Pride and Prejudice

Chapter Seven - Let's Give Them Something to Talk About

Nearly a month had passed since the fateful night at Perrimen Lane when James' life literally turned upside down. The worst of the nightmares left James after a week or so, though his friends were still convinced he wasn't sleeping through the night. Sirius had caught James having a fit once when he was taking a rest on his couch. Remus wondered aloud if Voldemort might be sending James visions, but James didn't ever talk to anyone about his dreams. He still hadn't told anyone about what Voldemort had told him...about the traitor; though he did keep a sharper eye out for any suspicious activity from his friends for a while. After 3 days of finding nothing, James figured he had shaken off that ordeal, but was still plagued by silent nightmares.

Directly after the legal business was done regarding his parent's deaths, James threw himself into his Auror work, passing his final test with flying colors and rising high in the ministry in just a matter of weeks, mostly because he didn't seem to care about anything, or anyone else. Sirius passed his test as well, rising right by James side, determined not to let his friend down again. Sirius also had joined the Order of the Phoenix, his 18th birthday coming and going right in the middle of one of his and James' assignments to Italy where they had tracked a band of death eaters accused of aiding Voldemort in his most recent attack on the town of Hogsmead. Remus was due next, and Peter soon after him. James, now a fully qualified Auror, was given many more assignments with the Order, mostly being paired with Sirius. That along with his regular Auror job gave him an exhausting schedule. None of his friends could help but notice the constant bags under his eyes and his continual depression.

None of the Marauders had quite forgiven themselves for pulling that prank on James and Lily even though neither of them had cast blame on anyone. James reminded his friends several times that he wouldn't have made a difference, but the guilt still weighed heavily upon them.

Godric's Hollow was now fully habitable, full mostly of furniture that James, Sirius, Remus and Peter had salvaged from the ruined house that was now completely destroyed on Perrimen Lane. James was there enough to keep it in good shape, though work and the Order took him out of his home more than he enjoyed. He ended up hiring a cleaning lady to come help him. Sirius had teased him a bit when the employee had showed up and turned out to be a rather attractive witch just out of Hogwarts who was saving to go to med witch school. She had introduced herself as Tanya Higgins. Every Saturday Tanya came and she and James gave the house a good once over, cleaning the nooks and crannies and keeping the backyard looking in top condition. Sirius joked about how James had wanted his house in prime condition for Lily, but a sharp look from James had immediately shut him up on the subject and non of the Marauders ever questioned James' changed behavior anymore.

Remus and Peter came to help clean once, but James didn't count on the Marauder's help very much on Saturdays. Peter was finally working at the Ministry in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office. Remus had started training on becoming an investigator in the Search and Seizure department of the Ministry. Though his handicap kept him from doing Auror training like he wanted to, a top level recommendation from Dumbledore got him into the S&S. And Sirius, more often than not, had an Auror shift on Saturdays. But James, now one of the top 4th Division Aurors, was rewarded with an entire weekend off.

Neither James nor Lily had spoken to anyone about what happened that night in the closet. Nor had they spoken to each other since that night. Lily had come to Godric's Hollow on several occasions when Nikkie came to visit Sirius (who practically lived in James' house himself, as his small flat was too dirty to be classified as "habitable"). Though on all these occasions, James and Lily rarely made eye contact, much less spoke.

Everyone, once again, was starting to get annoyed.

"If only we could get them both to see how miserable they were."

"Well it's not like we're keeping them apart. Sirius and I practically shoved them together last time we were at Godric's Hollow. We went back in the room and James was doing some thing for work and Lily had fallen asleep on the couch!"

Sirius gave a loud, dramatic sigh and ran a hand down his face.

"They're too bloody stubborn for their own good."

Remus, Sirius, Peter, Frank, Nikkie and Alice were all gathered together inside The Three Broomsticks, most of them with a bottle of Butterbeer, but a select few nursing a Firewiskey.

"All I'm saying is that, even if we can get them to both go to this ball, we need to have some other ideas about how to actually get them together," Remus explained.

"Speaking of which," Sirius turned to Nikkie, "Are you having any luck getting Lily to go?"

Nikkie wrinkled her nose and glanced down at the table as she spoke. "She says she'll go, but she doesn't want to stay for very long." She looked back up and smiled nervously. "I'm supposed to meet her here in a little while to go shopping for it."

Sirius frowned at his girlfriend and raised a skeptical eyebrow toward her. "That's great, Nick...So why are you nervous?"

Nikkie pursed her lips as she considered the question and suddenly became very interested in wiping off the condensation off her Butterbeer bottle. But everyone's eyes boring into her head finally made her squeak out an answer. "Well, she kinda, sorta thinks..." she paused and looked regretfully up at Sirius. "She doesn't think that James is going to be there."

