A/N: Okay, now, I'm warning you; you are entering the realms of much emotion, self-evaluation, and over-analysis – I suggest you tread very carefully from now on. :P This chapter is particularly long, and it's important, so be sure to read everything through, mmkay?


This morning, as I wake up, I feel like I have a hangover.

I feel sluggish and slightly nauseous, my lips feel swollen and too big for my mouth, and my head has that dull pounding in it again, like it always does when I drink a little too much whiskey. Is it really possible to get a hangover from kissing? I run my index finger across my bottom lip, then my top – nothing. The guilty magic of last night is gone, and now I'm left to fix the mess I'd put off cleaning. Is this how Cinderella felt the morning after she ditched her prince at the party? If so, I feel awful for her; it's not a fun feeling. I yawn hugely at this thought and express an internal plea to go back to sleep; I wish it wasn't Thursday.

With a second yawn, I pick myself up and drag myself out of my bed, but this time, I find Anne already awake and in the bathroom, washing her face. This is a surprise; normally, I have to wake her up because she's too damn lazy to get up by herself. I pad over to her, like a child that has a bad cold, and ask her, "Hey Annie; how are you up before me?"

"I dunno," Anne says, turning to me and smiling. "There are days when I can wake up – they come once every, oh, two years or so. Enjoy this one."

I shrug and pick up my toothbrush to brush my teeth – Anne copies me and we brush together, like we used to do over the first few summers we had after spending the year at Hogwarts. I feel guiltier still though, as we go through this unexpected treat – the one day Anne cuts me a break and gets up on her own, I have done something horrid and back-stabbing to her. Fate must really, really hate me; not only did it give me James Potter, but it gave me the guts to do something I'd never dream of doing on the most inconvenient evening in two years.

I finish a few seconds early and spit the toothpaste out into my sink, wishing I could spit all my remorse out with it. Why had I kissed James last night? I still can't figure that out – I don't know what it was that possessed me to very nearly snog him when I had been a kissing virgin otherwise for fifteen years previous to this one. I mean, in one second, we were talking about how James thought he was a bad kisser, and then in the next, we're kissing ourselves. He's always wanted to kiss me – pretty much ever since he caught sight of my mouth – yet the way he did it doesn't seem at all in his character. I'd told him the truth; he'd been very gentle with me, not at all hungry like he used to be. It could have been a very light kiss, too, but something had gone wrong in the never-used kissing department of my brain rather than his – something that made me think that James was the right person to have my first kiss with. It's obviously mistaken; my first kiss is something I'm never going to get back, and now I've wasted it on the one boy it would hurt me to kiss. Great – yet another sign that fate despises me above all other Hogwarts females.

"Lily?" I whip around to see Anne leaning on the doorframe, puzzled as she gazes at me, and I realize with a jolt that I had been standing over my sink with the water running, deep in thought, for about thirty extra seconds. Ugh – why am I so prone to being stupid when I'm worried?

"Sorry," I mutter, turning off the tap and following her out to our dormitory again.

"What's going on, Lils?" she asks me inevitably. "You seem…distracted."

"Do I?" I look through my drawer to find some clothes for the day, hoping I don't look too flustered. Somehow, none of the garments in there look familiar to me – I think I'm going mad, and it's all thanks to one bloody kiss last night!

"Yeah," Anne answers woefully. "That's my drawer."

"Oh." That explains a lot – blushing, I step away from her chest and go to my own. Anne watches me, snickering, and says, "I am your best friend, Lily Evans; I can tell when something's making you anxious, and this is the most stressed I've ever seen you. What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," I say a little too quickly.

She gives me a skeptical look and sits on her bed. "You can tell me anything, Lily. Anything."

I bite my lip and shake my head. "Nothing's wrong," I lie hideously.

Anne sighs. "I'm not going to fight with you, because there's no point in arguing with someone as stubborn as you are, but I trust that soon, you're going to break and tell me what's on your mind – that's why I'm going to lay the subject down to rest at the moment."

I swallow and say, "That sounds lovely, Annie."

"Good." She smiles, stretches out her arms, and then goes through her now-rumpled pile of clothing. "Now what to wear today?"

I nod blankly though she hasn't really asked a yes-or-no question and dig out my favorite purple hooded sweatshirt from my drawer. Anne notices this, and with an air of one holding back her giggles with great difficulty, she asks, "Lily, why are you wearing that?"

