I'm sorry I didn't update but I really didn't have the time! Really! Anyway I plan to have the whole thing finished by the end of the summer, cause I've already started planning my next one!
Also could you all join in my celebration dance? IT SURVIVED THE CANON! All the way through reading HBP I was dreading something coming up and spoiling it, but it didn't, except Slughorn, but I'll just ignore him if that's ok? Anyway onwards! I liked this chapter!
PS Harry loves Ginny! Yeay!
Chapter 31 : Fly away
"Did I mention how cold, wet and tired I am?" Caitlin continued to moan.
"At least seven times since we left the castle," James replied casually. "Lovely morning isn't it?"
Caitlin grimaced at him.
"James its seven o'clock on a Saturday morning. It's damp. It's wet. It's February for Merlin's sake!"
"Yes but you'll thank me when you're up there," James grinned.
"You're lucky I like flying, otherwise I think I might have hexed you by now. I can't believe you made me get up this early! At the weekend!"
"We need to practise," James stated firmly.
"We could've practised during the week!" Caitlin protested.
"No. I had duties, and everyone else had some other club or something which kept clashing so it had to be at the weekend," he explained.
"Well why not tomorrow?"
"Caitlin you know as well as I do that everyone puts off doing their homework until Sunday," James smiled. "So it had to be today."
"Did it have to be this early?" Caitlin wined.
"Yes," James said simply, and looked away from her quickly.
"Uh why?" Caitlin asked. "Why couldn't have been this afternoon?"
"Because I have something to do later that's why," James snapped. He was starting to feel a bit annoyed by all her questions.
"What are you doing later?" Caitlin continued probing him.
"Lily and I have a date," he answered shortly.
"This afternoon?" Caitlin asked, perturbed.
"No, this evening."
"Well then why couldn't we practice this aftern…"
"Because if you must know, I'm spending this afternoon trying to decide where to take Lily this evening!" James said exasperatedly.
"Mr Potter," Caitlin tutted at him. "Are you telling me you've had a whole week to plan this, and you've left it 'til this afternoon?"
James stopped walking.
"Now… when you put it like that…" he began warily.
"I mean it's your first date with Lily, could you not have put a wee bit of effort into it?" Caitlin suggested, still walking on.
James became more aware of his own breathing, and his chest tightened ever so slightly.
"Oh Merlin…" he breathed.
"I mean is she not meant to be the love of your life or something?" Caitlin carried on, not hearing him.
James quickly sat down on the wet grass, his head in his hands.
"I am so dead," he said slowly.
Caitlin quickly spun round, realising he was no longer beside her.
"What!" she exclaimed, hurrying back to him. "No, no, no James I was only teasing you. You're not dead!"
"No I am, I am," James replied. "I've been so stupid, I should've realised, I… need to cancel this quidditch practice!"
"Don't be silly James!" Caitlin scolded, but trying to calm him all the same. "Look you've been on first dates before, what do you usually do?"
"Well take them through a secret passage to Hogsmeade, usually the danger of getting caught gets them all excited, and well…" he left Caitlin to fill in the blanks.
"That won't exactly work with Lily will it?" Caitlin said quickly, obviously trying to erase certain images from her mind. "I mean Lils would just spend the whole time absolutely terrified she'd get caught, and then probably turn you in to McGonagall at the end of it!"
James gave a small laugh and then got back to the matter in hand.
"Besides I want my first date with Lily to be different from the others… special…"
"That's funny, because five minutes ago you hadn't even given it a second thought!" Caitlin quipped at him. He gave her a glare.
"Look will you go on ahead and tell them practice is cancelled? I need to sort this out…"
"No!" Caitlin interrupted, offering her hand and pulling him up from the ground. "You've not got me up this early for nothing! Besides, having a good fly will help you think."
"I suppose," James moped.
"Now come on," Caitlin continued giving him a little shove. "We're almost there."
"What did you and Padfoot do for your first date?" James asked, casting around for ideas.
"Uh well let me think," Caitlin mused. "First Remus turned into a werewolf and tried to kill me, then Sirius turned from a dog back into a person and saved me, then I dropped and lost the parcel of 'Which Witch' make-up I ordered and had waited four months for, then I…"
"Hang on, that was your first date?" James asked disbelievingly.
"Well," Caitlin thought for a moment. "That was the first time he kissed me, so yea."
"Sometimes words can't describe you two, you know that," James shook his head at her.
Caitlin gave him a little smile that told him he might just have been had. He decided not to push the subject any further, as Caitlin obviously didn't want to tell him what their first date actually was, and he walked on into the quidditch stadium to meet the rest of the Gryffindor team.
Caitlin was right, but Caitlin was always right when it came to things like this. James made a mental note to have her put through rigorous tests to see whether she had the 'inner eye'. Then again, it might just be because she was female, and girls always had one over on the boys in this sort of thing. Yes it was defiantly because she was a girl, and Caitlin Kenworthy had the art of female intuition down hat.
