Ch.7

AN: Thanks to sherbertgirl and VivaJuanita for your reviews! They are greatly appreciated. On with the show!

Lily walked cautiously up to the steps of an old, yet beautiful house. It had been three months since she graduated from Hogwarts and was visiting James for the first time at his house. She wasn't sure why she felt so nervous. It's not like he hasn't ever been to her house. He tracked down where she lived. And now, she has done the same.

She was about to raise her hand to knock when someone called out to her from above.

"Excuse me, what do you want?" An elderly woman called from a window a little to the left of the front door. Lily immediately recognized the woman as James' mother.

"Um, hi, I'm Lily. I came here to see James?" Lily called up to the woman.

"Hello Lily, what do want with my son?"

"Um...," Lily trailed off. She wondered what to say. She knew what the answer was, but she wasn't sure if she really wanted to say it. "I was going to take him on a date."

"Really?" Lily didn't have to see the woman's face in order to distinguish her expression.

"I see," Mrs. Potter ducked back into the house and shut the window. This left Lily to wonder if she should just walk away and owl James instead. Maybe if no one came to the door after fifteen minutes, that would be a sign to leave.

So, Lily waited. And waited. And waited. She looked down at her watch every two minutes. When she noted that she had reached her limit, she turned to leave.

"Lils!" James called from behind. For some strange reason, Lily looked ack up at the window, expecting to see James' face poking out.

"Lily, down here."

Lily looked to the open door and felt her face grow hot from embarrassment. She noted that he too was a deep crimson.

"Hey, I was just leaving, actually," Lily laughed awkwardly.

"Please come in!" James held the door open a little wider for her. He nervously looked over his shoulder. He couldn't quite tell, but he was certain he saw his mother shrink away into the shadows.

He turned his attention back to Lily, who had taken his invitation to come in. She smiled shyly and looked a lot like she wanted nothing more than to run right back out.

"Do you want anything?"

"No thank you," Lily said breathlessly. James house was very beautiful. However, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. Whenever she looked out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow shift.

"Butterbeer?"

"I'm fine."

"Pumpkin juice?"

"No, James, I'm fine." James nodded and took Lily's hand, leading her further into the house. he turned back to her when they were at the foot of the stairs.

"Ovaltine?"

"You have Ovaltine?"

"Yeah..."

"Do you really?" Lily couldn't believe that a wizarding family, pure-blooded no less, would have a muggle staple such as Ovaltine.

"Yes, I have Ovaltine. Do you want any?"

"I don't like Ovaltine."

"Then why did you ask?" James said, frustrated.

"I just didn't think you had Ovaltine. That doesn't necessarily means I like it," Lily crossed her arms in annoyance.

"Whatever," James lead the way to the second landing. There was a small loft that seemed to be used for either a library or a knitting club since balls of yarn and half knitted Afghans and blankets littered the floor and chairs. There were a pair of needles working diligently on a what looked to be a hat, or was it a sock? Lily brushed the thought out of her mind as James lead her down a hall and into a room.

It was a little messy, but in an organized way since the clothes were in a designated pile. A broom stood in the corner and an open trunk lay at the foot of the bed. This was James' room.

"You can sit down," James said, moving a pile of school books from the bed to the floor to make a spot from them to sit.

"I can see you've been busy,"Lily said lightly, using a potions ladle to scoot a pair of boxers under the bed where she won't have to look at it. It was just awkward, trying to have a conversation with your boyfriend when all you could do was imagine him in the satin looking boxers on the bed. It was rude, so Lily took care of that problem.

"Yeah, you know, cleaning out my trunk for the first time in eight years," James chuckled. "You will never believe some of the stuff I found at the bottom!"

"I would rather not know."

"So, what brings you here? How did you even know where I lived?"

"I asked."

"Right, of course," James looked out of the corner of his eye again as something flashed by. "So, you want to go do something?"

"Actually, I was going to take you someplace," Lily answered, walking around the room. Under the bed or not, green satin boxers aren't exactly out of sight out of mind. She walked over to the closet and peeked in through a crack. From what she saw, there were a lot of boxes in it.

"What are all the boxes for?" She asked, her hand on the knob.

"Nothing! You don't have to look in th–," it was too late. Lily was already marveling at the wall of boxes that filled his closet. She looked over at James questioningly and all he could do was stand with a sheepish grin on his face.

"I'm a sore loser."

"I can tell," lily pulled out the jar of marshmallow fluff with the brand label reading that of the sponsor of the Miss Teen Fluff beauty pageant. "So, that's what happened to the fluff. You stole it out of the truck."

"Yeah, we did. Sirius really wanted that marshmallow fluff for fluffer nutters and I thought the whole thing was rigged–,"

"You were the one that rigged it!" Lily interrupted.