"It's my sweatshirt," I say, hugging it. "I love it." Actually, I do love it very much – my mum got it for me from Moscow in Russia when she went a couple of years ago, and it's one of the comfiest things I own. It's also very big, allowing me to hide under it when I don't want to talk to anyone. Anne knows my tendency to wear it when I'm upset, which is why she's instantly curious.

"Lils, if you're wearing that sweatshirt, you know I'm going to want an explanation," Anne says, crossing her arms and attempting to glare me down. "I'll ask one more time – what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I almost whine, taking out a shirt at random to put under the sweatshirt. "I just want to wear it today!"

Anne sighs extremely loudly. "You frustrate me," she accuses.

"You frustrate me," I counter. "What's wrong with me wearing my favorite purple sweatshirt, Annie?"

"The fact that you only wear it when you're in a bad mood," she clarifies for the second time. "Lily! Just cooperate with me and tell me what the bloody hell is bothering you! If it's a boy, I'll beat his arse down to Spain if you want me to."

While I'm tempted to see the sight of Anne beating James down to Spain, I decide to keep this to myself and say curtly, "It's nothing, really. If you truly care about me, you're going to stop asking me as of right now, okay? If I want to share this trivial matter with you at a later time, you know I will not hesitate to."

With a defeated sigh, she says, "Oh all right, fine. I'll wait. But do you promise you'll tell me?"

"Yes," I say a little more patiently. "Just not now, okay?"

"Okay." She smiles at me and gives me a hug. "So do you want to skip breakfast and go to class early, or do you want to eat and then leave?"

"Eat, of course," I say. "I'm starved."

Anne laughs. "I knew it, but I thought I'd make sure anyway. Hard-boiled eggs?"

"Four of them," I say, grinning widely.

"All right!" Anne high-fives me and we race down the Great Hall together, flying through the corridors and laughing as we do, and find our way to the Gryffindor table. It is, of course, piled high with the delicious concoctions of the Hogwarts house elves, and immediately, I spot the basket of hard-boiled eggs, sitting near the middle. I point to them, and Anne and I immediately grab it and take a seat by the end, where there are not as many people to bother us. I eye it hungrily and start piling my plate, while Anne simply observes my progress, amused.

"How do you do it?" she inquires wondrously after a few minutes.

"Do what?" I inquire back, my voice muffled by the high percentage of egg in my mouth.

"Eat so much and stay so skinny," she clarifies, enviously looking at my stomach. I look down at it too – I've always been slender, but I never really pay the thought any attention; I eat like a hog, but I'm so used to being a stick anyway that I no longer think about it.

"I dunno," I say.

"Do you work out a lot?"

"When I'm not at school, I take walks in the morning," I clarify.

"How long?"

I consider. "I like to get maybe three or four miles, but sometimes I make do with just two."

Anne nearly falls off of her bench. "I never knew that!"

"I know," I say. "I started doing it over the break last year, and I like walking every day. It's my time to think and reflect, you know? I hate running for time; that's why I walk for as long as I want before my parents wake up."

"That's why." She gives me an irritated look. "I hate walking and exercise in general."

"You're not fat," I say, signaling down to her muscled figure. "You're healthy – I'm a bit too thin."

Anne is about to contradict me, but at that exact moment, she spots James entering the Great Hall with Remus, Sirius, and Peter as his customary entourage. A huge smile cracks on her face, while my stomach just about crashes into my lower intestines, and she grabs my wrist to drag me over to him. She waves pointedly at him, and when he finally catches sight of us, he also smiles, gesturing for us to join him and his friends. Anne does so only too happily, but I'm apprehensive as we reach him at last; I don't want to see James. How am I supposed to talk to him properly?! My throat becomes mysteriously dry, making me wish I had a glass of water or juice or something with me, but I try to forget it as I look to the boys. Sirius is waving sarcastically to me, and since I am not in the mood to deflect him, I wave back, making him beam.

"Evans!" He throws out his arms to me in celebration of my presence, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "My Queen of Homework!"

Peter snickers. "What an apt title."

I shoot him a look, but Sirius throws his head back and laughs. "It's an inside joke, Wormtail – shut up."

"I've been dubbed King of Homework," Remus adds in. "Don't take it too personally, Lily."

This does make me feel better, but Sirius gives him a cross look. "Didn't you hear me say it was a bloody inside joke, Moony?"

