The morning after my exciting common room adventure, as Miriah had already began calling it, was a Saturday, thank the lord. A Saturday meant many things, most of them fun, but it also meant the possibility of avoiding James, if I wished to, and not only did I wish to, but I also very much needed to. I knew what he would think. James was not a player, not if you saw the word the way I did. He believed in love before sex, and probably didn't sleep with the majority of the many girls he dated. James was a nice boy, for all his quirks. Despite all the road signs devised to tell and show you otherwise, this is the core and entire truth. At the end of the day, he was the exact type of boy you could take how to mum and dad. And nice boys, like him, would probably think sex, or in our case almost-sex, meant something. He probably thought it meant that I had finally caved to his fiery kisses and the sizzling looks. The kind that left nothing to the imagination as to what exactly he, we would be doing if only I would concede. He probably thought this meant I would say yes next time, that things where different now, instead of the ugly, unchanged truth.

And so, that Saturday, I hid shamefully, as no girl had hid before. I wasn't one for confrontation, and I didn't feel like making up more excuses, not to him. There may be chemistry, and there was definite sparkage as only the great romances could know, but then again, that was the problem. I didn't want a great romance, or love, or any of that crap. I was afraid, if I would let myself admit it. I had said so, just the night before, hadn't I? I had said that, and then I had let him put his hands on me, all over me, and worse my hands had gone far farther then his own. My hands had been there right back. There would be no more excuses. There would be no more lies. There was only truth, and that was the scariest thing I could think of. But still nothing had changed.

I haunted our dorm room as long as I possibly could without drawing the suspicion of my friends, suspicion that would be easily drawn, I expect, after last nights little adventure, and I desperately wanted them to believe that all was right as rain, whatever that meant, lest I had to explain. I would already have to tell Angel, if her expression last night was any indication of how much she believed my story, a.k.a not at all, and the fewer people involved in my melodrama, the better.

When I could no longer stay put without a decent reason, I slinked out of our dorm, thinking maybe I'd ask Regan to stash me in the Ravenclaw Common Room, where James could not find me. I was thinking up excuses when I ran right into someone on the stairs, and had to grab the railing to stop myself from toppling over, possibly down to my broken-necked death.

"Ack!" the person squeaked, also grabbing the rail to stop form falling. "Oh, hey Lil!" No matter what I did, that dreadful nickname ran ramped. Wrenching myself with difficulty from my deep and consuming thoughts, I looked up at the person I had ran straight into. It was Naomi Dunes, my old tutor student.

"Uh, hey." I replied, distracted and without enthusiasm. I knew the blue-eyed girl would be scandalized by a dismissal, but I was too busy calculating my escape from almost-lovers to worry about the opinion of old acquaintances.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask you if you'd help me again. What, with O.W.L's coming up, I want to make sure I get my Charms down pat. It should be easy, with a few pointers from you…" She trailed off, looking hopeful, and no doubt expecting enthusiasm. Today, however, I had none to spare.

"Listen, Naomi." I said, hoping I didn't look as drained as I felt. "I'd be glad to, but can we discuss it another time? I'm kind of in a big hurry…" Just as I had foreseen, she looked positively insulted.

"Uh, ya. Sure."

I smiled gratefully, and hoped she would understand. "Thanks. I'll talk to you on Monday, alright?"

"Uh-huh."

I was getting the cold shoulder and we both knew it, but I was in no mood to care. I was too busy trying to plot my James-less escape to worry about such trivialities. As she continued up the stairs in a huff, I continued down, and crossed my fingers that he was not waiting for me below. That would be such a guy thing to do, haunt you. Or maybe not at all. I was too stressed out at the moment to consider any logical thought pattern.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I peaked around praying to gawd that he wasn't there. I couldn't face him… I couldn't face him… I couldn't face him… He wasn't there.

I nearly crossed myself in relief, thought better of it, then hurried out of the room before he managed to appear on the boy's staircase.

I began dashing through halls, trying to stick to those that would be the most crowded, so I had the least amount of a chance of being found. Apparently, though, Lady Luck had found me in bed with her lover, and boy was she pissed.

"Hey! Lily!" I froze, in the middle of the most crowded hallway I could find, sick with fear and apprehension. He had found me. I had hid but to no avail. That stupid cliché about running but not being able to hide fluttered through my mind. This was it. Fuck! though that seemed to be my problem, didn't it?

In one final ditch attempt, I ducked down and into one of the lesser known, and rarely used hidden passageways. I hoped to loose him in the crowd, and thinking vaguely that this way at least we would have privacy to our confrontation. I slipped behind the tapestry of Narsissus, lost in rapture with himself, and walked as quickly as I could. My hands were clutched into fists, my nails biting halfmoons into my flesh.

