Chance

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Chance

Chapter five

By duva

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Now, would you expect a lad to sleep much after a night like the one I had had? No? Well, I did. In fact, I slept so well that when I woke up the next morning, I had ten minutes to spare to a) pack, b) get dressed and c) eat breakfast before the carriages left. Needless to say, I was a bit stressed. I managed, of course, but I didn't have time for anything else, such as finding Lily and snogging her some more, which was rather disappointing.

After I had downed my breakfast in three huge gulps, Sirius, Remus and Peter all eyeing me nervously, we dashed through the Great Hall, out through the Entrance Hall and sprinted across the lawn to the waiting carriages. Only one of them was still standing still; the rest had started rolling towards Hogsmeade.

'Would it have killed you to wake up a little earlier?' Sirius panted, clutching his side. The carriage started rolling as soon as we were all inside.

'Well, would it have killed you to, I dunno, maybe wake me up a little earlier?' I replied, craning my neck to try to look out the window. I couldn't see a damn thing inside the other carriages. Sighing, I leaned back, telling myself that I would at least see her on the train.

*

We were the last students to arrive at the station, for obvious reasons. As soon as we boarded the train, I could sense that there was something wrong. There seemed to be a lot of commotion coming from the compartments up front. Frowning, I left my trunk with the lads in an empty compartment and made my way to the one where the prefects were supposed to be sitting. Opening the door, I immediately caught sight of what was causing the problem.

The Slytherin prefects were standing at one side of the compartment, all the others on the other. As I opened the door, the room fell silent for a while, then a small, mousy Slytherin boy spoke. 'Oh, look, it's Potter, the Mudblood lover.'

I felt my blood begin to boil, and was in half a mind to punch the stupid grin off his face, but as I started walking towards him, I felt a cool hand on my forearm. Looking around, I locked my gaze with the stony glare of Lily Evans. 'Don't make it any worse,' she said quietly, in a voice that was cold and controlled, but trembling a little. I stopped dead in my tracks and she cleared her throat.

'Alright, everyone, we seem to be having a... situation here,' she said in the same voice. I noticed her hand was shaking a little as she tucked it into her pocket. 'I think we need to work this out, seeing how we're supposed to be role models for the rest of the student body.' A few of the Slytherins sniggered. I saw Lily tense, and my will to punch someone grew stronger. She seemed to be able to control herself, however. 'Right,' she said, voice shaking a little more now. 'Girls, come with me, the boys can stay here.'

'What makes you think we'd take orders from a Mudblood like you?' a dark-haired Slytherin girl said harshly.

'She's Head Girl, that's what,' I said before I could stop myself.

'I can manage this myself, Potter,' Lily said coldly. 'Anyone who doesn't step into the next compartment with me right now will have fifty house points taken and enough detention to last until Easter, do I make myself clear?' The Slytherin girls grudgingly followed her out the door, and I was left with the boys and a horrible, sinking feeling in my stomach.

Potter?

*

'So, let me get this straight. You and Evans were working, and all of a sudden she just snogged you?' Sirius asked, incredulous, as we were sitting in my bedroom later that night. I nodded dully. Alright, so I had left out a few parts, such as how I had technically kissed her long before she had kissed me, but he didn't need to know that. 'And then she called you James?'

'Yes,' I said exasperatedly. I had told him this over half an hour ago, in hopes to get his opinion on why she would regress to calling me Potter, but Sirius's mind seemed to have stuck on the detail that she had kissed me.

'And you didn't tell me? Instead, you let me make a fool out of myself by asking you if you were alright?'

'Look, would you let that go?' I said, and cringed at the desperation in my voice. 'Why the hell would she call me Potter today?'

Sirius shrugged. 'Maybe she was just stressed; it'd make sense with all of what was going on.'

'Or,' I said glumly, 'she's decided that last night was a horrible mistake and never wants to speak to me again.'

'That could also be it,' Sirius admitted. 'Did she act as though she hates you?'

My head flew up. 'Hates me? D'you reckon she does?'

Sirius didn't answer. He was glaring up at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought. 'Maybe she was drunk last night,' he muttered. 'I mean, there has to be a logical explanation to why she would kiss you.' I just stared at him in quiet despair. This wasn't helping. At all.

*

I spent the next few days fretting over what Lily's calling me Potter meant, and then I realised that I had something else to fret about, and started fretting even more.

