Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter.

Author’s Note- It’s looooooooong, longer than anything I’ve written, so please review!

Chapter Seven

I woke to the smell of pumpkin juice and cinnamon, a pleasurable scent, yes, but it didn’t erase the horror I felt when I realized what had happened last night, why exactly my head had ended up on James’s side, instead of the table. He was smiling down at me, as I rose out of sleep, my eyelids fluttering, my heart picking up a faster beat.

The room had emptied of last night’s other injured students, and whether they saw my current laying condition or when my head was on the night table, they’d probably be around telling everyone else all about it. I pushed that to the back of my mind though, and tried to focus on what was laid out in front of me: confrontation.

I swiftly raised my head away from James, my cheeks an obnoxious red color and whether it was from blush or not, I did not want to know. I ran my fingers through my hair quickly, improvising as I had no brush. James still sat in the same position, grinning and in other words only making these bubbling feelings inside of me nearly burst. I wanted out, out of this horrible position. A position where honestly I didn’t know where I stood. A part of liked to be near Potter, hear his voice say witty things, things that impressed me, things that if others said would only annoy me. And the other part of me wanted him in a hole, him in a closet, him anywhere but near me. The part that disliked Potter, the negative, was trying to force the other, the positive, out, trying to make it go away, but the positive liked staying there, almost taunting the negative, telling it was certainly not going anywhere, anytime soon.

“Hello,” he murmured, rubbing his hand over a bruise that was on his arm. He didn’t say anything or hint towards how exactly I had woken up.

“Er, hi,” I replied, my voice emotionless, all the emotion bouncing off the walls of my insides, instead. I looked awkwardly down at my skirt, smoothed it, and tried to find something else to occupy myself with, something to stall this upcoming conversation, a conversation I already knew the topic of.

“So did you enjoy your sleep last night?” he teased, clearly having fun with himself, finding pleasure that I had ended up sleeping next to him, even if it was only one-fourth of my body.

“Don’t start, James,” I mumbled, narrowing my eyes at him, perhaps hoping it’d make my assertion just a bit stronger. He simply smiled again, that stupid smile that made my heart pick up the pace rapidly, loud enough for nearly the whole castle to hear.

“Alright, alright,” he replied, not wanting to drive me away, but what he didn’t know was that I was stuck. I couldn’t run away from him, even if I tried, and I didn’t want to, either. I wanted to stay here, along with dying, because I certainly wanted that at this point. He reached over for the parchment I had taken away from him last night, struggling in the process, his eyes shut tightly together and his arm stretching as far as it could to reach it. It didn’t help he was covered in bruises, and splotches of red stains.

My fingers beat him to his destination. I pulled the papers into my hands, smiled, and sat back down. “You just woke up –well we-, but wouldn’t you like to have some breakfast before schoolwork?” I asked, setting the papers down in my lap, a place I knew James wouldn’t venture after to get them, he had grown too much, a short time, yes, but I knew he was beyond that stage of adolescence.

“I’m not very hungry,” he answered, nonchalantly, letting out a yawn in the process, though. He still managed to look gorgeous – what was happening to me, now I was calling Potter gorgeous? - with his ruffled hair, and bruises. He still managed to mangle my heart without knowing, without knowing that was my chest was starting to hurt from the all the beating it was enduring from my heart. “Besides, I’d really like to write the next chapter, since where you left of leaves readers thirsting for more, don’t you think?” He asked, flashing me his teeth in the process, not helping case at all.

I narrowed my eyes again –my mother’s voice, high and too protective for anyone’s good, telling me that if I kept doing that with my eyes, my face would get stuck, faded away- and quickly replied, a misbelieving tone obvious through the string of my words, “Please, James.”

