Friendship Has Its Limits

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, apart from Alexa and anyone else you might not recognize. The characters that you do recognize from the Harry Potter books all belong to the brilliant imagination of J. K. Rowling. Okay, I'm done now.

"No."

"But that boy is positively adorable! Surely you two are more than friends? What with your beautiful looks, charming personality and his looks, I would think that you two would make the perfect couple!" Veronica looked delighted; it was making Lily sick.

"No," Lily repeated firmly. "I assure you that James Potter and I are just friends, and even that's pushing it sometimes. Sure, we've been on one date, and sure, I have known him since I was eleven, but we are not, I repeat NOT, dating."

"Well, you could've fooled me," Petunia said nastily. She, Lily, Veronica and Mr. Evans were all sitting down at the breakfast table later that morning, discussing James---much to Lily's distaste. Somehow he always managed to make himself the subject of all conversation, even if he wasn't in the same room---or house---of said conversationalists.

"What do you mean, Petty?" asked Lily.

Petunia rolled her eyes at her sister and said as if she were stating the obvious, "You haven't taken his jacket off since he gave it to you. And it's been five and a half hours since your little escapade---"

"I wouldn't call it an escapade, exactly," interrupted Lily thoughtfully.

Petunia rolled her eyes again. "Well, whatever you call it, you were still outside on our front lawn at three o'clock in the morning with a boy. And this boy just happened to give you his jacket, which you have not taken off for five and a half hours."

"James is just my friend. Nothing more than friends, and nothing less than friends, okay? The only reason that I haven't taken his coat off is because it's keeping me warm."

Her sister snickered. "I wasn't aware that it was cold in here---"

It was Lily's turn to roll her eyes. "Just be quiet, Petty, please. I am not willing to explain, yet again, that James Potter and I, Lily Evans, are not dating, and never have been dating."

"But didn't you just say that you did go on one date with him?"

Lily glared at her sister and threw her arms in the air in an exasperated gesture. "I went on ONE date with him, O-N-E. And while it was rather nice, we are still just friends. We have never been anything more than friends, and in fact, until last year, we weren't even really friends. Now I'm going upstairs to relax."

Upstairs in her bedroom, Lily pondered her sister's words. Just because James had given the jacket to her in the first place didn't mean that they were anything more than friends. And just because she still hadn't taken James's jacket off didn't mean that she had more than friendly feelings for him. Right?

This was silly! Of course she only had friendly feelings for James. What else would she have? She was his friendafter all. Not to mention the fact that Lily often thought of James as annoying---or insufferable, depending on her mood. Still, she couldn't shake the thoughts---or emotions, for that matter---that had gone through her mind when James had almost kissed her.

---A few hours later---

Lily stood on the porch of a large house. She was thoroughly awed by the extravagant house. It was light blue in colour, with a white trim, and it was made of wood. There were white lace curtains in the windows, from behind which a pair of eyes was peeking at her. When she rang the doorbell, the eyes disappeared almost immediately, and Lily could hear someone talking for a moment, before a tall woman opened the door. She had glossy, dark brown hair, and gorgeous purple eyes.

"You must be Lily," said the woman, smiling kindly at Lily. "I'm Mrs. Peters, Alexa's mother. She's told me so much about you. Please, come in, dear." From behind Mrs. Peters, a pair of pale eyes watched Lily shyly.

"Thank you, Mrs. Peters," Lily said, smiling politely.

She stepped inside the house after Mrs. Peters, who called up a large staircase, "Alexa! Lily's here!" A short time after that, the sounds of an argument could be heard at the top of the stairs. This lasted for only a moment longer before someone came tumbling down the stairs.

"MOM! Ben pushed me down the stairs!" Alexa cried, standing up and brushing herself off. She went over to the bottom of the stairs and glowered at the boy who was standing at the top.

"Benjamin, don't push your sister down the stairs," Mrs. Peters chided before going through a large living room and into an even larger kitchen. A little girl who looked to be thirteen or fourteen years old scurried after Mrs. Peters hurriedly.

"Hi, Lily," Alexa said, turning away from her brother to look at her best friend. "Sorry about that. That's Benjamin up there, my younger brother. Travis isn't in at the moment, my other brother, I mean. And I believe you saw Caroline running after my mum. She's my youngest---and only---sister."

Lily looked back up the stairs at Benjamin. He came down the staircase to meet her. "You can call me Ben," he said, taking Lily's hand and shaking it. Ben had a head full of curly light brown hair, and his eyes were blue, unlike his mother and sister's eyes. Lily hadn't gotten a good look at Caroline, so she wasn't sure if she had the same purple eyes or not.

Lily smiled politely at Ben, but she began wondering if he was ever going to let go of her hand. But shortly after that, Alexa rolled her eyes, smacked her brother upside the head, and taunted, "Are you ever going to let her go Ben? You know, if you happened to express you little obsession with Lily outside of this house, James would probably kick your---"

Ben blushed brightly, kicked his sister's shin, and ran up the stairs as fast as he could, leaving Alexa looking murderous and Lily looking confused. "Damn brother," Alexa muttered darkly, glaring up the stairs even though Ben was long gone. "I swear, one of these days, he is going to go to sleep, and never wake up."

"He can't be that bad, can he?" Lily asked cautiously. She'd never seen Alexa act this way before, and quite honestly it was scaring her; she didn't know what to expect from her friend now.

"Not that bad?" repeated Alexa in astonishment. "Did you not just see what he did? Add beating me up all the time to constantly talking about you and then ask yourself if he can be 'that bad.' I know you're my best friend and everything, but hearing about you all the time tends to get on one's nerves after a while."

Lily giggled, and not long after that Alexa joined her, until soon both girls had collapsed on the floor, giggling madly and leaning against each other for support. It felt good to finally have something to laugh about, Lily reflected as she clutched at her sides. Finally the two had calmed down enough to agree to go get some ice cream.