"Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love."
-Albert Einstein
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Lily's emerald eyes were now glowing with excitement. She jumped out of her bed, tripped on the sheets that were tangled up in her feet, and landed with a hard thud on the stone floor of the dormitory. Joey, now picturing the redhead lying motionless on the stone floor, leaned over the edge of her bed just in time to have Lily pop off the ground in a whirl of excitement.
"I'm okay!" she laughed as she hopped up onto Joey's bed and grabbed her friend's shoulders. She leaned her face in towards Joey's with a very suspicious look in her eyes. "Just tell me who it is!"
"Oh . . . why do you care so much?"
"Joey! Do you not understand the significance of a first kiss!"
"Well, judging by the new deafeningly high pitch of your voice, I'm guessing I don't. . ."
"Eeeeaak!" Lily squealed. Joey covered her ears. And then with a much calmer tone, she continued as if she were reading a passage out of a book. "Thou shall be careful who thou shall first kiss, for thou destiny doth lie with that moment of bliss."
"Huh? Where the hell did you hear that load of sh-"
"It means that your first kiss is who you are destined to be with!"
"Yeah. . . I got what it meant. My question to you, however, was where the hell did you hear that load of rubbish?" There was a very weird, not so kosher, look coming across Lily's face.
"You don't think it's true, then? Cause . . . I don't know . . . I guess it's only true for some people! You know . . . the ones who 'really' meant their first kiss."
"And who said we didn't really mean our first kiss? Sirius and I wer-"
"HAHAHAHAHA! Omigod! I thought you wouldn't fall for that one!" Lily was now hopping up and down on the bed on her knees. Joey started laughing.
"You little sneak! I guess it would come out sooner or later. . ." both girls started laughing, and Lily finally stopped bouncing.
"Well? And how'd it happen, I ask?" Joey rolled her eyes. She knew it wasn't over yet.
"We were . . . well . . . we were in our third year . . ."
"Yeah! AND?"!" the frenzy had started up again. Lily looked like she was going to start bouncing again.
"McShailty had us in detention."
"Omigod! You made out in front of McShailty!" Joey let out a hearty laugh as Lily sat their horrified.
"No, no . . . we waited 'till he left the room. I can still remember what he said: 'You two better not do ANYTHING while I deliver these papers to Dumbledore.'" Both girls giggled a little. "Sirius and I just looked over at each other. Then he just leaned in and kissed me on my lips." Joey let out an inaudible sigh. "You know, come to think of it. . . Sirius probably didn't mean anything by it. After all, he is just a boy always making an effort to bend the rules . . . Probably gave him a thrill just because he wasn't listening to what McShailty told him to do."
Lily suddenly had a dazed look on her face. Her eyes looked all misty, and she sighed very deeply. "That is so romantic." Joey gave her an odd look.
"Are you kidding?" Lily looked up at her, startled when she said this.
"No way!" Lily tried to convince her, "I mean . . . think about it! A person who kisses you in the least romantic place ever, McShailty's room in this case, is bound to be your destiny!"
"So you're saying that because of Sirius' lack of sentimentality, we are destined to be together?" Joey's sounded rather skeptical.
"Well . . . McShailty's office is still special to you to this day, is it not?" Lily sounded expectant.
"Yeah . . . okay, so maybe it is a little. What are you getting at?"
"If someone can take a place as wretched and unwelcoming as McShailty's office and make it 'special' to you . . . doesn't that mean something?" Joey looked down at the embroidered quilt that was lying on top of her. She started twirling her fingertips around a loose thread. "That's what I thought!" Lily smiled as she got back into her bed and leaned over to turn out the light.
"Omigod, Lily!" Joey practically screamed. Lily's hand shot away from the light she was about to turn off. "Where's Flam!" Lily rolled her eyes.
"Good lord, girl! You loose that bird more times than you can keep track of. You know Sirius has him. It's 10 o'clock! Just go to sleep and get him in the morning!"
