We Have to What
Chapter Four
Assignment One continued
Summary: Lily and James are told by Dumbledore that in order to be Head Boy and Girl in their seventh year at Hogwarts, they have to learn to live together! In a two room flat! Chaos ensues…
Rated: PG-13, although might be R, depending on how I want the story to go. Plus, what's a good living-together fic without some dirtiness? Lol…
Disclaimer: I feel kind of guilty that I never put one up, so here it is. I don't own anything you recognize. I do own Podis Bagmore.
A/N: Sorry it has taken me so long to write another chapter for this! But you all know how busy life is. All your suggestions for assignments were great! If you have anymore, please tell me in the review, and when I use someone's idea, I will credit them here. Thanks again for all of your extremely supportive reviews! Replies are at the end of the chappie.
Dearest Mr. Potter and Miss Evans
Please accept my deepest regrets that the both of you could not get along for more than five minutes after receiving my warning. (See letter sent ten minutes ago.) Unfortunately, it seems that I failed to mention that section 4 (four) of the letter commenced upon arrival of said letter. From now until further notice, neither of you will be able to move fifty feet from each other.
Best wishes,
Albus Dumbledore.
"Damn it!" shouted the normally taciturn Lily, making James jump.
"You started it," said James.
"No I didn't!"
James did not deign to answer, and instead turned to the problem of the lack of shower. After thinking hard for a few minutes and ducking a few objects Lily threw at him, he smacked his head.
How could he be so stupid? He was a wizard! He could use a wand. Well, actually, he couldn't, but Lily could.
"Oh, Lily dearest?" James asked in a sickeningly sweet tone?
"What?" she snapped, not realizing that James had just called her 'dear'.
"Do you think you could do a spot of magic for me?"
"Why?" she asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes.
"I need to take a shower. Besides," he added, "if we keep arguing, you're going to have to deal with a lot of body odor if you don't make me a shower."
"I-I-oh okay," she said sighing. "Where d'you want it?"
Twenty five minutes later, and tempers were rising.
"Why weren't you born until next week?" moaned Lily.
"I don't know! That was my parents' decision!" retorted James.
"I did not need to know that!"
"You were the one who asked. And anyway, you're the one who sucks so much as transfiguration she can't even make shower curtains, let alone an entire shower!" James felt his face going red.
Suddenly, there was yet another of those mysterious winds, and James and Lily both groaned in unison.
As expected, a letter dropped from the air. Lily reached out to get it, and quickly scanned the writing.
"It's basically the same, but now you can't be more than twenty five feet from me. How will I survive?"
James rolled his eyes at Lily's childishness. Really, twenty five feet was a perfectly large distance. Especially when it was with a rather attractive young female…
"Why do we have to go to the ladies' lingerie department?" whined James sometime that afternoon. "I thought all I had to do was pick out a dress."
"You do," snapped Lily, "but I happen to need a bra, and its right next to the dress department."
"If we hadn't argued earlier, I wouldn't even have to be here."
"Yes you would have. Now help me look…I need a pretty one, just in case the straps show on the dress, and it can't be padded; padding makes me look stupid."
James wandered around the ladies' lingerie, looking for something to give Lily to make her happy, with a large frown on his face. Suddenly, his eyes lit on something, and he grabbed it.
"Perfect," he said to himself, grinning.
"What is this Potter?" shouted Lily, red faced and livid, once James had found her.
"What?" he said innocently.
"I am NOT a fifty six year old, 115 kilo woman. I am seventeen, and no, I am not telling you how much I weigh!"
James put on a face of pretend sadness when he heard that. "Pity. Anyway, I dunno what the big deal is with girls telling people how much they weigh. Guys don't care at all."
"Well, I do, and I would appreciate it if you would try to be helpful, instead of getting enormous grey lacy bras."
"Right," he said, realizing his moment of fun was over, at least for a time, and resigning himself to several more hours of complete boredom.
Finally, after what seemed like years, they moved on to the dress department.
"Okay Potter, you're free. Find me something that's not too degrading to the female species."
James whooped, then rushed off, only to come careening back to Lily in a matter of seconds.
"I need to know your size."
"What?" gasped Lily, then remembered. "Oh, of course…well, its uh, its—" She muttered something incoherent, and James leaned forward.
"Huh?"
"I said I'm a size seven. Okay?" She had turned very red, but James merely shrugged. He really had no idea what all the sizes meant, he just needed to know what number to look for.
Twenty minutes later, he had a pile of dresses for Lily to try on. She immediately went through and rejected three, but James shook his head.
"Nope, remember what Dumbledore said. It's my choice. Now go in there, then come out when you've tried one on so that I can see." He pointed to the dressing room. He followed her to the entrance, then sat on one of the sofas conveniently located next to it, sincerely hoping that it was more than twenty five feet to Lily's changing room so that he could go inside the dressing rooms. Alas, it was not, and he sat there for what seemed like an age waiting for Lily to get dressed.
Meanwhile, Lily was trying on the first dress. She decided to put on the slutty ones first, to get them out of the way. Also, she hoped that by the end, Potter wouldn't remember them, so he'd pick a nicer one.
She went outside in the dress, which was more a piece of cloth covering the bare essentials than a dress. She closed her eyes when she reached Potter, not wanting to see the lustful grin on his face.
She was, however, surprised at his reaction. "Yellow doesn't suit you, Evans, even though you do show a nice amount of cleavage int he dress," he said. Lily rolled her eyes. Yellow suited no one. Fortunately, Potter wasn't too dense in the fashion area.
