-Chapter Eight: Jack and the Beanstalk

-By Natali

"Deep shit," Rachel muttered, pacing the parlor where Remus and Sirius watched her, somber. Grace was watching Lily's cat play with its yarn, oblivious to the world. "I'll kill him."

"Whatever," Remus said, bored with it all. "You won't be able to do anything about it. You know how James and Lily are…"

"Yeah. All they have to do is be left alone long enough, and they'll shag each other. That's how they've managed to stay together all this time, you know," Sirius muttered.

"It's James's fault. All of it is," Grace pouted. "Do you know how much trouble this will be? Oh, it's just such a pain in the arse for us all."

Rachel played with her glasses, biting the tip. "Dumbledore sound good?"

"First we need to sort of assess this situation," Remus disagreed, rising. "I mean, how do we go about all this…? James failed to mention that the necklace existed, but Sirius and me have always known that there would be some sort of complication from Lord Voldemort. We even thought Lily was aware of this…"

"But she wasn't, obviously. And James, idiot, gave her the necklace," Sirius groaned, pulling on his hair. "It's all James's fault for not telling us."

"Can't they just give to someone else?" Grace asked.

"They could, but I doubt it'd work."

"Meaning?"

"Magical objects don't like leaving their owners. I bet you that necklace would somehow find its way back to Lily."

"What does that have to do with Voldemort anyway?" Rachel half-screamed, frustrated. "How is that supposed to help him kill off the Potters?"

"Not a clue," Remus and Sirius shrugged simultaneously.

"Well, look who's here," Rachel smiled. "I'm not sure whether to kill you guys or congratulate you…"

-

June 19-.

Whoever decided that Jack and the Fucking Beanstalk was a good story, should be bopped on the head with a sledgehammer.

I hate stories now. Fables, fairy tales, stories of any and every kind… James told me loads of stories, just because his mum used to tell them to him, and he had loads in his empty brain. I hate stories… They remind of good times. Good times should go to hell. So should Jack and his fucking beanstalk. Oh why not send that idiot, mother fucking giant there too! You know who should also go to hell?

James should go to hell.

Why does he keep doing this? He manages to ruin every bloody thing for me, yet there he goes, walking around as if he's just all fine and dandy. Well screw him. You'd figure, right, that since school is about to finish—for good now, mind you—that he'd be able to contain himself for the three blasted days that are left?

Yet no, here I am, Lily Evans, sobbing my heart out, because Mr. Fucking Potter couldn't keep his fucking pants the fuck up. Damn him! Where does he get off, doing things like this!

Imagine my surprise when I come into his room and that whore Lorena di Maya is on top of him, bouncing around like she's in some sort of car with bad shock absorbers! I've never seen anything so unskillful as that bitch trying to do… whatever it was she was doing.

So I ask: "Something you want to tell me, James?"

You should have seen that black-haired cunt jump off him, trying to cover those tiny boobs of hers. I'm not even sure she has a full A cup yet!

Of all the creatures he could've cheated with… A fucking male would have been better!

I think it would've hurt me less, too. Imagine, me being rejected for Lousy-in-Bed Lorena! Talk about wounded pride…

He's such a prick. Just a handsome, practically perfect prick, pompous prat, pain in my arse GIT! Oh, damn, I'm using alliterations now. You know it's bad.

I feel, quite frankly, like digging myself a grave and laying my body down to die and wither away.

Dust to dust… Ashes to ashes… Eventually they all fall.

Even the king and queen of Hogwarts.

Or perhaps I should say especially?

I don't think it's fair to put me through all this. He done things like this before, yet all he's got to do to get me back is to look at me, tell me he'll never do it again, and say how much he cares about me, needs me… Loves me…

How much he loves me, how sad he was until I brightened up his life, how I make him quiver with lust just by saying his bloody name.

He promised he'd never want another.

So much for that. She wasn't exactly forcing him, was she? And the look on her face! Back stabbing bitch! It told me all I needed to know: 'Oops, you caught me with your boyfriend. We aren't sorry we did it, just that we got caught'.

During this lovely exchange of faces (during which my own countenance probably spoke loud and clear to her: 'Go ahead, I dare you to fall asleep and close your eyes tonight! No one encroaches on what is mine'), that ingrate which I used to call my boyfriend was pulling on his pants and trying to talk to me.