"Sorry," Remus says, faking his regret to humor Sirius.

It works; "Okay," Sirius says, forgiving him and forgetting the dispute already. "So, Evans and Weathers; what do you two want?"

"James," Anne says promptly, grinning as she leans forward to kiss him. However, James takes a step back and says, "I thought I was a bad kisser."

"Yes, but I said we'd fix that," she says, laughing. "With practice, love. Come here."

His eyes strangely flat, James smiles only with his mouth and kisses her. He doesn't look at me, thank goodness, and I don't look at him either, choosing to let myself become distracted by Sirius and Peter making revolted faces and pretending to shield their eyes from the snogging. Remus catches my eye, and I find myself smiling at him with him at me; he's such a sweet guy – the only Marauder I can actually stand. I'm about to go over to him and talk to him, but Anne chooses that second to break away from James and reprimand Sirius and Peter for being so immature.

"What the hell is wrong with the two of you?" she asks them. "Sirius, you're pretty much the snogging-target for every girl in this school; you, of all people, shouldn't care."

"I don't," Sirius explains. "I just pretend I do."

"I think it's funny," Peter says.

"Have you ever kissed a girl?" Anne inquires, teasing in her voice.

"Might have," Peter says mysteriously.

"He hasn't," Sirius answers for him.

"How can you know for sure?" Peter wants to know – he's rather offended.

"I'm your best friend," Sirius says, rolling his eyes. "I know everything."

James smiles affectionately at his friends, but asks Anne, "So, am I better kisser now?"

"Yeah, you are." She sounds confused. "What did you do overnight?"

The conversation is going to very dangerous waters now – time to change the course. I cough significantly and say, "I need to get to class, then. See you Anne, James, Sirius, Peter, Remus."

"Bye, Your Highness," Sirius says, giving another of his low, sardonic bows.

Peter sniggers at this, but doesn't bid me good-bye, choosing to ridicule Sirius instead. Anne does wave to me, but before James can possibly do a thing in addition, she launches herself at him once again, rendering him incapable of acknowledging me. I'm okay with this though – what is there to say, anyway? Remus also waves to me, and I get the feeling that he would have come with me, had he not been needed to control Sirius and Peter, who still like to act like they're twelve years old. I'm sorry about this – Remus is the only one of them at the moment that I would walk with.

Still, I go it alone out of the Great Hall and up the main stairs, trying hard not to think. Why? It's because every time I think, I think about how crummy I feel, which makes me think about why I feel crummy, which, ultimately, makes me think about James and our kiss again. The feel of his lips, the heat of his hands, the beats of our hearts uniting at one frantic pace…it's all so vivid in my head, and I simply feel even more blameworthy. He really shouldn't like me anymore, after all I've done to him and all the time he's spent with Anne, but that horribly, pitifully vain part of me still expects him to. I know I'm not any better than Anne is, but the thing is, I used to feel like I was, in James's eyes at least. Maybe I tend to think that way because I'm still kind of used to the preferential treatment he used to bestow upon me before, but then again, maybe I'm just a bad person who's trying to flatter herself; right now, I'm kind of leaning towards being a bad person. I mean, really – what good person thinks she's better than her best friend?

I sigh mournfully to myself – what a revelation, especially when I was trying not to get one.

I approach the Transfiguration room at last, feeling like a wilted plant, and open the door. No one is in there at the moment, not even Professor McGonagall, and I'm grateful for it – I can use a bit of alone time. I take my seat in the back of the class and pull out my books and homework – a robot only going through the motions of her day – and chew on my bottom lip. I know I'm going to have to tell Anne tonight, but I just don't know how I'll be able to pull it off. Will she be angry with me? Will she be angry with James? Will she refuse to speak to me after I tell her the truth? I wouldn't be able to stand it if she didn't talk to her – Anne is my best friend, my savior from working too much, and without her, I don't think I'll be able to survive Hogwarts, since she's one of the main reasons I enjoy it so much. I swallow heavily and bite down on my lip harder; how I wish James could have simply left me alone last night.

Uh oh; not this thought-circle again – the I-wish-it-hadn't-happened one. It means I've just hit square one all over again, and I'm trying to move on a little so that I can admit it without feeling like a criminal sentencing herself for execution. Hoping to distract myself, I check the clock on the wall; it informs me that there are ten minutes left until class, which means I only just killed five with these agonizing considerations.

