Scheduled Post: 20 January 2007 (0)
Actual Post: 23 April 2007. AAAGH I'm sooo sorry!

A/N: Finally something real! ...You'll see what I'm talkin' about :P. Anyywayys, now that I am back in school I feel as though I need to start writing this again, so... we'll see how that goes. I've started two new stories over on fictionpressdotcom (like fanfiction but original stuff), so that is taking up some more time. I've written about 4700 words of one (in one go! Took me just over an hour!!) and over 5800 of the other one... check it out! My penname is the same over there :D.

-Chapter 11-
The Slug Club Party

There were no classes the next day, and Lily was held in the infirmary by Madame Pomfrey for the entire day. Fortunately, Gideon Prewett was there as well, and as Lily hadn't really talked to him in a while, they took the time to catch up.

At first, it hurt to even talk. After James had come through the door of the Owlery, she had had so much adrenaline running through her veins that the pain caused by her broken jaw hadn't even reached the surface of her consciousness, but the next morning when she woke up it was aching like Merlin.

During the morning, all of their friends came to see them, and kept them company. They informed them that the Death Eater James had Stupefied had been taken by a group of Aurors to Azkaban, the wizarding prison. The Ministry employees had showed up only a few minutes after Lily had gotten to the scene of the battle.

However, after an invigorating, rich lunch, Madame Pomfrey put Gideon back to sleep with a draught to help quicken his healing process, which was major, as a Killing Curse had bounced off a mirror and reflected onto him – not a minor injury.

So she was lying there, silently fretting about the schoolwork they all would have to catch up on the next day of classes, when the only friend who hadn't come by yet quietly sat on the empty bed beside her. The night before they had gotten separated as soon as Madame Pomfrey had expertly spotted Lily's injury.

"Thanks…" she muttered.

"Pardon?" James asked genuinely.

"Thank you," she repeated. "If it weren't for you…" She stopped.

"It almost looked like you were going to throw yourself out the window when I got there." He frowned.

"Yeah – I was."

"You could have gotten yourself killed!" He growled, leaning towards her, arms outstretched.

"Well, you, too!" She hissed back, meeting him partway and clutching to him tightly.

"Evans – I–"

"Lily," she interrupted him, finally, still clinging to him like she hadn't seen him for years.

"Lily?"

"My name is Lily, James," she said, voice muffled in his shoulder. "Please… call me Lily."

He pulled away a little. His hazel eyes were very warm, and had a strange look in them. "Lily?"

She opened her mouth; but then his hand was on her cheek; his breath was warm on her face.

She closed her eyes.

Before she could take a breath, his lips were on hers, soft, tender and still. One of his big hands was still on her cheek, but the other was running through her messy red hair. Caught up, she grabbed the back of his robes tightly and pressed her shoulder to his in an awkward, amazing way.

"James?"

Lily froze against James' lips, then violently jerked backwards, lying back down, eyes wide.

"James?" Gideon repeated, leaning to get a better look at his red-haired friend. "Lily? Are you OK?"

Lily couldn't speak. She couldn't move. All she could see was James… who was slowly backing away from her bed. Before he got to the door, he spun around and fled.

"Lily?" Gideon asked again, and then sighed. "No one ever tells me anything!"

-OOO-

Madame Pomfrey almost had to chain Lily to her bed to keep her in the hospital wing that night, but there was no stopping the Head Girl the next morning as she was up way before classes began, dressed and out the door. No one was up at that hour, so Lily's flight through the halls toward the Gryffindor common room was uninterrupted. There was only one person she could discuss this with, and Lily had no qualms about storming into the seventh years girls dorm and rousing her best friend.

"Whirling dervish," she muttered to the drowsy Fat Lady, stumbled through the portrait hole – and banged right into one James Potter, who was dressed in pajama bottoms only, and in the middle of pulling a T-shirt over his head.

"Lily–" he began, head popping out of the T-shirt's neck.

"Yeah, uh – bye," she mumbled, eyes locked on his bare chest.

"Wait – Lily!" He chased after her as she headed towards the girls' staircase, but as soon as he set foot on the steps, they turned into a slippery slide and he fell down, arms and head still tangled awkwardly in his shirt. Before she could fall all the way down, Lily clutched the rail and leaped onto the landing. For a moment, she turned around, and looked into James' eyes, but then she spun on her heel and burst into the seventh year girls' dorm.

"Estrella!" She cried. "Come here!"

Her best friend, still asleep, awoke with a thud as Lily pulled her off her bed.

"Who – Lily?" She mumbled. "What do you want?"

