Chapter 5
A Surprise and a Talk
Lily and her friends found empty seats along the Gryffindor table right upon entering Great Hall, due mainly to the fact that Lily had a liberal amount of authority. As the girls all sat down, Lily searched around the spacious hall for James.
He had disappeared with the Marauders right after departing for the carriages, only leaving Lily with a flirtatious smile and wink. She had rolled her eyes but felt herself blush despite her apparent reluctance to. She decided against asking where he was going since she would probably end up scolding him anyway. She then gave up on her search and turned to talk to her friends.
At that precise moment, they all heard the echoing sound of the doors to the Great Hall opening. Lily turned, expecting to see James and she was not disappointed. He practically sauntered in with the other three Marauders flanking him. She could not deny how sexy he looked when he was acting authoritative seeing as he was just a natural-born leader. That's one of the things I lo-...Whoa! Wait a minute. Lily, what are you doing to yourself? You're going to end up falling for him if you keep thinking like this.
Lily could not help but agree with this voice and tried to search out the bad in James. She used to be extremely good at this but it was becoming increasingly hard to do these days. She knew that since she would be spending more and more time with James it would soon become impossible to find the bad in him. I should savor the time I do have to do it, then. However, no matter how long she thought, she could not think of one bad thing.
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Sirius, Remus and James had just walked into the Great Hall from Dumbledore's office when Filch caught them.
"Where were you three?" he asked wheezily and stared at them through his beady little eyes.
"What does it matter to you?" James asked testily. He had never liked Filch at all since the first time he had caught him out after curfew in first year.
"Well, everyone else is already here...except you three hoodlums. Isn't that just a bit suspicious?" he asked with a maniacal glint in his eye.
"Ummm, let me think about it...no," Sirius said cheekily and with that the three went and sat at the Gryffindor table.
"Well, let's hope that worked out the way we wanted it. Remus, are you sure you had the right charm?" James asked.
"Yes, I am absolutely sure. Now, we wait," Remus replied reassuringly.
James decided he would spend the time he could have been worrying about their success by studying Lily. She was currently laughing at a joke Leah had just told. He could distinguish her melodic laughter anywhere. He smiled dreamily as he stared at how her hair glinted in the light of the chandeliers. He hadn't even realized he had spaced out until he heard Professor McGonagall's stern voice silencing everyone.
"Now it is time to sort the first years into their houses," she said to the students and then turned to the scared-looking first years. "I will place this hat onto your head and it will shout out the name of the house that you are to be sorted into."
James, Remus and Sirius looked at each other expectantly as they awaited the execution of their prank. As all the second to seventh year students awaited the hat to sing its song, Sirius was practically jumping up onto the bench in his anticipation.
"Sirius, are you a bloody moron? Don't make it obvious. If Lily finds out who did this, she'll-" but James was then cut off by the Hat singing. However, what Sirius was awaiting never came. The hat sang its usual song about the “houses uniting” and “settling their differences” instead of the song the Marauders had charmed it to sing. It had been singing this ever since the beginning of the war against Voldemort. Sirius shot Remus a death glare.
"I thought you said you had the correct spell," James muttered venomously to Remus out of the corner of his mouth.
"I thought I did, I'm sorry," Remus muttered back apologetically. The charm was supposed to make the hat sing an obscene song in front of the whole school, but apparently that hadn't worked. James looked up at Dumbledore and he looked back at him with a glint in his eye.
"Remus, I think that you did have the correct spell. However, it looks like there was the matter of a minor interference," James said with a slight smile, all the while looking up at Dumbledore. Sirius and Remus followed his glance and understood perfectly what James was implying.
"Well, James, if you think about it, you could have gotten your Heads privileges taken away by McGonagall because of this prank; maybe it's for the better," Remus said, reassuringly. However, James found that he wasn't exactly disappointed. There were some apparent advantages, such as the fact that he wouldn't have to face Lily's wrath. And he would get to stay Head Boy alongside Lily. He surprised himself at his newfound maturity. However, looking at Sirius' glum expression, he realized they all hadn't matured as much as they may have hoped.
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By the end of the feast, all the students were glancing at the Marauders expectantly, obviously wanting to know why they hadn't performed their start-of-the-year prank. This angered Sirius but James found he could really care less about his soiled troublemaker reputation. He realized that he wanted to live up to his new Head Boy reputation.
James and Lily met up outside the doors of the Great Hall on their way to Dumbledore’s office for their instructions and duties.
“You ready to go, Lily?” James asked.
“Sure,” Lily said, smiling as she remembered what had happened after their “duel” on the train.
After James had stopped dancing like an idiot, they had made their way to the compartment that all their friends were sharing.
