Lily lay upon her bed her stomach pressed into the blankets and her arms crossed before her. Her chin was propped upon them her emerald eyes watching the other girls in the room. Emmeline sat upon her pillows behind the black haired, rosey cheeked Hestia. Emmeline was placing curlers into the other girls already curly hair. Just to give them the bit extra they needed to be absolutely perfect. Emmeline spoke as she worked her eyes never once leaving the hair she twined with percision in her long delicate fingers. She cleared her throat and spoke what they all wanted to say, "Alright Lily, we're listening. Whats on your mind?"
Alice, Hestia, and the other girls in the room stopped what they were doing to listen. Giving their friend their undivided attentions. Lily sighed softly, lifting her hands she dragged her fingers through her auburn hair, brushing back the ringlet like bangs from her face. Pausing for a moment she thought over her words, speaking carefully she began, "Its Potter."
Before she could even say a syllable more her friends came in. Clamoring to be heard over one another. Alice pursed her lips and placed her hands on her hips, "What'd he do? Should I have Frank talk with him? I'm sure he would." Lily hid a smile behind one hand. That was Alice's response to everything these days. Have her boyfriend, Frank Longbottom, the other seventh year Gryffindor boy, do something about it.
Unfortunately, even if Lily had needed Frank to do something about her Potter Problem, she doubted he could have done more than grovel at the Berk's shoes like a house-elf. Due to his already rather lacking record in the matter where the Marauders were concerned. They had kicked him out of their years dorm every day since the four had become friends. Poor, Frank he never complained. Just slept on the couch and crept up to change every morning before breakfast. Though he was courageous, as every Gryffindor was, Frank was simply outnumbered. The Marauders had even had the gall to jinx their dorm sign into reading Marauders instead of the correct year. Though they had to re-perform the jinx every year due to the teachers clearing it every time when they vacated for the summer.
Outwardly, however, Lily kept her face perfect smooth. Not wanting to betray the inward hilarity that was bubbling beneath the surface in the concerns of her friends Boyfriend. Carefully Lily went about rearranging herself so as to give herself a chance to control her mirth and find the wording for the problem. Since it was, after all, not at all the usual potter complications that arrose in her everyday life. Once she was sitting near the foot of her bed, Lily neatly folded her hands into her cross-legged lap. She allowed her emerald gaze to look at her surroundings friends, "Well," she began once more. Picking her words carefully as ever, "Its not really the usual Potter Problem."
Emmeline leaned toward the left to look around Hestia at Lily. Her elegant eyebrows arching regally to show her peeked curiosity. "Really?" she chimed. Her lips partially agape in astonishment. "After all these years of the usual ranting you come to us with an unusual?" she gave a very slight and disdainful toned snort, "Somehow I doubt that'll happen. But, I should be quiet, go on Dear." she flapped a hand before returning to her previous positon to work the last few curlers into Hestia's raven hair.
Lily gave Emmeline a small smile and shook her head, "It really isn't the usual..." she said slowly. Looking down at her hands she allowed her lips to twitch into a frown. "I've never seen him like that." she informed her friends. Emmeline put the last curler into Hestia's hair before shifting up beside the other girl. All of them leaning in toward Lily. For all the world looking like girls at a sleepover sharing their silly, and sometimes dirty little secrets. "Well, he actually looked.. Well annoyed with me."
A murmur of surprised left her friends. In all their time at Hogwarts they had never known James Potter to ever have a negative emotion towards Lily Evans. This was definantely an unusal aspect which the fiery red-head had brought up. "Really!" breathed Alice a look of utter shock crossing her visage. "No... James has never... He couldn't have been..." she fumbled.
Lily shook her head, frowning at them, "But he was, that was the odd thing..." Lily let out a very confused sight. Lifting her arms she tangled her hands into her red locks and fell backwards. Thumping down onto the pillow with a bit of a bounce and a nice soft whumph. For awhile she simply looked upon the crimson canopy of her four poster. "Its true." she said slowly knowing her friends were still listening. Waiting for her to finish. They always did, and for a moment she felt a slight swelling of warmth within her for the loyalty of her friends. "He got mad when I thought he had beaten Snape up."
Hestia peered through the semi-darkness of the dorm. Only the light from the nearly set sun flowed in. Setting the room into a dusky glow. Even that was fading rather quickly. Emmeline, as though taking note of this, stood and walked to her bedside table. Retreiving her wand from it she gave the length of wood a flick, murmuring a simple charm that set the carved glass and bronze lamps set at intervales around the wall to glowing steadily. Carefully replacing her wand she sat down on the side of her bed listening to what Hestia was saying, "Well didn't he? We all know Potter and Snape loathe each other. Thats common knowledge. Don't tell me the berk has begun to deny what he's done wrong now all of a sudden."
Lily sat up rather suddenly causing the velvet hangings of her bed to give a slight sway in protest, "Thats just the thing!" she cried. "He not only downright denied it, but insisted he did nothing!" Lily leaned to the side resting her head against one of the solid posts that held up the beds canopy. Feeling the specifically carved ridges beneath her skin she scowled. "And... I walked past McGonagall's he wasn't in there with Black at detention... Maybe he was with someone else."
