Chapter 2 – The party

"But mum! Do I really have to go to Potter's party?" Lily asked for the hundredth time that day.
"Yes, Lily, you do. Now stop complaining and help me pick out an outfit for you." Mrs. Evans replied irritated, going through Lily's closet "What about this skirt and this top?"
"No mum. Can't I just wear shorts and a t-shirt?"
"Lily, dear, I talked to Mrs. Potter and she said that it was a little on the dressy side of casual wear, therefore you must wear at least a skirt! I will not allow you to embarrass yourself by letting you wear a crumby old t-shirt and shorts!" 'Yeah right,' thought Lily 'more like she won't let me embarrass her and dads reputation.'
"Ugghh. If I have to dress up then at least let me pick out my own clothes." Lily then reluctantly joined her mother in picking out her outfit for James party. They went through top, after top, after skirt, after skirt, after dress. Finally, after what seemed like hours to Lily, they came up with two outfits to choose from: a summer dress and a skirt and top.
The dress was light green with emerald green leaves and flowers printed on it. It had spaghetti string straps and a small slit in between the collarbones held together by a dark green lace ribbon. The dress was made of a soft yet stiff cottony material that reached just to the tops of her knees.
The skirt and top ensemble consisted of a black silk slip under and attached to a black lacey see-through material cut so that it looked like two pieces overlapping each other with wavy pieces of the lacey material along the edges. The top was white and covered with mostly tiny blue flowers that were occasionally attached to little green vines, stems, and leaves. It was cut in a Chinese, figure-fitting fashion with a swirl, silvery blue and white button closing the short collar. The entire top was outlined with a silky blue hem and was made of a mix of a cotton and nylon material that gave it a stretchy feel.
"Which would you rather wear," questioned Mrs. Evans, "the skirt and blouse or the dress?"
"Well, considering I'm going to wear the skirt and blouse to my birthday party; I think I'll wear the dress." Lily replied logically taking both outfits from Mrs. Evans and setting them on her dresser for her use of them the next day and on her upcoming birthday.
"Can I go to bed now?" Lily asked in an annoyed sarcastic tone.
"No, of course not." Replied Mrs. Evans in a serious voice. Lily laughed slightly at first, thinking that her mother was kidding, but stopped after receiving a serious glare from her. "Now we have to pick out some shoes and a purse. Some jewelry, too."
"Jewelry too? Do I have too?" Lily whined.
"If you absolutely cannot stand to wear very much jewelry, then at least wear a necklace and I'll be happy. Now pick out some nice shoes and I'll get some purse choices. Wait, where are your purses?"
"In my closet on the very top shelf. You may have to get a step ladder to reach them."
"Well, no wonder you never use a purse; always that bloody backpack that you're obsessed with." Mrs. Evans muttered pulling the chair from Lily's desk and using it as a ladder to bring down the box full of purses.
Lily picked a pair of shoes and showed them to her mother, who was sorting through the box of purses muttering about 'wasting money' and 'collecting clutter'.
"No, not those, they don't match. What about those ones with the little flowers on them? They're cute."
"No way, too many flowers; besides, the colors will clash. Ooh! I know! These are perfect!" Lily exclaimed, pulling out a pair of strappy twine canvas platform sandals that she would most likely break her neck in.
"Finally, a little excitement over something other than tennis shoes and sweat suits. And look at that, they'll go perfectly with the dress. Now for a purse."
After finally picking out a twine and canvas purse to match the shoes they had picked and a necklace, they went to bed. As soon as Lily's head hit the pillow, she fell into a restless sleep.

