The Bet
"So. Bored." Lily said, staring up at the ceiling.
Melody perked up. "I have an idea to make things more interesting."
"Yeah? What is it?!" Mattie asked, rolling over.
"It`s a bet of sorts."
"How many people?" asked Mary.
"All of us." Melody said, gesturing around the dorm.
"Cool. Soo…"
"Okay, each of us has to seduce-at least kiss, that is- one of the Marauders by the end of the week. We`ll draw for who gets who."
"What happens if we`re not successful?" Mary asked, looking concerned.
"The group should have to decide the punishment depending on the person." said Mattie.
Melody nodded in approval and turned to the group. "Who`s in?"
Mary was the first to answer, her voice quieter than usual, and she was suddenly acting shy. "Okay."
"Not me. Somehow I don`t think my boyfriend would be thrilled if I did bets like this while we`re dating. He might be in Hufflepuff, but he`s not stupid." Alice said.
"I`ll do it." Lily said.
"Why not." Mattie finally sighed.
"Great, that`s four, perfect! Alright people, let's do this." Melody said, plucking a purse off the floor, emptying the contents on her bed, and putting four little slips of paper inside, one with the name of each boy. She rolled over to get her wand of the nightstand, and then levitated the purse over to Mary (Wizard laziness), who didn`t seem too happy about having the first pick.
Everyone in the dorm room, even Alice, who was pretending to write a letter, stared, holding their breath in anticipation, as Mary reached her hand into the purse and retrieved a slip of paper.
Mary read it aloud softly. "Peter."
A loud collective sigh let out from the other girls. It wasn`t that they had anything against Peter; it was just a relief not to be left hanging any longer.
Mary levitated the purse back to Melody, who quickly grabbed the first paper she touched impulsively. When she read the name, Melody laughed loudly.
"Who`d you get, Mel?" Mattie asked anxiously.
"Too easy." She said happily. "I got Black." She turned her paper around.
The purse went to Lily next. James and Remus were left. With her luck, she`d end up with that pompous prick. It was almost inevitable, Lily thought as she fished her hand around, so predictable that fate would be so cruel as to pin her with James.
She unfolded her paper, already imagining how she would trick him into-
Lily dropped the paper in shock as she read the name on the parchment.
"What? Who was it?!" Alice asked excitedly, leaning over to try and read the slip.
Lily mumbled her reply.
"Louder, Lils." Mary said, her voice more confident than it had been before.
"Remus." Lily said again, faintly, but everyone heard her this time.
Lily couldn`t believe this. Was she really disappointed? James was an ignorant, pompous, rude, belligerent, snobbish, spoiled, brat. Why did it matter, then, that she got Remus? It should have felt like a miracle. Instead, Lily just sat there feeling and looking like she`d just been pushed down an elevator shaft and free-fallen ten stories.
"So I`ve got James." Mattie said, and Lily could tell that she wasn`t thrilled with this arrangement either. Mattie and James were like long-lost siblings (How she could stand him, Lily hadn`t a clue), Lily knew, and that would make Mattie`s completion of the bet all the much harder.
"Alright, so we`ve got a week to complete this starting tomorrow, and any failures will be given a punishment assigned by the other people in the group."
Lily barely heard Melody, and completely missed Mary, Mattie, and Melody walking out of the room while scheming, due to the fact that she`d gone into total panic mode.
A week. Seven days. 168 hours. Could she pull this off?
No, that wasn`t the question, Remus would be relatively easy.
Would she?
Now, that was a good question.
Why not? Lily tried to reason with herself, but her brain, one of the best in the entire school, was completely not cooperating, which was a first.
There was only one factor that would prevent Lily from being able to go through with it that Lily`s super smart brain found entirely possible. But Lily wouldn`t except it. No. NO. It just wasn`t true.
Did she…
Despite everything? Lily tried to focus on all of his bad aspects, but suddenly all of the cute, valiant, kind things flooded towards her. Him helping the first year boy by giving him a water-repelling charm so he could walk to his outside class in the rain without getting soaked. How he was protective and loyal to his friends.
Lily didn`t want to allow herself to think it, as if ignoring it would make it go away.
It didn`t work. The seed had been planted.
…Like James Potter?
It was a very good question.
When Lily finally went down to the common room, she joined the rest of her friends on the couches around the fire.
"You should just go for a direct approach, otherwise you`ll think too much and chicken out. Walk up tomorrow and get it over with." Mattie was telling Mary.
"Don`t you think they`ll get suspicious when you all kiss them within the week?" Alice asked.
Melody frowned. "I didn`t think of that…"
"Really?" Mary said sarcastically.
"If worse comes to worst, we can all just pretend that we were all under the effect of some sort of potion or spell." Mattie laughed.
Lily was about to tell them about the strange phenomena she`d experienced earlier when she realized that she may quite possibly like (maybe even something worst that she wouldn`t even think of in this context) James, when, as if on cue, all four Marauders strutted in.
Normally, Lily would have rolled her eyes, but now, she just tried as hard as possible to ignore them as the plopped down in the chairs nearby. James couldn`t find a chair, so he sat on the arm of the couch Mary, Lily, and Alice were sitting on. Sandwiched between her friends, Lily didn`t allow herself to think about the boy sitting next to Alice, and instead focused on who she was supposed to (somehow)
"Hey Remus?" Lily said, tearing him away from some conversation he was having with Peter and James.
"Hmm?"
Lily acted natural, which came easily, partially because she didn`t think of Remus as anything more than a friend. "Would you mind helping me study for that charms test we`ve got on Tuesday?"
She silently begged he would say that he was busy all week.
"Sure." He said, smiling friendlily. "Are you free tomorrow night?"
"Yeah, that would be perfect." Lily said, flashing him a smile.
Which it would have been, if she hadn`t accidently glanced over at James and saw him smiling at her in a way that made her head spin and her heart (Which was still not listening to her brain) skip a beat.