Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all. I also don't own the Carnival Cruise line; JK doesn't own it either...

A Spring Fling

Chapter Five: Day Three, The Lord Provides

When Lily got to Spirals, people were already there just hanging out. Lily went to sit on the couch she was sitting on earlier, and within a few minutes, James came in and sat beside her.

They struck up a conversation, which seemed so simple to do between themselves, and then James saw that a few younger boys were playing a video game across the room.

"I'm going to try and beat those guys at the game okay?" he asked.

"Go ahead!" Lily grinned. "Wow." She thought, "You don't really need my permission, do you?"

She then saw Bella across the room with another boy.

"Oh boy." Thought Lily, "I feel sorry for Sirius. Really, Bella said that she had a boyfriend at home, and then she finds another one here?" She saw a glimpse of Sirius joking around with a few other boys, but she also saw him steal a pitiful glance at Bella.

"Hi Lily."

Lily turned and saw Ray sit down next to her.

"Oh, hi Ray."

"Hey, what's going on?"

"Not much. Just sitting around and seeing of anything interesting is going to happen."

"You mean with James?" Ray asked.

Lily was surprised that Ray knew so much about her life.

"Kind of." She replied. Looking over at James again, Lily realized again that James' muscles were perfectly toned out, and that playing quidditch would have given him that exact build. She shook her head; what would be the chances that James was a wizard? It was a million to one. But still, there was that million to one chance that he had his summer vacation an hour away from her house...

"Lily?"

Lily suddenly realized that Ray had been talking, but had no idea what about, so she just answered the question in a random answer.

"I think so."

Ray smirked.

"You have no idea what I asked, do you?"

Lily blushed. "Sorry, I kind of zoned out."

"So I noticed." Ray quipped. "So enthralled with James aren't you?"

"Was that your question?" asked Lily.

"Not quite." Replied Ray, "My question was "Are you and James going out yet"? The reason I knew you weren't listening to me is how would you "think so" that you were going out or not." She chuckled to herself.

Lily smiled.

"No, we're not going out."

"You think he's going to ask you? And if he does, you are going to say yes right?"

"How do you know so much about me?" Lily said jokingly, "I hope he's going to ask me out, though it would be hard with long-distance, and yes, I would accept his, well, offer."

Ray smirked, as James made his way back over and sat down.

Ray sneakily smiled, and said to Lily with a wink, (with James in perfect hearing distance), "Now if you would excuse me, I think there's a wall around here that needs to be examined."

Lily shook her head and smiled.

"Do you want to take a walk?" James asked as he came over.

Lily nodded, thinking that the place was getting a little too crowded anyway.

"Did you win?" she asked, motioning to the TV with the video game playing.

"Of course." James said with a smile.

The two walked around for quite a while, and soon ended up sitting down on a couch that was located to the side of the big hall which was the coming and going place of many people during the day, but the people thinned out as the evening wore on.

James sat on one end of the couch, and Lily carefully placed herself on the middle of it. She didn't want to sit on the other side of the couch, because she really didn't want to sit so far away, and because it might offend James and give him the idea that she wasn't interested in him; but on the other hand, she didn't want to sit right up next to him and shove on the fact that he was a sure prospect.

"So what are your friends like?" James asked curiously.

Lily tried hard to find the words to describe her friends, but she was so distracted at the moment, that she could barely think! Her eyes kept wandering to either his lips or his chest. James seemed to have no idea of this, and kept staring intently into Lily's eyes, which was also the reason for her lack of thought.

"I really can't say." Lily finally replied, "I'm horrible at describing things, the only thing I can really say about them is that they are different. My friends all... well, we all are..." she paused for a moment, silently willing herself not to reveal anything about her witch situation. She laughed. "We amuse ourselves in ways other people wouldn't think imaginable. Yep, they're definitely weird."

James smiled, seemingly content with her answer.

"What about your friends?" Lily asked, glad to change the subject, if she were allowed to talk, Lily would surely reveal her predicament without meaning to. It was in her nature to tell things she wasn't supposed to. Otherwise, she loved hearing James talk. His strong British accent made Lily smile and melt right into him.

Eventually, James said something that Lily didn't really understand, so she just smiled and nodded her head.

James smiled, and said, "You have no idea what I mean, do you?"

Lily laughed and shook her head no.

James explained what he meant and then said, "You did the right thing though, smiling and nodding. When you don't know what someone means, you just smile and nod, and they usually just think that you know what they're talking about. I do it often enough myself to know when people are doing it on me though."

Lily grinned.

"Plus, did you know it's contagious? I smile and nod" he paused, "and you just can't help but do it too after a second."

Lily laughed, "You're right! I just can't help but do it slightly." She nodded a bit herself. She found herself putting her arm on his shoulder to pat it jokingly. But before Lily knew what was happening, James had put his hand over her own.

James' brother John, and cousin Amanda joined them on a separate couch, and started talking.

Lily wanted to remove her hand from James' shoulder, as it was in an uncomfortable position, but she liked the feeling of his warm hand over her own, so she left it. Instead, she scooted just slightly closer. She then tuned into what Amanda was saying.

"...this guy, but he's, like, 16, and I'm only 14."

Lily smiled, and James voiced exactly what Lily was thinking.

"Well so are we, and look at us!"

Lily couldn't help a small blush creep across her cheeks as James gave her hand a little squeeze and let it go.

"Yea," Amanda was saying, "but it's different."

"Well who knows what happens when you're on Ecstasy..." Lily quipped, "I mean..." she put her hand up to her mouth as if she said something wrong, and then she gave a little wink as to show them that she meant the ship, although it sounded like it could be the drug.

