Unluckily I own nothing…

2 – The Magical Bond

The first thing James saw as he turned the corner was Lily. She was wearing a dark green strapless top and the black skirt that went down to a little above her knees; it was the one James had pictured her in the same morning. She was wearing black sandals and James noticed that her legs were a bit tanned. She had a loose ponytail and only a few locks and here fringe were down. James looked at her, stunned, until Sirius came over to him and gave him an elbow in the ribs.

"What?" he asked, annoyed.

"You're staring at Evans."

"Yeah! Look at her and guess why!"

Sirius looked at Lily. "Yea, yea. Come and sit down with the rest of us."

James followed Sirius over to the table and sat down beside him. To his luck, if not bad luck, the only two seats that were left were across Lily and Joey. Sirius sat across Joey, and James had to sit at the table's end across Lily.

"Hey, Evans," James said and smiled to her. "You look great tonight!"

Lily just sent him an annoyed look back. "Shut it, Potter."

James looked at Sirius who already was talking to Joey. He smiled flirtatiously at Joey and James sighed. Joey was one of the only girls at Hogwarts that Sirius hadn't yet kissed, and James would rather it stayed that way.

But at the end of the dinner they were sending small notes to each other. James guessed it was because they didn't want him and Lily to hear what they were talking about. Lily had still not talked to James, and James tried desperately to find something to talk to her about.

"So… Looking forward to begin at Hogwarts again?" he asked slowly.

Lily looked up at him, with a gaze James could not read. "Before today I didn't because I had to see you again. But now that it has already happened I'm looking forward to see you less again."

James' smile dropped a bit. "Thank you."

Suddenly Sirius got up and left the table with Joey. James sighed and leaned back in the chair. Now Sirius was going to make out with Joey, and James would not see him the next hour or so. He decided to try to start a conversation with Lily again.

"For how long will you stay here?" he asked, smiling slightly to her.

Lily looked away from the horizon to James. Again he could not read her gaze. "Until school begins again. So you have a whole month to annoy me."

"You know… it's never on purpose I'm annoying you."

Lily snorted. "Keep saying that and one day maybe you'll stop then!"

"I'm serious! It' just… You make me nervous."

She snorted again. "Please drop the act, Potter. I can't stand it any more."

"It's no act. I just… please go out with me?" The last thing just slipped away from James and he realised a second after that he should have kept shut.

"No, I will not go out with you!" Lily said; her voice had risen a little bit.

Suddenly she got up from her chair and walked down across the lawn to the end of the garden where she stopped and looked into the pool. James noticed his and Joey's parents were looking at him and sent them an apologetic smile before he got up and walked over to Lily. He stopped when he was standing next to her.

"Can't you just give me five minutes of peace or do you have to torture me all the time?" she hissed.

James grinned. "You're very stubborn, you know that right?"

"I've been told," she said shortly. "Will you now please go away? I'm afraid I might be infected by the ego-virus you apparently can't get out of your body."

"You can say what you want, but I've figured you out…"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You like me," James said very confident.

"Say that again," Lily said between her teeth and drew her wand. "- and you die. You're the most insensitive, rude, impersonal and thoughtless person I know. I could never like you."

James turned towards Lily and bent a little down so he was mouth to ear with her.

"Face it Evans… You want me just as badly as I want you," he whispered in her ear, smiling.

He leaned a bit back and saw how Lily studied him for less than a second, and then he felt how her hand made contact with his cheek. It hurt.

"Don't you ever talk to me like that again, Potter! Ever! Just because someone has given you the impression; you're NOT God's gift to women, or most importantly; me!" she hissed and turned around and stormed out of the garden. In the same second Joey and Sirius came back.

"What happened?" Joey asked.

"Guess twice," James just said.

"I'll go talk to her," Joey said and sent Sirius a glance before she turned and walked after Lily.

Sirius walked over next to James and sighed. "You just had to ask her, right?"

"Yeah," James said and nodded. "Because you weren't here to help me. You were making out with Joey or something inside the house."

"Actually no. We just talked a bit."

"You? Talking? It must be a joke."

"It's not. Come let's take a walk."

James slowly turned and followed Sirius out from the garden. When they were out in the street Sirius headed towards the little park that was in the town and James just followed.

"So you and Joey really weren't doing anything?" James asked Sirius.

Sirius put the hands in his pockets and looked up into the sky. "Nope. You know we could never like each other like that. We're like fire and water, or what to say…"

James nodded slowly. "Yeah, that's right…"

They turned the corner into the park and slowly walked through the gates. James noticed that Sirius pulled his wand out of the pocket.

"What are you going to do with that one?" he asked.

