Disclaimer: Let's look at this logically. J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and all related characters you don't recognize. I'm not J.K. Rowling. Since I'm not J.K. Rowling, I obviously don't own any of the recognizable characters. There, that wasn't so hard now was it?
Chapter 9: Detention
"Are you a freaking crackhead?!?" Tave yelled at me the instant she saw me coming between classes the next day. Several people stopped and stared as she grabbed my arm and started pulling me towards the dungeons.
"Ow-Tave! What the bloody hell are you going on about? Ouch- let me go! That hurts!" I exclaimed, convinced she had gone mental.
"You're stupid fight with James, that's what I'm going on about," she hissed into my ear as she let me go. We descended the steps to Professor Yeva's classroom and stopped several feet behind the line of students waiting to be let in. "I can't believe you got upset over something as stupid as a detention!"
"Well it- wait, how do you know about that?" As far as I knew, I hadn't told her anything for fear of this exact reaction.
"James told Sirius who told me, but that's not important. What's important is that you're throwing away a perfectly good friendship because of a freaking detention," she said angrily, folding her arms across her chest.
"It's his fault!" I exclaimed indignantly. "I've never had a detention in my life, and now I've got one thanks to that no good son of a bitch."
"That's bullshit," she replied instantly. "You didn't have to write back. You earned that detention, Lily Evans. I don't know how you get off blaming James for it."
"And I don't know why you're all over me because of it," I said hotly. I could tell by the look on her face that this was going to be a major argument. The dungeon door opened just then, saving a big scene, so she threw me a "we're-not-done-with-this-discussion " look.
We avoided discussing it during class, but Tave was incredibly frosty with me. I wasn't the only one who noticed that, either.
"Blood traitor's feeling a bit snippy today, is she?" Snape asked silkily from behind us.
"Mind your own business, you bastard," Tave growled through clenched teeth. "I'm not in the mood to deal with you today."
"Well, well, well, you are rather testy today," he replied in his irritatingly careless manner. "What could be the cause? Perhaps your worthless boyfriend dumped you for another slut after he got what he wanted last night? Or perhaps Mudblood's done something to upset you?"
Before anyone knew what was happening, Tave lunged at Snape, sending the contents of his cauldron everywhere. She slammed him against his table and easily pinned him there, her wand pressed against his throat.
"Don't you ever make insinuations about me and Remus again," she snarled, poking her wand harder against his throat. "And while we're at it, you call Lily a mudblood ever again and I'll hex your balls off. Give me a reason and I swear to Merlin I'll hex you into oblivion."
The class was dead silent as Tave and Snape glared at each other, pure hatred in their eyes. Professor Yeva looked like she had no idea what to do.
"Don't, Tave, he's not worth it," Alice said quietly from her table across the aisle. For a moment Tave looked as if she was going to blow Snape's head off anyway, but then she slowly backed away.
"Miss Meliflua!" Once Tave seemed under control, Professor Yeva found her voice. "Never in all my years at Hogwarts have I seen such a display! To the Headmaster's office this instant!"
Tave packed up her books and left the classroom without a word, but not before glaring murderously at Snape one more time.
The class quietly returned to their potion making as if unsure what had just exactly happened. I snuck a glance towards Sirius and James and saw Sirius looking distinctly proud. James, however, looked incredibly upset.
"If she gets suspended from Quidditch, I'm going to kill her," I heard him growl to Sirius. "Our first match is this weekend, and we can't play without her."
I found myself hoping she had been suspended from Quidditch, just to piss James off.
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I didn't see her again until classes were over for the day. She was sitting dejectedly in front of the Gryffindor common room fire with Alice and Drusa.
"So what's the verdict?" I asked, setting my book bag on the floor next to the chair I had sat in.
"Detention every night for the next three weeks," she sighed. "I'm not suspended from Quidditch, but I may as well be because I can't go to any practices during those three weeks if I'm in detention."
"At least you get to play," Alice said comfortingly. "What had you so riled up in the first place?"
Tave shot me a look. "I was pissed because Lily here had a stupid fight with James and is throwing their friendship away."
"Oh, so it's my fault, is it?" I demanded. That was unfair if she thought it was.
"No, it's not," she said haughtily. "I chose to attack Snape. You didn't force me to. But you think it'd be unfair if I blamed you, huh? This is exactly what happened between you and James."
"Lily attacked someone?" Alice asked, looking thoroughly confused.
"No, but she has a detention tonight because she and James were passing notes in Transfiguration yesterday," Tave explained. "She says it's James' fault because he wrote the note first, then she responded. She says he got her the first detention she's ever had."
"That's really stupid, Lily," Alice said gently. "You're just as much at fault as James is."
"Why is everyone siding with James?" I asked desperately. Even my friends agreed that I was being stupid.
"Because he's right," Tave said simply.
