I Hate Everything about You
Chapter Nine: Breathless
Lily dug her fingertips into the sand, feeling the grains shift under her hands. She tilted her head back letting the sun heat her skin. It was one of the last pretty days before the weather would begin to turn cold.
Lily laughed as she watched Sirius tickle the giant squid's tentacles; Remus was reading quietly under the beech tree near by, and Peter was watching Sirius with awe.
"I'm so jealous of you Hestia, you can get a tan from an hour out in the sun," Lily turned to her friend who was lying next to her, Hestia's dark complexion easily tanned olive.
"Yeah, but Lily your skin is so pretty…like milk, you shouldn't tan," Hestia replied sitting up.
"Whatever, I'm still jealous," Lily grinned at her friend, but her mouth fell into a frown when she noticed Hestia's glare towards a group approaching behind her.
Lily turned around, her eyes immediately narrowing into slits.
The group of people was large, their dark green and silver ties seemed to mock the Gryffindors'.
"What do we have here; you're looking lovely today Ms. Evans," Lucius Malfoy's mouth was permanently set into a sneer, his slick platinum hair shinned under the sun.
"Well Lucius…aren't we looking slimy," Lily smirked, running a hand through her dark waves and standing up to face the group.
The Slytherins seemed to all bristle, and Lily took a quick head count of all of them.
Lucius' arm was wrapped around his girlfriend Narcissa Black, whose nose was scrunched in an unpleasant way that made her normally pretty face look squished. Beside Narcissa was her younger sister Bellatrix whose dark hair gleamed in the sun, her manic eyes narrowed. Her hand was clasped with her current boyfriend Rodolphus Lestrange whose sneer was nasty enough to battle Lucius'.
Rodolphus' brother Rabastan was glaring from his spot beside his brother, while Belinda Zabini held on to him, her long nails almost digging into his side.
Lily looked over her own shoulder, noticing that both Sirius and Remus had come to stand behind her in support.
"So the snakes decided to come out of the pit," Sirius spat, his eyes hard.
"Only to scare the little lions," A voice said from behind Lucius emerging was Sirius' brother Regulus, the spitting image of Sirius only a bit smaller and his mouth was permanently set in a dark sneer.
"We don't get scared so slither back to your hole," Lily put her hand on her hip, the other twirling her wand with confident ease.
"We just thought we would announce some good news to everyone," Lucius said shifting so Lily could see Severus Snape lurking behind everyone, his greasy hair falling in strands into his cold dark eyes.
"Like we care," Remus said coldly, his normally warm voice sounded like ice.
"We just wanted to tell the school that one of our own has gotten engaged," Bellatrix said, the excitement in her voice leaking into her usually cool aloof voice.
"Is it Lucius and Rodolphus? I always had a suspicion they were…you know playing the other team…" Hestia said smiling sweetly.
"No!" Lucius lost his cool slightly, his silver eyes angry.
"As a matter of fact it's Thomas Nott and…" Regulus trailed off, the entire group had matching smirks spread across their faces.
"Well who…we don't have all day to sit here and watch you smirk," Sirius said glaring at his brother.
"Its Thomas Nott and me," the group of Slytherins parted, reveling Thomas Nott, tall and with sad but intelligent eyes and his fiancée;
Anna Christine Warner.
The Group of Gryffindor's were speechless, and Lily felt as if all the air had been knocked from her chest.
"What about…James?" was all Lily managed to choke out.
"Just something I wanted, and got...not to mention I got him before you," Anna sneered out, flipping her hair and wrapping her arm around Nott's waist.
"Bloody hell," Lily heard Sirius curse from behind her, and suddenly she could breathe again, her confidence coming back in one swoop.
"Well congratulations, this just proves that I am once again the better person," Lily smiled watching as the Slytherins seemed to all hiss and sneer, all at once turning to walk back to the castle.
"I have to go talk to James," Lily began her way back to the castle, ignoring the blank stares from her friends behind her.
She found him in the common room; his head buried in a book, the far window was open blowing a cool breeze into the room, ruffling his messy hair.
"Evans why aren't you outside with all your followers," James snapped, clearly annoyed at being interrupted from his reading. He closed the book and looked up at her form; she was leaning casually in the doorway.
"Well I was…but then…" she trailed off, not wanting to hurt him but knowing he had to find out.
"What? Is someone hurt?" James immediately assumed the worse, and Lily quickly made her way over the opposite couch and sat down with a sigh.
"No…not the way your thinking," Lily sighed again, long and heavy.
"Well what?" James leaned forward, sensing this was something important.
"I mean…ok, yeah, bugger this is harder that I thought," Lily took a deep breath before starting again.
"So, we were all down at the lake, then the Slytherins decided to come out of the dungeons and well they came to gloat about some news…" she trailed off again, looking a confused James in the eye.
"What, did they want to gloat about?" he asked.
"Well Thomas Nott is engaged," she said slowly.
"Ok why tell me?" James probed.
"He's engaged to…" she stopped again, telling him this was harder than she thought.
"Evans, spit it out!"
"Anna Christine," she looked away from his face, which had gone from frustrated to hurt and then to disbelief in about three seconds flat.
"I didn't know you would sink that low Evans," he said standing up and shaking his head.
"What are you talking about?" Lily stood up too.
"I know you want me to be the next notch in your bedpost but I didn't know that you were so desperate," he said his back to her.
"Bloody hell, you think I would lie to you about something like this?!" Lily yelled, her temper flaring.
"Considering what you just told me is a lie…then yes!" James turned around; his usually openly handsome face was hard with pain.
"Fine! Don't believe me but when you get your heart stomped on by that two-faced whore don't come crying to me!" she turned and stomped out of the common room, heading for the room of requirement. She couldn't deal with anyone right now, even her best friends.
She missed the way James slammed his door to his room, his heart beating harshly, deep down knowing that Lily wouldn't lie to him.