His palms, painted in bruises and plenty of blood –his hands could easily pass for a sunburned oompa loompa-, were firmly placed on the mattress as he slowly slid his body upward, resting his back on sallow pillows. He smiled, looking weak to most, but to me, in some unfathomable way, it wasn’t. Although he was obviously in pain, he acted, towards me, at least, as though nothing was wrong, that if I asked him he would run through a meadow of flowers with a broken leg, cartwheel with a broken arm, care about me with a short, fraying thread of hope. “No, but it is, though, Lily,” he replied, his voice making my name sound so sweet, so important, as though I was the only Lily on the planet.

I smiled back, and I didn’t know if it looked weak, looked phony, but I did and a part of me –it seemed like plenty of parts were unbalanced- didn’t care, because when I was with James things like that didn’t matter. How my hair looked didn’t matter, if my socks matched wasn’t something I thought about, but rather other things, things that scared me. For instance, why was I feeling this way about Potter? Why was I suddenly more comfortable around him than Alice? Why was he suddenly always on my mind? “Yes, I suppose it’s a cliffhanger. But, you know, James, since you’re recovering, I could just do the next one. It’s okay; I won’t hold it against you or anything.”

He smiled back, -if this kept up, this constant smiling from both of us, our cheeks were going to burst-, and shook his head. He placed his hand on top of mine, it was cold and rough, and replied, “Lily, do I have to fall off another broom to convince you?”

And what I had been meaning to ask him the night before flooded back into my mind, the questions rushing into the empty space, the words bubbling on the tip of my tongue. It was obvious that James had fallen off his broom, but how he had ended up like a splattered pancake was still fuzzy to me, and certainly still bugging me to no end. “Uh,” ridiculously I couldn’t form coherent sentences, much less words, “how exactly did that happen, last night?”

To say he looked uncomfortable was not quite detailed enough, he looked almost ashamed, and as though why he had fallen was something he wasn’t up to admitting to me. I smiled, encouragingly. I knew a bond had welded us together, a bond that was confusing and slightly angering me, and I knew James felt it too, perhaps not such to the extent as I did –he is a boy, what do you expect?-, but I hoped he could trust me, want to tell me things. I flipped our still connected hands over, my now on top, radiating warmth into his ice cube of hand, smoothing out the rough edges his hands held. “You can tell me,” I said softly, trying to slip it out of him, not in a way to taunt him or anything of that sort, but because simply I wanted to know.

He sighed, relieving his stress, I suppose, or to prolong the moment, to stall. He murmured something, his voice barely audible over the silent curtains, in other words he was more like mouthing the words, and not well. I narrowed my eyes, and squeezed his hand, causing his eyes to widen considerably. “Well,” he spoke up now, “I was looking for you in the crowed.”

“You didn’t think I would come?”

“No, I did, but…alright this is going to sound stupid, and immature, and very, well, what you called macho, but I wanted to, I suppose,” his voice was growing low, and rather grim, and he started to, in some unfathomable way, cringing, “show off.”

My jaw dropped, a ridiculous action, really, and my heart started to beat faster than it had ever beaten. I wish James had never told me, never told me that the reason he was bruised, and in pain was because of me, because he wanted to impress me, when in fact anything he said, really, impressed me. “Oh…oh, alright,” my words came out in uneven stutters, “well, then you should start writing, right?” I glanced around the room, the putrid walls filled with blemishes and tarnished decorations blended well into one another, making me feel like I was trapped in a bowl of oatmeal. The clock caught my eye, though, and I was clearly going to be late for class. I hadn’t noticed our hands were still nearly intertwined with each, but as I stood up, he looked disappointed.

“Was it something I said?” He asked, slightly teasing, but a part of me felt he was asking this regarding to his latest revelation.

“No, but I’ve got to get to class,” I replied, nodding towards the clock, “and the chances of me making it on there if I don’t leave now are slim.”

