Chapter Nine: A Kiss for Valentine's Day


Ugh. Lily woke up to the smell of love in the air.

Actually, it was just Mary's new perfume.

"Mare, do you have to suffocate us? I know Valentine's painful enough for us all, but really," Lily complained, pulling her pillow over her face.

"I have a date tonight!" she informed, as if that made the situation oh-so-much more breathable.

"With who?" Alice asked as she came out of the bathroom. Then, coughing, "Sheesh. Better be the best bloke on the entire planet."

"He is," Mary gushed. Lily could picture her hugging her perfume bottle, looking all googly-eyed.

Oh bugger.

And she would have to attempt to go through all her lessons today, listening to Mary's rants about love and the perfect man… Oh, Merlin help her…

"Can't be," Alice remarked cheekily. "Frank and I have a Valentine's get together planned for tonight."

"Ha, ha, Alice," Mary replied, rolling her eyes amiably. "He just so happens to be a Mister Culverton Gray."

"Ooooh, fancy."

Lily suddenly couldn't breathe much anymore. All the good oxygen under the safety of her pillow had fled and she was forced to admit defeat. "Is it safe?" she asked, coming out.

"Barely," Alice replied with a sly grin.

Mary rolled her eyes. "It isn't that strong," she protested, though Lily detected a flicker of worry in her eyes.

"It's fine, Mare. You know we're just poking fun at you," Lily assured her good-naturedly as she got out of bed. "Why do you need to put that stuff on if your date is tonight, anyways?"

"Our first class is with the Ravenclaws, Lily!"

"Oh, of course," Lily feigned. "How could I ever forget—dear Culverton will be there!"

Mary rolled her eyes again and turned to work on her hair some more. Lily chuckled and loped to the bathroom for a quick shower before they set off for Charms.

Luckily, the day passed by rather quickly, ending with Lily's favorite subject: Potions. She, Mary, and Alice all entered the classroom together and Mary and Lily chose seats at their usual table. Alice had lately been partnering with Frank and went off to join him two tables over. Among the rest of the hoard of students spilling in the doors were the infamous Marauder foursome, one of which abandoned his fellows and made a beeline for Lily and Mary.

"Mary," Potter asked, "Would you mind too terribly much if I wanted to partner Lily today?"

Lily winced at the idea after the rather awkward conversation she'd had with him the night before. She wasn't particularly keen on the idea of spending time with him after that. "Sorry, but I promised Mary that I'd—" she began. But, luckily, she didn't have to finish her excuse because Mary herself intervened. However, unluckily, her friend's response wasn't exactly what Lily had been wanting to hear: "Sure, James," Mary told him with a sly grin in Lily's direction as she picked up her stuff and moved to sit with Black, who'd obviously become partnerless after Potter left their crew and hadn't bothered to find himself a new one.

Lily watched Mary go and then turned her head back around, finding, to her brief surprise, Potter already sitting in the recently vacated seat, staring at her with the biggest grin on his face.

Smooth. Just suave, he is.

"What?" she demanded, feeling more than a little violated by his stare.

"Oh, nothing," he replied, though his grin didn't fade one bit. It reminded her of a clown she'd once seen at a circus when she and Petunia were young. Unfortunately, they had to leave early because Petunia had gotten scared and started throwing a tantrum so Lily never did get to find out whether Marty could actually cannonball himself across the tent and land on the target. Alas.

"Today, class," the booming voice of their overlarge and good-natured teacher, Professor Slughorn addressed them then, "We'll be having a bit of a fun lesson and mixing up some Amortentia!"

Woo-hoo. A love potion for Valentine's Day. How creative, Lily thought wryly. But she couldn't complain. She'd never made Amortentia before and it could be interesting. Maybe.

Slughorn looked around the room, but apparently didn't gather the reaction he'd hoped for, and cleared his throat before continuing. "Now, as you all know, this potion creates a very strong influence over the feelings of the drinker, causing them to become almost instantly infatuated—you have nothing to worry about, however," he said, pausing here to chuckle, "We will not be testing these potions ourselves. This is merely a time to see how far you all have come in your studies. The ingredients and procedure to make the potion can be found on page four hundred and twenty-seven of your books. I see you all have already divided into pairs, so get started! You have one hour!"

Lily heaved her book on the table and flipped through until she found the page Slughorn had told them to refer to. "We'll need Ashwinder eggs from the student cupboard," she noted aloud, scanning the list of ingredients. "And powdered Romanian Longhorn horn…and…and…we should have everything else," Lily finished, re-checking just to be sure. "Yep," she confirmed, and Potter stood up, saying that he'd be right back with the eggs and powdered horn.

Glancing at the list, Lily assembled all the other ingredients on their desk and started a flame under her cauldron. Potter returned just as she was pouring in their first ingredient, Bundimum secretion.

