Visiting One of Saturn's Rings by shana [email protected] aim: meshananotu
books hp pre-1981 romance pg
Lily Evans was in her dorm room sulking on her bed, reading a note she had stolen just before Charms from the bookbag of one of her best friends; Tarika, or Riky for short. It was from Dan Michetti—a seventh year like them, but in Ravenclaw and not Gryffindor. Lily was almost obsessed with him; his name was all over the inside of her bookbag and was doodled on to any of her homework assignments that she was working on when she started daydreaming. Potions and Charms were the only classes Gryffindor had with Ravenclaw—lucky for her, those were the easiest classes and she was able to spend most of her time almost drooling over Dan, who was usually working with the popular Gryffindor boys.
But, as it turned out, Dan was obviously not drooling over her like she had hoped he was. Reading the note, she felt—vividly—her heart breaking as she found out that Dan wanted to meet Riky at Hogsmeade. Again. Which meant that they had met earlier. And Riky knew of Lily's almost-obsession: she was the one who always made fun of Lily for not 'keeping her options open' and 'obsessing over one hot guy.'
"Well excuse me!" Lily said aloud. "Who said she could talk? She's practically playing Michael!" Michael Chévrèmonte was Riky's boyfriend, and also one of their fellow Gryffindor seventh years. "Oh, wait. They broke up yesterday." It had been a mutual breakup in the common room the night before; both parties wanted to see other people and "weren't getting enough action."
Lily, on the other hand, had gotten her fair share of action, and had shunned all of the popular boys because of that since the end of her fourth year. The Homecoming dance was coming up, and it wasn't something she was looking forward to.They had become boring the first time she went, back in her fifth year, because of being dateless. No one wanted to ask out the popular-gone-invisible Lily Evans, who had once been invincible in Charms, a champion skiier, and the most popular girl in Hogwarts. But not anymore. The time for all that had passed.
It was definitely time to move on, she reminded her self yet again, crumpling up the note and tossing it to the bed closest to the door. It was a far throw—three beds were between her's and Riky's, and she had to throw between the top of the bed and the bottom or it would bounce down. A summer in America playing baseball with her cousins had helped her pitching arm. Lily put her face on her pillow.
She could feel the tears welling up under her scrunched shut eyelids.
*
James waved to one of the girls passing him in the Charms hallway. She had blown him a kiss over the rushing crowd. 'What was her name again? Oh yeah, Brianna,' he reminded himself. She was one of the chosen few he was considering asking to the Homecoming dance. It was in exactly two weeks, the third Friday of the school year. Of course, he was one of the most popular boys in Hogwarts, and he had to admit that it went to his head once in a while. But he still had to find a date worthy of going to Homecoming with him.
Homecoming at Hogwarts was different from Homecoming in American and English schools. There was no football or soccer games, just a time off for fifth-years-and-above that went from noon on Friday to midnight Saturday. It was a ski outing in the mountains behind the school and a dance with lots of cocoa, marshmallows, and a buffet line. It was definitely one of the better Hogwarts holidays, in James's opinion.
If you had asked James during his third or fourth year who he would go to Homecoming with in his fifth, sixth, or even seventh year, he would have said his ex's name immediately. They had gone out for two years straight, plus the summer after their second year. After a horrendously loud fight on the Hogwarts Express during the trip back home for the summer when their fourth year ended, they broke up permanently. It was stuck smack dab in the middle of his rep, and everybody from the engineer to the witch that sold pastries heard them shouting over the drone of the train. He still repented that day; he had really liked the girl.
But now, Brianna was on his mind. Charms class flew by. He gave it his usual negative-thirty percent effort until the bell rang, when he followed the rest of the class out the door.
Someone pounded his back. "Hey, man, where were you during class? Visiting one of Saturn's rings?"
"Just thinking," he said, turning to see Dan Michetti, Ravenclaw seventh year.
"Whoa, that's a first."
"Shut up, Michetti."
"Hey, you were zonked—seriously. Homecoming on your mind?"
"Yeah. It's in exactly one week and I still have to find a date."
"Well, I've got my date covered. I'm going with Tarika."
"Evans's best friend?" This was new.
