Arielle and Nicole:
“I don’t think our plan is going to work!” Arielle moaned as she started applying blush to her cheeks.
“I think we knew that even before we thought of the plan in the first place,” Nicole agreed.
“What are we going to do? Lily isn’t even going anymore! Plus, Julie is like a magnet! She never leaves James’s side,” Arielle said.
“Why don’t we just call the whole plan off? Then we can go with each other and Sirius and Remus can go with James. At least then Julie might feel left out,” Nicole said reluctantly.
“No!” Arielle nearly screamed. Even though she had agreed to go along with the plan for Lily and James’s sake, she was happy she had a chance to go out with Sirius.
Nicole smirked and asked in an overly sweet voice, “And why not? Could it have anything to do with the fact that you are going with my cousin?”
“It might,” she muttered while experimenting with different hairstyles.
“Maybe, we could casually bump into James and Julie. Then, we could be so rude to her that she will have to leave!” Nicole said mischievously.
Arielle snorted and said, “Right, like you could be rude to anybody!”
“You do know that we are not solving anything by going with Sirius and Remus, right? There’s no point to it!” Nicole said sensibly.
Arielle turned to her with big eyes that made her look extremely sad, “But we are still going with them, right?”
“Maybe next time,” Nicole said giving her a look that said ‘hey-I’m-sad-about-it-too-so-don’t-complain’.
Arielle rolled her eyes at her friend, wiped off her make-up claiming that, now, there was no reason for it, and went down to the common room to inform Sirius and Remus of the change in plans. But what Arielle didn’t see is that as soon as she left, Nicole slumped onto her bed and said in a depressed look, “No chance of Remus liking me now...’
~~~~~~~
James and Julie:
The clock on his bedside table read 10:50 AM. He had been awake for two hours now, but he felt as if he couldn’t move even if he tried. James knew that he would soon have to go down to the common room and pretend that he had never heard anything that Julie had said the night before. He also knew that he had to talk with Lily at least once before he left. Yet another thing that he knew was that if he didn’t get a move on, someone was bound to realize that something was wrong. What he didn’t know, however, was how to do all of this and still keep his cool.
All he wanted to do at the moment was talk to Lily. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how she would react to seeing him, let alone talking to him. He sighed making a deep and unhappy sound.
‘Well,’ he thought with a sigh, ‘It’s worth a try, anyway.’
With a slight groan, he pushed himself off of his bed, took his glasses from beside him, and made his way, as slowly as possible, to the bathroom. Although he was expecting himself to look somewhat sleep deprived, he wasn’t expecting the sight he saw in front of him.
With the exception of his always messy hair, James looked like a wreck. This morning, his usually bright and alert hazel eyes looked dimmed and were shockingly bloodshot. Due to his 3-hour-worth-of-sleep-night, large purplish bags were presently underneath his eyes. His face was covered with twice the amount of morning stubble than usual giving him a very depressing look.
Quickly, he splashed his face with water, brushed his teeth, and smoothed out the wrinkles from this school clothes that he hadn’t bothered taking off the night before.
Once again, he sighed, then started making his way down to the common room in hopes that his friends had come up to the common room before heading off to Hogsmede. As he was making his way down the seemingly long staircase, he was disappointed in hearing that, apparently, nobody was down there.
But, as he had been for the past few days, he was wrong. There, sitting in the chair that he had grown accustomed to seeing Lily sitting in, was Julie. His eyes grew wide after seeing her, afraid that she might have seen Lily and him yesterday. As soon as she turned her gaze from the fire to his eyes, though, he could tell that there wasn’t even a hint of suspicion on her face.
‘Although she could be lying,’ he thought maliciously, ‘After all, it wouldn’t be the first time...
“Jamesie darling! Where have you been? Your little friends wanted to know when you were going to come down. They got bored after about thirty minutes so they told me that they were going to be on their way. I told them to go ahead and that we wanted to spend a little time together first.” She smiled and came toward him holding her hands out.
He took her hands in his, despite the fact that he was terrified that any minute, someone could attack either Lily or him. All he could think about was the night before when he had seen her coming out of the classroom with Snape.
