Hypocrites Always Fall in Love
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this (except most of the plot, and the characters you don't recognize). It all belongs to the amazing J.K. Rowling.
Chapter 13- Wingardium Leviosa
A week had past, and Lily still was at odds with what to do about Peeves. Going about it in a normal way was out of the question, as he was a ghost. She had learned very quickly how difficult it was to get around that fact. No one had ever tried, let alone succeeded in accomplishing this incredible feat, so how was she to?
The others had grown impatient and irritated. Catalina, in the end, had dropped out of the plan altogether...she claimed it was just to impossible. Luckily for her, Lily wasn't inclined to argue with her at that point.
So, Sirius, James and Lily sat quietly in the common room, their only company a round-ish blond boy sitting by the fire. They were pouring over books about spells and whatnot. The silence between them was interrupted every so often by the deep crackle of the burning firewood, or an occasional soft page turn.
"I've never done so much studying in my life," Sirius whined (he couldn't stand complete silence), turning his pages loudly to make noise, "Why do I have to do this now? Besides we've got a Potions essay do tomorrow."
His neighbors looked up from their own books, each with a different, twisted expression. James just looked puzzled, while Lily's face clearly showed annoyance.
"You mean you haven't started it yet?" James raised his eyebrows and inquired.
"N-O."
He looked to Lily silently requesting to leave and head for the dormitory.
"Fine," she sighed with an exasperated tone, "Go do your essay."
He smiled, never thinking that he would be so happy to have to finish schoolwork.
Then, throwing his book down on the couch carelessly, he scampered upstairs to write an essay. James grinned at Sirius's complete disregard to hide his feelings.
"I'll be back when I've finished it," he called, from the top of the flight of stairs.
Lily had already returned to her book and continued reading, until another silence came over them. This was when she flicked her head up casually to speak.
"So, do you think he'll come back?"
"Not a chance," James replied, still glancing at the pages blankly.
He let his eyes shift over the pages sketchily, until he spotted something. Perhaps, this...no...
"Hey, listen to this," he said, his index finger skimming the page, "'The Vanishing Cabinet is something used by muggle magicians to make subjects look like they have disappeared.'"
Lily appeared uninterested, "Yeah, so?"
"Couldn't we use it on Peeves?"
"Have you got a vanishing cabinet?"
"Good point," James blushed, feeling like a fool.
Lily flicked through the pages some more, the dim candlelight lighting the book's crinkled pages softly. Her partner in crime had settled on glancing out the window to see the heavy snowflakes setting in outside. How odd it was, he thought, to see snow in the end of October. A white Halloween, now that was saying something.
"Can you use floo powder on a g—"
"Lily," James called interrupting her, "Don't you think that this would be a perfect time to have a snowball fight?"
"If you're that crazy, perhaps," Lily said, eying him slowly. After a brief glance, she went back to her book.
"Okay, fine then," he mumbled, looking back at his thick piece of reading, "Way to take a hint."
They continued to pursue their separate research in silence, once again with not so much as a glance at the other. James, after a while, and after the blond boy had took to the stairs of the boys' dormitory, he let his thoughts wander aimlessly.
Sirius, he said inwardly, Sirius would have never said no to a snow fight. He looked up at Lily vigilantly. What made her so different then Sirius? Sure, she's uptight at times, but why? She was goal-oriented and that's always nice, but is there a point where you've gone too far. So far, you get obsessed, perhaps?
If so, that was how Lily had become. She was obsessed with this thing with Peeves. It was brilliant, of course, to try to play a prank on him.
And I shouldn't be judging, James thought shamefully (he rarely thought in that way). After all, I don't know her particularly well enough to judge.
"Hey Evans," James said, standing up and propping his book on top of his head like a balance, "I'm going to head up to bed."
She shot him a look that told him he wasn't going anywhere.
"Well...if it's alright with your queen ship..." He joked, seeming very much like the court jester with his tricks.
"Fine," she sighed and watched as he dashed up the stairs.
"Prat," Lily mumbled loudly and grinned just the slightest bit at his antics.
A messy-haired head was stuck out of the staircase.
"I heard that, Evans."
A curse later, Lily found herself surrounded by (of all things) muggle bobble-heads that would not stop moving.
"Bloody, wretched hell..." she said with a quiet laugh.
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The next morning, Lily tumbled out of bed and dressed quickly. She hurried down to breakfast, only to find few early-risers up.
"It's a Saturday morning, isn't?" Lily mumbled to herself as she sat down at a vacant table alone. She figured she might as well eat something, since she was already in the Great Hall and had not much else to do, as everyone else was happily sleeping.
A few moments later, as she was helping herself to a plate of sausages and eggs, the post arrived. Lily merely watched as an owl dropped Catalina's Daily Prophet next to her. She set down her fork to take a look at it. She was sure Catalina wouldn't mind.
It was the headline that caught her eye instantly...
Four More Attacks Terrorize Muggle London; Who Is To Blame?
By: Gertrude Bones
Tension has been high, since the last attacks in late September, but no one expected the follow-up to come so soon.
Just yesterday night, four muggles were victims of the Cruciatus Curse. The members of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad gather that the four had been murdered just a few hours before their deployment. "It was absolutely heart-wrenching," stated one Hit Witch, "I couldn't believe that a wizard would do such an awful thing to another living being."
Unfortunately, not much evidence was found to support the theory of a suspect, but our Minister of Magic, Millcent Bagnold, does have one thing to say, "Whoever committed this horrible crime will be found. And when they are, they will be paid the punishment they deserve."
"Hey Lily," a voice said cheerfully from behind her, "What are you doing?"
She recognized the voice instantly. It was Lexy, much to her surprise. Since when did she get up early with having to be pried out of bed by four girls and the help of Remus?
