~* Breaking Up *~

"All right, class. Listen up. Today's spell will be rather complicating, as you'll be turning simple plain grass to a jewel or gemstone of your own will. you will have to pay extra attention to this spell. And, you will have to change them back to grass. Get it?"

The class nodded and went to collect their samples of grass. They were to work in pairs. And of course, Sarah was with James. Remus walked over to Lily, who smiled at him.

"So… do I have the honors?"

Lily beamed up at him. "Sure."

The lesson went on quite smoothly. Lily was very good at Transfiguration, so she had already finished her assignment and could have scored perfect marks if it was a test. Remus was smiling outwardly, but cringing with pain inside when he saw how Lily had turned the grass into a stunning sapphire. He knew exactly what it represented. His eyes were blue, too. That was true, but he knew deep inside that it wasn't his eyes that she was thinking of.

Over at Sarah's side, she frowned in disgust at that yellow topaz she had conjured up. It was quite nice, but she hated that color, because it didn't look good on her.

"James, what are you doing?" she asked, perplexed as she saw how James waved his wand futilely for a couple of times before giving up.

"Trying to turn this stupid thing into-" he stopped in mid-sentence. He suddenly realized that all he was thinking of was to change the grass into shiny emeralds. But he couldn't say that.

"Well?" came the impatient comment.

"Nothing, dear. I'm just trying hard to get this right, as usual." And that was actually the half-truth. He was really bad at Transfiguration.

So he concentrated hard and saw that Sarah was facing him and his 'experiment'. He braved a smile and stared hard at the grass. But he wasn't concentrating. All he could think of was the lushness of those eyes he had stared at. He somehow had this feeling that those eyes not only belonged to an intelligent woman, they also belonged to this sensual woman that he never thought of exploring before.

His wand hand was shaking.

Before he knew it, he succeeded in turning the piece of grass into something.

It was something, all right.

It was a long grass snake.

"Jesus Christ!" he yelled out.

All four things happened at once, and unfortunately, they all happened to Miss yellow-is-not-my-color.

Her eyes rounded, her face turned pale almost instantly, she gasped sharply. And the fourth thing, well, she fainted dead away.

"Shit," James mumbled under his breath. Sarah hated almost everything, especially insects. And she hated any type of snakes the most, even if they were harmless.

Later that afternoon, he went down to the hospital ward, along with the rest of the Marauders and Lily. By then, he was too distraught to even notice Lily looking concerned.

Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, agreed to let all of them see her, but only for a few minutes.

James knelt down beside her and grabbed her hand. "Oh, god, Sar, I'm sorry. So damned sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen."

Sarah glared at James. Seemed to them that she didn't really accept James's apology.

"Let go of me, you imbecile." And with that, she snatched her hand away from James's grasp.

Lily couldn't believe what she was hearing. Sarah, calling James an imbecile? That could never happen. For a moment, she thought that she was dreaming. She thought that she might have pinched herself.

"What are you saying, Sarah? You're obviously too upset-"

"I'm not upset. I'm perfectly clear-headed. And I'm saying now that we're over. We. Are. Over. Goodbye, James."

"What? Are you breaking up with me?" James himself couldn't believe what he was hearing. He obviously was having an ear problem.

"Yes. I couldn't possibly be someone who wants to kill me at every chance he has."

"What?" James exclaimed incredulously. "You know I would never harm you, let alone kill you!"

Sarah rolled her eyes and at that moment, Lily wondered if she really was in that much distress if she could roll her eyes that way.

"Whatever, James. Just get out of my sight. We're so over."

James was about to say something else when the matron came in and shooed them all away. "You're obviously putting my patient in distress. Please, come again some other time," she had said.

James was in too much shock to believe whatever anyone said. Even Sirius, the usual clown of the group, couldn't say anything to cheer James up.

"James, come on, let's go play Quidditch, all right?" Sirius asked for the umpteenth time, when they were in their dormitory.

"No," James replied for the umpteenth time as well.

Sirius finally got sick of asking; he simply couldn't understand how anyone would be so hung up over anyone else, especially over people like Sarah Bones. So he grabbed hold of his broomstick by the wall and practically dragged Remus and Peter out of their beds to the Quidditch field.

James was rather grateful for the time alone, even if it would only be for a short while. He needed some time to think. Was Sarah serious when she mentioned their breaking up? He certainly hoped not. After all, they've been together for such a long time; it would be hard to say goodbye.

