A/N: There's a lot of drama in this chapter. Be warned.

WARNING: This chapter also features a specific pairing other than JP/SS. If you don't like the pairing, I really don't care so don't comment about it. If you have a specific comment about how I used the pairing in my story, however, feel free to leave a post. I'm not telling you now because I don't want to spoil it, but I have alluded to this pairing in the past.

Frayedsoul- Aww! Gee thanks, sorry I had to go and die in October.

I sniffed into the cold night air, staring into the hedgerow where Lily had once been. My eyes are watering slightly from the cold. From the cold. I'm not going to cry. I'm not. I'm not going to cry.

My vain attempts to chase after her have gone; she already apparated by the time I reached the gate.

I just fucked up.

I feel suddenly like a black hole is sucking me down into the moss, like every thought that I should have had about Lily in the past few weeks has flooded my mind.

Did she just… finally… say "no"…?

No cottage with Lily and a family of four. No Christmas dinner with grandchildren on my knee. No glorious wedding. No babies with green eyes. No… none of my schoolboy fantasies with a honeymoon with Lily Evans. No Lily Potter.

What was I thinking? Of course I cheated on her! And now I've gone and lied about it. Now she thinks that I've been off with some slimy girl from the whorehouse when really it's only Severus.

Only Severus…

Somewhere inside of me, inside some intuitive, gooey, emotional tumor in my brain there's something that tells me that she wouldn't mind as much if she knew it was Severus. But the rational side of my brain simply thinks that… that is bollocks. If she knew that she'd know I was bent! Am I bent?

Oddly enough, it's never really been a question I've clearly asked myself. I sort of just fell for Snape and the gay thing was really secondary. I mean, for heavens sake, Gerado's Bar! I don't belong there! Although, that waiter was sort of cute… with the turban… and the… and the…

Bloody hell!

I pace the flower garden at break-neck speed back and forth, heat rising in my chest and face. I must be gay; I've been necking with Snape all afternoon! But this makes no sense at all! How can I say that I'm gay! I'm the Hogwarts golden boy, Head boy, top of my class, quidditch star, all-time jock of the place. How could I be both gay and that? But with a guilty stab I think of Sirius. He's gay, and a great guy, and a good friend…

That's it. If I want to know whether I'm gay or not, I should ask someone who'd know.

"SIRIUS!" I yell into the green flames.

I see the inside of his horribly messy flat. I thought gay men were supposed to be neat, but then again I shouldn't expect him to change since he just came out mere days ago. A lump on the bed shows that he's here, sleeping and ignoring me.

"PADS! PADDY! PADFOOT!"

A groan comes from said lump, which rolls and turns.

"Wh-A-at?" whines Sirius.

"I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!"

"Obviously…" says Sirius. He craws, wrapping his down blanket around him like a shawl. I can't help but wince as I see his bare fleet hit the cold hardwood floor.

"Why are you sleeping so early?"

"Cause I have to work later…" he mutters. "What do you want?"

"Sirius… do you think… am I…"

I can't form the words. Even though this is my best friend, and he's gay, and I shouldn't feel ashamed at all, I feel my face flush with embarrassment.

"Wait a minute!" He cuts across me. "I'm mad at you!"

"You are?" I pretend to be surprised. "Why?"

His face pouts ever so slightly, "I forgot."

"Oh."

"But it was important."

"Sirius…" I whisper. "Old friend, old buddy, old pal…"

"What?" he growls.

"Can you just… continue to pretend that you can't remember why you're mad at me for another five minutes or so? I really need your help, your advice," I mutter into the ash.

He rolls his eyes. "Why don't you come over?"

I run into the other room at tell my mother that I'll be back by dinner and to not wait up for me, and leap into the flames. Floo powder is quite convenient. Well, compared to subways at least.

"Ouch," I brush off the dust onto his floor haphazardly. He has two cups of smoking hot tea out on his television stand already.

"Why did you tell Lily I was cheating on her?"

