A/N: It's been a while…we know, biggest understatement of the century. Let's just say that school has started (duh!) and that we find ourselves unable to do anything but copious amounts of homework. We hear the question – What about weekends? Er…homework. What about the evenings? Homework. What are you going to do five years from now? Probably more homework. To make a long story short: we're sorry…
…so here's the next chapter of Moments Lost in Time
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Chapter Eleven: Pieces
"And then … and then there was a flying, peach latrine with magenta polka dots and the pirate started laughing, 'ARRRHGH!'" Peter tripped over his words laughing at his own unfunny joke.
"Never again, Peter, never, ever, ever again," Sirius said, quite shocked at his best friend's odd sense of humor.
Peter looked heartbroken, "But don't you get it? There was flying peach latrine, and the pirate thought it was funny, so he said 'Argh!'."
Remus looked up from his peppermint humbag, "But, Peter," he paused delicately, "latrines can't fly."
Peter looked horrified, "But what have we been doing in Charms? Are you saying I didn't make that hamster fly in first year? Are you saying that for the past five and a quarter years, I have been living a lie?"
Remus backtracked hurriedly, "No, Peter, it's just that, well, the pirate wasn't a wizard."
"Oh!" Peter cried in realization, "Did I not specify? So there was a flying, peach latrine with magenta polka dots, and the wizard pirate started laughing, ARRRHGH!"
Remus, Sirius and James simply stared, while Peter huffed and sat back down, "Geez, guys, tough crowd! That was quite possibly the funniest joke I have ever heard, so go grow a funny bone, why don't you?"
Meanwhile, a few feet down the illustrious Gryffindor table, Sierra was choking on her food, "Tough crowd … funniest joke … funny bone!" Sierra cried, laughing fit to burst. Lily and Carina shook their respective heads.
Remus, who wanted to try to understand, turned to Peter. "Obviously that joke was quite funny, but did it have anything to do with Halloween considering we are at the Halloween feast?" Remus swept one hand across the room, to indicate the orange bedecked room with exploding orange and black fireworks and floating jack-o-lanterns.
Peter nodded, and began to explain his joke to Remus in the manner one may explain that two plus two does not equal five to a stubborn toddler. "Halloween is a holiday for scary things, and a pirate-wizard is scary, therefore, it does relate to Halloween, and you should laugh!"
"Er…but I don't think pirate–wizards are scary," Remus said, confused. "Or even that they exist."
"But the joke was still funny!" Peter cried in consternation. "You know what? Never mind, some things are just too advanced for those of inferior intellect to comprehend." Peter glanced meaningfully at Remus, while Sirius snorted with laughter.
"You're quite right, Peter," James nodded wisely. "I'm quite sure your, er … 'joke'…was far beyond my levels of comprehension."
As the Marauders quibbled over the existence of Pirate-Wizards and dared each other to approach Professor Binns with a historical question that would inevitably result in an hour-long lecture, Lily, Carina, and Sierra were arguing about a substantially more important matter.
"Of COURSE, he's hot! How can you even say that he isn't? He's a Quidditch captain!"
"Oh," said Lily in sardonic tones, "so Sierra, every Quidditch player who has the misfortune of becoming captain automatically transforms into a demi-God, do they?"
Sierra rolled her eyes, as if to hint at the stupidity of a person who would ask such an obvious question.
"Uh…yea!" Carina nodded vigorously, speaking for Sierra as well.
"So, you're saying that every Quidditch captain is hot?" asked Lily, raising an eyebrow.
Both girls nodded confidently.
Lily smirked. "Ladies, I give you Exhibit A!" she said with a flourish, pointing towards James Potter, Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team.
James was choking on an overlarge bite of pumpkin pie, his face taking on the extremely unattractive color of a beetroot, as he coughed loudly, causing his friends to turn to him in alarm and begin pounding his back in an altogether unhelpful manner.
