The chapter title is continuing with the recipe theme from before, wink wink.
"Mix to a Boil"
"Miss Evans? ...Miss Evans!"
"Huh!" Lily snapped her head up off her desk and found herself face to face with Professor McGonagall.
"Did you have a nice nap?"
"Er...well, I...no, I..." Lily stuttered.
"Yes, yes. Very well. I don't need any excuses. I'll let you off this once, but only this once. Now I suggest you gather your things and join your friends at lunch. I daresay they'll be wondering about your absence." Professor McGonagall said with a hint of amusement.
"Omigosh! It's lunch!" Lily fretted in a panicked voice.
"Class ended several minutes ago."
"Oh! I'm so sorry Professor, I'll never do it again!" Lily yelled as she ran out the door. She belted down the hallway and into the Great Hall. She plopped down next to Cherise, trying to regain her composure.
"Where were you Lil?" Cherise asked while sticking a forkful of salad into her mouth.
"I...fell asleep in class," she said reluctantly.
"You did?" Cherise said, her amusement only too obvious.
"Yes!" Lily replied, almost angry with herself.
"How?" Marilyn asked.
"I dunno... I was just sitting there quietly after I transfigured my mouse into a teacup, thinking about...um...things, and I guess I got a little drowsy, that's all."
"Things?" Scarlett said suggestively. "What sort of things?"
"I bet she was daydreaming about Sirius!" Marilyn teased in a sing song voice. "Or should I say loverboy?"
"I was not!" Lily snapped as if she were insulted by the very idea. Suddenly her indignance melted into a sheepish grin, and she giggled. "Okay, so maybe I was..."
The girls began giggling madly, unaware of the newest member of their party.
"Hey sweet thang," Sirius greeted, sitting himself next to Lily.
The giggling ceased almost immediately, except for Marilyn, who was having trouble shutting herself up. That is, until Lily kicked her from under the table. This completed the silence.
Sirius, although not the brightest candle on the cake, caught this sudden hush and became suspicious.
"What was that all about?" he inquired, looking from girl to girl. Marilyn couldn't handle this and began giggling again. Lily rolled her eyes.
"Nothing, nothing. Forget it," she said casually. "So, how are you?"
"I'm doing good now," he purred, moving closer to Lily. He kissed her softly on the cheek and began playing with her hair. He made a move towards her mouth, but Lily turned her head just in time.
"Sirius..." she said through gritted teeth.
"What?" he said innocently. She turned back to face him and indicated towards her friends, all of which were watching the little scene apprehensively, as if it were a soap opera.
"Oh them? They don't mind," he said breezily. Lily tried to argue, but before she could say anything Sirius pressed his lips against hers. Scarlett and Cherise watched with wide eyes, thoroughly enjoying the show, but Marilyn was a different story. She had her hand over her mouth, trying (and failing) to contain another fit of giggles. She couldn't supress them for much longer, however, and soon she was immersed in a full blown giggle attack. Everyone at the table, including Lily and Sirius, turned and stared at her with annoyance. Scarlett, Cherise, and Lily let out identical sighs of exasperation.
"Has she had her medicine today yet?" Cherise said, pointing towards Marilyn.
"I... don't... take... medicine!" Marilynmanaged between giggles.
"Maybe you should," Lily quipped. This remark had an amazing effect on Marilyn's self control.
"Hey!" she retorted.
"What?" Lily shrugged innocently.
Before Marilyn could bite anyone's head off, James and Remus appeared at the scene, thus causing Marilyn to shift into flirtation mode.
"Boys!" she greeted buoyantly as they seated themselves with the group. "Care for some milk?" she offered, holding up the milk jug. "It does the body good, afterall. Not that you two need it," she smiled seductively.
"Don't we know it," Remus grinned and took the milk jug from her.
"Oy, where's Petey?" Sirius asked through a mouthful of turkey.
James rolled his eyes and answered, "The hopeless git spilled ink all over his bag, then set it on fire when he tried to clean it with a spell. He's in the hospital wing now."
"Oh my! Is he okay?" Lily asked anxiously.
"Oh yeah. Madame P. can fix anything. It's just his pride that got hurt, really."
"If he has any left," Remus snickered.
When Lily still looked shaken, James added, "Hey don't sweat it, Lily. It's just Peter. This kind of thing happens to him at least twice a day. So he fried his bag? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
A wide smile made its way across Lily's face. "You know 'Gone With the Wind'?"
James scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Er...yes," he revealed reluctantly.
"Oh that is so cute!" Lily squealed. "I didn't think any wizard - or anyguy for that matter - would know that movie!"
