Disclaimer: I do not own anything except the plot and Phoebe.
Author's Note: Well sorry for this late chapter, cos I was sick a few days before, and my inspiration seemed to have gone with my sickness. Sorry! Well anyway, I'm back again!
By the way, pls leave your email when you review if you want me to mail you when my chapter is up. =)
Firstly, my thanks to the people who reviewed:
Arrora - Thank you for your compliment! I will try my best to make the story better!
Ti - Hi there! Thanks for reviewing almost every chapter! I'm sorry I left out your name in Chapter 7 cos I only thanked those people who reviewed chapter 6. Anyway, I hope you will continue to read my story!
Froggie-freak33 - Heh thanks, but if I ever need help, I will come to you!
Nicole - Of cos there will be romance between Lily and James!! I'm an ultimate L/J fan/air-conditioner! Haha!
Meat - Haha, mich you are clever. Fine fine =P.
|cE^ - Thanks for your compliment! Hey how is it that you know I know Chinese?
Anyway, here's the chapter! Thanks Laven for being my personal advisor by the way! =)
Chapter Eight
"Finally back home!" Phoebe shouted happily as Hogwarts came in view.
Finally back home, Lily repeated, but the words only echoed in her head. Silently.
When they reached Hogwarts, Hagrid waved to them as he beamed. All seven of them grinned back, bounding out of the train, towards Hogwarts.
At the Great hall, the sorting ceremony began as Professor Mcgonagall read out the list of names on her parchment. Next to Lily, James yawned.
"This is the boring-est ceremy I have ever seen," he whispered as he watched the train of first-years lining up to walk to the stool.
"It can't be the boring-est," Lily whispered back, though wondering the reason behind her whispering.
"And why not, Lily dear?"
"Because you didn't see the first sorting ceremony; you were involved in it. So that means you have only seen two, and when you compare two, you can only use boring-er, and not boring-est."
"Argh. Shut up about grammar."
"Well, grammar is an important part of our lives."
Here, Sirius who heard the entire conversation, interrupted, "If it is so important, then you should know there's no such word as boring-est in the first place!"
Lily gave Sirius a glare as James snickered.
"Thanks pal," James grinned, patting Sirius on the back. Sirius pretended to look surprised.
"For what? That comment was aimed at you too! Seriously, don't you know your grammar?"
That shut James up as Lily laughed.
Finally, the ceremony was finished, and James' glum expression cleared. Food magically appeared on the dishes as the students tucked in hungrily. After a long time, dinner was finished and the Gryffindor prefect (Arthur Weasley) led the students to their common room.
The moment Lily entered, she felt a sense of warmth enveloped her, and she smiled. Seeing her contented expression, Remus smiled too, and commented, "Looks like you missed it here."
Lily nodded, then yawned. "I'm kind of tired after all these activity. I think I'm going straight up to the girls' dorm, hit the showers and then sleep. Night Remus."
"Night Lily."
At that moment, James chose to comment, "Only pigs feel tired after eating, you know, LILY."
Lily, who was already halfway up the staircase, turned back with a scowl, and was about to retort when an idea came to her mind. As she took out her wand, she muttered, "Exprelo!" and pointed her wand at James laughing figure.
Before James could run away, the spell hit him, and he started yawning continuously.
"Look who's tired now?" Lily grinned.
"Hey..take this..char..charm..of..me!" James tried to shout through his yawns as Lily ignored him and slammed the girls' dorm door shut.
"Well James, at least you will learn to keep your mouth shut when Lily's around," Peter clucked sympathetically.
"Not that he's able to now," Sirius sniggered, as James shot him a glare while yawning.
~*~
The next morning, Remus woke up to find James sitting on the bed, rubbing his sore jaw.
"What's the matter now?" Remus asked, amused.
"Go tell that best friend of yours she's a freak! I was still yawning while sleeping! And now my jaw is all sore! Oh man!" James complained with a sour expression on his face.
Remus chuckled. "Well, you had to offend her first. You kind of deserve it anyway."
James looked outraged. "Hey! I'm supposed to be your best friend too! How can you..betray me?!"
"Remus didn't. He was just merely being impartial, aren't you?" Sirius interjected, hoping to prevent it from becoming into a full-blown quarrel.
