A/N: Wow! I got a great response to the first chapter! Thank you very much to the following people who reviewed: Smile-Pass it on, DarlingILoveYou, fearlessforevermore, Lkay09, JustYourAverageWitch, cemaciver, Rogue Deceiver, The Musical Fool, ChibiLady, okok123, and Zakuro46! If you favorited or subscribed, thank you so very much for that! Now, on with the next chapter! Enjoy! Don't forget to review!

Chapter 2: Mysterious Arguments

When I woke up, I felt very disoriented. I opened my eyes, expecting to see color or something, but all I saw was black. Had the apple made me blind? I closed my eyes and opened them again. Still nothing. Sweet mother of Merlin. I began to hyperventilate. How could I not see? It's what you do with eyes. Unless I didn't have eyes. My breathing picked up its pace. I was going to absolutely, positively murder Sirius. He wouldn't even know what hit him. The stupid bastard blinded me!

I shifted to my knees so I could stand up, and immediately fell flat on my face. What the hell? I tried to move my feet. Neither of them would separate. It was like they were magnetized to each other. I attempted the same thing with my hands, and unsurprisingly, I got the same result. Awesome. So he stuck my bloody limbs together as well. Yet another reason to hate him.

I was about to scream something totally inappropriate out, in hopes that he would hear, but a sound caught my attention. It sounded like voices. More importantly, it sounded like guys' voices. They were too quiet for me to recognize at first, but I could tell that there were only two voices involved in the conversation.

My hands felt blindly around me, trying to find contact with a wall or a door.

"Ouch!" I muttered. My finger had connected straight on with something very hard, most likely a door, judging by the grooves. I pressed my ear up against it just in time.

"Prongs, can I borrow a pair of shoes? Your dog decided that he didn't particularly like this pair," a new, much louder voice said. I hadn't really focused on anything other than the "Prongs" part. Why on earth would anyone name his or her child after an animal? But the name sounded so familiar!

Prongs and the other unknown person laughed. "Sure, Moony. Just grab some from my closet."

"NO!" a voice cried. I now recognized the voice almost immediately. After all, he had convinced me to eat a poisoned apple just the day before. Sirius Black. My fists balled up involuntarily.

"I don't know why you're complaining, Padfoot," Moony said, and I could hear his footsteps nearing the door I was leaning against, "brown is hardly your color."

The door creaked open, and I fell backwards onto my back. There was a gasp, and then the door shut again. Damn. Well there went my chance to escape this place.

"James...why is Lily Evans in your closet?" the voice that must have belonged to Remus asked tentatively, like he was unsure he wanted to know.

"WHAT?"

I could hear Sirius chuckle nervously. "Er, yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that..."

"Damn straight you wanted to talk to me about that!" Then James lowered his voice to a hiss. "What the hell did you do?"

"It's for the best, Prongs. Really. I swear."

I could picture James rolling his eyes. "Just curious, but since when is kidnapping 'the best'?" His voice was laced full of sarcasm.

"Whoa, there. Kidnapping is a strong word. I like to think of it more as...surprise adoption," Sirius corrected, sounding offended at James's choice of words.

A strange noise escaped someone's mouth—presumably James's—that was some sort of a cross between a disbelieving laugh and an angry snort. "Get out. Both of you," James commanded. "Remus, would you mind telling Mum that we've got a guest? Sirius, you can bet I'm going to tell your mother about this."

Sirius snorted loudly. "She'll probably be proud of me for kidnapping a 'Mudblood'." Something about his voice sounded darker than normal. "I'm hungry. I wonder if Tina made more cobbler..."

"Out!"

"Right. Okay, bye, Prongsie!" And then in a louder voice, he yelled out, "Bye, Lily!"

I rolled my eyes. "Screw you, Black!" I called back to him. He just laughed and then shut the door. A few seconds later the door in front of me was opened, and my blindness was removed. Turns out, it was just a black scarf over my eyes. Huh, strange.

Standing in front of me was the one and only James Potter. Blech. Avada Kedavra me now.

He offered me a small smile, pulled out his wand, and began to undue the enchantments that had bound my legs and arms together. I rubbed my wrists although there had been nothing there. He held out his hand. I hesitantly took it and pulled myself up to my feet.

"Are you okay?" James asked. He looked genuinely worried. I felt the urge to laugh at him. He ran his hand through his hair. "I'm really sorry about this. I had no idea..."

I shook my head at him. "I'm fine. It's not your fault that your best friend is a moronic bastard intent on dying at a very young age." And then I added, "Thanks."

The almost-conversation lapsed into an awkward silence. I felt like someone should burst in and start whistling old show tunes. I looked around me to avoid his eyes. It became clear that we were standing in the center of his massive Gryffindor themed room. A large four-poster bed covered with maroon and gold bedding was the centerpiece of the room. The walls were plastered with House banners, and posters of his favorite Quidditch teams and players. There was a bumper sticker on the wall that said "Save a Broomstick. Ride a Quidditch player." I couldn't resist laughing quietly to myself about that one. On the bookcase in the corner stood dozens of pictures of James, Remus, Sirius, and Peter at various places. But the largest picture wasn't of any of them.

