Tomorli BloomingWell proudly presents

JAMES POTTER'S GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING WOMEN

Chapter one:

A Losing Game

It's always hard to break up with a girl (or woman), even to the annoying ones.

She blinked. I watched as her eyelids slipped over her large brown orbs, her shoulders cave and her chest heave in despair. Her small dark hands shot up to her chest, her chin turned downwards to the grey stone floor of the empty courtyard. She stumbled onto the bench behind her as her knees buckled; I heard a whimper as she pulled the sweater tighter around her as the chilly autumn breeze swept through the branches above us.

"I'm sorry it had to end like this, Cassie, but I just… I didn't want to lead you on. I felt that it would be best if you knew the truth and, this way, I can try figure out what this whole deal with Lily is—" Then, all hell broke loose.

"You bastard!" she screamed, shooting up from her seat. Her eyes were wide open and I thought that I saw fire in her eyes. "How dare you mention her name in front of me like that!" At this point, I was retreating, trying my best not to trip over anything. She pulled out her wand, pointing it at me threateningly.

"Whoa," I faced my palms toward her, "Wait a minute, the other day, you asked me what was wrong…"

Her jaw clenched and her nostrils flared. A quick release of air from her lips indicated her fury, "I didn't know you were in love with some other girl!" she squealed. Her pace quickened. She was advancing quickly.

"Now, just wait a minute…" I felt around my back pocket for my wand, it wasn't there. I made a mental note to stop leaving my wand in my bag. "I… I never said that I was in love with her."

She stopped, running her hand through her dark curly hair, pulling at it a bit, "You might as well be! All you ever did was talk about her, James! I mean, when we snogged, I sometimes felt that you were thinking of someone else!" A quick intake of breath and she shook her head in disbelief, "How could I have been so utterly stupid! And the sad part is that my friends come to me for relationship advice…"

I thought about what she said, it was mostly true. Except the thinking-about-her-when-snogging part. It only ever happened once, and that was because Lily passed by the couch as we were doing it and I could smell her lavender-and-sandalwood-fused-with-book scent. I should have paid more attention to Cassie at that moment, because she somehow seemed to catch drift of what or whom I was thinking about. How is it that women seem to just magically know how we feel? Most of the time anyway, and that was one of those times.

"Aren't you going to defend yourself…? You were just thinking about her, weren't you?" her voice was desperate now.

"Come on, Cassie, you know I wouldn't—" At that point, I found that it was best to just run. As various jinxes flew past my ear, barely missing me (Cassie wasn't the brightest when it came to aiming), I thought about why women were so difficult.

Jealousy is one of those emotions that they simply cannot control. Not only had Cassie accused me of liking someone else during the course of our month-long relationship, but she was also partly at fault for causing me to develop proper feelings for Lily in the first place. Accusations or suspicions only make the man curiouser and curiouser. Every time Cassie brought her up in subject – I only ever talked about her occasionally, commenting on her intelligence, and how she was destined to be with Remus – I would think about her. Cassie often made fun of her "wild red hair", but I actually thought it looked kind of nice, especially because she never seemed to care about it much. Cassie on the other hand, spent hours on her hair. I used to wonder what it would be like to have a girlfriend who didn't put so much effort into her hair. When I told Cassie this, she slapped me and didn't talk to me for a day.

I hate it when people are mad at me. And girls seem to act like that all the time towards me. The ones I date, anyway.

These were but a few of my contemplations as my face smashed the stony ground.

"Haha! No way!" Sirius laughed. "You break up with the girl and she breaks you!"

"Now come on Sirius, this is no laughing matter, James' Quidditch skills may be affected by this broken leg of his…" Remus said contemplatively, eyeing my swollen leg with concern as well as my bandaged cheek.

Peter jumped up and down in anticipation, his hands on the foot of the bed made it shake a bit, "So tell us how it happened, James! You haven't told us yet!"

"Well Moony, I highly doubt that I'll be anything less than a great Chaser just because of a broken leg. Madam Pomfrey said that once she finishes up with Kenneth's enlarged nose, she'd fix me in no time. She said that I'll be out before lunch," I said before looking out the window to the Black Lake and little people moving about it.

