I'm Not in Love

Lily woke up a few seconds before the first bright ray of sunlight shone through the parted drapes, reflected off one of the brass lamps, and, thus intensified, straight into her bleary, half opened eyes.

She immediately squeezed them shut again.

When she had moved out of the shaft of illuminated dust particles, and blinked the sun spots from her eyes, she looked at the early morning sky, at her wrist watch, and at sky again.

Shortly after, she rediscovered the elusive nature of sleep.

After a few minutes of unsuccessful attempts at dozing, Lily sat up and again exposed her eyes to the sun, which was determined to blind her. She felt completely refreshed. More awake than she'd been since... probably since she'd been two years old. This was odd, since by her watch, she had had a grand total of four hours of sleep.

Knowing from past experience that if she showed any sort of enthusiasm before nine o'clock, her dorm-mates would lynch her, Lily decided that rather than waking Eli and Jasmine, she would get on with her morning routine, then do something else for the three hours until breakfast.

Having completed said routine in record time, due to a lack of availability of hot water in the shower, Lily had decided to walk aimlessly around the castle until such a time as when she found herself hopelessly lost, and had to wait for others to wake up and show her the way out.

However, due to the extended period of time she'd spent living in the castle and ferreting out wrongdoers on her Prefect rounds, she knew almost every twist and turn of the corridors, every step that vanished, when, under what circumstances, and the timetable for the moving stairs. She inevitably found herself back at the portrait hole, courtesy of Evans Autopilot; she'd established the shortest and most effective way to her dorm, and that was where her subconscious automatically took her whenever she zoned out for too long.

Fortunately, it was late enough that she could wake up Eli and Jasmine without fear of dismemberment, which ought to be enjoyable, as she had never actually had the opportunity to gloat at them for sleeping late, that usually being their job.

~*~

At breakfast, Lily's unusually good mood only increased. She didn't eat much, being content to just put food onto her friends' plates, whilst they stared blearily at her.

When the Marauders staged their Friday morning prank, causing spiders to fall from nowhere to halt, struggling madly but suspended in the air, two centimetres above the heads of the screeching girls, Lily had to take a hefty swig of pumpkin juice to stop herself from laughing. This strategy didn't work very well; when James took his customary glance to see if she was even slightly amused, she was battling to keep the orange liquid in her mouth, rather than out her nose.

In potions with Professor Slughorn, Sirius 'accidentally' upset a cauldron of anti-boil potion - which they were brewing to replenish the infirmary's stock - onto a close-knit huddle of Slytherins. However, that particular batch of potion didn't have the catalyst ingredient added to it, causing the unfortunates to immediately break out in the very thing that the potion would later cure: boils.

Lily was in stitches with the rest of the class as the Slytherins left in a miserable state - she didn't feel bad for them at all, as she'd seen them earlier, forcing a couple of first-year Hufflepuffs to pick up books as they shoved them off a shelf. They'd fled when they saw Lily, and the thought that they'd have to wait until the class was finished with the potions for relief only made her laugh harder.

Very few potions were ready for use at the end of that period.

In Care of Magical Creatures, they were learning how to correctly groom Bowtruckles, which is very like pruning a tree. Lily's Bowtruckle was a sickly willow sprite. Lily had a notion that there might be a connection between a witch's wand and how particular Bowtruckles reacted to her.

Lily's Bowtruckle simply went limp against her supporting hand, and rustled gently in a way she could swear was a purr as she deftly severed dead twigs and wayward shoots.

However, when she looked around, most of her class was either having to pair up, with one person holding the struggling creature down and the other trying to clip off the right bits, or were simply hiding under worktables, cowering as their 'patient' danced triumphantly above them. Eli and Jasmine were glaring at her from their position, fending off barky blows with empty platters, which had once displayed the wood lice intended to keep the Bowtruckles quite during the lesson.

Though the rest of Lily's day was uneventful, she remained in almost unnaturally high spirits. Through the week, though the homework piled up, and the days were rainy and overcast, Lily felt she was almost glowing.

And everywhere she went, she seemed to see James, though he rarely bothered her. She saw him once directing a first year out of a corridor that had a tendency to rotate, changing the direction that each of the doors opened. Another time, he and Remus were berating a laughing Sirius, though he didn't look very chastened. He'd spotted Lily over his friend's shoulders, and pointed her out to James, who grinned and waved, but didn't come over. Lily felt an almost uncontrollable urge to smile and wave back, but managed to turn a rising hand into an adjustment of her perfectly placed book-bag strap as she turned away. At random points throughout the days, Lily would start to smile, and she would have to very quickly duck away from people to have her grinning fits, lest she be thought to have lost it. She had no explanation for her high spirits, though her Mum probably would have said she'd 'found her centre'. Lily didn't know, and she didn't care.