A sudden thought occurred to him, ‘Weren’t Sirius and Remus going to go with Arielle and Nicole?
“Well?” Julie asked. It was then that he realized that he had been staring at the ground in thought as Julie sat there. “Aren’t we going to go?” She gave him a questioning glance but seemed to let it go as she saw him moving towards the door.
Still grasping her hand, they made their way to the Great Hall to leave.
~~~~~~~
Lily:
‘Where is James?!’ Lily thought impatiently as she checked her watch again. Against her better judgment, she was willing to go to Hogsmede, but only because she needed to talk to James.
Once again, she checked her watch and saw, to her immense anger, that it read 10:40. ‘That means I have been sitting here an hour and fifty minutes? Fine, I’m leaving. If he wants to talk about it, he’ll have to come and find me!’
She stood up, waited for a few more seconds, then stomped out of the Great Hall muttering something under her breath about missing breakfast because she was too busy worrying and waiting for ‘His Highness Potter’.
~~~~~~~
Snape:
“When will the task be completed Severus?” a chilling voice asked through the Slytherin common room’s fireplace.
“Soon, my lord,” he answered.
“Soon? Soon is not fast enough! I need it to be done now !” the sharp and venomous reply came quickly.
“As you wish,” Snape answered turning and walking quickly out of the room as the image of Voldemort disappeared into the flames.
Angrily, Snape’s thoughts led him straight to Julie.
‘If she had just done what I told her, maybe we wouldn’t be in this position!’
Kicking at the wall continuously was the only thing he could think of doing at the moment.
“Not -kick- even -kick- my -kick- fault -kick-!” he yelled at the wall as if it was the cause of his fury.
Suddenly, a vicious idea entered his head.
‘Okay,’ he thought, pushing the doors of the Great Hall open, ‘Let’s just see how willing she is when I am through with her.’
A wide grin replaced the sneer and he went off in search for a certain blonde.
~~~~~~~
Sirius and Remus:
“Hey guys!” Arielle said as a greeting to Sirius and Remus in front of her.
“Well, hello, Arielle,” Sirius said as he slipped his hand around her shoulders, “What took you so long? You don’t look any different!” Arielle gave him a look and maneuvered around his arm for the rude comment.
“If you must know, there has been a change in plans,” she said, now turning to Remus, “I’m so sorry, Remus. Nicole and I aren’t going to be able to make it. She is convinced that it won’t be able to help Lily and James in any way to go on with this plan if Lily isn’t even going. So we were wondering if maybe you could go with James. But we both promise that for the next trip, plan or no plan, we’ll go with you.” Finally, she paused to take a breath.
She gave Remus a quick hug, gave Sirius another look before giving him a hug as well, and then ran up the stairs back to where Nicole was waiting.
“So, what do we do now? I mean do we still go or are we staying here like the girls?”
As soon as he said that though, he say Nicole and Arielle coming down the stairs and leave from the common room.
Remus turned to give him a look, “I’m guessing the girls aren’t going to be staying here. Well, I guess the only thing we can do that won’t leave us bored out of our wits is to--”
Sirius interrupted, “By hexing Snape! You are a genius Moony!”
“No, Padfoot. I meant that we can just go to Hogsmede with James, like Arielle said. I’m sure he won’t mind.” Remus explained with a slight sadness in his tone.
Over from her spot by the sofa, Julie sat up straighter when she heard the mention of James.
‘Pesky friends! What happened to leaving me alone with James for Hogsmede?’ she thought in anger.
Quickly, she took a deep breath and walked over to the two bored boys.
“Hi Sirius! How’s it going, Remus? James told me last night that he was going to be waking up pretty late. I’m surprised that he didn’t tell you any of this! He said that he’ll just meet everyone at The Three Broomsticks later on today. Plus, he wanted to spend a little time alone with me first,” Julie lied.
“Okay,” Sirius said without a second thought about it.
Sirius turned to leave but Remus held him back, “Wait, James went patrolling with Evans yesterday. How could you have talked to him at all? He was with us the whole day and he didn’t come in until late last night.”
Both boys gave her intense stares. Finally she said, managing to keep her voice steady as she lied yet again, “Of course he went patrolling! Don’t you think I would know that? I went up to the common room early on through dinner last night to finish the loads of homework I had. James came up about twenty minutes later and informed me of his plans.”