Carina and Sierra wrinkled their noses, and turned away subconsciously to face a satisfied Lily.
"Well Lily, when I said every captain, I meant every captain except my own. Oh, and the Slytherin captain of course," Sierra added quickly as an afterthought.
Lily nodded wisely. "So you're saying that every Quidditch captain is hot except for the captains of Gryffindor and Slytherin?"
"Oh, and Hufflepuff, seeing as they aren't exactly known for what's going on upstairs," added Carina helpfully.
Lily's lips twitched as she said, "So now, every Quidditch captain is hot except for the captains of Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff."
"Uh huh," nodded Sierra, sensing that she had just lost this argument.
Carina diverted their attention to the vision striding towards them. Shawn Goldman, seventh year Quidditch captain of the Ravenclaw team, was striding towards the trio, causing both Carina and Sierra to start giggling uncharacteristically.
"Hey babes," said Shawn in a low voice, his blue eyes giving them an obvious once-over.
Since Carina and Sierra seemed to have lost the power to speak, Lily replied in a lack-luster manner. "Hey…"
This however seemed to have caught her friends' attention, and when they finally deigned to reactivate the brains that had short-circuited at the sight of such godliness, Carina and Sierra both added their own hello's.
Lily was left to wonder why Carina seemed to be lost under the spell of someone she had claimed to dislike a few short months ago, but Lily soon shrugged this off. Carina seemed to be enjoying herself and Carina had always done as she had pleased.
Even though, at first, it had seemed Shawn had come to talk to the three of them, it quickly became apparent that he was interested in the one girl that wanted nothing to do with him – Lily.
"So Lily….excited for the upcoming Quidditch game?" asked Shawn, reverting to the topic with which he was most comfortable.
"Sure," replied Lily with a shrug. She just wanted to finish her dinner in peace, and if replying with monosyllabic answers was going to do the trick, she wasn't about to exert herself anymore that she had to.
That was, she wasn't about to exert herself anymore than she had to, before the formerly choking James Potter strode over to them.
"Hey there Goldman," said James, as he came over to stand beside the Ravenclaw.
The girls glared at him, Carina and Sierra because he was about to drive Shawn away, and Lily because it was now a custom to glare at James.
Goldman turned to James, and smiled in an utterly unconvincing manner. "Potter!"
Lily looked at the now uncomfortable Ravenclaw and the maddening Gryffindor wondering what archaic testosterone-fueled male ritual was at hand.
She brushed it off, and turning to Shawn said, "So…was there anything specific you came here to say….?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw James grin widely and nod as if to condone her obvious action of trying to get rid of Shawn. This in itself made Lily rethink her plan. James had obviously come here to get rid of the Ravenclaw for some unfathomable reason, and by driving Shawn away, Lily was helping him achieve what he wanted most. Helping Potter was absolutely out of the question, and this realization caused Lily to sit up straighter and smile encouragingly up at Shawn, now convinced that she was going to try everything in her power to make sure he stayed at their table for as long as possible.
As Shawn cast around for something fitting to say, Lily smiled in what could only be described as a flirtatious manner, and said kindly, "Would you like sit down?"
Sierra, who was sitting next to Lily, almost tripped over thin air in her haste to move away and create a space for Shawn.
The Ravenclaw smirked, glad that things were finally back on track (the "track" being that he grinned and girls fell to pieces).
James, on the other hand, scowled slowly as Shawn squeezed himself in beside Lily. Turning to Carina, who was sitting on the other side of Sierra, he asked, "Carr, mind moving over?"
Before Carina could reply, Lily looked up. "Potter," she said sweetly for Shawn's benefit, "why don't you find something else to shove down your windpipe?"
Shawn guffawed loudly, causing James to turn red in a mixture of anger and embarrassment.
Lily, satisfied that her reply had achieved the desired effect, turned to Shawn once more. "So Shawn, I've always wanted to compliment you on your excellent Chasing abilities. I mean, because of you and your wonderful leadership skills, Ravenclaw wins every game!"
