I hope you enjoy the second part of this story!
Thanks:
Greenbee, hazeleyedmarauder, Tallblond1, Anonymous, Sailor Universe
Disclaimer: no different to last time!
Please R/R.
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Chapter 2, Ropes
James stared at the autograph in his hand.
To Lily, lots of love, Leia xxx
The words `to Lily' brought tears to his eyes, and he brought his hand up to his face to wipe them away as they trickled down his cheeks. The truth was that even though he pretended that he just `liked' Lily, it wasn't true. He knew as well as everyone around him that he was in love with her.
And now Leia…she reminded him so much of his love. It was enough to make a man wish he had his girl in his arms.
He sighed and got dressed for bed. He heard Sirius banging about in the room across the hall. Originally all of them had shared a flat. Hazel and Remus had moved out when they got together. Camellia had also left when she got engaged, and moved in with her fiancé. The only three left were James, Sirius and Iris, and James had no idea where Iris was that evening. He'd left her autograph pushed under her door. He'd give the others theirs tomorrow. He'd even got one for Sirius, even though he wasn't sure the boy even liked the actress. Though he was so superficial he probably liked her because of her looks. James hadn't got one for himself because he got to see her all the time, as he was sort-of working with her. For the moment.
Yeah. For the moment, he thought.
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"Hey, James? Can you get over here? We're going to start the auditions in half an hour, and as you knew what you were talking about when you wrote LWL, we thought you'd be of some use," Fergus asked him a week later.
James shrugged and then realised that Fergus couldn't see him. He said into the phone, "Sure. See you there." He put the phone down, grabbed his jacket, and hurried downstairs. All these people were Muggles, and they thought he was, too, and he wasn't going to reveal himself. He was quite a good actor then, really.
He drove himself to the Acting HQ and rushed up to the auditorium, where he plonked himself down next to Fergus. They talked about the project for a few minutes, and then they called the first actor in.
"Hi, I'm David Hartley."
They talked to him about why he wanted to act for a few moments and then they handed him a script. He read off it expressively.
In James's eyes he did quite well. He was no, well, James, but he was quite realistic. He told Fergus this.
They went down half of the list that day, waving people away who were no good. In the end of that week, there were four people who they were choosing between.
"David's still good," James said with a thought. "But he was slightly wishy-washy. Karl made Jake look more arrogant than he really is. Caleb was extremely pretentious in my eyes, and I'm sure you could see that." Fergus nodded. The boy was a good actor, but he was way too self-important. "That leaves us with Jack."
Fergus shook his head. "Too…" He waved his hand around, trying to find the word. "I don't know, but he would have cowered under Leia. We need to find a pair who compliment each other."
James nodded in understanding. "But I wonder who…Shall we get Leia in tomorrow to act with the final four?"
Fergus nodded. "Be here at eight." James agreed, and he headed out to go home.
Fergus scratched his beard, thinking. It was a very reasonable thought; after all, he didn't know anything about Lily. He just thought James had created her to work with his story. "I wonder if James…"
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Leia sighed. "Jack, try not to cower so much. You're supposed to dominate this film, not me. Well, I'm supposed to be very important, but still…"
James rolled his eyes. "Leia, allow me." He told Jack exactly what the point of Jake was.
"But could you…show it to me? I always work best if I can see it happen…"
James sighed. "Of course." He knew the script off by heart, of course, as it had happened to him in real life. He just simply walked up and wrapped his arm around Leia's shoulder. He was a few inches taller than her, so it looked perfectly all right. "Lily! Go out with me."
"Go away Patterson! I told you already."
"Aww, c'mon Monteiro. You know you want me."
Leia watched the man with veiled suspicion. James sounded like he'd done this before; he was just so used to it. She wouldn't have been surprised if he'd turned out to be Jake, himself.
The other weird thing was that she felt like she'd been through all this before. Before her accident, she and a boy had done this arguing thing. It made her feel unsteady.
"No, Patterson. I already…" she broke off as James touched her hand. Memories with a boy called James had just started hitting her. She couldn't remember much, but at least she was starting to get her memory back. "Oh!" she gasped. She pulled away from James and put her hand to her head.
"Are you all right?"
Leia smiled softly. "I think I'm going to go back home. I just had the most peculiar memory…"
"Do you want me to drive you home?" James asked quickly. She looked really weak.
Leia smiled again and nodded her head. "Thanks." They left the building together.
Jack stared ruefully after them. "He was really good."
Fergus chuckled. "Of course he was good; he wrote the play."
Jack shook his head. "He's done it before. Somewhere, he's done it before. Anyway, I think you'd just be better off choosing him."
"But James is a writer, not an actor."
