Deflating

Chapter Fourteen: Confrontation

***

James strode determinedly into the Great Hall and scanned it's contents for Lily. He spotted her, sitting alone at the end of the Gryffindor table, eating porridge and reading a book she had propped up against a bottle of ketchup. He took a good look at her hair. She had it in two neat little plaits, and had taken strands out to frame her face. Okay. That was good. He could tell Lily that her hair looked nice and not have to cross his fingers behind his back.

When someone is watching you, you tend to notice. Lily looked up from her book and met James's eyes across the hall. The tiniest traces of a smile lit up her face, and James took that as an invitation to join her. He crossed the room to where she was sitting as she closed her book.

"Good morning," he said pleasantly, taking the seat next to her. James reached for the platter of eggs in front of Lily and, remembering what he had come here for, added, "You look lovely today."

He sneaked a look at her expression, which was surprised. "Er--thank you," Lily replied, the shock quite evident in her voice. "Can--can I talk to you?"

Smirking, James said, "You are talking."

Lily sighed irritably. "Much as I love reminiscing about all of our past meetings, I did enough of it last night to last me a lifetime."

To be quite honest, James had completely forgotten about Lily reading the book. He flushed a little and shoveled eggs onto his plate. "Oh," he mumbled, replacing the platter to it's place on the table. "That."

"That's not what I--I wanted to talk about, actually," Lily said.

James looked up from his plate, where he was adding liberal amounts of salt and pepper to his eggs, and repeated lamely, "Oh?"

"Yes." Lily bit her lip. "I wanted to ask you--"

"D'you mind if I use some of that ketchup?" James interrupted.

Lily stared at him, startled. "What?"

"The ketchup," James repeated, pointing to the bottle in front of her. "Are you using it?"

"Well, no." James reached over and took it from her as she looked on helplessly. "James, I would kind of like for you to focus on…on what I'm trying to--"

"Thanks," James interjected, handing her the ketchup again.

"What are you giving me this for?"

"Oh. Sorry." James reached over and took the bottle from her hand again and replaced it in front of her. "There. Now, you were saying…?" He looked up at her inquiringly as he shoveled a forkful of eggs, doused in ketchup, into his mouth.

Lily stared at him in amazement, then appeared to come to her senses, shaking her head. "I--I was trying to say that…that…"

James now was topping a piece of buttered toast with his ketchup-covered eggs. "Go on," he prodded to Lily, folding the toast over itself and taking a bite.

"That is disgusting," Lily proclaimed, watching him eat with her nose wrinkled.

"It's an egg sandwich."

"Yes, I know, and it's disgusting. You don't put ketchup on bread."

"I'm not putting ketchup on bread," James corrected with his mouth full. "I'm putting ketchup on toast."

"Toast is bread that has been zapped," Lily snapped.

"Well, you said that you don't put ketchup on bread. You said nothing about bread that has been zapped. And zapped really isn't a very accurate description of how you make toast, is it?"

Lily was amazed how easily she could be pulled off-topic. "How do you make toast, then?"

"Well, I put it in a toaster. I don't just point at a piece of bread and say, 'Zap'!" James glanced curiously at her. "Can you just point at a piece of bread and say, 'Zap!' to get toast?"

"I don't think so," Lily replied, sighing. This was not going nearly the way she wanted it to.

James smiled and took another bite of his sandwich. "Want some?" he asked her abruptly, as she was still watching him eat with a look of plain distaste.

"What?" Lily demanded, completely surprised.

James waved his half-eaten sandwich at her. "Just a sampling? It's delicious…."

"Get that away from me."

James grinned and wafted it under her nose. "It's calling you. Do you hear it? It's saying…Lilllliee.…Liiiilllllliieeee.…"

"You are so immature, you know that?" Lily said, but a smile was threatening to turn up at the corners of her mouth. "And I am trying to tell you something…"

"Eat the sandwich."

"What?"

"Eat the sandwich and I will listen to anything and everything you have to say. Go on," he nudged the sandwich towards her.

Sighing irritably again, Lily leaned over and bit into the sandwich. "There," she said while chewing. "I ate some. Now you have to listen…" She chewed thoughtfully. "Wow," she muttered, wiping the corners of her mouth with her finger, "that is…that's kind of wonderful."

"See, see?" James said triumphantly, popping the last of it into his mouth. "Now, what is it you wanted to tell me?"

Lily looked up at him, and met his gaze, holding it for at least fifteen seconds before looking away and muttering, "Nothing. Nothing at all." She flashed him a weak smile and stirred her porridge.

He did not catch the expression of self-loathing on her face.

***

Wednesday, 31 January

Approximately 8:30 a.m.: Lily (that is so strange to write) is holding something back from me, and I don't know what it could possibly be.

She made this big song and dance about how I was not listening to her this morning at breakfast, then when I said that I was finally feeling attentive, she wouldn't tell me whatever it was.

I think she was going to admit that she is desperately in love with me and wants to have my baby, but then backed out at the very last minute.

Well, I have decided that I am going to make it easy for her.

I'm going to ask her out.

Padfoot is laughing.

Yes, again, you stupid cretin.

***

Lily cursed herself as she walked to Transfiguration that morning. She had been so close, and then she had chickened out at the last minute. Well, James had been so…nice. That was just typical: she wanted to tell him to bugger off and he seemed determined to flatter her and make her laugh

And the most horribly unfair part of it was, he had succeeded. And also, he had turned her on to egg-and-ketchup sandwiches.

"I'll do it at lunch," she told herself under her breath, sliding into a seat exactly three rows and seven seats away from James. "At lunch."

