A/N: Ok...there's not much to say...enjoy!!!
Chapter Eleven:
Journal Entries Can Ruin Lives
Life went on normally afterwards. Christmas came and went. Lily had stayed at Hogwarts for the holidays, with Tawny and Sirius, although Grace had invited both Lily and Tawny to France with her on vacation. Lily and Tawny both knew it would be too much trouble. The holidays went very uneventfully by. Most days went something like this:
"'Morning!" Tawny would cry cheerfully.
"Good morning, Tawny" Lily said, yawning.
"Morning, Lily, Tawny." Sirius would say when they went down to the common room.
"So, what're we going to do today?" Tawny would ask.
"Pranks." Sirius would respond.
"On who? Everyone's at home." Lily would say.
"Fine, then, what else can we do?" Sirius would ask.
"Don't ask me!" Lily would always say, and they'de usually end up playing chess, or Exploding Snaps, or quiddich all day.
All in all, even Sirius was almost glad when vacation was over. He was beating Tawny at chess for the 50 billionth time, when James and Grace came into the common room.
"Hey, guys!" James said, enthusiastically.
"How was vacation?" Grace asked.
"Boring. Extremely boring. But, I loved your Christmas present!"
"Great! I thought you would!" Grace had given Lily a charm bracelet from France. Each charm had a bit of magic to it.
"How come I didn't get a bracelet?" Tawny said in a mock annoyed voice, then laughed. "I know, I know. I have enough jewelry, and lose it all. Oh, well. I loved my little Penelope!"
"Penelope?" Grace asked.
"I decided on a name. I've always loved the name Penelope, and for a kitten as cute as Penny is, Penelope is the only suited name."
Lily giggled. "I hate that name, but whatever you want..."
"Hey! Penny heard that!" Tawny laughed, and threw a pillow that was on the large armchair in the common room at Lily.
"Ok, so, how was your vacation, Grace?"
"Oh, France was beautiful, but it was a bit too much huge museums, and walking for my liking. The Luvre was quite dull, if you ask me, though. It's probably because I'm no artist, but I found it quite boring. All we did was walk through room after room of paintings, and I was really looking forward to the Mona Lisa, and once we got there it was quite anti-climax. I mean, it's a woman, not to mention a not-so-pretty woman staring at you from a painting, and people were literally staring back for hours on end, as if at any moment she would come alive, and they didn't want to miss it." Grace giggled.
"Oh, Grace! How can you not adore The Luvre?" Cried Tawny, the artist of the girls "It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Mona Lisa. I mean, it's amazing. The artists who made it there are the best of the best, they're brilliant." Tawny sighed, obviously dreaming about her artwork finding a place in the Luvre.
"Oh, Tawny. Don't be silly. It sounds horribly dull to me."
"It was! And the pictures didn't even move!" Grace said, horrified, as if the idea of pictures which didn't move was outrageous
"It's a muggle museum, Grace, the pictures can't move." Tawny said, then she changed the subject. "So, what else did you see? How was the food? Did you go to the Eiffel Tower? Did you have a brilliant view from your hotel?"
"We saw a ton of stuff, the Arch of Triumph, the Eiffel Tower, lots of museums, and buildings, and stuff, the food was great, yes, we went to the Eiffel Tower, and, yes, we had a great view from the hotel. It was very beautiful, but I'm glad to be back." Grace sighed, and flopped down on a huge armchair.
"So, what else? Any cute French boys?" Tawny squealed.
"Hey! I heard that!" Said Sirius, who was across the common room talking to the Marauders
"Ok, any cute French boys that aren't as cute as Sirius?" Tawny giggled.
"Tawny, you sound like you're twelve, grow up." Grace laughed.
"Hey, I resent that. I do not act like I'm twelve!"
"Nope, She's right, I've seen more mature twelve year olds before. I'd say ten." Lily grinned.
Tawny laughed, "So, were there?"
"Maybe," Grace grinned, "But, I couldn't speak a word of their language."
"Don't be stupid, you don't need a language. All you have to do is use the universal language of I'm-a-cute-girl-ask-me-out-to-dinner-now."
"That may work for you, Tawny, but that is defiantly not my native language." Grace laughed.
Tawny giggled. "It's simple. Watch," Tawny tossed her hair behind her ears. That second every boy in the common room's head turned. Tawny laughed, and turned away. "See? Simple!"
Grace fell to the floor laughing. "Eek! I'm dead!" She cried when she got up.
Lily giggled, and asked, "Why so?"
"I haven't done any of my homework!"
"Just tell them you left it all at your hotel in France." Tawny said.
"McGonagall will kill me, but ok."
"Ok, well, we have this entire afternoon to have as much fun as we all would've had together all vacation." Tawny announced.