"Yeah."
"Really?" James thought of something he had overheard some Gryffindor seventh year girls saying. "Well, I happen to know a little something about—"
"Tell me later; I have to go see Riky at lunch." Dan stepped ahead of James and half-jogged to the front of the group going towards the Great Hall.
" 'Kay, see ya," he called to the retreating figure. He watched Dan kiss Riky on the cheek—something they obviously wouldn't do had a certain someone been there.
James smirked a bit. This was juicy—he had heard that Lily Evans was obsessed with Dan, but wait'll she found out that her best friend was going out with him! He looked in front of him, where the rest of his Charms class was by now, for a flash of red hair. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen the familiar fiery red hair all Charms class. He frowned. Usually Lily steered clear of his crowd for some reason, but he sometimes heard her laugh from the other end of the room. And he was one for cutting boring classes—but Evans? Nah. She had the top grade of the class in Charms. It came easy to her, like Transfiguration for him.
But there must have been a reason for her to cut class. James doubled back and headed towards the Gryffindor tower.
*
Lily woke about an hour later. She had cried herself to sleep, something she hadn't done since her first day home after her fourth year. But today there was a different reason for her crying. She stood up, aware that the room was dark—someone must have pulled the window shades, unless they automatically pulled themselves; one never knew at Hogwarts. Lighting her wand, she saw that the room was empty but for her. It was either the middle of Charms or lunch, she concluded. She headed down to the common room, but stopped at the door.
Footsteps. She heard footsteps. She sprinted back to her bed and threw herself underneath it. Putting an invisible item charm on the bedskirts, she watched the doorknob open and the door slowly swing on its hinges. She caught her breath in her throat. "James?" she croaked, almost silently. What was he doing in here? In the seventh year girls' dorm? In the middle of class?
"Hey, Evans," James stage-whispered to the whole room, obviously hoping Lily would hear. "Have I got news for you!" He walked closer to her bed—how had he known which was hers?—and transfigured the comb on her nightstand into a torch. He turned it on, and Lily had to shut her eyes to the light bulb in it. So he didn't know how to open the shades.
Lily squinted and watched a puzzled look cross James's face as he scanned the room with the torch. 'Good,' she thought. 'I confused him.' Suddenly, he pulled the bedskirt up and shined the light in her face. She screamed.
"Good god, James! Did you have to do that?" He dragged her out from under the bed and grinned. She stood up and wiped the dust off of her clothes and wand.
"Of course. Did you expect less of me?"
"Surprisingly, yes."
"So, did I interrupt something between you and the carpet?"
"Oh, shut up, you sicko." Lily held back her smile. She hadn't spoken to James in a long time, and was starting to remember how his head worked.
"Just checking. Are you still afraid or the monsters in the closet or something, 'cause I see no other reason for you to be hiding under your bed"
"No. How did you know which was my bed?" She voiced the question that had been spinning in her head.
"I have an excellent memory."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
The conversation stopped for a while, as both of them shifted their weight uncomfortably. Lily leaned on one of the bedposts.
"So, uh, why'd you come up here?" Lily asked quietly, sliding down the post and sitting cross-legged on the floor.
"Why'd you cut class?" James replied in retaliation.
"What time is it anyways?" She looked up at James, who was putting the torch on Lily's bed and pointing it towards the back wall. He looked at his wrist and shook his head rapidly for a moment.
"Forgot my watch. But lunch just started when I came out here."
"Charms ended?"
"Yeah." He nodded slowly, to illustrate his point.
"I get it." Her stomach growled and she blushed.
"Hungry?" James's grin lit his face; he must have had an idea.
"Yeah." Lily watched him go to the trunk at the end of her bed and pull out a chocolate frog wrapper—the first her ex had bought her. She wondered why she hadn't thrown it away. It had a lot of sentimental value, she figured. James tapped it with his wand and miraculously, he suddenly held in the wrapper four miniature chocolate frogs.
"I can't make full-sized ones yet, but they're as good as the original," he explained, placing the open wrapper on the ground in front of her. She looked up and gave him a gracious smile.
