Their Seventh Year

Someone asked if Lucius Malfoy was at school the same time as them.  I used the timeline from Harry Potter Lexicon for this, and according to that he graduated in their first year.  Funny you should ask that now though…

Chapter 18- Consequences of a Kiss

Lily woke up early the next morning in a very good mood. She yawned, and tried to remember why she was in such a good mood.

"Oh shit."

She remembered in the next moment that she had kissed James Potter. Voluntarily. Yes, it had been only a kiss on the cheek, but still. What in the world had possessed her to do something so stupid? Now he was going to go assuming she liked him. Did she? No! Absolutely not! He was James Potter after all.

"Something you'd like to share Lily?"

Unfortunately, was awake, and very curious as to what had brought about her friend's uncharacteristic vulgarity. Lily glanced at the sleeping forms of Flora and Emily. Flora was one of her best friends, and Lily loved her, but this was not something she ought to know. She would make up a memo and circulate it to all of Hogwart's. Or at the very least tell Sirius and Remus and Peter. Except that Potter would probably tell them first...

"Damn."

raised an eyebrow.

"Are you going to tell me or is it just your morning to practice your profanity?"

Lily closed her eyes. "I think I kissed Potter."

There was a long moment of silence, during which she kept her eyes closed.

"You think you kissed him? Are you not sure? Have you somehow forgotten what kissing entails? Has it really been that long Lily?"

Lily opened her eyes in a glare. That was the thing people didn't know about . She might seem quiet and sweet, but she could be sarcastic.

"On the cheek." She specified.

"Oh. Well. Why?"

"I don't know!" She turned over and buried her face in her pillow. "He was being nice and normal and totally un-Potter-like.  And he was standing there and he looked sort of…sweet.”  At ’s skeptical look, sure buried her face in her pillow again and tried not to scream.

“Lily, do you like him?”  It was not an accusation, just a question.

She tried to look both stern and annoyed, and failed miserably at both.  “, I think you know that answer to that.”

“No, I’m fairly certain I don’t.  And what’s more important, I don’t think you do either.”  And with that cryptic answer, left her there thinking about it.

======

James found himself whistling as he brushed his teeth and combed his hair the next morning (He did, in fact, comb his hair regularly, though everyone else might think otherwise. It was just that it made no real difference.) He did not notice his roommates exchanging perplexed looks. Finally as he was straightening his tie, humming a little tune to himself, his friends' patience ran out.

"Prongs, what the bloody hell are you so damn happy about?"

Sirius was not a morning person.

However, nothing could ruin his mood this morning. He turned to them with a dazzling smile. "She kissed me."

He was rewarded by three completely blank looks. Then,

"Who?"

"Evans?"

"Voluntarily?"

"On purpose?"

"Did she know it was you?"

"Did you put an imperius curse on her?"

James couldn't even manage a decent glare he was in such a good mood.  His grin widened even more, if that was possible.  “Last night, right before we went to bed.  She said she’d had a really nice night, and then she kissed me on the cheek.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and made a disgusted noise.  “Is that all?  I kiss my grandmother on the cheek.”

“I thought your Grandmother’s dead.”  Peter pointed out.

“I was trying to make a point Wormtail.”

"What our incredibly tactless friend is saying Prongs, is that it's not exactly as though Lily has agreed to have your children or anything." Remarked Peter, who, for someone who had little success with women, apparently had a lot to say on the subject, James thought a little sourly. He turned his gaze to Remus, hoping for a little more support.

"Well, come on now guys. I think you're downplaying the significance a little too much. I mean, considering the number of times we've seen James with a Lily Evans handprint on his face, I think any physical contact that isn't violence is a step in the right direction." He shrugged. "Especially since it was clearlya gesture of affection. Not every girl is going to jump right into snogging you know." He added with a significant look to Sirius, before turning back to James. "Of course, we won't get too excited yet. Your odds of mucking it up are still pretty high."

======

She was not in charms, their first class of that day.  He reached over and wrote on the corner of Sirius’s parchment.

Where’s Lily?

Sirius raised an eyebrow, and then scribbled under it.

