Semele Perdita

Extra long chapter for you all this time :-) Hope you enjoy!

In other news: I have created a livejournal especially for this story where I'm going to post cookies and other updates for everyone. There has been a cookie up there from this chapter all week, so that's about how early you'll be getting something from me on the next chapter. A week or so before it's actually posted. Plus I'll be asking questions and running ideas there. You don't have to be a member of livejournal to comment, but it is great to know who is. ;-)

You can visit the livejournal here: http://semeleperdita.livejournal.com

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Semele Perdita

Chapter 20: An Unexpected Detour from Dinner

Author: LadyAkako

Rating: PG-13

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From Chapter 19::

Just as I had predicted to myself though, the boys from Gryffindor rushed in halfway through the meal, grabbing the attention of everyone in the Great Hall. Peter led the way with a slightly nervous expression on his face and Remus came in after him with a calm countenance, but the other two, James and Sirius, came in laughing amongst themselves and flashing smiles to everyone.

For a moment, just as he sat down, I imagined that I saw James throw a glance my way and catch my eye, but before I could know if it was on purpose, he turned back to Sirius leaving me to my dinner and the sudden sensation in my stomach.

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[ Lily ]

It seemed like my classes today had all been stretched into double periods just to torture me. Even Charms, my favorite class by far, was taking forever. For once, I was among the nodding heads all around the classroom. I couldn't even stay awake long enough to pass the customary notes with Meara, especially since she was about in the same state as I was.

She wore a glazed look on her face and blinked heavily every few minutes in order to keep her drooping lids up as long as possible. I nudged her and gave a small smile at her yawn. The period was almost over according to the sun's position outside the huge glass paned window behind Professor Flitwick but it kept dragging on nonetheless.

My eyes wandered over to the section where the few Gryffindors in the class were sitting. Only six of them were even in the class compared to the ten Ravenclaws in the room. Among them were of course James, Sirius, Remus, and by the skin on his nose, Peter, and they were joined by Vikki Thompson and Helena Trapp. Both of the girls were constantly giggling and making eyes at the boys, none of who seemed to notice except occasionally Sirius who couldn't seem to resist the female company.

The boys were currently all sleeping except James, who looked to be in about the same state I was, very close to nodding off but at least attempting to stay awake. I sighed a little to myself and cradled my head into my arms still staring vacantly off in the direction of the boys.

James suddenly seemed to sense my gaze after a moment and caught my eye questioningly and I blinked out of my trance to shake my head at him. I wasn't sure when we had gotten on non-verbal terms but I knew that he understood I was just tired anyways. He nodded and went back to tracing patterns idly on a piece of paper in front of him. I wondered briefly what doodle was so interesting that it could draw his attention so completely.

I stifled a yawn just as Professor Flitwick cleared his throat to dismiss us. Everyone in the class immediately came alive again and began to scoop their things into their bags, rushing out the door. We were all eager to get to dinner as it had been a long, uneventful day in all of our classes.

I stood and picked up my bag, waiting for Meara, who was sluggishly gathering her own notebooks up. Everyone except the four boys from Gryffindor had already evacuated the classroom. I looked in their direction once again to see Sirius Black prodding Peter Pettigrew with his wand trying to wake him and snorted back a laugh.

Once Meara had gotten all her stuff together, she poked me in the back, causing me to squeak. I sent her a glare as all four of boys (Peter was now awake, rubbing his arm where Sirius had been poking him) to look up at us. Meara pasted an innocent look on her face and pushed me towards the door with a fleeting, curious glance towards the Gryffindors.

I allowed myself to be guided out the door and halfway down the hallway before I was stopped by someone yelling my name. Meara stopped with me, looking back to locate the source as well. I could have sworn she rolled her eyes when she saw James Potter and his gang traipsing towards us.

“Lily, m'dear, how dare ya go off without us on such a beautiful day!” Sirius commented merrily, with a fake Irish brogue. He swung his arm around my shoulder and gave me a hearty wink as the rest of the boys caught up with him. James threw me a sidelong glance and I could have sworn it hardened a little to see Sirius' arm around my shoulder but I shook that thought out of my mind quickly.

“We were actually on our way to the Great Hall to get dinner, Black. You know like most people are at this hour,” Meara said, with a sarcastic smile, gesturing in the general direction of the Great Hall. Sirius just then seemed to notice her presence and raised his eyebrows curiously, placing his other arm casually around her shoulder. Meara didn't seem to like this move very much, but she didn't comment.

“But you see, that's where you're wrong,” he said, dropping back into his normal speech pattern.