"Just if something turns up," Sirius said shortly.

James shrugged and moved on. Suddenly he heard voices around a bush. He recognized the one as Lily's. "…say that I just should get it over and go out with him?" she said.

"Yeah or something like that…" Joey said hesitating.

Suddenly Lily shrieked and something fell to the ground.

"Padfoot!" James whispered. "Someone attacked Lily I think!"

He started to run, but fell instead. He looked down and his legs were like glued together. He looked up at Sirius who stood with his wand pointing at him.

"What are you doing?!" James asked furious.

"Something I should have done a looong time ago…" Sirius said slowly.

He lifted James from the ground and carried him around the bush. James saw Lily sit on a bench with arms and legs glued into her body. Sirius put him down next to Lily and stood up next to Joey.

"What is this?" Lily asked furious.

"Shh!" Sirius hushed while raising his finger to his lips. "You don't always have to know everything. It's healthy for you."

Lily looked evilly at Sirius, and James was sure she tried to come up with something to say or a way to kill him later.

"Look guys…" Joey begun before Lily found something to say.

"Joey and I are sick and tiered of you two fighting all the time…" Sirius continued.

"And we know that deep inside you are too. Therefore…"

"We came up with this plan..."

"That hopefully will help you…"

"Will you, Joey?"

"Sure, Sirius," Joey said and pointed her wand at the space between James and Lily. "Anexus Ammiticia!"

James felt something warm around his wrist and when he looked down again, his and Lily's hands both had a red glowing ring around their wrists and they were connected with a red glowing chain which was about two inches long. Sirius lifted the gluing jinx and James felt he could move again.

"What is this?" James asked and lifted his left hand and pointed at it with his right hand. Lily's hand flew up along with his one.

"It's a magical bond!" Joey grinned.

"What?" Lily asked this time. "You're binding me to that jerk?"

"Thanks," James said; Lily ignored him.

"We're binding you both to each other. So you can learn to tolerate each other." Sirius explained.

"Undo it," Lily just said calm, but lost control the second after. "UNDO IT NOW!"

Joey took a step backwards. "We can't," she said in a small voice; obviously afraid of Lily.

"CAN'T?"

"No. It's binding and won't go away before you two have solved your problems and get along."

James had no idea what to say, but apparently Lily had. "You can't do that! What the hell were you thinking?! Binding me to the biggest idiot in the world! Now I'm stuck with a pathetic looser all 24 hours of the day and I-" Lily stopped in the middle of sentence and silence fell over them.

"She got lost of words," Joey said stunned. "She got lost of words… I didn't think that would ever happen…But it did. Wow. What did you want to say, Lily?"

Lily looked at Joey and Sirius for some time with open mouth, and James looked at Lily, wanting to know what she wanted to say.

"How am I going to sleep?" she asked slowly and looked blank at Joey.

Sirius laughed. "Your problem. Not ours. Have a great night."

And with those words he and Joey walked away, leaving Lily and James behind at the bench. James didn't know what to say and he had no idea what to feel.

"So erm… Want to go back?" he asked after some time.

"Why can you just take it that calm?" Lily asked him.

"You heard them. There's nothing we can do beside get along. We might just try it."

Lily snorted. "The last thing I would ever do in this world is to get along with you. See you!"

She got up and tried to walk away but the chain pulled her back and she fell right back, down to James's lap.

"I knew you would come around sooner or later," James joked and grinned.

"Shut it, Potter," Lily said and got up. "Now get up and come home."

"Naah… Changed my mind. I think I'll stay here a bit longer," James said and put his hands behind his head which resulted in Lily getting pulled back at the bench next to James.

"You-" Lily begun but ran out of words for the second time that day.

She got up and started to pull in the chain to make James get up, but he didn't move. She had grabbed around the chain with both of her hands and kept pulling in it. James just grinned at her.

"Relax, Evans! We have all night."

Suddenly Lily drew her wand and pointed it at James. "It's not your good luck that I'm left-handed and that's the one that's free," she hissed. "Get up or I'll curse you to Saturn and back again!"

James sighed. "Fine. Just try to be a bit less bossy!"

Lily growled. She swished her wand a few times at the chain, but nothing happened and she let out an outburst of anger before they begun to move down the path James and Sirius had come from.

They walked back towards the houses in silence, Lily kicking to every possible thing on her way to get some frustration out. When they stood outside the two houses James stopped while Lily continued. Once more that evening she was pulled violently back into James.

"What?" she asked annoyed and pushed herself away from James.

"What are we going to do with the sleeping?" he asked a bit awkward.

Lily looked stunned up at the two houses. "I don't know."

