Chapter 2:
Lily rung the doorbell for the third time. "What's going on?" she asked in annoyance. "It's not like her to leave visitors waiting for so long!"
"Maybe she's busy," James suggested.
Lily snorted.
"Maybe it's just an act of courtesy, but no matter how busy I am, I'd never leave visitors waiting outside the door for so long."
They waited for another five minutes, during which, Lily rang the doorbell, rapped on the door sharply, yelled and rang the doorbell. In that order.
"Maybe she doesn't know it's us," James suggested.
"There's an idea," Lily said sarcastically.
"I'm serious," James said.
"Don't drag Sirius into this."
"Where'd Sirius come from?"
"You said you were Sirius."
"I am!"
"You're James!"
"But that's not an adjective!"
"Neither is Sirius!"
"Yeah it is. S-E-R-I-O–U-S, serious."
Lily just tossed him a scowl.
"What is taking her so long?!" Lily asked.
"Like I said, maybe she doesn't know it's us!" James said patiently.
"When pigs fly," Lily replied calmly.
There was another cold pause.
Finally Lily cracked her cool.
"You know what, I am really through with all this!" she said. She opened her purse and pulled out a silver cell phone.
"What's that?" James asked.
"Cell phone. What century do you live in, Potter?"
Lily rapidly dialled Haro's phone number into the glowing blue buttons. The numbers appeared on the vibrant colour screen, which seemed to look even brighter in the cold, November evening.
After what seemed about five minutes, someone finally picked up.
"Hello?" Lily asked impatiently. "Haro, where the hell have you been? Potter and I have been freezing our fingers off out here for about twenty minutes – didn't you hear us ringing the doorbell?"
James looked questionably at Lily's confused expression.
"What do you mean - ?" Lily began, and then was cut off.
"Oh…I see, you – WHAT?!" Lily shrieked. James winced, prodded her shoulder and stuck a finger in his ear.
"Are you serious?" she gasped. "Oh, geez that's awful. But it's just us outside, can you please open the door?!"
"Thanks. Bye." She flipped the cell phone shut.
"What was that all about?" James demanded.
"Haro's nail polish chipped," Lily said smoothly. James' outburst was cut short as the door opened.
"Finally!" Lily said gratefully, smiling at Haro, a girl with dark eyes, dark hair and was just a finger's breadth below middle height, but her form was so well built, those taller than her looked too tall.
"Sorry," Haro apologized. "But I was seriously preoccupied."
"Doing your nails was so preoccupational?" James asked dryly.
"You do realize that preoccupational isn't even a word," Lily replied with an equally dry tone.
"Oh just shut up."
Haro stifled a smile; these two would just keep going at each other forever if someone didn't stop them.
"Here, sit down, let me take your jackets, please."
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"So Haro," James said, "has Sameer shown up yet?"
"He said he'd be a bit late," Haro said, "but all the better for us then, right? More time to prepare. I haven't finished decorating the cake yet, though. I needed a bit of help."
She led them to the dining room, where a large, delicious-looking cake stood decorated with clotted cream, colourful sprinkles that changed colour merrily, white chocolate shavings and, the words Happy Birthday Sameer written on it in what Lily recognized was merely icing with a tricky, yet neat charm on it that made it sparkle in different colours.
"Wow…" James said. "That looks delicious…"
Lily whirled on Haro.
"You said it wasn't done yet!" she said.
Haro smiled innocently.
"I couldn't decide what colour to make the candles," she said matter-of-factly.
"But there already are candles," Lily said, indicating the twenty-two silvery wax candles.
"I don't mean the candles," Haro said. "I meant the flames."
She blushed as Lily stared hard at her.
"Every year he's probably had a cake with normal yellow flames on them. I thought of maybe blue flames…or how about green?"
"His favourite colour's purple," James frowned. "Surely you knew that."
"Of course you did!" Lily said, nudging Haro's shoulder. "You're dressed in entirely purple!"
Of course Lily had been quite keen to notice that Haro was wearing a tight-fitting purple turtleneck, and a skirt made of a matching purple, chiffon-like material, that contrasted her dark complexion quite nicely. Her dark, silky hair was tied back in a French plait with a lavender ribbon.
Haro blushed again.
"Then I suppose I'd better make it purple."
She took out her wand, twirled it a couple of times and pointed it at the candles. "Inflammaris elprupitis!" she said firmly, and the twenty-two candles lit up in cheery purple flames just as the doorbell rang.
"It must be Sameer!" Lily said, nudging Haro's shoulder.
Haro went to open the door. Lily and James stayed in the dining room; this was supposed to be a surprise party after all.
They could hear voices, one belonging to Haro, the other to none other than Sameer Patil himself.
They walked in, Sameer's eyes were covered by Haro's fingers.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"This," Haro said, and uncovered his eyes.
There was a pause as Sameer took in the gorgeous cake and the decorations around the room, and his two best friends standing beside it.
"Wow…thanks!"
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"That was a great party," James said to Lily as they drove back to the Portkey stop. "Haro's cake was really good."
"Why do I get the feeling that the only reason you ever put up with Haro is because of her cooking?" Lily asked sarcastically.
"Ha ha. So funny," James said, with an equally sarcastic tone. "I wouldn't talk if I were you, you know that? The only reason I put up with you is because of Haro and Sameer."
"The feeling's mutual," Lily shot back.
Another dead silence.
"Haro and Sameer really make a great couple, though," Lily said. "Nothing'll come in between them. Nothing."
"That's what you said three years ago," James pointed out.
Lily's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "You've got a lot of gall saying that to your ex-girlfriend, you know. Every promise you've made to all your girlfriends after me, you made each and every one of them to me. Don't you dare forget that," Lily said dangerously.
Perhaps it was the frostiness in Lily's voice that James had never heard before that stopped him from giving a swift retort. Who knew? Maybe this was the first time Lily had ever come close to letting it show that she was slowly breaking.
Piece by piece…
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Disclaimer: I own nothing. All belong to the great and talented, J. K. Rowling.