James grimaced, and then twisted his hand around mine, once more. He held onto me with force, not the type that held a threat, the type that would make me worried, but rather not wanting me to, not want space between us. And honestly, neither did I. I was throwing everything out the window. I had given up on emotions, as they were clearly ganging up on me, whirling my thoughts into mushy beings, beings I wanted to forget. “Why don’t you skip?” he suggested in all seriousness, no mocking smiles to be found anywhere on his face, no fingers crossed behind backs.

I contemplated for a second, weighing the options that laid out in front of me, but honestly there was nothing to think about. I knew my answer, knew it so well, and I could not, would not, be budged on it. My emotions may have been screwed up, but that didn’t mean my common sense had to go down the toilet, too. “James, please be serious, I need to go to my classes.”

“Says who? We already know you’re going to graduate, we already know that if you miss simply one day, one day, it won’t matter. You can always find out what you missed from Remus,” he objected, acting like a pushy businessman, trying to sell me into something that I didn’t need, but wanted.

“James, what if I get caught?” I asked, sparking a whole new idea. I’d like to see him worm himself out of this problem.

“You won’t and besides you could say you were feeling dizzy and that’s why you are in here.” I grimaced. Didn’t he know that there were potions for that type of thing? Perhaps he read my mind or my face, or something, because he quickly added, “Besides Madam Pomfrey is out of the particular potion and you know it is against the rules for students to make potions. And Slughorn, well he is probably too busy swooning over your grades to give the ingredients to Madame Pomfrey. So, there you go, Lily, you won’t get caught.”

“But James-”

“No, it is your fault I fell,” he replied, his voice light and teasing, “so this is how you can make it up to me.” I gave up with an angry ‘humph’ and plopped back down into my seat and crossed my arms over my chest. I kept my eyes directly focused on a stain on the wall. It could be a plethora of things that caused it, potion mishaps, bloody messes, and before I could think of anymore gruesome reasons as to why the wall was tarnished, James interrupted my thoughts. Handing me parchment and a quill, he said, “I’ll write, and you can just doodle, I suppose. I won’t take long, I promise.”

Ungracefully, I snatched the items from him, and did what he told me, not because he told me to, but rather because I didn’t what else to. He smiled, and fell into the parchment, pouring everything he had in him into it. I dipped the quill into the ink that sat on the nightstand and began to aimlessly doodle lines on the paper.

Some were straight, perfect and normal, no curvy lines or small bumps interrupting their path to nowhere. And as I started to draw more lines, they turned out different, and I couldn’t convert back to the straight ones as I saw what was happening. The wavy lines were uneven, the waves weren’t the same size, and the line was slightly slanted in its direction. The lines described my emotions. The straight ones were how I used to be, normal, my emotions perfectly in tune to what they were supposed to be. I could detect when I was happy, when I was angry, who I disliked, and who I enjoyed, but now it was like someone had switched all their wires, like when you go to flip a light switch on and instead the shower turns on. It’s completely bizarre, totally out there, and you can’t control it.

The wavy lines were uneven and imperfect and that’s how my emotions were now, how I felt. I didn’t know if I was happy about staying here with James or if I was angry for missing class. I didn’t know anything, really, except for the fact that my head was starting to hurt with all this confusion.

I let my hand dance gracefully across the parchment; I wasn’t paying much attention to it, but rather the window. Fall was dwindling down, the warm sun inching closer to hibernation. I could see the trees whipping around violently, their leaves fighting in a competition to see who could last. Maybe that was what was happening to me. Maybe my emotions were whipping around violently, and I was the leave. They were testing me to see how long I would last before I would crack, before I would finally give up. But what exactly they were trying to get me to give up was unclear, something I couldn’t quite understand.

I suppose I thought I was only looking out the window for ten minutes, fifteen tops, but according to James it was forty-five minutes. I still don’t believe him.

“Would you like to read it?”

I nodded, and took –this time, much nicer, and not with so much anger-, the parchment. I laid it down in my lap, atop of my doodles of lines and began to read.

