Summary: Sequel to "Time to Fly (Friends Forever)". Lily and James haven't seen each other for seven years. A school reunion rekindles their friendship, but how far will friendship go?

Disclaimer: Oh, you know the drill. Nothing is mine. If you recognize it, it's JK's. I'm not claiming anything. Paul is the walrus. Et cetera.

Author's Note: Wow. I'm not going to even attempt to make an excuse for my absence this time. Sheesh, it's been, like, nine months...I could have had a baby in that time. That could be my excuse. But it isn't, as I have not yet had a boyfriend, so that idea's out. I suppose I'm just hugely lazy.

This chapter was really horridly hard to write. It was like slugging through molasses. But I did almost finish, and then it kind of sat on my harddrive, waiting...so I remembered it smack dab in the middle of exams (lovely time) and rushed to get it up in between French and Bio studying. Am still in exam time, so this will probably stay untouched til the summer.

Anyway.

Here's something you all have been waiting rather patiently for: chapter nine.

Seven Years

Chapter Nine

By Lady Wildcat

"Stop blinking." Bella sat back in disgust. "Lil-y, it's all over your face!"

"Sorry! I hate this stuff." Lily surveyed the face of her best friend. "How'd you get yours so perfect?"

"I'm a restaurant hostess, I have to look good, I get practice. Only people who see you during your job are kids who don't care what you look like." Bella batted her perfectly mascaraed eyelashes and approached Lily again with the makeup wand. "Now, look up and don't move--!"

They were sitting on Lily's bed one hour before the reunion with an array of makeup products spread around them--most of them new purchases of Bella's. Lily, a hopeless case at any makeup more advanced than chapstick, needed all the help she could get.

"That's better." Bella put away the mascara and reached for the eye shadow. "Good thing I live right down in Hogsmeade and I can help you with these things. Close your eyes."

The door to her room burst open and Lily's other longtime friends, Chris and Laura, burst in. Laura was already perfectly coiffed and dressed in daringly cut red robes. Chris, on the other hand, was not dressed and looked ready to explode.

"Lily and Bella," she announced through clenched teeth, "Laura's trying to make me wear this. She held up something that looked like baby pink robes. Bits of lace and the occasional sequin were visible.

Bella glanced over. "So? It's nice. Open, Lily, and pucker up."

Nice," Chris growled. "Fuckin' nice?"

"Really, Chris, you need some colour to your dress robes." Laura tugged at the corner of the pink robe. "Black isn't the only option."

"But why does it have to be this colour? Honestly, Laura, where did you buy this?"

"Shop next to Bella's restaurant. The colour will suit you, trust me."

"I don't care if--"

"Could we possibly stop arguing for one second," Bella said, putting down the lipstick, "and admire my handiwork?"

The other girls, as commanded, looked towards Lily as she got up off of the bed and stretched. She was wearing dark green, shimmery robes with a neckline not low enough to be called daring and flared sleeves. Bella had let her hair do what it did bestÑcurl down in large reddy-orange waves to the middle of her back.

"Nice job, Bella," Chris said. "Should be good enough f'r James, eh?"

"Chris!" Lily blushed furiously. "It should be Erin saying those things!" The girls' other friend Erin couldn't make it to the reunion with family business, and Lily was missing her acidic comments. It seemed like Chris had taken over, though.

"Oh, please, Lily, don't tell me you're getting all fancied up just for a bunch of old classmates," Laura said, swinging her long brown hair behind her back.

"As if it's not obvious anyway." Bella said matter-of-factly as she began to gather the makeup back into her bag. "Since he's been here, it's just been James, James, James."

Lily shrugged, a little nervously, and went to the floor-length mirror to adjust her outfit. "We were close. I haven't seen him for seven years--you know what it's like."

Her slightly deflated explanation seemed to satisfy Laura and Chris, who went back to bickering about the pink robes, but in the corner of the mirror Lily saw Bella raise one dark eyebrow and purse her lips together.

No fooling her best girlfriend.

And there was no fooling herself either, Lily thought as she patted her hair for what seemed the hundredth time that evening. She knew she wanted to look especially good for tonight. She knew that, had James not been present in her daily life for the past two weeks, she would have been perfectly content with her older, plainer dress robes and some poorly applied lipstick. Instead, she had spent the entire day before the reunion searching for the perfect new dress robes and had enlisted Bella's help to make her makeup immaculate.

Pathetic, really. All this fuss over someone who was simply a friend. Lily knew that was all it could ever amount to, considering their failed history.

But a girl can hope, said a small part of her mind. She could certainly hope that maybe--just maybe--James would change his mind about her tonight.

-------

"Okay, speech notes?"

"Check."

"Flowers?"

"Check."

"Fellow speaker?"

"No check yet, but should be soon."

"Nausea medication?"

"Sirius."

"Right, right. Stop worrying, James, you'll be fine. Have some more punch."

James held out his glass distractedly for Sirius to refill. They were standing in the Great Hall, watching their classmates slowly filter into the room. The reunion party was just starting, and most people, like all people who arrive at the start of a party, were milling around the walls and refreshment tables making polite conversation. Most of them had arrived the day before, spending the night in Hogwarts' guest quarters. James hadn't had a chance to speak to any of them as most of his time the day before had been taken up between helping Lily grade exams and getting Sirius out of various tight spots.