Sirius smiled. The man is completely unabashed. "I was just tearing the micky out of her. She was going on and on about how much of a wonderful boyfriend you were. I just said a snide comment to the effect of 'yeah, he's wonderful especially when he's cheating on you'. I didn't mean… Snape… really…"

"Yeah, well now she definitely thinks I'm cheating on her."

Sirius tilts his head to one side, like a dog, "That's sort of silly. I was only…"

"She said Remus said it too. She said she heard I was cheating on her from a reliable source."

"Oh… definitely not me, then," Sirius stirs lemon into his tea, staring into his lap, still wrapped in the blanket-shawl. "I'm not sure what that's all about… but… to be honest with you… Remus has been acting strange lately."

"Yeah?" I pry.

Sirius swallows. He stares off into the distance, eyebrows pinched together. "Well, he didn't react very well when I told him I was gay," he says.

Oh, so he did tell him. I didn't expect him to react very well at all. The way he looked at Snape and I together…

"Sorry, mate. He'll come around, I'm sure."

Sirius stirs his tea laboriously slow, with all of the proper posture that his mother taught him when he was five. Even now that he is a muggle-loving rocker, his back is still as straight as an arrow. She beat it into him. I remember the stories Sirius used to tell me, about the books on his head and the weights on his wrists. Maybe she thought that if she beat his back until it was straight, he would stop being gay. "It's just that he treats me weirdly, you know. Now that I've come out."

"He was bound to treat you differently…"

"I think that he was freaked out. Like he thought… he thought… that I had a crush on him or something." He then finally looks up from his lemony tea with a fire in his eyes. "Which I didn't!"

"Surely no…"

"Not once in school did I come on to him!"

"Of course you didn't."

"I never tried to… not ever…"

I swallow, trying to find the most sensitive words. How can I explain bigotry delicately? "Maybe he was just nervous about being naked in front of you, after the full moon. Maybe he though when you snuggled up to him as Padfoot the dog, you were enjoying it more as Sirius the human."

Sirius stares, mouth unattractively agape. "I'm not…"

"I'm not saying that you are…"

"But I just was…"

"I'm just saying what it's like from Remus' perspective."

"I was just trying to help," Sirius whimpers.

That last word sounded like the strangled notes I've heard from caged puppies in pet stores. His eyes are tearing up. His bottom lip wriggles ever so slightly. Oh, bother.

"He's my friend! Am I not allowed to help my friend just 'cause I'm gay?"

"Pads…" I say soothingly, patting his arm. Oh, dear. "Now, Pads. I'm not saying that he's…"

Desperately, I try to get him to calm down. This isn't really like him, to get so emotional. I think of the couple tears that Severus had shown on top of the Warehouse, and the situation feels completely dissimilar. Maybe that's due to lack of marijuana smoke…

"Maybe I did!"

My eyes grow wide. I can do nothing to politely hide my shock. "Did... what?" I whisper.

"MAYBE I LIKED HIM! Okay? And I tried every day to hide it and I never let on even though it was killing me! And when I thought of becoming an animagus… it was because I just wanted to be near him… to help him! I couldn't watch him suffer like that!"

Oh Dear God.

"And! I! DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT! YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE! I had to sit there and see him walk out of the shower all soapy and wet and see the GOD DAMN droplets running down his GOD DAMN BODY! And I couldn't look away cause then he'd know." He's breaking between every other word to let out a fresh sob. "I had to learn not to blush. And you know how he is! All the pushing, and the pressing, and the hugging! And I couldn't hide from it, cause… I love him…"

Love him? You mean… not just crush? Love him?

Sirius has tears running down his chin now, so sad and pathetic, and I've never felt more awkward in my entire life. How long has he been holding this in?

"SNAPE KNEW!"

"What?"

"He KNEW. Re-re-remember when h-he said he knew I was gay since he was fifteen?"