"James!" Lily gasped as she sat bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily, beads of cold sweat running down her face. 'What could that dream mean?' she questioned herself. Lily got up and went to the bathroom, passing the door of her sister Petunias room on the way.
Petunia was three years older than Lily. She had brown hair and brown eyes, a long neck, a bony face, and a boring boyfriend of one year named Vernon Dursley. Petunia was always mean to Lily. She called her strange, a freak, a tomboy, and always had a mean comeback for her, especially when Vernon was around.
She reached the bathroom and, after quietly pulling the door shut, turned the light on and splashed cold water on her face. Drying her hands and face with a towel hanging from the hook on the wall, Lily looked in the mirror still thinking about the dream. 'What could it mean? Why was James in it? It couldn't be true could it? Things like that don't exist, do they?'
As these thoughts ran through her head, one stuck its ugly nose out of line. 'I was dreaming about James. WHY was I dreaming about JAMES POTTER?' Then another part of her brain said 'Probably due to the stress of being forced to attend his birthday party tomorrow.' she glanced at her wrist watch 'scratch that, having to attend his birthday party today.'
Lily returned to her bedroom quietly and flopped on her bed. After pushing the dream from her mind, she quickly drifted into a peaceful sleep full of good dreams, instead of nightmares. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BE-
"SHUT OFF THAT BLOODY ALARM!" came the shrill sound of her sisters voice from down the hall, followed by the slam of a door.
Lily got up, turned off her alarm, and looked out her window.

The view from her window was, in her opinion, anything but glamorous. All you could see when you looked out it was the side of the Potter's house, a little grass, and... well... nothing, unless James window counted, which it didn't to her.
She turned to the clothes she had set out the night before and sighed. 'Oh boy! A whole day with Potter while wearing a dress, carrying a useless purse, and wearing shoes that, although nice, I'll probably break my neck in! It makes me so happy. Not!' Lily thought to herself. Lily sat at her desk and began through her jewelry box looking for a necklace that wasn't too dressy but went with her outfit. She picked a necklace made of black cord-like string with four beads on it: two light yellow-brown wood beads, two black, and a silver center charm shaped like a sword.
Looking at the necklace, Lily thought 'This is such a cool necklace. I wonder where I got it. Probably from mom. I swear, every time I turn around she's adding to my pile of junk that she calls jewelry!' As Lily got up to put the necklace with her outfit she happened to bump into her dresser and knock over her yoga matt.
"I should probably do my yoga now. Maybe it will take away the pain in my neck." she said out loud to herself "Oh, wait, that's just Potter. Never mind." she then unrolled the yoga mat and began doing her exercises.
When she was finished she put up the mat and looked at her watch. Only 9:30, she still had a lot of free time, and she wasn't hungry, so she sat down at her desk again.
Her desk just happened to be right under her window. Lily sat there looking absent mindedly out of her window and into James' trying to think of something to do until one other than sit and wait. Nothing came to mind immediately so, she kept thinking about it, gazing into James' open window. Then, quite suddenly, it wasn't empty anymore. It was occupied by a rather large white and black blotched owl.
After a minute or two of pecking on the window, it opened, and the owl flew into the room.
The owl landed on a chair just inside the room, and stuck out its leg, which she now realized had something small tied to it. Lily could see a pair of hands reach out and try to untie the object from the owls leg, but the but the string obviously had a hard knot stuck in it, because the person had to lean in to get a better look at it. The person just happened to be James Potter.
James finally got the knot untied and the owl flew farther into the room so that Lily couldn't see it anymore. James sat in front of his window, in the chair the owl had been perched on, at his desk (which he had purposely sat facing Lily's window, and looked at whatever it was that was attached to the owl for a while. Then he chanced a glance up and out his window, which just happened to mean that he was looking directly into Lily's window, and directly at her. Their eyes locked for a moment. During this moment, which Lily noticed seemed to last longer than it should, Lily studied him.
James hair was messy, as always, but today it looked a little more... stylish might be the word. His eyes were a deep, deep gorgeous shade of chocolate brown. He also just happened to not have a shirt on, giving Lily a chance to study his torso. She noticed that, while he didn't look the type, or the build, he did actually have stomach muscles; the beginnings of what looked like a six-pack.
