Four – Oozing Charm . . .
"Wassamatter?" somebody asked from Verity's right. She hurriedly looked up to the head Boy, frowning curiously at her. Verity pushed out a noise of extreme irritation, as though she were dealing with a difficult child. Fine, it may be just acceptable to ask why someone was squatting with their ear sewed to a door, but Verity was trying to hear what was being said in the other side of wood! Honestly, some people were just sooo inconsiderate!
"Shhhh!!" she ordered and the confused expression on James's face deepened. Tutting, Verity flapped her hand in a sign that said she wanted him to get down to her level. James crouched down as well and put his ear to the door, although he couldn't hear a thing and was starting to think that Verity was on the run from representatives from St Mungo's Mental Ward.
"Whatever you do, don't open this door!" hissed Verity.
"Why?" asked James curiously.
"Well, if you must know," Verity continued, "Lily's in there with Amos."
"Oh," James said, wrinkling his nose in a revolted expression. He was just about to get up and ask what in the world Verity was doing eavesdropping on such a situation, and had half a mind to 'accidentally' walk in and interrupt whatever was going on in there, when Verity hissed like a goose again.
"Not like that, you sicko! Diggory just stormed up here, wanting to know what you and Lily had been doing all morning, she said nothing had happened-"
"Which it didn't, in case you were wondering," James put in.
"I know you're a perfect gentleman, James, Lily said so herself, but she told Diggory to calm down and asked why he was acting like such a frigging prat, and just now he's told her he doesn't wanna see her anymore!" Verity completed.
By the end of her narration, James's mouth was slightly open.
"Bloody Hell," he muttered quietly, shifting his position, she he could get a better ear-press, "What a nasty bastard!"
"Oh, don't pretend you're not happy about this, James," Verity said dismissively. James grinned.
"It was worth a try." On the other side of the door, after a long silence, he picked out Lily saying, in a weak voice:
"I'm sorry?"
Amos blew out of his nostrils in annoyance.
"I said, I don't want to see you again," he repeated in a rock-hard tone.
"Why?" asked Lily, she wasn't upset, she was more . . . bewildered.
"It's a lot of things," Amos said shortly, apparently not bothering to elaborate on it, "I just can't see you anymore."
"Well, I don't know why you're bothering now," Lily said in an irritated tone, the anger was slowly settling in. "I think I would like you to leave, Amos."
"Thank you," he replied, as if she were doing him a favour.
Like startled pigeons, James and Verity jumped away from the door as if it had just been infested with flesh-eating bacteria. They darted a little way down the corridor and hid behind a suit of armour, watching as Diggory emerged from the Head's Dorms and disappeared down the hall in the opposite direction. Once his footsteps had stopped reaching their ears and James had stopped miming the action of throwing daggers at his back, he and Verity stepped out from behind their hiding place and James started jogging towards the double doors.
"Oi, what do you think you're doing?" demanded Verity, grabbing his sleeve and holding him back, James struggled for all he was worth but it was no go.
"I'm going in there!" he declared dangerously, "I have to . . . I need to . . ."
"You have to, you need to what, James?" asked Verity. "Listen, Lily's not in the best of moods right now and you, putting it extremely mildly, are not one of her favourite people, so if you want to be out of the Hospital Wing to see your first match, I'd recommend staying out here, while I pack her up and make sure she's up her staircase, and then I'll come down and let you know when the coast is Lilo-free, all right?"
"I suppose," James said, while he gave the password and allowed Verity to slip into his dorm.
Once the door had clicked shut, he sighed in a hopeless way. What Verity had said was completely true of course, he couldn't just march in there and try to comfort Lily, she hated him! He wasn't her friend, he had no social standing with her whatsoever that would keep her from either closing herself off or cursing him. Her love life had nothing to do with him except for the fact that the thing he wanted most was for it to revolve around him, and she wanted about as much to do with him as a professional Wizards' Gardener wanted to do with Gnomes.
There was nothing he could do to make Lily feel better . . .
Yes there was . . .
At the click of the door, Lily spun round to face whoever had entered. She had been expecting James, and had been preparing to flee up her stairs, but she had probably never been more relieved to see Verity in her life.