Should I send her a Christmas present or not?

I mean, I hadn't gotten her anything fancy to begin with, just some assorted sweets that I knew she liked and a bottle of colour-changing ink, but if she hated me, she wouldn't want me to send her anything at all, would she?

'You're going to wear out the floor if you don't stop pacing soon,' my mother said irritably as I walked past the kitchen for the fiftieth time that day. 'Sit down, would you?' I ignored her and walked up the stairs, where she couldn't see my pacing. The house was quiet; my dad was out running some Christmas errands, mum was baking and Sirius was outside, working on his motorbike again, even though it was raining. So much for a white Christmas.

The thing was, if she had indeed just been stressed and did want to keep on snogging me, sweets and ink wasn't really an impressive gift, was it? I mean, it wasn't exactly one of those romantic gifts that made girls swoon and fall head over heels in love with someone.

'Still thinking about whether to send Evans her gift, are you?' I jumped at least a foot into the air.

'Dammit, Sirius, don't do that,' I said, hand over my chest. 'One of these days you're going to give me a heart attack.'

Sirius grinned at me, his cheeks flecked with motor oil. 'I don't see what the problem is.'

'The problem?' I said rather loudly, not believing my ears. 'The problem is that I don't even know if Lily wants me to send her a present at all, since for all I know, she might like me as much as she likes tripe.' I drew a deep breath. 'Maybe she was just feeling lonely and wanted to snog anyone, and she knew I wouldn't say no,' I muttered under my breath.

'What was that?' Sirius asked, tilting his head to the side.

'Nothing,' I said quickly. 'And if she doesn't hate me, and wasn't drunk, she'll hardly be impressed by some dry ice mice and some old ink, and then she'll start to like me as much as she likes tripe anyway,' I said, slumping my shoulders. Talk about a lose-lose situation.

Sirius stared at me for a moment while wiping his hands on his cloak. 'Don't be such a drama queen, Jim,' he then said, throwing his oily cloak at me. 'Besides, what I meant was that I don't see what the problem with me giving you a heart attack is,' he added as he walked into the bathroom.

*

With some very unhelpful help from Sirius, I finally decided to send the things I had bought to Lily, along with a letter. Now, letters weren't really my forte, as you might know, and this was indeed a Very Important Letter, so I spent a lot of time on it. I finally came up with something that didn't make me wrinkle my nose in disgust when I read it, which you have to agree is a good sign.

Dear Lily, it said,

How are you? I hope things went okay on the train and that they weren't too horrible to you. I had to hand out a few detentions myself, but no one was injured, thankfully. I thought you could use some cheering up, so here are some things I think you'll enjoy. If you need more to take your mind off it, I'd be happy to take you down to Hogsmeade some time and buy you a Butterbeer or two, if you'd want to.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love, James.

I was really quite proud of myself. Who would've known I could come up with something like that? Not me, that's for sure. I mean, if she wanted us to just be friends, or whatever it was we were, the invitation to Hogsmeade could easily be dismissed as a friendly gesture. If I was so lucky that she was actually interested in a reprise snogging session, however, she would probably recognise it for what it really was. Now I only needed to find that famous Gryffindor courage and actually send it to her.

*

Christmas passed without any remarkable incidents. I had finally gotten around to sending Lily her present late on Christmas eve, so I was unsure whether it had arrived in time or not. I was also quite a bit nervous about whether or not I would get anything from her. My head was saying that I shouldn't be expecting anything, but my heart simply couldn't resist doing so anyway. Needless to say, I was quite a bit depressed when I went to bed that night without having received as much as a Christmas card from her. Must be true as Sirius had suggested then - she hated me. Right at that moment, I did too.

I woke up rather early on Boxing day, and at first I couldn't understand why. Some sound had woken me up, but there didn't seem to be anyone in my room. Now, when you're living with Sirius Black, you can never be sure about anything, so I was a bit apprehensive about whether he was under my invisibility cloak until I remembered that I had left that at Hogwarts over the holidays. Glancing over at the window, I noticed my owl hovering outside it, pecking the window impatiently with his beak. I immediately jumped out of bed, instantly awake, and practically ran over to the window and opened it, impatient to see whether Lily had sent me a letter or anything. As my owl flew inside, my heart did a funny little flip flop and a huge grin spread over my face.

She hadn't only written me a letter, she'd sent me a package as well.