The moment was ended by Potter greeting her "Hey Lils!" She snapped out of her analysis of his muscles and replied "Hello James." in as casual a way as she could manage. There was a rather long pause then "Okay, well, I have to go get ready for your party...err...bye." and she disappeared from her window, quickly gathered her outfit, and headed for the shower.
Lily took a refreshing shower, got dressed, descended the stairs into the living room, and looked at the clock on the wall. It was 1:05. Lily hurried back up the stairs and put on the necklace she had dug out earlier, then grabbed the small box containing the present she had bought for James and hurried back down the stairs. Lily exited the house through the front door, grabbing, also, the present her mom bought for James as a present from the family. Lily walked down the driveway, across the sidewalk, back up the Potter's driveway, and on up to their front door. She sighed and rang the doorbell, putting on her 'oh yes, of course I'm happy to be here' smile as she waited for someone to answer the door.
"Lily, dear. Come on in. Here, give me those presents and I'll put it with the others." greeted Mrs. Potter. Margaret Potter was a short but thin lady. She had, surprisingly enough, black hair with bubblegum pink highlights, probably for the party. Also, she had very fine features, like that of a wise old woman who's seen it all, even though she was only around thirty six now.
After placing James present from her mum on an ever-growing pile on a table by the door, Lily put her present to him in her purse, which was empty, and followed Mrs. Potter. Mrs. Potter took Lily through the house and out the back door, all the way chatting to her without pause "OH, I'm so glad you came, dear. Your mother said you might not be able to make it, but here you are/James will be so pleased that you could come. Oh, Lily dear, I love your dress! It looks gorgeous on you!" Lily managed to fit in a quick "Thanks" before Mrs. Potter continued "Ahh, here we are. James and his little friends are just talking right now, but we'll start games and such when all of the guests arrive. Off you go now, don't be shy."
And with that Lily was given a slight shove in the direction of the corner where James and five other boys were sitting around a white lawn table, talking animatedly about something. Then James, who was sitting facing Lily and the back door, looked up and fell completely silent, his jaw dropping and his eyes widening in an oddly attractive way. 'What are you talking about Lily! Get a hold of yourself! This is Potter we're talking about!' Lily thought to herself. James' friends looked at him strangely for a minute then looked up at her just as she said "Hello there, James. Having a nice birthday party?" and bridging the remaining gap between the table and myself.
The only empty seat was on the end next to James, and another boy, so she sat in it and put her chin in her hand while waiting for him to respond. She soon found herself trying not to look annoyed at his newfound hobby of staring at her.
However a couple of his friends had joined in staring at her and she was starting to get annoyed.
"Umm... Potter? Helloo-oooo?" she said trying to snap him out of it, whatever it was; but James and his friends kept staring at her with a surprised look on their faces. By now she was really annoyed and wanted to just smack him up side the head to get him to stop, but refrained from doing so. Then she noticed a glass of water sitting on the table in front of one of his friends with shoulder length black hair.
"Do you mind?" she asked him politely, gesturing to his glass. He just sort of blinked and nodded slightly in response, so she took it as a 'yes'.
She dipped her fingers in the glass and pulled them back out, then quickly flicked all the water on her fingers in James face. He blinked a couple of times then seemed to come to his senses, wiping off his face and quickly smacking his friend to the left on the arm to get him to snap out of it.
"Err... right...err, guys this is Lily Evans. Lily this is Sirius Black-" the boy with the long black hair whose water she had used smiled, he was sitting on James other side across from Lily "-Remus Lupin-" the boy beside her nodded his head at her, he had light brown caramel colored hair "-Peter Petigrew-" By far the worst looking of the boys, he had short light blond hair and a rat-like appearance, he was sitting behind Sirius "-Andrew Michaels-" Andrew had dark blonde hair that reached down to the tops of his ears in a kind of shaggy looking way and had hazel-ish brown eyes "-and Sammy Turner." Sammy was sitting behind Lupin and had black, no, blue hair. A very dark navy blue to be exact.

