In the Way

By Dimantrien

"To hate fatigues."

~Jean Rostand

Chapter 4: All Hell Breaks Loose

As was inevitable at Hogwarts, the word that Lily Evans had finally broken her nicey-nice personality transformed into many rumors, ranging from tame to far-fetched. It came to a point that most of the eyewitness—which pretty much consisted of the whole student body—started to believe in their own exaggerated versions. The more rational people talked about the truth with just a tad of embellishment, while those who were more than a little bit shocked started blathering that Lily Evans and James Potter were in the middle of a mock wizard duel and Lily was shouting at James for trying to kill her on purpose. Others, who were rather keen to listen to (and believe) this storyline, claimed that James had forced Lily to drink basilisk poison and that she had, in a delirious manner because of the white-hot pain, cursed at him and screamed out insults.

They seemed to have forgotten that Lily and James both looked perfectly unharmed, that they had their wands in their pockets, that James was not holding a goblet with the remains of a fatal liquid, and that Lily was not writhing on the floor in unbearable agony.

Of course, it all blew over at dinner that same day, when both parties in question had come to the Great Hall separately and sat down at the Gryffindor table, where they chatted with their friends and appeared perfectly normal. The only thing that seemed out of the ordinary was when, for a split second, James's and Lily's eyes met, and Lily shot him a cool glare. Now, as every person in the Hall (yes, even the Slytherins and professors—the latter being immensely curious as to why the students were being unusually quiet) was waiting with bated breath for one of them to do something, this was quite gratifying for them. It might have become more interesting if one of Lily's friends hadn't noticed that everybody was staring at the redhead, and hadn't whisked her off out of the Hall. New theories had arisen, including a very amusing one that circulated, stating that Lily and James were having a secret affair and had broken up quite nastily, leaving their relationship with each other cold and loathsome.

The marauders (except James) were greatly humored by that piece of made-up news, and constantly harassed James for his "secret longing" for Lily. Lily's friends took the matter seriously, however. Chloe was constantly trying to keep a brave front with every "James likes Lily?" that she heard in the corridors, and Nami was constantly trying to persuade people that nothing, nada, zilch, was going on between James and Lily, except a mutual hatred that even she couldn't understand.

By Friday, all speculations had finally died down, and the only thing that remained was the fact that Lily Evans was still the angel that she was, save when her eyes landed on James Potter, whereupon she would throw him dirty looks before turning back to her sweet self. James was just as annoyed at her as she was to him, and took great pleasure in making her extremely angry, whenever he had the chance.

For instance, during Transfiguration, James kept passing Lily notes that contained quotes that greatly irritated her in her current situation, like  "The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything"* and "No perfection is so absolute, that some impurity doth not pollute."**

Lily kept glaring at him as she threw back his notes in crumpled-up balls. "Potter, stop bugging me," she hissed across the aisle. She was very unfortunate to be sitting next to him in this class. Stupid seat plan.

James merely smiled innocently at her and kept writing his little wiseass remarks. (A/N - Coming from him to Lily, she considers it that way. I am not trying to insult the people who quoted those statements.)

When he lazily sent another piece of parchment her way, she didn't bother to read it. She crumpled it into a ball, tapped it with her wand, and chucked it at him, aiming for his shoulder.

"OW!!!" James yelped, interrupting Professor McGonagall's lecture on Complex Switching Spells.

The stern teacher gave him a piercing glare, her mouth curling into a displeased frown. "I believe this is no time for one of your overdramatic monologues, Potter. If you wish to entertain your friends, I suggest you take your stage outside, and leave those who are willing to learn in peace." For Sirius, Remus, and Peter were indeed sniggering, quick to note that Lily had put an Iron Charm on the paper ball, therefore making it become very painful to come into contact with a person's shoulder. They had decided that watching Lily and James fighting was much more appealing than listening to a lecture on Switching Spells.

James started to protest. "But Professor, Evans here—"

"Running to McGonagall for help, Potter?" Lily muttered, barely moving her lips so as McGonagall wouldn't notice. James immediately shut his mouth.

Professor McGonagall's glare, if possible, became even colder. "Miss Evans is taking down notes and is intently listening to the lesson, Potter. I suggest you do the same." She turned back to the blackboard and began writing something for them to copy down.

James glared at Lily, who gave him a sickly sweet smile that seemed all too familiar.