*
Over an hour later, James finally stood up from sitting on Lily's bed and left her dorm, heading towards his. Both of them had decided on skipping Potions, seeing as they already missed the first part of it.
Sometime during the time he had made five more frogs—the last was in case Lily felt hungry later—he had realized why Lily had cut class. When he had first gone into the room, he had seen the crumpled paper sitting on the bed closest to the door. At first he had wondered what it was, but when Lily went into the bathroom to fix her hair something like that, he had summoned the note and read it.
Written on it was familiar slanted handwriting, giving away that it was written by the only lefty he knew: Dan Michetti. It explained a lot and was pretty easy to understand; Lily likes Dan, Dan ignores Lily, Dan goes out with Riky, Lily cuts class. He also figured that skipping Potions was a good idea, since they had it with the Ravenclaws.
The reason had hit him so suddenly that one of the miniature frogs he made was wrapped and, when opened, had a small card in it; his Quidditch card, which he had designed during an especially boring Charms class. Lily had insisted on keeping it and had stuffed it into the drawer in her nightstand before James could reject the idea.
Now, James was sitting in the armchair closest to the fire in the Gryffindor common room. He had turned the chair so the back was facing anyone who would walk in and look in his direction, and he was staring into the fire itself.
James was doing a lot of thinking. He had decided to ask Brianna to Homecoming—he hoped that she was a good skiier, because he always skipped the bunny hills and went down the Suicide Hill every time. After he was sick of downhill, he would strap on some cross-country skis and go through the light forest in the mountains. At the dance, he would always join the Breakdance Minute, for those who actually knew how to. James could breakdance a little, but not as good as the African kid in Hufflepuff who apparently had taken lessons before coming to Hogwarts.
He took a deep breath, remembering that he was eligible for Homecoming King—and three 'Get out of detention free' permits if he won. Those would be used well, in case he got a detention during the full moon. Or if he decided to go to Hogsmeade or something.
He realized skipping lunch hadn't made him hungry; he had eaten enough chocolate frogs with Lily. Feeling sleepy for some reason—as one usually does after eating that much Wizard chocolate—he stuffed his glasses into his pocket and drifted off to dreamland.
*
books hp pre-1981 romance pg
Lily Evans was in her dorm room sulking on her bed, reading a note she had stolen just before Charms from the bookbag of one of her best friends; Tarika, or Riky for short. It was from Dan Michetti—a seventh year like them, but in Ravenclaw and not Gryffindor. Lily was almost obsessed with him; his name was all over the inside of her bookbag and was doodled on to any of her homework assignments that she was working on when she started daydreaming. Potions and Charms were the only classes Gryffindor had with Ravenclaw—lucky for her, those were the easiest classes and she was able to spend most of her time almost drooling over Dan, who was usually working with the popular Gryffindor boys.
But, as it turned out, Dan was obviously not drooling over her like she had hoped he was. Reading the note, she felt—vividly—her heart breaking as she found out that Dan wanted to meet Riky at Hogsmeade. Again. Which meant that they had met earlier. And Riky knew of Lily's almost-obsession: she was the one who always made fun of Lily for not 'keeping her options open' and 'obsessing over one hot guy.'
"Well excuse me!" Lily said aloud. "Who said she could talk? She's practically playing Michael!" Michael Chévrèmonte was Riky's boyfriend, and also one of their fellow Gryffindor seventh years. "Oh, wait. They broke up yesterday." It had been a mutual breakup in the common room the night before; both parties wanted to see other people and "weren't getting enough action."
Lily, on the other hand, had gotten her fair share of action, and had shunned all of the popular boys because of that since the end of her fourth year. The Homecoming dance was coming up, and it wasn't something she was looking forward to.They had become boring the first time she went, back in her fifth year, because of being dateless. No one wanted to ask out the popular-gone-invisible Lily Evans, who had once been invincible in Charms, a champion skiier, and the most popular girl in Hogwarts. But not anymore. The time for all that had passed.
It was definitely time to move on, she reminded her self yet again, crumpling up the note and tossing it to the bed closest to the door. It was a far throw—three beds were between her's and Riky's, and she had to throw between the top of the bed and the bottom or it would bounce down. A summer in America playing baseball with her cousins had helped her pitching arm. Lily put her face on her pillow.
