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They're in: Seventh Year

Recap:

"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."

Chapter Fifteen: Why Now?

It was near Christmas now; the grounds were covered with brittle snow. Lily seemed to think that if someone walked on the snow it would crumble and be no more. But even when she walked upon it, she saw the beauty of it. How each individual snowflake was formed delicately and precisely before it landed on the ground and became an unrecognizable lump of snow.

Snow was beautiful.

"What are you staring at?" Lily turned to look at the voice, saw that it was James, and looked away.

"Snow," she replied simply.

"It's cold you know, you should come inside." Lily had been sitting in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch, laying on her back and watching the snow fall down gracefully.

"I'm quite fine, thanks."

"Can I stay here with you?"

Lily looked him up and down, eyeing his face for signs of inappropriate intentions. Finding none she nodded before turning back to sky. They lay in the snow quiet for a while, each one thinking thoughts that absorbed each one into a world of their own.

After a long time, James broke the silence, "Lily, I have to ask you something..."

"Hmm?" Lily said, without breaking her staring contest with the sky.

"Iwangooutwiyu."

"Sorry? I didn't catch that..." she finally looked away from the sky. It was so unusual for James to rush into things and be nervous.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "I want to go out with you," he said slowly. He opened his eyes and said quickly, "I-if you don't want to that's okay, I mean I was just..." he trailed off, not knowing what to say.

"James, I..." she seemed lost for words. Finally finding some words, she said, "I can't. I'm sorry, but I can't."

Before James could even say a word, she was already up and walking quickly toward the castle. The butterflies in his stomach subsided and was replaced with a hollow, sad feeling. It had taken him days of building his own confidence, reminding himself of every possible thing that had led him on to thinking she would say yes.

He walked up to the castle slowly, his heart beating with sadness. So much for all the confidence boosting he had gone through... At least she said she can't, she didn't say she didn't want to... Who was he kidding? She straight up rejected him. In his head the words stung painfully.

ABC.

Lily had just rejected the most popular and hottest guy at Hogwarts, even though Sirius could rival James any day. Anyone else would have accepted him without a second thought, I mean, hello! This was Hogwarts's most eligible bachelor, and no one in their right mind would have turned him down.

But Lily was different. She had only had one boyfriend and she would have rather not remembered that experience. All guys are the same, if one's a bastard, they all are. I bet the only reason James asked me out was to just snog me and then dump me for a prettier girl... Thinking back, she felt differently for James than she had for Sirius.

Maybe she should start talking to Sirius, see what happened. Oh, this is so confusing! I hate boys!

ABC.

"How'd it go?" Wormtail asked as soon as James entered the room.

If glares could kill, Peter would have been dead. Twice.

"Not good, eh?" Sirius asked sympathetically.

James collapsed on the nearest chair and put his face in his hands.

Sirius, Remus, and Peter exchanged significant looks.

"She said no."

"We figured that much..." Remus said quietly, "did she say why?"

"That's the thing. She said she couldn't! I don't get it. Why can't she?" James said frustrated.

ABC.

Good thing that the news of James asking out Lily didn't spread too much. The rumor had almost died out, but no one really dropped it. Had it spread even farther, it would have made life hell for Lily. But it's not like she didn't know what that felt like anyway, right?

She was becoming closer friends with Celeste. She was so sweet. Why was she suddenly drawing people to her? She was doodling on a piece of parchment, drawing a heart and beginning to write letters inside. She hadn't yet written the letter because someone tapped her shoulder.

She turned, "Hi, I'm Joshua AuLumier." He had stuck out his hand and was smiling.

"Oh, hello Joshua. I'm Lily Evans."

"I know. But please, call me Josh." He had sat next to her and she looked at his robes. Ravenclaw.

"Are you a Seventh Year?" Lily asked curiously.

"Yes, and to tell you the truth, all this studying for N.E.W.T.'s are killing me."

Strange... I wonder what he wants. She smiled at him and bit her toast. The bell rang.

"Can I walk you to class?" He held out his arm for her.

"Er, alright..."

They made small talk as he walked her to class, he had even offered to carry her things, but she had declined. They walked into class and he sat next to her. She had forgotten that Gryffindors had Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws.

ABC.

Throughout the whole class, James glared at the back of AuLumier's head. How could Lily do this to him? He had just asked her out, no less than two days ago and she was already with someone else! What does she see in him anyway? James was much better looking than him. Oh yes he was.

And he was better at Quidditch too. Yes, anyone would surely like James over AuLumier.

Josh AuLumier was also quite popular, he was good looking, played Quidditch (Chaser, to be exact) and he had brains. Hence why he was in Ravenclaw.

Back to the point, why had Lily said no to James but was talking and flirting with another guy?

ABC.

What the heck was that about? Transfiguration had (by far) been the worst class of the day. Between Josh wanting to help her anything he could, her Transfiguration being horrible (why, just why couldn't she changed the beetle into a mouse?), and James glaring at her and Josh every second of the lesson... yes, it was by far the worst class.

What was up with Josh anyway? Why had he a sudden liking to her? Crazy, and just that day after dinner, another Ravenclaw Seventh Year had tried talking to her. His name was Dave Lipscomb or something like that anyway.

But why the sudden attention? What was going on? She didn't understand it. All she knew was that she had to keep them at a distance. She didn't want to go through the pain of having a boyfriend once more. That's why she had rejected James.

Lily was scared. She was scared of being hurt again. She liked James, she really did. James turning out to be like Thomas (who was now going out with Anna, by the way) would be a nightmare and saddened her even by thinking about it.

Frustrated thoughts popped into her head. Why couldn't these guys notice me last year? Why now? I haven't changed since the beginning of the year; it's nearly the end of December.

Why now?

Furious with boys in general, she crawled into bed silently cursing boys and the logic behind their queer actions.

ABC.

James wasn't quite sure as to why Lily was acting the way she was, but he was quite sure he knew why guys just suddenly start taking interest in Lily...

spotted kitten: Sorry for the rather long author's note... but come on! This story has over 1170 hits, it's on 18 favorite lists, and 2 author alerts! Why am I getting only two reviews? Kudos to Heather for reviewing and doubly kudos to Emrisah for reviewing multiple times.

I planned out the rest of this story and there is going to be about 4 or 5 more chapters (meaning 19 or 20 chapters in total) and maybe, just maybe, an epilogue of some sorts. What say you? Epilogue or no epilogue?

Anyway, "ABC." capitols signifies POV change and "abc." lowercase signifies scene change. I used that because I used to use the squiggly line thing and the asterisk, but I dunno why it doesn't show up on ff. Neither do the dashes... It's really frustrating so I just used Abc and I'll be using that for the rest of the story unless someone can come up with a better alternative?

As a side note: AuLumier French for "At the light" I dunno, I thought you should know, it doesn't have any relevance to the plot though. I thought it sounded cool, heh. And (this is the last thing I promise) I've rewritten the first 6 chapters, so I will be replacing those within tomorrow and the day after.