"SNOW!!!" Arabella cried as she woke up. All of the girls had fell asleep talking (and taunting) in Lily's room.
"I suppose that means we can wear whatever we feel like- I know for a fact that nobody brought anything to go outside in this weather." Jenny said matter-of-factly, except, unlike Remus, it was kind of an annoying I'm-Better-Than-You-Are sort of voice.
Lily smiled. This was perfect. It was worth the ten Galleons.
Lily smoothed her hair straight. (Okay, I'll tell the truth. She used Sleakazie's or something). She wore an intentionally short white dress with white slide-in heels, no eye shadow (though she carried it in her handbag) and a glossy lipstick.
"Perfection is the goal. Seduction is its art." She whispered, reciting a line from Charm School.
Her dress had slim straps (though it could have held itself up without the straps) and had a very nice skirt that twirled with her.
She was ready to grab hold of James Potter's intentions.
"Good night, Mister Potter." Sirius teased as he, Remus and James stood at the foot of the spiraling stairs. "Did she seriously say that?"
"Yes." Arabella chimed from the lobby, drinking some hot cocoa. They were going to be playing Gobstones, studying, taking notes, organizing pictures, playing wizard chess, discussing Quidditch, playing Exploding Snap- Oh, how limited staying inside a five-star hotel can be.
"That's the first thing I'm going to say to her. We're supposed to organize some pictures for the yearbook (A/N: That and a bunch of other things will be explained in the epilogue) and study and that other wimpy stuff. Not in the breakfast room this morning. We're in the 'Book Room'. Let's see- Prefects and student council- Table six.. Other people, table five, Dumbledore's got errands to run, but we're being watched..." Remus explained from the schedule in front of him.
"What gives you that idea?" James pondered airily, not paying attention at all.
Remus grabbed him by the sleeve and showed him the schedule.
In blinking letters read:
YOU
ARE GOING TO BE WATCHED!!!!!
"Right." Sirius added. "Ah, here comes Princess Lily herself."
Lily cringed unnoticeably at the head of the stairs, but she heard the gasps as she made her way down.
There was an arrogant, satisfied smile on her face. She shook her head and her movements were in a sort of glowing slow motion for the people in awe. Her red curls were bouncing in and out of place.
"Sirius, what are we doing today?" She asked as she came down. "I feel like I'm wearing too little."
"N-n-n-nope.. We're staying in all day." James stammered as Sirius stood frozen, his jaw gracing the carpet.
"What first then? She asked finally reaching the bottom of the stairs.
"Yearbook." Remus said quickly. "You, me, James, Munguldus, Sirius and Helen."
"Gotcha. I'll go get my pictures." She hopped back up the stairs, knowing that at least one male in the room was paying attention to her departure. The skirt wasn't that short, but short enough to catch one's eye.
The Book Room was full of horseshoe shaped booths. Near the large opening toward the bathrooms, there was a particularly shiny, leather booth that Sirius insisted they select. It was very roomy, but Lily ended up sitting on the seat closest to the bathrooms, James ended up on the seat farthest.
She was sorting through Sirius's pictures (even though they moved, they could be too obscene) and she found one that, if it had been Muggle, would have had James lying on the concrete, with a black eye, and Lily chomping away at a sandwich in a cafe chair five feet away, her elbows on the table. She giggled.
"What's so funny about me being hurt?" James asked, taking a peek at the photo in front of her.
"That is sort of obvious." Sirius chimed.
"That wasn't what I was laughing at, but thank you Sirius. I was laughing at the fact that my back is slumped, my elbows on the table, my legs are swinging to an uneven rhythm. My Charm School teacher would have killed me." She said. "Put that one in the yearbook."
The photographed James was loving the attention. Though still stuck to the ground, he was posing like a model in a fashion magazine spread. He was also blowing kisses towards everybody.
"Yep, all them darn girls will just go moogoly-googoly over this one." Remus pointed out in his worst hillbilly accent.
"I bet you ten Sickles that James will NOT be doing that in the yearbook." Sirius pointed out.
"He probably won't be. By then, Lily would have killed him, and he'd be lying in a joke coffin." Munguldus muttered, with very few but Remus hearing him.
"Lily, your butt- It's got this really nice curve.." James began, looking at the picture and unaware that anyone was really there. Then he looked up, snapped back, and saw the entire table staring at him. Especially aghast Lily. "S-s-s-sorry, it's a reflex! Male chauvinism!"
"Speak for yourself, bucko!" Remus snapped.
"How do you want it, slow and excruciatingly painful, or fast and excruciatingly painful?" Munguldus whispered. Helen was giggling.
"Today on Channel Six News: The Eye of the Owl: A homicide case- And a mixture of really, really stupid people. James Potter made a rather, er, rude exclamation The fifteen year old boy, a Hogwarts Gryffindor student on a special trip, was taking a crack at the yearbook and Lily Evans, a fellow Hogwarts Gryffindor fifth year, was the party in offense.." Sirius began, trying to keep a straight face.
"I am going to powder my nose." She huffed. The skirt bounced with her, and basically the only one who could see what was going on was James. Lily had gotten her share of mental-undressing and he was watching her walk to the bathroom. He kept leaning outward, as there were a lot of potted plants in his viewpoint.
He began to think aloud again. "Why does she do that? The intentionally short skirts, the smooth legs... Yummy.."