Ignoring her dreary protests, Lily began dragging Estrella by her armpits out of the room. By now Alice and the other two girls had woken up, and were staring at the two girls curiously. Lily had managed to haul Estrella through the door before the girl really woke up.

"Okay, okay!" She yelled. "Let me go! What is wrong, Lils? And it better be a damn good reason, too, because–"

"He kissed me, Strelli."

"I'm going back to – wait." Estrella narrowed her eyes at Lily. "What?"

"Ssssh!" Lily shushed. "Come here…" Lily dragged the blonde into the spacey loo. "He kissed me."

"What? When? How? Where? Tell all!" Estrella exclaimed. "At least if I'm not getting any doesn't mean that you can't, I guess–"

"He kissed me," Lily repeated, ignoring her friend's last comment. "Last night, in the hospital wing."

"Okay. Okay." Estrella nodded. "Got it. But… why aren't you with him now, having a snog-fest?"

"Actually, he kissed me and then ran off, quite quickly."

"Did you slap him or something?"

"No! What makes you think I did that?"

"Well… you seem to be rather confused about your emotions, my dear Lily," Estrella began, settling down for a good advice session. "You decide you love James – but then you do nothing about it! What are you thinking?"

"I don't know…" Lily muttered. "But – I didn't know what to do yesterday… I mean, he just kissed me, all of a sudden! And then ran away!"

"True." Estrella nodded. "And there was nothing that you did to scare him off?"

"I didn't slap him, if you're still onto that!" Lily cried indignantly, but Estrella only rolled her eyes. "Well… he was kissing me, and then Giddy said his name, and we both kind of jerked back, and I lay down, and then he began to back away, and… that's it."

"He left."

"He left."

"How bizarre," Estrella pondered, getting up and strolling over to peer at herself in the mirror. She was clad in boys' plaid boxer shorts and a small black tank top, and her short blonde hair was attractively wild around her sleep-heavy face. She bit her lip. "I don't know, Lily… maybe I should talk to him–"

"Don't!" Lily exclaimed. "Don't do that," she continued a bit calmer.

"Why not?" Estrella asked, sending her friend a curious look.

"I… just want to pretend it never happened."

"Never happened? I – I don't understand you, Lily."

"I don't understand myself," Lily admitted.

Estrella took a seat beside Lily, looking down at her seriously. "You want to pretend… it never happened?"

"At least until I'm ready."

"You… Will you ever be ready, Lily?"

"That's the thing. I don't know." Lily got up, wandered over to the sink and turned on the faucet. "I'm not myself, Strelli! Usually the first thing I would have asked you this morning was… I don't' know – did you do your homework? And ever since James kissed me, I haven't even thought about the attack on the school, or Narcissa…" She stared at herself in the mirror, reminding her of a time exactly a month ago when she had also been looking in a mirror. That time she had been happy because of her realization of her love for James... Now her huge green eyes were bright with questions. "All I can think about is him. And I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing…"

-OOO-

The next few days in class were relaxed, as everyone was trying to deal with the Death Eater attack in their own way.

Before lunch was Divination, in which Narcissa was sitting in her old spot, leaving Lily, Estrella and Emmeline with an empty chair at their table. Lily felt too tired and worn to pursue the Slytherin on a merry chase around the classroom, and she had no idea what to say to her if she did manage to corner her. If something were really wrong with her, Lily decided, she would tell her. Otherwise – she'd just let her live her life how she wanted to.

-OOO-

Every time Lily closed her eyes, she saw the image of James backing away from her after kissing her. Too, too many questions ran through her head. Why had he done that? What was wrong with her that had made him so perverse to her? That look on his face… the look on his face had been a frequent on for him, back when she had known him as Potter; back when the only sentence she had used his name in was "No, Potter, I will not go out with you, for the millionth time! Now piss off." Merlin, he had been so trying back then… why would he have wanted to go out with her?

He was a guy who could get a date with any girl he wanted – was that why he had been after her? The one girl he couldn't get a 'yes' from? A challenge? It… couldn't be the same now, could it? Could he have only been pretending to be her friend?

No! She told herself. That was too clichéd. But… it was possible. And now that he'd kissed her, he was done. He'd conquered the Lily Evans – onto the next one.

Lily was in the Great Hall having lunch as she pondered and realized all this. Putting her head down, she hid her face in her hands, trying to disguise the fact that there were rivers of tears streaming down her cheeks.

