Chapter 6

"OhmyG-d, Lily!" Petunia exclaimed excitedly the afternoon, bursting open Lily's bedroom door excitedly.

"Go away," Lily ordered, keeping her nose stuffed in a magazine.

"But Lil—"

"No. Remember, you're talking to the circus freak," Lily countered, turning her eyes up to face Petunia.

"Ugh, Lily," Petunia said, rolling her eyes. "You're being such a baby. That was more than twenty-four hours ago."

"Go away."

"Lily, I have something to tell you!" Petunia retorted, clearly frustrated from trying to keep in this recent event for so long. Lily ignored her though, turning a page of her magazine in a rather snobby manner. "But Lil, Vernon Dursley asked me out!"

Lily raised her eyebrows for a moment at this, nonetheless keeping her eyes on her magazine. "You mean the big guy?"

"Yeah," Petunia responded dreamily, leaning against the door frame and staring up at the ceiling, knowing well she was exaggerating her utter love for Vernon.

"Don't you want to get to know him before really feeling anything for him?" Lily asked, finally looking up from her magazine.

"You're such a dork, Lily," Petunia criticized, snapping out of her Vernon-related fantasies. "You can't even feel happy for me."

Lily sighed, returning her gaze to her magazine, but leaving her mind to drift elsewhere. Could people tell the weight Petunia had lost? Were people noticing her just a tiny bit more because she no longer weighed a hundred eighty-seven kilograms? Lily closed her magazine, turning her head out the window. Was the world really such a shallow place that Vernon Dursley had suddenly been attracted to Petunia now that she was losing a few pounds and had abandoned the entire sports-bra concept during her jogs?

"Hullo?" Mrs. Evans's voice came downstairs, in the kitchen as she picked up the phone. "Of course, she's right here." There was a moment's pause, probably for Gloria to cover up the phone's mouthpiece. "Lily! The phone's for you! The hospital, I think."

Within just a few seconds, Lily was taking the phone from her mother. "Hullo?" the redhead asked into the mouthpiece, tucking a wisp of hair behind her ear.

"Ms. Evans?" a woman's voice came from the other side of the phone.

"Yes?"

"We have some news about Jacob." Immediately, Lily remembered the young, depressed boy she'd been bringing around town for the past few months.

"Has he recovered or something? He seemed sort of dazed when I saw him last, but I figured he'd just been sleepy. What happene—"

"Ms. Evans, Jacob has not recovered," the woman said sadly, as if she was just about to read the about the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, knowing what was coming and not being able to prevent it. "Jacob committed suicide."

"What?" Lily asked weakly after a few moments, shock flooding through her body.

"I'm so sorry, Ms. Evans." The woman hesitated before continuing. "We sent you a copy of the note Jacob wrote before he died; you were mentioned a number of times."

"Henrietta, you done with that phone?" a voice came from the background on the woman's end of the line.

"Yeah, Jake, just about," the woman, Henrietta, responded, obviously convinced that she had covered up her phone's mouthpiece considerably well with her hand.

Lily hung up the phone for Henrietta, walking out her front door to go for a walk to clear her head. She'd only gone two blocks when Sirius Black popped up in front of her, his expression deeply amused.

"What happened to your boyfriend?" he teased unknowingly, stuffing his hands down his pockets innocently.

"Sirius, I've already told you; James and I aren't even friends," Lily responded angrily, trying to walk past Sirius so she could continue trying to wear off her shock.

"I'm not talking about James," Sirius continued, nudging Lily for the full effect. "I'm talking about your ice cream man."

"My what?" the redhead asked darkly, turning her head up to face Sirius.

"The guy you were having ice cream with a little while ago." He wiggled his eyebrows playfully.

"Woah my gosh, Sirius, don't do that to me," Lily begged, hiding her face behind her hands momentarily.

"You guys just broke up?" Sirius put an arm around Lily's shoulder, leading his hand down to her waist. "I'm always available, y'know."

"D, Sirius, he just…" Lily let her voice trail off before finishing her sentence. "He just died." Lily paused, debating whether or not to finish her thoughts. "And we weren't dating, anyway."

"Oh," Sirius said quietly, grabbing his hand from Lily's shoulder and stuffing it in his pocket, turning his eyes down to the ground. "Well... well, I've gotta go."

"Bye."

"Yeah, bye."

a/n: thank you so much for the reviews again. je vous aime.

btw, please tell me if you found this chapter to be adding too many problems to lily's life; i wasn't sure. thank you.

helen