Disclaimer: Curse Veritaserum . . . .
Chapter 8
James awoke to a strange screeching sound in his ear. It took him a moment of insufferable screechy-ness to realize that it was the alarm clock he had set specifically to himself, and specifically to seven o'clock. As he tried to pry the thing out of his ear, the events of yesterday rushed back to him.
Oh crap.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Lily found out it was him.
Except she hates you. And she would never speak to you again. And she would hate you more than normal.
Besides that, all was well. He just had to make sure she didn't see his eyes or anything . . . since when Animagi transformed, their eye color and hair color didn't change. Yes, so if he just kept his eyes cast down (since they were not your normal brown, but a particularly bright shade of hazel), then she would never know. But, he thought, perhaps this was exactly what he needed . . . .
Once the squealing bit of rubber was deactivated and abandoned on his nightstand, and James was fully clothed, he left the dormitory and its three sleeping inhabitants behind. For good measure, he had drawn a particularly French mustache on them all . . . . Oh how he loved it when they realized what had happened later in the day. Got them every time . . .
Anyways, back to James now. He had been hoping desperately that Lily would not be at breakfast and had perhaps slept in with the despair of having her secret known, but nonetheless, she was the first person he saw when he entered the Great Hall. As predicted, she noticed him freakishly fast and would've seen his eyes, but he had been prepared. His eyes were struggling to keep contact with the floor as he moved to a seat directly beside Evans, considering it would be suspicious if he suddenly didn't want to be near her. This thoroughly surprised Lily, and as expected, he received a scathing glare from a particularly greasy Slytherin from across the Hall.
She turned to face him. He kept his eyes down and desperately tried to maneuver his hair to cover them.
"Just because I sat near you yesterday doesn't mean I wanted to make this a regular thing."
James grabbed a piece of toast, his usual breakfast. "Mmph."
"Excuse me?"
"I said, 'Mmph'."
"And so you don't have an answer for what I asked?"
"You didn't ask anything."
"I was implying why you were sitting within arm's distance of me. And for Merlin's sake, why are you glaring at your toast?"
"Wha—oh. It's not glaring. I'm focusing."
She was confused, he noted out of his peripheral vision. "Well just so you know, I would ask you to move, but I simply don't want to be rude. And I do not enjoy your company."
"Sure." He nibbled on the toast a bit, eyes glued to said crispy slice of carbohydrates.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Whatever you want it to mean."
Lily gaped. James had a sudden inspiration: apparently she was more affected by him when he didn't submit to his default mode and become immediately smitten with her. Perhaps this was what would help him . . . .
Acting on inspiration from just now and inspiration from yesterday, he stood up and abandoned the pathetic half-piece of toast. "Sorry, my Love, must go."
Before she could react, say she was most certainly not "His Love", or even ask where he was going, he ran out of the Great Hall and to the Forbidden Forest. Even though at the moment she believed the stag thing had nothing to do with him, she would want answers eventually, and he therefore knew she would be making another visit to the Forest as soon as possible. This was his chance to push the plot of this story along . . . . oops, I mean to see Lily again. Yeah, that's it.
Lily was bemused. Why wouldn't he look at her? And why did he leave so fast? It's not like she missed his desperation to go out with her or anything. Psh.
First things first. Before she could go out to the Forest again, she needed to check something. Lily grabbed a biscuit and left the Great Hall, receiving a very confused look from Snape.
Once in the library, she checked with Madam Pince and pulled an aged book off a back shelf. Lily flipped to the back and scanned until she saw a page with the heading "Registered Animagi of Britain and Ireland". Excitement fluttered in her stomach as she inspected the list, but doubt filled her mind as she reached the last name. While Grons, Martha could transform into a goose and Vondersim, Bilphius was perfectly capable of transforming into a beaver, there was no one on this list that took the form of a stag. Of course, there was the possibility that this person was unregistered just as Lily was, but that only made her task harder.
Barely twenty minutes after entering the library, Lily stomped out the door and toward the grounds, with a new determination driving her every step.
A/N: Watcha think? Mwahahaha . . .
