Beachbum

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything you recognise.

Chapter7

The next morning James was ruffling up his hair and Lily was putting her own into a messy pony tail with her side fringe in place and her layers all over the shop.

Lily put down her hands once her hair was done and James was slowly looking at every inch of his own hair.

"James do you mind if we cut the trip short?" Lily blurted while looking down at her thongs and brightly painted toes.

"What do you mean? I thought you were having fun?" He was confused stepping away from the mirror and looking at Lily. She was staring guiltily are her feet and seem to shrink under his stare. He didn't understand, Lily seemed to be having a great time in Penang fishing, playing around with her camera getting bad pictures of him, shopping and swimming. Ever since the holidays had started she had been happier and more fun than she had been all year. James remembered Lily at school when she caught him in the kitchen setting up a prank and she gave them all detentions for the rest of the week cleaning out Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. That was by far the worst detention he had ever had. Along with having to listen to Myrtle moan in her u-bend he missed his extra pensive classes so was behind in homework and had to work on the weekend, IN FRONT of PEOPLE! He remembered thinking that he would get back at her one of these days but never managed to. At school she always seemed to be such a tight arse with no sense of fun. These holidays it was like a new person had emerged.

"I am having fun," Lily said waking James from his thinking, "but I miss my family. I haven't seen them in almost a year."

James could see her heartache in her eyes. He remembered when his next door neighbour Jeanne was staying over his house for the week while her parents went on an adult cruise. Every morning she would wake up early and stare out the window with the same eyes as Lily had waiting for them to come home and get her.

"Ok." He said looking anywhere but at Lily. Even though he knew a bit more about her from the last 3 or so days it was still awkward to see her expressing any emotion. He never really had any experience with emotional girls and wasn't planning on some anytime soon. Lily was surprised she was expecting him to tease her and ridicule her about her feelings, maybe even cast a spell or announce it to the school next term.

"So how do we get there?" he asked trying to stop the awkwardness between them.

"Well I'll just go and ring QANTAS and get the dates changed to today." Lily said calmly even though mentally beating her head in her hands for sharing so much and being so mushy. She hated looking weak and mushy but she couldn't help it. She missed her family and any other reason would have either offended him or made her seem more like an idiot.

"alright then." James said still not looking at the short red-head.

"alright." Lily repeated while returning back to staring at her toe nails

A few minutes later

"well are you going to call them?" James asked impatiently. Waiting in the awkward atmosphere was a testing time.

"of course I am!" Lily huffed while trying to cross her arms. She almost fell over when she could.

"JAMES!" she squealed. All she could thing was 'Yes, Yes, Yes!' While getting up and dancing a 'go me' dance she jumped onto his back and hugged him of her own free will.

"What?" he asked panicky spinning around trying to figure out why she was on his back. Looking for the spider on the floor or something dead her tried to move her hands out of his face.

'URGH get your hands out of my face' was all he could think when she waved her hand persistently in front of his face while she was still on his back.

'Wait a minute' he stopped in his tracks as he realised what he thought.

'Hands? Hands!' "HANDS!" he shouted, "I can see your hands." She shouted again while inspecting both his own and her hands which were still flung around his neck.

Finally realising their detachment James twirled her and himself around in the room while Lily squealed and James whooped in joy. Both were too ecstatic to care about how much noise they were making at 3am or the awkwardness a few moments ago.

If someone had painted that room at that moment there would have been streamers, fireworks, clapping and loud fun, and exciting music. It was a celebration of their detachment. They decided to skip their early scuba lesson at 3.30am but instead to order room service and get all the dessert they could eat and more.

At 4am the phone rang and the concierge got a very confusing phone about room 52's hands and chocolate.

By 5am both teens were off their faces as they had been celebrating too hard and experimented with vodka, a watermelon and chocolate coated strawberries.

By 6am both were sleeping off their alcohol.

Lily woke up to a head ache, bright light and a persistent knocking noise that was like someone knocking a pick axe through her skull. She could hear James rolling over and snuffling into his pillows. She sat up slowly while the knocking continued and tried to stretch out the knots in her back from sleeping upside down on a chair. The tappings continued until she walked over to the door and pull it open to reveal a small silver owl with large amber eyes and a tray of breakfast, which had obviously been left there since the morning. The owl hovered above the breakfast tray with two envelopes with loopy red writing indicating whose was whose. Lily handed the owl some of the breakfast bacon and some cold tea before it left with a smooth graceful arc out of the window.