It was a sketch...of me in sixth year. I was curled up on one of the sofas by the fireplace in the common room, reading a book and sipping hot cocoa. There was nothing special about it really. My hair was stacked in a messy bun on top of my head, and I was dressed in my favorite red velour sweat suit that I had gotten for Christmas from my best friend, Alice, that year. But there was something about it that just screamed happiness.

Bloody freaking hell. He was sketching pictures of me? Granted, it was a very good sketch. I looked pretty sexy, if I do say so myself, but the whole situation was rather stalkeresque. It was most definitely something Snape would do, and that creeped me out even further. I pointed at the picture and glanced back at James.

"Did you draw this?" I asked curiously. I hadn't known he was an artist. I thought the only things he could do well were mess up his hair, flirt with girls, ride a stupid stick, and ruin my bloody life.

As expected, his hand shot straight to his head, and he began to comb his hair with his fingers like he was going to win some sort of race if one section of his hair was greasier than any other section. I don't know how he kept it so soft and silky and voluptuous. Most of the time touching your hair a lot made it grossly shiny. He must lather, rinse, and repeat twice a day. I considered asking him what product he used, but then decided against it.

James stared at me with wide eyes, and then at the picture. "Er...pssh, no! Why would I draw a picture of you? I mean, it's not that you're not easy to look at, but I wouldn't..." He looked wildly around the room as he faltered to come up with a better excuse. "Um, I have the drawing skills of...a bench. Yeah. A bench."

What the hell? Where did that come from? Had he just looked out the window and seen a bench, and decided that it was an accurate description of his artistic ability? Who does that!

"Do you want food? I want food. Food sounds good. Let's go get food," he said, and began to walk out of the room. "Hopefully Tina made some food."

"If you say 'food' one more time, I'm going to slap you."

"Right. I won't say foo—it again," agreed James. He was almost out the door when he stopped abruptly and turned around. I nearly ran into his very large chest. "I'm sorry. I'm being terribly rude. It's just...when I get nervous I talk about food for some reason. We've never been able to figure out way. I've got the experts and St. Mungo's baffled."

My eyebrows inched up my forehead as my brain registered his words. "Right..." I answered skeptically. I didn't know what else to say.

James grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose like he was trying to block a painful thought. Then, quite unexpectedly, he gripped my shoulders and steered me backwards until I plopped down onto his bed. He stared at the wall for a few moments before turning to me with a troubled expression.

James began to talk. "I'm sorry, Lily. I'm being a complete—"

"—tosser, git, berk, pillock, prat... I could go on if you'd like."

He grimaced at my creative descriptions and shook his head. "I don't think that will be necessary, but those adjectives were quite suiting." I nodded my thanks. "You have to understand...I never meant for this to happen. It's not like I asked Sirius to go and kidnap you." Upon seeing my skeptical look, he amended. "Okay, I admit, it's something I would do, but I swear I didn't do it this time, Lily."

I pondered his little confession for a few moments before deciding that, whether I believe him or not, I would just say I did, because that would make things a whole hell of a lot less complicated. "I believe you."

James let out a relieved sigh. "Oh. Good. In that case, can we just...start over, please? Or pretend that none of that happened? You're just here for a friendly visit. No 'surprise adoption' involved."

I couldn't stop myself from making a little derisive snort. In no world would I ever come here for a friendly visit. In fact, I would rather parade around Hogwarts in my green and silver string bikini. Okay, maybe not. But still, a friendly visit? No. That's what a little day trip to my best friend's house would be. This trip was forced by someone whom I'd would enjoy castrating.

Tapping my chin thoughtfully, I found myself nodding slowly. "I think I would like that." What? Why was I saying that? I didn't remember giving my brain a conscious command to agree to this!

He sighed, wearily this time, and shook his head in a disappointed manner. "Really, Lily, I'm—wait, what did you just say?" asked James with a confused look on his face.

I hadn't meant to say it, but that was just offensive. Is it really that impossible to believe I'm making an attempt to be somewhat kind to him? I'm not a total trollop*. "I said," I repeated, enunciating my words properly, "'I think I would like that'. Did you get it that time, or would you like another repeat?"

Still looking like he'd just been hit in the back of the head with a bludger, he gave me an incredulous look. "You mean you don't completely despise me? You don't reckon I'm a total git? A wanker? A prat?"

"Not at the moment, but if you don't stop with the adjectives my opinion might change," I threatened, but it didn't hold the same weight as my threats used to.

James looked totally awestruck. "Lily Evans is going to try to be my friend... Weird."

"Frienemy," I corrected before things could get too out of hand. "But don't push it. I'm under the influence of a poisoned apple." He gave me a curious look. "Don't even ask."

He didn't, which I was glad for. James just grinned, and stood up, offering me his arm. "Well, in that case, welcome to the Potter Manor!"

Manor? I should've known. What did I get myself into this time?

A/N: What did you think? It's quite short (I just could not find a way to drag it out any more) but I think it's full of important information. I suppose it is more of a filler chapter than anything else, though. The juicy stuff is coming up next week. Please leave me a REVIEW to let me know what you thought. That would be greatly appreciated! If you are going to favorite or subscribe, it would be awesome if you could just add a little review onto that for me. It doesn't have to be long. I just want to make sure everyone is pleased with the way it is going to far. Thanks everyone! I hope this one is as successful as Joined at the Hip was.

Xoxo

Livelier