This is Why I Don't Play Truth or Dare

This is Why I Don't Play Truth or Dare

Dos

Lily couldn't stop fidgeting. She was just so utterly pissed at Fred, that it was affecting her focus. I knew I shouldn't have played that game! She thought furiously. Really! Who started that game to begin with?

Professor Binns droned on as Lily inwardly cursed the creator of the game in question and all of his/her descendents to slow, painful deaths. Normally, she was able to suck it up and take notes in History of Magic, but sometime during the first half hour of class, her notes had strayed away from the most important individuals of the past century, to a list of why Fred Wilkins and James Potter should die.

From the back of the classroom (three seats down and one across, to be exact), one of the sources of Lily's rage watched her. Actually, he was alternating periodically between watching her and scribbling something down on a piece of parchment.

Ok, James told himself, this may be my one shot, so I've really got to wow her. To his surprise, he had no clue as to where to take the object of his affections on their date. It's just that he was so used to being rejected, he had never really given it any thought. Hogsmede's next week, but... James let out a sigh of frustration, running a hand through his hair. Contrary to Lily's belief, his habit of running his hand through his hair was not to make his hair look windswept, but was actually a nervous habit of his. And although he acted all charming and confident (and like a bit of an idiot, sometimes) around her, in reality, he was scared to the bone. Hence the nervousness, so hence the running of the hand through the hair.

He also did it when he was frustrated, like now. James's problem was that he had no clue how to impress Lily. It wasn't like anything he had tried in the past had actually worked. He had literally tried everything. The summer before his sixth year, he had thought of every single, solitary thing about himself that Lily had ever expressed a dislike for. He stopped hexing people just for the sake of it (even Snape, which, for him, took an incredible amount of self-control). He stopped bragging and showing off. He was even taking his Head Boy duties seriously, which pretty much forced him to quit pranking (though not entirely, of course).

But for some reason beyond his understanding, his brain still turned to mush whenever Lily was within his eyesight, so all those changes he had made meant a whole lot of nothing as long as he couldn't speak to her without sounding like an idiot. He had gotten better about it, though. As long as he didn't make eye contact, he could moderate the words coming out of his mouth.

James was thrown from his reverie by a ball of parchment hitting the side of his head. He turned and glared at the offender, wondering who dared to hit him. Sitting two seats across and one forward, Fred flashed him a grin and then pantomimed opening a note.

James raised his eyebrows, both curious and suspicious. He bent down and picked the ball off the floor, then as quietly as possible, he opened it.

So when's the big date?

James scribbled a response and tapped it with his wand, which caused it to fold itself into a paper airplane. He threw it at Fred, who to James's displeasure caught the plane before it crashed into the side of her head. She took a moment to read it, then sent it back, having wrote a reply.

What do you mean you don't know?!

I just don't, now leave me alone.

Is that any way to speak to your savior?

Shut up- you're starting to sound like Sirius, and frankly, it scares me.

You're welcome. So what are your plans?

For what?

The date, you moron!

That's what I'm trying to figure out, if you'll stop bothering me.

Fine then. I just won't tell you what I was going to tell you.

What?!

No, you're being rude and ungrateful. You don't deserve to know.

A thousand apologies, now what?!?!

Lily likes strawberries and chocolate... a lot. I swear, that girl goes rabid if you go anywhere near her Honeyduke's stash.

Ok... anything else?

She's allergic to peppermint and chocolate frogs give her the creeps.

But you said she liked chocolate!

She does. She just doesn't like chocolate frogs.

James thought for a moment before writing his next response.

Is she afraid of heights?

Not that I know of. Why?

I have an idea.

At that moment, James was poked in the head by the occupant of the desk adjacent. "What?" he asked irritably, not appreciating the abuse to his head by his so called friends.

"What are you and Fred talking about?" Sirius inquired, leaning back in his chair.

"What do you think?" James replied with a look (you know, the "that's a stupid question, you moron" look, which my biology teacher seems to have mastered).

