Wizarding Betrothal

Chapter 17: Contradictions

Two girls were hidden within the tightly drawn curtains of Laura's bed, tucked away under the blankets, and deep in a hushed conversation. With the fluency exclusive to fifteen-almost-sixteen year-olds everywhere, they discussed a time-honoured question.

"Do you think he likes me?"

"Of course he does," Lily replied.

They had spent a great deal of the night analysing every detail of one Danny LaBorde. Little did he know that his behaviour was subjected to such minute scrutiny.

Sensing Laura's continued doubt of Danny's affections, Lily continued with the comforting. "He came over to talk to us three times while we were sitting in the common room tonight."

Laura sighed. "He came over to talk to you, not me."

"He was just too nervous to say anything to you." The boy was obviously smitten; Laura was just being too dense to see it.

"Do you think so?"

"Yes," Lily said. "Whenever he went back to sit with his friends, he stared at you the whole time."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Laura was so lucky. All kinds of boys fancied her; she could just take her pick of whomever she wanted. Lily, on the other hand, had never been nearly so popular. It didn't help that, until James showed up, her parents had forbidden her to date - not that she really listened. They just didn't want her going out with anybody but James. They didn't want her to have any choice at all. They didn't trust her.

"He's really cute, isn't he?" Laura said.

"Very cute," Lily answered dutifully. He was a bit too tall for her own taste.

"You know who else is cute?"

"Who?" Lily asked. There was no telling.

"James Potter."

Lily rolled her eyes but didn't say anything.

"Come on," Laura pressed her, "I want to hear you say it."

"Fine. He's cute. Happy?" It was a wretch to say that - as true as it was.

"I knew you fancied him."

"Shut-up, Laura." Lily hadn't said anything of the sort. She never should have admitted anything.

"So are you going to tell me what happened with him today or what?" Laura asked, totally ignoring Lily's protestations.

Lily groaned; she had known the question was coming. "There's not much to tell."

"I don't care." Of course Laura didn't care - she knew Lily was lying.

"Okay, well..." Where should she start? "The whole time he was here, all of these girls kept staring at him and coming up to him. It was weird - like they all fancy him or something."

"They probably do."

"But they don't even know him."

"They don't have to know him," Laura said. "He's famous, rich, talented...."

"I'd barely even heard of him before we met," Lily admitted. Sometimes she was so pathetic it was frightening. "It took me a few weeks even to remember that he'd been Head Boy during our first year."

"Your family is all Muggles, though. You don't hear the matches on the WWN over the summer. Your Dad doesn't read Quidditch magazines in the loo. It isn't really surprising that you didn't recognise him."

"I guess."

"I could tell Benji was all jealous," Laura said, moving on. "Did they say anything rude to each other?"

"Not really." At least not that Lily had noticed. "But Benji kept glaring at James." That had been kind of annoying.

"Did James notice? What did he do?" Laura was sure full of questions.

"I don't know if he noticed Benji, but James was acting all possessive and touchy-feely and junk."

"How much touching and feeling?" Laura asked. What an eager little pervert.

"He kept trying to put his arm around me at the game."

"No wonder Benji got ticked," Laura said. "Did James kiss you again?"

"Yeah. On the cheek." Those little butterflies fluttered through her stomach again at the memory.

"And?"

"And what?" Lily asked.

"And what else?" Laura seemed to think she was leaving out the juicy details, but there just weren't any to tell.

"Nothing else." Lily had been reminding herself all night that she wasn't disappointed. She wasn't!

"Didn't James profess his undying love for you or anything?" Laura wondered. What kind of romance-novel-world was Laura living in anyway? She would probably like what he did say though.

"He called my freckles sexy," Lily said; that was still embarrassing.

Laura giggled and bounced on the mattress. "No way!"

"Keep your voice down!" Lily whispered. The last thing they needed was for somebody to wake up and start eavesdropping.

Laura pressed her face into the pillow while she finished her bout of giggles. "Sorry!" she whispered. "Oh, I'm so jealous of you. He's so sweet!"

"That's not sweet," Lily argued. "It's weird." Who thinks freckles are sexy anyway?

"Whatever, Lily." Laura just brushed her objection aside and continued. "What else did he say?"

"Nothing much. He made a big deal about always telling me the truth and not wanting me to forget about him." A forgettable James would be so much easier to cope with; she'd be able to just...well, forget about him.

Laura sighed dramatically. "You're so lucky."

"Lucky?" Where did that come from? She must be crazy. "You think it's lucky to have your parents try to dictate everything in your life?"

"It's not like they're trying to make you do anything horrible."

"An arranged marriage isn't horrible?" Lily exclaimed, struggling to keep her voice low.

Laura resettled herself a little under the blanket before she answered. "Anything that involves kissing James Potter couldn't be remotely horrible."

She did not just say that! "Laura!"

"He's so sexy and cuddly," she added.

"Don't say that!"

"Why not?" Laura asked. "Jealous?"

"I'm not jealous." Only extremely uncomfortable.

"I know," Laura said. "You just don't want anybody else lusting after your man."

"He's not 'my man'," she insisted.