No one spoke for several seconds, not knowing that they were all thinking the same thing. Finally, Remus voiced their thoughts.

"It's bloody brilliant! Let's do the same thing with James."

---*---

James fiddled with the collar on his formal robes as it clenched his neck, making it difficult to breathe. The fact that the room was burning hot didn't help much either. James found the music that the band was playing excessively dull and the fact that all anyone wanted to talk about was politics didn't help much either.

The formal ball had been organized by the Department of Mysteries to raise money for...something. James frowned. No one knew really what it was for, but then again, it was another excuse for all the diplomat types to dress in their most expensive outfits and complain about the current Minister of Magic.

James had been required to come, on the account of his ranking in the Auror division of the Ministry, but that didn't mean he would enjoy it any more. He had always hated formal wear, especially since he had been given a set of Auror dress robes. Not only were they heavy and probably worth more than the rest of his robes combined, he was also supposed to be able to hid an assortment of Auror tools in them.

Whoever designed this was a world class git... James thought to himself, once again rearranging his hidden wand so that it wouldn't dig into the side of his chest.

He turned slightly as he heard Sirius start laughing again, grimacing as he saw that his best friend seemed to be having the time of his life. Remus and Peter were there with him as they talked to the current Deputy Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge.

He had been surprised to hear that Sirius was attending, much less that he would actually be wearing what he was supposed to. Sirius had acquired a kind of infamous name around Hogwarts for never having shown up to a ball in a suitable outfit. At their 6th year Winter Ball, the theme was "Winter Wonderland" and Sirius had shown up in swimming trunks and sunglasses. Professor McGonagall had, of course, scolded and shooed him back into the Gryffindor Common room, but not before most of the girls in the school had noticed that he wasn't wearing a shirt.

Another time he had shown up in bright neon orange robes that seemed to blind everyone who looked at them straight on, to a very formal 5th year type of "Prom".

The best was during their graduation when Sirius had charmed the doors to the great hall where when anyone walked through them, that person's wardrobe would change into their exact opposite. Only problem was, the person couldn't see that his or her robes had changed; yet everyone else could. James still remembered trying to give his Head Boy speech as he saw Snape dressed in a Tutu and Sirius giving him thumbs up in a Salmon colored Cocktail dress. James had later found out that his hadn't been that bad...well, not bad compared to everyone else. Apparently James' formal robes had changed into a very droopy gown that almost resembled a Seer's dress. That at least explained why he had seemed to be tripping over his feet all night.

"James!"

He jerked his head back up to see Alice Prewett making her way towards him, smiling and waving, dragging someone behind her.

Not her, anyone but her...

James grimaced as he saw that it was Lily Evans who stopped in front of him, Alice Prewett between them, her eyes twinkling as she saw their eyes lock.

"Fancy meeting you here, James? I didn't know you were coming?"

James frowned. What was she talking about, of course Alice had known. Frank was in the Auror division too. "What do you-"

He was cut off as someone stabbed him sharply in the back. He whirled to see Sirius looking at him, an oddly closed expression on his face.

"What?" James hissed.

Sirius raised his eyebrows expectantly. Play along, he mouthed.

Knowing Sirius well enough that it was probably a prank of some sort, James gave a long sigh and turned back to Alice and Lily.

"Yeah, well the whole Auror division was invited, and Moody insisted that I come." That was a lie, of course; unless you call "insisting," "threatening your life at the point of a wand".

His eyes flicked over to Lily and saw that she had been staring curiously at him.

Alice followed his eyes.

"You remember Lily, don't you, James? Old girlfriend, love of your life?"

James mentally cursed Sirius in the back of his mind. That definitely was not what he had been expecting to hear tonight. Both he and Lily blushed deeply and Alice seemed only encouraged by it.

"Well aren't you going to say hi?" she asked them defiantly.

James gathered up his courage and turned to Lily. He inclined his head a bit. "Evans."

She mimicked him. "Potter."

"You guys are as dry as Professor Binns," Alice said through a huff. "Now go on, James, say hi in a proper manner."

James glared over at Alice but she didn't seem to notice. He turned back to Lily and a thought came to his head. Holding out his hand he said softly,

"Good evening, Miss Evans."

Lily managed to keep her cool as she reached out to take his hand. "Good evening, Mr. Potter."

However, when Lily's hand touched his, instead of shaking it, he brought it up to his lips, kissing her softly on the knuckles. He felt her tense slightly as she was pulled towards him a little and it brought a smile to his face. At least he now knew that he affected her as bad as she affected him. There might be some hope yet.

