Comedy/Tragedy: The Story of a Doomed Existence

Chapter Fifteen: Best Friends and Best Enemies

"You!" she hissed heatedly. "What are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same question," he told her softly, leaning casually against the now-open doorframe.

Lily made a noise in the back of her throat and rolled her eyes.

"Nice retort," he told her, apparently amused.

"Why are you even talking to me?" Lily bent down to pick up her wand and glared at him forcefully. "Aren't I supposed to be completely evil? Without your usual entourage of cronies, you won't be able to defend yourself against my evil self!" she wondered if he would catch the derision in her voice.

"I'm fully capable of defending myself," a very ugly look passed over his slightly tanned face.

Lily snorted again. No, he had completely missed the cynicism.

"Do you want me to prove it?" he brandished his wand menacingly.

Lily eyed it warily - he might be a complete prat and an even bigger idiot, but he was one of the smartest first-years. But she quickly erased the nervous look from her expression - she would not lose face in front of him.

"I don't know how long you've been spying on me," Lily said coolly. He rolled his eyes. "But since that is, presumably, what you've been doing, then you'll know I was looking through a book of fairly complicated charms. I seem to remember one to banish things - d'you like Antarctica, Potter? - and there was a spell to -" she faked concentration, "- to liquefy things - Fancy being the next water for these vegetables? - and -" Lily smirked inwardly at the less-than-cool expression that passed over James' face when she indicated the vegetable patch, "- a charm to petrify things," she finished. "Would you like to stay in this forgotten room for the rest of first year?" she smiled sweetly at him.

"I'd like to see you try," James spat, a fleeting look of unease passing over his countenance before he could make it cool and unconcerned once again. "I know more revenge curses than you could hope of finding in a book like that," he indicated The Big Book of Elemental Charms.

"What are you doing here?" Lily asked him again, choosing to ignore his comments. "Surely you didn't stray from your guard just because you wanted to end up cursed?"

"I'll have you know, Evans, that I knew of this room long before you did, and it's far more likely that you were spying on me than the other way around." It was amazing how he managed to spit any reference to her off of his lips.

"Yes, that sounds right. I've been itching to get you alone, so that I could seduce you - no, wait! I've been following you, with hopes of getting you alone, so that I could curse you to help out myself and my evil plans! That's right, isn't it?" Lily was feeling very annoyed.

"I don't appreciate the sardonic comments, Evans," James told her, crossing his arms over his chest.

"This is so old, Potter! What do you want? Curse me, kiss me, kick me, kill me, I don't care!" Lily exclaimed. "I'm sick of being blamed for every little thing that goes wrong in the perfect world of Gryffindor Tower! Do whatever you want, I don't care, just stop this endless cycle! It gets us nowhere, and though I could care less what everyone thinks of me, this is so pointless! What do you want from me? Why do you think I'm evil? What did I do to make everyone constantly hate me?" she breathed heavily, clutching the chair's back to keep upright.

Inwardly, she felt very annoyed with herself. What was she doing, saying these things to James Potter?

"It looks to me like you care a whole lot more about other's opinions than you let on," James told her, gazing at her clandestinely.

"No - I - what -" What was he saying?

Smiling and shaking his head, as though Lily were a small child who refused to admit it was her bedtime, James Potter strode out of the room.

Lily stared after him, feeling deeply disconcerted. Her perturbed nature was due to many reasons, but mainly that Potter, the boy whom she hated most in the world, knew her better than anyone else.

She continued to gaze aimlessly at the wall outside the room for a few moments, pondering what he had said. There was no way to avoid it - no matter what excuse she tried to use, Lily had to admit that Potter was right. She shook her head fervently, both in defiance of James' words and in a failed attempt to remove her current thoughts from her mind. Nonetheless, she whispered "He's wrong" before averting her attention.

She turned back to the book, glanced down once more, and waved her wand almost carelessly.