"Hey Lils," whispered Verity.
"I don't have anything to say," said Lily sadly, "To him or to anyone." Now she had no one to be angry at, it seemed all her anger had left the room with Diggory. God, how she detested feeling miserable.
"Come on, let's get you into bed," Verity said.
Once Lily was down under her quilt with her hair snaking among the folds of her pillow, Verity sat at the foot of the bed and sighed.
"If it's any consolation, I always hated him," she remarked.
"Verity!" exclaimed Lily, "Shame on you! That's not making me feel any better."
"Sorry," apologised Verity, fiddling with the quilt.
"Actually, yes it is," grinned Lily, "Say it again, please." Verity sighed theatrically, as if the conversation were taking place fifteen seconds later.
"You know, I always hated him," she repeated, this time though, a smile on her face.
"You know?" Lily asked, closing her eyes and rolling onto her side, "Me too."
As Verity skipped down the stairs, she found herself not feeling at all sorry for Lily, well, maybe a little sorry for all the time she'd wasted on that pillock, but otherwise, quite optimistic.
In her eyes, (as well as everyone else's probably) it was obvious James was completely smitten with Lily from absolutely ages ago, and it was amazing what sort of good it had done him. He'd stopped cursing people in the hallways, for instance, when Lily had yelled at him to consider how he would feel if he was cursed in the hallways for no apparent reason. He'd stopped acting like he owned the school, when Lily had shouted at him, saying if that was the case, she'd have attempted to plant a couple of bombs under it by now. He'd also stopped acting like he was higher than everyone else, because Lily had screamed at him that he wasn't more elevated or mightier than anyone else, he was in fact, lower for thinking so.
Verity remembered with a smile how Lily'd proved she was mightier than James any day, by flinging the mightiest Purple-Humpback curse that Hogwarts had seen in a good many years at him. Struggling to cover up her sniggers, Verity opened the double doors of the Heads' Dorm, seeking the object of her musings.
Where'd he go? She thought, puzzled. The corridor was as deserted as Professor Vector's Arithmancy Club on Friday evenings. Poor Vector, didn't realise most students actually had a life.
After whispering James's name for about thirty seconds, and expecting him to jump out from behind a suit of armour just to terrify her, Verity shrugged and closed the door with a faint click. She then went up Lily's stairs to root through her closet in search of the Head Girl's spare nightdress and prepared herself for a night on the downstairs sofa.
"Psst! Oi! Wake up!"
The Fat Lady jiggled awake in her portrait like a plate of raspberry-flavoured jelly in the midst of an earthquake.
"Vi, shove those golf-balls back in the teapot and fix your lipstick!" she shouted as she blinked bemusedly. James raised an eyebrow.
"Pardon me?" he asked. Dear Merlin, if he was ever painted as a portrait and hung up on a Hogwarts wall, he hoped he would never find out what that was all about.
"Oh, it's you, Potter," the Fat Lady said, "Don't you know it's incredibly rude and bad-mannered to wake someone when they're sleeping?"
"Well, in all honesty, Madam," grinned James, "I've not had any experience in waking anyone when they're unconscious or dead, would that be more courteous?"
"Oh you," scolded the Fat Lady good-naturedly, "Anyway, what have come down here for? In case you haven't noticed, or maybe you're drunk, you don't live here anymore."
"Aha, but my best friends do!" James said in a crafty voice, "Would you mind awfully, keeping a secret for us?"
"My dear Head Boy," the Fat Lady said with her hand to her bosom, "The entire reason I'm here is because I can keep secrets! You don't see me blurting the password to everyone I meet, do you? Now spill the gossip!"
"Well, you know Lily Evans, the new Head Girl . . ." started James, before he was interrupted.
"Do I indeed?" laughed the Fat Lady, lapping up the gossip like a kitten laps milk. "Such a dear, always so polite, never went around waking people who were happily asleep . . ."
"Yeah, all right," said James, giving his glasses a gentle shove further up his nose, "Anyway, that dickhead Amos Diggory just broke up with her, her best friend told me . . ."