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"Oh, right. You're the sensible one who sat and read all day and you're the idiot who went streaking through my back yard."

"Um... Yeah..." Remus said, blushing slightly.

"Why are you blushing? He's the one who streaked through my backyard, which was gross by the way. My mother freaked out and called the cops too. That part was actually kind of funny..."

"What can i say? I feel the need to be free." Sirius smirked at Lily cockily. 'Jackass.' Lily thought.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. So what were you all talking about?"

"Oh, nothing really." James said, looking around innocently.

"Right, like THAT'S believable? I know you well enough, James, to know that anything you're talking about can't be nothing. You're too mischievous to think about simple things like who won the football finals and such. Now, what are you up to?"
"I-I have now clue what you're talking about Lily." answered James.
"Okay, fine. But you better not be planning to pull pranks on me!" I responded.
At this James seemed a little relieved. "Oh, come on Lils. You have to admit that was pretty funny."
"I do not. And I won't. I personally did not think that it was funny. And neither did my mum when I came home covered in sticky stuff. And I was the one who got punished for it too. I was grounded for two weeks, while you were out running around doing only god knows what." Lily said rather heatedly. She had wanted to chew James out for this ever since it had happened last month.
"Wait. Let me get this straight. I pulled a prank on you. You got mad at me, then went home. Then your mum got mad at you because you were covered in sticky stuff from the prank I pulled and punished you." James paused looking a little confused. "That's weird. Not to mention completely backwards, you know? Your mum has a bad temper too, doesn't she? I remember that time when we first moved in here and I accidentally spilled something on her new carpet. She practically exploded in my face." James reminisced.
"Yes, well, she does have a rather bad temper. Especially when it comes to the house. I mean, she's a cleaning fanatic. Can't stand even the tiniest of spot on the floor. You know, after you left that day she immediately called in a floor cleaning place. And when they couldn't get the spot up she had the entire downstairs re-carpeted." said Lily, laughing a little at her mothers obsession.
"No way!" said James joining in her laughter. He was followed by the rest of the group, Peter coming in last and laughing a little too hard, probably because he didn't get the joke.
They continued laughing for a while with random little comments by the others on the odd things that their parents did. When the laughter died down they all heard a CLACK! as the screen door closed on James house and two girls came out.

The two girls looked incredibly similar. The first girl had long red hair with natural blonde highlights that reached the middle of her lower back in waves and bright sapphire blue eyes. She was wearing a jean mini skirt and a white spaghetti strap tank top under a navy blue v-neck vest that had a hood in the back and a hoody pocket in the front. On her feet she wore a pair of brown and navy blue tennis shoes that had a 'DC' logo on the side. Lily had never heard of this brand before, but she didn't find it unusual seeing as she didn't normally pay attention to brands. Normally she would just buy the shoes that fit her and didn't look like giant bits of glitter. Also the girl had her ears pierced three times; one pair of small silver loops, one pair of faux diamond studs, and one pair of silver star studs lined her ears on each side. Around her neck she wore a blue and green gem with little flecks of gold in it on a silver chain and on her wrists was an assortment of silver, blue, green, purple, black, and white bracelets. The girl carried a large blue hand bag on her shoulder that looked like it could swallow Lily whole. Well, maybe it wasn't that big, but it wasn't small either.

The other girl Also had red hair, but the natural highlights in hers were brown, making her hair a little darker than the first girl's, and it reached two or three inches past her shoulders in wavy locks. Her eyes were a green hazel and were complimented nicely by the light band of freckles that crossed her nose. She was wearing long jean shorts and a green t-shirt with the design of a dragon printed on it in black. She had on a pair of black converses and a black belt with silver studs in it to match. The girl had four or five string bracelets on her wrists and a gold locket on a long golden chain hanging from her neck.
"Becca! Rebby! Hey! It's great to see you again! Guys, except for Remus, and Lily, this is Rebecca Burns" he gestured to the first girl. "And this is Rebecca Miller. They go by Becca and Rebby respectively to cut down on the confusion. Becca, Rebby, this is Sirius, Peter, Andrew, Sammy, and the lovely Lily, also the only other girl here at the moment." James introduced everyone to the two new girls.
Lily sent a small annoyed glare at James and reached out to shake Becca and Rebby's hands. "It's nice to meet you two. Would you like to go get a coke?" Lily asked in a friendly way. She didn't know them yet, but Lily already liked them. The two girls agreed to get a coke with Lily, so they walked over to the table that was sitting against the back wall of the house and found a couple of cokes in a cooler to drink.
"So, Becca, Rebby," Lily started, in need of some sort of conversation "How do you know James?"
"Oh, we met at a, err, garden party a couple of years ago. We didn't really keep in touch, but his and my father work in the same, err, department at work, so we see each other when we're forced to go to business dinners and stuff. How do you know James?" Becca asked in return smiling like a child on a sugar high.
"I live next door. How I ended up here, at his party, I'm still not sure. I think it may be some sort of punishment devised by my sister for something that's not even my fault. That or my mom just wants me to make friends with him." Lily replied.
"You don't like James?" Rebby asked sort of surprised "Usually everybody likes him."
"It's not that I don't like the bloke, he can just be really annoying sometimes. He always knows just how to get to me, to make me mad. And for some odd reason he always does. Make me mad that is."
"Oh, really? I don't really know him that well. I only see him like, once or twice year generally. But Rebby, James and I are going to the same school this year, so we'll probably be seeing a lot more of each other."
"Really? Which school is that?" Lily asked hoping that she wouldn't be going to the same school as him.
"It's, err, called Hogwarts. It's, umm, a small private school in northern England. You've probably never heard of it." Rebby replied rather awkwardly.
"Oh, that's cool I suppose. I feel sorry for you having to go to school with James though." Lily said a little relieved.
The three girls continued to talk for a while, as more and more guests arrived. By the time it seemed that everyone who was going to come had come, there was at least forty people at the party ranging in ages from a couple years younger than Lily to quite a few years older. Lily, Rebby and Becca's little group was joined by two other girls, Jill Black and Belinda Hopkins.
Jill was of average height and a curvy but slim build. Her straight brown hair had blonde highlights and was worn down so that it reached the bottom of her shoulder blades, curving softly at the ends. She had light blue eyes, the color of the ocean in pictures of the Caribbean, with light tan lines running through them. They reminded Lily of the ocean and the beach in summer. Jill's halter top was light blue, the same color as her eyes, and she wore a dark blue jean skirt with a rainbow striped belt around her waist. She had a pair of clear blue thong flip flops on her feet and a pair of black sunglasses on the top of her head holding back her hair from falling into her eyes. Around her neck was a silver chain with a silver charm of a dragon and a tiger about the size of a bottle cap and her ears had a pair of blue dangly earrings hung from her ears. Jill was a funny girl, always with a witty come back or amusing comment to add to a conversation. She was tough too, Lily could tell by her stance that Jill was not someone to anger easily, but that when she did you had better stay out of her way.

