Chapter 9

James was anxious. And twitchy. Nor could he stay still.

"Will you stop that!" Sirius hissed irritably. They were in their last class for the day. Muggle Studies. And James was getting on his nerves. The boy wouldn't stay still! He was tapping his quill on something, or drumming his fingers against things, or jiggling his foot, or making 'tisking sounds with his tongue. And after an hour of it, it was making Sirius's head ache. The slow throbbing kind of ache.

"Huh?" James asked as he shook his head lightly and looked over towards Sirius.

"Stop!" he yelled, causing everyone in the class to look at him. Including the short leprechaun looking Professor that was standing on a pile of books and boxes in the front

of the bright, airy classroom, drawing weird looking pictures of something called a refrigerator on the blackboard.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Black," Professor Lundanee - or Professor Leprechaun as the students dubbed him drawled as he turned his gray eyes on Sirius and stroked a small, white, wrinkled hand through his dark red beard. "But I can't stop teaching. After all, I am paid to teach. Even if a few of you will never learn anything."

'Sirius glared at the teacher. There was a reason why he hated this class, and he just remembered why. Well, sor-ry!" Sirius huffed. "But I might actually learn something if I had a teacher that could actually teach!"

"Mr. Black!" the short man sputtered indignantly.

"Mr. Leprachaun!" Sirius retorted in the same tone of voice with wide eyes.

"You will refrain from insulting a Professor, Mr. Black!" The now angry Professor demanded, his cheeks turning red.

"It's only considered insulting if it's not true," Sirius pointed out helpfully, and heard James snicker from the seat next to his.

Sirius leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest with a smirk.

"Whoa!" he cried as he hurriedly unfolded his arms and made a grab for the wooden work bench that was in front of him as his stool started to tip over.

"When will you learn?" James muttered as Sirius released the worn oak of the table as his chair righted itself.

"Never," Sirius replied as soon as the teacher started his lecture again. "What's with all that tapping the thing on his Muggle Studies book again." Sirius asked as James started tapping his quill on the book again. So, to take care of it, Sirius just snatched it out of his hand.

"Nothing."

"Uh-huh. What's with the tapping?"

"Nothing!" James said. "Can I have my quill back?"

"Nope! What's with the tapping?"

"What tapping? And why not?"

"The tapping you've been doing all day. Because I say so."

"I haven't been tapping all day!"

"James…look at your foot." Sirius instructed with a smirk.

James's hazel eyes clouded over with confusion as he looked down at his foot. "Shit!" he muttered. I hate it when he's right. Now I'm never going to hear the end of this. Just like I never hear the end of anything else that I do where he's right, and I don't know it.

"See!" Sirius gloated with a grin on his face. "Now, what's with all the tapping?"

"Why the hell are you so persistent about this today?" James demanded with a scowl aimed in Sirius's direction.

"Because I can be. And even perfection must have some defaults. And this so happens to be my only one."

"Padfoot," James drawled with a smile. "Did you just realize that you insulted yourself?"

"I did no such thing! Why would I insult such perfection?"

"Will you two stop talking in my class!" the teacher yelled, glaring at the boys for the disruption.

"Sorry," James said with a shrug. "Habit."

Satisfied, Professor Lundanee continued his lesson on how muggles stored food. And it completely threw all the purebloods off on why you'd have something as crazy as a re-fridge-rator thing to keep food in.

And it just shocked Sirius that you'd have food to put in such a thing.

"We'll finish this later," Sirius vowed. Or threatened. Depends on how you look at it.

James smirked. Sirius always forgot things after the bells rung. It was a tradition of some sort. Or at least a major flaw in his memory capabilities, but it served James well in situations such as these.

"Whatever," James grinned.

0x0

The sun was settng outside by the time Lily figured out a way to tell James. And by the time she got into the Head Boy and Girl common room, it was nightfall.

'James looked up at the sound of the door shutting softly, and looked into Lily's eyes as she walked into the brightly lighted room. "HI," he said softly as a smile curved his lips.

She looked so cute to him. Her uniform was still, after being in it for nine hours, prim, looking as fresh and clean as it had been that morning, and her hair was up in a tight bun, and she had two strings of hair hanging around her face, making her look…impish.

Lily blushed from the way that he was looking at her and started to play with the strap of her book bag. "Hi," she said just as softly as she slowly made her way into the room, and over to the couch and sat down next to him, laying her book bag on the floor next to her.

"I really don't know how to say this, or even if I can, or if I'm ready to, but I'm going to, so just try to have some patience with me okay?" she whispered as she looked down at the small unpainted hands that she had laid in her lap.

"Okay," James said, giving Lily a charming smile in hopes that it'd soothe her nerves somehow.

