She was relaxed and pleasantly exhausted from her previous activities with James. So you would have thought with that release of energy that some of her nervousness had been eased as well, that, however, was not the case.

Even Emily, who had arrived whilst Lily was bathing with James, couldn't make her feel better no matter how much she fussed and complimented.

Lily was certain that she looked terrible. She was unhappy with her hair and even her beautiful green dress, the one she had instantly fallen in love with when she'd seen it, no longer looked as good as it had two hours ago when it was still on the hanger. She was almost positive that she was going to look ridiculous compared to all the elegant women who were sure to be attending tonight.

She gazed unhappily into the mirror and made a half turn. She felt awful, she had so wanted to make James proud when he presented her to his family and their social circle. She was already at a disadvantage, being a muggleborn, she knew that she was going to be scrutinised closely, just like she knew she would not be scrutinise kindly.

She should have shown James the dress. She had had the silly idea that she wanted him to be surprised, but right now she would have done anything to know what he thought before she waked into that room. She didn't know what she would do if he didn't like it, and if he didn't, there would be no time to find another one,

"Do you think," she asked Emily, who was sitting at Lily's dressing table, fiddling with her makeup, "that I should wear a feather or something in my hair?"

Before Emily could decide whether Lily was joking or not, someone knocked at the door and opened it without waiting.

It was James, and with the briefest of looks in Emily's direction he sent her quickly out of the room. Then, from across the room, his eyes rested on Lily.

She returned his look through her lashes then quickly looked away. He may have thought she was being modest and shy, but she wasn't. She just couldn't bear to see disappointment in his eyes. Therefore she missed his obvious appreciation.

"You look so beautiful," he quietly said.

Surprised and disconcerted, she blushed. She quickly tried to think of some kind of response, but nothing sensible came to mind.

Instead she said "Are you alright, you didn't hurt yourself earlier, did you?"

"Actually," he said, "I didn't think to look."

Thinking about how exactly he had hurt himself they both stared at each other a moment, causing her blush to deepen and to spread further down to her chest.

"You are so good-looking," she said after a moment, completely surprising herself and James.

He gave an embarrassed cough and, instead of answering, he thrust forward a box that he'd been hiding behind his back.

She looked at it and almost laughed at the way it had been wrapped, but the desire to laugh faded when she realised that the reason it was so badly presented was that he had wrapped it himself rather than having a house elf do it as he would have normally, instead he had actually put the effort in to trying to wrap it himself. The thought made her impossible happy.

Her fingertips touched the wrapping affectionately, and only after a few moments did she realise that he was patiently waiting for her to unwrap it. She really hated the idea of destroying his touching attempt at wrapping her gift but, nevertheless, her fingers fumbled to pull off the paper. It turned out to be quite difficult given the excessive amounts of spell-o-tape that he had used.

And after a minute of fumbling he was obviously becoming impatient for her to see her gift and so took the box back off of her. He easily opened his own wrapping and with a flourish held it out to her again

She lifted the lid and gasped, an elaborate diamond choker glittered inside. She had never seen anything like it before, not even around Narcissa Malfoy's throat.

Stupidly, she asked "This is for me?"

"Yeah, it's for you," he smiled.

"But why?! It must have been so expensive!"

"You're beautiful and you deserve to have beautiful things," he said sincerely, going a little pink in the cheeks. "Think of it as an early Christmas present" he said when she still hadn't said anything "…Can I put it on you?… You do want to wear it, right?"

She nearly laughed at such a silly question but, instead, she turned around allowing him to fasten it around her neck. It felt pleasantly heavy and cool against her neck and as she spun back around to look in the mirror a flabbergasted smile spread across her face

Touched by the gesture and not the gift she turned and kissed him, not being able to think of enough words to thank him.

"With this around my neck no one is even going to notice me," she finally said lightly.

When his only response was to stare at her intensely she thought that perhaps she hadn't managed to get across how happy and thankful she was for her gift. She was about to open her mouth to try again when he suddenly grasped her beneath the armpits and sat her on top of the dressing table that had been behind her.

"As dangerous as it is to contradict you, you're wrong, Lily," he said roughly.

Shocked at his unexpected move she sat there in a kind a stupor, but all confusion went out the window when he ran his hands up the back of her legs and kissed her neck. Whether it was the stroking of her thigh or the kissing of her neck, her head fell forward onto his chest.

"Lily." he groaned huskily.

All she could do was moan back to his deep, resonating voice.

With this obvious sign of arousal, James couldn't seem to help himself. Before Lily really had a chance to realise what was happening he was insider her and pushing into her quickly and roughly, whilst she sat on top of the dressing table.

Foreplay seemed to be completely irrelevant as he simply kept thrusting into her forcefully and relentlessly.

She found she couldn't do anything, but hang onto his neck and pray that he didn't loose his grip on her or she'd end up the floor again.

With a gasp he convulsed into her. He stood, pressed against her for a moment his chest heaving. Then he said, his hot breath fanning across her skin, "Don't clean it up, when I look at you tonight I don't just want to know I've been inside you, I want to know that you feel me running down your leg."

Then he kissed her hard, withdrew himself from her and left the room.

Dazed, she slid to her feet and stood leaning against the table for a few minutes just staring at the door he'd left through.

Suddenly it opened and Emily stuck her head round. "Okay?" she asked, briefly scanning Lily.

Lily nodded weakly then caught sight of herself in the mirror, she was thoroughly dishevelled. She made a weak attempt to fix her hair, but her arms felt too heavy. So she gave up and just continued to stare into the mirror.

She felt Emily come up behind her and wrap her arms around her. "Don't worry, we'll fix it."

Lily nodded weakly and prudently chose to ignore the laughter she heard in Emily's voice.

--

A/N

Okay I know I said that I might update on Sunday but…2 days late isn't that bad is it?

I haven't had time to reply to your reviews yet but I will get to them - I just figured that you would prefer an update now rather than later

I'm really sorry but I have to inform you all that …I've run out of pre-written chaps and so from now on updates might be a little slower because I need time to write them!

But don't be downhearted and please enjoy!

Oh and review!