chapter two:
santa claus' sack and the kiss

I flopped down on my four poster bed after an afternoon of unsuccessful Angus Neely hunting (my sentries had passed on information to me that they had spied him at The Lake, but it proved to be faulty). Needless to say, I wasn't in the highest of spirits. I rolled my head lazily so I could look at Ava's bed, and saw her hunched over various neatly-piled pieces of parchment. I sighed. Ava is, unfortunately, a writer. You know their temperament, I'm sure .When they get around their manuscripts, suddenly nothing is a laughing matter, even yoddling (which is a fool-proof joke that works in any scenario, ie an office Christmas party).

"Ava," I sang.

"What?" she growled.

"I love chu," I did my sweet smile, which I only crack out when I'm trying to get Ava's attention... Which has been alarmingly regular, as of late, "You mah bitch. You're the bitchingly best bitch of all the bitching bitches. In the bitchdom - that is to say, the kingdom of bitches - you are the queen bitch, the tsarina bitch, if you will. Will you, Ava?"

Ava frowned and made a noise to voice her annoyance.

"I need love," I wheedled, "And attention. Ava, my ego-"

"Is inferior and in need of inflating, obviously," Ava snapped, scratching her quill against parchment.

I was, of course, wounded, "It's only okay when I say it."

"I hate your routines."

I stared at Ava, hurt.

She looked up at me through her eyelashes, not moving her head, and sighed deeply, "I'm sorry, I'm in a bad mood. Sirius..."

"What?"

"Sirius... tried to touch me," Ava said, frowning.

I nodded my head, which was hard, considering I was lying down, "He is known to do that. It's his modus operandi before he casts his web over his victim."

Ava giggled, which is a very pretty sound to hear - it reminds me of a baby's laugh, and I felt a certain amount of relief: I was lightening her mood.

She wrinkled her nose, "Ew, Lily. Ew."

Frowning, I went over what I last said, and then scoffed, "I was going for a spider metaphor, Ava! That was all you and your dirty, dirty mind."

Ava sighed, again, and cleared away her manuscripts, springing off her bed and onto mine. She laid down beside me. There were ink stains on her hands, "But, you see, I'm not used to touch, and I think I made a fool of myself and over-reacted. He was just trying to pat me on the back, but I made that strange squeaking noise I sometimes make, and sprang away from him. He raised his eyebrows at me, then, and did the whole, 'oh how uncool are you?' look. I went red with embarrassment, and as I walked past him, he murrmured, 'Frigid bitch'."

She covered her head with her hands as I let out a bizarre grunt of indignance, "Well, we won't stand for this, Ava. Or, at the very least, I will not! How dare he? I'm going to go ask him-"

"Lily, don't you dare," Ava protested, pulling on my hand as I got up, bristled with anger.

"Ava, I won't make a spectacle. I'll do it discreetly, get him in a corner and give him one good knee to the bojangles."

"Your dirty mind emerges."

"But not before yours," I poked my tongue out at her.

I skipped out of the room, ready to defend my friend's honour, and exact my own revenge.

-

I found Sirius, looking lovely and delightful (although I do admit this grudgingly, but still do... to deny it would be petulant, like saying out of spite that Leonardo DiCaprio was not beautiful in his day), in the library, a book on Muggle Studies set out in front of him. He was in deep conversation with James, and they were breaking into chuckles every once in a while. Neither noticed me, or my narrowed eyes, until I was right by their table. At this time, James blustered and Sirius stared at me wolfishly.

"What were you two talking about?" I asked, eyeing them beadily, for a moment forgetting my quest.

Sirius slid his eyes to James, who shook his head furiously, and said, "We were talking about Santa Claus."

James sighed, making his fringe rustle, and looked towards the ground, as if anticipating the worse.

"And?" I prompted.

"We were just talking about how wierd it is... You know, the idea of an old bearded man trespassing into a child's bedroom without parent's consent, and emptying his 'sack' of 'goodies'"

James added hastily afterwards, "But we weren't trying to offend your religious beliefs!"

I burst out laughing in spite of myself. Now, although Sirius Black is obviously a chauvinistic farm animal, and the perpetrator (or one of the main perpetrators) of the Lily Evans is Discriminatory Spear Campaign, I have found myself growing a grudging liking to him as of late. Since Ava is frigid and detests sex jokes, and Xenophillius is too overtly absent to banter with, and I don't feel comfortable with spurting risque quips at my vast net of kinda friends, Sirius and I have formed an almost bond over these revolting jokes in the past month.