Although they were both still suspicious, they let it go and left the room in hopes of having a good enough time to forget that they were sad about not going with the girls.
~~~~~~~
Arielle and Nicole:
“Finally we are out of that store!” Nicole moaned as she took a seat on a hard wooden bench outside of a shop labeled ‘Madame Camilla’s Clothing Boutique’.
“What are you talking about Nicole?” Arielle asked in complete happiness, “That was so much fun! I found at least 20 different dress robes. Can you believe that they actual have sea foam green and aquamarine dress robes now?!” she asked carefully examining the silky designs embroidered on each dress.
“What is the difference between sea foam green and aquamarine?” Nicole asked tiredly.
“I am so glad you asked me that, Nicole! Come on, I’ll explain it to you in The Three Broomsticks,” Arielle happily started explaining.
“Oy vey,” Nicole muttered under her breath as she started learning the ‘fine and delicate balance between colors’.
~~~~~~~
Sirius and Remus:
“Moony, for the last time! I don’t care!” Sirius shouted at his friend as he sat in the soft, plushy sofa of the only bookstore in Hogsmede: Books R’ Us.
“But Padfoot, this stuff is really interesting,” he replied as he held in his hand a copy of ‘101 Facts Around the World’ by Lisa Brightson.
“Did you know that--,” Remus began.
“Let me stop you right there,” Sirius interrupted cleaning off the top of his wand and then aiming it directly at Remus, “If this is going to have anything to do with any information you got from any book in this whole entire book store, you are going to regret it.”
“Actually, I was just about to tell you that you had gum stuck to your shoe...” Remus said not bothering to look up from his book to see Sirius’s reaction.
Looking down at his shoe to confirm this, Sirius glared at Remus and said, “Just another reason to leave this store.”
Remus sighed sadly and asked in a voice that he hoped sounded reluctant to leave, “If you want to go to The Three Broomsticks...”
“Don’t mind if I do!” Sirius said cheerfully, removing the gum from his shoe with a simple spell.
“...then you can go by yourself!” Remus said changing the tone of his voice immediately.
“Oh come on, Moony! Why would you want to spend this beautiful Saturday cooped inside?”
“Isn’t that what you intend to do at The Three Broomsticks?” Remus queried with mock respect.
Sirius gave him a look and pushed him ahead of him, “Let’s just leave. If I stay here any longer, I think I may actually get smarter.”
“Don’t worry mate. There’s no chance of that happening to you,” Remus declared as he left the room, waiting for Sirius to make sense of the insult that he had just said.
~~~~~~~
James and Julie:
“Come on James! Just tell me what is wrong!” Julie coaxed as she saw that James was fidgeting uncomfortably.
“For the last time,” he started yelling, then realized what he was doing and stopped, “There is nothing wrong. I mean it.”
“Okay,” she said a little hesitantly, “Well then I guess I can finish telling you what happened after I got why Melissa was lying to her friends about her relationship...”
Even though Julie was still blabbing about the latest gossip, James was letting the information go through one ear and out the other. Besides, he had more important things do worry about.
‘Like what to do when she realizes who it was that she and Snape saw the other day...’
He looked over to check, once again, whether or not Julie looked suspicious. But as he did, he noticed something he hadn’t before. Though it was still early January and the temperature should have been near freezing, it was surprisingly mild. Most everyone outside had opted to wear jeans and short sleeve shirts and, if any, a light sweater instead of the heavy, warm robes worn inside the castle. Yet Julie had decided to wear a thick sweater underneath a slightly lighter jacket.
‘That is most likely because the dark mark has been branded onto her skin!’ part of his mind screamed while another was struggling to come up with a different reason.
“So then I said to her well you can just about it because if you don’t tell me, I am going to...” Julie talked on, James noticed as he started tuning her out again.
‘Okay, this is getting out of hand! I must be hallucinating. Lily isn’t even coming here yet I see her a few feet ahead of me. Well, I better go up to her,’ James thought as he was about to start walking faster. But, as he had been since he started dating Julie, he was restricted from going anywhere because of her.
