FOREVER
Year Four
Par Eleven
Subtitled: Anna Overreacts, James Throws A Fit and Sirius Reevaluates His Habits
A/N - Not a whole lot of humour in this part but don't worry, its on the way. Bear with me for this and the next one will be a lot better. Any way I had this story planned only until year four but last night I had the ULTIMATE brainstorm and year six and seven are goin to rock! Seven for sure. Unfortunately there are certain things that I have to include in year five but I'll try to do it as originally as possible.
Thanks to the following for reviewing!: Piper Winters, *Hermiron778*, BabBigrl
Gurlie409 - hehe fair enough. I hope this chapter is better!
SomEoNeSpEcIaL - You know what? I think you're right, I just reread it and it was pretty awkward how Snape and Lily both thought of that. Sorry about that, but I am glad you brought it to my attention though.
Parselmouth Granger - they broke up in February, and I'm really sorry if they're (the chapters) a bit long. And strangely enough, I'm flattered that you didn't know I was American, maybe my impression of how English students speak isn't that bad….hmmm hehehe
Thanks to the following for reviewing part 25 (This is 27) I was in such a hurry to get the last part up I forgot to include this! BTW the response to it was overwhelming! Thank you sooo much!: Ennia, shopacholic131, Embyr's Shadow, Arwen, Emmie, Rose Weasly, Greengoldfish, Padfoot's Stalker, Black Dreams, *Hermiron778*, Amelia, sOmEoNeSpEcIaL, gummybear1010, kessie ann, Gabby, Tari, Jenessa Eliqua, Mindy, Cassiopeia, Dark Mark, Destiny Phoenix, MmmMmmGood, Emmee
Angela - Thank you so much! I really appreciate the fact that you think I have talent!!!
Sakura - hehe pink would've been very cool for Snape's hair, but don't worry, there's plenty of time left for that.
Calling out your name
Your face is everywhere
I'm reaching out to you
To find that you're not there
I wake up every night
To see the state I'm in
It's like an endless fight
I never seem to win
I can't go on as long as I believe
Can't let go when I keep wondering
Chorus:
Where are you now, what have you found
Where is your heart, when I'm not around
Where are you now, you gotta let me know
Oh baby, so I can let you go
I can hear your voice
The ring of yesterday
It seems so close to me
But yet so far away
I should let it out
To save what's left of me
And close the doors of doubt
Revive my dignity
Bit, I can't go on as long as I believe
Can't let go when I keep wondering
I should let it out, it's time to let you go
Oh baby, I just want to know
Where Are You Now - Britney Spears
"Then, he actually assigned FOUR pages of problems! I think he trying to make me die prematurely!" Lily sighed as she held the books from her previous classes in one hand and fumbled blindly with doorknob with the other.
Roslyn grinned. "Boy, am I glad I took Muggle Studies instead Arithmancy! We have no homework."
Lily glared at her friend and opened the door to their dormitory. "Oh rub it in!" She joked tiredly as she stuck her tongue out at Roslyn. Lily made her way to her bed, and, much to her surprise, when she had flung open her curtains she found a person lying on her bed. Lily let out a scream and the person on the bed stirred in response. After all, it was rather scary to find someone you don't recognize lying on your bed. She (for Lily had by then determined that it was a she) turned around to face Lily, and Roslyn, who had just run over.
"Surprise." said the girl cheerfully. When Lily caught sight of her face, she fainted.
*****
"You guys excited about the game?" Remus asked brightly over dinner the night before the cup.
James grinned. "Oh yeah!" he said as he helped himself to some more salad. "Hey, are you guys doing anything tonight?" James asked his three friends in a low voice. Peter shook his head.
"Nope." Said Remus.
"Na ah." Sirius said thickly through his dinner.
"We're going to work on Remus'" James shot a sidelong glance at his werewolf friend. "stuff tonight." James whispered to Sirius, Peter and Remus.
Sirius, who was on the end, nodded and started to turn to search for his cousin. "I'll tell Lily."
James gripped Sirius' shoulder. "No," he said tensely. Sirius raised his eyebrows questioningly. "She's probably busy." He continued. There was an awkward pause in which Sirius was waiting for James to elaborate and James was waiting for Sirius to agree with him. Finally, James realized that his friend was probably a little confused. "You know, with Snape." James' face hardened as he thought of Lily with his least favorite person at Hogwarts.
Sirius shook his head. "We can't just not tell her. She's been with us on this since the beginning."
"She made her own decisions." James said coolly as he turned back to his Shepherds Pie. "She can deal with the consequences."
"Once again I would just like to point out that you dumped her." Remus said, surprised at his friend's actions.