Five dresses and an hour and half later, both Lily and James were despairing of finding anything. In her dressing room, Lily picked up the last dress. It was a pretty black number, and when she put it on, felt wonderful. It wasn't too low cut, and flared out at the bottom, coming to rest just past her knees. It hugged her curves wonderfully, and was very flattering.
Secretly, she hoped that James would pick this one.
She went outside, eyes open this time, and blushed when James looked up at her.
He couldn't believe it. How someone could look so gorgeous in something so simple, he couldn't fathom. He slowly raked his eyes from the bottom of the dress to the top, noting the way it made every wonderful part of her body stand out. Unfortunately, he felt himself getting red too, and found it a little harder to breathe than was normal.
"You-it-it's amazing," he finally managed to choke out, causing Lily's blush to spread to her chest.
"You think so?" she asked quietly, and James shook his head; she really didn't know just how beautiful she was.
Back in the dressing room, Lily slammed the door and leaned back against it, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. 'Dammit' she thought to herself, 'I am not supposed to react to Potter like that. He's just an arrogant, bullying git.' Unfortunately, though, she couldn't get his face out of her mind. The way it had blushed, and the way he was so nervous. It was almost. 'NO! I do NOT find Potter attractive in any way!'
As quickly as she could, she put on her regular clothes, picked up the black dress and went outside. She couldn't look at Potter for fear that he'd cause her to blush again, and that just wouldn't do.
It was a much simpler matter choosing a suit for James, who really couldn't care less what he wore, and the two were soon back at their London flat, ready to tackle the problem of the shower.
There was a place for it now, as Lily, guided by James, had managed to blast a hole in the wall of the bathroom, then make a makeshift sort of wall in the back. The only thing missing was the water.
"Maybe you'll just have to do like they did in the olden days," said Lily, frowning.
"And that is…?" asked James.
"Heat up some water and pour it on while having your shower. I could keep some going on the counter."
"Damn you and the fact that you're seventeen."
"Pleasure, thanks."
He glowered at her, then proceeded to strip off his shirt in the middle of the kitchen.
"What are you doing?" asked Lily, horrified. James shrugged, then turned towards her.
"I'm dirty, need a shower."
"Do men have any sense of discretion?" she asked, looking at James. She couldn't help but notice that he was quite toned and muscular, but quickly looked away when she realized that she was staring.
Suddenly, Lily felt a warm hand grip her wrist. She looked up, and into the warm hazel eyes of James Potter. His lopsided grin almost made her knees buckle, but she was determined not to find him attractive whatsoever.
"Does Lily Evans think I'm a man?" he teased.
Lily finally came to her senses and wrenched her hand away. "I've got to boil your water," she mumbled, going over to the cupboard and searching through for an acceptable pot or two.
"Fine by me."
For some reason, his nonchalant answer caused Lily to snap. She turned around, eyes blazing.
"Why can't you just be mature for once! Hitting on random girls is not the solution to world hunger."
James furrowed his brows, utterly confused. "World hunger? What's that got to do with my shower."
Lily growled in frustration, and threw the pot she was holding onto the ground, where it promptly snapped in two.
"That's what's the matter with you James Potter! You don't care about anything except your own happiness. Think about the rest of the world for once."
James just shrugged again, and leant down to strip his trousers off, when the wind came again.
Both Lily and James groaned, and this time it was James who reached out to grab the letter.
Dear Mr. Potter and Miss Evans,
I am sorry to inform you that you have argued yet again. However, I am actually quite pleased at how long it took for you to argue a third time. Perhaps you are learning to live with each other? Unfortunately, you will now not be able to move 12 feet from one another. This is where it gets tough.
Good luck with your dinner party tonight, and I hope to see you soon.
Yours truly,
Albus Dumbledore
A/N: Wow this was actually a pretty long chapter considering that it didn't take me long to write. It came to me pretty easily. Next chapter will be the dinner party and the assigning of the second task.
One note…it HAS been a while since I lived in England, so I went by the American dress size system…correct me if you're British and know better, and I'll fix it.
If you don't know the conversion from kilos to pounds, multiply the kilos by 2.2 and you'll get the pounds.
Please review!
Responses:
Apotterlover: Yep, poor them. But what's a good story without a little laughing at the characters' expenses?
Nebulia: Sigh I do take too long to update. A Slightly Different Turn is on my list. I hope to have another chapter for all of my other stories up by next week…I've started on all of them, just haven't finished.
Sheyana: Lol…those are great ideas…now to think how to incorporate them in the story…I especially like the Dream Date one grins evilly in reply to your evil grin
DumDum: Thanks!
Xblackmoonx: You're right, it should be interesting…and I am updating…
Coco-pop: Well, the dress part was fun to write…I suppose I could've gone into more detail about how terrible the dresses were that James picked out.
Chaserchick4Sirius: Why thank you! And I like your penname…lol
Moonshine44: I tried to make this chapter longer. Chapter two and three weren't that long at all…
Elisisland: Thanks for the compliment. And yes, I do try to have reasons for things, rather than the reason which so many use which is that the teachers want Lily and James to get together…totally ridiculous.
LaBOBuren: Oooh…I like your idea. Perfect.
Alenor: Yeah, I've read some brilliant time-turner stories in my day…
Lady of Masbolle: I love your idea! 'Specially since I know how hard that is. And I feel for you with that whole "carrying" the section thing…I have to do that too, since I'm better at reading music and sight singing than some of the other people. And you found out about the wand thing this chapter…I really have no idea when James' birthday is, but making him not be of age yet is fun…
KraziKrysti: Good idea…dunno how I'd incorporate it, but I'll think about it.
Thanks as always for all your great reviews!
Crystaltambaia
