Chapter 34 The Thought That Counts
The first thing James noticed when he woke up the next morning was the excrutiating crick in his neck . Then, as he tried to move, he became aware of the fact that his arms and legs were numb. Wondering why he was so cramped, James opened his eyes and remembered. He and Lily were still curled up together in the armchair, except now sunlight was streaming through the windows and telltale sounds coming from above indicated that they wouldn't be alone in the common room for much longer.
"Shit," James mumbled under his breath as he tried to disentangle himself without waking Lily. Finally succeeding, he was so pleased with himself that he forgot all about his cramped limbs until they refused to support him and he fell promptly onto the common room floor with a thud.
"Huh?" a sleepy voice from the armchair said, and a moment later Lily was peering down at him, bleary-eyed. "James? What are you doing?"
"Shh!" James hissed desperately, pointing frantically upstairs.
"Oh bloody HELL," Lily whispered, rising gingerly to her feet and surveying her wrinkled robes with dismay. "We fell asleep!"
"I know," James hissed back. "The real question is, what do we do now?"
"Er............." Lily glanced round her frantically.
Before either of them could come up with a brilliant solution, the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs distracted them. Acting on impulse, James wrenched open the portrait hole and shoved Lily into the corridor before tumbling out himself and banging the door shut.
"There's no need to slam," the Fat Lady huffed indignantly.
"Sorry," James replied, breathing hard.
"Great plan," Lily said sarcastically, flipping back her mussed hair irritably. "Now instead of being caught in a compromising position in the common room, we can be caught in a disheveled state in the hallway and people can gawk on their way to breakfast."
James glared at Lily, hurt by her lack of faith. But before he could think of a suitable retort, the portrait swung open yet again and Sirius appeared, almost toppling to the floor as Peter knocked into him in his haste to see.
"Why, James, whatever are you doing out here so early in the morning?" Sirius grinned innocently at Lily and James.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Remus grumbled in exasperation, shoving Sirius and Peter out of the way so that Lily and James could reenter the common room, where approximately a dozen Gryffindors were now gathered, peering curiously at the disturbance at the portrait hole. The curious buzzing stopped as everyone in the common room looked at Lily and James expectantly.
"Uh – "James wracked his brains for a good excuse, hoping that his renowned ability to get himself out of trouble wouldn't fail him now.
"Nothing like a brisk walk through the corridor before breakfast," he heard himself saying into the silence.
Sirius turned his laughter into a very unconvincing coughing fit; Remus, Peter, and Lily just regarded James in disbelief. James was having trouble believing that he'd really just said that himself.
"Well," Lily said as normal conversations finally resumed. "I'm going to go and – er – oh, sod it. See you at breakfast." She practically ran up the stairs.
* * *
Once she had reached the top floor of the tower, Lily paused to catch her breath before facing her roommates and their inevitable questions.
Burying her face in her hands, Lily was fairly certain that she'd never been so embarrassed in her life. Now instead of thinking that she and James had slept together in the common room, Gryffindor Tower would think they'd slept together somewhere else in the castle. Wonderful.
Embarrassed as she undoubtedly was, Lily still couldn't prevent a smile from tugging at the corners of her mouth as she recalled the previous night, feeling her irritation leave her with the memory. It had been so perfect, had felt so natural and comforting and safe. As badly as everything had gone this morning, Lily just couldn't seem to be angry with James or stay in a bad mood. She'd woken up, cramped, stiff, and sore, to the sound of her panicked boyfriend toppling quite gracelessly to the floor and still she felt as though she were walking on air.
Merlin, but I'm in it deep, Lily thought to herself as she pushed open the door where four pairs of eyes were turned toward her expectantly.
* * *
By the time classes had ended for the day, Lily was thoroughly sick of the constant ribbing from the Marauders, all of whom had been hard at it since breakfast. Miraculously, the rest of Gryffindor Tower and the school at large didn't seem to be aware of Lily and James' little scandal, but Lily wasn't sure the teasing could've been much worse if they had.. Originally, Sirius, Remus, and Peter had started off teasing them as a sort of tag team, making many clever cracks about early morning walks through the corridor and inquiring if Lily and James planned to study Astronomy that evening but Remus, had laid off by lunchtime as Sirius and Peter were doing a fabulous job of making Lily and James' lives miserable without his help.