"Blame my mum," he sighed. "She has this fetish with muggle movies, so there always seems to be one playing when I'm at home. A guy can't help but pick up a few lines after years of that."
"Moo-vys?" Sirius added himself to the conversation. "Hey Lil, isn't that what you were telling me about that one time?"
"Yes, very good Sirius," Lily rewarded then turned her interest back to James. "So what other movies do you know?" she asked eagerly.
Since the others couldn't relate at all to the movie talk, they continued with their lunch and casually drifted into other conversation. Sirius stayed unusually quiet, and kept one arm over Lily's shoulders in a rather posessive manner.
Some men don't like other people touching their things (a/n: -cough- moulin rouge -cough-).
Lily walked into the common room later that evening and immediately spotted James sitting in a chair in an empty part of the room, a second chair pulled up in front of him. Almost as if on cue, he turned around and waved Lily over.
"Oh good. I was worried you might've forgotten," Lily said. "I almost did," she added as she seated herself in the chair across from James.
"Ah, but I have developed a fool proof method for remembering appointments such as this," he explained with an air of someone advertising their product. "Don't believe me? See for youself," and he thrust his hand toward her, showing some incoherent black scribbles on the back of his hand.
"Huh?" Lily moved her face closer, squinting her eyes.
"It says tutoring, common room, 7pm," he explained.
"Oh...um, yeah..." Lily said uncertainly. "So I guess that only works if you canread what you wrote..." she laughed.
"Hey!" James reprimanded. "I thought it was a brilliant idea!"
"Oh, yeah, pure genius. You'll sell millions of...writing-on-back-of- hand quills. The public will be in awe of this revelation," she said dramatically.
"Thank you," James puffed out his chest. "I've always been the world- changing type."
Lily laughed and rolled her eyes. "Maybe onyour planet..."
"Did you just insult me, Miss Evans?"
"It appears so, Mr. Potter," she replied, imitating his sophisticated tone of voice.
"Ooh you'll pay for that one..." he growled playfully. Lily screamed and hopped off her chair. James launched after her and grabbed her around the waist, accidentally causing both of them to fall forward onto the floor. He began tickling her ferociously, Lily giggling and swatting at him all the while.
"Okay! Okay!" she choked out. "You win!"
"I knew you'd see things my way," he smiled evilly.
The two of them were attracting quite a bit of attention, seeing as Lily was sprawled out on the floor with James positioned over her, although the numerous pairs of eyes looking their way escaped the pair's notice.
There were a few moments of silence as they remained in that position until James glanced at his hand.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, quickly moving off of Lily. "Tutoring! We should get to that."
"Yeah, huh," Lily agreed, almost in a daze. James offered Lily his hand and pulled her to a standing position. They plopped back into their chairs and let out identical sighs.
"So!" Lily began. "What should we work on today?"
"Um, shouldn't you know? Miss tutor?"
"Shut up! I do know! I just...need to organize my thoughts. Being harassed by a madman throws off your train of thought, you know." She stared accusingly at him. He, however, simply smiled innocently.
"I wouldn't know."
"Anyway, I think we'll analyze some writing by Shakespeare, starting with..." she rummaged through some papers, "...this!"
James took the paper and glanced over it.
"Sonnet X-V-I-I-I?"
"That's Sonnet eighteen, and yes - it's one of my favorites. It's so beautiful," she said dreamily.
"Is it?" he said, mocking her dreamy expression. Lily smacked him on the arm.
"Yes! It is!"
"You're rather violent, you know that?"
"Hey, at least I don'ttackle people," she defended.
"It was provoked!"
"Yeah, well, so was my attack. So we're even," she concluded. "Moving on... here, read this poem to yourself then tell me what you think of it."
James did as she told, and within 10 seconds was finished.
"I don't get it," he stated simply. Lily sighed.
"Well you have to really read it, not just look at the words!"
"Uh, since when was there a difference? Isn't that what reading is? Looking at words?"
"No! See, that's exactly you're problem. You only look at the words, you don't read them. Reading is to look beyond the obvious and to comprehend the real reasoning behind each word, to feel what the author feels. Look deeper, James," she explained passionately. "Read the poem a few more times with that in mind,then tell me what you think."
James stared at the paper for a minute more, the same bored expression on his face.
"Is this even in English?" he asked exasperatedly.
"Of course it is! It's just written a little...differently. That's Shakespeare's style. You know, he actually invented many of the words used in his writing. Most of them are still used today, in fact."
"Is that even legal?"
"Um...yes? You don't need permission to make up words. It just depends if people continue using them."
"I wanna make up a word!" James exclaimed like a little boy.
"Okay, okay!" Lily giggled. "Go ahead."
