A/N: Just a reminder- if you read my story before please read the end of the last chapter again because I've had to upload it again- its longer because it hadn't put up all of it last time. Sorry about that, I didn't realise.
STEALING SHEEP
Chapter 9: Normal Again
The Marauders were in session.
"What are you rambling about?" Remus interrupted his friend's mindless rant with a view to drag some semblance of sanity out of him. "It would help if you talked in a language other than your own personal mind-garble."
James took a deep breath and forced himself to carefully summarise what he'd just rushed. It was way too embarrassing to say it all slowly so he had to edit it a bit. "I talked to Evans."
Sirius leaned forward eagerly. "And?"
"It went wrong."
"When has it ever gone right?" Remus sighed.
"No, it went really wrong."
"How wrong?"
James looked up glumly. "She hates me."
Remus sighed again. "What did you do this time?"
"I kissed her."
Sirius clapped his hands excitedly but Remus had a far from happy response. "What?! I tell you to talk to her and you have to go and maul her? What's wrong with you?" he demanded angrily. He wasn't exactly a good friend of Lily but he knew her well enough to know that James had just committed a fatal faux pas. And that was definitely not good. Sirius and Remus had recently decided that, with the dreams and all, it would be appropriate to pair James up with the Ice Queen herself. And this ridiculously quick and stupid first move on the part of Prongs had ruined the plan- they were meant to simply become friends then gradually that would develop into something more… But no, James just had to go and screw it all up!
Obviously, James had absolutely no idea that his friends had a hidden agenda and so was a little surprised to see Remus' extreme reaction. "What?"
Remus gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to shake some sense into his friend. "You shouldn't have kissed her." A sudden thought struck him. "Why did you do it? Kiss her I mean?"
James blushed and averted his eyes in embarrassment. "I was curious. I mean I wondered if it would be the same as in the dreams. And she was staring at me and her eyes were so…direct, you know? As if she could see right into me. It was quite uncomfortable, actually. But her lips…and her hair and…" He stared off into the distance, forgetting himself and recalling the image she had made, all startled green eyes and luscious lips. He started as Sirius coughed meaningfully and James quickly added, "But it was mainly to see if it was the same."
"And was it?"
"What?"
Remus sighed with frustration and said, "The same."
"No it wasn't."
"Oh."
James tried to ignore the oddly crestfallen looks in his friends' faces and continued. "It wasn't the same but…it was."
"Yes?"
"Of course, I've never kissed her before so it was new."
Sirius jumped up and down excitedly and said, "Ooh! Ooh! What was it like? Tell me!"
James sighed. "Different."
They all frowned. "Different?"
"Yeah, you know, it felt…different. I felt different. It was nice."
"Just 'nice'?" Sirius asked, disappointed in what he had felt was sure was to be the love story of the century.
"No. It was like the dream in that she was familiar." He sighed again in embarrassment and told himself that the sooner he got it out the sooner it would be dealt with. "But it was like…" He snapped his fingers with sudden inspiration. "You remember when we all took that mind expanding potion that went wrong?"
Sirius made a face. "How could I forget? I was woozy and shaky for months afterwards. Very inconvenient for skulking and being stealthy."
"We were hallucinating for two weeks as well," Remus recalled, scratching his head. "Peter even went so far as to be convinced that one of the sets of armour on the third floor was his true love and it took four members of staff to haul him away from his 'precious'. A poetry reciting, lovesick Wormtail is not something one would forget easily, even if at the time I was a bit preoccupied with the giant monkey posing as my dressing table."
"Yeah, well, that's what it was like," James said.
Remus raised an eyebrow. "What? Hallucinating?"
Frustrated, he pushed a hand roughly through his hair and replied, "Yes. No! Kind of. It felt surreal. Does that make any sense?"
"Not really," Peter spoke up for the first time, from where he sat twiddling his wand.
"Yes, it does make sense," Remus cut in smoothly as he saw the miserable look on James' face and the way Sirius was just about to tell off Wormtail for making it worse. Remus knew there was only one solution. As much as he didn't want to, he had to keep his friend's interest at heart and right now his sanity was in danger, with only one thing that could save him. "Mate, you need to forget her."
Sirius was outraged at the dismissal of their plan to get Lily and James together but the Marauder in question simply shrugged and looked even more dispirited.
