Chapter 5

Oh, how unfair life is. Why do I have to wake up? I hate to admit, but that saying, 'Life is unfair and then you die,' is so right. Okay, courage, Lily, courage. I am a Gryffindor, so I should have the courage to wake up. Besides, tomorrow is Saturday, which means sleeping in. Then Hogsmeade. Then meeting my secret admirer at The Three Broomsticks.

"Lily, wake up! Here, put these clothes on, we're going to be late," Josie said, throwing my clothes at me.

"Ugh, okay." I took a quick shower and put my clothes on then ran to the Great Hall, drying my hair with a simple spell Josie taught me. Damn, the only empty seat is next to the Marauders. Why is that always happening? And Nona and Josie are already chatting with them. Traitors.

"Good morning, Lily. How are you?" Remus said. James is ignoring me, I notice.

"In a very bad mood, so don't talk to me," I said shortly.

"Oh." Just then the owls appeared, making that awful noise and giving me a headache. What is Saffi doing here? I opened the note in Saffi's beak and it said:

Good morning Lily, darling. It's Mummy writing. We just want to tell you that Robert, your father, and I are spending a month in the Caribbean. Petunia couldn't come with us, she and Vernon are busy looking for a house to move in after the wedding, so if you need anything at our house, send a letter to Petunia and she'll get it and send it to you. Love you dear. Mummy, Daddy, and Robert.

I can't believe it. I'm stuck here in Hogwarts with annoying people while my family is in the Caribbean! Really.

"What does it say?" Nona asked.

"Mum, Dad, and Robby are going to spend a month in the Caribbean. They just wanted to tell me."

"That's nice," Nona said.

"Who's Robby?" Sirius asked.

"My cousin. He lives with us. You see, he's adopted, but after he was adopted his mother had a daughter and now she only cares for her real daughter, not Robby any more. So one day he got sick of it and decided to live with us."

"How old is he?" Remus asked.

"Eighteen." Curious, aren't they?

"Petunia isn't going?" Josie asked. Josie hates Petunia as much as I do, so whenever she goes to my house she plays pranks on her. It's quite funny to see Petunia pissed at us.

"No. Apparently she and Vernon are looking for a house to move in. After the wedding, of course. I don't know why they didn't go. But then, it's difficult to understand their sick and retarded mind."

"Your sister is retarded?" James asked dumbly. I guess he forgot he's mad at me.

"No. But you are," I snapped.

"I'm not retarded." He thinks making that hurt face will make me feel sorry. Ha.

"Whatever you say."

"Prongs, let's go," Peter said. The boys stood up and left the Great Hall.

"Now, Miss DeLonge and Miss Hoppus, would you two care to explain why we were sitting next to the Marauders?" I asked.

"Well, there weren't enough seats for all of us, so we were forced to sit next to them. And they were being so nice to us that we started to chat with them," Josie said.

"Oh, yes, I can imagine how nice the Marauders can be."

"They didn't do anything, Lily."

"Fine, let's just go." I stood up and left the Great Hall, with Josie and Nona after me. We arrived at Transfiguration and I sat down next to Will, who had Transfiguration with us.

"Willie billy?" I said. This stupid nickname pisses Will off. I usually use it when I want to know something. Like now.

"What, silly Lily?" How dare he use my old nickname!

"Who's my secret admirer?"

"Tomorrow you'll know." Damn him and his stupid promise.

"I want to know now!"

"Lily, I won't tell you, so please shut it."

"Fine. Don't tell me." I proceeded to unpacking my things.

"Good morning class. Everyone please open your books at page 41. Today we'll conjure plants." I groaned silently. I'm good at Transfiguration, but not very good with Conjuring. Professor McGonagall told us how to do it and I began. Oh, great. I managed to conjure a petal. A bloody petal.

"Lily, don't hold your wand so tightly. Relax and say the incantation. Look," Will said. He did the spell and conjured a daisy. I tried doing it and conjured a lily. Will and I laughed silently at this. It's so cheesy. Really.

"Evans?" a voice said from behind me. Damn, it's Potter.

"What?"

"I thought you might like this." He showed me the most beautiful rose I'd ever seen. I gaped at him and got the rose.

"Thanks. It's beautiful. But won't McGonagall want it?"

"I conjured another one. See you later." That was weird.

"So, Will, are you doing anything tomorrow at Hogsmeade?"

"Erm, I have a date." What?

"A date? Who is it?"

"I won't tell you."

"Aw, please. I have to warn her."

"Warn her?"

"Yes. She probably doesn't know how psychotic you can be."

"I'm not psychotic. You are."

"I am not psychotic."

"Whatever you say, Lil. And I should be warning your secret admirer about your schizophrenia." I hate it when he does that. It's so annoying. I turned around and pouted. I heard Will stifling his laughter and I pouted even more. He can be so cruel sometimes.

"Lily?" Will said.

"What?" I said rather rudely.

"You realize that you look like a duck when you pout?" WHAT?

"I do not look like a duck when I pout, William Adams."

"How would you know? Do you practice pouting in front of a mirror?"

"No. I just know that I don't look like a duck when I pout."

"You do. Hey, Josie, doesn't Lily look like a duck when she pouts?"

"Yeah," Josie said, trying, quite unsuccessfully I might add, to conjure a flower. All she's managed to conjure is some pollen making her sneeze.

"What? And you never told me?" I said indignantly.

"I reckoned you knew and thought in some obscure way that it was cute."

"How can looking like a duck be cute, Joslyn Hoppus?" Josie frowned at her name and shrugged.

"See, Lily, I was right."

"Oh, shut up, will you?"

