Disclaimer:What a silly question, are you J.K Rowling? The famous author of the Harry Potter series, a novelist who inspires children to read by their work and is richer than the queen? Of course I am... In reality, no :(
Chapter 8: Failing Flirting
The news that Remus was going out with Felicity spread threw the school like wildfire and by Halloween everyone had heard about it. Lily was more than happy for the couple, though she suspected that Remus wasn't the happiest about it and by the looks of it he wasn't the only one.
Claudia had been having her fair share of temper tantrums and ridiculous rages about the couple and Lily suspected it was the fact that Felicity was going out with HER ex and the fact that Remus actually said yes. Unbeknown to all this, Felicity was over the moon. It turned out that she had liked Remus for quite a while, even when, she confided in Lily, when Claudia was going out with him.
On Halloween morning Lily was sitting at the Gryffindor table by herself and looked up in time to see Felicity and Remus walking threw the doors holding hands. Lily smiled and waved at them when they got closer to sit with her.
"This week was our six week anniversary!" Felicity blurted out as they sat down across from her. Lily raised an eyebrow at Remus who shrugged. For someone who didn't really like the person he was going out with, Remus had been going out with her an awfully long time. Lily made a mental note to ask him at some point.
"Oh? Congratulations," Lily said to Felicity who was glowing in happiness.
"I know, right?" Felicity said without tearing her eyes away from Remus. Lily, who felt oddly uncomfortable made her excuse to Felicity (who probably was too busy staring at Remus to have heard her Lily thought later) and walked out into the Entrance Hall. At the bottom of the Marble staircase, she saw James and Sirius snickering. Curious, she went over and joined them.
"What's so funny?" Lily interrupted them in the middle of their laughing fit.
"Remus 'sniffle' is still 'snort' going out with 'hiccup' Felicity!" James managed to gasp out in between his snorts of laughter.
"Yeah, I just saw them in the Great Hall together. I'm glad I'm not Remus, I don't think I would be able to stand it to have a person staring at me like that for six weeks straight," Lily told them when they had calmed down.
"Yeah, well, we had expected Remus to have dumped her before now. But he's hanging in there longer than we thought. Hmm maybe we should raise the stakes?" Sirius said, turning to James who shrugged.
"Stakes?" Lily asked them curiously.
"We bet that Remus would have been the gentleman and have broken up with her ages ago when he got the courage to say no but you know Moony, always trying to defy nature. But I didn't think he would really last so long. But it has been god damn amusing for us!" James explained as a new serge of laughter over came Sirius.
"So what are you gonna bet to make him cave?"
"Nothing! It's worth losing 10 gallons to watch Felicity following him around like a puppy!" Sirius said happily and left, skipping up the marble staircase.
"What lesson have you got first?" James asked her once the sound of Sirius's singing had faded into the distance.
"Ancient Runes," Lily replied, who still had an eyebrow raised in the direction Sirius left in.
"Mind if I walk you there? Might give you something to talk about to Claudia and co." James offered and Lily speechlessly accepted, not knowing why James was being so nice to her.
"So having any fun being a girl?" James asked her, trying to break the ice that had seemed to consume them.
"Ah hah! So that's why you asked me if you could walk to class with me! You just want to get the dirt on what happens in the girls dormitory," Lily exclaimed, proud of herself for figuring it out. James just looked at her with an eyebrow raised.
"Not really. I was just trying to make conversation, if I wanted to find out what type of pajamas you wore I'd just go ask Patience," James said, smirking "By the way, what type of pajamas do you wear?"
James had forgotten how much being thumped by Lily hurt.
"So Remus is only going out with Felicity in spite of you two? I thought it might have been something like that but still, poor Felicity," Lily said after James had stopped rubbing his arm.
"I think she's quite enjoying it actually," James said smartly. Lily just looked at him with a blank expression on her face.
