CHAPTER FOUR 99 steps closer
The red head had not seen them, they both hovered high up watching as she mounted her broom a little awkwardly. She kicked off from the ground and lost control of the broom for a few seconds. After regaining control, she began to perform a series of complicated loops and turns. She increased her speed with every repetition until she was just a blur.
Sirius and James looked on, James with his jaw dropped but Sirius with a bemused look on his face. True, she was a little unorthodox, but she was very good. It was obvious that she was not a natural at flying, but she had still perfected the art.
As she finished her routine, she hovered pausing to catch her breath. Suddenly she heard the sound of applause from above her and whipped around with wand in hand. She squinted but soon recognised the good looking boy and his friend with the messy hair.
They flew down to meet her, all the while James was scoffing in disbelief. Lily? A flier? The girl was full of hidden talents as well as hidden emotions.
A smile crept across her face knowing her secret was in the open.
"I was going to try for the Gryffindor team this year" she said in response to the unasked question.
There was no need to add that she had never been taught. Both boys knew she was from a muggle family. She had obviously taught herself to fly. James wondered how many times she had come down here to practise when she thought no one else was around.
Once again he saw a glimpse of that fire of her passion. Her cheeks were slightly pink from flying and hair was ruffled from the wind. This was definitely not a side James had seen before. He had a million questions to ask, but knowing her dislike for pushy questions and arrogance he decided to leave it for another time.
Sirius suddenly disappeared from sight. James made his way over to Lily and kissed her softly and sweetly, letting her know he was impressed.
Sirius returned moments later with a quaffle. As if testing Lily's reflexes he quickly threw it at her. She lunged at it and caught it, winked at Sirius and then took off towards the undefended goals.
James laughed out loud, ruffled Sirius' hair and took off after Lily urging his broom faster to keep up with her.
The three of them played until the sun began to rise properly and they knew their time was up. Sweat soaked, tired, but happy they trudged up towards the school.
Feeling elated from the mornings fun she had an idea.
"Follow me" the red head said as she beckoned to the boys.
Surprised by this suggestion, as Lily was not one to break the rules, but nonetheless they followed her.
They reached the statue of Boris the Bewildered, a lost-looking wizard with his gloves on the wrong hands. Lily walked to a door on the right and muttered Pine Fresh. She opened the door and once again beckoned the boys to follow her. She knew being a prefect had its perks and this was definitely one of them.
The room was lit by thousands of small candles, giving the room a soft welcoming feel. There was a huge rectangular swimming pool located in the middle of the room. Around it were other doors which lead to showers. These doors were covered by soft white linen curtains. Around the huge bath were many bejewelled taps.
Unable to contain himself from his inner child, James leapt forward and turned on as many taps as he could, squealing with delight when they produced gushing water with huge different coloured bubbles.
Noticing the diving board for the first time the hazel eyes could hardly believe his luck. Stripping down to his cotton boxers he ran to the end of the swimming pool and with a running jump off the diving board he landed with a giant splat that covered Lily and Sirius top to toe with water and bubbles.
Not waiting another second, Sirius also stripped down and went to attack James.
Tentatively the red head began to remove her flying clothes. She was a little shy about revealing her body, but a wolf whistle from James gave her the confidence to continue.
The hazel eyes never left her body as she entered the pool. The way her skin looked in the candlelight, it was amazing. She gently slid into the water, sighing as the warm water came into contact with all of her body.
James swam towards her and when he got there, he took her in his strong arms, gently lifting her off the floor of the pool. She wrapped her legs around his torso and proceeded to tease him with light kisses. He moaned softly in appreciation, drawing her closely.
The grey eyes watched the pair for a moment before quickly walking over to one of the showers. He drew the linen curtain back and yelled at Lily and James
"I'm going to have a shower now".
He neither expected or wanted a response and carefully closed the curtains once more.
The hazel eyes stared into emerald ones as he pushed her against the wall of the pool. Feeling their skin come into contact again sent waves of tingles throughout his body. The red head felt herself go weak at the knees but luckily the wall was behind her to stop her from falling.
James began to kiss her furiously. She wanted more of him, she couldn't get enough of him. Wrapping her legs firmly around him, she pulled him towards her. His tongue slid quickly into her mouth, and she reciprocated by meeting her tongue with his.