I put my head down on my books, hiding my face from the walls of the room; this is going to be an extremely long day.

&&&

In the afternoon, Anne and I, completely worn-out with mud-splattered clothes after our Herbology lesson, trudge back into the castle together to back to lunch, wishing we could just go back to sleep.

It had been a particularly intense lesson, dealing with Venomous Tantaculas, who were intent on causing fatal injuries upon us poor students who had to handle them; we'd been forced to trim their extra leaves from the stem, and the heads didn't like that. Anne had gotten a small lock of her hair bitten off by the monstrous things while I'd gotten several nasty bites on my hands, and we were both on our way up to clean ourselves up in the dormitory before going down to the Great Hall. Anne is looking mournfully at her hair, which really is looking all that bad, and complaining incessantly about it.

"Lily, look at it," she grumbles, showing me the uneven lengths of her blonde hair. "Isn't it hideous? What am I going to do?!"

"Let it grow back?" I suggest for the seventh time in five minutes.

"But it's so ugly," she whines.

"At least you don't have bites," I say, putting out my handkerchief-covered hands. "These hurt like hell, Annie."

"Still," she insists. "You can heal yours in a matter of minutes, but I'm no good at the Hair Restoration Charm – I always go bald every time I try it!"

"I can do it for you, if you like, but you have to please shut up and stop bothering me before I even consider it," I say.

Anne sighs. "Okay, I'll stop – now will you fix me?"

"Yes, I can," I say. "C'mon – let's hurry up and get to the dormitory so I can relieve us of our Herbology scars, shall we?"

"Sounds like plan." Anne and I start sprinting back up to the castle and dash up the stairs to the seventh floor, Anne holding my good hand so that neither of us would get behind the other, and we slow down once we reach the portrait hole. After giving our password ("bobutuber"), we enter the common room and then our dormitory, already tired from the running, seeing as we are not, in any way, athletes. I go to the bathroom with Anne and wash my hand, wrinkling my nose at the blood and slightly green scab that's starting to form on it. Her expression is one of the highest disgust, and she says, "That's disgusting."

"You think I don't know that?" I inquire, pulling out my wand. "Anyway – what was the spell again?" I consider. "Oh, wait, yes!" With a quick cough to clear my throat, I move my wrist in a wacky, circular motion and say, "Vigoratus meus taedium vulnus." Instantaneously, the healthy skin on my hand covers the bleeding parts so that I'm okay again. Pleased with my work, I smugly dangle my hand in Anne's face and say, "See? It's not disgusting anymore."

"Good for you," Anne says. "Now please fix my problem?" She looks pathetically at me, her hand clutching her hair.

I roll my eyes, sweep the air with my hand and wand, and say, "Planto meus saeta decorus." Her hair slowly starts to elongate in the spot I pointed at, and when it's just the right length, I say, "Finite incantatem."

Anne inspects her hair the moment my hand falls to my side, and when she sees that it's perfect, she squeals, squeezes me tightly, and yells, "Thanks, Lily!"

"No problem," I say, smiling slightly at her. "Now come on – I want lunch, I'm starved."

"Again?" Anne looks curiously at me. "Lily, are you a girl or a bottomless pit?"

"A girl with the appetite of a bottomless pit," I say, grinning. "Now come on!"

"Oh, all right then," Anne says, laughing as she lets me take her wrist and run her down to the Great Hall. However, when we're just outside of the huge doors to go in, she suddenly says, "Hey, Lily, didn't we have an essay due tomorrow in Potions?"

"Yeah," I say. "That's why I was working with James yesterday." My stomach tightens when his name creeps through my lips, but I do my best not to show it as I look expectantly at her.

"Damn," she curses. "I haven't done a thing for it, I completely forgot about it!" She goes into a stream of profanities, but when she reaches the end of them, she says, "Hey, Lil, I think I'm going to have to skip lunch today and tomorrow if I want to get that finished for tomorrow afternoon. I'm a slow essay-writer."

"Couldn't you just do it tonight and have me check it during lunch tomorrow?" I want to know.

"No," she tells me sorrowfully. "I can't, because tonight, I have a date with James and I don't want to work on my essay."

"You have a date tonight too?" Somehow, this offends me – James kissed me last night, yet wants to arrange another date with Anne?!