"Chop those up, will you?" she asked him, nodding at the eggs, while she maintained her stirring the secretion into a "smooth blend."

The assignment did not go quite as horribly as Lily imagined it would. They worked well together, her and Potter. He was attentive and helpful, which surprised Lily after all the years she'd watched him and Black goof off over their own potions.

By the time fifty minutes of their hour had elapsed, Slughorn began going around to the different pairs and looking in on their products. When he came by their table, his round face gave Lily his usual smile. "You never cease to amaze me, Miss Evans!" he remarked jovially. "Top marks, my dear, top marks…"

"Did you hear that?" Lily asked delightedly, spinning in her seat to face Potter. "Top marks!"

"Why are you so surprised?" he asked her with a raised brow as he began to pack up his things. "You always get top marks."

Lily shrugged. "It was a difficult potion to make," she said, though this was not altogether true. While it was on a general scale fairly difficult, she had had no qualms with it whatsoever. But, she had to admit, part of that was thanks to her partner, for Potter had surprisingly risen to the challenge very well.

They both hurriedly packed their things and Lily looked at the potion. She almost didn't want to Vanish it, it looked so wonderful and the smell. The smell was utterly intoxicating—but, of course, that was much of the point.

"So," she began, turning towards Potter. "What do you smell?"

"Me?" He leaned over the table and gingerly sniffed the potion's aroma. "I smell… Lilies." And then he looked back at her and grinned.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut up."

"You asked!" he protested, grinning. "I'm serious; I smell Lily flowers."

"Yeah, okay," Lily replied, grinning as she turned away.

"What do you smell?" he countered, raising an amused eyebrow.

"Soap," she replied automatically. "Nice, fresh, clean soap."

"Can't be attracted to Sirius then," Potter remarked with a coy smirk. Lily giggled.

Overhead, the bell rang, and everybody around them immediately shuffled to their feet, the din almost exploding from whispers to full-fledged conversations and exclamations in a matter of seconds.

Lily got up to head for the Great Hall and found Potter following behind her. Apparently last night hadn't happened. It was like it was all a dream or something that she'd simply imagined. Things were back to normal. Or as close to normal as Lily figured she'd get regarding James Potter.

But, nevertheless, it was better than making too big a deal about the previous night's events. At least he wasn't going around claiming that she was in love with him or some tosh like that. He probably knew she'd can his arse if he did.

"Oi, James!"

Lily and Potter both turned around to the source of the call. A slightly disgruntled looking Sirius Black was standing in the hall with Pettigrew and Lupin, obviously waiting for Potter to go join them.

"Hey, save me a seat, will you?" Potter asked her.

"Sure," she replied, nodding, before they parted ways and she continued among the throng of students. She hadn't gotten far when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Expecting Potter, she turned, saying, "I didn't expect you back so—" She stopped, catching sight of the owner of the tapping hand, and then scowled. "Oh. It's you."

"Can you just listen to me?" he asked, stepping into stride with her, though Lily tried her utmost to lose him by zigzagging this way and that. "Lily!" he exclaimed, thrusting his hand around hers and halting her in her tracks.

"Leave me alone, Snape," she spat. "I told you how things were. We can't be friends anymore and that's that."

"I know we can't be friends," he replied. "We were never just friends, Lily."

Lily stared at him, puzzled by this notion, for Snape had always been the one who clung to their friendship after Lily had dismantled it for the last time back in their fifth year. So why was he denying it now?

"We can't be friends anymore, Lily," he repeated, "Because I'm…I'm in love with you."

Oh. Gross.

"No you're not!" she retorted at once, pulling her arm back to her side.

"I am," he insisted, creeping forward again and grabbing onto her hands. Lily winced and looked around nervously, noting that several groups of students had stopped to watch.

"Let go of me," she demanded weakly, looking at them all looking back at her. Oh this was horrible! And just when she'd thought the day wasn't going so badly after all…

But what happened next was even worse. Perhaps the very worst thing that had ever happened to Lily in all her years of Hogwarts. Combined.

Severus Snape kissed her.

Right on the mouth! He just went ahead and kissed her. She wanted to upchuck on reflex.

And then, if that hadn't made matters bad enough, somehow, the next thing was what really did it in for Lily. If it hadn't happened, she would've merely ran to her dormitory, brushed her teeth until her gums bled, gulped down some mouthwash, and gone immediately into anti-trauma mode, reading and eating chocolate until she couldn't even remember who Severus Snape was.

But that didn't happen. Instead, Lily pulled away from Snape as hard as she could and the moment her eyes looked up, there was James Potter standing down the corridor, looking like somebody had just punched him in the gut.

She shouldn't feel bad. Lily had been thinking about it and she came up with several reasons why she should not feel like this:

1) Snape was an evil git and it was all his fault.

