Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
They're in: Seventh Year
Recap:
James finds out that Thomas has been cheating on Lily...
Lily looked and saw that his face showed genuine care. "Oh, James!" she said suddenly throwing herself on him, sobbing on his shoulder. She cried hard, and soon his shoulder was wet.
James hugged her back and stroked her hair, trying to help her feel calm. "Who was he with?"
More muffled words.
"I'm sorry?"
"It was Anna," she whispered the last word, as though afraid he might hear it.
Chapter Fourteen: Of Breakups and Suspicions
"What?" He pulled away and looked into Lily's watery eyes. She shook her head and kept crying.
"I d-didn't want t-to believe it. I-I didn't know w-what to think..." James was in the process of standing up when Lily pulled him back down and said, "N-no! Don't leave, I n-need you."
Had she left off the last three words, he would have left anyway. But the mere thought that she needed him... She needed him. He sat next to her on her bed and closed the curtains around them. She hugged him and he hugged her back. Sitting against the headboard was uncomfortable, but if it made Lily feel better he would stay like that.
After what seemed a long time, her cries subsided. "Are you feeling better?" James asked nicely. She nodded and pressed up against him. "I should be leaving..."
"Alright," Lily said sadly. He sat up and she sat up also. They walked to the door and looked at each other, "Um, thank you, for, er, staying with me," she attempted a smile.
"Anytime," he smiled at her.
She hugged him and said, "You don't know how much it meant to me." She kissed his cheek and let go of him. He grinned weakly at her and they went back downstairs to many catcalls and whistling.
They ignored them and sat down near the fire.
"So what are you going to do?"
"I was thinking about doing the essay of the antidotes of poisons for Potions," James replied.
"No, silly," Lily half-laughed. "I meant about Anna."
James gazed thoughtfully into the fire and said in an instant, "I'm going to break up with her. What about you?"
"Same."
They worked on their homework, each of them not getting much work done. The common room slowly emptied and soon they were the only ones left in there.
"I'm getting sleepy..." Lily said, fighting to keep her eyes open. It was well past midnight.
James yawned and said, "Me too."
"But I don't want to go back up and sleep in the same room as Anna..." Lily laid down on the couch after moving books and bits of parchment, glad that she had brought down her blanket.
"I don't want to leave you alone," James said, thinking of her cut-up arm. He didn't want her to do it again.
"Then sleep here too, you dolt," Lily said without really thinking and moved over to make a space for James.
He lay down next to her and put his arm around her protectively. Her breaths soon turned slow and even: she was asleep. Unconsciously she moved closer to him. He smiled, thinking he was the luckiest guy in the world and fell asleep too.
It was morning and James awoke by being pulled. "What are you doing!" a female voice said.
"What?"
"Get off of her! You're mine, just what do you think you are doing!" Anna shrieked.
"I was sleeping, until you woke me up and the whole world too with your screaming!" James said, sitting up.
Anna turned to Lily, "You bitch! You slept with my boyfriend!"
"She what?" Thomas had appeared, apparently awakened by Anna's screams. He seemed appalled at the idea.
"I-I... we just slept... we didn't--" Lily began, trying to stay calm. She looked from Thomas to James to Anna. She didn't know what to do. Anna was yelling because she thought James was cheating on her. What a hypocrite!
"I hate you!" Anna yelled.
Lily began to retort when James said suddenly, "Leave her alone! We're through. We are over!"
All was silent. People had stopped halfway down the stairs; most were on their way down to breakfast. Some girls even had their hands over their mouths, apparently horrified. Jopelle was halfway to tears.
Anna resembled a fish: large, protruding eyes and a large gaping mouth. She opened and closed her mouth several times before deciding to say, "B-but honey-bee... why?" Her eyes were filling up with unshed tears that were threatening to fall.
"Why?" James laughed as if the reason should be obvious. "Why, you ask? Because you were cheating on me with Thomas!" he burst out.
Thomas looked aghast. He looked at Lily apologetically. He didn't try to deny it. Anna didn't deny it either.
"I don't want to be with you anymore, Thomas," Lily said quietly. Almost everyone was awake and watching the scene now.
Sirius came down the stairs and was surprised at the scene in front of him. Gaining his senses again he snapped, "Alright, go on! Go to breakfast, there's nothing to watch here!" Slowly people started to leave. "I said go!" he snapped unexpectedly every few minutes.