"Yeah, we've been wanting to go out for a few days now," Anne says. "He said today was a good day."

"When did he say that?" I can't help myself – I have to know.

"Like, two or three nights ago," Anne says, clearly mystified by this powerful interest. "Why?"

"Just wondering," I say, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. "So you don't want to have lunch today? Should I eat by myself?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry," Anne says, her eyes showing me that she means it. "See you afterwards though?"

"Of course," I say. "Bye."

She smiles. "Thanks a million, Lil." With a pat on my shoulder, she walks right back up the stairs which we have just descended from, and a bit of blind panic catches in my throat. I'd been fine so long as I was with Anne and not thinking about what I'd done in her absence yesterday, but now, I'm probably going to see James again in the Great Hall, and I can't trust myself around him anymore. I don't know what to think about him, since I can't possibly like him at all, and seeing him again is not going to help me – not a single bit. I'm hungry though, so I guess I'll just have to take my chances and go in there alone. Great.

Cautiously, I open the door and slip inside the Hall, which is buzzing with talk and the clatter of forks and knives, and look around the Gryffindor table for a place to sit. I see a few empty places I can take, but I also catch sight of the James near the back. His friends are, oddly enough, not with him – it's just him, shoveling lunch into his mouth, clearly in some sort of hurry. It's kind of sickening – I like to eat, but not that fast and certainly not that much. His entire plate is filled; I never knew he ate so much.

Hoping to look like I have a purpose, I take the first unused plate I see and walk over to his part of the table – he has the basket of chicken legs with him, and I am in the mood for chicken. I reach over to grab one, hoping to just take it and leave, but when I do, James finally stops eating up a storm and looks to me. His vision, of course, borrows mine, and I immediately freeze, lost in the many shades of hazel I see; oh gosh.

"Hey Lily," he says, his tone perfectly pleasant and on-the-surface. "Hungry?"

"Yeah," I say lamely, holding up the chicken leg and putting it on my plate. "I like chicken."

"That's nice," he says, his eyes now searching me since they've found me. "I like chicken too."

I smile nervously, but don't say anything for several seconds; to bridge the embarrassing sort of silence, James continues on to ask, "Where's Anne?"

"Starting her Potions essay," I say. "She hasn't written anything for it, and apparently, you have a date with her tonight, which doesn't leave her much time to work on it."

This quiets him for a moment, his eyes now undecipherable, but then he says, in the same easy tone, "You can tell her that we can go out another time if she has to write that essay – I don't want to get in the middle of that."

"She won't cancel it," I tell him. "She's too stubborn for that; she plans to do it now and then tomorrow at lunch as well."

James smiles. "That Anne…"

"She's so incredibly annoying, but I adore her," I say sincerely.

"She adores you too," he says. "I hear a lot about you."

He does? "What kinds of things do you hear?" I ask.

"How funny you can be," he says. "The little things you guys do together; how she teases you about your homework addiction; the way you snort when you laugh too hard. Those kinds of things."

"Oh," I say with relief.

"Why, what did you think she'd tell me?" James is interested now – I don't like where this conversation might end up going.

"I dunno," I say. "She's my best friend – she knows me inside and out."

James studies my face for a couple more seconds before saying, "Here, sit with me." He gestures to the spot across from him which I'm standing above.

Instantaneously, my brain goes into alert mode – no way should I sit with James Potter. I shouldn't be alone with him at all, even if I'm in the Great Hall with lots of people around me – they're not paying me any attention, and if James kissed me in front of them, they'd never see it. That's why I shake my head no and say, "I'm just eating and running today – sorry."

"You can eat all the chicken you want," he teases.

I half-smile, but shake my head again. "Sorry."

"Are you still upset about yesterday?" he inquires, his voice now low and concerned. "Because if you are, I really am sorry about it – you must know that."

I bite my lip; "It's okay, but I really do need to go." I put the chicken drumstick back into the basket and say, "I suppose I'll see you later then; bye."

His eyes bore into mine once more, but I swallow, trying to let my strength flow through me, and make myself walk away from him. James doesn't try to stop me, but I think I can still feel his eyes on my back, watching me leave. To see if this is true, I allow myself one look back at him, but he's not looking at me after all – he's gone back to his food, eating as though I hadn't even been there. I don't know why but I can feel hot tears brim up in my eyes anyway, threatening to spill out and run down my face – what the hell is wrong with me? I leave the Great Hall, my appetite gone, and sit on the foot of the entrance stairs, trying to sort out the wild array of emotions that are starting to take me over. What is it about James that makes me fall apart whenever I'm near him? What is about him that makes me want to know everything that makes him tick?

