I am soo unbelievably sorry for the ridiculously long wait! I have been so busy with exams, homework and being in a pantomime that I barely had time to write any more of this story until this week. I feel awful…but will you guys forgive me? Please?
I'm sorry for any mistakes, but I really just wanted to get this up and not worry so much about any technical errors. I felt bad taking this much time as it is!
Disclaimer -I don't own JKR or Harry Potter.
Anyway, I won't keep you from reading the next chapter any longer, so here it is :)
I just stand there, my hands shaking and my heart pumping fiercely, almost as if I've just run a marathon sprint. Somehow I manage to regain the self-control needed to put my wand away before I snap it in my temper.
"Lils?" asks a nervous voice, but I don't bother to reply.
Out of nowhere, Pierre appears with a hot chocolate in his hand. He presses the mug securely in my grasp, making sure I have hold of it securely before letting go. He pats my shoulder reassuringly and says in a solemn voice, "Lily zis es not your fault. You're not to blame 'ere."
I look up at him and force my lips into a strained smile that probably looks a lot more like a grimace to seem genuine.
At the sight of my pathetic attempt Pierre looks at me sadly and with one final squeeze of my arm, he retreats back into the manic mass of bodies whizzing around the kitchen at an amazing speed.
Once he's gone I put my drink down on the table next to the plate of muffins and sigh loudly, trying to get a hold on myself.
"Lils?" James repeats, cautiously stepping towards me as if he's scared to make any sudden advances in case of me being something as fragile as a time bomb waiting to explode.
"I'm fine," I say turning to give him another one of my false smiles.
"No you're not," he says gently, taking another step closer.
"I…I told you she'd blame me," I finally manage to whisper, my shoulders drooping in defeat. There's no point in keeping up a façade when James is around. He can read me so easily it's annoying.
"Then I guess that it's just a good thing that we know that she's wrong," he says comfortingly.
"But she is right," I say dejectedly.
"No she's not! Merlin, I could kill your Sister, Lils! How could she do that to you?" James exclaims loudly in irritation.
"She's…she's not to blame. It's all my fault. Why did I ever think or believe that I could fit in with normal people –?"
"We're normal!" Sirius interjects, looking like he's in some sort of shock. Surely Petunia's behaviour isn't that surprising? I mean, I did tell them all that we don't get along!
"Not the best example to go by," Jack mumbles.
"Hey! I will have you know that I am very normal!" Sirius protests moodily, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his head away from them all in a huff.
"Just keep telling yourself that, Sirius."
"Why are you so mean to me?" he whines childishly.
"Shut up, Padfoot," James butts in, turning back to me. "Lily Evans, you are an amazing, talented, caring and beautiful person. Don't ever let your sister tell you otherwise. Do you want me to list a few things about Petunia? Horse-ish, snappy, insensitive –"
"OK!" I say quickly. "OK, I know she can come across as kind of mean, but she's really—"
"Lils, why do you keep defending her? She's horrible to you!" he says, genuine confusion leaking into his voice.
"Because she's my sister and I still love her! No matter how many times she's insulted me! She's still the girl who looked after me when I fell over and cut my knee on the concrete. She's still the girl who told people off at primary school when the other children called me a 'Ginger freak!'"
"Lily, she's a bully! She's not that girl anymore!" Jack explodes, shocking both James and Sirius. They've never seen this side of him. Jack is normally a very quiet, shy and reserved person who never shouts.
"Wow, someone's been spending way too much time with Lily, dearest and her famous temper," Sirius said after a seconds' awkward silence.
"Shut up, Sirius!" Jack retorts.
"OK, sheesh! Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it!"
"Sure you didn't," I mutter under my breath.
"Liiiiily!"
"Siiiiirius!"
"Oh, burn!" Jack says, rolling his eyes.
I sigh and then look down at my overly-simple attire. "She was right. I can't go out like this."
"You look fine," James tries to assure me.
"No, I don't. I'd better go change," I groan.
"Ooooh! Can I come?" Jack asks eagerly.
Sirius bursts out laughing. "Prongs, mate, it seems that you have competition with Flower! For all we know these two have been getting cosy behind our backs for years!"
James and I both blush furiously and smack the dog Animagus at exactly the same time, while the colour completely drains out of Jack's face. Surely he knows that Sirius is joking? And anyway, James doesn't feel like that for me anymore anyway.
