Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

This chapter is going to be shorter, but another one is coming quickly after. I just wanted this to be singled out and not mixed in with everyone else's drama.

Thanks so much reading and let me know what you guys are thinking with a review!

Chapter 10

LILY

"Hey!" Lily heard someone shouting for her as she made her way to her bedroom. She knew without looking that it was James, both because she could easily recognize his voice and because he was the only male who would follow her into the Head's Common Room. Lily stopped walking and spun around to see him.

"Um, hey," she started, "what's going on?"

"Oh, well, you know," James gave her a rather nonchalant answer.

"Did you need something?" Lily wasn't really sure where this conversation was going. It seemed to Lily that James could go in either direction, he was either a complete jerk or he was able to demonstrate consideration and level headedness.

"Nah, just wanted to see how you're doing. I haven't spoken to you almost all week."

"Oh, well its only Wednesday," Lily pointed out.

"Well, what are you up to tonight?" James asked her.

'Oh, great. This again.' Lily found herself in an annoyance.

James had spent the better part of their fourth and fifth year constantly badgering Lily for a date, to the point where Lily truly began to despise him. Lily could never make sense of the possible thought process that could have been going through his head at the time. It was clear to her that he was just doing it for the humorous effect to entertain his friends and their peers at Lily's expense. At the worst of it, Lily dreaded leaving her room, even go to the common room, because she knew that James would make her the center of an unwanted spectacle. Recently, James had stopped with the persistent asking, but he still gave her too much unwanted attention, she had hoped that he was past his phase of asking her out for humor, but it sounded like he was going to do it again.

"I'm pretty busy with school work," Lily immediately told him. Lily feared that as soon as he asked her out once, it would never stop.

"I can help."

"I'm doing fine in my classes, I don't need help."

"That's not what I was insinuating."

"I'm sure it wasn't," Lily sarcastically responding while crossing her arms.

The conversation had taken a turn for the worse. Lily was annoyed and a little let down. She had thought James' behavior on Sunday might have been indicative of James growing up, but instead they were bickering like they always had.

James exhaled and appeared to be thinking.

"Look, I just," he started, "I don't know."

Lily looked at James, he looked defeated. Lily didn't recognize the person standing in front of her. 'Potter? At a loss for words? He must be ill, this is the strangest I've ever seen him behave,' Lily thought to herself.

"Um, are you alright?" Lily asked, "You seem ... a little off."

"I'm fine, let's get dinner," James had appeared to suddenly shake off whatever fit of unusualness that he had been hit with as he smiled at her and asked her to dinner.

"I have homework," Lily reminded him.

"You have plenty of time. Let's go," James said to her and he locked his arm in hers and gently swung her around to leave their common room.

"What?" Lily let herself laugh at his boldness. Something felt weird inside of Lily as she giggled at James' antics. It was against everything she had stood for during their entire school career. She hated him, his arrogance was annoying not charming. But she didn't find herself protesting. She gave into his dinner request and she had an unfamiliar feeling of happiness. It wasn't like the joy she got from giggling with her girlfriends, it was a warm happiness that someone who was outside of her usual, close knit world had a desire to be around her and she felt wanted. It had been a long time since Lily had felt that with a boy. She tried to keep Andrew out her mind, but she could feel herself slip and compare Andrew with James. She didn't know why she suddenly was putting James on another level, but it felt right to her.

The pair walked rather loudly to the Great Hall to grab food. Notice was taken by fellow students in their year, their peers had grown accustomed to Lily and James' loud fights or huge displays. Lily ignored the looks that she received from the girls she knew who loved to gossip. She and James were friends. New friends. But just friends.

When they sat at the Gryffindor table, they sat across from each other.

"So, what's new?" James asked her as they ate.

"Since you asked me about ten minutes ago?" Lily teased, "not too much. You?"

"Eh, same here," James responded, but then his eyes lit up, "I got Henry on board with the Quidditch game in the morning before the formal."

"Oh great!" Lily was impressed at how quickly James had acted on his word, "Any luck with the others?"

"Well, I'm not looking forward to it, honestly," James told her, "but I'm working on it."

