Disclaimer: If you haven't already figured it out, I own nothing. Pathetic, huh?
A/N: This chapter shows the after effect of what James tells Lily... Please read, review, and enjoy!!
James hastily wiped the tears that were falling freely from his eyes away as he saw that he was at the Fat Lady’s portrait. Quickly, he muttered the password and entered the common room. Surveying his surroundings with a quickly glance, he saw that the only occupants of the room were five first year students huddled in a corner, talking.
He breathed a sigh of relief and sat down on his favorite couch which was located directly in front of the fire. For a few minutes, he stared into the fire and watched as the few flames that were left starting flickering away and burning out.
‘Now I can finally sort out my thoughts in peace…’ James thought to himself, making sure that the first years didn’t notice him.
I just told Lily Evans that I loved her. Oh, boy. What am I going to do now? She hates me, she just said so. I know that if she doesn’t like me, and I can’t do anything about it. But I can’t understand how she could still turn me down after all of that. Well, at least she doesn’t think that I hate her anymore,’ James thought bitterly. For the second time that night, James realized that his cheeks were wet. Forcing himself to stop, he cleaned his face with his sleeves and decided to go back to his room.
James sighed heavily and tried putting his usual expression on his face. Deciding that he looked happy enough, he entered the room trying to be as calm and nonchalant as possible.
Taking out his Charms book, he collapsed onto his bed and kept his book above his head with a levitation spell.
“What is wrong with you?” Remus demanded.
“Nothing, Remus,” James lied as he turned the page with a flick of his wand. He turned his position and the book followed him. Remus stared at him and levitated the book down to his backpack.
“Hey! What did you do that for?” James asked, pretending to have been studying.
“Prongs, since the first time I have met you, you have never once been willing been reading a textbook other than during classes. What are you doing sitting there? And since when do you call me by my name?” Remus said.
James turned away quickly, not wanting his friend to see that he was trying hard not to start crying as he had done earlier. James turned and began to busy himself with organizing the knick knacks on his desk.
But Remus would not be so easily ignored. Walking over to where James was sitting, he stood with his eyes slightly squinting and gave him a scrutinizing look.
When he saw that James was giving him a ‘back-off’ look, he realized what it must have been.
“Does this have anything to do with the fact that you went patrolling with a certain red head today?” Remus asked hoping this wouldn’t affect the plan that he and his friends had come up with.
James flinched at the mention of Lily but shrugged it off with turning his back on Remus again.
“You know, keeping it in won’t do you any good,” Remus said, sounding a slight bit like Julie when she was hounding people for gossip.
“Well, letting it out isn’t going to help either!” James yelled as he, once again, turned and decided to take out his Transfiguration book.
“James,” Remus said calmly, “Tell me what happened and maybe I will be able to help you.”
“Get off of my back!” James said rather rudely as he got off of his bed and went to the trunk of his bed to get his night clothes out.
“James, will you just listen to me?” Remus pleaded. He knew that he was annoying James but if he didn’t find out, there was no hope of their plan ever taking place.
“No! What the hell is wrong with you Moony? I don’t want to talk about it!” James said slamming the bathroom door with a kick of his foot.
Remus sighed and walked over to his bed. He sat down and thought about what could have happened while he heard James whacking his head against the door multiple times.
~~~~~~~
Lily walked through the door of her room in a daze. She hardly noticed when she heard Nicole greet her.
“Hey Lily,” she said continuing to read her book, “Arielle still isn’t back from her date. I mean her and Sirius ‘hanging out’.”
When she didn’t receive a response, she looked up, confused. Glancing at her wristwatch, she groaned as she saw that Lily was twenty minutes early.
“You’re early!” she said as she walked over to where Lily was sitting. For some reason, Lily was oddly calm and there was something about her that wasn’t the same.
“Lils? Are you okay?” she asked her eyes wide in suspicion.
“Just fine,” was the answer. Her voice came out in a slight squeak and she was staring at the carpet as though it was the first time she had ever seen it.
“No, everything is not ‘just fine’. Something happened! What did James do? How much did you yell? And how many times did he ask you out?” Nicole asked.
“Yes it is. Nothing. Once. The usual,” Lily responded in a monotonous voice.
“Lily! Snap out of it!” Nicole ordered. Lily immediately snapped out of her reverie when she heard Nicole being so demanding.
“What?” Lily asked as if she didn’t know that she had just been acting like a robot.
“What in the world happened to you out there today?” Nicole asked after she drew in a quick shaky breath.
