.
here's a little taste of irony
chapter one: hogwarts express
© All Rights Reserved
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love you best when you are savage and bitter
give me more, your kiss, my favorite taboo
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He groaned huskily as she wound her thin hand through his chestnut hair. Trailing her other hand down his chest, she stood up on her toes and whispered against his mouth, "Have you missed me?"
"Merlin, yes," he growled, reaching his arms around her and pulling her lithe body up so that her face could meet his better. He tried relentlessly to catch her lips with his, but she teasingly eluded his touch.
"How much?" she taunted merrily, a manipulative glint in her green eyes.
One calloused hand grabbed her chin and yanked it toward him. "You little minx."
Finally, she permitted their lips to touch, laughing softly against his mouth as he moved his lips over hers. "I missed you, too."
His only response (well, besides a furious increase in the intensity of their snogging) was to roughly back her up against the window. The train went over a bump and the compartment shook, causing her to fall even closer to him. "Damn train," he mumbled, re-orienting himself.
"Oh, poor baby, has the big bad train made you angry?" she teased, looking very wicked indeed. "Don't worry, I think I can help." She ran her hand soothingly down his cheek, grinning as his eyes fluttered closed. She loved her extensive control over him.
After a moment, he pushed her back against the wall again. "This summer has been far too long," he told her, pinning one hand on either side of her and planting soft kisses along her jawbone.
Lily sighed peacefully. She certainly agreed: the past summer had dragged on mercilessly. Her mother had been forever after her to baby-sit for the neighbors, and Petunia had been even more nightmarish than usual. It had been utterly heavenly to escape to Marlene's for the last few weeks.
"However did you manage without me?" she asked her boyfriend of five or so months, Phil Deverill, in her best little-girl voice. She knew it drove him absolutely mad.
Phil practically attacked her lips. They snogged for well over a minute, uninterrupted, until finally Lily realized that humans could only survive sans air for a limited period of time. "Good to see you, too, Phil," she gasped once they had finally separated.
"Lily," he growled, grabbing her face once again. Phil had a very one-track mind at times, despite being a Ravenclaw. He attempted to resume their kiss, but Lily pushed his face away gently.
"We should probably be getting back to our friends," she laughed, feeling no pity for his libido.
Phil groaned, moving back in toward Lily. "They can wait. We haven't seen each other for months." He ducked his head again, this time pulling her face up to his roughly.
"Phil," she protested in between his fervent kisses, "I think we should –" she stopped abruptly as she saw the door slide open behind him. "Stop it, Phil," she hissed. Lily couldn't see who had opened the compartment door, but she was embarrassed at being caught in such a position, regardless of who exactly had caught them. After all, Lily was the Sixth Year Gryffindor Prefect. She was hardly the type of girl who would snog boys in empty compartments on the Hogwarts Express…at least that was what the rest of the school believed.
Phil merely grunted in response, pressing Lily against the train window and moving his lips against hers all the more frantically. His right arm pinned Lily to the window while his left hand was on her face. Lily wriggled against him, trying to summon the strength to push him off of her, but to no avail. He was the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, after all. Finally, Phil had to come up for air and when he did, Lily voiced, "Please, Phil, that's enough!" She dug the heel of her hands into his shoulders and pushed with all of her might. He stumbled a little, but he was quite a lot bigger than her.
"Come on, Lily, I haven't seen you all summer," Phil panted, before pulling her face toward his again.
In a pause, Lily gasped, "Stop! Not now!" He kissed her some more, then she again gasped, "Stop it, Phil, I mean it!"
Phil's only response was to lean in again, but before they could resume their kiss, Phil was abruptly yanked backward. Lily blinked for a moment, disoriented and utterly bemused. What had just occurred?
She found her answer when she looked up and saw Phil pinned against the train compartment wall by none other than the Hogwarts golden boy himself, James Potter.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" James muttered quietly to Phil. James' typical easygoing smile was stretched across his lips, but the smile certainly didn't reach his eyes. His pleasant tone of voice belied the anger that was obviously behind his words. James was gripping Phil's shoulders and had him up against the wall in what looked to be a very uncomfortable position.
"Get the hell off me, Potter!" Phil yelled.
"No, actually, I don't think I will," James replied genially. "I'd like to know what exactly you thought you were –"
"I'll tell you what I was doing!" bellowed Phil irately. "I was snogging my bloody girlfriend! Last time I checked, you don't factor into our snogging sessions at all!"
