A/N: So I'm still not sure what I should do with this fic. I'm starting to write a new Twilight fic but I would also like to work on this one, since it's actually already written, and I should just translate it but I don't know...
Anyways here's the next chapter, thanks to all who've put this on their alert and favorite lists!
And please throw me a review and tell me what you think! :)
9. A Pleasant Surprise
Lily and Kaitlin stepped into the Great Hall in the morning so tired that it was hard to keep their eyes open, because of yesterday's quidditch practice. Erica was tightening their training schedule all the time and the team was starting to believe that by the time their first game with slytherin would be, they wouldn't hardly have time to eat let alone sleep.
The fact that the first class of the day was double class of Potions did only make the urge to just stay in bed that much stronger. Lily's cooperation with Jessica didn't work out any better than she had thought.
And so today, after Sweeney had given them the instructions Jessica just sat behind their desk, occasionally mixed their cauldron lazily and expected Lily to do all the hard work.
"Lily, you have to cut those roots," Jessica said unfriendly and pushed the knife at Lily's direction.
"Why can't you do something for a change?" Lily complained but took the knife and the roots however. She was already used to it, if she was going to pass the potions class she had better just keep her mouth shut and do everything that needed to be done. She had never really liked potions classes, but now, because of her new partner she really loathed them. Despite of her having to do all the work she had to put up with Jessica's mean comments.
"Miss Potter?" professor Sweeney asked looking into their cauldron and shook his head. "Tell me, why does your potion look more sickly yellowish, even though it should be the shade of beautiful purple?"
Lily looked at her liquid and noticed for the first time that it really did not look like it should have. Probably she had again been so swept in her own thoughts instead of paying enough attention to what she was doing. Lily had noticed that recently it had been more difficult for her to concentrate on the teaching and her thought were always wondering somewhere else.
"I don't know, why don't you ask her?" Lily said perkily nodding towards Jessica.
"Five points from gryffindor," Sweeny said without hesitation. "You should be careful if you don't want to end up in detention again," Sweeney warned rising his eyebrows meaningfully, before he walked away.
"Idiot," Lily muttered quietly to Sweeney's back. Jessica grinned at Lily spitefully. Lily snorted and turned to look back at their ruined potion trying to save it the best she could.
"I seriously can't stand Sweeney," Lily complained to Kaitlin when they were finally heading out of the dungeons.
"I know," Kaitlin answered. "Just try to ignore him."
"Well it's hard when he's always breathing on your neck and taking points from you without any apparent reason," Lily said.
"Well yeah. But he's always been like that."
When Lily and Kaitlin arrived at the lobby, they saw Erica running towards them. "Quidditch practice," Erica breathed looking stressed out. "Today. After dinner."
"Hey Erica, do you realize that we still have something called homework," Lily pointed out. "Does that ring any bells?"
"Our first game against slytherins are less than a week away," Erica cried out, looking horrified. "Do you want to lose to them?"
"No, I don't," Lily said, remembering the conversation she had had with Scorpius only a while ago. "I really don't."
"Good," Erica said. "Tell Albus, if you see him somewhere, will you?" Erica said, before she flew away again.
During the last classes in the afternoon, the sky was starting threateningly get darker and after dinner, when they were supposed to be going to the quidditch field, it was already raining and the wind was icy.
"I really don't feel like going out there," Kaitlin said shivering as she pointed out of the window.
"Yeah, me either," Lily said as she tried to find her quidditch rope from her trunk.
"Should we hide and tell Erica that we forgot?" Kaitlin suggested.
"No," Lily said shaking her head after a while of considering. "She would kill us. And order ten extra practices."
Kaitlin sighed heavily. "Yeah, probably," she admitted.
"Just come, the faster we go there the faster we're getting out," Lily said grabbing Kaitlin's arm and pulling her out of the room.
The quidditch practice was going worse than usual, everyone was tired and the bad weather was depressing them. However Erica wouldn't give in, but she kept the team there even longer than usually. When they finally finished and went to the changing room everyone was exhausted and in a bad mood.
When Lily and Kaitlin finally got back to their dormitory they didn't even consider doing homework, but just went straight to bed.
So that's why the next morning they had to wake up even earlier than they usually did, to at least finish some homework before breakfast. When they finally went to the Great Hall to eat some breakfast both of them were too tired to actually eat anything.