Grace grinned. "So, what's the plan? Pranks?"
"Yep!" Tawny smiled evilly.
"No boys involved. This will be just us girls." Said Lily
"Ok, so, that'll be fun with a side order of pranks, hold the boys." Grace giggled.
"Ok, so, now to the serious stuff, what pranks do we play?"
"Oh, I don't know. I figure we'll sneak around the castle tonight and do whatever we feel like."
"Fun!" Grace squealed.
~*-*-*~
That night, at around 1 am, everyone had emptied the common room, and Tawny began to shake Grace, who was beginning to doze off. "Whaa-? Tawny, it's the middle of the night. I'm tired. We have classes tomorrow."
"Wake up! Are you forgetting our little midnight prank session?"
Grace grumbled, and got up. Lily, who had her nose in a book, called "The Golden Compass" sat up. It was written by a wizard, named Philip Pullman, and he was actually considering publishing it for the muggles. "So," Lily began, "Do we start with the boys or Valery?"
"I say Valery and Michelle, then we'll move on to the boys, and, finally, the Slytherins."
"Perfect! Let's get started!"
The girls raced up to their own dormitory. "Hmm...what have we here?" Tawny giggled at Valery, who had cucumbers sitting on her eyes. She always slept like that. She claimed it helped her to "maintain her perfect complexion".
Lily and Grace laughed. "Oh, let's do something wicked! I intend to pay this girl back for her six years of being a prissy little prat."
Grace grinned evilly. "I say we give her a little makeover. Then, we set her alarm clock so that she'll be late enough she doesn't look in the mirror before she leaves. And, just in case, we'll lock the bathroom door."
Lily and Tawny had gins on their faces that made them look like clowns. "Ok, so, let's see where Miss Freemore keeps her cosmetics." Tawny whispered, as to not wake up Valery. They soon found that Valery had an entire trunk full of makeup. Lily, Tawny, and Grace soon began their work. Lily had gotton out some atrocious-colored green eyeshadow, and painted it all over Valery's face. They then poured five entire bottles of blue nailpolish on her hair.
"Oh, this is too evil." Grace whispered. Just then, Valery rolled over. "Let's go. We still need to do the boys and the Slytherins." So, the girls quietly slipped out of their dormitory, and down into the boys'. All the boys were fast asleep.
"Oh, do we have to bother them? They look so innocent when they sleep." Lily snickered. Like those boys would ever look or be innocent, but Tawny didn't seem to have heard her, because she went on, "Let's just borrow some pranks, and go do the Slytherins." Lily and Grace had no choice, but to agree, since Tawny wasn't really asking them. Lily snuck around the common room, looking for pranks, when something caught her eye, under James' bed. It was a piece of paper, written on in James' handwriting, in blue quill. Lily figured it might be plans for pranks, or something of an interesting sort, so she picked it up and read it;
Journal,
Oh, geez, just when I thought I was completely over my obsession with girls I just had to find out I was in love with her. I mean, I thought I couldn't stand her. Sirius always told me I was. I'm not sure if he believed himself or not, but I know I am. I know it somehow. It's insane! I mean, I'm perfectly content one second, then I get a vision of her hair, or her face. Everything reminds me of her! I always figured love would be all happy, and perfect, but this is true torture! I can't tell her how I feel. She'd laugh at me, or maybe just pity me. Or maybe she'd get all awkward, and it'd ruin our friendship. I don't know what to do, really. I can't get her out of my mind. I'm going to rip this out of my journal now, and hide it. I don't want Sirius or someone to find it. More importantly, I don't want myself to find it. It's hard enough admitting this to myself, I don't want to be tormented by this every time I open my journal.
~James
Lily stared at the paper, astounded. She would've never believed James had a sentimental side, ever. Yet, here was living proof. She wondered who it was James had this obsession over. And, to Lily's shock she felt a pang of menacing jealousy of whoever James had written that about. Lily neatly folded the entry and put it in her pocket. She wasn't sure she wanted Grace and Tawny to see this. "Lily!" Came Tawny's voice. "Come on! We found a ton of pranks while you were lollygagging," Tawny grinned, "over James, no doubt."
"Oh, shut up, TW. I was doing nothing of the sort. I was looking diligently for pranks." Lily said. It was half true, she had been looking for pranks. Until she saw the journal entry, that is.
Grace laughed, and said "Come on! We have work to do!"
