~*~ Dating The Enemy ~*~
~You gotta understand

~Right from the start

~From this point on
~I don't love you

~I can't love you

~That's just how it is
~You and me

~Naturally

~Dating the enemy
So I'd shaken the feeling, but I kept thinking about it. I couldn't explain it - even now it had gone. What had it meant? The fact that I couldn't stop thinking about it worried me that maybe it had never really gone. Maybe something was wrong.

I didn't have to ponder the thought for long, though, because my quiet time I was spending up in the dorm studying was interrupted when Hilary stormed in.

'I cannot believe her!' she said shrilly. 'After everything, she still goes crawling back to him, and then... poof! Back to square one!'

'What?' I asked.

'Paige! She's back with James. Don't ask me how she did it, but she's back with him.'

I blinked.

'So?'

'So? So? Lily, this is Paige we are talking about! She's a grade A bitch! Didn't you hear how James was talking about her? He doesn't like her, yet he's back with her. Unless dad's got something to do with it, it doesn't make sense.'

'Or maybe James is just being a regular guy,' I said practically, though I knew it sounded harsh. James didn't seem like that kind of person. Hilary stared at me.

'But he hates her. It doesn't fit. And I actually think it has nothing to do with dad. Lily, you've got to come see.'

Sighing, I put my books to one side and removed my reading glasses, getting up and following Hilary downstairs. Just before we reached the bottom, she told me to stop.

'Look,' she said, pointing. I looked where her finger was and raised an eyebrow.

James was sitting on the couch, and Paige was sitting next to him, head on his shoulder as they spoke to April.

'Something's up,' I said immediately.

'That's what I mean. It's not right,' Hilary replied. 'She's done something.'

I nodded my head.

'Does Sirius or Remus know about this?'

'Know about what?' demanded Sirius Black from the first year dormitories landing. Hilary gestured at James and Paige over her shoulder.

'Them two being back together.'

Sirius rolled his eyes.

'Do I ever. James doesn't shut up about her. I don't get it. He hated her.'

'Yeah, we know. Something's not right.'

'Do you guys know anything else about Paige? I mean, for all we know, she could be part Veela or something,' I said, shrugging. Sirius scratched his head.

'You can take a look at her file,' he offered.

'You have a file on Paige?' I asked. Hilary laughed.

'They keep a file on every girl they date,' she explained. 'Don't ask me why.'

'For references in times like these,' Sirius said indignantly. 'So do you want to take a look?'

'It could be interesting,' I said with a laugh.

Up in the boys dorm, which, might I add, was a horrible mess, Sirius began scrounging around for something. He soon pulled out a manilla folder that was rather full of papers. How he managed to find anything in that dump, though, I did not know.

We all sat down on his bed. I peered over his shoulder as he flicked through the documents. They were all pages upon pages of notes in the boys's handwriting, accompanied by pictures.

'Paige, Paige, Paige... ah, here we go. Paige.'

What Sirius pulled out appeared to be the biggest section. It seemed that James had found out a lot about her. Sirius offered the pile to me. I put on my glasses.

'Paige Appleton. Hair colour: blonde dyed red, ringlets. Aha!' I exclaimed. 'Red's not her natural hair colour!'

Hilary opened her mouth in shock and Sirius eyed us.

'It's a girl thing,' Hilary explained. Sirius responded with a simple 'oh' and a raised eyebrow. 'Eye colour: brown. Body build: medium. Height: tall. Other features: cute pout. Nice ass?' I asked, looking at Sirius. 'You look at her ass?'

'It's a guy thing,' he teased with a laugh. I rolled my eyes and continued on.

'Info: Minister's daughter. Bitchy, materialistic, stubborn. Sexy attitude. You guys are pretty pathetic. Knows Brigette, April and Juliet. Has dated Lucius Malfoy? What the hell?' I asked. Sirius shrugged.

'So she has bad taste,' he said. 'But who cares when she's that hot?'

I scanned over the remaining information, but found nothing important.

'How do you guys find this stuff out?' I asked, handing the papers back to Sirius, with a last glance at the moving picture of Paige that lay on top.