2) Potter was a git, so why should it matter that she may or may not have upset him? (Especially since she might not have! He probably just wasn't at dinner because he…wasn't hungry.)

3) He didn't really love her anyways. He just kept saying that so maybe she would believe him and then he'd just toss her aside and she'd end up hurt and broken. Yeah. So she definitely shouldn't feel sorry for Potter.

That was where the list stopped. She didn't have much more to go on, but three reasons were pretty good, if she said so herself!

But they apparently did not make a hoot of a difference to the pit of her stomach, where all the worry and turmoil had taken residence.

"I'm not hungry," she told Mary and Alice abruptly. Neither of them attempted to argue with her. They both knew all about what had happened and Lily couldn't help but wonder who they blamed. Without another word, she swung her bag around her shoulder and left the Great Hall.

There was no doubting it. She felt like crap. As soon as Lily left the Great Hall, where many students had been watching her even after the big scene, she felt like crying. But she wouldn't. Who the hell cries after they've hurt somebody they don't even like? She didn't quite know what the deal was. Maybe she was just so good of a person that even if, say, she'd hurt You-Know-Who's feelings, she'd go off and bake him cookies.

Eh. Never mind. Not a great analogy, comparing James Potter, the epitome of goodness, according to half of Hogwart's population, to the darkest mind in wizardry ever.

Maybe it would pass…maybe it would—Oh? What's this?

Lily had just opened the door to her dormitory, but stopped short when she saw a parcel on her bed.

"Better not be from Snape," she muttered darkly, wrinkling her nose at the object as she dropped her bag and walked over to it.

And it wasn't, thank Merlin.

Who it was from, though, was almost worse. The tag read For Lily, from James. Happy Valentine's Day. That was it. No cheesy come-ons, or Will you be my Valentine? lines. Just, a Happy Valentine's Day.

Wow. Now she felt like mega-crap.

Resisting the stronger-growing urge to let out a few tears, Lily opened the package. Inside was a locket that she instantly recognized as the very same that she'd been admiring at Hogsmeade several weeks previously. Beside it, on the tissue paper (tissue paper! What kind of teenage boy includes tissue paper?) sat a note that told her to 'open me.'

She did. The small, heart-shaped trinket opened with a click and inside was a small photo that Lily remembered getting taken during a January trip to Hogsmeade. In it were her, Potter, Alice, Frank, and Mary. Frank had his arm around Alice, both beaming, Mary had her hands on her hips, smiling and looking as carefree as ever, and Lily and Potter were at the end, on Mary's other side. Lily was grinning the same old grin she saw in every one of her pictures. Potter, on the other hand, was looking at her instead of at the camera, and he had the most delighted look on his face that she had ever seen. Like the same smile Lily's dad had in his and her mom's wedding pictures. And the same smile that just about every guy had when (gulp) he was love struck.

Maybe it wouldn't pass after all.

Lily woke up with such a pain in her stomach. Wincing, she rolled over and glanced at her clock, which read back two forty-three. In the bloody morning.

"Ugggh." She was dead hungry. Worse than that. She would kill for some food just then.

"Well," Lily mumbled to herself as she sat right side up, "Only insane, homicidal lunatics are likely to be awake at this time of day so I should be all right for a trip to the kitchens."

And so she put on her fluffy, warm robe and her slippers and then set off down the stairs, through the common room and out into the wilderness of the Hogwarts halls.

Strange, they looked so odd at night. She guessed it was the lack of the usual hoards of morons and idiots and Marauders and the all-of-the-above's (cough, Potter. Black) that did it. Maybe she'd catch a couple in a broom closet nearby. At least then she wouldn't have to worry about the whole thing possibly being a mirage.

But it was really nice, walking in the castle at night. She could finally, for once, admire the décor without somebody's head or hair getting in the way.

Finally she made it to a large portrait of a fruit bowl. It was practically an accident, how she and her friends had come across it in their fifth year, but it proved very useful for days like this when they had, for whatever reason, skipped dinner and regretted it hours later. Or if they just felt like a snack. Or chocolate. Chocolate was good.

At any rate, Lily was thinking of all these good things as she lifted a finger and tickled the pear to gain admittance. However, she was not thinking of the person who she discovered on the other side when the portrait swung open.

Okay. So maybe she was. A little. But it wasn't her fault! He was just so…intriguing. Sort of.

"Oh," was how well articulately Lily put her reaction when she spotted him, sitting at a table inside. "Well, I'll just…er…I'll just…go, then…" Because, even when you're starving your guts out, you must be polite to those whose hearts you might have bashed out earlier that day (or the previous day, if you're wandering about at obscene hours in the early morning) and leave them be if that's what they want (and it sure looked like he didn't want company). It was a common courtesy thing.

But instead of turning around, (she didn't actually want to just leave, after all. Screw common courtesy) Lily stayed in her spot, watching him anxiously for a reaction.

