Change of Heart

By Tempest Break

Disclaimer: I own Lela Lyndall and Dennis Bergen.

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.

- - - - - - - - -

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Glasses and the Grin

Several weeks passed, bringing the Marauders, Lily, and Colleen into the second week of May and the last Quidditch match of the season: Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw.

"You'll be watching, right?" James asked Lily nervously as he checked his Quidditch bag to make sure everything was in it. "I mean, this is a really important match, you know. Us versus Ravenclaw – for the House Cup – not to mention… So you'll be there, right, Lily?"

"Of course, James," she said reassuringly, ignoring his near-hysteria. "In the usual spot with Remus and Peter."

"I'll look for you." James grinned and kissed Lily on the mouth quickly before leaving the Head Tower.

As James approached the locker rooms, he heard Liz Hamilton exclaim, "Just don't get me sick! I've got a date with Chris tonight."

"What's going on? Who's sick?" James asked, pushing open the glass locker room door and looking at the team frantically

"I said I was feeling a little under the weather," said Colleen indignantly from where she sat next to her trusty Shooting Star. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Colleen O'Brian doesn't 'get sick'."

"Well, good on you, Colleen," said James, "because I've heard that Ichabod Ingelbert of the British Quidditch Industry is watching in the stands for any promising seventh year players. Wouldn't want to not play this game to your best."

"Ichabod Ingelbert!" exclaimed Cady Morris, her head jerking up from her untied shin guard. "He's the most famous talent scout in the business!"

"How'd you find out Ingelbert was coming, James?" asked Jake Bell, clipping stray twigs from his beaten-up Swiftstick.

"I saw him, o' course," said James nonchalantly, sitting down beside Lee Butterwick, who gaped at him unabashedly.

"You saw him? When? Where?"

"Walking with Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Sprout just now."

"How'd you know it was Ingelbert?" asked David Gilmore suspiciously, leaning on his Cleansweep Five.

"Family friend," James said smugly, gazing at all of them with a look that he knew a few months ago would have made Lily want to hex him into next week.

All of them except Colleen stared at him. "You're family's friends with – ?" began Liz incredulously.

"You mean you know – ?"

"Oh, stop it, all of you," said Colleen, rolling her eyes. "Potter's just showin' off. His family's not really friends with Ingelbert, is it, Cap'n?"

James shrugged noncommittally and smirked at the team.

"You little fibber," Cady growled playfully. "You really had me!"

"Me, too," admitted Lee.

"I didn't believe it for a second," said David proudly.

"But, James," Liz said, "Ichabod Ingelbert really is coming, right? You saw him?"

"Sure, I saw him," James said.

"Still don't believe it," David grumbled, slinging his Cleansweep over his shoulder. "But whether Ingelbert's here or not, we should head out there. Get your gear on, Cap'n. It's gonna be a rough game."

- - - - -

"O' course, Ravenclaw's got that new Seeker, a third year named Michael Sayers," Sirius was saying to Lily, Remus, and Peter as they headed down to the Quidditch pitch. "I heard his dad's in the business and gets broom prototypes, and Sayers is riding the newest Comet broom, but who knows if that'll help him any?"

Lily looked at him in surprise. "Why wouldn't it help him?"

"Broom prototypes are unreliable," Sirius explained. "Sometimes they plummet suddenly to the ground – got a few broken bones over the years from prototypes, the testers have, some bystanders, too."

"I'm sure James can handle it," Remus said positively, catching sight of Lily's pale, drawn expression.

"I wasn't saying he couldn't," Sirius continued crossly. "I was just getting you guys up to speed. And also at the last match, Leon Turner, one of the Beaters, took a Bludger to the head and blacked out for a few hours. He woke up not remembering his name. They say he's almost fully recovered, but you never know…"

"How awful," Lily said empathetically.

Sirius shrugged. "Better them than us," he said. "Well, I gotta get up to the stands with McGonagall. You know what a stickler she is. See you after!" And with that, he trotted away.

"We oughta go get our seats," Remus said to Lily and Peter, and they all trekked up the stairs to a red-and-gold checkered Quidditch platform.

The three of them took their seats, Lily between the two boys. Remus eyed Peter discreetly as the mousy boy sat sullenly with his arms crossed. Remus had not told anyone of what had happened the night of Colleen's birthday. He only had suspicions of what Peter had meant, and Remus was the meditative type. Peter had also become less moody around Sirius, and he was downright pleasant to James, so Remus did not think it was worth causing a possible rift in the Marauders to mention their conversation.