She was wearing her hair mostly up, with a few loose strands hanging down. Her hair was a more vibrant red than it was now, and she was wearing a white tube top with a lacy, see-through white gauze top over it. She was flirtatiously twirling a coil of red around her index finger. No matter how much I despised her, I had to admit she looked rather attractive, and I could understand why James may have decided to get back with her. But it just didn't seem right, especially after how he'd spoken about her. From what he'd said around me, he thought she was okay, but definitely wasn't for him.

'Something's not right,' I sighed for about the fiftieth time.

'And there's absolutely nothing in those papers?' Hilary asked doubtfully. 'Surely there's something.'

'Nope,' I said, scanning over them. 'Not unless we had something else to go on.'

We both looked at Sirius. He shrugged.

'I'll keep an eye out. But apart from him going back out with Paige, I haven't noticed anything.'

'Are you guys coming to our flying lesson tomorrow?'

At Bella's request, Signora Gionva had invited Sirius and James to our mini broomstick graduation. It was quite sad, really, but kind of cute. She really was a sweet teacher. Normally we would have thought that sort of idea pretty childish, but it was different with Signora Gionva. It just seemed more... fun. 'What do you think?' Sirius laughed. 'Well, I don't know about James. But I'm definitely coming.'

'James will come,' Hilary said. 'He wouldn't miss it for the world.'

'Yeah,' Sirius sighed. 'But would he miss it for Paige?'

* * *

As we left, Hilary went up to our dorm while I went down to the common room. I met James on the stairs.

'Hi,' I said, smiling. He gave a small smile, not his usual grin.

'Hi, Lily.'

I looked into his eyes in the fleeting second that his gaze held mine. His usually piercingly blue eyes were foggy and dull.

'See you later,' he said, giving a wave and continuing upstairs.

'Weird,' I muttered to myself as I made my way down.

* * *

Monday morning, Hilary was surprisingly the first awake. She immediately set about waking myself and Bella, and we were all dressed and ready before seven thirty, which had to be a record.

Hilary had also made it her business to inform Bella of the situation with Paige and James.

'What's wrong with James going out with Paige?' she asked, confused.

'Bella, there's nothing wrong about it, except for the fact that James hates her guts,' Hilary said plainly.

'We think something's up,' I explained.

'Yeah, well. James is a guy, and a popular one at that. What's to stop him dating an incredibly hot chick? I mean, you don't have to be in love with someone to date them. And let's face it, guys will be guys when it comes to girls,' Bella replied nonchalantly.

'But Bella, don't you see? James dumped her. He hates her guts. And you know James, he's a friendly guy. He steers clear of people he doesn't like, Paige included. Why does he suddenly seem head over heels for her?'

'Tara,' Hilary murmured. 'James has a crush on Tara. That was one of the reasons he dumped Paige.'

'It is odd, I suppose,' Bella agreed. 'He did seem to like Tara a lot.'

'Are he and Tara friends?' I asked suddenly.

'Yeah, sort of. Not best friends, but yeah,' Hilary replied. 'Why?'

'At the Sorting last term, I was speaking to James. He said Tara hated it that he was going out with Paige, almost as much as he did.'

'You don't think he's doing it to make her jealous?' Bella asked, packing some parchment into her bag.

'He could be, but it doesn't seem like him,' Hilary said slowly.

'No, it doesn't. But what if there was something else to it?'

'What do you mean, Lily?' Bella asked.

'I mean, what if there were several reasons behind it? James hates Nick, right?'

'Yeah. With a passion,' Hilary agreed.

'Well, Tara dates him, right? And Tara hates Paige...'

'You mean kind of like revenge? It still doesn't seem like James,' Bella pointed out.

'No, but there's more. What if James never hated Paige?' I asked. It was a gamble, but it was a possibility.

'But he did,' Hilary frowned as we stood to make our way down to the Great Hall.

'He acted like he did. What if he gave up Paige entirely for Tara? But Tara stayed with Nick, so he got back together with Paige. It would spare him the trouble with your dad, too.' 'It sounds plausible,' Bella said.