Lily quickly lost her temper and yelled , “Nothing!”
Nicole gave her a hurt look and retreated back to her bed and picked up her book. Lily, feeling guilty, followed her friend. After all, all she had done was try to help Lily.
“Listen, Nicole. I just- I just need time to recover from what happened. I promise I will tell you and Arielle all about as soon as she comes back from her da”hanging out with Sirius,” Lily promised.
As if on cue, Arielle stumbled through the door still giggling from what had happened while she was with Sirius. She saw the looks and positions of her two friends and quickly regained her composure.
“What’s up with you two?” Arielle asked.
“That’s what we are about to find out,” Nicole answered turning to Lily, looking at her expectantly.
“Okay, fine,” Lily said. Arielle and Nicole sat down and started listening to what Lily said about what had happened. Her friends gasped and laughed in parts of the story as she continued. Finally, when Lily got to the very end of the story, her friends were left without anything to say.
Nicole gave her a very angry look but tried to comfort her anyway. For several minutes, the three girls sat on Nicole’s bed each one thinking about something different.
~~~~~~~
“James Potter, open this damn door!” Sirius bellowed as he tried to open the bathroom door.
Remus had been trying to persuade James to open the door for at least an hour and had given up hope of him coming out. He was sitting on his bed and trying to finish the book he was reading. Without any idea about how his James was feeling, Sirius kept banging on the door, wondering why he had been in the bathroom for so long.
“What are you doing in there, mate? You know that no matter how much you try to look better, I will still be Hogwart’s number one hottie!” Sirius called out, hoping to receive an answer.
“Padfoot?” Sirius heard Moony call out.
“What?” Sirius asked.
“You do know that James is hopelessly depressed about Lily, right? Because I think you were too busy thinking about your date with Arielle to register what I said.”
“It wasn’t a date!” Sirius replied as he slammed into the door causing it to fall over. Since James had it sealed tight, the only thing he could do was to ram the door open. The site he saw caused his blood to boil. James Potter, his best friend, was sitting on the counter near the sink, with tears falling from his face.
Sirius, for one of the first times, helped James out of the bathroom and onto his bed. He added some sleeping drought to the water he gave him and, in a few moments, James was sleeping.
Taking his wand, Sirius placed the door back on its hinges, and started walking out the door.
Alarmed, Remus called out, “What are you doing, Sirius?”
“Lily,” he snarled in reply. Remus groaned and used all of his might to persuade Sirius to stay calm and let James sort it out on his own.
Sirius angrily plopped into his bed and tried to sleep but the only thing that came to his mind was seeing James crying.
~~~~~~~
“Prongs, here comes Lily,” Sirius said to James as he saw that Lily and her friends were walking toward the table the next day.
As they usually did, the three girls joined the Marauders for breakfast. As Lily sat down across from him, James looked around uncomfortably to look for something else to look at, as did Lily.
Nicole and Remus immediately noticed the tension and tried to think of topics to break the ice.
“So, is anyone here ready for the Transfiguration test today?” Remus asked. He knew that James loved Transfiguration so he was expecting him to start talking. Instead, Peter stupidly started talking about how he didn’t understand how he still didn’t know how to transfigure a quill into a toaster.
“Well,” Nicole cut in when Peter kept droning on with no end in sight, “What about you Lily?”
“Yeah, I feel pretty prepared,” she said, deliberately not looking at James. During their sixth year, James had tutored Lily for a short while in Transfiguration when she started slipping in that class. Sirius and Arielle caught on to what they were trying to do and Sirius asked James how he felt about the test.
“It’ll be alright,” he responded staring at the piece of toast in his hand. Arielle looked desperately at Remus who looked Nicole who looked to Sirius, all of them hoping that the other would have something to say.
“Uh, so Hogsmede is coming up in two weeks,” Sirius said at a lame attempt to get everyone talking.
James dropped the piece of toast he was holding onto his plate and Lily nearly choked on her pumpkin juice.
“Right, well, why don’t we go together,” Sirius asked Arielle, kicking Nicole in the shins to signify that she should ask Remus. Nicole stifled a moan of pain.
“Sure, Sirius,” Arielle said.
“You want to go?” Nicole asked Remus. He nodded in agreement and the four of them looked expectantly at Lily and James. Lily gave her friends stony glares and looked around for someone besides James to ask and her eyes fell on Peter.
“How about it Peter?” Lily asked kindly.
“Uh, uh,” Peter stuttered. ‘Remember the plan,’ Peter reminded himself.
“I can’t go!” he nearly screamed out. Lily looked at him oddly as he sighed happily.