"I-I d-d-didn't mean it like t-that!" Jack explains quickly, blushing too, his face going from white to red within seconds.
"I know you didn't, Jack," I say calmly, giving Sirius a glare.
"Good, well, what I meant was that I haven't seen Jess since the end of the summer, and I've really missed her."
"Neither have I, and she's mine!" I point out.
"Who's Jess?" Sirius asks curiously.
"My cat," I reply, trying to hide a grin at the look of disgust on his fact with the answer. "But anyway, Jack, sure, you can come. In fact, I think it might be better if you all come. That way I can keep an eye on you."
"We can come and sit in the Lily Evans's bedroom?" Sirius checks to be absolutely certain that he heard me right, pretending to feel faint at the thought. "Wow, Prongs! She really can't wait for the pair of you to start working on Sirius Jr.!"
"Yeah," I say sarcastically. "That's why I'm inviting my best friend and the world's biggest pervert up there too."
"Well, you might be into that kind of thing," he smirks.
"I can assure you, I'm not," I scowl tiredly.
"Shame…" he sighs, looking off into the distance, wearing a dreamy expression.
"Knock it off, Pads!" James warns his best friend before I have the chance to smack him.
"Fine, fine! But we all know that what I say is the truth. Like it or not, Lilypad, I'm afraid you're going to have four-eyed, scrawny kids. Call it fate, call it my amazing prediction skills, or just blame it on our batty Divination teacher. But I suggest you deal with it and you start to get to know Prongsy-pie a little better in the bedroom department."
"Sirius, how would you like to be hung from the top of the Astronomy tower by your hair?" I retort, glaring at him. Prick…
"That was a good one!" Jack laughs.
"I try," I say smugly, shooting him a quick smile before turning to continue scowling fiercely at Sirius again.
"Ouch, babe! You wound me!" he cries, clutching the right hand side of his chest.
"Um…Sirius, your heart is on the other side of your chest," Jack points out helpfully, but we both ignore him.
"Sorry, sugar. But it was supposed to," I reply with a smirk.
"Oh no, Prongs! We have corrupted the – once sweet and innocent – Lily-bean!" he tells James desperately, his eyes wide in horror.
"She was never sweet and innocent to begin with," James and Jack both say at the same time, turning to grin at each other when they realise.
I smack them around the head and Sirius just laughs at our friends who are now rubbing the place on their heads' where I'd whacked them. I then smack him too.
"So do you want to come up or not?" I challenge, my hands on my hips and an eyebrow raised.
"Yes!" they all chorus, giving me identical apologetic looks.
"Alright then," I say exasperatedly. "Let's go."
"Lead the way, Red," Sirius exclaims, with a grand sweeping gesture.
"Fine, come on," I sigh, rolling my eyes.
Jack picks up the tray of muffins and I take my hot chocolate mug, then we all turn around and leave the kitchen.
Subconsciously I grab hold of James's wrist and pull him along behind me, keeping him moving so that he could not just suddenly stop walking, wanting to gaze at something in awe. Unfortunately, this stops working as soon as he sees some paintings on the top floor hallway, round the corner from my bedroom.
He grinds to a complete halt in front of three particular ones that are hung – pride of place – in the middle of the wall.
"Lils, who's that?" he asks, pointing to the one painting that I really don't want to talk about.
It's a painting of me with and a young man with chestnut brown hair – that's styled carefully – and dark blue eyes. He looks quite muscular – a complete lie in real life – and his arms are around me. Simply by appearance you can tell that he's a few years older than me. It had been painted at the end of the summer holidays, and I positively hate it.
The only thing I know for sure is that neither of us had looked that happy when we were modelling for the artist. In fact, we had both been absolutely miserable at the time.
"That's…um, that's…Charles…" I finally answer after a while of deliberation on how exactly to phrase it.
"Who?" All three of the boys reply, confusedly.
"Charles Balterson," I say tonelessly.
"Who?" they ask again, looking even more baffled than before.
"A nearby Muggle Lord."
"Who?"
"Oh for Merlin's sake! He was my betrothed!" I say before I can stop myself. I throw my hands up to cover my mouth to stop more forbidden things escaping. But unfortunately, the damage has already been done.
