Disclaimer: I own Gwen. And a right bit of good that useless git willdo me.
Chapter Four
This Feeling That I Get
Within the next week, the whole school knew that James Potter, one of the most popular and attractive boys at Hogwarts, had asked out Gwen Nelson, the prettiest girl at Hogwarts.
"You are so jealous," Rosie told Lily bluntly the morning of Saturday, October fifth as they ate breakfast.
Lily, whose piece of sausage had made it halfway to her mouth on her fork, froze and looked across the table at her smirking friend. "Excuse me?" she asked, but with more of a declarative tone than a questioning one.
"You're jealous of Gwen Nelson because James Potter asked her out."
Lily's fork clattered onto her plate, right into her jam, splattering it on her white sweater. She apparently had either not noticed or didn't care. "Why would I be jealous?"
Rosie sighed and set down her Quidditch magazine. "This is why. Potter has asked you out probably every day since fifth year." As Lily opened her mouth to protest, Rosie raised a hand and added, "And don't say that he didn't over the summer. I know that he figured out how to use the fellytone or tellyphone or whatever in the name of Merlin's beard it was, and he called you at your house." Rosie took a bite of egg and then continued. "You said no every time. Every time. You never went out with him. You never gave him the chance. And now that he's doing something with himself—I mean, hey, you have to give guys some leeway. They can only go so far without a snog—you're getting angry. Because you want him. Now that you can't have him."
Lily gaped at her friend. She turned pink. She looked around to make sure nobody had heard what Rosie had said. And then she gathered up her senses, picked up her napkin, and began wiping the jam drops from her sweater.
"Er, Lily?" the brunette girl asked.
Lily stood up from her seat, gave Rosie a biting look, and said, "You are off your rocker. You are insane. I have a detention to get to. Goodbye." And she promptly marched out of the Great Hall, still wiping her sweater with the napkin, until she finally shouted, "Blast it!" and got rid of the stains with her wand.
That morning, McGonagall had given her a note that stated that her detention would be in the Charms classroom with Professor Flitwick. Lily was curious enough about the wizened Charms professor agreeing to do a detention that she hastened along the corridors.
Professor Flitwick was not there when she entered, so she found herself a seat and tapped her fingers absentmindedly on the desk in front of her. She wasn't too upset about it—it wasn't like she was missing a Hogsmeade trip or anything, and it wasn't that early in the morning, and it was supposed to be only be an hour and a half long. Plus, it was just her and Professor Flitwick—was she honestly going to be afraid of the tiny, amiable Charms professor?
Lily's relaxed thoughts deserted her once Sirius Black swaggered in, his hair looking just as perfect as always, with a bit of smudged lipstick on the corner of his mouth from an earlier broom cupboard rendezvous. He fell gracefully into a seat two desks down from Lily, and she looked at him with a horrified expression.
She was even doing math in her head.
Lily hated math.
Lily + Sirius + an hour and a half of detention bad.
It was worse than bad. She had finally discovered the place called hell.
"All right, Lily?"
Lily knew that secretly meant 'Now you really regret trying to screw up my best friend's girlfriend.'
No, not his girlfriend. His friend. Whom he happened to be taking to Hogmeade.
"I'm, er, fine." She paused, attempting to tap her fingers absentmindedly on the desk again. But it wasn't absentmindedly. Her mind was present—very, very present and aware of her situation.
What's worse is that Lily couldn't even tap her fingers.
"Why are you here?" she blurted.
Sirius brushed a bit of hair behind one ear. "McGonagall caught me in a broom cupboard with that Ravenclaw girl, Charlene Vance, the same day of Quidditch tryouts. And she thought it would be a—ah, what was it?— 'worthwhile experience' if we served in the same detention."
"Ah." Lily nodded and looked straight ahead, trying to tap her foot. But her foot was already twitching—along with her left eye. Her left eye and her right foot always twitched when she was nervous or dreading something.
"Oh, Black, about that whole broom cupboard thing," Lily began, slowly turning to look back at him, hoping her twitching left eye wasn't too noticeable, "you have a bit of lipstick on the right corner of your mouth."
"Oh. Thank you." He wiped it away. "And I wish you wouldn't call me 'Black.' It's so…dreary. Call me Sirius."
"Okay, then…Sirius."
Just then, Professor Flitwick came into the room, or, at least, his hair did, because the pile of white curls atop his head were all they saw above the desks on his journey from the door to his seat in the front.
"All right, Miss Evans, Mr. Black," he squeaked. "You two are supposed to scrub in and out of the desks. That is all. I'm going to go talk to Professor Sprout again, and I'll be back shortly." He paused. "And, eh, no magic."
Then he conjured up a bucket of soapy water and two rags and left.
The two grabbed their rags and started cleaning the desks. At first, Lily wasn't too thrilled about cleaning desks without magic, but she watched Sirius lazily pull out his own wand and start blasting sticky old wads of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum off the bottoms of the desks.
"What are you doing?" Lily demanded. "We aren't allowed to use magic."
Sirius rolled his eyes, "Oh, come on, what's Flitwick gonna do? Put a Cheering Charm on us?"
