Chapter 8 - Bad Days
"Lily?" Jess asked, poking her head through Lily's bedroom door. Her friend had thrown on some comfortable clothing and was sitting on her window ledge staring out onto the Quidditch patch.
She turned and looked at Jess with large, sad eyes. "I'm just so sick of them, Jess. They don't leave me alone and they accuse me of things that I didn't even do!"
Jess crossed the room, pulled Lily off of the windowsill and into a tight embrace. "It's okay. Don't let them get to you. When you're feeling down, my Lilykins, don't forget that it is your last year with having to deal with all of their shit." She pulled away from Lily. "I brought us up some lunch, but I left it down in your absolutely gorgeous Common Room. I'll be right back." She hesitantly left the room.
Lily climbed up onto the bed and hugged her knees to her chest, waiting for Jess to reappear. Hearing a noise int he hall and a stream of curses, Lily ran to the door to see what happened.
At that moment, Jess came into view, carrying a plate of food an dhobbling along, trying not to put her food down on the floor.
"Shit, Lily! There was this gigantic piece of glass on the floor! It slice up my foot pretty good!"
Lily raced down the steps to help her friend. Taking the plate, she apologized, "I'm so sorry! I thought I had picked pu all the glass!"
Raising an eyebrow and leaning on Lily, she said, "There was glass on the floor?"
Gulping, Lily replied, "Yeah, I took everything tha tJames had ever given me and I burned it, except for the vase. I broke that in front of the fireplace, but I thought I had picked up all the pieces." She showed Jess her bandaged hands.
"Why didn't you use any magic? You know you can heal those."
Lily looked away as they neared the last step. "I needed to pick it up by myself and the pain in my hands makes me remember why I hate James Potter!"
Once they reached Lily's bed, Jess reached for her wand and pointed it at her foot, whispering a spell. "I don't know about you, but I need my feet in perfect condition for tryouts next week."
Lily turned away from her best friend. "I know that it's weird, but I had to have the satisfaction of doing something without magic. It was amazing!"
"You are a strange child, Lily Evans, that you are. But back to business... are you ever going to tell me what happened to you, or am I going to have to guess?"
With a chocking breath, Lily replied, "The Marauders, or more specifically James, accused me of being a whore and sleeping with Lucius."
Jess pretended to be surprised, Sirius had already told her what happened. "That's horrible! what right do they have to say something like that?"
"I don't know," the red-haired beauty sighed. "For some reason they seem to believe that I am dating Lucius Malfoy. Then because of his assumption, James told me that Gryffindors do not mix well with Slytherins."
"He told you that because he thinks that you're dating Lucius? What did you say?"
Lily sat on the bed and fiddled with her hands. "I told him that maybe I wasn't meant to be a Gryffindor... and that's when I ran off. I couldn't face them after saying something like that."
"Wow... that's got to be a slap in the face." Jess replied.
She snorted, "Heh... yeah, talk about it. I just... just want them to leave me alone. It would be nice."
Jess bit her lip and looked at Lily. "Well, did you ever think about talking to him?" she questioned, throwing herself backwards on the bed from her sitting position.
"How can I talk to him when all he does is attack me and accuse me of something that he couldn't even be sure of? Besides, he'd be too busy yelling at me for 'fucking a Slytherin'," she mocked.
"Well, Lily, what are you going to do? ARe you just going to hide here for the rest of the year?"
"N-no," she stammered. "I'll face up to them... just not today. I can't today."
Jess grabbed a sandwich from the plate and took a bite. "You know... I still think that you should talk to them, or him, and try to figure out what went wrong. Who knows, maybe you'll actually have a decent conversation instead of a screaming match."
"A decent conversation? With that prat? Not even his little followers can have a decent conversation with him. I'm sure they all end up focused on him and he starts showing off."
Long fingers played with her brown hair as she shrugged her shoulders. "Oh well... but on a more happier note, Lucius seems to really care about you."
A smile graced Lily's lips. "Really?"
Sirius had finally joined his friends.
James eyed him warily, "Glad to see you've finally decided to grace us with your most wonderful presence, Sirius."
Plopping down next to James, Sirius gently smacked the back of his head. "Oh come off it, Prongsie mate, I have discovered something absolutely wonderful about our beautiful Jessica White."
Placing a hand on his shoulder, James shoved Sirius backwards, knocking him off of the bench and onto the floor.
With a hard glare, Sirius picked himself up off the floor and righted himself. "You know what, James? It's only our first day of classes and you're even more of a prick than you were last year. You can apologize to me later, whenever you've decided to stop attacking your own friends." After grabbing some food from the table, Sirius stalked out of the Hall.
Remus gave James a sad look. "Sorry, Prongs, but you know he's right." He followed Sirius out with Peter trailing behind him.
James leaned forward and smacked his head off of the table. Resting against his cold, empty plate, he sat trying to control his temper.
"Well it looks like you haven't been civilized at all, Potter, you're still eating off of the plate like the little bitch you are."
Furius, he turned around menacingly to see a smug Severus Snape. "Listen, Snivellus, I am not in the best of moods and you are not and have never been on my good list," he said poking Severus with his wand. "Fuck off before I hex you so much you come out clean and grease-less."
Jumping off the bench, he stomped out of the Hall, leaving behind a frowning Severus.