easier to fake a smile than burn }, tag: alice

for two weeks now, james potter had been avoiding lily evans as if she were the
plague. for two weeks, lily had thrown notes at him, tried to catch him in between
classes, and tried to ambush him during duty to figure out what the bloody hell she'd
done to warrant such shunning. for two whole entire weeks, james had given her,
her of all people, the cold shoulder and flirted with all sorts of other girls who
paled in comparison to her. not to be arrogant, just to be honest. and for those two
long weeks, lily evans had started coming to the realization that maybe james not
being in her life was not a good thing. now there's a shocker, eh? it may have been
different if he'd just up and decided to ignore her on his own, without any provoking.
but obviously, during their fight that first night of duty, lily had said or done something
to really drive him away. over the past couple of years, lily had understandably
grown a soft spot when it came to losing people. first, her sister. petunia and lily
had been the best of friends, to say the least. there was nothing to two didn't do
together. but it wasn't even a year after getting accepted to hogwarts that her dear
sister started to look at her differently, and by her third year, petunia didn't even
treat lily like a human being. instead, lily had become a parasite, disgusting to look
at and even worse to be around. though lily should have been used to it by now,
seeing her this summer had been awful. she was lucky she'd had her best friends
there to help keep her distracted from the sight of petunia's stoic face and that of
her new husband, vernon. and then came severus snape, who was the next one
of importance to kick the bucket, figuratively. he'd messed that one up on his own,
though, calling her a mudblood and all that. then, her mother. and now james? this
was getting to be too much! even if she didn't like james all that much because he
drove her absolutely crazy, she still missed bickering with him about ridiculous attempts
at wooing her. instead, she had to watch as he flirted with that sixth year at dinner,
and it made her sick. for some unknown reason, every time she saw him wink at
that blonde, she felt as though she was suffocating. sure, the girl wasn't the problem.
lily was actually quite fond of her. but james...could it be possible that after so long
james was actually over her? completely?

now, lily hadn't been thinking about all this the whole two weeks. in fact, it usually
only came to mind when she witnessed him flirting with someone, or when he brushed
by her without even so much as looking at her, or when he sat as far away from
her as he could in class, or when she tried to ask what was wrong and he'd glare
at her. okay, so maybe that had been a lot these past two weeks. hell, it'd been
constant. she couldn't even escape him in the common room, and he wouldn't
even wait on her for duty at night. lily was left to wander the hallways alone, without
anyone. however, what had really brought on this little episode today was when
she'd blocked the doorway out of transfigurations and he'd literally pushed her
out of the way. that had done it. for some unforeseen reason, her whole spirts had
immediately sunk. hadn't this been what she wanted all along? for him to leave her
alone and get his own life? of course it had! it still was...wasn't it? lily couldn't even
understand herself anymore. she desperately needed to find someone who knew
what was going on to talk to them. of her three closest friends who she told every-
thing to, two were already busy. marlene was off with remus doing god knows what-
lily certainly didn't want to. olivia...well, probably in the library, but such a public
place was not to be a suitable setting for such a conversation as she needed to
have. too many ears listening. who knew who could be listening to her speaking.
who knew, maybe james was just doing this as a ploy to get lily to chase him for
once. if so, it was certainly working, because she was practically hunting him as
though he were a prized buck. naturally, the only person she was looking for to
speak to about this was her dear friend alice logan. it had been during their free
period that lily had sent alice a note saying to meet her in the dormitory. and,
also, that it was very urgent.

this was why lily was rushing up the stairs to the dormitory, ignoring everyone in
the common room as they stared at her. she was cracking, and she couldn't let
people see her like this. it was bad enough that they all noticed what was going
on between james and lily. they saw it happening. the way james wouldn't even
look at her, and the way lily would watch him hopefully, desperate to be looked
at. she'd never felt so unwanted in her life, aside from petunia's treatment of her,
which was becoming much the same as james'. only, james spoke to her when
she spoke to him instead of pretending to hear nothing. lily burst through the door
to the dormitory and saw alice waiting on her bed. "alice, i think i very well may
be losing my mind." she said as she plopped down on her own bed,
which was situated right next to alice's. she pulled her pillow closer to her, laying
on her stomach on top of it but hugging it at the same time. alice was probably a
bit confused by lily's outburst, so the redhead continued before the brunette could
get around to asking what was going on. "i got what i wanted all along. you know,
for james to leave me alone and all that. but now? i'm spending all my time wanting
him to come bug me again. i'm insane, right?"



