17 Going On 7

Chapter 4
Muggle Psychology

Lily looked around at her friends. "Well?!" demanded Mel, a sparkle of curiosity in her eye.

"He kissed me..." Lily sighed.

Chloe and Mel snorted with laughter, and Allie rolled her eyes. "Honestly!" laughed Chloe. "I thought you had something new to tell us!"

"I do!" Lily demanded in a rather whiny voice. "I kissed him back!"

While Chloe and Mel were looking surprised, Allie was busy rolling her eyes again. "As if it wasn't completely predictable!" cried Allie. "Chloe, Melanie! Get a grip! You knew Lil was falling in love with -"

"I'm not in love with James," Lily said stubbornly. "I've told you all once, and I'll tell you again. I don't fall for arrogant, scumbag, worthless -"

"That's a little harsh, Lil," Chloe said softly. "You've said it before - you do care about James, just not in a romantic way. But that doesn't mean you should be sitting here insulting him behind his back. If you consider him a friend ... well, we don't do that to you."

Lily sighed. "Sorry," she said. "The point is, I don't think of him like that. And I don't know what happened. I need some back up here!"

"Well, I can't give you any back up," Allie retorted hastily. "It's not my fault you're in denial about James. I've tried to be nice about this whole thing long enough. Lily, he's head-over-heels in love with you, and you can't give him a chance. He finally thinks you're ready to let him in, and you're sitting here, back where we started at. He's arrogant and you hate him. What happened to you love him - in a friendly way?"

"She kissed him back, that's what happened," mumbled Mel as Lily stomped out of the room in a huff and slammed the door.

"Yeah, well, if she's going to kiss him back, she better have a damn good reason," Allie said in her 'I-am-proving-a-serious-point' voice. "Because there are hundreds of girls in this school who would love to go out with James. And it figures that he loves the one who he can't have."

Chloe shrugged. "Isn't it, like, a fact of life that guys always want what they can't have?"

Allie and Mel turned and glared at her. Of course, they agreed.

***

Lily was sitting in the library, having a staring contest with the wall.

Her staring contest was won by the wall when a soft voice behind her caused her to blink. "Lily!" It was James. Lily groaned and rested her head on the table. "Oh, Miss Lily Evans, my beautiful beaming bride!"

Lily glared up at James as he plopped down in the seat across from her. "James, don't do that," she hissed.

"Don't do what?!"

"The 'beautiful beaming bride' thing ... it doesn't work."

"Oh." James frowned. "I have an important question to ask you." Lily raised an eyebrow, hoping it would be something other than ... "Will you go out with me?" he interrupted her thoughts.

Lily groaned again. "No, James!" she cried helplessly. "What would give you the idea that I'd say yes?!"

James leaned close to her across the table, and as her head was still on the table, it caused their faces to be only inches away. "Because of a certain something..."

Lily stood up, slamming her books on the table for a fuller effect. "James Potter, you are by far the most arrogant and insensitive person in the world! You think that everybody has to fall for you, but I have news for you! I won't!" Then she stomped out of the library, leaving a very confused James Potter to gather his thoughts.

***

"I thought she liked me!" James cried defeatedly, later that night in the Gryffindor common room.

"Well, maybe she was just confused," Remus said thoughtfully, but Sirius quickly shrugged the thought away before he could even process it.

"No, no, no," Sirius looked about his friends' faces. Peter, the only one who didn't seem much interested in the conversation, was sitting next to Remus on the couch, flipping the pages of a book. "See, the thing is, Lily is in denial. Now, Allie and I were discussing this thoroughly this afternoon over lunch. She thinks that Lily's whole thing -"

"Whoa!" James held up a hand to halt his friend's soon-to-be-very-long-speech. "You and Allie?! Hmm..." - he scratched his chin thoughtfully - "...well, I never really thought about it, but I suppose it's cute."

"No, we're not like that," sighed Sirius. "We're friends."

"Oh! Like that ever works!" Peter cut in. "Remember, Lily and James were 'friends'?" He held up his fingers in quotation to emphasize the sarcasm.

"Well, yeah, but they were never really 'friends'..." Sirius copied the hand gestures. "Lily just said that because she was in -"

"She is not in denial!" cried James. "She has no reason to be in denial! She knows how much I like her, and she's just playing games! I'm sick of it!"

Sirius' eyes widened. "James, you're not gonna -"

"I give up!" cried James indignantly. "Two can play that game!" He muttered something under his breath and then added, "And I quit."

James, Remus, and Peter all looked at each other as James stormed out of the common room, muttering inaudible things under his breath.

"He's got it bad..." Remus finally broke the awkward silence.

"Oh, yeah, really bad..." Peter added.

Then, because it would have been against his personality otherwise, Sirius added, "But so does Lily!"

Remus and Peter glared at him, shaking their heads silently.

