This is an edited version of what I published yesterday. I hated what I put here yesterday, specifically the last scene. If you've already read this part, please re-read it. It's quite changed. (I know, aren't I ridiculous...)

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Yes. My update mentality sucks. Yes I'm a terrible person. I'm working on that. ;)

Also, I haven't spoken to my beta reader in two years and don't even know if she's still in the fandom. (Hi Miranda!) So this is unbeta'ed... I felt so crap about how much time this took to get out so thought I'd just upload it and get it over with. There's bound to be mistakes, if they're are too painful to leave in as is... let me know.

(The last scene was inspired by a certain room in Book 4. You'll know the one.)

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Chapter 2: Fast Times at Hogwarts High

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The acid blue sky was dazzling and distinctly unseasonal. She couldn't resist opening the dormitory window, positioning herself along the windowsill and daggling one knee-socked leg between the grate and over its edge.

She felt the sun, beating down on her, and if she closed her eyes, it was almost as if she was home in Surrey and she was the beanpole of her 8 year old self, sprawled out next to a chalk drawing, the summer sun melting her into the concrete sidewalk, the occasional plane casting shadows on the pavement as they flew overhead. Her thoughts wandered and walked her back to that morning last week, in the transfiguration classroom where the streaks of morning sun caughtthe dust particles floating in the air around them. He was kissing her. She was kissing him back. This time she was rewriting the ending and they were speaking new lines in soft tongues. His impatient hands pushed past her heavy school robes, slipping under her shirt, cool fingertips skimming the velvet expanse of her back, then skillfully unhooking her bra. She felt the hot caress of naughty words against the shell of her ear, whispering them back and then…

"Oi, Evans, don't jump!"

The words were jarring and broke her reverie. Sirius Black squinted up at her from the courtyard below with a lazy grin, broom slung over his shoulder, bound most likely for the Quidditch field.

"I know working with James is enough to drive anyone to jump out their dormitory window but think of all the things you still have to look forward to, Evans. All those big heavy books to read and, of course, the day you finally succumb to my charms."

"What charms, Black? Don't move! Maybe I can take you out with me… kill you in my descent," she shouted down to him grinning wickedly.

"Well, what a way to go, huh? Underneath you, Evans." His words boomed up at her and she thanked the stars that nearly everyone old enough to understand Black's comments were at Hogsmeade.

"How is it, Black, that you haven't gotten syphilis and died?"

"Is that what you gave me that night?" he leered.

"God I hope so." She shouted back, smiling sweetly down at him, but inwardly wondered why she was willingly engaging in this fucked up excuse for flirtation with Hogwart's most notorious Lothario.

She heard the sound of approaching footsteps and then Potter came into view, joining Siruis below her. He gave a polite wave with barely a hint of a smile. This is what their interaction had been reduced to; perfunctory greetings. She felt the heat come to her cheeks and returned the gesture, equally as strained. Siruis seemed oblivious to the tension running between them, or at the very least, amused by it and made no move to signal the end of the shouting match he probably considered a conversation.

"Why aren't you up in Hogsmeade with everyone else?" Sirius bellowed up at her and both he and James looked up at her expectantly.

Because, she cursed to herself, she had been trying to avoid running into Potter, hadn't she?

She called down to the pair, trying to keep her voice light, but it sounded forced, even to her own ears. "I was planning to but I thought I'd better make a start on my…" She struggled to think of something, anything.

"…daydream?" Sirius finished for her cheekily, "Okay, well, for authenticity's sake, James is a boxers man not briefs."

She smiled sarcastically and mentally kicked herself.

"Thanks. I'll keep a good thought," she managed to deadpan, desperate to play down how accurately Sirius had read her thoughts.

She knew she was being ridiculous and that her attempts at avoidance were beyond stupid and immature, but every time she saw him, she was taken back to that empty tranfiguration classroom. She was reminded of that brief moment, where he hadn't been Potter and she hadn't been Evans and they didn't have to hate eachother.

They said goodbye and she watched as the two boys walked across the school over towards the Quidditch pitch.

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"It's not that I don't appreciate your attempts to fix things between Evans..." James started uneasily.

Sirius was grinning madly. James took the bait.

"What?"

"Oh, Spare me James, you're glad I prolonged the conversation… the way she was sitting you could totally see up her skirt."

There was confirmation in his silence.

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The prefect bathroom reminded her of an old Roman Bath; the columns, the high ceiling, ornate tiling. There were no windows and the room was lit only by a few solitary candles. She swam the length of the large bath as if it was a lap pool and then floated on her black like a corpse in the now tepid water. The reflection of the candlelight flickered off the surface, casting strange wobbling shadows along the walls. She played with the taps on the side of the bath and soon the small pool was filled with tiny foamy bubbles and the air was thick with steam. She stretched out lazily, feeling relaxed for the first time in a week. Who knows how long she lay floating there, luxuriating in the steaming water, feeling the warmth seep into her muscles.

Suddenly, she heard a strange strangled sound behind her. She opened her eyes warily.