“Who are you going with Prongs?” Remus asked. James shot him the dirtiest look he could muster.
James saw Lily looking extremely embarrassed and decided that it was time that he stopped pursuing Lily.
“Uh, I’m going with,” he said, his sad hazel eyes scanning the Gryffindor table, “Julie!”
Arielle’s eyes nearly popped out of her sockets and Nicole looked at Lily sympathetically.
“Time for class,” Lily announced loudly, her voice slightly cracking, as she picked up her backpack and swiftly walked out of the Great Hall.
“What did she mean by that?” Peter asked confused.
“She meant it’s time for class,” James responded. He then got up and followed Lily.
~~~~~~~
‘The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. Everything is perfect. Except for her ,’ Lily thought as she looked over to where James and Julie were sitting. It was the Saturday before Hogsmede and nearly all the students that were going were excitedly talking to their friends about it. Lily sat staring at James with a longing expression as she half listened to what Arielle was saying.
“So I was thinking, should we go to the Three Broomsticks first? Or maybe Honeydukes? What do you think Lily?” Arielle said looking expectantly at her friend.
“Um, the red one for sure!” Lily said, distractedly. In the past two weeks, whenever Lily saw James with Julie, she would have a hard time concentrating on anything other than ways that she could get rid of her.
“The red one?’ Arielle asked confused, “Lily what are you--?”
“Oh my gosh, James! You are like so funny!” Julie cackled in a loud enough voice for anyone in their vicinity to hear.
James smiled uneasily, and then quickly snapped his head in the direction of the area that Lily was sitting in. He saw her with a frown on her face and decided to take advantage of the fact that she was watching them.
He wrapped his arms around Julie and started snogging her in hopes that Lily would see.
“I just remembered that I have to return a book so I’ll see you guys later!” Lily said in a rush as she jumped to her feet. Keeping the urge to yell out in frustration at bay, Lily walked as quickly as she possibly could up to the Gryffindor common room.
~~~~~~~
Lily sat up in her bed in anger. Tearing her curtains open, she reached for her wand to light up the area around her. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was two in the morning.
The whole night, she had been tossing and turning, trying and failing to go to sleep. All thanks to James. Finally she decided that sitting by herself and sorting out her thoughts might do the trick.
‘Maybe I do like him. I mean what is so wrong about that?’ Lily thought as she descended the steps into the common room.
‘Okay, I’ll just make a list of things that could possibly be wrong. Then I can sort out the bad reasons from the worse reasons and then I can decide.’ She quickly went back into her room and picked up her backpack which contained her notebook. Even though Lily would never admit it, it was basically a diary. This is where Lily wrote everything important about herself; her thoughts, ideas, and anything else that came her way.
She placed her backpack in the spot next to her and took out her quill and some ink. Once she was as comfortable as she could get on the sofa, she started writing.
After twenty minutes, Lily looked down at her list, wondering if she wrote everything she wanted. She had accurately described every possible thing that could, and probably would, go wrong if she liked James. It read:
Why I Shouldn’t Like James Potter
1. I would endure never ending taunts from: Nicole, Arielle, Sirius, possibly Peter, and especially James... if he ever gets over the surprise.
a. Nicole: She has always suspected that I liked James. She is one of his good friends as well as my best friend.
b. Arielle: She practically knows that I like him. She won’t let me live with the fact that I have always argued with her about the subject.
c. Sirius: Too many taunts to explain.
d. Peter: He’ll agree with anything that Sirius says.
e. James: His ego will get much, much bigger and that will just make him tease me more.
2. Potter’s fan club will be after me
a. They will, no doubt, spread rumors.
b. I’ll probably have hexes shot at me everywhere I go.
3. It will ruin my reputation
a. I won’t be a good role model anymore.
b. Everything that I have been striving to prove for the past six years will be a waste.
c. He’ll be the first real boyfriend, excluding a few dates, which I’ve had.
4. I won’t be able to concentrate on anything but him
a. I’ll start worshipping him like all of his fan club members.
b. I might not have time for many other things.
c. I’ll start making lists like this...
With sleep filled eyes, she scanned the list for a second time and shook her head. Although she wasn’t completely happy with it, she kept it anyway. Lethargically, she put everything back into her backpack and made her way back up.
But little did she know that the whole time she was down there, someone else was too. And that someone had been staring at her, transfixed, since the moment she came down. Finally, the mysterious person left. And when the person was gone, the only trace that was left was what the person had been carving in the table: JP+LE.