"De-mo Vowe-mi-coose!" Lily spoke loudly, but this time a strange warmth swept through her mind. This felt right, just like her wand had felt in Ollivander's, and just like the feeling that spread through her when she did a spell flawlessly. The warmth converted itself to a cool sensation, and Lily closed her eyes, almost automatically.

When she opened them again, she discovered that she had unconsciously fallen upon the ground. She felt her face nervously, hoping that the slightly brisk feeling on her skin was a good sign.

Sure enough, there were no longer any serrations on Lily's face. She stood up and smiled, glad that the painful sores were gone.

After making sure that she had everything that belonged to her, Lily turned in the direction of the Gryffindor common room. She did her best to turn her attention away from James by studying the books as she walked. Surprisingly, it worked quite well. She spent the rest of the time that it took to get to the common room learning about a levitation spell she had seen in the beginning of the book. All too soon, it seemed, the redhead had arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Evanesco," she told the painting happily, reflecting that it was nice that the password included her last name; it made it very easy to remember. She made a mental note to find out what spell that was before pushing through the open portrait and stepping through.

Once Lily had closed the portrait behind her, she turned to face Gryffindor house. A few nearby students looked up when air rushed through the previously open portrait. Lily was surprised to see that they were looking at her with disgust. A fifth year girl, whose nose was wrinkled in repugnance, spoke in a shrill squeal.

"Ew, your face!"

Despite herself, Lily reached up and touched the smooth surface of her face; it was completely free of the protuberant blemishes. She rolled her eyes. What was it with these people? Why did they think she was so evil, why did they continue to treat her like this? And, more importantly, why did she care?

Lily stomped passed the disgusted-looking people, who now amounted to an even larger group; the fifth-year's voice had carried. Lily was headed toward her corner, but by the time she reached the middle of the round room, two things changed her mind. First of all, Alice was sitting in the window. Secondly, everyone was now staring at her and whispering to their friends. Lily felt really annoyed now. What, had the entire Gryffindor house been involved in this practical joke? Even Nafeesah the second-year and Kelsey the prefect, two people whom Lily had thought did not find her all bad, were looking at her as though seeing a large, damp slug.

Inside her head, Lily came to one conclusion. It wasn't that hard to figure out; Alice must have bought her way into the 'popular crowd' of Gryffindor by suggesting this little prank. Looking around, Lily was glad to see that Lucy wasn't there - at least Alice hadn't managed to rope her into this stupid scheme.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" Lily asked them loudly, then turned up the staircase girl's dormitory.

However, her torture wasn't over yet; as she passed a pair of sixth-year girls, both let out screams of horror and leapt inside a miscellaneous dormitory. Lily felt a burning sensation fill not just her temples, but also her eyes. This was just too much. She ran quickly up the stairs, blinking furiously and biting down an all-too-familiar feeling in her throat.

She burst in the dormitory and was about to burst herself when she saw a tall form on a bed, kicking its legs up into the air in a very aimless way.

"Lucy?" Lily asked, wishing no one had been here. No one, not even the one person who she presumed still liked her, was going to see her cry over this. She bit her tongue painfully to keep the sobs in.

"Who's there?" asked a voice nearly as miserable as Lily was sure her own sounded. "Oh, hi -" Lucy stopped speaking and her mouth fell open in utmost horror.

"Oh, really!" Lily exploded. "Not you too! I can't believe you are in on this - I thought you were my friend!!"

"Of course I -"

"Don't talk to me," Lily told her in a soft, dangerous voice. "I don't want anything to do with people who have joined their mindless ranks."

The disgusted expression on Lucy's face faded slightly, to be replaced by a diaphanously confused appearance. Lucy's mouth opened to speak, presumably revealing the reasoning behind the contorted expression, but she was stopped when the door banged carelessly open. Lily whirled and Lucy sat up all the way, to see a rather disheveled Alice standing in the doorframe.

Lucy's expression changed entirely, to a look of pure rage. Lily just gazed coolly down her nose at Alice - a considerable feat, considering that Alice was a good deal taller than the redhead.

