A/N: Sorry, a bit of swearing here~ I didn't want Hogwarts to seem like a total dream world.
Lily was walking down the corridor with Jeanne happily chattering about her day. The day was going great so far. Professor McGonagall had given her a 92 on her Transfiguration essay along with one of her rare smiles and Professor Flitwick had announced that she was once again, number one for Charms. Hopefully, her parents would be proud of her now.
Ahhh, summer was almost here. She could smell it.
"You're sure you're ok?" Lily asked for the thousandth time, after Jeanne told her about the boggart. " And I'm talking about Sirius too."
Jeanne smiled and hugged Lily tightly. "I'm fine, the only thing I need help with are my hormones. I think I'm starting that 'phase' again."
Lily nodded sympathetically. "Atleast you know you're not alone." Lily grinned.
"Thanks." Jeanne smiled fondly and slipped her arm through Lily's. They were the best of friends and it was always going to stay that way.
"Want one?" Lily reached into her bag and took out a basket of fresh strawberries. "It's just the season for it. My mother mailed me some."
"Oh yum!" Jeanne reached for a particularly juicy red one and bit into it ecstatically. "The taste of summer!"
Lily laughed and continued to munch on the sweet and tangy fruit. All of a sudden, a force slammed into Lily, untangling Jeanne's arm from Lily's and Lily was slammed backwards into the wall.
The basket of strawberries dropped.
" So you're the Lily that has you're eye on James, huh?" a breathy voice of a particularly vicious looking brunette with blonde highlights hissed at Lily, clutching the collar of her sweater and holding her to the wall.
"Who the heck are you?" Lily sneered straight back at her. Lily was a sweetheart, but when the time came, she could defend herself well.
"I'm Diana. Remember that name because if you don't stop flirting with every single guy in the school, including James, I'll come back for you."
Despite the fact that Fiona was an older girl and also had Lily pinned to the wall with several of her other friends surrounding her and Jeanne, Lily sneered right into the taller girl's face.
"For your information. I do not flirt. And if you think I do, screw you. You don't even know what's flirting." Lily snapped, pulling at Diana's bony hands, still clutched near her neck. "And would you kindly let go of me, since you seem to be ruining my robes and I would like to keep a good impression. Unlike you."
Lily stared up and down at Diana's short skirt and spiked heels.
Diana's hands loosened and Lily wrenched her clothes from the grip.
"I'd watch it, if I were you. We're not the only ones who've seen that you've caught James' eyes." Diana snickered.
"Do I care?" Lily bit back. "No, I obviously don't so leave me alone." Lily reached down and grabbed her bag, her strawberries and Jeanne's arms as she prepared to push through the circle.
"Why you, bitch!" Diana seized the back of Lily's robes and swung her back into the circle. Lily hurridly let loose of Jeanne and dropped her stuff to defend herself.
"Who are you calling bitch?!" Lily spat. "As I recall, I was just walking down the hall until you chose to grace me with your presence and I don't even know who the heck you are."
" Well you better!" Diana screamed. " Because I'm going to teach you a lesson you won't forget. No one insults me and gets away with it."
Diana swung back her hand and forced it towards Lily's face. The crowd was getting bigger as everyone wanted to see the fight that was happening between the two girls.
Lily dodged the blow, her heart beating wildly as people kept surrounding her within the circle.
"Oh my god," She thought wildly, "if I get expelled, Mom and Dad are going to kill me."
"LILY!" Jeanne screamed. "Watch out!"
Lily wasn't fast enough because Diana's other blow came towards her face again.
SMACK. The hall echoed as the blow left a huge red mark on Lily's soft, pale cheek.
"Leave my site now," Diana commanded nastily as she thought she won. But Lily lost to nobody.
"You… wish," Lily sneered and spat at Diana's feet. " Miss, high queen of Hogwarts? I don't' think so."
Diana gave another blow, but this time Lily was ready. She ducked and clenched her fist, as she brought it in contact with Diana's bony jaw.
CRACK. Diana looked flabbergasted as she touched her jaw tenderly and then launched herself at Lily, screaming.
"BITCH!" she screamed, "I swear I'll beat the living daylights out of you!"
"Just try!" Lily screamed back, dodging Diana's punches and slaps. "You fight like a girl!"
" I am a girl!" Diana spat.
"Oh really now," Lily smirked, " I hadn't noticed."
The people in the halls were getting excited. They had never seen this side of Lily. As Prefect Lily was usually sweet, innocent, and never said the things that were coming out of her mouth right now. Morever, Lily could never hurt anyone!! But this was different, this was under different circumstances. Oh, yes. The students of Hogwarts were excited.
Diana swung heavily for Lily's face as Lily ducked and collided her fist into Diana's flat stomach. Diana doubled over, trying to catch her breath as Lily took this time to slam Diana into the wall this time.
