A/N: Chapter ten! Eleven and twelve are almost done. They're titled Ebullient and Tallulah; take that however you'd like :)

You guys are awesome. I have no more words.

As always,
Mina :)

TEN: LATECOMER

Dorcas rang earlier this morning as I was slamming around the kitchen, looking for the coffee machine. She picked up the panic in my voice immediately, though I thought I had successfully buried it somewhere in my own denial, and questioned me with a frank, "What's happened now?"

"You know," I said, hopping up onto the kitchen counter next to the dreadfully slow, percolating coffee machine. "You could've answered your phone yesterday, when I needed you."

"Sorry," she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster. Which wasn't a lot. "I wasn't home. I'm actually at Siobhan's."

I frowned. "What're you doing at Shiv's?"

"She needed someone to talk to." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "She's taking this thing with Mel harder than I thought she was."

"It's a good thing Sirius beat the tar out of him," I said, absentmindedly twisting the telephone cord around my ankle.

"Yeah – what?"

"Yeah. Surprise. Sirius showed up at my doorstep yesterday. He'd been to the pub," I began. I'd been ready to demean him for a good five minutes as habit called for, but the way he had talked to me yesterday, as if we weren't just bickering teenagers who only pretended to get along because we shared a house and some mutual friends and maybe a few things in common – maybe that made us friends. "Seems he needed someone, too."

Dorcas paused. "He was drunk? That makes sense."

I didn't know how much I wanted to share – how much I wanted to give away about how Sirius Black and I might be friends, or something like it – so I just shrugged and made a noncommittal "hmm" into the phone. She'd know how to take it.

"That's not it, is it?"

"No. Um. There's something else?"

"…Yeah?"

"Something else that I, uh, don't know what to do with," I said, twirling the curly telephone cord restlessly between my fingers. "It's a letter. Or the end of a letter. The beginning was okay until he started getting into the date thing – "

I knew I wouldn't get away with rushing through the explanation. Dorcas made a tiny gasp; I could see her wherever she was in Shiv's flat, holding up her palm: Wait.

"Date? Did he ask you out?"

"Kind of?" I hedged.

"'Kind of,'" she mumbled under her breath. "There is no 'kind of,' Lily. It's a date or it's not."

"DATE?"

I dropped the cord and ground the heel of my palm into my forehead. "Please tell me I am just imagining Siobhan's voice right now. It would be the best thing for my sanity, Dorcas. Lie to me, if you have to. Is Siobhan there?"

"Uh, no?"

"Lily's going on a date? With who? With James? Did he ask her? Or did she ask him? Because that would be so much – "

Dorcas' sigh was loud enough to cover most of Siobhan's garbled voice in the background. "Listen, I'm staying the night here – why don't you come over and we can talk about this? Shiv – "

There was a scuffle on the other end of the line before a shout and the sound of the receiver sliding across the floor. I leaned back against the kitchen cabinets and knew I'd just lost Dorcas.

"Lily, you're coming over," Siobhan commanded, slightly breathless. "Bring a bag and your toothbrush and whatever else you need because I don't have any extra shit for both you and Dork. And bring some ice cream. And alcohol. And if you could drop by the market and grab some marmalade and a bag of pretzels and maybe – "

I hung up the receiver. It rested with a satisfying click!

-QS-

The band was called The Chafed Witch Paraplegic and on the other side of the door, I was sure Siobhan was head banging with enough force to knock herself out. She'd played this very song ("Shut Up And Die Already, Nicholas Flamel") on repeat for days on end in our dorm for two weeks straight this past April, when they'd first made their big break, and I noted with a sigh that I'd begun humming along with the chorus since stepping out of the stairwell.

But it was better than the entire Abba album that Petunia had been playing on repeat since… forever. I hefted my duffle bag over my shoulder and thanked God and Merlin both that Mum had graciously allowed me to escape my sister's ever-growing wedding obsession and the prison that had become my bedroom to come visit Siobhan's London flat. It was a necessary meeting, I had told her. And it was. I should've been able to figure this James thing out by myself, but I kept getting stuck on one phrase: I need more time.

It was a cop-out, a time-waster, an absolute lie. But I didn't know what else was holding me back.

So it was with mixed feelings that I stood in front of Siobhan's front door. It was intimidating. The apartment building itself had seemed innocuous enough when I had finally found it on Levy Street, but now that I was looking at it… It wasn't just the peeling gray paint of the door or the rusty peephole or the crooked 4C that looked like it had been chewed on – though they were certainly alarming in their own rights – but the two deadbolts and large, dented door handle were enough to make me wonder what type of neighbors she had to put up with if this much protection was needed.