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POST STATUS! finitooo
TAGGED! aliceee
WORD COUNT! eh.
OUTFIT! uniform?
OTHER! man this was almost upsetting to write.
TEMPLATE BY! LE DISKO ?! of CAUTION 2.0

Alice and charms had a love hate relationship. She hated charms, mostly because it clearly seemed to hate her right back. She had never been able to get the bloody subject right, even if she was doing exactly as the professor had told her. Even as a first year, her feather didn't go nearly as high as the feathers of all the other students in her class. One of the Ravenclaws had made fun of her for it, too. And still, as she sat cross legged on her bed with the curtains pulled back, she could not manage to get the subject right. She was struggling to write an essay, with the end of her quill in her mouth (she wished it was the candy kind), and her brow scrunched up so much that if her mum were here she'd be lecturing about getting wrinkles at an early age. The essay itself was on cheering charms, which was such a basic fourth year concept that it had been the perfect topic for her to pick as her focus for her essay. Alice knew that the only way she could possibly survive the subject was by taking the easiest route whenever it presented itself. But while Alice and charms had never been friendly, their was still the love half of their relationship. Because in charms class, Alice almost always seemed to end up sitting near Frank Longbottom and that was enough for her to enroll every year, despite wanting to pull her hair out over cheering charms essays and floating feathers.

It was getting to the point where her obsession love for Frank was almost out of hand. How many girls did she know who had been crazy about the same boy since they were eleven years old. She couldn't think of any, not off the top of her head. Though James Potter seemed to have been holding his torch for Lily just about as long as she had held hers for Frank. She really should get together with James and start a club or something. 'Admiring from Afar' or something like that. 'Love Obsessors' would probably be more fitting. At least Lily was very much aware of James affection for her. While Alice and Frank were friends and all that, she was sure that he had no clue as to how much she really did like him. And that was why Alice believed that she would forever be destined to wind up alone and, knowing her luck, would end up in a line of work that meant she would have to do cheering charms every single day of her life. And Alice was lousy at cheering charms. She sighed and rested her elbow on her knee and then her chin in her hand. The dormitory was woefully empty today. She glanced around the room, which was only occupied by her. She didn't know where Lily or any of the other girls had run off to. If they were here, she would have already enlisted their help with her charms work. But it seemed she was on her own at the moment.

She jumped when she heard thundering footsteps charging up the stairs. Who was so riled up that they sounded like a stampede, coming towards the door. The dormitory door open and Lily entered the room, clearly troubled. Alice set aside her quill and parchment and sat up straight. She was about to open her mouth when Lily started talking, answering Alice's unspoken question of what was wrong before she could even get the words out herself. [i]"Alice, I think I very well maybe losing my mind." She had, at first, been thrown off by Lily's sudden outburst. Alice raised a questioning eyebrow as Lily elaborated. Of course, this had something to do with James. Alice always thought that James would be good for Lily, if only she allowed herself to see it. All she saw was arrogance and trouble making, never that James really was loyal and a good guy (when he was trying). And now that James wasn't giving her all of the attention that he used to, she was starting to realize what a huge part he had played in her life. That was well played on James' part. "Sure, you're insane, love." Alice shrugged, as she smoothed out the pleats on her school skirt. She glanced back up at her best friend.

When it came to love, Alice had decided that it was okay to be a little crazy. Love made people crazy. That was why people jumped in front of moving cars or flew across continents for the people that they loved. Or in the case of James, pestered incessantly. But there was a huge difference between madly in love crazy and off to the loony bin crazy. The trouble was not crossing the thin line between the two. Alice studied Lily carefully. "So is it the good kind of crazy or should I go floo Mungo's to have you taken away?" she asked, quirking a half smile as she did so. Maybe Lily was finally realizing what most of Hogwarts had already known. At least, what Alice believed most of Hogwarts already knew. It had taken seven years for her to finally get it, but for the first time, it seemed as if Lily Evans actually missed that arrogant toerag (her words, not Alice's) James Potter. Either that or it would seem that hell was currently freezing over, because that would be the only other reasonable explanation for Lily's reaction to James' new attitude towards her.