"Lily - Lucy -" Alice spoke, her breathing irregular as though she had been running. "I'm glad you are here, I really want to talk to -"

"Well, I'm not glad you are here," Lucy told her before she could finish. "Go away, you aren't welcome in this dormitory."

Angry as she was with the two of them, Lily agreed entirely with Lucy. She nodded her head.

"Oh, come on! You aren't still mad at me!" Alice asked them, placing a winning smile on her still-pockmarked face.

Lily grew even angrier.

"Of course I'm still mad at you!" she half-yelled. "You -"

"Let me explain, Lily. First off - I'm sorry. I know I can't be perfect and smart and pretty and good at sports like you two - I'm not. And maybe perfect, smart, pretty, Quidditch-playing girls can have their choice of being accepted or not, but I don't have that! Maybe the only reason I want popularity is that I'll never get it. Fat, uncoordinated, stupid girls like me don't get privileges like that," she told them. There was a note of resentment in her voice. Angry as Lily was with her, it annoyed her greatly that Alice thought so little of herself. "But my wanting popularity doesn't mean we can't be friends -"

"Um, yeah, Alice, it kind of does -" Lily told her, but the round-faced girl ignored the fact that Lily was speaking.

"- because friends don't always want the same things, and as long as I have you two -"

"And what makes you think you do 'have' us?" it was Lucy who interrupted her this time.

"- I won't need popularity," again, Alice ignored any of her friends' objections. "You two are so much more important to me."

"If I'm so important to you, then why did you tell everyone to play that stupid practical joke on me?" Lily asked her, still glaring.

"What?" Alice looked confused now.

"Don't act like you don't know! It was a lowly, stupid thing to do, and it certainly means any hope of being friends is completely gone!" Lily yelled.

"Wait - what did I do?"

"Don't pretend to be innocent!" Lily yelled even louder.

"Wait - I think I see what's going on here!" an expression of dawning comprehension passed over Lucy's face, which also still bore the blemishes from the armadillo bile. Lily felt very glad that hers were gone.

Lucy leapt off of her bed. "Lily - looked in a mirror lately?"

Lily snorted. "I don't need to, I've gotten rid of those painful boils! If I didn't know that Alice had told everyone to play that stupid joke on me, I'd ask why everyone is disgusted that they are gone!"

Lucy smiled knowingly, and Lily felt annoyed. Why was she acting like she knew everything?

"Here." Lucy's hands steered the unwilling Lily over to the full-length mirror Leanna had propped up next to her bed.

Lily had to restrain a gasp when she saw her own reflection.

The boils were no longer protrusions, but instead each had turned a nasty puce-tinged blue and widened to double its original size. They no longer stood out, but they looked just as - if not more - revolting.

"Oops," was all she could say. She felt very aggravated with herself.

"Oops is right!" Though Alice sounded a little irritated, a smile of relief worked itself over her face. "I never would sell a friend for popularity! I didn't do anything!"

Lily smiled too, though still very angry with herself for coming to such a quick assumption - especially when it was so far-fetched.

"I'm - I'm sorry, Alice," Lily told her. She felt a blush pass over her face, coloring it in an even more grotesque way than the boils did - she never had liked apologizing.

But it seemed sufficient for Alice; she smiled and gave her own apology, though an unblushing one. The two reunited friends turned toward Lucy.

"Lucy, I'm -" Alice began, a maudlin apology on her lips, but Lucy interrupted her.

"Don't. It's fine, I overreacted," Lucy told her. "I'm completely over that Quidditch junk - I don't need it. I've got you." She smiled at her friends, both of whom eagerly returned the favor.

The three girls stood there for a few moments, each grinning hugely, each oblivious to the fact that the others had boils - whether protuberant or not - covering their faces.

"I feel like someone should yell 'group hug,'" Lily broke the silence, with an even larger grin than the one she had before.

"GROUP HUG!" Lucy shouted at the top of her lungs.

"I should have known..." Lily laughed as her friends squashed her in. She felt very happy now, despite the annoying marks on her face. She belonged, people wanted to be her friend, and that was worth just about anything in her opinion.