He looked up into her eyes right after the kiss and saw that she was flushed, her expression full of confusion. He then looked at Alice who had her mouth wide open in astonishment and he could see that he mind was working fast. Suddenly James realized all the horrible things Alice could do to him at that very moment.

"James! Oh I have an idea!" Alice said with excitement.

James quickly dropped Lily's hand and turned to Alice with a sinking feeling.

"Why don't you ask Lily to dance?"

For the second time that night, James started. He frowned just noticeably. "What?"

Alice chuckled. "Dance, you know, to music?"

"Alice..." James warned her through gritted teeth.

"Oh nonsense!" She said happily. "You two have know each other for a while and besides, I have to go find Frank, so if you'll excuse me..."

Before either of them could say another word, Alice had disappeared into the crowd. James frantically turned around, but Sirius was even mysteriously gone, along with Remus and Peter.

"They did it again," Lily said with a sigh as he finally turned to face her, resigning himself to the fact.

James at once knew what she was talking about.

"I feel pretty dense getting caught twice," Lily admitted with a small smile, her gloved hands fingering the glass of Butterbeer she held.

"You?" James said with an exasperated grin. "I got all the way through Hogwarts without getting pranked, and now Sirius has caught me twice!" He mocked a headache. "He is never going to let me live this down."

Lily laughed lightly, one of the most beautiful sounds James had ever heard. He realized that he hadn't heard her laugh since they had been going out all those months ago. Hearing her laugh again made him actually smile for real.

This was the first time they had talked since the "closet incident", but so far things were going quite smoothly. Never mind the fact that only a few moments had passed. James congratulated himself for any victory with Lily he could get.

"It's good to hear you laugh," he admitted to her.

Lily blushed slightly but couldn't seem to think of anything to say. James was surprised that he wasn't that nervous, so he decided to take advantage of it.

"You look really beautiful tonight, Lily."

Indeed, she was rather stunning: Robes of deep green that brought out her eyes and accented her curves just so, her hair done up formally on her head, twisted and crowned with a few clips that matched the color of her robes. James at once was reminded of the different outfits she had worn to the balls they had gone to together. He made a quiet but firm decision that this one topped them all.

"You don't look so bad yourself, James," she offered back. James smiled slightly, fingering his collar again as he was reminded of the formality of the occasion. "Though I must say, I didn't expect you here tonight."

James raised a curious eyebrow. "Oh?"

Lily seemed rather embarrassed and took a small sip from her cup. "Well, to tell you the truth, Alice and Nikkie both said that you weren't coming tonight."

James frowned. "And Sirius assured me that you weren't going to be here as well."

There was a moment of awkward silence as both of them put the pieces together in their heads.

"Well at least I can understand why they did that. It's been a crazy few weeks for me," James finally decided to start. "But avoiding you has been far harder than anything else I've had to put up with."

Lily bit her bottom lip as she listened. James wasn't sure what she was thinking so he decided to continue.

"Don't get me wrong, I still feel like I want to murder Sirius every time I think about what they did, but, I'm kinda...well...glad that it happened," he finished lamely, not really knowing how to put it. He actually had given it a lot of thought, despite the fact that everyone currently thought he was too obsessed with his new job to think about anything else.

But there were always those sleepless nights when thinking about her made his situation in life seem just the least bit better.

Lily finally looked up at him with a smile and nodded. "Yeah, me too."

His eyebrows shot up. That had not been what he was expecting. Lily noticed this and seemed embarrassed as she tried to explain.

"To tell you the truth, I was hoping that we would have, at least some time, to be able to sit down and talk about what happened." She looked shyly up at him. "We always seemed to be fighting though."

Trying to cover up her embarrassment, James cleared his throat. "Well I guess that arguing confirms that we're not supposed to be together." It hurt him to say it, but after all his thinking, it was the best plan he had come up with.

He was momentarily surprised to notice Lily blanch slightly, but she covered it so quickly that he wasn't sure it had really happened. "Yeah, I mean, imagine us together," she giggled half-heartedly. "Like a walking time bomb or something."

"Yeah..."

Another awkward silence hung between them. James dimly heard the conversations around him and the foggy music playing in the background.

Suddenly, he felt a pair of eyes watching him. Or more like pairs of eyes watching him. Careful to not move too much, James shifted his eyes slightly and saw Sirius, Remus and Nikkie standing over by the refreshments table, watching him and Lily out of the corner of their eyes.

James' eyes flicked back to Lily and she was looking slightly in the other direction. Following her eyes, he saw Alice, Frank and Peter in a similar huddle as they studied Lily and James as well.

James, surprised by his own daring, suddenly held his hand up to Lily. She blinked in surprise as she saw it, and then looked up at him. Flashing his best smile, James motioned to the dance floor with a nod of his head.

"Let's give them something to talk about."