Change of Heart
By Tempest Break
Disclaimer: Boy, do I not own Harry Potter.
Summary: James knows he's in love with Lily, and he's told her. Unfortunately, she likes Remus. Still, James has promised to give her his best shot and nothing less, unless she's officially Remus's girl. Meanwhile, they get closer and closer as friends, and don't the best of friends make the best of lovers? All James is waiting for is for Lily to have a change of heart.
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Chapter Fifteen: Many More to Come
"Madam Pomfrey!" James shouted through the door to the Infirmary. "Madam Pomfrey, open the door!"
"For goodness's sakes, Mr. Potter," he could hear her muttering through the door, "keep it down. What can it possibly – ?" She opened the door and immediately took in the sight of James, his shoulder still raw and bloody, and Lily, cold and wet from the snow that had begun to fall outside, standing before her. "Oh, dear Lord. Come in, come in." She ushered them in quickly and closed the door tightly behind them. "Each of you, on a bed, now."
James helped Lily up before going to his own reluctantly. Madam Pomfrey fixed him in her glare, obviously suspecting him more than Lily. "Well, Mr. Potter, what happened here?"
"I was out for a walk on the grounds," said James, "when I found Lily in the snow. She looked hurt so I brought her up here to see you."
"That's a nice story, Mr. Potter, but it doesn't quite explain the wound on your shoulder," Madam Pomfrey answered, narrowing her eyes at him.
"Oh." James looked at the injury in bemusement. "I, uh… I fell."
Madam Pomfrey's mouth tightened as she looked at him. "Very well," she said finally. "I'll get Professor Dumbledore in here, and we'll see how your story changes. But first, let me examine you two." She carefully looked over both James and Lily, and found that other than his shoulder, James had only a few scratches on his chest, but Lily had a cold and a sprained ankle. Madam Pomfrey glared at James when she announced this, as if it was somehow his fault Lily was hurt.
She fixed Lily's ankle with a flick of her wand, but she told her that there was no magical cure for the common cold, so Lily would have to stay in the Infirmary, at least overnight. Then she dabbed some dittany on James's abrasions and bandaged his shoulder.
"You'll stay here, too, Mr. Potter, until I can get Professor Dumbledore up here to speak with you," she ordered, and walked briskly out of the Infirmary.
James waited until he could no longer hear her footsteps before turning to Lily. "Are you okay, Lily?" he asked.
"I guess so," she said, coughing a little. "What about you? How's your shoulder?"
"It's better." James rotated it a bit to prove it. "Not so much throbbing as aching, now."
Lily winced with sympathy. Then: "What are we going to tell Dumbledore?"
James ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Well, I guess we could tell him the truth – even about me being an Animagus. But he can't know about Sirius or Peter. If he gets me in trouble, I don't want them involved."
Lily nodded, but she looked troubled. "I... I could get my Head Girl badge taken away from me, you know, for sneaking out through the passage," she said. "You could, too, but you helped me, so I doubt it."
"Don't worry, Lily," assured James. "He won't take away your badge." He swung his legs over the side of the white-sheeted bed so he could more easily speak to her. "But why would you be worrying about your badge when you just nearly got bitten by a werewolf?"
Lily shrugged. "Those types of things are important to me, James," she told him.
"One of the many reasons I love you," he remarked.
Lily shifted uncomfortably. "Speaking of that..." she said quietly. "After this, I doubt I could ever feel that way about – "
"Here we are, Professor," Madam Pomfrey interrupted, stepping through the door with Professor Dumbledore in tow. "Mr. Potter won't tell me what's really happened, but I suppose he might tell you."
"We'll see, Poppy," said Dumbledore, smiling slightly as Madam Pomfrey strode into her small office off the Infirmary. Dumbledore drew up a chair and sat in between James and Lily's beds. "Well, Mr. Potter and Miss Evans. Our Head Students, both in the Infirmary at once?... What's happened?"
James poured out the story to Professor Dumbledore, leaving out exactly how he had saved Lily, although he knew that the professor would ask him about it when he was done.
"I see, James," said Dumbledore, fixing James in a long stare. "And I can only imagine to what lengths you went to save Miss Evans."
