YEAH! So Lily and James are FINALLY (big sigh) dating. And just to let you guys know: this chapter took me forever!

Chapter 16: Kisses & Lies

For their date James took Lily to a third floor secret door. It turned out that it led to Honeydukes cellar.

"More candy?" she asked him.

"No. Although…" he answered making her laugh.

"So what are we doing in Hogsmeade? We're not really supposed to be here at all anyway."

"Relax would yah? It'll be fine. Ambrosius knows me."

"Who?"

"He's the guy who runs this place." James explained.

"Of course you're on a first name basis with the candy shop man."

"Of course." He agreed taking her hand. "Now come on. I didn't sneak you out of Hogwarts for nothing." He pulled her to the door knocking twice. After a second the door creaked open.

"James!" the man shouted.

"Ambrosius!" James replied.

"What are you doing here boy?" Ambrosius asked.

"Another other day you know I'd say come in. But Dumbledore is over at the Three Broom Sticks so you'd better get on over to that school."

"Dumbledore's here? In town?" James asked, sidetracked.

"That's what I said isn't it? Yes he's here. Now do you want to land yourself in detention?" Ambrosius asked. "Or this girl. I'm sorry who are you?"

"Sorry, this is Lily." James said.

"Hello." Lily said.

"Yes it's very nice to meet you." He agreed. "Now Potter. You better get."

"Can I at least get some fudge?" James asked. Ambrosius scowled.

"Potter." He said pointing at his face. "You will not be able to do this forever boy. I'll be right back." After he left, closing the door behind him, James turned to Lily.

"Isn't he the best?"

"Sure. But he is kicking us out of Hogsmeade."

"For our own good."

"Right. So what are we going to do instead?" At that James opened his mouth but nothing came out.

"Good question." He eventually answered. Lily made a face. "What's with the face?" James asked her.

"I do have studying to do. What with exams coming up in like all of my classes."

"I do need to study for potions…"

"So rain check?" Lily asked.

"Rain check." James agreed. "You go back to the castle and I'll get the chocolate for next time." Lily nodded.

"When's next time?" she asked.

"You'll know when it comes." He assured her. He leaned down as if to kiss her, but instead pressed his lips to her cheek. "Promise." Lily left going back to the castle by herself. The whole fake-hating-while-actually-dating-James thing wasn't working out the way she wanted it to. But then she would have liked to go back to the castle with James and been able to hold his hand all the way up to the dorm.

Over the next few days her friends didn't seem to be making plans on getting Lily and James alone together. If anything it felt like their friends were the ones pulling them apart. Sure they could smile at each other in the hall or talk late at night by the fire place and they had Defense Against the Dark Arts together, but they were getting more work than free time or partner work.

Lily walked down the hall with Mary from divinations. Lily wasn't taking the class, but she decided to meet Mary up there anyway then go down to dinner.

"So Ivy wanted to talk to you about something. She said that if I saw you first that I should let you know." Mary told Lily.

"Do you know what she wants?" Lily asked.

"She wanted to go over transfiguration notes with Jamie or something like that." Mary explained.

"And that's all you know?"

"Yep. She's waiting for you down by the common room."

"Whose waiting down by the common room?" Sirius asked appearing out of nowhere. He and Mary had been dating since Hogsmeade. Apparently that was decided to be their first official date.

"Sirius!" Mary exclaimed wrapping her arms around him. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to walk you down to the pitch."

"Why?" Mary asked.

"Because we have practice today. James is crazy about it. You should hear him go on about tactics and grades. You'd think he was our mother. Not our captain." Sirius said.

"That's almost cute." Mary said.

"Cute as in an evil scientist bent on making us fail our courses because he's obsessed with winning?" Sirius asked clearly unhappy with the arrangement.

"No." Mary giggled. "Cute like he's so dedicated. It's attractive." Lily hoped this wasn't going to get sappy.

"That's my best mate you're talking about!" Sirius frowned.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Mary said pouting out her lip. When Sirius bent down to kiss Mary, Lily took off to find Ivy. She was nearly to the common room when a hand appeared pulling Lily through a tapestry. She found herself in a small corridor lit only by a small light from a wand. The light cast a strange glow on Jame's face as he looked down at Lily, a small smile on his face.

"James? What are you doing?" Lily demanded her heart pounding in her ears.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." He whispered.

"Why are you whispering?" Lily asked in a equally subdued voice.

"Because this place isn't sound proof." He explained. Lily nodded.