"Yeah, I wasn't helping either side!"
"That's unfair! You two always speak up for Lily!"
"No we aren't! James, stop being so childish, and get a bath for goodness sake, we are running late."
"WHAT?! ME, childish? I-" Here James was carried by Remus and Sirius into the bathtub.
"Just bathe and shut up!"
~*~
In the Great Hall, Lily gave James a huge fake smile the moment he entered.
"Good morning!" She chirped, as Sirius and Remus groaned. They knew it would start all over again.
James scowled at Lily, obviously not in the mood and condition to talk anymore, given his raw jaw.
Lily, however, seated herself in between Phoebe and Remus immediately, to avoid James trying to 'settle the problem' with her. Fortunately, nothing much happened, until the group started to disperse, each going to his respective lessons.
As James walked along the corridor, he was cornered by two slytherins. "Well, what do we have here?" One of the slytherins, Lucius Malfoy snickered.
"Potter's jaw got too raw from kissing?" Severus Snape, another slytherin, drawled.
"That's crap! Now will you let me get to my lesson?" James replied angrily.
"Don't you think we should have a little talk regarding the last prank you played on me?" Malfoy sneered. However, James did not flinch.
"Get a life," James rolled his eyes, "how much can you discuss about a prank? Or maybe you don't have the brains to make one and you need my help?"
Severus looked livid, and was about to punch him in the stomach when Proffessor Flitwick appeared in the corridor.
"Boys," he asked in a sternest voice he could manage, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing, Professor," Malfoy muttered as they gave James another glare and went away. After thanking Professor Flitwick, James tried to find his way to the divination classroom once again.
At last, he managed, though he was fifteen minutes late. Professor Trelawny did not look pleased.
"Please try to come on time the next lesson, Mr. Potter. The interruption of lessons clouds my Inner Eye. Take a seat quickly."
Unfortunately, the only vacant seat was beside Lily. Both, obviously, did not look pleased with the arrangement. Grumbling inwardly, James seated himself.
During the lesson, they had to work on palm reading. James, holding up Lily's palm, frowned, while Lily looked extremely pissed.
"Well, what does the book say?" She asked, after her palm went under the scrutiny of James for a few minutes.
"Hmm, the book says this line means you are..wait, let me take a look, yeah it says you are a person who likes to make trouble, especially for innocent people-" Lily snickered as she glanced at her own book, but let James continue, "And that you are an extremely stupid person who will never make it big in life."
"Oh really?" She replied, as James gave her a vigorous nod. "Let me have a look at your palm then."
With that, she took hold of his hand and turned his palm towards her. "Your palm tells me you are an arrogant and idiotic git, who has enough brains to fill an eggcup and that you are mischievous and dumb and everything else that's undesirable."
"That's not true!" James protested, "You are not even looking at the book!"
"Well, I'm clever enough to know what the lines mean without referring to the book."
"You can't! You are supposed to be stupid!"
"I'm not! You made that up!"
"Well, so did you!"
"I didn't!"
"You did!"
"So what if I did?"
"You-" As their quarrels became increasingly louder, Professor Trelawny finally had to calm both parties down. By the end of the lesson, James and Lily were so irate that they would not even look at the other party in the eye.
After Divination, Lily stomped down the corridor, on her way to Muggle studies. To her surprise and annoyance, James followed.
After a few more minutes, Lily whirled around. "What do you think you are trying to do? Follow me around?" She spat at James.
James rolled his eyes. "As though that's enjoyable. I'm just on my way to Muggle studies."
Surprised, Lily replied, "That's what I'm heading for to! I don't believe you!"
"Look if you don't believe me!" James handed her his timetable. As Lily scanned through his lessons, she exclaimed.
"I don't believe it! All our lessons are the same!"
"Whoope-do. That's even better than striking lottery," James noted glumly.
~*~
For the next few months, things continued that way. Lily and James were forced together all day, and they literally see each other from the moment they wake up to the point they sleep.
At one point, Lily couldn't stand James anymore. "Really, he's a horror," she would complain to Remus, as he tried to comfort her.
However, one day, Lily couldn't stand it anymore. She stopped James' chattering in the middle of the corridor.