Muddy and grass stained, sweaty and flushed, his face was streaked with dirt. His mud-splattered Quidditch robes had been kicked into a messy pile in the corner.

No no no.

She dove under the water. Her mind was screaming.

Jumbles of expletives.

No no no no.

Every bad word she'd ever heard.

No no no no.

And then the words...

White.

Cotton.

Boxers.

Her lungs began burning with stale air and survival instinct kicked in. She took a giant gulp as she broke through the surface.

He hadn't moved.

"YOU. HAVE. SOME. NERVE!" she was gasping for air but somehow her voice had managed to skip a few octaves.

He blinked slowly at her, his mouth parted ever so slightly, utterly bewildered.

"How… HOW dare you!!YOU FOLLOWED ME IN HERE?!! I thought you were capable of some pretty low depths, Potter, but this?? You're perverted.... YOU'RE SICK!"

She was crouching low in the water, sinking into the bubbles, trying her best to cover herself with her arms.

"HEY!"

"Did you think that if you caught me with my clothes off, that I'd let something happen here?? Just because I let you kiss me once doesn't give you leave to have sex with me!!?"

"What are you TALKING about!??"

"I should have KNOWN you'd do this! I should have known you'd pull this kind of stunt! You're... you're... PATHETIC!"

"Evans, listen-"

"TURN. AROUND!!!" she screeched.

"Evans..."

"AT LEAST LET ME KEEP MY LAST SHRED OF DIGNITY BY HANDING ME A TOWEL."

He moved wordlessly over to a small bench where the house elves had laid out a neat pile of fluffy white towels.

"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT TURNING AROUND AGAIN POTTER" she threatened shrilly, spitting his name out like it was a dirty word.

"Oh for fucks sake..." she heard him mumbled under his breath.

Holding the towel above his head like a white flag of surrender, he made deliberate and exaggerated steps backwards towards the edge of the bath. Her image was burning the backs of his eyelids; pink limbed, pearly and damp, her long hair painting dark strands across her face and then fanning out around her in the water like petals.

She was like some damn fucking poem, wasn't she? Floating there on her back, wearing that aggravating secret smile. Like some hot naked Mona Lisa. That secret smile, he played it over and over again. Like a skipping record in his brain.

The room was still clouded in steam and this had left the floor tiles slick with condensation.

He felt his feet fly out from under him and experienced himself falling as if it was happening in slow motion, frame by frame. He tried to steady himself but felt the sharp twist as he fell awkwardly on his ankle and then the crack of his head as it hit the side of the bath. He tumbled clumsily into the water. Disorientated, he seemed to tangle himself up in his own limbs. His eyes snapped open and he saw the world through a watery oscillating mirror. And he saw her. Or maybe he just wanted to see her so badly that he made himself believe.

Tiny air bubbles beading on her breasts like pearls.

One perfect winking navel.

An anemone flower undulating in deep sea silence.

The seconds stretched on and on and on and then all at once his feet found the bottom of the bath and he propelled himself out of the water.

She hadn't moved but her wide eyes betrayed her panic.

"Are you... are you bleeding?" she asked, both quiet and anxious.

"I don't think so."

He noticed the motion of the water and small waves lapping at the edge of the bath before he realised she was moving towards him. The water was high here but she held her arms modestly over her chest.

"Let me see?"

He closed his eyes, partly in politeness but mostly in sheer panic and turned his head slightly so she could inspect the damage.

He felt a shaky hand touch the back of his head and then her silky fingers tracing delicate lines down his neck.

"It's fine," she whispered.

He waited for her to move away. Instead, he felt her rise up on her tip toes and then her cool lips descend on his throat.

She could feel his pulse thumping furiously beneath her lips as she placed feathery kisses along his jawbone, following that same path he had taken in the classroom, to his mouth. She parted her lips slightly and brushed the tip of her tongue against his teeth. Suddenly, he became aware that aware that every part of her soft form was pressed up against him and she was moving in a way that made him forget all about the pounding... in his head.

"Lily..." he breathed, husky and uneven.

And all at once she seemed to remember herself.

She froze.

She fell back, exhaling heavily.

The silence seemed unending and she wouldn't look at him.

"You should probably go to the hospital wing. You might have a concussion..." she said and trailed off uneasily, retreating to the other side of the bath.

"Thanks." He didn't sound very grateful. "You mind turning round?"

"Oh... Sorry."

She heard him push himself up, out of the water and saw the small ripples chase each-other to the edge. She wouldn't think about it. No, she wouldn't! About how tiny droplets of water would be running down his body, how the white cotton would cling to every part of him, how, in its sodden state, it would have turned ever-so-slightly...

The door slammed.

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A/N:

Who ever thought someone would use the words "limp form" to describe James. Though I tried my best to undo the damage later. No prizes to guess why he wanted her to turn around.

And no, he didn't know she was in there initially. I had a couple of backstories but it just made the chapter so cluttered... about a magical lock or how Lily was supposed to use a locking charm but forgot. So if you were wondering about that... there's your backstory.

And... the fonts on my document preview are all funny... Sorry I don't know how to fix it for you.

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