"Look…" James begun, still a bit awkward. "My parents are going to China first in the morning. Perhaps we should sleep at my place…"

Lily nodded slowly. "Let's get going," she said and they began going up the lawn towards the Potter's front door.

She had to pull James a couple of times because he walked too slowly. James opened the door and stepped inside with Lily right behind him. He lit the hall and Lily gasped.

"It's beautiful," she said.

"I'll give you a tour in the morning. Come on." James said and begun to walk up the stairs and Lily just followed.

When they made his door he stopped before opening it. "This is it," he mumbled to himself.

"This is what?" Lily asked.

"I just had never thought I should show you my room in this way. I had hoped it to be in a more romantic way."

First Lily didn't react at it but shortly after she showed the white of her eyes and pushed the door open. She pulled James with her by the chain. Inside the room Sirius sat at a chair, playing with the red ball once more.

"Padfoot, get out," James said annoyed.

"What? I always sleep in here."

"Yeah, but because of your own stupidity we have a girl among us and it's enough that she has to sleep in the same bed as me. You can use the guest's room."

"Fine," Sirius just said and grabbed his clothes and walked out.

As the door closed Lily turned to James. "Thanks for that."

James shook his head. "Neither of us asked for this so I can only try to make you as comfortable as possible."

Lily looked at him, not having an answer so instead she sighed and looked at the small bed. "What are we going to do?"

James knew what she meant so he drew his wand and pointed it at the two beds. He mumbled a few words and they grew together at the wall.

"Sorry. There's no more room. Is that okay with you?"

Lily nodded. "As good as it can be with these circumstances," she said and looked at the bed and then out of the window. "Umm… Potter… I-"

"Just spit it out." James said. "I really want to sleep now."

"Well… I only brought the nightdress I uses to sleep in and I'm not… well, let's just say that I'm not comfortable with it at the moment."

James just grinned. "I totally understand," he said and walked over to the closet.

He forgot he was linked to Lily and she fell over.

"Sorry," he said and helped her up.

"Hmph!"

James opened the closet and looked for something almost with his entire body inside it. Lily tried to look over his shoulder, but couldn't see anything.

"Here," James suddenly said and pulled an orange t-shirt out with the inscription 'The CANNONS!' in black letters over the chest part of it. After that Lily got a pair of black shorts. "Is that okay?" James asked her, looking at her with raised eyebrows.

Lily nodded. "Err… Would you like to turn around while I'm dressing into it?"

"Sure," James said and shrugged before turning around.

"You look, you die," Lily said shortly.

"Fine." He looked out of the window and felt how his arm moved up and down as Lily undressed and after that redressed.

"Done," Lily said and James turned around.

Lily really looked cute in the t-shirt which was all too big for her and went almost down to her knees. But suddenly James thought of something.

"How did you get your right arm through?"

Lily looked at the chain. "I don't know. It sort of went through the t-shirt."

"Okay… Umm…" James said and scratched himself in the neck. "Normally I just sleep in my boxers, but what do you want me to do?"

Lily looked at him a few seconds. "Just put on some other shorts. That's okay."

"Okay. Then turn around."

Lily did as James told her to and James quickly pulled the shirt and pants of and some shorts on instead.

He kicked his pants and shirt away and said, "Done! Ready to sleep then?"

Lily turned around like wanting to say something but did not dare to say it. "Actually… I-I have to pee."

James went pale. "What?"

"I have to pee," Lily repeated and blushed.

"How… Howarewegoingtodothat?" James asked were quickly.

Lily looked at him for some seconds, trying to understand what he had just said. "I'm not sure. But I can do this spell which creates a barrier between us for about a minute."

"You have to do that."

Lily nodded. "Show me the way."

James walked out of the door and across the hall. "Here. So I have to go with inside?"

"Trust me. It's worst for me. And I'll kick your ass if you just try to look."

"Oho! Trust me. I won't!"

They went inside and James turned around as they made the toilet. Lily muttered the spell and James could sense the barrier, but didn't look. After a little minute he could hear the toilet flush and turned around again. Lily dragged James over to the sink and washed her hands just as the barrier disappeared. They both brushed their teeth and went back to the room.

"Ready to sleep now?" Lily asked.

"Sure," James said and shrugged.

They walked over to the bed and sat down.

"You can take Sirius's blanket," James said and nodded at the white blanket next to the bed.

"Thanks," Lily said and grabbed it.

She lay down on the left side of the bed and made space to James. James sat up and looked at her for a bit longer.

'What a night it'll be,' he told himself and lay down next to Lily.

"Night," he said.

"Night. And don't you dare try something during the night!"

"It's not really my style."

"Better not be."