"You sound like you have experience in the field, Padfoot," he said, amused. "Who is it?"
Sirius shrugged. "I have groupies always following me around, and I observe them." He changed the subject while James was still sputtering: "Groupies?" and continued: "I've been watching various people flirt with other people with successful or insuccessful results; Alice Remerta with Frank Longbottom, successful, Fiona Landon with me, unsuccessful, Remus with Aladidn, successful and disgusting--"
"Hey!' Remus interjected, wounded, but Sirius continued:
"and James with Lily, majorly unsuccessful. I've taken notes on all their successes and failures." He held up the note proudly. Remus took it, and James and Peter peered over his shoulder at it.
"And I thought you were brushing up on your kanji," James said after a short silence.
"No, half of it's in Arabic," Sirius said, pointing. "But these notes contain all the information about the 'obsession-rejection cycle'," Sirius protested, handing James the ice. "And once you identify the problem, you can break it! I'm going ot help you be a girl scout so you can impress Lily, that's how I'm going to help Prongs!"
There was a short silence. "Riiiight," Remus said finally, lightly. "So, what about that war in the Middle East?"
End chapter one
Chapter Two Preview:
"Hang on a sec," James said, writing frantically. "Can you start again from the 'now, say this guy,' please?" Remus peered at James's paper, which was covered with every word Sirius had said in the last ten minutes. He shook his head.
"Don't write every word I say, James," Sirius interrupted. "There's too much subject to cover. Just what I drew here." He tapped the blackboard.
James looked up and crumpled his piece of paper. "Moony, can you hand me a piece of paper?"
If they had been anime characters, they would have sweatdropped. However, being a real person, Remus could only show his exasperation by throwing the notebook at James's still-bruised head.