***** 

"What did I do to deserve this?" Sirius muttered aloud as he and Nami strolled down the path inside the Forbidden Forest, looking for gold glowing flowers with little specks of white on them.

Nami rolled her eyes, not looking too happy with this arrangement, either. "Gee, I don't know. Maybe… be a complete prat?" she answered sardonically, glaring at him.

Sirius glared right back. "Nobody, not even a 'complete prat,' deserves to be stuck with you on a detention in a dark, gloomy forest," he retorted.

"Oh, so you admit that you are a complete prat?" Nami asked mock-innocuously, smirking at him.

Sirius, realizing his mistake, flushed a bit and narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't be so cocky if I had my wand with me…" he said threateningly.

"As if, Black. I could take you on any day. If I had my wand with me, you'd barely be alive. Foreign hexes can work outside the castle. You wouldn't stand a chance." She walked ahead of him, going back to searching for the plant they were supposed to get for the third year's Herbology session.

Of course, you didn't expect Sirius Black to lie down and concede defeat after a remark like that. "If I had a wand I'd hex you until you could barely move and leave you here for some wild animal to chew off!"

"If I had a wand I'd transfigure you into a helpless little squirrel and take pleasure in watching you get eaten by a wild animal," Nami retaliated.

"I didn't know girls could think of such gruesome scenes," Sirius remarked dryly.

"I invite you to read into my thoughts about you, then. It's filled with violent, gory fantasies about how you'd end up with your intestines sticking out and your fingernails being taken off one by one."

"You are purely evil," Sirius growled, trying to block out the horrible mental image of himself in that state.

Nami smiled saccharinely at him. "Thank you. I do try." She went a little bit off the path to squint at the dense foliage, and noticed Sirius still glowering at her at the corner of her eye. "For heaven's sake, Black, make yourself useful! You're the one who got us into this mess!" she snapped.

"Oh? Like you didn't curse me back there in McGonagall's office!" Sirius shot back.

"You started it!"

"You inclined me to do it!"

"And how would I incline you to do it when I was just standing there, not even looking at you?!"

"The mere sight of your face makes me go into these sudden, uncontrollable urges to whip out my wand and hex you. Consider it a reflex action," Sirius said contemptuously.

Nami laughed mirthlessly. "That's rich. Thank you, Black; you have just added 'permanent blindness' to my list of what hexes to do on you."

"Glad to be of service. That reminds me, you have added 'cruel and insufferable bitch' to my list of lovely names to call you."

They stared daggers at each other a moment more, before Nami shouted at him, "Pretentious bastard!"

"Smug wench!"

"Prick!"

"Slut!"

"Imbecile!"

"Moron!"

"Chauvinist!"

"Helminthophobic!"***

Nami threw up her hands. "Will you forget about that?! That was six freakin' years ago!"

"I don't think I will, thanks," Sirius said smugly. "You know, maybe there are giant worms here, think we should go look for them?"

"Shut the hell up, Black!" Nami said angrily, paling slightly. "Why don't you just—get back to doing the detention, so that we can spare ourselves the extra moments of agony in each other's company?!"

"No, I'm on a roll here," Sirius replied, grinning evilly at her. "Why'd the Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor anyway, when you're afraid of such a silly thing as worms? It should've put you in Slytherin, you know, so that you'll get used to seeing slimy, slithering things—though I'm sure you could've been accepted in there straight away anyway, with that nice personality you've got—"

"That's it! You've tried my patience one too many times! I'll pummel you with my bare hands, if I have to!" Nami stalked toward him furiously.

"Let's just see if you can, then!" Sirius smiled wickedly at her, took something out of his pocket, and flung it at her. Then he disappeared into the trees.

Nami's shriek pierced the quiet night as the fistful of magical, enlarged worms crawled all over her.

***** 

Sad to say, Sirius and Nami weren't the only ones arguing with each other, their quarreling fueled with their mutual hatred. While they had chosen (not that they had any other options ^_^) their battlefield as the Forbidden Forest, two others started their fight inside the Gryffindor common room…

"Turn around and walk away, Potter," Lily said harshly, not looking up from her book.

James stopped walking toward her for a second, before smirking and plopping down on the couch she was sitting on, just to ire her.

Lily made a disgusted noise and scooted as far away from him as she could. "Did you not hear what I said? Or are you just that stupid?"

"It's my common room as much as it's yours," James pointed out in a patronizing air, as if Lily were being purposefully ignorant. "I think I'm entitled to sit wherever I want."

