*::cheers:: hi, my name is Kathi and I LOVE my reviewers!! Nine reviews in one day! ::chokes up:: hehe had to get that out of my system. Hehe I love Fred and George...i just finished the chapter in OotP where they tell Peeves to "give her hell from us." I got chills. Chills I tell you. Anyway, I know I've asked this before but can anyone help me set up a livejournal account? ::smiles innocently:: since you love me all so much...hehe if u can help email me at kathleenmavourneen01@yahoo.com pease!*
Responses
Dangerous Love ~ happy birthday! Feel loved, I listened to you and I'm posting on your birthday! (even though by the time you read this it'll probly be tomorrow but...you get the idea =))
Brook ~ Lily's a little dense at times, especially when it comes to guys like James, so she might not be realizing her true feelings for a while or she will, but she'll fight them like crazy. I haven't quite decided yet. Lol
Chapter 5
They're Just Flowers!
Tired after a long stressing day of classes and guys (especially ones by the name of James Potter...), Lily slumped through the common room, ignoring the falsely innocent looks of the Marauders who were camped out around the fireplace. Everywhere I go, she started ranting in her head as she pushed open the door to her dormitory. And promptly froze. There was an absolutely huge, absolutely gorgeous bouquet of tiger lilies on her bed. Adrian! she immediately thought, for who else would leave her a huge bouquet of lilies?
She dropped her stuff in the doorway, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten and rushed over to her bed. The lilies were even tied with a blue ribbon, in her favorite shade! She searched for a card and found a pretty little one that matched the bow hanging from the ribbon. Lily wasted no time opening it. She read it, frowned, and read it again. It said simply:
I'm sorry.
She blinked. What could Adrian possibly have to be sorry for? He hadn't done anything offensive that she knew of, not like that infuriating James—JAMES! Realization hit her like a train hitting a brick wall. James couldn't possibly've, no, no, it was too ridiculous to even consider. But..., she shook her head. Stop considering it! she scolded herself. She didn't know what to do. Should she confront James? Should she assume the flowers came from Adrian? If they came from James, should she accept his apology? It was only a kiss after all.
*
Meanwhile, back in the common room, the Marauders were anxiously staring at the stairway to the girls' dormitory. "Do you think she saw them?" asked James, not removing his eyes from the stairwell.
"How could she not?" asked Remus, going back to his book.
"Well, we haven't heard any roars of anger yet..." Sirius said, trailing off.
"She could have assumed they came from Adrian..." Remus said tentatively.
"Oh, that would be bad." said Sirius, nodding.
"I told you, you should have signed your name, James." Peter spoke up.
James shot Remus a look. "Then she would have shot down here and stuffed the flowers up my nose." he complained.
Whatever reply Remus was going to make, it was cut off by the arrival of Lily and the flowers in the common room. The Marauders, being the only four in there at the moment, froze and tried to pretend they weren't watching her as she made her way over. "James." she said. "Can we talk?"
James darted a glance over at Remus who nodded imperceptibly. "Ah, sure." James said, pretending he wasn't at all worried about getting the flowers shoved up his nose or somewhere he wasn't about to mention...
He got up and followed her, pretending to ignore Sirius's rather loud stage whisper of "Don't kiss her!!"
Thank you, Padfoot, he thought wryly. Not like I haven't learned my lesson the last two times.
As soon as they had left the common room, Lily whirled on him. "Did you send me these?!" she hissed in a furious whisper, shaking the flowers in his face.
"Erm, yes? I mean, yeah. Yeah I did. What's your problem?" said James, quickly recovering himself and sounding haughtier than he had planned.
The question seemed to take Lily aback. "I—" she stopped and tried again. "I—I just wish you had signed your name, is all." she said.
"Why? Who else would have sent you flowers?" he asked. The minute the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back. Her green eyes were flashing the intensity of a bolt of lightning. "Er, sorry?" he attempted to apologize.