-OOO-

Lily had herself thoroughly convinced that her assumptions were correct, easily forgetting about all the times she and James had shared in the last three months. Whenever she spotted his dark head bobbing in the corridor ahead of her, she yanked Estrella – who was always by her side, thank Merlin – into the nearest room until he had passed by. She had changed the patrol schedule so that Emmeline was on shift with James, whereas Lily partnered herself up with Remus. In her classes with him, she had Estrella sat a few tables away from usual, so that she wouldn't have to sit with him… wouldn't have to see what was wrong with her.

"Have you ever considered that maybe you didn't do anything?" Estrella questioned Lily one day after they had ducked into the empty Charms classroom after they had spied James on their way to lunch. "Or maybe both of you are just confused?"

Lily was silent.

"Lily… I think you should talk to him," Estrella said. "Just… ask what's going on, you know."

"No, I don't know, and I do not want to talk to him even a little bit!" Lily exclaimed. "Let's go – he's gone."

"Yeah," Estrella muttered. "And so are you."

-OOO-

It was a few weeks before Christmas before Voldemort made his presence known once more. At the breakfast table, Lily had gone back to her old regime of strategically placing herself the furthest away from James as possible. She was calmly helping herself to some bacon when the morning post came. As usual, there was nothing for her. As her parents didn't own an owl, being Muggles, usually Lily sent them a quick note every week with her feeble news, and received a similar letter back each weekend.

"Oh, that's for me?" Emmeline, beside Lily, asked an owl who had landed gracefully in front of her. Emmeline had taken to sitting at the Gryffindor table more and more since the beginning of the year, since her closest friends were Gryffindor. The owl bobbed its head, and then stuck out its leg holding the scroll of parchment on it.

"From the Ministry," Lily commented. "Curious."

Emmeline untied the ribbon keeping it closed and began to read.

"What does it – " Lily began, but was interrupted by Emmeline letting out a broken gasp and dropping her letter; her elegant hand went to cover her mouth. Immediately Lily snatched up the letter in order to know what it was that made her serene friend so shocked and upset. She needed only to see the first few lines to understand Emmeline's duress.

Dear Miss Vance,

We are bereaved to have to inform you of the loss of your parents, Mr Timothy and Mrs Abigail Vance, on an assignment yesterday at an undisclosable location. Their lives were very valuable to us here at the Ministry or magic, and we offer out most sincere apologies for this unfortunate event…

Lily should have seen it coming. Immediately, she tossed the letter across the table to Gideon, and placed an arm around Emmeline's slender shoulders, pulling her close.

"Emmeline, oh, Em," she crooned, momentarily forgetting about her own insubstantial problems. Gideon had come around the table, and was sitting beside Emmeline on the bench.

"Come here, Em, love," he told her stoically, gently taking his long-time crush out of Lily's arms. Sobbing, she leaned heavily on the tall, blonde boy's chest.

"Oh, Gideon," Lily heard her murmur. "What am I going to do?"

"I'll be here," he whispered back. "Don't worry, Emmeline."

"But – Gideon…"

"Emmeline, I won't let anything happen to you," Gideon said earnestly. By now the whole group had gone silent, allowing this exchange between the two to be peaceful. Emmeline pulled away a little, and looked up at Gideon, who was in turn gazing down at her soulfully.

"I love you, Emmeline," he declared softly. "You can count on me."

With another sob, Emmeline threw herself back into him, grasping him even tighter. Gideon looked down at her head with a fierce kind of love in his eyes, then slowly bent down and kissed her lovingly on the head.

"Wow," Estrella snorted quietly from Lily's other side. "They have got to be the most chaste couple in the entire school."

"That was a beautiful moment, Strelli," Lily countered. "You just completely ruined it for me."

"Well, I'm sorry!" Estrella rolled her eyes. "But it's true."

"You're just bitter," Lily told her gorgeous best friend. "It's not exactly as it your getting any lately."

"Very true…" Estrella admitted. "Aren't I supposed to be some kind of goddess? That was what you guys were going on about, back in the beginning of the year? So why am I not snogging some random hot bloke at the moment?"

"Good question." Lily slumped forward.

Estrella looked at her redheaded friend. "Don't you hate it when you now exactly what your problem is, but you don't know how to fix it?"

Lily looked at her best friend. "Black," she said at the exact time Estrella said, "Potter." They both paused.

"We appear to know each others problems," Lily commented.

"Hey, at least we have each other." Estrella put her arm around Lily. "Right? We don't need any stupid boys. Right? …Lily, right?"

"Very funny, Strelli," Lily chuckled. "We don't need any stupid guys – good one!"

"We need them, don't we?"