"I… thought he was just being and asshole…"

"No…" Sirius swallows thickly, grabbing a tissue finally and dabbing his face with it. "H-he really knew b-because he found my diary."

"You had a diary?" I mutter, adding this to the list of things to tease him about after he's calmed down a bit.

"It had everything. This really, really girly passage about how pretty his hair was and how much I wanted to kiss him." He hiccups, slowly calming down. "I threatened him. I jinxed him a few times, and I told you I was bored more often so you would pick on him more" (with a guilty stab I can pinpoint exactly which month of school he's talking about too. For Merlin's sake, he used me as a tool? To get back at Snape?) "And then… I told him how to get into the Whomping Willow and…"

I knew the rest of the story too.

For some reason it is my initial reaction to defend him, "But he never told anyone. I mean he told me that… he had a feeling you were gay… not that he knew."

"Shut up, James. You wouldn't have believed him."

Well, true.

"He told Lily."

"That's no big deal. Lily's kind."

"Yeah. Fuckin' kind." His gray eyes cloud over with a darkness and a dislike that I never realized he had had for my girlfriend. "You don't know how many times she's told me to get over it and move on to somebody else. 'Maybe you can find a nice girl to settle down with, Siri'," says Sirius in a mean, but accurate impression of Lily's voice.

"Oh…" I whisper, in what I hope is an understanding moan, knowing full well that that was simply out of the question. "Oh, Sirius."

He sniffles.

"I'm pathetic."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am." He buries his head in the blankets, ashamedly sobbing into the thick fabric. "You know those girly posters that I use to have in my old room?"

"The muggle ones that pissed of your mom?" I smile. "Yeah, that was awesome!"

"I!" He cries. "I spelled them."

"What?"

"If you tap the pictures three times it turns into Remus. In… lewd positions."

"Oh… oh…" I can't help but blush crimson. That is quite like a stalker. "Yeah, that is a little pathetic, Pads."

He snorts into his blankets. Sitting up, he stares at me. "And I wanted to tell Remus. Just to you know… let it out. But he's treating me so badly already! I haven't even told him and he's treating me like dog shit. I'm so pathetic."

"Pads… I'm going to ask a question and you're going to answer me."

"Okay…"

"Do you love him?"

He stares at me with his wide, pale eyes, tears still hanging off his eye lashes. His face is a puffball from crying so much.

"I don't…"

"Because if you just have an infatuation then you'll be fine, I mean, eventually you'll get over it."

He whimpers.

"But if you're in love with him that's another story."

Though I'm looking straight into my best friend's eyes, wide and terrified, my mind's eye flashes to Severus' beautiful and disconcerting smile.

The man cries out in pain and doubles over, hands in his face. "I don't know! I don't know!" I pat him on the back, sensing that Sirius really does know, but he doesn't want to admit that he loves the man who has rejected him. Poor Padfoot, he's probably wanted to tell someone for years. Lily apparently wasn't any help at all. And Snape, he would just grin darkly like the Slytherin he is… but I wonder why Severus had never told anyone. I suppose I should ask him eventually… though it was probably because no one would have believed him anyway…

It feels like a giant, oppressive weight has been lifted off of my friend's shoulders, and placed on mine, pushing me slowly away from Moony. Remus is such a jerk.

"I know. It's ok," I pat him carefully between the shoulder blades. I don't know why Remus is being so mean to him. I mean at the very least he could be sensitive to his feelings. After all it was Sirius who suggested being animagus, he was the first to accept he was a werewolf, and he always defended him, even when he was being a prissy, stuck-up, snotty, prefect asshole. Sirius' sobs a slower and softer. This poor pathetic thing…

I suddenly feel like kissing Severus again. Couldn't tell you why.

Sirius, his poor puppy-dog face, looks up at me, "I'm sorry J-James."

"Why? You don't have to be sorry for anything."

"I'm just an idiot."

I pat him on the head. "Don't worry I'm used to it."

"Bastard."

