Chapter 3
An Eventful Day in Diagon Alley
James was still in a state of shock as Lily continued to smile at him. Gosh, she is so gorgeous, he thought. Kimmy was still staring at Sirius and Sirius, her. Remus was still looking questioningly at Rachel and Rachel had her head down, blushing. Leah felt like an outsider, but she didn't care. She was happy to see her friends happy.
Well,we all knew this would happen in 7th year....hormones running rampant, unusual couples, but perfect ones she thought, as she thought of James and Lily.
Remus was the first one to snap out of it, Leah noticed. He looked around at Sirius and James, who were on either side of him. So, Remus elbowed both of them in the ribs with his elbows at the same time. Sirius snapped out of it, but, unsurprisingly, James did not. As Lily realized that he was still gazing at her, she looked down, blushing.
"James," Remus said softly. When James still did not look up, Remus decided to say it louder...much louder. "JAMES!!!" Remus screamed so loudly, everyone in the ice cream shop looked up, even James, fortunately. When James realized what he had been doing, a blush traveled over his cheeks. No one had ever seen James blush before and they all thought it was quite funny, even Lily.
As they all laughed, James said, "Alright, you guys can knock it off. It’s not like I haven’t been staring at Lily for years now," he said, winking at Lily. Then he turned to the whole shop and said, "I know I'm dead sexy, but you don't have to stare so openly," James said, cockily.
Everyone began to laugh, even Lily. Wait…Lily? It seemed like they all thought this at the same time and abruptly stopped laughing and stared at her, especially James.
"What? It was funny," Lily said, casually, beginning to finish her ice cream. The others looked at each other, amused, except for James, who had a large smile on his face. Remus did not think he had ever seen James smile like that.
As the others thought about how weird Lily was acting, she began to think to herself again. She had been doing that a lot often.
She had no idea what had brought on the weird behavior with James. She had hated him since second year when he grew to be what she called an “insufferable git”. But now she realized that he had obviously changed over the summer. Or, maybe he hadn’t changed.
Maybe she had.
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A few hours later, Lily was on her way to Leah’s house from Diagon Alley with all her friends. They could all see that she was stuck in some sort of daze, but they were too afraid to mention it to her. They had all, unfortunately, been on the end of Lily’s fiery temper before and they were not about to wander into it willingly right now.
James had been the perfect gentleman all afternoon and Lily found it hard not to flirt with him. She could feel herself liking him more and more even though she was continuously fighting it.
“So, Lily,” asked Rachel cautiously. “How was your day? None of us really got to talk to you since you were hanging out with James.”
They all gasped and held their breath waiting for her inevitable, impending wrath. However, what happened next completely surprised them.
“It was…great. James really wasn’t all that bad today. In fact, he acted almost…perfect,” Lily replied, somewhat dreamily.
“Well, FINALLY! You actually notice what we have noticed all along. He really is a nice guy, Lils. I think you should give him a chance,” Leah said, exasperatedly.
“You know, I might just do that,” Lily said. She then proceeded to tell her four closest friends all that had went on that day.
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Earlier that day, Lily and James had wandered off from the group a little bit to talk about some ideas that they had for the upcoming year. Being Heads, they were responsible for planning most of the year’s events.
“Well, we’re definitely going to need a lot of Hogsmeade weekends,” James said. “I also thought that we could have some sort of banquet…not necessarily with dancing, but just a nice dinner for the seventh years. It could an end-of-the-year social event for us,” James offered, lost in thought. He had found that talking to Lily was easier than he had imagined. He had thought he would be nervous and he would trip over his own words. Maybe she’s not any different than other girls, James thought. Then he sneaked a glance in her direction. No, she’s different…much different.
Lily had started blushing as she realized James was staring at her. “James, what are you looking at?” Lily asked tentatively.
“The most beautiful girl in the world,” James replied without hesitation.
