By Dimantrien
Chapter 5: Let the Drama Begin
Chase stormed out of Gryffindor Tower, not really knowing where she was going. She couldn't believe her ears. How could Lily say those things about her? After all that they've been through, after all the times she had been there for Lily to prove that she was a real friend…and now this?
She knew, deep down, that Lily only said those things because she was hurting. She knew that Lily didn't mean any of the things she said…or did she? Still, hurt or not, Lily had no right to say those things to her. And for uncountable times, Chase was the one who had the right to get mad but never did, because Lily was her best friend. Now she didn't know if she was right, or if she had just wasted four whole years sacrificing little things and subduing her anger towards someone who didn't really deserve it. Some life.
"Chase! Have you seen Lily?"
Chase didn't turn around at the voice. Besides her anger, with which she couldn't focus on anything else, she recognized who owned that voice. None other than James Potter. She quickened her pace, hoping he'd get the point and leave her alone.
No such luck. She completely forgot the fact that James was a very persistent person, and one of the fastest Seekers Hogwarts had in a good few years. Right now he combined the two to catch up with her.
"I don't know, James. Leave me alone," she said, annoyed.
"You've seen her, right? Why? What happened?" James asked, trotting behind her.
Chase whirled around. "What happened?" she scoffed. "Oh, not much. She just cried ten gallons while Celeste and I tried to comfort her, and she bit my head off for not telling her about you and your little escapade sooner. Now she's probably burning all pictures of me and you in her photo albums in a cleansing ritual to rid herself of unworthy people she had ever extended friendship for."
James winced. "I'm sorry. I was going to tell her then, but she ran off as soon as I broke up with her. I didn't mean for her to get hurt…"
Chase rolled her eyes. "Right, James, just keep telling yourself that. If you're trying to reason, go to Lily. She's the one who needs an attitude adjustment, not me," she said sarcastically. James probably had no clue what she was talking about, and just stood there. She stalked away and thankfully, James didn't follow. In fact, he was heading in the opposite direction to follow what she just suggested.
Friends. Were they for real, or just a fanciful illusion? Chase didn't really know. Somehow she had a feeling it was the latter.
*****
Remus walked down a corridor after his meeting with his Slytherin partner, Sheridan Laszlo, in Potions. He got along well with Sheridan because he was originally from Zynergrand, but still, a Slytherin was a Slytherin. He wasn't that disappointed though.
He was turning around a corner when he collided with someone. "Oh, sorry," he said, and saw that he had bumped into Rhiannon. Her arms were full of frosted cupcakes, and she had dropped a couple of them.
"No problem, Remus. Want one?" she offered, holding out a cupcake.
"Er—no thanks," Remus said politely. "Have you seen James or Sirius anywhere?"
Rhiannon nodded. "I saw James just a while ago. He was talking to Chase in a deserted corridor and Chase seemed angry for some reason. I've never seen her mad, have you?"
Remus shook his head. Chase, angry? That he had to see…
"And Sirius is probably in the common room. At least, he was in the common room before I left. Say, do you mind coming with me there? I still don't know your school well enough, and just a minute ago I leaned on a wall and next thing I knew, I was in this corridor…"
Remus nodded at her request and accompanied her back to the Tower. Rhiannon was a bit talkative, but she was witty and took things lightly so he didn't mind. When they reached the common room, they saw Sirius sitting alone on one of the armchairs by the fire.
"Hey there, Padfoot. What's wrong?" Remus asked, noticing the grave look on Sirius' face.
"Hiya Rem. I was just thinking about something… Lily came in here an hour ago, and she was crying like mad. But she and Chase won't tell me what she's so sad about. Do you know?"
Both Rhiannon and Remus shook their heads no. "I saw Chase with James earlier, and she looked angry about something. D'you think that has something to do with what happened to Lily?" Rhiannon asked.
Sirius' eyes lit up. "Hey, yeah! I waited for like ten minutes before a door slammed and Chase came thundering down the stairs looking upset about something. I asked her but she looked so mad that she didn't answer. Maybe Celeste knows what's going on. She's probably in the dormitory." The other two shrugged and followed him to the girls' dorms.
Celeste let them in. She didn't look too cheerful herself. "Let me guess. You want to know where Lily is, right?" she said wearily. "If you're looking for her, she just left—"
"No, we're not looking for Lil," Sirius interrupted. "I want to know why she was crying and why Chase was mad and why Chase, according to Rhiannon, looked angry with James—" Then his eyes widened as he realized what he just said.
