She's a saint.
She's the salt of the earth,
And she's dangerous.
She's a rebel.
Vigilante.
Missing link on the brink of destruction.
I paced the Quidditch pitch nervously, pulling back my watch and checking my watch. She was five minutes late. I closed my eyes, exhaling noisily. She was skilled in the art of torture.
The school grounds were deserted. I had done a quick walk of the perimeters beforehand. It was surprisingly empty for a Friday night. I smiled to myself, fiddling with the sleeve of my red dress robes. Padfoot must have had a hand in this.
The doors to the pitch burst open suddenly. I stopped myself from jumping and turned slightly, a smile firmly in place. The smile slid off my face when I saw Lily, smugness making way for shock. My jaw nearly hit the floor.
She had dressed herself superbly. Her voluminous red hair was pulled back into a tight knot at the back of her head. Emerald earrings glittered in her ears; a matching necklace bounced on her chest as she walked. She was wearing jade dress robes, with sleeves that fell past her waist.
The look on her face clearly told me she wanted to be anywhere but here. Her nose was high in the air, and her jaw was set resolutely. She may not have been thrilled to be on this date, but she had set out to impress me.
It was working.
“You can close your mouth now,” she snapped as she approached.
I closed my mouth immediately and ran a hand through my hair, trying to pat it down into place. I wanted to speak, to say something suave, but my throat was refusing to cooperate.
“Beautiful,” I croaked finally.
She cast me a look of utmost disdain. I smiled happily. Even her look of disdain was dazzling.
I moved forward, toward a small round table I had set up earlier. I had found a white tablecloth in the kitchens earlier, and it fit the table perfectly. A white candle burned in the middle of the table between two silver plates, which I had“again“borrowed from the kitchens.
I pulled out a chair for her to sit. She immediately crossed to the other chair and sat down. I stared down at my empty seat rather sadly and sat down in it.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said, voice dripping with venom.
“All in good time, my dear,” I said. “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well. How was your afternoon?”
“Dreadful.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Because all I had to look forward to is this date.”
I winced. So far, not so good. And it hadn’t even been five minutes.
“I’ve known you for about seven years and I, unfortunately, don’t know you all that well. Tell me a bit more about yourself,” I said, hoping for more than a one-word answer. I liked to talk about myself. Maybe she would like to talk about herself.
She cast me a rather bored look. “My favorite color is green. I like roses. I listen to mostly muggle music, so I don’t think you’d know any of the bands I’d mention. Tigers are my favorite animals. I support the Holyhead Harpies as my Quidditch team.”
She trailed off. I watched with some resentment as she picked up her fork and studied it. She could at least make this somewhat easy for me!
But she had also moved onto the subject of Quidditch. With Quidditch, I knew where I stood.
“The Holyhead Harpies? Aren’t they the ones that had that week long match in 1953? And don’t they hire only women? I think I read about them in Quidditch Through the Ages.”
She looked rather surprised when I said this. “Yeah. Nobody seems to know who they are when I mention them, even big Quidditch fans. They haven’t been to a World Cup since that 1953 match.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of them,” I said, nodding. I was filled with relief. I was finally gaining some ground! “My dad was at that match with my mum that whole week. He talks about it all the time. He said it was one hell of a match, the best he’d ever seen.”
She actually smiled then. My heart thudded painfully somewhere in my throat.
“Are you a fan of them, then?” she asked.
“No, not really,” I said. “I’m a fan of the Prides, myself.”
“The Prides?”
“The Pride of Portree,” I explained. “They had two league wins in the 1960s, around the time we were born. The Captain’s son is the lead guitarist for that new band, the Weird Sisters.”
“Oh,” she said. Her face went oddly blank for a moment, as if she had realized she was actually having a good time. “Oh. Well. It’s quite fitting, really, that you should be a fan of a team called the ‘Prides’.”
I gave an internal groan. What was it with this woman?
“Well, I have had my head deflated a bit,” I attempted cheerfully.
She stared at me.
