Chance

***

Chance

Chapter four

By duva

***

'You look like shit,' Sirius said quite happily as we made our way down to breakfast the next morning.

'Thank you, Padfoot, you really know how to light up my day,' I said sarcastically. I knew he was right, though, and the reason was very simple. I had hardly slept at all that night. I had been too busy mentally kicking myself for being a stupid prat.

The Great Hall was, as usual, quite full of people. I did a quick scan of the Gryffindor table, but I did not see any red hair anywhere. I gave a relieved sigh, sat down and began piling bacon on my plate, listening to Sirius, who was reading out loud from The Daily Prophet about an attack on a Muggle village. Apparently Dark wizards were suspected to be behind it. I cringed; there had been a definite rise in these kind of things, and it scared me.

'"There were people running everywhere," says Muggle Roan Little, aged 74,' Sirius read. '"All I could think about was - "' He stopped reading and grinned at a spot behind my shoulder. I was immediately filled with dread, and I turned around, knowing who it would be but hoping still that it would be someone - anyone - else.

Of course, it wasn't. I mean, life can't possibly be that good, can it?

'Morning, Potter,' she said briskly. I didn't dare look at her. Instead I mumbled a greeting to her shoes, my face rapidly growing redder. 'I was just going to remind you about the meeting tonight. Eight o'clock.'

'Right,' I mumbled to her shoelaces. 'I'll be there.'

'Good,' she said, before walking over to her friends and sitting down. I turned my attention back to Sirius, who was looking at me quizzically.

'What was that all about?' he asked, newspaper forgotten.

'Nothing,' I murmured, my face still a lovely shade of crimson. Sirius looked sceptical. 'Really,' I insisted, trying to calm my face down a little. 'Let it go.'

'Whatever you say,' he replied, still looking doubtful, and went on reading.

*

The meeting that night was a very new experience for me. It was the first time I wasn't staring non-stop at Lily Evans. In fact, I was sitting as far away from her as possible, staring intently at the piece of parchment that lay in front of me. I wasn't really paying attention to what was being said, either. I was too nervous about being in the same room as her.

I was jostled back to reality when the people surrounding me all stood up and began to gather their belongings. I felt a great surge of relief that the meeting was over, and started putting my things in my bag.

Why did I think I was going to get away that easily?

Before I had even begun to stand up, Lily was by my side, apparently waiting for me to acknowledge her presence.

'What?' I said, rather harshly, glancing up at her.

'We need to go over this,' she replied, showing me a list of the preparations for the Hallowe'en feast we had been working on the previous night. Before I had gone all cave-man on her. For some reason, I seemed to have forgotten about everything that led up to that.

'Right,' I said stupidly. 'Now?'

'I need to run a few errands, so can I meet you in the common room in say, half an hour?' she asked, and I nodded. 'Great,' she said. 'Thanks.'

I groaned as I stood up and followed her out of the Great Hall. Half an hour left until doomsday.

*

'Potter?' she said, in a somewhat aggravated tone.

'Yeah?' I mumbled, keeping my eyes intently on the desktop.

'Would it kill you to look at me?' I sighed and glanced up at her briefly. She was sitting next to me on the couch, her legs curled up, much too close to me for my liking, with her arms crossed over her chest, looking at me with a quirked eyebrow. The same quirked eyebrow she had worn before I jumped her underneath the stairs. I felt my cheeks grow red and avoided her gaze again. I had been hoping she wouldn't notice.

'Is this about what happened yesterday?' she said softly, and my cheeks grew even redder. I mumbled something incoherent, because my voice definitely wasn't working. I figured it had gone on vacation, apparently taking my stomach and parts of my brain with it. 'Look, I don't want you to feel... embarrassed or anything about that,' Lily said quietly. I snorted. Fat chance. 'Damn it!' she suddenly exclaimed, slamming her fist onto the desktop and making me jump. 'I don't care how embarrassed you are, we have to work together and I simply cannot work with you if you refuse to look me in the eye,' she said angrily.

I swallowed and forced myself to lift my gaze to meet her angry stare. Great.Not only did looking into her eyes turn me into an idiot; it turned me into a very red idiot. Her expression softened a bit when I finally did look up. 'That wasn't so terrible, was it now?' she said, her tone soft once more. I tried to smile, but I have a feeling it ended up looking more like a frown, because it made Lily sigh deeply and put her hands over her face.

'What do you want me to do, eh, Potter?' she asked from behind her hands. 'Do you want me to turn back time so that it'd never have happened?' I didn't say anything. As appealing as it sounded to never have screwed things up at all, I wouldn't want to not have the memory of kissing her for anything in the world, but I couldn't exactly tell her that, could I? She removed her hands from her face and looked at me again. 'If I kissed you, would that make us even?'