Oops, I seem to have left my super secret magical Lily Evans locating device in my other pocket.  Darn it all.  (How the hell would I know?)

You’re really a jackass, you know that Padfoot?

Why thank you.

Do you think she’s sick?

Well if she’s interested in you, then clearly.

Sod off.

Talking to Sirius was getting him nowhere, he was not close enough to Lily’s friends to pass a note to either one of them.  Miserably, he tried to focus his attention on Flitwick, but he could not keep his mind off Lily.  As soon as class was over, he shot out of his seat and approached .

“Is Lily all right?”

She gave him a strangely thoughtful look.  The nodded and spoke in an unusually warm voice for any of Lily’s friends to use when talking to him.  “Yes, she just has a headache.  I’m sure she’ll be fine by lunch time.”  And then her mouth twitched slightly and she added in an undertone, “Don’t worry, nothing contagious.”

Damn did girls have to tell each other everything?

======

Lily did actually have a headache, though she knew it was brought on by stress more than anything else.  One particular kind of stress in fact.  James.  ’s attempt at talking about it had only confused her more.  Did she like him?  Surely not.  She had liked guys in the past and she had always known that she liked them.  Could you like someone without knowing you liked them?  She groaned aloud and tried to stop her mind from running around and around with the same circular thinking.  What she needed was advice.  Alice and Flora were all very well, but she needed someone older.  Her mother?  No, they got on well enough, but Lily did not feel close enough to her to consult her on this.  Petunia?  Not bloody likely.  No, she was on her own with this.

She couldn’t stay in her dorm room forever, but what was she going to do when she saw him again, as she inevitably would?  Act like it never happened seemed to be her best course of action.  The problem was that kissing was an activity that had a natural progression.  It might be just a kiss on the cheek at first, but then….

“Ugh.”  She said aloud, for emphasis.  Though oddly, the idea of kissing James Potter was not nearly as repulsive as it ought to be.  Of course, there had been that dream…

Lily shook her head and go out of bed resolutely.

“I don’t like him, not at all.”  She told the mirror firmly.

“Whatever you say Dear.”

======

That morning at breakfast Sirius was absolutely dying to show off that he'd found out her name.  He didn’t see her at breakfast or for the rest of the day.  It was not until dinner that he spotted her at the Slytherin table.  He planned to address her by name.  Pointedly.  Several times in the same sentence.  But he certainly wasn't going to approach a table full of Slytherins to do so.

"Sirius!" Peter practically yelled in his ear.

"What?!"

"Well I said your name three times but you're so busy staring at her you didn't hear me." He replied sulkily.

"Her?" Across the table, Flora's ears had perked up."Who's he staring at?"

"That Slytherin girl with the dark hair in a ponytail." Muttered Peter, even though Sirius kicked him hard under the table. Alice and Flora both turned around, and then Alice turned back to him, a small furrow had appeared in her brow.

"You don't mean Arianna Malfoy?"

"I...what?!"

"That's who that girl is. With the dark hair sitting next to the girl who looks like a grasshopper?"

Peter and James both snorted at that, and the poor girl was rather thin and gangly and had abnormally large glasses, so the description was apt.  Sirius had two thoughts- first, he could have saved himself a lot of time and effort if he'd just asked , and second....She was a Malfoy?!

"But....but she looks nothing like any of the Malfoys." Lucius Malfoy, who had graduated in their first year, he definitely remembered as being very fair.

"She rather does actually." Said Flora thoughtfully. "Just the hair throws you off."

And although he hated to admit it, she was right.  Aside from her dark hair, the girl had the straight aristocratic nose, the strong profile, and the cool blue-gray eyes that were pure Malfoy.  There was also something less tangible, the way she carried herself, a sort of easy confidence.  He could not believe now that he had not noticed it before.  Sirius had on a few occasions, entirely against his will, come in contact with Lucius Malfoy, but he had not known the family also had a younger daughter. 

He glanced down at his plate, suddenly not very hungry.  He felt as though he’d been tricked somehow.  No wonder she didn’t want to tell me her name.