Sirius rolled his eyes and answered, "You're obsessed, you know that? Ask Fred if she'll go out with me." James just shook his head and scribbled Sirius's addition onto the parchment. Fred's answer was less than polite.

"Well?" Sirius asked eagerly.

James turned to his friend and replied, "She suggests that you go screw a tree." He stifled a laugh at the look on Sirius's face. Farther up, Fred was doing the same thing. Noticing the glare Sirius was now sending in her direction, she flashed him a grin then tossed her red-brown hair over her shoulder, turning back to the front to pretend to take notes.

One of the reasons that Fred hung out with the Marauders as much as she did, was because she had found out their little secret the year before. It wasn't like she had meant to, or anything- it had been completely on accident. One night, she hadn't been able to fall asleep, so she decided to take a midnight stroll outside. Unwittingly, she came upon the animagi morphing back into their human selves. They freaked, and pretty much begged her to keep it a secret. She had agreed, under the condition that they tell her the whole story. And they did. Reluctantly. Very much so.

Sirius sulked, as he wasn't used to getting rejected. Fred was next on his list of girls to date, and she was not cooperating. That was the third time he had asked her out, and the third time he had been shot down. He was starting to feel like James, with the having of multiple rejections from one girl. Then he brightened up- he hadn't had a challenge in quite a long while, as girls usually seemed to throw themselves at his feet. Might as well make the best of it.

~*~

Lily collapsed onto the couch in the common room- it had been a long day. A long day. Why do people have to make such a big deal out of this date with Potter? Apparently it was because there had been multiple bets made on the outcome of the whole Lily and James drama. The people who had bet that she'd finally date him in fifth year had lost, along with the sixth year betters. So, as one would expect, those betting on seventh year had begun to sweat, and since Lily had agreed to play truth or dare, her impending date with James counted. Not that the people who had betted that Lily wouldn't date him at all hadn't tried to call it a foul, as she wasn't going with him of her own free will. No matter, the ones who had "won" still had to wait until Lily went through with the date before they could collect.

She sighed, annoyed with the student population, and pulled out A History of Magic. I might as well attempt to catch up on today's lesson, she thought tiredly. But as she opened the book, a note fell out. Curious (and a little distrustful), she opened it.

Dearest Lily,

As you are well aware of, we have a date. I would be pleased eternally if you would join me in the common room at the hour of 8:00 PM on Friday night. That is all I ask of you.

Love,

James

Lily sighed. Though she knew it was coming, it was still unpleasant. She just wanted to know how he had gotten the note into her textbook. If her memory served her, Fred and Potter had been passing notes back and forth in Binns's class...

"Fred," Lily hissed under breath. I would feel sorry for Fred if I were you.

~*~

Meanwhile, in the boys' dorm, they finally had a chance to celebrate. They had decided to blow off homework and have a mini-party instead.

"To James finally getting his date!" Sirius proclaimed, thrusting his bottle of firewhiskey up into the air. The others in the dorm likewise raised their bottles, toasting James's success.

"To us not having to listen to James gripe about not getting a date!" Eric Banner, another seventh year boy, toasted. Once again, bottles were raised in agreement.

"So..." Peter said, once toasts were finished, "now what?"

The boys took a moment to think, not sure what to do. It's not like they were girls who would gossip all night long.

"Let's play a drinking game!" Sirius suddenly announced, shattering the silence.

"Like what?" Eric asked.

"How 'bout I Never?"

"What's that?" Peter inquired.

Sirius rolled his eyes at his friend's naïveté, and answered, "Someone says something that they never did, and then everyone who's actually done it, takes a drink. Like this: I've never eaten something disgusting on a dare."

"Yes you have!" James retorted.

"Hey, just because I've actually done something, doesn't mean I can't propose it!"

"Do you even listen to yourself talk?" Remus asked. "You've just contradicted what you said earlier."

Instead of replying, Sirius merely stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry.

