For Arsi ~ Alexius1551
And for Leena ~ Imma_Demiwitch

【In which absentminded doodles prove to hold more meaning than once thought...】

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He has no idea when he started doodling the letters LE in the middle of his snitches but it had become somewhat of a habit now. They were all over his notes: little ones in the corners, bigger ones that took up the whole margin and even ones that he had charmed to zip around the page. It was a problem. It probably needed to stop...

It was quite difficult for Lily to focus when James Potter kept taking off his glasses and cleaning them, somehow he still looked adorable without them despite the phenomenon that most people believed that bespectacled persons looked out of place without their glasses on. James somehow even defied rules that were unwritten.
Of course it was just a little bit of healthy staring. Nothing to worry about. But when she noticed little doodles of rectangular glasses in the margins of her notes things started to escalate. It was a problem. It probably needed to stop...

"I have an issue. A legitimate disease!" Lily groaned to herself while inspecting a pile of notes that were riddled with all sorts of James Potter doodles; it wasn't just his glasses, it seemed, it was also the curls on his head, the almond shape of his eyes and the way his tie hung loose around his neck. They all seemed to feature in one way or another on her History of Magic and her Arithmancy notes.

"You do? Should I be worried?" Alice, her best friend, looked up from her own Muggle Studies notes as they sat together in the library.

"Hmm... I'm not sure if you would find hilarity in the answer. I would be saying it in all seriousness but I have a feeling you won't see it the same way." Lily replied, trying to subtly cover the worst of the little drawings with her cardigan sleeve. It didn't really do much because they were dotted around everywhere, absolutely everywhere!

"You won't know until you tell me. So hit me with both barrels!"

"Promise you won't laugh?"

Alice scoffed as if Lily might have just asked for a kidney, "no."

She huffed, her stomach sinking in her own self pity, "fine." Lily lifted her sleeve to reveal her notes– or rather her shrine to James Potter dotted here and there with some notes of Goblin Rebellions.

Alice's eyes lit up with delirium before bursting into laughter (Lily shouldn't have been surprised).
"You drew all this?! This is mental!"

"I KNOW! That's why I said I had a legitimate disease!"

The brunette frowned, adjusting the reading glasses on her nose to take a better look at her work, "you know? This isn't actually half bad. You've got a rare talent, Lily, even if it does come from a slight obsession with Potter." (She couldn't resist chuckling again).

"What?! I know I have a problem but you could at least act like you're concerned for me?!"

"Oh don't worry I am!"

"Are you going to help me or not?!"

Alice's drew her hand over her face, mimicking wiping her smile clean.
"What would you like me to do?"

Lily let her head hit the desk with a thump, "help."

"Your wish is my command..."

James felt like an absolute pansy. Sirius would be rolling around the floor in howling and screeching laughter if he even got to much as a glimpse of these notes.

"Whatcha got there?"

James jumped out his skin, rushing to hide his notes from whoever had appeared behind him in the middle of the common room.

"Nothing."

"That's why you jumped like a pogo stick?"
It was a woman's voice –thank god– not Sirius. Marlene McKinnon was slipping into the loveseat next to him, crossing her legs over each other and eyeing James with suspicion.

"Spill."

"Spill what?"

She raised a blonde eyebrow at him, "whatever it is that has you springing around like a dolt. You'll feel better once you've got it off your chest."

James supposed she had a point.
"You promise you won't tell Sirius? Or Lily?"

Marlene gave him a new sort of look. It was a well known fact that Marlene McKinnon rarely kept her mouth shut about anything that wasn't her business. And so asking to keep anything from anyone (specifically her boyfriend and closest friend) was like asking her to steal the Crown Jewels off the Queen while she used the lavatory. Or to climb Mont Blanc with Slughorn strapped to her back.

"Marlene, promise me?"

"Fine." James turned round his notes to reveal a series of L.E snitches.

"Is this?... her initials?" Marlene gasped, "I admire this precision by the way."

James blushed, "thanks and yes. I think I might be going insane."

"You might be." All of a sudden she looked up at him, her ponytail flying in the air, "you know what would be terrible?"

"What's that?"

"If say, hypothetically, these notes ended up in the wrong hands?..."