She could feel the tears welling up under her scrunched shut eyelids.
*
James waved to one of the girls passing him in the Charms hallway. She had blown him a kiss over the rushing crowd. 'What was her name again? Oh yeah, Brianna,' he reminded himself. She was one of the chosen few he was considering asking to the Homecoming dance. It was in exactly two weeks, the third Friday of the school year. Of course, he was one of the most popular boys in Hogwarts, and he had to admit that it went to his head once in a while. But he still had to find a date worthy of going to Homecoming with him.
Homecoming at Hogwarts was different from Homecoming in American and English schools. There was no football or soccer games, just a time off for fifth-years-and-above that went from noon on Friday to midnight Saturday. It was a ski outing in the mountains behind the school and a dance with lots of cocoa, marshmallows, and a buffet line. It was definitely one of the better Hogwarts holidays, in James's opinion.
If you had asked James during his third or fourth year who he would go to Homecoming with in his fifth, sixth, or even seventh year, he would have said his ex's name immediately. They had gone out for two years straight, plus the summer after their second year. After a horrendously loud fight on the Hogwarts Express during the trip back home for the summer when their fourth year ended, they broke up permanently. It was stuck smack dab in the middle of his rep, and everybody from the engineer to the witch that sold pastries heard them shouting over the drone of the train. He still repented that day; he had really liked the girl.
But now, Brianna was on his mind. Charms class flew by. He gave it his usual negative-thirty percent effort until the bell rang, when he followed the rest of the class out the door.
Someone pounded his back. "Hey, man, where were you during class? Visiting one of Saturn's rings?"
"Just thinking," he said, turning to see Dan Michetti, Ravenclaw seventh year.
"Whoa, that's a first."
"Shut up, Michetti."
"Hey, you were zonked—seriously. Homecoming on your mind?"
"Yeah. It's in exactly one week and I still have to find a date."
"Well, I've got my date covered. I'm going with Tarika."
"Evans's best friend?" This was new.
"Yeah."
"Really?" James thought of something he had overheard some Gryffindor seventh year girls saying. "Well, I happen to know a little something about—"
"Tell me later; I have to go see Riky at lunch." Dan stepped ahead of James and half-jogged to the front of the group going towards the Great Hall.
" 'Kay, see ya," he called to the retreating figure. He watched Dan kiss Riky on the cheek—something they obviously wouldn't do had a certain someone been there.
James smirked a bit. This was juicy—he had heard that Lily Evans was obsessed with Dan, but wait'll she found out that her best friend was going out with him! He looked in front of him, where the rest of his Charms class was by now, for a flash of red hair. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen the familiar fiery red hair all Charms class. He frowned. Usually Lily steered clear of his crowd for some reason, but he sometimes heard her laugh from the other end of the room. And he was one for cutting boring classes—but Evans? Nah. She had the top grade of the class in Charms. It came easy to her, like Transfiguration for him.
But there must have been a reason for her to cut class. James doubled back and headed towards the Gryffindor tower.
*
Lily woke about an hour later. She had cried herself to sleep, something she hadn't done since her first day home after her fourth year. But today there was a different reason for her crying. She stood up, aware that the room was dark—someone must have pulled the window shades, unless they automatically pulled themselves; one never knew at Hogwarts. Lighting her wand, she saw that the room was empty but for her. It was either the middle of Charms or lunch, she concluded. She headed down to the common room, but stopped at the door.
Footsteps. She heard footsteps. She sprinted back to her bed and threw herself underneath it. Putting an invisible item charm on the bedskirts, she watched the doorknob open and the door slowly swing on its hinges. She caught her breath in her throat. "James?" she croaked, almost silently. What was he doing in here? In the seventh year girls' dorm? In the middle of class?
"Hey, Evans," James stage-whispered to the whole room, obviously hoping Lily would hear. "Have I got news for you!" He walked closer to her bed—how had he known which was hers?—and transfigured the comb on her nightstand into a torch. He turned it on, and Lily had to shut her eyes to the light bulb in it. So he didn't know how to open the shades.