"I thought ADRIAN had sent me the flowers, thank you very much, Potter!" she yelled. "Contrary to what you seem to believe, I am not some hideous old hag who never gets flowers!!"
"I DON'T think you're some hideous old hag. Besides, your precious ADRIAN wouldn't send you flowers!!" James shouted back.
"Oh, really?" she asked, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "And why, might I ask, is that?"
"BECAUSE HE'S GAY!!" bellowed James.
Lily's jaw dropped. Clearly whatever she was expecting him to say, it wasn't that. "HOW DARE YOU!!" she shrieked. "Are you implying that I'm so manly that only a GAY guy would be interested in me!?"
"No! I'm not!" cried James. "If you'd stop jumping to conclusions for ONE measly second, you'd realize that I'm TRYING to tell you the truth, but you're so PREDJUDICED against me that you won't LISTEN!!"
Silence greeted this last outburst. Lily was furiously trying not to cry. "So let me get this straight," she said in a voice a little higher than a whisper. "basically you think that there's something about me that makes no one send me flowers unless it's an apology. Fine. Bye." With that, she climbed back through the portrait ("Squeaky toy.") and disappeared from sight, leaving James standing in the middle of the hall feeling quite idiotic. "Stupid." he muttered. "Just had to go and lose your temper again."
With great foreboding, he went back through the portrait hole. The rest of the Marauders were still sitting around the fire. They had been staring at the portrait hole since Lily had stormed through, waiting for him. Sirius was the first to break the silence, as usual. "Well."
Remus was massaging his temples. "We heard you yelling."
Peter put his face in his hands. "You probably should have tried to keep your temper."
James glared at Peter. "Thank you, Captain Obvious."
"At least you didn't kiss her again." pointed out Sirius, ever the optimist.
"He has a point." spoke up Remus.
James slid into the nearest chair. "Now what do I do, Moony? I've clearly made everything ten times worse. Now she thinks I think that there's something about her that makes no one send her flowers unless it's as an apology."
"We heard." Sirius commented.
Remus was at a loss for words. "Send her chocolate?" he suggested lamely.
"That was next on our list of things to apologize to Lily with." Sirius said.
"Sign your name this time, though." advised Peter. "Maybe you can avoid another row."
"Or maybe she'll come downstairs with the chocolates and bash me over the head with them." James said sarcastically.
"Or that." agreed Sirius, not giving James any consolation.
"Well, it's not like we have a better plan." Remus said.
"Alright." grumbled James. "We'll send her—"
"YOU'LL send her chocolates." corrected Sirius.
"Thank you, Padfoot." James said dryly. "I'LL send her chocolates and, yes, Wormtail, I'll sign my name." He sighed heavily and buried his face in his hands.
*
The next day, after classes, Madeline headed to the library to escape a furious Lily, who was still steaming over what happened with James the previous night. Madeline was the smartest, most studious one out of the group and therefore going to the library didn't provoke a lot of suspicion from anyone.
She walked quietly into the library, surprised to find that there wasn't an empty table anywhere. She supposed most people were trying to escape the wrath of Lily, but then again they could just be feeling extra bookish at the moment. She stood on tiptoe, trying to find an empty table. She didn't see any and was about to leave when a semi-empty table caught her eye. There was only one boy sitting at it and as he didn't seem to be particularly distracting, like most boys, she decided to ask if she could sit with him.
"Excuse me?" she said upon reaching the table. The boy looked up, exposing her to the most dazzlingly gray pair of eyes she had ever seen. A smile quirked his lips and she realized she had been staring. "I was...I was wondering if anyone else was sitting here?"
"Nah, have a seat." he said, gesturing to a chair next to him. "My name's Remus Lupin." he said as she sat down.
"I'm Madeline Arthur." she said, smiling a bit. "What are you reading?"
"Well, I'm not really reading." he said, grinning sheepishly. "I'm trying to figure out a way to help my friend get the girl he wants."
"James."
Remus was momentarily surprised. "Yeah, actually. How did you know?"
