I'll Cry These Tears
Chapter Nine - Incompletion
"Are you going to tell me what was going on then?" James whispered to Lily in the middle of Transfiguration. "And what were you doing wandering the halls alone anyway?"
"I hate to sound ungrateful, Potter, but I believe that is not any of your business," Lily whispered furiously and turned back to her work before Professor McGonagall could utter a word of warning. James frowned before he too turned back to his work.
"Was he insulting you again, Evans?" James asked ten minutes later, getting nothing but a frustrated sigh in reply.
"Evans"
"Just leave it, Potter!" Lily reprimanded loudly, surprising the rest of the class in the relative silence. Looking sheepish, Lily turned and muttered a quiet apology to Professor McGonagall before ushering James a look of loathing.
"Whatever is the matter with you?" Amelia asked Lily as they finished the last lesson of that day, Lily having been in an incredibly bad mood the entire time.
"Nothing's the matter," Lily snapped, looking chagrined. "I hate it when people assume something's the matter when, on the contrary, everything's just bloody fabulous!" Lily fastened her pace, eager to get back to the common room, back to her room, back to her bed. But there was no escaping Amelia's unwavering gaze that held a million questions. A million questions that Lily just couldn't answer - not now.
"Either you tell me what's wrong, Lily Evans, or I won't talk to you for another week!"
Lily turned stopped walking and turned to look at Amelia. There was a glint of humor in her eyes and Lily slightly despised her for it. How could she seem so happy and carefree when Lily's world as she knew it was breaking and falling to pieces around her?
Spitefully, she turned back and carried on walking. "Suit yourself then," Lily called over her shoulder and missed Amelia's shocked look. Let her interpret that as she wished, Lily decided. She could shrug it off, the most likely scenario, or she could take offense. Either way, Lily didn't particularly care right at that moment.
Amelia never got the chance to catch up and ask what Lily had meant. Lily had practically run back to the common room as soon as she had disappeared around a corner. She had made it back in record time, ignored James calling her name and sprinted up the stairs two at a time, slamming her door just as Amelia came bursting through the portrait hole.
"Where is she?" she questioned loudly, looking about the room.
"The irate redhead?" Sirius said somewhat devilishly. He nodded his head to the girl's dorms. "Upstairs."
Amelia growled at the back of her throat and launched herself up the stairs, if possible, faster than Lily had.
"What the devil did you mean by that?" Amelia almost shouted as she exploded into their dorm room. No one answered. The only noise Amelia could hear was the chirp of birds far outside. "Lily! Lily, my girl, I know you're in here!"
Amelia stalked over to Lily's closed hangings and ripped them apart, revealing a snoozing Lily. She put her hand down to shake the girl awake only to find that there was some sort of force field. Amelia only chuckled.
"You forget that we learned that in charms together." Muttering some sort of counter spell, Amelia tried again only the force field was still there. "Tricky one," Amelia muttered. "Password. Very good."
She sat there for another hour, much to the chagrin of Lily who was finding it somewhat difficult to keep the look of feigned sleep upon her face when Amelia was swearing in three different dialects. Finally, giving up, Amelia stood up and turned to leave the room.
"If that's the way you want it, I guess I'll see you in a week."
When Lily finally decided to open her eyes and question Amelia's meaning, Amelia had disappeared. Well, bugger her, Lily thought as she laid her head back down and gave into the exhaustion that had been plaguing her for the past week. An exhaustion led by anxiety and anger.
Lily sat up quite a bit later and swore loudly. It would appear, according to her watch, that she had missed dinner completely and Amelia had come and gone, her trunk and belongings were missing.
Her trunk and belongings were missing?
Lily rubbed her eyes and jumped out of her bed, the spell she had placed over it disappearing instantly. She scampered to Amelia's bed and lifted up the sheets, checked under the framework and behind the scarlet headboard. Where on earth were all of her things?
Then there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," Lily snapped, somewhat peeved.
"Erm… are you Lily Evans?" A little third year padded into the room, all of her belongings in tow.
"I am," Lily replied, looking at the girl with a perplexed expression. "What exactly is it that you want and what on earth is all that?" She waved at the girls' trunk.
"I… a sixth year told me I had to swap with her. Just for a week though!" she assured quickly as Lily's expression turned thunderous.
"Where is she?" Lily cried incredulously. "That good for nothing little toe-rag! Kicking a third year out of her room for something so petty!"
Lily stormed out of the room, leaving the third year quivering slightly as she pondered what she was supposed to do.
