Dec 19,2005

A/N

Hello All! Sorry about the late updates. I'm kind of sort of losing interest in the story. And procrastinating. And being devoured by my homework.

It's winter break, though, so hopefully things will begin to speed up. I have this and Twelve Days of Xmas to continue.

---

Chpt 10--Help from Uncle Tom

The next few days were a whirlwind of pseudo-romance between the two of them, if one could call it that. James, far from willing to give up, continued trying to be romantic, and when that failed, tried each of Sirius' and Peter's advice in turn, to no avail. Lily, for her part, found herself at the receiving end of several more bouquets of every known flower it seemed (some less pleasant than others), and face to face with a James that never seemed to possess the same personality twice.

And so it was that by the time the week had ended, Lily was extremely confused indeed and had begun to wonder if there was something she was missing, asides from the fact that he was being a great annoying git. The potions project forgotten, she had taken to avoiding him in the halls and shying away from him when he approached her in class or in the Great Hall. She'd decided that the boy had finally lost his marbles.

Lily watched as the fluffy white snowflakes drifted to the earth in downward spirals and coated the grounds with a vanilla powder, almost like a winter wonderland. She smiled, then turned and headed in.

---

James spotted her the moment she entered the common room and looked up, grinning from where he had been bent over a scrap of parchment with his friends.

"Hullo, Evans," he smiled cheerfully while Remus moved to cover the piece of parchment with his arms.

Lily nodded to acknowledge his greeting and moved to exit toward the dormitories but James had stood up, barring her path. "Go to Hogsmede with me?" he asked, putting on a dramatic expression.

She smiled.

"Have you ever seen a flying pig, James?"

"Well—" he began, but was cut off by her next comment.

"Right," she said, smiling wryly, "because I'm not going to stop saying 'no' to you until you see one."

James grinned. "That may be, Lily," he said, "but it just so happens that I was going to say that yes, I have seen a flying pig…before you so rudely cut me off, that is."

Surprised at his remark, Lily let her jaw drop.

"What?"

"Well, you see, my uncle Tom, he loved to breed animals for fun. Call it a hobby, if you must, but he was, er, he was a bit obsessed. He was doing quite well for himself, bred all sorts of creatures, but the Ministry found out eventually, poor bloke."

"Potter…"

James grinned and ignored her. "Anyways," he said, "he thought it would be funny if he tried mating a hog with a peacock. It was really interesting the way it happened. You see, it took quite a while to get the animals to comply, and afterwards—"

"James!"

"—Afterwards, well, it was a really strange sight, you should've seen it, Lily. See, peacocks are big birds, but there nowhere near as large as hogs, and it got a little…frightened. We had to tie it down, and then—"

"JAMES!" Lily screamed, paying no heed to the stares she was now receiving and the muffled laughter of Remus, Sirius, and Peter. She really didn't want to know what had happened "then".

James stopped and looked around wildly as if he had missed something important. "What, Lily, what?" he asked, a bit annoyed at the interruption.

Lily stared at him, frowned, and blinked confusedly. "Er…" she said hesitantly, "I dunno."

There passed an awkward silence in which they ogled each other and Lily fought to keep from turning around and slapping James' friends for their incessant, almost girlish giggling.

"Right," said James matter of factly after a while, "so anyways. This flying pig. It couldn't really fly, it was much too portley for that, but it had the definite potential, and--"

"What?" Lily repeated for what must have been the sixth time that day. She was beginning to feel as if she would spend the rest of her life spewing the words "what" and "James" out of her mouth like a broken Muggle tape player.

"Go out with me, Lily?" he asked again.

---

The words were out of her mouth before she knew it, and, looking back, she knew she couldn't blame the situation, James' incessant banter, or his friends' annoying giggling any more than she could blame herself.

"Okay, James, I'll think about it."

She supposed she owed it to him; he had, after all, been very persistent and had shown a lot of determination. Those were, after all, great virtues. And she supposed she had brought it unto herself when she'd told him that she'd say "yes" when he saw flying pig.

It wasn't, after all, her fault that he'd actually seen one. Blame it on his uncle Tom. Blame it on that poor peacock and its freakish mate. Blame it on the Ministry.

It occurred to her, occasionally, that she was being a little unfair, but she thought she had more to worry about than just her conscience.

