Stealing Sheep

STEALING SHEEP

Chapter 8: Lovers and Other Strangers

She hadn't planned on avoiding him but he really gave her no choice. She thought it'd just go on as usual- both of them, safe in their own little cocoon of friends, happily ignoring each other. But he wasn't playing along. She couldn't believe that today of all days, the day after the night before, was the day that he decided she was worth hunting down and talking to. She couldn't fathom why. Okay, they had had a civil conversation in detention, but that was because he was bored and there had been no one else there to talk to. It was simply bizarre. What could he possibly want with her?

It would be so embarrassing, especially after that dream. Of course, he wouldn't know why, but she would. And that'd be enough to kill the conversation dead before it even started. And then she'd stand there looking at him awkwardly until he realised she was, after all, just the boring, miserable clichéd 'Ice Queen' that everyone thought her to be and he'd wander off and she would get that annoyed that she'd hex him and she would totally disrupt her clean record. Okay, it had been tainted by that one detention the other week, but a single fault can be overlooked. Two faults cannot. So, it was now a case of situation prevention.

She ducked her head out of the empty classroom, glanced down the corridor then, deciding it was safe, sped towards the Great Hall for dinner. She'd just got in sight of it and quickened her pace, when a tap on her shoulder made her jump a foot in the air. Her stomach clenched and she closed her eyes, getting the emotions that ran through her, namely dread and panic, under control. She slowly turned to see one of her best friends staring curiously at her. Thank God. "You scared me." She breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't have to deal with Potter.

"What's wrong? You scuttled away at the end of lesson before we woke Leila up- you know how she is. It took me a blizzard spell before she even flinched!" Rosa laughed then gestured to the skinny looking boy stood next to her who had previously escaped Lily's attention. "This is the new student I told you I was showing around today. He's transferred from Durmstrang. Got here yesterday during the troll fiasco. Bob, this is Lily."

"It's Robert," he said in a nervous voice and glanced up at Lily, suspiciously.

She was too preoccupied to pay much attention to his paranoid glares and continued to glance over her shoulder, watching for the enemy, but spared him a quick grin. "Hi, Bobbie."

Rosa frowned abruptly at her friend's preoccupied, hunted expression. Okay, Lily looked kind of out of it sometimes, but it was only on very special occasions that she looked this perturbed in public. "What is it? Who're you hiding from?"

"Hiding?" Lily tried innocence but was a terrible actress so it came out as nervous and twitchy, making her seem even more disturbed and guilty.

"Yes, hiding. Who from?"

"No one."

"Who?" Rosa demanded with such authority that Lily could do nothing but respond truthfully as much as she hated to.

"Potter," she spat bitterly. Why should she have to hide? It was a free country; she should be able to go wherever she wanted without being accosted!

Rosa frowned and opened her mouth but the words froze on her tongue as she caught sight of a figure over Lily's shoulder, striding towards them. Deciding to sacrifice her friend in order to escape from the scene about to take place, she quickly excused herself. "Sorry, but I just remembered I forgot...something. See you later."

Lily frowned after her friend, lost in thought, not realising that she was in plain view of her stalker. The first thing she knew about it was when she felt her arm being yanked out of the socket as she was suddenly pushed into a small, cramped broom cupboard that made her nose itch from dust, and her eyes strain in the terrible light.

She glared up at James Potter in the dimness, resentful that he had caught her, as they both knew he eventually would. "What?"

Infuriatingly, he grinned. "I drag you into a cupboard after following you around all day and all you can say is 'what'? I'm disappointed, Evans."

"Okay, then, smart arse, how about 'what do you want?'" she growled and ground her teeth, trying to suppress her temper. It was strange. She rarely lost control and it was odd that she was rapidly reaching the end of her tether with Potter, when he'd never angered her before that much. But, then again, he'd never stalked her before, either.

"I need to talk to you. Tell you something, I suppose." His face fell into a serious frown and she was astonished. James Potter not sporting an insufferable grin? What was the world coming to?

"Yes, yes, hurry up. I haven't got all day to stand around listening too you mumble incoherently," she snapped.

His words came out in a rush. "You had a dream the other night, in the Great Hall. What was it about?"

She blushed immediately at the remembered images conjured up by the word 'dream' and cursed herself for being so transparent. James questioning her about her dreams was the last thing she needed. How embarrassing that he might actually figure it out!

His tone still serious, he looked her in the eyes and said, " I thought so." A slow, knowing smile curved the edges of his mouth, drawing her gaze and making her blush even more at the thoughts that sped across her mind. He leaned in and her heart stopped. Surely he wasn't going to- Her breath caught as he neared and she didn't know what had come over her. Her head swam with confusion, and her body tingled with anticipation. She froze and instantly forgot all her standard courses of action for such a situation (i.e. a knee to the crotch). Instead she closed her eyes as she felt his breath whisper against her ear as he murmured, "I saw it too."