Time, though such a strange and unpredictable thing, does have some regularities. Such as the way that it always hastens when one is nervous about the future, and always slows when one would do anything to be free of the present. Lily soon discovered that time passed not only more quickly, but also more enjoyably, while she was in pleasant company.

Though she, Alice, and Lucy had been friends almost nonstop since the beginning of the year, there seemed now to be a new bond between them, a new and far deeper friendship. They could spend hours together without saying a word, and would still emerge from the situation feeling enlightened and cheered.

Alice did not mention her unquenchable desire for popularity again, Lucy kept silent about Quidditch, and Lily refrained from mentioning her encounter with Potter. Each girl was satisfied and happy with her new situation, other than one small thing.

Lily was the lucky one; maybe her boils still looked grotesque, but at least they did not hurt anymore. Lucy and Alice, on the other hand, had to suffer through continual pain in all of the sores adorning their faces. They were anxious to do something about it, never mind that Lily told them over and over again the charm she had used had little positive effect.

Honestly, the redhead was nervous at what she might inflict upon her friends when she tried the spell. It had obviously gone so wrong for her, and she did not want to risk it having an even worse effect on the other two girls. She also wasn't sure what she ought to do about the spots on her own face. True, she told people that she couldn't care less, but it was starting to really bother her that each time someone saw her face, they would leap backwards in surprise or drop whatever they were holding.

So Lily decided that she was left with the task of figuring out how to remove the sores on her own. While she told her friends that she was reading more about the charm, Lily actually researched all the ways that spells could go wrong, hoping to figure out what she had done.

But she found nothing - in fact, her spell seemed to have been done perfectly right, if one forgot that her face looked so revolting. Sunday night found Lily sitting alone in the dorm, peering over yet another dusty volume in hopes of finding a suitable answer. She turned the page again, reading carefully over a paragraph about wrist-flick movements, but nothing seemed to be of any help, whatsoever. Sighing resolutely, Lily closed the encyclopedia and stood up, stretching, and blinking her exhausted eyes.

Once she had completed her pursuits, Lily made to sit down again. But before she could sink onto the scarlet mattress, she saw that her wand had rolled right into her seat. The first-year picked it up and considered, for a moment. It could hardly hurt to try the spell again, could it? As long as she was doing this on herself, she would have no chance of inflicting harm on someone she cared about.

She closed her eyes briefly, considering whether this was something she really wanted to do or not - what if she wound up blowing her nose off? The mess would be awfully hard to explain.

Lily twirled her wand in her fingers, gazing at its pale wooden beauty as she considered. It was worth a try, wasn't it? Much more nervously than she had before, Lily pointed the wand at her face, waved it with a wrist flick, and spoke the incantation.

It felt exactly the same as last time, the cooling sensation spreading over her face, her eyes closing, and her waking up on the floor. Nervous as to what she might see, Lily walked over to the mirror - and nearly fell unconscious again.

No, the spell had not worked. Instead, the boils had spread even larger. Each was now the size of Lily's palm, and more than half had run into one another. Sure, they remained flat, but Lily's face now looked as though someone had splashed poorly made blueberry pie all over it. It seemed as though the spell were working backwards, Lily thought in disbelief. What was going on?

She felt the blotches once again. Maybe, if she got her face to be entirely purple, she could try to find some kind of bleaching spell?

Again, the wand waving, then the wrist flicking, then the cooling sensation, and finally the unconsciousness. Lily stood up gingerly; her body did not like being continually dropped onto the floor. Almost afraid of what she might see, Lily looked in the mirror again. Her face was now entirely purple, but the purple was a far lighter tone than before; it now resembled a lavender shade.

Realization poured over Lily. So this was what she had to do! It got worse before it got better...she had to keep doing the spell, until it finally would get better! Everything made sense now. She repeated the process over and over, until finally, when she looked in the mirror, all that she saw was the pale skin that she remembered. She felt rather as though she were betraying herself by going to such extremes for appearances, so she told herself that the sores had hurt, and she was ridding herself of the pain. Somewhere deep inside, she remained unconvinced, but the girl was so happy to be back to normal, she almost forgot how the sores had felt. Lily skipped down the stairs, only calming herself before she would walk across the common room to where Alice and Lucy were sitting.