'Yeah, but it still doesn't seem like the sort of thing James would do.'

'People do things we don't expect them to all the time, especially when it comes to the opposite sex. We can have a crush on the biggest idiot, yet we're blinded of his attitude. All we see is what we want to see. James AND Sirius both do things we don't expect, all the time,' Bella pointed out. Hilary shrugged as we sat down at the table.

I looked up to the head of our table to where James was seated next to Paige and Sirius, opposite Remus and Peter. He was looking in my direction and our eyes met. He gave a smile, but then frowned thoughtfully. Paige was talking to him, and didn't seem to like the fact he was looking elsewhere. She tapped his arm and followed his gaze. He eyes locked mine and narrowed slightly before turning back to James. He cast another look at me before giving her his full attention. I turned back to Hilary and Bella.

'Look,' I said, gesturing with a tilt of my head. They both looked.

It wasn't odd for James to be sitting up there; he often did. In fact, it was only on the odd occasion us three girls and the boys sat together. It was more common for them to be found sitting with their second year friends.

'He's distracted,' Bella murmured. 'She's talking to him, but he keeps looking away.'

I nodded and looked back over. This time, Sirius caught my eye. I saw him rise from the table and say something to James, who nodded, before coming over.

'Something's definitely up. You see him now? Yesterday, he couldn't take his eyes off her. He hung on every single word. Now? He's off with the faeries,' he frowned, taking a seat opposite us.

'Is he coming today?'

'Yeah, if he remembers,' Sirius dryly, casting a glance at his best friend.

'What do you mean?' Hilary asked curiously.

'Well, I asked him about it, and he acted like he'd never heard of it. I finally convinced him to come, but he swears he didn't know anything about it.'

'Odd,' I murmured.

'Yeah. So now we know something's up: what is it?'

And it was a question none of us could really answer.

* * * 'Buongiorno, signors and signorinas. How are we all this morning?' Signora Gionva called as she waddled towards us.

'Good,' we all echoed, rolling our eyes good-naturedly, huddling in a bunch to keep warm from the cool wind.

'Before we start, I'd like you all to say buongiorno to our lovely Signors Black and Potter.'

'Buongiorno,' we chorused. Sirius grinned and James stood, unswayed, in a lazy stance.

'Ciao,' Sirius replied, still grinning from ear to ear. James gave a smile and a wave.

After our first lesson, our flying sessions had been combined with the Hufflepuffs. At that moment, all four of them swooned. Hilary, Bella and I all rolled our eyes.

'Oggi [today], bellos and bellas [beautiful boys and beautiful girls], we will move to one of the empty greenhouses. We will not be flying today, so there is no need for you to be out in the cold.'

We all gave quiet cheers and followed her up the hill to greenhouse seven, which everyone knew was empty but nobody had been inside.

'You know what I've heard?' Sirius said in a low, spooky voice. 'I've heard that there's a monster in greenhouse seven. A big, blood thirsty monster, that grabs little first years and TICKLES THEM TO DEATH!' he yelled, grabbing Bella's sides and tickling her.

'ARRGH!!!' she squealed, surprised by the ambush. We all laughed. Hilary and I looked over at James. He was walking behind everyone else, hands in pockets. He appeared to be deep in thought. 'Should I go talk to him?' I whispered to Hilary.

'You can try,' she said. 'Good luck.'

I dropped back and fell into step beside James. He raised his head.

'Hey,' he grinned, rustling up my hair with a hand. Now that was more like the James I knew.

'What's bothering you?' I asked, narrowing my eyes and locking his gaze.

'Nothing,' he said. His eyes were back to their normal stunning sapphire colour, which pleased me. I loved looking into James's eyes, they were so warm and friendly.

'James Potter, I can tell something is bothering you. Fess up!' I said, persisting. He sighed.

'I don't really know. I feel so out of it lately. I'm forgetting things, I'm having mixed emotions. I don't know. I think I might be coming down sick,' he shrugged. 'I missed out on the flu when everyone else had it; maybe it's catching up with me.'

'Maybe,' I laughed.