Lily was going to Hogsmede with James. Lily was going on a date with James. She though the occasion warranted twelve foot posters tacked onto every wall of every corridor, it was that rare. Or, at the very least, she should receive a medal of courage or something.

She got, however, neither of these things. Instead, Saturday morning found her frantically rummaging through her trunk for a nonexistent nice outfit to where.

"Arrg!" she ground out furiously after having sorted through her belongings for the third time. She didn't even know why she cared. After all, she'd known James most of her life, and he'd probably already seen every outfit she had; why, then, did she have to make so big a deal. It was not as if she cared what he thought; it was just a pity date, is all. Yes that's it, she tried to convince herself, the only reason she'd agreed was because she felt sorry for him.

…But then why did Lily care what she wore? She angrily threw her set of ocean green dressing robes across the room, where it landed on the head of a surprised Alice Marsh, who had just walked in.

"Sorry Alice," Lily apologized sheepishly, reaching for her wand to extricate the other witch.

As the now thoroughly wrinkled gown flew away from Alice and into Lily's outstretched hands, the former girl smiled gently. "It's okay, Lily," she said. "You're probably just a bit nervous. I don't blame you."

"Er…thanks," Lily muttered, stuffing items into her trunk and snapping the lid closed.

"I was nervous on my first date," continued Alice thoughtfully. "I couldn't even talk straight. Kept stuttering like a great git."

Lily nodded awkwardly, not quite sure what to say to that. She wished Alice would leave her to search in private.

Alice, however, only grinned and leaned thoughtfully against Lily's bedpost. "It worked out in the end, though," she droned, "as you probably know. Frank is the sweetest guy. Why, only last week he presented me with a huge basket of roses, and he says he's got something special planned for this weekend. I can't wait!"

As the other girl dissolved into a fit of swoons, Lily took advantage of her preoccupancy to change the subject.

"Sorry Alice," she said, "but I really need to get ready for today. I'm already running late."

"Oh, that's no problem," said Alice, recovering. "Tell you what. I'll let you borrow the outfit I wore on my first date with Frank. I think you'll love it."

And with that she sauntered off to rummage in her trunk for said articles of clothing, leaving Lily to wonder what on earth she had gotten herself into.

---

Twenty minutes later Lily was standing outside the entrance hall, and, thanks to Alice, dressed in what she thought made her look like a Christmas turkey.

James, of course, was late again.

As she waited, she self consciously twirled a bit of her now-pasty hair around her finger and tried to smooth out the wrinkles in her red and green skirt. It was a colorful affair, a bit too large for her, with ridiculous silver bows studded here and there "for effect". The collar was lined with lace, which made for itchiness, and Lily reached up now and then to unconsciously scratch at her collarbone. To make matters worse, she was wearing slippers that were a size too large and crimson ribbons in her hair.

Alice, who had insisted on dressing Lily up herself as if she were a paper doll, had also insisted that she looked "absolutely marvelous, Lily dear." Lily, however, thought otherwise. If it weren't for the fact that she didn't want to let her not-quite-friend down, she'd have ripped off the ridiculous outfit right then and there.

She shivered slightly in the cold; not only was the skirt frilly and revolting, it left her legs bare from the knee down, allowing cold drafts of air to swirl about them. In an attempt to counteract this, Lily bent slightly, trying to draw her legs under her skirt as well as to hide the knobby knees she knew would be the first thing James noticed about her.

As it turned out, however, she was wrong. When he tapped her on the shoulder abruptly from behind her, the first thing out of James' mouth was "Merlin, Lily…Christmas isn't until next month," followed by a peal of laughter.

Lily blushed slightly but managed to look disgruntled. "Are we going or not?" she asked primly, and began to totter (tottering was all she could manage in those shoes) off toward the carriages.

"Right you are," replied James, recovering, and striking a gentlemanly pose, offered her his arm, which she took with a roll of her eyes.

"Off we go, lovely lady."

---

I'm beginning to hate this story, because I've realized it's just too unorigional. Still, I absolutely hate it when an author leaves a story unfinished, so don't worry about me discontinuing it, unless I grow to absolutely abhor it.

I'm debating whether or not I should continue the next two parts (parts, not chapters) at all.

In any case, please be so kind as to drop a review.

Hurleygurl—Lily was being sarcastic. Green was just a snide remark. She could've just as easily said 'tangerine'. )

--ToC