Everyone stared. But this time, they weren't gazing at Lily in horror; they were gazing at her in awe. A few smiled encouragingly, and a slow clap filled the room. It did not take long for this to rise to a cheer: everyone was amazed that Lily had managed to remove the color. Kelsey the prefect dragged Lily over to her friends, each of which thought that Lily was just 'so cute.'

"So?" one of Kelsey's friends, an exuberant brunette with pink braces, spoke after Lily had an array of sweets in her lap and some of the noise had died down. "How'd you do it?"

Lily explained all about the charm and her figuring out how it worked. She couldn't say that she didn't like the attention - it was most certainly a welcome change from the treatment she had received the last six weeks - but Lily soon grew tired of the fawning everyone was doing. One of the brighter sixth-years recognized the spell and told Lily that it was easily N.E.W.T. level, if she could believe. Lily nodded, somewhat exasperated, and was about to turn away from the crowd when a familiar voice caused all to fall silent.

"What oafs you all are," Hana Suzuki said coldly, from where she had stood up near the fireplace. Lily noted that her black eye was still bruised, and she still had the patch over the other one. "You do not realize that clearly Miss Evans used dark magic to make this happen?"

"Oh, shove off, raccoon face!" a bubbly fourth-year boy told her. "She did the spell, why can't you admit it?"

"Yeah, just because your face still looks awful, and you are incapable of doing anything about it, doesn't mean that Lily the genius is evil!" Nafeesah called, giving Lily a warm smile once she had finished glaring at Hana.

"What's wrong with you all?" Leanna had leapt up. "You know Lily is evil, she'd be fully capable of dark magic you can only imagine!"

"Merlin's beard, Thompson, she's a first-year!" a third year boy told her. "She might be smart, but she isn't capable of dark magic!"

Lily was amazed to finally hear those words; the words she had been waiting for the entire school year.

Hana and Leanna sank down into their chairs, looking as murderous and angry as two girls with patches on their eyes are able. James came over to comfort Leanna, and his friends followed, though Lily caught Sirius shooting her a thumbs-up.

"Thanks, guys, but I really want to go help my friends," Lily detached herself from the crowd. Anxious as she had been to be free of their torture, she did not want to be fawned over, either.

The other Gryffindors would not let Lily go without a large collection of sweets someone had unearthed, so it was with full arms that Lily turned toward the window corner she shared with her friends. But, strangely, they weren't there. Maybe, Lily thought, they had gone up to the dormitory to escape the noise - she surely would have, had she been able. She walked up the stairs for the umpteenth time that day, and pushed open the familiar door to the first-year dorm.

"Sorry it took so long, it was difficult to get away from everyone," Lily told the room as she pulled the door shut behind her. She turned back to her friends, grinning, and dropped the wizarding candy in a pile next to her bed.

"Yeah, all your fans were pretty wild, weren't they?" Lucy asked her.

"My fans? Lucy, what are you on about?"

"You are so hypocritical, Lily Evans!" Alice had joined her friend.

Lily's heart sank. Not another row!

"You go on and on and on about how fickle and unnecessary popularity is, and then you go off and fix your face - without us, I might add - so that you'll get all the attention in the world! I can't believe you!" Alice yelled.

It was, indeed, another row.

"What? No, see, I wanted to fix mine first because -"

"You did want to fix yours first?" it seemed that Lucy had been trying to deny that Lily would do such a thing, but now her fears were confirmed.

"No! I meant, I wanted to try the charm on myself first because I was worried I might hurt you two! You think I wanted all that attention?"

"You didn't look too miserable to me," Lucy told her coolly.

"Yes, I'm going to be completely disappointed that the torture I've gone through these past six weeks is finally over!" Lily tried hard not to lose her temper.

"I can't believe you, Lily, I really can't," Alice told her. She and Lucy turned in the direction of the door; they had said all they needed to say.