"D'you think?"

"I try to leave that part of life to you…"

"We're not a very brainy bunch at the moment, are we, then?" Lily commented.

"We need to do something, dearie," Estrella told Lily. "Something to solve out problems."

"But what?"

"Yes, that is the question."

"You're now supposed to come up with some brilliant ideas…"

"Hey, you're the genius here."

"Not when it comes to the opposite sex."

"I've lost my touch, as you've been so kind to point out a few moments ago."

-OOO-

The next morning in Potions, a note lay await in front of Lily usual chair.

Your presence is required at the Slug Club's Annual Christmas Party. Lily groaned. It would be no fun at all, she knew. Maybe she could skip it – she glanced back down. At the end of the note it stated Presence Mandatory – excused only with note. No skiving off this time. Lily's life was feeling quite pathetic at the moment.

Fortunately, Remus, Sirius, Emmeline and Fabian had been invited as well (James, too, but Lily wasn't certain if that was fortunate or not). The six of them showed up together at the Potions master's office on the evening of the 14 of December. Slughorn had the place all decorated up for the festive party, and long tables laden down with goodies took precedence in the centre of the room.

Unusually Slughorn had not made it essential for members to bring a guest; in fact he almost forbid it, so Emmeline was not happy. Only a close friend could tell however, because the only sign was a light wrinkle of her brow and a sad shine in her patient eyes. She and Gideon were in love, no questioning it, and it, at times, made Lily feel downright dismal to see the two together, knowing that something wrong with her kept her from having a real loving relationship like theirs.

"Don't worry, Em," she consoled. "It's only mandatory to stay an hour."

"I know," Emmeline laughed. "But what an impossible amount of time that seems from this side of it!"

"Giddy's wonderful, isn't he?" Lily smiled affectionately.

"Unbelievably," Emmeline gushed genuinely. "He's been so… strong – and – and he's my life, Lily!"

"I know, Em–"

"Ah! Inter-house cooperation!" Slughorn boomed, coming upon them in his startling Father Christmas outfit. A crown of holly lay on the professor's rapidly balding cranium. "A lovely sight!"

Lily knew not to encourage the man by pointing out that Emmeline had been her friend since first year.

"Good evening, professor," Emmeline answered politely, giving a small smile.

"Yes, yes, indeed, good evening, indeed, Miss Vance!" He chuckled. "Now if you want some true inter-house cooperation, imagine if you two went over to talk to Narcissa Black! She's sitting there, by the fire." He lowered his voice. "She's Slytherin, you know. Oh – and also – she skipped a year. Unbelievably brilliant, that young lady, no doubt about it!"

"That's, er, lovely, professor," Lily grimaced. "Thank you."

"Good evening, ladies – ah, hello, Mr Potter, sorry, must be off! Stomach's making its demands, unfortunately!" As Slughorn blundered off, the boy he'd been greeting skipped out of his way, and ended up directly in front of Lily.

"Oh–" she gasped, and stepped to the left at the same time he did, and then they both went to the right. They repeated this awkward dance a few times, until Lily stopped moving.

"Excuse me," she said firmly, ignoring his attempts at speech. He moved quietly to the side and she took off, almost running. Unconsciously she ended up beside the armchair that Slughorn had gestured towards a few moments ago.

"Narcissa!" She cried, but the girl flinched and a hand flew up to cover her cheek. In a flash, Lily remembered what was going on with Narcissa – it had slipped her mind, as many things did when she saw James. "Narcissa, really–" Lily said quietly. "We can help you, you know. Or – or you could tell Dumbledore – I mean, he can do something – what's on your cheek?"

Narcissa blinked and turned away, both hands now on her face. Lily could see something – something that didn't belong.

"What is it?" Lily demanded, moving so she could see better.

"Lily – go away!" Narcissa hissed bitterly.

"Don't be silly." Lily frowned. "Show me." She seized the girl's wrist and pulled, finally revealing the dark, painful bruise on Narcissa's pale cheek. "I–" Lily gaped. "Who did this?" She whispered, fury building up inside her like a tidal wave. "Who?"

"You've had your show, Evans," a cold, silky voice said. "You can go now."

"I can go?" Lily spun around to face the much taller Malfoy. "I'm afraid I cannot."

"You cannot?" Malfoy sneered. "Why would that be, Evans?"

"I simply cannot, as that would leave Narcissa in the company of you only, and," Lily paused. "Frankly, I would not wish that upon my worst enemy."