Lily felt a little better, when she saw Ethan and Rose waking to the Great Hall hand in hand. "Oh!" She sighed. "They're such a cute couple."
Kaitlin gave Lily a weird look and only then Lily remember that she had actually lied to Kaitlin only a while ago that she hadn't got over Ethan yet.
Lily smiled at Kaitlin innocently and shrugged.
Before Kaitlin had time to ask anything, luckily the owls arrived. Lily's parent's owl landed gracefully in Lily's cereal bowl.
"It's okay, I didn't really want to eat them anyway", Lily said to the owl taking the letter from its leg. She opened it and read it through quickly.
Hi Lily,
How are you, darling? Hopefully school and everything else is going well. We are fine, except that your dad has been busy with his job, because they are hiring some new people. By the way have you already heard from the new Defense against the Dark Arts Teacher? I bet you'll like him more than the previous one!
I'm sorry that this is going to be so short, but I really have to hurry to get to work in time.
Say hello to Albus and your cousins. I miss you all already!
Mom (your dad left to work already)
"What does my mom know about the new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher?" Lily frowned showing the letter to Kaitlin.
"I don't know," Kaitlin answered shrugging. "Anyway we're going to find out soon, we have Defense against the Dark Arts next."
"Right," Lily said jumping up and putting the letter in her pocket. "Shall we go?"
"Fine," Kaitlin said. "I can't eat anything anyway."
They found out what Ginny had meant in her letter soon. When they were waiting in front of the Defense against the Dark Arts classroom with other students, they didn't saw Lizzie or McGonagall coming towards them.
Instead they were very surprised to saw Teddy Lupin marching towards them wearing an ordinary muggle clothes: jeans and a white t-shirt and Lily could hear the other girls sighing admiringly behind her back.
"Teddy!" Lily, Kaitlin and Hugo cried out at the exactly same moment.
"What are you doing here?" Hugo asked surprised the same question that Lily had just been thinking.
"I'm your new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher," Teddy Grinned.
"What?" Lily bursted into laughter. "You?"
"Yes," Teddy said laughing too. "Don't look so surprised, I'm completely qualified to be your teacher."
Lily raised one of her eyebrows.
"Well fine, not practically qualified but you know what I mean," Teddy said shrugging as he opened the classroom door and letting his new students inside.
"Well at least you're better than our last teacher," Kaitlin pointed out rolling her eyes, as she stepped inside the classroom.
"Are you teaching us just temporarily or has she really quit?" Lily asked.
"Lizzie decided that teaching was really not her thing," Teddy said smiling.
Lily and Kaitlin grinned at each other triumphantly before they went to their seats at the right side of the classroom.
"So hi everyone," Teddy started when everyone had finally seated. "I am Teddy Lupin, your new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher." Teddy gave the class a happy smile and ruffled his hair, which made the girl group sitting at the back of the class giggle loudly.
Lily rolled her eyes and turned to look back at Teddy.
Teddy called their names to check everyone was there and then took a stack of parchment from his desk.
"I'm sorry but I think this first class is going to be quite boring," Teddy said. "But I have to find out what you already know, so first I ask you all to fill in this test. But don't worry; you don't have to put your names in this one."
Teddy gave everyone a piece of parchment and soon the whole class was quiet except the sound of pen scratching against the parchment.
After the class had ended and everyone else was gone Lily and Kaitlin stayed to talk with Teddy for a while.
"So you're teaching us from now on?" Lily asked from Teddy.
"Well we decided with the headmaster that I'll teach you at least this year," Teddy told them. "We'll see what happens after that."
"That's great," Kaitlin grinned. "No one would have put up with Lizzie much longer."
"That's true," Lily nodded. "But now we have to go if we don't want to be late for Care for Magical Creatures. See you later."
"See you," Teddy called after them when Lily and Kaitlin were already running out of the class room.
They half walked half ran along Hogwarts' corridors after they realized that they were once again going to be late. Kaitlin turned from one corner to the next hallway and Lily was just going after her, when suddenly someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the other side of the corner.
Lily turned around, ready to jerk her arm away and saw Scorpius holding firmly her wrist.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Lily snapped and tried to pull her arm away from his hold, but soon she noticed that Scorpius was much more powerful than she.
"We need to talk," Scorpius said.
"And you think now's the time?" Lily asked sarcastically, looking around them to make sure that no one saw them. "If you haven't noticed, at least I am already late for class."
