FOREVER

FOREVER

Year 3

Part 3

Subtitled: The plot thickens

Adam read over the paper again.

They MUST be crazy!" he thought shaking his head over the contents. Suddenly the door creaked open and Adam stuffed the paper hastily under his pillow, hoping he didn't look too suspicious.

"Adam," Said a feminine voice. "Come on its time for dinner, everyone else is already down there." His sister Annabelle walked into the light and Adam nodded. She was right; his dorm was empty of all of his roommates. In fact he hadn't seen any of them for along time.

"Where's everyone been all afternoon anyway?" Adam pulled on his boots. Annabelle smiled at her twin's useless attempts to tie his boots quickly.

"Today's Saturday, they had Quidditch practice." He nodded before giving up on his boots. Together they walked down to the Great Hall.

*****

Lily moved her food around on her plate listlessly. Around her, her friends chattered about various things but Lily was having trouble focusing. Something was bothering her. The two new transfer students were nice and all but there was definitely something weird about them. Especially the boy, Adam. She just couldn't put her finger on it. They weren't the only ones who were acting strange either. Both Tina and Peter were not their usual selves and what was worse was that no one else seemed to notice. The talk had turned to the upcoming Christmas holidays something Lily really wasn't really looking forward too. She just didn't know if she should stay over or not.

"Are you going home?" Remus asked Sirius. Sirius nodded and laughed.

'Why would I stay here? It's so boring! You'd have to have no life to stick around this place." Remus and Anna glared at him and he stared at them cluelessly. "What" He mouthed. Anna jerked her head pointedly at James who was staying due to the death of his parents last spring. Sirius paled considerably. Lily felt the situation was getting a little to tense for her but it was definitely good it happened. Sirius' little comment made up her mind for her.

"I'm staying over." She put in, trying to divert attention from James. It worked all the eyes turned to her as she spoke for the first time that night. Sirius sent her a grateful look and James glanced up from his plate for the first time, a bit of sparkle back in his eyes.

"Why?" He asked looking genuinely interested. Lily laughed.

"Have you ever met my sister? Please, I simply refuse to spend two weeks with her. The house is MUCH to small for that!" Everyone laughed including James. Lily couldn't help but notice that Tina smiled weakly before continuing her conversation with Adam and Peter, who didn't even look up, let alone show any sign that they had heard her. Just as Lily was about to leave James stopped her.

"Can I talk to you?" He asked looking slightly nervous. She nodded and he led her to an empty classroom.

"He probably wants to talk about the next Animagus meeting." She thought as she mentally ran through the list of ingredients she had uncovered the other day.

"Well-" He began looking her straight in the eye. "We have a Hogsmade visit coming up, right?" She nodded, not sure were this was going. "I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?" She looked at him blankly.

"You mean you Sirius and Remus, right?" She asked. He shook his head and Lily searched for words, more confused than ever. Was he asking her out? Even before she had thought about it, the words were out of her mouth. "Alright." He looked visibly relieved.

"Can we keep this between ourselves?" James gave her a puppy dog look. "I mean to see if it works out and, stuff." So he was asking her out! "Just imagine if Sirius or Anna found out." He wheedled. She nodded a smile growing on her face.

"Okay." She agreed and they set off to class.

*****

Snowflakes swirled around the windowsill making Lily smile. She surveyed herself in the mirror critically. Trying to find a suitable way to wear her hair. She glanced at her watch. Only five minutes until she was supposed to meet James. It had been really hard to find an excuse for her friends on why she couldn't "go to Hogsmade" but, after a very convincing cough, she managed to get them to leave without her. Lily felt rotten about lying to them but it did make the situation a lot more exciting, if not "forbidden." Finally settling on pony talk she grabbed her cloak and ran down the stairs two at a time. At the bottom was James. He was leaning against the railing looking very bored, but as soon as he saw her, his face lighted up.

"Ready." He held out her arm for her to take. She giggled but declined it.

"Yep, I hope they don't see us together!"

"Me too, it was murder to get Sirius to leave! Finally I told him that I had detention and he hurried off really quick." James rolled his eyes at the memory.

"Well, I'm sick with the "flu." She winked at him and feigned a loud but obviously fake cough. He smiled. They walked for awhile until Lily no longer knew where they were. "How are we going to get there anyway?" She asked looking around her for the first time. He smiled secretively and thrust aside a large purple curtain. Behind it was an ornately decorated mirror. Making Lily gasp with delight. "Oh."

"It's a secret passage way!" His grin grew wider. "It leads right into Hogsmade and I thought since we missed the carriages we'd go through this one." He tapped his wand four times on each side of the mirror and it swung aside to reveal an earthen passage. He looked at her for the first time putting his arm out in a sweeping gesture. "Shall we?"

*****

Sirius gulped his Butterbeer with all his might before banging it loudly on the table and burping. Collective winces arose.

"Sirius!" Anna said her voice thick with disgust. He grinned cheekily.

"An encore you say? Well if you INSIST!" He reached for his glass, which was promptly yanked away by Remus.

