Chapter 5

Pure Insanity

Lily took as much time as she could in getting ready for work that sunny Monday morning. She was especially nervous about going to work today, as she would be seeing James and be working near him for the first time.

When she could delay herself no longer, she took her bag, some files, and Apparated to the Ministry. After being cleared and granted entrance, she walked as slow as she could to the Criminal Law Department. When she reached there, she passed by the glass-tinted doors of the Head's office, and Lily couldn't help but sigh as she made her way to her own office.

An hour later, and she was busy viewing some files when Dianne Mallory, who had been Jeremy's secretary and was now James' secretary, came into her office, bringing with her some folders.

"Hey Lily, um, these need your signature pronto. Just please give them to me when your finished, Mr. Tyler said no later than this evening," she handed the files to Lily then continued, "Oh yeah, and, um, Mr. Potter wants to see you in his office right now. Very important, he said".

Lily gave a small smile and said, "Thanks Dianne". With a sigh, Lily sighed as she stood up and left her office. "What could he want this time?"

Finding the door open, she walked in and found James Potter standing by his desk, examining some files. When he noticed her however, he placed the files back on his desk and turned to Lily.

"Good morning, Lily," James greeted as he walked towards her. "How nice to see you again!"

"Cut the crap James. Tell me why you called me now, because you are wasting my time," Lily snapped.

"Obviously, someone's not in a very good mood," James remarked.

"I'm only in a bad mood when I'm around you. Now tell me what this is all about," Lily retorted.

James instantly looked serious as he said, "Alright, fine. I want you to handle the Breakman case, as the defendant. Study this file, and trial's gonna happen around next Friday".

Lily breathed a sigh of relief as she said, "Fine. I'll do it". She already began scanning the file.

"Good then that's done. Let's get back to work".

But seeing something in the file, Lily had something bothering her. "Wait a minute, but-----"

"No buts," James interrupted.

"What if-----"

"No what if's either"

"That's not fair. I have a perfectly valid point to discuss with you, and your not even giving my the time to get my point across. As I said, that's not fair!" Lily protested.

"Lily, Lily, Lily. You have to understand something. I'm never fair," James retorted, sticking out his tongue at her. She did the same.

Almost at the same time they both muttered, "Immature". Without another word, Lily left his office and headed for her own, feeling more agitated than when she first came in.

..------..

That night, Lily, Kelsey, and Sarah went uptown to witness the opening of the new restaurant, Carmelite. They were friends of the daughter of the owner, so they had special reserve places there.

After all the ceremonies were over, everyone sat down to a delicious meal. Halfway through, as luck would have it, James and his friends entered. Lily groaned when she saw that they were headed to her friend's table.

"Lily, fancy meeting you here," said James looking mildly surprised.

"James, or rather, Mr. Potter, what are you doing here? Are you stalking me or something?" Lily asked, frowning.

Remus answered for James by saying, "Now Lily, why would he do that? All of us are just here to enjoy a nice, pleasant meal devoid of any underhanded schemes".

"Yeah, except that James had to practically beg on his hands and knees to Carly just to get a last-minute reservation," Sirius muttered, earning himself a glare from James as the group laughed.

"Guys, do you want to join------OUCH!" Sarah said but her words turned into an expression of pain when Lily kicked her foot under the table. However, James and the rest saw what she did and looked at Lily with amused expressions.

"Lily, Lily, Lily," asked Sirius, grinning. "I wonder how much you hurt Sarah when you kicked her".

"Care to find out by trying it yourself?" said Lily, grinning as she revealed one of her feet, which was clad in closed shoes with a very pointy and quite sharp tip.

"No way," Sirius replied. Then, after exchanging a look with his friends, he told them, "Well, we'd better be going. See you later," and with that, they left.

Lily groaned again and said, "Why is it that he turns up in almost every place that I'm at? I mean, as if it isn't enough that I have to see him at work".

"Lily, come on, James is being sweet, don't you realize that?" Kelsey said.

"Yeah right. You try being the one he tormented for the past seven years and annoy for the next ten years then you tell me how it feels," Lily snapped.

"Come on, Lily. Kelse is right. He's being so sweet!" Sarah said

"No he isn't. He's not being sweet, he's being crazy and a lunatic. End of story".

"Yes he is, Lily!"

Lily sighed. "Hey, Sarah?" Lily asked after a few minutes.

"Yeah?"

"SHUT UP!"

..------..

The next day Lily was just finished tediously writing out a long report for work when James arrived.

"What? I'm busy, so make it quick," Lily snapped, not looking up from her work.

"Whoever said that I had something to say to you?" James replied, smugly smiling. "What if I came here just to see you?"

"Well, since you already saw me, LEAVE!" Lily said, pointing in the direction of the door.

"Now Lily, that isn't a good way to speak to your boss," he chided.

"Now, James, it isn't good to annoy people so much," she retorted.

"Whatever. Anyway, I just stopped by to give you these papers that need your countersignature before I get to sign them. Here," and finally he placed a stack of paper's on Lily's desk, then left and open-mouthed Lily in his wake.

"Annoying idiot," she said as she got back to work. She took a look at the stack of papers, and her temper flared when she saw the little parchment attached to the first paper.

Dinner at 8 tomorrow night? Your choice.

..------..

A week later, and Lily as on the verge of a mental breakdown. Ever since he had arrived, he had been driving her crazy by asking her out almost every day and annoying her constantly, calling her to his office for no good reason. Their other officemates had observed this, and after knowing the two's history, couldn't help but watch in amusement.

