James was man enough to admit that he was having the time of his life.
In all truth, he’d been more than a little worried when Janelle had first suggested the idea. After all, he had no idea what a “girly party” entailed. The idea was enough to make any guy run away screaming.
But after finishing Orsha’s Wish, James had walked right back to the dormitory on Thursday evening. Expecting the girls to spend hours cheering Lore up, he was surprised to see when he opened the door, that she was no longer crying. All the girls in the dormitory were in full planning mode and Janelle was obviously leading the group; directing them in a way that would have put the Head of Aurors to shame. James was rather scared.
As soon as Janelle spied him in the doorway, he had been sent to the sixth year dormitory to inform them of the event. They had squealed and jumped up and down in excitement. Lightly touching his ears, he had vacated the room as quickly as possible. Apart from hurting his hearing, the girls reactions only served to make James more frightened then he had been in the first place.
On Friday, after classes had finished for the day, Janelle instructed Lily and Alice to pilfer some food from the kitchen. James was impressed; apparently Alice and Lily had known about the secret entrance for ages. Alice had charmed the house-elves into bringing out lots of miniature sweets and pies as well as a few bottles of pumpkin juice. After mentioning she was having a small, girls only party, they brought out a cake, with “Boys Suck” written in pink icing. Alice had smiled at the house-elves, telling them they were wonderful. James was astonished. He thought he could steal food from the kitchens, but Alice was truly a master with it.
At eight thirty, all the girls arrived in the dormitory, bringing along even more food and drinks. The girls had been keeping a supply of Honeydukes chocolate, Butterbeer and other goodies from Hogsmeade especially for times like this. For an hour they simply pigged out, gossiped and did each others hair. James was in charge of platting Eve’s hair.
Unfortunately for Eve, James was not very good at plaiting. In fact, he knew nothing about plaiting at all. After fifteen minutes of attempting to plait, Eve’s hair looked sort of like a birds nest. Pulling out his wand, James attempted to charm her hair into some sort of order. Regrettably in his panic, he accidentally turned her hair purple. Continually tapping her head, he tried to find her original colour. Eventually, when he found a colour that was almost right, he stopped and started work on untangling her hair manually.
“Hey, Lily, can I try on some of your clothes?” asked Jane, a girl from sixth year.
“Um, sure…” replied James, still sorting though Eve’s hair.
Jane then ruffled though Lily’s trunk and grabbed out a green sweater. Then, to James’ shock (and delight), she proceeded to get changed straight in front of everyone.
“Hmm, that looks okay,” said Alice. “But I think it would look better on you, Jane, in blue.” With a flick of her wand, Alice turned the sweater midnight blue. “Yeah, that looks perfect.” Jane went and examined herself in the mirror.
Alice cocked her head to the side in thought. “Hey, Jane,” she asked, “before I change the colour back, could I try it on too?”
And then the girls were off, stripping down to their underwear and trying on all of each others clothes. In the middle of the dormitory, they got changed with nothing to hide. At first James could do nothing but stare, but he soon realised he could encourage them.
“Janelle, darling, I think you would look excellent in this,” he held up a shirt that would most likely be too small. “Rebecca, I’m not sure that blue singlet has the right look, why don’t you try on this dress? I’m sure you will look just perfect.”
Although he personally believed none of them were as good looking as Lily, he was still a male and they were still girls taking off their clothes; he was in heaven.
At about eleven thirty, Rebecca and Eve, whose hair was still tangled, went to go and sleep in the empty sixth year dormitory. They didn’t want to stay up too late when they had Quidditch in the morning. James briefly wondered how Lily was doing. He considered going and giving her a pep-talk, but Janelle interrupted his thoughts.
“Who’s up for truth or dare?” asked Janelle, causing the rest of the girls to giggle. She reached for an empty Butterbeer bottle and placed it on the dormitory floor. The girls then moved into a circle around it, with James quickly following suit.
Tapping the bottle with her wand, she muttered, “Roto,” which caused the bottle to spin quickly, before stopping on Alice. The girls cheered and giggled, before Lauren finally yelled, “Truth or Dare!”
“Er, Truth!” Alice replied uncertainly. James didn’t blame her, after living with these girls for more than a week, James was fairly sure he would be uncertain about going first in truth or dare too. Alice was one brave girl.
“Are you in love with Frank?” asked Katie.
“Yes,” Alice replied with no hesitation, blushing to the roots of her hair.
The girls erupted into fits of “Awws” and giggles and the game continued on. By the time the bottle landed on James, one girl had admitted a deep secret and one girl had given some very interesting details about an ex-boyfriend. It seemed that girls did kiss and tell. Jake Collins, a boy from James’ dormitory, had his face painted in make-up without him being aware, and two girls had sprinted up the corridor in nothing but bras, pants and knee high socks.
James was really enjoying the game.