"That won't be necessary." Said Remus, pushing his own glass out of Sirius' reach also.

"Come ON Sirius! Please act your age for once." Tina scolded causing Sirius to whimper. "Oh THAT'S mature." She scoffed, not bothering withhold the disgust in her voice. "No if you're quite through pouting I'd like to get down to business." Sirius did the best imitation of a put out two-year-old he could manage. Tina rolled her eyes. "Okay, back to Lily and James. Any suggestions for getting them together." She surveyed her classmates like a court room judge.

"I have one!" Anna said grinning. "Why don't we have Sirius go out with Lily to make James jealous?"

"Nope," Tina said shaking her head. "Too messy. We're trying to start a relationship here not ruin a friendship"

"Okay why don't we stage Lily in trouble and James will have to save her." Said Peter trying to contribute to the conversation.

"NOWAY!" Said Tina. "What happens if something goes wrong and Lily really is in danger."

"Well if you're so smart Tina, you think of something." Sirius said obviously irritated with his friend. Unfortunately for Sirius, Tina was unperturbed.

"Er… All right. Lemme think." She paused. "Okay I've got it!" She whispered something to the group, who grinned conspiratorially.

"Great!" Anna said, her grin becoming eviler by the second.

*****

"Where do you want to go first?" James asked his date. She shrugged.

"I don't know but we'd better avoid Zonko's and The Three Broomsticks. That's were Tina and Anna usually go." James nodded.

"Yeah. Remus, Sirius, and Peter too. Come on let's go to Honeydukes." They set off through the snow to the little store.

"Do you miss them, your parents I mean?" Lily asked suddenly as they looked over some Levitating Sherbet Balls. The smile fled from James' face.

"Yeah, all the time. Did you know that Lucious Malfoy's father bought my houself Dobby?" Lily shook her head the pain in his voice becoming more than she could bear.

"James… I…" Lily said unable to find words appropriate enough.

"I hate him!" He burst out. A new emotion in his voice that could only be described as hate. "And one day I'm going to find him Lily and he's going to pay." James' voice had gone deathly quiet and his fists were clenched. Lily was suddenly scared. If Voldemort could hurt someone as… as untouchable as James then no one was safe. Lily suddenly felt very sick.

"Let's go." She led him away. "You want to go somewhere to talk?" He nodded wordlessly and led her to the Shrieking Shack. They settled themselves into the sparsely decorated room. At first James was hesitant to speak but soon his voice filled the room and was accompanied by tears for the first time in almost a year.

James was long asleep and Lily stared out the dirty window vaguely wondering what time it was. It was a good thing the next day was the first of the holidays so that no one would miss them at lessons. James had cried himself to sleep and Lily hadn't the heart to wake him. Night had fallen and Lily was a little scared by the darkness and the remoteness of her location. Dawn was just breaking in the East and she was too tired to think any longer and soon fell into a deep sleep.

Lily stirred, her body aching all over. Sunshine greeted her eyes making the emeralds squint against the brightness.

"Morning sunshine." Said James making Lily smile at the irony. She groaned, shielding her eyes from the sun.

"What time is it?" She asked as his features came into focus.

"Mmm… Around eight." Lily sat up quickly.

"We'd better go. Sirius, Anna… they're leaving we'd better say good-bye!" She said making for the door.

"It's no use they already left around an hour ago." James said never leaving hid position.

"And you… you didn't say good-bye?" She asked not quite understanding why her heart was doing so many flip-flops.

"I couldn't leave you." He said avoiding her gaze. "Besides, how would I explain to Sirius my absence? " He grinned at his own attempt to lighten the already tense situation. She smiled at him, seeing him in a whole new light. "Come on, we'd better go back. Just in case, you know Sirius mentioned our absence."

"Of course." She said and the headed out the door.

****

Lily sat up quickly in her bed, her heart pounding with excitement. Today was Christmas and she and James were the only Third-years staying over. Below her bed was a large pile of presents making Lily's grin only grow. She gathered them in her arms and walked straight into James' room without knocking. He lay, sound asleep in his bed clutching a picture of some sort. She tip-toed over to him and ever so carefully removed them from his grip.

Much to her surprise she found that it wasn't one picture but two. The first one was of James' parents in Diagon Alley. His father held a very young James in his arms and they waved hard at her. Lily blushed when the young James blew her a kiss. The second one was of her. It was her at Sirius' house when she was racing them on brooms. Her hair was everywhere and it was one of Lily's least favorite pictures of herself. She had wondered where that had gotten too. Suddenly the realization the James SLEPT with a picture of her came to Lily and she quickly put them back in his hands. Embarrassed by what she had seen Lily gathered the gifts again and went to the door and knocked very loudly.

"Ahem." She said loudly before James finally woke up.

"Merry Christmas!" Said Lily grinning at him and carrying the gifts over.

"Are those ALL for me?" He asked pretending to really think that.

"Oh yeah! You BET!" She laughed, sarcasm apparent in her voice. "I'm not giving you your present until tonight." He looked slightly put out by that.

"Fine, then you won't get yours until tonight either." Without another word he tore into his gifts.