“Wrong?” I asked, confused. The Great Hall was pretty much the only place there was to eat and if they were suggesting we miss the meal, they were strongly mistaken. Even if neither of us could put away food like they could didn't mean that we didn't need to eat.

“Wrong,” James confirmed, after a moment of exchanging glances with the rest of the group, “because you're not eating in the Great Hall tonight.”

Meara looked incredibly doubtful at this and looked questioningly around her.

“We aren't?” she asked dryly, obviously not believing their gall.

“Of course, you aren't,” Sirius responded with a smile, “because you're coming to eat with us and we are definitely not eating in the Great Hall.”

He shook his head at Meara, as if amused by her questions and doubt. The arm that he had around me dropped, as he focused his attention more fully on Meara, who obviously wasn't interested in his approaches.

“And where are you eating?” I asked playfully, catching on. I exchanged smiles with Meara as I posed the question and she shook her head at the Gryffindors who were guiding us down an unfamiliar hallway now.

“We are eating where you're eating, of course,” Remus answered, with a laugh, “but…you have to promise something, Lily.” He looked at me seriously for a moment with the whole group stopping to hear what he had to say.

“What?” I asked, curious.

“You must put away your Prefect badge for the night, just as I have, and completely forget about all the rules that we will be breaking,” he stated, his face completely straight. I swore I saw a smile tugging at his gentle face but I didn't push the subject, instead I pursed my lips as seriously as I could and nodded solemnly. In compliance, I found my badge on my jumper and unpinned it, stashing it away in my pocket for the night. After all, our sixth year was almost over, how much harm could it do to have one night of fun?

Meara was looking at me incredulously, but nodded in agreement after she got over her shock. She finally shrugged off Sirius' arm from her shoulders and sidled over to my side, giving him a `stay away' look for good measure.

“Okay, it's away,” I said, glancing at Meara, “Now where to?”

“Hogsmeade, of course, where else would we be going that would break rules?” Peter said, as if it was obvious.

“And how do you plan on getting to Hogsmeade without getting caught?” Meara asked, her interest now piqued. She looked at Peter curiously, studying his presence. He looked uncomfortable under her scrutiny but said nothing to that affect.

Instead he answered her question calmly, “By using a secret passageway down in the dungeons that we found back in third year.”

This came as no surprise to me after spending that one detention with James so many months ago, but I had never told Meara about the tunnel that he had led me through that night. I had just revealed that we had snuck off to the kitchens in the middle of our detention.

I looked towards James, remembering suddenly that he was there. He had been near silent the whole time, only speaking occasionally.

Now, he was walking ahead of us, supposedly leading the way to the passageway we would use. I quickened my pace to catch up with him, wondering why he was so quiet. We were only casual friends, after all, but it was still strange for him to be reserved in any way.

Meara stayed behind to walk with the other boys, carrying on a lively banter with Peter and Sirius about the merits of actually reading the assigned text in Arithmancy. They were maintaining that Professor Keane usually gave you everything you needed to know in class anyways and Meara was saying how important it was to actually have a firm grasp on the material instead of just hearing it second hand. Remus was listening with half an ear, shaking his heads at his friends, but not participating as he wasn't actually in the class. He had opted for Astronomy instead.

Even as I tried to catch up with James, who was quite a distance ahead of us now, I noted how sickly Remus was looking. In my memory, Remus had always been a sickly presence in the classes I had with him. He was often absent and his friends had always been very protective of him as if he were fragile or something. The boy I saw was hardly fragile, even if his hair was washed out with stress and his eyes constantly had bags, he could hold his own in a fight against just about anyone, I would wager.

I shook off my observations and shrugged, refocusing my attention on James. What was his problem?

“James!” I called out to him, giving up on trying to catch up with him. “Slow down!”

He stopped and turned around, his face was a mask of surprise and I gave him an exasperated look. Even if I did know him a little better these days, sometimes he still got to me with his behavior.

He blinked as I neared him, leaving the rest of the group to trail behind us.

“Yeah?” he asked, looking me over. I shot him another questioning look, why was he acting so weird tonight? He wasn't his normal loud, rambunctious self but none of his friends seemed effected in the least by his standoffishness attitude that night. They were all bent on having fun, why wasn't he?

“What's up with you?” I wished at that moment to have Meara's perceptiveness as I studied him. Meeting his eyes I was met with a strange mix of resentment and anger that I had never before seen from him. Not that I had had many dealings with James the ones of this year but I had never before known him to an angry person. He was always light-hearted even when rejected or in trouble.

He cleared his throat and shook his head at me. His dark, scruffy hair fell into his eyes and I resisted the urge to reach up and move it so I could see them again.