~*~

"Lily, did you hear?"

Lily was trying to conceal another spasm of face-splitting smiles by drinking copious amounts of pumpkin juice. Swallowing her mouthful, she got her errant facial muscles under control, and turned to Eli.

"Well, I did, but this morning I suddenly became completely deaf. I think my sight is going, too.'

Jasmine reached over to pat Lily's shoulder.

"Don't worry, the nice people from St Mungo's permanent ward will be here shortly."

"WHAT WAS THAT? SPEAK UP!"

Eli glared at them both, before assuming the air of someone who had news.

"Anyway, did you hear?"

Lily and Jasmine opened their mouths, only to have Eli cut them off irritably.

"All right! You haven't heard! Good! Well, I've heard that..." She paused for dramatic effect. Lily and Jasmine exchanged exasperated looks. Their friend had a melodramatic streak which was very long. Jasmine reckoned she should go into a career of stage acting.

"James Potter has a girlfriend."

That caught Lily's attention.

"WHAT?"

"Well, Kate said that Doris said she'd overheard someone talking about it. Apparently he's tried to keep it on the sly, but Hogwarts is like a sieve. Everyone talks. If nobody talked, the walls would fall in; there'd be no wind to hold them up."

Lily was running possibilities through her head. It couldn't be her, she'd made it quite clear that she would let him show her something, not be his latest plaything. She actually felt quite strange. Well, she thought, I suppose having someone trail after you for years, and then just stop will do that to you. Then she realised that he'd done just that. He hadn't had one other romantic interest for the entire time he was trying for her. Not one.

Keeping her voice carefully bland, Lily inquired as to the identity of said girlfriend.

"I don't know, gossip just says that they're going out. How does it feel, Lily," Eli added with a touch of malice, "to have the only guy who'd stay devoted to you for years, despite all your snubs, just lose interest like that?"

Lily felt cold. She stood abruptly, and walked away, her back stiff with some unknown emotion that broiled within her.

~~*~~

Quite abruptly, Lily's good moods ceased. She was often grumpy or moody. The Quidditch game the week before she was meant to meet James, she didn't even consider going to, and instead spent most of the day restlessly walking around the castle. She tried to read - nothing was interesting. She was going to go for a walk outside, but the weather was still cold and rainy, and she'd spilt hot chocolate on her raincoat ages ago, and had yet to get it cleaned. Jasmine and Eli were at the game, Gryffindor against Hufflepuff. She felt tired and not a little wan, and wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

She wandered the castle, trying doors, looking under tapestries, behind suits of armour, avoiding everyone, even the ghosts. She finally found one room that looked very out of place with the rest of the castle. It was almost exactly like her room at home, but with all kinds of little differences. It was exactly what she'd been looking for - something that was comforting, but made a mockery of her dark mood. She squirmed under the covers of the familiar bed, and cried, for no reason she could think of. She simply cried, and when she felt better, she slept.

~*~

As Sunday night grew closer, and the rumours of James' girlfriend became more rampant, Lily's mood grew worse. She was depressed, furious, and just plain flat, by turns.

She spent most of Friday and Saturday arguing with herself, about whether or not she should turn up. He'd obviously found someone else to lavish his affections on, someone who actually... appreciated them...

She found it impossible to concentrate. She drifted off constantly as Eli and Jasmine talked about submarines. As a rule, most wizards weren't very worried about the mysteries of the earth, like the ocean floor, or undiscovered jungles.

Lily knew she was worrying her friends, and she tried her best to act normal, but that just meant bottling herself up, and releasing the pent up pressure later. She hadn't seen hide nor hair of James, either. Quite possibly because she didn't want to. But still, all it did was stress her more. What was he doing? Not that she cared, but was he skipping classes with this other girl?

~*~

Sunday was a nightmare. Her friends had let her sleep in, which was probably the wisest thing to do, as while she was asleep the worst that could happen was nightmares.

When she woke up, she spent a good few hours moping about. She got kicked out of the common room because she was 'too depressing', so she went to find the room that was like her bedroom again.

~*~

After a good long nap, Lily spent about half an hour glaring at her reflection in the mirror. She was trying to maintain a furious outlook, but in all reason, she couldn't find a single decent reason not to meet James like she said she would. And if he didn't show, that was only a reason to hex him into oblivion, that's all. Nothing more.