Lily squinted and watched a puzzled look cross James's face as he scanned the room with the torch. 'Good,' she thought. 'I confused him.' Suddenly, he pulled the bedskirt up and shined the light in her face. She screamed.
"Good god, James! Did you have to do that?" He dragged her out from under the bed and grinned. She stood up and wiped the dust off of her clothes and wand.
"Of course. Did you expect less of me?"
"Surprisingly, yes."
"So, did I interrupt something between you and the carpet?"
"Oh, shut up, you sicko." Lily held back her smile. She hadn't spoken to James in a long time, and was starting to remember how his head worked.
"Just checking. Are you still afraid or the monsters in the closet or something, 'cause I see no other reason for you to be hiding under your bed"
"No. How did you know which was my bed?" She voiced the question that had been spinning in her head.
"I have an excellent memory."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
The conversation stopped for a while, as both of them shifted their weight uncomfortably. Lily leaned on one of the bedposts.
"So, uh, why'd you come up here?" Lily asked quietly, sliding down the post and sitting cross-legged on the floor.
"Why'd you cut class?" James replied in retaliation.
"What time is it anyways?" She looked up at James, who was putting the torch on Lily's bed and pointing it towards the back wall. He looked at his wrist and shook his head rapidly for a moment.
"Forgot my watch. But lunch just started when I came out here."
"Charms ended?"
"Yeah." He nodded slowly, to illustrate his point.
"I get it." Her stomach growled and she blushed.
"Hungry?" James's grin lit his face; he must have had an idea.
"Yeah." Lily watched him go to the trunk at the end of her bed and pull out a chocolate frog wrapper—the first her ex had bought her. She wondered why she hadn't thrown it away. It had a lot of sentimental value, she figured. James tapped it with his wand and miraculously, he suddenly held in the wrapper four miniature chocolate frogs.
"I can't make full-sized ones yet, but they're as good as the original," he explained, placing the open wrapper on the ground in front of her. She looked up and gave him a gracious smile.
*
Over an hour later, James finally stood up from sitting on Lily's bed and left her dorm, heading towards his. Both of them had decided on skipping Potions, seeing as they already missed the first part of it.
Sometime during the time he had made five more frogs—the last was in case Lily felt hungry later—he had realized why Lily had cut class. When he had first gone into the room, he had seen the crumpled paper sitting on the bed closest to the door. At first he had wondered what it was, but when Lily went into the bathroom to fix her hair something like that, he had summoned the note and read it.
Written on it was familiar slanted handwriting, giving away that it was written by the only lefty he knew: Dan Michetti. It explained a lot and was pretty easy to understand; Lily likes Dan, Dan ignores Lily, Dan goes out with Riky, Lily cuts class. He also figured that skipping Potions was a good idea, since they had it with the Ravenclaws.
The reason had hit him so suddenly that one of the miniature frogs he made was wrapped and, when opened, had a small card in it; his Quidditch card, which he had designed during an especially boring Charms class. Lily had insisted on keeping it and had stuffed it into the drawer in her nightstand before James could reject the idea.
Now, James was sitting in the armchair closest to the fire in the Gryffindor common room. He had turned the chair so the back was facing anyone who would walk in and look in his direction, and he was staring into the fire itself.
James was doing a lot of thinking. He had decided to ask Brianna to Homecoming—he hoped that she was a good skiier, because he always skipped the bunny hills and went down the Suicide Hill every time. After he was sick of downhill, he would strap on some cross-country skis and go through the light forest in the mountains. At the dance, he would always join the Breakdance Minute, for those who actually knew how to. James could breakdance a little, but not as good as the African kid in Hufflepuff who apparently had taken lessons before coming to Hogwarts.
He took a deep breath, remembering that he was eligible for Homecoming King—and three 'Get out of detention free' permits if he won. Those would be used well, in case he got a detention during the full moon. Or if he decided to go to Hogsmeade or something.
He realized skipping lunch hadn't made him hungry; he had eaten enough chocolate frogs with Lily. Feeling sleepy for some reason—as one usually does after eating that much Wizard chocolate—he stuffed his glasses into his pocket and drifted off to dreamland.
*