They all started laughing.

"You could make so many hidden jokes about that!" James exclaimed, "Those jokes are so lame though; they're probably only funny because we're on Ecstasy."

They all erupted into laughter again.

Amanda got up, and John followed her, saying that it was probably time they went to bed.

James and Lily stayed on the couch a bit longer before getting up and walking around again. They kept their arms at their sides though their hands were itching for the other's.

Taking their walk, Lily and James decided to rest on the top deck and look at the stars. That night though, not many stars were in sight, because of thick fog that had chosen to rest over the ocean.

"Could use with a bit of a lumos spell now." James muttered.

Lily's eyes widened. "What did you say?"

"Na-nothing!" James stuttered. "I just said... that... that we could use some light. Or something, to move the fog out of the way."

Lily wasn't sure weather to believe him or not. She could pretty much bet on it that he had said "lumos spell", but then again, it could have just been her imagination making her hear what she wanted to hear. Lily thought for a moment, and then decided to shrug it off for the moment and think about it at a later time.

"Do you want to play ping-pong?" Lily asked.

James' eyes lit up.

"Sure! Bet I'll beat you." He said in a playful manner.

"I'm pretty sure you'll beat me as well!" Lily laughed.

They headed up to the ping pong courts, where James won a lot, but then notably worsened.

"You're not doing what I think your doing." Said Lily reproachfully.

James grinned.

"What?"

Lily sighed exasperatingly. "You're going easy on me. Come on, I hate it when people do that!"

After playing a bit longer, James had still not stopped going easy, so Lily caught the ball and game James a "meaningful" look.

James laughed and said "Oh, but it's so much fun!"

Finally they discarded the game and wandered around a bit more.

After a little, they ran into Lily's father and Petunia.

"There you are!" Lily's father exclaimed, "Why aren't you in the room watching the movie?"

Lily shrugged, just now remembering that there was a movie playing, "I already saw it, and it wasn't that interesting to me."

"Well you should always tell us where you are anyways." Replied Lily's dad. "And in any case, mom wants you to go to bed in 10 minutes."

Lily checked her watch regretfully, and saw that it was 10 minutes until 12:00.

She acknowledged her dad, and he walked away.

Lily put her head back and stretched her hand to the sky. "Why me?" she said jokingly.

James chuckled.

"I should probably just go now, so as not to irritate the mother figure." Lily sighed.

James agreed.

"We should meet somewhere tomorrow." He suggested.

"How about... 10:30 tomorrow morning at the pool?" Lily offered, and James agreed readily.

They smiled at each other and walked down the stairs to the hall of rooms.

"I'll walk you to your room." Said James.

Lily smiled, and was grateful for the kind act.

When they arrived at Lily's room, she turned towards James, as if to say goodbye. Before she had the chance though, James interrupted her.

"Do you want to hook-up during the cruise?" His eyes searched hers, as if the answer he desired was kept in the deep swirls of green that bored into his own eyes.

Lily smiled; she knew the question was going to come sooner or later, but now that it came, she wondered what should be her reply. She wondered if she should play hard to get, but then decided otherwise. Really, what would be the reason of playing hard to get, when she only had one more full day to see this boy in person until half a year of separation? In what seemed forever, but was only a matter of a second or so, Lily replied, "Do you want to hook-up for a little longer than that?"

James grinned, and Lily knew she had said the right thing.

"I wonder," he said, "would your parents be too terribly mad if I leaned over and kissed you right now?"

"I don't know." Lily toyed.

"Wanna find out?"

Lily nodded, smiling.

James leaned in, and their lips softly met. Lily's mind went swirling as all her desires sprang into thought. To her slight dismay, James pulled back after the quick brush of their lips. All Lily wanted to do was pull the raven haired boy closer, lock his lips with her own, and let out all her fiery passion; but she knew that it was inappropriate, having only known the boy for a couple of days. Instead she grinned, and said goodnight, knowing that the Lord had provided.

Hahahahahaha... shameless plug right here: Hey all, I have this story called "James' Story", and it's not really new, but I was wondering if you could take the time to read it. It's just one chapter long, so it wouldn't take that much out of your time, but I would really really like to know if it is good. It's been up for quite a while, but I only have 4 reviews and that makes me kind of sad:( So would you pleaseeeeeeee read it? Please? Oh and if you DO read it, would you please leave a review so I would KNOW that you read it? Thank you all SOOOOO much! I love you!

I'm sooo sorry, but I'm having a real hard time getting in the mood for writing the next chapter. I'll really try hard, but please forgive me if I don't get it up in the next 2 weeks!

All right everyone! I thank you so so so so much for all your reviews! And hey, I love thanking you all individually, so I'll do that. But wait, before I do that, I just want to say that about a couple weeks or so ago, (right after I updated the last chapter), I noticed that the first chapter was cut off right in the middle. If you read it when it was like that, how come no one told me??? But anyway, I fixed it now, so if it WAS cut off when you read it, you can now go back and read the rest of it, (maybe some things will make more sense.) (Hey Star19, maybe that was why the story didn't make sense to you at first...). Thank yous coming up:

Carmel March: I hope you like it!

Drizzer419: Thank you!

Brighton Baby: Really? That's very interesting! Thanks for the review!

Callista Silverheart: Ha! Really? I have blonde hair, and when I went to Ensnada, they didn't stare at me at all ;) But then again, it is a cruise town, where a lot of ships doc, and so I guess they get a lot of Americans there. Thanks for the review! (I hate bartering too)