I raised my hand to knock, really, really trying not to cringe at the thought of what I'd find behind the door (Dorcas would've warned me, right?), when it whisked open and the overpowering smell of incense floated along on a mish-mashed chorus of guitars and drums and screaming and smashed me full in the face. Welcome to your home for the next two days!

My lungs panicked and I had to take a step back. "God, Shiv, what – "

"Ginger incense." She grinned up at me, the kohl around her brown eyes smudging in the corners. "Like it?"

It wouldn't be worth it to lie. "No," I said, and pushed past her, dropping my bag in the entryway. My wand was in my hand the next second, first turning down the screaming Wireless and then clearing away the odor and the stick of incense burning in the corner of the small living room.

"Have I told you to make yourself at home?" she snapped, grabbing for my wand.

I held it high over my head, grinning at the dark look on her face. Siobhan was a tiny, tiny creature, but she fought nasty when people used her height against her. She fought nasty anyway, actually, which is probably one of the reasons we were friends in the first place. We hadn't liked one another at first – none of the Gryffindor girls did, really, as she had complained for much of the first year that she was truly a Slytherin – but in third year things had changed.

She had gotten into an argument with a fifth year Slytherin girl about some inane thing that I can't remember anymore, but seemed momentous at the time; later, in the hospital wing, I brought her some chocolate frogs and her homework and, because she was bed-ridden and therefore less likely to injure me, I told her that next time she oughtn't run her big mouth. She stared at me hard for a few moments, then handed me a chocolate frog and said, "You're helping me with this homework." And it's been a mutual, loving, caring relationship ever since.

"Lily, you bitch, give me that damn wand before I knee you in the crotch!"

"Watch your mouth, Siobhan Rinelle Delaney!" Dorcas crowed from another room.

I laughed. The only reason I was able to hold that wand over my head for more than five seconds was the case of butterbeer sitting next to my duffel bag. I knew she had wanted some kind of strong liquor, but there was no way I was going to go buy Firewhiskey when I knew she'd just get pissed and pass out at the end of the night.

"Can you please not light any more incense?" I asked.

She glowered at me before letting her feet remain firmly on the ground. "Put your stuff in your room," she growled before stalking off, her too-long jeans dragging on the hardwood floors.

Smiling, I looked around first. I had seen it in pictures, of course, but then it had been one of those if I could have any flat, anywhere… dreams. From the outside, I couldn't have imagined this being anybody's idea of the Ultimate Dream Home, but now that I was inside, safely bolted in, I could see how it had charmed Siobhan from the start.

It was small and colorful and decorated with posters and flowers and paintings and an intricate Persian rug on the light wooden floor; the walls were painted a deep, blood-warming crimson, something that could only be described as Gryffindor – something she'd probably chalk up to needing familiarity than actual, hidden affection for her own house; the furniture was mismatched and looked dangerously comfortable; the single window in the living room was large and, when the sun came out, I could tell it would light the whole room up; the tiny kitchen was separated from the living room by a small bar, and Siobhan had already hung pictures on the refrigerator. I laughed when I started looking at them all.

"Well?"

Siobhan, biting her lip and dancing from one foot to another in the hall, had snuck back in. I grinned, so oddly pleased to see that she was actually nervous – unshakeable Siobhan, nervous! – that we would like her flat, and pulled her into a rare hug.

"It's lovely. I'm glad your parents agreed to this," I said, her ever-shocking blonde hair in my face. "Though why they'd let you live by yourself is puzzling."

She pushed me away. "Why are you here again?"

Dorcas finally emerged from wherever she'd been hiding. "Sorry, I was working on something. So, what do you think?"

"I think I'm hungry. What do you have to eat?" I asked, opening cabinets in search of something edible.

Siobhan hopped up onto a counter and poked a toe into my rear end. "Do you really think you should be eating, fat ass? I noticed you didn't bring anything but butterbeer."

I gasped. "You're horrible! I'm not fat. I'm just not all muscle like Dorcas or scrawny skin and bone like you."

"It's, what, three in the afternoon? Too early for dinner, too late for lunch," Dorcas said, watching with an amused smile as I tried to stare at my backside in the reflection of the oven door. "Lily, you're fine. We can find something to make here."

The counter was cold against my legs as I perched next to Siobhan, watching Dorcas shuffle through the refrigerator.