Jack smiled. "Face it, he's better than any of us. And if he's not an actor, then...I'll eat my hat. He's very good. Trust me on this one. Besides, there are writers who act in their own films. And before you say anything, there are some who aren't full-of-themselves. Think on it." Then he, too, turned and walked out the door.
Fergus contemplated the boy's thoughts. He was right, he realised. James did have an affinity with acting. And he did seem to have done that scene before. In fact, he could almost have been Jake in the play, with Lily the girl he was in love with. If that was her real name.
He'd ask tomorrow.
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Fergus had had a better idea. He was currently talking to Sirius.
"Did James ever have…a falling out with a girl?"
Sirius beamed into the phone, remembering all the fights James had with Lily. "He had lots of fights with this one girl, certainly. Poor boy was head over heels for her and she refused to give him the time of day. He's still heartbroken over it."
"What was her name?" Fergus asked, trying not to sound suspicious, and knowing that the description of the girl was very much alike to that of Lily in LWL.
"Lily. Lily Evans. Why?"
So her name was Lily, but with a different surname. No wonder James had written it and was brooding so much afterwards. He was still in love with the girl he'd written about. "What happened to her?" he asked, evading Sirius's question.
"Oh, she went missing three years ago. We haven't heard from her since we left school. She just vanished off the face of the earth. James goes away every month to search for her, but he always comes back empty-handed. I'd like to think she was right under our noses all the time and one day she's going to come up and say, `Hi James, it's me'. And why did you want to know?"
Fergus sighed. "Because his latest film is about a girl called Lily, and I thought it might be to do with him somehow…and obviously it is. Tell him I hope he finds her soon, okay? He deserves some love in his life after all he's been through."
Two years before, James's parents, uncles and aunts, and little sister were all slaughtered by Voldemort. None of the Muggles knew this, but they knew they'd been murdered. James had gone through a black period when he really needed love most of all, but of course, Lily wasn't there and so he couldn't talk to her at all. He had been so miserable it made all his friends upset too, though Iris reminded him of his friends and so he sort of…came back, if you will. He was fine now, but he sometimes started crying for no apparent reason, and everyone would try and make it all right for him again.
"Will do."
Fergus thought for a few seconds. "What do you think he'd say to a spot of acting?"
"I'd say poor Leia. She'd be working with the original arrogant sod."
Fergus chuckled. "Ah, but it's better to work with someone who knows what they're doing. What do you think he'd say, though?"
"Dunno. I'll tell him." He pulled back from the phone and yelled, "JAMES!"
The boy came stumbling down the hall, yawning and in his old red and gold Gryffindor boxers. "What?" he muttered, annoyed.
"Fergus here wants to know what you'd say to a spot of acting."
James's eyes widened. "Oh no. You didn't tell him Jake was me, did you?" He sounded shocked.
Sirius laughed and shook his head. "He figured out by himself. And he says it's always best to work with someone who knows what they're doing. C'mon and be a good sport, Prongs. It's not like you're doing anything else."
James shrugged. "Fine." He turned and went back to his room.
"He says sure," Sirius told Fergus.
"Well, tell him to be down at seven tomorrow."
"Okay. Bye." Sirius put the phone down quickly and told James the message. The man groaned and rolled over in the bed, putting his pillow over his head as he did so. Sirius chuckled and went into his own room. "Some people never change…" he muttered, remembering their Hogwarts days when James liked to have his beauty sleep and then wake up late. Though of course, he did, as well…That wasn't important though.
Sirius climbed into bed and turned the lights off, rolling his eyes at the memories as he did so.
---
Leia and James got on well. They grew closer; not romantically but platonically, throughout the course of the whole film.
James's film went like this: Lily and Jake were at school. They were eighteen. Lily hated Jake, but Jake loved Lily. Jake was really arrogant, but one day he decided to deflate his head. He went through many interesting things (most of which he did in real life) and in the end he got Lily. Not how it was in real life, because in real life, Lily slapped him on the last day of school, and the next day she'd vanished off the face of the earth, never to be seen again (in the next three years, at least).
The film had been given the summary `the crazy things people do for love'. It was already set out to be a bestseller.
James was happy that he'd written such a good film. He still wasn't quite so sure about the acting, though…
Leia loved the film even more as she acted it out. She was now positive Jake was James, after she'd seen the way his hands clenched in some scenes, and how he said his lines with so much feeling it must have hurt. She knew he must miss the girl Lily was based off.
She decided she'd do anything she could to help him, without telling him she knew.
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So what did you think? This is moving so fast…only one chapter left! I hope you enjoyed it, I know I enjoyed writing it!
ly,
J xx
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