"Look James," She started, "I'm not going to stand all these nonsense from you. One of these days I'm going crazy!"
"Well, you already are-" James tried to replied, but stopped when Lily gave him a death glare.
"Let's have a compromise," She suggested, "As long as you don't hit me with sarcastic remarks, I will stop hexing you. Deal?"
"Those are not sarcastic remarks! They are corny!" James argued, but quailed under Lily's stare. "Ok ok, they are sarcastic.."
"So deal?"
"Sigh. Ok. Somehow, I have a feeling I'm getting the bad end of the deal."
"Then shut that feeling."
Generally, life got easier after that, and both of them became better friends, rather than enemies. The least they could do was not to fly at each other's throats the moment they met.
That night, Lily stayed up late in the common room alone, finishing her homework. It was one of those few times Remus was not with her. All of a sudden, she realized she felt alone. As she pondered about the question, her mind drifted from her work to Remus.
"I wonder where he is now. He's not sleeping..definitely not, he must be somewhere else, but where? He's always away somewhere during this month too..I wonder why," Lily mumbled to herself, "I wonder when he's returning. I miss him. It always feels good to have him next to me."
Slowly, she smiled to herself as she recalled the times Remus chatted with her late into the night and the times he sat next to her, observing her when she was zoned out. Though she did not say it, she was aware he was always there, and it made her feel safe.
Through the silence of the night, Lily's mind became full of Remus. She thought of the way his mouth would curve upwards when he wanted to laugh at something atrocious she said, yet restraining himself not to, and the way his eyes would twinkle when he mentioned something funny, and the glint in his eyes that showed he was about to play a trick on her.
She thought of all his smiles, his glum faces and all his caring ways towards her, like how he would bring her a mug of hot chocolate whenever she woke up from a nightmare, how he placed her birthday present under her pillow so that she would find it the first thing in the morning, and all the other things he did for her, and her alone.
As she twirled her quill around her fingers, Lily pictured with a dreamy smile the way he would hold her hands, the sizzling sensation when he would kiss her, the way he would hug her.suddenly, her mind stopped and reeled back, stopping at a horrible realization.
"Oh no," she moaned, "I can't be falling in love with my best friend, can I?"
Author's Note: Well sorry for this late chapter, cos I was sick a few days before, and my inspiration seemed to have gone with my sickness. Sorry! Well anyway, I'm back again!
By the way, pls leave your email when you review if you want me to mail you when my chapter is up. =)
Firstly, my thanks to the people who reviewed:
Arrora - Thank you for your compliment! I will try my best to make the story better!
Ti - Hi there! Thanks for reviewing almost every chapter! I'm sorry I left out your name in Chapter 7 cos I only thanked those people who reviewed chapter 6. Anyway, I hope you will continue to read my story!
Froggie-freak33 - Heh thanks, but if I ever need help, I will come to you!
Nicole - Of cos there will be romance between Lily and James!! I'm an ultimate L/J fan/air-conditioner! Haha!
Meat - Haha, mich you are clever. Fine fine =P.
|cE^ - Thanks for your compliment! Hey how is it that you know I know Chinese?
Anyway, here's the chapter! Thanks Laven for being my personal advisor by the way! =)
Chapter Eight
"Finally back home!" Phoebe shouted happily as Hogwarts came in view.
Finally back home, Lily repeated, but the words only echoed in her head. Silently.
When they reached Hogwarts, Hagrid waved to them as he beamed. All seven of them grinned back, bounding out of the train, towards Hogwarts.
At the Great hall, the sorting ceremony began as Professor Mcgonagall read out the list of names on her parchment. Next to Lily, James yawned.
"This is the boring-est ceremy I have ever seen," he whispered as he watched the train of first-years lining up to walk to the stool.
"It can't be the boring-est," Lily whispered back, though wondering the reason behind her whispering.
"And why not, Lily dear?"
"Because you didn't see the first sorting ceremony; you were involved in it. So that means you have only seen two, and when you compare two, you can only use boring-er, and not boring-est."
"Argh. Shut up about grammar."
"Well, grammar is an important part of our lives."
Here, Sirius who heard the entire conversation, interrupted, "If it is so important, then you should know there's no such word as boring-est in the first place!"
Lily gave Sirius a glare as James snickered.
