The greasy haired boy gave James Potter a withering look and closed his book, sighing.
"What do you want" he sneered.
James drew his wand stepping closer to the greasy haired boy as Sirius joined him in his taunts, a smirk forming on his features as he revealed in his malice.
Lily, off to one side, looked singularly unimpressed.
She called to James, asking him to stop, but her beau was clearly enjoying himself a little too much.
Sensing this was going to escalate rapidly, Remus tried to pull the young wizard back.
"Let's have some fun first eh?" cried James, roughly snatching his arm from his more diplomatic friend. Remus threw his hands up in defeat, turning and strolling back to where Lily and Peter stood closer to the shore of the lake.
"Not so clever now are we Snivellus?!" joined Sirius as James non-verbally cast a hover charm on the greasy haired boy, lifting him up in to the air as though he were nothing more than a first-year.
"James!" Lily remonstrated, stepping closer to him, unsure what to do.
"How about we take off his trousers?!" James called to the other boys.
"JAMES!" Lily cried, tears pricking in the corners of her eyes. After all that had happened, after all the things he had said, after all that had past between them over the last 6 years, she still cared. Her green eyes shone with fury, tinged with sadness and laced with compassion.
Her lover spun round to confront her, his focus on the spell ceasing, the greasy haired boy landing unceremoniously in a heap on top of his books that were spread out under the tree.
"You aren't seriously going to defend him AGAIN are you Lily?" James hissed, his brow creased with a confused frown.
Lily came up to him and placed her hand on his wrist, her fingers gently curling round it, her eyes silently begging him to cease his taunts of her former childhood friend.
"After he called you that word?" he continued, staring back at her.
She closed the gap between them, her slight body curling into his.
"That was a long time ago, James" she whispered, gently putting pressure on his wrist.
He lowered his wand, wrapping his arm around her, his free hand coming up to stroke her cheek, brushing her auburn locks away from her eyes. She looked up at him through her long lashes.
Pressing his lips to her temple, he murmured in her ear
"You are far too forgiving, Lil'"
She let out a low chuckle, audible only to him.
"Far too forgiving of you, you mean" she pulled back and sent him a sidelong grin, the sort of secret smile a passive observer would sense she only shared with him.
Along the shore stood two such passive observers, both transfixed on the exchange between the group and the greasy haired boy.
Draco relaxed his grip on the arms of the petite witch he held.
"I knew he got his arrogance from his father" he muttered, averting his gaze in disgust.
"You could be considered guilty of the same crime, Malfoy" Hermione hissed, turning to confront him.
"Don't speak of things you have no comprehension of, Granger" he retorted, his features twisting into his classic sneer.
"Oh spare me the sanctimonious bullshit" she cried, turning back towards the scene.
Lily had laced her arm through Remus' and the pair were idly walking along the pebbled shoreline.
Draco reached out and took hold of the fiery-tempered witch's honey kissed forearm and spun her back to face him, leaning down until his nose was almost touching hers.
"When you have been raised since birth to believe only one thing, to perceive the world from a single point of view, knowing you have no choice, no matter what you may come to believe, no matter what challenges your indoctrination, because you have generations of family expectations shoved down your throat, and a position in society to uphold, THAT is when you can judge me, Granger. I'm like my father because that's who I was made to be" he growled.
She snatched her arm from his grasp and narrowed her eyes as if carefully calculating her response.
She had nothing.
Her mind was blank.
She hated it when their interactions reached a climax and then…..zap.
She was nothing more than the sum of her emotions, her logical calculating mind eluding her. It was like being an infant and reaching the point of emotional no return, witnessing what she later came to know was an outburst of magic and then...numbness.
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were darkened, her chest rising and falling rapidly in time with the beats of her heart, adrenaline coursing through her veins but her mind betrayed all physiology.
She had no comeback.
Stepping back slowly, she watched his eyes fall to her chest, his features relaxing from his sinister sneer into a folorn frown. He turned and stared at Lily and Remus as they settled into the long grass just back from the shoreline. Sirius and James were bundling about a little way back, Peter's lopsided grin directed at his mates as they fell about around him.
Up ahead, the greasy haired boy made his way up the path towards the Castle. He stopped for a moment, turned towards where Lily and Remus sat in quiet conversation and stared. Even from where Draco stood he recognised the look that betrayed the greasy haired boy's emotions and knew they matched his own.