Disclaimer: Anything that recognizable doesn't belong to me as I'm not J.K. Rowling.
A/N: Here's the next update! Again, Please Read, Enjoy & Review!
"Thank Merlin, it's lunch!" Julia exclaimed. The three girls pushed through the crowd of people towards their self-designated seats. Julia, the most aggressive one, didn't bother for manners and shoved all the people out of her way like a plough through soil. Finally, they reached their seats and before Julia even sat down, she had two pieces of chicken already in her greedy little hands. Planting her rear on the wooden bench, she mercilessly bit into them.
Across the table from her, Shay and Lily looked at her with a mixture of shock and disgust.
"Err…hungry much?" Shay asked while piling some food onto her own plate.
Julia looked up, her mouth loaded with food. "Hmm?" She swallowed her mouth's contents before continuing again. "Oh. Sorry. Yeah. I skipped breakfast this morning since I was finishing the scroll that McGonagall asked for yesterday. And then today during transfiguration, we were going over something to do with transfiguring into chickens or something like that. Then I was reminded of chicken for its succulent drumsticks rather than cute flightless fowl." She took another bite out of her drumstick.
Lily scrunched up her face at the sight of Julia devouring her food. Shay gave a light chuckle. "She's not the only one who looks like that when she's hungry. I'm sure I've been caught like that on more than one occasion, and so have you."
"Yes, but I gorge on my food in less public places where only people who don't care what I look like, a.k.a. you and Julia, witness the event." Lily started to fill her plate with food as well.
"Take a look," Shay said after a mouthful of food. She turned her head towards her left, motioning the girls to look further down the table. "Julia's not alone in her gorging fest."
Looking towards the intended direction, their gazes landed on three boys who were eating, two of whom were indeed gorging on their food like starving lions on their prey. James was stuffing his face with anything he could get his utensils in. Sirius lacked even the slightest dining etiquette and simply dug in with his hands. Remus, the only civilized one, completely ignored their barbaric fashion of eating.
Lily grimaced. "Yuck."
"Now that's gross," Shay commented.
"And you said I was bad."
Lily still looking at the feeding Marauders she said, "And he wonders why I won't go out with him. Look at that. He's a pig! Both literally and figuratively." James caught her eye and gave what he probably meant to be a grin but with all that food in his mouth and sauce dripping down his chin, the suggestive message was lost in translation. She shuddered at his maniacal smile and looked away. She picked up her fork again to pierce the sausage in front of her and took a polite bite.
"Speaking of dating, what happened to that other guy? What was his name…Rob…Bob…Ben. Ben! That sounds about right. So is he still sending you stuff?" Julia paused from eating her food to hear Lily's response.
"Oh yes, him. Well, Ben's…different. I mean no one has ever shown so much interest in me before besides Potter but he doesn't count. Ben's like one of those secret admirers, but not so secret. It's just a temporary infatuation."
"Tell me about it. Remember last week?" Lily groaned as Shay continued. "When we came back into our dorms and we couldn't even see our floor or any of our walls because they were covered in Madonna lilies? They were everywhere! It took us forever to get rid of them. That boy must have spent over sixty galleons on those things." Lily snickered.
"That is so assuming of him. Honestly, just because my name is Lily that doesn't mean that I automatically love them. In fact, I not only hate them because they're the flowers of death but I'm allergic to them."
Shay let out a robust laugh. "Oh that was hilarious! One whiff and you were out of the dorm sneezing like there was no tomorrow. I think you went through half our stash of Kleenexes in less than an hour."
Lily tried to keep a straight face but a smile crept up regardless. "I don't see why people bother sending others flowers. Personally, I hate them."
Julia raised a brow questionably. "What? I thought you loved flowers. You shove your nose into them every time we go into the greenhouses."
"I do like flowers. I just don't like when people give them to me cut and wrapped. They're practically giving me something that is moribund."
Julia stroked her chin in thought. "That makes sense actually. But I'm sure that it's the thought that counts right?"
"Well then clearly he didn't put a whole thought into it. I mean really, what man doesn't do a little background research on the girl he fancies before sending her gifts that cost more than all the possessions in my trunk put together?" Shay pointed out.
"I'm sure that he just thought that it was a romantic gesture, however misguided he was. He was probably under the assumption that most girls would love receiving flowers. He just didn't know that the girl he fancied was the one exception."
"Hey," Shay said while looking up. "Speak of the devil. Ben sent you the gift of death again." Shay teased, referring to the flowers. True to her word however, a proud great horned owl was soaring towards the Gryffindor girls with a large bouquet in its talons. It swooped down to drop the package in front of Lily and left them with a beautiful arrangement of white lilies wrapped in pink paper and a yellow ribbon.