In the movies, the scene always blurs, as if in slow motion, and the girl is seen running away, crying. I know how that feels, as of today.

He's outside right now, pounding on my door. 'Lily, it's… not what you think' he keeps yelling, over and over and over again… Until that's all I hear, but I've managed to drown things out.

How can it not be what I think? I saw them shagging each other, and he wasn't doing much to fight her off either!

I'll kill myself. Of all the things he's done—would have done in the future, too—I would never have thought this…

His mantra's changed now. I wonder when? I hadn't noticed. Something to the effect of: 'Open the door, please Lils, I've got to talk to you. Listen to me, my love'.

Dirty, rotten, cheating bastard.

I bet he hears me sobbing—I am, you know. I've never cried like this before. Not when my pets died, not when I found out that Petunia hated me, not when I understood what my mother would do with our mailmen, gardeners, and lawn mowers while Daddy was away on business. Not even then was I this hurt. Because I've never loved like this.

Obviously, he hasn't either. Loved, that is. Or at least, not me. Never me. That's what hurts too. Every time he whispered those three words to me ("I love you, my Flower of the Forest," he whisper against my lips, nearly every night before bed…), it was all a lie.

One big lie.

How does someone go from utter, unmitigated happiness to wrist-slitting depression in less than thirty seconds?

Ask James Potter, and he'll be glad to explain it to you.

-

-Memory of that entry…-

"You prick," James groaned, leaning against the door, still topless. People were eyeing him oddly, and Lily's best mates looked about ready to kill him, even though they didn't know what he'd done.

They knew he'd done something.

"I think she's gone to sleep," Rachel snapped, crossing her arms and pushing herself off the wall behind him. "Let me get in."

"If you get in, then so do I," he growled, examining his reddened palms. He must have been pounding on that door for at least half an hour now. "Anyway, she won't open the door."

Grace grimaced. "What did you do? Usually Lily just hits you upside the head then moves on with life." Her eyes were so penetrating that he felt as if she knew every little thing that had happened—Lily walking in, staring for a moment, yelling various epithets (in different languages), then running out, crying…

"Nothing," he muttered, sighing and balling his fists up. Lils never cried… "If she wants to talk to me… I mean, if she comes out or opens the door, will you let me know? I want—need—to talk to her."

Rachel and Grace stared at him as he walked off, trying to hold back tears, unbeknownst to them.

"What do you think he did?" Grace whispered to Rachel, turning toward their door. "Lils, it's just us. Open up."

Silence, then a gut-wrenching sob.

Rachel and Grace looked at each other.

"Whoa, this is worse than the time that Lils didn't get an O.W.L. in Arithmancy," Rachel gawked. "Should we get her chocolate? Alcohol? Finger paints?" Suddenly, the lock on the door clicked, and the door creaked open ominously.

"You should tell one of the House Elves to oil that door," Lily sobbed throwing herself on the bed. "Please don't talk to me. Pretend I'm not even here."

Of course, if Rachel and Grace hadn't known Lily so well, they wouldn't have known what she said, because her face was buried in her already soaked pillow, muffling the words so that it sounded something more like, "Heez don't hok fu me. Preten im not eve here," with a dramatic wail on 'here'.

"Oh, sure, because a sobbing 17-year-old red head is just normal," Grace smiled, patting Lily back. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Sure?"

"Yes. I don't. Go away. Please."

Grace sighed, and dragged Rachel out.

"We shouldn't have left her," Rachel mumbled, heading down the stairs for dinner. "What if she kills herself or something?" Grace knew she was only half-joking.

"I think," Grace said sadly, "that we'll never really know what happened between them. Maybe it's a good thing?" she asked softly as they watched James sprint upstairs, slipping when the staircase became a slide. He managed to reach up there though, to their surprise.

"Yeah. If we knew, we might tear him to shreds…" Rachel agreed. "Poor Lily. Out of all of us, she was always the least violent." She cast a look at Grace, who was giggling. "Ok, so maybe you are, and maybe you wouldn't tear the asshole to shreds. But I would!"