“Nothing…nothing's wrong,” he said after another moment, running his hand through his hair.

I smiled, not believing him but not having enough courage to challenge his words either. I shrugged and asked with as much cheerfulness as I could muster, “Care to tell me why you chose Meara and me to come along on your little escapade then?”

His countenance brightened a bit at the question and he turned to me with a proud glint in his eye.

“Well, so we could celebrate the completion of the Map and we thought what better way to celebrate than to take you and your best friend to one of our favorite hideouts?” he answered happily, pulling the Map out from under his cloak. I gasped in surprise, taking it gently from his hands. It had worked then!

I had wondered ever since that day by the Lake what kind of progress the spell had made for them but none of them approached me on the subject so I left it alone. But they had done it!

I felt a huge grin on my face and did nothing to hide it when I looked up at him in glee. I unrolled the Map in my hands and stared at the blankness on the parchment in front of me with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, um, it is password protected, I guess you could say. Here let me,” James said gently, as he took it from my hands. He muttered something and the Map sprang into life, ink spreading rapidly to form the spidery outline of Hogwarts. I caught my breath when I saw dots appearing all over the map with names under them. James quickly pointed out the dots that belonged to us and I giggled in excitement.

“I'm so glad it worked,” I breathed.

“I'm so glad you helped,” James laughed in return.

“Oh it wasn't any trouble, really…” I said bashfully as I felt the hot rush of red fill my cheeks. I was blushing. I couldn't believe I was blushing because of something James Potter had said.

“Yes, it was and you know it, but now it's our turn to pay you back.” He smiled as he gestured towards a suspicious looking statue of an old crone of sorts. He bent closer to me to whisper in my ear, “The password's Dissendium. Go ahead, say it.”

I looked at him in surprise and did my best to shake off the tingle that shot down my spine when his breath tickled my ear, but obeyed and repeated shakily, “Dissendium.”

The statue swung forward to reveal a beaten pathway that was as dark as pitch after a few steps in and I swallowed uncertainly. Where exactly did this passageway go? Before I could ask James, however, the rest of the group caught up with us and Sirius barreled ahead of everyone right into the passage obviously expecting everyone else to follow.

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[ James ]

I was the last to go into the tunnel, carefully shutting it behind me and then reached for my wand to have some light in the dark tunnel. Immediately ahead of me was Lily who was looking frankly uncomfortable about being in another one of our tunnels. I reached out for her hand and squeezed it before I could tell myself not to. I barely knew the girl after all, but still…there was something that just drew me to want to make Lily Evans feel comfortable and safe anywhere, especially a dark passageway.

She looked back at me and nodded but I could see that she was still nervous. I let go of her hand and instead went to walk side by side with her.

“It leads right into Honeydukes' cellar, don't worry about it,” I whispered consolingly, “and it has no mysterious drop-offs of any kind. It's completely straight-forward.”

I heard her breathe an audible sigh of relief at this and as she looked at me her face flickered in the strange shadows that our wands were making. Just as she opened her mouth, Sirius interrupted, calling me up to the front of the entourage.

I rolled my eyes and felt like sighing myself but nonetheless nodded out of the pseudo-conversation I was having with Lily and jogged up to the front to join Sirius. Once I had joined with him, he gave me a characteristically huge grin and slapped me on the back.

“So…finally making a move on her, eh?” he whispered conspiratorially. He waggled his eyebrows at me and looked around as if he were being let in on a huge secret and didn't want anyone else to over hear.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, completely confused. Usually I know what Sirius was on about, but this time I had no clue. He couldn't possibly think that I had any intention of making a move on Lily. That was just too preposterous.

He looked at me in surprise, as well, as if shocked that I couldn't read exactly what was on his mind. Most of the time I could, I admit, but this time whatever was running through his brain was beyond me.

“Lily, of course,” Sirius stated obviously, “aren't you going to ask her out tonight?”

“I don't think that's a great idea, Padfoot,” I immediately shot the idea down, remembering with a painful burst the last time I had tried to ask her out. The day by the Lake last year was hard to forget, but it had taught me a very important lesson: don't ask out a pretty girl while dangling a nasty Slytherin by his underpants.

“Why not?” He turned to me with curious eyes, I rarely turned down the chance to ask out a girl and he knew it, but this time…I was just sure that today wasn't the right day to ask her out. At least, not now…in a tunnel that she was terrified of. I glanced back at her to find her chatting easily with Meara in the dim light while they lagged behind Remus and Peter.