"Oh good!" exclaimed the Fat Lady, "Never liked him, awfully rude. Got quite shirty with me one time when I wouldn't let him in. He said he wanted to see Lily, but I was having none of it . . ."
"You're an inspiration to us all," James said monotonously, "Moving on, he was a wanker to her just now, and Mr Black, Mr Lupin, Mr Pettigrew and I want to show our appreciation that he decided to leave her alone at last."
"You especially, no doubt," the Fat Lady said in an amused, calculating look, "I can see it all over your face."
"Leave it out," James said pointedly.
"There's no need to say the password in that voice, Potter," The Fat Lady said, "Go on, get in, get out, and don't come back until Diggory's drowning in his own humiliation."
Ten minutes later, all four Marauders were slipping out of the portrait hole, with the Map in front of their noses.
"I've always liked giving thank you presents," mused Sirius with a smile as they strolled through the castle.
"Is Lily all right?" Remus asked, "Did you see her?"
"No," James said, suddenly miserable, "Verity barred me from the dorm until she'd bundled Lilliputian up her stairs. She must be quite upset then," he added after a sad pause.
"Ah well," Sirius said, "We'll just have to make sure that whatever we do to Diggory tonight is funny enough to cheer her up, eh?"
"Yeah," James said glumly.
"Or at least funny enough to cheer him up," Remus whispered to Sirius and Peter.
Sunday was usually a half-day at Hogwarts. Most students didn't get up till just before lunch time, so the house elves had taken to serving breakfast four hours later than they would have on any other day. The rest of the day was usually taken up with homework, or ignoring it, as the recipient may choose.
So, just after one o'clock that Sunday, the population of Hogwarts was making sleepy conversation at the late breakfast table.
"I cannot believe you slept on the sofa last night," Lily sighed to Verity. The girls were sitting with the Marauders, because Lily didn't have the heart to argue with anyone today, least of all Verity, who had been as sweet as syrup to her last night.
"How can you not believe it?" asked Verity, in the middle of devouring a plate of scones topped with strawberry jam. "You were the one who woke me up by chucking a load of icy water on my head!"
"I'm really sorry about that," Lily said, "You wouldn't wake up! Why was that, d'you think?"
"I honestly have no clue," Verity said, hoping she wasn't letting on that when the Marauders had crashed into the Heads' Dorm late last night, she had weaselled their plan out of them, (well, mostly Remus). Then, after James had gone up to bed and Sirius, Peter and Remus had left for the Gryffindor Tower, there had been a knock at the door and when she had tossed the covers off her and opened it, the latter had been standing there with an incredibly embarrassed, painfully shy expression on his face.
"Remus is dead tired too," Peter said, turning the attention to the boy opposite him, who was rocking back and forth, alternately staring at Verity and nodding forward in exhaustion. When he heard his name, his head snapped up and he started looking for the coffee mug.
"Bloody hell," James said smiling, "You're right, he's completely conked out!"
"I have no comment for any of you," the poor boy muttered, sloshing black coffee straight down his throat, much to the disgust of most of his company. Lily smiled however, when she saw Verity was not even the slightest bit appalled, and was secretly gazing at Remus with what may be termed as more tenderness than the meat of a free range chicken. It made her a bit sick actually, after the whole fiasco with Amos.
With considerable more caffeine in his bloodstream, Remus seemed to be doing all right for the rest of breakfast and he even started laughing when something entered the Great Hall that did not look human.
It looked like Amos Diggory, fair enough, but he seemed to be covered in some sort of thick, green, translucent gloop that left a thin trail of sticky mess wherever he went. He didn't notice when various eating implements went clattering onto plates as people dropped them in shock, because a first year Gryffindor had just run into the Hall, slipped on the gloop trail on the floor and went crashing into him.
Diggory spun round, flinging large splats of see-through gunge onto the Ravenclaw table, (whose occupants pulled faces in revulsion), and glared at the first year, who squealed and jumped backwards, staring at his green, slimy hands.
"What the sod's the matter with you?" Diggory demanded angrily, "Look where you're going and go take a shower!" He held up his arms, inspecting himself all over. "Good thing you didn't get any on me, you little twat."
