A/N: Thanks for waiting patiently. This has been the shortest posting time in a while, I should think. And I hope you all enjoy it!
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. Only few characters and inventions and places. Sad, isn't it?
Illicit Love
Chapter Thirteen
Explained
James felt slight panic. Lily was literally red with rage, her eyes wide and livid, her mouth shrewdly twisted.
"I – I was –"
"Bullshit, James! I've been ignoring your secrecy lately, but when you start lying to me – that's when it's going to piss me off!"
"I –"
"James Potter, I slept with you, thinking it was the right thing to do, but now you go off, sneaking around, losing my trust, lying to me. Do you care to explain to me?"
James looked at his watch. "Lily, I've got to go to my meeting. I'll talk to you when I get back."
"Don't you dare talk to me until you can be completely honest – and a week until then.."
"Lily, you're being – "
"A bitch?"
" – completely ridiculous," James said. "I'll talk to you when I get back."
"Go." That single word was a fang driven under his skin, seeping poison into his blood.
He looked at her, cheeks flushed, eyes red from tears. She was going to snap, but he wanted to help her. He wanted to leave beforehand. That wasn't the way to go about it, and she'd be even more hacked off, but she needed the time alone. He turned and pulled a pouch of Floo Powder from his pocket. He threw a pinch into the flames then stepped into the giant emerald fire. With one last look at Lily, he called out his destination, the Berry Mansion where the meeting was being held.
* * *
James had downed four pints of mead at the Berry Mansion during dinner. Both meetings had gone well and Mrs. Berry made a wonderful meal. Vincent Parker asked about how James had been lately, and, not wanting to go into details, he said that being Quidditch captain and Head Boy had been tiring and because of his irritability, he had had an argument with Lily. Pricilla Berry dropped her fork. James pretended not to notice. Rumor had it that she was madly in love with James.
"What's wrong with Lily?" she asked curiously. James took a swig of his drink.
"My father killed her father or something like that and one argument led to another."
"Your father killed hers – what?" Vincent asked, shocked.
"Yeah." Pricilla looked like Christmas had come early.
"But – but your father's a good man," Mr. Berry said.
"Good man, my arse," James muttered.
"Beg your pardon?" James shook his head. Mr. Berry continued. "He's very generous. I mean, if it wasn't for the donation he made we wouldn't have been able to get new sod on the field or new brooms or goal posts and robes. He's a good man, James. You're just being a rebellious teenager. Quite normal, really."
James knew that all the stuff purchased was millions of galleons. He frowned and felt the rage inside grow.
"You were bribed?" he said. "This whole time you didn't want me – my father bribed you to have me?"
"Bribed? Absolutely not, James," Mr. Berry said. "Pricilla told us as soon as she knew that we needed a new chaser that you were the one for the job. I went to see you several times, then decided that was she said was true. I employed you, then your father, even though he was long retired, gave us a hearty donation."
"I know my father –"
"As do I," Vincent said. "He is my friend. His last year on the team was my first and we've been in touch since then."
"James, why don't we go upstairs, eh?" Pricilla asked. "We could exchange wicked gossip. I've heard that –" James held up his hand to stop her.
"That's okay. I've got to get back to Hogwarts to work things out with Lily."
"If you want to tell me about it... I mean, I'm a woman and what better way to figure out women than with a woman..." She smiled prettily and James really wanted to resist, but he was too nice and the alcohol was taking effect on his brain, so he excused himself from the table, saying he'd be back for dessert. Vincent and Mr. Berry nodded. James noticed Mrs. Berry had a certain glint in her eyes. That glint, he knew, was not good.
"So," Pricilla said once they were in her room. "How come you're mad at Lily?"
"I'm not mad at her, she's mad at me," James said.
"Well, she must have done something to have hacked you off."
James shook his head. "Nope. All my doing, I know that."
"James, what you need is a woman who will keep her mouth shut and know her place in the relationship."
"What good would that do?" He looked at the blonde-haired blue-eyed beauty that was lying on her bed in a very suggestive pose. "If you don't have a girl with opinion, how could you love her? Arguments are what makes the relationship grow."
"Women don't need to be opinionated –"
"I disagree."
"I'm not saying –"
"What you're saying is that males should be chauvinistic pigs. That's wrong." Pricilla frowned. "Don't you think that you're equal, if not better than, men? I mean, women are smart, nurturing, giving. Look at us men, we burp, fart, and think with our penises. If I didn't love Lily and want to work things out with her so badly, I'd be shagging you right now like you want me to." Pricilla blushed and sat up. "Pricilla, you don't need to get anyone's respect by sleeping around. In fact, you're losing respect."