James was now up standing in the bathroom in his red and gold boxers trying to tame his outrageous bed hair. Lily sighed, she hated unorganised things and his hair was one of the many bones of contempt between the two. His bed hair reminded her of how he would look coming off of his broom; he would always ruffle his hair to make it look like that. Lily didn't particularly like Quidditch there was no point. It was interesting and the sport was pretty cool but she never agreed with any aggression or violence the teams displayed towards each other. After her first year Lily stopped attending the matches because she couldn't watch the people mutilate themselves for the entertainment of others. It reminded her too much of the coliseum where gladiators would kill each other for the entertainment of the Caesar, who would kill them anyway because it didn't last long enough or the gladiator didn't produce enough blood. It sickened her.

Looking over the letters in her hands she noticed that one was address to her and one to James. I wonder if there's some kind of tracking spells on the owls lily wondered and began thinking of all the tracking charms she knew. James walked out, his hair looking the same as it did getting out of bed, and took the letter that was address to him. Seeing that it was Hogwarts emblem on the back he put it in his pocket and went to his side of the room to start packing to leave.

Lily didn't understand why he didn't read the letter. It was obviously her exam results; maybe he just didn't care for school. Lily scoffed reminded herself who she was talking about. James Daniel Potter was a jock and a man-whore and that was the only way to explain him. 'Of course he wouldn't be interesting in his school results or anything academic he was only interesting in his vanity, Quidditch and girls' she thought sourly.

Lily quiet disgusted at his attitude ripped open her letter and sighed in content. Although her transfiguration mark was a little lower than she would have liked everything else was perfect. She was happy she got fantastic marks and was bound to be the Head Girl next year. Nothing could go wrong. That was until she noticed the letter in the bottom of the envelope.

Dear Ms. Evans

It is with great pleasure that I am able to tell you that you are the Second of your year. This is a great honour and because of you marks your name has been added to the nomination list for Head Girl next year. Congratulations.

Regards

Deputy Headmaster Professor McGonagall

Lily didn't even look at the words Head Girl or honour she stared at the words SECOND. How could she the bookworm Lily Marie Evans be second of academics? It was impossible. For someone to beat her score they would have to get perfect marks across the board in every subject, it would also have to include weighted subjects. She did all the hardest subjects as to weighted as a higher mark and this somebody came along and ruined her chances to become Head Girl.

Lily sank into the chair she slept in the night before, not seeing the paper shaking in her hands, or the tears forming in her eyes as she was in a daze of whys.

James noticed Lily composure had been rocked and wondered what could cause this normally calm girl to almost break down in front of him. Moving over to her he grabbed the letter out of her inactive hands, she didn't even try to fight him. This must be bad he concluded by the shell shocked expression of her face and her empty stare. Reading the letter he assumed that she was in shock from getting perfect marks and invited for Head Girl.

Before he could say anything or shake her out of her stupor he heard he say something.

"Second… second… how could I be second?" she whispered faintly, as soft as a butterfly's wing beat. He probably wouldn't have heard it if his ears were as bad as his eyes but luckily he had the hearing of a rabbit. He knew that wasn't the right saying but he figured Rabbits have much better hearing than a lot of other animals so it fit right.

'So that's it' he realised 'She got second and can't deal with it.' He would have laughed at her if she was in a state where she would realise his mocking.

Finally Lily started to wake up again and realise James hovering over her shoulder waiting for her to regain consciousness. She saw the letter in his hand and snatched it back before he could ridicule her for it and stormed off to the bathroom and locked the door.

Lily was sleeping in the large blue flight chair next to him and all that James could think about was the small piece of parchment in his pocket which told him whether or not all his hard work paid off. Finally an hour after Lily went to sleep and James was sure she wasn't faking pulled out his letter from his left hand pocket making sure not to poke Lily while doing it. He ripped the thick cream coloured envelope off of his results and a small letter fell out of the bottom to settle in his lap the writing facing upwards.

Dear Mr. Potter

It is with great pleasure that I am able to tell you that you are the First of your year. This is a great honour and because of you marks your name has been added to the nomination list for Head Girl next year. Congratulations James this is an enormous achievement you should be proud.

Regards

Deputy Headmaster Professor McGonagall

James couldn't stop the small smile as he read the last line. Minnie was always to big softy at heart.

With his letter resting in his pocket her turned over and drifted off to sleep with the down lights creating a soft glow on his and the one of a kind girl next to him.