James thought for a second, over-exaggerating his thoughtfulness by rubbing his chin.
"I got it!" he suddenly shouted. "Lidacious," he stated proudly.
"Lidacious?" Lily repeated, considering the word for a moment. "Not bad...not bad at all. So, what does it mean?"
"I think it means 'wicked' or 'cool' or whatever."
"You think? You should know, you made it up!"
"No, no. You see, I may have invented the word, but once the word is there, the definition automatically comes with it. I have no say in the matter. It justhas a certain meaning, because...well, no...I think, uh..."
"Okay! Enough! Just...stop stressing your brain so much," Lily laughed. "Anyway, we really need to stop going off-track like this. So stop talking! Just work," Lily said, attempting to be serious.
"Well sorry that I'm so terribly interesting," James said haughtily. Lily started giggling and hit him on the arm again.
"I said stop! Work!"
"And the violence returns..."
"Okay, that's enough for the night," Lily sighed, closing her textbook and standing up. "I think we got a good solid...five minutes of tutoring accomplished."
It had been one hour since Lily and James had first gotten together, and for 90 of that time they had talked and laughed, completely disregarding the task at hand.
"That doesn't matter. I mean, would you want to have just studied this poetry crap for a whole hour rather than converse with me?" He gave her his cheekiest smile. "I think I speak for both us when I say: HELL NO! Besides, I know all I need to know about this stuff anyway. Like... Shakespeare. He's some old guy whole wrote tons of poems and made up a bunch of words. And then there's...uh...penamic intameter, or whatever..."
"Uh, I think you mean iambic pentameter," Lily offered.
"Yeah, yeah! That's what I said."
"Sure..." Lily trailed off. "So, Mr. Poetry Master, what exactlyis 'penamic intameter'?" she asked skeptically. James opened his mouth to speak, then paused and reconsidered.
"Well...I, uh...hm. That's not important!" he spouted. Lily stifled a laugh and shook her head at him. She was about to respond when she felt arms wrap around her waist from behind.
"Caught ya," a familiar voice whispered in her ear.
"Sirius!" she squeaked, startled from the unexpected appearance. He walked around to face her.
"You called?"
"Are you trying to scare me to death or something?" she huffed.
"Nah. I was just wondering where you were. Why are you hiding over here in the corner?" He glanced over at James. "Oy James, you stealing my girl?" he teased.
"Teacher's orders," James grinned and held up his hands in the surrender position.
"Since when do you follow teacher's orders?" Sirius asked skeptically.
"Since it ordered me to stay in the company of such a vivacious young lady," he gestured toward Lily.
"Well good student time is over - time for some fooling around," he wiglged his eyebrows at Lily. "You two done over here?"
Lily shrugged. "I suppo--"
"Great!" Sirius remarked before whisking Lily off to the couch in front of the fire. Lily gave Sirius a scandalized look as he got himself comfortable.
"What?" he shrugged innocently. "You said you were done."
"Yeah..." Lily said, annoyed that he was completely missing the point. "But that wasn't any reason for you to drag me away like your little doll or something!"
"Is it so wrong that I wanted some alone time with my girl?"
Sirius knew just how to melt Lily. His last words brushed away all of her annoyance instantly. 'My girl'...he had called her his girl! In Lily's opinion it was simply impossible to stay angry with someone who called you "his girl".
She smiled sheepishly. "No I guess not..."
Sirius smiled, his battle won. He leaned in and kissed her, softly at first, then with more passion. Lily could feel the attention they were gaining, which definitely didn't help set the mood. Sirius didn't seem to notice though. He leaned his body in closer, his hands crawling through her hair. He parted from her lips and changed his focus farther south to her neck. Lily opened her eyes, catching sight of James. For a moment he held her gaze, then abruptly turned the other way.
"Stop!" Lily pushed Sirius off of her.
"What?" Sirius questioned.
"I-I...I dunno," she answered intelligently. Sirius looked positively lost.
"Then why did you-"
"Not here!" Lily interjected. "Not now. Shouldn't we do this somewhere...private?"
"Private?" Sirius asked, intrigued. "If that's what you want..." And he started to stand up. Lily pulled him back down.
"NO!" she shouted, then quieted her voice. "No, I didn't mean right now. I just meant...I'm sorry. I have to go." Lily started towards the staircase, but was taken by surprise when she felt a firm grip on her arm hold her back.
"Oh no you don't," Sirius said. "You're not running away from me again."
"Sirius..." she pleaded.
"I don't get it! Why are you always running away?"
Lily opened her mouth to speak, but Sirius cut her off. "Don't you like me?"