"Betrothed?" Jack and Sirius both chorus, bewildered. However, James looks at me in alarm, his face pale and his eyes wide.
"Engaged to be married," the messy-haired boy mutters for our friends.
Jack gasps and whips around to face me properly. He looks genuinely concerned and frightened, but frightened for what, I'm not completely sure.
"What?" Sirius wonders, the only person not to have figured it out yet.
"Lily's engaged," Jack mumbles, sadness on his face.
"WHAT?" Sirius finally exclaims, catching on.
"Why the hell didn't you tell me, Lily?" Jack demands, starting to get angry.
"I—"I start, before I'm interrupted.
"ENGAGED! WHAT THE HELL?"
"Sirius, shut up! You're not helping!"
"But she's engaged, Jack! And to think that Prongs has spent all this time moping around after a girl who is about to be bloody married!"
"I didn't—"
"That's just plain heartless, and you know it! How could she do this to him?"
"Sirius! Shut up! You're only making things worse!"
"How? How the hell am I making things worse?"
"DO YOU WANT ME TO EXPLAIN OR NOT?" I finally scream, my patience snapping.
Sirius and Jack both turn silent as soon as I start yelling. They both know that when I shout, I'm not to be messed with and bad things could happen. So they simply nod their heads, mutely, not daring to speak.
I sigh, conjure up four chairs, sit in one of them and signal for the other to take the remaining three.
James – surprisingly – is the first to move. He falls into the one furthest away from me and then turns to stare at the portrait, his eyes shining with the amount of hurt reflected in them.
I have no idea why it upsets me this much when he ignores me. It's never really affected me before, so why now?
"Please?" I say quietly, looking at Jack and Sirius pleadingly.
With only a few seconds of deliberation Sirius walks over to me, grabs one of the chairs and drags it over to James and with a sudden surge of sadness, I see Jack do exactly the same thing.
I feel so isolated. My friends think I'm an awful person for not telling them something that I wanted desperately to keep secret. I never wanted anybody to know about this; about him.
"I was engaged," I start before I'm interrupted by a surge of vicious sounding hissing coming from two of the boys.
But James, however, remains silent and – if im being completely honest – it scares me by just how distant he suddenly looks.
"Was! I was engaged!" I cry out, the day's stress mounding up so much that it feels like it's almost suffocating me.
At this claim, all three heads snap up to look at me. I'm more than a little relieved when James finally comes out of his trance.
"What?" Jack asks.
"We broke up, last Christmas," I say quickly, glad that they're giving me the chance to explain.
"What happened?" he wonders out loud.
"I hated him. I always hated him. He was rude, stuck-up and conceited. He's a few years older than me, and he used that to his advantage. He made me feel awful about myself whenever I was within insulting distance. Also – to make things even worse – he was cheating on me with every other girl that he knew. He even had a fling with my sister at one point. But my parents…Well, they never saw his horrible side, so to them he was the perfect son in law."
"But what happened?" Sirius demanded expectantly.
"He got bored of calling me a fat, ugly whore – amongst other names – and he dumped me in the middle of a particularly fancy dinner party that my family were housing. Right in front of everyone we know. My parents were so disappointed in me, they truly believed that the whole ordeal was my fault," I say quietly, slouching down in my chair and looking down at my hands so that the boys can't see my eyes starting to fill with tears.
There's a silence before a sudden simultaneous scraping of chairs, and when I look up all three of them are sat close to me, wearing sympathetic expressions on their faces.
"I'm sorry for shouting," Sirius apologises with not even a hint of teasing in his voice.
"Me too, I didn't mean to yell at you. Merlin, what kind of a friend yells at you on the day of your parents funeral?" Jack says, looking completely repulsed with his actions.
"It's not your fault, either of you; its mine. I should have told you all, especially you, Jack. I'm sorry, it's just, I was embarrassed…"
"Why?" he asks concerned.
"I was trapped! Unable to do anything or take control of my own life! There was a reason I could never date up until this year. I wasn't allowed to, because I was already engaged."
"So that's why you always turned Jamesies down!" Sirius suddenly exclaimed as if the secrets of the universe had just become clear to him.