"Oh, so that's why the first and second years had been picking fights with some sixth year idiot who kept chasing them out of the good armchairs these past few days," Lily said sarcastically, not deigning to look at him.

James merely smiled. "You must have heard wrong; they gladly let me relieve them of their seats when I asked," he replied.

"After you threatened to transfigure them into rats for the rest of the evening, that is," Lily shot back, rolling her eyes.

That wiped the smile off the bespectacled boy's face, but then he said in a smooth voice, "I just came here to ask you a question."

"Unfortunately for you, it will be left unanswered," snapped Lily.

"It's just one question. Can't you put down that dumb book for a couple of seconds?"

Lily exhaled slowly and put her book down on her lap. "One, two." Then she went back to reading it and ignoring James.

"Oh, ha ha, you're hilarious, Evans," James said sarcastically. "Put down the book."

"You of all people have no right to make demands on me, Potter," Lily replied acidly, saying his name as if it were a revolting swearword.

James gave her a calculating stare, which she didn't bother to return. When he started to move and she thought that he would leave, he swiped the book from her hands and stood up, holding it high above his head with his right hand.

"Give it here, Potter!" Lily shouted exasperatedly, her 5'5" form not sufficient to rival 6'2" James. The other Gryffindors lounging around, startled, turned to stare.

James pretended to give the matter serious consideration, before saying finally, "No…I don't think so."

"Hand it over, Potter, or I'll hex you!" Lily screamed at him.

James just smirked smugly. "With what? Your middle finger?" He held up his other hand, which had a firm grip on Lily's wand. 

"Potter, you jerk! Just give it back to me!" Lily jumped for her things, but to no avail.

But James didn't heed to her wishes, and continued to hold her book and wand up just out of her reach. "Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

The abruptness of the question made Lily freeze in place, and her hands fell limp at her sides. The whole common room was silent.

"I mean, I get why a lot of guys would die just to go out with you—wait, actually I don't, because I despise you. In any case, I assumed that since you're so golden at everything and since you're the most popular girl in school, you would have snogged somebody at least once—"

There was a long pause, in which James anticipated Lily's explosion. "Give me my stuff," Lily interrupted, her voice dangerously quiet. Her eyes were cold as steel, and she fixed her gaze straight at him.

James suddenly found it hard to swallow. A furious Lily was one thing, but a cruel and emotionless Lily was something entirely unexpected. It was a little scary, and it was definitely something he never wanted to see again. He wordlessly handed back her wand and her book and stared after her retreating back as she made her way to the girls' dormitory.

Everybody started moving again and returning to their normal conversations. James hated it when they did that—dropping whatever they were doing to witness a scene that involved him as if he were a star of a twisted soap opera. The price of popularity. You had tons of adoring fans, but your every social move was being watched and any rumors concerning you would spread around the school faster than wildfire…

And what was up with Lily? She took his comments really seriously—like she'd been jaded in love in the past and she never wanted to have a relationship ever again. Somehow James didn't think that she was that type of girl, but he didn't really know her. All he was sure of was that there was something behind her perfect mask.

That was why the first thought that registered in his mind when he could breathe freely again was, What the hell just happened?

***** 

Smooth and cream-colored. The long roll of parchment lay on the desk, waiting to be filled with intelligent thoughts on the wonders of the rebellion of goblins against wizards in the late 17th century...

Chloe tapped the tip of her unloaded quill on the wood of her study desk, her chin resting on her other hand. Who needed this crap, anyway? Who cared about a freaking goblin-and-wizard war that happened three hundred years ago?

"Argh!" She threw her quill down and slammed her reference book shut, deciding that she could just do it tomorrow. Or maybe she could copy Nami's essay. Yeah, that would be in order.

The blonde girl sighed and stood up, ready to take a long, refreshing bath before turning in, when Lily burst into the room, looking visibly upset. "Lily!" she exclaimed, startled. "What's wrong?"

Lily gave her a strained smile and said, in a slightly cold, slightly disconcerted way, "Nothing."

Chloe gathered her things with a wave of her wand. "Well, that 'nothing' sounded like something," she scoffed, still a bit in a mood after her last unproductive hour of glaring at a clean new sheet of parchment. Her expression softened when Lily lied down on her own bed, obviously thinking over something bad. "Sorry. Er…does this, perchance, have anything to do with James Potter?"