"Tell me about this date, fatty," she said, nudging me with her shoulder. "I'm intrigued."

The delight in her eyes was nothing close to intrigued – elated, delighted, more like. Definitely more involved than a third person should be. I sighed before pulling a piece of parchment out of my back pocket and shoving it into her hands. That would be easier than trying to explain everything.

It was quiet for a moment while she read; Dorcas, having abandoned her search, peered over her arm. I read along with them in my mind and tried to prepare myself for their reactions, whatever they'd be.

Siobhan was done first, of course, while Dorcas took the note from her hands and read it again, slower, a second time.

Date.

Siobhan grinned at me. "I think you should go."

"I don't – I can't. I don't even know when it is – "

"Week after July fourth."

" – and I don't have anything to wear – "

"We'll take you to get fitted for dress robes. Honestly, like we wouldn't take care of you. We wereinvited too."

" – and I don't think it's time yet, at all. It's completely the wrong time for this – "

"It's been two weeks since you knew you fancied him, Lily," Dorcas cut in, squeezing my knee. Even when I was sitting on the counter I still wasn't as tall as she was, and I leaned forward and put my head on her shoulder.

It hit me, then, how similar this situation was to two weeks ago, when we had been sitting in my kitchen at home in the early hours of the morning. That time, I had been trying to deal with the fact that I fancied him, more than I should; that time, I had been trying to just figure out this new gravity, this new tug around something other than myself, the way his voice lingered in my head easily, as if, even unconsciously, I had wanted it there.

I'd argued with myself so fiercely about what it all meant and the nuances of the situation – what he'd said, what I'd said, the what ifs and whys and hows too time-consuming and vast – that I hadn't let myself feel. Instead of letting go of it and following the invisible track that would've lead me, slowly and inevitably, to him, I had grasped it with both of my stubborn hands and tried to pick every little piece of it apart. It was what I probably shouldn't have done, but my nature wouldn't have allowed me to handle it any other way. I was methodical; I analyzed things before I did them; I evaluated, considered, then I felt.

And it had made me cry at first, the overwhelming newness of it all, but underneath that was a little bit of relief, and maybe some anticipation.

If I had to analyze it, it was far easier to think of it as an assignment rather than something so personal. If I could just separate myself from the oddness of the whole situation, of fancying the bloke I had sworn up and down Great Britain I'd never, ever give a chance to, maybe it wouldn't be so hard to come to terms with the fact that I did want to give him a chance.

Dorcas rubbed my back, and Siobhan hopped off the counter to fiddle around with the Wireless, something soft and unlike her playing from the living room. It was pathetic, the way they were circling around to support me; usually it was the other way around: I'd defend Dorcas when she was being meek or stupidly weak-willed, defend Siobhan when her mouth was leading her into trouble too big for it or herself. But now they were here for me when I needed them, and I don't think I would've liked it any other way.

"What should I do?" I asked Dorcas. Because I couldn't let this lie anymore; it wasn't fair to him.

I heard Siobhan muttering spells and panicked before the gentle scent of vanilla candles floated into the air. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, a flash of black shirt and blonde hair, and jumped a little when she appeared, a short moment later, back at my side.

"I think what the question is," Siobhan said, cracking open a bottle of butterbeer. "What does this mean to you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Can you be serious, please?"

She laughed. "Completely serious. I can just see him saying that, though: Lily, what does this mean to you?"

"Bugger off, Shiv, you're not helping," Dorcas said, taking a hand off my back to smack her bony knee. "I invited her here to help her, not to torture her."

"You invited her to my flat," she pointed out. "But fine. Lily, if you're going to be a prude about this – which, Merlin, it's James Potter, he's not exactly the kind of bloke you ought to be a prude about, if you know what I mean – then maybe you should see him before the gala. You know? Get to know him a little more, rub some elbows – "

"By which she definitely does not mean anything crude – "

Siobhan rolled her eyes. "Maybe I do. You think about things too much, Lily, it's astounding – you think and you think and you think but nothing ever gets bloody done because by the time you think you're done thinking about something, the problem isn't a problem anymore. And if you think about this too long, then James will have moved on and then where will you be?"

I stared at her.

I can't keep doing this if it's for nothing, Lily.

Stop thinking. That's what I needed to do. I needed to stop thinking about the logistics of this all – there weren't any – and just let it come to me. And I would react with my heart, not my head. Feel it. Stop thinking.

"Okay," I said.

Dorcas lifted my head from her shoulder. "Okay?"