Belinda, who immediately requested everyone call her Bindi, had straight, light brown hair that nearly reached her shoulders and light grey eyes. She was tall for her age, at least a head taller than Lily, who was of average height, and had olive toned skin. Her slightly curvy form was clothed in a fitted black t-shirt and a pair of tan cargo pants held up by a black leather belt and on her feet was a pair of black high heeled flip flops. She had a small black purse and was wearing dangly black and gold earrings and a gold bracelet.

A little after everybody arrived, James turned on some music as an attempt to get people to dance. Nobody really seemed willing to, so Lily took it upon herself to get the party going. She turned to the four girls standing with her, who were talking about a store that was apparently called Zonkos.
"Hey guys. Why don't we go dance?" Lily asked.
"YES! Finally some to dance with!" cried Jill.

"I'll dance too!" agreed Bindi.
"How 'bout you two?" Lily prompted Becca and Rebby.
"Oh boy! Dancing! You know, I love coke! it makes me hyper though. Oh well cokecokecokecokecoke!" Sirius just sort of popped in behind Becca and said this rapidly, bouncing slightly, then disappeared again just as quickly.

"Um, that was odd." Rebby said.

"Yeah, just a little." Becca added.

"You're one to talk. After you've had seven or eight cokes you tend to be worse off than he is now."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"You're living in denial."

"Maybe i like it here. It's nice and warm with a light cool breeze coming in off of the Mediterranean."

"Ha ha, no. That joke is way overdone. Please never attempt it again."

Becca, in her ever so mature manner, stuck her tongue out at Rebby, who responded like wise.

"Well, could any of you three possibly be persuaded to go dance with Jill and I?" Lily asked.

"Hmm... This is one mighty good cookie. I don't want to ruin it by bouncing while i eat it. I think i'll just sit down here and finish it." Becca said, pulling out a chair and taking a seat. She took a bite out of the chocolate chip cookie and ate it slowly, so slowly it was almost painful.
"Beeeeecccaaaaa? Pleeeeeeeeaaaase?" Lily and Jill pleaded.
"What? I'm eating." Becca said while taking a bite out of her cookie and chewing as slowly as possible.
"BEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Lily, Jill, and now Bindi as well, groaned.
"WHAAAAT? What did I do?" Becca replied.
"Will you come dance with us? Pleeaaaassseee!!!!" Lily begged.
"Okay, okay. Fine. Just let me finish my cookie." she replied taking another bite and chewing as slow as possible.

"Rebby? You too?"

