Girl Talk And Guy Thoughts

Within the first to weeks of graduating, Lily had found a small, two bedroom apartment in the Muggle part of London, while James, Sirius, and Remus had found an apartment in Hogsmeade. If truth be told, James was over at Lily's more than he was his own apartment. The guys had planned on Peter moving in as well, but Mrs. Pettigrew would hear nothing of it. She kept ranting on about how she needed Peter at home with her and that he was still to young and irresponsible to live on his own anyway. Peter had told his mother that he wouldn't be on his own, but with James, Sirius, and Remus, but that didn't help any. Elizabeth and Dorcas had an apartment just a floor above Lily's. The three girls had all offered Alice a room in their apartment, but Alice said that she didn't need it, though she never said why.

But a few days later, Lily found out why.

Lily walked into her kitchen one morning and started to make a pot of coffee. She especially needed the caffeine kick this morning: she and James had been up very late the previous night. She sat down at her table with a fresh cup of coffee and started to shift through the mail when James came out of her bedroom rubbing his hands over his eyes, trying to wake up.

Lily smiled to herself; James looked as tired as she felt. "Good morning" she said in a bright voice.

"How can you be so awake?" he asked, helping himself to a cup of coffee.

"I'm not," she replied. "I'm as tired as you are, but I have to go to work in" she glanced at her clock on the counter, "half an hour, so I have to force myself to be awake."

"You don't fool me; you love working in that book store"

Lily smiled mischievously at James before taking another sip of her coffee. He was right; she loved her job at Flourish and Blotts. Lily's mother had offered to pay the rent for her apartment until she started to make a steady income as a Healer, but Lily refused.

"Speaking of jobs," said Lily, "How's your training going?"

James, along with Sirius and Alice, had started their Auror training a few weeks ago. As today was Saturday, their training was finished for the week.

"It's moving a lot faster than I thought it would" said James thoughtfully. "Since last year, they've changed the program to taking two years to a year."

"And whose genius idea was that?" Lily asked sarcastically.

"Crouch, he thinks that the more Aurors there are, the better chance there is to stop Voldemort. And there are rumors going around that he's gonna give Aurors the power to use the Unforgivable Curses on Death Eaters."

Lily shook her head silently. From what she had heard of this Crouch fellow, he would do anything to stop Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Lily would have done anything to stop the war too, but she could never kill anyone. But then again, Crouch doesn't have to do it, Lily thought bitterly. He'll make people like James and Sirius and Alice do it for him.

Dragging herself out of her depressing thoughts, Lily looked at her clock.

"Damn, I need to go" said Lily, standing up and drinking the rest of her coffee.

James turned to look at the clock as well. "Same here" he said as he stood up to go. He walked over to Lily and wrapped his arms around her. "I'll see you tonight?" he asked in a lower tone than usual.

Lily smiled up at James. "Yeah. I'll come over after I get off work."

He tilted her chin upward and kissed her softly. "I know what your trying to do, James" Lily said, just slightly above a whisper. "I really need to get to work."

"Fine" said James, throwing his hands in the air, yet not moving away.

Lily stood on her toes and kiss James again.

"I'll see you tonight" said James.

"See you tonight" she replied, smiling.

000

Lily walked out of the storage room at Flourish and Blotts with a stack of books so high that she could barely see over them. She set them down on a small table and began to put them on their appropriate shelves. Suddenly, she heard someone call to her from behind.

"Lily!" the girl yelled.

Lily whipped around. She saw Alice, smiling widely.

"You nearly gave me a stroke!" said Lily, but hugged her friend regardless.

Once they broke apart, Alice looked into Lily's eyes. "Are you okay? You look pretty tired."

Lily couldn't help but smile. "I'm fine Alice, I just didn't sleep much last night."

"Oh, I see" said Alice, grinning. "And what time did James leave?"

"About seven," Lily replied, trying, and failing, to sound and look innocent. But when Alice raised her eyebrows at her, Lily continued, "this morning."

Both of the girls laughed. Alice, regaining some of her composure, asked Lily, in a tone of mock seriousness, "And what time did you go to bed?"

"Going to bed and actually falling asleep are two very different things, Alice"

At Lily's last remark, the girls took one look at each other and laughed until they had tears in their eyes.

"So did you really come here to harass me about my lack of sleep?" Lily asked once she had stopped laughing.

"Actually, I did need to talk you about something," said Alice, suddenly serious. "When do you go on your lunch break?"

Lily glanced at her watch. "I can go now, actually. Just let me tell my boss and get my purse." She walked into the back store room, grabbed her purse, and told her boss that she was going on her lunch break. She met Alice at the front of the store, then they both walked out of bookstore and into the bright sunshine of Diagon Alley.

"Where d'you want to eat?" asked Lily, once they were in the crowded street.

"Let's go to Florean Fortescue's for some ice cream" said Alice excitedly.

"Ooo, that sounds great!"

The girls made their way down to the ice cream parlor, ordered two large hot fudge sundaes, and sat down at an umbrella-shaded table just outside the parlor.

"So are you going to tell me what this is all about?" asked Lily after a few minutes.

"I was wondering what you are doing next Friday at around four o'clock"

Lily thought to herself. "Well, next Saturday is my birthday, so...nothing. Why?"