I pat his head again in what I think is a soothing gesture. "And here I thought I was going to be the one to break down."

"Really," Sirius bats at his eyelashes again, hiccupping slowly, "Why?"

"It's not important." And looking into his very red, tear-stained face, I know I'm right. It's not important.

Sirius' face scrunches. He bites his lip. "Why?"

I realize then, as I'm staring into his gray eyes, that I've never had the sort of problems that Sirius had. Sirius told me that he always knew he was gay, and just didn't want to admit it. The only instance that I questioned my sexuality was nearly a half an hour ago. I've never felt ashamed or nervous around people of my sex. I had to shower with guys all the time for quidditch. My teammates were what girls thought of as attractive and I had full view of their parts numerous times. I never got hard or anything… And it was just as Sirius described them, all soapy and wet and naked. I was just brazen and happy to win a game. I never had a crush on a guy or anything, besides Severus. If you can call that a crush…

"Tell me…"

I think for a second about saying aloud, "I think I might be gay". But the words are so feeble that they don't even make it past my throat.

"It's nothing really. I'm just worried about Lily, is all…"

Sirius' nostrils twitch. He knows I'm lying.

"Well if you want to talk about it, I'm here, you know…"

I stare at him.

I sigh, the most oppressed and exhausted sigh that I can possibly muster, as I sit down at the dinner table nearly an hour later. This immediately attracts the attention of my mother, who is elegantly pouring gravy on her Shepard's pie with one arthritis-inflicted hand. "Oh, what's wrong, Jamie?" she pats my arm. I pout childishly. God, I love the attention. "Is it anything to do with Lily, darling?"

One of Father's black eyes emerge from the side of his evening Prophet.

I spoon some of the pie onto my plate and sigh again, this time far less honestly and far more for show. "I'm just sick of all the drama."

My father grins, the side of his gray beard twisting upwards. He disappears behind the Prophet once more, as if to say, "Aren't we all".

"What is it, pumpkin?" Mother grips my wrist. I love the way she babies me. Honestly, I am a spoiled brat sometimes. But not necessarily for money (besides that new broom, the Nimbus, that they once got me for Christmas, which I heard was around 1500 galleons), it's really that I want the attention and the love and the being noticed. Not like how Lily treats me, who doesn't understand or forgive my mistakes, not like how Sirius treats me, like someone merely to talk about his problems with, not even like… Severus… who might love me but bottles up his emotions into awkward hugs and sarcasm. A mother notices you and loves you unconditionally.

It must be really hard to be a parent.

"Lily's mad at me," I say. "And Sirius is gay."

"I know,darling." She says, patting my arm again and resuming to her Shepard's pie, as if to say, "that's not news to us."

"But now she's really mad at me. She thinks I'm going off with some woman. And Sirius has had a crush on Remus for five years-"

I'm cut off by a collective gasp. My mother drops the gravy along the side of her arm. My father spits his pumpkin juice into the article that he had been reading.

"James! Do NOT insult Sirius in that way!" my mother shouts.

"I'm not insulting him, Mother. It's the truth."

There is a pause, and then, "That's disgusting!" Father says.

The room rings with silence. I hold my breath when I see my father's eyebrows pinched and a frown stretching his goatee.

"I can't believe how much you hung around that boy," he grimaces.

My jaw hangs loose. "F-father… you can't…" I can't believe it. Dad always loved Sirius. He welcomed him into his house after he was kicked out of Grimmauld place. They talked about quidditch nearly every day during the summer.

"He's just weird. Jamie, I'm sorry, but that's just weird."

"Dad!"

My eyes widen as far as possible, finally seeing for the first time, how very old my father is. He's never been like this before, so conservative and hard headed. Usually he tries to understand. "You seemed to be OK with it when Sirius came out a few nights ago, but maybe you've already forgotten."

Ooooh, I'm in trouble. Dad's face is contorted with complicated emotions, disgust with Sirius, hurt from what I just said, blown over from the fact that I said it, and something else too… childish, humiliated, and insecure. It's unnerving.