Malfoy's icy grey eyes narrowed. "Why you–" he began, but Bellatrix came up behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Now, now, Lucius." She cast her gaze to her small sister, in the armchair, and Lily, who still held Narcissa's wrist. "What's going on here?" Her eyes swung back to Narcissa. "Well, sister dear? You don't really want to have anything to do with…" Bellatrix, eyes hooded, held a long pause… "…Her, do you?"

"I – I–" Narcissa stuttered.

"Unhand my sister, Evans," Bellatrix snapped. Her boyfriend, a large, rather dim Slytherin named Rodolphus Lestrange, had come to stand beside her, a solid, threatening presence.

Lily let go of Narcissa's wrist.

"Don't let her bully you," Lily whispered, rather hypocritically but sincerely.

"Well?" Bellatrix continued. It seemed as though the music had stopped. "Cissy?"

"Er–" Narcissa stammered again, looking desperately at her surroundings. "Bella, please. Please, why are you doing this?"

"Why are you doing this, Narcissa?" Malfoy growled, gesturing at Lily. "Well? What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" Lily burst, impatiently losing her temper. "Nothing's wrong with her – you're the ones with problems!"

All three Slytherins eyed her bemusedly.

"We have no problems," hissed Malfoy.

"There's one right there," Lily pointed out cheerfully. "You have no faults, then?"

"You filthy Mudblood!" Malfoy cried, lunging forward, hands outstretched.

Someone seized Lily's arm and yanked her out of the way, leaving Malfoy to heave himself unceremoniously onto the floor.

"Malfoy," James said, looking down at the icily handsome fifth year sprawled on the floor. "Please refrain from using such foul language in the presence of ladies."

Malfoy growled incomprehensively.

"What was that, old chap?" James asked, leaning forward exaggeratedly, hand cupped around his here. "Didn't quite catch that–"

"I said, you are no better than Evans! You're a blood traitor, Potter!" Malfoy sprang to his feet.

"Obviously, you and I have different views on what exactly a blood traitor is, Malfoy," James told him, hazel eyes lighting up with a strange but wonderful fire Lily had never seen there before.

In the corner of her eye, Lily saw Lestrange lifting his hand.

"James!" She gasped.

Barely glancing away from Malfoy, James aimed his wand at the large boy and muttered a curse that left Lestrange pawing at his lips unable to speak.

Bellatrix put her hand on his chin. "Rodolphus!" She snapped. "What are you doing, you fool!"

James glanced at her, then back at Malfoy. "I suggest you leave, Malfoy."

"I'll never take orders from you, traitor," Malfoy stalked forward again, but Lily saw someone over his shoulder and cheerfully said, "Good evening, Professor Slughorn!"

Malfoy froze, face ugly with a scowl.

"What's going on here, then, m'boys?" The overbearing professor asked, an unusually intuitive look on his fleshy face.

"Erm – inter-house coop – communication, professor," Lily beamed. Voicing the word 'cooperation' seemed a little bit too much in this situation.

"Is that all?" Slughorn insisted, furry eyebrows creeping upwards again. Lily could hear the music once more. "Boys?"

"Yes, sir," James muttered, as Malfoy nodded grudgingly.

"Brilliant, brilliant, wouldn't want two of my best students in detention, now, would we?" He chortled, patting both Malfoy and Lily on the back forcefully.

Once the professor was gone, Bellatrix, who had been attempting at prying Lestrange's mouth open, captured Malfoy's sleeve and dragged both boys off.

"This isn't over, Mudblood!" Malfoy whispered dangerously.

James lifted his wand threateningly once again, and Malfoy closed his mouth, glaring at them maliciously.

"James," Lily said, turning to him. He looked at the ground, fiddling with his wand. "Thank you–" she continued. "I mean – thank you."

He pocketed his wand and raised his head. His eyes connected with hers; she couldn't look away this time.

"I'm sorry, Lily," he said calmly, almost tiredly.

"James–" she stammered.

He gave her a partly regretful look, turned and walked away.

A/N: So... yeah. Topsy-turvy chapter, that one.
Sorry, can't give you a preview of the next chapter because I haven't written it yet! Well! That is weeeird, but true. Will work on that, I promise, and try to post it next weekend... maybe. Depends on reviews here, people. All I can say is that the next chapter is Christmas vacation, at least the first part of it :)
And oh my goodness this has been forEVER! My computer is now dead, as in gone, as in not working anymore so I am working on buying my own laptop... grrr. So much money, and I am so very bad at saving. But don't worry, it will come! Weird thing is, it has been so long that I barely recognize my own writing. I had to make many changes... )