Shawn smirked in a self-satisfied manner, something that infuriated James to no end.
"Every game?" he questioned. "Every game except for the ones played against Gryffindor, obviously."
Sierra nodded in agreement. The guy may be cute, but that didn't mean that he was about to beat Gryffindor!
Lily ignored him. "I mean, I've always admired your dedication when it comes to catching the waffle-"
"You mean 'quaffle'," corrected Shawn with a laugh.
Lily flushed before brightening at Shawn's next comment. "Don't worry, I'll always think of you now when I'm catching the 'waffle'," he said, in a thoroughly charming manner, brushing Lily's mistake off as an exceedingly cute blunder that besotted girls made around him.
Lily laughed as well. "Well then," she said in low tone, "you had better."
Carina and Sierra gaped at Lily, who was now flirting with the very person she had never seemed to tolerate, let alone like. At Lily's latest comment, James looked around desperately for a suitable barf bucket, feeling his dinner coming back up. 'Oh hello there Sexy Shawn, how wonderful you are with balls!' James was about to turn away, deeming the situation unsalvageable, when a more amusing thought came to mind.
If Lily liked or disliked the Ravenclaw was irrelevant at the moment. What was relevant was that James was about to prove that absolutely nobody got the better of him when it came to flirting. If what Lily was attempting to do could even be classified as 'flirting'.
James cast around for the girl whose day he was undoubtedly about to brighten, before a stellar opportunity presented itself.
Kathleen Deely, more commonly known as Kat, the brunette beater of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team came up to them, and, in seemingly concerned tones, asked, "Got all the pumpkin out of you hair then, Lily?"
Lily flushed immediately, turning to glare at a now smirking James. Earlier on in Charms, the sixth years had traveled down to Hagrid's hut to help him enlarge the pumpkins that were now surrounding them, and James, in true James Potter fashion, had managed to make his pumpkin explode in a shower of orange…all over Lily. However, contrary to popular belief, James's pumpkin had not exploded because he had wanted to amuse the class, but simply because he was terrible at Charms. Lily had rushed up to her dorm and taken a long shower to clean the pumpkin out of her hair, but her anger at James over the unfortunate incident hadn't dimmed.
"Yes, I did," replied Lily tersely, still annoyed about the incident. "Some people," here she glared at a seemingly innocent James, "don't seem to have mastered the most basic of spells yet."
Kat, oblivious to James's inadequacies in Charms, laughed as if Lily was merely joking. "Of course James knows how to enlarge things! He's quite clever, and the stunt today was probably just a Halloween joke, wasn't it James?"
James laughed smoothly, and replied with a, "Of course it was joke, sweetheart!" He slid an arm around a surprised Kat's shoulders, causing her eyes to widen to the size of galleons, and a faint blush to appear on her cheeks.
Lily gritted her teeth so as to prevent from commenting on James's insufferable behavior, and turned back to Shawn.
But before Lily could say anything, James piped up once more. "You were great during the Ravenclaw vs. Hufflepuff match Kat," complimented James, squeezing her shoulders. "I couldn't help but keep my eyes on you the entire time…" he trailed off suggestively, adding a wink for effect.
Lily was visibly gagging at his blatant attempt to win the beater over, but nobody seemed to notice, least of all Kat, who was too busy giggling inanely and attempting to be modest.
Sierra, however, was not about to let her rival beater get away so easily. "Oh yes, Kathleen," she added, "you were marvelous. Simply marvelous. I mean, I'm sure nobody noticed you hitting the bludgers towards your own team or the time you almost fell off your broom." Sierra grinned up at the astonished Ravenclaw, well aware that she was exaggerating just a bit. "Without your efforts, I'm sure Ravenclaw wouldn't have been able to scrape by with a win."
Both Kathleen and Shawn turned to glare at Sierra, visibly casting around for a suitably crushing retort.
