James watched the boy who was to be his son beat down the de-turbaned man, the one with the spirit of the most evil wizard occupying the bald space on the back of his head. While he watched Harry defeat the Death Eater, James felt two emotions begin to surface in the pit of his stomach:
The first emotion was pride. James could not believe that his son was going to give up the chance to see his parents again just to defeat You-Know-Who. Given, that chance was a lie, but it was one that most people would have readily accepted and agreed to.
The second emotion that James felt was awe. Harry was defeating the Death Eater just by coming into physical contact with him! James knew of no other wizards who were able to do this. That must mean that Harry—his son!—was going to be born with extraordinary powers, or an extraordinary destiny, or maybe even both!
But at the last second—just when James thought Harry had defeated You-Know-Who and his host body—the spirit of the evil wizard rose up in a menacing swirl of mist. Harry saw this true form of the Dark Lord and looked terrified, but stood tall in the face of the danger—although James was not entirely sure if this was out of bravery or shock.
The mist congealed into a cloud before charging at Harry, causing the boy to scream in fear and fall backwards as the spirit passed through him. James watched his son pass out from fear and exhaustion, never feeling more proud of anyone than he felt at this moment…
"OW!" The smile was wiped off of James's face when something toppled onto his head, then fell into his lap: a copy of Hogwarts, A History. "What was that for?" he asked Lily angrily, rubbing the spot where the book had hit him.
Lily shrugged. "What were you so happy about?" she asked, pointing at the crystal ball.
James looked confused, and started flipping through random pages of the book in his lap. "You saw it for yourself," he said lightly, realizing that this was the fourth time Lily had physically hurt him in the past hour. "Isn't that enough to make you happy? Or are you just so emotionally lacking that you don't care about what our son is going to do at the age of eleven?"
Lily pointed to her friends and sighed, "They decided to drag me out of the premonition. So what happened while I was out?"
"Where were you yanked out?"
"Harry had just been offered a position with You-Know-Who," Lily answered, glaring at her friends. "You guys couldn't have picked a worse time to yank me out, could you?" she accused.
Amissa raised her hands in surrender. "I'm sorry," she began sarcastically. "I'm sorry me and Winola can't see your visions. I'm sorry we had no clue you two were at the climax of the premonition. I'm sorry we helped when we heard a friend screaming."
Lily sighed in frustration this time, falling back into an available seat. "I didn't mean it like that." Then Lily leaned forward in her seat to continue interrogating James. "So what happened after that?"
James grinned evilly. "Harry joined You-Know-Who, but was killed when he finally realized that the promise of bringing us back from the dead was a lie." James was having fun with this, but quit when he saw the glare on Lily's face. Rolling his eyes, James told the true story: "Harry refused, of course. He tried to escape, but You-Know-Who ordered the teacher to restrain him. There was a fight—you should have seen it Lily!" James leaned back to lie on the floor, smiling up at the ceiling as the immense feeling of pride returned. "Harry fought, but without spells or incantations of any kind! All he did was touch the guy, and he started burning to death! By the time Harry was done with him, all that was left of him was a big pile of ashes and dust! Oh, and then there was this giant thing of mist—You-Know-Who's spirit, since its host had been killed—that came out and attacked Harry!"
Lily stared at James for a long second, and then turned to yell furiously at her friends, "Why did you have to go and bring me back? Did you hear what my son is going to do? He's going to fight You-Know-Who! AND YOU GUYS RUINED WHAT WAS POSSIBLY THE ONLY CHANCE I WILL EVER HAVE OF SEEING THAT!"
"That's right…" Winola remembered, nodding her head slightly. "Because you guys die early, don't you?"
"YES!"
"Then…" Winola's voice suddenly turned hard. "WHY WORRY ABOUT IT IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO LIVE THROUGH IT ANYWAY?"
The compartment was left in a stunned silence, until James stood and wiped his hands on his robes. "Well, I'll just be going then," he said lightly, picking up the crystal ball as he began backing out of the room. "I'll leave you girls to have your little catfight."
"You're not going anywhere, Potter!"
James's eyebrows rose. "Are you threatening me, Lily?" he asked playfully.
Lily's eyes shrank into slits. "Heck yes."
The strange Muggle phrase made James laugh, and he stopped moving towards the door. "Okay, then," James assented, taking everyone by surprise. "I guess I could stick around for a few more rounds of Truth or Dare…"
"Out, Potter!"
"Geez, Lily, make up your mind!"
Lily came and actually shoved James out the door of the compartment. "Go find your own friends!" she yelled, slamming the compartment door in James's face.
James debated knocking on the door to ask for his Invisibility Cloak, which he had taken off when Lily had agreed to look into the crystal ball with him, but decided against it. One major argument was enough for today, he thought as he began making his way towards his own compartment.
"James," James stopped short, not quite believing what he was hearing: was Lily calling him by his first name? In a seductive tone? "Wait, James…"
James turned around nervously, not knowing what prank Lily was trying to pull. But Lily never pulls pranks, James remembered. So what is she up to now? "Ye—," James began before his voice cracked anxiously, noticing that Lily was walking towards him in slow, sinuous steps. "Yes?"
Lily, looking up at James through her eyelashes, said softly, "I just wanted to say…"
James gulped. Lily was less than a foot away from him now. "What?" he asked, not sure if this was a dare that Lily's friends had put her up to.
Lily licked her lips, and James's eyes were drawn there. "I just wanted to say… Obliviate!"
жжж
Lily watched James's stunned face transform into an expression of confusion and knew that her Memory Charm had worked; James would never remember hearing the game of Truth or Dare. Neither would he remember the premonition, but Lily thought that it was a fair price to pay in exchange for the preservation of her pride.
Lily lowered the wand she had been hiding behind her back and took a step away from James, asking in a falsely irritated voice, "I said, what do you want, Potter?" Lily arranged her face into an expression of annoyance, trying hard to tune out the giggles that Amissa and Winola were not bothering to muffle in the compartment.
James looked confusedly from Lily to the crystal ball, and then back up again. "I don't… I'm not… I guess… I guess I wanted to try to have a premonition." James shrugged, his eyebrows furrowed.
Hiding her amusement, Lily made herself look thoughtful—which wasn't hard to do, since she really was trying to decide whether or not it would actually be worth it to go through another premonition with James. She felt guilty for everything she had done to James in the past hour alone: kneeing him somewhere unpleasant, slapping him, dropping a crystal ball on his foot, chucking a book at his head, yelling at him, threatening him, shoving him, and finally obliterating his memory of the whole thing. Lily shuddered when she thought of all the bad karma she must be raking up.
Lily ended her friends' giggles when she told James in a gentle voice, "Sure. Your compartment or mine?"
Author's Note: I would like to offer a hearty laugh to all of the people who actually thought I would allow James the satisfaction of knowing Lily likes him. HA!
I would also like to thank everyone for your patience. I know I haven't been a regular updater, but I hope to be more regular soon, since some of my other fanfictions are getting closer to ending. Right now I have three other fanfictions that I am trying to keep up with (another one, not included in the three, is a oneshot that I HAD to write just because the idea was so hilarious!) and I am also trying to write a completely separate story that I want to get published into a book when I'm done with it, and then there's homework and studying and such... especially with finals coming up and SAT's in January and just general stress. So thank you so much for sticking with me!