Suddenly, the spell snapped, she jerked away violently and jumped back as much as the small broom cupboard would allow. Somehow, they had got awfully close; too close for her liking, and now her main train of thought was to get out from the claustrophobic hole-in-the-wall as soon as- did he just say what she thought he said?

She glared at him warily, one hand held out in front to ward him off. "Saw what?"

"The dream!" She saw with satisfaction that he looked flustered from their little almost-encounter, his face flushed and his eyes dark with...something she didn't want to think about. But...she had affected him, had she? It gave her a little burst of feminine smugness to know that she hadn't been the only one- er- disturbed by what had almost happened.

"What dream?"

He ground his teeth at her supposed ignorance and shot out, "You know, Deatheaters, the ministry, that cute little crescent moon-shaped scar on your belly..."

She stared at him, mouth agape, and for the first time in what must've been three or four years, she was speechless. Not even in the way that people always say they are when vaguely shocked and they can't think of anything to say- she found it actually impossible to form coherent thought, let alone speech.

So he filled in the silence for her. "I've been thinking about that actually. I think it's either one of two things: a) we've somehow got a psychic link and we're sharing dreams; or b) they are visions of the future," he mumbled the last option in embarrassment.

"Ex- excuse me?" she croaked, finally stepping away from the red flashing light and loud wailing that was the warning bell in her mind.

"We could have a psychic link and be sharing dreams- maybe occlumency or-"

"Sharing dreams?" She raised an eyebrow. "What, one of us is having these nightmares and the other is somehow picking up on it?" He just stared back in what she thought of as a meaningful way, making her blush with outrage. "It wasn't me! They weren't my dreams! How could you assume-!"

Surprising her into a shocked silence once again he stepped closer, lifting a finger to her lips and stared at her intently. "I didn't. I thought they were my dreams. It isn't as if I haven't had them before, but they weren't that intense." She blinked and he breathed in deeply, as if trying to get himself under control. He gave her a resigned look and said, "I'm sorry, but I have to know."

That was when he took her by surprise for what was around the sixth time in a few minutes and pulled her against him. Hard. His mouth swooped down as his arm encircled her waist, and she was lost. She hated herself for it, but she couldn't help sliding into the kiss, feeling like she'd done it a million times before, each time as delicious as it was now. A fever began to grow in her as they kissed with increasing fervour, something that she'd never felt before with the few boys that she'd kissed, but then again she'd never been kissed by James Potter before-

She broke off and stared at him in horror. What had she done? She'd just been kissing a stranger! For all she knew he might have some sort of contagious disease! She might have recognised his body from their dream world romps, but she didn't know him. She didn't know anything about him. She used to think she did- he was the joker, the Idiot Boy Wonder, the most annoying boy on the face of the Earth, the boy who didn't take anything seriously- as his reputation dictated. But what she'd seen in her dreams and of him here today told her that there was a lot more to him than she had thought, and that was one thing that was not good for her piece of mind- complex people meant complex lives and right now she did not need to have the riddle of Potter on her mind. She didn't want to think about him.

"I knew it." She snapped back into reality at the strange dreamy tone of his voice. Her eyes flickered up to see him staring at her amazedly. He brought a hand to his lips and softly smiled to himself. "I've kissed you before." He sounded astounded. "I knew it! It was real." He stepped forward excitedly, immediately, unintentionally, sparking her temper.

"I don't know what you're talking about and I'd rather not know about any of your sick fantasies," she spat out viciously, unable to control the anger and frustration bubbling inside her. "But I'm warning you-" She poked him hard in the chest, emphasising each word with a sharp jab. "Don't. Touch. Me. Ever. Again."

He automatically assumed an innocent expression and held his hands up in surrender, but she most definitely didn't have mercy in mind. "Don't talk to me. Don't tell anyone about this. Don't even look at me. Don't dream about me. I don't want it. I don't want you." She glowered, shoved him roughly out of her way, and charged out of the cupboard and down the hallway, growling at random people and scaring away anyone who dared to step within a four-foot radius of her.

James scratched his head, still at a loss to understand what had just happened. Had he really just voluntarily, in a non-dream state, kissed Lily Evans, Princess Prissy? More importantly, had he really just kissed Lily Evans and enjoyed it?

He stepped out of the cupboard, still confounded, and decided he needed a meeting with his advisors. They would know what to do. They had a solution for everything!

As James proceeded to search for his fellow undercover pranksters, one thought continued, most annoyingly, to plague him. He couldn't help but remember how she'd immediately responded to him, she'd immediately known him. And from the fire in her kiss, the Ice Queen, whether she liked it or not, was not so icy anymore.

****************************************************************************