Her smile expanded into a grin, amazing him. "Well the girl he wants just so happens to be my dear friend—"
"Lily." he finished. "Well. This is interesting." He leaned back on the chair legs and put his hands behind his head.
"You can say that again." Madeline agreed. "She's in a terrible temper because of him."
Remus winced. "Yeah. I saw. Well, heard really, but you get the idea."
"Did he really tell her he thought that, er, what was it?" She scrunched up her eyes, thinking.
"' that there's something about her that makes no one send her flowers unless it's as an apology'?" quoted Remus.
"Yeah." Madeline relaxed her face. "That."
"Nah, he didn't say that, she assumed it. Basically it's a classic case of misunderstanding." He rolled his eyes.
"Ah, I see. We should do something about them!" she exclaimed.
"What?" Remus wobbled on the chair legs in surprise and fell forwards, bringing the chair down with a loud THUNK! "I mean, what?"
"Play matchmaker!" Madeline was grinning in anticipation.
"I'm not very good at that..." he said hesitantly.
"It's okay!" she grinned. "It's fun. Besides, they can't hate each other any more!"
"Eh, I wouldn't be so sure." commented Remus. "Besides. He doesn't hate her. He actually likes her quite a bit. She just rubs him the wrong way."
"Ah, true love." sighed Madeline sarcastically. "They're perfect for each other. If they'd just stop fighting or arguing or avoiding each other for a second, they'd realize it!"
"You're right." agreed Remus. "Anyway, getting down to business, he's sending her chocolates to apologize for the most recent turn of events."
"Good idea." Madeline nodded approvingly. "She loves chocolate. Get her Cadbury's. She likes that even more than Honeydukes'."
"Okay. Question, can you transfigure name brands? Oh well, we'll find out." he said, answering his own question.
"Transfigure?!" exclaimed Madeline, appalled. "No, no, no. You've got to spend money on it. The bigger the mistake, the more you spend, or, in this case, the bigger the box. Slightly materialistic, I know, but you haven't seen Lily when she has her chocolate."
"Ah. But we can't mail order Cadbury's." pointed out Remus.
"Yes, you can." said Madeline. "You just can't do it directly from the store. You have to send the owl to your family or someone who lives near Muggle settlements and have them pick it up, then send it to you."
"You're brilliant!" exclaimed Remus.
Madeline blushed. "Thank you. Now I have a question for you. Is Adrian really gay?"
Remus grinned. "I was wondering when you'd ask that. I honestly don't know, but Sirius seems to think so. Then again, Sirius is a raging, walking hormone so I can't exactly trust him to be thinking with the right head."
Madeline looked at him for a second, then, once she got it, she burst into peals of laughter, muffled by her hand. "That's good!" she exclaimed.
"Why, thank you." grinned Remus. "Come on, let's go order those Cadbury's before Lily kills James while he's sleeping."
"We'll try to restrain her, I promise." Madeline said, still laughing.
At that moment, Madeline felt a pair of eyes boring into her back. Turning, she saw the vulture-like Madame Pince shooting daggers at them from behind her desk. "Hey, we should probably get out of here. Madame Pince is looking rather cheesed off at us."
"Cheesed off?" asked Remus. "Where'd that come from?"
Madeline grinned. "It's something I heard Shayne's mother say once. C'mon, let's get out of here."
Remus nodded and stood up gathering his stuff and Madeline's. She blushed. "You don't have to..."
He stopped her. "Please. I insist."
She opened her mouth to protest, but he was already on his way out the library. She smiled to herself. What a gentleman.
*okay so I had another ending for this but it was wayy pathetic. Basically it was me filling up space because my dear readers wanted me to write longer chapter. I like this ending better. All in favor of Madeline and Remus, say 'aye'! ::chorus of 'ayes'::. anyway in case you haven't read the update for some hearts yet, I'm going to be in a place where computers are practically nonexistent. ::reviewers gasp simultaneously:: so the chances of me updating anytime in the next week are next to nothing. I will try though, but no promises. Anyway review!!*