"Lily glanced up at James and inwardly sighed. I hope that he doesn't hate me afterwards, because that'd make getting him to fall in love with me so much harder, she thought. "I guess that I should start with the beginning, shouldn't I?" she asked with a hesitant smile.

"Sometimes that's the best way to start," James offered as he moved around so that his back was against the arm of the couch, and he was facing her with one of the soft pillows behind his back, and his legs crossed Indian style so that he could better see Lily while she was talking. He knew what she was going to tell him now, now that she started, ad he wanted to be able to see the expressions on her face, because he had a feeling that no one else but Bella knew about the whole thing.

"Yeah, I guess that it does," she said with a deep breath. "I guess technically it started when I was about six," she told him as she gave up looking at her hands and looked at him instead as she turned to face him, leaving one leg on the ground. "I loved to dance. It was always the only way that I could find to express myself. Or let myself be free. Or forget about what had happened during the day. In many ways, it was the only friend that I had."

"What about Bella?" James asked with a frown. He had always that that they had known each other from birth, regardless of the fact that Bella was a pureblood, and Lily was of muggle decent. They just seemed too close to be anything but childhood friends.

"Bella and I didn't meet until the first ride on the train to Hogwarts. But even after that, for the longest of times, all we were was acquaintances," she told him with a small smile. "But anyways, back to what I was saying in the first place.

"When I was twelve, I would always go to this one dancing club during the summer, and I'd stay there until my parents came to get me. It wasn't until I was thirteen that I started to get into the drinking and the drugs. I had met a few people from Hogwarts while I was experimenting with drugs one night, and they took me to this club, and surprisingly enough, we got in. I was shocked, even through the haze of being stoned, I knew that it was a club.

"I don't really remember the rest of that night, just waking up the next morning in a guys bed," she told him with a frown. It still bothered her that she couldn't remember losing her virginity, even after four years of wondering.

James's eyes had nearly popped out of his head. Lily went against the law! He knew enough of Muggle laws to know that underage drinking was not something that they promoted. Nor was drugs. But the fact that she danced, in clubs!- was what really got him. I didn't even know that she liked dancing. He thought. He didn't say anything though, just waited for her to continue her story.

"And after that night, I sort of created a ritual. I'd sneak out of the house, and I'd visit different clubs, Muggle and wizarding- sometimes I'd get high or drunk, and other times I wouldn't. And, for a while, I'd always go somewhere with a guy. Sometimes they'd get lucky, and sometimes they were so fucked up that they'd pass out before we reached the doorway.

"But the next year, I settled down a little, the experience wasn't so new that I had to test the waters every time I had the chance. I calmed down on the drugs and alcohol; I didn't sleep around so much either. And as always, I went back to school after the summer was over and became Lily Evans, school know-it-all over again. It was the summer after that that changed everything.

"I had just gotten home maybe six hours before and already I was sneaking out of the house to go to a club that I had heard about from my neighbor. I remember meeting a guy and going back to his place with him, and I forgot about him the next day, that was how it always was. And I was with another the next day. But I forgot about him as soon as I walked out of the door too. Then, I changed somehow. I continued going to club after club, though many of the nights I told all the guys to fuck themselves, because I wanted to be alone. I wanted to dance. I needed to dance for some reason," she told him in a harsh whisper. She knew why she had needed to dance though. She had been jealous. She had gotten a letter from Zachariah, one of her friends from Hogwarts who lived around James, saying that he was dating a girl from the village near their house and that it was serious. And she wanted to get rid of the pain that had clutched around her heart, she wanted to get rid of the jealousy. So, she danced.

"Then, one night, it must have been close to a month and a half into the summer, there was this guy. I kept telling him to go away, but he was persistent. More so than any of the others. I got buzzed that night. And I let him dance with me. I remember thinking that his rhythm sucked before we started to go towards his place. The next morning I went home, went to sleep and continued on with my life. Until I realized a few weeks later, that I was pregnant." Lily closed her eyes at this and took three deep breaths. God it hurts, she thought as she remembered what she went through. The pain, the anxiety, the fear, the feeling of loneliness, and the helplessness.

"That's when Bella and I became close. She was a God send to me. She used reason when I had none. She helped me figure out who the father was, she helped me find him. And for the first few days that I was trying to get to know the bastard, she was there for me, just to make sure that I was okay. Then, everything started to go downhill," she said in a whisper, and keeping her eyes closed, willed the tears to go away.

James sat there, fists clenched, jaw much the same as she told him the story. But, he knew that the worst part was about to come. He wanted to kill the bastard who put Lily through this so badly. He knew that Lily thought it was her fault. It was written all over her face. But she didn't realize that it was the guys' fault just as much. He could have used the protection that every guy should have the common sense to use.