Now that I have nothing more to lose and no witnesses to see what's going on in me, I can be honest with myself about this situation – there's just so much more to that James than what meets the eye. It's no longer what I know about James that's annoying me; it's more what I don't know. I used to know James about as well as I know Anne – he was witty, flirty, occasionally sensitive, charismatic, atrociously cheeky and arrogant, and though he was a little rough around the edges, he would have been likeable, had it not been for his irrational (more like never-ending) affection for me. Now, on the other hand, everything he says and does makes no sense, especially when he kissed me – he's like a favorite book that became waterlogged; though some of the familiar story still remains, pretty much all that is readable are the memories, while the new meaning is no longer logical by any means. Right now, I'm torn between the choice of resurrecting that book further and simply forgetting about what I already know – should I start over, like he did, and try to at least be his friend even with our dirty little secret, or should I make a bigger effort to cut him out of my life? To just about anyone, it's an easy question with an easy answer – resurrect. It's not that easy for me though; I can't just do that. I'm older now, and things are different. I can never go back to the days when everything was innocent, so I can never answer that question as easily as I should be able to. That's one of the biggest nadirs of growing up – what I did in the past is going to stay with me and haunt me no matter what I do, and there's no way of changing that.

I sigh and hold my arms around my middle, feeling horribly fragile – it really is amazing, the effect that one boy has on me. I've never thought this way before, nor have I ever questioned my own personality so much; it's like being a younger teenager all over again. I started to grow more aware of my personality when I was thirteen – that was the closest I'd ever felt to what I'm feeling now. I thought I was over though, which makes me wonder if I'm truly as mature as I think I am. Maybe I still have some growing up to do – more self interrogation to force myself into. Who knew it only took one James Potter to make me realize it? Life is so weird that way.

I hug my knees, bringing them into my chest, and lay my cheek on them, my hair falling around my legs; I thought I was a soaring, resilient, indestructible wall, but I suppose I was only a brittle one – all it took was a strong enough stone to knock me down and expose the desires, reflections, and painful retrospections I thought I'd left behind for good.

&&&

All through the afternoon, I become conscious of the fact that I am now starting to become the thing I never, ever expected to be – a coward.

Yes, I'm a coward, through and through; I only have four classes after lunch, and in all of them, I didn't as much as look at James. Anne couldn't understand why I wouldn't associate with him, of course, but James obviously did. He didn't tell her, which I did like, but Anne kept getting more and more curious as to what was going on between us. I kept telling her that she would have to ask me after school ended so that I could give her a proper answer without anyone around us to listen, but that didn't stop her from pestering me about it anyway. When the last bell rang, releasing us from Potions, Anne took quick action – she dragged me out of the room at once, bumped me up the stairs, pushed me into our dormitory, and sat me down on my bed before I had time to even ask her what she was trying to accomplish here.

"Speak," she commands.

I take a breath and say, "It's awful, what I did, Annie – do you promise to just let me tell it how it happened and not get upset with me?"

"Yeah, of course," she say swiftly. "Now spill."

It's obvious that she is bubbling over with curiosity that she must release, which is why she's making every effort she can to rush me, but I refuse to be rushed – this event, no matter how small it may seem to someone else, is monumental to me, and telling it in thirty seconds is not how I intend to fill her in.

"Well," I say, choosing my words carefully in my head. "You know how it is when you go out to do one thing, and then something else happens which you didn't expect?"

"Yeah," Anne says uncomprehendingly.

"And then even more things build up on top of that one wrong move, which gives you this enormous mess you feel like you're drowning in?"

"That's happened to me," she says. "But what does it have to do with what you've done?"

"Everything," I say tearfully. "Okay, so you know how you called James a bad kisser yesterday evening?"

"Oh yeah, I remember that," she says with a grin. "I was joking, in case you didn't pick up on that already."

"James didn't pick up on it," I say.

"What do you mean?" Anne asks, her eyebrows knitted together as she tries to figure out what I'm talking about.

I take a moment to keep myself calmed down and say, "After you left, I was looking over James's essay for him, but he was thinking about something. I asked what it was, and he wanted to know if he was a bad kisser."

