A/N: Well...lookee here! It's another chapter, posted promptly, wouldn'cha know, and even longer than the last! This is probably my favorite chapter so far, so I hope you enjoy it too! I have the next two written, as well. So look out for another speedy gonzallez update!
Also, guys, I have a huge, shameless favor to ask... Please, please can I have a few reviews? I know people are reading this story, I obsessively check my stats! So, maybe like, four? I got two on the last chapter, which was awesome, thank you guys so much! Anyways, here you go!
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Unfortunately
Why does it sometimes seem like my small, self-contained and self-proclaimed world revolves around a single arrogant, annoying seventeen year old boy?
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I swear to Merlin, that question has been haunting me now ever since that incident in the early days of the holidays. Just the fact that a question about him has been haunting me is almost as bad as if he was haunting me.
Why do I do this to myself?
Another haunting question. More to the point, why does he (who shall not be named) do this to me? Why do I let him?
I really need to stop asking myself impossible rhetorical questions in my free time. Unfortunately, any time that's not free time is spent doing stuff around the castle. Stuff like lessons, and homework, and the inevitable awkward encounters with James Potter, and maybe an attempt at having a life, and friends, only to be interrupted and disrupted by the unfortunate James Potter…
So, please, someone understand my dilemma! Rachel recently told me she was sick of hearing about James Potter. Her exact words were: "Lily, I'm tired of hearing you ragging and moaning and groaning about James. If you are this obsessed with him, go snog the pants off him like he wants!"
Please. I am obviously not obsessed with James. Not in the least. My world absolutely does not revolve around him, it's just that I've let him get my goat.
What an odd expression. If I actually had a goat, it really wouldn't anger me if James Potter took it. I might actually give it to him, gladly. I'm not much of a fan of goats.
So anyways, since James Potter unfortunately has currently stolen my goat (it was not given freely,) he has become sort of the center of my life right now. Only because of the inarguable fact that he is a huge pest, nothing more. And because when you run in to someone everywhere, and they start to always give you this huge smile and are really polite, it begins to get really hard to hate them. Not that this really correlates at all to why I don't hate James Potter anymore, because I can stay strong and resist things like knee-weakening smiles when I want to, I just don't feel like it right now.
Yes… I don't hate James Potter… (anymore. Or rather, currently.) Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag. Not that there ever really was a cat, or a bag.
How unfortunate. I mean, I'm allowed to not detest his guts, I suppose, just as long as I don't suddenly start wanting to shag him like a rabbit.
Oh, disturbing image.
It feels really odd to say that. I don't hate James Potter. For so long I've identified myself with hatred and bitterness directed towards him. I guess, I guess it's okay not to hate him. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to hate me anymore. I mean, I like to think that I've only been mean to him because he started it by being awful to me, and I'm not naturally a malicious, petty person who picks on arrogant toerags like James. Even when they really do deserve to be picked on.
But just because I don't hate him anymore doesn't mean he is suddenly my favorite person. No, more like my least-favorite-person-who-I-can't-quite-hate-but-am-not-obsessed-with-because-of-this-fact. Yes, exactly. I wonder if there is some sort of abbreviation for that?
So I guess that explains his strange behavior towards me lately. I must be his LFPWICQHBANOWBOTF, too. I wonder what the catalyst was for that. Maybe the big storm between us that I direly predicted a few months back after his shocking apology was, actually, his shocking apology.
Maybe I should acknowledge that he, like, was the bigger person.
Maybe not.
Well, unfortunately, this piece of newly discovered information from the archeological dig that is my hassled brain only makes it harder to know how to react to this new, not quite an enemy, James. More of the same, it turns out, meaning blushing, and stammering, and the occasional biting comment when I can get my overtired brain to work.
Yes, unfortunately, extremely overtired. This whole James Potter catastrophe, along with a few other minor factors like homework and exams and school, has really thrown me off. I haven't been able to sleep well lately. It hasn't exactly been a problem with dreams, per say, or even lack thereof. It's just that when I finally get in to bed, instead of being dead the moment my head hits the pillow, I stay up tossing and turning and worrying, only to wake up the next morning looking like I've risen from the dead.
I worry too much, my mother used to tell me. I thought for a while I had outgrown the hobby, but I guess I just didn't have enough to worry and stress about back then. Now, with the added stress of this new James Potter to the rest of my life, I can barely function.
It all came to head (if it hadn't quite come to a head before with me running around the hallways like a lost duck) on the last day of November. Or, rather, I realized just how much I didn't quite hate James Potter on the last day of November. I remember it was November because after waking up and groaning, moaning, and dragging my sorry self in to the shower, I though "oh, it's the last day of November. Finally. Does autumn never end?"
The day was pretty normal. Classes were normal, I had done all my work, I almost fell asleep in Arithmancy but someone threw a wad of parchment at me and I woke up. I saw James heading towards the Great Hall, so I skipped lunch to work on an essay for Potions due in a few days. Rachel brought me a sandwich in Charms and then berated me incessantly for skipping meals. After school I buried myself in the library to study, hoping to avoid James. Obviously, plan failed, James chose today to sit at a nearby table and research his Potions essay, too. I had to practically race him to the shelves to get the books I wanted, a very undignified and ungainly thing. So I mainly worked on my Arithmancy.