“Bertram Aubrey hexed me the other day, so that my head swelled. Remus deflated it, though. Obviously.”
“How fitting,” she said snidely.
“Funny. That’s what Remus said too.”
“He’s got the right idea.”
“He usually does.”
We were both silent for a long time. Lily played with her fork some more. I pulled on the cuff of my dress robes nervously.
“Y’know, this date went much differently in my head,” I said conversationally.
She arched an eyebrow at me. “Did it?”
“Yes. In my head, we usually have a great time. And, usually, you’re very happy.”
“I hate to tell you dreams can be broken,” she said with complete seriousness.
“And I hate knowing it,” I replied solemnly.
We stared at each other for a moment.
I finally cleared my throat. “Are you hungry yet, Evans?”
She glared at me. “Usually, when one is on a date, she doesn’t expect to be called by her last name.”
“Er...”
This had, truthfully, never occurred to me. I had never before in my whole Hogwarts career called Lily... well... Lily. She’d always been “Evans” to me.
“Are you hungry Ev“er... er... Lily?” I asked, on the verge of stuttering. I cursed myself. Stuttering! In front of Lily!
“I could do with some food, yes,” she said with a steely note in her voice.
I sighed and pulled my wand out of my pocket. With an extravagant flourish, I tapped Lily’s plate with my wand. Food bloomed into being on the plate, just like it did in the Great Hall. I’d been practicing this spell since yesterday afternoon; I was pleased when a magnificent ham dinner appeared instead of moldy old cheese.
Lily stared at the plate for a moment. “I hate ham,” she said, matter-of-fact.
Godric! There was no pleasing her!
“Okay,” I said, switching our plates. “What would you like, then?”
“A salad would be fine.”
“Sure. Er.... Lily.”
She made a strange noise in her throat, somewhere between a sigh and a growl.
I waved my wand again, praying for the spell to come out right. It did, at least to some degree. The lettuce was a little wilted, but other than that looked completely edible. I poked it with my wand. The lettuce gave a feeble wobble and turned a bit greener.
Lily speared the lettuce with her fork and lifted it to her nose, sniffing it gingerly. She glanced at me suspiciously, and looked back down at the salad.
“My dear, I didn’t poison it,” I said. “Poisoning you would be like poisoning a beautiful red bird.”
“So you do poetry as well as food now?” she asked snidely.
I raised an eyebrow. She scowled at me and stuck the fork in her mouth. Her eyebrows lifted in some surprise as she chewed slowly.
“Not bad,” she admitted grudgingly.
I smiled. “I practiced all day,” I said proudly. “Of course, it took me only a few tries to do it. I’m top of the year in Transfiguration, you know.”
Her face drained of emotion when I said this.
I immediately realized my mistake. “Was I being pompous again?” I asked with a grimace.
She nodded and waved a hand at my plate, as if inviting me to eat. “Hurry up and eat. I want this over as soon as possible.”
I felt like beating my head against a wall repeatedly. If there was only one thing she loathed about me, it was my pride. The damage was probably almost irreversible this time.
And I knew what that meant.
It was time for Plan B.
A/N: Oh, dear. That took me a rather long time. Sorry about that! It's really long, though. Verse 7 will come quickly, I promise you that. I have most of Verse 8 and all of the epilogue done.
And now I must ask of you a favor. I have a couple ideas in mind for fan fics, and I want to hear what you would all perfer. They are:
"Wake Me Up (End This Nightmare)" -- first in a four part installment. James Potter's thoughts just before he's killed, written to "Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day.
"A Marauder's Tale: Midnight Ride" -- Sirius gets his motorbike. Need I say more? The Marauder's Tales are going to be a bunch of fluffy one-shots.
"The Animagi Project" -- A chapter story detailing Fifth Year, the year the Marauders recieve their Animagus powers. It'd probably get to be about 100 or 150 pages, if you're lucky.
So, in your reviews, I'd appreciate it if you chose the one you perferred.
~*~Mischief Managed~*~