A/N: Whee! Thank you for all the wonderful reviews...I love you guys! You're the most schnazz, chunk, glacial, groovy, rougilicious people ever! :) :) Hope you enjoy the proposal.
Chapter Ten: The Not-So-Perfect Proposal
The next morning when James woke up and reached blindly to the bedside table to get his glasses, his hands instead fell on something small and velvet. He picked it up to find a black ring box.
Holding his breath nervously, James pulled the box open, then sighed in relief. It held a gold ring, decorated with a large ruby bordered by two smaller diamonds. When he'd asked the Marauders to take care of getting a ring, he'd expected something plastic. Thank God they'd actually taken it seriously.
For once.
Under the ring, James discovered a tiny piece of paper. He unfolded it to find a short note scribbled in Sirius's messy handwriting.
'Hey Prongs,
I told your mom you were proposing, and she practically had kittens. The ring used to be your great-grandmother's or something like that...your mom seemed absolutely terrified at the prospect of letting me handle it. How insulting!
Good luck, buddy.
-Padfoot'
James grinned, then stared down at the ring. It would be on Lily's finger soon...by that evening, if all went well.
Of course, that definitely wasn't a sure thing. All going well was about as likely as Severus Snape proclaiming his undying love to Mrs. Norris before becoming a prima ballerina.
~*~
A half hour later, James was climbing slowly down the stairs, ring safe in his back pocket. Strained, nervous voices were growing louder with every step, and as James entered the living room, he found Mrs. Evans and Lily. Both looked as though they'd been up for hours, judging by their perfectly groomed appearances and stressed expressions.
"I. Cannot. Believe. This." Mrs. Evans hissed, staring in horror at something she held in her hand. "How could this happen?"
"Mum, try to calm down-"
"I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!" Mrs. Evans cried. "THIS IS AWFUL! AWFUL!"
James leaned his head to the side to see that Lily's mother held a package of red napkins in her hand. They read, in neat white script, 'Happy 90th Birthday, Lily!' "It's YOUR fault, Lily Marie!" continued Mrs. Evans, positively spitting mad. "YOU ordered them, you must've said the wrong thing!"
"I SAID NINETEENTH, MOTHER!" Lily cried back. "I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NINETEEN AND NINETY!"
"WELL, THEN YOU WEREN'T SPEAKING CLEARLY!" Mrs. Evans yelled. It was strange to see someone who usually seemed so mild-mannered in such a rage.
And over napkins, no less.
"I DIDN'T EVEN CARE ABOUT THE NAPKINS MOTHER!" Lily screamed. "THEY'RE JUST NAPKINS! WE COULD USE PLAIN ONES! BUT NOOO, THEY HAD TO BE CUSTOM MADE!"
"Aaaurgh!" Mrs. Evans cried in annoyance and frustration, then turned and stomped out of the room, throwing the napkins at her daughter.
Lily caught them, then threw them to the ground in anger.
"Er...Lil?" James asked weakly.
"What do you want, James?"
"Um...I was wondering...uh..."
"Spit it out," she snapped.
"Willyoumarryme?" James asked the floor, awkwardly dropping to one knee.
"What?!" Lily asked, sounding slightly puzzled and highly annoyed. "James, there's this thing called ENUNCIATING...try it sometime."
"I..." James started nervously.
'Just say it, you idiot!' a voice in the back of his head exclaimed. 'I love you, Lily. Will you marry me? Is that SO difficult?'
"Er..."
"James, I don't have time for this right now," Lily snapped. "This party is a huge deal, okay? Get back to me when you've regained the ability of speech."
James felt a burst of anger surge through him. This was NOT how he'd imagined this to be...she was supposed to be crying with happiness, not treating him like...Sirius!
"Fine," he spat, standing up. "Fine. Never mind."
"Good," Lily returned coolly.
"Here you go," he said as he made his way towards the stairs, pulling the ring from his back pocket and tossing it over his shoulder. "Will you marry me. There. I said it. Oooh, ahhh. Romance galore."
He was halfway up the stairs when Lily said weakly, "James?"
Spinning around angrily, he asked, "What?!"
"You just asked me to marry you."
He nodded. "Yeah."
James couldn't help but feel a bit less angry as she slipped the ring onto her finger, then stared at it in giddy disbelief.
"Well...?" James asked expectantly.
"Oh, you idiot!" she cried happily, running over to him and throwing her arms around his neck. "Yes!"
"Yes?" James confirmed with a laugh of happiness.
"Yes yes yes yes yes," Lily beamed, pressing her lips to his own.
When they pulled away, James grinned at her.
"Happy birthday."