So after dinner, Lily had snuck off to the library and was currently huddled in a deserted corner of the library pretending to study while she went over the incident for the thousandth time in her head. Repetition had done nothing to diminish the warm feeling the memory brought to the pit of Lily's stomach. Curled up in James' arms, she'd felt safe for the first time in a very long time. Lily wasn't sure what that meant exactly, but she liked the feeling.
Hearing footsteps behind her, Lily groaned inwardly. Sirius or Peter had found her already. Her money was on Sirius; Peter, sweet though he was, wasn't exactly the brain of Britain and wouldn't find her as easily, but Sirius had the dedication to follow Lily to the ends of the earth in order to continue his teasing; a little thing like the library wouldn't stop him.
"Bugger off!" Lily shouted without turning round, suddenly fed up with it all.
"Er – ok," a familiar voice said, taken aback. Lily spun in her chair.
"James?" she asked incredulously, looking round frantically and seeing nothing but empty space. "James? Are you there somewhere?"
A hand came out of thin air and pulled space away to reveal James grinning at her. Startled enough to scream, Lily clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent it.
"How did you do that?" Lily whispered as James moved toward her.
Invisibility cloak," James held it up to illustrate his point. "Sorry to have startled you."
"It's ok," Lily said, suddenly and inexplicably shy. "It explains a lot, actually."
James smiled. "Yeah, I guess it would," he mused.
After a long and rather awkward pause, James moved over next to Lily, slumping down on the floor next to her chair. Lily promptly got up and went to sit beside him on the floor, their limbs almost touching but neither of them sure enough of the other to actually move enough to initiate the contact.
"Look, I'm really sorry about last night, Lily," James said in a rush, running his hand through his hair. "And about this morning. I just didn't know what to do and I panicked and it won't – I mean I won't – "
"James," Lily cut off his rambling apology. "I'm not sorry about last night."
"You're not?" Whatever James had been expecting to hear, it certainly hadn't been that.
"No," Lily twirled a lock of hair round her finger. "I mean, I'm sorry about this morning. Disaster. Obviously. But last night," Lily felt the same soft smile that had been making appearances all day return to her face, "I thought last night was pretty perfect, actually."
"Really?" James let out a breath he hadn't been aware of holding. "You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that, because I think last night was the best night of my life and I was really, really afraid that you might hate me for it."
"Of course I don't hate you," Lily leaned her head against James' shoulder and James, feeling like the luckiest bloke alive, put his arm round her contentedly. The pair of them sat like that, eyes closed, for a good long while before realizing that this was what had gotten them into trouble the night before. Neither of them fancying waking up to Madam Pince in the morning, Lily and James scrambled to their feet and hastily made their way back to Gryffindor Tower.
* * *
Compared to that first week of the term, the next few weeks were quite unremarkable. The Gryffindor seventh years settled into something of a routine and gradually grew somewhat used to Bellatrix's presence, though James and Sirius were constantly on the alert whenever she was about. As her recovery continued, Bellatrix became more like her old self; she seemed to take a special delight in coming as close as she could to Lily, Alice, and Morwenna during classes just to get a rise out of James and Sirius, who obliged her every time. Lily, Alice, and Morwenna had largely learned to ignore Bellatrix's games, though all of them were watchful.
As NEWTs drew steadily nearer, the seventh years grew more and more stressed out as the professors piled on the homework. Though James had time for little else besides studying and Quidditch training with the occasional patrol or Prefect meeting thrown in, he was avidly planning his and Lily's first Valentine's Day as a couple. Truth be told, many of the ideas he bounced off of Sirius were so elaborate and extravagant that even Sirius, by no means a small-scale, practical thinker himself, had to remind James to be more realistic.
By the time February 14th actually arrived, James had revised his Valentine's plans forty-seven times and had made eleven illicit trips into Hogsmeade, but he was certain it had all been worth it. Valentine's Day was going to be the best day of Lily's life, the best day of their life as a couple, and he was going to tell Lily how he felt about her.
By the morning of February 15th, James was just glad that bloody Valentine's Day was over and that he and Lily had both survived it.
* * *
Valentine's Day had been undeniable proof that the old saying about the best laid plans was true. In fact, James was fairly certain that all the planets had aligned in some sort of vast cosmic conspiracy to ruin his love life.