Alice shook her head, "I was there. When Snape was pounded, I mean. James didn't do anything. He left before Sirius attacked Snape."
Emmeline nodded her head toward Alive, "There you have it, Lily. You were wrong this time. I suspect you owe Potter an apology."
Lily sat up a bit straighter, "You know what, your right. I'll apologize to him tomorrow." nodding decisively she stood and went about taking out nightcloths and changing into them. Speaking to them all the while. "I'll just find him tomorrow, its never very hard. Spot the gaggle of drooling females and follow their line of vision. I'll go about this like a mature person and admit I was wrong."
Climbing beneath the blankets she smiled at her friends who were doing likewise. "Thank you, all. I always appreciate your help." Hestia and Alice beamed back at her whilst Emmeline flapped a hand dismisively. With a wave of her wand, Hestia extinguished the lamps and shadow and silence fell over the girls dorm.
Lily Evans soon learned that apologizing was not going to be as easy as she had invisioned it. In fact she had visioned herself striding up to James Potter. Saying something along the lines of, 'I learned what happened and I'm sorry for my supisions. I hope you understand.' then he would smile that usual smile he always flashed with her. Say something about he would always forgive her and feed her some line about going to Hogsmeade with him which she would, as perusual, shoot down, thus returning her over turned life back to its natural routine. In hindsight Lily would realize how utterly absurd and selfish this notion sounded, but when she got up and proceeded to Great Hall for breakfast it had seemed perfectly plausible.
However, from the first Lily's plan was thwarted. She had come down to the Great Hall and taken her usual seat at the Gryffindor table. Every now and then when more occupents of the school could be heard clattering in she would turn slightly to cast an askance gaze toward the doors. Looking for her target. The other Marauders drifted in slowly. Potter following them up in the end nearer toward the bell. Which almost made Lily scream with frustration. That boy just had to make things more difficult than they had to be! Well so it seemed to her.
James had enough time to grab a couple peices of toast up and scarf them down before the whole school was hurry back out of the Great Hall. Lily rose when Potter did with the intent of cornering him in the hall. Even that action was denied as he was whisked away among his fellows and disappeared at an amazingly rapid pace. Due to their schedules she had to rush to one class whilst he went to another which put a further damper on her quest to make her regret for her actions known. The whole affair was driving Lily quit up a wall. Not to mention was making her feel like one of his fanatic female stalkers. After her class she would wander through the area he was supposed to be found in or peer out into a courtyard she passed. Never once did they cross paths.
As she went into Transfiguration, a class which blessidly meant all the Gryffindors would be together, she had a thouht which gave her a fit of laughter. It seemed, when she wanted to run into him she couldn't and when she didn't want to see his face for another century and a half, he popped up everywhere. Her laughter died as she allowed her head to thunk down on the copy of their transfiguration text. The reverberations causing the table to shiver very slightly. She turned her head as Emmeline slid into the other space at her table. Hestia and Alice occupying the two chairs at the table to her left.
Leaning in toward Lily, Emmeline lifted her brows and looked at her, "Whats the matter Dear?" she asked softly. Not knowing if McGonagall was feel particularly snappish today.
Lily lifted her head and propped her chin upon her palm, "Oh, its just that nothigsn gone how I planned it today. Its quite aggrivating."
Emmeline chuckled softly but didn't comment as the Marauders had just clattered into the room and taken over the few remaining seats. Sirius and James side by side whilst Remus took an empty space behind them alongside Frank Longbottom leaving Pettigrew to occupy a chair next to a particularly nasty Seventh year girl, who leered at him dangerously. Causing Peter to shrink in his seat with quite the odd squeak.
Black reached over and prodded Potter quite roughly in the area of his ribcage, pointing at a head full of blonde hair situated primly before him. In fact if one cared to notice this specimen of feminity was one of the self-proclaimed Beautys of Hogwarts and Perfected Matches of Marauding Sorts. Potter looked at Black and lifted a brow rather slowly as though inquiring to his best mate what he was on about. Due to the fact that, despite the profuse rumors of Sirius being the sort to go about with girls (and sometimes more than one at a time) and do things the Professors would scowl over, Sirius had never had anything to do with any girl that James had known of. In that cast Potter was extremely sure he'd have known. He himself had, had a few jaunts into a local broom closet but nothing excessive due to his besoted behaviour toward a particular redhead. Though he had known Sirius to go on about the looks of a few girls once or twice in the past the boy had never bothered approaching them, even though he knew very well the likelihood of one turning down his inquiry for a date, a snog, or even a shag was nearly, well nil. This had often made James ponder whether his gregarious friend was actually shy in the area concerning the females of their age, a bit below, or a tad above.
Meanwhile Sirius had been slowly curling a peice of parchment into his long fingers and crumpling it, in a manner that made it as silent a motion as possible, into a wad. After a moment he shoved it into position. Squinting his right eye very slightly as thought to take aim very carefully at the back of the long, straight blonde-haired head. Then releasing a finger forward in a swift flicking motion he sent the wad of parchment arching through the air to bounce on target against the back of the girls head. Stiffening slightly in a way that showed, to those who knew him best, that he was concealing his hilarity at the action.