Lily rolled her eyes, but at the same time felt a weird swooping sensation in her stomach. It was times like these that it was hard to tell if James was joking.
As if he had read her mind, he said, “I’m serious…you really are very beautiful.”
Lily began to blush furiously. As if sensing Lily was feeling uncomfortable, James changed the subject hastily. “So, what do you think of the banquet idea?”
Lily looked like she had just snapped out of a daze. “Oh, yeah…that. I think it sounds like a great idea. It could be formal as well so everyone can get dressed up. Instead of making it an end-of-the-year celebration, it could be more like a Valentine’s Day banquet. We could have hearts for decoration and tables for two and…” Lily then trailed off and blushed again as she realized she was rambling.
“That sounds great, Lily,” James said, trying to reassure her that she had not just embarrassed herself.
As Lily looked at James, she realized how brown his eyes were. They’re such a beautiful brown…I could look into those eyes all day. Lily thought. She was so deep in thought, in fact, that she almost ran into an overly large man carrying a pile of books.
“Look where you’re going, wench!” the man screamed as Lily stumbled backward.
James was almost shaking in anger and would have gone after the man if Lily was not almost falling. With his Quidditch reflexes, he managed to grab her around the waist before she fell. A sort of electric shock went between them as he grabbed her. This did not go unnoticed to either of them.
“Are you alright?” James asked, almost breathlessly. He noticed how bright Lily’s green eyes were while he was still holding her around the waist.
“Yes, I’m fine, thanks,” Lily replied. Then noticing that James still had a hold of her, she said, “Umm…James?” looking down at the hand wrapped around her.
James brought his arm off of her hastily and instantly brought his hand to his hair. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbled while rumpling his already messy hair.
Lily just smiled at him as she realized that she had grown to love how he rumpled his hair like that. She was about to tell him that when they both heard Sirius yelling.
“Hey, you two! You’ve had enough time to snog, get back here!”
James shrugged at Lily and Lily laughed as they turned to go back to their friends.
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Remus and Sirius had both been trying to get James to talk ever since they had left Diagon Alley but all they got in response was a few mumbled replies. They could tell something had happened with Lily but James would not budge.
“James, snap out of it,” Sirius said, waving his hand in front of James’ face. He was just about to bring his hand back to slap James in the head but that was when James chose to come out of his daze.
“He’s alive, Remus!” Sirius yelled, cheerfully. Sirius winked at two girls passing on the street to James’ house and they erupted into giggles. “I’ve still got it,” Sirius said smugly.
“So, James, how’d everything go with Lily?” Remus asked tentatively.
“Great, just great,” James replied, dreamily. He then realized he sounded like a lovestruck puppy, so he then replied, “Oh, it went alright.”
Remus could tell he was trying to regain his dignity, but Remus knew James had lost it ever since he had gotten stuck on Lily.
“I’m so glad that you tell us all the details of your love life, James, because if you didn’t, I think we would go insane,” Sirius said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Well, we talked about some stuff we want to do this year and…” James’ voice trailed off as he realized Sirius giving him a quizzical look. “Not that kind of stuff, Padfoot,” James said, exasperatedly and continued. “Anyway, we’re thinking of having a Valentine’s Banquet and we’re still trying to decide what else to do,” James said evasively. He did not want to reveal that they had not talked a lot, but decided to spend most of their time sneaking glances at each other. He then remembered how his arm had felt around Lily’s waist and that dazed look came over his face again. Remus knew this time they should probably let James enjoy reliving the day. He could tell them later. But then Remus remembered whenever anyone mentioned Lily, James forgot all else, even Quidditch.
Well, maybe not Quidditch…Lily played that too.
Not Another Teen Love Story by 365 letters_ryan gosling 20
Chapter Notes: Well, I know this is a dumb filler chapter but I swear they get better. School has been kinda hectic for me but I will try to be better about updating sooner. This was hopefully my last “introduction” chapter. They will get better. R&R!!!