"At least we could have a Gryffindor and Hufflepuff match, even if the other two decide not to comply," Lily pointed out.

"But where's the fun in that?" James joked.

"Oh, because Gryffindor would automatically win?" Lily asked.

"Where's your team spirit? Of course we'd win that!" James was almost shouting, but it was a positive shout.

"My team spirit? I'm not on the team," Lily pointed out to him.

"Oh yes you are, you were on the team from the second that hat put you into this house!" James informed her. Lily burst into laughter at James' ridiculousness.

"You are really into the whole 'house pride' thing, aren't you?"

"You should be too Miss Head Girl," he teased her.

"Sorry, I think you'll be disappointed to know that my level of enthusiasm for sports and teams and decorating my face with ridiculous colors is rather low."

"That's a shame, you should lose your badge over that," James told her.

"Well, you'll have to bring that up with Dumbledore," she let him know. She was feeling truly entertained by him, she couldn't take the smile off her face if she tried. However, she didn't have to. As she laughed with James at their table, she couldn't help notice when she looked up that Andrew was walking through the doors with Adrienne attached to him. Her heart felt strange as the smile disappeared from her face.

"You okay?" James asked, obviously noticing the sudden change in her attitude.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Lily was fine. She wasn't upset to see Andrew, she was over it. It was just unsettling to see the guy she thought she loved a few weeks ago so close with another girl so soon. It was almost a let down to Lily, but she was hardly about to cry.

James turned around to see what Lily had noticed that made her change.

"Oh, sorry about that," he said as he realized what had happened.

"Don't be sorry," she told him, "I'm fine and its good that we're over. He's a lot worse of a person than I thought he was."

"Yeah, I did try to tell you," James muttered.

"Well, you weren't really in a position to tell me who I should and should not date."

"Am I now?" James was pushing her with this question.

"Well there's no one for you to give an opinion on, so you don't have to worry about it."

"No one?" he asked, "no one at all?"

"Nope."

"Are you sure? Not even a well built Quidditch captain, with the face of an angel and personality of a god?"

"That cannot be what you honestly think of yourself."

"You think of me when you hear those words together? How flattering!" James joked.

"Oh, ha ha," Lily dryly returned.

"So, what did happen with Maldhorn?"

"I really don't wanna talk about it."

"Alright, sorry."

"Its fine."

Later that night, as Lily lay down in bed, she processed the events of the evening. After their encounter on Sunday, she had been warming up to James as a person. But she had actually enjoyed herself with him tonight.

'I have no idea what's going on in my head anymore.' Lily thought to herself. 'Could my entire outlook on a person that I hated for so long change in such a short time? Am I missing something?' Then her heart sank a little, 'Am I walking into something? Is this a joke? Oh, no, please don't let this be a joke. No. I need to stop. Just because Andrew was a jerk and inconsiderate to my feelings doesn't mean every guy is.' Lily told herself.

'But Potter is inconsiderate to my feelings. He always has been. No,wait, his name is James. No, he's Potter. No, its James.' Lily tossed in her bed, she was giving herself a headache.

'Okay Lily,' she told herself, 'its Potter, people don't change in a matter of days. He never cared how miserable he made you when he was making you into a public display of humiliation' she reminded herself. Then her heart sank a little lower.

'Oh, no. I'm just one of his "girls." Those stupid bimbos who laugh at everything he says and hangs on his every word and does whatever he says because he's so handsome.' Lily felt degraded. How had she fallen into that trap? Of course she was just another easy girl to him. 'And I was so easy' Lily felt ashamed, 'It took him how long? Four days for him to get inside of head? I'm pathetic,' Lily told herself as she tossed again in her bed.

'Or am I just delusional because of Andrew? Is my trust ruined?' Lily couldn't take it anymore, she was making herself insane.

She tried to remember the exact feelings that she had when she returned from dinner with James. Lily wanted to harvest those feelings. Overly developed or not, Lily wanted to fall asleep surrounded by the warm feeling of happiness that James had given her.

So that's the chapter, its the shortest one so far, but, like I said, I wanted Lily to have her own one this time. Next chapter is about the boys and it will be up soon! I promise.

Reviews? Yes? Please?