Chapter 12
The common room was empty when I returned from my patrol – I was thankful for that. I walked straight into my room, leaving only to wash my face in the bathroom before going to bed. I kept my mind occupied the entire patrol by being even more thorough than usual. I walked through every corridor on the north side of the castle, going into every room and broom closet to double check that there were no students out of bed. Normally just walking through the corridors satisfied me, but tonight I needed to keep busy.
I couldn't let myself think about my most recent discussion with Potter. If he had given up then that was fine. I didn't like him anyways, right? Right.
The next morning I woke up early so I could avoid Potter again and hurried over to the Gryffindor common room to meet up with the Clique before breakfast. My mind was still reeling slightly over last night but I pushed all thoughts of it to the corners of my head. I couldn't afford any thoughts for him. This was my seventh year. I should be concentrating on my N.E.W.T.S.
As soon as the rest of the Clique joined me in the common room we headed to breakfast. Sirius, Remus, and Peter joined us at the Gryffindor table and before I could object, so did Potter. I turned my head sharply away as he sat down in the only available seat, directly across from me. I immediately became absorbed in the schedule that McGonagall had just handed me.
All of the Clique had been accepted into all of the N.E.W.T.S. classes, obviously. We had Charms first. Charms was my absolute favorite class, so my mood lifted slightly at that. However, my spirits plummeted as soon as I noticed that after lunch we had double Potions with Ravenclaw. Chris would be in that class, too. I scowled slightly at the parchment and Marley noticed.
"What's wrong, Lily?" she asked. "Does your schedule have a mistake or something?"
"No, it's not that," I said, sliding my schedule in front of Marley with my index finger pointing to the double Potions. Pippa bent forward around the other side of me and Emilie leaned around Pippa's other side to look at what I was pointing to.
"Oh," Marley muttered and gave me an apologetic look. "Don't worry about it too much. You like Potions remember? Focus on that."
"What's going on?" Sirius whined. He was sitting across from Marley and he leaned over the table and snatched my schedule from her. He examined it and then looked up at all of our grave faces. "I don't see anything wrong here."
I grimaced. I didn't want to have to explain this out loud, especially in front of Potter.
"I'll tell you later, Sirius," I hissed quickly, hoping to change the subject. Potter's eyes flashed at the exchange between us. I wondered if he hadn't known Sirius and I were back on good terms.
"How about tomorrow night? We'll make it a date," he suggested, giving me a crooked smile giving and a small wink. I figured that meant he would be taking me to Hogsmeade tomorrow.
"Sure, that's fine Sirius," I said offhandedly as I examined the rest of my schedule. A loud crash made me look up. Pumpkin juice had spilled all over the table; apparently the pitcher in front of Potter had exploded somehow. He rose, wiping splatters of the juice off his hands.
"I'm going to see Holly," he snapped and strode away quickly to the Hufflepuff table.
"Shit," Sirius muttered as he quickly cleaned up the mess with his wand. "I'm gonna have to explain that later."
"Sorry if I got you in trouble, Sirius," I apologized.
"It's not your fault. I shouldn't have phrased it like that," Sirius muttered picking up the shards of glass and putting them in an empty break basket.
"Still, I'm sorry. I should have just said it out loud," I muttered, picking up a piece of glass and placing it in the basket.
"Time to go to class, Lil," Emilie called the other side of Marley and we all started gathering our things. I caught a glimpse of Potter at the Hufflepuff table with his arm around Holly. She was a tall, thin girl with a pale face and bright blue eyes. I had never thought about her much. She didn't stand out in classes and I had always gotten the impression that she wasn't the brightest bulb in the shed. But she had always been pleasant to me, which made it hard to hate her now.
"So, can you tell me now? Or was Potter's presence the only reason you wouldn't say it out loud," Sirius jokingly elbowed me in the ribs as we walked down the hall to class and I scowled at him.
"Double Potions with Ravenclaw means Chris will be in that class…" I said wrinkling my nose and looking straight ahead.
"Oh," Sirius said looking forward. "But it's been a month. Would he still be so upset?"
"I think he might be," I confessed. "The breakup was more horrible than I've been telling everyone."
