Frustrating Celebrations

"Guess you'd better go and get your armour"

Jordin Sparks - Battlefield

"We did it! I can't believe that we actually did it!"

Joseph Bell roared so loud as he entered the changing room that it was impossible for his teammates not to hear him. He was still carrying around his broomstick, almost as if he was too proud to put it down, and looked happier than James had ever seen him when he sat down next to the team's seeker, Miranda Williams.

"We were all there Joseph" she told him, grinning widely. "I knew that all those extra practise sessions would pay off eventually..."

"You're the one who said that we ought to focus on our NEWTs" James reminded her, laughing. "It's a lucky thing I was there to stop you!"

It felt wonderful to finally be able to focus on quidditch, and quidditch only. He felt like absolutely nothing could keep the smile off his face at the moment and he felt his heart skip a beat as he thought of the fact that even Lily Evans had smiled widely and clapped her hands when he scored that last goal...

"And the look on Smith's face when you caught the Snitch!" the Gryffindor team's keeper, Bill Morgan, added and patted Miranda on the back. "It was priceless!"

"Slytherin will be an easy target after this, right James?" Joseph asked and James nodded whilst he wiped some sweat off his forehead.

"Definitely. We just have to keep this up and we'll do great"

There was no way he'd let any of this go now. They'd come so far and if there was one thing James wanted this year, one thing he needed, it was winning the Quidditch Cup. Perhaps he hadn't thought it mattered that much before, but he surely did now. This was everything. It was his only way of getting through and therefore, he couldn't screw it up...

His thoughts were interrupted as the door leading into the changing room burst open once again and Sirius, Remus and Peter came inside. Sirius looked happier than he had in a long time and Remus and Peter both smiled widely. James couldn't help grinning back at them and Sirius called:

"Way to go Prongs! We're so proud of you!"

James nodded towards Miranda.

"Thank her, if she hadn't finished the game who knows what might have happened..."

"Oh shut up, you scored more times than all the Ravenclaw chasers together" Miranda interrupted him but James could tell, from the way she was blushing slightly, that she appreciated his words.

"Anyway, we're having a little celebration in the Gryffindor common room tonight" Sirius said and several of the team members started to shout with joy and clap their hands. "And there are some rumours that someone might even have gotten ahold of some Firewhiskey..."

James felt just as pleased as his teammates all looked. After all practise sessions lately, and with everything else going on, this was exactly what he needed. He promised himself that tonight, he'd try his very best to just have fun.

He felt like he actually deserved it.

James

Of course, being seventeen years old, James had tried Firewhiskey and other kinds of alcohol before. However, it had been a while and so he'd almost forgotten how nice it was. The flavour itself was nothing special, but the way it made you feel... Tonight, James was not trying to get drunk but he'd had enough to forget some of his problems and that was an amazing feeling, to say the least. He didn't have to worry about things he usually worried about and for once he just felt completely... normal.

And he hadn't felt like that in a long time.

The music was loud, people were happy and tonight James had smiled and laughed more than he had in months. He, Sirius and Joseph were seated on one of the common room couches and Sirius laughed loudly at something that was probably not very funny at all, whilst he poured himself and James some more Firewhiskey. It had turned out that the person who had gotten ahold of "some" Firewhiskey had, in fact, managed to buy several bottles from the Hogshead.

"Are you all right over there Moony?" Sirius asked and nodded towards Remus who was still standing up, wearing a somewhat troubled look on his face.

He hadn't been drinking anything all night and so it didn't surprise James the slightest that he asked:

"Don't you think that you two have had enough for tonight?"

Remus was obviously addressing both Sirius and James and yet James got the feeling that his friend was talking more to him, as if he thought that James was more likely to lose control. He rolled his eyes.

"Do you even know what the word 'relax' means, Remus?"

Sirius and Joseph both laughed but Remus didn't seem to have anything to respond to that, and so it didn't take long before he took off. Peter was sitting in an armchair nearby, obviously desperate to hear everything that James and Sirius said. Usually, James was caring enough to make sure that he took part in their conversations but today he just didn't feel like it.

