There's cleavage in this chapter. I don't know what boy I was channeling while I wrote this, but he seems to be obsessed with a woman's breast. Sirius might have written part of this chapter. Don't blame me.
Be careful with the italics in this chapter, too. I tried to make them as clear as possible, but let me know if anything was confusing. The first part is in Sirius' memory, and then we get some of Rachel's thought pattern for about half a second. I can edit, however; let me know.
Also…those of you with ADD might have to concentrate extra hard on the happenings contained within this chapter. You've been warned.
Chapter 13
Sirius couldn't stop thinking about what had happened in the bathroom. The hiding? Yes, that was easy to dismiss, but the kissing? That was a whole other story.
"Sirius?"
Screw it. He was going to kiss her; it didn't matter if she was the sister of James of the sister of Vincent Crabbe. (Ok, it might have mattered if she was Crabbe's sister-for one thing, she wouldn't have been as pretty.) Sirius did what he did best and stopped thinking.
It was the most wonderful half minute of his life.
Her lips were so soft, she smelled like honey, and oh Merlin…the way she tasted was better than
"Sirius! Are you even listening to me?" The present Rachel, as opposed to the one he was remembering now, slammed her hand on the table between them. The noise startled him out of his daydreaming. That's right. They were on a double date with James and Lily in a nice London restaurant.
"Sorry Rach. I was thinking about…something tastier than this." He referred to the disgusting bit of cheese that was currently sitting on the table.
Rachel had the decency to blush, almost reading his mind. Damn him and that kiss; that wasn't in the plan. She should be dating that gorgeous Auror who lived in the flat next to her, not pining after one of her little brother's immature, loud, immature, womanizing, immature, seventeen year old friends. Nothing was going according to plan tonight, and it was slowly killing her.
She pushed those thoughts away for the moment and tried to focus on a retort. "Don't blame me for that; James was the one who ordered it." Stupid James, who is now doing God knows what outside, leaving me alone with the other idiot, Rachel thought to herself.
"Trying to order from a French menu without knowing French? What an idiot." Sirius bemoaned, now flicking random bits of cheese off the table in his best impression of a four-year-old.
Sirius flicked a small piece of cheese across the table, where it landed with a plop in the perfect spot between Rachel's breasts. "Oops." Sirius murmured, now completely mesmerized by her cleavage.
Rachel sighed and tried to cover herself. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."
Just outside the door of the restaurant, James was thinking the same thing to himself. He was currently involved in a lip lock, and not with the girl he came with. He tried to move his head, but Graziana was holding on to him with her claws and he wasn't going anywhere until she said so.
This was bad. This was very, very bad. That was obvious. At this very moment Lily was in the bathroom inside and if she caught him…well, he might be losing more than Lily's devotion, that's all. Certain appendages might not live to see the morning.
"Oh James." Graziana sighed, finally letting him go. "You have no idea how long I've been dreami-"
James cut her off quickly, pushing her arms back to her sides and far away from him. "Yeah, look, that's great, but I happen to be in love with Lily, so if you could just leave?" He turned to head back to the table inside.
Graziana growled a disgusted noise, a sound that reminded him of a rhinoceros farting. James faced her again, arms crossed and eyebrow cocked as if to say `What now?'.
"James. I am Lily."
An hour previously Lily was still in her own body and was fighting the urge to throw up. She leaned over the sink in the bathroom at James' house, staring at her own reflection as if it might help calm her stomach down.
"You're not going to throw up. You're not going to throw up. Don't do it, Lily. I swear to Merlin…" Lily repeated her mantra over and over. Miraculously, it seemed to be helping.
Just then, the door to the bathroom opened and Kat spilled in, clutching her mouth. "Move over, gotta throw up!" She announced before pouncing on the toilet.
Lily flinched and shut her eyes to the sound of Kat's food coming up the wrong way. She clutched at the vanity. Unfortunately, she couldn't shut her nose to the smell.
Kat stood and flushed the toilet, wiping her mouth and grimacing. "Sorry about that. Apparently I don't like birds as much as I used to." She kicked the toilet bowl and went out the door as quickly as she came in, muttering "Stupid body" as she left.
Rachel showed up a few minutes later. Lily hadn't moved. "Whoa!" She exclaimed as she walked in. "Did you throw up?" She waved her wand and the smell of citrus slowly overcame the smell of dead bird.
The smell reminded Lily of something. "James smells like oranges." She muttered.
Rachel gave her a weird look, but let it pass. "Yeah, he told me about your throwing up on him the other night. He must have cleaned it up." She paused, then pulled Lily away from the vanity and pushed her toward the door. "Look, I've got some makeup you can use. And a mint. You can even borrow a dress, if you want." She pushed Lily out the door and headed to the stairs. "Just don't throw up on it."