"I knew there were some loony people down here, screaming at 6:30 in the morning... I just didn't know those loony people were my friends..." he smiled weakly at them.
When the time came for their final lesson of the day, the news had spread about Lily and James: rumors were flying everywhere and anywhere at Hogwarts. The most popular rumor stated that James Potter and Lily Evans had sex. Absolutely everyone knew about the two break ups that had happened in the morning. Apparently, everyone knew everything about anything at Hogwarts.
Or at least they thought they did.
At dinner James sat next to Lily, encouraging the rumors about them floating about. "It feels so strange, having so many people talk about you..." Lily told James as they ate.
"I've never quite gotten used to the feeling. I rather enjoy it though."
Lily raised her eyebrows. "You enjoy having rumors saying that you had sex? Maybe it's because you have before..." she said casually.
"I haven't," James said, as though hurt that someone could think of him as such a pimp, for lack of a better word.
"You haven't? Oh, well, you seem like the type..." It was James's turn to raise his eyebrows.
"Well you don't seem the type who would cut."
An awkward silence rested upon both of them, each of them avoiding each other's eyes.
"Hi!" a cheerful voice across from them said.
"Oh, hi Moony!" James said, happy that the awkward silence was gone.
A few weeks later, everything was back to normal, there were hardly any rumors going around and Anna and Jopelle rarely confronted Lily. During breakfast one morning, Remus let out a low whistle while reading the Daily Prophet.
"What is it?" Sirius said, wondering what made Remus look surprised. Sirius was looking around, observing the students. He noticed a group of Slytherins were talking seriously and seemed impressed about something.
"Some bloke named Voldemort killed thirteen Muggles and six wizards in two weeks! Talk about serial killer!"
"The cereal seems to be fine," Sirius said, inspecting the nearest bowl of cereal, earning him a whack on the head from Remus. "I'm sure the Ministry will catch, er, Volemonk soon. It's bound to happen soon, right?"
"I dunno," Remus replied, "the Prophet says he used Dark magic to kill these people. Beside, it also says he's gathering followers."
"That's horrible, when I get out of here and train to be an Auror, I'll kick their Dark butts!" James said. Peter grimaced and didn't seem too happy about the prospect of James getting Voldemort's followers. "What's wrong with you, Wormtail?"
"Er, nothing, nothing. Yeah, er, I hope you get those Death Eaters!"
"Death Eaters?" Everyone stared blankly at Peter. "Is that what they're calling themselves? How do you know, Peter?" Remus said carefully.
"D-didn't you say th-that?" he squeaked. Remus shook his head. "Er, I-I must have, er, read it! Yes, I probably read it in a different article!" He suddenly had an overwhelming interest to his bacon and looked down at it.
Sirius, Remus and James exchanged suspicious looks.
"Do you think he could be involved?" Sirius asked later, when Peter was not around.
"I don't know," James said seriously.
"No," Remus was so firm that the other two looked at him surprised. "I mean come on; do you really think that he would do something like that? The kid doesn't have much backbone..."
James was only half-listening his eyes were out of focus and he was gazing at Lily who was talking to a seventh-year girl, Celeste, whom she had recently begun talking to.
"James?"
"You're absolutely right," James said, snapping out of his trance.
"You're hopeless," Sirius said.
"What are you talking about?"
"You were staring at Lily again," Remus supplied.
"I know. I just, I don't know what I could do. I want to be more than friends, you know?" Remus and Sirius looked at each other. "Anyway, about this Peter thing, I think you're right. He doesn't have enough courage to say an answer to a question in class, what would make us think that he would be with that bloke, er, Volomondore?"
"Voldemort," Remus corrected him, "and I agree."
A/N: Look! I updated this one fairly quickly, eh? Actually I finished it the same day I put up the 13th chapter. Yup. And I want to apologize for my horrible writing on the first 12 chapters. You know, I was actually laughing at the sad parts because I was thinking, "Oh gosh, I did that? That's horrible and stupid. Lol."
I will probably be rewriting them after I finish. Or before. I don't know. Review (oh, and can you read and/or review my one-shot "The Last Remains"? I rather like the effect I had and how I wrote it)! Umm, thanks for reading/reviewing! And I feel rather guilty I left this story hanging for nearly a year, and with a cliffie! Ouch! That was mean.
Toodles!