Lily said nothing, but scowled openly. She started doing that a lot these days. Chloe didn't like it. Lily was usually so pleasant.

Wincing, Chloe decided it best to just leave Lily alone. She did want to help her friend, but there was also that matter of her crush on James. "Um…I'm going to take a bath. Talk to me if you need to, okay? I think Nami's going to be back soon." Lily still didn't say anything, so she started to move toward the bathroom.

"What do you see in him?" Lily suddenly spoke up, making Chloe stop in her tracks.

"W-what?" Chloe said, turning around.

"Potter. What do you like about him? What makes him so special?" Lily asked tonelessly.

"Well," Chloe began uncertainly, "he's good-looking, for one. He's smart, a good Quidditch player, and he's funny. And he's…nice," she finished lamely, knowing that Lily wasn't going to be satisfied with that.

Lily propped herself to a sitting position. "What about all the pranks he plays on people? And the way he thinks he's God's gift to man, the way he struts around the school with his friends? His obnoxious disregard of the rules? His arrogance, and his delusions about having the right to barge into other people's business?" She said this last part very bitterly.

"There is that," Chloe said in a small voice, "Do—do you want me to stop liking him? I can try, you know, if it'll make you more comfortable."

"No," Lily answered softly, suddenly shaking her head. "No, no. I… I'm sorry, Chloe. I know I don't have a right to ask you to… If you really think there's something special about him—" She stopped. "I-I'll deal with it. But…I really do hate him, Chloe. Hate's a strong word, but…" she trailed off, not bothering to explain. She looked pleadingly at Chloe. "I hope you understand."

"Of course I do," Chloe said, going over to Lily and hugging her. "And you have nothing to be sorry about. I'm the one who should be sorry—he's done all he can to make you angry and I still like him…" She felt a bit guilty.

Lily gave her a weak smile. "You can like whoever you want," she said. "It doesn't matter what I think. Nothing is your fault."

"If you say so," Chloe said, returning her smile. She tilted her head toward the bathroom and indicated the towel hanging over her shoulder. "Gotta go."

Lily nodded, her expression conveying sadness and guilt. "So go."

Stepping inside the bathroom, Chloe shut the door firmly. She leaned against it, closed her eyes, and sighed. She resolved to get rid of her little infatuation once and for all, for Lily's sake.

It was the least she could do.

***** 

Lily started to make herself comfortable in her bed. After yet another scene caused by James Potter, she was left with unvented fury, a sense of distress, and a reminder of all her ugly memories. Yes, memories. Did he just have to mention if she had a past relationship or not? Because she indeed had, and its end was one of the worst memories of her life. And one horrible reminiscence led to another, and she found herself thinking about all of them…

She fell into a fitful sleep, and once again she found herself reliving those memories in her dreams…

***** 

Weary feet trudged along the path of the Forbidden Forest, anxious to reach the end and the safety of the Hogwarts castle. Nami had a job looking for the elusive plant she and Sirius were supposed to gather two bunches of, and because Sirius had run off, she was left to look for them by herself.

She growled in frustration, kicking viciously at the rocks in her way. Curse that Black! He had left a Sticking Charm on those worms, and it was torture, prying them off of her…after that terrifying and exhausting ordeal, she still faced the prospect of accomplishing the detention. She had wandered around, thinking that the prat would show up sooner or later. Well, guess what? He didn't, and she swore that once she got out of this nightmare forest she would really disembowel him—or do something equally painful.

Clutching two bundles of glowing flowers in her hands, she saw the end of the path and the castle in the distance. She quickened her pace, anxious to kill Black and take a shower, when a massive black dog darted from between the trees and stepped right in the path!

She recognized it as looking somewhat like a Grim, but she didn't really believe in such nonsense. As her fear was worms, her love was of dogs. This one looked harmless enough… She knelt down on one knee and made that clicking noise to attract a dog's attention. The dog turned to look at her with its brown eyes. She was surprised that it held the stems of a bunch of the same kind of flowers that she had in her hand.

*****  

Padfoot scampered through the trees, enjoying the feel of the slightly damp and leaf-strewn ground against his paws. He had followed a trail to the plant he was looking for long ago, as his keen canine sense of smell had picked up its scent easily. Now he was heading for the end of the forest, so that he could transform back, when somebody behind him made a clicking noise, and he turned around.