The trouble began when James left for (presumably) supper, and I decided to stay and enjoy the James-free mental peace to work on Potions some more. Somehow I completely missed dinner, too, and Rachel didn't bring me a sandwich again. Instead, when I returned to the common room to work on Transfiguration (with which I generally depend upon her for help,) she yelled at me about bad habits and being irresponsible. Somehow, she figured out it had something to do with a pitiful attempt to distance myself from the ever present James Potter.
Unfortunately, this led to an entirely different discussion, one which I currently was not equipped to deal with. So, to soothe Rachel, I promised I would sneak to the kitchens after my patrol, which unfortunately happened tonight, with the ulterior motive of hoping that a midnight snack would help me sleep.
After patrolling, which, thank Merlin, I was able to schedule such that it was very rare I had to patrol with James, I headed down the corridor to the kitchens, tickled the pear, and asked the House Elves (who always surprised me with their unfailing cheerful attitudes) extremely politely, of course, for a little bit of leftover dinner.
It was rather pleasant, actually, sitting at a small table in front of the roaring hearth, munching on some chicken pot-pie and an assortment of vegetables. I had just made up my mind to do this more often in the evenings when I couldn't sleep, when I heard someone else enter. They said something to the House Elves in a deep baritone, and the kitchen immediately bustled with activity.
My back stiffened, my relaxed slouch of a moment ago vanishing as a brief, irrational tingle of fear sped down my spine. I was no longer alone in this comfortable, safe place I had begun to consider my own. An unfortunate mistake, I realized, as I had let down my guards.
Of course, naturally, unfortunately, who else would it be, to stumble upon me, with all my guards down, in a place I had briefly considered my sanctuary. None other than: the one, the only, the spectacular master of impossibly awful timing, James Potter.
And, unfortunately for me, normal, I'm sure, for him, he just has to saunter up to me in that annoying, arrogant, cocky, and absolutely adorable way he has, cock his head to the left and drawl:
"Why, hello Evans, what a pleasant surprise." I winced.
"James," I acknowledged. "A big surprise." There, that was fairly neutral and unassuming. He paused for a moment, straightening, looking at me with intense curiosity. I frowned—what I had done that was so strange? "Oh," I gasped aloud, turning absolutely crimson. I could feel the skin on my neck turning blotchy and pink, even my ears heated up, as I realized my horribly embarrassing mistake.
Because, unfortunately, hadn't I been thinking about him (far too much) as James? James Potter, sometimes, and sometimes just James. So, he had become…
"James?" He said, curiously, but not meanly. "I hadn't realized we were on a first name basis… Lily." He still wasn't smiling, and I couldn't see his eyes to know whether he thought it was funny or not. I, for one, was busy dying and wishing the floor would swallow me up.
"I, we, well, we're not," I managed to choke out, on the verge of sweating, my face was so red. Why, oh why did I have to blush when I was upset? I wanted to fan myself, pour cold water over my head, anything to relieve the intense, awkward, embarrassing tension.
"No, I didn't mean it like that…" He began, then trailed off as I began to make a very strange sound and choke in earnest. "Do you need a glass of water or something?" He asked, which only served to further my embarrassed combustion.
"No," I gasped. "I'm just having an attack of absolute humiliation, and hoping that if I fall down now and turn blue from lack of oxygen and choking, you might forget about what I said in the rush to the Hospital Wing." I immediately clapped a hand across my traitor mouth, sure that I was about to turn purple. James made a very strange sort of strangled noise.
When bursting in to tears was no longer a possibility, I carefully peeked at him. He, too, was beginning to turn red, but I began to suspect it was from a different cause entirely. He saw me peeking, and was no longer able to control himself. He snorted with laughter, bursting out in to deep, throaty chuckles. His laughter was infectious. I found myself smiling, nodding, on the verge of laughing myself.
"Yes," I said indulgently, still smiling. "Yes, I am stupid and foolish, and very awkward." He didn't respond, just looked at me. His eyes were sparkling—they seemed to glow, really, with an internal light. He had scrunched them up at the corner, and his nose looked kind of stretched, from the huge grin that was taking up the lower half of his face. Rosy lips were spread wide to reveal two rows of perfect, pearly white teeth.
His eyes caught mine, inspecting his face, memorizing the way he looked when he laughed, and we held like that for a moment. Him standing there, me sitting, both of us smiling in shared merriment over my incredible talent for unfortunate statements of awkwardness. But there was a barrier—too many fights, too many ignored declarations of permanent mutual hatred.
We both paused, realizing, waiting for a reaction from the other. The memories began to emerge, the fact that we were not friends, were not supposed to be talking companionably like this, did not even know each other. I felt my face closing off, the smile slowly fading. His was a mirror, the smile slowly clearing, eyes dulling.
We weren't really supposed to like each other.
"See you at the Head's Meeting tomorrow, Lily," he said, turning and leaving.
"Wait…" I called to his retreating back, a million things on the tip of my tongue. He had called me by my first name. There was no Head's meeting tomorrow. Even if there was, I would undoubtedly see him several times before then, anyways. He didn't take the food he must have come for.
I know he heard me, because he flinched, almost as if he was about to turn but thought better of it. It's probably a good thing, too, that he kept to his path. He saved me from saying the most dangerous thing of all, the thing filling my mind and overwhelming my senses, the words I was about to blurt out.
I wanted him to stay.