"Well of course she's enjoying now! She's getting what she's wanted for couple of years and the second Remus breaks it off she'll be devastated and heart broken and I'll be spending weeks trying to tell her that he wasn't worth it and how much of a scumbag Remus was and then she'll tell everyone and for a while Remus isn't going to have a social life coz all the girls won't be going near him coz Felicity said not too and it won't be until Felicity is going out with someone else that she'll forget about him and girls will find it safe to come out and be around him,"
James had a look of shock on his face.
"You memorized all that in six weeks? Wow"
"That, and loads more," Lily said sadly as they continued to walk to her classroom.
"I'm sorry," James said suddenly after they had sunk yet again into silence.
"For what?" Lily asked, turning her head to face him.
"For making you do this. I know it must have been pretty hard when we, well, mainly Sirius sprung it on you," James said, and what Lily could tell was real sincerity.
"Yeah well, I said I'd do it and I am," Lily told him stiffly as they reached her classroom.
"Lily, just remember that we actually still want to be your friends. And, be careful, don't become something you don't want to be," James said before walking off down the same corridor they had just come down while Lily watched him, feeling very confused.
-:-
"Oh my god, was the James Potter who walked you to class?" Felicity gushed as she sat down in her usual spot next to Lily.
"Yeah, it was," Lily said, wondering how Felicity always found out about stuff that she was never around for.
"That's so sweet! I bet he likes you, in fact, it's so obvious that he does," she said shaking her head "It's not that hard to figure it out,"
Lily stared at her with a blank expression "Explain"
"Staring at you, offering to walk you to class, both typical signs that a boy is interested," she said knowledgably as they took their seats towards the back of the classroom.
"Interested in what?"
"You, silly, what did you think, your pajamas?"
By now Lily had learnt to conceal her laughter quite well, however she didn't have a chance to reply until Double Runes came to a close.
"So what do you think I should do?" Lily asked her as they left their classroom and made their way to the Charms corridor.
"Well we'll need to get one issue out of the way first. Do you like James Potter?" Felicity asked her, stopping in the middle of the corridor. Lily found herself speechless. She hadn't been expecting this question though it was probably the most obvious question under the circumstances. She thought that Felicity would have told her to flirt with him like crazy to get his attention and become his girlfriend, regardless of the fact whether she actually liked him or not. She must have had a confused expression on her face as she thought this as Felicity groaned.
"This is going to take a while," she said, grabbing Lily's wrist and dragging her off to the out of order bathroom on the third floor.
"But what about charms?" Lily complained when Felicity finally let her wrist go in order to open the door.
"What about it? Your love life is so much more interesting,"
She pushed the door open and motioned for Lily to enter, who grudgingly did so. Felicity followed her in, locking the door behind them so as not to be disturbed. Lily walked into the aisle of cubicles and sat down and lent against the wall in between the cubicles. Felicity sat down right in front of her and crossed her legs and lent in towards Lily, her head resting in her hands.
"So," Felicity stared at Lily, who was beginning to feel very nervous.
"So?" Lily asked questionably, feeling a twiddle bit nervous.
"So," Felicity stated again, crossing her arms "What do you see when you look at James?"
"A fifteen year old guy with black hair and brown eyes?" Lily guessed, not knowing what her answer should be.
"How do you feel when you see him?" Felicity interrogated her.
"I dunno, happy?" Lily said, wondering where the hell Felicity was leading her.
"Lily, that's hardly a justified answer. Open up! I'm one of your best friends! You can tell me. Like when I see Remus I – " Lily conveniently decided to tune out at this point, not willingly want to listen to the intimate details of her relationship with Remus. She tuned back in when she noticed that Felicity's mouth had stopped moving.
"Dig deep," Felicity prompted "How do you feel about James?"
"Well, he's really nice and is easy to talk to. I always have a good time hanging out with him and he's not really that bad looking," Lily said, trying to list off some things about James that would hopefully pass as 'in depth' enough for Felicity. It apparently was as Felicity let out a shriek.
"I knew it! I knew you had a thing for James!" she exclaimed and Lily watched her whilst she did the 'Happy Finger Dance'.
