OMG I NEVER ADDED THE LAST CHAPTER. I'M SO SORRY I'M THE WORST even though there's only a few people reading this, I feel bad for those of you that I kept waiting. I found this out cuz some people in my college marching band like to bring up my fanfiction past every now and then, so I guess you can thank them XD especially James and Josh =P
A yawn escaped my lips before I could protest. Apparently I was more tired than I had thought. A quick glance at the watch on my wrist informed me that it was a little past 3:30. My friends in the common room were probably worrying about me now that the SpyScoper was destroyed and I hasn't reappeared yet. I sighed wearily. My stupid conscience was going to make me take the fastest route back to assuage their worry quickly, wasn't it.
My suspicions were confirmed when I heard myself agree to flying. "All I wanted was a pair of pants," I grumbled.
James let out a laugh, the vibrations reverberating through his chest and down my back. "You got me instead. What a lucky girl," he teased.
My only response was to elbow him as best as I could from this position and clutch tighter onto the broom handle in front of me as James started to guide the Kiteflyer upwards. "If I get splinters in my butt, I'm going to Avada you," I threatened.
James had the nerve to simply laugh again before starting to ascend the stairs. I immediately leaned back into the solid safety of James' chest, terrified as I watched the stairs zoom by underneath my dangling legs. There was a reason I didn't like flying. I had very little coordination to boast about, which is generally significant if one wishes to stay astride a broomstick.
"Calm down Lily, we're barely moving," James murmured in my ear. I was squished so close against him in my desperate attempts to stay balanced that he barely had to move his head at all to speak to me.
"This is much faster than walking," I managed to casually reply, although my voice sounded smaller than I would've liked. Flying wasn't the greatest even on its own, and sitting sideways on a broom while someone else was whizzing it up the stairs was not something I enjoyed. I tried to scoot forward on the broom; I partially blamed the annoying weakness in my voice on the proximity of the boy behind me.
"Not really," James disagreed. He nudged the broom left to turn up a different staircase, and I nearly toppled sideways off the broom. Pain spiked through my knee as I tried to balance myself, and I let out a shrill squeak. "Are you okay?" James demanded, sounding a little panicked. His grip tightened around my torso, drawing me closer against him. I could feel the planes of his very solid abdomen against my back, the beat of his heart, his body heat soaking through the thin fabric of my camisole. His hand spread across my waist, long fingers wrapped around my hip. It made me shiver, but in an annoyingly pleasant, warm sort of way.
I sucked in a breath to calm myself. "It's just my knee," I replied, a tad breathlessly, but obviously only because of my injury. "It really hurts."
"Maybe I should take you to the hospital wing instead," James murmured, sounding conflicted.
"No, don't!" I begged hastily, twisting haphazardly on the broom to look up into his very startled eyes. Somehow, I didn't fall off. "Pomfrey can't see me like this! I'll have to explain, and I can't do that Potter, I just can't."
"Okay Lily, we don't have to," he replied soothingly, obviously confused by my adamancy to forgo a hospital wing visit. "I'm just worried about the damage you did to your knee."
"I'll go see Pomfrey tomorrow, don't think about it," I said dismissively, settling back into my seat leaning against him and refocusing on not falling off the broom.
"I can't help but think about you," James said softly.
Well, I didn't really have a reply to that. It wasn't as if I was unaware of the emotional tensions that had been rising between us for awhile now, but it also wasn't as if I was going to acknowledge them. I didn't exactly know how to feel about James Potter when he was acting like a normal human being instead of an annoying git. It was easier to simply not figure out how to feel and move past comments like that.
We rode in silence for awhile after that, slowly ascending staircases while I tried to muffle squeaks of pain from my knee jolting around. James always caught them though, and after awhile he insisted on keeping one hand on my leg so my knee would be pressed to his and unable to move around anymore. I was fairly positive my cheeks were blazing at that point, what with James Potter's long fingers wrapped about my thigh, and was extremely thankful he couldn't see my face at the moment.
He was a git, but if this was how Sabrina Hullbane felt while he carried her up to the hospital wing then I almost couldn't blame her for her giddiness. James was an irritatingly intoxicating sort of person. I'd spent seven years pushing past the effects of his charm, but it still got to me when I spent too much time with him, this current misadventure included.
Three small spats of bickering, eighteen stifled gasps of pain, and 9 incriminatingly kind thoughts toward James Potter later, we stood at the entrance to the portrait hole, me leaning slightly on the wall to support myself. The Fat Lady was snoozing in her frame, completely unaware of our presence. "Thanks," I said softly, avoiding eye contact with James.
"It's only my Head Boy duty to keep the Head Girl in line," he teased. I grinned sheepishly, acknowledging that he had indeed helped me out of a scrape tonight.
"I'll owe you one, Potter," I promised, hoping I wouldn't regret it.
James nudged my chin with the back of his hand, startling me into looking up at him. "I'll cash that favor in now," he informed me quietly. "Call me James. It's my name, you know."
I looked away again, unable to look in his eyes when he spoke like that. It made me wonder if he ever fought with his thoughts about me the way I did with my thoughts about him. He'd always been flirtatious, but never seemed to show any sign of the kind of powerful, conflicting feelings I struggled with.