Suddenly, the answer to his problem presented itself to him in the manner of a small coffee shop. The previous day, he had heard to third year girls talking longingly of taking a break from snogging their boyfriends and have a long talk: girl to girl.
‘Julie wants to talk?’ James thought, ‘Let her talk in here!’
“I mean you can’t just walk up to the store clerk there and ask to buy their best dress robe! I mean, obviously, it was reserved for Loretta as clearly indicated by the sign. But, no, it was just ‘Julie can we buy this anytime soon because I have to--,” Julie continued.
James quickly interjected, “Hey Julie, do you want to go in here and talk? It’ll be a lot warmer. Then maybe you’ll be warm enough to take off all of your sweaters... for once.”
Julie was about to glare at him and respond with something clever and mean but caught herself in time and, instead, responded with, “Sure, sweetie!”
As they entered, the tiny bells above their head tinkled and James thought that he had actually seen her wince at the merry sound.
“Oh no! I forgot! I have to give on of my friends something; I’ll just be a minute. Just find us a seat and I will rush back, okay?” James said, trying to sound as sincere and, dare he try, loving as he possibly could.
“Okay honey!” she muttered as she took the seat that was in the darkest corner of the whole, brightly lighted, homey little store.
~~~~~~~
Snape:
‘I know she is here somewhere! There is no way that she and Potter left this early,’ Snape thought to himself as he looked around for any trace of Julie.
‘No matter,’ he said to calm himself down, ‘She will come crawling back to me once she sees that I have no problem with getting a few last minute death eaters to come and hex some sense into her.’
Snape strolled as casually as he could around the large area without giving away the fact that at any minute, he could say the word and five death eaters would appear.
“Jackpot,” Snape said quietly to himself as he pulled the top of his wand very slightly over the top of his pocket.
In front of him, he saw that Julie was walking into a small shop while James ran ahead of her. He saw while she was opening the door that the only occupants, besides Julie herself, were the store clerk and a boy stacking boxes in the open door of the storeroom.
Barely loud enough to be heard by no one but him, Snape said a small but complex spell and allowed the death eaters to appear beside him, invisible until Snape let their cover slip.
Discreetly, he entered the store, and whispered to the people next to him what exactly he wanted them to do. Then, he turned to at least a little while down the street and disapparated as quietly as was possible.
~~~~~~~
Sirius, Remus, Arielle, and Nicole:
“See, isn’t this so much better, Moony? Drinking butterbeer, relaxing, being loud without someone forcing you to be quiet?” Sirius asked Remus as he took another swig from his large, frothy cup that was nearly empty.
“I... guess,” Remus said as he saw that Sirius was starting to act like himself again.
“So what is going on between you and Nicole?” Sirius asked as he saw that Remus didn’t seem likely to start a conversation.
Remus nearly spit out his drink and turned the slightest shade of red, “What do you mean by that?”
“Aha! So you do like her!” Sirius said, slamming his cup down in triumph.
“I never said that!” Remus nearly screamed.
“Don’t worry, Moony. I think she might like you. And why wouldn’t she? You’re a Marauder. Everyone likes us!” Sirius smiled.
“Oh,” Remus said faking understanding, “So that is why Nicole hardly ever talks to me! I always thought the reason that she almost never even looks at me is because she doesn’t like me! Thank you, Oh great Sirius, for your much appreciated insight!”
“No problem!” Sirius said, not picking up on his obvious sarcasm.
“Remus! Sirius!” Nicole said as she plopped down next to Remus.
“Nicole! Arielle!” Remus said, imitating Nicole.
“Sirius!” Sirius yelled to himself.
Everyone gave him odd looks, and then started laughing.
“Is it just me or does Arielle seem a little drunk?” Remus whispered to Nicole as he saw Arielle yelling at the napkin for not wiping her chin better.
“So does Sirius,” Nicole whispered back as they noticed him also scolding the napkin.
Arielle and Sirius seemed to be able to start talking naturally while Nicole and Remus sat there, awkwardly.
“Where have you been so far?” Remus asked Nicole.
“Oh just some boring clothing stores,” she answered, “What about you?”
“Books R’ Us. It is so great there! But Sirius wanted to come here,” Remus replied.