"Don't. Mess. With. Me." Lily said, her voice as cold as it could ever get. "Just leave me alone. If you're jealous, just say so."
Lily released Diana (even though the girl was much taller than she was) and went to a frightened Jeanne.
"Heck no, aren't you the girl that's always talking to Sirius?" One of Diana's friends intercepted Jeanne.
" Um.." Jeanne looked frightened, she really didn't know how to fight. She didn't even know how she got into Gryffindor. " Er-"
"Yes," Lily said defiantly, lifting up her chin so that she could stare into the older girl's face. "Got a problem with that?"
The older girl stared back, towering over Lily with a smirk on her face. However, Diana came up behind her and pushed her away murmuring that she'd take care of the little redhead.
"Oh, so you think you're so brave huh?" Diana challenged. "Just because you're a little Gryffindor."
Lily just sneered.
"What's going on?" James shouted, his robes billowing out behind him as he rushed to the scene where all the students were huddled. His Head Boy badge glinted in the light, making the people who had seen him, part like the red sea. Sirius was beside him, his mouth open in horror. Inside the circle was Diana Thoria, a girl who had her eye on James for quite a long time) and Lily fighting and sneering like no tomorrow. What was even more surprising was that Diana was chasing Lily around screaming nasty things like "Bitch!" and Lily was dodging her pointy nails from her face.
Diana swiped again and this time, her aim was true. Her nails sliced at Lily's beautiful, smooth face. Lily gasped as the wounds opened and crimson blood swelled around the opening near her eye.
"JAMES!" Sirius shouted frantically, "Come here! Hurry!"
James looked up from trying to get through the crowd, his forehead creased in worry. Jeanne heard Sirius and looked up, screaming,
"James! Sirius! Help Lily! I don't want her to lose her prefect badge!"
But as of this point, Lily didn't need help. She had totally socked Diana in the nose, warning Diana not to come closer otherwise she'd do it again, and now had her fists up near her face defending herself. Diana was lunging towards Lily and Lily was ready to dodge and blow, when Sirius leapt into the circle and held Diana's arms against her back. James had also lunged for Lily and had his arms around her in a comforting way.
Her heart was pounding wildly (both because of James' arms around her and because of the fight) but she was beginning to calm down a bit.
"Lily," James said as quietly as he could. "You're a prefect. You really shouldn't have done that."
Lily was still breathing heavily and she and Diana were glaring at each other. Sirius had let go of Diana and was now comforting Jeanne who was babbling on Lily's behalf.
"She…she…" lily spat, "She just came on to me for the stupidest reason."
"Five points from Hufflepuff and Gryffindor." James announced, "Sorry Lily." He said under his breath.
There were unshed tears in her eyes as James gently led her away from the huddle. The crowd dispersed as everyone saw there was nothing more to see.
"She totally picked a fight!" Lily blurted as soon as James lead her into the Gryffindor Common room with Sirius and Jeanne following.
"Whoa," Remus was reading on the couch, but immediately put his book away when he saw Lily's face. "Lily are you ok? You're bleeding."
"Oh, Lily's fine. Diana only knows how to fight with her nails." Jeanne jumped in. " You should see Diana's face. It's internal bleeding galore. Lily socked her like 5 times."
Remus chuckled. "Now, now. Cat fights aren't allowed in school."
Lily had a tiny smile as James was carefully dabbing at the side of her head while Sirius was sitting down, watching them.
"Ow!" Lily twitched as James was cleaning the wound. "That hurts James! Stop!"
"Lily," James protested, " Your cut could get infected and leave you with a scar."
Lily stiffened and sat still after that with James' careful hands, caressing the side of her face. Ooh, it brought butterflies to her stomach, yes it did. Lily had to kick tha wistful feeling out of her throat.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tap tap tap.
Tap tap tap.
Lily gnashed at her teeth. Whoever was doing that was seriously annoying her. She was trying to concentrate for heaven's sake. Lily looked down at her test, O.W.L.s were actually not that bad. It was a good thing she and James had studied before. It was just this one problem she couldn't get.
Flashback:
"Aghhh!!" Lily groaned in frustration.
"It's ok. It's ok Lily." James patted her back sympathetically.
"I can't remember all this!" Lily said exasperated.
"Yes, you can." James smirked, apparently amused. " Trust me. You're just spazzing out."
"Ok, breathe in…breathe out…" Lily let out several breaths of air and dived back into her book.
"Ok, Lily." James instructed. "Now, what's the wand position when you want to transfigure a chair into a hat rack?"
Lily closed her eyes, trying to picture what to do in her mind.
"Come on, you know this." James said gently as he got up from his chair.
Lily, still with her eyes closed suddenly felt a hand on her hand that was tightly grasping the wand.