The blonde's hand flew upward to the back of her head before she turned with a look of consternation upon her beatiful face. Her perfectly lined eyes lighting as she gazed upon the two boys behind her. Carefully glossed lips curling into a sweet (and rather chilling so thought Potter) smile. Her blue eyes giving them a gleaming over-look from beneath lashes curled to utmot perfection, "Oh, Siri, Jamie." she cooed. Potter had to keep himself from flinching from the absurd tone and mauling of their names. "Did one of you happen to see something strike the back of my head?" fluttering her lashes in a flirtatious manner she tipped her chair backwards allowing a view down the front of her modified uniform.
Potter allowed his lids to lower as he kept his gaze forward, shaking his head very slightly a single thought meandering through his mind tainted with a tone of dislike, slag...
Black leaned back casually in his chair long bangs floppy perfectly over his eyes to give him that handsome enigmatic look, "Not at all, Dear. Perhaps it was nothing?"
She nodded her framing tendrils of blonde hair bouncing in a single simultaeneous motion, "Your probably right Siri." she purred adding a long suffering sigh at the end of her words.
At about that very moment McGonagall came whirling into the room. Her robes billowing as she strode purposefully to her desk. Turning in a further flare she looked ferociously around the room. Spotting the blonde turned about in her seat and the brunette beside her who was watching the other girls interaction she snapped out, "Ms. Bloslatch if you would care to join us!" Though the words were prhased as a question it was all command.
The blonde whirled back around and smiled demurely at the witch, "Absolutely Professor." McGonagall's nostrils flared but she said nothing. Turning instead to the subject of her teaching.
As dinner came and went Lily trouped tiredly to the Common room, dumping her bookbag beside Alice, Hestia, and Emmeline. After a moment of staring drowsily at the collected papers on the table the girls had claimed she straightened up and looked 'round the common room. For a moment she seemed unable to find what she was searching for, but a moment later she found them tucked away in a corner. Stepping around her friends things she strode over to the Marauders, and gave a huff of dismay upon noting the group was missing one of their number, the one she'd been having trouble contacting all day.
Having heard her Remus looked up from a dusty tome he had been perusing for a paper he was working on. Peering at her with his honey-toned eyes over the top of the book he smiled kindly, "Can I help you, Lily?" he asked.
She slumped slightly, defeated, "Maybe..." she said.
Black turned slightly and looked quizically at Lupin then back to Lily, "Well Lovely Lillums, what do you need from us Marauding sorts?"
Lily looked upward at them and smiled slightly, "Wheres James at?" she finally managed out after awhile of fighting with herself. After their rather notorious relationship she found it unbelieveably hard to ask after the boy. Which was made worse by the way Sirius' brows shot upward at the question.
Lupin, however, remained unperturbed for which Lily was grateful. He gave her a breif smile before answering her question, "James headed off to the library. He needed a book on some more advanced spells for one of his essays. He should be back--"
Lupin never finished his sentance since Lily had given them an adbrupt thank you and hurried off out of the portrait hole. Pettigrew flicked his gaze up from his own parchment and looked after her then looked down suddenly once more, "Watch out Padfoot, mate. Ms. Nikki Bloslatch is flouncing prettily towards us." he mumbled waving his quill. Sirius took a surreptious glance and sure enough she was coming. He rolled his eyes and but on a lazy smile.
Lily strode swiftly through the halls, for she did not run in the halls that would be against the rules. Muttering oaths to herself very quietly about hard to find people. She was about half-way to the library when she passed someone, that someone she was looking for and didn't even notice it. That was, until a voice hailed her, "Lily?"
Stopping she turned and threw her hands up in exasperation at the sight of him. "Finally!" she cried. "Do you know how long I've been looking for you?" she asked severely.
A bemused look crossed over Potter's face as he peered at her, "Er... What'd I do?" he asked confusion evident in his voice as he peered at her through his specs.
Lily flapped her hand at him, "Nothing, nothing." she sighed. Stepping forward she looked straight at him. "I.. I just wanted to apologize for yesterday. I was wrong and shouldn't have jumped at you without knowing the full story..." A slight flush rose to her cheeks at having to admit it outright. She wasn't all that used to that.
James simply smiled at her, as she had expected, "Thats alright, Lily. I understand." with that he turned and began to walk back toward the common room. Lily jogging forward a few paces until she could match his lengthy strides with her shorter ones. Slightly confused by his lack of inquiry to a date with her, but surprised in a pleasant way that made her insides fizz happily. Perhaps, after all those years of enmity things would end their years at hogwarts together on a friendly and pleasant note, she for one was not against befriending the black-haired boy.
Chapter Four: Fin
Authors Note: Hmm well sorry that update took so long. I had a bad case of writers block and then I was jsut lazy. You can all thank my friend Moonpaw for be a slave driver and demanding I get a move on.
What will happen next? Was that a little fluff at the end? Where the crap did a name like Bloslatch come from?
We may never know...