"Um... Sure..." she agreed reluctantly.
When Becca finally finished eating her cookie, the girls dragged her and Rebby out onto the dance floor and started dancing. After a while a few others joined in the dancing. They were all having a blast when a slow song came on.
"Dang it all! I was just getting the hang of this dancing stuff too." said Becca.
"What now?" questioned Jill.
"I don't know." Lily responded to Jill's question only to turn around and see that she was gone. She looked around and noticed that Jill was now dancing with Andrew, and that Bindi was dancing with Matthew Tanner, a boy with short black hair who had just rolled up a couple of seconds ago on his skateboard. Lily knew him only because he lived down the street and she heard her sister gossiping with her friends about him and his family. Rebby and Becca were looking questioningly at Lily, wondering why she was talking to herself no doubt. Before either girl could voice this question, a guy named Michael walked up and asked Rebby to dance. She accepted and walked onto the dance floor with him. Lily looked around for Remus, she had thought him to be the more mature of James's friends and was going to ask him to dance, but that plan was shortly spoiled when she saw that he was dancing with another girl already. Lily turned to Becca and with only a glance they both headed to the snack table. The people who weren't dancing were standing there for the most part.
"Sooo... Coke?" offered Becca.
"No thanks. I'm not thirsty." Lily replied watching as a girl led Sammy out onto the dance floor. "So, if you had to pick one of the guys here to dance with, who would you pick?" asked Lily making conversation.
"Umm... Remus or Sirius. Although James is kind of cute. How 'bout you?" replied Becca.
"I would have to say... Remus would be my first pick."
"And your second pick?"
"I think I'll have to go with-"
"Me! Pick me!" interrupted James from out of no where.
"Well? Would you pick him?"
"Uh, NO, definitely not."
"Hey! You could at least not say that in front of me at my birthday party."
"Well it's the truth."
"She's got you there mate."
"Oh, bugger off Sirius, I don't see you dancing with anyone."
"Actually I was just coming to ask Becca, is it?" Becca looked surprised then just sort of nodded at him in a dazed sort of way. The two of them walked onto the dance floor and started dancing.
"So." said James.
"So." said Lily.
"You wanna dance?" James asked sheepishly a hint of a blush coming over his cheeks.
Lily had every intention of saying no, until she saw him blush. When he blushed she just couldn't help it, he looked so cute, not to mention James Potter was not one to blush very often.
"Well... On two conditions."
James brightened up considerably "And they are...?"
"One: no pranks."
"Check!"
"Two: don't laugh at me if I can't dance, I haven't had very much practice at slow dancing."
"Oh I have every confidence in your abilities to slow dance, and even if you do terribly, I swear I'll never laugh, not once."
"Okay then, here goes nothing." Lily sighed rather reluctantly.
Dancing with James wasn't actually as bad as she thought it would be. He didn't laugh at her when she stepped on his foot once, and somehow she seemed to be able to just, fall into rhythm with him, which was kind of weird because the previous times she had slow danced with a boy, they had ended up giving up because she kept stepping on his feet and couldn't seem to get the rhythm right. After a while the slow song ended and Lily found that she didn't want to stop dancing with James. Yet again the voices in her head reared their ugly heads 'Lily! What ARE you doing! You don't like James, he is not cute!' 'He is too.' 'BUT YOU DON'T LIKE HIM!' 'Who's to say I don't?' ' Uh, YOU ARE!!' 'Urrgghh! Ok! Fine! You win! But if he asks me again I'm not going to say no, if only because we make good dancing partners.' 'FINE!'
"Err… so." said Lily.
"So." said James.
"I'm going to go get something to drink now."
"Can I join you?"
"I suppose, if you want to. It is your party after all." They both walked over to the snack table and got a coke out of the cooler sitting beside it. Lily walked over to the table they had been at earlier and sat down in a chair. James followed her over and sort of stood awkwardly looking at Lily. "Well go on and sit down."
"Really?"
"Nothing's stopping you, I mean it's your house."
"Yeah, but you would usually bite my head off if I sat down at the same table as you." said James as he sat down hesitantly.
"Yeah, well, I'm bored, everyone else is dancing, and it's your birthday, so sit down."
"Well when you put it that way." James sat down in the chair next to Lily's and looked around for something to talk about. "So."
"So."
"What are you doing for your birthday?"
"I'm not sure yet. I'm not going to have a party because I-er... my friends aren't er... in town."
"All of them?" James asked raising his eyebrow. "I mean, you must have a ton of friends."