Before anyone had a chance to shut him up, he fell out of the booth by trying to watch her. Lily looked back for just a moment to seal him there. When the yearbook came out, not more than thirteen people asked why all the shots of James on a normal day in Godric's Hollow were on the floor.
"And he fell out of the booth!!! It was sooo funny!!!" Sirius was slapping his knee by now. The chill had gotten to Lily, and she changed into a long-sleeved tee and a pair of old, yet figure-hugging jeans. She pulled her hair into a sloppy ponytail and was downstairs in a matter of minutes. Arabella laughed just to get him to go away, he was starting to creep her out.
"You know what that banister would be good for?" James asked suddenly, making everyone in the lobby look up.
"Sliding." Lily said quickly. "Haven't done that in a while."
"Care to join me?" James asked.
"I'm afraid of.. Heights?" She lied unconvincingly.
"Don't worry, I'll catch you at the bottom." He said, that familiar smirk planted on his face.
"That'll be sure to rest my fears." She muttered sarcastically, but she climbed up the two flights along with him.
"Okay, I'll go first. And you know if I don't try to catch you, somebody, some GUY will." He said as she looked frightened. He heard a 'fine' and started to slide.
Lily could hear that whoosh as he went down the marble staircase, and his laughter. He was right, this would be fun.
"Ready?" He called.
"Ready!!" She called back. She sat down and secured herself to the banister, then slid down like she was on a toob at the water park, and the banister was the toob.
She shrieked on the way down, but this was nice. She passed many a prissy French maid, a shocked old lady, a mighty cute stud (she noted to point him out to James.. A real stud) and by the time she got to the bottom of the stairs, her fears were rested. She must have flown ten feet off the banister before she landed in a huff in James's arms.
"You thought that was good? You should try the one at home." Lily pointed out as they ran up the stairs again.
Sirius and Remus poked their heads out. "What have we done?"
James was getting
hopeful on the way up. When will I do that? Her home? Wonder why it's better
than this one..
"Here.. We're early." Lily said, handing him a towel.
"What is that for?" He asked as he surveyed her. They were getting ready for the second ball. She had on a diamond necklace and matching dangling earrings, and hunter green velvet block heels. Her dress was with an empire waist, the top part emerald silk with a matching silk sash that turned into a low train. The skirt was emerald green velvet from the high-waisted sash. Her sleeves were short and puffed, trimmed with emerald green velvet bows. She was tying a matching towel around her waist.
"They just polished the banister. I want to go ride. We're really early, so we can take a ride, then hide the towels." She said simply. Some of her curls were pinned up, the rest of them down, kind of like the night before, except no ornamentation.
She was part right. Their first ride, James caught her at the bottom, spinning her around. Then James took another go. He was ready to catch her, his back to the filling room. And he spun her around twice. Well, once, when she noticed there were other people there besides her friends, and in the middle of the second spin, he slowly stopped.
They tried not to burst into giggles, which was very hard, as Madame Effex and her new gigolo of the night were staring openly with their jaws wide open, and the American Minister of Magic laughing in snorts, and Tara staring with a deadening glare in her eyes.
They slowly untied the towels and handed them to Monroe, a rather snooty waiter. Or, more like, they put it in his horrible escargot.
Tonight there were few formalities, just a desperate struggle on Lily and James's part not to burst out laughing whenever Monroe or Madame Effex came around. The Queen herself was snorting, this time sitting next to James.
"This tradition of breaking in new girlfriends.. Does it often work?" She whispered to James as Lily scooped herself some macaroni and cheese with a lot of fancy trappings on top. He stared in horror that his aunt had seen him in a well-tailored tuxedo with a towel wrapped around his waist spinning some girl around after flying down a banister.
"Well, it worked once before." He whispered back, remembering the time she forgave him after she nearly fell off of what? A banister. This was going to be fun.
Tonight they had very lively dances. There was no time for talk when the gavotte music began to play. The music had no gaps, as the orchestra took no requests. After a very nice version of Vivaldi's Spring (it was one of Lily's favorites), another song began to play.
It was meant to be a slow waltz, but Lily couldn't move. She was glad James was so tall that he literally held her up, her feet going into auto-pilot. She got a dreamy look on her face, but it felt more like a nightmare. Moonlight Sonata played in an echoing, creepy key.
She stopped, and planted her feet firmly on the ground. James was the only one who noticed. She ran out of the ballroom and into the cold, shivering on the grand porch.
"What's wrong, Lily?" James asked when he got outside. Strains of Moonlight Sonata came playing out of the open doors.
She was in sort of a trance. "It's so sad, isn't it? The song, I mean. Just freezes you in place. Gave me goose bumps. It was like I was in this sort of galaxy, the way you see them on charts, and I was standing in the middle of the stars, with them slowly rotating around me. They were there, but every time I tried to reach them, my fingers went through. As if I was in this sort of enchanted music box, slowly spinning with strains of music too old to recognize. Sort of scary. I just want to close my eyes and disappear. Onto the streets of Paris, even. That is romantic.."
Tears were filling up her eyes, and she couldn't speak anymore, she was choking on them. She wouldn't cry. Charm School had prevented that.
The song had finished. The tears had disappeared. Lily was no longer the scared little girl he had just seen. She was an elegant, regal young lady who had stepped out for some air. She had to lie to herself and the world, and James was going to regret that he had to break her heart.