Authors Note: I again cannot come up with a name for this chappie!!! Someone help.....! ps, even tho it is untitled, this chap is dedicated to 'Lianne' and Hellen of Sweden. As well as all my other reviewers of course!!! Ps, the winner of the guessing game, although you all did have good guesses, is Sarah, congrats!!! And i swear i did not tell her, I swear on this story in fact! Shes just really good at that kind of thing, gossip Queen that she is...haha.

Chapter 40

"Oh my goodness Alice, I am so sorry, I had no idea, I really didn't. I never would have let

him kiss me had I known!" Lily said, leaping up and running around the table to throw her arms

around Alice.

"Get off me, you, you tramp. Don't think I don't know your games. You kissed him, didn't

you? James would never do that to me!" Alice said, standing up and glaring at her coldly.

Apparently her momentary shock had worn off. She removed Lilys arms from her neck with a

surprisingly firm and powerful grip. "Don't touch me, don't speak to me, don't even look at me.

And keep your filthy paws off of my boyfriend." Alice declared, walking away from her.

"How was I supposed to know that? No one ever thought to tell me!" Lily said, sitting

down in Alices seat, the wind almost totally knocked out of her. She placed her head on the

table and burst into tears. "How did she expect me to know? I never wanted to hurt her!" Lily

cried as Holly stroked her hair and Caroline mumbled comforting words.

"Well darling, James asked her out a little while ago, and she's crazy about him. They've

been going strong for a, like, two or three weeks now, I think it must have hurt her pretty bad

when you said that." Janette informed her, only causing Lily to sob harder. She was not only

crying over her accidental betrayal of Alice, or the fact that she had potentially ruined one of her

best friendships. She was also crying over James's betrayal. How could he have kissed her while

dating her best friend? That was so wrong.

"Honey, it was so not your fault, I mean, you had no way of knowing. And she had no right

to call you those names. Just forget about it, she'll calm down eventually." Caroline told her.

Across the room where James sat with Sirius and Remus and Peter, watching Remus and

Peter play chess, a game at which Remus almost always won, he saw the entire series of events

unfold. He watched as Alice stormed off in his direction, he watched as Lily burst in to tears,

and she watched as her friends comforted her. His stomach clenched, he had caused that pain,

and there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to make it go away, but he couldn't.

"Can you believe them? I can't." Alice said, approaching him and sitting on the armrest of

his chair.

"Huh? Sorry, what was that?" Asked James, removing his gaze from a sobbing Lily and

looking instead at Alice.

"I asked if you could believe them, I mean, she accused you of cheating on me! And then

my other so-called friends are taking her side! I can't believe them." Alice sad. She was not like

Lily. She did not have Lilys temper, to be sure, but she also did not stand by her friends stead-

fastly the way Lily did. And she did not even ask for his side of the story.

Lily looked radiant today in her red shirt, with the red and gold striped scarf, with her red

hair flowing out in all directions in the wind. As she looked over at Alice and himself he saw her

eyes were filled with tears and brimming over, causing her eyes to sparkle even more than usual,

and for her face to look hot and flushed. She looked beautiful when she cried. His stomach

clenched again when he saw the tears coursing unchecked down her cheeks and nose. He was

the reason she was crying, it was all his fault.

"Oh, I know. How rude." He said half heartedly, looking back at Alices plain blue eyes.

They did not sparkle and hold emotion and expression, not the way Lilys did. He remembered

what it had been like watching Lily in the hospital bed with her eyes closed. He had been so

afraid that they would never open again. He could not go on like this. It wasn't fair to himself, it

wasn't fair to Lily, it wasn't even fair to Alice.

"Listen, Alice, lets go somewhere where we can talk." He said, taking her hand and leading

them out of the portrait hole. When they reached an empty classrom he pulled her inside, sitting

on a desk and motioning her into chair. "Listen, Alice, we need to talk."

"Oh, you actually want to talk? I thought you just wanted to make out." She said. Lily never

would have said that. She was too high class for just hooking up like that.

"No, I wanted to talk to you, about, about us." He told her, somewhat nervus.

"All right, what did you have in mind?" She asked, leaning forward so that if he chose to

look down he could practically see all the way down her shirt.

"Listen," he said, taking a deep breathe and averting his eyes, "I did kiss Lily, she didn't kiss

me. She didn't ask me to do it. So don't blame her for what I did wrong. I knew we were

dating, she didn't." He said quickly, relieved to have that off his chest, and still avoiding looking

down at hers.