Lila sat across from Jacob at the evening meal table, a table filled with elaborate items, a runner with such an detailed pattern that it must have taken nearly a century to complete, golden candlesticks holding thick vanilla scented candles, and silverware that looked to expensive to be eaten on. The table was a dark mahogany and it was rather long, but not too wide. You could easily talk quietly to the person across from you. “So tell me, Jacob,” Lila scoffed at his name, -she was ready to prove his idea of her being pleasant wrong-, “how exactly did you get lost? The map my father provided was quite clear.”

Jacob cleared his throat, smoothed his coat, all the signs of burning nervousness, and replied, “It got caught on one of the iron posts surrounding the tarn.”

“Why would you be on that path? The path of Mount Oyalser? It’s covered in nearly ten feet of snow!”

“I live up there,” he answered softly, clearly ashamed of his living arrangements. And why wouldn’t be he? Here Jacob was, in a palace of goods and desirables, and he lived in a place the size of one of the fireplaces, one of the small ones, that is.

“Why would you want to live up there?” Lila delved deeper into her bucket full of questions, preparing herself to expel every question that was bubbling on the tip of her tongue. She brushed a lock of hair out of her face and continued, “Are you into snow or something? It’s pleasant, yes, but honestly, don’t you think it is a bit much up there?”

Jacob’s face began to heat up, moisture pouring from his skin, he looked like a sweating tomato. “I suppose I’ve just lived there since birth and it’s just stuck with me. If you’ve got the right garments on it isn’t quite so cold.” Lila eyed his mustard yellow suit, knowing it was paper thin, and about as warm as a tissue. She didn’t believe him, but rather would save that question for later.

“What about your family? Do they live up there with you, too?”

The sweat, along with the obnoxious red, drained from Jacob’s face and instead was replaced with a sallow, sick-looking, very pale Jacob. That didn’t faze Lila, though; she didn’t notice it, really. Jacob could see that she was waiting for an answer and he was in position to refuse her one, unless of course he wanted to find himself in the nearest guillotine. And he was breaking many rules, already. For one, he was talking openly to the princess, without the permission of the King, her father, and the blessing of the Queen, her mother. Secondly, he was sitting, a major violation in the policy of being a guard, and no less in their furniture. And the last reason, the reason that wasn’t breaking a law made by the King or the Queen, or a simple polite one, but one he had made up himself a long time ago, one that he had forced himself to abide by. He wasn’t to talk about his family to anyone.

“Well,” she urged.

Jacob snapped out of his daze and scrambled to answer. It was lie, a one-way ticket to death, but he couldn’t talk about his family, he simply couldn’t. It wouldn’t cause too much trouble and grief. “No, they live in Puloa, several Kingdoms away.”

“And why don’t you live with them?” Before Jacob could answer, cough up another lie, Lila’s parents entered the room, along with their personal assistants. Lila rolled her eyes, it was ridiculous that they needed people to pull out chairs for them, or open doors for them. Two gangly, rather thin men scrambled to their designated corners of the room. They were wearing those disgusting yellow suits, and it didn’t help their appearance, which wasn’t great to begin with.

The King cleared his throat, a loud echo bounced off the walls, causing the chandelier to sway slightly. He was a heavyset man, with no neck, and long red beard, where Lila had obviously gotten her hair. Despite his long, flowing beard, there was no hair on his head, but that was almost always covered by his crown, an ugly yellow suit look alike, gaudy crown. It was covered in diamonds that simply didn’t look very pleasant. Beside him stood his wife, Queen, Lila’s mother. She was his age, yes, but didn’t look so. She had white-blondish hair that sat in thick waves at her waist. Several diamond studs were present throughout her hair, as they acted like small barrettes in random places. She was thin, her figure a perfect hourglass.

