Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

Chapter 8

ROSIE

Rosie felt terrible for Lily. It was terrible to see her friend hurting so badly, especially over someone who did not deserve to be able to affect her so strongly.

"Just forget about Andrew. James' didn't know he was treading on sensitive ground," Rosie tried to console Lily.

"I think he did. He had to know what happened," Lily wasn't hiding her anger towards James.

"I really think he was just being dense. I'm sure he was curious and didn't know how to ask you," Rosie found herself defending James, not because she particularly liked him, but because everyone knew about James' not-so-secret crush on Lily and Rosie didn't think it was fair for Lily to misdirect her emotions towards James, when really it was Andrew who deserved the anger.

"Well, its none of his business, he doesn't actually care, he's nosy," Lily was squeezing her pillow in a tight body hug.

"Lily, you know he likes you. I think he just pretends to be so confident. He doesn't know what to say to you and he doesn't exactly think before he talks," Rosie told her.

"I don't know. He treats me pretty terribly for someone he supposedly likes," countless times throughout their school years, James had made Lily the subject for embarrassment. Whether he was publicly asking her out, causing her to be the attention of large groups of overbearing peers or charming her hair obnoxious colors while giving class presentations, Lily felt that James had never respected Lily's feelings or cared about what she was thinking.

"He's a boy. If you've learned anything from whats happened, you know that boys are stupid and prone to acting like asses," Julia very seriously stated, although immediately afterwards she broke out into giggles.

Lily followed suit, the girls were laughing and it was a relief to Rosie to see that Lily was beginning to be able to laugh at her misfortune.

"And I have to sit through meetings with him all day tomorrow," Lily complained.

"With who? James?" Rosie was confused.

"Yeah, we have a 9 am meeting with Professor McGonagall about organizing the Winter Formal. Then at 11 we're meeting with the prefects to divide up responsibilities and make decisions," Lily explained.

"You know, maybe spending time with James will be good for you. You might not like him, but he'll be distracting and you're not going to think about missing Andrew. James is pretty entertaining after all, and not that bad to look at," Rosie pointed out.

"Its Potter. You saw how he acted earlier, he's so insensitive," Rosie could tell that Lily wasn't on board for using James as a platform to get over Andrew.

"I don't know, its just a possibility," Rosie could tell that she was not going to make any progress. Which was fine, in Rosie's opinion, the main goal was to get Lily to be not be upset over Andrew, which Rosie had already accomplished.

SIRIUS

"That could have gone a little better," Sirius finally said once the boys had returned to the boys' dormitories. He was referring to their most recent conversation with the girls in the common room.

"Yeah, well, I didn't have a plan, I wasn't sure what to say," James defended himself.

"Maybe you should consider not making her want to cry next time," Remus teased.

"Why do I always screw up around her?" James dropped onto Sirius' bed.

"I have never seen you been worse with a girl than when you're with Lily," Sirius pointed out. It was true, James was always very smooth with girls, Sirius was usually neck and neck with James when it came to pursuing women. However, Sirius was certain that he would have a better chance with Lily, which was saying a lot considering that he was positive Lily had very little respect for himself.

"At least I know their over," James said referring to Lily and Andrew.

"So, whats your next move?" Sirius asked.

"I need to do something..." James trailed off mid sentence.

"I like your specifics," Remus was still teasing James.

"No, I need to do something really big."

"Haven't you learned anything from the past?" Remus was shaking his head at James.

"Prongs, focus. Haven't you noticed a generally unhappy response from Lily whenever you publicly do anything to her?" Sirius pointed out.

"Yeah, well, but what am I supposed to do?" James was at a loss. Sirius knew that James was used to relying on his humor and looks to win over girls. Generally, these girls were rather easy anyways. Lily Evans was a particularly type of girl. Jokes and smiles were not all that it took to get under her skin.

"You could try being considerate," Remus' tone was a little incredulous.

James was silent for a little.

"What are you thinking?" Sirius was almost worried to find out what path James' mind was going down.

"Nothing, I'm just... thinking," was all James responded with.

"You worry me sometimes, mate," Sirius laughed at his friend.

"Agreed," Remus chuckled along with his friend.

"Speaking of worry," Sirius was ready to change the subject, "Remus, how's Julia? I don't remember any questions getting asked lately."

"She's fine," Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius. Sirius was not a fan of Remus taking his sweet time asking out Julie. He remembered hooking up with Mary Lou, and what she promised him if he could make this promise happen. Part of him was tempted to tell Mary Lou it happened, follow through with the deal and then deal with her anger when she found out the truth later.

"So, is there an estimated time frame?" Sirius was only half joking when he asked Remus this. He really just wanted to get in bed with Mary Lou, and if Remus was involved with someone else, he would step off. However, Remus was happy and single and not coming through for Sirius.