James blinked in surprise. Did Dumbledore already know about him?
"As for you, Miss Evans," Dumbledore continued, turning to Lily. "For following Mr. Lupin and putting yourself in danger, which I'm sure you knew you were doing, I'll be suspending your Head Girl badge for a short amount of time. You'll still be in the Head Tower, of course, but you won't have any of your duties."
"I understand, Professor," Lily said, bowing her head.
Dumbledore stood from his chair. "Well, I'm glad that we're all in agreement here, and as soon as your friends hear about you, I'm sure they'll all be up here – using any means." There was a twitch at the side of his mouth that James took for a smile, and Dumbledore left them.
"That wasn't so bad," James remarked, first to break the short silence.
"No," agreed Lily.
"So, you were saying...?" he prompted.
Lily seemed confused for a moment before remembering. "Oh yes," she said. "I was going to say that, after tonight, I don't think I could ever feel... that way... about Remus again. I'm not prejudiced about werewolves – I understand he couldn't control himself – but, well…" She paused. "You have to trust someone to love them, right? And after this, I can't do that with Remus."
"What does that mean for me?" James asked, his heart soaring.
Lily smiled at him. "James, I don't love you yet, but I do like you. So if that's enough for you, I'll be your girlfriend," she said a little shyly.
James was suddenly standing by the side of Lily's bed, hugging her for all he was worth. "'If'? Why's there an 'if'?" James laughed over her head. "Of course it's enough for me!"
Lily laughed a little, too, caught up in James's euphoria. She wrapped her arms around his back and squeezed him gently.
James stepped back. "So, since you're my girlfriend, I get to kiss ya, right?" he asked a little pompously.
"Er, I suppose so..."
"Brilliant!" And before Lily could protest, James had cupped her cheek in his hand and pressed his lips on hers.
It was more amazing than even James had expected. There was nothing more than lips on lips; no tongue, no nothing, and yet it was the best kiss James had ever shared with someone. It was soft and quick, but it seemed to promise many, many more like and unlike it in the future.
- - - - -
Sirius, Colleen, and Peter met Filch in the trophy hall between seven-thirty and eight – around the time that James and Lily reached the Infirmary – for their detention. Filch confiscated their wands, to be returned at the end of their punishment – they had to clean the trophies the old-fashioned way.
"We should probably organize to make it easier," said Sirius.
"You're right," agreed Colleen. "I assign you to all the trophies on the top shelf."
Sirius's jaw dropped. "They're the dirtiest ones! Why can't you do it?"
"Because you are over six feet tall while I am barely over five," she replied logically.
"There's something that's called a ladder," Sirius pointed out.
"Peter's using it."
"You could borrow it."
"And slow down Peter? I think not."
Sirius growled at her. Colleen smiled back. "Ye betterrr get starrted on them trophies. They don't clean theirselves, ye ken?" she said, lapsing into an Irish accent and rolling her R's as she took up a rag and began polishing a large plaque on the bottom shelf.
"Damn Irish girl," Sirius muttered under his breath, but he started scrubbing at a trophy on the highest shelf, which was just a little over his eye level.
After working for a few minutes in silence, Colleen felt the need to break it. "I had the weirdest dream last night," she began. "Lily was pregnant with James's baby, and her only dream was to play volleyball professionally."
"What's volleyball?" asked Peter.
"A Muggle sport," said Colleen. "My little brother Riley loves it. We have a court in our backyard."
"You have a backyard? I thought you lived in a trailer park," said Sirius.
"Backyard, gravelly hole, what's the difference?" she joked.
Sirius raised his eyebrows, though he wasn't facing Colleen. "Your backyard is a gravelly hole?"
"And vice versa."
"Oh, well," said Sirius. "At least you have a backyard. My father is so paranoid that we're hardly allowed to go outside, and he's spelled our house so that the neighbors think it's been eaten by a Demiguise." He paused. "But I don't live there anymore."
"Where do you live?" asked Colleen.
"I bought a house with money my uncle Alphard left me. I guess he figured we were both outcasts of the family, and we ought to stick together," Sirius told her, scratching off a speck of dirt from the trophy he was working on.