"Prongs! You haven't said anything about how you got it broken! Was it one of her jinxes?" Peter asked excitedly.

Sirius rolled his eyes, "Of course it was a jinx! What else could it have been? What spell did she use?" I fiddled with the blanket, "James…? Oh no you didn't…"

I sighed, "I tripped over the root of the tree…" I touched the bandage on my face tenderly.

Sirius shook his head, "Come on… Really? That's what happened? First, you forget your wand then—"

"Then she brought me up into the air and dropped me down, six feet up. I'm happy my neck didn't snap from the fall—Oi, shut up!"

Peter and Sirius were laughing. Remus retreated into a chair nearby, "Honestly, you'd think the lot of you were third-years…"

"Out of the way, boys!" said Madam Pomfrey as she pushed through Peter and Sirius, who were practically rolling on the floor in laughter. "You'll be out in no time, Mister Potter. Just drink this… And I'll perform the spell."

"Please Madam Pomfrey, that's my father's name. Call me James," I winked as I took the bottle from her hands.

"Oh, Mister Potter," she blushed, "You should know better than that." She muttered the spell, touching my leg with her wand, then shuffled off to another patient. Another thing about women is that they get easily flattered. Every time I want to ask a girl to accompany me on Hogsmeade weekends, all I ever have to do is brush their hair from their face and compliment on their eyes, or their laugh or something like that. Though, when I tried that on Lily, she laughed at me then walked away. I didn't even get the chance to push her hair back.

I drank the juice and felt my leg tingle. "Are you better yet? I'm hungry," Remus said from his perch.

"I think so…" I got up from the bed and walked around a bit. "No hitches… Shall we go then?" The four of us head out of the Hospital Wing, "We should do this again sometime, Poppy!" I called back into the ward.

"Mister Potter!" cried Madam Pomfrey in indignation.

Women also tend to get offended easily as well, one wrong move and you're done for. There's a thin line between charming and overbearing, and one must always know the time and the place for certain mentionings. Such as the time I told Lily that she should've asked me to Slughorn's Christmas party last year, instead of Philip. She told me to sod off and try asking her myself next time. I even tried the hair-brushing-away technique (by then, I was quite good at it) and complimented on how beautiful and unique she looked that day. She walked away. Perhaps I should have saved it for when she wasn't wearing uniform.

When the four of us entered the Great Hall, I noticed that all the girls seemed to have sympathy for Cassie, not me. They were all crowded around her at the Hufflepuff table, consoling her and her face was buried in her hands and she was making weeping noises. This confused me; I was the one who broke my leg after all. I grumbled a bit while taking a seat on the other side of the Great Hall, grabbing a bread roll from a nearby plate.

"I don't get it… Why is it that Cassie's crying and everyone's on her side, when I'm the one who was nearly killed?"

Remus rolled his eyes, "Come on, Prongs, you can't be serious."

My eyes widened as he said this, was he on her side? "Me? Serious? Of course! Why can't I be? Didn't you see my leg? I was nearly killed!"

Peter burst into a fit of giggles. "Of course he isn't serious…" he muttered into his sleeve, "'Cause Sirius is right here! Ha!"

"Ugh! Get over it Peter! That's so unoriginal!" Sirius said, shoving Peter off his seat.

Remus poured himself a glass of orange juice, "I think you're putting emphasis on the wrong word. You were nearly killed. And besides, you said so yourself: Madam Pomfrey would get you fixed up in no time, and she did."

My face scrunched up in confusion, my hands slammed against the wooden table, "What?!" Crumbs of bread flew across the table as I shouted this, as my mouth was full of bread at the time.

Sirius, who was sitting across from me, wiped away soggy bread pieces from his face, "Although I don't completely agree with Remus' premise. I do think that Cassie has every right to be upset, and it's normal for girls to stand up for each other."

