"What do you mean?" Dumbledore asked.
"Sni-Snape, called me a..." she trailed off. "A-you know what. And James attacked him."
"A you know what?" Dumbledore asked, clearly not understanding what she had meant.
"He insulted her blood," James butt in indignantly.
"He did," Lily nodded.
"Well, then I shall speak with Mr. Snape about this. James, you cannot get away without punishment, after all you did start the fight. You shall be serving with Professor Agontis again," Dumbledore said, with a slight twinkle in his eyes.
"Thanks Professor," James said, slightly surprised by the change in events, but happy nonetheless.
"You two go back to class now," Dumbledore said, dismissing them with a wave of his hand.
As they walked back to the dungeons, James could not help but keep glancing at Lily out of the corner of his eye.
"Lily, I want to say thank you," he said.
"No, thank you," she whispered.
"If I may ask," he said, but then hesitated. She nodded her consent. "Well, why did you help me? I thought you hated me."
"I have watched a change come over you, James," she said softly. "During these last three weeks, you have become the person I that I always knew you were, but never showed."
"Lily, I want you to know how sorry I am," he murmured. "I've been such an idiot these last six years."
"When you stood up for me today, you made up for everything you ever did," she said with a smile.
Agontis told James after class that he had suspected that Severus had started the fight by taunting him, but everything appeared that James had just started beating Severus up for no reason. Snape would be in the hospital wing for some time, and news traveled around quickly that Snivellus had finally been pounded for calling Lily Evans a mud-blood one too many times.
At dinner, Lily sat down by James.
"Hey," she said cheerfully, loading her plate with a healthy scoop of mashed potatoes.
"Hey," Remus replied, glancing at James, and then at Lily.
"Hi," James said as he hugged her.
"What is going on?" Peter asked, completely stupefied, his mouth hanging open to reveal masticated carrots.
"Hi, I'm Lily," Lily said, holding out her hand.
"I'm Peter," Peter gulped, swallowing his carrots quickly, and taking her hand in his and shaking it.
"Nice to meet you," she said with a wide smile, turning back to her food. Peter glanced at Remus in question, but Remus shrugged.
"What the hell, Lily?" Eirinn Watsind asked, hands on her hips, blue eyes accusatory, after stalking over.
"I'll tell you about it later," Lily sighed. She took a sip of her pumpkin juice while Eirinn sat down. Eirinn glared at James, whom felt slightly uncomfortable, but said nothing.
Several of Lily's gang came over and sat with them, and most of them were amazingly cordial, though Eirinn remained chilly throughout the meal. Sirius did not sit with them.
"What's wrong with Sirius?" Joelle Lin asked, motioning to Sirius, whom was sitting with some of the older Weasleys. Remus shrugged.
"Sirius and I are sort of in a spat," James said hesitantly.
"Ooh. That's bloody awful," Joelle said, clucking somewhat like a mother hen. "The Marauders fighting amongst themselves? What's the world coming to?" James felt the same way, and nodded his head in agreement.
James walked Lily back to the Common Room after they both finished eating.
"Hey Lily," James said awkwardly as they neared the portrait. "Can I talk to you a little privately?" She nodded, and he walked over her over to a private corner, far from the prying view of the other Gryffindors.
"James, what is it?" she asked.
"Lily, um..." he paused. "Would you like to go somewhere with me?"
"Where?" she asked, confused.
"I dunno, Hogsmeade, maybe?" he said, feeling slightly dejected. She smiled in realization, her green eyes sparkling.
"Oh, James, I'd love to," she laughed, taking his hand firmly in her's. He grinned, and couldn't believe his luck. He'd finally gotten to hold the hand of the girl whom he had been madly in love with since his first year at Hogwarts.
When James and Lily walked into the Common room, hand in hand, as if on cue, the entire room erupted in cheers and hoots. Both of them flushed hotly.
"Go on, kiss!" Sirius yelled from the stairs, flashing them his infamous grin. Lily blushed furiously.
"Yeah, come on!" Arthur catcalled. James shook his head. He took a seat on a couch nearby the roaring fire, and she sat beside him, looking at him apprehensively.
"Why not?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I didn't think you'd like it," he confessed, a bead of sweat running down the back of his neck.
"Why not?"
"I dunno, you're a girl!" he stammered under her wry gaze.
"And?" she asked humorously.
"I dunno..." he trailed off.
Suddenly, she grabbed his ears, and pulled him in for an intense kiss.
"I have been wanting to do that for three weeks now," she whispered in his ear after he pulled away for a breath of air.
"I've been wanting to do that for six years now!" he laughed, and leaned down to kiss her again.
