Chapter 10

September passed slowly for Severus that year. The amount of homework had almost doubled from the previous June, and he and Lily were both so busy with it that the only time they ever saw each other was in Potions. They still sat together, just like they had every Potions class since their first year. But it was different now. Lily's friends sat across the aisle from her, Severus' across the aisle from him, and they didn't talk like they used to.

By the end of the month Severus decided they needed to renew their friendship, or maybe even move it past friendship. He had long stopped denying to himself he was in love with her. He had even allowed himself to hope she was secretly in love with him too. Every time she smiled at him, or laughed at something he said, his heart would swell inside his chest. But Severus couldn't afford to be hopeful. Not when James Potter had his eye on Lily too.

Severus watched James too. He saw the expression that would cross his face whenever Lily entered a room. It was similar to the way Severus imagined he looked. And that made him hate James Potter even more. And that was saying something, because he hated James more than anything.

James still hexed him on a regular basis. James hexed lots of people on a regular basis, actually. And he hexed a lot of people on an irregular basis too. And other than Severus, James didn't have a reason to hex them, because he genuinely like most people at Hogwarts, he just did it because he could. He hated the way Sirius would just roll his eyes, Remus would look away, and Peter would giggle whenever he jinxed someone.

So at the end of one Potions class, Severus decided to do something about it.

It was the end of September, and the first Hogsmeade trip of the year was coming up in a week. Severus decided to ask Lily. He didn't care whether she thought it was as friends or a date, as long as they were spending time together.

"Lily?" He asked as they put away their ingredients.

"Hmm?" She responded absentmindedly, rummaging through her bag.

"Do you want to go to Hogsmeade together next weekend?"

"I can't, I promised I'd go with Mary and Margaret. Next time, okay?" The bell sounded, and Lily hopped up. "See you tomorrow." She flashed him a smile, and then hurried out of the dungeons.

Lily hurried up the stairs, wanting to get as far away from Severus as possible. She loved him, she truly did, but as a friend, nothing more. And something from his tone of voice had made her wonder if he felt differently. Lily arrived at her Charms class five minutes later. She was the first one there. She pulled out her book to read while she waited. It was a muggle book, she always read muggle books on her holidays, and it was from this particular book that she had gotten the name of her owl.

The rest of the class slowly began to file in about five minutes later. Mary was one of the last ones in, and she slid into her seat beside Lily just as Flitwick entered the room. Lily noticed James and Sirius walk in behind him, Sirius looked slightly smug.

"Lily," Mary muttered after Flitwick had begun his lecture. "I can't come to Hogsmeade with you and Margaret next weekend."

"Why not?"

"Well, um, actually. Sirius asked me to go with him." Mary smiled brightly. Lily smiled back, happy for her friend who had had a crush on Sirius for at least a year. And then her face fell.

"Be careful, won't you. You know his reputation, he's asked out half the girls in our year. He's kind of a player."

"He hasn't asked out half the girls in our year," Mary protested. Lily just rolled her eyes. She was happy fro her friend, she really was. But she didn't want to see her get hurt.

"I can't believe you finally asked her out," James told Sirius, not bothering to speak quietly. They had begun to practice the charms, and the class was too busy to notice their conversation.

"Yeah well," Sirius just smiled. "You could ask Evans out again, we could double next weekend."

"Yeah I already thought of that. I was just waiting for the right moment." James studied Lily from across the room. "I think now is the right moment, if you'll excuse me." James stood up and walked across the room.

"Hey," James said, resting his had on Lily's table, beside her arm. She immediately jerked away.

"What do you want, Potter?" Lily said, not looking at him.

"Well, next weekend is a Hogsmeade weekend. And I was wondering if you'd like to double with Sirius and Mary."

"No thanks," Lily said, waving her wand.

"Why not?"

"Do we really have to go over this every time you ask me out?" Lily cried out, exasperated.

"We wouldn't if you'd say yes," James grinned.

"But I'm not ever going to say yes. So you may as well give up."

"But…"

"Potter, go away." Said Lily, finally looking at James. He shot a hopeless look at Mary, who just shrugged, before he sighed.

"Fine," He took his hand off her desk. "But you will say yes one day, I know you will. Want to know how I know?"

"Not particularly."

"Because we were made for each other. And you can't fight destiny. So it's really a waste of your time using all this energy rejecting me, because you'll give in eventually."

"So how'd it go?" Sirius asked James when he sat down beside him a moment later. James gave him a look.

"How do you think it went?"

"Bad luck mate."

"Tell me about it."

"Did you give her the "we are made for each other and you will come around" speech?"

"But of course."

"Maybe you need to try a different approach."

"Nope," James shook his head. "All I need is for Evans to admit she likes me as much as I like her."

"James don't kid yourself." James raised his eyebrows at Sirius. "I know you. If you just liked her, you would've stopped asking her out ages ago. You, my friend, are head over heels in love."

"So what if I am?"

The bell rang, signalling the end of class.

"I'm having a good feeling, can we spend lunch in the dormitory," Sirius asked, shoving his book in his bag. James nodded.

Half an hour later, they were seated on the floor of their dormitory, both had their eyes shut in concentration. James tuned out the world around him, concentrating hard on what he wanted, which was to turn into an animal.

It was the bark that broke his concentration. His eyes flew open, and a big, shaggy, black dog sat where Sirius had been moments before. He was wagging his tail with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, panting.

"Wow," James muttered. "That is so weird." Sirius kept wagging his tail. "Now change back." The dog popped back into Sirius.

"That was so cool." Sirius exclaimed. "Your turn."

James shut his eyes again. After a couple minutes, he felt an odd sensation, when he opened his eyes, he had four legs and horns. Just as he had suspected, he was a stag. He walked slowly around the room, getting the feel of being on four legs. Sirius turned back into a dog, and ran in circles around James. Sirius turned into such a big dog that they were practically the same size. After the original novelty of being able to turn into an animal had worn off, James turned back into a human. Sirius did too.

"Peter has got to see this."

So this is at the bottom today because I wanted to say I couldn't really find any information on the whole animagi thing, except you don;t need a wand to do it, your clothes disappear and reappear when you change, and once you do it once you can much do it without much thought.

And as always, please REVIEW.

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