A few minutes later Lily's stomach had settled to a minor case of the butterflies. The mint had helped, as did the makeup Rachel was now applying to her face.
"You looked beautiful." Rachel smiled, indicating the mirror. She put away her blush and started to pull back Lily's hair.
Lily smiled, feeling the butterflies jump a little in her tummy. "Aren't you nervous?" She asked.
"Over Sirius?" Rachel laughed. "Please, it's a fake date; it's totally not serious." She paused as she began to stick bobby pins in Lily's hair. "Pun intended."
"Besides," She continued, poking Lily just a bit too hard with the next pin, "Tonight will tell me once and for all that Sirius is just a phase for me." She put her hands on Lily's shoulders and leaned down. "Tonight will be romantic. For you, not for me. That's the idea."
Lily laughed nervously. "I'm just beginning to think this was a bad idea. I feel like we're setting him up or something." She couldn't stop picking at her thumbnail as Rachel pulled and twisted her hair into an elegant up-do.
"Lily! No we're not. Trust me, if James had a spine, he would have asked you out already." Rachel chuckled.
"That's what I was afraid of." Lily muttered under her breath and, thankfully, Rachel hadn't heard her.
Half an hour later, after the girls had primped as much as was humanly possible, they found themselves down the street from the restaurant where they were meeting the boys. Lily was a goddess. No man would be able to resist her tonight; the little black dress, tendrils of red hair falling gracefully out of her twisted hair, and soft makeup could seduce somebody at twenty paces.
As for herself, Rachel had barely done anything. She wasn't even wearing a skirt, just a nice pair of jeans. She refused to make anything more out of this night. It was a fake date, and that's all it ever was going to be. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she was overanalyzing things, but then the other part of her mind that was constantly replaying The Kiss seized control and told her she was fine.
The pair stood quietly on the sidewalk, each consumed in her own insecurity. Then Rachel saw it, the perfect addition to Lily's perfect outfit. "You have to have one." She said, and Lily followed her gaze across the street to a flower shop.
"Oh, no. I look-"
"Like you need an accessory." Rachel finished. Before Lily could protest again, Rachel hurried off across the street, intent on finding a lily to match.
Lily bit her lip, but didn't follow. She could barley move; the butterflies in her stomach had transformed into something larger and were currently moving at an accelerated rate somewhere around her spleen. She settled for leaning against the brick wall, hoping something would help to calm her nerves.
She didn't take notice of the person walking past her, but she heard something they mumbled under their breath. There was a brief flash and suddenly the stomach rumblings were gone. She glanced down in surprise only to find that she was wearing a bright green tank top and jeans.
"Oh, Lily?" Someone to her left purred. Lily turned and saw herself, a sick sort of smile plastered on her lips. She opened her mouth in confusion, but didn't get the chance to say anything.
"Stupify!"
James went over the sequence of events in his head. He and Sirius had met the girls at the restaurant. Nothing had seemed that out of the ordinary. Lily's top was cut a little lower than normal, but he wasn't complaining about that. She might have been a little grabby, too, but who was he to stop her? That would just be rude.
Although…now that he thought about it, that was a little out of character for her.
From the way that Lily's hips were swaying as the group made their way to the table, James should have known something was different. Unfortunately for him, he was a boy and was therefore incapable of noticing small details around him.
Rachel should have noticed something was off, but her friendship radar was malfunctioning. Sirius was actually being…nice. And he looked like he actually dressed up for once, slacks and everything. He couldn't seem to stop staring at her. Something was wrong with him.
It wasn't until Lily's foot grazed James' leg that he even noticed something was off. He jumped half a foot in the air when it happened, but neither his best friend nor his sister was aware. They were in a whole other world, lost in an entirely different date than the one James and Lily were on at that moment.
Lily looked across the table at James and he noted a definite gleam that hadn't been there before. Usually there was frustration, humor, or bemusement glittering there, but never blatant lust. Suddenly he was incredibly uncomfortable.
"Something wrong?" Lily practically purred, her foot inching higher on his leg. She leaned towards him and James fought the urge to scramble backwards out of his chair. "I can make you feel better, promise."
"Oh, I believe you." James sputtered, trying to politely push her foot down off him. He spent about thirty seconds pondering why people thought footsie was sexy, but that quickly left his mind when he realized that Lily was licking her lips rather slowly and still had her eyes set on him. James didn't look away, but he nudged Sirius instead, who didn't respond.
Sirius was too busy staring at Rachel, who was doing her best to look anywhere but across the table. The waiter came by and James pointed to something on the menu; a few moments later a green stinky cheese landed on their table, which finally gave Sirius and Rachel something mutual to stare at.