I smiled. It was kind of weak, and I knew I was trying for it, but it was there. "I, uh, when he ran into us in Diagon Alley, I told him that I wanted it to go somewhere. By that time Sirius came by and ruined it all, probably saved me before I admitted something too embarrassing, but James told me to take my time. And I know I fancy him, to some extent, so, well, what's the use waiting for so long, right?"

A second went by. It was enough time to doubt myself, this new pact I had made – feel, don't think – but Dorcas smiled and Siobhan smiled and it was bolstering.

"Okay," Siobhan said.

"Okay," Dorcas said. There was an odd light in her eyes. She took to the hallway, muttering to herself, and came back quickly with a piece of parchment and a quill. "Here's what we're going to do."

"A list?" Siobhan grinned. She was notorious for making various kinds of lists – what she needed to accomplish in the day, what teachers she hated, which of her boyfriends "shagged the best" – and leaving them laying about. In some instances it was helpful, but others… we got detention for one of her lists, something having to do with Professor McGonagall in various places of the castle… I didn't want to think about it.

"No, we're not making a list. Lily's scared to go to the gala – "

"I'm not scared – "

She gave me a pointed look. "Lily's scared to go to the gala with James, especially in front of all those people and his mum and dad and family, so she's going to spend a little time with him before that. To get used to him, so to speak."

"To warm up to him, so to speak," said Siobhan, grinning.

I sighed. "Ha. Clever."

"We're going to write him a letter," Dorcas said. "Well, Lily's going to write him a letter, and we're just going to assist. So, Lily, here you go."

Feeling as if I were five again, in a grade school class where the teacher would take my hand to teach me how to write the alphabet correctly, I took the quill from Dorcas and stared at the empty piece of parchment.

Dorcas laughed. "Keep it simple."

"Don't tell him all your secrets at once. No 'I want to shag your brains out' yet, keep that until the third date, at least," Siobhan supplied, draining the last drops of butterbeer from her bottle.

"Thanks ever so much, Shiv."

After a while, and several burned pieces of parchment later, the one I had settled on was the least (or most, I couldn't decide) pathetic:

James,
Would you like to meet me in London for coffee tomorrow?
Lily

"Nice and simple, with no promises of anything afterwards," Siobhan said. "I approve. Now let's send this thing off and get to our ice cream and movie. You did bring the ice cream, didn't you?"

"No," I said, slightly breathless at the thought of what I was about to do.

She sighed, jumped off the counter to stomp the three paces it took to get to the other side of the kitchen, yanked open the empty freezer, and grunted. "Great."

"We don't need ice cream," Dorcas said.

Siobhan squinted her eyes. "I will be back in ten minutes. There's a market around the corner, and I will go get the ice cream that we need and you will not be partaking in any."

I couldn't help but give a soft laugh. "Does this mean it's just you and me, Shiv?"

"Yes?" she said, as if it were the most common sense.

She grabbed her keys and her wand and was out the door, the locks clicking ominously behind her, before disappearing down the hall.

Dorcas turned to me. "You okay?"

"I'll be okay once this is gone so that I don't have a chance to change my mind," I said, thrusting the folded piece of parchment at her. "Take it and do with it what you will. I'll go start the movie. You think she'll want to watch Paper Moon again?"

"Probably," Dorcas called from the hallway.

I busied myself with readying the movie and thinking about what tomorrow would be like, if he accepted, and was sitting on the large, overstuffed couch when Dorcas returned.

"Alright, all taken care of. I'm expecting an answer within ten minutes – any bets?"

I laughed. That was a solid estimate, and just as I told her so, Siobhan swung into the door, arms laden with plastic bags.

"Stupid, bloody muggles," she muttered, dropping her keys and her wand on the kitchen counter. "I hate having to appear muggle to them when it'd be much easier to just float the damn bags down the hallway. Ugh."

"Did you get the ice cream?" we called as the opening credits rolled.

"Of course I got the ice cream," she said, toting a large tub of vanilla – the only flavor we had ever managed to agree on – and three spoons into the living room. She squished herself between Dorcas and I on the couch, and we huddled together in a mess of limbs and hair and arms to reach the ice cream and simply sat together watching a movie during the summer.

We were about a quarter of the way through when there was a faint tapping coming from the hallway.

I froze. Siobhan paused the movie, grinning, and Dorcas ran down the hall. She returned a second later with a large Great Horned Owl, its feathers looking like deadpan eyebrows above its serious yellow eyes. I would've laughed at its humanistic decorum if not for the threat of a heart attack pushing against my chest.