***

Lily was sitting in the common room, twirling her fiery red hair around her finger - a nervous habit - as she went through some Muggle psychology books. "You know you've gone mad when you're resorting to Muggle shrinks." Lily jumped, thinking there really were voices in her head, but turned around to find that it was only James.

Lily grinned. "Oh, hello there," she said politely.

"What, so now instead of being civil we're going one step worse and being polite?" James said sarcastically.

"Hmph." Lily snapped the book shut and tossed it to the side. "So, what are you doing in here so early? Aren't you supposed to be torturing first years or planning pranks on the Slytherins? It's only -" she paused to look at her watch "-eight." James shrugged, as if not to care. "Oh! I know. You're about to request the common room for a top secret Marauders-only meeting? Well, be my guest, I have no use for it."

"No, they're a bit mad at me," James admitted, slumping into the couch.

"Oh," Lily said thoughtfully. "Well, I don't think the girls are too happy with me either."

"Oh?" James said curiously. It was more of a question than a comment, and Lily knew it.

"Yeah ... I sort of ... stormed out earlier," she said. She could feel the pink tingling on her cheeks as she told the rest, "They were confusing me even more about what happened." When James didn't react with the usual arrogant snort of laughter, Lily asked, "So, what's up with the Marauders?"

"Um, nothing really," James lied. When Lily's glare met his eyes, he knew he had to continue or she'd just badger him for more information. "Well, they kept saying over and over again that you were in denial. So, I got angry and stormed out."

Lily grinned at the thought of James standing up for her, but quickly shook any nice feelings toward him away. "Hmm, that's interesting..." she opened up another psychology book.

"So, we both go to the same people for advice, hmm? Our friends?" James said. He ran a hand through his hair, and was glad that Lily hadn't noticed, as she probably would have scolded him. "Well, it looks like they didn't turn up anything good for either of us this time."

Lily nodded in agreement, then snapped the book shut and threw it back in the pile. "I'm going to bed," she informed him.

"But, it's only -" started James, but Lily had already quietly shut her door.

***

Professor McGonagall searched the faces of the Prefects, looking for some sort of clue as to what they were thinking. "So?" she said, finally. "You agree or disagree?"

"But, Professor, I was not anticipating going to the ball with Bella Adams!" protested Lucius Malfoy. McGonagall raised an eyebrow curiously. "So, I object!"

"Any other objections?" asked McGonagall.

James Potter slowly raised his hand. "Professor, I don't think it would be a good idea to have Lily and I go to the ball together. I mean, we're not ... it's not a ... it's a complicated thing ..."

There was a sparkle - much like the one Dumbledore was famous for - in McGonagall's eye as she spoke. "Oh, I know it's complicated, Potter. So, are you objecting to going to the ball with Miss Evans?"

James glanced over at Lily, who was watching the conversation with an uneasy look on her face. "Yeah, I'm objecting."

Lily's eyes seemed to open a hundred times wider as she stared at James in amazement. "Are you sure about that?" she squeaked.

"Yeah," said James. "But I'll still do the opening dance."

Lily took a deep breath and slumped down in her chair as if she was sinking into a lake.

***

Sirius looked over curiously at James, who was doodling on some scrap parchment. "What's up with you, Prongs? We're trying to conduct a Marauder meeting, and you're just sitting there acting like you're ..."

"Depressed," finished Peter in a matter-of-fact voice. "Clear signs of depression." He held up one of Lily's psychology books. "Nice collection you have here, Prongs."

"Those are Lily's," James muttered, without looking up from his doodling.

"So - what's up?" Sirius repeated.

"Nothing," mumbled James, putting down his quill. He instinctively brought his hand to his hair and started raking his hand through it repeatedly.

"Seriously, James, what the hell is wrong with you?" Sirius said, his tone firmer than before.

"I said nothing," James insisted.

"What - is - wrong?" Remus asked slowly.

James looked up and stared at his three friends, who glared right back. "Lily?" Peter asked.

"Well, thank you, captain obvious!" Sirius cried, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Yeah, it's Lily," James said. "Okay? Lily."

"What about Lily?" Remus pushed.

"I had the perfect chance to go to the ball with her, but I said no."

"You mean, she asked you to the dance and -" started Peter.

"No!" interrupted James. "McGonagall wanted all the Prefects to go together - you know, since there's a boy and a girl for each House. Well, she said, if anybody objected, they didn't have to. So I objected."

"What the hell didja do that?!" cried Sirius. "Do I need to physically knock some sense into you?!"

James glared at Sirius. "I objected for two reasons. One, I don't feel like fighting her to be happy the whole night. Two, if I ever go to a dance with Lily, I want it to be as a date - not as business."

The Marauders nodded in understanding. "So - who are you going with? You're James Potter, you have to go with somebody."

James shrugged. "I dunno, Remus."