"If you lot are done now," Eric said impatiently, "I never... got slapped by a girl." James and Sirius promptly took a swig of firewhiskey, accompanied by Peter and to everyone's surprise, Remus joined them.

In answer to his friends' stares, Remus just shook his head and said, "Don't ask."

"Ok..." James replied, still looking at Remus suspiciously. Suddenly a wicked grin alighted upon his face and he said, "I never got slapped by a girlfriend for calling her my old girlfriend's name."

Sirius glared at James before taking a drink. Jordan Josten, yet another boy in their dorm, smiled evilly and said, "I never got caught snogging in a closet on multiple occasions." Once again, Sirius took a drink. Eric did too, for that matter.

Peter, catching on, replied, "I never dated five girls at once."

Sirius took a drink, but not before snapping, "Peter, at least I've had a date, unlike some people." Peter decided to shut up for the rest of the game.

Remus, looking unusually evil, said, "I never got a detention for 'indecent exposure'-"

"-and then spent the detention snogging the girl I got it with!" James finished. The dorm shook with laughter as Sirius took yet another drink of firewhiskey.

"Ha, ha," Sirius said sardonically, "you've had your laugh. My turn." Setting his sights on James, he replied, "I never had to have my diaper spellotaped on as a kid."

"Give me a break, I was two,' James shot back defensively, then taking a drink. "At least, I never ran down a muggle street wearing nothing but a thong." Sirius glared at his friend as he had a swig of he drink.

"Ok, I definitely don't wanna know what happened," Jordan said, disgusted.

"Yeah, I think he just about gave that one old lady a heart attack," James replied with a laugh.

"And if she had died, "Sirius retorted, "you would be the one to blame!"

"No I wouldn't!"

"Hey, you're the one who dared me!"

"Yeah, but you were the one stupid enough to do it."

Half an hour later...

While most of the boys were still on their first or even second bottle, Sirius had no less than five lying empty in front of him. To be perfectly honest, the guys were running out of things to say.

"Umm..." Eric started, "I never strapped a chicken to a broom and sent it flying through a window."

Reluctantly, Sirius had another drink.

"I never..." Jordan thought for a moment, then said, "got arrested by Bolivian police for... graffiti-ing 'Black Sux' on a lamp post."

"Wizard police, or muggle?"

"Muggle."

"Oh, come on!" Sirius groaned as he took yet another swig.

Remus shook his head and replied, "Well, I enjoy wasting Sirius as much as the next person, but as it is, I'm rather tired. Let's wrap this up and go to bed."

"I second that emotion," Jordan agreed, stretching out his arms as he yawned. With that, the boys rather hastily put everything up and then hit the sack, falling asleep almost as soon as their heads hit their pillows.

~*~

That same evening, in the seventh year girl's dorm, Lily was giving her "friends" a piece of her mind, to put it nicely. "Et tu, Brute?" Lily cried out in disgust. "Or I suppose it's a little too late for that. It would have been more appropriate for when you gave me that, that- that inexcusable dare!!!!!"

Fred, who was sitting on her bed, looking at Lily with an expression akin to amusement on her face, shook her head and said, "Lils, it was for your own good. You'll thank me one day- I promise."

"Yeah, and chocolate will rain from a green sky," Lily snapped, collapsing onto the bed, next to Fred.

"Hey, considering that this is Hogwarts," Lyn replied with a grin, "that may actually be a possibility."

Lily glared at her smart-eleck friend who was leaning up against a dresser. "Ha, ha, ha. Not. You wouldn't be making fun of me if you had a bloody stalker. I swear, James Potter is going to drive me straight to St. Mungo's."

"But Lily," Lyn said innocently, "he's pureblood- he doesn't know how to drive! Maybe he'd fly you there, but drive..."

"Lyn," Jo said warningly, as Lily looked like she was at the end of her patience. When Lily lost her temper, it wasn't pretty, and there was a good chance that things may get violent. Jo was normally the peacekeeper, breaking up fights and many a time preventing Lily from attacking James- both magically and physically.