Simultaneously, it seemed, things were going wrong. The four sat in almost complete silence; brother and sister both focused on not looking at their dates while their dates were hardly looking anywhere else.
James took a chance and glanced over at Sirius, a super secret glance that told Sirius all he needed to know. This was a glance that had been perfected over many bad dates; the glance that told him to abort mission.
Sirius turned to Lily, whose gaze on James was so intense she hadn't blinked in three minutes, and casually voiced his opinion. "What's wrong with your face, Lil?"
Lily blinked rapidly, coming out of her trance to stare at Sirius. "My face?"
"Yeah, what's wrong with it?" Sirius said deadpan; it was all in his face, that's what made this trick work. Rachel narrowed her eyes, turning from Sirius to Lily. Sirius knew he only had a few seconds to make sure Lily believed him before Rachel would uncover the entire operation.
"What's wrong with what?" Lily repeated, her hand patting down her cheeks as if she were concerned scales had grown in place of her blush.
"It's just that…" Sirius intentionally trailed off, shrugging. "Nah, never mind. I'm sure it's nothing."
Lily jumped up suddenly, mumbled something about going to the bathroom, and was out of the room in a flash. Sirius smirked, turning to James.
"And that, my friend, is the only way to get your date to ditch you." Sirius would have bowed, but he thought that might have been overdoing it a little.
James seemed immensely relieved. "You're the best." He clapped Sirius on the shoulder. Slapping a couple of galleons down on the table, he rose, preparing to hightail it out of there before Lily got wind that he was ditching her.
"Wait a second!" Rachel stopped him before he could get a few steps away. "You two are complete assholes! She's the girl of your dreams, James; where are you going?"
James and Sirius exchanged looks, then turned back to Rachel. "There's something wrong with her, Rach." James started.
"She's just nervous!"
"She looked as though she couldn't decide between eating me and mating with me!" James insisted, a wild look in his eyes.
"That's what praying mantises do." Sirius added, rather unhelpfully.
Rachel fixed her brother with her best motherly glare. "If you walk out on her, so help me Merlin, I swear I will be the one eating you."
James stopped for maybe half a second before proclaiming, "That's a chance I'm willing to take." He made his way across the restaurant, weaving through the sea of tables and a confused waitress.
Rachel turned back to Sirius in a huff, who was shrugging the whole situation off, picking at the cheese on the table. "Look at it this way," He told her, "at least he left money this time."
James had hoped to get more than five steps out of the restaurant without being accosted. Apparently, though, nothing was going to go right for him tonight, as Graziana Harding stopped him as soon as the door closed behind him.
"James! Oh, thank Merlin." She seemed more frazzled and less put together than usual, but this didn't concern James. He was bent on escape.
"Wonderful." He decided to go the direct route this time, because he wanted to get home to barricade himself in his room before Lily could get to him after she'd found out what he'd done. "Look, I've just had the worst date of my life with the girl I've been in love with since first year. Can we do this later?"
A look James had never seen on Graziana's face before washed over her; pure astonishment. "Really? Since first year?"
"A moot point, that." James tried to sidestep her, but Graziana was having none of that. She followed his movement, mimicking him and causing his inability to leave this conversation. He sighed. "Yes, I've been in love with Lily Evans since I was eleven. Can you leave me alone now?"
He expected her to storm off, furious at having been deceived for so long. He expected her to at least fly off the handle. Any number of reactions he expected left him completely defenseless for what really happened.
Graziana reached up and brought his lips crashing down onto hers. James stood there, terrified for several seconds. After the initial shock wore off, he found himself increasingly terrified, more so than before. It wasn't because this was the worst moment of his life, getting kissed by someone he hated.
James was terrified because it was the best kiss he had ever had. And it was with the one person in the world he couldn't stand.
"James. I am Lily."
With those four words, the night transformed from the worst date James had ever had to the weirdest one. It took no time at all to round up Sirius and Rachel, who were for some reason sitting at the table staring at Rachel's breasts, for consultation.
"Obviously you're not Lily." Sirius stated the obvious the best he could, gesturing to Graziana. "I mean, I've been hours, maybe even weeks lusting after this perfect body. That's Graziana Harding; Lily's no comparison."
"What do you mean by no comparison?" Lily/Graziana and Rachel exclaimed at the same time. The pair looked at each other. "Maybe she really is Lily." Rachel muttered.
"Look, I know this is hard to believe, but I was out here when Graziana ambushed me. I have no idea how or why she…" Lily/Graziana trailed off as Lily herself walked out of the restaurant, making her way quickly to the ever growing group.