I stared at her. I think my mouth actually fell open. What? Then, next moment, she was starting to move closer to me, leaning in. And I could not move. She was staring into my eyes, and I couldn't look away. I always did turn into a blabbering fool when she looked at me. She put her hand on my cheek, but as she leaned in, her face inches from my own, I came to my senses.

'No!'

I backed away from her, nearly falling off the couch. She stood up, and this time, it was she who walked away.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night either.

*

'Can we talk?'

I looked up from where I was laying. Lily was standing beside the couch, looking about as good as I felt, with dark rings under her eyes and matted hair. I sat up. 'Sure,' I said, though I really, really didn't want to talk to her at that very moment. Damn her and her ability to make me do whatever she asked me to. She sat down next to me on the couch, staring at her fingernails. The common room was pretty deserted, none of my friends were anywhere to be seen, and neither was hers.

'I'm sorry,' she blurted out just as I was about to start apologising. I looked at her in surprise.

'For what?'

'About yesterday,' she said, shaking her head a little. 'I was out of line, I know it.' I stared at her. 'Look,' she said, looking up at me. I didn't look away this time. 'That... thing... that happened the other night - ' I looked down again.

'I'm sorry about that,' I mumbled.

'Right.Well, that was... it was an accident, wasn't it?' she asked quietly.

'Accident?'I repeated, not really understanding.

'Just something that happened because of the circumstances,' she clarified. 'It didn't mean anything, did it?'

Bloody hell it did. I didn't say that, though; I'm not that thick.

'Right,' I said instead, venturing a look at her. She looked up at me too and smiled.

'I thought so. So... does this mean we can work together normally from now on?'

I smiled back at her, my stomach fluttering. 'Of course.'

*

I would never have believed it if someone had told me, but we actually managed to work together without it being all awkward after that day. Sure, I still thought she was the most amazing girl ever to set foot on this planet, and sure, every time I happened to glance at her mouth I wanted to pin her down and snog her senseless, but otherwise, things were going just fine. I had been worried that she would want to keep a distance from me, seeing as how last time we had had a personal chat I had very nearly molested her, but thankfully, she didn't seem worried about that. Not that she needed to be; I wouldn't be that stupid two times in a row.

The Hallowe'en feast was a huge success, and as November arrived, bringing a large amount of snow with it, we had to start working on the plans for Christmas. I didn't really see why we had to do it, as we were both going home for Christmas, but apparently it was tradition or something like that.

'I'm too tired to do any more of this,' Lily yawned, and put the long list of Christmas ornaments on the table in front of her. We were sitting, as we always did when we were working, at a table near the windows in the common room, she in "her" armchair, me on the sofa. I glanced at my wristwatch; it was nearly eleven.

'We still have all these to go through,' I said, motioning to a pile of papers that lay beside me on the couch.

'I know,' Lily said, sounding rather miserable. 'Let's just take a little break, all right?'

'Sure,' I said, glad for the interruption. I had been wanting a break, too, but I somehow didn't quite dare to ask her for one.

'What are you doing for Christmas?'

'Nothing special, really,' I replied, stretching my legs out on the sofa. 'Just the usual, I suppose. How about you?'

'Same,' said Lily. 'My mum's best friend and her family are coming to stay at my house, though; it will be a nightmare.' She grimaced a little. I gave a sympathetic smile.

'That bad, huh?'

'Well, she's not too bad, it's just that she has four very loud children,' Lily sighed. 'Two of which will be staying in my room.' I laughed a little.

'Before we had a room fixed for him, Sirius stayed in my room for a couple of weeks, and let's just say that I know what it's like to never have any privacy,' I said. 'I mean, it's one thing here, where you know that you share the room with other people, but at home you have a room full of personal belongings, if you know what I mean?'

'Exactly,' she replied, then quirked her brow a little. 'How come Sirius lives with you, anyway? You two that attached to each other?' I laughed again.

'Well, that too,' I said. 'Mostly it's because of his horrid family, though.'

'Oh,' Lily said, and then fell silent. I didn't say anything either, I just watched her as she sat there. Damn, but she was beautiful. My stomach churned.

'Do you have any nicknames?' she asked suddenly, out of the blue. I looked at her, trying to appear as though I hadn't just been staring intently at her face.

'What?' I asked with a small laugh.

'Nicknames.I know that your friends call you Prongs, for some ridiculous reason, but do you have any other nicknames?'

'How'd you know that?'

'What?' she asked, puzzled.

'That they call me Prongs,' I explained, just as puzzled.