Siobhan quickly took the parchment and ripped open the letter.

"Shiv!" I exclaimed, tossing a throw pillow at her head. "Give it!"

"It's short anyway," she said.

I snatched it from her outstretched hand and tilted it so that Dorcas knew she was allowed to read, too. It was short, but I felt a little lighter in my heart at its brevity:

Are you asking me on a date, Lily Evans?
J

Of course he'd be incredulous. Or maybe it was wariness. Whatever it was, I giggled a little at the hasty reply, the messy slant of his usually semi-tidy scrawl, and grabbed my wand to summon some parchment and the quill before scratching a response. It was so much easier to do this now that I wasn't letting myself think about it.

Against my better judgment and everything that is right in the world: I, Lily Evans, am asking you, James Potter, on a date.
L

I could tell Siobhan and Dorcas were thrown off by my sudden airiness about this all, but I couldn't have explained it to them if I tried. So I sat back, threw my arm over Siobhan's shoulders and managing to reach one of Dorcas', and watched the rest of our movie.

Dorcas was dozing a little when the ending credits started rolling, and Siobhan wriggled her way out from between our bodies to use the toilet while I switched another movie in. Young Frankenstein was next, one of our favorites, and I tickled the little part of Dorcas' exposed stomach to wake her as Siobhan traipsed back down the hall, dancing a little as she came to sit on the couch.

"What's got you so happy?" we asked each other at the same time.

Dorcas laughed, rubbing at her eyes, and kicked her socked feet up onto the coffee table. We followed suit, our stomachs bloated from finishing the whole container of ice cream. I leaned my head on Siobhan's shoulder and let myself feel relieved.

Feel, don't think.

The horses were whinnying once again at Fran Blucher's name (or perhaps the thought of her face – blegh) when the telephone rang and all three of us screamed a little, jumping as the thunder on the movie rolled.

We broke into laughter at that, and Siobhan hopped off the couch, practically tripping over herself in giggles, before answering the phone.

"'lo?"

She paused, turning around slowly to face me with a devious look in her dark eyes that immediately set me on edge.

"Yes, she's here. May I inquire as to what you would like from her?"

I glanced at Dorcas. She shrugged.

"That'll come at a hefty cost – what? No, I don't want to talk to him. Tell him to go help himself. This is between you and me… No, I can't do that… I know. But I think you're getting something better in this deal, anyway."

"I don't think I want to know," I mumbled to Dorcas, turning the volume on the television up.

Siobhan held the receiver out to me. "Miss Evans, someone would like to speak to you."

I got to my feet and took the receiver, raising my eyebrows at her as she took my seat on the couch. Who is it? I mouthed to her, but she simply grinned and turned to the television. Dorcas turned, too, as Siobhan started whispering, and I rolled my eyes at the traitors.

"Hello?"

There was a pause, then: "I had to ring and make sure I wasn't hallucinating."

I found a barstool just in time. There was some kind of strange release in my voice, something I hoped he wouldn't catch, as I breathed, "James."

"Hi," he said, chuckling softly. "So. A date?"

I unconsciously twisted the twirled cord around my wrist as I stared at the wall of pictures on Siobhan's refrigerator. Feel, don't think. "Yeah. A date."

"Sirius told me what you said. I meant what I said; I don't want you to feel rushed into anything. Don't feel like you have to do this."

"No," I said, looking at the floor now. I was a horrible, horrible person to have kept him doubting himself. "No, I – I want to. I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't want to."

I could hear the smile in his voice. "Okay, then."

That was being said a lot recently. A lot of affirmations going around tonight. "Okay."

"Do you want to meet tomorrow at noon? At the Leaky? Then we can go wherever you'd like."

"Yeah, that sounds good," I said, trying so hard not to let the tiny piece of me that was too damn excited for its own good to take over. Perhaps I could let the anxious part out to even things out. "Um. Yeah."

I think he could tell I needed to get off the phone before I broke down, so he said, "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Right," I said. This was the awkward goodbye time. There was something I felt I needed to say, something on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't decipher what it was. So instead, I said, "Tomorrow, then. Have a good night, James."

"Goodnight, Lily."

The receiver hit the plastic of the telephone with a dull, unpleasant click.

I couldn't pay attention to the rest of the movies we played that night. Goodnight, Lily. Goodnight, Lily. Goodnight, Lily, goodnight goodnight goodnight…