"Okay, my little ducky." I glared at him and he laughed. My friends are so cruel.

-

The rest of the day wasn't so good, since people kept teasing me about my duck pout. I still can't believe that Josie and Nona never told me before that I looked like a duck when I pout. It's reeeeally annoying. My ex-best-friends keep laughing at me whenever I glare at them. Such defiance at such a young age. The boldness.

"Evans? Why are your friends laughing at you?" Remus said. Curious git.

"It's none of your bloody business," I said quite rudely. Remus looked hurt and Nona said, "Oh, it's just that Lily realised today that when she pouts she looks like a duck, and now she's mad at us for not telling her." The Marauder, just to annoy me even more, burst out laughing. To my surprise, James didn't.

"I think you're quite cute when you pout, Lily," he said. I narrowed my eyes and he continued, "in a strange, ducky way." Everyone laughed again and I stood up, with my head held high, and I strode out of the Great Hall. Still hungry, I must add. Of course, with my never ending intelligence, I hurried to the kitchens. The house elves looked up surprised when I appeared and one of them came up to me.

"How can we help you, miss?"

"Call me Lily please. Well, you see, I got into a discussion with my friends, and I'm avoiding them right now, but I'm really hungry, so I was wondering if you could give me a bit of chocolate pudding?"

"Of course Miss Lily." The house elf beamed and ran inside the kitchen. I sat down and noticed that a boy, who must be a sixth or seventh year. Funny I never noticed him. I smiled at him and asked, "Running away from your friends as well or are you eating here for a more reasonable reason? Wow that sounded stupid." The boy laughed.

"Well, no, I'm not running away from my friend but actually from my sister. She has a friend that has a crush on me, and she keeps making me sit with her. It's annoying. I'm Joseph Carlton by the way."

"Lily Evans. It must be horrible to have a sister trying to be a matchmaker. I'll never know what you have to go through, though. My sister thinks I'm a freak so she wouldn't try to get me to go out with one of her boyfriends brothers or anything."

"You're a muggle-born?"

"Yeah, are you one?"

"Half-blood." The house elf arrived with my pudding and I began to gobble it up.

"Must be weird to have one magical parent and the other one doing muggle things."

"Yeah, but my mum isn't a witch, she's a Squib. She cried when she saw my letter."

"Oh, how awful. To know about Hogwarts and all and not being able to do magic."

"She's used to it. Besides, she's a better muggle than she would be a witch. Very clean and always gossiping."

"My mum's a little like that. She never let me have mud fights with my muggle friends."

"Mum let me, but mostly because I'm a boy and she thinks boys are supposed to do so." I laughed.

"What house are you in?"

"Hufflepuff, you?"

"Gryffindor. Nice to meet you, but I have to go. They'll probably look for me over here. See you later."

"See you." I stood up and left the kitchens after thanking the house elves. They beamed once more and I promised to come back. After I left the kitchens, I hurried to my dorm and performed a Binding Charm on my bed drapes.

A while later the girls arrived. I will not open the curtains, I will not open the curtains, okay, I'll open the curtains.

"Sorry Lily, we really shouldn't have announced to the Marauders that you were upset at us because of the pout thingy," Nona said.

"It's okay. Now, come here, I want to show you something." Nona came closer and I attacked her head with a pillow. I giggled and she got another pillow and attacked me. Soon we began another pillow fight.

-

Okay, so today is the day that I'll finally meet my secret admirer. I'm so nervous. And Nona and Josie are just as nervous as me, although I still didn't understand why, since they don't have any dates. Josie came up with this weird story about how I finally got a date, but I must disagree. Just because I'm not a flavor of the week girl, doesn't mean I've never dated. There was this guy, Derrick, in fourth year, then this other one I'm always forgetting the name in sixth year and then, well, I guess that's about it. But I'm not an inexperienced girl. I just like to wait for the right guy. And I've had a few one-night stands. Okay, I admit. I've never had a lot of great boyfriends, but it's not my fault. Boys usually avoid me. Not that I'm ugly or anything, but because my temper is quite, erm, famous. Anyway, I, rather clumsily, put on my make-up and ate a toast, at Josie's insistence. I'm not really hungry.

I went to the Three Broomsticks and stood by the door way. Okay, so calm down. It's just a date. If I turn out to hate him, I can just ditch him. Nona and Josie are ready at Dervish and Banges for us to buy some clothes if I don't like him and I'm forced to ditch him. Where is he? There's nobody here and oh...my...God...it's (A/N: dun dun dun...I could be really evil and stop right now, couldn't I? Hehe, but I won't. But you guys have to promise to review!)

"Will?"

"Hi Lily. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but I didn't have the courage to ask you out, so I figured it'd be easier to ask you out by pretending to be a secret admirer." Aww, he's so sweet.

"Will, you're babbling."

"Sorry. So, erm, will you go out with me?"

"Of course. I'm actually happy it's you, you know. 'Cause, if it was someone I didn't know we'd be forced to have these boring conversations about our lives. And it helps that you're not ugly." Will became the color of a tomato and I laughed. "Come on, Will, we're stopping the entrance." He nodded and I lead him to a nearby table. Honestly, you'd think I asked him out. What are Nona and Josie doing here? They are grinning and pointing at me!

"Will, did the girls know?"

"I didn't tell them. If they knew they somehow worked it out."

"Oh, right. Just checking. Don't want to make a fool out of myself again."

"Of course not, ducky."

"Stop."

"Sure."

The date was really good. We spent a long time talking at the Three Broomsticks and later we walked around Hogsmeade. Then, just as I was leaving, he kissed me. I am aware that Nona and Josie are going to tease me forever, but it was worthwhile.