"Mr Diggory!" exclaimed Professor Sprout, standing up from the high table in anger, "Such language will not be tolerated! Apologise to Mr Court immediately!"
Diggory frowned and looked up form the horror-struck first year to find the whole Hall staring at him. His Head of House's orders were drowned out by his indignation. These people were looking at him as if he had been cursed or something!
"What are you all looking at?" he demanded of the Hall. Out of the corner of her eye, Lily just caught James nip out his wand and mutter,
"Finne Persona Sola Transparencia."
Diggory was patting his face in worry he had something stuck to it, but on his third pat, his hand went 'splat'. Yelling in wordless terror, he looked down and spun round a few times, trying to see where it all was, where it was all coming from. The laughter in the hall was as loud as the crowd at small, Saturday morning Quidditch matches, even the mucky first year was laughing. As Diggory ran out of the Hall, James stood up and started clapping, shouting,
"A round of applause, ladies and gentlemen, please! That was Amos Diggory, now officially the biggest slime-ball on the planet!" A huge ovation was added to the laughter in the hall, as the Ravenclaws smiled and performed cleaning charms on their crockery. James sat down and glanced at Lily. He found her staring at him, her expression unreadable, then she frowned slightly and turned back to her plate, picking up an apple from the fruit bowl and leaving the Hall.
Verity stared at the Marauders, who were watching her go, she bit her lip when they turned back to her.
"I think that was pushing it," she said worriedly.
Lily gathered her robes around her shins as she gingerly stepped over the gunge left by her former boyfriend. Urgh, sometimes James was just ghastly and irritating at the same time. What had he been thinking? Now everyone would figure out that Amos had broken up with her, and all hell would break loose, probably.
She glared at a patch of slime that hung, dripping off the banister of a staircase, then she got back to finding her way to the Heads' Dorms and took stock of her surroundings. Bugger!
The problem with living in a place that had moving staircases, (apart from the fact that it gave you quite a shock the first time stone moved from under your feet), was that it was like being a foreigner suddenly being plonked in the middle of the London Underground. Certain staircases went to certain floors and you could only get to a certain platform using certain staircases that could be found coming from certain corridors and then you had to know when they did this and this could be certain times of the day, certain weeks in a month, or even certain years in a century.
Lily sighed as she sat herself down on a step, propped her chin up with her hand, elbow on her knee, and waited for the staircase to move to the corridor she wanted, all the while staring at the green gunge that oozed to the carpet in a thin, icky thread. Filch was definitely going to kill James for this. Serves the git right, thought Lily bitterly.
The stairs started moving with a jerk and Lily's hand flew out from under her chin to steady herself – right into a puddle of gloop. Eeewww, she thought, getting even more irritated. What an idiot! He shouldn't have pulled such a completely thoughtless joke!
The staircase came to a halt and Lily got up, wanting to get to a basin as fast as she could and wash her hand. Stupid, immature, childish, tactless joke! she fumed, until all her steam had been blown off and she had arrived at the Heads' Dorms. Reaching for the door knob with her clean hand, she stopped and held up her left, rubbing the jelly-like gloop gently between her finger, and smiled slightly, remembering the look on Amos's face when he caught sight of himself.
Bloody funny though, she thought, and entered her room to find some tissues.
That night, James knocked on the door of Lily's staircase and chewed his lip nervously. The door opened and he was met with the expressionless face of Lily. The look on her face went from neutral to hostile faster than a goose's when some innocent toddler wonders over to Regent's Park duck pond with a fist full of bread.
"What do you want?" she asked resignedly, as if the sight of him had just ruined her day. James was determined to un-ruin it though, so he presented her with a bit of paper.
"McGonagall came to find me today, she says we have the first rounds tonight before we can deal them out to the prefects tomorrow," he said, not mentioning he had actually asked for that night's slot so he could have a chance to talk to Lily without a door in her hands that she could slam in his face. Her wondrous green eyes scanned the Deputy Headmistress's handwriting, after which she shoved it back against James's chest and turned around, tutting.