Anne laughs – I envy her ability to find a joke in all of this. "Seriously? Oh, my poor baby; I'll have to assure him I was kidding later."

"He was kind of worried about it, so I would agree with that, but I'm not finished yet," I say. "So he thinks he's a bad kisser – I decided to offer my opinion on the matter."

"Oh no," she says, smiling impishly. "What did you say?"

"I said he was too violent – he should be a little gentler," I say, summing up whatever it was that I had said in a couple of words.

She hadn't been expecting that – she gives me a very mystified look. "And how did he react?"

"He just kind of mulled it over," I tell her honestly. "We talked a bit about how girls he's previously dated liked his more violent style and how I found that obscene, and then he starts staring at me. His eyes – I wish you could have seen them, Annie. He's never been that open with me," I say, recalling the image of his gaze in my mind's eye.

"And?" she prompts, evidently dying for the next part of the story.

"I was caught up in the way he was looking at me," I say. "Then before I know it, he's right up in my face. I didn't make a single move before it, I swear! And he asks me, 'Like this?' He wants to know if he's being adequately gentle of course, so I say yes, since he hasn't jumped on me or molested me or something, and then…" I let my voice rise up gradually in volume until the word 'then,' when I let it linger in the air, too distressed with myself to finish the sentence. Anne puts two and two together in her head – I can practically see the cogs working in her mind – but when she gets it, something shuts down behind her eyes.

"You kissed him?" she guesses, keeping her tone carefully emotionless.

"No, he kissed me, Annie, and I'm so, so, so sorry about it," I burst out.

Anne stays very, very still for a moment, but then completely and utterly startles me when she throws herself on me in a delighted hug. "Congratulations, Lily!"

I almost start crying right there, I'm so confused. "What?"

She lets go of me and looks at my face excitedly. "You kissed James, Lils! I'm so proud of you!"

I can feel the horror written all over my face. "I think I'm missing something here – you're not mad?"

"Hell no, I'm not!" She gets up and starts dancing around the room, her happiness unmistakable. "You got your first kiss, Lily Evans, and it was with James, as I had predicted for all this time while you thought I was crazy! Who's right now, huh, Lils? ME, that's who!"

"He's your boyfriend though," I remind her, still stunned. "Shouldn't you be mad at him for kissing me?"

"No, of course not, silly." Anne smiles sweetly at me, every bit of glee on her face truer than any emotion I've ever seen on her. "I've been waiting for this for ages – now I can break up with him."

"Okay, now I'm really missing something," I say, my head spinning with the sudden turn in the discussion. "What's going on here?"

Anne giggles wryly. "I suppose it's time for me to explain everything to you, then."

"Yes, that might help just a little bit," I say pointedly.

"All right." Anne clears her throat and begins by saying, "Lily, do you remember when you first told me I was in love with James and you started trying to push us together?"

"Yes, I remember that," I say.

"And do you remember what happened on the first date I ever went on with him?"

"How can I forget?" I ask smugly. "You proved me right – you were in love with him."

Anne rolls her eyes. "Okay, yes, I did like him a lot after the first date. I liked him even more as time went on, but I'd always known it wasn't going to last. I told you before – I don't do long-term relationships. I knew that I'd have this enormous lust for him for a little while, but it would all start to fade; then I'd want to finish whatever it was that we had. I knew that if I went out with him and kept you with me sometimes, he'd notice you – he was still in love with you and it was obvious in every single word he said about you, whether it was a casual reference or a major conversation point. All I had to do was make you see how much you really cared. That was the reasoning behind me leaving you alone sometimes, including today at lunch; the mission all along, even when I liked him was to make you fall for him like I knew you would and then break up with him to give you your space. Now, I can see that the mission has been accomplished – you kissed him. I can break up with him within the next few days, and you guys can be together – my work here is done." Her grin is wide, now that she's explained her entire, twisted plan to me, but I'm still in full shock. She did all that just for me?!

It takes me a few seconds to regain my powers of speech, but the moment my voice box decides to cooperate with me, I immediately screech, "Annie, why the hell did you do that?!" and I spank her hard on her arm.

"OW!" Anne yelps, rubbing her arm. "Gee, thanks Lily – that was an extremely bitchy thing for you to do!"