(He was the only one the girls trusted in their dormitory because he never commented on the state of it. Plus he was the only one up early enough to help them.)
"Reading Cata's newspaper," Lily said frowning at the article in front of her. "Why are you so happy? And at—," Lily glanced at her watch in disbelief, "Seven-thirty, of all times in the morning?"
Lexy took the liberty to glare at her jokingly and shrugged, "I'm getting used to it."
Her companion snorted, and looked back at the newspaper, still in shock from the muggle attacks.
"And…"
"And...," Lexy rolled her eyes, "There's this really cute boy sitting over there."
Lily glanced up at the goofy smile on her face, and looked towards the direction she was pointing in. There was a very nice young boy sitting at Sytherin table, next to Lidia.
"You like Lidia, then?" she said simply, looking back at Catalina's Daily Prophet.
"Do you not have eyes in your head?" Lexy exclaimed, apparently not catching on to the fact that Lily had been joking. "The boy next to her is absolutely divine."
How much do you want to bet Lidia is thinking the same thing, Lily thought, watching her and the boy interact. Lidia kept touching his arm and smiling at him. The snob.
"Alright then," Lily said with a smile, "I can see you like him. You should talk to him sometime. We have Charms with the Sytherins on Monday."
Her eyes were still trailing the boy and Lidia. Lexy turned her head quickly to see what she was staring at.
"Oh…," she uttered softly and taking a seat across from her friend, "So she likes him too."
"Yeah," Lily replied glaring at the pair, "That much is obvious."
Lexy looked back at her, deep in thought.
"I can get him to like me, I'm sure of it."
"And make Lidia mad in the process. I'd love to see her face then," Lily laughed egging her on.
"Definitely," Lexy said, grinning evilly.
And then Lexy seemed to be snapped out of her trance as she looked around the Great Hall. To Lily's astonishment she took a quick swig of her drink and snatched a piece of buttered toast from the stack on the table and hurried to stand up.
"I had better go Lily. See you in the Common Room."
Lily made a motion to get up and stop her, but it was too early to make any sudden movements.
"Where are you—?"
But Lexy had already jumped up and raced out of the Great Hall. Fortunately, Lily looked to her friend's direction to see why. The boy from the Sytherin table was making his way out of the Great Hall, leaving poor Lidia to settle on looking extremely bored.
Just as quickly as Lexy had left, Lily noticed Remus and James entering through the doors of the hall with the most interesting case of bed-hair Lily had ever seen.
"The Halloween decorations look nice," Remus noted with a warm smile as he sat down next to Lily and James across from her.
"Yeah, they're scary," she laughed, passing James the marmalade he was pointing at vaguely, "Kind of like your hair this morning."
"Oh, really," James responded numbly, almost spilling his glass out of clumsiness. Remus appeared to be fully awake and amused by this statement.
"Well, do you two own combs?"
Remus smiled again, "Of course we do. Sirius just took them captive for his own personal use."
Lily just looked at them incredulously; even more so than she had at the insane bats flying around the corridors that had nearly attacked her this morning.
"Don't you worry about lice?"
"Worry about what?" James questioned clearly confused.
"Oh…Sod it," she replied, sitting back in her chair as Remus stifled his laugh. At least he had known what she was talking about. He was a half-blood.
"Whatever you say," James said slowly and helped himself to some toast with jam and sausages.
"Pass the marmalade, James?" Remus said pointedly.
"Sure. Wingardium Leviosa."
The marmalade was instantly lifted by James wand and moved at his will. He lazily let it drift to Remus and then set it down.
"Oh come on," Remus murmured, disgusted. "I could have done that."
"Sure you could."
Their companion looked knowingly at the two of them to persuade them to stop arguing. Who wanted to argue in the morning, anyway?
Then the silence insued just as quickly as the conversation had come. Lily placed the Daily Prophet lightly back in Catalina's spot on the table. Those poor muggles, she thought as she ate her eggs and stared out into space. Why would wizards do such things?
Remus's eyes met Lily's as he looked up from his plate that was piled with an assortment of foods. "Have you come up with a solution to the problem with Peeves yet?"
"No," she sighed. "And I'm beginning to think I should give up. Pass the eggs please, James?"
The platter was quickly levitating her way as she held out her hands and Remus proceeded in rolling his eyes.
Unfortunately, the bowl's landing was not very graceful. It was splattered all over the table as James dropped his wand and Lily failed to catch it.
"Ew..."
Remus was clearly grossed out as he muttered the spell to clean it up and Lily hoisted herself up and took the bowl to the kitchens. When she arrived, the house-elves gladly took the bowl from her and hurried about to replace it.
"Thank you," she mumbled quietly. She still wasn't used to them, even though she'd met them on a trip to the kitchens with Sirius and found them to be very pleasant creatures...
Suddenly a thought came over Lily as she stared at the platter in her hands and she couldn't get it out of her mind. As rapidly as she could, she rushed over to the table, almost knocking over Lidia Rottingham, who was an arm's length away from James and Remus, talking to a Ravenclaw girl.
"James, you're bloody brilliant!" She exclaimed as she set the eggs on the table and leaned over to hug James out of complete and utter happiness.
"I know," he smiled arrogantly. "Why, again?"
"Because you gave me an idea for Peeves...," she grinned and returned to her seat like she was floating on a cloud.
Remus had the oddest look on his face. "James, brilliant? Now I really didn't see that one coming..."
Lily looked up and laughed cheerfully. Then she helped dismiss the looks of shock on James and Remus's faces as she went on, "Now here's what we're going to do about Peeves..."
Sadly, she forgot to look around to make sure no one was listening, so a person just an arm's length away over heard, and began to hatch her own little plan.