"Partly. That, and the fact that he used to be an arrogant toe-rag and a jerk with a severe personality malfunction that made him seem generally egoistic," I say, smiling a little bit at James to show him that it's all in the past now and that I've moved on and started a new. He's changed and it was for the better.
He seems to get my silent statement and he smiles right on back, the life coming back to his eyes, causing me to let out an inaudible sigh of relief. That hollow James had scared me beyond belief and I'm so relieved he seems to be going back to normal.
"You love me really," he grins, throwing me a flirtatious wink.
"Oh, I know I do," I reply with a smirk. "Why else would I be allowing you to be part of the creation of 'Harry'?"
"You mean 'Sirius Jr.?" Sirius announces.
"No! There is no bloody way!" James exclaims at the same time as I yell: "Only when all of hell freezes over!"
Jack just laughs and turns to Sirius. "I can see that their relationship is going to last. They both share enjoyment from the very important hobby of yelling at you!"
"I always knew that I'd be the one to get them together!" he boasts.
Simultaneously, James and I both start furiously attacking him – with the tempers that we have each developed by years of fuelling them at each other – and punching every inch of his body within reach.
"Stop! Stop please! Mercy! Mercy!" Sirius cries, holding up his hands in surrender.
"Why should we?" James asks, prodding him in the gut, not enough to hurt him, just so that it causes a twinge if discomfort.
"Because you love me very, very much?" he said weakly, it coming out as more of a question than a statement.
"Hmmm….do we, Lily?" James asks me, winking secretly.
"I don't know, James. Maybe…we should let off with the prodding a little bit…" I suggest, slowly retracting my hands from where they'd been thumping Sirius on the shoulder – gently of course! Im not that evil!
"Yes, I agree completely, and instead I think it'd be quite suitable to get involved in a dangerous…" he started, hinting for me to carry on the sentence.
"Completely life threatening..." I add, trying to hide a smirk at the horrified look of Sirius's face as he looks at James and me.
"Utterly antagonising…"
"TICKLE FIGHT!" we both yell, lunging back at the unsuspecting Sirius who yelps helplessly and starts laughing breathlessly.
"ARGHHHH! NOOOOOOO! Proooooongs! Stop…please…stop…please!" he begs, tears starting to drip from his eyes as he falls to the floor, unable to stand up properly in his current predicament.
"Okay," James just says simply stepping away; I mirror him with a nonchalant shrug. "So, Lils, where's this bedroom of yours?"
"Just down the hall," I say, signalling with a flick of my hand in that direction.
"Then please, by all means lead the way," he smiles, extending his arm in a very old fashioned, gentlemanly fashion.
"Why, yes, good sir. I shall do just that," I reply, taking his arm, trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation.
"Totally spiffing, my lady!" he grins, holding his head high rather pompously, sticking his nose in the air.
I snort at his expression and roll my eyes. "You are truly an idiot."
"Yep, I know! Let's go, Flower!" he smirks widely.
"Alright then. Coming Jack?" I ask, turning to my friend who'd been watching the whole scene with amused expression on his face.
"Sure, Lils," he answers with a laugh.
"Great! This way! Come on, Sirius! Get up and don't be a wuss!" I sigh, looking back and seeing him still sprawled on the floor.
"I am not a wuss!" the wuss retaliates indignantly.
"Yes you are, Pads. Now come on! I want to see what Lil's room is like!" James says excitedly.
"Right you are, Prongs dearest! Let us go!" Sirius suddenly cries, leaping to his feet and bounding over to us, just stopping in time before he knocks us all to the floor. "Well? Why have we stopped?" he demands sassily, his hands on his waist.
"Okay then," I roll my eyes and start walking again.
Well, that interrogation could have gone a whole lot worse. That was one of my biggest secrets out in the open, and I feel lighter for it. Maybe I should have told somebody about it a long time ago.
So…what are your thoughts? Any good? Worth the wait? Please let me know! I was happy with the response the last chapter got, and would love it if this one got a similar treatment. Can we aim high and go for 20 reviews? Until I have 20 I'm not going to update, sorry, but I just feel like I am spending more time on my other story 'Summer with the Marauders' because more people seem to be enjoying that one. So if you want me to write faster for this one, let me know that you're reading it and that you like it! Just a few words, that's all I ask :)
Until next time…
Love you all, from Megan xxx