“Okay you two, what just happened out there?” Sirius asked, very curiously.
“Yeah, and what date was James talking about, Lils?” Leah asked, just as curiously.
James and Lily began to tell them all about their discussion on their way back to the compartment and they had challenged each other to a duel.
“We agreed that if James won, then he would get a date with me,” Lily said and was about to continue before Kimmy cut her off.
“’We?’ You agreed to that, Lily?” Kimmy asked incredulously.
“Yes…anyway,” Lily continued, obviously trying to change the subject to avoid and potentially embarrassing questions, “If I won, then James would have to be my slave for a week.”
“I’m sure that would have been so unpleasant for you, James. Following Lily around like a dog…oh, wait, you already do,” Sirius said, cheekily.
Since James had nothing to throw at Sirius, he resorted to just throwing him a nasty look. Sirius shrugged it off and Lily went on.
“Well, then you saw what happened…James obviously won,” Lily said, even though she knew his victory wasn’t fair, but she couldn’t blame him. She let him win. She still didn’t know what came over her. Apparently, none of the others did either. Apparently, Remus and Rachel both wanted to question Lily on this because they both began to speak at the same time.
“Lily, you looked like you were about to beat James, but-”
“I don’t know if I was imagining things, but-”
When Remus and Rachel realized they were talking at the same time, they began to blush. They started telling the other one to go on, but they obviously couldn’t find the right words, seeing as they were currently staring at each other. James figured they would save them from their embarrassment by challenging someone to Exploding Snap. He desperately hoped Lily wouldn’t accept because he knew he would definitely be too distracted by her to play properly.
They had arrived in Hogsmeade about twenty minutes later and took separate carriages up to the school. The boys had most likely wanted to firm up plans for their prank. Lily looked over at James to ask him why there was no prank this year, when she realized they were already at the gargoyle leading to Dumbledore’s office and James was staring intently at her. She started to blush and turned her head away.
“We’re early, Lily and I don’t know the password, so I guess we’re just going to have to wait for Dumbledore,” James said tentatively. It definitely looked like he wanted to say something because he began to stare at his feet and shuffle them around.
“James, do you need to talk about something?” Lily asked, concerned.
James was astonished at just how sweetly she said his name. I could really get used to that. “Actually, yeah Lily. I do want to talk about something. I just want to know…umm…when do you want to…you know…go on that date?” He mentally slapped himself for sounding so stupid. Lily was the only girl that made him stumble over his words.
“Oh, well, umm…I was kind of hoping we could get to know each other before we go on an actual date,” Lily replied apprehensively. She knew the real reason she was putting it off is that she was scared of falling in love with James.
“Oh, well, okay,” James said, crestfallen. However, then he seemed to realize something. “Lily, if we get to know each other before we date, then dating each other won’t be much fun, will it? I mean, most of the fun of the date is actually getting to know each other. I’m not the kind of guy who takes a girl out and won’t talk to her just because all I want to do is snog. I hope you don’t think I’m like that,” James said and noticed Lily began to blush profusely. His heart sunk into his stomach as he realized she thought he was a playboy. So, to fix things up, he said, “Lily, I understand if you really don’t want to go on a date with me. I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. So, if you don’t want to go out with me, just tell me and I’ll leave you alone, okay?” No matter how much those words hurt him to say, he knew he had to say them.
Lily looked up at his face and searched his eyes. She could find no ulterior motives there and knew that there never would be any. She decided something right then and there: to give James a chance.
“James, I’ll give you more than that,” Lily said and James’ eyes lit up. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. She then placed her hand on his cheek. As she looked into his face, she knew that she was looking at a man who would never let anything happen to her and she liked that feeling. She realized she didn’t know what she would do to survive if James wasn’t by her side. She began to feel a little apprehensive that these feelings were coming so fast. However, she then realized that those weird feelings she was getting when she read the letters were showing her that she had never hated James. She never really disliked James either. She wanted to so badly, however, that she had always pushed him away. The way he had made her feel scared her. But not anymore.
“James, will you be my boyfriend?” Lily asked tentatively. She would not blame him if he said no after how mean she had been to him in the past. However, she watched as his whole face lit up and his eyes filled with an enormous amount of joy that she had never seen before.
“Lily, I thought you’d never ask,” he replied, beaming.
As she looked at him, she knew that this was the moment that she realized she was in love with James Potter.
Not Another Teen Love Story by 365 letters_ryan gosling 20
Chapter Notes: Alright, guys...I hope you like this chapter. I accept criticism openly. You can tell me if I went too fast with this chapter. Please review; I would really appreciate feedback. Thanks :-)