"Look, Lily," Alice said, and I knew a long lecture was coming. "James wrote you a note. As soon as you got it, you had a choice to either write back or just let it sit there. You could have even wrote back and said you could talk after class or something. But you went along with it, and as soon as McGonagall said you had a detention, you get mad at James. But don't you see, it wasn't his fault. He didn't make you write back. Sure, he presented the opportunity, but you took it. It's your fault you have a detention. The same sort of thing happened today between you and Tave. Tave was annoyed because of the aforementioned argument. You weren't going to give in and admit you were wrong, which irritated her even further. So then, when Snape tries to get under her skin, she snaps and attacks him. She could say it was your fault, that you got her mad. But it's not your fault. She chose to slam Snape into his table and threaten him. She got in trouble for it, and she deserved to. You got in trouble because you deserved to, too."
Alice had a way of making everything seem so simple and clear, and I realized I had been wrong. Really wrong. "I guess I really screwed up," I said miserably.
"Yeah you did," Tave replied quickly. "I think you owe Mr. Potter an apology."
I sighed. That was something I wasn't so good at. I was used to being perfect, and having to admit that I was wrong was a difficult thing for me to do. I decided I'd apologize the next time I saw him, no matter how hard it would be.
-----
The next time I saw James was, in fact, that night for detention. He, Tave, and I were given the task of cleaning the Owlery and all the trophies in the Trophy Room without magic.
"That'll take forever," Tave moaned, looking at all the tarnished trophies. "This and the Owlery?"
"That's why it's called detention," Filch said, looking especially pleased. He provided us with what we would need, then walked away, humming off-key as he went.
"I'll go up to the Owlery," I sighed, grabbing a broom.
"James can go too," Tave said, shoving a broom into his hands. "I'll be down here, working on the trophies. I hate owls anyway. Come on down and help me when you're done."
James looked more than a little nervous as he followed me up to the Owlery. I couldn't blame him, considering I had broken off our friendship less than 24 hours previously. I was nervous, too, since I had to figure out a way to swallow my pride and reinstate said friendship.
"Sick," I said as we reached the landing in the Owlery. Owl droppings and feathers littered the floor, with bones of small mammals mixed in. James didn't reply as he began to sweep. We were silent for a few moments before I decided that I might as well get it over with. "Listen, James-" I started, then faltered. I had no idea what to say.
He paused a moment in his sweeping but didn't look at me. "Yeah?" he asked.
"I'm...sorry," I said softly, staring determinedly at the small bones just to the right of my right foot. "About yesterday. I shouldn't have gotten so upset."
"It's fine," he said automatically and began sweeping again.
"No, it's not fine," I contradicted. "I completely overreacted. Like you, and all my friends, said, it's just a stupid detention. I was way out of line, and I wanted to apologize."
James finally looked up at me and his hazel eyes met my green ones. I held his gaze unwaveringly, and a small smile lit his face.
"Apology accepted," he said.
"So we're friends again?" I asked hopefully.
"Yeah, we can be friends again," he replied. For a moment we just stood there, then he asked, "So are you going to help me with sweep up all this owl crap or am I going to have to do it by myself?"
I joined him in the sweeping and we had the whole floor cleaned up in under an hour. We swept everything into one big pile, and for the first time I wondered what we were going to do with it.
"How are we going to get rid of this?" I asked, indicating the pile.
James looked at it thoughtfully for a moment. "Throw it out the window," he replied.
"We can't do that!" I protested as I looked out said window. "That's disgusting! It could get in somebody's dorm window!"
"Sucks for them," James replied with a laugh, and he began throwing it out the window.
"No!" I looked at him in horror. He had just thrown owl crap all over the roof.
"Don't worry about it," he replied as he dumped the rest over the ledge. "We can't use magic to clean it up, so how does Filch expect us to get rid of it? He won't even notice. It'll all be gone by tomorrow, anyway."
I looked out the window, then back at James. I sighed. There was nothing I could do. "I can't believe you did that," I said, shaking my head. "I can't believe it."
Silence fell between us and I suddenly noticed that I was very close to James. Incredibly close, actually. I could smell his cologne and found it intoxicating. No, Lily, don't start this again, I berated myself. Just because he smells so goddamn good doesn't mean he's the one for you. He most definitely isn't the one for you. Something stirred in the back of my mind, but I pushed it away. I decided that I was going mental. I needed to have a nice little chat with Tave when we went down to the Trophy Room.
"Well, we're all done here," I said, moving away from him. "We should go find Tave and help her with those trophies."
"Oh, right," James said, as if he had just been deep in thought. "Good idea."
We found Tave sitting on the floor trying to polish a huge gold trophy. "Thank Merlin," she said as we came in. "These bloody things are so hard to clean up, and there's so many of them! Grab a few and help me."
I pulled a trophy out of one of the display cases and sat down next to her. "We need to talk," I muttered, making sure James was out of range.
"What about?" she asked as she looked dejectedly at the trophy in her lap. "I swear, this shit is never going to come off."
"I need you to tell me if I'm insane or not," I replied, grabbing a rag and some polish.
"That's easy. You're insane," Tave shrugged.
"Oh ha ha," I said as I rolled my eyes. "No really, this is serious."