"Thanks pal," James grinned, patting Sirius on the back. Sirius pretended to look surprised.
"For what? That comment was aimed at you too! Seriously, don't you know your grammar?"
That shut James up as Lily laughed.
Finally, the ceremony was finished, and James' glum expression cleared. Food magically appeared on the dishes as the students tucked in hungrily. After a long time, dinner was finished and the Gryffindor prefect (Arthur Weasley) led the students to their common room.
The moment Lily entered, she felt a sense of warmth enveloped her, and she smiled. Seeing her contented expression, Remus smiled too, and commented, "Looks like you missed it here."
Lily nodded, then yawned. "I'm kind of tired after all these activity. I think I'm going straight up to the girls' dorm, hit the showers and then sleep. Night Remus."
"Night Lily."
At that moment, James chose to comment, "Only pigs feel tired after eating, you know, LILY."
Lily, who was already halfway up the staircase, turned back with a scowl, and was about to retort when an idea came to her mind. As she took out her wand, she muttered, "Exprelo!" and pointed her wand at James laughing figure.
Before James could run away, the spell hit him, and he started yawning continuously.
"Look who's tired now?" Lily grinned.
"Hey..take this..char..charm..of..me!" James tried to shout through his yawns as Lily ignored him and slammed the girls' dorm door shut.
"Well James, at least you will learn to keep your mouth shut when Lily's around," Peter clucked sympathetically.
"Not that he's able to now," Sirius sniggered, as James shot him a glare while yawning.
~*~
The next morning, Remus woke up to find James sitting on the bed, rubbing his sore jaw.
"What's the matter now?" Remus asked, amused.
"Go tell that best friend of yours she's a freak! I was still yawning while sleeping! And now my jaw is all sore! Oh man!" James complained with a sour expression on his face.
Remus chuckled. "Well, you had to offend her first. You kind of deserve it anyway."
James looked outraged. "Hey! I'm supposed to be your best friend too! How can you..betray me?!"
"Remus didn't. He was just merely being impartial, aren't you?" Sirius interjected, hoping to prevent it from becoming into a full-blown quarrel.
"Yeah, I wasn't helping either side!"
"That's unfair! You two always speak up for Lily!"
"No we aren't! James, stop being so childish, and get a bath for goodness sake, we are running late."
"WHAT?! ME, childish? I-" Here James was carried by Remus and Sirius into the bathtub.
"Just bathe and shut up!"
~*~
In the Great Hall, Lily gave James a huge fake smile the moment he entered.
"Good morning!" She chirped, as Sirius and Remus groaned. They knew it would start all over again.
James scowled at Lily, obviously not in the mood and condition to talk anymore, given his raw jaw.
Lily, however, seated herself in between Phoebe and Remus immediately, to avoid James trying to 'settle the problem' with her. Fortunately, nothing much happened, until the group started to disperse, each going to his respective lessons.
As James walked along the corridor, he was cornered by two slytherins. "Well, what do we have here?" One of the slytherins, Lucius Malfoy snickered.
"Potter's jaw got too raw from kissing?" Severus Snape, another slytherin, drawled.
"That's crap! Now will you let me get to my lesson?" James replied angrily.
"Don't you think we should have a little talk regarding the last prank you played on me?" Malfoy sneered. However, James did not flinch.
"Get a life," James rolled his eyes, "how much can you discuss about a prank? Or maybe you don't have the brains to make one and you need my help?"
Severus looked livid, and was about to punch him in the stomach when Proffessor Flitwick appeared in the corridor.
"Boys," he asked in a sternest voice he could manage, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing, Professor," Malfoy muttered as they gave James another glare and went away. After thanking Professor Flitwick, James tried to find his way to the divination classroom once again.
At last, he managed, though he was fifteen minutes late. Professor Trelawny did not look pleased.
"Please try to come on time the next lesson, Mr. Potter. The interruption of lessons clouds my Inner Eye. Take a seat quickly."
Unfortunately, the only vacant seat was beside Lily. Both, obviously, did not look pleased with the arrangement. Grumbling inwardly, James seated himself.
During the lesson, they had to work on palm reading. James, holding up Lily's palm, frowned, while Lily looked extremely pissed.
