"You still up for swimming or do you want to do something else?" James asked Looking at lily who seemed to be deep in thought.
"What ah yeah sure, it will take my mind off things." Lily said with a smile on her face but James knew that the smile was a way of Lily hiding the sorrow she was still feeling.
As Lily and James walked through the front door Sirius came bounding across the ballroom, like a five-year-old who was excited to see his parents.
"Finally…I was going out of my mind, there's only so many cakes one can eat!" Sirius exclaimed and mock pouting.
"Well looks like we have come just in time to save your sanity." James laughed.
"You mean what's LEFT of it!" Lily corrected James with a small smile, which made James laugh harder.
"Lillian I'm shocked! Everyone knows that I'm about the most non insane person there ever was." Sirius was showing a false look of hurt on his hansom face.
"Who ever has been telling you that has been lying for a llooonnng time." Lily said this with her eyebrows raised now truly thinking that there was something not right about Sirius, and was contemplating how he could be better at her then transfiguration.
"I'm hurt, Hurt I say!" Sirius threw his hands out in all directions emphasising how hurt and shocked he was before tumbling down to the ground.
"Yes, Padfoot your very hurt and shocked, but I bet I know something that will make you come back to your senses." James said this looking down at Sirius with a smile on his face.
"What…What…What." Sirius was still lying down on the floor but was throwing his arms all over the place.
"Swimming!" As soon as James said the word Sirius was up of the floor with a large smile on his face and mysterious glint in his eye.
They were all heading out into the garden towards the pool that Lily knew all to well, when Sirius pulled off his t-shirt, showing off his toned upper body and went running to the pool and bombing into glittering water, splashing water everywhere with a girl scream, before swimming over to the edge jumping out and going down the slide screaming "WEEE" the whole way down.
James soon followed suit pulling off his t-shirt, and shocked Lily with his also well toned body from all the Quidditch that he did, he had muscles in all the right places and looked more hansom then ever, which left Lily looking at him shocked and blushing slightly. 'No this is madness James is a good friend, nothing else, stop gawping, stop looking, but he does look good.' Lily found herself thinking as James ran and jumped into the pool following Sirius's example.
"Oi! You coming in or what?" James yelled from the pool, pulling Lily out of her thoughts as she took off her short and vest top to show a green bikini, which she had been wearing under her clothes.
James had been watching Lily taking off her clothes and was momentarily stunned at how beautiful she looked, and noticed how self-conscious she was looking as she pulled off her shorts to reveal her bikini bottoms, and then slowly walking over to the edge of the swimming pool, and looking at the water. It looked from where James was treading water that Lily was debating if she really wanted to go in or not, but it seemed that Lily was going in if she wanted to or not, when all of a sudden Sirius came out of nowhere and pushed Lily straight into the water who let out a loud scream as she hit the water.
Lily came to the surface of water splattering and looking around her at the two laughing face of Sirius and James, but once Lily turned and shot a deadly look at Sirius, he quickly stopped laughing and started to swim away as Lily went chasing after him.
Once Lily caught up with Sirius she grabbed his head and dunked him under the water holding down his head for a few seconds before letting go, and watching Sirius come to the surface and taking a deep breath, not expecting Lily to then push him back under again before swimming over to where James was treading water with a smug look on her face. James was just laughing at the pair of them.
"You know his gonna want revenge for that." James said to Lily as Sirius made his way over to them.
"Uhuh." Lily said while watching Sirius approaching her with a smile on his face. In fact it seemed that Sirius didn't have any plans on plotting revenge, instead he dunked James quickly under the water, which left Lily laughing her head off as she saw the shocked, and disbelieving look on James's face.
After a moment James came to the surface and took a large intake of breath looking at Lily who was still giggling, and James smiled a warm caring smile. He was happy that Lily seemed to be enjoying herself, but also he noticed how much more beautiful she looked when she was laughing and having bits of her red hair stuck to her face. It made James just want to hold her close and kiss her, but he knew for many reasons that this couldn't happen. For one he had only just got Lily's trust and friendship and he didn't want to ruin what he already had with Lily, secondly there was the fact that he was still technically dating Kate.
James had been meaning to break up with Kate before the summer holidays. In fact James still couldn't quiet understand how he had ended up dating her in the first place. It was more she asked him if she wanted to meet up for a drink at the Three Broomsticks one Hogsmead weekend, and the next thing he knew he was dating Kate. This confused James immensely as the only person he really wanted to be with was Lily. Kate was attractive and smart, but she was too clingy and full of herself, for James's liking. James wanted someone who was smart, funny, caring and the person that was less then a meter away from him.