"Well, that's okay James, she's still the one I'm mad at. It's not your fault that she tried to

seduce you, she's a terrible friend. But I forgive you all the same. How about I call you a bad

boy and we call it even. Oh, but first, seeing as she was the last one to kiss you as of right now, I

think we need to change that." She said, deepening her voice into a melodic sort of whisper and

starting to stand up so that their heads would be level.

This was not at all the way she was supposed to react. She was supposed to slap him, or

cause a scene of some sort. She was supposed to, at least temporarily, dump him out of rage.

She was, instead, trying to seduce him and get him to make out with her. Something was very

wrong here. Shouldn't it be himself, not her, who should be trying to get her to make out with

him? He couldn't help but compare her to Lily, which was not fair to anyone, and he knew it, but

it was an automatic reflex and the reason that he had dumped all of the girls he had dated since

Lily and himself had broken up.

"Alice, you're not even mad that I cheated on you?" He asked, hoping to provoke her in to

dumping him. She was really sweet, and she was deffinately hot, but she was not Lily.

"I told you silly, I'm mad at Lily, not you. She's supposed to by my friend and then she

stabbed me in the back." Alice said, coming still closer so that she was standing right in front of

him, their noses almost touching.

"But honestly Alice, she didn't know. It wasn't her fault. You should be mad at m-" This

time he was the one cut off by someone elses lips on his own. He could taste her lipgloss,

watermelon kiwi or something like that, she had told him it was called. It tasted sweet and tangy,

but was not nearly as nice as kissing Lilys lips without lipgloss. Their tongues entertwined as she

began to kiss him furiously, he kissed her back just as much, hoping that he would feel something

other than emptiness. Nothing. She was a good and practiced kisser, but she was not as sweet

or comfortable as Lily. Wrapping his arms around Lily felt so warm and natural, cradeling Alices

head just felt forced and practiced, just as everything he did with Alice always felt. Kissing Lily

had ruined him for any other sort of kissing.

He held them in different levels, girls who had not kissed anyone before and had no idea

what they were doing. Girls who did no what they were doing and were bad at it. Girls who

were good at it but had terrible breathe or something along those lines. Girls who were good,

girls such as Alice, and had no noticable defects. And then, in a rank all alone and far above all

the others came Lily. She left them all in the dust just by being Lily.

He rubbed Alices back, trying to get her off of him. The desk was starting to hurt, as was

this kissing. This movement only seemed to encourage her onward. Finally, James got her off of

him, gasping for breathe. Alice smiled a mysterious smile and followed him back to Gryfindor

common room, both of them looking ruffled and mussed up.

Back in the common room Lily saw Alice and James leave, and felt a slight twinge in her

gut. Was that jealousy? Anger? What was it that she was feeling? Lily struggled to identify her

feelings, but was distracted by the continued talking of her friends, who thought they were being

comforting and supportive, but were in truth only adding to her headache, although she did

appreciate the gesture.

Lily claimed feeling faint and retired to her bedroom early, leaving the rest chattering away

in the common room with Remus Sirius and Peter, whom they had joined. Lily crawled into bed

where a bed pan had been left by, presumably, a house elf. That was very kind of them, it also

made her sheets nice and toasty warm, just what she needed after having been betrayed by a

guy whose feelings for you were not sure of, and one of your best friends.

She rolled over putting her face into her pillow and continued to cry, eventually falling

asleep. That night she did not dream, seemingly the effect of the spell binding, or perhaps after

effects of Madame Pompfreys sleeping drafts, but she had a calm, dreamless sleep none the

less, and awoke before any of the other girls the next morning.

She did not know what to do with herself, as it was a Sunday and there were no classes.

She did not want to be in the room with Alice when she woke up, so she left, hoping that the

great hall would be open for breakfast this early. It was not, of course, seeing as it was a good

hour before sensible people woke up at all on a noral school day.

Lily wrapped her cloak tightly around her body, shielding herself from the wind as she went

out onto the grounds for a walk around the lake, hoping she would not see anyone she knew.

There was a secluded corner of the lake where Lily often loved to go to be alone with her

thoughts. When she pushed aside the willow branches, however, she found that this was not only

her sanctuary, somene else had had the same idea as her. Before she could turn and run away

unnoticed...

Authors Note: Review to find out who it is....Oh, and p.s. whoever guesses right gets their own chapie and blah blah blah, same old story as before! Even though none of you will guess...mwahahaha Oh, and also, I only have one more chapter after this until I get home, and thats in a few weeks, so I might not post it if you don't review it...bwahhaha