The rest of what would have been charms was spent by Felicity listing off ways to attract guys to let them know you're interested but not doing it so obviously that its like slapping them in the face. When the bell rung to signal end off class, Lily all but propelled herself out of the bathroom in an attempt to flee from Felicity's clutches. They headed off down to lunch and today mustn't have been Lily's day because Felicity spotted
"Look there he is!" she practically yelped in Lily's ear.
"Yes Felicity, there goes your boyfriend with his friend James," Lily said sarcastically, sticking her finger in her ear to try to bring back the hearing that Felicity had seemed to have scared off.
"No silly! There's James!"
"Really?" Lily said again, sarcastically though this time earning a puzzled look from Felicity.
"I mean, O M G!" Lily squealed doing a little skip, hoping that the added entertainment for the passes by would be enough to distract Felicity from her sarcastic statement and knowing Felicity's short attention span she didn't have to worry.
"I know, right! You should so totally begin putting the plan into action," Felicity said excitingly.
"What, now?" Lily asked, now panic stricken. They were in a crowded corridor where students were heading down to lunch and she wasn't really willing to totally embarrass herself pretending to flirt with James.
"Of course now! Why not? You're here and he's there," Felicity stated, pointing to each of them in turn.
"Yeah, but he's with other people," Lily stuttered, praying that only Remus was still with him and Sirius hadn't met up with them on the way down.
"Who cares silly. You just do the hair and ankle thing and excuse him. Now go!" she commanded, pushing Lily forward into the stampede of students. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for Lily, Remus and James had stopped at the top of the marble stair case and were staring over the balcony at the bustling students below. She took a deep breath and walked up to James and tapped him on the shoulder.
James turned around to find himself standing in front of Lily who was twirling her hair around her finger.
"Lily?" He asked her puzzled.
"James, can I talk to you for a minute?" Lily asked and, without waiting for a response dragged him over to the other side of the corridor and made sure James had his back to Felicity.
"What's up Lily?" James asked her unsteadily, watching her continue to twirl her hair.
"I just wanted to ask you something," Lily said, beginning to flutter her eyelids.
"Are you okay? Your eyelids are going psycho, are you having a seizure?!" James asked her, panicky. Lily resisted the urge to punch him, only because Felicity was watching.
"No you idiot," Lily said through gritting teeth "These are my attemptions at flirting,"
And that was when James Potter made the great mistake of laughing.
Lily took a step forward and, in a flirtatious way, walked her fingers up his tie as if in an effort to straighten it. Then pulled.
"Stop laughing now or I will personally hang you with this tie,"
Of course, he stopped. Nobody crossed Lily when she was angry. She got up on her tiptoes and genuinely straightened his tie before sinking down.
"Listening now?" Lily asked him sweetly, going back to twirling her hair. James nodded.
"Well, because you walked me to class, Felicity got an idea in her head that you liked me then began interrogating me about whether I liked you and now she ordered me to come over and start flirting with you," Lily told him, trying to make her explanation look as flirty as she could for Felicity's benefit.
"Which would of course explain the hair twirling," James added knowledgably.
"Yea... so I thought I would let you know I will be randomly coming up to you and twirling my hair for a while now," Lily told him, her finger beginning to cramp.
"No," James said
"What?!" Lily said sharply, nearly dropping her forced smile.
"Think about it Lily. If you continue to come up to me and to that hair twirly thing, I dunno how long I can go before I burst out laughing and if Sirius was ever around, well, you'd probably be disowned by the girl group,"
"So what do you suggest? Tell Felicity I got rejected flat out? Or that you found my attempts laughable?" Lily demanded, trying to keep her voice at normal pitch.
"No, I-" Lily looked at him expectantly.
"Lily, will you go out with me?"
Lily felt her jaw drop.
"I mean not for real, but it would probably be easier for the both of us if we made it 'official'. Besides, when we have dates we can hang out like old times. What do you say?" James gave Lily a cheeky smile. Lily stared at him in surprise.
"That sounds, I dunno, great?" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around James' neck.
"Well, if I knew this would have been your reaction, I would've asked you out sooner," James smirked
"Your lucky Felicity's here right now, otherwise I'll punch you right now. However I might just make up for it when we go on our 'dates'," Lily whispered, wearing an identical smirk, making James release his arms from around her waste.