Back upstairs, James was holding Lily's wrists as she tried to pummel him. He wasn't exactly straining, but to him, her tears were more hurtful than her closed fists.

"Lily, please…" he begged.

"I hate you!" she yelled, wrenching herself from his grasp. "I do! I hate everything you do to me, you know that? I hate how I want to die because some bimbo spread her legs for you! I hate how I'm not even sure I blame you for it! I hate how I blame myself, because I'm obviously not enough." She'd stopped sobbing by now—you could only go for so long before you got dehydrated—but she was still crying quietly.

"You were—are—enough, Lils," James sighed, his heart dropping with each word. "I was stupid."

"Am," she corrected, lying down on her bed. "That's present tense. You always have been and always will be a bloody idiot. Always. And in my eyes even worse."

"I deserve that," he gulped.

"You deserve worse."

"I don't deserve you."

"You don't. Lucky for you, you don't have me anymore."

"Lily—"

"Shut up and get out," she interrupted. She sounded stuffy, and her eyes were so swollen she felt that she'd never be able to close her eyes.

"Lily, we need to talk," James said more forcefully. "Let me tell you what happened."

"I'm not blind, Potter. I know what happened," she said coldly. "Please get out."

James didn't move for a moment, but eventually moved for the door. "Eventually, Lils, you're going to have to talk to me. And when that day comes, I'm going to keep telling you what I'm going to tell you now: I love you."

The thing he heard was the sound of a vase smashing against the door, where James's head had been just seconds before.

"Don't call me Lils," she whispered, a tear slipping down her nose.

-

-Present Time-

"You're joking? That's what he did?" Rachel shrieked, jumping out of her chair. "You even forgave him!"

"Why, thank you, Rachel," James said dryly. "It's an honor to know that you'll back me one-hundred and two percent."

"Fuck off, you wanker!" Rachel spat. "You're useless, you know?"

"Rachel, shut up," Grace sighed, rubbing her temples. "Lils forgave him, that's what matters."

"And just look at where that got her—in danger of dying and possibly pregnant!" Rachel said exasperatedly.

"I'm not pregnant, Rachel," Lily rolled her eyes.

"You could be! You two just shagged. Didn't you?"

"Rachel, shut up before I shut you up," Lily growled. "I didn't tell you guys the story so that you could all gang up on James. And don't think I don't see you over there, Sirius, with that homicidal look in your eyes."

"You're disgusting. She was your girlfriend! And with Lorena di Maya, of all the women, you chose her?" Sirius gasped. "My Lord, I'd take Lily over Rachel some days!"

"Usually around the time when I'm PMSing…" Rachel snickered.

"Let it go," Lily said harshly. "That's not why I told you guys."

"They're right, of course," James shrugged. "I am disgusting. Wow, I didn't know your little diary there was so very… vehement. Very descriptive."

"So why'd you take him back?" Grace asked.

"None of your business," James and Lily both replied. The subject was dropped.

"So, what was the point of that?" Remus asked eventually.

"To show you how powerful Voldemort can be," Lily said quietly. "James would never have…"

"In other words, even the oh-so-imperfect James Potter isn't as low as to sleep with someone who isn't his girlfriend. Thanks guys, I know how much trust you put in my character," he snorted.

"Forget this, I want to party. Club, anyone?" Rachel said, jumping up, always the party girl…

-

-A/N: Oh guys, I'm sorry! But I've been just as unfaithful to my other stories! Thank you to everyone! Please read and review, sorry for any typos, but I've been in front of this computer typing for too long to bother editing it. I'm usually pretty good about things like that, and I hardly spell check anyway, so nothing new.

Oh, yeah! LMAO, yes, I KNOW I got the quadratic formula wrong! I'm sorry guys, I didn't mean to, but I couldn't remember it. On the bright side, my people in Algebra corrected me: x the opposite of b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4 times a times c over two times a. Lol. Great, huh? BUT I'm glad that my readers aren't idiots! W00t w00t for all of ya'll!

Ok, as for the reason why James gave Lily the necklace… Basically because he felt like it and couldn't be bothered to give it to anyone else. Stupid? Yeah, sorry. But it seemed like an ok idea when I first thought of it…

Thank you all for reviewing, sorry that I can't give personal replies. But I do really appreciate it!