"Okay, come meet me today, after dinner, in front of the Room of Requirement," Scorpius asked.
"I have quidditch practice," Lily said.
"Please, Lily," Scorpius said and the look in his ice blue eyes was pleading. "You can surely miss one practice, can't you?"
"I'll try," Lily said shrugging. Then she threw a meaningful look at her hand, which Scorpius was still holding.
"Oh, sorry," Scorpius said and let go quickly.
"But don't expect too much," Lily said before she turned around and started running again, to catch Kaitlin. But even though she wanted to sound reluctant, she had already made the decision the same moment Scorpius had asked. Of course she would be there, she was far too curious to hear what Scorpius wanted to say. And she had to admit it; I small – fine maybe not that small – part of her wanted to see Scorpius again.
She had started to enjoy Scorpius' company far too much.
"Where did you disappear?" Kaitlin asked when Lily caught up with her.
"Nowhere," she said breathing heavily from the run. "I was right behind you."
Kaitlin rolled her eyes. "Even I am not that stupid," she muttered but Lily acted like she hadn't heard anything.
The rest of the day Lily worried about meeting Scorpius. She couldn't stop thinking what Scorpius wanted to say to her. And she was scared that Scorpius would kiss her again but at the same time she felt like she didn't want anything more than that.
The dinner Lily spent thinking how she would sneak out of the quidditch practice.
"What's wrong with you?" Kaitlin asked when they were walking from the Great Hall towards the Gryffindor tower. "You're more quiet that usual."
"I'm just not feeling very well," Lily said quietly. "I think I should skip today's practice."
Kaitlin nodded, without arguing, so Lily thought that she really did looked a bit sick. "I'll tell Erica," Kaitlin promised.
"Thanks," Lily said and threw herself on her bed when Kaitlin took her broomstick under her bed.
"Maybe you should go to the hospital wing," Kaitlin said looking worried.
"No, I don't think that this is anything," Lily said shaking her head. "I'll just try to rest; I'll go there later if I need to."
"Okay," Kaitlin said. "Hope you'll be better soon.
"Yeah, have fun," Lily said smiling.
"Yeah, very much fun, I think it just started raining again," Kaitlin sighed before she left the room leaving Lily alone.
Lily felt guilty about lying to Kaitlin, but well, there wasn't much she could do about it. She waited for a while, to make sure that Kaitlin was really gone, before she got off of the bed and left towards the Room of Requirement.
When she arrived to the seventh floor's hallway, where the door to the Room of Requirement was, Lily felt more than a little nervous. Maybe she should have just ignored Scorpius' suggestion and go to the quidditch practice. But of course she wouldn't have done it.
Lily noticed that Scorpius was already waiting for her. Somehow Scorpius looked a little nervous himself and Lily couldn't help but wonder why. Usually Scorpius felt so arrogant, so sure of himself. Scorpius raised his eyes from his shoes when Lily walked towards him. Then, slowly a happy smile appeared on his face. "You came."
Lily shrugged and even thought she tried to resist Scorpius' smile all she could she realized that she was smiling back to him.
Scorpius started walking in front of the wall that would lead to the Room of Requirement and Lily wondered what kind of room it would be when they stepped in.
Finally Scorpius stopped and they saw a door in the wall. Scorpius opened it and Lily stepped inside after him. The room wasn't big but not too small either. Three walls were full of book selves that reached to the roof and the fourth wall had a fireplace that was already lighted with a warm fire. There were also two huge armchairs in front of the fireplace.
Lily nodded approvingly. In fact the room looked pretty comfortable, but somehow Lily still felt herself a bit uneasy. Maybe it was because of Scorpius, and the fact that they were alone in this room with a locked door. This was somehow more intimate than their previous meetings. And at the same time Lily felt like it was wrong to be here. She shouldn't have done this, she shouldn't have been here with Scorpius.
Lily pushed those thoughts aside irritated of herself. She decided for once not think of everyone else's opinions at the same time than her own. And for a once thing about Scorpius only as Scorpius and not as a slytherin
"What did you want to talk about?" Lily asked hoping that she didn't sound rude.
Scorpius turned around grabbed both of Lily's hands and stared her strait in the eyes.
Lily felt her heart skip a few beats when she felt Scorpius' cold hands in her hands.
"Lily I – " Scorpius started but then didn't seem to know how to go on.
"Yes?" Lily asked.