"True, but when you rig a competition, you never expect to lose!"

"Winning that pageant didn't mean anything to me."

"It didn't?"

"At first it bothered me, but then I realized that I never ever won one in my life and it's not like I depended on them for something or another. I still had you to take me out for my second birthday. That was the loveliest dinner I think I've ever been to," Lily explained. She smiled at James and looked back at the marshmallow fluff jar. "I hate marshmallow fluff anyways."

James smirked and wrapped his arms around Lily's waist, pulling her closer to him. Lily leaned into his chest and they just stood there. Then, Lily saw something flash before her eyes again and turned to look at it fully, but it was gone.

"So, how about we go take a stroll? I know this great park," James asked. He seemed a bit jittery.

"No, I said I was going to take you out, so you're coming with me," Lily grabbed her boyfriend by the collar and dragged him outside where she disapparated.

The two landed in a small alley and walked to the other side of it.

"Where are we?" James asked, looking around.

"A small place I frequent every now and then," Lily answered, leading the way into a dingy looking building. James had a sudden flash of a tattoo parlor with rusty needles and some other pus-looking stuff that you would rather not have put in your arm. You mention the unsterile needle to the artist and they simply wipe the needle off on a blood stained cloth and call it good.

"We aren't getting any work done are we? Because if we are, I think we need to find a place where your name in a flower on my shoulder won't come with a hefty medical bill," James said.

"What are you talking about? This is an arcade."

"A what?"

"An arcade. It's a muggle place where kids can play video games. I'll show you." Lily pulled a reluctant James through the door. The interior of the place was much better that outside. There were dimly lit lights, but it didn't make much difference since there were all these machines lit up and making noises. The place was fairly busy. Kids of a variety of ages, but mostly boys, ran about the place hopping on one of the machines and playing it. Whatever they were doing, James gathered, was pretty intense since it wasn't long before they would start saying things to themselves.

"This is interesting," James noted.

"Find something you want to try out, I'll go get some tokens," Lily said excitedly and bounced off. James smiled after her, but secretly wished she wouldn't have left his side.

James milled around the establishment, watching what the others would do so he could get a hand of a 'video game.' There were many games that seemed promising. There was this game called 'Pac Man' that gathered a small crowd, and then there was one called TRON. The one James couldn't understand was the most popular game in the place: Pong. From what he could see, the game was simply two bar things on opposite sides of the screen that hit a tiny square back and forth. How was that remotely fun?

"Got the tokens!" Lily exclaimed, holding up a small cup filled with galleon looking coins. "Since I find pong boring unless it's on one of the machines that someone has reworked for smaller paddles, let's go play something else."

James allowed himself to be followed once more to this brightly lit machine that had a guy in a loincloth on the front of it.

"What's this?"

"It's a game where you have to get out of a jungle," Lily explained. James noticed her hands were shaking slightly and her cheeks were a shade of pink.

"Okay, so the stick thing is to move your guy."

"What guy?"

"The one on the screen." James looked at the screen, moved his stick a little and noticed the guy moved in the same direction the stick moved in, "oh."

"And the blue button is to jump," Lily continued, pointing at the button on the control panel. "The red one is to kill cats with your guy's club."

"What?" James cried, his features showing horror.

Lily's face became as red as her hair, "that's the point of the game. You have to get out this jungle that's filled with mutant jungle cats. And they attack you and you have to hit them with the club...which is the red button."

"What happens if you don't kill the mutant jungle cat?"

"It eats you and you die. Ultimately, the game is over."

"Philosophical. Let's start, I guess.

It didn't take James long before he was attacked by one of the dreaded mutant jungle cats. When his neanderthal was attacked, he forgot about the red button and almost blasted the machine with a curse. Lily helped James' guy by beating the cat in the head. She was really good at the game and James got the feeling she came here more than she admitted to play this particular game.

The two played for some three hours and used up all the tokens in the cup trying to escape the jungle of mutant jungle cats. James was surprisingly good at the game, but a mere novice compared to Lily.

"I don't think you mum likes me that much," Lily said out of the blue, thwacking three cats at once, saving James once more.

"Naw, she thinks your nice," James absent mindedly said back.

"Really? When I first showed up at your house I spoke with her and the way the 'conversation,' if that's what you want to call it, ended, she looked at me in a way I thought was sort of disapproving.

"Lily, my mum thinks you're great, don't worry about her."

"Then why did she look at me like that?"

"She was mad that you came to take me on a date and not me going and taking you on a date. She's really old fashioned that way."

AN: I know TRON originated four years in the future given the time this was taking place, but I had to. Next chapter will be up as soon as possible. Please review!