Alice's face instantly lit up. "Frank and I are getting married" she said simply.

Lily's jaw dropped. "What?"

Alice beamed even more. "Yeah, its gonna be pretty small, just family and close friends...But I wanted to ask you something else..."

"Go ahead"

"Well," Alice looked suddenly nervous, "it's just that, well Lil, we've been friends for a long time, and, I was wondering...Would you be my maid of honor?"

Now it was Lily's turn to smile. "Absolutely, Alice!"

"Good, I asked Dorcas and Elizabeth to be my other bride's maids last night, and I would have asked you last night, but I knew that James was over and I know that I hate to be interrupted when Frank is over."

"Wait a minute...when were you ever interrupted?" asked Lily, grinning slyly.

Alice blushed slightly. "We were at Frank's apartment last week, messing around, when his mother decides to pay a surprise visit"

Lily cringed. "Yeah that sucks. That kinda happened to me and James when we were suppose to be packing so I could move."

They spent the rest of Lily's lunch break talking about some of their other "close calls".

000

During the next few days, the four girls picked out the bride's maid's dresses (knee-length, soft blue dresses) as well as Alice's dress. Since she was having a fairly small wedding, she had decided on a long, a-line gown that was plain, but beautiful none the less.

Lily, James, and Sirius were sitting in the guy's apartment discussing Alice and Frank's wedding when Sirius brought up the fact that Remus and Elizabeth were going to go together.

"No shit" said Lily when Sirius told her this startling piece of gossip.

"No shit" repeated Sirius.

"And when was I when this happened?" asked James, acting like he was offended.

"Probably with Lily" said Sirius, soon after receiving a smack in the back of the head from his best friend while Lily laughed at the pair of them.

"But you know what that means, don't you?" Lily asked James and Sirius.

"No, what?" asked Sirius.

"Well, your not going with anyone, are you Sirius?"

"No" he said slowly.

Lily grinned at him. "Well, since Elizabeth and Dorcas are bride's maids, and I'm the maid of honor, that means that you, James, Remus, Peter and Josefine will be sitting together during the ceremony"

James and Sirius both glared at Lily for mentioning that.

"Oh, c'mon guys, what's so bad about her? What has she ever done to you?" she asked, sounding exasperated.

"Nothing" both James and Sirius replied quietly, not looking at Lily.

"Then why don't you like her?"

James and Sirius traded a knowing look before James said, "It's just that...there's something odd about her..."

"Exactly, something odd" said Sirius backing up his friend.

Lily rolled her eyes at the both of them, not pressing the matter anymore, knowing that they were equally stubborn.

000

Alice and Frank's wedding, while small, was still beautiful and, in Lily's opinion, very intimate. She could tell just from the how Alice and Frank said their vows, that their was no doubt that they would be happy together for a long time. But Lily, standing so close to the glowing-with-happiness Alice, couldn't help but think of her own happiness; her own wedding. She thought of little things, like, maybe I would invite more people or maybe I could have slightly different vows.

What am I doing? Lily asked herself, pulling out of her thoughts. Why am I thinking about my wedding? James and I aren't even engaged yet and I'm thinking about our wedding. Besides, James won't to get married yet, and, his is only eighteen, and I'm nearly eighteen, we still have plenty of time.

But she knew that she was wrong: they didn't have plenty of time. With Voldemort's power growing everyday, they had to live everyday as though it was their last, because one day, it would be. And being members of the Order of the Phoenix put their lives in even more danger. Lily and James, along with their other friends, had attended six Order meetings since they had left Hogwarts, and each one just made it more clear that they one thing that they didn't have a lot of was time.

Little did she know that James was thinking along the same lines.

000

By eleven o'clock that night, Lily, James, Sirius, Dorcas, Peter and Josefine were all sitting around a large, round table at Alice and Frank's reception, with entirely too much to drink. They were all giggling at really dumb things, like how Peter was starting to slurring his words together. Well, most of them wee anyway. Josefine was sitting in between Peter and Lily, politely smiling at everyone, hadn't had a single drink all night. And it wasn't as though Lily thought her uncool to not be drinking, (far from it, in fact) but she never seemed like she ever had a good time while she was with them.

Suddenly, Josefine stood up, rubbing her left forearm. "Well, it's getting rather late, so I should get going." she said, sounding slightly nervous. No one protested, but they all said goodbye, and Peter stood up, nearly falling over, and walked Josefine out of the hall.

When Peter was seated once more, Sirius looked around the table and asked, "Where did Remus and Elizabeth get to?"

Lily looked around. "There they are," she said, "they're dancing."

They all watched Remus and Elizabeth dance; they looked so happy together. And then something happened that none of them had expected: Remus kissed Elizabeth.

Lily felt her eyes widen and her jaw drop. But she couldn't help but smile; Remus had been though so much in his life, maybe now he could be happy. Remus and Elizabeth had stopped dancing by now; they were just standing there, gazing into each other's eyes. Then, they made their way to the door, holding each other's hands.

Remus and Elizabeth came back sometime around midnight. They sat down at the table with their friends, smiling.

And without missing a beat, Sirius looked at Remus and Elizabeth and said, "So are you guys together, er what?"

Remus and Elizabeth looked at one another before Remus said, "Yes, we are."