“Because…I just don't want to mess up this whole friendly relation thing I have with her now, okay?” I stuttered out the best excuse I could find in my scattered brain. Sirius just managed to look even more confused at my intentions now, which was never a good thing,

Luckily, he didn't have time to ask any more questions because we had finally reached the shaft that led into the cellar. He opened it with practiced ease but didn't climb into the hole before giving me a pointed look that meant we would pick up our conversation again later.

I nodded and followed him through the hole as quietly as I could, the buzz of Honeydukes' front room reaching my ears with a rush as I lifted up into the dark cellar. Sirius and I helped the rest of them out of the tunnel and then we all dusted off our clothes. The girls looked to us for direction and Remus gestured to the door that led out into the store portion of Honeydukes.

“So where exactly are we going?” I heard Meara ask softly once we had all successfully snuck out of the candy shop.

“The Boar's Head, its right down that alley,” Remus answered and pointed in the direction of the pub.

“Why can't we just go to the Three Broomsticks?” Lily questioned, looking to me for an answer.

I raised my eyebrow and blinked at her before processing her question fully and shaking my head vigorously. “Oh—um,” I stuttered, “Madam Rosmerta would report us in all likeliness. She's a close chum of Dumbledore and the rest of the professors'.”

“Oh,” Lily said, looking disappointed.

We walked in relative silence until we reached the pub, but conversation was struck up again once we had all been seated.

“Don't you think we'll be missed back at the castle?” Lily asked, looking slightly worried all of a sudden.

“Nah,” Peter interjected before I could say anything, “We do this all the time and no one ever says much of anything. Just tell people you were studying and didn't feel like eating.”

“Studying for what?” Sirius barked in laughter, “None of the professors care much about us anymore, do they? They're all trying to make sure their seventh and fifth years pass their exams, but we, my friends, are in limbo this year and I say `Enjoy it!'” he banged down his freshly served mug of butterbeer down to emphasize his last words, spraying the excess froth on Remus and Peter who were sitting beside him.

I couldn't resist laughing at the annoyed look that flitted across Remus' face at Sirius' speech and soon the whole table joined in with me. That was how the night was passed, with various antics from Sirius, interjections from Peter and exchanged glances between the two Ravenclaw girls we had brought with us.

Soon enough, though, we all had to head back to the castle before we would really be missed. We all scuttled towards Honeydukes and stealthily slid past the clerk into the cellar to slip back down into the passageway.

I brought up the rear of our line once again, but this time, I was alone. I watched Lily ahead of me, talking tiredly with her friend, punctuating a few sentences with yawns and wondered what she would do if I asked her out again.

Would she be all uncomfortable and avoid me, like the time I had insinuated a study date? Or would she scream and yell like she had last year by the Lake? Or would she do something completely different?

I knew I wasn't going to ask her tonight…or likely this year, but I just wanted to know what she would do…

I was so lost in my thoughts that it wasn't until we were ready to part ways with the two Ravenclaws that I came back to reality. Lily was laughingly saying goodbye to Sirius and Peter, then she nodded goodbye to Remus. Her friend was saying goodbye in a casual way, just briefly bidding goodnight to each.

Lily approached me to say goodbye and I was surprised when she didn't say anything and just stood there, biting at her lip. My eyes were focused on only that, her teeth gnawing away at her lovely lips.

“Well…goodnight, James,” she was saying, in a much more serious tone than she had used with the other boys, “I had a really fun time tonight, see you around.”

She smiled and I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I watched her walk down the hallway with Meara in tow and I heard their giggles float back across the hall and sighed to myself.

Once they were completely out of sight, I was bombarded by my friends.

“What was that about?” Remus asked curiously, a wolfish grin on his face.

“Does Jamesie have a crushy-wushy?” teased Peter, with a similar smile pasted across his features.

Sirius just stood to the edge of the group, arms crossed and foot tapping, looking considerably pissed at me. I looked over to him and tilted my head in question, asking exasperatedly, “What, Padfoot?”

“Why the bloody hell didn't you ask her out, Prongs?” he burst out, throwing his arms up in the air in frustration. “Honestly, I even gave you a little nudge about it and she gives you the perfect chance…and you don't say anything?”

Needless to say, I didn't hear the end of his rant for the remainder of the night.

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Ah yes, and so ends the chapter…like, no like? Let me know!

And don't forget to go visit the livejournal for cookies and updates about the next chapter!! http://semeleperdita.livejournal.com

I'm still desperately trying to get in contact with a beta…I've had a few people volunteer for the job, but I'm having trouble actually exchanging more than emails with them for the time…*sigh* But next chapter…I will have one. Even if it takes me a year! Okay, maybe not a year, but you get my drift…

Next chapter: Summer begins! What are they going to do while apart from each other? Pine? Why yes, that might be in the future. ;-)

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