"What do you have against James, anyway?"

Lily paused for a moment, racking her brain. "I don't have anything against him," she said.

"Except that your parents are forcing him on you."

"That's not his fault."

"No," Laura said. "But you're still holding it against him."

"I am not." Was she?

"Okay, Lily. Whatever," Laura said, obviously unconvinced. "But he's still cute, isn't he?"

"Yeah." Lily had to admit, "He is cute." The little git.

The following Thursday afternoon found Lily, Benjamin, and Josiah grouped around a dirty table in Greenhouse Three. Benjamin hadn't been himself all week; he'd been half-heartedly attempting to avoid her, and hadn't complimented Lily even once. She was beginning to miss the attention.

Removing her cloak, Lily carefully stored it inside her bag with her gloves. No matter how frigid the air was outside, Professor Sprout always managed to keep the greenhouses warm and humid. Filmy moisture was already clinging to Lily's skin, and condensation dribbled down the glass windows.

"Are we supposed to crumble the limestone, or leave it in chunks like it is?" Josiah asked Lily.

Lily pulled up a stool. "Break it up a little, but not too much," she said. "It should be in pieces about the size of gobstones."

Herbology was, by far, Lily's favourite class; there was little boring note-taking. They were able to get out of the castle, move around some, and indulge that little horticulturist gene that Lily had managed to inherit from her mother. It was fun, even if they did get a bit dirty from time to time.

Professor Sprout had the fifth years preparing seed trays for Belladonna, a very poisonous plant that was dead useful in potion-making. They had to get the soil just right for the seeds, or the full-grown plants would be worthless.

Lily sprinkled the bits of limestone into the trays while the boys worked at breaking up the larger pieces in the loudest manner possible. Surely that poor textbook wasn't used to being slammed down over chunks of rock. She cringed after a particularly loud thump.

"Can't you two find a less obnoxious way to do that?" she asked.

"Probably," Benjamin replied, "but where's the fun in that?" They certainly seemed amused with themselves. Then again, she shouldn't be surprised: Benjamin and Josiah typically preferred mayhem over maturity. Lily opted not to comment.

Opening her own textbook, Lily looked up the soil components and started pulling them together, allowing the boys to finish the limestone base. They were clearing up the shattered rocks when Lily noticed Josiah whispering to Benjamin and motioning in her direction. He wasn't exactly the king of subtlety, now was he? Benjamin looked increasingly irritated.

"So Lily." Abandoning his efforts with Benjamin, Josiah redirected his conversational attempts towards Lily, and reached for the bucket of manure. "So Lily, I've been meaning to ask you how you know James Potter so well." He winced, and Lily suspected that he had just been kicked under the table. What was Benjamin's problem? It wasn't like she hadn't been getting that question all week.

"Oh, I know him because my parents are friends with his mum." If only she had a sickle for every time she'd said that.

"That's cool," Josiah nodded. He began to measure the manure into the soil they were mixing and continued with the familiar topic. "Have you two been mates for a long time then?"

"I'd never even talked to him until last summer." That was true. "We aren't really close friends or anything; we just sort of know each other," she added. Close was a very relative term, and they did know each other, so all of that was true too. Lily began to stir the soil and manure with the trowel, incorporating it thoroughly.

"You two seemed pretty chummy last weekend," he said. Was he insinuating that Lily was being less than truthful?

"He's friendly enough," Lily shrugged.

"That was cool that he came out to visit you here."

"Oh, he wasn't visiting me," Lily corrected. "He came to see Orlan Mejia." James' Quidditch schedule was way too hectic for him to have time to make a special trip to Hogwarts just to see her.

"Yeah, that's what he said too," Josiah said. "So why didn't he sit with the Ravenclaws then?"

"I guess he felt uncomfortable doing that," Lily answered, "since he was a Gryffindor and all." There was also the fact that, for some mysterious reason, he was intent on winning Lily's affections - but Josiah didn't need to know that part.

"Can you guys hold the tray?" Lily asked. She slipped on her dragon hide gloves and hoisted an iron kettle from the burner. As Josiah and Benjamin positioned their seed tray over a drainage pan, Lily poured the boiling water over it, allowing the scalding fluid to wash through the soil and burn out any destructive germs. The smell of dung, dirt and limestone slapped her in the face as the steam billowed up. At least the soil would be clean, even if Lily's hair would smell like a dragon's backside.

By the time she'd returned the kettle and had attempted to wipe the manure-scented perspiration from her face, the seed tray looked nicely drained, and was ready for the layer of sand.

"Lily, did you know that my cousin plays for the Holyhead Harpies?" Josiah asked.

"Does he?" Some people would probably find that very interesting; Lily found her little pot of gritty sand much more exciting, however. She began sprinkling it evenly over the tray.

"She," Josiah corrected, "the Harpies are all witches." Yeah, okay...Lily felt sort of pathetic for not figuring that - Harpies, it made sense they'd be female - but Josiah wasn't stopping to let her wallow in it. "She was telling me that potential recruits are generally brought to meet the team members at the practice pitches during the school breaks. She's never heard of a player being sent out like Potter said he was. Usually it's just the recruiters who do that sort of stuff."