Despite what had happened in the game so far, James was not worried when the bottle landed on him. After all, he enjoyed dares and he couldn’t wait to have some fun in Lily’s skin.
“Dare,” he said firmly and clearly. Dares were always more fun and besides, it wasn’t in his best interests to pick truth. After all, there was a chance he wouldn’t know the right answer anyway, and he might have some trouble trying to explain his way out of it. Plus, he doubted the girls would be able to throw anything at him that he wouldn’t do. James Potter never backed out of dares.
“Okay, Lily Evans,” said Janelle, grinning in a rather evil way, “I dare you right now to go into the boy’s dormitory, gently awaken Sirius Black and kiss him full on the lips.”
“TRUTH!” James yelled. Kiss Sirius? Why on earth had he picked dare? These girls were crazy.
“Who do you like?” asked Lorèley, once the laugher at James’ outburst had died down.
“Er… James Potter?” he tried.
He thought he’d seen them laughing before, but obviously he had been wrong. This time the girls really laughed, rolling around on the floor until tears fell out of their eyes. They were in hysterics for what seemed like forever. After a while James felt a bit put out. It wasn’t that funny, was it? In his mind, it held at least some merit.
Finally after five minutes, Alice calmed down enough to say, “Merlin, Lily, you are hilarious. Who do you like truthfully?”
Before James could say anything else, the girls began to theorise.
“Remember when she said the other day that she would never go out with someone younger than her?” said Lore, causing most of the girls to nod in assent. “According to her, most of the guys in this year level were immature, let alone the ones below. I think her mystery man is in seventh year.”
“She also has said that she would never go out with a Slytherin,” added Kate, “because at some stage or another they have all called her names, or said horrible things about her birth.”
“What about the Ravenclaws?” asked Jane, staring at ‘Lily’.
“I remember her saying Rodger was the only person from another house who had ever caught her eye,” replied Alice. “I don’t think that’s changed “ she hasn’t been looking at any of the other tables recently. I reckon it’s a Gryffindor.” Most of the girls nodded in assent. James was shocked at the pace they were going. He hadn’t even opened his mouth and they had narrowed it down to five people.
“Okay, it’s not Sirius because otherwise she would have kissed him,” said Jane, “or at least blushed when she refused or something,” she added.
“What about Peter?”
“Nah, she’s always said that she’s never found him particularly attractive and he still looks the same as before. I think we can cross Peter off the list.”
“So that leaves Alex, Jake and Remus.”
Throughout the girls hurried conversation, James remained gob smacked. They’d jumped to so many conclusions in the last three minutes that he was finding it difficult to keep up. The girls looked at James’ blank expression, obviously looking for some sort of sign. James shrugged. The girls looked back at each other. Suddenly, Janelle’s eyes widened as a thought hit her.
“MERLIN!” she yelled, covering her mouth with her hand. “Remember what she said the other day, ‘I’d rather kiss Remus!’ SHE LIKES REMUS!”
The girls erupted into giggles and squeals.
“You are so right, she likes Remus!”
“Awe, how sweet…”
“It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t pick it up before…”
“I don’t! It was a joke!” yelled James, trying to be heard above the rabble. The girls ignored him. Lily liking Remus! The concept was ridiculous; it was stupid, it was… it made him feel jealous.
“Look how red she is going! It’s true!”
“Don’t try and deny it, Lily. You looovvvee him.”
“Oh, for the love of Merlin,” James sighed, rolling his eyes.
“Admit it!” the girls chorused.
“No!” James replied.
“Admit it!”
“No!”
“Admit it!”
“I’m going to bed!” James yelled, before storming off the sixth year dormitory to sleep with the Quidditch girls who had gone to bed early. He knew he would never be able to reason with the girls. Plus, he needed to be awake bright and early to talk to Lily before the match.
As James was asleep in a different dormitory, he didn’t hear the girls talking about him. Unfortunately for James, he had no way of knowing what they were planning. It was definitely something he wouldn’t like.
Lily was on the verge of giving up the whole charade. What is even the point? she thought for the millionth time. After today, who on earth is going to think that I am James?
But at seven in the morning she got up, dressed and headed down to the breakfast table. To add to her woes, arriving in the Great Hall, Lily saw that it was pouring outside. While she was looking at the ceiling, a huge clap of thunder shot across the enchanted roof.
She smiled as a thought hit her. Maybe the rain was not a bad thing at all, surely they would cancel Quidditch if there was a storm and she wouldn’t have to play after all. Grinning at this new outlook, she spread some marmalade on her toast. Life seemed so much better without the threat of Quidditch.
Adam came and sat down next to her. “You seem cheerful,” he commented to Lily who was now humming. “I suppose that’s a given though, we are after all playing Quidditch soon.”
Lily frowned and looked up at the sky. “But it’s raining,” she said rather stupidly.