Everything had gone wrong from the start. First, that morning at breakfast, the sining valentine James had ordered misinterpreted the "L" in Lily for a "B" and serenaded James' undying love for Billy in a glass- shattering soprano that was ten times the volume James had ordered to a room full of sniggering students for what had felt like an eternity. It had been a huge relief when the candy James had ordered specially from Honeyduke's had arrived to distract a red-faced Lily from her humiliation.
James had grinned in anticipation of Lily's reaction, waiting eagerly for the moment when she would exclaim over his sweetness, thoughtfulness, and overall perfection before covering him with kisses. He was so busy contemplating this, in fact, that he diidn't realize that Lily's reaction was a bit late in coming for quite some time. James snapped out of it and saw Lily holding the Honeyduke's candy box rather dubiously, struggling to mask her disgust.
"Wow," Lily said finally, struggling to find something positive to say, " this is – er – really great. Because, you know, if I ever – er – become a vampire, I won't have to eat any people, I'll have these all ready for me."
"What?" James was certain he was hearing things for a moment, but as Lily's words sank in, he had a horrid feeling in the pit of his stomach. To confirm what he already knew was true, he snatched the box away from Lily.
"Blood flavored lollypops?!" James exclaimed in dismay. "This isn't what I ordered – oh, bloody HELL!" James threw the box down in exasperation. "Honeyduke's cocked up my order!"
"Thank Merlin!" Lily had rarely been so relieved in her life. She'd been just a bit afraid in the back of her mind that this had either been some sort of bizarre joke or worse yet that James had honestly thought that Lily would want blood-flavored candy, the implications of which were too horrible to think about.
"I'm sorry, Lils," James was crestfallen. "They were supposed to be those little chocolate dragon thingies that you like so much."
"It's all right," James looked and sounded so pathetic that Lily's heart melted. Forgetting that he had just subjected her to a truly horrific singing valentine, Lily put her arms round James, trying to cheer him up. "It's the thought that counts," she offered a moment later, but James just glared.
And it had all been downhill from there, aside from Lily giving James an enormous chocolate heart at dinner. After dinner, James had planned to take Lily outside to watch the fireworks display he had arranged for. Afterwards, he had planned to tell Lily that he loved her and give her an enormous bouquet of red roses. Every year since they were 13 he'd given Lily a bouquet of roses on Valentine's Day and every year she'd promptly thrown them out the window of Gryffindor Tower, and James was really, really looking forward to Lily finally accepting the flowers from him this year. Had it all gone as he'd planned it, it really would have been quite spectacular.
As Lily and James passed through the entrance hall on their way to the fireworks, Peeves, seemingly inspired by the Valentine's Day spirit, pelted them with heart-shaped confetti. Lily had immediately covered her head with her hands, shielding herself as best as she could from the confetti pinging off her body. James, looking upward to glare at Peeves and offer a few choice comments, caught a particularly large piece of confetti in the eye, which effectively and very painfully blinded him.
"Are you all right?" Lily shouted over Peeves' cackling as James staggered about, groping sightlessly.
"Yeah, fine," James managed to say in spite of the now-searing pain in his eye. Ignoring Lily's suggestion that they go back to Gryffindor Tower so that he could flush the confetti out, James insisted that they continue outside. Still rubbing his eye, James listened to the appreciative gasps from Lily and the students who had stuck their heads out the window to watch the fireworks and tried to comfort himself with the fact that even though he had apparently been blinded in one eye, at least the fireworks had gone right.
"They seem to be getting closer," Lily remarked after a bit, sounding apprehensive. James tried to look up but couldn't see as his one eye had swollen shut by now and the other one was watering too profusely to see much of anything.
A crashing noise caused James some alarm, but he decided to ignore it, or at any rate, he decided to ignore it until Lily screamed in alarm and tugged him backward. Opening his good eye, James was just able to make out an orange blurry shape where a greenhouse should have been. Oh, shit.
"James! Come on! Greenhouse 4 is on fire; we've got to get help!" Lily tugged insistantly on his sleeve. Stumbling, James made his way blindly back to the castle, wondering what he had ever done to deserve this.