"Looks like Sirius has got the spell on his voice," said Lily, gazing up into the tallest tower of the pitch. Remus and Peter looked up there after her.

"Hello!" boomed Sirius's voice. "It's a wonderful May afternoon as the last Quidditch match of the season gets under way. And here comes Ravenclaw in blue and bronze, coming from a close loss in their last game against Slytherin. The Captain and Keeper, Rick Davies, is out first, followed by the all-female Chaser trio, Clara Huntley, Louiza Levene, and Pearl Oyster. After them come Leon Turner and Keaton Weber, the team's Beaters. And lastly, it's Michael Sayers, the Seeker and the youngest current Hogwarts Quidditch player." The Ravenclaw team was greeted by great rolling cheers from the blue-and-bronze checkered pillars.

"And here's Gryffindor," continued Sirius, "also coming off a defeat." He said this darkly. "First it's James Potter, the Captain and Seeker of the team. Then the Chasers, Jake Bell, Cady Morris, and Colleen O'Brian. Rawr!"

"Mister Black!" exclaimed McGonagall above the laughter on the pitch. "Growling at the Quidditch players is wildly inappropriate."

"She's my woman, McGonagall. I can't help it," said Sirius apologetically. "Anyway! After O'Bloody-Beautiful, it's the Beaters, Lee Butterwick and David Gilmore. And last but not least, Liz Hamilton, the Gryffindor team's Keeper, steps onto the field!" Gryffindor's followers cheered loudly for their team.

Lily's heart thumped loudly in her chest as she watched James step onto the field. She could see his wild black hair from where she sat, and the sunlight glinted off his glasses. He stood tall in his red Quidditch robes, holding his Nimbus 1000 at his side as he watched Madam Hooch approach him and Davies at the middle of the pitch. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and grinned lopsidedly at nothing in particular, remembering something, as always. He always seemed to remember something when he pushed his glasses up.

How many times had Lily seen him do that? The glasses and the grin. Probably five, ten times a day, she guessed. So why did it this time make her breath catch uncomfortably in her throat, and why did her heart throb painfully in her chest? She wondered as James and Rick Davies shook hands, and as Hooch threw the Quaffle into the air. She wondered as Colleen snatched the Quaffle nearly out of Clara Huntley's grasp, and as Lee smacked a Bludger away from Jake. It took her until Colleen scored the first ten points for Gryffindor, and Sirius's voice rang out loudly through the stadium to realize why.

She had fallen in love with James Potter.

And she knew she needed to tell him – right now – right away. He would want to know.

Lily leapt to her feet, cupping her hands around her mouth and screaming with all the strength she could muster. "JAMES! JAMES POTTER!"

Remus and Peter stared at her in confusion. "Lily, what are you – ?" began Remus.

"JAMES – POTTER!" Lily screamed, not caring that many of the students on her platform were staring.

"I don't think he can hear you, Lily," said Peter softly.

"He'll hear me," she said firmly. "He's got to hear me."

- - - - -

James had tuned everything out. He was focused on finding the Snitch. "Where did that little gold bugger get to, anyway?" he wondered to himself. Fifty yards away, Michael Sayers, the scrawny third year Ravenclaw Seeker, hunted similarly for the small, gold ball.

"Well, at least he hasn't – "

"JAMES – POTTER!"

James spun toward the loud cry of his name. An entire Gryffindor platform was screaming it at him. He assumed they were only cheering him on and waved, but then the entire platform shouted, "SHE – WANTS – TO – TALK – TO – YOU!"

He wondered briefly whom they could be talking about, but he swiftly flew over there, hoping Sayers would not catch sight of the Snitch. "What? What is it?" he asked.

Everyone on the platform turned toward Lily, who was blushing profusely. "James," she said quietly, smiling at him with watery green eyes. "I love you."

The whole Gryffindor platform "ooh"ed at the couple as James floated there in astonishment and elation.

"Well?" a small second year girl asked expectantly when everyone had quieted down.

James grinned at the girl. "I love her, too. Whaddaya think? Gosh!" he said with mock exasperation in his voice and a smile on his face as the platform erupted it cheers.

Suddenly there was a great buzzing in James's ear. He turned his head – and there was the Snitch, right beside him! He reached his hand out quickly, but the little ball darted out from his fingers. James tore off after the ball.

"Looks like Potter finally stopped gossiping with the Gryffindors and got his act together, and he's found the Snitch! Sayers is after it just as quickly on his Comet prototype."