"What if," they heard from the corner of the room. They all turned to see Joy, who, to all of their surprise, had spoken up. "What if," she started again, a little nervous to have all of the others' attention, "he really does care about you, Lily?"

"What makes you say that?" Lily asked quietly, no longer looking pissed, as not to upset the normally quiet Joy.

"Well," she replied, moving from her bed in the corner, to Lyn's (which was next to Fred's), "I see stuff. He stares at you an awful lot."

"Well, duh," Lyn said, quite bluntly, causing her to receive glares from the others.

"Besides that," Joy continued tentatively, "he talks about you to his friends a lot, and he seems quite... sincere when he talks about his feelings for you to them. I think he loves you."

A bit taken aback, Lily replied, "How do you know that?"

Joy blushed bright red, all the way to the roots of her white-blonde hair. "I had a crush on him in fifth and part of sixth year. I followed him... a lot."

"Oh," was all the others were able to say.

"But I think you should date him," Joy ventured further. "You know, give him a chance."

Lily shook her head with a vehement, "NO."

"Why not?" Jo asked, leaning against the wall. "Maybe he'll leave you alone after the date."

"It's the principle of the thing. I've yet to say yes, and don't think I don't know about those bets! What's the pool up to now? A hundred to those on seventh year?"

"One-fifty," Lyn muttered under her breath.

"Whatever!!!" Lily exploded. "I don't want to gratify all the idiots who get their kicks betting on my love life! And I'm pretty sure at least a couple of those idiots reside in this very dorm!"

"Oh get over yourself, Lily!" Katie finally snapped, sounding disgusted. She had yet to voice her opinion on the matter, and now, finally having spoken up, she continued, "I think you won't go out with him because you're afraid you'll get to know him and decide that you actually like him, and then heaven forbid, you won't have anything to rant about!"

Lily was absolutely flabbergasted. Katie always sided with her1 She never snapped at Lily like that! Suddenly jumping up from the bed, she shouted, "It's a conspiracy! A bloody conspiracy!" With that last sentiment, Lily stormed from the dorm. She kept storming right on down the steps, through the common room, through the portrait hole, through the halls of Hogwarts, and didn't stop storming until she reached the Astronomy Tower, which was vacant because there was no class that night.

She stayed up there, staring out over the school grounds, oblivious to the October chill. She somehow drifted off to sleep, muttering something about "Idiot Fred" and "Stupid Potter".

~*~

James Potter groaned as he forced himself to get up. Cursing his bladder all the while, he made his way to the bathroom to relieve himself. Having done so (I believe it's hardly necessary to go into the details), he returned to his bed. After an hour or so of futile attempts to fall back asleep, he gave up and with a silent curse he sat back up and stretched. Maybe a walk will tire me out enough to go back to sleep, he thought as he pulled on a sweater and a pair of jeans over his bowers, which was all he normally slept in. After pulling on his shoes, he also grabbed a jacket, remembering how cold it could get in the castle. James hated being cold.

While taking a look at the Marauder's Map, making sure that the coast was clear, he noticed that the little dot labeled Lily Evans was at the top of the Astronomy Tower. That's peculiar, he wondered, as a glance at his watch showed that it was two in the morning and Lily was hardly the rule breaker. He left Gryffindor Tower and set a course for the Astronomy Tower, determined to find out what the love of his life was doing there.

~*~

Lily woke up not sure where she was. All she knew was that she was cold. Normally it didn't bother her, but remembering the fight in the dorm, she realized that she must have been out there for a while now. She was also suddenly aware that somebody had sat down beside her.

"Here," an all too familiar voice said as he put a jacket around her shoulders, "you look cold."

Lily looked at James and said, "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," he replied with a grin. "To answer said question, I couldn't fall asleep so I decided to take a walk. My wanderings brought me here, and there you were, sleeping."

Lily furrowed her brow, wondering how long she had been up there, exactly. "Potter, what time is it?"