"I'm going to get my cloak," she called irritably. James took a deep breath, and wished himself luck.
He thought he should give her a little time to calm down and get all the thoughts of taking her wand to him out of her head before he said anything at all, but he was finding it quite hard to walk alongside Lily when she was angry at him, and he could actually do something to fix it.
"Look, Lilo, about this morning, I didn't really overdo it, did I?"
"I think you did, Potter," Lily said coldly, "The fact that you would think about doing something like that is overdoing it, did you think I needed cheering up or something? That I would be sad because some prick decided he wanted to stomp all over my heart? That I'd be heartbroken because someone thought he'd destroy two years of my unquestioned attention at the drop of a hat? That I'd be upset because I feel I've wasted the last two years with someone who wasn't even worth a second look?" James didn't want lie to her, so he didn't.
"Well . . . to be honest Lilo, you do sound quite sad, heartbroken and upset," James said in quite earnest.
"Well, I'm not!" shouted Lily, not caring that she might wake up a few people. James may have promised himself never to lie to Lily, but she was lying to him now, he could see it written all over her face.
"OK, Lilo, whatever you say," James said soothingly, "I'm sorry about today, I was only trying to get my own back and cheer you up a bit but it looks like you didn't need cheering up. Apparently you're fine."
"Are you saying I'm not?" demanded Lily. No, you're telling me you're not, thought James, I can read your feelings all over your face.
"Not if you say you're not," he said. Wow, he could become Minister of Magic with all this diplomatic talking he was doing.
"And what the frig do you mean, 'get my own back?'" she asked again in the same tone. James thwacked himself mentally with a sledgehammer, he hadn't realised that had slipped out.
"I wanted to . . . pay him back for the way he treated you, like you said, he threw two years of your hard work in the bin."
"I don't even know how you found out about all this!" Lily accused him, "And you know what? I don't even want to know, I know you have that cloak and the map, you were probably in the room!"
"I wouldn't do that," James said calmly. Maybe two years ago I would have, but not now.
"Of course not," Lily said sarcastically.
"No, seriously, Verity told me last night when I came back," James explained, tactfully leaving out the bit where he and Verity were eavesdropping.
"She told you?" Lily asked, James nodded. "Oh."
They had neared the end of their rounds, as they had arrived at the Entrance Hall and from there it was up to the Heads' Dorms again.
"I'm really sorry," James said again, about everything, "You know that don't you?" Lily looked at him for a moment, and James was pretty sure that he was displaying all his thoughts on his face for her to read.
"I know."
"Will you forgive me one day?" She looked away.
"Maybe."
"Hey look!" James said as they passed the notice board. "Hogsmeade next weekend! Will you come with me?" he said out of habit, half hopeful as usual.
Lily looked at the notice and her eyes widened. It was a shock, but for a moment there, she had seriously considered saying yes. Maybe it was because during her first day in two years without a boyfriend, she missed having one to the extent that anyone would do. Maybe it was because, after such a long time with the same person, she wanted something short and meaningless, which James would undoubtedly give her, his other girlfriends hadn't lasted long.
Frowning, Lily slapped herself inside. She had just come out of something really big and this was a perfect excuse to refuse!
"No!" she said, with half-hearted indignation, "What is wrong with you?"
"Sorry," James said quietly, ashamedly, as Lily raised her hand wearily, to rub her eyes. That really had been the wrong thing to say, as it always was. Merlin, she looked really tired. Wondering if he would get away with it, he carefully put his arm round her shoulders and steered her along the notice board. Lily leaned against his shoulder, too tired to Chinese burn the offending arm or curse it off. It had been an awful day, and oddly, some of the awfulness seemed to evaporate in such close proximity to James. Maybe it was the reassurance that no matter what happened, some people, and their feelings towards you, always stayed the same.
Lily was about ready drop off there on the Head Boy's shoulder, but as she blinked in exhaustion, her eyes caught on her name somewhere in the passing notice board. If she were rushing past it, she may have thought it was a list of prefects or something, but it wasn't, it was a copy of Hogwarts Hearsay.
