2
Ok, so she didn't like him. It was okay. He would get over it. James Potter was strong, he, he, he was James Potter for Chrissakes.
"Alchemy" he read out loud. He hadn't been back here in ages…and wasn't intending to, but this is where he had met Lily…and he was in denial. Of course, where else would his feet decide to carry him?
The London rain pattered down on the little gothic pub. A few muggles sat with witches or wizards that he most often recognized from Hogwarts. They were trying to learn how to turn a paper clip into a safety pin. Relatively simple spell, he realized…he had mastered it when he was about five.
Underneath his thick woolen cloak-hood his eyes scanned the room specifically. Trying to make out the exact spot where he had his encounter with his angel.
"People everywhere
Sense of expectation
Hanging in the air
Giving a spark
Cross the room your eyes
Are glowing in the dark
And here we go again
We know the signs
We know the end
Masters of the scene
We've done it all before
And now we're back
To get some more
Voulez—"
James sang silently and monotonously before he was interrupted by a cold touch. The song was still playing over and over in his mind like chalk grating upon the blackboard. The teenager made—or rather attempted to make blind conversation with a group of vampires that he had befriended during his full moon escapades. He was trying madly to get his mind away from the ceaseless melody:
I know what you think
The Girl means business
So I'll offer her a drink
Lookin' mighty proud
See you leave the table
Pushin' through the crowd
I'm really glad you came
You know the rules
You know the game
Master of the Scene
We've done it all before
And now we're back
To get some more
Voulez Vous
Voulez Vous
Voulez Vous
He shook his head suddenly like a sharp pain had him in its grasp. Stop! He screamed inwardly. One of the vampires (that apparently knew him better than the others) noticed this.
"Something on your mind, Prongs?" he asked, sounding completely uninterested. Bored, as they were all supposed to sound. "Not going soft are we?" he added. James gave him a meaningful stare.
"No…just a few memories at being back here…Excuse me…" when James left, the conversation soon turned back to the newly invented self-replenishing mugs "Available now at Three Broomsticks!"
One of the Vampires' number, although, looked after his former partner in crime…he should be back in a few days time.
"The whole of line No. 75 has been found to be flawed, No. 84 is yet to be inspected, total profits are four-hundred billion galleons. Total overhead costs equal one million galleons." Lily read aloud from the Business Page, expecting her indifferent best friend to be as surprised as she was.
"They are so lying Bell." she commented. Grunt.
"Bella! Are you even listening?" Grunt. "Humph, I shouldn't even tell you that Sirius has invited us to that rich people ball thing. You deserve it."
"Really?"
"NO! What do you think?" Bell frowned in concentration. How could her normally decent friend be interested in the Quidditch Supply Market? Maybe Lockhart books or Witch Weekly, but Quidditch? She was just insufferable really.
"What are you lookin' at you mental?" (A/N: I used to call my best friend that in third grade; none of my best friends really ever liked me tho, I wonder why…) Lily eyed Bell's choice in clothing with awkward suspicion. She wasn't going to the ball like that if she hoped to score a rich guy. And too bad that Sirius wouldn't work because she and he were second cousins twice removed and thrice put back together or something like that. Remus would be there, but he was not wild enough for the girl's taste. And there was also James, who was even more loaded that Sirius, but Bell thought he was too wild for her. Peter was never around anymore, and the girls didn't know him that well anyway, so he wouldn't work either, she claimed.
As Bell droned continuously about why she couldn't go out with their closest male friends (while trying to juggle her own and Lily's make-up in her gesturing hands), Lily eventually began to turn the idea around in her own little head.
Sirius and she had gone out in fifth year…no chemistry, so he was out. Remus was a walking talking Gary Stu in her eyes, too perfect for her to love. She was that biased that Remus dared not even ask her out as obvious as it was that he liked her. Peter was too timid, she'd always thought.
She was going out with Severus, true, and he was loaded, check, plus he was really sweet in private. The only downfall was that she knew they couldn't be together. They didn't match…They weren't meant for one another. 'But,' she reminded her reflection, 'Not everyone gets what they were meant to get. What else did she need? What was it that Severus did not have?
She knew the answer to that immediately. She needed someone who could compete with her, would bring out more in her. She needed someone to perfect her perfectionism—so obviously Peter and Severus were out before she even thought of them. James Potter was that someone albeit. He brought out the best in her. He was imperfect enough to be perfect, and he even came with the Black charm and looks as an added bonus. Too bad she was not what he wanted. Lily was too plain for him; James needed someone that cared to look good just for him, to make him feel special. Lily would refuse to do that even if God had asked her to do so.
As she immersed herself deep in thought: about loaded guys, paying off the loan on her flat, about buying a house and her future, her kids, Voldemort, the boys had come to pick them up for the 'rich people ball thing,' as the girls put it. Literally.
"LILY!!! ARE YOU GOING TO HURRY UP?!" Bell's shrill impatient voice cut through the air like a freshly polished steak knife.
"THAT'S IT!" she heard someone else say. Lily looked at the watch, suddenly realizing that she had been thinking longer than she estimated. She stood up to leave, and the Someone Else had the same idea. James Potter frustratedly lifted her up from behind, her sleek fashionable robes billowing behind her, and slung her over his shoulder. He sighed frustratedly, as she screamed for him to put her down "this instant."
"Well if you hadn't taken so long!"
"I was coming down right then, and then you completely took me by surprise—"
"I see that you still can't think of anything but yourself."