"How so?" Sirius asked curiously.
I glanced around me. Pippa, Marley, and Emilie were walking next to us. They of course knew how horrible it had been. I had spared everyone else the gory details. I turned my head slightly to the side so I could look behind me and saw that Potter and Holly were walking not too far behind us.
"I'll tell you about it tomorrow," I murmured to Sirius turning my head back towards him. "By date you did mean Hogsmeade, right?"
Sirius chuckled. "Yes, that's what I meant."
We reached the Charms classroom and walked in, taking care to choose our seats. Since fourth year when the Marauders and Clique finally made a truce and became friends they had begun sitting together in classes. Pippa always sat on my right side and usually Sirius sat on my left, unless of course we were in a fight. Marley and Emilie sat directly behind us with Remus and Peter on their left side behind Sirius and Potter.
Pippa and I took our seats in the third row of desks. We all hated sitting anywhere near the front because we had a tendency to pass notes.
Potter came in a few minutes after us and took his seat next to Sirius without saying a word. Sirius glanced over at me and winced playfully.
"Hey, James," Sirius said turning back to his friend. "Look, I'm sorry about earlier. That was out of line. Lily and I are just going to hang out, that's all," he explained. It struck me as odd that Sirius would even have to explain something like this, especially after what Potter told me last night about giving up. Why should any of this matter to him?
"No worries, mate," Potter shrugged, throwing Sirius a lopsided smile.
I turned away quickly, hoping to avoid any potential eye contact between Potter and I. Luckily Professor Flitwick entered the classroom at that moment and the lesson began, distracting me completely from my many unwanted thoughts.
Lunch was a painfully slow ordeal. I dreaded every second leading up to the first time I would see Chris in Potions. I barely ate. The Clique kept pushing food on me which I refused. I knew it was silly to dread seeing Chris like this. Things had ended badly but I had moved on. I just wasn't so sure that he had…
Luckily Potter had decided to sit with Holly at lunch so my show of nervousness went unnoticed by him. Remus and Peter were still oblivious as to why I was anxious to see Chris again and Sirius was pretending like nothing was wrong. I was grateful for that. He had never been one to put up with my extreme bouts of anxiety.
Pippa had her arm linked through mine as we walked down the hall and she was chattering about some sixth year Hufflepuff that she thought was cute. I tried to pay attention but I couldn't. I knew Pippa was trying to distract me and I was thankful for her attempts but they weren't working.
We reached the Potions room in the dungeons right as Potter caught up with our group and started whispering something to Sirius who snickered. I cringed internally. Damn Potter.
Pippa's grip on my arm tightened as we entered the classroom and she steered us towards our usual seats on the left side of the classroom, farthest from the door. I kept my eyes down as we walked, afraid that I would see him.
"Hey Evans," I heard a painfully familiar voice call from behind me and I wrinkled my nose slightly before turning around.
Chris was leaning on a desk in front of his Ravenclaw friends, staring at me. He looked thinner. Much thinner. His blond hair had grown longer, too and shaggier. It wasn't combed neatly like it used to be and it fell messily around his thin face and into his usually warm brown eyes; they stared at me coldly now.
"Hi Chris," I said unevenly. I saw Sirius and Potter walk into the room at that point and Sirius abruptly stopped upon seeing Chris and I facing each other. Potter, not expecting him to stop, ran into him and cursed before he too froze as he took in the scene before him. It seemed like everyone in the room had suddenly stopped what they were doing to witness this first confrontation of Chris and I.
"Have a good summer?" Chris asked coldly, his eyes narrowing at me. I felt a twinge of guilt in my stomach and I swallowed hard.
"It was alright," I responded quietly. "How was yours?" I asked stupidly.
He stared at me incredulously for a second. "My summer? It was wonderful, Lily. How do you think it was?" He asked angrily, shoving away from the desk he was leaning on and taking a few threatening steps toward me.
"Chris, I—"
I was cut off as Professor Slughorn entered the room, walking right between us.
"Take your seats please!" He announced as he waddled up to the front of the room.
Pippa pulled me quickly to our table and I gratefully settled myself as far away from Chris as I could get.
