Chapter Ten

"Couldn't you have asked Sirius to help you?" Remus complained mildly. "Or even James, for that matter. Both are much better at this sort of thing than I am."

"Sirius still won't admit that James and Lily are perfect together, and I obviously can't ask James, since he's sworn off of Lily for some stupid reason," Peter answered without taking his eyes off of the stream of students walking down the hallway. Both boys were currently crouched behind the statue of Millicent the Mad, waiting for the opportunity to carry out Peter's plan. At least, Peter was crouched behind the statue of Millicent the Mad, waiting to carry out his plan; Remus was, in actuality, crouching behind the statue of Millicent the Mad, wondering what Peter had on him that was good enough blackmail material to cause him to go along with this asinine plan.

"There might be a reason they wouldn't go along with this plan," Remus said.

"I told you that reason already," Peter answered, obstinately refusing to take a hint.

"No," Remus said patiently, "I mean that I don't think that this is going to work."

"Of course it'll work," said Peter. "It's perfect."

Perfect wasn't exactly the word Remus would use for the plan. He wouldn't even go so far as saying it was flawed, because that still would be giving too much credit to Peter's idea (although to actually voice such feelings, Remus would never dream to dare—he wouldn't want to hurt his friend's feelings). Clichéd, hackneyed and plain old corny were much better descriptives when he got right down to it.

Still, Peter seemed inordinately pleased with his idea and Remus wasn't about to crush the other boy's spirits. Instead of voicing his doubts, Remus merely said, "We'll see what happens. But don't get your hopes up."

"It's perfect," Peter repeated, a little more firmly this time.

Remus didn't have a chance to say anymore—if, indeed, he even felt it was worth his while to put effort into arguing further—because a group of girls that included Lily Evans, the object of their plan, came quite close to their hiding spot, causing Peter to hush Remus unnecessarily loudly.

"Shhhh!"

Lily stopped suddenly, her feet mere inches away from Remus' face. "What was that?"

"What was what?" asked one of the innumerable girls that always seemed to flock around Lily.

"That noise," Lily said.

"What noise?"

"Didn't you hear it?"

There were a couple of seconds of silence in which Remus could imagine the bunch of girls uneasily looking around—he himself dared not peek and see the scene for himself. He dared not to even look at Peter, whom he imagined was also trying to make himself as small and invisible as humanly possible.

When he dared to move again, he discovered that Peter had forgone the "humanly possibly" option and transformed into a rat as he often did when trying to make himself invisible. As Peter said, it worked every time—unless, of course, Sirius and James were involved, in which case it could (and had, once or twice) end with a loud shriek of "Rat!" followed by wands drawn and a curse or two hurled in poor Peter's direction. Nothing maiming or permanently debilitating, of course, but Remus knew that Peter didn't appreciate that small bit of kindness.

Miraculously, all the girls managed to stay quiet for close to a minute, straining to hear the noise Lily had mentioned. Finally, even Lily had to admit defeat.

"It's gone."

"It was probably just your imagination," said one of the girls, who Remus finally recognized as Bernice, a Ravenclaw in their year. "Or Peeves."

"Trust me," Lily said with good natured humour. "Peeves very rarely appears in my daydreams."

"How about James Potter?" Irune teased.

This time Lily answered with significantly colder tones. "I dream about Potter even less frequently. I don't have many nightmares, after all."

"No, I meant maybe you heard Potter. That's him coming this way."

Sure enough, James was heading towards them, currently completely oblivious to the girls' presence in the hall because he was too busy laughing over something or another with Sirius.

That James made his entrance with such good timing didn't surprise Remus for two reasons. The first was that he was James Potter, the king of good entrances. It was like that Muggle saying Remus' mother often used: "Speak of the devil and he shall appear." James' ego always made it so that he showed up just when people started to talk about him. Remus wasn't sure how he did it; he could only conclude that it was a gift.

The other reason that Remus wasn't surprised when James appeared was because he and Peter had set James up earlier. His arrival was the signal they had been waiting for to put the next part of their plan into action.

Peter suddenly appeared beside him, wand at the ready.

"Wait!" Remus hissed, not caring if someone overheard him this time. Peter couldn't follow through with his plan now. There was one small, yet important detail that would ruin everything with its presence.

Unfortunately, Peter neither saw that detail nor heeded Remus' warning. He muttered the words under his breath and an excellently executed Trip Jinx was hurled towards one Lily Evans. She stumbled, as expected, falling directly into the arms of one James Potter, whose skills, both of the Quidditch variety and of the anticipating-every-breath-Lily-Evans-takes variety, allowed him to move quickly enough to catch her in mid-fall, making it seem as if he had anticipated the action.

It had been Peter's plan all along, to make James seem like a hero and to allow Lily to know the pleasure of being in James' manly arms all in one fell swoop. The only problem was, people tended not to fall when they were standing still (unless they were Sirius and a bottle of Firewhiskey was involved).

It was obvious that a Trip Jinx was involved.

Unfortunately, it was just as obvious who, exactly, Lily blamed for said Trip Jinx. The yelling, protestations, screeching, outrages, cursing and hexing that came from all parties was enough to make Remus very happy that he was hidden away and therefore not at all suspected. Peter, he later learned, had turned himself into a rat for the duration of the fight.

The hallways was deserted before Remus and Peter dared to come out of their hiding spot and look at each other.

"Maybe that wasn't such a good idea," Peter said.

Remus was inclined to agree.

"What do you think about James rescuing some poor animal right in front of Lily's nose? Do you think that will win her over?" It was obvious that Peter had put a lot of thought into this idea. A lot of thought, and a lot of ink smudged all over his face.

"That sounds like a good idea," Remus said sarcastically. He wanted nothing further to do with the matter, not after the disaster of Peter's last plan. "How about a rat? Being saved from Filch's cat?"

Peter glared daggers at him. "Hey!"