Guys, you've kind of been letting me down because I've been updating a lot and I've almost gotten a THOUSAND views (which is super exciting by itself) but I've only gotten five reviews. And they were all on either chapter one or two. CMON GUYS. let me know how I'm doing! I really REALLY REEEAAALLLYYYY hope you decided to review on this or any of the other chapters. Tell me what you like, tell me what you hate, but PLEASE tell me somthing!
tl;dr: please review. youre making me sad. But thanks to the 14 people who are now following the story! you make me smile through my tears from not receiving reviews!
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Lily chewed on the end of her quill as she stared at the blank parchment. She hadn't been able to think of anything particularly interesting and she had asked James to bring ideas — she would look like an idiot if she had none of her own. Lily looked up as she heard footsteps echoing through the library heading towards her. James grinned as he took off his bag and sat across from her.
"Hey, Lily." He said warmly. He couldn't stop himself from smiling when he was around her.
"Hello James," she said formally. "How has your evening been?"
"Good, we had Quidditch tryouts today!" As soon as James said it he wanted to kick himself. They hadn't even been talking for ten seconds and he had already brought up Quidditch.
"Well, that's good." Lily said politely. "Did you think of any events we could do for this year?"
"Uhm, I was thinking we could have some kind of celebration? Maybe a party, or a ball?"
"Hmm…" Lily said. "I had thought of that too, but it seemed kind of… I don't know. Too normal. I couldn't think of anything that could make it more interesting than a normal dance."
"Oh, er, yeah." James said lamely. Lily waited for him to continue but when he continued to stare at her blankly, she sighed.
"Maybe we just shouldn't plan anything. Hogwarts rarely has huge celebrations apart from feasts and the last ball was during the Triwizard Tournament of 1792 and we all know how that year ended…"
James continued to stare blankly. Lily sighed again.
"A student died."
"Oh, wow, that's crazy." James said. Lily let out another long sigh. James knew this wasn't going well.
"I guess we can talk about something else." Lily said, pulling out a piece of parchment that already had writing on it. She glanced over it. "Did you talk to the prefects about their evening rounds after hours?"
"Uh, no, net yet…" James trailed off. Lily raised an eyebrow before setting the parchment down on the table.
"Do you want to be Head Boy, James?" She asked in a serious tone.
"Yeah," he said honestly.
"Then why do I feel like I'm doing both jobs?" Lily paused. "I want us to get along for the sake of our positions, because it's actually a really big honor to get them but… I don't think we can. You just don't seem invested in this. I know you, you'd rather be talking about Quidditch and pulling dangerous pranks right now."
Lily stood up and picked up her things.
"No, wait, Lily —" James started also standing.
"James. It's fine. We don't get along, we don't have similar interests. And that's ok. I don't want to argue with you and I don't want to stress over this. I'll let the prefects know we're having a meeting Monday night."
Lily turned around and left the library. James sat back down his face blank once more.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
The next morning when Harry woke up, Remus was already gone. Sirius explained to Harry that he hadn't felt well during the night and had gone to the hospital wing, but Harry knew better. It took fifteen minutes to drag James out of bed. When he finally did get out, he spent another twenty minutes just standing in the shower. Eventually, Sirius talked him into coming out of the bathroom and getting dressed. Harry could tell this would be a long day.
"Mate," Sirius said over breakfast. "Can you please just tell us what's bothering you?"
"Lily." James finally said. Harry and Sirius glanced at each other.
"What happened during the meeting?" Harry asked.
"I don't know!" James said in frustration. "I thought it wasn't going half bad, it wasn't perfect but I didn't say anything stupid — "
"Did you talk about Quidditch?" Sirius asked.
"Accidentally yeah, but for barely a second." James sat his fork down with a sigh. "I think she's just given up trying to work with me. Ugh! I just want her to give me a chance."
"What have you tried before?" Harry asked curiously.
"I've tried everything!" James cried in anguish. "Every single romantic gesture known to man. I've left flowers on her bed, romantic letters in her bag, I've asked her to come out for dinner, to go to the Three Broomsticks for Butterbeer, bought her chocolate and jewelry for every holiday, and she STILL won't give me a chance."
"Have you er… just tried being friends with her?" Harry asked uncertainly.
"What do you mean?" said James, confused. "I don't want to just be friends, I want to be with her."
"Yeah, I know but I mean, you have to show her why you guys would be so good together. Maybe instead of leaving her flowers and asking her out you could just really work on helping her with the Head Boy and Girl responsibilities. I mean, that's a great excuse for you to spend time together." Harry's face fell a little as he said this. Ron and Hermione had both been awarded the same positions of Head Boy and Girl in their seventh year, and they had definitely gotten to spend much more time together without Harry around.
"Yeah… Maybe you're right…" James muttered poking at his food with his fork.
"And maybe try not pulling pranks anymore?" Harry suggested, causing Sirius to gasp.
"No." he cried. "No, James, I'm serious, this has gone too far, you can't just not pull pranks — that's who we are! It's literally part of our identity!"
"But Harry's right, Lily doesn't like the pranks." James looked down at his plate. "Maybe it's time to grow up."
"NO."