"Amy Baker getting closer at three o' clock" Joseph muttered to James, who looked the way his friend was pointing. "I believe she has a thing for you"

James was just about to object when Amy, surprisingly enough, walked right up to him and smiled widely. She was very cute, there was no doubt about that, but she was known to have slept with practically every male student at Hogwarts and so James had never paid much attention to her. Amy pulled a string of her blonde hair behind her ear and said:

"Hi James"

Before James knew it, Sirius and Joseph had both left and Amy hurried to sit down beside him. He noticed that she sat very close, almost too close for his liking, but he tried not to think about it. Instead he gave her a charming smile and replied:

"Hello Amy"

She giggled.

"Congratulations, by the way. You played really great today"

James shrugged slightly.

"Well, it was Miranda who caught the Snitch..."

"Oh but you scored so many times!" Amy interrupted him, eyes widening almost as if she just realized the truth in her own words. "And personally, I definitely prefer chasers..."

James could feel how she put her hand on his and pretended not to notice the curious stares he received from Sirius and Joseph. Luckily, Amelia Bones came to join Sirius only seconds later. Amy said:

"Fancy getting out of here?"

James raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"What, now?"

Amy nodded eagerly.

"I know of a great place. It's just too crowded in here, don't you think?"

She looked around and James did the same, only to find Remus standing in a corner talking to Lily and her friend Alice. He couldn't help wondering what they were talking about, but tried not to think about it and turned to look at Amy again.

What did he have to lose?

"Okay" he said, nodding slightly before grabbing her hand. "Let's go"

Lily

"This is pathetic"

It was Alice who spoke the words but Lily could not agree more. As it was, none of the two girls had ever been very fond of drinking and so they did not find it very amusing watching most of their Gryffindor friends getting drunk and doing things they normally wouldn't.

"I know" Lily replied bitterly, watching as Amelia giggled uncontrollably whilst moving closer to Sirius on the couch they were both sitting on. "And I'll bet you anything she'll regret that tomorrow morning"

She nodded towards Amelia and Sirius but Alice did not look convinced.

"I don't know, she's fancied him for quite a while actually..."

Lily, who'd just taken a sip from her butterbeer, coughed violently and stared at her friend in disbelief.

"What?!" she exclaimed and Alice whispered to her that she'd better lower her voice so she did. "Amelia fancies Black?"

Alice nodded.

"Didn't you know? She told me weeks ago"

Lily shook her head slowly, looking away from Amelia and Sirius since she had a feeling that they might start kissing any second now. What was up with people tonight, really? After all, winning a quidditch game against Ravenclaw wasn't that much of a big deal...

"I can't believe it, though" Lily muttered to Alice. "I mean, of all boys in our year, why him? For Merlin's sake, he's almost as bad as Potter!"

She knew that that was not fair, considering the fact that James had not bothered her once ever since the school year started. Well, at least not the way he used to. But tonight, Lily felt more annoyed with him than she had in weeks and she could not explain why. In fact, she was not even sure that he was the one she was angry with. Maybe it was just Amy Baker and that stupid oh-so-flirty look on her face...

Why do you even bother? Lily asked herself sharply, demonstratively looking away from James and the girl who had his special attention tonight. If he wants to be with someone who's been with practically the whole school already, let him!

"Lily! Lily!"

She jumped at the sound of Alice's voice and as she looked up she could see that Remus had joined her and Alice in their lonely corner. He smiled and Lily could tell that he had not been drinking any of that Firewhiskey, either.

"Why are you two standing here all alone?" he asked curiously. "Shouldn't you be celebrating?"

"What's there to celebrate?" Lily asked sourly and pretended that she didn't notice the surprised looks on Alice's and Remus' faces. "It's just a stupid quidditch game"

"That's not what it sounded like earlier" Alice reminded her. "You were just as happy as anyone when James scored that last goal..."