"Relax," James said into her ear, as Lily really tried to relax. " There, now remember what I told you. Step one…"
James gently guided Lily's arm into the first position.
"Step two…" Lily whispered, moving her arm into the next position.
"Step three…" James said, nodding his head in approval and releasing his hand from hers.
"Step four!" Lily flicked her wrist, and the chair morphed into a hat rack.
"Excellent!" James applauded and grinned at Lily. "See? You just need a little nudge."
Lily grinned at him and patted his arm. "Thanks so much, James."
James smiled back at her, flipping through some of the pages of the textbook, and answered. "Always, Lily. Always."
End Flashback.
YES! That was it! Lily hastily scribbled down the wand movements and threw down her quill triumphantly.
"7 more minutes to go!" the judge announced, as he looked at the golden hourglass.
Lily grinned to nobody in particular and started to put her quills and erasers away. No more of these nasty standardized exams anymore! Jeanne looked up, apparently exhausted but finished, and smiled to Lily as she flipped over her paper and began to put her stuff in her bag.
"And….down!" The judge slammed the golden gavel down signaling for all the students to put down their quills. While everyone was turning in their O.W.L.s, Lily walked over to where Jeanne was sitting and sat on the table.
"Ahh, thank goodness this is over!" Lily grinned at an extremely tired Jeanne who had her head resting on her hands.
"Ooh, tell me about it. No more cramming and studying. Oh my, thank you very much," She murmured.
Lily laughed and gave Jeanne a quick hug. "See? We're free now!"
Jeanne looked up warily but nonetheless grinned. " Yes, oh gosh. It sounds wonderful to finally be free."
Lily played with some strands of Jeanne's long hair, waving and smiling to several other sixth years. " James' and Sirius' and Remus' graduation is this Saturday. Are you going to go?"
"Hmm?" Jeanne checked her planner. "Oh, yeah. Of course."
Lily smiled in approval. "Good. But I heard that it's formal and we need to wear dress robes."
Jeanne's eyes lit up and she frantically dug in her bag for something. "Oh Merlin. I completely forgot! Professor Dumbledore owled this to me and told me to pass it on to you, but I seriously forgot. We're going to be escorts for the graduating seventh years! You and I need to go dress robe shopping."
Lily had her mouth dropped open. " You forgot this?! When were you going to tell me?"
Jeanne groaned and covered her eyes. " I was too tired. But don't worry, we'll go to Hogsmeade on Friday. Sirius showed me how to get there."
Lily smiled as she read the slip of parchment. " Ooh, it says we need white dress robes that are provided for us at Madam Malkin's."
Jeanne looked up. "I heard that they look nice. Remember Molly Festil last year? She said that the white uniforms have a train."
Lily glowed. "Neat! So we get to escort the seniors AND have a new robe that has a train. Awesome. I can't wait for this Saturday to come."
Jeanne stared at Lily, for a little while. "You're sad he's leaving, huh?" She said softly.
Lily looked away, smiling a bit forcefully. "How'd you guess." It wasn't a question. It was just a statement.
"It's ok hun," Jeanne patted her arm sympathetically. " Even if James isn't attracted to you, there's a lot of fishes in the sea."
" I know," Lily shrugged, picking at her nails. " I just….I just really like him, that's all."
She sighed. " I don't know. I feel this strong connection between us and I just can't help dreaming... if we really were together…"
Jeanne swung the strap of her bag over her shoulder and slipped her arm through Lily's. They walked out of the doors, savoring their new freedom since the last days of their sixth year was flying by. Lily really did like James. Jeanne could see it in her eyes. Everytime she mentioned James, Lily would just brighten like a candle to a match. And it wasn't as if the relationship couldn't work, Jeanne pondered, it was just that James had a lot of girls vying for his attention and he looked like the kind of guy who wanted a partner who matched up to his looks. But Jeanne knew that James wasn't like that. He definitely wasn't like that.
Now that Jeanne thought about it, the relationship really could work. People often said if you really were serious about one person, you ought to know every little thing about them except for the deepest of secrets. It was clear that Lily and James had an extremely tight-knit relationship in which they did know almost everything about each other. Besides, Jeanne had caught James staring at Lily sometimes, longer than a usual glance.
Jeanne shrugged. It was clear, Lily's fondness and admiration for James had grown even more, throughout the year.
Little did she know, with James the feeling was definitely mutual.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Prongs my man." Sirius said patting James on the back and slinging an arm around Remus. "Moony, we've done it. We're through. Our graduation is finally here, amen."
Remus chuckled. " I'm going to miss this old place. All those good times….sneaking out…"
"Atleast we can come back to visit Hogwarts, you know?" James laughed. " It's not like we're really leaving this place forever."
"Oh, you mean visiting a certain…Lily in Hogwarts, eh?" Sirius nudged James teasingly in the ribs.