“Well you got lucky! I spent at least thirty minutes discussing the difference between sea foam green and aquamarine with Arielle,” Nicole said just loudly enough for Sirius to pick up on what they were saying.
“Hey!” he said, “There is a big difference! Once is slightly--”
“What was that?!?” Arielle asked terrified as she heard a loud, shrill squeak.
“I don’t know but I think we should go see what happened,” Remus said, trying to stay calm.
All four of them left the money they owed on the table and hurridly left from the store.
~~~~~~~
Lily:
‘I am so pathetic! I need to snap out of this right now! So what if Potter didn’t try to come and find me? So what if no one that saw me cared that tears were nearly blinding me in their escape to come out before they got wiped away once again? So what if someone I know could be in grave danger because of two gits that need acceptance by a person that kills for fun so badly? So what if my friends abandoned me? So what if there is so much I need to talk about and no one to talk to about it? So what? I can deal with it... and if I can just keep telling myself that, I just might be able to believe it,’ Lily thought bitterly as she sniffled.
A hand placed on her shoulder followed by heavy breathing startled Lily so much that she nearly screamed. That is, until she heard who it was that was about to speak.
“Evans! I finally caught up to you!” came the voice of James, “Listen, we really need to talk.”
He lightly turned her around to face him. What he saw made him so sad that he had to restrain from trying to comfort her.
‘Remember what you are here for!’ a stern voice from the back of his mind reminded him.
“Er, Evans? Are you alright?” he asked awkwardly.
Trying, and failing, to sound dignified, Lily hoarsely said, “Of course I am Potter.”
He raised his eyebrows at her and scoffed but said nothing.
“Okay, so I’m not in the best mood. What difference does it make to you, anyway?” she asked turning her back on him and continuing her walk.
“Well actually, it makes no difference to me whatsoever. All that matters to me is that everyone at Hogwarts stays safe.”
“So that has something to do with me because...?”
Once again, James stopped her and turned her back toward him, “Because you and I are the only two people who saw what happened yesterday. Come on, we need to figure out something! What if Snape and Julie are planning something and we could stop them?”
“You don’t necessarily know that they were talking about doing something bad,” Lily said, trying to sound reasonable and not even believing herself.
“Evans, we heard Snape say something about the ‘Dark Lord’. If that isn’t bad, what exactly do you think it is?”
“They could have been talking about anyone, Potter!”
James looked at her as if she was insane and then let her continue walking, “Oh yeah, there are tons of people going around and calling themselves the “Dark Lord’. You are making perfect sense, Evans. How could I even think that what they are doing is wrong?”
“Okay, so what do you propose that we do?”
“Well, I was thinking that--”
Seemingly from out of nowhere, a loud shriek erupted. Without thinking about what she was doing, Lily grasped James’s hand.
“Potter,” she said her voice faint, “What was that?”
“I- I think the answer is right behind us, Evans,” James said as they both turned and faced the direction that they had just come from.
Suddenly, there was mass pandemonium everywhere as people from every shop and store came running out in frenzy.
By the time that James and Lily had evacuated all of the students, since they were the heads and in charge of their safety, a thick fog had appeared.
Another set of shrill shrieks echoed into the nearly deserted area.
Together, the two tried to see through the haze surrounding them. All of a sudden, though, James could no longer feel Lily’s hand on his.
“Evans!” he called out as loud as he could, “EVANS! LILY !!”
But it was all to no avail because Lily was gone.
Always and Forever by jamesnlilyforever
Chapter Notes: A/N: I am so incredibly sorry this took so long! See, I had a little bad luck with my betas... meaning, I don't have one. So I had finished this chapter maybe two or three weeks ago. But my beta couldn't have it done and so eventually, I ended up with none. So I went on the forums and right when I get a message back, the forums get shut off. This chapter has not been beta'd yet, and will most likely never be, and that is the main reason I haven't posted for so long. Again, I am really sorry. But, I really do hope you like this chapter. It is the longest one yet, and probably the longest of the ones yet to come as well. It might be a little confusing at first, but it gets easier and easier to follow as you start understanding how it's organized. Please read and review! Hope you like it! =)