"Don't you even want me to help you remove the sores?" Lily called desperately after them. She was so sick of all the fighting; it seemed ages since she had been the one who lost her temper at people. Now the only thing she wanted was to have back the amazing feeling of friendship that she, Alice, and Lucy had shared.

"We don't need your help," Lucy told her, not even bothering to turn around. She walked out of the door and slammed it behind her, leaving Lily alone and feeling very foolish.

The morose redhead fell back onto her bed, staring up at the patterns made by the four-poster's hangings.

"Well, I've managed to make a complete arse out of things this year," Lily told herself as she observed the darkened hangings. And without thinking much more, the girl rolled over and fell into a sleep of confusing dreams and apparitions, each of which ended in a scene of Alice and Lucy, each taller than normal and boil-free, talking and laughing with Bretta Bumforth.

Lily remembered the rules of time even more the following week; she was so miserable, that time might as well not have moved at all. The only sign Lily did have of time's protracted passage was all of the pre-Halloween homework the teachers gave out.

Sure, Gryffindor house seemed to worship Lily's every step, but this did nothing to improve Lily's opinion of popularity. She would so much rather be sitting alone in the corner with Lucy and Alice than in the middle of the common room with people she didn't even know the surname of.

The afternoon of the subsequent Sunday, which also happened to be Halloween, Lily sat in the middle of the common room, attempting to do her homework. Attempting, but failing miserably, for everyone around her seemed intent on making the most noise possible, in honor of the holiday. Lily had indeed been reluctant to pull her books out in the first place, but the fact that she was constantly followed by a member of the House - often a very loud member - meant that she had put off her studies until this moment.

But her History of Magic essay was not going well at all. Lily kept blotting up the names of the Arabic shamans, which was a real problem as even the smallest splotch of excess ink obscured her tiny writing. So far, Lily had started over three times due to her mistakes, and each of her essays, which she had tried to keep nearby so as to prove future reference, had been made into paper airplanes and were sailing in circles above the raucous situation that was Gryffindor tower.

In search of the name of a rebelling shaman, who also happened to be the only female, and whose name had taken Lily hours to find in her history book, the miffed redhead stood up and tried to grab her papers out of the air. But they were easily too high for the small girl to reach, so Lily, carefully avoiding the papers and books, stood on her armchair and reached toward one of the airplanes. Still too far. So Lily climbed onto one of the arms, hoping that she would not cause the chair to fall over. Though she chair did nothing of the sort, she was still a good few feet short of the flying papers.

Very annoyed now, but also quite set on achieving what she had set out to do, Lily climbed precariously onto the back of the armchair, balancing on its highest point. Nervously, the girl let go of the plush upholstery and stretched her arm into the air to grab a paper airplane. She nearly had it, it was almost in her hand, when -

A small, speedy shape, with dark, wild hair and square glasses, slammed into the front of Lily's chair. Already unbalanced, this excess leverage was more than enough to topple the chair over and send the petite redhead sailing over the heads of Gryffindor Tower. The rest of the house seemed to think she wanted to stay up in the air; hands supported her legs and arms and carried her, still high above the floor, all around the common room. Lily protested madly against their efforts, but no one seemed to understand that she wanted to get down. Finally wrenching her arms from the grip of people below, Lily snatched an airplane from the air and dropped to the ground. Those who had been supporting her shrugged and walked off, not perturbed in the slightest over the fact that their prisoner of moments ago no longer wanted to be lifted onto their shoulders.

Lily massaged her own shoulder as she found her way back to her armchair - she had slammed it into a chair during her descent from midair.

"You," she spat at the boy who had knocked her chair over, for he was still standing nearby.

"Me." James Potter grinned.

"Humph." And without another word, Lily stormed off to collect her things and retreat to the library.

She and Potter had been sharing many such short conversations over the past week, and Lily was not sure what to make of them. Sometimes, it seemed like Potter was as amused as Sirius over her 'darkness,' but there were other moments when it seemed obvious that he hated her.