Lily sneezed at the sight of them. "Julia, get those out of my sight. Feed them to your cat or turn them into compost. I don't care. Just get them away from me." Lily's vision was starting to blur and her nose began to run.
Julia grabbed the bouquet before it even hit the table. Mentally admiring them, she felt something angular poking at her arm. Attached by a yellow ribbon were a medium sized wooden box and a simple small card. She held it out. "Lils, I think he's starting to learn. There's a part two to his gift."
Lily opened the card and read it out loud. "'My Dearest Lily, I warms my heart to see you every day from across the hall. I only wish that one day you would look at me with the same longing that I hold for you. You are like the air that I breathe' blah blah blah 'If only you would give me a chance, you would finally see that we were meant to be.' Merlin, that's pathetic," Lily said, looking up from the note to the faces of her amused friends.
"And desperate," Shay added. She pushed the box to Lily, eager to find out what it was. Lily took it and cautiously opened it. It was a small classic music box. From the inside, a dancing character twirled around while singing in a loud, deep, off-tune voice.
"You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine,
You make me happy!
When skies are―"
Lily shut the box before it could continue. Almost everyone's attention was now focussed her. She tried to ignore it while a crimson blush rose to her face but even her friends were snickering at her.
"I bet this guy doesn't know anything about you besides that you're Head Girl. Do you even know anything about him? Who IS Ben?" Julia said after her giggling fit.
"Sure I do," Lily said while trying to think. "Ben is that new kid. One of the exchange guys from Durmstrang. That's why Peter's not here. Peter's the one he exchanged with for a semester."
"Oh! I didn't even notice he was gone! But why Peter? I mean…it's Peter," Shay said.
"Something to do with Peter's grandmother not liking how little progress he made last year. Don't know, don't care," Lily responded while going back to her food.
"So anyways, what are you going to do about this guy? He's borderline stalking you."
"I don't know. I just figured that if I ignored him for long enough, he'd go away and find another interest," Lily pondered.
Shay exploded into a robust laugh but quickly hid it in a cough when Lily raised her brows at her.
"What?" Lily asked.
"Oh, nothing. It's just that, haven't you learned by now? Ben isn't the first guy to stalk you. Let's see, there was and is James," Shay started ticking off her perfectly manicured fingers as she counted. "You've tried to ignore him, tell him off, argue with him, even jinx him, and he's still here. Then there was Amos Diggory in fifth year. That didn't turn out so well considering the fact that you drove him to the point where he conspired against you with help from the Slytherins when you rejected him the one hundredth and ninety second time. And now there's Ben. I guess your choice of tactic is between the James version and the Diggory method. Would you rather have someone who is infatuated with you but makes your life a living hell or someone who just wants to make your life a living hell? Which one will it be?" Shay finished with her best show-host voice.
"Oh, shush. That's not true. Anyways, I'm going to stick to my plan for now and pretend that Ben will lose interest in a week or two when he finally catches on to the fact that I don't fancy him." Lily stood up and dabbed her lips with the cloth, "Well then ladies, I'm done. I'll meet you in class later and then after that, the torture begins." She flipped her scarlet hair over her shoulder and left her friends snickering with a dramatic exit.
Lily made her way through the row between the house tables. All the while, the possible outcomes of tonight ran through her head. It was the opening night of The Griffon and after her next class, she was required to go early to open up the restaurant with James. That's when she predicted the disaster to begin.
She let her eyes wander around the great hall. People were animatedly chatting and finishing their meals. Her eyes scanned the room until they meet a pair of smouldering brown eyes that glared back at her. Amos Diggory looked at her with such loathing it's hard to believe that he used to devote all his time to wooing her. She rolled her eyes at his immaturity and looked away. As she kept walking, her eyes rested on a certain hopeful individual. He was a lean young man, his movement frozen at the sight of her. He had short blond hair and bright brown eyes that lit up as he gave Lily a smile. Benjamin Parchment.
She returned it with a timid wave of her hand. Turning around, she continued her way out of the great hall. Lastly, her eyes met a pair of hazel orbs. James Potter was still stuffing his face with whatever his hands could reach on the table. Unlike Ben, James didn't have the courtesy of stopping his impolite and grotesque actions when he met her eyes and instead waved at her with a half-eaten drumstick in his hands.
"Hi Evans!" He tried to shout while bits and pieces of chicken sprayed out of his mouth. It wasn't pretty.
Averting her eyes, she shook her head. Soon she was met by the tall archway that was the exit of the Great Hall. Lily allowed her eyes to scan over the three boys she just looked at and thought, 'I hate it when they're right'.
A/N: I'm sorry this took so long! I've been suffering from writer's block. I don't have enough time to write anymore but I didn't want to leave the story until winter break. I promise next chapter will have the opening night. Kinda overloaded with work right now. Thanks for reading, please leave a review. Anything is welcome, especially constructive criticism.