But that was beside the point. It couldn't hurt to let him waste his favor on me giving up using his surname."Okay," I finally conceded, staring intently at a flagstone under the toes of my loafers.
"Okay who?" he prompted.
"Okay, James."
I chanced a peek up, and found him smiling at me in a way I was completely unprepared to see. Damn these butterflies; my stomach didn't get the memo on avoiding reacting to this kid. "You don't know how amazing it feels to hear that from you," James breathed, taking a step forward.
"Your own name turns you on? What a narcissist," I tried to joke. My voice only came out breathless and nervous though, ruining the lighthearted effect I had been aiming for.
"You want to know what turns me on, Lily Evans?" James asked, stepping forward again. I found myself suddenly encased between him and the wall right beside the sleeping Fat Lady. How the bloody hell had that happened?
"Umm, no?" I squeaked, feeling my hands reach up of their own accord. I wondered what they were doing, only to realize that they had traveled to rest on James' chest as I stared up at him. Oh no, I was a little afraid that I wasn't afraid of the direction this was going.
"Umm, yes," James teased breathlessly. He wrapped his arms loosely around my waist, and for a moment I couldn't find the words to protest. Before I knew what was happening, James had bent down lightning fast and scooped me into the air, so quickly that even my fussy knee didn't have time to protest. I let out a small surprised yelp, but it wasn't even enough to wake the Fat Lady before the sound was halted with James' lips.
I dangled in the air, completely at James' mercy as he held me close and kissed me surprisingly softly. He turned and stumbled backwards a step so he could lean against the wall, and I was helpless to do anything but cling to him for balance. He was holding me in just the way I hadn't wanted him to carry me earlier, and his arms had the exact effect on me that I had feared they would. My body melted far too easily into his touch, and I couldn't help but let James Potter kiss me. It was shocking and warm, unacceptable and sweet, alarming and intoxicating - basically everything that such a kiss represented.
Embarrassingly enough, he was the one to pull away first. At first I couldn't bring myself to open my eyes and look at him, but when I finally did, I'm fairly certain they were wider than they had ever been before. "James?" I asked, my voice cracking slightly.
James actually groaned, setting me down carefully on the floor before smiling again. "My name in your voice," he stated abruptly. "Your insults. Your hand on my arm. Your quick little retorts when I say something dumb. When you flick your hair around. When one of your socks is rolled higher than the other and I try not to get caught staring at your legs. Pretty much anything to do with Lily Evans."
"What are you on about?" I demanded, feeling my cheeks flush from both his words and the aftereffects of the kiss. I fought the urge to raise a hand to touch my lips.
"You wanted to know what turned me on," he replied, a devilish little smirk tugging at his mouth.
I gaped at James. I was caught between trying to remember all the details he had just listed out and trying to figure out how to respond to them, and consequently couldn't bring myself to speak at all.
"Oh," he spoke up again. "And one more thing."
James moved closer again, his head tilted down closer to my level. Moonlight glinted a little off the lenses of his glasses, and I couldn't see the expression in his eyes. My breath caught in my throat a little as I stood there, rather paralyzed from this onslaught of both physical and emotional sensation. He was going to kiss me again, and at this point I was barely even surprised to realize that I wasn't the smallest bit upset about that.
"The one thing that really gets me, Lily, is just…" James murmured, his breath warm against my skin. I tried not to let the obvious teasing affect me, but I wasn't sure how effectively I was resisting.
Lightning fast, James reached out, snapped the elastic of knickers against my hip, making me gasp with surprise. He pressed another quick kiss to my mouth before leaping backward and hopping on his broom. Before I could even begin to react, he had laughed, called out, "Orange knickers!" and zoomed off down the hall and out of sight.
Was I even surprised that he had to end this encounter on a line like that?
My mouth quirked into a smile before I could bring myself to stop it. No, I wasn't, and for some reason his antics didn't bother me as much as usual when preceded by a kiss like that.
When I finally stumbled into the Gryffindor common room, my head swirling with confusion over how I was going to handle myself around James now and my knee throbbing with pain, my friends all let out giggles and catcalls, blissfully unaware of how awry the dare had gone.
"Did you break my SpyScoper?" Marlene accused, pouting up at me from behind her bottle of butterbeer. "We've been waiting for ages since the connection broke!"
"You don't look very wet! Did you actually do it?" Em pressed further, getting up from her seat in front of the fire to inspect me more closely.
"You look like a changed woman, Lils," Petra giggled, probably noting the distinct change that had overcome me since I had left. "So is skinny dipping that much of an experience?"
They all waited for my answers, grinning and innocent.
I opened my mouth, at a loss of what I could even say to them about this late night escapade. Three sets of expectant eyes were locked on me, and my mind raced through the events of the past hour before halting on a very crucial detail. My eyes narrowed.
"For the love of Merlin, Sirius Black still has my pants!"
not the best, not the worst? maybe I'll edit it when I'm not drowning in the pits of hell they call 'final week of instruction.' review if you'd like (:
~TMI~