"Oh yes, let's all cheer for Potter" Lily interrupted her friend, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "It's not like he's already used to it or anything"

She didn't know why she was acting like this, because it surely wasn't like her... Luckily, Alice and Remus both seemed to notice that she didn't want to talk about it and so Remus quickly changed the subject:

"Frank's standing over there, you know. He's all alone and I'll bet you anything he wants you to go join him"

It was Alice he spoke to and her cheeks soon turned crimson. She looked down, apparently unwilling to meet anyone's gaze and muttered:

"Yeah, maybe I will do that later..."

Thankfully, Remus was smart enough not to push the matter and there was a short silence before his eyes landed on James and Amy. However, they were walking through the common room holding hands and seemed to be heading towards the portrait hole.

"I'm worried about him" Remus muttered, not addressing anyone in particular.

Lily was the one standing closest to him though, and so she felt almost obliged to pretend like she didn't know who he was talking about:

"Who do you mean?"

"James, of course. He... He's just not himself anymore"

Lily snorted.

"He hasn't been all year, has he?"

"Yeah, but this is different" Remus insisted, his voice full of worry that strangely enough caught Lily's interest. "It's like he... Like he just tries to forget by pretending like everything's fine. But it won't work, I know that. At some point he's going to lose it"

Lily remained silent, watching as the portrait of the Fat Lady swung open and Amy climbed outside. James soon joined her, and left Lily wondering whether Remus was right. Was it all just an act and if it was, how long would it take before the facade went down?

It's none of your business, she reminded herself for the hundredth time that night. It never has been and it never will be. So just stop thinking about it.

James

James wasn't sure why he had agreed to accompany Amy out of the common room in the first place, but he had several theories. Above all, he felt like he couldn't stand the somewhat troubled look that Remus had worn on his face all night for another minute. At least Sirius and Peter seemed to get that this was what James wanted, but Remus kept making him feel like he was constantly supervised by some babysitter.

Like he didn't buy any of it.

No, James corrected himself firmly. There's nothing Remus has to "buy" because I haven't lied about anything.

When thinking about it, he couldn't help feeling extremely annoyed with his three best friends. All year they'd tried to make him behave as usual, smile and feel better. And now, when he was actually doing somewhat fine, that was not good enough, either. What did they want, really?

"What are you thinking about?"

Amy's bright voice interrupted his thoughts and James looked up, noticing that they'd reached a completely deserted corridor on what seemed to be the sixth floor. He gave her a small smile and shook his head slowly.

"Nothing. Just how glad I am to be here with you"

That was quite a lie, but at least it was something that the old James would have said. And tonight, that's exactly who James wanted to be. However, when he saw the happy look on Amy's face he soon wished he hadn't said anything. She looked like she'd won the lottery and grabbed his hands before kissing him briefly. Then, she gave him a small smirk and walked over to a door leading into one of the classrooms.

"Come on!" she called and motioned for him to join her.

James raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"What are we doing here?"

Amy moved until she was standing only millimeters away from him and her lips barely seemed to move as she whispered:

"I just thought we might need some place more private"

She took out her wand and aimed it at the locked door.

"Alohom..."

"Wait"

James put his hand on Amy's right arm and to his great relief, she lowered her wand and looked at him with raised eyebrows. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Surely, the old James wouldn't have minded breaking into an empty classroom in the middle of the night and so that ought to be exactly what he wanted to do right now. But something stopped him. Something told him that he was better and smarter than this. And with Argus Filch sneaking around the castle with Mrs Norris...

"Can't we just stay out here?" he tried and nodded towards the empty corridor. "There's no one here, anyway"

Amy snorted in disbelief.

"In a corridor? Sorry, but I'm not doing that"

She took out her wand again and before James had time to say anything she'd unlocked the door. She entered the classroom but for a moment he was left staring after her from outside. What did she mean by 'In a corridor?'? Of course he'd known what he got himself into but James hadn't exactly planned on sleeping with her...