"Dad…" I whisper, "I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."

I shouldn't have brought up his disability at the table. Now I just feel terrible as my father stares down at his plate and chews his mashed potatoes slowly. He chokes back his emotions, at a loss for what to say.

He gives me a disheartened look without saying anything. But his defiant, teenager-like eyes are communicating everything. You think I'm pathetic? Well, yes. I'm growing old. If you're lucky you will one day too.

"But don't pick on Sirius. He's had a rough time."

"I'm sorry too," He wriggles in his wheel chair, "Let's talk about something else."

"I'm worried about you and Lily," says Mum, playing by Dad's lead.

"I can handle it."

I swallow my potatoes and gravy with difficulty because my mouth is so dry. I gulp down nearly my entire glass of pumpkin juice. All thoughts of admitting to my mother and father about my odd, exciting, atypical relationship with Severus have been completely wiped away by how my father just reacted to Sirius. I always thought of my father as a liberal, accepting person most of the time. Perhaps maybe my dad is afraid that Sirius had a crush on me once… perhaps when it's your own child… everything changes.

"I know you can, dear, but…" My mother's dark eyes are bearing into me. It's as if she can read everything in my expression. She looks hesitantly at my father who his coughing into a napkin and then gives me a small grin. "If you need to tell us anything about a new special someone… don't hesitate to ask advice."

"Mum… don't…."

"I mean… we still love Sirius…"

My father frowns.

"It's just that we find it strange that he's held this in without saying anything, or telling us, right William?"

Dad looks at a loss, "Well… yes…"

Both of the men at the table are raising their eyebrows at this remarkable woman.

"But if you don't want to talk about it, that's just fine."

Mother beams at me.

I blush and risk a glance at my father, who is staring at the ceiling with a slight tinge to his cheeks.

"Mum. You're…"

"Yes?"

"You're being silly."

She smiles again, but this time it's much more hollow, much more like that was she expected, much more like I've disappointed her. "Perhaps I am," she says.

I stare at my lap.

To my great surprise, it is my father's voice that coughs awkwardly and mutters, "You know, Jamie, if there's anything you need to talk about, we're here," This is taking a lot from him, he never says things that are so sentimental. Maybe it's the way Mum is looking at him. "Don't take my reaction to Sirius as how I'd react to you."

My guts feel like they've hollowed out. "You think I'm gay?"

My dad's eyes widen in horror. He musters a glance at his wife for backup.

"I didn't say that."

"Yes you did… you just said…"

"Jamie, calm down," Mother says, rolling her eyes. "Don't have a bloody heart attack. We're not saying that."

"I'm not going to have a… but you just said…"

My father blushes. Merlin's balls is he having a difficult time. "We're not saying that you're gay… we're saying that you're…" Oh dear. What am I? My father has never been a sensitive man and he frequently says things that hurt other's feelings. But now he's taking his time, trying to form the right words. Becoming kind and sweet has always been difficult for an insensitive man like my father. So regardless of the time he takes I brace myself for what he is about to say. Effeminate? Fruity? Eccentric? Strange?

"Well. You've always been flirtatious."

Huh? "Flirtatious? Is that code for gay?"

"Well, no," my father is smiling now. I suppose that's a good sign, but predictably I know that now he'll begin making fun of me. "Even when you were little, you flirted with everyone, boy or girl."

"You can't flirt when you're little, Dad."

His smile falters. "But most boys and girls hang around children of the same sex. I've read about it. Psychosexual stages and all that. But you were… unnaturally mature for your age. You hung around both boys and girls. You would pull girls hair, but you would also play tag with other boys."

"Isn't that normal?"

"Well…" Dad looks at my mother at a loss.

"Of course it is darling," she pats my head.

She's lying.