“A little rain never hurt anyone.” Lily looked back at him as a huge clap of thunder lit up the enchanted room.
“True,” she replied sarcastically, “but flying in a thunderstorm might.”
“You should know better then anyone that they never cancel Quidditch because of the weather…”
“But…but…”
Adam looked shocked. “You don’t want them to cancel it do you?”
Yes. “No, of course not,” murmured Lily, before turning back to her toast. “I just love to fly.”
Luckily, Lily was saved from further interrogation by the arrival of Jake Collins, who for some reason looked suspiciously like a drag queen. Adam snorted into his porridge, but made no other sign that he had noticed anything odd.
By eight, most of the school had come down to breakfast, except, it seemed, for James. Lily had passed through the stage of nervousness and was heading into down right panic. James had agreed that they would talk before the match to give her some last minute tips and strategies. For some absurd reason, it had made her feel better. She was counting on that talk, and didn’t want to leave the Great Hall until it happened. However, by nine, she had no other choice but to head to the change room with the rest of the team.
Her team watched her as she paced the floor, looking up at her with huge respect. In the mists of her jumbled thoughts, something stood out completely clear. In that moment Lily realised exactly why James had become Head Boy.
James was a natural leader, and people both trusted and respected him. Besides, no matter how closely someone followed the rules, or how much the teachers liked them, if they weren’t a leader, what was the point in putting them in a position of power? In that moment, despite the prejudices she felt, she knew Quidditch captains were just as much leaders as Prefects. Both had positions of power, had to make decisions and were in charge of groups of people. Both positions gave enough experience to be given the position of Head Boy.
James knew how to lead people and though he could be a trouble maker at times, he had a good heart and Dumbledore had faith in him. If she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that in no way so far had James let him down. Dumbledore had made the right choice.
“James?” Rebecca’s voice pulled Lily back to reality. “What’s our game plan?”
“To win,” replied Lily, without batting an eyelid.
“And what’s our strategy to win?” asked Adam smiling.
“Scoring goals and catching the Snitch.”
A whistle blew and Lily rose to her feet.
“Sounds like a good plan to me…” Robin murmured, watching ‘James’ as he strode out of the change room.
James stretched as he awoke in the morning. The dormitory was very quiet as most of the girls had slept in the seventh year dormitory. It was so peaceful, he couldn’t even hear the Quidditch girls sleeping.
James sat up in his bed. The girls were not in their beds, obviously they had already left. He was completely alone. Shooting into the seventh year dormitory, he stepped over two girls sleeping on the floor to grab some robes.
“Wake up!” he yelled at the girls. “What time is it?”
Alice groaned, but rolled over and looked at her watch anyway. “It’s ten A.M. Why do you care anyway?” she grumbled.
But James had already left the dormitory. Sprinting down the hallway, he found that Hogwarts was almost empty. In the distance he could hear the rumble of a crowd; the Quidditch match was starting.
Lily walked forward to meet Madam Hooch in the centre of the pitch. Madam Hooch had only been teaching at Hogwarts for a year, but her hawk like eyes still made Lily feel unsettled.
Rodger also walked forward, glaring at her. He obviously was not going to let his issues with ‘James’ go. Madam Hooch opened a crate and they watched while the Snitch was released into the air.
“Okay, shake hands please, captains.”
Rodger grabbed her hand. Oh, Merlin, Lily screamed inside her head, is he attempting to crush my hand?
Finally, after what seemed like hours of agony, Madam Hooch cleared her throat and Roger dropped his hand. “Okay teams, I want a fair match.” She looked at both Lily and Rodger, obviously suspecting there was something going on. “No foul play.”
Roger nodded, but didn’t meet the Quidditch teacher’s eye.
Lily decided she was very scared.
By the time James reached the Quidditch pitch, the game had been going for ten minutes. Out of breath, he sat down beside Jake. It seemed he had noticed his face was covered in make up, tried to get most of it off, and failed miserably. He now looked like he had some sort of weird skin disease.
“What’s been happening?” James panted out of breath.
“Nothing much. The score is even, one goal each. James has been playing really oddly, but you know James, he probably has some elaborate plan up his sleeve.”
James didn’t bother replying. He was too nervous. Looking up at the game, he saw Rebecca pass the Quaffle to Lily, who tried to pass it to Alex too quickly, which allowed it to be intercepted. There was a collective groan from the Gryffindor side. James put his face in his hands. If we ever got out of this mess, he thought to himself, I pray to Merlin that our children inherit my Quidditch genes.
“Ugh!” Lily murmured to herself, as a Bludger just missed her face. “Why on earth would people do this for fun?” The game had been going for at least half an hour. While she was beginning to play a little better (she had actually helped Rebecca score a goal), she knew people were beginning to question what was going on. James Potter was meant to be brilliant, not going on average. Cursing Alice, potions, Inachis Oil, Bludgers and James (for no other reason than it was easy to blame him) she refocused on the game.