Lily plummeted down the stairs to the third year dormitory and pounded loudly on the door that the third years usually occupied. There was sounds of scuffling inside, a little squealing and a few dull thuds before the door was thrown open and a red-faced third year stared up a Lily from underneath deep brown bangs.
"Can I help you?" she asked primly, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder before turning back to Lily.
"Yes, hello. I'm look for a sixth year called Amelia. Wouldn't have happened to have noticed her around, would you?"
Again, the third year glanced nervously over her shoulder at the large pile of bed coverings that seemed to have accumulated into one corner. Something twitched underneath the comforters before they all flew into the air, a red-faced Amelia stalking out from underneath.
Glaring at the other third years in the room, she hissed, "You're all terrible actors, the lot of you!" before stalking past Lily and down to the common room before Lily could say a word to stop her.
"What on earth do you mean by moving into the third years' dormitory?" Lily demanded as she rushed down the stairs after her, ignoring the astonished faces of James and Peter when they flew past and out into the hallway.
Silence followed Lily's query, which only incensed her more. "Answer me, Amelia! I'm certainly not in the mood to be ignored."
"Oh, the same way I wasn't in the mood to be brushed off earlier, I suppose?" Amelia retorted, whirling around to face Lily, her face a distorted mask of anger and hurt. "I understand you were in a bad mood, everyone has their days, Lily!"
"Then what are you harping on about?" Lily cried, throwing her hands up in frustration. "If you understand then why is there a problem?"
Amelia glared at Lily for a moment. "Just because I understand does mean that I have to like being snapped at." Amelia glared at the fourth year Hufflepuff giving the two girls a wide berth as he moved past before looking back to Lily. "You were awfully rude earlier," she announced, contemplating Lily's reaction. "If there's one thing I can't tolerate, it's rudeness."
Lily considered Amelia's words for a moment before having the grace to look ashamed. "You're right, I was horribly rude to you… But you've had some whoppers in your time too, if I remember correctly." She winced before carrying on. "Even then I didn't move my stuff out of our dorm and announce that I wasn't going to speak to you for a week."
"Well, I did and we're speaking now aren't we?" She smirked at Lily before rolling her eyes. "Goes to show how good I am at staying angry at you, Lily Evans."
"You know," Peter said contemplatively as he watched Lily and Amelia walk back into the common room arm in arm. "I think there's a very good reason that us guys will never understand women."
"Speak for yourself," Sirius laughed and winked at a pretty fifth year on the other side of the room. Peter gave Sirius a playful punch on the arm and glared at him.
"Why's that, Peter?" James asked, only mildly interested as he watched Lily and Amelia sitting beside the fireplace.
"Because even if it were possible, we'd be forever confused. Understand their actions, maybe – but I don't think that males have the mental capacity to understand their reasoning or logic behind said actions."
"You know Wormtail, that might be the smartest thing you've ever said," Remus admitted, pulling his nose out of the large Avoiding Anomalies: Charms for Dummies textbook long enough to grin at Peter and wink at James.
"Now," Sirius chuckled as he grinned at James, "if only our Prongs here would soak that information in. Then maybe he might give up forever analyzing the actions of one particular redhead long enough to attain a fairly normal pastime that doesn't include partially stalking aforementioned redhead."
"At least I have a hobby that doesn't include trying to get inside half of Hogwarts' female population's pants!" James retorted and Peter watched the exchange in the same manner one might watch a ping pong competition.
"At least my hobby is a lot more promising, unlike your vain attempt to get that girl to like"
"But you have to give him points for loyalty to one thing, Sirius!" Remus interrupted before returning to his book.
"Yes, quite right!" James agreed, attention on Lily now down to a few back glances every couple of minutes. He loved a battle of wits with Sirius. "You skit around like bird, constantly changing your goals and abandoning all expeditions that you may have previously had dreams of completing."
"All my goals are achievable, however," Sirius said quietly. "The matter of whether I bother to complete my goals or not is completely another matter!"
"Yes," Peter chirped, a mischievous look dancing in his eyes. "And according to that pretty blonde in Hufflepuff, you leave more than your goals incomplete!"
Authors Note: Hey readers! Sorry it's taken so long to update – stuff to do, people to see. You know how it goes. Okay, really I've got no excuse except for plain old neglect, but please, feel free to make up a more pressing excuse that may lift your impression of me and my lazy self: I'd be eternally grateful.
Or, alternatively, you could just curse my laziness, leave a horribly threatening review and motivate me to write more (please, I'm up for anything that might motivate me more than the snail crawl I got going on right now :P )
Anyway, be sure to click the review button – there's a cookie at the other end sweet smile