"How can I when all I see every waking and sleeping moment is her? It's driving me daft in the melon! I mean, its so confusing! Last month, I was indifferent; last week, I could handle it- but now, after that last dream, after seeing her, kissing her…I can't help but think of her."
"To be honest, Prongs, I really don't know-"
"Distraction!" Sirius burst out suddenly as an idea struck, all eyes spinning towards him.
"What?"
"Distraction. To take his mind off her," he explained impatiently at their stupid, blank looks. "You know- Quidditch, pranks, girls, Firewhiskey- anything to make to forget. It'll work." At their sceptical looks he took on a fake expression of hurt and whimpered, "Don't you trust me?"
"No," was the immediate response. "At least, not with my love life."
"But that's the point, dear Prongs." Sirius grinned happily and clapped him on the back. "You don't have a love life."
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That was it. It was all over with. She had finally managed to persuade Madam Pomfrey to get her some dreamless sleep potion and she would sleep peacefully, without thoughts of him invading her subconscious mind.
"So are you going to tell us who you had this weird dream about, or do you want me to get Leila to pry it out of you?"
Lily sighed and wished she had never mentioned it. At the time she had been distraught, slightly hysterical in fact as she had after all just woken up mentally scarred from the disgusting feelings she was experiencing. So when her friends had found her in a corner rocking backwards and forwards like a lunatic she had no choice but to blurt out all the horrifying details. Nevertheless, she was thankful that even in her traumatised state she had remembered to avoid telling them whom it was she was dreaming of. They would've laughed, then they would've disapproved when they realised she was serious, then they would've seized the opportunity to take the piss out of her endlessly for having recurring pornographic dreams in which James Potter was her co-star. But they had forgotten about it, brushed over it as a simple nightmare, which was, in itself, a miracle as they never let her get away with anything this potentially embarrassing. They must've recognised how truly distressing it had been for her. However, when they learned about the dreamless sleep potion they seemed to abandon all ideas of mercy and pounce.
"Come on, tell us. We won't take the piss. Honest," she said, feigning the innocent, puppy-dog look that made people run away and hide.
"I can't even remember who it was," Lily replied, as she gathered up her schoolbooks from her trunk and attempted to look like she wasn't paying attention to the conversation.
"Lily, we know you remember. We're not stupid," Rosa pointed out the obvious. "Your dreams must be getting bad or you wouldn't have that potion now, would you? Stop pretending and come out with it. He can't be that bad. Who is it? Hornby?"
Leila snorted. "Not him- he's gay and just last week we had a debate on whether he's more like a monkey or a pig. What about Anderson?"
"Too small. I bet he reaches Lily's armpits. Diggory?"
"Could be. He's tall enough, but he does have the brain the size of a really small pea."
"But maybe Lily likes her men stupid," remarked Rosa, thoughtfully.
"What do you take me for?" Lily slammed down her books and stamped across to stand in front of her friends with hands on hips. She knew what they were doing, yet still she couldn't help but get riled up as they suggested the stupidest, ugliest and the most- ugh- pungent boys in the whole school. "I have never and will never dream about Hornby, Anderson or Diggory. And I'll never tell you who I did dream of."
"Why?"
"Because you know full well that the dream was- erm- personal. And if I do tell you you'll both think I fancy him. And I don't."
"What about friendship?" Leila stormed. "Trust in each other? Female solidarity?"
Lily snorted. "Female solidarity, my arse. You'll just take the piss and to be honest, I have to contend with him taking the piss so I don't want to have to deal with you as well."
Rosa, being the observant one of the group, immediately picked up on something and said, "What? He knows?"
"No!" Lily denied desperately. She knew she had to shut up or they would get it out of her, one way or another.
There was a knock at the door and as Leila went to answer it, Lily decided to conclude their discussion with a final resolve. "Listen, forget about who it was about. He doesn't matter. Neither do the dreams. Stop trying to guess because you are never ever going to find out whom it is," she finished with a smug grin.
Aforementioned smug grin was wiped off her face when Leila re-entered the room with an equally, if not even smugger grin, with a little bit of a triumphant glint in her eyes as well. Lily's spirits plummeted. "Lily," she said with that all too innocent tone of voice. "Apparently, there's a boy downstairs who wants to talk to you. He mentioned something about dreams?"
Lily gulped and asked, "Who is it?"