James glared at his beater as well. Despite the fact that he was laying it on a bit thick when it came to Kat's beating abilities, Sierra's Quidditch rivalry, something he would have gladly encouraged at any other time, was about to cost him a chance to annoy Evans. Didn't Sierra realize that he was trying to aggravate Lily?
"Well, Kat, it doesn't really matter," said Lily, now turning to Shawn. "Shawn here, more than saved the day with his five goals." Lily had, in one move, managed to insult Kat further and, judging from Shawn's expression, mollify the Ravenclaw captain greatly.
Shawn grinned and, in a pathetically lame attempt to be modest, said, "Now, Lil, a player is only as strong as his team. I couldn't have done it without the rest of them." The Ravenclaw waved his hand vaguely as if to indicate that the 'rest of them' were not quite as important as he was suggesting.
Lily laughed, trying her best not to correct Shawn as he proceeded to call her 'Lil', while James looked on in horrified amazement. He didn't know exactly what was bothering him about the Lily-Shawn Debacle before him, but he reacted to it in the only way he could.
He turned back to Kat and engaged her in conversation, making her laugh out loud quite a few times, causing James to grin in a satisfied manner and give Lily pointed looks. The looks clearly said that if James still liked her she could have been the one enjoying herself with him, but since he quite obviously couldn't stand her, she could go off and procreate with Goldman to produce beautiful, if dim, children and he wouldn't give a damm. Or something like that.
Lily, for reasons unknown, was finding the laughing couple in front of her very hard to stomach. She was also trying not to notice that, despite everything, James looked quite attractive when he laughed. Something that Kat apparently noticed as well, if her too-loud laughing and incessant hair flicking was any indication. Lily tried not to look as irritated as she felt, and the most irritating thing of all was that she didn't even know WHY she felt irritated.
"…so do you wanna?"
Lily looked up at Shawn who had apparently been talking while she was fuming, and was now looking at her questioningly. Lily tried desperately to remember what Shawn had been talking to her about. It wasn't her fault she had tuned out! Shawn just didn't interest her - at all.
Lily was about to say no to whatever Shawn wanted her to do when the sight of James's playful tugging at Kat's hair distracted her.
As if possessed, Lily turned back to Shawn and smiled slowly. "Of course I want to…" she said, in reply to his earlier query. Now if only she knew what she was agreeing to.
"Great! So I'll see you out there on Saturday." Shawn grinned at her one last time, and Lily smiled back. As soon as he was back at the Ravenclaw table, and James and Kat had moved away, she turned to Sierra and Carina who were looking at her with faint amusement.
"Alright, what did I just agree to?" Lily asked, a faint note of desperation entering her voice.
Carina looked up from her treacle tart and smirked slightly. "Lils, you are going to sacrifice your sleep, something that I know for a fact you hate doing, and get up at seven on Saturday so you can see Shawn, the object of your recent affection, whack a 'waffle' around the pitch. Did I mention this was at seven on a Saturday morning? And that the practice would last for four hours…starting at seven? AM?"
Lily groaned. "Why didn't you stop me?"
Sierra shrugged. "I was eating." Then, she sat up straighter and looked at Lily with considerably more interest than before. "Hey, you can be our spy!"
"Your what?"
"Our spy! Since you have an excuse to watch the Ravenclaw team practice, you can write down their strategies so that we know what to prepare for when we play them later on in the year!"
"Now, wait a minute-"
"James! James, get over here now!" yelled Sierra, waving at the bemused Quidditch Captain.
After flirting with Kat some more James sauntered over to Sierra. "What?"
"Ok, so Shawn invited Lily to come watch him practice Quidditch with the Ravenclaw team, so I was thinking that she could go over and sp-"
"Wait a second." James looked at Lily, surprise quite clearly adorning his features. "Shawn asked Evans to watch him play Quidditch? And Evans, instead of lecturing him on the 'atrocities of the stupid game', agreed?"