The point of this ramble was of course that James William Potter had thought of the perfect first date with Lily Margaret Evans. Now all he had to do was put it into action.
"Leanne!" he called out, as he landed and jumped off his broom. "Oh, good practice everyone, keep it up – Leanne!"
"What?" Leanne called back a little sharply. She, like Caitlin hadn't quite forgiven him for calling a practice this early.
"Look I'm sorry, but at least now you have the rest of the day free," he tried to say brightly. She puffed at him. "Apart from… uh can you do me a favour later?"
Leanne gave him an incredulous glare.
"It's for Lily?" James tried to persuade her.
"What is it?" Leanne sighed. "You're lucky I like her you know!"
"You're in the doghouse now."
"You're one to talk," James replied coolly.
Sirius gave a laugh like a bark to emphasise this.
It was around eight o'clock and they were both standing in the entrance hall. A few other students were milling about nearby.
"He's right though," Caitlin said, walking along beside Sirius. "Lily is not happy due to your little disappearing act. Where have you been all afternoon?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" James grinned. "Where is she?"
"Upstairs, getting ready for your date… although she's 'not even sure that's still on'!" Caitlin told him. "Where are you taking her?"
James tapped his nose knowingly.
"Well do want me to go get her?" Caitlin suggested.
"Nope," James answered simply.
"Does she know you're here?" Sirius asked.
"Nope."
"Well how do you know she'll even turn up?" Caitlin sneered at him.
James tapped his nose again.
"Ugh! Well we're going for a walk, we'll see you later!" Caitlin said, storming off towards the front doors.
"Caitlin!" James called after her. "You'll never find us!"
Caitlin angrily slammed the door shut behind her.
Sirius looked at James and laughed again.
"She'll try her best you know, to find you," he said calmly, beginning to follow Caitlin out into the grounds. "She can't stand not knowing all the gossip."
"I'm not telling you either mate," James said simply.
"I know, I know," Sirius sighed, and walked off.
"Happy hunting!" James called after him. Sirius gave a small wave as acknowledgement. "You'll need it," he muttered under his breath.
Shortly after that a tremendous blur of red hair came charging down the staircase towards James. Lily clearly had no idea that James was even in the room, and was intent on running hell for leather straight out the doors into the grounds.
He grabbed her arm just as she swept past him.
"Hi," he said with a smile.
Lily looked at him with a thunderous glare for a moment, and then realisation dawned across her face.
"Rampaging third years about to burn down Hagrid's hut?" she asked raising her eyebrow.
"You fell for it didn't you?" James smiled again.
Lily said nothing in her defence but simply laughed.
"You've really got that girl Leanne wrapped around your finger don't you?" Lily said as James smoothly took her by the hand and began to walk with her.
"Well what can I say? If she doesn't do what I tell her I'll throw her off the team."
Lily gave another giggle as James opened the door for her. James noticed her quickly try to fix her hair as she walked out into the grounds ahead of him.
"Nice night isn't it?" Lily asked as James took her hand again.
"Bit chilly though," James added.
Then he looked at her for the first time properly.
She was wearing a light brown sheepskin coat that went all the way down to her calves, and a pair of flares jeans, over a pair of thick soled brown boots. Underneath her coat he could just make out a green polo neck that matched wonderfully with her eyes. James wondered if this had been deliberate, and then found himself thinking how long it would have taken Lily to plan this outfit.
'Funny things girls.'
He, of course, had put on anything that happened to be clean and ironed, which turned out to be a pair of kaki trousers and a denim shirt.
"Yes, but it's nice to be able to see the stars though," Lily said, it seemed to James, quite suddenly.
"What?"
"Uh, you said it was cold, I said it was nice to see the stars. Are you alright?" Lily asked.
"Yea fine, just drifted off for a minute," James admitted, shaking himself out of his daydream.
"Thanks James," Lily grimaced. "Nice to see you find me so riveting. What were you thinking about?"
"Quidditch," James said quickly, deciding it was far more macho than saying 'your outfit'.
"Nice," Lily said sarcastically. "Where are we going anyway?"
James could feel her enthusiasm for this date slipping rapidly.
"We're here," he said, trying to sound more focused and upbeat.
They were standing outside Hagrid's.
"See and I thought the story about Hagrid's was a diversion." Lily mused.
"Sort of, but I thought I better put an element of truth in it in case I couldn't stop you storming out of the castle, you see. This way I definitely would have been able to catch up with you," James explained, but Lily wasn't listening, she was too busy casting a wary eye around the array of garden tools, and dead animals that lay before them. There was a look of disappointment on her face, and James thought he better press ahead before she decided to bail out completely
"Anyway," he said hurriedly, searching through a pile of logs at the side of the hut. "This isn't the date." Lily's expression lifted a little. "This is the date," James said proudly, lifting up his broomstick which he'd hidden there earlier.
