Please, please, please R/R!!! I'm not sure if I should continue the storyline, and as I'm already I the midst of another fanfic, I might drop this one if the response if underwhelming. I hope that the plot doesn't tick off too many people: don't worry, Lily will always be faithful to her James, and I like Sirius too much to let him suffer unnecessarily. And if you're so inclined, please read my other fanfic (Voldemort's Heir) and I'll love you forever and ever and ever (note: if you are a really nice person, and decide to humor this request, the first and second parts are kind of long and not totally necessary to understand the plot. 3, 4 and 5 should be clear enough on their own). Kisses to all my reviewers!!! I love you guys soooooo much!!!
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I can quite honestly say that I fell in love with her the moment I clapped eyes on her.
Rumpled haired and sleepy-eyed, she walked over to the Gryffindor table wearing the most hideous ensemble I have ever seen: a bright pink dress with green bows stationed along the waistband and hem. My heart knocked insistently (and, I feared, audibly) at my chest as she drew nearer.
Her eyes misunderstood my look, "It's awful, I know…mum's never had much taste." A sweet, timid smile apologized for the frightful outfit.
"I'm Lily." All I could do was smile back.
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It was breakfast and her hands were occupied in grabbing handfuls of sausages and biscuits from the tray and placing them in her coat pocket.
"What are you doing, Lily?" James asked laughing, staring at her bulging pockets. "Trying to fatten Humbert up for the Halloween feast?"
"Ooooooooh, James! You had better watch it!" she replied angrily, but a smile betrayed her as she swat his shoulder with her free hand.
"But seriously, Lily…I'm not sure if I could choke down that cat of yours. Have you seen some of the stuff he eats?" I added, laughing.
"If you must know," she replied with mock haughtiness, "I thought it would be a terrible shame to waste such a beautiful day eating inside. Would you two mind terribly if we went outside to eat?" she asked with exaggerated pleading, knowing full well that James and I would do whatever she wanted.
And so we spent the morning basking in the sunshine and sprawled out on the front lawn. Remus joined us before long, wearing his usual quiet smile. Lily quizzed him on his Charms homework, her chin resting on the heels of her hands and her feet swaying restlessly in the air. James and I would occasionally take an obligatory nibble of Lily's pilfered biscuits, wincing playfully each time to get her to put on that adorable little frown of hers.
"Really! If you don't like them, don't eat them," she'd squint disapprovingly at us. "It's no skin off my nose."
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"Sirius! Sirius! Wait up!" I turned around to see Lily running towards me. She caught up with me, flushed and breathless.
"Have you had lunch yet?" she asked. "James is finishing a detention, and I haven't seen Remus or Peter since this morning…and, really, it'd be such a shame to let these go to waste." She pulled two magnificent red lobsters out of her bookbag, smiling triumphantly at them.
"Lily, where on earth did you get those?" I asked, incredulously.
"Awww, Sirius, you don't expect a magician to give away all her secrets, do you?" she grinned wickedly at me, and then her tiny arm took the crook of mine. "You and James aren't the only mischief makers around here. C'mon. I promise they won't bite."
We spent that cold and blustery day together, eating lunch near the fireplace upstairs. She was bent over, giggling and whispering conspiratorially in my ear, the loveliest I've ever seen or felt her. Her cheeks were still streaked with red from the walk over, and I desperately wanted to say something witty or catty that would unleash one of those wicked smiles of hers. Peter found us and started talking to us about some inconsequential Transfiguration theorem or something, his voice shrill and whiny and plying.
"Oh, Peter, you'll have to tell me about that some other time, we're late to class," she said to him, cutting him off and winking at me. And so we left.
We walked together, side by side, our bodies pitched against the icy gusts, steaming issuing from our mouths, our hands in our pockets, our soft exhale mingling. I had that sort of feeling you get when you haven't slept for a long time; that gliding, drunken euphoria where everything is blurred and echoed and heavy and your bones ache dully.
"When I was eight my dad got a raise at his job and we when to the local furniture store to buy some nice, new stuff to replace all the old brown." Her auburn hair was matted and wet and little tendrils curled and danced around her ears. "And Dad thought it would be funny to have this global, around-the-world sort of theme for my room, to improve my chances of winning that year's geography bee or something ridiculous like that." She wrinkled her nose slightly in mock distaste. "So, anyway, he bought, like, six red-faced clocks and a giant world map to put up in my room with the times of all the different parts of the world." She tilted her head slightly and a sliver of her naked neck peaked out from beneath her scarf. "But he couldn't get the batteries in all at precisely the same time, so there were these 6 clocks all ticking asynchronously and it was like a horribly magnified Telltale Heart or something. Petunia broke four of our new dinner plates in the first hour." She laughed her silvery laugh and I wanted to take her face into my hands and kiss her deeply and intently and do all the indecent things I only guilty allowed myself to imagine. "So he gave away five of the clocks as Christmas gifts and let me keep the sixth."
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