Celeste raised an eyebrow. "Figured it out already, haven't you? Come on in and I'll explain the whole story…" She looked exhausted. When they were all settled on the beds, she started to tell them all about the breakup. Remus looked like he was torn in between wanting to go out and comfort Lily or catch up with James and help him not to be confused. Sirius' mouth was hanging open and he appeared not to believe a single word of what Celeste had just said. Rhiannon had dropped all the remaining frosted cupcakes she hadn't eaten yet without noticing.
"But—but… Damaris would never do something like that," Rhiannon said earnestly. "If she did, then she probably didn't know that James had a girlfriend or something. There has to be a reasonable explanation."
Celeste flipped her hair back angrily. "Reasonable? You call James cheating on Lily reasonable? It's not fair! Lily should give him a good kick in the—"
"Celes," Remus said warningly. He didn't want Lily to be as hurt as she was, yet he couldn't be mad at James either. After all, James was one of his best friends. Celeste didn't seem to want to keep silent about this.
"Oh, sure, take his side. He may be your friend Remus, but if he did the wrong thing, it's your job to straighten him out. He should realize that he—"
"Come on, do you expect Rem not to side with his best friend? No offense Celes, but we've known James longer than Lily, so it's instinct to help him straighten things out. I care about Lil too, but frankly, I don't think we're going to be much help since girls are better listeners anyway, or so they say." Sirius crossed his arms over his chest.
"But he did the wrong thing!" Celeste cried.
"There might be a reason behind it, like Rhiannon said. Maybe one of them was just confused," Remus suggested.
"Wait, wait, wait. I remember that in cases like this, where we're friends with both of the broken-up couple, we're not supposed to take sides…" Rhiannon said vaguely, looking at the ceiling as if imploring to it for answers.
"Exactly. Celeste, Sirius' idea isn't totally off base. Girls are better listeners, and she can relate to you because you're a girl yourself," Remus said with a smile. None of them could object to that. "Sirius and I will look for James and try to coax him into telling why the hell he did something stupid. Meanwhile, you and Rhiannon go to Lily and calm her down."
For once, Celeste didn't seem to find anything wrong with the picture. "O-okay. But, if James admits a reason that isn't considered rational, then you better talk some sense into him and threaten him to apologize to Lily sincerely—"
"Only if you stop Lily from bad-mouthing all of the male gender once she talks to you," Remus returned.
Celeste cracked a smile and shook Remus' outstretched hand. "Deal."
Sirius sighed. "Why is it that when we have to scurry around fixing our friends' love lives, it's convenient that we are also friends with the one they broke up with?" he groaned.
"Because we're too lucky," Remus answered sarcastically. "Now get your butt off the bed. We need to find James. And if we're even luckier, we wouldn't need to whack him upside the head."
Sirius stood up and glanced pointedly at Celeste. "Celes would love that."
*****
Lily sat under a tingelid tree, a magical specie whose leaves changed color depending on the temperature surrounding it. Right now, since it was a cold day, the leaves were a bright blue. She loved this spot. It was a bit far from the castle, on the grounds. She remembered last year when she had a fight with Celeste and she and Chase were under this tree. Celeste had come and the two explained to her that they had set up the fight to…
To make her admit that she had feelings for James and to get them together.
She closed her eyes and groaned. Why was it that wherever she went, there was always something that reminded her of James? If this was a week ago she wouldn't have minded. But now that he dumped her because he cheated on her with a supposed new friend of theirs, the always-reminded-of-him factor was becoming a major pain in the whatchamacallit.
A cool wind blew around the tree, causing the leaves to flash a much paler blue before the breeze passed. Standing up, Lily just wished that she had an off switch in her brain that would cause her not to be reminded of James in every little thing. She started running back to the castle, passing by the Whomping Willow.
And rammed right into another person.
"Ow…oh, excuse me, sorry," Lily mumbled, but when she looked up, she jumped back practically ten feet and glared at the attacker. It was James.
"Uh…sorry," James muttered, averting his eyes. Lily started to walk away.
"Wait!" James called after her. Lily wouldn't wait, and Lily wouldn't follow an order that a jerk like him dared to command. She broke into a run.
"Come on, Lil, please. I have to explain this to you. Just give me a minute—" The fact that the volume of his voice wasn't decreasing as she ran meant that he was following her.
Just go away. Go away, go away, go away. Lily blinked a few times to prevent any unnecessary tears from spilling. How dare he come after her after what he did? How dare he even think that she would give him even a minute of her time when he was the one who did the wrong thing? And only two hours after the breakup, too.