"Would you like some hot chocolate?"

Monotone.

Lily had never heard him speak. In monotone.

"Sure," she replied. The 'chocolate' part got to her, she had to admit. Plus she didn't really plan on leaving without some form of sustenance. Timidly, and horribly aware of the somewhat embarrassing nightgown under her robe, Lily sauntered in and took the seat next to the one that Potter quickly vacated. As if he'd die if she got too close—which she couldn't argue with. He did tend to get hurt around her.

So, listening to Potter make her some hot chocolate, Lily was left to decide how to make "I'm sorry," sound non-hypocritical after her display the previous night (night before previous night? Oh hell, she didn't even care anymore) during which she mocked his apologies. And then she actually had to make him believe her, because, honestly, while Lily did have reason to believe him (for one thing, whatever anyone says, Smethley is a skank. She just is, okay? And for another, she was starting to get the feeling that this whole 'you mean a lot to me' deal wasn't just the usual lie some bloke told a girl so he could get into her pants. Somehow, she knew he meant it. Or perhaps that was simply a dash of foolish hope on her part), Potter had zip reason to believe that she felt bad for breaking his heart. On account of the fact that she has all but ripped it right out of his body with her bare fingers, stomped on it 'till it oozed, and then fed it to a Hippogriff in the past six years.

So, to say that Lily felt down was an understatement. She had never felt more wretched for doing something mean to someone. Even after all the fights that she'd had with Petunia over the years, she had never, ever, absolutely wanted to just explode rather than seeing the look of disappointment on the face of someone she hurt. It was like grieving the loss of a friend. Something you could not get over and that you beat yourself up over all the bloody time (because even in the cases when it wasn't your fault, you figure it was. Even if the Knight Bus ran them over in cold blood and you were a billion miles away at the time. Oh, if only I'd done…dot dot dot. If, if, if).

"Here." Unbeknownst to her until his voice snapped her rant in two and his hand pushed a steaming mug in her hand, Potter had returned with her hot chocolate.

"Thanks."

Silence. That was the extent of their conversation a minute and a half in (but she was rounding up, so maybe there was still hope). Lily took a sip of her hot chocolate and looked around the spotless kitchen, as if hoping the right words might suddenly appear on a motivational billboard behind his head.

Nice night, her restless brain could not help but think. Fah, she wanted to tell it. Nice night her arse.

Lily had almost drained her hot chocolate and was now searching for a way to stay. Because she couldn't just leave. She had to do something to make up for earlier.

"Thank you," she blurted, the product of a few seconds of thought.

"You already said that." Monotone, monotone, monotone.

"I don't mean for the drink," she replied quietly, staring. Maybe he'll look up. That's what happens to her. Somebody stares and somehow she feels it and looks up and catches them. It's almost like a sixth sense.

Apparently Potter was only five of six for the senses. Or he was just ignoring her (three guesses which was more likely).

"I saw the Valentine," she continued—why not? It wasn't like she had anything to lose at this point. "I loved it," she added in an undertone, blushing at the thought that this wasn't even a lie. And then wondering why that realization would make her blush.

He almost seemed surprised, with that monotone, straight face of his. Almost.

Lily got brave all of a sudden and reached her hand across the table to touch his. "I'm sorry, you know," she told him. "Sorry about Snape. I know that this probably doesn't mean much considering yesterday…" She stopped. Lily did not want to go up that avenue. "Just…sorry. I know it upset you, what he did, and I am truly sorry for that. I didn't want it to happen. He kissed me. And I sure as hell didn't want him to."

She stopped. It wouldn't do to keep on and on. She said her piece. Now she'd have to wait for him.

But when he did "say" his piece, it was like a blow to the stomach: Potter removed his hand from hers, slipping it under the table, and mumbled, "I'm not upset," all without taking a single glance at her.

She didn't believe him, though. His feelings were written all over his face.

But what's a girl to do? Get down on her knees and beg? Not in this lifetime. Or the next. Lily was by no means proud of having the power to hurt someone so badly—she recalled the stint of jealousy she'd felt the day before and certainly sympathized—but she was not going to salvage her self-respect or dignity or whatever else you might call it for a boy. Not even a boy named James Potter, who could be sweet and funny and nice. She would not do it.

But. She wouldn't let him go on feeling this way without the truth. And the truth was, James Potter was growing her. So that's why (and perhaps the hot chocolate had something to do with it, too), she backtracked away from the door at the last minute and bent down to kiss his cheek before leaving as fast as her legs could carry her.


A/N: Another chapter! :D I hope you guys enjoyed it. I know I'm playing up the romance aspects of this story a LOT, but it's necessary—for now. The next few (I plan for four more chapters) are going to get more into Rita and Snape's scheme and the Marauders' secret. As always, thanks so much for reading!