THISTLES OF A ROSE

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"A lawful kiss is never worth a stolen one"

-Maupassant
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The Marauders had prepared the Renascence Draught with great care and utmost caution, all the time keeping James trapped under their hawkish eyes. "You must sit still," said Sirius. "Only then can the potion have effect and you will be able to drive Lily sufficiently out of your head."

James's heart skipped a beat. It always did, whenever he heard Lily's name.

He tried to distract himself away from Lily and concentrate on the upcoming Quidditch match. He hadn't ridden his Silver Arrow since a really long time. A whole week had passed since he had last seen Lily…James shook his head. His mind had once again wandered off to Lily.

Her lips had been constantly harping on his memories. The slight curve of the upper lip like a bow, the lower one like a ripe red quarantine…. They were enough to drive anyone insane! James wondered what unknown factor it was that restrained him from taking her in his arms, and crushing her mouth with his own…. Like he had done that fateful night when he had drunk the love potion and invoked his doom.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that Lily would hate him even more if he did something so foolish, which prevented James from swooning at her feet in downright desire, and from making a lovesick public spectacle of himself. But whatever was the force that was keeping James in control, and keeping his emotions under leash, was very weak indeed, and he was hanging by a very thin thread.

James sighed softly. His friends were the best friends anyone could ever ask for, but there wee some things that they just couldn't understand. Hell, no one could.

"Here, James," said Remus, offering him the cold potion in a phial, and some tea in another. "Drink these up together, James, and banish this morbid infatuation for Lily."

James took the two phials from her hands. Did he really wish to banish Lily from his thoughts? Did he really wish to forget that angel? Did he really want to shove those lips away from himself forever? Did he?

He gulped up the contents, sighing heavily. His stomach rumbled like echo in a tunnel, and he felt his palms and forehead getting sweaty.

"How do you feel?" asked Sirius anxiously.

"I feel…nothing," said James nonplussed. Which was the truth, as he felt completely drained out of all emotion. Was it the potion at work?

Sirius looked at Remus flabbergasted. "Well, that can happen sometimes," Remus said, shrugging his shoulders. But Sirus could not derive any comfort from Remus's unconvincing tone.

"But did it work?" asked Peter in his squeaky voice.

"It has to," Remus whispered nervously. "But there is only one way to find out. James must face her, and see if he still feels an urgency to kiss her."

Sirius looked half-ill, and graced James with a look of pure disgust.

It was lucky that James was still in a daze, for he would never have obeyed Remus. He whistled to his owl Athena, and Remus wrote out a short note in the blank quill surrendered by Peter.

Dear Lily
I have prepared the Renascence Potion, and he has drunk it. We would be very grateful if you helped him out of the "lovebug", as you promised. Will you meet him after your NEWT Herbology classes?
Remus

As Athena fluttered away, Remus patted James clumsily on the back. "You have no classes right today, why don't you look her up? Professor Flitwick has taken his students to Greenhouse Number #3."

"Best of luck! Said Peter, and for some reason, he looked up apologetically at Remus.

James got up, feeling empty and listless, and walked off like a man in a dream.

Sirius banged his fist against the wall. "What the hell is wrong with him? Why is he behaving like this? I can't take this anymore!"

"I'm so afraid for him," said Remus. James was supposed to hate Lily. Had they messed up the potion?

Peter had his head in his hands.

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James waited outside the conservatory as Professor Sprout and the students filed out slowly. He had been standing there for an hour now, feeling like a man whose life no longer had a meaning. He felt as if all his energy had been sapped out of him.

Professor Sprout smiled at James as he passed her by. She had seen James pace to and fro in the garden outside, and then lean against the giant Eucalyptus tree in his restlessness. So that's why James had been so unfocussed and lethargic lately…. All boys went through this phase of infatuation. All boys came to the conservatory to have secret clandestine rendezvous with their girlfriends. James was human too, after all. She wondered who the lucky girl was.

Lily Evans was the last to come out. Slowly she walked, confused and tensed. She seemed to know that there was an invisible spark lurking in the air, behind the bushes, amongst the fallen autumn leaves. She stopped when she was about a yard away from James.

"Hello," she said awkwardly.

In all his life, James had never seen a girl more beautiful. Her large green eyes had dark circles under them, as if she had spent many a sleepless night. Her hair was let loose and disheveled all over her face, with a single deep red rose entwined near her ear. Her neck was the shape of a slender porcelain vase, so soft, so white, in a background of thorns in particular. Her light dress with floral prints fluttered in the breeze, wrapping her slender legs in gentle embrace. She looked so lovely and lost.

"Did it work?" she asked him anxiously. "I have not slept a wink since I got to know how you unwittingly drank that love potion…I wonder who left it there…and why…. Its illegal. I'm extremely sorry for how things have changed between us. James, you must have gone through such a terrible ordeal. You are a good friend James; I'm really concerned about you. Sirius and Remus must have made the potion correctly; they are so clever. But I hope…the Renascence Potion…. Do you hate me now? The Potion has that effect, you know."

"It doesn't feel right," said James, clutching his chest.

"I understand, James," she said. "A minute ago you were in love with me, and now you feel you want to kick me. But that's natural. And expected, too; its one of the symptoms of the Renascence Potion. Your hatred for me will only last a short while, maybe two or three weeks, but after that it will be all right. It will sink into indifference. Don't worry if you hate me now. Everything will be normal again."

"I don't hate you Lily," said James, with a mad urge to fall at her feet.

"Huh?" she said in some confusion. "Oh! That's great, then, no harm done. You are OK, and things have sobered down. Love Potions have been banned at Hogwarts, but they should be banned the world over…for all the misery they put the drinker through. We really must find out who kept that phial there, James. Perhaps we should tell Madame Pomfrey, what do you think?"

"Hey, that's a swell idea," said James, really not knowing what he said while Lily looked at him with that large clear gaze.

But they had reached the end of the greenhouse, and were obliged to pause and turn. The change of movement brought a new consciousness to Lily; she blushed deeply, turned away her head, and drew her arm to a flower blossoming in the bush nearby to smell it.

"Oh!" She exclaimed in joyous child-like wonder. "What a beautiful thing it is!"

James stood motionless, and still pale. He was mute; he was incapable of putting a sentence together, and Lily bent her arm a little upward towards the large half-opened flower that had attracted her.

What a tender, beautiful arm it was! With its dimpled elbow, and all the gently lessening curves, down to the delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness! Lily's was such an arm as that, and it had the warm tints of life.

A mad impulse seized on James; he darted toward the arm, and showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.

But the next moment Lily snatched it from him, and glared at him like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation.

"How dare you!" she cried out in wrath and frustration. "So you lied! You are still in love with me! You never drank the Renascence Potion, did you! Did you? I really thought that you might…"

But Lily couldn't continue. James did not allow her to continue.

The lips that had kissed her hands before were now upon her own.

James was kissing her with a violent pressure, ready to tear her mouth to shreds. His hands had grabbed her tresses so tightly that they seemed to be crying out in pain. His chest was plunging down like a harpoon upon her heaving bosom, he was crushing her bones to butter, his tongue hungrily pillaging the roof of her mouth. The kiss of death could not have been more fatal, more turbulent, or as voracious as this one kiss that James had determined to snatch from Lily. Like sunlight drinking upon dew, he was sucking her lips, as if drawing upon the virginal pool of her pure, ethereal soul. He kissed her like a storm sent to curse a city, like a plague awakened to devour a village, like a chain hooked to bind man and woman in a stranglehold of love and passion.

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A/N:

Oh Merlin! Who wouldn't want to be kissed like that? There you go, a nice little cliffie for you.