It was much easier to concentrate in the library; Lily finished her homework quickly and efficiently.

No one had followed her here, for which she was glad; after her homework was done, she had plenty of time to read without interruption.

"Excuse me, Miss?" Lily looked up to see the librarian, Madam Pince, peering down at her from a much darker-looking library than she had remembered. "The Halloween feast starts in five minutes, so you might want to head down there."

"Oh - erm - thanks," Lily told her. She gathered up her books and left, though it was with no intention of going down to the feast. Instead, she turned in the direction of the small room she had found days before. She would have avoided it, had she been going there at a time when Potter might have the same intention.

Sure enough, the room was as empty as ever. Lily plopped her school materials in a pile on the floor and peered out of the tapestry window again; presumably in honor of the holiday, the scene now depicted a number of lit pumpkins, lights glittering from within them.

Lily amused herself for a while watching these - unlike Muggle pumpkins, the scene carved into each was moving. She watched, as a witch on a broomstick flew around the pumpkin's exterior, finding unexplainable joy in the simple beauty of the pumpkin scenes. The light from within the orange spheres sprayed Lily's own face with light - she wasn't sure how the tapestry had been magicked to do that.

"You!"

Lily spun around. She seemed to remember saying that same word to the person who was standing before her now.

"Me." She half-wondered if he were going to 'humph' like she had and storm off.

"What are you doing here?" he asked instead.

"Why do you care?"

"I don't." He tucked his hands into the pockets of his robes and turned around, obviously with the intention of leaving her there. "Why do you have to be everywhere I want to go?" he spun around and spoke angrily.

"I could ask you the same question."

"What, so you think I'm stalking you?"

"It certainly isn't the other way around!"

James ran his hand through his disheveled hair, though this time it was in exasperation, not in a fresh attempt to look as though he had been flying.

"So. It looks like neither of us want to be at the feast," James spoke again.

"It does."

"Well? Why don't you want to be at the feast?" he asked when she said nothing more.

"Not that it is of any use to you," Lily told him, "but I would have thought that was obvious. You sure act like you know me well - then wouldn't you know that I hate being 'popular?'"

"You hate being popular?" he looked truly, genuinely, surprised. "But why? Friends, influence, the possibility of making a difference -"

"Not to mention people who fawn over my every movement. You, James Potter, might enjoy such attention, but I find it fickle and pointless. There are far better ways of achieving what I find important."

"Hmm," he looked as though he were biting back a scathing retort; Lily wondered why he bothered to hide it.

"So...what about you?" this had to be the strangest conversation Lily had ever taken part in.

"Me? I - well...there are some people who I would rather not spend time with," he said elusively.

What if he were talking about Hana? Lily felt an upsurge of affection for James - a strange feeling, as she hated him so much.

"So. Why haven't you told her about H.U.R.L.?" Lily finally mustered enough conviction to bring up the one subject she wanted to discuss with him.

"Who?"

"You know who I mean."

"Well - it - erm - it didn't seem important," he scuffed his toe into the floor. For someone so dramatic, he really was a poor actor.

"Are you joking?" Lily inquired incredulously. "If you told her I was the one behind that, you could turn the whole school on my back again!"

"You don't sound very worried about that happening," James observed.

It was Lily's turn to avoid his eye.

"I - I really want my old friends back," she said finally.

Why did I just tell him that? Why?

"Ah..." an expression of understanding etched itself onto his countenance. "I could help you, you know. Get away from popularity, get back to your quiet little friends."

He had officially worn out his welcome.

"James Potter, how many times do I have to tell you? I don't want your help! Not with this; not with anything! So leave me alone, for the millionth time!" Lily shouted at him.

"Fine. I won't help you," he told her, as though he were simply refusing to pass her an item at dinner.

"Good."

They stared at each other for a few more minutes, but when James did not move, Lily picked up her things and stormed away.

"Good lady, might you tell me what is going -" the wizard on Lily's left began to inquire from above his cauldron of eels.

"Shut up!" Lily shouted.