~*-*-*~
The next morning the Slytherins were shocked to find their underwear hanging throughout the great hall (some of which had pink fluffy bunnies), their dormitories and common room walls filled with green mold, and their Robes all dyed red and gold (the Gryffindor colors). Even more shocked, was Valery, who woke up to an empty common room, and ran immediately to Transfiguration, where everyone burst out laughing. Sirius and James were almost in tears, and Michelle even found herself giving a little giggle, to Valery's disgust. Valery immediately whipped out her pocket mirror, and gave petrified shriek. She then burst out in tears, and glared at Lily who was falling out of her seat laughing. "You did this, Evans! You'll pay for this, you will!" She screamed. Lily payed no attention to Valery's threat, and continued to laugh. She looked over at James, who grinned at her. For some reason, she wanted to melt into her seat. Since last night, something had changed about James, in Lily's eyes. The class was still laughing hysterically. Valery, in tears, vainly tried to get chunks of blue nail polish out of her hair. She turned toward the classroom door, and began to run out.
"Excuse me, Miss Freemore, where do you think you are going. Please take your seat." Came Professor McGonagall, "Class, please calm down. We have a class to start. The class went by uneventfully, with McGonagall explaining the rules and dangers of human transfiguration. After class, Lily was walking toward the Arithmancy room alone. She and James were the only ones who took that class, which was fine any other day, but it felt awkward today. James was walking a few feet behind her, and if she had looked back at him, she would've noticed that he he seemed to be muttering to himself. Finally, he lifted his head, and, on what seemed like a spur of the moment thing, James ran up to Lily. "Hey, Lil!" He said, in a kind of shy (in James' own way) way, and smiled.
"Hi!" Lily said, trying hard to act normally, when she was dying to ask him who James was so obsessed with, and why that other girl instead of her.
"So...have you heard?"
"Heard what?"
"Well, there's a huge, huge, huge ball next month. It's celebrating Hogwarts' 1000th anniversary."
"Wow. That sounds fun." Lily said trying to act normally. She was dying to tell him it wouldn't be any fun, because she'd end up going with someone who she had no interest in whatsoever, but she just put on her fake smile, and kept walking toward Arithmancy.
"Lily, can I ask you something?"
"Of course, what is it?" Lily prayed that he wouldn't tell her about the mystery girl.
James was silent for a second. "Oh...wait...I have to go...go get something...I'll meet you in class!"
Lily stared at him for a second, then headed toward class. While they were copying down a chart in class, Lily whispered, "So, what'd you want to ask me?"
"Nothing. I just...I just wanted to ask if you had a spare quill, that's all. But, I found one on the ground in the corridor." James said, with a tone of nervousness that Lily had never noticed in his voice.
"Oh. Ok." Lily gave a deep sigh in her head. They didn't talk for the rest of the class, or for the rest of the day, for that matter. James spent the day goofing off with the Marauders. Lily watched James with them. She sighed. The question that had been plaguing her all day seemed to have an endless number of answers, but every one seemed to be less likely than the next. James didn't fall in love. He wasn't the type. But, there, in Lily's pocket, was living proof that he was. And Lily hated it. She didn't know if she was really jealous, but she certainly didn't like the fact that James would fall in love. It put him in another perspective in Lily's eyes, and Lily hated the perspective. This probably had nothing to do with jealousy in that way, Lily thought, it was jealousy, and worry, but not because she wished it was her who James was in love with, but because James would probably end up asking the girl out, and maybe even marrying her (that might've been going a bit too far, but Lily was often one to jump to conclusions), and Lily would no longer be the #1 girl in James' life. It was funny, but, in a way, she always had been. And, it had felt nice when they were friends again, and James no longer had any girlfriends. And even while he had those billions of girlfriends, Lily was still his friend, probably the closest friend (besides the Sirius) that he had. When James went out with this new girl, Lily knew that girl would automatically take her spot at #1. So, that was all the jealousy was. Wasn't it?
It was ironic. A year ago, Lily wouldn't have cared what James did, or who he went out with. Actually, a year ago, Lily wasn't speaking to James. Lily hated the memories she had. Just over a year ago, she had been going out with Gilderoy Lockhart. He was nice (at least around her, he was), smart, funny, popular, and extremely handsome. Lily thought he was perfect. Then, for no reason at all, James came in and ruined everything. During that time, although they argued and fought, and teased each other constantly, they were friends. But, James ruined their friendship by running in and breaking them up. He told Gilderoy that she was going out with Remus, and Gilderoy dumped her. And this was all for James' own sick amusement. Lily didn't speak to James for a year, and hated him all summer, but that's pretty much how long you can go without liking James, who was probably the most likeable person in the school.
Lily looked over at James, across the dinner table. That wasn't the same boy who had ruined her perfectly good relationship. It couldn't be. She scowled. The worst thing about James was that you couldn't help liking him. Lily sighed. Who would've thought that a simple journal entry could ruin the rest of her life.
A/N: You'd make the world a better place (not to mention make me a happier person) if you review!!!