"I never thought –"
"Exactly. You're not opinionated enough for a woman of respect for most men. I think you're very beautiful and if you'd stop hiking up your skirt, you'd get a lot more boyfriends that don't insist on shagging you senseless all the time and using you."
"You're right," Pricilla said. She stood and kissed James on the cheek.
"Thanks for talking with me, I feel so much better."
"You feel much better? You're the one who helped me. Thank you."
"I've got to go back to Hogwarts; I've got to figure this whole thing out with Lily."
"Good luck."
James stopped at the door and looked back at Pricilla. "If you ever need anything, don't be afraid to ask. I'll see you tomorrow." And he was gone. Flooing back to Hogwarts. He didn't know how to work it out with Lily, but his stomach turned in anticipation to make things work.
* * *
Friday night, nearly a week after Lily vowed not to talk to James, the two were standing in the library underneath the Invisibility Cloak. True to her word, Lily had not spoken to him, even when he apologized several times a day, saying he didn't want to be lying to her, but he couldn't tell her what he knew. So she had been happy and peppy all week to everyone else except for her boyfriend.
Lily had barged into his room hours after dinner, not even knocking (Like he would do to me, she thought), and grabbed his Invisibility Cloak, and pointed in the direction of where the library would be. James slipped under the cloak, but Lily kept her distance as she was walking, not touching him at all.
So there they were, Lily looking for books on séances while James looked for only he knew what. This trip was almost the same as the first one the two had been on when James realized he liked Lily. But it was a lot more silent. Lily was vowed to silence and James reminded himself that it was his fault because he was under a different kind of silence vow.
James pulled out a book on advanced magical arts and Lily grabbed his wrist to drag him to the table. She pulled the cloak off of them, sat down, grabbed the book from James's hands and started reading the table of contents.
"Hey – aren't you going to share? That book could have been for the both of us." Lily pointed back to the shelf they had just come from. James sighed and went back to the shelf and picked another book. He sat down and looked at its contents, then flipped through the pages. After searching, he looked up and said. "This says séances are only to be done on All Hallow's Eve or the full moon before or after it. That's when the veils between the worlds are thinnest." Lily didn't look up. "Lils, c'mon. How long are you going to not talk to me? I've said I was sorry millions of times."
She looked up finally, but glared in such a way that James's stomach knotted. Obviously her glare meant that sorry was far from good enough.
"Lily, this is going nowhere, why don't you just talk to me?"
This time she cocked an eyebrow. He sighed. Maybe he should tell... She was good enough friends with the guys and she was trustworthy. She'd keep a secret. But he had promised – sworn – he wouldn't tell anyone. Lily was his girlfriend. They were his best friends. Right now it was friendship or love. He didn't want to lose either.
Damn these conflicting emotions.
"Lily, let's get out of here and we'll talk about this later." She pointed to the library door. He grumbled in frustration. Now he knew what she had meant that day in Diagon Alley about not wanting to see this side of her. If the Silent Treatment seemed childish, it wasn't when it was played by Lily Evans. Her voice wasn't needed, as facial expressions did it all and then some. Pure venom and ice, they were.
"Lily, I'm serious – I'm leaving."
She did an elegant one-shouldered shrug and went back to reading. James stood and was about to pull the cloak on when his conscience got the better of him. It was not right for things to go on this way between them.
He plopped back into his chair.
"All right," he said with resignation. "I'll tell you everything."
For the first time that week, Lily looked at him like he wasn't the scum at the bottom of the lake.
Things were looking up.
He hoped.
* * *
Lily was still silent, and her face had no expression to it. Maybe it was a good silence. Then again...
"Lily?" he said, wondering if she was all right. She knitted her eyebrows.
"That's it?" she said. James's eyebrows followed suit at the tone of Lily's voice – like the newly downloaded info was nothing. "That's all you had to tell me? Remus is a werewolf and you Sirius and Peter are Animagi."
"Illegally – did I mention that?"
Lily started laughing hysterically. Maniacally even, James thought.
"Wait," he said. "You're not angry?"
Lily continued to laugh.
"Mad at you? Of course I am – I'm totally pissed off!"
"Then why are you laughing?"
"Because it's so simple. Werewolf. Animagi – illegally. I was thinking it was something that was actually serious. I don't know, like maybe you were a serial killer or something."