The Snitch banked a quick left and headed straight toward the midst of the Chasers. James groaned but followed the small ball zealously. Cady shrieked as James sped right in front of her, nearly dropping the Quaffle. James circled Jake and Louiza Levene of Ravenclaw, Sayers right on his broomtail, straining his arm as far as it would go.

Slowly, slowly, he gained on the Snitch. His hand was nearly on it. And then he felt his fingers close around the small widget, and he raised it up triumphantly.

But instead of the cheers to which he was accustomed, a huge gasp of surprise and horror met James. He looked frantically around at what it could be.

"Sayers's broom is out of control!" exclaimed Sirius. "He can't seem to stop it!"

James caught sight of Sayers's small frame being jerked around by the speeding, faulty Comet prototype. It certainly was fast – faster than any of the brooms on the field – but Sayers had no control over it. The broom zoomed around all of the players, and no one dared go near to stop it.

Suddenly the broom stalled, and Sayers sighed with relief. Then it abruptly zoomed faster than ever straight at Colleen.

"Hey, watch – !" she got out before Sayers and his broom crashed into her. Both of them fell the fifteen or twenty feet to the ground, Sayers and his broom landing on Colleen's stomach. She cried out and shoved him off of her as the rest of the teams landed and gathered around.

"Are you alright?" asked Cady, breathless.

Colleen opened her mouth to answer, but instead she whirled toward the ground and vomited her whole breakfast onto the ground. She looked back up at Cady. "Yeah," she coughed. "Just fine."

- - - - -

"I'm so, so, so sorry," Michael Sayers said for about the twentieth time since he and Madam Pomfrey had aided Colleen to the Infirmary. He'd sprained his wrist in the fall, but he ignored the obvious swelling in his arm and seemed concerned with Colleen's health.

"Really, it's okay," said Colleen to the younger boy again. "Sorry I broke your broom."

"That broom was an instrument of death," he said solemnly. "It needed to be destroyed."

Colleen laughed a little, then leaned over the Infirmary bed and threw up for the third time into a blue plastic trashcan. "Maybe Colleen O'Brian does get sick," she muttered.

"We'll just see about that," said Madam Pomfrey, sweeping into the room with a flimsy all-purpose medical wand, designed to give an exact status check of any person based on a color code. "Open wide." She slipped it into Colleen's mouth and waited the sixty seconds allotted. She tugged the wand back out of Colleen's mouth and examined it. The tip was a deep, royal blue.

"Oh, dear," said Pomfrey upon seeing it.

"What? What does that mean?" asked Colleen curiously.

"Why, Miss O'Brian," said the nurse, looking at her seriously, "you're pregnant."

- - - - - - - - -

Tempest: Oooohhhhhhh… Evil, eh? Well, now you all know… THE BIG SECRET! The last few chapters are gonna focus on this new thing, I think, and what happens… I have to decide if what I was going to do is stupid or not. Okay! Well, yes. That was a fun and eventful chapter to write. All in one day. Go me! Now for some reviews, quickly, because it's 12:06 AM.

Ohepelss Oramntci: I can't imagine why you see an impending rift because of Bergen and Lela… sum1strange: Standstills suck. Filler chapters suck. But it was just preparing you guys for this one! Little pink sock: Haha, yes. You are Socky. I'm glad you liked Sirius and James. Cherry: As always, you are right. It was a worthless chapter. I admit it. Hope you liked this one better. Shima And Tempis: Creepy… yes… I know this one girl who stalked one of my friends over Myspace. The night they were supposed to meet, he got out of it, but she told him, "Aw, man. And I rubbed myself all over with oil, too." He was extremely scared. A.Simeone: I'm glad you liked the conversations, and that you weren't offended by "That dirty bastard." I thought that was the best thing to be said to what James said. JamesLvr4eva, Shima And Tempis, and little pink sock: Glad you guys liked Lela. Her name in Spanish means "stupid".

And to the-wolves-howl, passionflower24, Stepha-Lah (I'm not answering because I'm not sure yet), JamesGurl19, Jessie xxx, SexMachineAlpha, and animerocksjapanrocks: Thank you all for reviewing. I appreciate it, as always. It's nice seeing people coming back and reviewing. I recognized a lot of you this time!

Anyway, I hope I get a lot of reviews for this chapter, as the last one was kind of lacking… Sounds awful greedy of me. I already have a lot. But my ultimate goal is 1000. I would be extremely honored if I were among the authors who have achieved 1000 reviews. Reach for the stars, Tempest… Reach for the stars…

Review, review, review!

8-20-07: This chapter has been revamped! Hope you enjoy it more than before.