* * *
Three hours later, James, his eye still puffy and swollen but now purged of confetti, sat in the Gryffindor common room holding the bouquet of roses and waiting for Lily to return from the hospital wing; she'd sustained a few minor burns helping to put out the fire. Of all of the many messes he'd been involved in in his lifetime, this was the worst, James reflected as he leaned his head against the back of the sofa. The damned confetti had given him a headache; where had Peeves gotten that stuff?
Just then the portrait swung open and Lily appeared, her robes a bit singed but otherwise perfectly all right. James shoved the flowers behind the sofa and smiled at her, trying not to think about how puffy his eye was just then.
"I – er – I got you something else," James said tentatively, putting on his most persuasive grin.
"Let me guess: you're going to give me a big box of Cockroach Clusters, then we're going to go and deface the Quidditch pitch?" Lily teased, pushing back her hair with a bandaged hand.
"No, actually it's a box of vomit-flavored Every Flavor Beans followed by baiting a mountain troll," James retorted, pleased that Lily could have a sense of humor about the whole thing; now that it was past, James was beginning to find their little mishap a bit funny himself. More than a bit, actually; maybe the pain from his eye had made him a bit giddy, but James suddenly found the whole situation hysterically funny and began to laugh uncontrollably, laughing harder still when Lily joined in.
It was some minutes later when Lily and James finally managed to calm down, collapsed against the sofa and clutching the stitches in their sides.
"I really did get you something else," James said after a bit, reaching behind the sofa.
"Really?" Lily asked, trying to work a bit of enthusiasm into her tone.
James reached behind the sofa and fished out the bouquet of roses. They were a bit worse for wear by now, but at least they wouldn't set anything on fire, lodge in anyone's eye, or sing songs about Billy at an embarrassingly loud volume.
"For you," James said softly, handing Lily the flowers. "Happy Valentine's Day."
Lily's eyes filled with tears. "Thank you," she forced round the lump in her throat. "This is the best Valentine's Day gift I've ever gotten," she added a minute later as the tears started.
"Well, technically I've gotten you these every year since third year, you've just always thrown them out up until now," James pointed out.
Lily shook her head. "I didn't throw them out last year," she admitted, not meeting James' eye.
"Really?" James was flabberghasted. "But you always hated me, you said you'd rather go out with the giant squid than with me."
"I didn't hate you last year," Lily confessed, still a bit teary. "Well, ok, I hated you every year before that, but I was begininng to like you just the tiniest little bit too, so I kept the flowers last year and made Morwenna and Alice and Kathleen and Dorcas swear that they wouldn't tell you."
"Wow," James wondered aloud, slumping further in his seat. A smile spread across his face. "If I'd known you had such a thing for blokes who played knight in shining armor to slimy little gits I might've saved Snape's life loads sooner."
"I hardly had a thing for you," Lily scoffed unconvincingly, a blush spreading across her face. "I just kept your damn flowers
"Whatever," James managed a rather convincing smirk despite his swollen, puffy eye "You know you wanted me."
"Don't flatter yourself," Lily snorted. But as she glanced down at the bouquet of red roses on her lap, she smiled all the same.
* * *
A week had gone by since then, and the thought of that ridiculous bunch of slightly beat up flowers still made her grin like a simpleton, Lily reflected as she patrolled the dungeon corridors. Sure enough, a smile spread across her face at the very thought of them, and of James. Even a year ago, who would've thought she'd ever be in a serious relationship with James Potter? It defied logic.
And on top of that, the entire Valentine's Day debacle hadn't put a dent in Lily's feelings for James. Just the opposite in fact, Lily was looking forward to the Hogsmeade excursion this weekend with the same giddy anticipation Petunia exhibited when confronted with a good piece of gossip.
Purposeful footsteps sounding in the corridor behind her snapped Lily out of it. Pulling out her wand just in case, she turned round slowly and found herself face to face with Severus Snape.
"Evans," Snape spoke rapidly and softly, glancing round him as though he feared someone might see them together, which, Lily realized, he probably did. "A quick word? In private?"
Lily nodded her head slowly, and, before she could consider the thing properly, followed Snape down the corridor.
* * *
Author's Note
Again, so sorry the update took so long! I'm a bit busy right now and don't have as much time to write. But I won't leave with a cliffhanger for long, don't worry, and I can safely guarantee that I'll update again this week. Thanks as always to everyone who reviewed and to everyone who reads this story for being so patient with me.