"Lily! Hey, wait up, wouldja!" If I didn't stop now, he would know I was running, and in my mind that was not a possibility. Sucking in as much air as my lungs would allow, I slowly turned around to face him as he caught up.

"Hullo James." I said, doing my best to stop my voice from wobbling. I would play this cool. I would say no. I would not crack. I would not crumble. I was in control. I wondered if even I believed my weak words.

Coming to a stop before me, he just smiled and leaned down to kiss me, but I turned away, knowing that every molecule of my resolve would simply dissolve if I let him, so that his lips met with hair instead of his intended destination. His brow furrowed in confusion and he straightened up to stare down at me with baffled eyes. "No" was all I could manage to utter by way of explanation.

"Lily—what's wrong? I hope you're not mad about last night… I mean, I know it was all wrong, and in the common room of all places, and then your friends walking in… You almost lost your virginity against a wall—" I burst of hard; cold laughter came from my throat. He thought I was still a virgin that was rich… I was no more a virgin than a prostitute.

"James, that has nothing to do with anything. I'm not a virgin, and I wasn't last night or a year ago either. Gawd, you're so naïve." I ran a hand through my hair trying to put myself together. I was calling a marauder naïve… what was the world coming to? "This is about me, not wanting to end up some blind housewife, like my mother. This is about me, not wanting a serious relationship. If I got involved with you, I'd end up over my head so fast that I would be drowning in all of it…in you. I'd loose myself in it, and I never want that again. So I'm saying mo. No no nonononoNO." I could feel the lump growing in my throat, but I wasn't going to let anything come of it. He wasn't going to see me cry.

My crying, however, was the last thing on his mind. His smile had vanished and the confusion had been replaced with dawning comprehension. "I though you loved me." Was all he said.

"I do!" I couldn't help but burst out. "That has nothing to do with anything." I told him, trying with all my might to hold my ground. "That's all the more reason to stay away."

"What do you mean what does love have to do with anything?" he ran a frustrated hand through his already messy hair. "Lily, for chrissakes, this is all about love, or we wouldn't be standing here discussing anything. I love you, god I love you and you love me, you've admitted it more that once. I don't see what your problem is."

"My problem is that it won't last! Lust wanes, and love crumbles away and then all that's left is a pair of bitter people trying desperately to reclaim their glory days. I won't be like that. I won't throw my life away on something so unstable…I—I can't…"

"Then you'll be pretty bloody lonely, all by yourself." He looked disgusted now, and worse, hurt. I rather he ranted and raved, yelled and screamed, then to see the disappointment behind his eyes. He turned to go, to stalk out into the hallway.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't leave it like this. I couldn't let him hate me, and I didn't think I could hate him again, if I ever really did. I couldn't do any of it… "James—wait!" The words were out of my mouth before I had made any decision to do it, or say anything at all, or perhaps worse, what to say next.

"What?" he asked, I looked at him, unsure what to say or do now. When I didn't reply, he did it for me. "You're afraid, I get that, but I won't chase you around if your mind is set. There's no use beating a dead horse. If you say no, then it's no. Now, what do you want?"

He stood there, awaiting a reply. A million and a half thoughts were racing through my head, each one contradicting the last. And so I did the only thing that made sense. I closed the space between us with a stride and kissed him, grabbing his shirt in my fists.

At first he merely stood there, but he soon reciprocated, pulling his hands down my sides, then back up, only this time under my shirt. And then I was pinned against the wall, and my skirt was around my waist… And this time, there were no interruptions.

What had I gotten myself into?

I stumbled out of that damnable passageway, more confused even than when I had awoken this morning. My thighs ached, my back hurt, and I had just fucked James Potter. I had absolutely no idea what to do with any of this. I had no idea where I was going either. The Heads Common Room was out of the question, as I could run into him there. Gryffindor tower, same. I didn't even want to think about my friends… No. I couldn't tell them any of this. I couldn't admit I had been so bleeding weak.

With my first priority being erasing any extremely damning evidence, I opened the first door I came to, and slipped into an unused classroom. I had to fix up my appearance lest anyone could guess what had just happened or just how screwed up my current situation was. I used a tweaked form of a Battle Cloning Charm to create a mirror of sorts, or else a moving hologram. I appeared before me, and was hard pressed to decide if I looked good or dead. My hair was all mussed and my lips were plump in the way only abusive kissing can create, red lipstick smeared around my mouth. My eyes were wide, it was true, but there seemed to be a certain shine to them that hadn't been present when I had loaded on my eyeliner that morning. My clothes were rumpled and half the buttons on my shirt were in the wrong holes, and my knee-high boots had never left my feet. It was impossible to decide.