She smiled at me. 'I'm not deaf, Potter.' I blushed a little. Were we really that obvious? I would need to discuss this with the lads. 'So, do you?'

What? Oh yeah, she had asked me a question. Right. 'Er, not really,' I said, trying to cool my face down a little. 'Sirius calls me Jim sometimes, and my mum calls me Jamie, even though I have asked her a million times not to.' She chuckled. 'Why do you ask?'

'Just curious,' she replied casually. 'Anyway, we better get back to this, don't you think?'

*

The last weekend of November was a Hogsmeade weekend, and I had planned to do my Christmas shopping then. Only problem was, so had half the school. I cursed loudly as someone stepped on my foot in a very crowded store, where I was trying to find something nice for my mum.

'This is insane!' Remus shouted to me. He was standing in a corner, pushed up against the wall and looking a bit blue in the face. I nodded.

'Outside,' I said, and we slowly pushed our way through the crowd. Once outside, Remus drew a deep breath.

'Remind me never to do that again, please,' he said shakily.

'Alright, but you have to promise to come back with me some day this week,' I muttered under my breath, brushing off my cloak from where someone had tread on it. I had forced Remus to come with me and assist me in my shopping, since Sirius had a very... odd... taste in gifts, and Peter was no help, either - he always asked what I thought of everything before giving his own opinion, which is really not what you're after when you need someone to give their honest view on something.

'Fine,' Remus muttered. 'Can we go join the others?'

Making our way down the very crowded street, we entered the equally crowded Three Broomsticks, and spotted Sirius and Peter sitting at a table near the door.

'What is that, Sirius?' I asked, pointing to the glass in front of him, which was definitely not Butterbeer. He grinned up at me.

'An advantage to being of age,' he said as I slipped down next to him. 'Cheers!' I rolled my eyes. I had just placed my order (Butterbeer, thank you very much!) when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I glanced over and broke into a huge smile when I saw who it was.

'Hey!' I half-shouted over the noise.

'Hey!' Lily shouted back. 'Mind if I sit down?'

That was one hard question. Not.

''Course not,' I said happily, and scooted over nearer to Sirius to make room for her.

'People are going crazy,' she said as she sat down, removing her cloak.

'Yeah, tell me about it,' I replied, my leg tingling from where it was brushing against hers. 'So, what did you want to talk about?'

She looked quizzically at me. 'What?'

'What did you want to talk to me about? Does it have to do with Christmas?' I asked. She shook her head.

'Nothing special, I just felt like spending some time with you.'

I stared at her for a few moments. 'Why?'

'You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of like your company,' she said simply, as she tried to get the waitress's attention. 'That reason enough?'

I looked at her in amazement, and in that moment, I realised something I had never considered before. Maybe it happened then and there, or maybe I just hadn't realised it before. I'm not sure, but either way, at that moment, the realisation hit me very forcefully.

I was in love with Lily Evans.

*

Yes, I know that you might think I'm a bit of an idiot for not understanding that earlier. To be perfectly honest, the thought that I might be in love with her hadn't even really crossed my mind. Sure, I knew that I fancied her, but being in love with someone and fancying someone are two quite different things, if you know what I mean.

After my little revelation that day, I found it even harder to concentrate on anything else when she was in the room. Sirius noticed, and had a good laugh at my expense, but I didn't even care. Of course, I knew that she probably didn't think of me in any romantic way, but I couldn't help it. I was always trying to talk to her, whenever I had the chance, and she didn't seem to mind all that much, either.

'You there?' I shook myself out of my little reverie. It was quite late in the evening before we were all going home for Christmas, and I was working with Lily on a few last details in our usual spot in the common room.

'Sorry,' I muttered. She looked amused.

'What were you thinking about?'

Oh, just how my ideal Christmas present would be you, preferably wrapped in a bow and not wearing anything else. Don't worry, I didn't say that. Instead, I raked my mind for an excuse for zooming out.

'I was just thinking about whether Dumbledore dresses up as Father Christmas and has the house elves act as his elves during the feast,' I said quickly, then cringed a little. What a stupid thing to say. Lily just looked at me for a moment, then burst out laughing.

'Actually, I could see that happening,' she laughed. 'McGonagall could be Mrs Claus, and Hagrid could dress up as... as... as a Christmas tree!'

I joined in her laughter, which seemed to make her laugh even harder. 'He could wear an angel on the top of his head!' I said, tears streaming from my eyes from laughing so hard.

'Stop it, my tummy hurts!' said Lily, clutching her stomach. After a few minutes, I managed to calm down a bit, and, judging from the silence of the room, so did Lily. I glanced over to where she was sitting. Bad idea. As soon as our gazes met, we started laughing again. She was leaning over one of the armrests, clutching her sides, tears streaming out of her eyes.