Did anybody really care about the recruiting practices of the Harpies? "Maybe the Cannons do things differently than the Harpies."

"Maybe meeting Mejia was just an excuse," Benjamin suggested.

"An excuse for what?" Lily paused mid-sprinkle to look at Benjamin.

"To visit you," he said, not looking at her.

"Oh, whatever." Lily rolled her eyes. As if James would go to that kind of trouble; he didn't really care that much about seeing her. He'd spent all of the Christmas holiday at her house; if he were truthful, James would probably have to admit to being sick of looking at her.

Benjamin didn't seem to share that opinion, however. "He fancies you," he said.

That was the most ridiculous thing she'd heard since...well, since Laura had suggested that Lily fancied James. "Don't be silly, Ben."

"I'm not."

Lily was starting to have trouble concentrating on her sand sprinkling. "Why would he like me?" she asked. "I'm just a kid." Until she'd mentioned it to James, he'd treated her like a little sister. Since then, he'd been trying harder to pretend like he was feeling something more romantic. But Lily knew he still saw her as a little kid - that's what she was, after all.

"The whole time he was here," Benjamin said, "he was standing over you like a jealous boyfriend."

"He was not!" Lily retorted defensively. Benjamin was the one acting all jealous.

Dropping his trowel, Benjamin gaped at her. "He practically hung a sign over your head saying 'Keep off! Property of James Potter!'"

"I don't belong to anybody, Benjamin Summers," Lily spat out. He'd really hit a nerve right there. She was thoroughly sick of everyone telling her what to do: who she should like, who she should marry, who she should want to snog. Everyone wanted to control her. Lily, however, didn't belong to anybody. "Not to James," she continued. "Not to you. Not to anybody. I can fancy whoever I feel like, and I can make my own decisions, and I don't have to answer for it to anyone!"

"I know that, Lily. But it doesn't change the fact that he wants you."

"Will you please shut-up about that?" She heard enough of it from Laura. "There is no reason on earth that James Potter would fancy me. He's got millions of girls to pick from, and he'd be stupid to waste his energy chasing me around. He just doesn't like me that way."

"They why did he come here anyway?"

"His coach sent him to talk to Orlan. They're trying to recruit him," she said. "Now will you please stop talking to me about James Potter?"

"Fine!"

"Thank you!"

"Alrighty then!" Josiah cut in. "Who wants to rake in the Belladonna seeds?"

Ooh. Smooth change of subject, Josiah. At least he got an E for effort. He'd get an O if he hadn't been the one who started the whole stupid subject in the first place.

Benjamin stalked away to the sinks where he began scrubbing his hands furiously. Apparently he was done with Herbology for the day.

Between Lily and Josiah, the seeds were sown and the tray was put away; Professor Sprout wouldn't mark the trays until the seeds had germinated. They'd definitely done a good job, even if their social skills left something to be desired. Lily felt horrible about going off on Benjamin like that; her nerves had really been rubbed raw lately, but she shouldn't have taken it out on him. She would apologise later that night when they headed out for their Prefect rounds. Hopefully they could get their friendship back to normal without too much more trouble.

"That project wasn't bad," Josiah said as they packed up their things, waiting for class to be released. "How long until the Belladonna starts growing anyway?"

"It won't even germinate for at least six weeks," Lily said. "It's kind of slow."

Laura was hastily jogging over towards Lily at the end of class to find out what the ruckus at their table had been all about. It appeared that Lily had declared her independence rather louder than she had realised. Just great. Couldn't she be one of those people for whom things actually worked smoothly now and then? Maybe her Belladonna tray was right, but it was the only thing that day, and she wouldn't have the proof of that small success for months. Why did it have to grow so slow? Lily needed encouragement!

Belladonna may have been slow about germinating, but the school year was nothing like slow about progressing. Lily was stressed. Even after she'd made up with Benjamin, and after her classmates had stopped remembering to ask her about James, and even after Laura had finally persuaded Danny to ask her out, Lily was still stressed. OWLS were fast approaching, and Lily had more work to keep up with than she had ever imagined possible.

She was worried about failing her Potions exam, and about wasting too much time revising for Herbology. She worried about falling asleep in History of Magic and she worried about losing her temper with her friends. She worried so much that she spent the whole of the Easter Holidays in the Hogwarts library cramming her leaky brain with miscellaneous information.

Laura was mystified; Lily rarely stressed about her class work. Maybe Lily had finally realised how important the OWLS were. Maybe she had decided to enjoy revising. Maybe she liked keeping her mind focused on something less stressful than boys.

Whatever it was, it sure didn't slow down the time. Lily felt like a kid on her first skateboard, hurtling down a hill at breakneck speed, a huge stone wall at the bottom, and no comprehension of braking in sight. If only she could find a nice soft pond to fall into. With her luck, she'd find one alright, but it would be as dry as Madame Pince's sense of humour.

No...escape routes were not an option for Lily. She'd have to hit the wall or learn to fly. Problem was: she sure didn't have wings.