~*~
"I am SO sorry," Sirius apologized promptly to Lily as he stepped out of the fireplace that evening.
"Huh?" Lily asked, tearing her eyes away from her engagement ring. "For what?"
Before Sirius had the chance to reply, a tall, blonde man about their age stepped out of the fireplace. He grinned widely at Lily, doing the seemingly undoable and exposing all of his teeth at once, then gave her a roguish wink.
"That's what," Sirius muttered under his breath.
"Ahh," the blonde with the blinding smile beamed with a chuckle. "I assume you're the birthday girl?"
"Er...yeah, that's me," Lily said weakly as he took her hand in his own and kissed it.
"Gilderoy Lockhart," he introduced himself with an air of great importance, looking as though he expected her to have heard of him.
"Lily Evans," she responded awkwardly.
"I'm afraid I didn't get a chance to get you a birthday gift," he said, still smiling in a manner that Lily was beginning to find downright frightening. "But me just being here is enough to give you happiness the whole year round, I'm sure!"
He chuckled in an 'I am so dazzlingly witty that you should just bow down and grovel at my brilliance right now' way, and Lily laughed weakly along.
"Er...Gildy, buddy," Sirius said. "How about you go ask Mrs. Evans and Petunia if they need any help in the kitchen?"
"Who is this Petunia?" Gilderoy asked.
"Lily's older sister."
"Well, Petunia," Gilderoy grinned, running a hand through his hair in what he obviously thought was a very suave manner, "Today's your lucky day!"
As soon as he'd disappeared into the kitchen, Lily exclaimed, "What the HELL is that and why is it at my HOUSE?"
"Mr. Lockhart is friends with my dad," Sirius said in a manner of extreme disgust. "And he made me drag good ol' Gildy along. He used to be completely hideous...now that he can actually look into a mirror without breaking it, he's officially declared himself God's gift to women."
Lily smirked. "If THAT'S God's gift, the Lord's become quite a cheapskate."
"Try telling GILDEROY that," Sirius groaned.
"Oooh, I will, if he goes and tries to pull that Gomez Addams hand-kissing crap on my again," Lily assured him.
"Gomez?" Sirius asked, confused.
"Oh, never mind," Lily said, rolling her eyes and straightening her hair.
Just then, Gilderoy sauntered back into the room. Luckily, he paused to admire his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace before he could reach Lily, and she ran as quickly as she could to answer the doorbell before she witnessed him kissing the looking glass or something equally narcissistic.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-ding-ding-dong!
"Oh, be patient," Lily thought angrily, tucking her hair behind her ears before she swung open the door.
It took all her self-control not to scream in shock, for standing before her was what could only be a life-sized Barbie doll (or possibly the female Gilderoy). Perfectly teased blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a face covered with so much make-up that she made clowns look au natural.
"Li-leee!" they shrieked in absolute joy.
"Er...hi," Lily responded weakly, still trying to figure out who in God's name it could be. If the living doll hadn't called her by name, Lily would have just assumed that she'd taken a wrong turn on her way to a tea party at her princess pink Barbie dream house.
"You look exactly the same!" cried the Barbie.
"You...don't," Lily said, trying desperately to find out who it was.
"Gosh, Lil, it's like you don't even remember me!" the Barbie said with a shrill giggle.
"Of course I do..." Lily racked her brain desperately, trying to remember who it could be.
"But we haven't seen each other in so long," the Barbie continued wistfully. "It's really a shame...whenever you came home from school for holidays, my parents and I were always in France."
"VIRGINIA?!" Lily gasped.
No way.
No way was that her best friend.
"Well, it's Ginia now," Barbie...Virginia...Ginia said, "Virginia's SO immature."
But of course Barbie isn't, Lily thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.
It was still hard to believe that THIS was Virginia...but then again, it was entirely possible...they hadn't seen one another since the summer after Lily's fourth year. But could one person change SO much in four years? Virginia had never even PLAYED with dolls, and now she was a living one!
"Er...hi," Lily said awkwardly. "Come on in."
"Here ya go!" Vi...Ginia said with a giggle, shoving a pink gift bag into her hand. Lily stared at the wave of pink in horror for a moment before forcing a smile and setting it down on the gift table.
"Oooh!" Ginia cooed, studying the ring on Lily's finger. "Pretty! Where'd you get it?"
"From my boyfriend...fiancee," Lily corrected herself, feeling a pleased blush come to her cheeks.
Fiancee.
She could definitely get used to that.
A/N 2: Lil's party will continue in chapter 11...I was desperate to post. :) Be ready for disaster to strike in the next installment!