"Actually, that's a trophy. Sirius is-"
"Don't even!" I cut her off her impending Sirius/serious joke. After six years of them, they got rather old. "Anyway, just recently I've been noticing how James isn't exactly...ugly."
Tave giggled. "'Not exactly ugly?' Dear Merlin, Lily, where are your eyes? He's only the hottest male ever to roam the halls of Hogwarts. After Remus, of course. And I guess Sirius is up there too, but he's my cousin so I just don't see him as someone to lust after. But now that I think of it, he is pretty damn hot."
I ignored her rambling. "I mean that lately I've found him almost...enticing. Maybe that's the wrong word for it, I don't know. But that night you all slept in the Heads' common room, when you were all asleep-"
"Holy shit, you didn't shag him did you?!?" Tave exclaimed rather loudly. I saw James look at us sharply across the room, and I quickly hushed her.
"Dear Merlin, no!" I exclaimed, feeling my face redden. "And next time you want to ask me about my sexual activities, please do so at a lower volume!"
"Sorry," she said, but there was a twinkle in her eye that completely negated her apology.
"Anyway, as I was saying, I just noticed that he had an incredible body. Holy mother of Merlin, I had no idea he had such a hot body! And then, tonight in the Owlery, we were standing really close and I was practically intoxicated by his cologne! His freaking cologne! Am I going insane?" I asked desperately, praying I was.
"No, you've just finally awoken from that bloody stupor studying puts on you," Tave replied with a wicked grin. "Honestly, you're realizing what a wonderful creation men are! Way to go, Lil!"
"Shut up," I replied, throwing my towel at her. "That's not funny. And besides, this is James Potter I'm talking about. It feels incredibly weird. I mean, I hated him for six years, and now I think he's hot? I'm insane. I'm going bloody mental."
Tave laughed. "I think you're falling for James. You've always had a crush on him, but you've been hiding it all this time."
"What?!? I don't have a crush on James!" I protested. "I've never liked him! I couldn't even tolerate him until this year! And now, I tell you I think he's attractive and you automatically jump to the conclusion that I fancy him!! There's a difference between thinking a guy's hot and fancying him. Those are two completely different things!"
"Me thinks the lady doth protest too much," Tave said with a wink. "You fancy him, don't you?"
"Never," I replied fervently. "Never have, never will."
Our hushed conversation was interrupted by James saying, "Why don't we just summon our wands to clean these up? Filch will never know. Remus figured out a spell that'll make them appear incredibly shiny. Of course, they'll go back to their original state in about a week, but it works."
"Sure, why not?" Tave asked. I knew her question was rhetoric, but I answered it anyway.
"Because we'll get caught, that's why," I said, glad for the subject change. "James already threw all the owl crap out the window and all over the roof."
"Really?" Tave asked with a laugh. "That's a bloody brilliant idea."
I glared at her, ready to contradict, but James cut me off. "I'll just summon my wand and get this cleaned up. You girls can go off to bed."
"Okay thanks, see you tomorrow, James," Tave said and started pulling me out the door.
"Yeah, thanks," I called over my shoulder. Tave and I parted ways and I was left with my own thoughts as I climbed into my bed. Of course I didn't fancy James. I admitted he was a much nicer guy than I had originally thought, but that was it. It ended there. And, for the umpteenth time that school year, I convinced myself just before falling asleep.
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A/N: Okay, here it is, hope you like it. I don't really have much to say (I know, what a surprise!) except review, review, review! I love reviews, they make me so happy.
otakuannie: sorry to disappoint you, no snogging today. I was incredibly tempted to put some in, but decided against it. There will be some snogging coming up soon (because the wee little plot bunny has hopped right into my lap, so to speak), so sit tight and be patient with me. All in due time, my dear (I feel incredibly old saying that...lol) : )
I LOVE HUGS: I love hugs too (the Hershey's candy and physical hugs, they're great). lol I know, Lily most definitely needed to chill. But then again, my reaction would have been very similar, because I've never had a detention in my life. So I guess both of us would need to "take a chill pill", as my rather eccentric father would say. Well, now they've made up, and it's only a matter of time before Lily realizes she's totally head over heels for this guy. But will it be smooth sailing from here? Not on your life. : ) Ah, yes, I know the feeling of struggling with ideas. This story can be very fickle sometimes, and sometimes I sit for days without making any progress. Sometimes I write something, then decide at the last minute that I don't like it. But I guess that's part of the addiction to writing for me.
tanitta: I think Lily needs to realize that there's more to life than school. Heck, sometimes I need to realize that. I've never had a detention, either. Not in elementary or middle school, and not in my freshman year of high school. We'll see about my upcoming sophomore year, but I don't think I'll land my butt in detention. I've had a few close calls, but my teachers always love me (maybe that has something to do with my 4.2 GPA...hmm... it seems ironic b/c I'm also a cheerleader...lol) and don't like to put me in detention. I could get away with murder, I think. lol Blabbers rock, I gotta say. :-D
LupinLover99: your wish is my command!
