Something Akin to a Love Story
Chapter Two- Stalker Tendencies
By: MelissaMarie
Disclaimer- Erm…J.K. Rowling owns everything. Except for…ah, who am I kidding, it's all hers.
Special Thanks Too- LJAlltheway (Lol, yes, Mrs. Potter doesn't quite act her age, does she? I did that purposefully, you know. James had to get his kookiness from SOMEONE, and plus, I find her immensely amusing. Sorry if it bugs you, ) Forever Yours (Ooh, your so lovely, adding me to your favorites like that!), Eschiva (I know, I love Harry's grandparents. I have such fun with them!), Whispercat311 (You thinks I have talent too? Yay, that makes two people! And if you think James is being creepy now, you should see what else he's up too. There's something sweet about stalker love, Lol.) RangerPrincess (Thanks so much for the encouragement, you're the greatest.), Lily Evans Potter (Plot? What plot? This is just an overly complex ball of fluff! Lol. Thanks so much!) Prongsgurl (Three people think I have talent now! I'm dying of happiness, over here. I'm not sure how long it'll be, probably not more than twenty chapters, and I love long reviews, so don't worry about that. Thanks!) Pottersgirl363 (Oh no, James isn't going to rewrite the letter because Sirius took it when neither of them were looking and mailed it off to Lily. Lol, I don't think many people noticed that, but it's a pretty big part of the plot much later on.) You people are the coolest.
::Starts handing out review love by the bucketful::
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Days passed in the Potter residence with nothing of great consequence taking place.
True, Sirius's goatee had been mysteriously shaven off while he was sleeping, and James had broken his twelfth consecutive window while playing Quidditch, but nothing out of the ordinary really.
"Don't look at me like that, Sirius."
He continued to do so with new intensity. Mrs. Potter passed her husband the gravy, and made a tutting noise.
"When I told I was going to shave it off in your sleep I wasn't lying."
"You're a mother! Mother's shouldn't do things like that!"
She helped herself to a biscuit.
"I'm James's mother. You live in my house. There's a difference. I love you both the same but I`m allowed to have more fun with you."
Sirius stabbed his egg petulantly.
"I'm honored. Really." He replied flatly, and turned to James with a scowl.
"Perk of Manhood number two- your allowed to have a bloody beard if you want one!"
James rolled his eyes. It was of his opinion that Sirius should be thanking his mother for saving him from the embarrassment and shame of being seen in public with that growth on his chin.
Mrs. Potter looked over at Mr. Potter and said in an offhand voice, which everyone knew was far from offhand- "Months gone by rather quickly, eh John?"
"Mmm."
"I can't believe it's the 23rd already!"
"Mmm."
"Are you listening to me?"
"Mmm."
She picked up her goblet and slammed it down loudly on the table, ignoring the "Oy! Watch it woman!" that issued from Sirius when the contents of her glass sloshed all over his robes. And her husband still had his nose in that damn paper.
"Hey! Woo-hoo, oh prattish husband of mine!"
He looked up at that.
She gave him a sweet smile.
"Hello there! Remember me? Your wife of NEARLY TWENTY YEARS?"
He stared at her blankly causing her to roll her eyes.
"Of course you don't."
There was a brief silence during which they continued on with their breakfast and Mrs. Potter sat with her arms crossed looking sulky.
"I haven't forgotten."
Everyone looked up to stare at him. Mr. Potter calmly turned the page of his newspaper.
"And I haven't forgotten that our anniversary is tomorrow, Elizabeth. So you can quit with all of those `subtle' hints you've been tossing my way since dinner."
He smiled at her over his paper, and James thought that the way his dad looked at his mum was uncannily like the way he looked at Lily.
But he had never seen Lily look so pleased as his mum did at that moment.
Mr. Potter's smile turned wry.
"After all of the trouble I went through to get you to marry me, how could I forget?"
It was all rather sweet and romantic until a large barn owl swept in through the window, rather ruining the moment when it landed with a loud squelching noise in Mrs. Potter's porridge.
"Bloody bird…" She pulled out her wand to clean up the mess as the owl hopped over to James and Sirius. Each boy took a letter off of its leg and watched it fly out of the open window.
"Hogwarts letters…"
James noted that his was rather more bulky than usual. He took a fork and attempted to slice it neatly open. The envelope however, ripped right down the middle, causing its contents to flutter to the ground.
There was a loud clunk and a splash as a silver Head-Boy badge fell out of the envelope and landed in his Chocolate milk.