I swallowed the food in my mouth with great difficulty, mutiny doesn't bring out the best of one's feelings, "Aargh! I cannot believe you two. You're supposed to be my friends! Isn't it also normal for guys to stand up for each other? Male pride and all that?"

Peter, having recovered from his dismounting, began to giggle once more, "Male pride… That sounds gay." The rest of us rolled our eyes.

Sirius leaned forward while Remus grabbed a piece of chicken from the platter in front of us, "Come on, Prongs, you were the one who asked her out in the first place. Even though we told you not to."

"In my defence, Lily wanted me to."

"In her defence, Cassie was her friend and she had asked Lily to tell you that she liked you…"

Remus shook his head, "The point is, you went into the relationship knowing that it wouldn't last. You were in love with Lily the whole time and you seem to be the only one who didn't know it!"

"Even I knew!" Peter exclaimed.

I couldn't say anything after that. In that sort of way, I was at fault. The reason why I asked Cassie to Hogsmeade in the first place was because I wanted to make Lily happy. At that time, she was worrying about mid-year exams and she told me that if I accepted Cassie's offer, it would be one less thing on her mind. The strange thing was that I actually enjoyed my outing with Cassie. She was fun and bubbly, all up until the moment I asked Lily to tutor me for Potions. Then the jealousy started and all I could think about was Lily.

It was at that moment that Lily decided to take a seat next to us. She was wearing large sunglasses and had a floral scarf wrapped around her head, she grabbed an apple and took a large bite out of it before saying, "Potter, I officially hate you."

She was sitting next to me and her scent began to intoxicate me, "What…?" I said meekly.

"I hate you. Got it?" she snapped. She slunk into the seat and took another bite of the apple, whimpering. "I can't believe this…"

"What's wrong Lily?" Sirius said, balancing a fork on his nose.

She leaned forward, "They ambushed me in the hallway. I can't believe you mentioned my name, James. Every seventh-year girl officially hates me because of what James did to Cass…"

That woke me from my spell, "What! Doesn't anybody get the fact that I – yes, me – was the one who was nearly killed? I didn't do anything. Guys break up with girls all the time and I've never seen any girl react this way before."

"We like you, Lily…" Peter said, taking a slurp of his chicken soup.

"Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned…" remarked Remus glumly.

Lily half-smiled, "Thanks, Peter, but that'll be no good when I return to the Girls' Dormitory tonight… For some inexplicable reason, they think the two of us have been dating behind Cassie's back. Ha! That's a laugh!"

Sirius dropped the fork into his hand, "Hmm, wonder why… But until then, we'll protect you from any mob of girls, Lils."

Lily shrugged, "Well, charm has always been you guys' specialty…" She took a bite from the apple.

"Aargh!" I exclaimed in disbelief, "Doesn't anybody care about me? Today has been the day of Cassie, everyone's on her side. I'm hurt too, you know!" I tore the bandage from my cheek, "Look at this! This is what she did to me!"

I looked around, they were all looking at me strangely. "I don't see anything," said Lily.

Sirius smiled, "Oh right, he scraped his cheek. He tripped over a tree root while trying to escape her." Lily laughed.

Peter looked up from his soup, "Wow, Madam Pomfrey does work wonders. The scrape's all gone!"

Remus leaned closer to my cheek to inspect it, "Yes, we should try and find out how to get some of that essence of murtlap she put on you. It would be good for… adventurous excursions." The four of us nodded.

"Right…" Lily said, "I think I better go, some of them have noticed my presence." She grabbed a sandwich and wrapped it in a tissue, "I'll take this to go… See you three later…" she whispered before making her escape. As she passed through the Great Hall, horrible whisperings could be heard:

"Did you see that!" cried one of the seventh-year girls.

"She was sitting with them! Has she no shame?" cried another.

"Hmph! She and Cassie were best friends… I would never betray you guys like that," joined a third.

"Oh really! You are so nice to us Rebecca!" the second exclaimed.

"It's really just a matter of principle, I always say… That Lily Evans is such a whore!"

Don't ask me. I'm just the observer.

A/N: Please review! The next one will be up soon, within the week!