"And that's a broomstick," Lily stated, a look of complete horror on her face.
"Yep," James said, looking smugly at it. "My broomstick."
"And what's your broomstick doing here James?" Lily asked timidly. "Wouldn't it feel a lot better if it were locked away in the quidditch shed? With all it's little broom friends? Having little secret broom parties?"
"Do you think they really do that?" James laughed, leaning on it to look at her.
"Oh yes," Lily said firmly. "Which is why I think we ought to put it back there. Right away!"
"We will, we will," James reassured her. "But not before I've given you a flying lesson first."
"Why?" Lily choked.
"Because I remembered Caitlin saying how you hated flying. So I thought now would be a perfect time to let you try it again. Maybe you'll like it better this time," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "Now come on," he said getting on the broom himself. "I'll ride it with you, you'll be fine."
"Ok," Lily said, swallowing hard. "I'll try anything once," she continued, as she got on the broom in front of James. "Or in this case, twice, when the first time is so bad that I swear never to do it again."
Letting her adjust herself first, James kicked up and they were off.
"Lily are your eyes even open?"
"Mm hm"
"Liar!"
"Look James we must have been up now for at least an hour! Can we land now please?" she pleaded. James noticed how white her knuckles were holding onto the shaft.
"Try twenty minutes," James scoffed, but landed with a soft thud all the same.
Lily was still holding on tight with her eyes closed.
"James Potter, if you have landed me in the middle of the Forbidden Forest I am going to scream so loud that all the werewolves are going to come and I will take this broom and fly away and leave you all alone with them!" Lily said all in one breath.
James gave a soft laugh.
"Werewolves don't frighten me," he said truthfully. "Are you going to open your eyes?"
"Where are we?" Lily asked, eyes still firmly shut.
"Open your eyes," James breathed in her ear.
He knew she must have when he heard her breath catch. She then jumped off the broom and ran over to the other side of the astronomy tower where James had laid all the sweets, food, and flagons of butterbeer he had picked up from Hogsmeade earlier. In the middle of this lay an old tartan rug that he had borrowed from Peter, and the whole thing was lit by two dozen jam jars, all containing dancing blue flames. The effect of this made it seem that the whole thing was under water, even if they were actually hundreds of feet up, in the highest tower in Hogwarts. It was quite remarkable, even if he did think so himself.
He laughed as he watched Lily survey all the treats from Honeyduke's he had bought, and he jumped off the broomstick and went over to join her.
"See anything you like?" he asked as he reached her.
His question was met with a tirade of punches.
"You – tricked – me! You – made – me – think – the – date – was – that – stupid – broom!" Lily hit him between each word, all over his arms and chest. The last one however landed in his stomach and winded him so badly he doubled over.
"Uff!" was all James could say by way of apology, trying desperately to breathe.
"Oh Merlin James I'm sorry," Lily said, sitting him down on the rug. "Here drink this," and she passed him a butterbeer. He took a gulp of it and felt the pain ease slightly. "I'm sorry," Lily continued, rubbing his back. "I was just so delighted when I saw what you'd done!"
"If this is what you do when you're happy," James wheezed. "I'd hate to know what you'd have done if it was just the broom!"
I could go on but I think I'll leave that there. You know what to do!
LilyFlowerTheGreat: I'm glad you like the story so much. Hope you liked that chapter!
MJShunpike: Ok so I failed miserably on the updating quick part, but I'll do better I promise!
BurningIce22: Thanks for reviewing!
elements-of-the-soul: Of course chapters can be cute! That one was even cuter I think though!
man eating plant: I know Avril's a complete pain. Anyway I'll try and update quicker from now on.
Oliverwoodschic: You hope nothing bad happens… you would need to stop reading in about three chapters time ok?
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lea: Come get your crap outta my garage you bum!
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FirstDaysOfSummer: I like your name. Thanks for reviewing.
ruberduckysrfun: Ok Caitlin has not had her melt down yet and you'll find out about the whole sleeping with Sirius thing in about 2 chapters I think. Anyway thanks for reviewing!
Ruisul: Awh well, at least your still reading it. There's bound to be some things people don't like about my story otherwise I'd be so good I'd be published!
scrambledk: Thank you. I write a lot of this stuff because of stuff that happens to me (minus the magic and broomsticks), so I think that's why it's believable. And also I only wrote this story because of the chapter in the 5th book, and because it intrigued me so much that I kept getting little scenes in my head so I thought I better write them down before I went insane! Bit of random information there!
Luvin'it: Awh yeay. I'm glad you liked it!
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Saer: Yea you guessed right! But I'll update sooner next time I promise.