Leila grinned. "James Potter."
"Excuse me?" Rosa was almost speechless, obviously dumbstruck by the revelation that her friend, her rational, sane friend, had been fantasising about the most moronic scoundrel the school had ever seen. "You're not serious."
"Oh, but I am." Leila, however, was obviously delighted by the news. "You know, Lily," she began, thoughtfully. "I think you make a rather good couple. And he isn't completely horrific-looking."
"Urgh!! Stop it! Now!" Lily pleaded, feeling sick.
"Ooh, ooh!! I've got to know- how was it?"
"It?" she asked stupidly.
"You know!" Leila wiggled her eyebrows, meaningfully. "The sex! Come on, I want grades on performance, enthusiasm, technique, special effects-"
Lily immediately clamped her hands over her ears. She should have known where her friend's innately dirty mind would instantly take her. "Shut up! SHUT UP!! I'm traumatised! I'm scarred for life! I refuse to listen to this!"
Rosa looked on disapprovingly. "Really, Leila, do you have to? I can imagine how horrific it's be in the first place and the last thing she needs is you making her rehash bad memories."
"Ok, ok, sorry," Leila said and Lily let her hands drop to her sides and discontinued her loud, un-harmonic whistling. They all looked at each other for a moment, unsure of what to say, before Leila happily piped up, "I bet he was good, though."
Lily groaned and turned to Rosa for help. "Tell her stop!"
"Leila, if you must talk to her about this, can you do it when I'm not here? I don't really want to hear all the sordid details as I am not a sordid person- unlike some people I could mention."
"Yeah, yeah, we all know how you feel about sex." Leila rolled her eyes and Lily heaved a sigh of relief that they weren't really focusing on her anymore.
"It's so unhygienic." Rosa sniffed.
"But, if people didn't have sex, no babies would be born and then where would we be?" Leila countered.
Rosa smiled. "Miraculous conception."
"Huh?" Leila said stupidly.
"Oh, I'm sure that God- assuming there is one- would just miraculously impregnate a few virgins- you know, just to bump up the birth rate."
Lily realised that if she wanted to escape now would be the perfect time so she slipped past them as they got into full debating mode and took the descending steps two at a time in a hurry to get away before they noticed her absence.
She swung open the door to the Common Room to realise that she had forgotten one extremely important factor in her escape plan; James Potter was waiting for her. Before she could bolt back upstairs to the suddenly comforting sounds of her friends arguing, he spotted her and she was trapped.
"Evans, I need to talk to you about-"
"Stop." She held up a hand and abruptly cut him off. The last thing she needed was James trying to talk to her after what had happened the other day. He'd kissed her, for God's sake! What right did he have to try to talk to her? And hadn't she told him to bugger off? Well, now she'd just have to put him in his place and make sure he never even attempted to speak to her again. "Listen closely, Potter. I don't like you, I don't like speaking to you and I sure as Hell don't like dreaming about you."
"I know, but I-"
"I've put a stop to that," she informed him, coldly. She hated the way he flinched at her tone but she had to be harsh to get him to clear off. If he had even an inkling that she didn't completely find him vomitous he would keep trying to talk to her and she couldn't have that.
"How?" he demanded. "You can't just order yourself to stop dreaming."
She smiled. "No, but a little thing called a dreamless sleep potion can help. Now, if you don't mind, Potter, I must be going." She brushed past him then turned to leave one perfectly aimed parting remark. "Oh, and James? Don't talk to me again. Now that we're no longer linked I plan to go back to ignoring you. You are nothing to me."
She swung around and casually strolled out of the room, all the while hating herself for being so cruel. It was only in that instant that she realised that she didn't mean what she'd just said at all. A month ago, he had meant nothing to her, but now…Dammit, why couldn't she get those deep, dark eyes out of her head?
He would never know that her words had affected her as much as they had affected him. No matter how much she would deny it to him or to her friends she could no longer lie to herself- she wasn't completely indifferent to him anymore. But, she assured herself, she only liked him a little bit.
However, that night as she lie in bed, floating somewhere between waking and sleeping she couldn't stop the images that danced across her mind. His quick grin flashing cheekily at her, the feel of his lips softly brushing hers, his dark eyes burning into her, making her feel…strange. And Lily Evans, tingling with the recollection, fell into a deep dreamless sleep with a smile on her face.
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