The first thing James noticed when he woke up the next morning was the excrutiating crick in his neck . Then, as he tried to move, he became aware of the fact that his arms and legs were numb. Wondering why he was so cramped, James opened his eyes and remembered. He and Lily were still curled up together in the armchair, except now sunlight was streaming through the windows and telltale sounds coming from above indicated that they wouldn't be alone in the common room for much longer.
"Shit," James mumbled under his breath as he tried to disentangle himself without waking Lily. Finally succeeding, he was so pleased with himself that he forgot all about his cramped limbs until they refused to support him and he fell promptly onto the common room floor with a thud.
"Huh?" a sleepy voice from the armchair said, and a moment later Lily was peering down at him, bleary-eyed. "James? What are you doing?"
"Shh!" James hissed desperately, pointing frantically upstairs.
"Oh bloody HELL," Lily whispered, rising gingerly to her feet and surveying her wrinkled robes with dismay. "We fell asleep!"
"I know," James hissed back. "The real question is, what do we do now?"
"Er............." Lily glanced round her frantically.
Before either of them could come up with a brilliant solution, the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs distracted them. Acting on impulse, James wrenched open the portrait hole and shoved Lily into the corridor before tumbling out himself and banging the door shut.
"There's no need to slam," the Fat Lady huffed indignantly.
"Sorry," James replied, breathing hard.
"Great plan," Lily said sarcastically, flipping back her mussed hair irritably. "Now instead of being caught in a compromising position in the common room, we can be caught in a disheveled state in the hallway and people can gawk on their way to breakfast."
James glared at Lily, hurt by her lack of faith. But before he could think of a suitable retort, the portrait swung open yet again and Sirius appeared, almost toppling to the floor as Peter knocked into him in his haste to see.
"Why, James, whatever are you doing out here so early in the morning?" Sirius grinned innocently at Lily and James.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Remus grumbled in exasperation, shoving Sirius and Peter out of the way so that Lily and James could reenter the common room, where approximately a dozen Gryffindors were now gathered, peering curiously at the disturbance at the portrait hole. The curious buzzing stopped as everyone in the common room looked at Lily and James expectantly.
"Uh – "James wracked his brains for a good excuse, hoping that his renowned ability to get himself out of trouble wouldn't fail him now.
"Nothing like a brisk walk through the corridor before breakfast," he heard himself saying into the silence.
Sirius turned his laughter into a very unconvincing coughing fit; Remus, Peter, and Lily just regarded James in disbelief. James was having trouble believing that he'd really just said that himself.
"Well," Lily said as normal conversations finally resumed. "I'm going to go and – er – oh, sod it. See you at breakfast." She practically ran up the stairs.
* * *
Once she had reached the top floor of the tower, Lily paused to catch her breath before facing her roommates and their inevitable questions.
Burying her face in her hands, Lily was fairly certain that she'd never been so embarrassed in her life. Now instead of thinking that she and James had slept together in the common room, Gryffindor Tower would think they'd slept together somewhere else in the castle. Wonderful.
Embarrassed as she undoubtedly was, Lily still couldn't prevent a smile from tugging at the corners of her mouth as she recalled the previous night, feeling her irritation leave her with the memory. It had been so perfect, had felt so natural and comforting and safe. As badly as everything had gone this morning, Lily just couldn't seem to be angry with James or stay in a bad mood. She'd woken up, cramped, stiff, and sore, to the sound of her panicked boyfriend toppling quite gracelessly to the floor and still she felt as though she were walking on air.
Merlin, but I'm in it deep, Lily thought to herself as she pushed open the door where four pairs of eyes were turned toward her expectantly.
* * *
By the time classes had ended for the day, Lily was thoroughly sick of the constant ribbing from the Marauders, all of whom had been hard at it since breakfast. Miraculously, the rest of Gryffindor Tower and the school at large didn't seem to be aware of Lily and James' little scandal, but Lily wasn't sure the teasing could've been much worse if they had.. Originally, Sirius, Remus, and Peter had started off teasing them as a sort of tag team, making many clever cracks about early morning walks through the corridor and inquiring if Lily and James planned to study Astronomy that evening but Remus, had laid off by lunchtime as Sirius and Peter were doing a fabulous job of making Lily and James' lives miserable without his help.
