Three Weeks Tardy
James would have known that rear end anywhere, having seen it plenty of times in his head and in real life. He had, after all, spent the last six years chasing after the girl who was attached to that perfectly shapely posterior. He had walked into the girls' bathroom, certain that he had seen her walk in here just a few minutes before. Her backside to him confirmed that she was indeed back at Hogwarts.
Lily Evans was bent over the basin, her head in the sink. The water was still on, flowing over the edge of the basin and soaking her bare feet. James spotted her tennis shoes on top of her school robes and her back pack. He watched her for a minute, waiting.
"Hey, Lily?" James called out quietly as her head remained under the surface of the water. She did not surface, nor did she acknowledge his presence. Afraid she may have already drowned; James hurried over and touched her shoulder roughly.
"What?" Lily cried out in surprise as she jerked back from the basin.
"Are you trying to drown yourself?" James inquired as he turned off the spout. Lily remained with her head bent forward, her hair dripping wet and making a mess on the stone floor.
"No, of course not," Lily said as she snapped her head back, arching water the entire way.
"Where have you been? As the head boy and girl, we have a lot of duties to attend to and I have had to do them all by myself for the past three weeks," James said as his eyes involuntarily slid the length of her body. She was leaner than she had been last year, currently wearing tight jeans and a black ribbed tank top with a teal bra peaking out from here and there. James noticed that her breast were the only thing that didn't look any smaller, in fact, they looked larger.
"Oh, cry about it, will you, Potter," Lily murmured as she raked her hand through her now very dark auburn wet locks of hair. James looked at her bright green eyes and looked as if she might have been crying recently enough to make them ever so slightly puffy.
"Have you been crying?" James asked curiously and Lily looked at him as if he had just suggested the most obscene acts of pleasure.
"Of course not," Lily snapped as she flicked her wand over her hair, neatly drying and styling it. James' eyes were trained on Lily, watching her as though he were mesmerized.
"So, why didn't you come to the school on the train with the rest of us?" James asked curiously. Lily didn't say anything for a moment as if she was planning and thinking of a response.
"I wasn't aware that my travels were any of your business, Potter," Lily said rather stiffly.
"Why are you washing your hair in the sink between classes?" James asked as he watched a single drop of water lazily disappear between her breasts and out of sight.
"It needed to be washed and there wasn't time for a proper shower," Lily explained, annoyed as she pulled her school robes over her muggle robes.
She summoned her backpack and left the bathroom. James followed after her, his own school robes messy and disheveled compared to the neatly pressed robes she wore. He ignored the gaggle of third year girls that gasped, scandalized that a seventh year boy had chased a seventh year girl out of the girls' lavatory.
"Why not use the Head bathroom? You know, it is rather spectacular," James mentioned casually as he fell in step with her.
"That one was closer," Lily replied with a slightly bored tone. She turned the corner and hesitated as Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy stood at the top of the staircase, looking down at them. Severus looked as dark as ever, his lanky hair curtaining his face and his cold, dark eyes fell hungrily on Lily. He was talking to Malfoy, his own eyes cold and cruel, the color of blue ice.
"Evans, you finally join us," Malfoy sneered, his smile as slick as Snape's hair. A cruel smile crossed Malfoy's face.
"Charming as ever, Malfoy," Lily said without the normal fire that fueled her words. She turned away and headed away from Snape and Malfoy to her next class, one that James was not a student of: Astrology.
Lily wasn't one to believe in the hokey teachings of the crazy old bag who taught Divination. It was laughable even to think that tea leaves or a glass ball could show the future. Tarot cards themselves made great kindling, but predict anything more than paper cuts was ridiculous. Lily sat down on an over stuffed pouf, glancing at the rotund gypsy with wiry black hair and gold bangles for earrings. Lily smiled at the woman and cracked open her book.
Lily didn't believe, no, but she enjoyed the class just the same. It gave her a break from having to pretend that everything was great and ok. She didn't take the class with any other Gryffindors as none had decided to take Divination. Lily drank the hot tea and looked at the dregs in the bottom of the cup.
"How does it look dear?" Professor Ergot asked. Lily looked up at the teacher and then at the leaves.
"I fear I have the grim, again," Lily murmured as the leaves had taken on the clumpy shape of a dog's head.
"Understandable, in these dark times for you, dear," Professor Ergot said in her lofty voice. Her rings glinted in the candle light.
"Perhaps I should work on my ball work," Lily said as she wiped the cup out with a paper towel. The professor nodded and wandered over to another student. Lily couldn't help but smile slightly.
From Divination Lily headed to Muggle studies. She had told Alice that she was going to become a Muggle-Wizard advisor for the ministry and it was a required class. Lily didn't mind the class, instead found the way that the wizarding world saw the world that Lily had been born into. Lily knew that each world thought that they were secretly better than the other one was, or at least the Muggles probably would have if they had known about the wizarding world.
Lily knew that three weeks delay to school would set her back three weeks, but it had been cruelly unavoidable. She stared into her cauldron, ignoring the Slytherins and the other Gryffindors that shared her advanced potion making class with Professor Slughorn. The liquid was turning a sickly shade of green and Lily frowned as she looked back at her potion's book. Her finger ran the length of ingredients and she smiled. She plucked one of her own hairs and added it to the potion, causing it to smoke and turn the color of sunshine.
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