Lily shrugged and continued scrubbing her first desk rather ineffectively as Sirius moved on to his fourth. She shot him occasional looks of disapproval, but finally looked to the door, which was closed, and produced her own wand. Sirius grinned.
Professor Flitwick entered only once after that, and they heard the quick patter of his feet before he managed to get into the classroom, so it was easy enough to pocket their wands and pretend to be using rags again. It turned out that the little old Professor only needed his lesson planner before leaving with a cheery goodbye.
They finished within thirty minutes, after successfully cleaning out all the desks, and now Lily had an hour to just sit idly with Sirius Black.
Damn.
Sirius didn't seem to keen on talking, because he kept Summoning various objects around the room, only to Banish them again. He made water spray from the tip of his wand, and he even Transfigured Professor Flitwick's desk into a hippopotamus, before quickly changing it back.
A thought grew in the back of Lily's mind, but she pushed it away. It returned. She tried to think only of schoolwork, or of the Heads meeting they would be having with the prefects the next day, or something like that.
But she was sitting here with Sirius Black, James Potter's best friend, and the thought would not, could not go away.
She decided to speak warily.
"So, er, Black—I mean, Sirius." He looked up at her curiously. "I, er…wanted to ask you about James. I mean—Potter."
Sirius raised an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Lily knew she had phrased that wrong.
Shite.
"I—I mean," she said, her palms suddenly becoming ponds. She had to assume he was going to tell James—Potter, she meant, everything that she said. "I mean…he's just been acting odd lately…you know, whenever I do see him. Like Heads meetings."
Sirius raised both eyebrows this time and smirked. "Look, Lily, if you're asking me for advice on how to get in the broom closet with him—"
"No!" she gasped, almost slipping from her chair.
Sirius's face was overcome with a look of rapture.
"I…I just…" Lily bit her lip. "I just…Gwen Nelson."
"Beg pardon?"
"Nelson. I mean—who is she? Does anyone know?"
The boy's face grew sour. "Believe me, spend two minutes in her prescence and you'll know exactly who she is."
"Oh." Lily tried approaching from a different direction. "Does James like her?"
Lily regretted saying it that way.
Sirius grinned. "Well, let me just say this: before he met her, James had liked you since the first day of fifth year. And so he still went out with other girls—blimey, he went out with loads of other girls. Those were the Golden Days. He still asked you out all the time, even if he did have a Hogsmeade trip planned with someone else." Sirius shrugged. "Anyway, so about halfway through sixth year, he decided that he liked you too much, and that the other girls weren't enough to get his mind off you. So he stopped dating and continued to ask you out every day. And you never gave him the chance. So now he's finally found himself another girl, and he's happy about it. And I'm happy for him, too. He lost his marbles over you before that."
That was probably the most informative thing Sirius had ever said to anyone.
Lily felt something in her stomach…something unpleasant.
Guilt.
"Oh. Well…"
Except at that moment Professor Flitwick bustled in to tell them their hour and a half was finished.
"Later, Lily," Sirius said smoothly, standing up and sauntering out of the room. "Oy! Charlene!" And he was gone.
Lily sighed and meandered down the hallway, so lost in thought that she didn't even confiscate the Fire-Breathing Boomerang that somebody was tossing around. She was guilty that she hadn't given James a chance before, but there was something else…something Lily had really never thought about before.
"Oh, Merlin," she muttered, and then quickened her pace so much that she was running down the stairs, almost forgetting the missing step, out of the castle, and out onto the Quidditch pitch.
On the field, the Gryffindor team was practicing, and had thirty minutes left. Lily paced and checked her watch and paced some more, then finally sat down, only to stand up again, check her watch, and pace some more.
Finally, the practice was over, and she heard Rosie shout, "Okay, everyone, Monday afternoon!" That was before Lily grabbed her once she was within arm's reach in the air.
"Rosie. I have to talk to you."
Rosie raised her eyebrows but consented to follow Lily behind the stands. Lily shifted her weight from one foot to the next, watching the passing Quidditch players, including James and Gwen, who were talking with one another.
Once Lily was sure they were alone, she looked back at Rosie and took a deep breath.
"Rosie. This is bad."
"What is? Merlin's warts, Lily, I want to see if lunch is ready yet." But she saw her friend's face and looked at her seriously. "Okay. Tell me."
"You were right." Lily closed her eyes, as though in pain, and opened them only to say, "I'm falling for James Potter."
A/N: Hallo! Virtual ice cream for past reviewers!
Anyway.
Chapter four yaaay! And not very much Gwen in this one, either. I promise, she'll be around more in upcoming chapters. This isn't all going to be from Lily's point of view; I'm hoping to do some more James and Marauder scenes. Because they're just that cool.
I'm thinking this fic is going to be short, like 15 chapters maybe? Possibly shorter. I write fast-paced stuff.
And I might also write a oneshot soon, so stick around and see what kinds of things I have coming up!
Virtual...eh...Hershey bars for reviewers!
--Your friendly neighborhood superhero,
Carrie!