His jaw dropped, "don't even think about it, McKinnon! Give me those back!"

She pouted when he snatched them out her hands, "it was hypocritical!"

"I don't care," he glared, "I need you to promise me you won't scheme against me?"

No reply, James understood his best mate's girlfriend well enough to know he'd already lost the battle. But that wouldn't save him persevering: "Marlene. Promise me."

"Fine! I promise!" (Her fingers crossed behind her back)...

Technically Marlene hadn't said a word. She couldn't be blamed, wholly, for what happened. Some of it might have been a little bit her fault but technically she hadn't outright told Sirius about the notes. She had merely implied it, which –as far as she was concerned– was absolutely not the same thing.

To further this airtight argument, it was nothing to do with her when Sirius convinced Alice to tell him what happened in the library earlier because Remus had seen the two acting strangely. Technically Marlene was only sitting there, minding her own business (which was generally everyone else's).

It was Sirius that convinced her to steal the notes from Lily's satchel when Alice finally broke and confessed as to what they were squabbling about. Sometimes Sirius Black was a terrible influence...

She had nothing to do with the heist carried out on James' notes though. That was all Sirius (and a little help from Peter).
The following day it was Sirius that slipped Lily's notes into James' own satchel and also Sirius that had put James' in Lily's. It was the perfect crime, really, and technically she hadn't broken her promise to James. Her moral compass was squeaky clean (technically...)

Despite having no part to play in the shenanigans that went on, Marlene couldn't resist biting her lip and squeezing Sirius' hand under the table to try and quash the juvenile excitement that rose up within her when both Lily and James began searching for their notes from the day before.

The classroom was fairly quiet disputing the odd sounds coming from the back table (Marlene and Sirius' table as they hid giggles behind their hands).

James clocked on first. His eyebrows knitted in a frown and he picked up his satchel off the floor and moved it to his lap. Remus, his desk mate, was watching him with mild alarm and vague intrigue while this was taking place.

It look Lily a few seconds longer but when she finally did let the penny drop she flew into an instant panic. Marlene peered at the view from over Sirius' shoulder as she hissed something or other to Alice who was shrugging helplessly for a few moments. When Alice realised what had happened she turned to face the two partners in crime with an eye for blood. Sirius gave his most innocent puppy dog eyes and pouted; the pure picture of righteousness if it weren't for the fact that he was Sirius fucking Black.

When James produced a sheet of notes that weren't his he went instantly pale. Looking remarkably like Professor Binns– who was completely impervious to the whole ordeal while to droned on about the something or other in the year seventeen something.

As his eyes scanned over the foreign handwriting something else appeared on his face, almost as if a multitude of emotions were battling for a place on his expression and none were winning.
He looked over at Lily the same time she looked over at him. Their eyes met (awkwardly). This was the moment Marlene had waited for all day.

James stood up abruptly, deftly zigzagging across the tables towards hers and placing her notes on front of her.
"I believe these are yours?" (Binns still hadn't realised anything out of the ordinary was occurring).

"Y-yes they are." Lily coughed, straightening her back and handing him his own set of notes.
"These should be yours then, I made a correction on the year or Flamel's birth but aside from that they seemed alright."

Marlene and Sirius watched on in delight as James' ears went a remarkable shade of pink.
"Well yours aren't that bad either. Nice drawings by the way. Very creative."

"Yours too. Nice snitches."

It was at this inconvenient point that Professor Binns decided to pay any heed to his students and notice one out his seat.
"Mr Potter take your seat please!"

"Yessir, I was just returning the notes to my date for this Hogsmede weekend," James winked and kissed, a shocked but furiously blushing, Lily on the cheek.

"I didn't ask for an answer, Mr Potter, much less a cheeky one! Five points from Gryffindor."

"And a subsequent ten to Marlene McKinnon and Sirius Black," Remus Lupin smirked, turning around with the rest of the class to see them still smirking (he had clearly deduced what had gone on), "for taking the initiative to lay the sexual tension to rest before it got too distracting for everyone!"

James grinned, "amen."

"But you don't believe in god?"

"Those are details we can iron out on our date, Evans."

"Whatever."

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