He didn't really want to interact anyway, he thought as he absentmindedly sipped his punch. They'd just banter politely about how different their lives were and how it's so nice to see everyone again, with a couple oh-hi-how-are-you-well-don't-you-look-marvelous!s thrown in. And James didn't specifically care for any of the people who were out there now. All the people he really loved had arrived earlier.

Besides, he was nervous as hell. When Lily appeared, he would only have a few minutes to grab some shreds of composure before they went onstage to kick the starting banquet off with their speech, the notes for which he had crumpled sweatily into his robes pocket.

Speaking of Lily...

"She's not here yet," he grumbled lowly to Sirius. Behind him the band finished setting up, and the drummer began to play a few experimental beats.

"Ah, she's a girl," Sirius replied distantly. "They take a while to get ready--you know." He waved his hand vaguely around his face in indication of makeup.

"Lily never wears makeup. And she never takes this long, it's ridiculous." James started towards the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" Sirius called, trotting after him.

"To get her. We need to get this speech over with before my nerves kill me."

They ran into Bella right at the bottom of the short staircase going to the faculty dorms. "Bella, is she coming?"

"Oh, good, you're here," Bella beamed. "Yes, she's right behind me. You can see my handiwork."

"Handiwork--" James began, but stopped short as Lily appeared at the top of the stairs.

She looked...good. Really very good. And yet somehow different, not the usual Lily. James' mind was trying to figure out what had changed, but most of it was preoccupied with thinking about how really gorgeous she looked.

She looked so good that it took him a minute to realize he was staring and check himself. He averted his eyes quickly to his shoes, missing both Lily's flaming blush and Bella and Sirius' raised eyebrows.

The hem of her robes appeared in his vision, and he glanced up to see her standing next to him. He noticed that her eyes were outlined in something. Makeup, he thought distantly. Bella put makeup on her. He didn't think that he'd ever seen Lily in full-blown makeup, in the fourteen-odd years he'd known her. Her natural looks had always been enough for him, and this was just...

"Well," he said, recovering enough to give her a smile and his arm, "shall we get this over with?"

-------

"All right, what did you do?" Sirius muttered to Bella.

"I have no idea," she stated innocently, "what you are talking about."

"Oh, come now," he responded jovially, nodding over to where Lily and James were doing last-minute revisions on their speech. "He can't take his eyes off of her. You did something, Arabella."

She gave a little half-sigh. "I merely went shopping down the street. I picked up some makeup products from Bette's Bewitching Beauty Boutique."

"Ah, makeup." Sirius looked at Lily. "I certainly have never seen her looking like this. Well, you got your money's worth."

"And only fourteen Sickles total."

"Quite a bargain, what with the end result," said a voice behind them. Sirius and Bella turned to see a smug-looking Chris in plain black robes with a sulky Laura next to her.

"I can see who won the robes argument," Bella remarked.

"Turned her hair into a bush," Chris said happily. "She let me go then."

"The pink would have suited you," Laura said sullenly. "And you didn't turn my hair quite back."

"Oh, it looks nice..." Bella said. "Well, except for that twig. Laura shot a venomous look at Chris as Bella picked bits of bracken out of her hair.

Chris pretended not to notice, and focused instead on the thought running through all of their heads. "Why are they both so thickheaded?" she scoffed softly, looking over to where James and Lily were standing. "They're both head over heels for each other. I wish they'd just snog and make up and spare us the angst."

"'Snot that easy," Laura remarked gloomily. "They've tried already, remember?"

"It's harder for Lily, as well, because she..." Bella stopped herself, remembering that James' best friend was standing next to her.

Fortunately, he had the same opinion on the subject as she did. "It's harder for Lily because she got her heart torn out and stomped on by my temporarily assheaded friend," Sirius said bluntly, finishing Bella's sentence.

"Well...yes."

"Who's assheaded?" Remus, followed by Peter, appeared at Sirius' shoulder, dressed in his slightly worn dress robes.

"James. Was. At the end of sixth year."

"Ah yes," Remus said. "Well, he's blind as a bat now if he can't see that Lily feels the same way about him as he does about her."

"Actually, b-bats aren't blind," Peter remarked. "That's a c-common misconc-ception."

"Stuff it, Pete, you're ruining my analogy."

"S-sorry."

"Zip it," Laura hissed, "they're going onstage."

-------

Backstage, James almost had a heart attack when he heard the voices--so many!--in the audience and saw the lights.

He took a big gulp, smiled nervously at Lily, and strode onstage.

-------

Author's Note:AGH. MADE IT. That was so freakin' hard to write. Jesus Christ on a cracker, I'm tired.

Anyhoo, I am trying to decide if I should include another vaguely cheesy song insertion for the reunion (the insertion's cheesy, not the song, the song is quite good). It's a Beatles song, and I don't want to desecrate it...tell me if that's A-OK or nay-OK.

See y'all {hopefully} soon!

Best,

Lady Wildcat