His hands caressed her body as she moaned softly, his touch felt so good. She removed her hands from his hair and removed her shirt. Smiling with delight James began to kiss every part of her that he could reach. He picked her up and carried her towards the piles of warm fluffy towels, his mouth never once leaving hers. He picked a large white towel and wrapped it around them as the red head lay down, pulling him with her.
His fingers traced the outline of her features. He ran his hands down to her stomach, kissing everywhere that he touched. He ran circles around her bellybutton. She felt completely relaxed and thought vaguely; maybe she should have stronger will power. But every time he touched her or kissed her, she couldn't contain herself.
Just as she began to remove his boxers, there was a loud bang from inside the linen curtains, followed by a loud cough.
"Oh I'm getting out of the shower, the shower, the shower, I'm getting out of the shower right about now, bum bum bum" Sirius sang ridiciulously loudly to give his friends the time they needed to untangle.
By the time he actually appeared Lily and James sat clothed and apart, apparently impatient from waiting from him.
"Took your sweet bloody time" James said with a grin.
With that comment Sirius 'accidentally' tripped and pushed James over. The boys took one last look at the plush bathroom, with it violet coloured carpet, marble roof and the huge swimming pool and said a hasty farewell. At this rate they were all going to get a detention if they didn't hurry to get to class.
Just a few more minutes, the red head thought sleepily. The nights activates had certainly tired her out. She felt like the entire day was dragging, as if little green men had come and stretched one minute into ten. Her mind kept drifting back to her warm comfy bed. If I can just make it through this class, she thought.
Beside her the two boys were holding up remarkably well. So well in fact that they were even attempting the work they had been set. The red head could not imagine where they got all their energy from, but she suspected this was not their first night out late.
Minerva McGonagall was a strict teacher and never let anyone lag behind in her classes. You had to attend and be willing to learn or you might as well have not come at all. Soundlessly they were attempting to turn their parchment into birds. It was particularly difficult as non-verbal spells were intricate and required a good deal of study to attempt them.
Somehow the hazel eyes and the grey eyes were enjoying this class. Sirius' owl was pacing the desk hooting softly and tried flapping its wings to fly. It was a soft tawny colour and quite big in size. James' owl was perched on this shoulder, it was a little smaller than Sirius' but much more affectionate. It kept rubbing its face against James' cheek.
Lily was watching the pair mesmerised. Her eye lids were getting heavier and heavier. She began to slump onto James her body heavy with fatigue. Without warning she completely fell onto James and she was abruptly woken by her head hitting the desk on the way down.
Much to her embarrassment she saw many girls laughing at her. She knew James was popular and they would think she was just throwing herself at him.
"All right there Evans?" asked James playing to the crowd, he only ever called by her by her last name when there were other people around.
She rolled her eyes, but the next sentence made her cringe.
"Just cos you spent last night with me, doesn't mean you can fall over me" he said with a smirk.
She was horrified, she gaped at him, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly.
She mustered up all her strength and punched him, straight in the nose. Blood was coming out of one nostril, he stared at her astonished.
"You arrogant, conceited toerag" she began her temper rising to the surface "don't you ever come within 20 feet of me EVER again, or I swear I will hex you into oblivion, got it?" Not waiting for waiting for an answer she leapt to her feet and strode out of the room.
She heard Professor McGonagall yelling after her, but she couldn't stop to think of the trouble she was in now, she was far too angry. How DARE he, how could she have been so stupid to think he had changed. She had almost slept with him. She could not believe what was happening, it was surreal.
She had barely noticed where she was going and realised she was no where near the Gryffindor common room, she had to double back. Muttering the password Bowtruckles she swung the portrait open.
Storming through the common room and up to her dormitory, she wanted to hit something. Her red hair was flying out behind her as she ran up the stairs. She wrenched the door open causing it to swing dangerously on its hinges. Accio Broom she yelled after spotting where she had left it this morning.
Turning on her heel she ran back down the stairs, out of the portrait and down towards the grounds. As soon as she felt the cool air on her face she swung herself onto her broom and took off as fast as her broom would allow. She urged the broom faster and faster until her eyes began to stream from the cool wind. Looking around she found the quaffle Sirius had left from the morning and she threw it towards the goals as hard as she could.