"I had went to his house one day because he had told me to come over, and I did. He had been late, and his neighbors son had been out there talking to me when he finally showed up. Jason- the guy that got me pregnant, came up to us, and got mad, thinking that I was flirting with the son. To this day I still don't know if I truly was. But anyways, Jason dragged me into his apartment and started yelling, claiming that he wouldn't allow me to have an affair with his neighbor's son. And he acted like he didn't even know if it was his child. He threw something at me. A lamp I think that it was, and it hit my stomach. I remember getting up and yelling at him, then all of a sudden, I felt this pain. I never felt anything so painful in my life! It was like someone was trying to tear off my skin. I fainted. I remember that because I ended up in the hospital. I ended up having a miscarriage.

"During that month I found out about my child, I fell in love with it, James. So in love," she said, the tears falling freely now. She had never had to relive the story out loud. And it hurt even more to do so.

James forgot about killing the bastard who harmed Lily and reached across the space that separated them, and pulled Lily onto his lap, hugging her close as he rested his chin on the top of her head and looked blankly at the bookshelf behind her. "Shh," he cooed as he rocked them, trying to clam the heaving sobs that shook her body.

He couldn't imagine the pain that losing her child had caused her. And it hurt him knowing that there was nothing that he could do to make it better. He couldn't give her her child back.

"I killed my baby James, just as much as he did," she cried as she wound her arms around his waist and continued to cry into his uniform sweater.

"No you didn't Lily!" James exclaimed in surprise.

How could she think that! "You cherished that baby Lily. I could hear it in one sentence that you loved that child. You didn't kill it, do you understand me?" he demanded.

Lily nodded her head slightly and continued to cry. "I was so mad at him, and I was so desperately devastated a the loss of my baby that I made a vow that day, as I lay in the hospital crying," she sniffed as she hung onto his back even tighter. "I vowed that I would never be with another guy again."

James blinked his eyes once. It all made sense now. Why she suddenly stopped looking at him asking her out as entertainment, and blew up every time he asked her to Hogsmeade, or anywhere else for that matter. She was scared of the same ting happening to her. She didn't trust a guy who had an interest in her.

Closing his eyes, James made a vow of his own. No one is ever going to hurt you again Lily.

"James?" Lily questioned in a small voice.

"Hmm?" was her reply as he pulled her closer. He loved having her closed, being able to smell her, touch her.

"Do you think that you'd like to go to Hogsmeade with me?"

James' eyes shot open in surprise. "Uhm," was all that he could say as he battled his shock.

"OH. Okay. Well, could you let me up?" Lily whispered as she started to fight tears for a whole different reason. She truly thought that he was going to be okay with everything when he had comforted her. Looks like I'm wrong. She told herself bitterly.

"No." James told her as he narrowed his eyes. "I'm not letting you up. Not now, not ever. How the hell could you think that I'd say no to you after seven years where I've been tripping over my own feet to get you to date me?" he asked her as h pulled her head away from his shoulder so that he could look her in the eyes.

"You could have changed your mind," she told him softly, trying to look anywhere but his eyes.

"You could have changed your mind," he mimicked. "If I could have changed my mind, I would have done it years ago! After the fifth time you told me to go find someone else to bother!" he told her with a smile.

He remembered that day still, Lily realized with a shocked smile. It had been one of her better moments. Just seeing James's face as she told him that she was too busy to got o Hogsmeade with him, and for him to find someone else to go with was priceless. He had truly thought that he was going to get her to go out with him for it. He had figured that she was just testing him to see if he was going to forget about her and ask someone else. No girl had ever made him work for a date like Lily Evans.

"True," Lily allowed as she came back to the present.

"See," James smirked. "I'm always right. Just ask Padfoot!" He boasted, causing Lily to raise her eyebrows skeptically. "Okay, bad example, but still!"

Lily laughed. She couldn't help it! He just looked so cute! His hair was rumpled – as always, his hazel eyes sparkled with humor making them look more green than anything behind his oval-shaped, wire-rimmed glasses, and his mouth was curved in a grin that showed off his perfectly straight white teeth, and a single dimple on his left cheek. "You're so cute," she laughed as she shook her head, the strands of hair that she had left down flying in her face slightly.

"So are you," he countered. Lily chucked and gave him a smile in return.

"So how 'bout we go to the village next weekend?" he asked with a gri. It was good to finally know that his question was finally going to be answered the right way!

"No," Lily told him , and watched in amusement as his satisfied smirk turned into a frown.

"Huh?" was all he could think to say. "But you just-! Ah, what!"

Lily found it hard to keep her mouth straight, and was battling the smile that wanted to show, but in the end, she couldn't win, and laughed.

James stared at Lily with a content smile. Here she was, sitting on his lap, laughing, smiling, and not telling him to go to hell. He was almost afraid that this was a dream in fact, he would think that it was a dream, except for the fact that when he dreamed about Lily they usually had less clothes on. Even when they were talking.