He grinned at me as I composed myself.

When I had, I added in an imitation of a gruff man's voice, "'Hey, child, that's not a candy cane in my pocket!'"

James, Sirius and I burst into peals of laughter.

Sirius then quipped, "I was thinking more along the lines of, 'hello, child, won't you ride my sleigh tonight?'"

I took a breath to begin to laugh again, but then quickly remembered why I was there. I knitted my eyebrows and barked, "Hey! Wait, no, shut up! Do not make me laugh, I'm here to fight with you-"

"What for?" yelped Sirius.

"For calling AVA a 'frigid bitch'," I said, and swiftly kicked him in the shin.

Sirius frowned at me, "But she is."

"That's beside the point."

"It is?"

"She's just sensitive to touch!" I said defensively.

"Why?"

I stopped, "I... Dunno."

"You're not a very good bestfriend," Sirius said, supposedly in earnest.

"Fuck you, and a bottle of rum," I blurted, "Leave Ava alone. Don't touch her, don't talk to her, and most importantly, don't insult her."

"Why?"

"Because she's sensitive and she doesn't need you tormenting her," I barked, "And it's so obvious you're only doing it because you like her."

Sirius flushed, but turned aside to James and asked, "Prongs, dear, would it be fair to say that Lily torments us?"

"Don't call me dear. But yes, I believe it would be fair to say Lily torments us," James said, a stupid sparkle in his eye.

"So, by her logic," Sirius said, "She likes us, too."

"Yes, Sirius, but I'm not the one blushing," I sneered.

"She's got you there, Padfoot."

"I'm not blushing," he protested, blushing further.

"Do I have your word you'll leave Ava alone?"

"You can have anything of mine, Lily dearest," James said, winking.

"I don't care about you," I said, and I could tell it stung him.

"You have my word," Sirius said, a menacing glimmer to his eyes, "If you kiss James here."

"No," I said.

"Then I'll become steadily worse to Ava," Sirius said, "How long do you think she'll last, Lily? She seems like kind of a frail soul, to me."

James said uncomfortably, "Shut up, Padfoot. Don't."

"This isn't about you, James. It's about Lily," Sirius said, "And Ava."

"I forgot what a rotten bastard you could be," I growled.

"Like no other," Sirius attested, "Kiss James, or watch Ava suffer."

James squirmed uneasily in his seat. I realized I had made a fatal mistake: I had wounded Sirius' pride. And a Black whose pride is wounded is dangerous. They'll do anything to try and maintain power, keep the conversation straddled beneath them. My heart sank and I knew, as sure as I was standing there, that Sirius was absoloutely... serious. I also knew that forcing me to kiss James was something that James' morals and virtues would completely go against, but I also knew he'd been wanting to kiss me since puberty.

To put it less eloquently:

I was fucked.

"I'll kiss James," I said.

Sirius grinned; James stood up.

"Not now!" I added hastily, "Now with Sirius and half the goddamn library watching."

"There's a comfy bookcase to the back," Sirius suggested, "I take all my dates there-"

"No, it's okay," James said, a faint tinge to his cheeks, "We'll just do it some other time-"

"No way," Sirius said, frowning, "You are not going to do that. I need some assurance that you two won't just say you do it. I know Prongsie's a bit of a matyr, and he'd have no problem just saying he kissed you when he didn't. Well, he would, but he'd do it."

"What do you want us to do, an Unbreakable Vow?" I deadpanned.

Sirius considered.

I let out a noise of indignation, "No. People die if they don't complete those."

"A pretty good incentive to do it, then, isn't it?" Sirius challenged.

I sighed, deeply, "Fine. Get it over with."

-

And that is how I found myself walking slowly to the Quidditch change rooms with James, a feeling of grim determination coming over me. To say I wanted to kiss him was liking saying I wanted to go splunking. But, I was fucked if I didn't. Or more likely: dead. And if there's one thing I wanted less in the world than kissing James, it was death. That and Ava being tormented by Sirius, but that much was already obvious. James, beside me, was walking with his hands in his pockes. I could almost hear the cogs whirring in his brain.

