The Element of Surprise

1.

James Potter is walking with that languid, panther-gait of his, down the corridor towards me, and something very strange is happening inside my chest.

My first thought is, how young is the youngest-ever victim of a heart-attack? I know Dad is forever moaning on about his cholesterol, and I'm always rolling my eyes, but by God! Karma has struck me down at last. Damn all that Shephards Pie, that onion gravy, that clotted cream! The Hogwarts House Elves have done it- they've killed me with nourishment at last…

My second thought is, No, you fool! You've been struck by an adrenaline spell! Quick, unsheathe your wand, be at the ready, there is dueling in the corridors!

Because those are the only two fathomable reasons for the sudden pounding of my heart, the sharp flurries of nervousness that are cascading down my gut.

But the corridor is empty, and I haven't yet collapsed, so I'm left with a brain-numbing array of sudden thoughts and a tingling panic at the edges of my consciousness.

Make a run for it, is the only sane thought amidst all the rubbish, so I listen, turning instantly and legging it down the opposite end of the corridor.

"Evans!"

I hear it echoing through my mind, in a hundred different tones, a hundred different timbres of excitement, but it's only an echo. The corridor behind me is silent, save for the soft, indifferent padding of his footsteps.

I make it around the bend, and into the nearest empty classroom, and the silence on my heels is deafening. There is another completely foreign sensation beginning to flow through my chest, and I think I dimly, ever-so-distantly, recognize it as bitter disappointment. I realize my hand is on the desk in front of me, as if I need to be steadied, and I'm breathing deeply, trying to calm the unknown panic in the fringes of my mind.

Lily, what is happening to you?

A small, disbelieving voice cuts through the whining haze, and I come-to a little.

What is happening to me?

I pull myself nimbly up onto the desk I have been gripping for the past minute, and stare at the chalkboard blankly. 'I will not use my wand for 'disgraceful rubbish', I will use it to honor my school. I will not use my wand for 'disgraceful rubbish', I will use it to honor my school…"

My heart lightens the slightest bit, and a welcome smile pulls at my lips. The detention line has been written at least two-hundred times. I wonder if James Potter wrote it-

Lily Evans. What is happening to you.

I feel my lips tighten into a McGonagle-esque line, and I try to tear my eyes- as well as my thoughts- away from the board, but the quotations around 'disgraceful rubbish' just look so inexplicably…. sarcastic, and all I can think of is that this has to be James' detention for turning Avery's bats into a small flock of swans last night, and all on its own, my mind conjures the image of James Potter's hands, calloused and graceful, jotting that line on the board a hundred times over, taking extra care to make those quotations look sarcastic-

-and that sensation starts in my chest again. As if my heart is beating in water; rippling and buoyed in some unknown currant.

And all I can do is bring my hands to my face and rub vigorously because- what?!- what am I thinking, what am I doing, I am not this sort of girl.

I am not someone who suddenly makes a complete one-eighty and fancies someone just because they are suddenly indifferent. I will not be fawning over James Potter simply because he seems to have finally called it quits over the summer, and realized that his ridiculous, incessant attempts to win me over are futile.

I am someone with dignity. At least I thought I was- and I will not let my ego be bruised and run rampant on me, simply because I have lost the constant flattery of his affections. Flattery is not even the right word. Irritation, or abomination would actually be more accurate, but my poor, broken brain seems to be having trouble remembering the menace that has been James Potter for the past six years.

I am being quite as bad as him, at the moment, I realize with a nasty shock. All these years I have accused him of being self-centered, and look at me now! All hot and bothered because my faithful lap-dog is gone.

Nonsense. It is nonsense, I decide, with a firm nod of my head to the empty room. I will be happy for him. Maybe now, at long last, he can stop messing about with half the girls in the school, and pick one of them to actually like.

I nod firmly again, but that second sensation is burning through my gut, that bitter resentment, and I am not as blind to it as I pretend to be.

I stare at the quotations on the board for a long while, wrestling with my own mind, sorting out a course of sensible action.

By the time I gather my wits and my nerves enough to leave the classroom, I realize the period is over and I, Lily Evans, have skived-off my first class ever.


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