"Ten after two," he answered, hoping that Lily would explain why she had been sleeping at the top of the Astronomy Tower, in the frigid cold, no less.

Lily groaned, realizing that she had been sitting there in the cold for at least five hours.

"So I take it you've been here for a while. Wanna talk about it?" James asked as he put an arm around Lily's shoulders. To his immense surprise, she didn't pull the arm off as she had done in the past.

Instead, she sighed and said, "My friends and I had a fight and I ran up here."

"Sounds like they ganged up on you."

"Yeah, they did."

"If it's not to personal, what was the fight about?"

Lily thought for a moment, unsure of whether or not she should tell him. Finally she replied, "They want me to give you a chance and I don't want to."

"Well that explains that burning sensation I had about the ears... Look, Lily," he said looking her in the eye, "I would love to be able to take your side, if only to make you feel better, but I kind of agree with your friends. You should give me a chance. Come on, name your reasons why you think you shouldn't."

"Well, there's the obvious of course- you're arrogant, you hex people without a second thought, you can be utterly cruel with your pranks at times, and there's also the fact that you've asked me out at least twice weekly, though usually more, since third year, you have no regard for the rules at all, and, and- your hair's a mess!' she finished, slightly breathless.

"Is that all?" James said with a grin. "Ok, first of all, I've put forth a conscious effort not to be so arrogant. Also, when's the last time you've seen me hex or prank someone who didn't deserve it? And think back, have I asked you once this year if you would go out with me? No, ma'am, I haven't. And although I believe that certain rules are meant to be broken, as Head Boy, I have to at least have some regard for them, as it's my job to enforce them. As for my hair, nobody's perfect. You think that you can make it lay flat? Then by all means, have a go. If you can, then you'll have accomplished what my mum's been trying to do since I was two."

To Lily's amazement, he was right. Thinking back to the beginning of the school year, she realized that James had seemed more mature, less cocky. He had indeed not asked her out since the previous school year, and although the Marauders hadn't ceased their pranking, so far their targets for that year had only been Slytherins who really deserved it. Shaking her head, Lily replied, "Well why then does it feel like you've only asked me out because I'm the only one who won't say yes?"

"Lily, you're a smart girl. Do you really think I would waste the past four years of my life chasing after someone who I really didn't care about?" James asked in response. "Also," he continued, "I was thirteen when I first asked you out- it's not like I had done a lot of dating,"

Lily didn't know what to say. She knew he was right, but she really didn't want to admit it. "Actually," James started after Lily had neglected to reply, "I've never dated that much. I mean there's a few girls I asked out in between asking you, but I never stayed with any of them for any more than two weeks. My honor just wouldn't let me kiss someone while I was thinking about someone else."

They both knew who that "someone else" was. I guess it goes without saying that he means me, lily thought to herself as James continued.

"I suppose the worst was when I dated Tonya Treese from Ravenclaw. She was starting to get attached and I knew it would be an even worse break-up if I waited longer. That didn't stop her from being pissed, though."

"Oh yeah," Lily replied with a laugh, "I had almost forgotten about the incident with the pumpkin juice."

"I tell ya, that stuff stains," James said, grinning. He looked down at his watch and with a start realized that it was past three AM. "See, I knew you didn't hate me. We've been talking for an hour and you've yet to yell at me."

"I never hated you, Potter. I just dislike you, quite strongly at times."

"Well you can't dislike me that much if you're sitting here with me talking, late at night, with my arm around you." Standing up, he offered a hand to Lily. "Come on, it is late, or should I say early?" Lily rolled her eyes at him, yet still took his hand and allowed him to pull her up. With a grin, James offered her his arm and said, "To Gryffindor, milady?"

"I must be delirious from the cold," Lily muttered as she slipped her arm through his.

His grin now a couple of centimeters wider, James replied, "You delirious and me delusional, because only in my dreams would you actually be this nice to me."

"Somehow, in your dreams, I think I'm more than nice to you," Lily answered, shaking her head.

"One step at a time, Lily dear, one step at a time."