It was a Tuesday afternoon and James had requested Lily, yet again, to come into his office. Thankfully though, this time, it was for proper, work reasons. The two were working on a new case wherein they would both act as prosecutors, and they decided to work on it as soon as possible, though the first trial would not be in a month. No talk was said about the upcoming trial that Friday, though Lily was getting a bit irritated when James would suddenly interject some stupid comment that was completely far from their work.

"Lily, what do you think of this?" James asked her, holding up a bag filled with clear crystals. "I've tried every identification spell, but I still can't figure out what this thing is".

"Hmm?" Lily said as she walked around the office, looking around. She was looking at the photos that were hanging on one side of his office. There was one with him and Sirius in presumably Rome. Another one with his family. And another one at Hogwarts with all his friends.

When she finished looking, however, she went over to James. "Let me see that," she asked. He handed her the substance, then she examined it. She used no spell, she merely observed it, but never took a whiff at it.

"Just as I suspected," Lily said, giving the bag back to James. "That's methamphetamine hydrochloride, that's an illegal drug. It's known in the Muggle world, but, even if it exists here, it isn't widely known. That's why you couldn't identify it with a spell; there's no drop of magic in those".

"Then the question is………" James murmured. "What is a Muggle-known highly illegal substance doing in a wizarding crime scene?"

"Do you think that Walters was using drugs? There was speculation of suicide," Lily said. She wrote something down on her notebook.

"But he was a wizard, how would he have known? Besides, they've already brought in Lincoln as the prime suspect. Unless…………."

"Unless Lincoln's a Half-blood. That would make perfect sense, he would know about the Wizarding world and the Muggle world as well".

"But how would that fit in?" James asked. "I mean, alright, probably Lincoln's a Half-Blood, and he would have access to drugs, but how does it fit in to killing Walters?"

Lily thought about it. "I'm not sure. Do you have Lincoln's record? I need to see it, I have a hunch".

James looked tired and annoyed. "Lily, I told you to study everything, how on earth could you have not known everything about our opponent?"

"You know what, I've had enough. For the past morning and afternoon, most of what you've been doing was berating me. Personally, I'd rather have the Giant Squid as a boss than you, you're impossible!" said Lily, looking highly agitated as she stepped across the room.

James turned to her, now looking more relaxed, his expression of annoyance quickly turning into an expression of amusement. "Really? First you tell me that you'd much rather date the Giant Squid than me, and then you tell me that you'd rather have it for a boss? It's probably only a matter of time before you tell me that you'd much rather marry the Giant Squid than me".

"Honestly, your right. Compared to you, the Giant Squid is much more appealing," Lily said absentmindedly.

Glad that a light-hearted break had been granted from their stressful work, he gave her a smirk before walking towards her and taking her hand, much to her surprise. He then dragged her near the fireplace. "James, would you please tell me what exactly are you doing?" Lily asked, bewildered as James took a pot from the fireplace's edge.

"You said you wanted to marry the Giant Squid, right? Well, I think that can be arranged," James explained, smiling in amusement.

Lily gave him a look of annoyance before she yanked her arm out of his grasp and snapped, "Oh, for goodness sake, James, don't you understand that all that I've been saying about preferring the Giant Squid to you simply means one answer, which is no? Don't you recognize a metaphor when you hear one, or is your brain to full of useless crap to notice?"

"My brain is not full of worthless crap Lily!" James protested, giving her a cheeky grin. "It's full of nerves and that squishy things brains are made of, whatever they call it, and it's divided into the----"

Lily gave him another look of exasperation before cutting him short. "James you are hopeless". Then she did a double take. "Wait a sec, how come you're now calling me Lily? When did I ever give you permission to call me by my first name?" she demanded, rounding in on him.

He merely grinned again before saying, "Answer me this. Why are you now calling me James?"

"You're changing the subject".

"Oh right. Of course. Well," James said dryly, "I wasn't aware that you had to ask a person's permission to call them by their first name. Remember, we had an agreement, right? And besides, why are you annoyed? You're not the only one who's called Lily you know. I mean, I've got a picture of a woman on my bedside table with the name Lily".

"From what I gather from Sirius, that Lily you're talking about still happens to be me" she snapped, but her cheeks were now tinted slightly with pink.

"Right. You've made your point". After that, silence fell once more in the room. It was neither awkward nor comfortable, it was just…..pure silence.

Finally James broke it. He glanced at the clock and said, "Hey, it's already 5! Time flies, eh? Well, we'll do some more work tomorrow; just make sure to analyze these tonight. Maybe you can get something out of it".

"Why do I suddenly feel like I'm a student being assigned homework from a professor?" Lily muttered but took the files all the same. "Well, bye James".

"Bye Lily," he called out to her retreating figure.

Odd, Lily mused as she walked back to her office. He hasn't asked me out yet. Definitely strange. He did look good today though, I've never seen him look so serious and—wait a sec, did I just think that he looked good? Urgh, what am I thinking?

She reached her office and was surprised to see a bouquet of red roses on her table. She placed her files on her table and after taking in the sight of the truly exquisite flowers, Lily took the card and read it.

Hope you like them. They're as pretty as you.

Hoping that you'll give me a chance, one day,

James

Lily had to laugh. For once, he had sent something that didn't sound egoistical, it almost seemed……sweet. "Wait a minute, I did not just associate James Potter with the word sweet. I think all the work must have gotten to me. I hate him, right? Yeah, I hate James Potter, always have and always will".

But a question seemed to nag her as she went home: If she hated James Potter so much, then why did she feel her heart do a back flip just at the mere sight of his name?