"Actually, I don't have very many friends."
"Really? Why not?"
"I don't know. People just find me, I don't know, strange, weird even, compared to others. It's like they look at me and say hi, then they decide that I'm different and that they shouldn't be friends with me." Lily looked at her feet, her self esteem shrinking as she thought about her lack there of in the friends department.
James, seeing that Lily was getting a little upset, became a little uncomfortable. He was the one who had pushed her into telling him about her lack of friends. He wanted to give her a hug and apologize, but he thought that she might not want him to give her a hug, seeing as she tried to avoid him all the time and she adamantly refused to be friends with him. He did however try to apologize. "Lily... I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"It's okay. You didn't know. You just assumed that because you liked me that everyone else in the world must too. Bit self centered, but nice to know that someone cares." Lily said, then tried to change the subject before she started crying from the feeling of being utterly alone. "So."
"So."
"When are you going to open your presents?"
"Uhhmm... I-I don't know. Now I suppose." James stood up and looked down at Lily again. Another slow song was playing and they were the only ones not dancing other than Peter. "But first, would you mind to terribly much to dance with me again?"
At this Lily smiled a little. "You know Potter, I dislike many things about you, but one of them is not dancing with you." Lily didn't actually realize that she was saying this till it came out. 'You idiot! Now he's going to think you like him!' 'So! I like to dance with him, it's somehow... soothing.'
So Lily and James walked out onto the dance floor again and began to dance again. At first they were dancing like they did the first time, all stiff and rigid and practically a foot apart. Then slowly they somehow ended up closer, Lily laying her head on his shoulder with her eyes closed, James guiding her while playing with one of her long red locks of hair behind her back.
"Awe! They look so cute together! I can't believe that she doesn't like him. I mean, look at her and him over there dancing." Becca, Rebby, Jill, and Bindi had just stopped dancing and were standing by the refreshment table getting something to drink. Becca had just made this comment to the other three and Bindi and Jill looked at her sort of surprised. "What?"
"She doesn't like him? In any way?" Jill asked, very surprised.
"Nope." said both Becca and Rebby.
"So which do you think is better David Bowie or-"
"Bindi! Aren't you paying attention?"
"Yes, I am. And all I have to say on the subject is not to meddle in it, trust me, it never helps matters. Anyways, back to what I was saying. Which is better David Bowie or-"
"Um, James."
"Yes, Lily?"
"The, er, song is over."
"Oh, right." James said disappointed slightly, pulling away from Lily. When he had pulled away he looked at her face and saw that she was blushing a little and smiling brilliantly. "So." said James.
"So." said Lily.
"You know, we really need to learn to start conversations in more than one way with out arguing."
"Yeah, really. So, you going to open your presents now?" she asked.
"Sure, why not." James whistled, then waved to everyone to come closer. "Okay, present time! Let's go! In the house! Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two, three, four." At this everyone did as he said and went inside the house and into the living room where Mrs. Potter had moved his presents to the coffee table. "Okay, which one should I open first?" James then proceeded to rip open present after present, thanking people for their gifts as he went. Most of the presents were clothes, and books, and other boring stuff like that. A couple of them, however, Lily found very curious, like the eagle feather quill he had received, but didn't comment on them. Mrs. Evans had gotten James a navy blue t-shirt that had a logo on the front, and a gift certificate for an arcade. The present Lily had gotten for James was still in her purse. She opened her purse to get it out at one point, but then stopped and decided to give it to him later.
After he finished opening his presents Mrs. Potter turned off the lights and brought in a cake with eleven candles on top. She walked it over to James and sat it in front of him. James looked around the room, supposedly thinking of his birthday wish, then his glance came to Lily. He looked at her, narrowing his eyes and grinning mischievously, then turned and blew out his candles, making his wish.
At that moment Lily felt a tingling at the back of her neck that made her shiver. Everyone got a piece of cake and talked. When everyone was finished eating, Sirius gathered them up and led them back outside and over to a corner to play a new game he had just learned. Of course the game just had to be Spin the Bottle.