"Jamsie? What's going on? Why is she here?" Graziana/Lily pouted, but there was a gleam of pure menace behind her green eyes. She clung to James' arm, taking the chance to press any available bit of her body she had onto him.
"Well, that settles that." Rachel announced and Sirius nodded.
"That's definitely Graziana. I'd recognize that maneuver anywhere." He grinned over to Rachel. "Maneuver 12. Renders almost any man speechless." Rachel ignored him.
"I told you something was wrong." James insisted, but his heart wasn't in it. He couldn't stop staring at Graziana/Lily, who was rubbing against him like a cat in heat. He couldn't help but respond to her, the girl he'd wanted for so long, now practically begging him to touch her.
"James!" Lily spat, hitting the back of his head. James' eyes nearly rolled all the way back from the force of it. Immediately he snapped out of it.
"I can't help it if I'm attracted to you Lily!" He said loudly.
Lily/Graziana's eyes softened just a little. "Aww, that's sweet. Now stop being a pervert!"
"Stop dangling your goodies in front of me!" James practically yelled.
"The man has a fair point." Sirius contended. Rachel tried to stomp on his foot, but missed as Sirius dodged her attack.
"Give me back my body." Lily demanded, glaring at Graziana. Seeing herself act like this was incredibly disturbing. "And stop being like that!"
Graziana glanced over at Lily, who got a distinct chill from having her own eyes stare herself down. "Being like what, Lily dear?"
"The female embodiment of all that is right with this world?" Sirius supplied. He, like James, couldn't take his eyes off Lily's body.
Lily contained her urge to strangle him. She turned to Graziana. "I don't know where you've stashed my wand, but when I find it I'm going to-"
"Okay!" James interceded, taking the moment of awkward silence that occurred after he interrupted to disentangle himself from Graziana's rather tight embrace. "Obviously what we have here is a spell. All we need is the counter-spell and we can hope no one has a nightmare from all this."
Everyone turned to look at Graziana, who smirked. The sight set everyone else on edge. "There isn't a counter-spell." She finally said, after a tense moment.
Two things happened in quick succession. For one, Lily launched herself at her own body, intent on doing bodily harm and not caring that she might have to pay for it later. Graziana was knocked to the ground, but quickly regained her bearings after Lily grabbed hold of her own hair and pulled until several strands came out.
At the same time, James, having sensed Lily's immediate reaction, leaped out to catch her and landed instead on the pavement. He completely missed his target, rendering years of quidditch practice null. The entire left side of his face kissed the sidewalk and he knew he was going to bleed. He did manage to trip Lily, however, which is how the two girls ended up on the ground, acting more like cats then Kat.
Then, just as suddenly as the fight began, it ended. Cords came out of both Rachel's and Sirius' wands as they managed to wrestle apart the girls and retract their claws. Rachel stared at Sirius in surprise; she hadn't expected him to react so quickly. For a moment Sirius' face was hardened, a look that screamed prefect and conformist non-rule breaker. He could have been an auror. Then it softened again and he was smiling.
"I never thought I'd get a chance to tie you up." He grinned down at Graziana. "At least, not without a bed somewhere nearby." He had changed so suddenly that Rachel wasn't sure if she had seen it at all.
James' hand was caught up in the cords containing Lily, placed rather unfortunately against her inside thigh. Immediately, he pulled at the cords, but couldn't get his hand back. Lily blushed deeply, a look that was never seen on Graziana's face. Lily's own face looked furious at the current situation.
"This isn't what it looks like." James faltered, attempting to look anywhere but at Lily. "I mean, I have no idea how…what…I didn't grab…" Rachel sighed and grabbed her brother's arm, yanking him away from the girl and her bindings.
"OW!" James shrieked, cradling his hand, which had a nasty case of robe burn. He glared at his sister, who could care less.
"Oh, get a bandage and have a nice cry." Rachel spat at him, frustrated by the night's turn of events.
"Can we focus on what's more important here?" Lily demanded from her uncomfortable position on the ground. One arm was pinned behind her back and was going numb.
Sirius stepped forward, grabbing Graziana and hauling her to her feet. "All right, good news and bad news here." He motioned to Lily. "First, the bad news. Get really comfortable in that new body of yours, Lil. At least you went up a cup size." Lily opened her mouth to retort, but Sirius continued speaking.
"The good news? Glad you asked. The good news is, James finally got to second base!" Everyone glared at him, but in true fashion, he didn't bat an eye. He gave James a thumbs up. "Congrats, mate!"
This chapter took a lot out of me. I started with something very different, something that matched what I talked about before, in the last chapter. Hope this lived up to some of your expectations for this fic. I quite enjoyed it.
Until next time,
Emmablk1
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