So after dinner, Lily had snuck off to the library and was currently huddled in a deserted corner of the library pretending to study while she went over the incident for the thousandth time in her head. Repetition had done nothing to diminish the warm feeling the memory brought to the pit of Lily's stomach. Curled up in James' arms, she'd felt safe for the first time in a very long time. Lily wasn't sure what that meant exactly, but she liked the feeling.
Hearing footsteps behind her, Lily groaned inwardly. Sirius or Peter had found her already. Her money was on Sirius; Peter, sweet though he was, wasn't exactly the brain of Britain and wouldn't find her as easily, but Sirius had the dedication to follow Lily to the ends of the earth in order to continue his teasing; a little thing like the library wouldn't stop him.
"Bugger off!" Lily shouted without turning round, suddenly fed up with it all.
"Er – ok," a familiar voice said, taken aback. Lily spun in her chair.
"James?" she asked incredulously, looking round frantically and seeing nothing but empty space. "James? Are you there somewhere?"
A hand came out of thin air and pulled space away to reveal James grinning at her. Startled enough to scream, Lily clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent it.
"How did you do that?" Lily whispered as James moved toward her.
Invisibility cloak," James held it up to illustrate his point. "Sorry to have startled you."
"It's ok," Lily said, suddenly and inexplicably shy. "It explains a lot, actually."
James smiled. "Yeah, I guess it would," he mused.
After a long and rather awkward pause, James moved over next to Lily, slumping down on the floor next to her chair. Lily promptly got up and went to sit beside him on the floor, their limbs almost touching but neither of them sure enough of the other to actually move enough to initiate the contact.
"Look, I'm really sorry about last night, Lily," James said in a rush, running his hand through his hair. "And about this morning. I just didn't know what to do and I panicked and it won't – I mean I won't – "
"James," Lily cut off his rambling apology. "I'm not sorry about last night."
"You're not?" Whatever James had been expecting to hear, it certainly hadn't been that.
"No," Lily twirled a lock of hair round her finger. "I mean, I'm sorry about this morning. Disaster. Obviously. But last night," Lily felt the same soft smile that had been making appearances all day return to her face, "I thought last night was pretty perfect, actually."
"Really?" James let out a breath he hadn't been aware of holding. "You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that, because I think last night was the best night of my life and I was really, really afraid that you might hate me for it."
"Of course I don't hate you," Lily leaned her head against James' shoulder and James, feeling like the luckiest bloke alive, put his arm round her contentedly. The pair of them sat like that, eyes closed, for a good long while before realizing that this was what had gotten them into trouble the night before. Neither of them fancying waking up to Madam Pince in the morning, Lily and James scrambled to their feet and hastily made their way back to Gryffindor Tower.
* * *
Compared to that first week of the term, the next few weeks were quite unremarkable. The Gryffindor seventh years settled into something of a routine and gradually grew somewhat used to Bellatrix's presence, though James and Sirius were constantly on the alert whenever she was about. As her recovery continued, Bellatrix became more like her old self; she seemed to take a special delight in coming as close as she could to Lily, Alice, and Morwenna during classes just to get a rise out of James and Sirius, who obliged her every time. Lily, Alice, and Morwenna had largely learned to ignore Bellatrix's games, though all of them were watchful.
As NEWTs drew steadily nearer, the seventh years grew more and more stressed out as the professors piled on the homework. Though James had time for little else besides studying and Quidditch training with the occasional patrol or Prefect meeting thrown in, he was avidly planning his and Lily's first Valentine's Day as a couple. Truth be told, many of the ideas he bounced off of Sirius were so elaborate and extravagant that even Sirius, by no means a small-scale, practical thinker himself, had to remind James to be more realistic.
By the time February 14th actually arrived, James had revised his Valentine's plans forty-seven times and had made eleven illicit trips into Hogsmeade, but he was certain it had all been worth it. Valentine's Day was going to be the best day of Lily's life, the best day of their life as a couple, and he was going to tell Lily how he felt about her.
By the morning of February 15th, James was just glad that bloody Valentine's Day was over and that he and Lily had both survived it.
* * *
Valentine's Day had been undeniable proof that the old saying about the best laid plans was true. In fact, James was fairly certain that all the planets had aligned in some sort of vast cosmic conspiracy to ruin his love life.