Lily turned around from her dessert so fast, she swore her neck cracked. The incredulity present in James's voice when he asked Sierra about Shawn inviting her to watch him play Quidditch infuriated her.
Lily turned around from her dessert so fast, she swore her neck cracked. The incredulity present in James's voice when he asked Sierra about Shawn inviting her to watch him play Quidditch infuriated her. Was it truly so inconceivable that Shawn would invite her to watch him play Quidditch? This from the boy who had asked her out every day for the past two years? "Yes, Potter, he invited me to watch his Quidditch practice. I agreed because he did not ruffle his hair in a pompous manner, cause a big scene in the middle of the Great Hall, or embarrass/humiliate me."
It seemed that the majority of her small, impromptu speech went through James's left ear, and out through his ass, "Wait…you said yes?"
This was evidentially not the right thing to say, as Lily swelled in the manner of an irritated bullfrog, "Yes, I said yes. Why wouldn't I?"
James opened and closed his mouth, before coming up with a suitable response. "So, I asked you out to Hogsmeade, walks around the lake, and various other romantic pursuits which you probably would have enjoyed and you refused. He asked you to go watch him play a sport you detest, and you said yes?"
"He asked me to go watch him play a sport I detest without an arrogant smirk or a conceited head ruffle."
"And that alone is grounds for acceptance these days?"
"Well it helps that he's hot." Sierra piped up, quite unwilling to let this conversation go without putting her two cents in.
"Thanks, Sierra, your support is overwhelming."
James turned to Sierra and said loudly, "Who asked you?"
"I volunteered information," Sierra informed him magnanimously, while Lily turned red beside her.
"Don't you dare snap at her, Potter."
"Excuse me?" James and Sierra looked at her in astonishment. Quibbling like they had been was something of a ritual for them. They had been friends for so long, it had become a tradition in it's own right, and for Lily to take their harmless banter seriously was a first.
"Yea, Potter, don't snap at her! You don't see me calling Sirius fat and ugly!" Carina pushed into the conversation with all the delicacy of an orangutan, as Sirius looked up, his mouth full of food.
James did not bother to dignify this with a reply, while Sirius called from his place further down the table, "You know you love me!" Carina turned back to the conversation with a slight smile on her face. Her smile faded quickly.
James and Lily were glaring at each other with expressions of utmost loathing, and Lily was clutching her knife as if she dearly wanted to stab someone with it.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Evans, but why would you agree to go out with a brainless git with a pointy head?" Carina turned to look at Goldman.
"His head is not … pointy!" Carina hissed in outrage. James rolled his eyes, muttering about hopeless infatuation.
"Potter, let me tell you something about hopeless infatuation. You see, a couple of years ago, there was an immature bigheaded wanker who followed me around like a lost puppy, begging to go out with me. Even though I refused time and time again, he kept on asking me, ruffling his hair and smirking in unwarranted satisfaction. Remind you of anyone?"
"Lily," James glared at Lily, his expression hard and intimidating, "once there was a 'loser' who liked a girl for reasons unknown, because you see, this 'loser' wanted to see the good in everyone, even in a bookish, snobbish know-it-all. Despite the fact that she shoved her nose in the air as far as it could go, and insulted him whenever possible, he doted on her, asking her out, presenting her with gifts, and showering her with compliments. All he got for his troubles was unnecessary rudeness and unwarranted insults. Tell me, Evans, who does this hypocritical bitch remind you off?"
After the initial gasp throughout the hall from students and teachers alike, silence reigned, as Lily and James stared at each other fiercely, each willing the other to crack first, each seeing the events of the past as a reel of cutting, poignant images.
Flashback
James sneered at Lily. "Are you quite done being an annoying busybody or is there more?"
Lily drew herself up to her full height. "You, James Potter, are a disgrace to the name of wizard. I don't understand why you have to prank people. You're not in first year anymore Potter. Grow up!"
