31 August 2012
The next Order meeting I saw that Dumbledore had taken my advice and there were the two 7th year prefects from each house (except Slytherin).
I sat with James and Remus and tried to be attentive to what was being said.
James however, was hanging off Dumbledore's every word, causing me to wonder when we'd swapped personalities.
I perked up though, when Dumbledore mentioned a mission (yes, that was what he called it) in which he would need students' help. He didn't say anything more about it that meeting, therefore guaranteeing none of us would get a wink of sleep until we heard more about it.
In the meantime, we were all (the Order members) shocked to hear there would be a ball at Christmas again. For one thing, we never had balls at Hogwarts except for the Triwizard Tournament and, for another, festivities were the last thing on anyone's minds, not while we were in the midst of war.
Not that we weren't at war before but now we were actually fighting in it and, in my case, had been affected by it, it seemed all the more real.
Dumbledore was mad. Not in a good way.
'Isn't it exciting? D'you recon it'll be as amazing as last year?' gushed Melissa.
'Lissa, I'm not going.'
She stared at me in disbelief. Why, I don't know. I never was the most girly person ever and surely she would have expected my parents' deaths to have crushed whatever aptitude I had for celebrating from me.
'Why not?'
'Liss, there are so many more important things than partying. What about NEWTs? What about the war?'
'Lily. NEWTs aren't for ages plus it's only one night and as for the war, what can we do about it, really?' she spoke cautiously, as if I was a mental patient that might collapse into madness at anything. She sounded like she was pleading.
'I don't want to go to a ridiculous 'ball' when there's much more important stuff I could be doing.' I snapped.
For some reason I was in a horrible mood and everything seemed to be getting on my nerves. I couldn't face arguing with Lissa because I really didn't have the energy. I was just so tired.
I bumped into James as he was coming out of our common room.
'Lily. Hi.'
'Hey, um, can I-'
'You're not going are you?'
I knew he was talking about the ball. It was all anyone was thinking about.
'No. Even if I didn't have better, more important things to do, it would be no fun.'
'Yeah. That's- that's what I thought.'
I looked at him. Something about his last sentence was odd. He nodded and walked off as he was doing before I bumped into him.
It was weird how he sounded. Like he wasn't quite sure he believed himself until I said I felt the same.
I sat heavily on my bed.
James Potter.
Somehow everything I did recently came back to him. I liked him. But I'd known that since last year. I wasn't sure if I meant what I'd told him about not needing a relationship. I didn't know what I wanted. Sev was gone. We'd promised each other that after the war we could have always again but we both knew it was unlikely to happen. We were unlikely to survive the war and really if I thought about it, it was now or never. The only think stopping me- us- now was my pride.
I laughed bitterly.
My Gryffindor pride. I knew there was no point and that it was only going against what I and everyone else wanted but I'd held out against James Potter's charm since we met years ago, and I, stubborn old me, didn't want to accept defeat.
Against everything I wanted, there was a part of me that wouldn't let it happen.
Tuney was right about one thing.
I was very weird.
18. F.a.n.f.i.c. • Opuss № I