Went back home again,
this sucks, gotta pack up and leave again
Say goodbye to all my friends,
can't say when i'll be there again
It's time now to turn aroud
Turn my back on everything
Turn my back on everything
Everythings changin' when i turn around,
all out of my control,
i'm a mobile
Everythings changin' when i turn around,
all out of my control,
i'm a mobile.
Mobile - Avril Lavigne
“It’s so good to be going back to school!” exclaimed Lily, sinking into her seat in their compartment. Her friends laughed.
“Lily, I think you’re the only person in the school who is actually glad to be going back to work, dramas, and fights,” Roxanna laughed.
Lily shrugged. “I don’t think of it like that…more like fun, social, and getting away from Petunia.”
“Well, Calista might like it as well; she’s been looking forward to seeing James again,” said Thaliana, grimacing.
Lily looked confused. “But how do you know that if you aren’t speaking to her? For all you know, she may hate James,” she reasoned.
Thaliana grinned maliciously. “Oh, I can tell; it’s not everyday my twin sister starts dancing around the room to a James Potter theme song she made up.”
The other girls grew wide-eyed.
“No way!” shrieked Lily. “How does it go?”
Thaliana stood up. “Something like this,” she said.
Lily watched in delight as Thaliana began to dance around the compartment, singing in an operatic voice.
“Oh James, you rock, I love you ‘till the end. The love, in my heart, is a thing I cannot mend. We are, a match, made in heaven so you see; James Potter, you are, the only one for m-“
Thaliana broke off as the compartment door slid open, and Sirius, Remus and Peter entered, looking highly amused.
“Have you seen James?” asked Remus, who was fighting the urge to burst out laughing.
“How much did you hear?” hissed Thaliana, a warning note to her voice.
“Enough,” grinned Peter.
“Oh James, you rock, la-la-la-la-la-la… Do I get a song?” asked Sirius hopefully.
“That wasn’t my song, it was Calista’s!” Thaliana protested feebly.
Sirius nodded seriously. “Oh yes, Thali, I’m sure it was. But we’re off topic. Have any of you seen James?” he asked.
The girls shook their heads, and Lily frowned. “Why, what’s the matter? ” she asked, sounding concerned.
The boys looked stumped. “We don’t know,” explained Remus. “One minute we were all sitting there, and the next, he had jumped up and practically ran out of the compartment.”
Jada looked puzzled. “That’s not like James,” she mused worriedly.
“Yeah, we know that, or we would have just stayed and waited for him.” Peter rolled his eyes at Jada, who glared stonily back at him.
“I hope nothings wrong,” murmured Lily. Sirius and Remus grinned at her knowingly, and exited the compartment.
Thaliana looked at Lily. “Settle down, it’s probably nothing,” she reasoned. “Merlin, the way you’re carrying on, you would think that you love him or something!”
Roxanna, Jada, and Lily all turned to look at her disbelievingly.
“What?” asked Thaliana, studying their faces nervously.
“Um, Thali, she sort of...does,” Jada told her, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
Thaliana looked blank for a minute, and then understanding dawned on her face.
“Not…James- how long- and that means- AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME?!” she screeched, jumping out of her seat in outrage.
Lily shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”
Thaliana slumped back down in her seat, her arms folded, and muttering something about asking stupid questions.
Lily sat, glumly eating dinner, unable to possibly believe what she was seeing.
Just a few seats away from her, across the table, James was sitting with his arm wrapped around Calista, who had come for yet another visit from the Slytherin table.
Jada seemed to have no appetite either, and Thaliana and Roxanna were in a heated conversation about different ways to slip poison into Calista’s pumpkin juice.
“How did it happen?” Lily whispered to Jada mournfully, as James lent forward and kissed Calista lightly on the cheek.
Jada shook her head. “I have no idea, but that sight is going to haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.”
Next to James, Sirius looked to be on the point of throwing up, and Remus looked around to catch Lily’s eye.
He looked easily as bewildered as Lily felt, and what’s more, he looked infuriatingly sympathetic.
He doesn’t have to feel sorry for me, it’s James he needs to sympathize with, Lily thought, purposely looking away from James, who was happily chatting to a very jealous looking Peter.
Imagine how awkward it would have been if I had asked him out? I can’t believe how stupid I was to believe he liked me.
The reality of the situation had sunken in. Lily remembered the smug look that Calista had given her when she and James had walked into the Great Hall, hand in hand.
It was as if she was saying, ‘I won, you should have known better than to mess with me.’
Lily felt tears well up in her eyes, but then she suddenly set her face determinedly.
You haven’t won yet Calista; this war has only just begun. I am a Gryffindor, and Gryffindors don’t give up.
They fight.
Lily stared at the back of James’s head throughout the first Transfiguration lesson of the term.
This didn’t really matter, as they were only reviewing what they had already learnt, and many of the students had already lost interest.