"Son, I'm not saying that I expected you to turn out gay or any nonsense like that. I mean there are some blokes that you can just look at them and you say," He points to an invisible queer across the table. "That guy is bent. I'm not saying that Sirius is one of those lads, but I could sense that he was gay before he told me."

"Dad! I feel awkward having this conversation with you."

He blunders on, ignoring my pleas, "But you don't strike me as one of those blokes. But I mean, if you want to experiment, go right ahead."

"Dad! Stop it! You're being weird!" My eyes feel as wide as tennis balls.

"Oh, Jamie," Mum smiles. "It's ok. You can talk about this with us. We changed your diapers after all."

"Ok. Just stop it."

"But if…" Dad starts.

"Stop!"

Oh, Merlin's balls. Both of my parents are staring at me with a wide grin. Then they look at each other and they seem like they can't stop laughing on the inside.

I begin to wolf down my food, trying to get away from the table as quickly as possible.

Dad lifts his paper, trying and failing to suppress a grin. "It just so happens that we personally know the bartender at Speakeasy's."

It's a miracle that I didn't vomit right there.

That guy saw me kissing Snape.

Horrified, I turn to my mother, who is smiling benignly. Here I took her guesses as mere intuition. Dad beams victorious, and lifts his paper.

I can feel myself visibly shivering, "Mum… are you? Did you say?"

"Yes, dear?" She asks, pouring herself tea as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do at that moment.

"Did the guy say who I was… was…" Kissing. I can't say the word.

I can't believe they found out. Within the day! This was supposed to stay secret!

She glances at Father, who lowers his paper again. "Er… no," he says, a questioning tone in his voice, "he only said that you were necking with some man that looked somewhat like a woman."

Ha! That's funny. I have to tell Snape that at a later date, "Oh."

"But we would love to meet him, Jamie," My mother says, gripping my wrist. Her eyes are practically aglow with interest and love. It's the same look she gets on her face when we talk about possible grandchildren. I love my mother.

"Really?"

"Of course," my father says. Finally he folds his paper and sips at his tea.

"I'm sure he's a very nice young man," says Mum.

"But…" They can't meet Snape. They know Snape already. I have to wriggle out of this idea quickly. Maybe if I change tact, "But why did you react that way to Sirius, then?" I ask my father, fury and surprise welling up in my heart.

Father rolls his eyes, "Yes, I did. That's because he liked Remus all throughout school."

"Yes, and?"

"James. Really. He's probably been obsessing over Remus for years."

"Five years."

"Yes. Precisely. It's simply not right to not confess your feelings for that long, friend or not. I mean he probably had nudey pictures of Remus hanging all around his room."

I blush, but I don't want to admit that Sirius already admitted that.

"I mean. It's silly. Sirius needs to respect himself enough to confess his feelings and be adult enough to handle it if Remus doesn't return them. It has nothing to do with being gay."

"Sure."

"It doesn't. And," suddenly my father points his crooked finger right at my nose. "I will be mad at you if you don't tell that Evans girl about this. That's dishonorable. There's not reason to be queer and dishonorable."

I swallow, "Yes sir."

I don't know whether to be angry at his still overly fatherly tone (as if he owns my life, pft), to be surprised that he finds Sirius dishonorable, or to be glad that he's sticking up for Lily. Mostly I'm thankful, really. Thankful my father understands how I feel, and can still give me advice on what is right. I know that he's right. I really should tell Lily. I don't want to break up with her, but… it's the right thing to do, like Dad says.

I can't hold it in. I have to tell them what's on my mind. "I don't want you to meet him yet. It's too early," I say softly, and finish my greens.

"Why? How long has this been going on?" Mom asks. The napkin at her chest bobs as she bounces in excitement and wonder.

I look at the ceiling to avoid her gossip-trained gaze and count in my head. Well, last Friday was when… but that really wasn't a date… "Less that a week."

Both my mother and father exhale a breath they had been holding. My father begins to read the paper again, muttering to my mother, "Well, at least he's not completely immoral."

Mum smiles.