Why not? a little voice whispered inside his head. You wanted to be like the old James, with no problems but choosing which girl is most worthy of your attention. This is something the old James would have done without blinking.

Once again, Amy's voice brought him back to reality. She sounded impatient as she spoke:

"Well, come on then!"

James followed her inside the classroom and slowly closed the door behind him. After only a few seconds Amy was all over him - now that they were in here she obviously didn't want to wait any longer than necessary. As she kissed him she seemed hungry, almost desperate, and James tried his best to keep up. He tried to convince himself that he was doing this because he wanted to, but frankly it felt more like he was doing it simply because he couldn't come up with a good enough reason not to.

Who knew, maybe it'd turn out to be a great distraction and a good way to keep his mind off things. Just like quidditch.

James soon lost track of time and it was impossible to tell how many minutes that passed by. Ironically enough, his mind wouldn't stop spinning and he didn't feel even the slightest relaxed or comfortable with this whole thing.

Get a grip, he told himself firmly. But it didn't help. He felt anger rise inside of him as he kept seeing Remus' worried face, Sirius' desperate tries to make him feel better and Peter's nervous sounding voice. He heard Dumbledore saying inside his head: "I know how you feel James". He thought of Lily scolding him for not taking his Head Boy duties seriously...

Lily.

James suddenly opened his eyes and found himself staring right into Amy's blue ones, just as she started unbuttoning his shirt... What was the point of any of this? Without thinking, James grabbed her wrists gently and thereby prevented her from going any further.

"What's the matter?"

She was slightly out of breath as she spoke and for a moment James had no idea what to say. "I'm sorry, but you're not her" or "I feel like my whole world is about to fall apart and you're not exactly helping" was not going to be enough. Not even close.

"We can't do this"

His voice was low as he spoke but Amy seemed to have heard every word. She backed a few steps and then asked, voice full of confusion:

"What do you mean?"

What did he mean, really? To answer that question James had to think, and he was so tired of that. In fact, he was tired of everything at the moment. Right now, he just wanted to go right to bed and hopefully get a good night's sleep without any of those blasted nightmares... He had to end this before he hurt Amy any more than necessary.

"I'm sorry" he said, looking up at her. "It's not you, I just... I can't do this"

"Why not?" Amy's voice was trembling now and to James' horror she seemed to be on the verge of tears. "Am I not good enough for you? Is that it?"

James stared at her in disbelief.

"What? No, that's not what I'm..."

"Because no girl will ever be good enough for you, right? The great James Potter, the quidditch hero that everybody wants..."

"Stop it..." James started, for he did not need to hear any of this.

In fact, he wasn't sure he could take it. But Amy didn't seem to hear him. Her voice broke as she continued:

"No, you have no idea how lucky you are! I try so hard and you barely have to lift a finger to get what you want! For you everything is just so easy..."

"YOU THINK MY LIFE IS EASY? YOU THINK I HAVE EVERYTHING THAT I WANT?"

James was so angry his hands were shaking and Amy looked slightly frightened as he raised his voice, but he didn't care. The things she'd said made him lose it completely. Now, he had no idea how to continue and yet Amy seemed to wait for him to say something. There was a short silence before he finally hissed:

"You don't know a thing about my life. And you don't know me so just shut up"

Had he just said that?

James felt like this was all a bad dream that he'd soon wake up from. But just like all the time these days, it only went on and on. Amy seemed to feel the exact same way, for she shook her head and backed another few steps.

"This was a mistake" she stated and James immediately replied:

"Yeah. Yeah it was"

Amy gave him one last glance before turning around and leaving the classroom. As soon as she'd slammed the door shut behind her James cursed out loud, feeling like he'd do anything to take back everything that had happened during the past couple of hours.

Lily

Lily didn't know what time it was, but she had a feeling that it was past midnight already. Strangely enough, she didn't feel the slightest tired and that was one of the two main reasons why she'd said no when Alice and Amelia had asked her if she wanted to spend the night in the Gryffindor tower. The other was that she was still in quite a bad mood and she felt like beling alone. Also, she didn't think she'd be very fun company for any of her friends at the moment...