James, Remus and Sirius were having a heated conversation, which Peter strained to listen in on. Sirius gave a curt nod, and the four of them straightened up innocently.
James got out his wand and lightly tapped a spare piece of parchment. The light brown parchment folded itself into a paper plane, and zoomed across the room.
Professor McGonagall, stiffened, sensing something, and spun around.
The plane hit her square in the face and exploded on impact, sending golden stars into the air with a terrible BANG!
McGonagall stumbled backwards, clutching at her heart and gasping in shock.
The class laughed, including Lily, even though she knew that James was going to get into a lot of trouble; anything to liven up the terrible boredom of being back to school was welcome.
Professor McGonagall had an amazing way of being able to pinpoint the culprit of any disruption, and she would always prove that she was right by the use of a simple spell revealing charm.
Then again, did she even care? James had hurt her a lot by going out with her enemy.
No matter what he did, he is still your friend, and friends don’t desert each other. She decided. Still, a little voice inside her head was nagging at her.
Well, if James is your friend then why did he desert you for Calista? It asked bitterly.
Lily ignored the voice, and hissed James’s name softly.
James turned around slowly, so to attract as little attention as possible. Lily held out her wand.
“Swap wands with me, quickly,” she whispered insistently.
James looked confused for a moment, and then comprehension dawned over his face.
Keeping their hands under the table, the two of them subtly swapped wands.
As their hands brushed against each other’s, Lily shivered slightly.
Lily looked back towards the front of the classroom, where Professor McGonagall was fuming, her anger at the prank doubled by the shock of having a piece of parchment explode in her face.
“James Potter,” she growled her voice dangerously low. “Give me your wand, NOW!”
James stood up calmly, the picture of innocence. He handed Lily’s wand to the teacher, and she snatched it out of his grasp.
“Prior Incantato,” she said, pointing the wand at a piece of parchment lying on her desk. The paper lifted off the table and hovered.
Anyone could see that it was the Wingardium Leviosa charm, and Professor McGonagall looked embarrassed.
“Finite Incantatum,” she said, and the paper fluttered back down to the desk.
“You have my apologies, Mr. Potter. Please return to your seat.”
James almost skipped back to his seat, grinning at Sirius and shooting a grateful look at Lily. Lily smiled back at him flirtatiously.
Take that Calista, she thought venomously.
James sprinted into the Gryffindor Common room, followed by Sirius.
It was several days after the first Transfiguration lesson, and James hadn’t been paying any extra attention to Lily at all.
Remus looked up from where he was tutoring Peter.
“Did you get in James?” he asked hopefully.
“Yes! You’re looking at one of the new Gryffindor Chasers!” James cried, pumping his fist into the air victoriusly.
Lily jumped up. “Oh, James that’s wonderful!” she cried. “The team can’t lose with you on it!”
It was true; James was the best flyer that Lily had ever seen, on their first flying lesson,
Madame Jerrah had been thrilled, though she was quite old, and had seen many flyers in her time as a flying instructor. She had even used to coach professional Quidditch players, before she took up the position at Hogwarts.
James’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, that’s what Calista said before I went out- Hey, that reminds me! I’ve still got to tell her I got in!”
And with that, James ran out of the room, leaving Lily feeling very defeated, so she sat down on one of the armchairs near the unlit fireplace.
Someone sat down next to her. Lily looked up, expecting to see Jada, Thaliana or Roxanna.
Instead, she saw a handsome boy, with light brown hair, chocolate brown eyes and a sympathetic look about him.
It was Robert.
“Are you alright?” he asked gently. Lily smiled softly and shrugged in a seemingly offhanded sort of way.
“I know that you like him,” he said, smiling knowingly.
Lily threw her hands up. “How does everyone know that?” she cried out in frustration.
Robert shrugged. “It’s pretty obvious. Look, don’t worry about him. If he can’t see what a beautiful girl you are, then that’s his problem. He’s not good enough for you if he’s going to go out with Calista rather than you.”
Lily blushed and smiled at him; this was a much different conversation then she would be holding with any other boys. Robert was acting much more mature than most of them.
“Thanks, but that doesn’t change how much I like him,” she sighed.
“Maybe you just need some space from him for awhile,” suggested Robert offhandedly. “You never know what good that might do.”
Lily considered this, and then shrugged; it didn’t look like she had much choice.
“Ok, I’ll try it. Thanks for talking,” she said, trying to sound grateful, though she wasn’t exactly in the mood.
Robert smiled. “Glad I could help,” he said sincerely.
This chapters review challenge is : What the bluddy hell is James thinking? AKA what is James's reason for going out with Calista? eg: He loves her, He's trying to make Lily jealous, He's being blackmailed into it, Calista's the child of a death eater and her mum is imperiusing james to go out awith Calista so it wont look suspicious when he visits Calista in the holidays so Voldemort can swoop down and kill him!! Hey, it could happen!