"Is there something else because I'm supposed to be..." But she was unable to finish because James cut her off kissing her on the lips causing her to forget what she was saying. But then she remembered as soon as it was over and she blurted it out quietly. "Meeting Ivy." James laughed softly. Lily bit her bottom lip realizing that James Potter just kissed her!

"So you should be going?" He asked her. Lily nodded.

"Unfortunately."

"So then I'll see you later. I have to get down to practice anyway." James said.

"Do you have to go?" Lily asked putting an arm on his shoulder.

"I'm sort of the captain. It wouldn't look good if the captain didn't show up to the practice he signed up for. But what about you? Do you have to find Ivy?"

"Yeah. Unless you want to tell them we're dating?" Lily suggested hoping that would give them more time together.

"Not yet." He said. "Later." He kissed her cheek before disappearing down the corridor. Lily smiled to herself. She didn't know exactly when later was, just that it meant she would be alone with James and maybe her friends would know about them. But until then she had to go to the common room to meet Ivy to go over Transfiguration notes with Jamie. Then have dinner. Hopefully not in that order.

When she arrived in the common room Ivy was nowhere to be seen and Jamie was passed out on the couch, a book slowly rising and falling on her stomach.

"Jamie!" Lily cried making Jamie awake with a start. She simply groaned when she saw it was just Lily.

"You scared me." Jamie complained closing her eyes.

"What are you doing?" Lily asked. Jamie wasn't in the same class as Lily so had somehow managed to either get out of the class or didn't have it that day.

"Napping." Jamie answered rolling on her side causing the book to fall to the ground with a thud.

"Where's Ivy?" Lily asked placing the book on the coffee table.

"I don't know." Jamie yawned. "She said something about a note in a lake at a big boy in a mess or it would be a library."She was totally incoherent.

"Did she leave me a note?" Lily asked hoping that would unscramble Jamie's sleepy mess. Jamie growled as she reached over blindly looking for the note. Lily found it lying on the table with her name carefully scrawled across it.

"I found it thanks." Lily said. Immediately Jamie's hand sagged over the edge of the couch.

Lily,

I told Jamie to tell you that I'm going down to the lake to meet Remus. Then we're going to the library to help Madam Pince clean the mess in the library. Please help Jamie study, or at least get her to bed.

~Thanks, Ivy

Lupin? Ivy was going to the lake to meet Remus Lupin? At least it explained what Jamie had been trying to say. But at the same time it just created more questions. Like why was she hanging out with Remus?

"Jamie." Lily said turning back to her. "Come on. Let's get you to bed." Jamie nodded weakly in response. Lily helped, or dragged Jamie up to the dorm where she immediately fell asleep on her bed. After Lily went to dinner alone then she figured she should get some studying done so sat in the common room with her Transfiguration notes and book. Only she couldn't focus on what the text said.

Mary entered the common room with a daisy in her hand. Lily figured that since James and Sirius were at Quidditch practice she had to come back to the dorm or else found something to do. Lily wondered if she'd had dinner at the pitch or after she'd left.

"Hey." Lily said.

"Hi." Mary replied in a dreamy voice. "Where's Ivy and Jamie?"

"Jamie's upstairs sleeping and Ivy's with Remus."

"Remus?" Mary asked. "Oh! That's right."

"You knew she'd be with Lupin?" Lily asked as Mary plopped down on the recliner.

"She mentioned doing something with him."

"Are they going out?"

"Um, no. They're not. They're probably just studying." Mary said. "What about you and James?"

"What about us?" Lily asked picking at a piece of lint on her skirt.

"Are you two secretly going out?" Mary questioned in her searching for gossip voice.

"Are you serious? It's James! I mean come on! He's such a...a...a....he's er..."

"Cute?"

"Ha, no! He's...No." Lily said laughing nervously.

"Uh huh." Mary agreed leaning forward in her chair. "Now if you were giving the opportunity to go on a date with James, would you?"

"No." Lily said. But in her head she was screaming 'yes!' And while she realized that they did do things together and Hogsmeade could count as a date, she wanted a real one. One where her friends knew and they, Lily and James, were able to publicly hold hands or hug, or even drop the hating each other act.

"Okay." Mary leaned back in her chair. "Now how about dropping this Bull Shit. Sirius, while admittedly he's not the smartest, he does know James is hiding something. And Ivy is too busy trying to get the two of you together to realize that you've been staying out late at night and going to the library more often than necessary to write essays that you completed the night before. Then there's Jamie who hates James too much to see the two of you stealing glances at each other in the hall or in class. Don't even get me started on what James's friends have missed, because, Lily, I really don't have all day."