"If you ask again, its not happening," Remus responded.

"Fine, I understand," Sirius said, 'Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to lie to her and just deal with her hating me.'

LILY

Lily was surprised to find that James was waiting for her as she walked out into their common room the morning.

"I thought we could head over to the meetings together," James stood up when he heard her come out of her room.

"Oh, thanks for waiting. I would have gotten ready faster if I knew you were waiting," Lily was a taken a little off guard by James being nice to her just for the sake of it.

"Nah, we're still on time," James waived away her concern, "I grabbed you some pumpkin bread from breakfast, in case you hadn't had a chance to go."

'What is going on?' Lily wondered.

"That's really nice of you, thanks," she said as he handed her two sliced on pumpkin bread that he had wrapped together carefully in two napkins.

"So, let's head out?" James suggested as he led her to the door.

'He's probably just babying me because he found out about Andrew and feels bad,' Lily told herself. Their walk to the classroom where the meetings were being held was mostly silent.

"So, have you thought about this dance at all?" James asked Lily.

"Not really, I think we should keep it classic, nothing too crazy so we don't get overwhelmed," Lily told him. She really hadn't put any thought into what they were going to do. After her breakup, she really didn't want to think about putting together a night for other couples to enjoy and think about how happy they were together.

"That makes sense," was all that James responded with.

"There you two are," Professor McGonagall greeted them when they finally made it to the classroom where the meetings were supposed to take place.

Professor McGonagall was seated at the desk in the front of the class as Lily and James took seats in the very front row.

Lily pulled a notebook from her bag to take notes.

"As you know, there was a strong student desire for a Winter Formal," Professor McGonagall started to speak and Lily remembered the end of last year. Lily was not sure exactly who started the campaign, but seemingly out of no where, there was a school wide demand for Hogwarts to offer a function, namely a dance, for their students. Dumbledore was impressed with the student's ability to come together and organize a petition for a school event, and so he granted the students a Winter Formal.

"Hogwarts is not known as a lackadaisical, party school for slackers," Professor McGonagall continued, "and so as Head Girl and Head Boy, it is your responsibility to maintain order and function to this event."

Lily and James nodded their heads in unison agreement.

"So, have you two developed any planning or ideas for this event?"

"Well, we determined that it was important for us to deliberate tasks among the prefects, to make sure that every house is involved with the activities," Lily piped in. They hadn't actually previously spoken about anything regarding the dance, but Professor McGonagall didn't need to know that.

"That's a very good idea, Miss Evans. Anything to add Mr. Potter?"

"Um... well," Lily saw James sit up straighter in his desk, "what if we made it a whole day event?"

"What do you mean?" Professor McGonagall asked him. Lily wasn't sure where James was going with his proposal, she wasn't even sure if he knew where he was going with his proposal either.

"Well, presumably this event is happening on a Saturday night," James explained, "so, why don't we incorporate the Quidditch match into a pre-event game. Or we could arrange a mini-tournament, for the Winter Cup," Lily could tell that James was pretty proud of himself for making that up on the spot.

"That's pretty impressive, Potter," Professor McGonagall told him.

"I think that would help the fairness in addressing whether or not the younger students should be able to attend the Formal," Lily found herself agreeing with James. She was a little impressed with his involvement, she had expected him to take a back seat on this project.

"Yes, what do you intend to propose for the younger students?" Professor McGonagall inquired.

"Well, I think its only fair that a majority of the night is reserved for students in their 5th year and up. The petition for a Formal event was created by the older students because they wanted entertainment for themselves. So maybe the Quidditch games in the morning would be for everyone, and we can do a large feast following it so that the younger students don't feel left out on the party," Lily proposed.

"Well, if we held a feast following the games, where would we have it? The Great Hall would need to be decorated for the Winter Formal," James reminded her.

"Um, could we do the feast right on the pitch?" Lily proposed. She wasn't sure what the policy was for eating on the field.

"That would be something to look into," Professor McGonagall seemed impressed with their ideas, "I'm going to leave you two to plan out details so that you can present it to the prefects. I suggest that you keep with the idea of incorporating all of the houses into the planning," Professor McGonagall left them with this statement, Lily and James were alone in the empty classroom.

"Okay, so let's just get on paper all of the components that we're going to need to divide up for the prefects. I think that they should be able to choose which areas they want to cover, they know their strengths better than we do," Lily started to get down to business.

"Lily, I'm really sorry about yesterday," Lily's heart sunk a little, she didn't want to talk about their conversation from the previous day, she wanted to forget it happened.

"Its fine, please drop it," Lily didn't look at James when she responded.