He blinked. It was Nami, but she looked…different. She was smiling slightly and beckoning him to come closer. His dog instinct urged him to come forward, but at the last second a thought flitted through his head, and he decided to scare her. He growled and gave her the most menacing look he could manage.

The girl before him didn't even flinch. What was wrong with her?! She was supposed to panic, and run in the opposite direction as fast as she could.

Of course, he wasn't going to bite her, that would be too disgusting—but it would have been interesting if she at least screamed. But no, she continued making that clicking noise, and said, "C'mere, boy. Come on."

The human part of him wanted to say No way in hell, but as he was in dog form, his dog senses gave out, and he trotted toward her, growling at his weakness. Nami's smile widened, and—damn, he never saw her smiling at him! She always glared at him, and this was quite a change.

He admitted (though he told himself that he did it grudgingly) that she looked very pretty when she smiled.

She transferred all the flowers she was holding into one hand and extended the other, patting him on the head. "Kawaii," she said, still smiling, her eyes lighting up.  (kawaii – cute)

Padfoot heard her utter a word he didn't know the meaning of, but he felt that it was something good. He kind of liked being patted when he was in dog form, but of course he never told his friends that. When Nami stopped patting him, he put the flowers he had gathered into her free hand.

She laughed. It was a nice laugh. "Arigato," she said sincerely. She never used a tone like that with him. It was usually with a note of anger, annoyance, exasperation, fury, disgust, revolt…he could go on and on.

He was a little confused, not knowing what that word meant, and she must have sensed that. "Oh, a British dog, are you? Well, I meant, thanks." She laughed again, and stood up.

Padfoot barked.

***** 

Nami stood up and looked at the flowers in her hand. Three bunches…they wouldn't have anything to complain about, now. She looked back at the dog before her, who was wagging his tail.

"What, do you live here? Or is your master up at the school?" she asked.

The dog barked after her last statement. She took that to mean that he was going to the castle, but if he was somebody's dog, then what was he doing inside the Forbidden Forest? She just shrugged and said, "Come on, then, let's go."

She walked toward the end of the path and the dog bounded forward, walking beside her. She found it strange that such a massive creature could seem so tame and un-aggressive to a stranger, but then, there were friendly dogs. This one must be one of them.

They neared the hut of the new gamekeeper, Hagrid, who relieved Apollyon Pringle of the position just last year. The lights inside his house were open and as they reached it, the door opened and Hagrid came out.

"Ah, yeh've got them flowers, then, Nami?" the half-giant said kindly. His expression turned confused, however. "Where's Sirius? And where'd the dog come from, eh?"

"Oh," Nami said, once again remembering the way Black ditched the detention. She gestured at the dog. "Well, this is…actually, I don't know his name, but he must be somebody's dog up at the school," she explained, kneeling down again patting it.

Hagrid shrugged and smiled. "S'funny, ain't it? Yeh've got kids asking their parents to buy pets fer 'em, but they don't appreciate the poor things once they've got 'em and leave 'em wandering around on their own…" he trailed off sadly, shaking his head. "Best yeh go up ter the school, now, and get some sleep. Here, I'll take the flowers and give 'em ter Professor Sprout. Yer wand's up with Professor McGonagall; she's in her office, I reckon." He took the flowers from Nami and stared pointedly at her, in a way of still inquiring where Sirius had gone.

Nami sighed. "Black pulled a trick on me and left. The idiot's probably up at the school now, gloating for escaping detention. He won't get away with this, I swear…"

"Nah, I know that kid, he may be a lot o' trouble, but he never just up and leaves detention. He'll probably come round later, don' worry."

"Believe me, I won't," Nami said. "I wouldn't worry about that prat even if he was screaming his lungs out somewhere in the depths of the forest, being chased by a werewolf," she finished disgustedly.

"He's not that bad, yeh know," Hagrid said gently.

Nami frowned, her mind still on Sirius's dirty trick. "Yes, he is," she objected firmly. "I hate him."

She bid Hagrid a good night and left. Both of them didn't notice the dog's hurt expression as it followed Nami to the school.

*****

~A/N~

*Quoted by Edward J. Phelps

**Quoted by William Shakespeare

***I don't know if this word is correct, but just assume that it means "fear of worms." If you do know the real word for it, please inform me. I just took the first part of the word from "Helminthology – the study of worms."

If anyone's wondering about Lily's memories and what it has to do with her being a perfectionist, it's all up next chapter…so be nice and review if you want to see it a week from now… ^o^