Slughorn gave a brief introduction of the class and what we would be doing. As soon as he was done, he flicked his wand and instructions appeared on the board for our first potion of the year, a complicated memory altering potion. The class set to work, collecting ingredients and lighting fires beneath their cauldrons.
"Are you alright, Lily?" Pippa whispered as she set tiny flames beneath her cauldron. "That seemed kind of awful."
"I'm fine," I said quickly, lighting my own fire. "Nothing less than I expected."
"But he seemed so angry. Still." She muttered as we walked over to the cupboards to retrieve our ingredients.
"I know…" I said chewing on my bottom lip as I grabbed a small box of fairy wings for the two of us.
I stood up and turned around, bumping into someone as I did.
"Watch where you're going, Evans," Chris snapped as he walked past me.
I winced at the malice in his voice but made no reply and kept walking back to my table with Pippa on my tail.
I carefully toasted a handful of Doxy eggs with the tip of my wand and then used the side of my knife to crush them into a fine powder. Potions was another of my favorite subjects but as distracted as I was by Chris right now I had to pay attention. Doxy eggs could be poisonous if handled wrong and the last thing I need right now was a trip to the hospital wing. I tipped my cutting board with the Doxy egg powder into the cauldron and watched as it turned a murky brown color.
I carefully opened the box of fairy wings and gently lifted out two of them, being very careful not to crush them. I dropped them into the potion and it immediately turned a translucent pale blue. After stirring three times clockwise and four times counter-clockwise I let the potion sit for a few minutes while I prepared the next ingredient. Beside me Pippa worked silently, mirroring my actions.
I was just placing the scurvy grass onto my cutting board to chop into exactly equal sections when someone knocked into me from behind, sending me forward. I caught myself on my hands, my nose almost touching the rim of my cauldron. I took a steadying breath before I wheeled around to scold whoever had just run into me. I froze at once when I saw it was Chris.
"Sorry," he said raising his eyebrows at me.
"What is wrong with you, Chris? You could have knocked me into my cauldron. Do you have any idea what would have happened if I had spilled this?" I burst angrily at him. I was vaguely aware that the rest of the Clique and the Marauders were watching us.
"Your memories would change a little. So what?" He said carelessly shrugging his shoulders. His eyes remained cold, fixed on my face.
"So what?" I nearly screamed. I had very little tolerance for people who weren't careful when potions were being prepared. I had read too many books on what could occur with accidents such as the one that almost just happened. That plus my fiery temper sent me into a frenzy.
"At this point of the potion it wouldn't have altered any of my memories," I said, my voice shaking with anger. "It would have erased them completely. All of them. I wouldn't even know my own name."
"Well in that case, maybe I should drink some," Chris said leaning forward to look into my cauldron at the steaming pale blue potion. "Then I could forget all the time I spent with you."
That one hurt. Even though I had broken up with him and was making progress moving on, I still cared for him. The corners of my eyes burned as tears started to form.
"Leave me alone, Chris," I spit the words at him and turned back to my cauldron so he wouldn't see the pools forming in my eyes.
"As you wish," he hissed in my ear. Painful memories, times when he used to do that lovingly, surfaced and my guilt consumed me. What if I had made a mistake? I quickly discarded that thought. He wasn't right for me and I knew it. His vicious behavior now proved that.
I felt him walk away and the Clique was immediately at my side, whispering comforting words to me.
"I'm fine," I insisted. "I need to finish my potion."
Reluctantly, Emilie and Marley went back to their table but they kept a wary eye on me. I glanced to the left of me and Sirius gave me a small encouraging smile. Potter was concentrating unusually hard on cutting his scurvy grass.
The burning in my eyes receded and I went back to concentrating on my potion.
A/N: Hello lovelies! I hope you liked this chapter! So Lily's got a "date" with Sirius, James is mad, and Lily's had her first encounter with Chris. What did you think of Chris's reaction? Do you think we'll see more of him as the story goes on? And why was James so mad when Sirius mentioned hanging out with Lily?
Leave a review, I really appreciate all of them and I WILL respond as soon as I get more than like, 5 minutes off from work :)