"James, be reasonable, I know you're angry but she really wants to help." Sirius said, trying unsuccessfully to reason. James shook his head stubbornly. Suddenly Sirius was mad. "I don't know why you're in such a horrible mood but Lily is still our friend and she is still my cousin, so deal."
Suddenly James' eyes flashed angrily. "Either she goes or I do."
As tempted as Sirius was to say that if he really felt that way then he could get lost, but he though better of it and just sighed. Remus, seeing a fight coming on, decided to intervene. "Fine we won't tell her." He said quickly, hoping to make peace. "Five people is a lot to work on this sort of thing, anyway."
"Speaking of Lily, where is she?" Peter lightly, feeling a change in subject necessary. His eyes scanned over the crowd of Gryffindors searchingly.
"Did you check the Slytherin table?" James asked coldly.
Sirius glared at James and excused himself noisily from the meal. Remus shook his head. " That was uncalled for." He said quietly and left the table to make sure Sirius didn't destroy any of James' things like he had the last time he got mad at James. James wrinkled his nose in disgust and left to go for a fly on his broom. A nice long fly.
"That was really weird." Peter mused aloud after all his friends had left. He was the only one to witness their handiwork from the night before as McGonagall started screaming about spiders in her dessert. It paid to be on friendly terms with the elves.
*****
"Lily! Lily can you hear me?" Roslyn asked urgently as she pressed a cold cloth against her forehead.
Slowly Lily's eyes opened. "Ugh." Lily groaned as she sat up. "I had the weirdest dream. I dreamed that… Ow my head!" Lily was rubbing her throbbing temples.
There was a laugh from the corner. "I'd yell surprise again, but last time it had disastrous consequences."
Lily's eyes flew to the furthest bed over, " Anna?" She asked dully.
Anna smiled at her response and nodded. Lily jumped up from her spot on the floor. "OH MY GOD!" she shrieked and enveloped Anna in a giant bear-hug. "How are you? Are you here for good? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!? Ahh!" suddenly she paused her screaming. "Ow my head." She moaned, before resuming again.
Anna laughed and slowly pushed her friend away. "Sorry Lil but I have to breath." She laughed again and settled herself happily on her bed with Lily sitting cross legged opposite her. Neither noticed Roslyn slip quietly out. " I'm fine," she continued. "I'm only here for the weekend, though" Lily cried out in protest. "because term's nearly over anyway and I'm not ready for finals, but I will be back next year. And I didn't tell you because I wanted to surprise you."
"You missed the whole second term, though, are you going to have to stay back a year?" Lily asked as that new thought suddenly hit her.
Anna shook her head. "I'm going to a magical summer school in London." Her face contorted in disgust at the thought of spending all summer in a classroom. "What about you? Going to spend all summer with James in a closet?" Anna asked playfully, unaware of their breakup.
A shadow crossed Lily's face. "Uh…no…" she said slowly. "Actually," she licked her lips and her mouth had suddenly gone dry. "We broke up in February, actually." She said, suddenly finding an interest in the elf scene she had painted in her second year on the ceiling.
There was a bit of an awkward silence. "Oh." Anna said finally. "Are you okay?" she asked, concern showing in her face.
Lily hated that question because of course she wasn't okay, but what was she supposed to say? No? "Yeah of course I'm okay." Lily lied through her overly bright smile. "Actually, I have another prospect." Lily said trying to avoid the pity she knew Anna was feeling.
Anna's face immediately brightened. "Oh really, who?" She asked excitedly.
Lily had to smile at her enthusiasm, which was sure to die once she heard who the new prospect was. "severussnape." She said as lightly and as quickly as possible and changed the subject. "So any new news from home? How are your parents." Lily continued hoping to divert the conversation from her would-be boyfriend.
Anna chose to ignore the questions and get straight to the heart of the matter. "Excuse me? I must be temporarily deaf in one ear. Did you say that you're seeing Snape?"
Lily nodded slowly.
"Oh good, I thought I heard wrong…WHAT??!?!??" Anna screamed as she saw Lily nod. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Several people seem to think so." Lily commented quietly.
"You dumped James Potter, Quidditch player, top student, incredibly cute, AND all around nice guy for Severus Snape? Are you crazy?" Anna continued to yell. She got up and was now making dramatic hand gestures to make her point. "I can't believe Roslyn let you do this. I'll kill her! I know where she sleeps!" At that point in time Anna looked around her for Roslyn's bed, looking as though she really could have killed anyone that got in her way.
"Actually, he dumped me." Lily said quietly. Her words cutting through the temporary silence that had gathered while Anna took a deep breath.
Anna stared dumbfounded at her friend. "Oh." She said and quickly took back her seat across from Lily. "So how about those press conferences in Syria, eh?"
Lily couldn't help laughing.