Quickly I fixed my appearance, rebuttoning my shirt and wiping away the damaged makeup, before dispelling my reflection and leaving the abandoned classroom for gods know where. I had no idea where I could possibly go, only that I had to put as much space between myself and the scene of the crime. I ran. I couldn't think about what had just happened and I didn't want to deal. All I wanted was to be about to close my eyes without seeing the image of James' face as he came within me scarred onto the inside of my eyelids.

For once, James had seemingly thrown me a bone, and I was given a temporary distraction. He had not followed me when I ran, or in the least he had not found me. I began to feel nauseous and unclean and I turned into a side corridor, and unwilling to let anyone see me fall apart. I ran down to near the end, before sinking down the wall, exhausted and breathing heavy, my hair bunching up behind me. I would not cry, I would not cry….okay, maybe just a little bit…

I didn't want to do it, but somehow I couldn't stop, so I just let the tears fall, accepting it for now. I felt dirty somehow, like what I had done with James had made something crawl inside me and die, which was totally crazy. I wasn't any type of virgin. I had never cared about sex before, not in this way. It had never made me feel like I was going to ralph. Confusion was big at the moment.

"Lily?"

I looked up, like a cat that got caught trying to eat the canary….. or whatever the cliché was. At least this time, I thought bitterly, I wasn't caught in the act half-clothed and attached to his face.

"Lily, are you okay?" Regan asked, frozen at the mouth of the hall.

"Wha…uhhh, yeah, I'm fine…" I told her, full of shit.

"Ya….Uh-huh." She looked at me sceptically and began to walk down the small, dankly lit hall, towards me. "And I'm Professor Hall."

I was too flustered to think up any kind of retort, proving her point. Okay, maybe I wasn't fine, but I wasn't too keen to admit it, either.

She plopped down next to me, drawing her knees up against her chest and leaned her cheek down against them. Her hair spilled over her shoulder in a silky curtain, cutting away her view of all but me. She then began to stare at me intently. "You know that's bull. I know you too well, remember?"

I sighed and met her eye for a moment before shaking my head and turning away and sighing again. "I can't seem to make myself stop."

She looked at me with wide blue eyes for a moment, obviously with no idea what I was talking about. "Hun?"

I continued, not really hearing her. "I hate him, I hate him, I mean I think I do. I've been telling myself that since I don't even remember when…. But….but when I try and tell him that, I don't even get the words out, like my throat doesn't work right anymore…. I can't make myself work right when he's around…. I can't tell him no, I can't make him stop, heck, I can't even make myself stop for chrissakes! I can't even make myself want to!"

"Who—Oh Lily, you don't mean…not James…"

I jerked out of my trance at his name, and stopped speaking. She seemed to get the message just fine.

"Do—uh, do you love him?" she asked me tentatively.

I looked up at her, my eyes running with tears that I don't remember ever starting. "I—I don't…know….I think I do, I said I did, last night and I…I meant it. But I….Gawd, Reg, I'm just so confused…."

"Last night? What happened last night?"

"I ended up against the common room wall…"

"Did you….." she paused tactfully. "What I mean to say is, uh—"

I saved her the trouble of finding a politically correct way of saying something that wasn't politically correct to begin with. "Not last night, no, but this morning, about an hour ago."

"You did…it…with him…just now?" She looked almost awestruck, on a lesser scale.

I wiped at my eyes angrily, and then nodded, my cheeks wet again almost as soon as I had scrubbed them dry. "I just feel so dirty, you know…and I don't know what to do. I feel wrong…" I looked at her. "I'm…wrong…Tell me that I'm wrong, please. I—I can't be me, I don't do this. I'm the good girl, I don't screw up or screw around…So I have to be wrong… I have to be wrong…Regan…" I collapsed onto her shoulder, sobbing and barely choking my words out. "I—I—I'm wrong. I feel dirty and—and like I—I don't even know….I haven't-haven't got a clue…." She hugged me awkward.

"Do you love him?" she asked me again, like she thought or knew I had a better answer than I did.

"I—I…" Did I? I didn't even know, but I was sick of that answer. "I do when he's around me, does that count? He-he makes me feel intoxicated and inhibited." I wiped my eyes again "Like I could, I donno, fly or something…Does that make sense?"

She shrugged as much as she could with my head on her shoulder, and then smiled, if only just a little bit. "I think so, Lily" she told me "I mean, if it isn't then I don't know what else it could be…I think it is…"

I nodded slightly, trying to dry my eyes at the same time and ended up with less to wipe this time. "We'll see…" I nodded again, and wiped my nose on the back of my hand. "I mean, I think, maybe…" I let my words trail off, unsure of where I was trying to go, or what I wanted…yet somehow I felt better and I guess that counted for something.