End FlashbackAs one, James and Lily saw images from the past few months dancing before their eyes, taunting them, teasing them.
Flashback
"You expect me to believe this? This…this completely unbelievable story?"
James looked at her. "Well, of course since it's the truth," he said, as sincerely as he could.
Lily looked at him another moment, before spinning around without another word, and stalking towards the Gryffindor common room
End FlashbackHe remembered how she had taken any comment he made, joking or otherwise, and blown it totally out of proportion.
Flashback
"'Why ride a broom when you can ride a Quidditch player'," he read aloud, snickering.
Lily's face flamed. "Sierra gave it to me as a joke Christmas present last year, ok?" she demanded, testily. "I wasn't planning on getting wet!"
"S'ok Evans, it's good to have it all out in the open. Now which Quidditch players have you been riding recently, or is there more than one?"
Lily gasped out loud, before blushing inadvertently. She couldn't believe he had made such a derogatory remark. "We all aren't whores like you Potter," she snapped.
His face went slack at her comment. Was Lily Evans using such words now? "What the hell do you mean?"
"Shagged anyone in a broom cupboard lately?"
End Flashback
James looked through his memories one by one, looking at how she had snubbed him, hurt him, and rejected him.
Flashback
"The day I go out with Potter is day I throw myself of a cold, godforsaken cliff in the middle of bloody nowhere to be eaten by a bunch of fire salamanders in a friggin' pit of boiling hot, body melting, toxic lava."
End Flashback
And as he watched the images etched across the inside of his eyelids, he remembered his unspoken midnight resolve many month ago.
James Potter was finally over Lily Evans.
Flashback
"I just wanted to say that I was sorry-"
"What was that Evans?" asked James in mock horror, holding one hand up to his ear as if he was hard of hearing. "Mind repeating that? Didn't quite hear you..."
Lily snarled. "I said sorry," she repeated with great difficulty.
"Ok." James shrugged and walked down the hall.
End FlashbackLily remembered how he treated her when she tried to apologize. She remembered how he had hurt Snape the year before, in the infamous Lake Scene. She thought back to how he had behaved in their shared detention, and how he had called her bitch just minutes before.
Flashbacks
"There she goes, running from the fights she starts…as always." James gave her an infuriating look, blatantly daring her to come back. "Where are you off to Evans? Hiding under your bed reading doesn't really help the cowardly image…"
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
"Evans, calling you stupid would be an insult to stupid people."
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Before Lily could reply, James butted in. "Why are you asking her? Ms. Evans has been known to jump to conclusions and dismiss the opinions of others if they do not match up with her pre-conceived notions."
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
"Well James, with his sterling record, couldn't possibly be behind this could he?" replied Lily sardonically. "I mean, he's quite well known around the castle for his heroic effort and good deeds…why would anyone suspect him?"
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
"I really cannot believe you, Potter. It always seems that you're at your most despicable, but then, you sink even lower. You're below a toxic, nuclear waste disposal at the moment; I don't think it's possible to sink any lower. But knowing you Potter, I'm sure you'll find a way. Your utterly egotistical and sexist remarks give you a lower score than Snape, in my eyes, Potter."
James's eyes widened in shock at her last shot, before narrowing in fury: "You know what, Evans? Don't turn bloody sanctimonious and pious on me, ok? Would you go out on a date with someone who looked like a troll? I didn't think so. We're just writing down what we think for reference, so before you go calling us names, take a look in a mirror. Unless, you've cracked them all, already."
End FlashbacksIn one swift, gone – too – fast – to – notice – it – was – here instant, all the cutlery and the windows in the Great Hall shattered into a million pieces. Much like James's heart and Lily's smile had many times before.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
A/N: Worth the wait? We certainly hope so. Did you guys like the "dun-dun-DUN!" ending? We've been building up to it for a while and hope it was worth it. Thanks for reading and please review!
Take care,
CL