She felt a hand come down on her shoulder and slapped it away. "Leave me alone," she choked out in a raspy voice, giving away what she was feeling that moment—the feeling that she just wanted to cry her eyes out. Well, damn James for being the reason why she was like that at the moment.
"Please, Lily. You deserve an explanation. I know that you're thinking that I don't deserve a minute of your time but this is really important," James said.
Damn James too for knowing her too long to read her mind practically to the letter. "What part of Leave me alone don't you understand?" she said bitingly, stepping away from him.
"Just listen for a minute. I didn't even know that Damaris didn't know we were a couple—"
Lily stared daggers at him. "Right. Blame it on somebody else, James. Then again, I'm not saying I don't hate her guts either. Just tell your friend to keep away from me if she values her life, and if you knew any better, you should too."
"But I swear, she didn't know! And I didn't know that she would kiss me either—"
"Will you stop acting like a major git! Even if you didn't know, then how come you chose her?! If it was just a tiny mistake, then how come I was the one you dumped?" Lily's voice was dangerously low, and she gripped the wand in her pocket tightly.
James chose unwisely to be silent.
"You know what? Don't bother answering. I don't even know why I gave in to your request to listen to you. You don't even have a valid reason of why you dumped me! And if you really were that superficial from the start, James Potter, I'd wonder where my brain had gone when I even thought of getting together with you!"
It was then that James stirred. "I know, Lily. But I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to hurt you, but I didn't want to hurt Damaris either. Professor McGonagall told me she had a personal problem that's really serious. It's like if anybody says the wrong thing to her or something, she'd break down. So I figured that the best way was to just stay neutral and pick neither."
Lily couldn't believe what she was hearing. "And you value a complete stranger's welfare above mine? If she's got a problem, then it's not your responsibility to solve it for her. And I don't see what I did so wrong that you chose to affect our relationship with being Damaris' buddy. Unless I'm mistaken, which I know I'm not, I never did anything to deserve this. You're the one who screwed up. I pity whoever falls in love with you. They obviously wouldn't know what a lying scum you are."
James' eyes flashed for a moment. "Will you think about what you're saying? The girl has a serious problem. Even McGonagall told me to be careful. I'm just doing what I think is best for everybody. I still care about you a lot, Lily, but right now we have to make sacrifices. And yes, I'm willing to make sacrifices even to a complete stranger if I know that she deserves something to make her life better for once. I'm not going to get together with her. Why are you so paranoid?"
"Why am I so paranoid? The fact that your boyfriend breaks up with you when you didn't do anything to cause it is enough to make any girl paranoid! You just don't get it, James! You don't get how it feels to be the person being dumped, because you're too high and mighty to be reduced to a pathetic person who knows how it feels to be rejected! You've always been the one who dumps girls and not the other way around. And in this case, rejection isn't justified, James. You know that." The tears were spilling now, but Lily was beyond caring. She had to let James know how insensitive he could go, how insensitive he'd become. He deserved to know what a jerk he'd turned into ever since the Zynergrand students waltzed into their school.
"You, on the other hand, don't know what it's like to sacrifice something for others! I don't care how much your parents spoil you at home because you're a Muggle-born witch, Lily, or how much fame you have that you're so used to people just following what you want them to do and hand everything to you. Pardon me if I think being charitable every now and then is a good idea if you believe that helping others is just a load of crap." James' hands were balled up into fists.
"Me? Since when have I been overly selfish? Is that really how you thought of me when we were together? That I'm just a spoiled brat who's so used to having the best of everything?! If that's the case, then you don't know me well enough, James! You don't have the right to say those things about me," Lily retorted, wiping her tears away angrily. "You don't have a right to insult me like that. You're the one who started this mess, and I'm not going to stand here and let you do as you please when you know very well that this is all your fault."
Lily whirled around in blind fury and stalked away from the person she thought understood her better than an open book. She had thought that after last year, he had finally begun to change. She had thought that he was going to stop being a player and become mature just like everyone else.
How very wrong she was.
*****
AN – The usual, sorry I'm late, dunno if you think this is a sucky chappie, still have two other stories to update, blah blah blah. I've been having severe writer's block lately and all I can do is read other people's works to bully myself into thinking of something brilliant… unfortunately none yet as of now… Besides, all the fics I've been reading are Saiyuki and not HP, so that doesn't help either ^^;; And now I'm considering writing a Saiyuki fic. Does anybody have a cure for multi-fic syndrome?