"I don't know how to say this to you," Scorpius said slowly, thoughtfully, like he was talking to himself.
"Say what to me?"
"Maybe I should just be honest with you," he decided then.
Lily nodded. Honest sounded good.
"Lily, I like you," Scorpius said then. Suddenly Lily noticed that it was getting harder and harder to breath. Scorpius liked her. Did he mean that she liked her like that? Or did he mean that he liked her but not like that? Lily tried to keep the disturbing thoughts out of her mind and concentrate on Scorpius' words.
"I really like you and not just like friends," Scorpius said. "But still, I'm not sure this would turn out into anything good."
Scorpius stopped to wait that Lily would say something, but Lily couldn't make up any sensible sentence in her head. "Lily?" Scorpius asked.
"I – don't know what to say," Lily answered.
"Maybe this is a bad idea," Scorpius said and at least in Lily's ears the words sounded a little like a question. "I'm sure it wouldn't work out at all. I mean when you're a gryffindor and I'm a slytherin and when our parents… maybe we just live in too different worlds," Scorpius let go of Lily's hands and for once he looked like he didn't know what to do any more than Lily did.
Lily felt like Scorpius was drifting away from her. And she didn't know why the idea felt so painful. "No," Lily said. "Don't."
Scorpius raised her eyes to Lily's face.
"It's not about gryffindors or slytherins. And it's not about our parents. It's about us two, right?" Lily asked.
Scorpius nodded.
"Maybe it would work out all right?" Lily said thoughtfully.
"Would it?" Scorpius asked.
"Maybe."
"But are you willing to try?" Scorpius asked in a quiet voice, almost like he was whispering.
Lily looked at Scorpius' face, their serious look was like copy of her own. Their bodies were so close to each other and Lily wanted so badly to kiss Scorpius again and wrap her fingers around his blonde hair. Lily would have wanted to feel how his hands felt around her again, so badly that it felt almost like a physical need. Lily knew that she had to say yes. There wasn't any other choice, she didn't know if there had ever been any other choice.
But she didn't say anything, she just pressed her lips against Scorpius' lips and run her fingers through his hair like they belonged together. She hadn't really planned to do so, she had acted purely on instincts and maybe that was why it felt so natural.
Scorpius wrapped his arms against Lily's waist and pulled her so close to himself. He pressed his mouth even harder against Lily's and it felt like it fit there just perfectly.
This time the kiss was much longer than the first time. Lily could feel it in her stomach and in her toes. Finally Scorpius pulled himself a little away from Lily and took her hands away from her waist. Lily was still breathing heavily and her heart was beating so fast that she was sure that even Scorpius could hear it.
"I take that as a positive answer?" Scorpius asked his other brow a little up.
Lily could feel a smile dancing on her lips. "I just think we should take it slow," Lily was still scared and confused, even though she felt a little better than before. She still felt like she was on a unfamiliar ground.
Scorpius nodded, smiled a little and Lily could sense the words he didn't say aloud. Like it wouldn't have been Lily who had kissed him at the first place.
Scorpius grabbed Lily's waist again but lighter this time. Suddenly his expression was serious again. "Lily, I still don't know if this is going to work out. I can't promise that this will end up well."
"I'll take that risk," Lily said even though she still felt the butterflies in her stomach. She didn't know any better if this would end up well, she didn't know at all.
But still it was true; she was willing to take that risk.
"I think I should go," Lily said. She had had a lot to think about and it was good to be alone right now, even though a part of her wouldn't have wanted to leave Scorpius.
Scorpius didn't seem to be ready to let go of her just yet. "Why?"
"The quidditch practice will end up soon. Kaitlin will wonder where I am if I'm not in the dormitory when she gets back," Lily explained.
"Well I guess so," Scorpius admitted with a sigh.
Lily smiled and let go of Scorpius to go to the door.
"Will you meet me tomorrow?" Scorpius asked Lily.
"Tomorrow I think I have to go to the practice," Lily said. "And I should do homework too at some point."
Scorpius nodded but Lily could see that he was disappointed.
"But Friday?" Lily asked.
"Same place, same time?" Scorpius asked grinning his little crooked smile that Lily liked so much.
Lily nodded and turned around to go to the door.
However Scorpius grabbed her ark and turned her around to face him.
"Good night, Lily," Scorpius said and kissed Lily once again, quickly, sweetly, before he let go.
"Good night, Scorpius," Lily answered before she left.