He took hold of the nearest photo frame on the small dresser near his bed. It contained a picture of Sarah and him standing on the grass pitches of Quidditch. James was smiling broadly as his team had just won the Quidditch Cup; Sarah, on the other hand, was swiping at her legs, trying hard to swipe off imaginary insects off them. (A/N: figures… so typical of her)

James didn't understand; they looked so happy together. (A/N: he must really be in love with her, according to the saying of love being blind…) What went wrong just now? It was just too much for him to take. He needed to go out and take a breather. Alone. Therefore, he took out his Invisibility Cloak from inside his trunk and covered himself with it, before leaving the dormitory.

He walked and walked. First he walked past the Quidditch Pitch, where he saw Sirius and Remus playing tag while Peter was at the bleachers, half-asleep. After walking past both the Quidditch Pitch and the Herbology Gardens, he didn't know where else to go then. After a while of deep pondering, he decided to go over to the lake. The scenery over there might be able to take his mind off some things.

Arriving at the lake, he found out that he wasn't alone. He saw a certain redhead bending over and peering into the water. For a moment, he thought that the girl was about to do something silly like committing suicide, then he realized that her posture looked too relaxed to be in a middle of a suicide. He was about to turn around and walk away when something in the back of his mind stopped him. Intuition told him to take off his cloak and look at who the mysterious girl was. James would have thought himself as stupid under normal circumstances, but now, he just needed something else to lead him. Maybe his heart will do in place for his usually logical mind, he decided.

So he took the cloak off and left it at a tree. He approached the girl slowly and then stood beside her. The girl gasped sharply when she suddenly saw another image beside hers. She was so shocked and surprised that she lost her balance and fell right into the water.

"Shit!' James exclaimed when he found out who the girl actually was and that he had just scared her so much, she had fell into the lake. What kind of an idiot was he? The worst one, he thought to himself. He was about to jump into the lake to save her when he saw her emerge out of the water and smile at him.

"I'm really sorry, Lily," he said as she slowly swam her way up-shore again. She was still smiling. She stopped swimming when she reached in front of him and saw his outreached hand. She took it, and to both of their surprises, she pulled James right into the water with her.

"The water was damn cold, Lily! Why the hell did you do that for?" James exclaimed once the both of them were out of the cold water and drying themselves on the shore.

Lily smiled and suddenly James wasn't angry anymore. "Firstly," she said calmly, "to get back at you for scaring me. Secondly… to get rid of your frown."

James frowned harder when he heard this and Lily matched him frown for frown. Then they both laughed at each other's mirror images.

"So, why are you out here?" James asked.

"To think," came the reply. "Why are you out here?"

"To think."

Lily smiled. She looked up at James and found that he was looking right back at her. She still couldn't get rid of the shyness she felt whenever she was close to him, but she found out that she could now speak coherent sentences when they were talking. Suddenly a wet tendril of Lily's red hair fell from behind her ear. She reached out to tuck it back in.

James was shocked, but he didn't show it. Why was it he felt so strongly that he wanted to tuck that stray tendril of hair behind her ear personally? He didn't understand. Sighing inwardly, he realized that he had a lot of things which he didn't understand.

"Lily, why do you think Sarah broke up with me?" James asked unconsciously.

Lily cringed inside. "I don't know," she replied truthfully.

Silence.

"But you're her best friend, how can you not know? I mean, she confides in you about everything, right? How come you don't know the reason why-"

That was the last straw. Lily stood up abruptly.

"How should I know? If you want to know, find it out for yourself!"

Then Lily walked away, before James could see her tears flowing out of her eyes. How could she be so stupid? For just one moment, she had felt that they had really clicked together and that he might be truly interested in knowing more about her. She could see now how stupid she was to think that.

James stared at Lily's back as she walked away. What happened? Did he say something wrong? Apparently he did. Something so wrong that sent her running away from him. He sighed, outwardly this time, and leaned back against the sturdy tree trunk. He caught sight of something shiny beside him, on the soft green grass. He picked it up and saw that it was a silver necklace. It was a heart-shaped locket of some sort, James thought, after he had inspected it. He tried opening it, but found out that it needed a tiny key to open it. After a few minutes of trying, he finally gave up. He picked up his cloak and began walking back to his dormitory. He suddenly felt very tired; today was too eventful a day.