"Of course I will you big idiot!" she told him with a grin as she looked into his eyes.

"Good."

"Good? That's all you can say?" she asked, amused.

"Yep. Until I can tell Padfoot and the boys my good news that is," he told her with a sheepish grin.

"Oh. Is that so? You can tell them something more, but not me? The one who's actually going on the date with you?" she said, and go a weird tingle in her stomach at the thought. It felt good though. It felt really good to think that she was finally going to be able to do this, and not only in her dreams.

"Yep." He replied with a huge grin on his face. Never even in his wildest dreams did he ever think that Lily Evans would be saying that she was going to go out on a date with him. And he liked it. Especially since this now meant that she was his girlfriend. And no one else's. And he was her boyfriend. Just thinking that, made him giddy and want to grin even more and wider than he was at that moment.

Lily laughed and got off of James's lap. "Well, then how about we go walk to the Gryffindor Tower so that we can tell our friends that they can save the few brain cells that they have left?" she suggested with a grin.

"I guess that we better. Especially considering that Sirius doesn't have many left. I know that I've caused him to slam his head against the wall one too many times," he told her with a smile as he grabbed her hand after they walked out of the common room and they started toward the Tower.

"You too?" Poor Bella is close to losing all of the cells in her head soon." Lily laughed. "And not all of it is because of me either."

James looked down at his girlfriend and smiled. He couldn't remember a time where he felt more…content. Happy.

Before long, the new couple found themselves standing in front of the Fat Lady.

"Password?" She drawled as she looked down at the two heads.

"Carrot Peas," Lily told her in her soft, innocent voice.

The Fat Lady smiled and swung her picture open, revealing the red and gold common room.

"Shall we?" James asked as he ushered her in.

"Lily walked in front of him and shot a grin over her shoulder. "We shall."

OoO

The reactions that they got from their friends ranged from relief to shock and then some.

"What?" Lily asked in a shy tone as she realized that three of the four faces were looking at her.

"You," Remus stuttered as he looked at her with wide eyes.

"Agreed!" Sirius yelled happily as he got up and hugged Lily hard. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" he chanted happily as he picked lily up and swung her around in circles. "Whoa. Need to sit down. Room spinning," he muttered as he let go of Lily, who fell into James's ready arms, while Sirius fell back onto a certain soft, womanly someone. "Hi, Bella," he said as he got comfortable sitting on her legs. "You know, the room actually looks cool when it's spinning. Weird, but fucking cool!" he exclaimed as he watched the gray stones mix with the gold and red colors.

"Ugh! You're heavy!" Bella exclaimed as she tried to push Sirius's heave weight off of her now sleeping legs.

"Sorry," Sirius apologized as he shifted so that their positions were reversed and Bella was no the on sitting on him.

"Let me up," she demanded.

"Why?" he asked, puzzled.

Lily, who was sitting on James's lap with her knee dangling over the edge of the chair that he was sitting in, and her head resting on his chest, smiled. "I'm willing to bet that they get together soon," she whispered in his ear.

"Really?" he asked as he watched the pair interact with each other.

"Yep." Was all that she told him.

"Well, you see, I don't have to do everything you tell me to. So I don't necessarily have to let you up," Sirius pointed out as he pulled Bella closer to his body so that she couldn't escape. But not close enough to let her feel the effect that her wiggling had on him.

"Yes you do, because it's my body that you're holding." She retorted as she planted her palms against his chest and pushed. It was no use she realized with scowl. The guy was too strong! And she refused to allow herself to acknowledge just how sexy those muscles felt. It was no wonder why the guy was so heartbreakingly titled a 'playboy'.

He had that sharp, dark face and hair that could make a girl jealous with just one look at it, and the burning brown eyes that could make a girl melt, or freeze anyone who irritated or upset him with their chill. He was a god in his own right.

Not that she would ever admit that.

"Like what you see?" he asked in a hoarse whisper as he noticed how long she had been quiet and where exactly she had been looking.

"I might," she told him in a seductive whisper.

Lily looked at James and smiled. "Willing to take me up on that bet?" she asked, her eyes twinkling merrily.

For once in a long time, she felt truly happy.

"I'm not that stupid," he told her as he stroked her hair and looked over towards Remus and Peter who were playing a game of chess in the corner of the room.

"We'll see about that," she commented and giggled as he dug a finger lightly into her side.

Is it worth it? The question flashed through her mind and she smiled. She'd make it worth it.

Authors Notes:

Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out, but I have to re-type everything, and it's a pain in the butt. But anyway's I hope you guys like! And to answer the questions about 'Til the Dawn of Tomorrow, I'm not totally sure if I still have all the chapters on that story but I'll go ahead and check and leave a note on the next chapter for you guys.

Anyways happy readings!

And happy holidays! Hope you get everything on your list!