*****
Lily settled herself in her seat next to Snape and prepared for the game to begin. It was Hufflepuff Vs Gryffindor and both had very strong teams. Gryffindor's biggest weakness was that they had had three different seekers in the same year. First was Lily but she had quit after Tina's death. Her replacement had been Annabelle, but she had been moved to Ravenclaw. Their current seeker was Anna's second year brother, Mike, who was quite good but also quite inexperienced. This was only his second match and also the Cup. Next to her Anna moved her foot about restlessly. In the nine hours (including night) that she had been back, everyone had heard of her arrival but few had actually seen her. She was extremely apprehensive about how all these reunions would go, especially with a certain charming Gryffindor.
"And they're up!" Remus Lupin's voice amplified by a hundred times called out. "James Potter scores already!" cheers rang out through the crowd. Lily grinned and glanced at Snape to see his reaction, and, not much to her surprise, he was scowling. "Whoa, that was a close one for young Fisher. Careful where you hit that thing O'Mally!" Lupin scolded the Hufflepuff beater. Professor McGonagall glared disapprovingly at Remus but continued unabashed. "And another goal for James!"
Lily sat transfixed as James scored goal after goal after goal. It seemed like some sort of crazy dream when Remus announced that Hufflepuff had caught the snitch. The crowd howled in protest and Lily saw the smile disappear from James' face. Suddenly Remus' voice was heard again interrupting the happy cries of the Hufflepuff. "But," he said, sounding excited. A hush fell momentarily. "Gryffindor, thanks to James Potter, is the winner with more points than Hufflepuff even with the snitch." There was a moment of shocked silence when suddenly a roar was heard that threatened to make Lily deaf for life. Even Professor McGonagall was screaming. Before Lily knew it, Roslyn and Anna were dragging her down to t he field where James and Sirius were already being congratulated. They fought their way through the endless crowds and reached James and Sirius grinning like maniacs.
James and Sirius had there backs turned to the girls and Anna gingerly tapped Sirius and the back. He either didn't feel it or was to preoccupied nuzzling a Slytherin whom he had little to no acquaintance with. She tapped harder feeling a sudden rush of anger as she watched him kiss the girl. He finally turned around. Sirius looked at the tapper and suddenly felt extremely guilty. The look of hurt on her face touched in a way he couldn't explain. He glanced at the girl on his arm and set about detaching her. When he had turned back to Anna, she was gone.
"So, congrats!" Lily came over, appearing out of nowhere with Snape on her arm. She hugged Sirius and punched him lightly on the arm.
Sirius glared briefly at Snape before turning back to his cousin. "Why didn't you tell me Anna was back?" Sirius asked, searching distractedly for her in the crowd.
Lily's smile slowly faded. "We tried but you guys weren't around last night. Where did you go anyway?"
Sirius' guilt increased ten-fold. "Um… we were raiding the kitchens you know a sort of pre-game jitters." He smiled nervously.
Lily frowned, she had never known Sirius and James to get jitters about anything let alone a Quidditch game. She smiled anyway and went off, dragging Snape to see James and Remus.
'Hey you guys!" she called out and ran over to them.
"Can we go now?" Snape whispered in her ear as he caught sight of James, his plan to humiliate James disappearing under his terrible glare.
"In a minute." She whispered back. "Hey, great job commentating!" she grinned at Remus.
Remus smiled back sheepishly. "Oh, thanks."
Lily turned to James. "Great job flying, you won us the game. " She said formally and scooted closer to Snape, who put an arm around her.
James saw red. "Oh, um… thanks." He said unable to keep his eyes off Snapes arm. There was an awkward silence.
"Well, we'd better be going." Sanpe said and led her away.
"Lily!" Remus called out. "Are you going to be at the party tonight?"
Lily shrugged. "Maybe," she said and followed snape away.
"Did you see the girls?" James asked Sirius, referring to Anna as they were walking back to the castle.
"Yeah." Sirius said dismally remembering his encounters with both Lily and Anna. "Lily asked me where we were last night."
James blanched noticeably. "And what did you say?" He asked stiffly.
Sirius sighed. "What do you think I said? 'Oh gee, Lily. Did I forget to tell you? You're kicked out of the plans for Remus?' I have a little bit more sense than that." He scowled darkly and kicked a rock in front of him. "I told her that we were raiding the kitchens."
"Oh."
"I saw Anna too." Sirius continued in the same tone.
"Really?" James asked, hoping for a brighter topic. His hopes were in vain.
"She saw me with that Jessica girl."
"Which one?"
"The Slytherin." Sirius kicked another rock even harder.
"Oh, is that bad?" James watched his friend frown at the ground. All of his victory-high had run out also.
"I don't know." Sirius said quietly. "I don't know."
