Change of Heart
By Katie Kiraly
Disclaimer: NO!
Summary: James and Lily are finally together, but does Lily actually like James, or is she just going out with him for his sake? James vows to make her love him like he loves her, but he'll have to work hard to make Lily have a change of heart.
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Chapter Twenty-Five: Hobnobbing With Hufflepuffs
"You don't need him, Lela!" James and Sirius heard as they headed to their beech tree during their free period. "You're way too good for him!"
"Don't tell me…" groaned Sirius as they ascended the grassy slope.
"'Fraid I'm gonna have to, mate," said James grimly as the top of their normally unoccupied tree came into view, "but I'm not any happier about it than you."
The ear-splitting, shrieking giggles of a gaggle of upperclassmen Hufflepuffs stabbed brutally into James's and Sirius's heads. They finally came within sight of their tree, every limb of it draped with a Hufflepuff girl, all of their eyes fixed on a buxom blonde sitting in the center crook of the tree.
"Lela," James and Sirius muttered in unison, and Sirius covered his face in his hands.
Lela Lyndall, Sirius's ex-girlfriend, sat in her fashionably hemmed robes, her shimmering, curly, blonde locks of hair cascading down her back, her long, smooth legs crossed neatly, and her perfectly manicured finger twirling a piece of hair. To the untrained eye, she was an angel of beauty, a modern Venus; to James and Sirius, she was Satan in a Hogwarts uniform.
"I just don't know what to do now that Dennie and I have broken up!" wailed Lela, apparently of her latest boyfriend.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "'Dennie', on the other hand, is probably in convulsions of ecstasy," he whispered to James.
"You'll find someone else, Lela," put in one of Lela's followers.
"Yeah! Every guy in the school totally wants you!" added another.
"Every guy in the school who's deaf," said James under his breath.
One black-haired girl cradled her head in her hand thoughtfully. "Who could you go out with next, Lela?"
"Someone hot," said Lela. All of the girls burst into fits of laughter. Sirius smacked his forehead.
"What about that James Potter?" suggested one.
James paled. Sirius pointed and laughed silently at him before James batted his hand away.
"The Gryffindor Quidditch captain? What a hottie!" sighed a brunette draped over a high branch.
"He's going out with Lily Evans. Remember what Sirius Black said at the last match?"
"Sirius Black," exhaled the girl who'd suggested James. "Now that is one fine young man."
"I don't know whether to be flattered or afraid for my life," muttered Sirius.
"How about him, Lela?" asked the brunette on the branch.
This time James pointed and laughed, while Sirius hunkered even lower into the bush behind which they'd taken cover. "Oh, God, no…"
To Sirius's extreme distaste, Lela actually seemed to consider the prospect of dating Sirius Black again. "Hmm," she said reflectively. "He has grown up a lot since me and him last went out…"
"No! No, I haven't!" hissed Sirius furtively, though Lela could not hear him. "I'm immature and still wet the bed!"
"And he's gotten really tall," continued Lela. "You all know how I like tall guys."
"I'm not tall, no!" Sirius whispered, stooping down as far as he could. "I'm small! I'm tiny! I'm petite! I'm wee!"
The black-haired girl stopped the conversation. "Wait a minute," she said. "Isn't he going out with that Gryffindor Chaser?"
"Yes! Yes, that's right!" Sirius nearly shouted for joy before James had to remind him of the gravity of their situation, should they be discovered. "We're deeply in love and nothing can ever tear us apart. Oh, thank you, God. Thank you for Colleen!"
"You mean Cady Morris?" asked Lela. "No, no, they only went to the ball together as friends."
"Oh, well, in that case, go for him!" said the black-haired girl.
"Nooooooo!" Sirius fell to his knees and held up his hands to the sky. "Why, God? Why?"
"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, Padfoot," James said somberly, patting his friend on the shoulder.
"That dirty bastard."
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"Oh! Oh! Bergen! Oh! Bergen!"
Colleen rolled her eyes at her Divination partner's antics. Dennis Bergen, a seventh-year Hufflepuff who preferred to be known by his last name, was notorious throughout the school for his wand-flipping expertise. He repeatedly flipped his wand while sitting at a desk, walking around the room – anywhere that had the room to do so, and even places that didn't, which had backfired on him, giving him a deep scar on his left cheek. But this did not deter him from flipping his wand. In fact, he found it so cool that he'd labeled it with his own last name, and whenever he executed the flip, he shouted, "Bergen!" and brushed imaginary dust off of his shoulders.
"Hey, O'Brian," said Bergen to Colleen. "You wanna see something?"
"Sure," said Colleen with an interested eyebrow-raise. Bergen really quite amused her.
"You ready?" Bergen flipped his wand and looked at her expectantly.
"Yeah, I'm ready," she said.
"You ready?" he asked again.
"Yes, Bergen, I'm ready."
"Okay. Check this out." Bergen flipped his wand over his shoulder and kicked out behind him with his foot in an attempt to catapult the wand back over his shoulder to catch it. The wand did hit his foot, but instead of arching back over Bergen's shoulder, it ricocheted off his shoe into Professor Prudentia's curly, gray hair. The stout professor did not notice – at least not until the wand began cracking and spouting sparks.
"MISTER BERGEN!" the small woman exploded, wrenching the wand from her hair. Bergen winced as she flung the offending item at his feet. "IF YOU INSIST UPON MAKING THIS SUPERNATURAL HAVEN INTO AN UNNATURAL HELLHOLE, THEN PLEASE, FOR GOODNESS SAKE, LEAVE!"
Bergen respectfully picked up his wand and walked towards the tower room door. Colleen gave him a sympathetic look. When Bergen reached the door, he turned back toward the class, which was watching him curiously, and with a smirk, flipped his wand and said, "Bergen!"