James staggered up the stairs to his dormitory, scarcely believing what he'd just done. He swung the door to his dorm open with a bang, and flopped onto his bed, staring up at the canopy.
"Hey," Sirius said, sitting down beside his friend. The others had not yet come to the room for bed, and were currently wrecking havoc on Arthur Weasley's room.
"Hey," James replied.
"I saw you snogging Evans," Sirius said with a slight laugh.
"Yup," James answered comfortably, smiling smugly.
"You know, you were right about the growing up thing. I talked to my uncle Alphard. He says that you can be mature, and have fun at the same time," Sirius confessed.
"I know," James said.
"Good," Sirius said, patting James' dark head.
"Don't pat me," James grumbled. "You're the dog."
Fin
Stupid me, I just finished rereading the guidelines and realized that we are no longer aloud to use the chapter system for posting author's notes. AGH! and I'd just typed out my long winded thank you letter and put it on as chapter six. So, sorry to all, and I'm going to copy past this in.
Okay, here it goes.
I'm sorry to all my readers, but chapter five, was the last chapter of In Love and War.
Tragic, is it not?
But, as we all say, the show must go on. And I must continue with my other writing aspirations.
So, this is for everyone who helped me with In Love and War. They're in no order, so don't have a strop if you're at the bottom. You're all equal in my heart. (sorry that was undeniably sappy, and if you decide that it isn't worth it to search for your name here, then by all means drop this and go read someone else's, because dramatic is my middle name. no, actually, it isn't, but I like to pretend it is.)
Anna:
You are possibly the most annoying sister a girl has ever had. But… You edit my stories and suffer through my horrible grammatical errors, so for this, I love you. Yes, you do go through and delete important paragraphs on accident, and leave random notes in the text and forget about them, and then I find them three years later and go 'what the hell?' Yes, you have your flaws, but mine are much more grievous.
ShadowMoony:
Your lovely and very cheerful reviews buoyed my flagging spirits when I was slogging through the last chapters. When I read your first review, I remember thinking, now this is one very cheerful person. Thank you for all your support, for everytime I read one of your lovely and wonderful reviews, I skipped around the house screaming 'someone appreciates me!' Thank you for supporting the author, for if you hadn't, this story wouldn't have been finished.
NFlora:
Your reviews were extremely helpful and enlightening. I enjoyed receiving them, you would be a very excellent editor. You should try it someday, I am sure that I would not be the only one very grateful.
Blodeuedd:
Slap slap. I challenge you to a duel! Mwa ha ha. Arwen and Faramir say hi, and that Jenn is definitely absolutely nuts, and that ohmygod Aragorn, will someone kill please kill her… Do we have a duel to the death? At school, on Monday?
sum nox:
What would Bill think if he found out we wrote these absolutely stupid and very wasteful of time stories. He might just dump you. Just kidding, darling. That would be very sad if he did. Well, for you at least. Just kidding just kidding, I prefer my head on my shoulders thank you very much.
Extra special thanks to oAngel85o, NFLora, MPMP Princess, and Smiley99:
For although only one of you has ever left reviews on my pages, it is an honor and a privilege to be on your Author Alert, and I thank you most heartily. A faithful reader is like a box of chocolates… Or is it life is like a box of chocolates? I don't know, Forest Gump confuses me. Everything is a box of chocolates! Okay, sorry, just a little hyper. If you take me off your Author Alert after this, I wouldn't blame you.
SMH:
I adore your work and have been reading your Lily/James fics for a good five months now. No, you probably haven't decided to read my very pathetic and strangely short fic, but I'm going to give a shout out to you anyway, simply for being a source of inspiration.
Kisses and hugs to anyone I forget at the moment, you're not really forgotten you're…. well. Forgotten. But anyhow, that's beside the point. My mother is screaming something about lunch and I have to run, so everyone thank you thank you thank you for helping me to write this fic, it was fun to write it, but it was even more fun to get your comments on it.
For anyone who was hoping for another chapter, I'm dreadfully sorry. I'm probably not going to do a sequel because, after all, we know what happens. Or at least I hope you know. If you don't… Well, this is not the time and place to berate you. Anyhoo, if I can scrounge up the time, maybe I'll do a epilogue.
If you want to tell me I'm stupid and that you don't appreciate me at all, I would welcome a review. (I like reviews, even if they're evil mean and nasty, to think that someone took time out of their day just to make me feel bad is really quite interesting.) And if you feel that we might have other things to discuss besides my writing, like waterpolo or LOTR, or something, my email is fanfiction email is
TTFN:
Anglachel
and of course,
Arwen and Faramir (the trusty alter-egos)