James bent down so the glass was eye level and watched it glimmer at the bottom.
He elbowed Sirius in the ribs with his mouth hanging open.
"There's a Head-Boy badge in my milk!"
"No there isn't."
James frowned at him, knowing he hadn't even bothered to look. He had grown bored with his letter and was now busy folding his supply list into an exact replica of the latest Comet 160. After another rough elbow in the ribs however, Sirius turned to observe the contents of James's goblet, and he watched, with eyes the size of dinner plates, as what was unmistakably a badge floated to the surface of the glass. The letters HB twinkled up at him.
"James! There's a Head-Boy badge in your milk!"
They stared at it for a couple of minutes.
"Who in their right mind would make you Head-Boy?"
James tried to look affronted but gave up.
"I have no idea."
They stared at it some more. Suddenly the hilarity of the situation became too much for Sirius to bear, and he burst out laughing. James didn't find it funny.
He pulled out the letter that went along with it to make sure there hadn't been a mistake. Nope, he thought dismally. He was stuck with it.
"This is crap!" He exclaimed.
Sirius let out a loud howl of laughter.
"It says here that the majority of my free time will be spent with the Head-Girl and we will be at the beck and call of any teacher who needs us! I'm gonna be a slave to the school Padfoot! And the Head-Girl is likely to be an uptight wench…" He trailed off.
The words `uptight' and `wench' had triggered something in his memory.
Suddenly an insanely large grin spread across his face that caused Sirius to quit laughing and give him a wary look.
"Oh no…I know that creepy grin…your thinking about her, aren't you?"
The grin broadened a bit.
"I am merely considering the perks that come along with being Head-Boy, such as long private meetings with the Head-Girl…."
"I thought you said this was a bad thing. I thought you said she was going to be an uptight wench." He deadpanned, looking worried for his friend's sanity.
"And I was right! Lily Evans is my favoritist uptight wench in the world!"
"One, favoritist is not a word. Moron. Two, you don`t know that Lily is head-girl."
"Of course I do."
"No you don't."
"Who else would it be?"
There was a pause.
"Good point."
"I know."
"Shut-up."
They turned back to James's goblet and continued to stare into it.
"I've been trying to eavesdrop for ages, but all I can make out is that there's something shiny in your milk." Said Mrs. Potter.
"They speak blarney, it's no use trying to understand them." Replied Mr. Potter conversationally.
"I'm head boy."
Mr. And Mrs. Potter burst out laughing. James looked rather indignant and fished the badge out of his goblet.
"It's true!"
He tossed the badge at his father who caught it deftly between his fingers.
Husband and Wife looked at each other, then looked at the badge, then at James, then at the badge again, and then settled on their son with equal looks of shock etched onto their faces.
Mrs. Potter suddenly leapt to her feet, ran around the table and captured James in a bone-breaking embrace.
"Oh! My Jamie Head-Boy! I never would have believed it!"
"Yeah that's obvious."
"Your so talented James! If only you weren't such a damned delinquent!"
"Delinquent or not, I'm still Head-Boy. I must have done something right."
"Or you got in with the right people. I always thought McGonnagal fancied you…"
"Shut-up Sirius."
"Yeah, I think I'm gonna be sick."
James looked round at his Dad and was pleased to find him beaming proudly at him.
"You know what? I think this calls for a celebration! Let's all go and have lunch at the Leaky Cauldron!"
And so they did.
As it turned out though, Mr. And Mrs. Potter decided to get all mushy and lovey during the second course, and after James pretended to vomit all over the floor and exclaimed loudly for them to get a room, he and Sirius found themselves quite alone with a pouch of floo-powder and a bag of money, watching with a strong feeling of disgust as his parents disapparated back home to do things he would rather not think about.
So the duo were left to their own devices for the remainder of the day.
They managed to nick a handful of beetle eyes from the apothecary, which they flicked at the people sitting under brightly colored umbrellas in front of Florean Fortescues Ice Cream Parlor. Then they went to Flourish and Blotts and, after grudgingly purchasing what books they needed for the upcoming year, found the most lurid romance novels they could get their hands on and read aloud the particularly passionate scenes to each other and a couple of middle aged women who thought they were being sly hiding in the Invisibility Book section. After a very narrow escape out of Knockturn Alley, the two found themselves a bench at which they sorted through their assortment of what were most likely illegal fireworks, school supplies that couldn't be ignored (Though they had tried too), and a large bag of chocolate frogs which were halfway diminished in five minutes time.
"I'm bored"
James ignored him and popped another frog in his mouth.