"I just wanted you to know, I know I was being an ass. I didn't meant to I just-"

"James, please, I don't want to be reminded," Lily interrupted him. She looked into his eyes and she saw something that she wasn't used to seeing. She reckoned it was sincerity. She looked away from eyes, she noticed his high cheekbones and the lightly tanned skin that covered them. She looked at the light stubble that was beginning to grow back in the hollows of his cheeks. 'When did James get so handsome?' she caught herself wondering. She wanted to hit herself, 'I'm loosing my mind,' she told herself.

"I understand," James nodded. 'Did he notice me checking him out?' Lily felt nervous, she didn't understand the rush of emotions that she was experiencing.

"So, let's um, let's write down the, um," Lily couldn't remember what she was trying to say.

"You want to write down all the details that we need to get together?" James finished her attempt at a sentence for her.

"Yeah."

"Okay, well, food and music are the big ones," James started brain storming.

"Right, should we try for live music? That would be pretty cool," Lily added.

"Yeah, I like that idea, do we have a budget?" James asked.

"Uh, I don't know," Lily smiled, as far as she was concerned, James was making up for years of being an arrogant idiot.

"Okay so, depending on the budget, we'll get a live band," James clarified.

Lily made a note at the top of her paper to ask about the budget.

"We should make it a vote, to see who to try to get, and then whichever band has the most amount of votes and will be willing to come to Hogwarts will be our band," Lily added.

"Excellent."

"So, food, we'll make it traditional holiday, right? We should offer a sit down dinner then the band will start after it," Lily proposed, this event planning was turning out to be easier than she had anticipated.

"Okay, and we'll just do recorded music before dinner," James offered.

"Yeah, so now we have to talk about theme. I think an easy Winter Wonderland idea would be best, lots of white and cream, maybe some light blue. Lots of fluff," Lily stated.

"Okay."

"So, it'll just be important to get all of the decorating done in an organized manner before the events. Its not fair to make the prefects miss out on the Quidditch games and feast so that they can set up the Great Hall," Lily pointed out.

"So, we'll need to make a schedule?" James asked.

"Yeah, something that wont interfere with other activities, we'll need to bring it up at the prefects meeting," Lily said.

"This is going pretty well," James noted.

"Yeah, I'm impressed, I was scared this was going to be a mess," Lily admitted. She looked at his arms, they were beautifully built. It was from the years of being an athlete, he was defined perfectly, she imagined how strong his forearms would feel under her small hands. She looked at his large hands. She bit her lip as she thought about his hands on her. His large hands around her small waist, on her thighs, on her- no. Lily was not going to think about his hands on her body. She forced herself to stop her ridiculous fantasizing.

"Are you okay?" James looked concerned when he asked Lily. She was suddenly very aware that she was biting her lower lip and probably blushing.

"What? I'm fine." She decided it was best to act like he was imagining things.

"So, food, music, decorations, what else?" Lily tried to keep the planning going.

"We need to work out how we'd organize Qudditch events for the game. We could have the first game be the game that is already scheduled to play, but we'll make it earlier in the morning, then let's have the two houses that didn't play, have a match. I doubt we'll have time for a third game for the two winners to compete," James told her.

"That's okay, it'll be better for school spirit if we have two houses feeling victorious instead of just one," Lily pointed out.

"Okay, maybe I'll set up a meeting with the four team captains and see if they will be up for the changes," James volunteered.

"That would be great," Lily was amazed. 'Who is this man sitting next to me, and what did he do with Potter?'

"So, what about clean up?" Lily was always practical, "It's not going to be fun, but they are going to want the Great Hall clean before breakfast the next day.

"Ugh, I don't know, isn't that what house elves are for?" James responded.

"I feel bad just dumping it on someone else."

"That's so nice of you, but its their job, they like it," James was smiling as he responded.

"If you say so," Lily found herself agreeing with James.

It was apparent that their meeting was about to wrap up.

"We have a little bit of time before we have to go to the meeting with the prefects," James pointed out.

"Yeah," Lily couldn't think of anything to say.

"So, are you okay with everything that's going on?" Lily knew that James was referencing her break up.

"Um, I don't really want to talk about it," Lily wished that she never had to hear about it again.

"Okay, I understand. I just want you to know, that I'm here. I'm literally next door to you, so if you need anything," James offered.

"Um, thanks, but I think I'm okay. I'm ready to forget it," Lily told him.

"Oh, that's great," James looked like he regretted saying that after it was out of his mouth.

'Maybe Rosie was right, he might sincerely like me.'

Author's Note: This hurricane is killing me, I want to get this story up before I lose power and I'm not able to. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. And I'd like to remind you guys that this is rated M and while the chapters that have been laying groundwork for the characters have all been pretty light so far, its going to start getting more a little more adult.

Please Review, I love reading them!