The stupid things I get myself into.

We rounded the edge of the Quidditch pitch and made it into the change rooms. After a cursory sweep to see if anyone was in there, I faced James with a look I'm sure a lot of people get before they go to the guillotine.

After a minute of neither of us leaning in, I said, "Okay. Time to kiss. I don't want to die."

"Yeah," James nodded, and gulped, "Right..."

We continued to stare at eachother, and as I did so, I came to another displeasing conclusion: James Potter is not, really, that hideous. I mean, he had a stupid, fat head and even stupider hair on top of that. He'd been ruffling it for the whole time down, and it stood up on end as if he'd been electrocuted. But, just as soon as the thought came, it was quashed as I relived a memory of fourth year: James had been pestering me without rest since the morning began. He'd had his mind on asking me out for a year by then. I'd had a bad night as it was, considering my mother had sent me a letter to tell me my cat had been run over by a car (at the time, that was the closest it got to the world ending). Finally, at the end of third period, I hid in the toilets and cried, and cried, and cried. And as soon as I came out, there he was, just waiting for me...

"You've got that look like you want to kill me," James said nervously.

And then, without any consent from my brain, an arm - my arm - pulled James' head down towards mine and our lips met... But I'm not really doing it justice... I don't know how to do it justice, really.

I'd only intended for it to be a short kiss, a peck. But when we kissed, there was a spark in it. I felt... something... in my blood and through my heart and skin and in my stomach and chest and legs and arms. The closest word I can possibly get to describe it is electricity, but that's so played out, and it wasn't like that. I was shaking, trembling, there were tremors - tremors! - going through my body and as I held James in my arms, I could feel the same thing happening to him. Whatever it was, atleast it was mutual.

But, of course, the kiss didn't end when it was supposed to or when I had anticipated, and before I knew it, my back met a locker and James had my face cupped in his hands and somehow - I don't know how - my legs had became wrapt around his waist. He moaned in my mouth and I could feel goosebumps all over his neck. I broke the kiss, but only to place smaller ones on his neck. He sighed against my lips and I found myself grinning...

Before I remembered who exactly I was with.

Using my legs, I pushed him away from me, and he fell onto the adjacent lockers.

We were both panting. We were both wide-eyed and shocked.

"Holy fuck," James breathed.

"Holy fuck," I conceded, hand on my forehead and the other on my heart, begging it to still.

We stared at eachother warily.

"Well, at least we won't die..." I said unsurely.

James burst out laughing and began ruffling his hair, "Is it true you have a list in your room saying '150 ways I want to kill James before I die'?"

"No!" I said, defensively, "It's '150 ways I want to torture James before I die'. I realize I can only kill you once, so a whole list would be obselete."

"'150 ways to torture' me?" James grinned, seeming more at ease with me than he had in ages, "Whatever turns you on."

I frowned, "Well, this was fun. We should do it again sometime."

"Really?"

"No, I was being sarcastic," I said, "This doesn't change anything. One amazing kiss doesn't mean I forget all the years of torment you put me through."

"'Amazing kiss', huh?"

"I'm going to go," I said, and pushed myself off the locker and ran out the door before he could say anything.

Jesus H. Christ, what the Hell am I going to do with myself?

-

Hope that's alright with everybody. Thanks for the reviews. I've decided to scrap my whole 'review or else i'll delete scheme', mostly because it was a bluff. I enjoy writing this too much. Oh well.

In response:

Plien: Duly noted. I've taken your advice. Thanks so much for the kind words, and I know what you mean. I think a lot of stories are falling prey to clihe in this day.
LazyBoyGilmore: Okay, if you insist, I won't turn my story into a goldfish. I agree with what you said. Why be normal? Normal people have normal lives, and that is boring.
LillyandJamesareCute: Haha 'funny and wierd', ey? Thanks for the review.
MrsClairePotter: Yeah, I noted after posting that I'd made a few mistakes unfortunately. Oh well. I checked out some of your stories, by the way, and they're hilarious.
ChrissyWissy: I was kind of tentative about writing Lily as crazy, but in the end I thought it'd be easier for me (since I have a similairly disordered brain). Thanks for the review.

Okay, so there you go. What do you think of the plot advancement? Too much too soon? Alright? Stupid?
adios from the host with the most,
Screaming Monkey Labrat