"I'm bored."
"No, your repetitive and you state the obvious."
There was a pause.
"I'm bored."
James thought up a rather witty reply to this comment, but was so bored himself that he didn't even bother to say it.
After awhile, Sirius found a sufficient source of amusement in the form of a cute blonde girl who stood across the street, eyeing him with quite a bit of interest. He lounged back in his seat, let his dark hair fall into his eyes, and shot her a cocky smile. The girl blushed like mad and giggled so loud that a passing warlock stared at her with some alarm. Sirius grinned at James who rolled his eyes. He hated it when they giggled like that.
The sun passed under a massive cloud and the street darkened a bit.
James let his eyes shift in and out of focus as he stared around at the busy witches and wizards feeling comfortably lethargic and deciding he wouldn't move for another two or three hours at least.
His focus fell on the back of a girl that was browsing through a rack of the latest wizarding magazines across the street. All he could see was the back of her, and as it was a rather nice view, James watched her for a while. She had on one of those backless tops and a pair of deliciously low-cut jeans. James wondered how Muggles managed to come up with such an excellent way for girls to show just about everything, while showing nothing at the same time.
Genius really.
His gaze followed her lazily as she wondered away from the rack and strode over to the cute blonde that was shooting furtive glances at Sirius (Who was now more interested in getting a pebble out of his shoe, I'm sorry to say) and blushing madly.
There was something vaguely familiar about the way she walked that made James sit up a bit straighter and watch her with new intensity. The way her hips moved carelessly from side to side and her ponytail bounced along in her wake.
The sun burst suddenly out from behind the clouds and showered the street dwellers in sunlight.
He squinted his eyes at the girl as she turned her head slightly to call over another girl she seemed to know.
He could see the delicately sloped nose, the tiniest fluttering of long fine eyelashes, and those pouty pink lips that he'd know anywhere. A ray of sunlight fell on her hair as she stepped into the street, and the vivid deep red of her ponytail left him in no doubt of who it was.
"Oy! Look Prongs! It's Evans!"
James wished he hadn't noticed her at all now. The last thing he wanted at the moment was too turn into Potter-the-Prat and become completely stupid as soon as he got a look into those big green eyes of hers.
Sirius let out a low whistle and followed the progress of her hips with his eyes.
"Would you look at that…?" He let out a chuckle and clapped Prongs on the back. "Now I remember why you obsess over her prongs! She's…" he tilted his head a bit and continued to stare at her. "Wow…"
James briefly thought about whether he should curse his best friend into oblivion or simply punch him in the head.
Either one sounded extremely appealing at the moment.
But all feelings except for blind panic were quickly dashed away when he realized that the three girls, including (Oh horror!) Lily, were walking their way.
He automatically reached up a hand to ruffle his hair, caught himself, and tried desperately to smooth it instead. Sirius sat up a bit as well and waved over the girls with a dastardly smirk.
James brought his foot down on top of Sirius's as hard as he could, ignored the loud flow of curses that streamed from his mouth, and looked up just in time to see Lily Evans come to a halt in front of him.
He stopped breathing.
He must have forgotten the way her eyes gleamed and her skin sparkled when the sun shone on her like that. He must have forgotten the way her delicate throat quivered when she swallowed and the way her fingers flew automatically to her mouth when she was nervous. He must have forgotten all of these things because he was now so overwhelmed by them that it was almost like he had never seen her before and he was falling head over heels in love all over again.
"Are you alright James?"
He remembered to breathe again and shook his head.
"Uh…I mean- Yeah, yes, I am."
Lily tilted her head a bit and watched him, still chewing on her fingers nervously. He really couldn't stand it when she did that. It drove him crazy, in more ways than one.
Apparently her friends couldn't stand it either, as both of them reached out and elbowed her in the ribs at the same time. Lily shot them both venomous looks, and brought her hands down to fiddle with the string that tied her shirt together in the back.
James forgot to breath again.
One of her friends, a tall dark haired girl that James recalled as being a Ravenclaw in their year, Scarlett Donavon, pushed Lily forward in a not so gentle manner.
"She needs to talk to you." She said to James, and grabbed the blonde girl by the arm, Esme Hymen, he thought she was, a Hufflepuff, and with a last furtive smile at Lily, the two of them scurried across the street giggling madly.
Sirius looked at James, who was staring at Lily, with no shame at all mind you, and then to the backs of the retreating girls, finally settling on Lily, watching as she turned an attractive shade of magenta and fiddled away nervously with her shirt strings.