Everything had gone wrong from the start. First, that morning at breakfast, the sining valentine James had ordered misinterpreted the "L" in Lily for a "B" and serenaded James' undying love for Billy in a glass- shattering soprano that was ten times the volume James had ordered to a room full of sniggering students for what had felt like an eternity. It had been a huge relief when the candy James had ordered specially from Honeyduke's had arrived to distract a red-faced Lily from her humiliation.
James had grinned in anticipation of Lily's reaction, waiting eagerly for the moment when she would exclaim over his sweetness, thoughtfulness, and overall perfection before covering him with kisses. He was so busy contemplating this, in fact, that he diidn't realize that Lily's reaction was a bit late in coming for quite some time. James snapped out of it and saw Lily holding the Honeyduke's candy box rather dubiously, struggling to mask her disgust.
"Wow," Lily said finally, struggling to find something positive to say, " this is – er – really great. Because, you know, if I ever – er – become a vampire, I won't have to eat any people, I'll have these all ready for me."
"What?" James was certain he was hearing things for a moment, but as Lily's words sank in, he had a horrid feeling in the pit of his stomach. To confirm what he already knew was true, he snatched the box away from Lily.
"Blood flavored lollypops?!" James exclaimed in dismay. "This isn't what I ordered – oh, bloody HELL!" James threw the box down in exasperation. "Honeyduke's cocked up my order!"
"Thank Merlin!" Lily had rarely been so relieved in her life. She'd been just a bit afraid in the back of her mind that this had either been some sort of bizarre joke or worse yet that James had honestly thought that Lily would want blood-flavored candy, the implications of which were too horrible to think about.
"I'm sorry, Lils," James was crestfallen. "They were supposed to be those little chocolate dragon thingies that you like so much."
"It's all right," James looked and sounded so pathetic that Lily's heart melted. Forgetting that he had just subjected her to a truly horrific singing valentine, Lily put her arms round James, trying to cheer him up. "It's the thought that counts," she offered a moment later, but James just glared.
And it had all been downhill from there, aside from Lily giving James an enormous chocolate heart at dinner. After dinner, James had planned to take Lily outside to watch the fireworks display he had arranged for. Afterwards, he had planned to tell Lily that he loved her and give her an enormous bouquet of red roses. Every year since they were 13 he'd given Lily a bouquet of roses on Valentine's Day and every year she'd promptly thrown them out the window of Gryffindor Tower, and James was really, really looking forward to Lily finally accepting the flowers from him this year. Had it all gone as he'd planned it, it really would have been quite spectacular.
As Lily and James passed through the entrance hall on their way to the fireworks, Peeves, seemingly inspired by the Valentine's Day spirit, pelted them with heart-shaped confetti. Lily had immediately covered her head with her hands, shielding herself as best as she could from the confetti pinging off her body. James, looking upward to glare at Peeves and offer a few choice comments, caught a particularly large piece of confetti in the eye, which effectively and very painfully blinded him.
"Are you all right?" Lily shouted over Peeves' cackling as James staggered about, groping sightlessly.
"Yeah, fine," James managed to say in spite of the now-searing pain in his eye. Ignoring Lily's suggestion that they go back to Gryffindor Tower so that he could flush the confetti out, James insisted that they continue outside. Still rubbing his eye, James listened to the appreciative gasps from Lily and the students who had stuck their heads out the window to watch the fireworks and tried to comfort himself with the fact that even though he had apparently been blinded in one eye, at least the fireworks had gone right.
"They seem to be getting closer," Lily remarked after a bit, sounding apprehensive. James tried to look up but couldn't see as his one eye had swollen shut by now and the other one was watering too profusely to see much of anything.
A crashing noise caused James some alarm, but he decided to ignore it, or at any rate, he decided to ignore it until Lily screamed in alarm and tugged him backward. Opening his good eye, James was just able to make out an orange blurry shape where a greenhouse should have been. Oh, shit.
"James! Come on! Greenhouse 4 is on fire; we've got to get help!" Lily tugged insistantly on his sleeve. Stumbling, James made his way blindly back to the castle, wondering what he had ever done to deserve this.