Colleen's eyes widened. "An outcast? Did they banish you, or something?"
"Eh," said Sirius with a shrug. "My dear old mother blasted me off the family tree. It's some little spiteful thing she does to get back at the nice people in the family."
"Well, she sounds like a lovely person," said Colleen evenly. She looked over her shoulder to where Peter was, scrubbing the middle trophies. "You got anything to say, Pettigrew?" she called.
"If I don't have anything intelligent to say, I don't say anything at all," said Peter.
"Oh, so that's why you're so quiet all the time!" laughed Sirius.
"I've learned from your mistakes, Padfoot," Peter shot back.
Colleen laughed. "Peter one, Sirius nothing."
Sirius shrugged and went back to cleaning, feeling a little upset at being shown up by Peter, and feeling the need to change the topic. "So, Colleen," said Sirius, "I heard from Silver that you've been talking about me in your sleep. What's that about?"
"Nothing, because you just made it up," said Colleen simply.
"Okay, so maybe I did," Sirius conceded, "but there has to be some truth in the statement."
"Well, there is none."
"So you're saying that you've never thought about me romantically?" he asked, trying to keep himself from sounded offended.
"Never," she affirmed.
"Never?" said Sirius, raising his eyebrows. "Or… always?"
"Are you deaf, Black? Well, that lowers you even more in my romantic interest standings. You've gone from 'cocky prat who's sometimes fun to banter with' to 'completely undesirable prat who's never fun to banter with'," said Colleen airily.
"Hey, I'm cocky for a reason." Sirius smiled slowly. "Wow, that sounded a bit perverted, there, huh?"
"The 'cocky for a reason' bit?" asked Colleen. "Yep, a bit funny, too. Everybody loves a good penis joke."
Sirius nodded in agreement. "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, most girls make up acts that are good enough to be in a circus just to get my attention. So why not you?"
"You're not attractive to me," she shrugged.
"Well, who is, then?"
Colleen thought for only a second before saying. "Peter is." She caught him around the shoulders with her arm, as he had been near her just as she said that.
"Peter?" Sirius repeated incredulously.
"Ohhh, yeah," Colleen continued. "I think he's sexy!"
"Sexy?!"
Peter gave Sirius an amused look. "What's the matter, Sirius? Jealous?"
"Me? Jealous of you, Peter?" Sirius looked shocked.
"No, of Colleen," he replied, pretending to be surprised that Sirius could have construed it any other way.
Colleen laughed and squeezed Peter's shoulders. "Looks like you're losing tonight, Black," she chuckled. "I definitely feel as though Peter and I are soul-mates, especially considering his tall stature and rock-hard pecs."
"O'Brian, you're mental. You've gone bloody nuts," said Sirius, shaking his head.
"What? Just because she'd rather be with a real man?" challenged Peter, puffing out his chest.
"Oh, yes," he answered sarcastically. "But you must ask yourself, would a real man have real breasts?"
Quicker than the eye could see, Peter scooped up a cleaning rag, curled it into a rat tail, and whipped Sirius with it as hard as he could in the crotch. Sirius doubled over and let out a small groan of pain.
"Well, Sirius, at least I can still have children," said Peter, looking down on him.
Colleen laughed. "How ironic – now you've gone bloody nuts!" she laughed at Sirius. "Hey, another penis joke!"
- - - - - - - - -
Tempest: Haha! Well, I had fun writing that chapter. I hope you guys had fun reading it, and I hope it was worth the longer-than-normal wait. It was serious at the beginning with James and Lily, and then comical at the end with Sirius and Colleen. At least I thought it was. What about you guys?
Anyway... I'm really happy with this chapter. It was a nice change of pace to write something from Sirius and Colleen's view rather than James's. A rather refreshing chapter. Plus, a little S/C action (if you want to see it) for those of you who wanted them to get together. Oh, and let's not forget the J/L action (which you pretty much have to be blind NOT to see) for those of you (all of you) who wanted it. So anyway, until next time everybody. Review, review, review!
8-04-07: This chapter has been revamped! Hope you enjoy it more than before.