Right. At lunch.

***

At the aforementioned lunch, Lily found herself sandwiched between Emily, Charlotte, and Sirius, with James, Remus and Peter, across from her. How this had happened, she had no idea. As she ate her ham sandwich, she watched James, wondering how she was going to introduce the topic--if she could actually get James alone.

It was almost like James knew what she was trying to will herself to do and was blocking her every opportunity to do it. Lily scowled at this thought, realizing that this was probably very likely. Charlotte knew about her plans--for the most part; she didn't know about the latest course of action, but could figure it out if she wanted to--and was very adamant about Lily giving James a chance, so she could've tipped him off. Lily made a mental note to ask Charlotte about this later.

Everyone else was talking merrily about Quidditch or some other obscure topic, when James suddenly interrupted, "Lily, can I talk to you outside for a minute?"

Surprised, but also glad that James had (unwittingly, no doubt) given her a chance to put her plan into action, Lily threw her napkin onto her plate and stood. "Sure."

He led her by the elbow out of the Hall, coming to a stop by the large marble staircase. He leaned against the railing, and she took a seat facing him on the bottom step.

"What did you want to tell me this morning?" James asked.

"Oh," Lily said. "Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Partially. It has something to do with that."

Lily nodded slowly, trying to decide where to begin. "Remember, at the end of sixth year, when I told you I would only go out with you if you changed? If you stopped being a prick?"

"Yeah," James replied. "How--?"

Lily interrupted softly, "I'd really appreciate it if you just let me talk, because this is…well, I just want you to listen."

"Okay," James said, shrugging, and taking a seat next to her. She stiffened visibly, but sucked in a breath.

"You have gotten better," Lily said, concentrating very hard on her shoes. "You've gotten a lot better. I'm almost proud of you, in a very strange way. But I still felt contempt towards you; you annoyed me, and I felt like I couldn't stand to be in the same room with you and your giant head for too long."

"Gee, Lily, you sure know how to make a guy feel special, don't you?" James muttered derisively.

"James," Lily said, almost pleadingly. "Number one, you knew my feelings for you, and number two, you promised you wouldn't interrupt."

James nodded, and Lily returned her gaze to the floor, while James concentrated exclusively on the expressions on her face as she spoke, "But then I started having those dreams. And I couldn't understand what they meant, and as much as I tried to convince myself that they meant nothing--and you did too-- I knew that they meant...something. I just didn't know what it was." She inhaled very shakily, but continued, "I talked to my mother about them, and all she would tell me was that I knew what they meant, but I was refusing to see it, and that she liked you."

James furrowed his brow at this, not really understanding how that pertained to the story.

"I wasn't very happy about that, because it infuriated me that she was holding something back from me that I was trying so hard to understand. But then I got it." Lily met James's eyes. "Do you? Do you…get where I'm going with this?"

"No," James replied honestly. "No, I don't."

"Yes, you do," Lily said, chuckling a little. "You're just trying to make me say it."

James shrugged. "Believe what you want, but you're going to have to say it anyway."

Lily lowered her eyes, so that she was staring intently at his shoulder and blushing furiously. "I had…have fallen for you."

While James had fantasized about this moment, he had never quite expected it to be like this. He had always assumed that she would never really admit it; that he would just ask her out, she'd say yes, and that would be the end of it. But her admitting to her feelings…that was major. That was incredible. "Lily--" he began, but she cut him off.

"I'm not finished," she said. "Of course, I cannot stand for those kinds of feelings."

The birds stopped singing, the violinists stopped playing, the fireworks fizzled. "What?"

Lily lifted her chin. "Well, you see, that's what I wanted to tell you this morning. I don't want to…to feel this way. So, to get rid of it, you have to leave me alone. Stop talking to me. Pretend I don't exist."

"And I should do this because…?"

"Because, James," she said impatiently. "I don't want to feel romantically inclined towards you. That is just disaster waiting to happen."

"Why is that?"

"Because, I…I just don't want to. That should be good enough for you."

"Unfortunately, it isn't, so would you mind giving me the entire reason?"

Lily bit her lip. "Do you promise not to get all defensive?"

"No," James responded flatly.

"I'm just afraid…if I do go with you, you'll get bored with me because you got what you wanted, cheat on me with some stupid blonde bint, and then ditch me."

James sniggered. Lily stared at him, feeling quite unappreciative of this response. "May I ask what's funny?" Lily asked coldly.

"Okay, Lily, let me ask you something: how many girls have I dated this year?"

Lily scrunched up her nose. "I'm sorry, James, I guess I forgot to renew my subscription to your newsletter, because I am completely clueless as to your current dating habits."

"That's quite all right," James replied, undaunted. "I'll answer it for you: I have had no dates this year."

"Should I feel sorry for you?"

"No. Do you know why I haven't had any dates this year?"

"You ran out of girls?" Lily guessed irritably.

"I was waiting for you. Do you really and honestly think that, after all that work in trying to get you to like me, I would just throw it away?"

Lily was quiet; while Charlotte had pointed this out to her, it was different hearing it come from James. It sounded much more like he was telling the truth. When Charlotte told it, Lily only heard her best friend trying to comfort her.

He continued, "I won't leave you alone, no matter how much you want me to. I will keep chasing after you until the day I die." He stood up and tugged on one of her braids. "Sorry, dear, but you're stuck with me."

***

A/N: Nooooooo!!!!! So, so, so sorry for the people who read 14 late last night; I posted the wrong one! That one had the angst-y, soap-opera-ish ending!!! This one is much better.