The World Is Conspiring Against Me- Part One
It was the Saturday after Lily Evans's first week of her seventh year at Hogwarts. She was out for a walk in the grounds so she could be alone with her thoughts. The warm weather was fading away; the leaves on the trees were turning brown, red and yellow and had begun to fall to the ground, and there was a cool breeze that caused her to wrap her thin sweater more tightly around herself, she wished she had thought to wear her cloak.
She was lost deep in thought about a certain someone. That certain someone was James Potter. The last two years had wrought a couple of changes in James. The first, Lily noticed the first day back for their fifth year. Lily had seen him on Platform 9 ¾ and had been stunned. James Potter had always been good-looking, a fact she admitted, albeit grudgingly, but during their summer apart he seemed to have hit puberty. He was no longer skinny and scrawny, but broad shouldered, muscular, and nearly six feet tall. Unfortunately, his brain had not quite caught up to his body as far as maturity went. He was as arrogant as ever (perhaps even more so because of his new physique), he still played innumerous pranks on teachers and students alike, would hex anything that moved, and he still had not stopped asking Lily out.
The second, Lily had noticed not even a week ago, when they had returned for their seventh and final year at Hogwarts. James was not his usual cocky, flirtatious, mischief-making self. He was still charming and charismatic, and Lily doubted more than a precious few had noticed the difference, but to her the difference was huge. James seemed somehow more mature; he had refrained from hexing anyone (at least in her presence), and while he flirted with her daily, he did not make a spectacle of it (as he once had), and he had not asked her out, nor had he asked any other girl out, or flirted with any other girl for that matter. It seemed to Lily that James had finally taken her advice and deflated his head a bit. She almost wished he hadn't. She found herself falling for the new and improved James, and she hated it. James had pursued her for as long as they had known each other, since their first year and she had always been determined to resist him. Up until this year that had not proved too terribly difficult; James and everything he stood for had always repulsed her, but now… he was different.
She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see who it was. Speak of the devil. She thought. It was James Potter. His hair was windswept and his cheeks were pink from the cold, Lily realized she probably looked similar; James though had thought to bring a cloak. "Hey." Lily greeted him.
"Hey." He said, drawing level with her and keeping pace, "I thought you might want some company out here."
Actually Lily had come out here to be alone, but she found she did not mind having James there. She smiled at him in response.
"So what brings you out here?" he asked her.
"Oh you know just thinking." She replied.
"About?" he persisted.
Lily felt her face blush crimson, though she hoped he might not notice. "Er, you know school and homework and er, stuff." Came her vague and evasive answer.
"Stuff?" James teased.
"Uh-huh." Lily said indignantly.
"What kind of stuff exactly?" he continued.
"Er, you know normal stuff." She said.
"Right. Normal stuff, of course." James said with a knowing smile.
Lily blushed again. He knew, he always knew. She had no idea how, but this was not the first time James had caught her thinking about him. He could tell he was finally winning her over, and she hated it. She was not going to fall for him; she was not going to give him that satisfaction.
They walked along the shore of the Lake in a comfortable silence, both lost in thought. Lily felt her thoughts drift back to the boy walking alongside her. She silently reprimanded herself; she was not supposed to be thinking about James Potter. Instead she took in her surroundings. They were not much help; a couple stood kissing under the beech tree at the water's edge that they had just passed, Lily scowled and turned away. James followed her gaze and his eyes landed on the kissing couple. Lily's eyes averted to the sky, there were no kissing couples to remind her of James there. She looked up at the grayish clouds in the sky. James followed suit and examined the clouds.
James pointed out one cloud in particular, "Hey look at that one." He said pointing to the sky, "It looks like-"
"A heart." Lily finished for him. She rolled her eyes, and stared firmly at the ground. Evidently though, she was not paying enough attention to where she was going and tripped over a fairly large rock. She went flying forwards, almost directly into James's arms.
"Are you ok?" James asked her concernedly, his face barely concealing a smirk.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She said disentangling herself from James's arms and trying to ignore how good she felt in them.
She looked up and saw two butterflies flying in front of them, mating. "What is this?" Lily said aloud. Honestly, what kind of butterflies mated in September! They were supposed to do that kind of thing in the Spring!
"What was that?" James asked her.
"I think the world is conspiring against me." She said darkly.
James laughed good naturedly. "What makes you say that?" he asked.
"Everything." Lily said exasperatedly, "You suddenly being nice to me, everything hinting at love, the people kissing, the heart in the sky, the bloody butterflies mating, me practically falling into your arms."
James remained silent, he did not trust himself to say anything. Anything he said about them being meant to be or it being fate or destiny or anything of the sort would probably end up sounding extremely cocky.
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him, "This isn't some stupid scheme you and your friends concocted to get me to fall for you is it?"
James looked taken aback, "No, of course not! Lily, honestly the Marauders and I had nothing to do with any of this. We're innocent."
"For once." Lily smirked. James grinned back at her, glad she had calmed down a bit.
They began walking again, when a raindrop fell on Lily's face. "Oh brilliant." This ruled out any doubts she had of the Marauders' involvement, even they did not have the power to make it rain. "I hate the rain." She said as it began pouring. Lily did hate the rain, she did not really have a reason, she just did not like it. Despite her friends' insistence that everything good happened in the rain, she hated it. And she was currently disproving this theory; James had offered to share his cloak with her as they ran for the cover of the beech tree (which had now been deserted by the canoodling couple), and she had reluctantly accepted. Standing in the rain, soaking wet and cold with James Potter was definitely not a good thing. Though he was nice and warm and smelled quite lovely. He wrapped an arm around her underneath his cloak to keep her warmer, and Lily willingly snuggled closer to him resting her head on his chest. Maybe this wasn't so bad…
The storm was showing no sign of relenting; it seemed to be getting worse. The thunder and lightning were getting increasingly closer together. After one particularly loud clap of thunder Lily whipped her head around in the direction it came from and literally crashed into James' face. Their mouths met; James did not pull away, he began to kiss her. Lily seemed incapable of pulling away; she even started to kiss him back. When they did pull away, James had a knowing smirk on his face. "Now Lily," he began, "I think you may have noticed that I've refrained from asking you this for quite some time now-"
She cut him off, "It's only been a week James." She smiled up at him, knowing what was coming next and not minding one bit.
"Yes well that's a record for me." He said, "And I was wondering if you would consider going out with me?" He looked at her without the usual hopefulness; this time there was already a gleam of triumph in his eyes.
"Oh, alright, you great prat." Lily said rather unromantically, but James loved hearing it all the same.
Lily pressed her lips against James' once more (this time on purpose), and thought to herself, Maybe everything good really does happen in the rain.