"I'm sorry, Anne, but why did you do all of that when I was trying to hook you up with him?" I ask her, feeling tears in my eyes. "All I was trying to do was make you see how much you like James, and you were working the whole time to make me see how much you thought I liked him."

"Lils, he's not my type," she says gently, now forgiving me for hitting her as she places the arm I smacked around my shoulder. "He's a lovely boy, but there's no real spark, no connection between us. I know I've told you this before; he can get along with anyone, but it takes someone special to get into a relationship with him, and honey, I'm not that person – you are."

"I don't love him though," I whisper. "He kissed me and all I could do was freak out and think about how much I was sinning, kissing my best friend's boyfriend."

"Okay, so that wasn't ideal, but you can't tell me you felt nothing when you kissed him," Anne says, her voice still tender. "Didn't you feel anything?"

If I was a good person, I would tell my friend the truth and say yes, I did enjoy it, even if I shouldn't have. However, today, I clarified for myself that I am, in fact, not a good person at all, so I go along with this conclusion and lie through my teeth by saying, "No, I didn't feel anything."

This puts Anne into a deep thought and she sighs, pursing her lips as she looks to the floor. "Well, still – I'm sure you did, and that's why I'm going to break up with him, probably tomorrow."

"No, don't," I plead. "Annie, I don't want you to break up with him at all – can't you please just do what you know you want to do and stay with him? For my sake?"

She shakes her head. "I'm breaking up with him, Lily."

"But you love him," I almost whimper.

Anne's smile is lenient. "Maybe I did, but it's nothing compared to what you feel. When you care about someone, Lils, you have to think about them before you even start to think about yourself, and that's what I'm trying to do – can you please cooperate?"

I look at her for a very, very long time before I finally say, "I never knew you would do anything like this for me, especially when the success of the plan depends on me seriously falling in love with someone."

She shrugs, her expression modest. "You're the only one I'd ever do it all for, but if you tell anyone, I'll be forced to beat your arse."

I actually manage to laugh, despite the surge of emotion filtering through me. "Deal, Annie."

"Okay," she says, hugging me once more.

"You're not going to break up with him though, are you?" I question her one last time.

"I thought we already went through this, Lily," she says exasperatedly. "Yes, I am going to break up with him, and there's not a single thing you can bloody do about it!" She thumps me on the back and says, "However, I do have one last date I'm going to go on with him, so you try not to do something stupid while I'm gone, all right? I'll see you later."

With this, she gets up and leaves right away, not bothering to let me say a thing to her about breaking up with James, and I am left on my bed, as bewildered as a turtle might be if its shell was yanked off of it. Even though we finally came clean on what we were trying to do for the past few weeks, I still can't believe everything that was said. We had been matchmaking each other at the same time, and with the same guy, a guy I'd hated since I was eleven! Oh, the irony of life; who knew I was ever going to be part of such a mess?

One of the other big things that astonished me tonight, however, was not only the irony, but Anne's sensitivity tonight. I'm not saying she's an insensitive person, but she has never, ever tried to do anything as thoughtful as what she admitted to a few minutes back. It's so uncharacteristically clever/dedicated/sweet of her to think such a plan through and seriously execute it – not many people I know would be able to do that. I admire her patience with me, her commitment, and her self-control – no matter what she says, I know that there's still a part of her that adores him, and she's trying to block it out so that I can take James. I don't know what to do about it right now, seeing as my brain is having a hard time taking everything in even now, but I know that I'll figure it out probably within the next couple of days – before Anne has time to break up with James – so that I have a good argument as to why Cinderella should just stay put and let her fairytale continue the way it's supposed to.

I sigh as I lay back on my bed, my hair fanned out across my pillow, and let my eyelids start to droop, even though it's way too early to be doing anything like this – it's been a very strange day.


A/N: Okay, I'm hoping I didn't make too many typos in there, but wow; that an eventful chapter! Ha, I didn't expect it to get so long or so vital when I started writing it, but hey, that's the fun of writing – never knowing where you'll let the characters take you next. :) Hope you enjoyed that – I know it was interesting for me to write for sure – and, as always, don't forget to review. :P

Extra Note: The spell Lily used to fix her Herbology bites, Vigoratus meus taedium vulnus, means Heal my disgusting wound in Latin. The spell used to fix Anne's hair, Planto meus saeta decorus, means Make my hair beautiful in Latin. I looked them both up on a free translator, since I don't know how else to make up spells. xD