"Have you been watching me or something?" Lily asked.

"No. I just notice these things. If I were watching you, I wouldn't have to ask if you were secretly dating James. I'd know." Lily smiled at her friend.

"So you know?"

"So it's true." Mary grinned. "That's great. Good for you Lily. I knew you'd get together eventually."

"You did not! I never thought I'd be with Potter. So how would you know?"

"I could see it. The whole time you were hating him there was a certain soft spot for him in you. I think you would have seen it sooner if you'd ditched Snape sooner."

"Yeah okay. Can you just promise me this one thing though?" Lily asked. Mary cocked her head to the side.

"What?"

"Don't tell anyone. I mean I wanted to tell you, but James was making it into a game almost. And..."

"You don't like it, but you don't want to loose him." Mary guessed.

"Yeah."

"You two have gone through too much to have something as silly and juvenile as that to keep you from dating. But I won't tell anyone."

"Thanks."

"But you are going to? Eventually right?"

"Eventually."

"Well don't hold it off too long. I hear Natalie Brooks is very interested in your man." Mary told her pulling out a piece of parchment from her bag.

"Who?" Lily asked scanning her book. It wasn't likely they'd get any real studying done, but at least this way they could quickly change the subject.

"Natalie Brooks. She's a seventh year Ravenclaw. She was dating Wood, but then he graduated and I hear they just broke up so now she's looking at James." Mary explained. "She's been going to every Quidditch practice. At least until James told her she couldn't anymore."

"Why would he do that?" Lily asked. Although she was really rather pleased that he wasn't allowing her to drool all over him.

"It was strange. What with him liking attention so much. But then rumor had it he had a very jealous girlfriend." Lily let the jealous girlfriend thing slide.

"Really?" Lily asked in mock shock. "Any idea who?"

"No one seems to know! Maybe it's a secret girlfriend!" Mary laughed with Lily. "You should have heard Sirius go on about James needing to get over you or just ask you out already. Sirius says he's still pining over you and then something about a stag." Mary said rolling her eyes having calmed down.

"A stag?"

"I didn't get it either."

"That's so weird. And then your dating Sirius now right?" Lily asked. "How's that going?"

"Great! He's so sweet and cute and he's forever surprising me."

"Surprising you like how?"

"I don't know exactly how to explain it. But we talk more than I expected us to." Mary said scratching a title on the parchment she'd taken out. Lily laughed at this.

"What do you talk about?"

"Oh, anything. Everything." She smiled. "The future. Life, death. You and James, Quidditch. Sirius can talk about Quidditch for hours."

"That's cute." Lily said scanning the same line for about the hundredth time.

"Oh, yeah. It's adorable." Mary said sounding irritated. "In a super annoying way. But I don't know. Maybe it's just the fun new boyfriend stage wearing off."

"Fun new boyfriend stage?" Lily asked.

"Yeah. You know, when you have a new boyfriend it kind of makes up for all the annoying stuff they do. Because they're new and so the little things you don't notice yet. But then after a few weeks or months you start seeing these cracks and issues that really get on your nerves. It's in this second stage that most people break up. That or the relationship gets boring. But those are more of the physical relationships."

"How do you know all this stuff?"

"What do you think I do when I go home for the summer? Sit around doing school work for next year? I don't thinks so."

"Wow. So over the summer you turn into a girl Sirius."

"Take that back!" Mary said.

"I'm only joking." Lily teased. "Besides it's not like you play pranks all the time or go around calling you're friends Wormtail."

"Or Moony."

"Or Prongs." Lily said.

"My Prongsypoo." Mary joked.

"Oh Paddyfoot!" Lily said laughing.

"How awful are we?" Mary asked still laughing.

"Why?"

"Because we're totally teasing our boyfriends."

"Our boyfriends." Lily echoed liking the sound.

"Sounds nice doesn't it?" Mary asked.

"Yeah." Lily agreed.

"So when are you going to tell the others?"

"I don't know. I'll talk to James about it tonight. We have Head Duties. Patrolling you know." It was quiet for several minutes as they each wrote down notes and started on their essays. Lily only had the one she was assigned that day.

"Do you ever feel like they're keeping something from us?" Mary asked suddenly.

"Who?"

"Sirius and James. I mean where do they get their nicknames and have you ever noticed how they're always cut up?" Lily hadn't really noticed, but sometimes he would be really torn up. Usually he just claimed it was from Quidditch.

"Not really no."

"Hmm. Maybe it's just me then. I don't know." she was quiet as she wrote another line. "But you never feel like that?"

