The Horridly Cheerful Valentine’s Day

It was an ugly day. The sun didn’t shine and the sky didn’t snow; it was raining hard and a thick fog lingered through the street corners. It blended with the dirty and slushy snow that covered the cobbled path here and there, turning everything dreary and dark, though it couldn’t have been more than ten in the morning. Rain in that time of year was never frequent, but it was a warm day for winter, though not warm enough that people ventured outside. The wind was bitter, the kind that makes one’s fingers ache from the lack of heat. One could go as for as to say it was a horrid day.

And yet, there was cheer. Pink and red confetti could be seen being sprinkled from shop windows, sometimes when the wind died down for a while, slow and happy tunes were heard from inside the village houses. Couples dashed through the rain, stepping into puddles and kicking the filthy and wet snow while holding hands, laughing all the while. Sometimes, though few and precious, there are good moods that are undefeatable.

On this particular horrid yet cheerful Valentine’s Day a girl with red hair sat alone and glum in a pub called The Three Broomsticks. She watched her best friend, Dorcas Meadows, sitting not too far away, exchanging saliva with Sirius Black, with a frown on her face. She was not in the mood for cute little couples snogging. She hadn’t been for a while now, since she’d broken it off with her boyfriend, Timothy Sullivan. Dorcas had promised she’d go into Hogsmeade with Lily so she wouldn’t be too lonely, but look how that had turned out. Sirius Black had strolled into The Three Broomsticks, spotted the two of them sitting alone, and had proceeded to strut over and confess to Dorcas that there was nothing he’d rather be doing than spending Valentine’s Day with her and her lips (though he didn’t voice that last part aloud). The poor girl had been in love with him for the longest time and she practically squealed as he smiled and extended his hand to her. She seemed to have forgotten Lily was still there and that she had promised to spend the day with her.

Lily, not wanting to give in to bitterness, glanced out the window. The rain and the wind beat against it in a pathetic attempt to chill the warmth of The Three Broomsticks and make inside more like outside. As she was looking out, she caught the eye of a boy running past her window through the rain. He spotted her and stopped in the down-pour to wave and grin at her while mouthing something she didn’t understand.

Great. There goes my quiet and undisturbed day. Wonderful…

James Potter rushed into the pub, soaking wet and smiling widely, and glanced around at the crowd of wet and smiling people. He spotted the only unhappy face and made his way toward its owner.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Evans! Wow, what are you so ecstatic about? Seeing me?” he called cheerfully as means of greeting.

She grimaced and slouched in her seat, muttering, “Why, yes, however could you tell?”

He found her remark to be very funny. She frowned.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” he asked. As she opened her mouth to answer him that yes, she minded, he waved his own question off with, “Oh, of course you don’t. Why do I even bother asking?”

She was too depressed and bitter to muster up the energy it took to yell and shove him away. She merely rolled her eyes and sunk into her seat some more, saying in a voice almost inaudible, “Perhaps you were being polite for once in you life…”

“Why should I have to, when I know you’ve been longing for my presence?”

She restrained herself from gagging, but not from rolling her eyes very dramatically toward the ceiling.

“You’re a mind-reader Potter. That was precisely the way I was feeling.” She couldn’t have sounded more indifferent.

He finally seemed to be catching on that she wasn’t in the jolliest of moods. He wiped the smug smile from his face and looked at her with concern.

“Evans, what’s up?”

His concern annoyed her more than his demented ideas of self-importance. She snapped, “Your ego. No, I am perfectly fine, thank you very much. Now, do you mind? Bother me any day of the year, but I don’t feel like putting up with you right now.”

He smiled a little and said, “Relax Evans. I didn’t come here to bug you; I was just saying a quick ‘hello’. I came here to meet up with Sirius so we can go spy on Remus and his date.”

Lily snorted, now feeling slightly amused.

“Well,” she said, amused, “good luck tearing him away from my darling friend. They seem to be glued pretty tightly together.” She nodded her head toward the couple in question.

James’s mouth dropped slightly and his eyes became very round as he took them in.

“Oh,” he said.

“Surprising?” Lily couldn’t help but smile at the expression on his face.

“Very.”

She laughed for the first time that day.

“I can assure you, my reaction was similar.”

“So that’s why you’re sitting here all alone. I see…” he smirked at her. “Neither of you could get dates, could you?”

She smirked right back at him, saying, “Don’t mock me. We’re in the same boat, you and I.”

“Yes, well, I chose to jump into this boat.”

“So did I.” She began to enjoy herself. If anything, the boy was entertaining.

“What, you broke up with that boyfriend of yours?”

The playful look washed right off her face.

James’s eyes widened once more. He leaned in and whispered, “You did?”

She pursed her lips and nodded. She hesitated before saying, “It just wasn’t going anywhere.”

He seemed to be fighting the urge to leap to his feet and cheer. He didn’t do a good job at all of hiding his happiness.

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

Lily burst into laughter. She clutched at her stomach wondering why that had struck her as so unbearably funny. She choked out, “You’re miserable about it, I can tell.”

He smiled at her. He was ecstatic if truth be told. The girl of his dreams sat before him, single, laughing with and not at him.

“So, Evans…” he began playfully, “will you go out with me now?”

She sighed, but it didn’t sound unhappy, it sounded exasperated and amused, he noted with immense pleasure.

“Well, technically, we already are out, Potter.”

He tilted his head to the side and watched her intently. It made her a little nervous, for some reason.

“Is that your own way of saying you wouldn’t entirely hate spending a day with me?” he asked with a pathetically hopeful look on his face.

She mocked a look of amazement.

“Wow, Potter, you really are a mind-reader!”

“What can I say? I’ve got talent.”

She laughed at the way he pretended to look arrogant. Abruptly he got to his feet and extended his hand to her with an encouraging smile. She didn’t really need it. He was taking the glumness out of the day and exchanging it for laughter. She actually wanted to go with him, as weird as that sounded.

She let him take her hand and lead her toward the door. A look out the window showed it was still raining, though it seemed less dark and gloomy. They stopped at the doorway and looked out into the street.

“We’ll have to make a dash for it,” James was saying excitedly. “I’ll hold my coat over our heads, so we don’t get wet.”

As he took his coat off and held it over them she smiled sweetly at him and whispered, “That’s very kind of you.”

His insides did flip flops as she continued to smile and pressed herself against him.

They ran as fast as they could, slipping slightly on the wet sidewalk, laughing each time. As they were just reaching the door to a shop James slipped so badly in a puddle he fell backward into the wall, bringing Lily down with him.

She was about to ask if he was all right when she noticed he was staring directly at her lips, mere inches away from his own. That little thing she had always tried to suppress when he was around came to her again, stronger than ever, and it impeded her rational thoughts. She wondered if she really did have the same effect upon him.

James put his hand to her cheek and inched his face forward.

He paused a moment to whisper, “Please stop me if I’m asking for too much.”

“I’ll stop you if you start to,” she whispered back and he kissed her.

At that moment a cloud seemed to part, letting through a beam of sunlight that brightened the day unnecessarily.

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Okay, first I would like to thank my wonderful beta Ren (GreyLady) for looking this over for me. Thanks!

As I feel the need to leave a note at the end of every single story I write, even if a note is not needed, I'll just babble on a little, shall I? This was written for a Hufflepuff in house challenge back in...February or January, and I've only gotten arouned to posting it now, sadly. Oh, and it won the challenge. I would love it if you could review! *does not know the meaning of subtlety*...And if you like J/L, check out my other chaptered fic, which I like a lot better.

Tootles, thanks for reading all the way to the bottom!