James and Lily Potter: Second year

Chapter 15: Second year

"I saw you with him, Lils!" cried Arabella with relish, as they headed off to Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Wickham. "You two were holding hands!"

"For about three seconds!" retorted Lily. She was fed up with all the talk of her and James as a couple. Surely, she knew they would get married later, but she didn't like him just now, especially with Bella never letting her live up to this.

"Bells, leave Lils alone," said Jennifer, yawning widely. "Who cares if she and James Potter were holding hands. They're going to get married anyway after Hogwarts."

"Thank you, Jen, I've been waiting for Bella here to understand that. Now, Bells, will you now leave me alone?"

"Let me think about that-no."

"I hope Potter is suffering just as much as I am from Sirius," muttered Lily gloomily, as she sat at her usual table for the class. She adored Professor Wickham: he was a young wizard in his mid-thirties who was always enthusiastic about teaching them to fight the Dark Arts and the many curses. Most fortunately for the young Gryffindors that they didn't take a double class with another house; they wanted Professor Wickham all to themselves.

"Lily! So kind of you to join us!" Professor Wickham winked as she sat down. Lily looked at him, confused for a moment, but then realized that she had been yelling at Arabella for a full three minutes.

"Oh sorry about that, Professor," Lily mumbled.

"Mr Potter, if you would be so kind as to pay attention to these curses I'm about to explain here," he patiently said, interrupting James' daydream for the fifth time that day. "If I may have a word with you after class." Remus was glaring at James. Defense Against the Dark Arts was his favourite class and he took notes very dutifully every single class, even if it was boring. He felt it very insulting that James barely paid attention to such fascinating curses, but quickly hastened himself to his notes again, grinning, as he saw James glance toward Lily again. Sirius, obviously, watched this all with an eagle eye and gave a thumbs-up to James when Wickham had interrupted his little daydream. He personally thought that Lily and James were so over each other, but wouldn't admit it. He also thought that they were both stubborn as mules. Lily who was always a good student, flushed whenever Professor Wickham said James' name. She did not look over towards his way, but always ended up in some sort of dazed dream whenever she stared at the notes in the book she was supposed to be copying. It happened quite often in every class except for Charms and Potions; Charns was her favourite class and because it was likely to get all the points from Gryffindor taken off if she didn't pay attention in potions.

Arabella was currently laughing at Lily silently to herself. Lily was barely noticed because of two reasons: either because she was daydreaming about James again or taking down detailed notes. Too bored to now paying attention to Wickham's energetic voice, Bella passed a note to Lily.

'Hey, Lils!'

'Bella what are you doing?'

'Hey, this is boring, you know.'

'It is not! Professor Wickham is very intellectual in his field of study. And these curses are fascinating.'

'Yeah, whatever, forget the stupid speeches. Wickham's cool, but he's so boring sometimes. All right, all the time.'

'Well, it's not my fault you barely passed your exams. I wouldn't be surprised to see you fail this year.'

'Would you want me to?'

'If you keep bothering me about this nonsense of James Potter, yes, I would.'

'Darn. Fine, I'll stop bugging you about Jamsie.'