"Shut up, Padfoot." James retorted. " You know you're going to visit Jeanne as well."
Sirius quieted down and Remus looked at him expectantly. "I don't know."
"You don't know?" James said, incredulously, "How can you not know if you're going to visit or not?"
"No, not that." Sirius waved his hand. "I don't know if I'm going to ask her…you know."
Obviously, the idea of courtship was a bit new to the three senior gentlemen.
"Oh," Remus' eyes lit up. "Speaking of which, James. When are you going to…"
James had to fight control of his ears turning red as Sirius let out a catcall, making all the students around them (who were waiting in line for their graduation robes as well,) turn around and look.
"Sirius! Merlin!" James hissed, embarrassed. "Moony, calm him down for me." Sirius just laughed even more hysterically.
"James has been planning forever for this day." Remus told Sirius with a grin. "Don't ruin it for your fellow brother."
Sirius tried to keep a straight face, but succeeded in only grinning as widely as his mouth could stretch. "Aww, my little James is growing up and falling for a girl!!!"
Remus and James both rolled their eyes.
"So, how are you going to do it?" Sirius asked.
"Do what?" murmured James as the witch told him to step up so that she could take his measurements.
"Ask her out?! Ask her to be your girlfriend?!" Remus cut in, as he too, stepped up to be measured. " Only what you've been planning for the last week."
James looked sheepish. "It's going to happen alright? Chill. Don't pressure me."
Sirius grinned. "So How are you going to do it?"
" Well, it's going to happen right after graduation. Marianne told me that the escorts this year, have Jeanne and Lily included. So when this whole thing is over with, I'm going to ask." James finished and stepped off the podium, just as Remus stepped down as well.
The elderly witch handed the three of them large packages that held all their graduation paraphernalia and each paid their respectable amount.
"Well, anyway Prongs." Remus punched James lightly in the arm. "I wish you the best of luck, mate."
The doors flew open to the store and in came a group of young ladies that were clearly from different houses, according to their uniforms. Lily was chattering happily with a tall blonde haired witch from Ravenclaw while Jeanne was trying her best to ignore the darkhaired Slytherin scowling beside her. Instinctively, Sirius' eyes brightened and James ran a hand through his hair.
"Hey Lily." James said and waved.
Lily looked up, and smiled, walking over. "Hey you." She greeted. "How's it feel to be graduating?"
Sirius chuckled and replied for James, "Poor James is sad because---"
"Because it's almost like leaving home," Remus remarked, grinning at Lily fondly and shooting Sirius a warning look in which Sirius just looked angelic.
"Tell me about it," Lily sighed. "I love Hogwarts, just not the exams."
"Atleast you're done with the hardest part." James remarked.
Lily smiled up at the three of them, her eyes teary all of a sudden.
"I'm going to miss you guys so much," She said in a choked voice.
The guys were shocked and Remus hugged her tightly. "Don't worry, we'll be back." He said, shooting James a special look over Lily's shoulder. "You'll definitely see us more often."
Lily smiled and sniffed. "Did you guys get any job offers?"
James and Sirius grinned proudly, " We're going to become aurors." James said.
"Yeah, and I'm going to travel the world a bit." Remus said, a bit sadly.
Lily frowned. " I'm not surprised you are going to become aurors," she pointed to James and Sirius, " but Remus, your grades are fantastic in DADA from the list I saw. Why weren't you offered?"
"It's complicated," Remus said hastily. "I'm just different from them."
"Yeah," Sirius chimed. "Besides, Remus might not want to be an auror."
Lily smiled. "I see."
"So anyway," James said, changing the subject. "What are you and Jeanne and a whole bunch of the other girls doing here?"
"Oh!" Lily's eyes became really wide. "We're getting fitted for the robes to be escorts are your graduation!"
"Really now," Sirius said, a hint of sarcasm in voice in which only James and Remus could detect. "I hadn't known!"
"I don't even know what we'll look like," Lily continued, "But, Professor McGonagall will see us in the meeting to show us the correct uniform."
"Wow," Remus smiled, " being an escort is really an honor. Congrats, Lily."
Lily pointed to where Jeanne was getting fitted, at the podium. "Thanks Remus! I have to go get measured too, I'll see you guys at the graduation?"
James, Sirius and Remus all grinned. "Yeah. We'll see you there."
"Excellent." Lily waved and walked over to where Jeanne was.
"Like Remus said before," Sirius said heartily as they walked out of the shop. "Good luck, James. Don't chicken out."
A/N: YAY!!! Graduation for the seniors! Heh next chappie is the graduation and the second biggest moment!! (first being the wedding of course J ) hope you liked the chappie, I've been relying on fluff to keep everyone upbeat so far. I love fluff. Thanks for Reviewing!!