Alex threw Lily the Quaffle and she was moving towards the goals when she saw Rodger. He was grinning, which couldn’t be good news for her. However, his gaze quickly moved from her face to something in the distance. He inclined his head slightly, motioning to something behind her. Lily moved her head to see what he was looking at when…
“Ouch!” the commentator yelled. “Two of the Chasers from the Hufflepuff team have deliberately collided with Potter! Of course, if the rumours are true, a move like that was probably orchestrated by Fairgon, the Hufflepuff keeper, who believes that his ex-girlfriend…”
Someone coughed in the background.
“Sorry, Professor McGonagall. Potter moves forward to take the penalty.”
Winded, but happy to be alive, Lily moved forward to take the penalty. She gulped. If she didn’t make this shot, people would start questioning who she was. After all, as far as she could remember, James Potter had never missed a penalty shot.
James didn’t understand how other people could stand it; the tension surely must be getting to everyone by now. He supposed that most people were not watching both their long time crush and themself play at the same time. Instead of getting more accustomed to the situation, James was getting more nervous as the minutes ticked by.
In fact, the only time that James’ tension left him, was when Lily had been attacked by the Hufflepuff Chasers. Two emotions had crashed over him, one after the other, sweeping the worry away. Firstly he had felt fear; for a brief second, Lily looked as though she was going to topple from her broom. He knew that she didn’t have the greatest control over her flying skills, and for a moment, he had feared greatly for her safety.
The second emotion he had felt, as soon as he knew Lily was going to be okay, was fury. How dare they break the rules of Quidditch and play dirty to satisfy their Captain’s grudges? It was something he would never ask of his team mates and it made him disgusted.
But, after wobbling briefly, Lily had righted herself on her broom. The crowd had cheered as she moved forward to take her penalty.
That was when James’ anxiety returned. He knew that Lily could shoot penalties, it was one of the things he had taught her to do when they had trained the previous week. But would she be able to do it under pressure?
“Madam Hooch hands Potter the Quaffle. Of course, this is a big showdown for the boys,” the commentator was saying. “As we all know tension has been high between the Captains since Fairgon found his ex-girlfriend, Lily Evans, in a closet with Potter. Still smarting from that embarrassing public scene in the Great Hall, Fairgon is obviously blaming Potter for stealing…”
“MR. GORDING! ARE YOU COMMENTANTING ON A QUIDDITCH MATCH OR ARE YOU GOSSIPING?”
“Sorry, Professor. Potter looks like he is aiming and … AMAZING! WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! Potter hit the Hufflepuff Keeper on the top of the head with the perfect angle, causing the Quaffle to bounce straight into the middle goal. Ladies and gentlemen, you may call that a fluke, but that is what I call pure skill. If I was Lily Evans, I know which man I would choose...”
There was the sound of someone being hit over the head with a rolled up newspaper.
“And Gryffindor leads, 60-40.”
James swelled with pride. While he did have to admit that there was a very high chance that it was a fluke, the goal was not only amazing but had spectacularly embarrassed Rodger. James had never been more proud of her.
Lily was fast growing sick of the game. True, scoring that goal had been awesome, and the crowd screaming her name (well, James’ name at least), made her feel on top of the world. Of course, the crowd didn’t know that she had actually aimed for the right goal post, slipped slightly, tried to recover the ball, nearly dropped it and ended up completely missing her target. Lily did not believe that she was a lucky person (especially taking the events of the last ten days into account) but in that moment, she could have sworn someone was looking out for her.
However, it did nothing to solve her two main problems. Number one, that she really was not good at Quidditch and her team kept passing the ball to her, and number two, that the whole Hufflepuff Quidditch team seemed to be out to get her. In fact, her goal had embarrassed Rodger on a whole new level and it seemed Rodger had asked his team to lend him a hand in her destruction. Lily tried to take solace in the fact that they weren’t out to kill her but to kill James.
It wasn’t a very comforting thought.
The game was slowly getting dirtier and dirtier. The Gryffindor team were getting angry at all the unprovoked attack on their captain, so they were starting to play dirty too. Penalty after penalty was called on both sides, but it seemed nothing Madam Hooch did could stop the players acting like Muggle spectators at a soccer match.
Rebecca passed off the Quaffle to Lily. A Hufflepuff chaser grinned evilly, and started to make his way over to her. Deciding she had had enough, Lily shot off in the other direction. She no longer cared that she was holding the Quaffle, or that she was meant to be Quidditch Captain. The crowd gasped, but Lily kept moving. She didn’t care what they thought; she just wanted to make it out of the game in one piece.
Suddenly, there was an excruciating pain in her arm. She barely had time to comprehend that thought, when the whistle blew.