Like a shot, she jumped off James's shoulder and grabbed the piece of parchment tacked to the cork panel. A new one appeared in it's place as Lily scanned the contents, gasped in horror and took off towards the Heads' Dorm, shooting James a hateful look as she ran.
"Lily!" James shouted, "Lily!" and ran after her when she didn't turn round. He caught her just as she was opening the door to her staircase, the notice crumpled in her hand and anger blotching her face. "Lily, what's wrong? What's the mat-?" he started but stopped when she pulled out her wand. He'd had enough bad experiences with that swishy, ten and a quarter inch willow to last him his lifetime, and wasn't about to start on his afterlife.
"This is what happens when you do unthinking, brainless stunts like you did this morning!" she hissed, slapping the notice on the front of her door and stabbing the top with her wand, leaving a shiny, golden tack there. Then she slammed the door and left James staring at the notice and it's contents.
Lily Evans and Amos Diggory, Hogwarts' most famous couple have split, as reporter for Hogwarts Hearsay Rita Skeeter has discovered! On the Saturday night, Diggory visited the Heads' Dorms intending to visit his girlfriend, only to find her in a passionate snog with the Head Boy, James Potter . . .
James didn't need to read any more to know that he was in the deepest shite he'd ever been in with Lily before. Swearing colourfully under his breath, he slammed his forearms against the wood of her door and banged his head against it, swearing louder when he pulled his head back, baring the imprint of a tack on his forehead.
a/n: It is so weird to be in on a Saturday night. I haven't been in a Saturday night for five weeks. Five weeks ago, I was at Jackie's party, then I went to Barcelona, then I went to Katie's, then I went to Holly, Esther and Liberty's party, and THEN I went to see the Killers. I'm beginning to forget what my parents look like. Oh well.
The answer to my petite guessing game was that I have 5 courseworks. Five! That's F-I-V-E, five, cinque, cinco, pente . . . More specifically, history, religion, physics, art and English.
Fabulous.
Call-Sugarhigh-Police: Join me in my bid to get savvy enshrined! Someone should start an email petition.
Sabine Strohem-Moss: Yes, years from now, old ladies will be huddled around their tea muttering in a smug tone the exact words you used 'I never did like him anyway'. :D
The ORIGINAL Meathead: Right, let's go through this methodically.
will the flying lessons help her to understand how much James likes quidditch?
I think that they'll definitely help.
and will it help her realise how good at quidditch james really is and that he actually has a reason to be arrogant about his quidditch skills?
Ditto.
and how will the other team members react when they see how much of a natural lily is?
I dunno, they'll probably assume James worked his arse off to teach her, (because of course he Luuuurves her) and so it should really shock them all that much :D
oh and i really loved the part on the train to Hogwarts with sirius thowing the sweets at her and her catching them and then james realising and then when he kissed her hand
Cheers muchly for the review!
Smay: I reckon he'll have a few more parts yet (see above).
LJstagflower4e: Ya, I mean like, they totally weren't right for each other, and like, have did you SEE the state of him in this chapter? I don't THINK so. :D
AngelinaWeasley1: Thanks so much for you review. Lily's never been depicted like this? I'm sure she has . . . somewhere.
Anne-Janet: Thanks love, yeah hang your coat up behind the door. Milk? Sugar?
shortywithbrains: I LUFF all my reviewers. I luff them because they cheer me up whenever I'm having a bad day. Let me let you in on a little secret. On my stats page, I check the number of fabulous people that have me on their favs list and I write down the number on the back of my hand, and I look at it to cheer me up. I know that's really sad, but I can't help it. You do all the bashing you want honey, but leave enough for me to have a go.
Tsusetsu: Am I now? Cheers, luff. Hell sucks. Remember to move here.
babeephatangel: Indeed he is. I wish I didn't have to write people like him.
Taika: Thank you for all your notes, your smiles lit up my day. Yes, James is so whipped, it's almost pathetic, isn't it?
soccerchic1989: I was wondering who would pick up the sexual connotations on that :D. The Killers were amazing!! I'm totally serious, go and buy their album. They have a kind of indie rock thing going on and I luff them almosy as much as the Libertines, which is really saying something since I would gladly through myself off a bridge if the Libertines would make another album and Pete and Carl would get back together . . . sigh Anyway, listen to the Killers because they are great. So great, in fact, that I bought a T shirt, even at the extortionate price of £18.