She did not know how long she was out there before a figure appeared beside her, from inside her robes she pulled out her wand.
"Lily please, I didn't mean it I'm so…" the hazel eyes began, pleading with her.
The red head cut in sharply: "Oh, its Lily now is it?"
She shot a bat bogey hex in his direction, smiling slightly when she heard its impact and flew away, not looking back.
The red head knew she couldn't miss anymore classes; she wanted to become an Auror and she was prepared to work day and night for it. Professor Flickwick would not be impressed if she missed his class. Glancing at the clock on the way towards the castle she realised she was already five minutes late. Quickening her pace to a run she set off for the East Wing. No conceited boy was going to ruin her future.
After successfully avoiding James numerous times she decided to go to the library to dodge going to the common room; where, she was almost certain, James would be waiting for her.
The rain lashed against the windows as the storm which had been on the cusp of breaking all afternoon, finally hit. The low rumble of thunder could be heard throughout the castle.
She paced the library with feelings of extreme agitation, she couldn't sit still. Finally she was so exhausted from pacing that she had to stop. She had refused to think about how upset she was all day, preferring to be angry and keeping busy to distract herself.
She put her head in her hands so that no-one could see there were actually tears in her eyes. Angrily she brushed them away, ashamed to show her emotions, afraid they would all spill out of her. 'An Auror doesn't cry' she thought to herself.
Sighing tremulously, she looked up as she heard footsteps approaching. Emerald eyes met the grey ones of James best friend. Before he could open his mouth…
"Don't even think about it" she shot at him. "There's no point".
Slightly taken aback with her harsh attitude after seeing the other side of her that morning, he switched tacts.
"We both know he can be a bit of a prat" he started "as can I" he added truthfully.
"Sirius why are you here?" Lily demanded tiredly.
"Because James has been incessantly whinging about how stupid he was and how much he cares for you. If your not going to forgive him then I'll go straight to Dumbledore because no one will be able to live with him after this" he finished simply.
The red head expected him to find this funny, but she turned to see him being quite serious.
The grey eyes wondered if someone with this temper would ever talk to James again. She was likely to ignore this incident as if it never happened, as if it didn't bother her, but trusting James with her need of privacy would be far more difficult.
She sighed again and on a whim said: "I don't know what to do"
Amazed that she had revealed anything to him, he took this as an encouraging sign.
The red head began to speak slowly, revealing her emotion to anyone was definitely something new to her, but she had watched Sirius. He was just as guarded as she was, and she knew, if she told him, it would stay between them. She told him about the anger she had felt, and how perhaps she was being unreasonable. She did not want to be treated as a trophy, something else James could say he overcame. She spoke about the petty games of teenagers and how James released who she really was, but she wasn't prepared to pay the price of being mocked by the entire school because they thought she had slept with him.
Sirius listened intensely, taking note of everything she said, and understood completely. After she finished revealing her soul, Sirius took her in his arms, much as a brother would, to let her know she was allowed to be a girl. He would not be disgusted or disappointed if she cried. She probably needed it, so much pent up emotion.
When she withdrew from his hug, she smiled at him, and he began for the first time to tell some of his story. With every sentence it was like a weight was being lifted off his shoulders. He told her of his family and their pureblood obsession and disgusting bigotry.
The candles burned lower and lower in the lamps of the library until the librarian who had apparently fallen asleep came to usher them out the library.
Lily and Sirius walked side by side as equals enjoying the comfortable quiet of the corridors.
They arrived at the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, but Lily didn't enter. She told Sirius she was going for a walk.
He entered the common room and found James asleep on the couch closest to the door, obviously waiting for Lily. He crept as quietly as he could towards the dormitory but James woke up anyway.
He looked tired and distraught. "Where is she Padfoot?"
Sirius took a moment to answer, "I don't think she wants to see you mate". With this comment James made an angry noise and turned back to the fire. The grey eyes looked out of the window and saw Lily sitting by the lake, James turned to see what his friend was doing and saw him looking out of the window. Before Sirius could see him he turned back to the fire, and Sirius left.
Hurrying to the window as soon as he heard the dormitory door close, he saw her and his heart lifted. The invisibility cloak and the marauders map lay at his feet, and he quickly scooped them up and ran out the common room.