The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Kids Like Us

Kids Like Us

Lily Evans had pressed her uniform so the pleats were perfect in the skirt. She'd rolled her knee socks on so the lines in the knitting were perfectly straight as they went up her calves. Her oxford was carefully tucked, her red Gryffindor tie puffed just enough from below her vest, her robes open so the shiny red silk showed, and the bright, shiny gold Prefect badge gleamed from her chest. Her hair was up in a knot on the back of her head, a barrette holding the fringe from her forehead to one side. She pushed her trolley through the barrier after saying a tearful goodbye to her mum and a stiff "see you about" to Petunia, who she'd engaged in the least wanted hug in the history of all time to please their mother. After depositing her trunk by the train for the wizard loading them into the compartment, she looked about for a sign of Marauders - specifically for Remus's height or the volume of Sirius Black, the two most easiest things to spot Marauders by, for if you found one, you found them all...

What she spotted instead was what she was really after anyway.

"Hello Potter."

James turned around, his oxford only half tucked and quite wrinkled, his tie hanging untied in two tails from his shoulders, and that stupid smirking grin... "Hullo Evans."

She hadn't seen him since the day of their duck. If it was possible for it to be, he seemed to have grown taller since then - or perhaps it was her imagination. He ran a hand through his hair nervously as he faced her and she smiled. "How are you?"

"Brilliant," he answered. "Drop your trunk off already, have you?"

Lily nodded. "Did you?"

But James was distracted.

Lily saw his eyes sweep all her perfectly straightened and pressed clothes, lingering where her vest curved over her chest and and the patch of leg showing in the gap between her skirt's hem midway down her thigh, and the top of her socks, just below her knee. She blushed when he looked back up at her. "You look really nice," he said.

"Thank you."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, "You're - um - you're probably looking for Remus, yeah? Prefect duties?"

"Sort of," she said. What she meant was she'd been looking for James, really, but she did need to see Remus, too, but he usually came with James as a package deal, along with Sirius and, at school at least, Peter. But she'd really been looking for James.

What James took it as was that she was looking for Remus and he was just what she found first. "He isn't here yet," James said, and his smile melted off just a tiny bit, "But him and Sirius probably stopped for breakfast or something. They were coming on Sirius's motorbike. Which he's been forbidden to fly."

"Remus got on the motorbike?"

James laughed, "Very reluctantly. Claims he'll haunt us if he dies on it. Says he'll be more annoying than Peeves."

"What's he going to do? Organize the sock drawer?" Lily joked.

James snickered, "Sirius and I said exactly the same thing."

"Poor Remus and his famously organized sock drawer." Lily smirked.

They stood there awkwardly a moment, then, finally, James said, "Would you like to go up to the lot and wait for them with me? My mum and dad wanted to see me safely to the Platform, else I would've waited up there anyway. But I s'pose it's good, I wouldn't have bumped into you if I had."