Lily narrowed her eyes at the scene unfolding before her. Where to begin? Well, she supposed it made sense to begin with the unexpected and entirely unwelcome intruder currently in her and Phil's private compartment. Namely, one James Potter. Lily knew that Potter and his mates were a bunch of nosy bastards, but honestly, was nothing sacred anymore? Lily was angry, not least because she was rather embarrassed at having been caught snogging in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express, and by Potter, no less.
James was saying to Phil, "No, not unless you're forcing yourself on her when she clearly didn't want it."
Lily practically boiled with rage. Sure, she had gotten a bit hacked off with Phil when he had continued to snog her even after she had repeatedly asked him to stop, but it was none of Potter's business! Lily shook her head. She had known that someone coming into the compartment and seeing Phil and her was bad news, but out of all the people it could have been, Potter was really the most undesirable.
"Who in sodding hell do you think you are?" Phil demanded angrily.
"He's a joke of a nobody, Phil," responded Lily in James' stead. She shook her head at the intruder disparagingly. "So he's obviously not worth our trouble."
James kept his grip on Phil tight, but his head slowly turned and his eyes met Lily's emerald ones. Lily stared back coolly. She and Potter usually made it a point to avoid each other's company, but when they did encounter one another, they disagreed on nearly everything. As Lily stared at him, she tried unsuccessfully to read his expression. What she thought had been confusion now seemed to be anger and disbelief. "You…are you…come on, Evans, you can't be serious?"
Lily let out a humorless and sharp laugh. "Serious about what?" She raised a single eyebrow dispassionately. "Come now, Potter, you've known me five years now. When am I ever not serious?"
James gazed back at her, his eyes narrowed. His hold on Phil's robes finally loosened and he backed up slowly, clenching his hands into fists once, suddenly, and then stretching out his fingers. After a wordless pause, he replied, "Absolutely never, right you are, Evans. Merlin himself couldn't even imagine how huge of a stick you've got up your –"
"Hey, watch it!" Phil told James menacingly, though the effect was somewhat lessened, considering Phil had just finished being done over by James. Once James had looked away from Lily, Phil questioned, "What are you even doing in here, anyway?"
Lily raised her eyebrows, awaiting James' response impatiently. Like Phil, she was oh so curious as to why he had suddenly barged into their compartment, then proceeded to pry Phil off Lily and shove him around. Honestly, Lily mused, who does that? Maybe sixth year would be the year all the boys' hormones got even more out-of-control, or maybe the water in Derbyshire (where, as everyone knew, the Potter family's sprawling estate was located) had something batty in it, or maybe Potter just had finally gone off his rocker. Whatever the explanation, his behavior was absurdly inappropriate and rather random.
"I was looking for Peter; we can't find him and we thought he might be with a girl, so I went to look and see if I could indeed get some material to tease him with for the rest of term and –" James cut himself off. "Well, at any rate, I was just seeing if he was in here."
"And when you saw that he wasn't?" Phil asked, throwing his arms up.
James didn't respond, merely crossing his arms and gritting his teeth.
Lily glared at James pointedly. "You just decided, 'Hey, why don't I stick around and go all McGonagall on a random couple'?"
Phil chuckled, grinning appreciatively at Lily.
James suddenly broke his stony silence and burst, "No, actually, I heard your protests and saw Deverill bloody manhandling you. I thought maybe I'd be a gentleman, but hey, you know what they say about chivalry, huh?" He heaved a deep breath.
"It doesn't look well on pathetic little boys like you, Potter?" supplied Lily innocently, a spark in her eyes. She really couldn't believe his nerve. Phil probably thought that Potter was just being a prat like usual, but Lily, having been in the git's House for the past five years, understood what Potter was leaving unsaid. She felt humiliated and livid, suspecting that Potter was implying something not very nice about her. What it was exactly, Lily couldn't quite say, but she knew that he certainly didn't approve.
Not that his approval mattered, of course!
A muscle in James' jaw twitched, and he clenched his fists once again. "Right, well, see you both at the Feast." He turned on his heel and stormed out of the compartment. In an instant, he was gone.
Lily stared at the compartment door through which James had just exited. She felt as if frozen for a moment; her body couldn't move but inside, her heart was pounding rapidly. She thought it might be anger, but she actually felt rather confused. What the hell had just happened?
Phil chuckled quietly. "Merlin, it seems that Potter's still just as much of a tosspot as he ever was. I really don't think I can take another year of him and his little clique strutting about the school as if they own the place. What are they called again, the Mischief-something, or the…?" He trailed off, looking over at Lily.
Lily was still staring at the door. She still didn't quite know whether or not the last five minutes had even happened.
"Lily?" Phil prodded.