When I get up from the dinner table, I feel like I've left a great ball of stress that had been hanging around in my chest in the middle of the mashed potatoes. Gimmlly quietly and elegantly takes my plate before I even notice her presence. I mutter a "thanks" and shuffle out the room, but only go as far as the door.

I listen in at the keyhole like how I did every night when I was ten.

"That went well," my father says, flipping a page in his paper. "Gimmly, while you're here, could you bring me a coffee?"

"Yes, sir," Gimmly says in her frail voice.

"Oh, and a Baileys would be good for me, too."

"Yes, madam," says Gimmly.

That old coot. The healers told her not to drink. I suppose I should stop her, but whose to deny an old lady her pleasures? I can't even stop her from dancing. I just continue to walk the well-worn path up to my room.

Even though I feel much better after talking all this over with my parents, I'm not one hundred percent at ease. I'm still worried about Remus and his coldness toward Sirius. I'm worried about Sirius and his… I'm afraid he had phrased it accurately…patheticness. No wonder the man has so many problems. I'm still worried about him and drugs, thought that topic had not been discussed in today's conversation. I'm worried about Lils, but I'm still not ready to talk to her about this yet. Maybe tomorrow. I'm worried about my parents, of course, that won't change. Even in the very back of my brain I feel guilty that I said I'd be babysitting Barry again and I know that I won't be. The poor kid will probably have his heart broken.

In fact, the only person I'm not worried about is Severus.

Nope. Severus is doing just fine.

I can't even get myself worked up about his alleged "birth control" pills or his rumored alliance with death eaters. It's not important.

Out of all of the people I know Severus is the least dramatic… I mean he's positively low key. Maybe that's why I like him so much.

He's just too calm, too serene, too humble to bother himself with any of this mess. He likes gossip, especially talking about Sirius and Remus behind their backs, but it's a mocking sort of gossip. Like he's saying, look at these people, they're so full of themselves that they can't even function. Isn't that silly?

He must have really hated me at Hogwarts. I was all about making useless drama. Why did I make drama? I think it was truly out of boredom. It was just so much fun calling Bertha Jorkins fat.

But I was wrong. I was always wrong. I can't deal or cope with it now because I'm just too tired.

I can't believe how far our relationship has come. From, "Look at that little freak. Why isn't he playing along?" to, "You're really wonderful, aren't you?" I think I must actually love him. It might be possible. Though, I'm nowhere near admitting that.

I'm not worried about telling him that my parents know about us. I just have a feeling he'll just shrug it off coolly, not saying that he doesn't care, just that he doesn't… care…

I can't wait to see him on Friday. Maybe we'll go to the Warehouse and get smashed again.

Thursday passes by at a glance and I don't even bother trying to find Lily. Mum says that I should send her flowers. But the fact that I've thought about sending her flowers makes me feel better about… not… sending her flowers. I think the woman expects me to beg for her forgiveness. I really don't have the energy or care to do that. Maybe I'll just let her stew in her own juices for a while. Let her question whether or not she can really trust me. Better yet even, maybe she'll flirt with other guys only to discover how much better I am compared to them. Ha!

I went to the office around three. The Auror department has given me some paperwork to do for them. They're a little overworked lately. Crouch has everyone working overtime. It's just legal stuff and compiling data, but I have a feeling what I'm doing will really help them in war.

When I sleep, I dream of Severus. We're fishing for miniature death eaters with golden pot leaves.

I sleep in till noon, but when I've finally dusted myself off and grubbily brush my teeth my mother's voice echoes down the hall, "James! There's somebody here to see you!" I groan into my toothbrush. It must be Lils. Back already? Really I expected her to stay mad at me for at least a week.

I pull on trousers and run a comb through my hair. It does nothing.

As I run down the stairs, my feet feeling the comfortable itchiness of the red carpet, I hear a voice that almost sends me careening into space.

"Thank you very much for the tea, Mrs. Potter," says Severus.