I tore the parcel away from the owl's leg and went back to my bed and sat down on it, opening the parcel. It contained a long, light, wrapped gift, a small, heavy one, and not one, but two letters. Curious, I opened the one which was closest to me, which resembled a Howler somewhat with its red envelope, only it seemed to be made of paper instead of parchment. Inside, there was a shiny card with a Christmas tree printed on it. I turned it over; it simply said Merry Christmas, Lily. Placing the card on my bedside table, I reached for the other envelope, which contained a letter.

Dear James, it said, and I felt my grin widen as my heart started hammering wildly against my ribs. James! Ha.

Thank you very much for your presents! How did you know what my favourite sweets were? My sister is eyeing them as I write this; I think she's tempted to try some of the ice mice, but of course she'd never touch anything magical. The ink was really wicked, as well - I didn't even know they made ink like that. Do you think Binns will appreciate it if I write the essay about the history of British hags with it?

I'm sorry that this is so late - I bought you your presents ages ago, but I don't have an owl and I don't know your address, so I had planned to just give you this at school, but then your owl turned up and I decided to just mail them to you. I hope you like them, it's nothing special but I'd thought you'd like them.

Merry belated Christmas and happy new year!

Love, Lily

PS: If you hadn't asked me to go to Hogsmeade with you, I would've asked you. So yes, I'd like that very much.

PPS: I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of miss you. We never got to say a proper goodbye, what with the Slytherins and all that. I wish we had. Anyway, see you soon!

I was grinning so widely that it was a miracle my face didn't burst. I had never been so happy about Sirius being wrong before, and that was saying something.

*

'Would you please stop that? It's driving me mad,' Sirius said quite sharply as I wrung my hands nervously. We were sitting on a bench outside King's Cross, waiting for Peter and Remus, who should have arrived over fifteen minutes ago.

'Sorry,' I muttered, trying to keep still. 'Now, please remember, not a word to Remus or Peter, okay?' Sirius rolled his eyes.

'Yes, I know, you only told me about three billion times.'

'Because, you know, I might have misinterpreted that letter and even if I didn't, she might not want anyone else to know -'

'James, I know!' Sirius said loudly, causing quite a few onlookers to stare at him. 'Besides, you better stop blabbering if you don't want them to know, because here they come.' Indeed, Remus came walking into sight at his words, closely followed by Peter.

'We thought you meant the bench around the corner,' Remus offered as a greeting. 'We have been waiting for you for nearly half an hour.' Eyeing Peter, he added,

'Well, I have. Peter just showed up five minutes ago.'

'Very punctual, are you, Pete?' Sirius said, smiling. Peter scoffed at him.

'Whatever. We'd better get onto the platform,' he said, pushing the trolley with his trunk on it in front of him.

'So,' Remus said as we approached the barrier, 'anything interesting happen to you two during the holidays?'

'Weeeeell -' Sirius began gleefully, but fell silent as I gave him the coldest stare I could manage.

'Nothing,' I said, my stomach squirming with nervousness. 'Nothing at all.' Peter and Remus gave me some odd stares, but didn't say anything. Remus went through the barrier first, followed by Sirius, and then Peter. Taking a deep, shaky breath, I pushed my trolley through the barrier, closing my eyes as I crossed it. Walking over to stand with the guys, I quickly scanned the platform for any sign of red hair, my heart beating so loudly that it was the only sound I could hear. It doubled in intensity as I spotted her standing near the train, talking to her friends.

'I'll be right back,' I said in a very strangled voice to the lads, and Sirius gave me a clap on the shoulder as I went. Lily was standing with her back to me, but as I neared, one of her friends must have told her I was coming, because she turned around, her face alight with happiness. I felt my knees go all rubbery and had to force myself to continue walking.

'Hi,' I mumbled nervously as I came up in front of her, forcing myself to look into her smiling eyes.

'Hi,' she replied, and then simply reached up, put her arms around my neck, drew my face down to hers and kissed me.

'I don't think she minds that people know, James,' I vaguely heard Sirius call over the loud beating of my heart, but I didn't care. I brought my own hands up to Lily's hair and deepened the kiss, not caring about her giggling friends standing only a few feet away, the comments and questions from my friends, or someone wolf whistling further down the platform. I didn't care about anything but her lips on mine, and the beating of her heart against my chest, its racing rhythm matching my own.

I had gotten my chance. I wouldn't mess it up.

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