Startled, she glanced quickly over to him. "Oh, the Marauders," she supplied absently. Then she silently scolded herself for acting like such a vacuous cow. "You don't have to tell me about it. I've had to endure their antics in the common room and every class for ages." She shook her head disapprovingly. "Really, the combination of boundless arrogance and downright moronic immaturity is dangerous."
Phil smirked, looking at her pityingly. "Can I just say once again how glad I am to be in Ravenclaw? I feel so sorry for you, love." He moved over to put his arm around her and pull her toward him. Suddenly, Phil pulled his arm off Lily abruptly, as though she had burned him.
She looked up at him inquiringly. "Don't tell me I smell like dog poo again. I only bathed myself in it once today," she joked.
Phil shook his head. "No, it's just…what if Potter comes in again? I wouldn't want him to have another eppy." His eyes were wide, but Lily could see a grin fighting its way onto his mouth.
Lily rolled her eyes and shoved him hard. "Oh, ha, ha. You're such a comedian."
Chuckling, Phil mused, "Really, though, what the hell do you think possessed him to lose the plot like that? I mean, Lily," he put his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him, "you know that I wasn't manhandling you, or whatever he said, right? I wouldn't hurt you, you know that."
Lily nodded. She gave him a half-hearted smile. "Of course I know that. And it's just Potter, no one knows what possesses him to do half the things he does. He's like a dumb animal or something."
Phil nodded at her words, but he still looked distracted. "Yeah. It just…bugs me, you know? The way he thinks he runs the school, the way all the professors bloody worship him, the way he thinks he can do whatever he wants and get away with it. Someone needs to teach the tosspot a lesson."
Rolling her eyes, Lily responded, "Believe me, I've been trying for years. Let's just forget about him. He's not half as important as he thinks he is."
"Too right," agreed Phil. He sidled up to Lily, wrapping an arm around her waist and bringing his other hand up to the back of her head. "Now let's get back to where we were before we were so rudely interrupted." He pulled her face up to meet his and began moving his lips against hers.
Lily was rather annoyed. She had scolded Phil minutes ago to stop snogging her, because she was worried that someone might catch them. And what had happened? Exactly that. Lily had a reputation to maintain, after all, and it certainly wasn't that of the Hogwarts Slag. She was meant to be a role model for the younger students! Lily reached up and pushed Phil away. "Stop. I mean it, Phil. I don't want anyone else seeing us." She backed up a few steps, putting some much-needed distance between her and her boyfriend. "Besides, like I said, we should be getting back to our mates."
Phil looked shocked, and then he glowered at Lily. "Hm. Okay. I suppose you must agree with Potter then. I guess his little visit really did pay off."
Lily gasped, affronted and irritated. "What are you on about, Phil? This isn't about Potter at all. Even before he came in, I told you I wanted to go."
"Right, because you apparently care so much about what people like Potter and the like think of you."
Lily merely glared right back at him, too angry to speak.
Phil continued, "I suppose you didn't really miss me all that much this summer. I thought we were dating, but I must have been mistaken."
"Shove off, Phil," Lily snarled. "Don't be such a wanker. We are dating, but I'm not going to abandon everything else because of it. I apologize if I can't be your readily available snogging object whenever you want."
At first, Phil appeared terribly incensed, but just as he was about to bellow back at Lily, he seemed to reconsider. He sighed and then replied, "Well, right then, I think we've both spoken a little out of turn. You know I'm not like that. I do think you're being a bit unreasonable, but I reckon that's what I signed up for, right? I mean you're Lily Evans, everyone knows you've got a temper. Maybe once you cool down we'll be able to sort this all out."
Seething, Lily let out a derisive laugh. Phil was really annoying her today, for so many reasons that she couldn't even begin to count them. She didn't like the way he seemed to think she should treat him and she certainly didn't appreciate his last remarks. "Do not patronize me." She began to walk toward the compartment door. Lily needed to spend a few hours, at least, away from Phil and his smothering. She had thought that the kilometers and months that had separated them over the hols would have been too much, but at that moment, she wished to be far, far away from her boyfriend. Maybe a little later she would feel inclined to speak to him, but not at present.
When Lily reached the door, she paused and glanced over her shoulder. "Oh, and as for my temper? You don't know the least of it yet." With a final look at Phil's grimace, she flounced out of the compartment only slightly slower than James had minutes before.
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love the way you treat me so badly
get your thrill just to get at me
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A/N: Title contains a line from "Dangerous" by Ghost of the Robot; included lyrics are from Temposhark's "Irresistible". If you liked this, let me know in a review and I will post the next part. Please don't favorite without reviewing. Thank you!