"When did I ever do that, I'm not selfish, you are,"
"You see what I mean, there you go with the 'I'm not this I'm not that,' You're not the only person on this planet, you know!" The heated argument still continued as the couples entered the Ballroom and began the customary waltz. Lily and James danced in perfect sync from so many years of experience on the side of James, and the rigorous practice that he made Lily endure in seventh year because Hogwarts Head Students always opened Hogsmeade Winter Festivals. For one dance she had practiced two hours every night. As much as she hated to admit it, this is exactly the perfectionism that she looked for in a guy.
When the dance was over, (Lily tried to trip James and he pulled him down with her and then she punched him square in the nose; something happened very swiftly, profanities were exchanged, and Sirius' parents kicked them out. They didn't even get through the whole dance.)
"Why do you go out with him anyway?" James asked out of the blue, not even bothering to hide his loathing and jealousy. He pulled his cloak around him and sat on one of the empty benches in the Blacks' backyard.
"What do you care?" Lily followed his example
"I care about you, we're friends, and you have to know that I like you a lot, unless you're completely clueless, as I don't doubt you are… besides, I can be curious, Evans, give it a rest." Lily scowled. Leave it to James Potter to lower a girl's self-esteem; one compliment was masked by ten insults. She thought painfully how he would never be this rude to one of his potential wives.
"Fine, Evans, I'm sorry, okay, now tell me. I'd like to have a decent conversation because I came out here to enjoy myself and I'll do so, even though you ruined my perfectly scheduled snogging sessions." Lily was becoming more and more vexed with him. He was almost as impossible as Petunia, almost as mentally abusive. And why was it that it was their attentions that she wanted most? She was a damn perfectionist was why.
"Severus," she looked at James's scowl, "Snape is treating me well. More so than you would treat your love interests anyway if you treat them all like you do me."
James looked down at her weirdly for a second, as if he sensed that she was upset, and it was more than a little annoyance at his behaviour. He made as if to hug her or something of the sort, but noticing her sparkling green eyes, stopped short. She could never be his. She could never be abyone's. Lily was a lady of her own league, and she was too good for him.
He was overcome with longing and love for her all at once and a quick flashback passed through his mind "Voulez Vous," he said to her rhetorically. She looked at his eyes like he was crazy.
In one sweep, James let the lust possess him and pressed his lips to hers with force. Lily's mind sprinted wildly, 'What was happening?' 'Oh well,' she thought, 'Might as well make the best of it.'
The girl released all of the pent up anger and tension upon her system and replied even more fiercely. At first James was taken aback, but all too soon it became a violent race, a competition. The two molded like fire-fused metal and each struggled to overpower the other. Everything was a fight with the two. This continued for more than a little while, until they both had to stop from being out of breath. They had been at it for a full twenty minutes and were more burnt out than pigs in an oven.
"What—the—hell?!?"
"Lil, let me explain,"
"Lil? Didn't I tell you never to call me that again?
"Oh get over it, you kissed me back too! It was equally your fault!!"
"You know what, you're right,"
"I am?" James sensed a clever insult coming his way. It was probably something about his ego
"Yes, you are right, it was partly my fault that I let myself do that. It was probably all this stress." James stared blankly. Anything: a pounding to the pulp, a reprimand of his hormones, anything would've been better than this. She was stabbing at his open wound, infecting it with her beauty and attractiveness.
"I know I'm right, Evans, and I've been going through a bit of stress also, so its probably just…"
"Yea,"
"Erm…"
"I have..er..things to do Potter, so I'll be…going now,"
"See you around, and fix you hair,"
"You have lipstick smudges on you…" she retorted, ashamed that he had a chance to correct her. James tried to remove it, but always missed it by a few millimeters. He expected Lily to come fix it or wipe it off with a genious invention of hers, but she only reminded him that he had a wand. James felt really stupid.
Since neither had anything to do and only came up with those excuses to get away from the awkward situation before anyone revealed too much, the two only planned to walk around the block until Bell and Sirius or Remus came with the Floo Powder to pick them up. Eventually, around two in the morning, they ran into each other again.
"I thought you had things to do Evans?" James questioned, raw emotions pulsing through his veins like rumors at Hogwarts. He was still thinking about the rush that he felt when he kissed Lily for the first time after ten years of hidden feelings. Lily was traveling along the same roads of thought and realized she had no excuse planned.
"I just didn't want to be around you," she replied icily. Stab, Stab, Stab. He was wrong in the first place to take advantage of her like that. She would bet ten galleons then and there that he kissed her because he already had snogging sessions planned and wouldn't get them unless it was with her.
Of course, that wasn't true. James probably felt more strongly for her than she did for him, emotion wise. It would have been obvious to an outsider that James loved Lily and vice-versa; too bad they weren't outsiders and couldn't see any of it. Love was blind, but lovers were not only blind, but deaf, dumb, numb, stupid, and plus they had a stuffy nose.
"Oh fine then," James whispered faintly.
"Yeah, you're not going to die if you don't have one snogging session, Potter."
"But that's not—" Lily had already stormed off. He huffed and started walking it the direction of The Alchemy for a strong cup of Dark Roast. She was such a headache. He didn't even know why she bothered.
In the meantime, Lily was going to exactly the same place to find Severus. Maybe a make-out session wasn't such a bad remedy to her problems.
A/N: OHHH! I think that's the fluffiest thing I've written, and there's more to come! Ack, yeah, I know. I'm really bad with romance. Actually, I'm really bad with writing in general, but I do it because it gives me pleasure so Screw it All I say. There are worse writers than me (Right, reviewers? *wink-wink, nudge-nudge, hint-hint?* It always works with them good authors!) Oh, and By the way, the song Voulez-Vous belongs to ABBA (love 'em)
-Parsel