"Well, what does the book say?" She asked, after her palm went under the scrutiny of James for a few minutes.
"Hmm, the book says this line means you are..wait, let me take a look, yeah it says you are a person who likes to make trouble, especially for innocent people-" Lily snickered as she glanced at her own book, but let James continue, "And that you are an extremely stupid person who will never make it big in life."
"Oh really?" She replied, as James gave her a vigorous nod. "Let me have a look at your palm then."
With that, she took hold of his hand and turned his palm towards her. "Your palm tells me you are an arrogant and idiotic git, who has enough brains to fill an eggcup and that you are mischievous and dumb and everything else that's undesirable."
"That's not true!" James protested, "You are not even looking at the book!"
"Well, I'm clever enough to know what the lines mean without referring to the book."
"You can't! You are supposed to be stupid!"
"I'm not! You made that up!"
"Well, so did you!"
"I didn't!"
"You did!"
"So what if I did?"
"You-" As their quarrels became increasingly louder, Professor Trelawny finally had to calm both parties down. By the end of the lesson, James and Lily were so irate that they would not even look at the other party in the eye.
After Divination, Lily stomped down the corridor, on her way to Muggle studies. To her surprise and annoyance, James followed.
After a few more minutes, Lily whirled around. "What do you think you are trying to do? Follow me around?" She spat at James.
James rolled his eyes. "As though that's enjoyable. I'm just on my way to Muggle studies."
Surprised, Lily replied, "That's what I'm heading for to! I don't believe you!"
"Look if you don't believe me!" James handed her his timetable. As Lily scanned through his lessons, she exclaimed.
"I don't believe it! All our lessons are the same!"
"Whoope-do. That's even better than striking lottery," James noted glumly.
~*~
For the next few months, things continued that way. Lily and James were forced together all day, and they literally see each other from the moment they wake up to the point they sleep.
At one point, Lily couldn't stand James anymore. "Really, he's a horror," she would complain to Remus, as he tried to comfort her.
However, one day, Lily couldn't stand it anymore. She stopped James' chattering in the middle of the corridor.
"Look James," She started, "I'm not going to stand all these nonsense from you. One of these days I'm going crazy!"
"Well, you already are-" James tried to replied, but stopped when Lily gave him a death glare.
"Let's have a compromise," She suggested, "As long as you don't hit me with sarcastic remarks, I will stop hexing you. Deal?"
"Those are not sarcastic remarks! They are corny!" James argued, but quailed under Lily's stare. "Ok ok, they are sarcastic.."
"So deal?"
"Sigh. Ok. Somehow, I have a feeling I'm getting the bad end of the deal."
"Then shut that feeling."
Generally, life got easier after that, and both of them became better friends, rather than enemies. The least they could do was not to fly at each other's throats the moment they met.
That night, Lily stayed up late in the common room alone, finishing her homework. It was one of those few times Remus was not with her. All of a sudden, she realized she felt alone. As she pondered about the question, her mind drifted from her work to Remus.
"I wonder where he is now. He's not sleeping..definitely not, he must be somewhere else, but where? He's always away somewhere during this month too..I wonder why," Lily mumbled to herself, "I wonder when he's returning. I miss him. It always feels good to have him next to me."
Slowly, she smiled to herself as she recalled the times Remus chatted with her late into the night and the times he sat next to her, observing her when she was zoned out. Though she did not say it, she was aware he was always there, and it made her feel safe.
Through the silence of the night, Lily's mind became full of Remus. She thought of the way his mouth would curve upwards when he wanted to laugh at something atrocious she said, yet restraining himself not to, and the way his eyes would twinkle when he mentioned something funny, and the glint in his eyes that showed he was about to play a trick on her.
She thought of all his smiles, his glum faces and all his caring ways towards her, like how he would bring her a mug of hot chocolate whenever she woke up from a nightmare, how he placed her birthday present under her pillow so that she would find it the first thing in the morning, and all the other things he did for her, and her alone.
As she twirled her quill around her fingers, Lily pictured with a dreamy smile the way he would hold her hands, the sizzling sensation when he would kiss her, the way he would hug her.suddenly, her mind stopped and reeled back, stopping at a horrible realization.
"Oh no," she moaned, "I can't be falling in love with my best friend, can I?"