"We really don't get to see each other often, so there's probably a lot he's keeping from me." After she said this, she realized how true it was. What was he keeping from her? And how did he really get so cut up? Was he always truthful, or just full of lies? Lily had no reason to believe that James was lying so for the time she tried to let it go.

"Probably." Mary agreed not helping the stress thoughts clogging up Lily's head. "I don't know. I just hate it when people keep things from me." Lily understood this. Mary loved gossip, not so much spreading it, just know what was going on with who. She was especially fond of proving gossip wrong and rubbing it in some Hufflepuff girl's faces.

"Yeah." Lily agreed watching the flames dance in the fire place. A long time passed silently. Mary worked hard on her assignment as did Lily. The quiet was broken by the Quidditch team coming in from practice. They all looked exhausted as they shuffled in groaning in pain.

Sirius, seeing Mary, dropped to the floor near her chair.

"Remind me." he huffed, "To kill James. When I can move." The rest of the team made it as far as the couch or nearby table, only a few actually making to the stairs before collapsing. Mary looked at Lily while stroking her hand over Sirius's messy hair. Lily shrugged looking around for James in the mess of boys that had taken over the common room.

See spotted him slumped in a chair surrounded by his younger teammates. His head was hanging off the arm while his feet hung off the other side.

"What did you guys do?" Lily asked standing over him. He opened his eyes.

"Practiced." He answered rubbing a hand over his eyes. His glasses lying on his chest.

"You look horrible." Lily told him. Despite himself James smiled.

"Thanks." He righted himself nearly kicking a fourth year. "I was trying out some agility drills. Now, come on boys. Get up to the dorm." he said to his team. They all argued and groaned, but did get up leaving James and Lily alone. Even Sirius had left for bed with Mary going the opposite way to the girl's dorm.

"And how did that go for you?" Lily asked. "The new drills I mean."

"Let's just say I learned a valuable lesson."

"And what's that?"

"Running isn't for games played on brooms. Laps on broomstick, however, is much wiser." Lily laughed once.

"I'm not really sure what wizards take for sports injuries, but maybe just some ice would do for your legs." Lily suggested.

"Ice?"

"It helps the muscles." She shrugged.

"Ice." He agreed leaning his head back on the chair.

"Want me to get some fro you?" Lily asked. She knew where the kitchen was. But how she would get it back up to the common room was another challenge altogether.

"Nah. I have a better idea." James said then he called, "Herlim." Lily gave him a questioning look until a loud crack sounded startling her. A house elf appeared on the coffee table.

"Could you get me some ice in a bag?" James asked the elf.

"Of course Mr. Potter." the elf replied. "Anything else?"

"Not for now." James said. The elf disappeared with another loud crack.

"Who was that?"

"Herlim." James answered. "She's worked for my family for as long as I can remember. My mom donated her to the school when I started though. Herlim loves it here, but has agreed to come live with me when I graduate."

"Is she a free elf?" Lily asked.

"Not exactly. But we gave her the choice to stay here or come with me. She wanted to stay loyal to the house of Potter."

"So wanted to go with you?"

"Yeah. But I don't know if I really want her. You know? I mean don't get me wrong I love her. She used to play with me when I was little."

"Little spoiled rich boy had to play with house elves." Lily joked.

"Yeah. Ha ha. No. Herlim is a great elf. Better than the Black's."

"The Black's have house elves too?"

"Yeah. They have this really nasty one, Kreacher. I met him once and that was more than enough." James said. There was another crack as Herlim reappeared. Her skinny arms shaking under the weight of the ice bag.

"Thank you." James said to the elf taking the bag from her.

"You're welcome." she said with a small bow. With one last crack she disappeared.

"She is kind of sweet." Lily mentioned.

"I told you so." he said heaving himself out of the chair. "I'm tired."

"So is this goodnight?" Lily asked. It was only just after seven or eight. She wasn't sure. James looked around the empty dorm. He threw the ice on the table before hugging Lily to him, giving her a kiss. Lily got lost in the taste of him, knowing how right it felt to be with him. In his arms, however fleeting.

"Now, it's goodnight." he whispered resting his forehead on hers.

"Goodnight." she breathed. And sure he smelled like salt and grass, but he also smelled like a James. And she found herself loving the smell of him, however weird that sounded. She couldn't explain it exactly, he just smelled good, not like cologne, just like James. She remembered in their sixth year when Professor Slughorn showed them the love potion. James smelled like one of the ingredients.

So this is my longest chapter yet! Review so I know what you guys thought. no I did not forget about their house duties. It will be in the next chapter.