He raised his elbow and rested his arm on my head. I laughed and ducked out from underneath it.

'Hey!'

'What? You're exactly the right height,' he grinned.

I raised my arm in a similar manner but only managed to reach his shoulder. He laughed.

'Nope. I'm too tall for you.'

I smiled as we entered the greenhouse. It seemed like James was back to normal. For now, at least.

'Cool,' he said, looking around. 'I've never been in here before.'

Suddenly, he grabbed me under the arms and swung me around.

'Aaaaaaah!' I screamed, laughing at the same time. 'Put me down!'

He smirked and set me down.

'Bet you can't catch me.'

'Bet I can,' I retorted. I had been good at the sprints in school. James took off, and I shot off after him. I tagged him in about thirty seconds.

'Ooh. I've found some competition,' he said, narrowing his eyes evilly as Signora Gionva called us around a table. For the first time, I noticed that it was set out with cakes and drinks and such. It looked like the house elves had been busy.

Signora Gionva rattled on a little about how good our flying had been, and that we should be proud of our skills. Then she made a thank you to James and Sirius, declared us flying graduates, and let us eat cake.

It really was nice cake. * * *

I'd walked to our next lesson happy that James seemed to have returned to normal, and expecting to hear he had broken up with Paige at lunch. But when I got to the Great Hall - late, thanks to Professor McGonagall - there he was, sitting next to her, listening intently as she told a story. It was like he was a completely different person.

'He was fine during the graduation,' I said disbelievingly to Bella as I sat down next to her.

She nodded.

'I know. I saw him with you. I don't get it.'

'It's really bugging me, too,' Hilary said with frustration.

'Me too,' I added. 'But Sirius hasn't noticed anything strange, and we can't accuse Paige without evidence.'

'I know,' Hilary sighed. Bella was staring openly over at where James was sitting. Today, it was just him and Paige. Sirius, Remus and Peter where nowhere to be seen.

'They're no doubt sick of her,' Bella said grimly.

'Yeah, and I don't blame them. She's a nightmare.'

'But James never gets sick of her, which is what I don't get.'

'But he does,' I said suddenly. 'He does get sick of her. You saw him yesterday - he was looking anywhere but at her.'

'You're right,' Hilary said slowly. 'If I didn't know he didn't, I'd say he had a twin. One of them likes Paige, and one of them doesn't.'

'Yeah. And at the moment, that's the closest we've got to an explanation,' I sighed, casting one last look at James before tucking into my food.
We had a mystery on our hands, that was for sure.
~*~ AUTHOR's NOTE! ~*~

I am so, so sorry this has taken so long! [Io molto dispiache!] Lol. Sorry in any language! I have had this typed for ages, but mum wouldn't let me go on the net because I didn't give her a card for mother's day, lol. Aren't I mean? It's not my fault I was too tired! Anyway, here it is. And again, no time for thank yous. But I might get around to them some time this century. :)

Short and crap, I know, and I also know the whole James-is-acting-weird thing is gay and cliche but I was lacking ideas. Fee; free to suggest things you'd like to see! Suggestions are welcomed, and I'll give you credit!

Guess what? Tomorrow I start the Forty Hour Famine. I don't know if you've all heard of it, coz I think it's an only Australian thing, but anyway. l I have to go forty hours without food, which will be very hard for me :( But it's good for you because I'll write to keep my mind of food, and the next chapter will be out sooner! Yippee! So far I've raised about thirty dollars I think, which isn't very much but every little bit counts, hey?

OK on the last chapter, I'll answer a few questions.

Lily DOES NOT have a crush on James. Not yet, anyway.

I know that you can't move when you're stupefied, but let's just say Malfoy's crap at magic and the spell wore off quickly. :)

And the reason Lily felt weird is YET TO BE REVEALED. So hold tight!

Well, that's it for now. How about... twenty reviews? He he. I'm not that mean. But twenty would be great! Guess what..... if I can get, say, fifteen reviews, I'll give you a kiss. As in a Lily-and-James-kiss. How's that?

Lol.

Bye!

*lots of kisses*

SezZie