Jacob, startled, jumped from his seat. He bowed to the floor, his head inches from the King’s thick, leather boots. “Would you like to explain why you were seated in my furniture?” Lila stared wide-eyed at him, anger coursing through her veins. Usually her father was easy-going, still strict about laws and things of those sorts, but definitely not to get worked up over things like this, but he had every right to. He was violating the policy of being a guard, and he was new, which only made it worse. Jacob was coming off as he could do anything he pleased, like he waltzed into the palace and sat wherever he wanted to.

“I’m sorry, sir, truly I am,” Jacob pleaded, his voice growing several octaves higher with each passing moment.

The King held up a stubby palm in his direction, a signal to simply stop talking, and answered in a cool tone, “Do not let it happen again.” He nodded towards one of the guards in the corner who promptly came over and pulled out a chair for him and the Queen. They both sat down and focused their attention to Lila. Jacob had stood up and was now standing beside the door, where he was supposed to be. “Hello, Lila,” the King said, smoothing his beard.

“Just swell,” Lila answered, her voice reeking of intense sarcasm.

“Now, Lila, don’t be disrespectful to your father,” her mother said, her voice high and painfully pushy. She turned her direction to her husband and spoke, “Honestly, Deom, you need to do something about her attitude. She’ll never find a husband that way.” Lila grimaced at the mention of her father’s first name, as it only reminded her of another reason she truly detested her life.

“Catara, I’m trying,” Lila’s father replied, causing Lila to cringe again. She was aware her parents had names that were far too original for anyone’s good, and she still disliked them both, but was eternally grateful that she was placed with a rather normal name. “Besides, Lila, a young man, a year older than you, from the next Kingdom over has told his parents he finds interest in you. As he had an older brother who will take over that kingdom, this is a perfect opportunity for someone who I can trust to take my throne.”

“Please, spare me,” Lila scoffed.

“Lila!” Catara’s voice was nearly enough to shatter all of the glass throughout the kingdom and the fact that she was shrieking certainly did not help. “You will rid of that attitude immediately! You should be married by now; you should be having babies now! And you will meet him in a few days, and you will two will be together.”

Lila rolled her eyes, but that didn’t stop the painful tug her heart felt. The last thing she wanted to do was get married, no less to a person that she didn’t even get to pick. “Well, what if I don’t like him? What if I don’t love him?”

“What has love have to do with marriage?” her father demanded, his face reddening into the shade of his beard.

Lila narrowed her eyes towards him, and spoke very acidly, “It has everything to do with it.”

“Lila, you knock this rubbish off! You will be traveling to his kingdom tomorrow. It’s a three to four day trip, and he will be escorting you,” Deom pointed a chubby finger to Jacob, whose jaw had dropped, “and we will be meeting you there several days after. It will give you plenty of time to get to know him, plenty of time to adjust to the fact that you are marrying him.”

“You are marrying him and there is nothing you can say or do to change that, Lila.”

I smiled, and said a quiet, “Very good. I really enjoy where you took the plot to.”

“Thank you,” James replied, smiling, too, “could I see it real quickly, though. I just need to add one thing.”

“Oh, yeah, here,” I said, handing him the paper. He took it anxiously and scribbled down a few more things. I looked back at the window and sat there were no more leaves on the tree, the tree had won. I shrugged and looked down at my parchment full of doodles.

I expected it to be full of lines, squiggly and straight, making no particular design, rather just mush, but what I did find made me wish I had never looked, never skipped class, never been born. Those lines weren’t just lines that were scattered among the page but rather they made up something much worse.

There was a heart and a prominent ‘J” next to it.

A/N: Okay, for not updating in a long time, I made it long! I hope you enjoyed it! I hope Lily isn’t too OCC, but she will soon recognize her feelings for James. Also Lila and Jacob will have a very interesting journey to the next kingdom to meet her future husband. Sorry for any grammar mistakes, I didn’t have enough patience to reread it, because I was too excited to post it, but I will go through it later and fix it up….but if any of you have a beta thing on your profile and can read my work and get it back quickly, tell me and maybe we could work something out!

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