James was soon snapped out of his thoughts when water when flying over his head after Sirius had done yet another bomb dive into the water, holding a brightly coloured beach ball. At the edge of the pool goals seemed to have magically appeared from out of nowhere. James grinned and Lily smiled knowing that this was going to be a game till the death, having three of the most competitive people in Hogwarts in on pool.
Sirius tossed the ball into the goal where James retrieved it and swam over to the other hoop where he was stopped in his tracks by Sirius swimming rather quickly over to him and dunking him, which left Lily the chance to still the ball and score straight into the open goal with a grin on her face.
All too soon the game was getting fierce with someone getting dunk every second, and the ball travelling from person to person so regularly that it was impossible for anyone to keep up with where the ball was, let alone score a goal.
Lily had the ball in her hand after tackling Sirius for it, when all of a sudden she felt something underneath her and before she knew it Lily was being lifted up into the air and screaming out of shock. James had snuck underneath Lily and lifted her onto his shoulders, giving Lily a clear shot at the goal before Sirius tackled him when both him and Lily went screaming and flying into the water.
An hour later and all three of the teenagers were exhausted, hungry and thirsty so they climbed out of the pool and grabbed their clothes before walking into the house and upstairs to get changed into some dry clothes.
"Here Lil's you can use my bathroom I'll pop into the bathroom up the hall, see you in a min." James said as they reached his door, before continuing up the corridor talking to Sirius about the latest Quidditch match.
Ten minutes later and all three were now dry, cleanly clothed and heading down towards the sitting room, where Lily immediately jumped onto the largest settee and laid down, watching Sirius take suit and lay across the smaller of the settees, leaving James the rug in front of the fire.
"Oh no you don't I'm not sitting on the floor in me own house!" James exclaimed before lifting Lily's upper body, and sitting where she had been laying. James then picked up a cushion put it on his lap and let Lily rest her head in his lap. Unknown to Lily and James, Sirius had been watching this with amusement in his eyes. It was obvious that Prongs liked Lily, but now Sirius was sure that James's liking to Lily had moved onto another level. Yet Lily seemed oblivious to James's feelings, and in Sirius's mind maybe her own too.
"So Lillian did you get that great big shiny red badge today then?" Sirius asked from his laying position breaking the silence, which had, settled among the three, and silence wasn't something that Sirius liked.
"Yes I did thank you, so if I catch you up to anything its straight into detention!" Lily said this mockingly pointing a finger at Sirius and trying not to let the edges of her mouth rise into a small smile, while James sat there smiling and moved a bit of Lily's hair out of her eyes.
"OOOO fighting words." Sirius replied with a smile on his face, obviously thinking up the first prank to play of the year.
"Padfoot what prank you thinking up?" James asked noticing the look on Sirius's face all to well.
"Well Prongs it's a need to know basis, and right now you don't need to know." Sirius stuck his nose in the air with a satisfied smirk on his face, while James sent him over a look of utter bewilderment. "Anyway I need food, I'm wasting away to practically nothing."
"Well Padfoot you know where the kitchen is, and I'm certain you know where the fridge is." James laughed over at Sirius who was now starting to get up from the settee.
"I'll come with you Sirius, I'm feeling the need for a snack now that you've started talking about food." Lily laughed standing up and heading towards the door.
"Well if you're both going." James threw the cushion to one side and got up following the other two into the kitchen.
Lily, James and Sirius were now sitting at the table eating their way through large chunks of chocolate cake and drinking nice and refreshing butter beer, and playing a wizarding board game, where each player was a different coloured robed person on a broom that hovered over the playing spaces. The aim of the game was to simply be the one who ended on the last space with the most money after having to paying silly taxes and penalties. It reminded Lily a lot of the muggle game called Game of Life.
"Damn is that the time?" Lily looked up at the clock and noticed that it was half past seven already.
"Lillian its not that late, it's only half seven, surely you can stay to finish loosing." Sirius looked at Lily with an eyebrow raised.
"Yeah but I promised my Nan that I would be home by seven for dinner, she's doing a big roast to celebrate me getting my badge." Lily exclaimed now jumping out of her seat, and rushing out of the kitchen to find her flip-flops. "Ahh where are they?" Lily was still looking for her shoes now in the ballroom.
"What these?" James asked holding up a pair of green flip-flops, with a smile on his face.
Fifteen minutes Lily had made it back to her Nan's after the fastest walk of her life. When Lily walked through the front door she could already see her Nan sitting up at the table with her dinner in front of her.
"I'm so sorry I'm late Nan, I just lost track of time." Lily apologised, but could still see the disappointed look on Pats face.
"It's not a problem, your dinner is in the microwave if you want to grab it." Pat motioned towards the little white microwave.
After taking her dinner out of the microwave, and placing it down on the table next to her Nan before getting a knife and fork from the draw and sitting down eating her dinner in silence.