'Don't do that, I'm going to laugh myself to death,' she managed to say between bouts of laughter, making me laugh even harder. I mimicked her position, leaning over the armrest at the end that was closest to her.

'Sorry,' I said, still laughing like a madman. She looked up at me then, and just as I noticed that she had stopped laughing, she quickly leaned over and put her lips to mine.

Alright.

I have to admit, I was a little surprised. My laughter died immediately, and I managed to come to my senses enough to actually kiss her back. She was kissing me slowly, one of her hands resting on my cheek, and by Merlin, I couldn't remember her lips being that soft, or her scent being that sweet, or her touch so gentle. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was actually doing this out of her own will, rather than reacting automatically to my actions.

Oh, God. She was kissing me out of her own will.

We were still leaning over our respective armrests, and though I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else at that moment, the position was a little uncomfortable. Lily, bless her, seemed to agree with me, because as she deepened the kiss, letting her hand drift to the back of my neck, she stood up a little, and, letting me sit up properly, placed her knees on either side of my lap and gently sat herself down.

No complaints. At all.

I don't really know how long we sat there. At some point I leaned back towards the corner of the couch, so that we ended up in some kind of a half-laying position, with her still straddling my lap. It was one of those perfect moments, where nothing else in the world seemed to matter, not a thing except for her lips on mine.

I vaguely heard the portrait creak open, but I can't say that I cared very much. Lily didn't seem to, either, because she didn't draw back. We were sitting near one of the windows; if we were lucky, whoever it was that had entered would not see us at all.

Of course, life couldn't possibly be that good.

'Isn't that Lily?' I distinctively heard Peter say. I gave a little sigh. Great. Of all the people to come in at a moment like this, it just had to be one of my best friends.

'Yeah... I think it is,' Remus replied. I was vaguely disturbed by the fact that they were there, but Lily didn't seem to care at all. Either that or she hadn't noticed them.

'Oh, shit,' came Sirius's voice, and I sighed once more. All three of them. 'Let's just pray that Prongs hasn't seen this.' I chuckled a little against Lily's lips.

'Why?' Peter asked.

'She's snogging someone, you twat,' Sirius said impatiently. 'It'd just break his poor little heart.'

'Oh!' Peter said in understanding.

'Honestly, can we just give Lily some privacy? It's not our problem who she's snogging.' I felt a definite surge of affection for Remus at that moment. A door opened, and their voiced drifted away as I heard their footsteps on the stairs.

A few minutes later, Lily drew back, sitting up straight. I think I groaned a little. She gently stroked my cheek with her thumb. 'I need to go to bed,' she murmured. I nodded stupidly. She grabbed my hand, stood up and pulled me with her. 'Goodnight,' she whispered before bringing her lips to mine once more for a short, soft kiss. She backed away and started walking towards the girls' dormitory. I remained where I was. For some reason, my legs didn't seem quite stabile at the moment. As she reached the door, she hesitated for a while, and then turned back around, looking at me. 'Would it really break your heart if you caught me snogging some other bloke?'

I stared at her for a moment, then nodded. She cocked her head. 'Why?'

'Because I'm in love with you.'

What? Who just said that? Surely, it wasn't me. First of all, I would never have the nerve to tell her that, and since when was my voice that ragged? It had to have been someone else. The common room seemed very deserted, though, and it definitely wasn't Lily who had said it. That, and she was staring intently at me with those beautiful eyes. Must've been me, then. Sometimes I really hate myself.

Lily just stood there for a moment, looking at me. 'Goodnight, James,' she then said very softly, and opened the door and walked in.

*

'Did you see Lily down there?' Sirius asked through a glitch in the curtains around his bed as soon as I entered our dormitory. I looked stupidly at him. My brain was a little foggy at the moment. Can you blame me? I had a lot on my mind.

'Er... yeah,' I said and winced at the words. My voice was still all ragged. Sirius looked concerned. I think he was talking to me, but I wasn't really listening. I was thinking about what had just happened, and something had just clicked in my head, making me feel as though I was walking on air.

'James?' Sirius said sharply, and I looked at him. 'Are you alright?' My face broke into a wide grin.

'Yeah, I'm fine.'

'You don't mind having seen Lily... like that, then?' he asked, and my grin grew even wider as I lay down on my bed.

'Nah, I don't mind.'

Sirius looked very confused, but seemed to accept my answer. 'Alright, then. Good. G'night,' he said, drawing his curtains closed again.

I lay down on my own bed, still smiling like an idiot. My worries about Lily's reaction to my little declaration earlier had completely vanished, leaving behind a feeling of absolute joy. I had realised something vital.

She had called me James.

***