* * *
Three hours later, James, his eye still puffy and swollen but now purged of confetti, sat in the Gryffindor common room holding the bouquet of roses and waiting for Lily to return from the hospital wing; she'd sustained a few minor burns helping to put out the fire. Of all of the many messes he'd been involved in in his lifetime, this was the worst, James reflected as he leaned his head against the back of the sofa. The damned confetti had given him a headache; where had Peeves gotten that stuff?
Just then the portrait swung open and Lily appeared, her robes a bit singed but otherwise perfectly all right. James shoved the flowers behind the sofa and smiled at her, trying not to think about how puffy his eye was just then.
"I – er – I got you something else," James said tentatively, putting on his most persuasive grin.
"Let me guess: you're going to give me a big box of Cockroach Clusters, then we're going to go and deface the Quidditch pitch?" Lily teased, pushing back her hair with a bandaged hand.
"No, actually it's a box of vomit-flavored Every Flavor Beans followed by baiting a mountain troll," James retorted, pleased that Lily could have a sense of humor about the whole thing; now that it was past, James was beginning to find their little mishap a bit funny himself. More than a bit, actually; maybe the pain from his eye had made him a bit giddy, but James suddenly found the whole situation hysterically funny and began to laugh uncontrollably, laughing harder still when Lily joined in.
It was some minutes later when Lily and James finally managed to calm down, collapsed against the sofa and clutching the stitches in their sides.
"I really did get you something else," James said after a bit, reaching behind the sofa.
"Really?" Lily asked, trying to work a bit of enthusiasm into her tone.
James reached behind the sofa and fished out the bouquet of roses. They were a bit worse for wear by now, but at least they wouldn't set anything on fire, lodge in anyone's eye, or sing songs about Billy at an embarrassingly loud volume.
"For you," James said softly, handing Lily the flowers. "Happy Valentine's Day."
Lily's eyes filled with tears. "Thank you," she forced round the lump in her throat. "This is the best Valentine's Day gift I've ever gotten," she added a minute later as the tears started.
"Well, technically I've gotten you these every year since third year, you've just always thrown them out up until now," James pointed out.
Lily shook her head. "I didn't throw them out last year," she admitted, not meeting James' eye.
"Really?" James was flabberghasted. "But you always hated me, you said you'd rather go out with the giant squid than with me."
"I didn't hate you last year," Lily confessed, still a bit teary. "Well, ok, I hated you every year before that, but I was begininng to like you just the tiniest little bit too, so I kept the flowers last year and made Morwenna and Alice and Kathleen and Dorcas swear that they wouldn't tell you."
"Wow," James wondered aloud, slumping further in his seat. A smile spread across his face. "If I'd known you had such a thing for blokes who played knight in shining armor to slimy little gits I might've saved Snape's life loads sooner."
"I hardly had a thing for you," Lily scoffed unconvincingly, a blush spreading across her face. "I just kept your damn flowers
"Whatever," James managed a rather convincing smirk despite his swollen, puffy eye "You know you wanted me."
"Don't flatter yourself," Lily snorted. But as she glanced down at the bouquet of red roses on her lap, she smiled all the same.
* * *
A week had gone by since then, and the thought of that ridiculous bunch of slightly beat up flowers still made her grin like a simpleton, Lily reflected as she patrolled the dungeon corridors. Sure enough, a smile spread across her face at the very thought of them, and of James. Even a year ago, who would've thought she'd ever be in a serious relationship with James Potter? It defied logic.
And on top of that, the entire Valentine's Day debacle hadn't put a dent in Lily's feelings for James. Just the opposite in fact, Lily was looking forward to the Hogsmeade excursion this weekend with the same giddy anticipation Petunia exhibited when confronted with a good piece of gossip.
Purposeful footsteps sounding in the corridor behind her snapped Lily out of it. Pulling out her wand just in case, she turned round slowly and found herself face to face with Severus Snape.
"Evans," Snape spoke rapidly and softly, glancing round him as though he feared someone might see them together, which, Lily realized, he probably did. "A quick word? In private?"
Lily nodded her head slowly, and, before she could consider the thing properly, followed Snape down the corridor.
* * *
Author's Note
Again, so sorry the update took so long! I'm a bit busy right now and don't have as much time to write. But I won't leave with a cliffhanger for long, don't worry, and I can safely guarantee that I'll update again this week. Thanks as always to everyone who reviewed and to everyone who reads this story for being so patient with me.