"I...I do, but..." Lily searched for the right thing to say. She looked frantically around at the people staring, though her eyes skirted to one person in specific a little more than necessary. Sirius caught the direction of her gaze.
"It's James, isn't it?" Sirius said bitterly. "You'd rather be with my best mate than me?"
"NO! It's not that!" Lily bursted. "I don't feel that way about James. He's just a friend, I swear!"
Sirius looked skeptical. "Then...what?"
Lily looked as flustered as she felt. As much as Sirius wanted an answer, so did she. Then, without another thought, she grabbed Sirius by the collar and pulled him into a kiss.
This most definitely took him by surprise, heck, it even took Lily by surprise, but being the Sirius Black he was - he needed no help adjusting into it. Lily wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life as she kissed him with everything within her. It was as if the kiss was an outlet for the all the mixed up emotions swirling around inside her. Sirius was in no position to complain about this random vigor coming from the little redhead, so he chose instead to kiss just as passionately back.
Lily could feel Sirius's hands beginning to crawl up beneath her shirt when a shrill voice cracked the air.
"MR. BLACK! MISS EVANS!"
The heated couple broke apart as quickly as they had come together, if not faster, to find themselves face to face with a very displeased looking Professor McGonagall. Her eyes were wide and her lips thin as paper.
"What do you two think you are doing?" she snapped.
Lily's face was flushed (thanks in part to the kiss) and her heart either stopped or was beating so fast that it was indistinguishable. Every silent moment that passed between her and the teacher before her seemed like years.
"Lillian Evans...I would have never put it upon you..." Professor McGonagall shook her head in shame. "But Black, on the other hand...onto corrupting the innocent now, are you?"
Sirius shifted his weight nervously. Lily felt as if she was slipping slowly into the floor...or perhaps if was wishful thinking.
"Such a public display of affection is simplynot acceptable within this school, and you best be fit to never let it happen again. Understand?" she berated.
"Yes ma'am..." Lily and Sirius mumbled in unison.
"Good." She adjusted her glasses out of habit. "Since this is your first offense Miss Evans, I find it fair to leave you with a strong warning."
Lily felt her heart start again.
"Mr. Black - you will come with me," she narrowed her eyes at him then turned abruptly and marched out of the common room. Sirius gave Lily an 'Oops' expression before following the fuming teacher out of the room.
"Minerva! Doll! Can't we talk this over?" his voice sounded from just outside the portrait hole.
Lily took a deep breath of the air she was desperately lacking. She slowly looked around to find the entire occupancy of the common room staring at her expectantly. Once they noticed that she noticed, the gentle hum of conversation crept up again.
Feeling beyond her capabilities of embarrassment, Lily held one hand on the side of her face as if to hide and walked briskly towards the girls staircase. Once she thought she was home free, a voice called from behind her.
"Lily! Lily wait a second!"
Not keen on walking back into the common room, she chose to stay at the bottom of the staircase and allow her caller to come to her.
"Lily..." the voice pleaded again. Lily felt a hand on her shoulder as it turned her around to face--
"James?"
"Look Lily, I'm so sorry about tha--"
"What? Why? You didn't have anything to do with it!" she said.
"Lil...I heard what you two were saying before you...you know..."
Lily gained a sudden fixation with the ground.
"And I know that it was all because Sirius suspects something..."
"But that's just it!" Lily cried. "It's just his suspicion! You and I both know that nothing is going on between us, so you have no right to take the blame!"
James rubbed the back of his neck nervously and bit his lip. Lily looked him directly in the eyes, revealing that there was more there than he was letting on. Lily was concerned at how much James appeared to be beating himself up.
"James, really, stop stressing. Sirius's suspicions have no truth behind them! If you're worried about him being angry with you - forget it. He has no reason to."
"But what if he does?" James uttered with an almost desperate tone.
Lily's breath caught in her throat. "...What?" she breathed.
"What if he does have reason to be angry with me?" James said softly, locking his eyes with hers.
Lily felt the ground fall out beneath her for the second time that day. James's words hung heavily in the air during the frozen moment of silence between the two.
Suddenly James ran his hand through his hair frantically as he started backing away.
"Lily...I'm so sorry..." he sighed before turning and heading quickly for the boys dorm - leaving a very lost Lily.
And the plot thickens. Oooh. Silly James, has to complicate everything. But that's what makes a story a story, correct?
From now on, I'll most likely be posting...mmm...once a week. Since I'm not miles ahead in the story anymore, I need time to actually WRITE the stuff, not just prep it for posting. School starts in a week (-takes a moment to sob her eyes out-) so I'll try to write as much as I can during my final week of freedom, then we'll have to see how it goes from there.