Well, she thought, it's not like he's not allowed to get a girlfriend. It's just that he's been trailing after me for years, it's just a bit of a change. Like changing schools. And... I've been grumpy because I haven't been sleeping well. Because... Because I say so.

Anyway, I bet she's stupid.

No... No, she's not stupid. She's probably small, and has dimples, and soft brown eyes...

Lily growled. Stupid Potter, she thought, rifling through the closet that just happened to have her favourite and most comfortable clothes.

Now clothed, she had the sudden urge to climb back into bed, pull the covers over her head, and ignore everything. She refused, clamping down on that part of her mind with an iron will. Anyone watching her would have seen the steely glint that appeared in her green eyes, as she strode over to the door and yanked it open -

To see a small rabbit looking up at her maliciously.

"What have you found, precious?"

Appolyon Pringle's voice came floating down the corridor. Lily gasped and closed the door as quickly and quietly as she could, and waited for the unsavoury pair to pass. As she heard the shuffling gait and jingle of keys that heralded Pringle's approach, Lily remembered the last time she'd been caught by Pringle and his lop eared terror. That time, she'd had James to talk to, though he didn't know it. She sagged against the door. Damn. Did she really have to go? Couldn't she just... sleep?

But that would be giving in, said the steelier part of her. That would be admitting you're afraid. The steely part of Lily's mind was also the most bluntly truthful part.

What do you mean, admitting? the rest of her snapped back. I'm not afraid of anything, especially James Potter!

Filled with new resolve, Lily almost slammed the door open but stopped as she realised that Pringle and his thrice cursed rabbit were still outside.

'Is Bubby feeling alright? That's just a wall. Here now, Papa will take you back and get you some nice green cabbage."

Lily stifled a giggle at the way the Jingling Terror of Hogwarts addressed his rabbit. As the sound of keys grew further away, Lily slipped out of the door, and ran down the corridors.

"I'm going to be late, I'm going to be late!" she muttered under her breath. She did, however, get to the statue just on time. She looked around, blocking the sound of Greensleeves out. The song became very annoying very quickly, especially as the suit of armour was very off key.

There was no one else there. She looked around again, scowling. Dammit. He was probably off playing with his new girly toy. Sodding blonde, stupid bimbo.

She turned around to kick the suit of armour, still happily humming away.

"Ow! My toe!"

"What'd you do that for?"

Lily looked up, startled. She didn't know this armour could talk. She'd always thought Peeves had stuck a broken record in it, before she'd learnt Muggle stuff didn't work in the castle.

Then she realised the voice had come from behind her. She turned, scowling again.

"It was irritating me, that's why," she snapped. Then she recognised the person.

"I confess, I really didn't think you were going to show," grinned James. "You've been ignoring me more than usual lately."

Lily scowled harder, to keep her twitching facial muscles under control.

Well, she thought, at least he had the honour to actually show, after making all that fuss.

"So, where are we going?"

James grinned even wider, eagerness shining in his eyes. For the first time, Lily realised that his eyes weren't actually brown. More like a very brown hazel.

Before she caught on to what was happening, he was already walking away, calling for her to follow, in the direction of the grounds.

Lily hesitated. This would be her last chance to back out. But again, before she really understood why, she was jogging to catch up.

"I didn't see you at the Quidditch game last week," said James, just a hint of concern in his voice.

Lily was a bit skeptical about his ability to see her amidst the hundreds of students and teachers who showed up to every Quidditch game, let alone while he was supposed to be looking for something very small, fast and agile. But she didn't mention this.

"I was tired. I slept in." Well, this was sort of true. She was feeling very lethargic.

Prompted by talk of Quidditch, Lily realised where they were going. They were headed for the broom sheds.

Oh dear, he's going to show off with fancy tricks on his Silver Arrow.

With a flourish, James pulled out his broom.

"One of the best models to date!" he crowed, with evident pride.

Yep, thought Lily gloomily, stunts all round.

He set it hovering, telling it to stay steady.

Then he gestured for her to get on.

Lily's mind went blank.

She hated brooms. She had failed dismally in the flying class in first year. Hers hadn't even rolled about like some had. It just lay there. It had continued for the first few weeks, until she was instructed to just pick it up. Then it'd played up in every way it was possible for a broom to play up without actually being jinxed or something.

Lily hated brooms, and they hated Lily.

James must have seen it on her face.

"Don't worry, I'll be right behind you. I won't do any fancy tricks, and it won't do anything untoward."

He thought she was afraid!

Well, she was, but he didn't need to know that!

Lily set her jaw, and gingerly straddled the broom. James jumped on before she had time to think, and they were off.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! It's all happening too fast! Wait...

"James! WHERE ARE WE GOING?"