Realization dawned on him.
"Oh…you'll be wanting to discuss the letter then…"
He clapped James on the back, grinned charmingly at Lily, and walked away.
James watched his best friend stroll towards the two departed girls across the street (Who were holding up a magazine and peering at them over the top of it) feeling a broad mixture of confusion, nausea, and annoyance.
He saw Lily squirming out of the corner of his eye and wondered what on earth he was supposed to do now.
After a long, uncomfortable silence, Lily opened her mouth to say something.
But what she was going to say, he never found out. Because at that precise moment a disturbance in the form of a tall girl with pretty blue eyes and lot's of pink lipstick ran in between them and threw herself into James's arms.
"James Potter!" She squealed, pulling away from him and placing her hands on her hips.
Oh dear.
Over the course of the past few months he had conveniently forgotten all about Joanna Burns and the fact that she was officially his girlfriend.
He smiled nervously, looking between the two girls and wanting nothing more than to run away screaming.
Joanna arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow and tilted her head to the side. One high-heeled sandaled foot began tapping impatiently.
"Well? I'm waiting for your excuse."
He stared at her. She flipped a plait of long brown hair over her shoulder and gave him a pointed look.
"Um…excuse?"
"Yes. Your excuse. I want to know why you've not written me a single line in two months. Haven't you gotten my letters?"
Perhaps he had. Unfortunately, whenever he received a letter that was wasn't from Padfoot, Mooney, Wormtail, Hogwarts, Lily (He had never really received a letter from Lily, but he was still hoping), or his Granny Edna he didn't bother to read it. He might have used one of her letters during that big paper war he, Sirius, and his Mum had had over the summer.
He was momentarily sidetracked by the memory of his mother wearing a paper hat made out of a discarded Daily Prophet, laughing maniacally and charming several paper balls to pummel he and Sirius until they retreated behind the sofa where they heroically begged for mercy. He grinned vaguely before he noticed the look on her face.
"What are you grinning about?"
"Nothing, nothing."
She crossed her arms and frowned.
He felt really bad for Joanna, he did like her after all, she was nice and a lot of fun, but at the moment he was more concerned with Lily, and the fact that she looked about ready to murder him.
The latter shook her head furiously and walked away.
"Lily! Wait, wait don't go-"
"Hold up- what about me? You know, your girlfriend?" Interjected Joanna, grabbing him angrily by the back of his robes and stopping him from running after the redhead.
"Need I point out how very suspicious this looks?" She said, watching his eyes dart once more towards Lily`s retreating back, before settling on the ground in defeat.
She searched his face a moment.
"Your still in love with her aren't you, you great prat!"
She laughed, a cruel bitter sort of laugh that James didn't like at all.
"This is just lovely. Absolutely brilliant. Bloody great." She rolled her eyes in disgust.
He knew she was more humiliated than she was hurt. She was never very serious about their relationship, which was okay with him because he was never very serious about it either.
She threw her arms up in the air. He wondered if she was going to hit him.
"Thank you for making a fool of me James, It`s been fun. Really."
She turned and walked away.
"Good luck with Lily Evans." She called, without turning around. "Your sure as hell going to need it."
He stood still for a good five seconds staring blankly at an oddly shaped pebble on the ground in front of him and marveling over the fact that he had just broken up with his girlfriend without having to say a single word to her.
Then he sprang to life and dashed down the street in search of Lily, all the while carefully planning his groveling apologies and assuring himself that she would forgive him at once.
But, as fate would have it, Lily did not forgive him at once. She did not forgive him at all. In fact, she slapped him hard across the face and called him a number of things that he never would have thought were even in her vocabulary.
Sirius strolled around the corner thirty-two minutes later and found James, quite alone, sitting on a bench, dejectedly throwing bits of pumpkin pasties at the pigeons. Sitting the day's purchases aside, he sprawled out beside him, resting his arm around the back of the bench and observing the nails on his right hand carefully.
"Didn't go too well then?"
James turned to smirk at him.
"Is there such thing as `going well' when it comes to me and Lily Evans?"
He had a point.
* * * * * *
Bad James, forgetting your girlfriend like that! Hee, I really had fun writing this chapter. Lot's of Sirius is always a good thing. Here is a teeny-weeny snippet from the next chapter, because I am enamored with you all and because I always love it when the stories I read have teasers- There will be duels, rainstorms, contemplations, a good verbal lashing or two, Sirius being his wonderfully testosterone driven self, and Lily Evans in her underwear. Muhahahaa. Adieu!
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