"GET OUT!" shrieked Professor Prudentia amid the class's laughter. Bergen scurried out of the classroom and closed the door behind him.
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"Hey, Siiiirius…?"
Sirius knew who it was before he turned around. He knew he should not have walked the halls alone so soon after hearing Lela's conversation with her friends, but James had had to use the restroom, and Sirius had refused to wait outside for him like a fool or follow him in like a girl.
So to save face, Sirius had opted for the other choice: to commit almost certain suicide and chance seeing his ex-girlfriend, the girl he'd hoped to never have to deal with again, Lela Lyndall.
Maybe I can pretend I didn't hear her, Sirius thought to himself. Yeah, that's a good idea. Just walk faster. He sped up.
"Sirius? Sirius!"
Keep walking! Walk, fool, walk!! Sirius nearly broke into a run.
"Sirius Black!"
No, no, no… But when Sirius felt the soft grip of Lela's hand on his shoulder, he knew he was done for. There was no escape. And when he turned to stare into those vacant purple eyes – that color that he knew she had worked as hard as he had to become an Animagus to be able to produce – he felt a little part of him die inside.
"Hello, Lela," he croaked. "Didn't hear you come up."
She giggled. "I've been calling your name for ages! You must be deaf!" She twittered again.
Sirius cringed slightly at the sound of her laugh. "Heh, heh, yeah, must be."
"Where were you off to in such a hurry, anyway?"
"Um, Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Oh, that class! I quit that class. I tried to take the O.W.L., but I'm all, 'This is hard!'" She burst into giggles again.
Sirius tried to make it look as though he really needed to get to class by checking his watch. "Yeah, well…"
"And Professor Relnard, in fifth year!" continued Lela. "What a jerk! I mean, really, making us study bundimuns! Gross!"
"Uh, huh…" Sirius looked longingly at the door to the Defense Against the Dark Arts corridor. So close, and yet so far away…
"Sirius!"
He nearly burst into tears of joy at the sound of Colleen's voice. She was trotting down the hall toward him. "Come on, we're going to be late!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him after her into the corridor.
"Have I ever told you how much I love you?" Sirius asked as she dragged him toward their next class.
Colleen looked at him. "Um. No. How much do you love me?"
"A lot!"
"How cute."
"You saved me from certain death just now! You know that, don't you?"
She looked thoughtful. "No. Didn't know that. What was going to kill you?"
"Sheer stupidity in the form of seventh-year Hufflepuff."
"Certainly you don't mean Dennis Bergen," said Colleen.
Sirius laughed briefly. "No, no. But what brings up Bergen?" Colleen told him what had happened in Divination. "You mean you had a close encounter with the Bergen kind?"
"Dennis Bergen is a great man," said Colleen solemnly.
"How many people now say, 'Bergen,' when they throw something in the air?" wondered Sirius. "But anyway, no, not Bergen. I ran into She Who Shall Not Be Named."
"…Voldemort in drag?"
"Worse. Lela Lyndall."
"Is she the girl who in fourth year asked Professor Slughorn if he thought fire seeds could come from something that's on fire?"
"None other," Sirius said. "James and I overheard her talking about her breakup with her boyfriend and wailing about 'whatever would she do?'"
"Maybe she ought to plant some mind seeds and grow herself a brain," suggested Colleen, turning into the Defense Against the Dark Arts room.
"And share some with Bergen while she's at it," joked Sirius as he followed Colleen.
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Tempest: Yes, yes, extremely worthless chapter, I know. I needed an interlude chapter to show that a bit of time passed since the last one. Otherwise I would have jumped several weeks and that would have just been dumb. (Yes, like this wasn't dumb…) Anyway, you guys can probably tell I don't have an extremely high opinion of this chapter. It was a filler. But I do assure you, Lela and Bergen will play other parts. I probably should bring in a Ravenclaw at one point, huh? All my random characters are Hufflepuffs… Oh, and about Bergen. I know a kid I based him off of shamelessly. I admit it. He's exactly like him. Only the real Bergen flips his pen instead of a wand. Oh, and sorry to anyone who is extremely devoutly religious. It was not my intention to offend anyone by what Sirius said. I myself am not religious in the least, but I know some people can be very sensitive about these things. So please don't be angry about that.
Alright, reviews. Stepha-Lah: Premonitions, eh? Little pink sock: You shall see, socky… You shall see… JamesGurl19: What is "highly recommending"? I mean, I know what it means, but is it something concrete you can do on this site? DOJ: Chills. Oh, yes. I'm glad you like Colleen. She is like my childrens… er… child… Cherry: Shh… I know. SexMachineAlpha: Where do grapes come from? From France! Lily Natalia Evans: AP Euro… grr…
And ashes infinity, animerocksjapanrocks, Ethuiliel, A.Simeone, JamesLvr4eva, Ohepelss Oramtnci, milky way bar, sum1strange, angryteabag, Jsas, justdreem, Shima And Tempis (I like your name because it's close to Tempest), Jessie xxx, Kat44, and Sammy Solo: Thank you all for reviewing. It always means a lot to me. And as y'all know, reviews increase exponentially; the more reviews you have, the more reviews you get. Thank you all so much! Please review again! (Oh, also, I usually only respond to reviews of the most recent chapter. So if you'd like to be answered, review the latest chapter. Just thought I'd let you guys know.)
Thanks for reading, and as always, review, review, review!
8-19-07: This chapter has been revamped! Hope you enjoy it more than before. I changed Bergen's first name from Brian to Dennis, because I just re-met Brian Bergen the other night and he was very strange to me. Still, I couldn't think of another last name, so he is now Dennis Bergen.