Lily leaned slightly backwards on the couch in her and James' private common room, silently praying that the thoughts would stop spinning through her head. She wondered what she was doing here and why she wouldn't just go upstairs to her bedroom. She wondered why she could still feel the fury boiling inside her entire body.

She wondered what James was doing. And where he was.

Off somewhere with Amy Baker, obviously. But did he honestly have no respect for other human beings whatsoever? Did he think that he could just come back whenever it pleased him and perhaps even bring her? After all, the next day was Thursday and even though Lily felt widely awake at the moment she was going to need her sleep...

She took a glance at her watch. Almost one o' clock. She sighed heavily and then looked around the common room. It was strangely clean, considering the fact that two people actually lived here. But then again, Lily seemed to be the only one who spent time in here voluntarily. Whenever James got the chance he took off and usually didn't return before it was time to go to bed. She couldn't help wondering where he was studying, it almost felt as if he was trying to avoid her...

The portrait of Godric Gryffindor swung open and Lily froze. She did not dare to look around, afraid of what she might find. Instead, she hurried to grab her Charms textbook that conveniently enough laid on the table in front of her. She flipped it open and pretended to be busy reading from a random page just as James got within sight.

Merlin, was she pathetic...

Lily didn't look his way, or acknowledged him in any way, until she could see from the corner of her eye that he was alone. Some stupid and inexplicable sense of relief washed over her and she turned to look at him. He had almost reached the stairs leading up to his bedroom when she snapped:

"Maybe next time you could think of not getting back so light. I could have been asleep"

She sounded ruder than she'd intended to but there was no way she was going to apologize now. She felt like all anger she'd kept inside for several hours now finally got out and James happened to be the only person she could take it out on.

"Well you're not, are you?"

He sounded tired and as he turned around Lily could see the dark circles under his eyes. They seemed to be his constant companions these days. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Way of stating the obvious"

There was a short silence in which the two of them were left staring at each other. Then, seeing as he obviously had nothing more to say to her, James turned around to leave. However, Lily still felt like she hadn't gotten it all out and she clenched her fists as she called after him:

"Well, then I suppose you won't mind if I put my position as Head Girl at risk when getting back here in the middle of the night. Don't you for a second think that you're the only one who gets to..."

"Yeah everything is just so easy for me, isn't it?"

Lily was surprised by the strength in James' voice as he interrupted her and she could tell that there was more to his words than he'd let on. She couldn't figure out how, though.

"I didn't say that..."

"No but it's what you meant"

Another silence. Somehow, looking into his eyes hurt and Lily glanced down at her Charms textbook again. The words all looked like nothing but a blur, and yet Charms had always been one of her best subjects... She could hear James sighing and watched as he ran his hand through his hair before telling her:

"Look Evans, I can't do this right now. If you're still angry with me tomorrow you can yell at me then"

Lily was not the kind of person who sometimes experienced a loss for words, but it happened now. She watched, in some kind of amazed silence, as James continued walking up the stairs and slammed the door shut behind him once he'd entered his bedroom. It was not until then that she came to think of at least a hundred brilliant things to say.

Why would I waste any of my time yelling at you, you're surely not worth it. If things are so bad, then why do you act like everything's fine and snog with girls like Amy Baker? Remus, one of your best friends, is really worried about you but perhaps you don't even care about that!

She felt like an idiot. What was she doing down in here in the first place? She knew very well that she could have just put a Muffliato Charm on her bedroom door and there was no way she would have heard James when he got back. Was she looking for a reason to fight with him?

Of course not, Lily told herself as she stood up and prepared to head upstairs. Why in Merlin's name would I do that?

But for once, the voice inside her head did not sound too convincing.

Author's note: This chapter got a bit longer than I'd first expected it to be, but I considered it a good place to finish. I don't know why it's taken me so long to update, hopefully the next chapter will be up much quicker!

If you want me to continue, and enjoyed the chapter, please leave a review to let me know! :)