Flame Of Desire: Thanks, dude, I'll update asap.
vickiicky: I'm sure your fics aren't crap, and I would check them out if I had any bloody free time. I don't know about deleting fics, I used to want to delete my uber-crap first fic, but then I discovered looking back on it was kinda fun. Like I think 'At least I don't write like THAT any more.' So just keep going, if you enjoy it. Hm . . . I don't think you'd quite fit into the scheme of things but maybe I'll write you a little paragraph here to make up for it.
Victoria Pomeroy, who was blonde, blue eyed and (according to her) a total weirdo had just flown from the library where she had just heard a whispered conversation between some fourth year and that guy in her house who always put sugar in his pumpkin juice at breakfast. What this conversation comprised of was essentially that Amos Diggory had dumped Lily Evans without any valid reason and was now the victim of a Marauders' joke for all his efforts. Driven by an overly-developed sense of justice, or maybe just a plain hero complex, Victoria hurried through the corridors, trying to find someone she knew so that she could talk to someone about this groundbreaking school scandal.
Turning a corner near the Hufflepuff Common Roon, she came across an odd vision. There was the object of the gossip himself, dripping in some manner of green gunge and trying in vain to rid himself of the filthy substance. Victoria ambled over, trying not to laugh. At her approach he looked up with a thunderous glare.
'What are you looking at?' he demanded. Victoria smirked, as if the answer wasn't obvious. Then she decided to drop her school bag on the carpet beside her, pull back her fist and knock that sulky glower straight off his face. There was a nice, echoing 'smack' sound as her knuckles connected with his cheekbone and when Diggory was suitably sprawled on the floor, Victoria leaned ominously over him and delivered the following speech:
'I'd better watch it, if I were you, mate. In case you didn't know, Lily Evans has friends, and now she has considerably more than you.'
Picking up her school bag, the blonde hopped over the floored boy and continued on her way. Some way down the corridor, she looked at her victorious hand, which was rather unattractively covered in slime.
'Ew.'
Have fun.
She Devil: Don't we all, honey?
foxyie xox: Do you? Thank you very much. I think James is going to have redeem himself pretty quickly. I'm sure they'll be more slip ups to come.
FrighteninglyObsessed: It's not getting worse? Weh-hey!
Only Secret: Don't we all? There's a queue here, you know. :D
Tracey: Hehe, thanks, don't wear yourself out with all the jumping. Actually, I don't update all that often, do I? Nevermind. That's so totally true. Girls are a mystery too. That's probably why they don't understand us, because even we don't understand ourselves, and why we don't understand them, because we hardly understand ourselves. It's a wonder anyone gets born around here, that's what I say.
Coursework is the work of the antichrist. How it works is: I have exams . . . lots and lots and lots of panic-inducing, nightmare-giving, piss-yourself-with-fear exams. And coursework is work the exams board give you to do during the year so that if you don't get a good mark on your exams, it proves you at least know the material enough to write it down out of the timed conditions. Or it proves that you can go onto those websites that sell pre-written coursework illegally, but why quibble?
Camillekiss: OMG, don't die! For the love of fluff, why are reviewers always threatening to kill themselves?
siriusforeva: Indeed it is. Rejoice, good people of fandom. waves banner
iluvdraco4eva: You flatter me too much. blushes
kiwislushie: Thanks for your comments on James. I like lovable!James, he's funnier than arsehole!James. snuggles lovable!James
milky way bar: Oh yes, it really does. People pay attention when you write an 81 chaptered fic, believe me, honey. :D
Cat: Indeed, good riddance! Thanks for the note!
Next chappy:
The atrocious article aftermath. Whose fault is it anyway?
Just what is going between Remus and Verity? Obviously, it has nothing to do with pyjamas. cough cough
And Snape enters . . . fire in the hole! 'Nuff said.
Love from your thoughtful and considerate author.