Sirius stood up and looked down the table.
"OI, EVANS. LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO JAMES, CAN YOU JUST SNOG HIM ALREA— OW!" Harry yanked Sirius by the sleeve hard making him sit back down. James glared at him.
"But, er, anyways, James," Harry started again. "I don't think that it's pranks in general Lily doesn't like, I think it's just ones that harm other people or hurt their feelings like with Snape."
"Snivellus." Sirius snorted.
"You could try being nice to Snape too, maybe try calling him by his actual name." Harry said. James nodded. "All you can do is try and show her that you take school and being Head Boy seriously, so she'll stop thinking you're an immature prat."
James laughed as he punched Harry's arm playfully. Harry smiled back.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o
After breakfast was done, Harry left the two others saying he had some homework he wanted to do on his own so he could concentrate. In reality, he had come up with a new idea of how to do research on getting back home.
Eventually, Harry made it to the seventh floor of the left corridor of the castle. He recognized the familiar tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy teaching trolls ballet. Slowly, he walked past the section of wall three times, focusing all his thoughts on needed a place to study, to do research, to figure out how to get back.
The third time he walked past, the wall shifted and a wooden door carved itself in front of Harry. After the stone and wood seemed to be at rest, Harry opened the door to the Room of Requirement. Inside he saw a very peaceful looking study area, similar to the Gryffindor common room except bookcases lined the walls. A welcoming fireplace was against the farthest wall and a couch and two arm chairs sat in front of it with a stout coffee table in between.
Harry walked further into the room and took a book of the shelf entitled, "Time: Linear, Circular, or Just a Tangled Mess?" by Fredrick N. Minburns. He found another on the making of Time-Turners by Emily Washers and yet another on complicated spells and potions used to prevent and reduce aging.
Harry turned away from the shelves and saw in the far corner was a large cauldron and stock cabinet filled with potions ingredients. Harry set his bag down by the fireplace and began flipping through Minburns's book on time. He had to begin somewhere.
Harry glanced up at the big grandfather clock across from him. He had a feeling he was going to be working there for a very long time for many days to come.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
A full week had gone by, and it hadn't gotten easier for anyone. Sirius still hadn't come back, and neither had Dumbledore. Mrs. Weasley had brought the family clock to Grimmauld Place as well as some other items to make the place feel more like home such as colorful knitted blankets and soft bright cushions for the dingy furniture. Earlier that year, Mrs. Weasley had added a hand to the clock for Harry, which he had been very shy about when she had shown him. All of the hands were set to "Mortal Peril" except Harry's, who was stuck between "Lost" and "Mortal Peril".
Mrs. Weasley carried the clock with her throughout the house as she attempted to clean up the place a bit more, her eyes constantly darting back to the hands to see if anything had changed, though nothing had.
Ron was doing no better now than he had been before. No one really was. However, he seemed to be taking a turn for the worst. He had run out of books to read through and he was getting restless. Instead of staying locked up in Harry's room, he spent all of time in the living room waiting for members of the Order to come walking through. He would immediately demand they tell him anything they knew and before they could give him a response he would follow up with orders to be taken with them where ever they were going.
Of course, Mrs. Weasley was having none of this and therefore Ron remained stuck in Grimmauld Place just like everyone else, but that did as much bad as it did good. Ron had tried to talk Hermione and Ginny into escaping and going out searching, but both girls refused. Hermione tried to explain to Ron that they had no idea where Harry was and there was no point in sneaking out to go looking for him and it would only result in four people being lost instead of one, but Ron didn't care. He just needed to do something, anything.
This particular evening, Ron found himself still waiting on the couch for anyone useful to walk through. He picked at the sandwich his mother had made him hours before, but he had no interest in eating it. Ever since Harry had disappeared, he had had no appetite at all. Every time he did try to eat, the food felt thick and sticky in his mouth and would get stuck in his throat.
Nothing was enjoyable without Harry there.
Around three thirty in the morning, Ron's eyes began to grow too heavy for him to hold open any longer. He had taken recently to sleeping on the couch so he could wake up as soon as someone came in through the door, but there didn't seem to be much point anymore. No one had heard any news and no one would take him anywhere if they had. Hermione had offered each night to stay downstairs with him, but Ron had refused and he felt a bit guilty leaving Hermione alone in her sadness.
"I should stay with her tonight," Ron muttered as he put the plate down on the table and slowly stood up. Suddenly, the fire place burst into green flames making him jump in surprise.
Ron waited expectantly for someone to walk through, maybe someone had actually found out something. He shouldn't have given up so easily.
But after a few moments, instead of someone walking through, the flames became thicker and deepened in color, going from green to royal purple with burst of electric blue. Ron began stepping away from the fireplace slowly — perhaps Death Eaters had hacked into their closed Floo network.
Just as Ron was about to run upstairs to get his parents, a piece of parchment shot out of the fireplace and fluttered to the ground. The flames immediately died down and disappeared completely. Slowly, Ron approached the fireplace and picked up the slightly singed parchment. With shaking hands, he unfolded it.
'Hello?'
o0o0o0o0
Guys. I'm seriously not updating until I get ten more reviews. Sooo... go ahead! REVIEW!