"Are you feeling all right?"
"Just fine, thanks." She stopped laughing and dabbed at the damp corners of her eyes. "I'm not mad, really, James. It's all okay."
"Really?"
"No, not really. But yeah." She laughed again. James was absolutely confused.
"Lils, let's get back to the common room and we'll sort this out. I'll tell the guys that you know."
They walked to Gryffindor Tower, discarding James's cloak in his room on the way, and entered the common room. Sirius, Peter, and Remus were playing exploding snap and Lily and James joined in. While playing, James let the guys know that Lily knew about their secret. They were fine with it. More fine than James would have thought, but he didn't let that stop him from having a good time, laughing and joking with the guys and kissing lightly on his lover.
When it was James's turn to place a card on the ever-growing tower of the castle, something caught his eye and caused him to look sharply to the left, making his hand unsteady and causing the castle to explode. The four looked to where James was staring. There was a beautiful brunette walking over to them with the Headmaster stepping lightly in her wake.
"Oh my god, hide me!" James pleaded in a whisper.
It was too late. The young spotted James and waved spasmodically. "Hi honey!" she called in a high-pitched voice.
Vaguely Lily had time to wonder what the girl was doing here before she threw her arms around James.
"Hi," James said, clearly faking his excitement and slightly snaking his arms around the girl in return.
Obviously, this was someone James didn't want to see. And Lily took a wild (yet educated) guess that this someone was Josephine Ramortia, the Minister of Magic's daughter.
* * *
A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you liked this chapter. Ooo...Josephine is on the premises. *shudders* I created her and I don't even like her. You'll find out more about her in the next chapter (which should be up fairly soon, as it is already finished in my Sacred Notebook).
Something off topic for a bit, I went and saw The Two Towers. Completely awesome. Of course, like everyone else, I'm in love with Legolas. And Aragorn. Both of them are complete hotties! At least this isn't like being in love with someone with no face (HP characters), though I have to admit that I've fallen for Sirius. I love James, but there's something about Sirius... I want...
And I hope that everyone had a happy holiday, whether celebrating Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice (N. Hemisphere), or whatever you choose to celebrate, I hope it was happy. And a Happy New Year to all of you!
And now, Thank-yous!
* * *
Marzoog – I was added to your favorites list? I feel so honored!
Zetta – Yes, the two are finally really together, though they argue like there's no tomorrow. Okay, not really. My Breakfast at Tiffany's story is more like that. But in this universe, it's hard to see them argue! *tear*
Kaydee – Thanks for all the reviews!
Anawiel Blackthorn – I'm glad you think this story is bloody brill. That made me smile.
Darkest-Knight88 – I don't have a beta reader, and I know that things get all fuzzy and mucked up sometimes, but I'm doing this mostly for fun, and I don't have a lot of time to type, send off to beta, wait for beta, then post. No offense to you (I hope). Thank you for your offer. If I do feel like I need a beta, would you mind if I called on you? I may need one for the newest story I'm going to be working on (hopefully).
hpz26
Jess the Great – Cherry wood wand for you. I've always been fond of cheery wood. Have fun hexing James!
Sugarquill
JamesFairy4life
Martini Addict – Did you pick a wand? Well, if not, I'm sending you (one of my most ever-faithful readers) a wand made out of olive with a phoenix feather in it. Sound good?
Prongaholic – I just have to say that your penname is adorable!
Uknowwhoslittleprincess – I loved the joke again, of course. I'm always up for some humor. I am blonde, but I am a smart one, so no offense was taken. Men like the ditsy blondes...It's not fair!!
Jockaroo
Imlosnoches
Grrrl
Flamin' Phoenix – You also have a really cool penname!
SimonJumper
The Lady Lillian – You didn't choose a wand either, did you? Well, you get a special one of ponderosa pine and three unicorn forelock hairs.
* * *
THANK YOU!!!
* * *
To all those that review, you will receive your choice of the leftover holiday food that is in my refrigerator. I don't mind if you take away all that cheesecake and chocolate and ham and turkey and potatoes and eggnog and green beans and jello and...
Ahem...
Sorry. I just don't know what I'm going to do with it all!
On a more serious note (along with the leftovers), I hope you have a happy holiday full of love, peace, and contentment. Kiss lots of people under mistletoes for me. I haven't had the chance yet. *looks sad* Not fair!!!
~Luvs from Lavender