"So when's our first date?" Lily asked James, going back to the hair twirling.
"I thought we established that the hair twirling would cease now that I asked you out?" James complained who Lily chose to ignore.
"How bout tonight? It is Halloween after all. OMG, we can totally dress up!" James exclaimed, jumping happily up and down. Lily stared at him confused.
"James, I thought I was the one who was supposed to be the girl,"
James gave her a filthy look.
"I'm going to surrender myself over to Felicity because I'm hungry and it would be cruel to leave her in suspense for too long," Lily groaned, looking over in her general direction.
"Well until tonight my beautiful girlfriend," James charmed, bowing to Lily.
"And to you my fat sir," Lily said gracefully, curtsying and leaving James standing there before he could retort to her compliment.
Lily crossed the corridor which was less busy now that most of the students were at lunch and made her way to where she had left Felicity, however when she arrived Felicity was no where to be seen. Feeling neglected, Lily made her way back to the marble staircase and descended, dodging James' waiting arms and slid into the Great Hall. Felicity wasn't here either but Claudia and Patience where and Lily took her seat on Claudia's left hand side. She helped herself to a salad wrap from the pyramid in the middle of the table and tuned into Claudia and Patience's conversation.
"He's probably only going out with her to get back at you," Patience was saying to Claudia, her own wrap lying forgotten on her plate.
"I thought so too. I mean, why else would he have even gone out with her? I mean, he already went out with me and we all know I'm the prettiest so I don't know why on earth he would have dropped his standards..." Claudia trailed off, staring off into the Entrance Hall.
"Anyway, I heard that he was planning on breaking it off with her," Patience said loudly as if Claudia had gone suddenly deaf.
"Yeah?" Claudia said without taking her eyes off the door.
"Yeah, something about he came to his senses about dating her and realized that she could never live up to the standards of the relationship you too had together,"
This was too much for Lily. She couldn't help but snort into her class of juice after hearing what Patience had said. The whole concept of Remus seeing 'the light' was just laughable.
"What?" Patience snapped and Lily shook her head and muttered "Nothing"
Sick of hearing Patience going on about how Claudia and Remus were perfect together regardless of Felicity, once finishing her wrap Lily fled from the hall. Her last too lessons were uneventful apart from Felicity trying to get details of what went down between James and Lily every time one of their professors took breath and Claudia and Patience obviously ignoring Felicity.
Once their last lesson of the day, Potions, had finished (20 points to Lily for the only one able to perfectly create the Draught of Peace) Claudia and Patience rushed off in order to not arrive at the Great Hall at the same time whilst Lily and Felicity followed behind them at a leisurely pace. By the time Felicity and Lily arrived and found seats, Patience and Claudia where half way through their roast chicken and as soon as they finished they both speed off to where Lily could only assume was the common room.
Felicity and Lily hung out in the Great Hall a while after they had finished, giving them time to plant the pipe bomb they were so egger to place before heading up to start doing the homework. When they pushed open the portrait hole, Lily was the one who spied them first. Remus and Felicity were sitting side by side on the sofa facing the fire and as soon as Claudia noticed it was them that entered, she grabbed Remus's face in her hands and drew it towards hers. Lily watched in horror before turning to face Felicity who's face looked like it had just shattered into a million pieces. Lily watched as Felicity ran up the staircase and into their room, slamming the door behind her. Only one person in the common room seemed happy about that, well, maybe too. Sirius leapt off his seat and began chanting
"10 galleons to me! 10 galleons to me!"
Authors Note:Heya guys! I know! Too long grrr. But believe me its only my school work that is keeping us apart! Hope you enjoyed it and I'm disappointed in all off you who thought Remus would genuinely say yes to Felicity! Though you just gotta feel sorry for her sometimes ... Anyways thanks to all u guys that have pushed me over the 100 review mark! Claps for you all click clickanyhow reviews are always appreciated hint hint nudge nudge Any advice or complaint or idea for the story line are also welcome :)
Until next time ...