"But I really want to get him now!" Lily rolled her eyes again. Then a suspicious little twinkle came into them.
"You want to go see Sirius, don't you?" The redhead let out an evil little cackle. "Thinkin' about him makes you want to ease your cravings to go see him?" Joey picked up a pillow that was sitting on her bed and chucked it, hard, at Lily's face. Lily caught the pillow and just held it there, making a great effort to muffle the laughing that was bursting out from her mouth.
Joey rolled her eyes and crept out of the dormitory. As she was slinking down the dark hall towards the stairway that led down to the common room, she could see a light that was flooding into the hall. . . someone was clearly still down in the common room. She crept a little closer and could hear quiet laughter and talking. There was a strong odor of butterbeer that was wafting over to her nose.
After silently descending down the stairs, she peeked around the corner, and could see where the light, laughter, and talking was emitting from. The four marauders were lounged about on the furniture around the fire, obviously looking a little boozed up from all the butterbeer. James was laughing the hardest. He was leaning over Sirius and talking rather loudly.
"So, mate, then you just. . . kissed her? . . . In McShailty's office?" James was looking the most plastered. "That's disgusting!"
"Yea, man! What is wrong with you!" All the boys burst out laughing.
"Well, what about you?" Sirius fired back at James, still laughing. "Your first kiss with Lily was in a broom closet right next to Flitwick's room!" All four of the boys roared with laughter at this. Joey had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing as well. Lily's first kiss was James? Of course! She groaned to herself. No wonder Lily was ranting on about how first kisses determine who you end up with . . .Lily and James were meant to be together, and she knew it!
The boys started calming down a bit. Joey leaned around the corner, and could clearly see Flam sitting . . . well more like swaying around on Sirius' shoulder. 'oh, God!' she laughed to herself. 'My bird's bombed!" Suddenly, Remus looked over at Sirius with a very unfocused, but serious, look.
"But you still lover her, mate? Don't you?"
There was a very thick silence that hung in the room for a moment. The firelight was flickering off everyone and everything. Joey almost gasped when she could have sworn she saw Remus' eyes flicker over at her for a millisecond. Did he know she was there or was the firelight playing tricks on her? Joey leaned in closer so that she could hear Sirius' response.
Everyone heard Sirius heave a loud sigh before he said anything.
"Oh, why does it even matter?" he began. "She got her lovely little Dickory!" The butterbeer was definitely catching up to him. He was mumbling to himself, a bit incoherently. Not much could be made out. ". . . bastard. . ." he mumbled again before taking another swig from his glass.
"But you do, don't you?" Now it was Peter's turn to push an answer out of him. Sirius looked down at the fire, lost in thought. . . almost like he was waiting for the right moment to answer the question.
By now, Joey was leaning so far forward to hear what Sirius was about to say, she nearly lost her balance. Suddenly, a few things happened all at once.
Sirius opened his mouth to speak just as Joey was leaning a bit to far forward to hear him better. She hit her elbow really sharply on the stone wall, causing no one but Flam to turn his head over towards the stair way and let out a loud 'hoot.' Everyone looked up at Flam's startled movement, and then was surprised to see the bird take off towards the stairway. Flam flew around the corner, and hooted joyfully (and rather drunkenly) when he saw Joey there. Trying to hush him, Joey clamped the bird's beak shut with her hand and went sprinting back up the stairs into her dormitory.
The boys looked around at each other nervously. They suddenly decided that maybe they should call it a night. They put out the fire and went stumbling up towards their dormitories. In the darkness, Remus glanced over in the direction of the girls' stairway and just shook his head slowly. He knew Joey had been sitting there listening. He laughed to himself when he pictured what her face must have looked like when Flam came flying around the corner to greet her.
James suddenly collided into the back of Remus, walking up the stairs. He pushed him the rest of the way up to their room, and the four boys got ready for bed and went to sleep.
Thanks for reading! Please review! love, SJ