Fic: The Next Greatest Love Story
Title: The Next Greatest Love Story
Author: Scela Letifer
Rating: R
Pairings: Various (predominantly Lily/James), implied Harry/Hermione/Ron
Disclaimer: Not mine, never was, never will be.
Challenge: Unrequited Love
Summary: Ever wanted to be the greatest love story of your time?
Author Note: This is one of the oddest things I’ve written, and I can’t really put my finger on why. The tenses and points of view in this story jump around not because the story teller is more than one person, but because the story teller is not in a sane state of mind - he tends to loose grip on what are his own thoughts and what he perceives as others. Thanks for the beta, my minions (pinguia and psycho_scottie).
You always wanted to know the truth didn’t you, and I suppose I owe it to you, don't I? Or I owe it to him, but you belong to him anyway, right?
They hadn't seen the rat, and that's how this story is going to begin.
*
There's this boy, a boy who's almost the stuff of legends, and there's a girl too - the beautiful sort. Beautiful like madness and red and brilliance. He loves her (no, loves her) and tells her so a million times, and becomes stupider and stupider with each second he spends following her like an abused child starving for a little more touch from anyone (no, not anyone - just her) and it's sort of pathetic, but when is love not pathetic?
*
"I just want someone to love the socks off of me - someone who loves me unconditionally - someone who loves me just for being plain old Lily Evans," the girl said to Martha Doohickey once, and he heard her, and boy, it's that a riot.
Peter's the type who moves without grace, but with purpose - who sees hypocrisy and irony and the petty cruelties that make him detest the female sex. Peter knows that James pours over poetry books in hopes of finding something Evans likes, asks her few friends what her favorite flowers are, what's her favorite food, her favorite color (because he wants to be one of her favorites too), and that he never, never looks at another person quite like he looks at her. Even back in first year, he'd gawked at the gangly, speckled girl swearing she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. It's the same dazed stare he has when he's spotted the snitch - Evans is gold to him, and he can't help but chase her.
*
"Stop bloody stalking me, you pig," she screams at him after he asked her to the Yule Ball for the fifth time. "What the hell is your problem?"
"Please, Lily - give me a chance - I'm mad for you."
"Why don't you get a life and leave me to live mine in peace?"
And James isn't the type to cry, so he doesn't, but he can't stop thinking about her and fuck if he knows why. He prepares for another night of planning Operation Seduce Lily 6.5, because loving means you don't give up (even when your heart's lost another battle).
*
Now, Lily hadn’t always been so virulent in her dislike for this James Potter - it only was like this when it stopped being fun and amusing for her. Up till the end of fifth year, she’d smiled mysteriously whenever chocolates and great bouquets of flowers bombarded her, reveling the love notes and pink, boyish blushes. It’s nice to know someone likes you, especially if it's the same someone who’s the most popular boy in the school. He’s good-looking and has charmed even more than Sirius Black maybe, what with his considerably more favorable reputation.
But what would be the point of falling in love if the person already liked you? Isn’t the point of dating to choose the worst possible person? Lily doesn’t want a boy who’s already willing to marry her. She wants someone who think she’s got a hot arse. Is that really so difficult for Potter to grasp?
*
Sirius loves James, really loves him (in the way that means he can't see the way Remus stares at him in the showers or the way Remus always forgives him or the way Remus hates himself a little because he has this tendency to imagine life at Hogwarts without James), and he actually can't stand Evans (Regulus says blood does tell, but Sirius knows that bitches come from all kinds of breeding), but he wants James to be happy. James is Sirius' life, James is family. So Sirius one day stops joking about and yanks Evans by the back of her jumper into a broom closet as she passes by.
(The hadn't seen Peter, but Peter likes to hide in Lily's book bag - know thine enemy, and fuck Sirius and Remus if they though he was stuffing his fat face in the kitchens.)
They're a little squashed between two storage cabinets, and Sirius sneezes as he breathes in a cocktail of dust and Lily's light perfume. Lily giggles. "Pray tell why have you brought me to this dark and musty broom closet, Mr. Black," she says with a reluctantly dazzling smile. Sirius is the best looking bloke in their year - not that looks matter, Evans thinks (Peter can almost smell her stupid, lying heart with his twitching nose and for once, appreciates Sirius for all of his blunt forwardness and shared hatred of this person who was destroying the person they loved best in the world) and besides, he's got the second best marks in the school. Lily's a bright girl, but she heard he fucked Poinsettia Parkinson and Diana Foster both in one night and still had time to charm the socks off of McGonagall the next day when late for class; hence, it wasn't her fault she that blushed when he looked at her. James, as clever or funny or brilliant or cute as he is, hasn't touched a single bird - awful boring if you ask Lily.
"Listen, Evans," he says in an almost-growl, and she shivers a little because it's kind of sexy really, and breathes a little quicker. "I'm bloody sick of my best friend repeatedly getting treated like shit by the likes of you. I know you think you're pretty enough for you to get away with this, but it's fucking ridiculous now."
She colors, and it's hard to tell where her skin ends and her hair begins. "God - not bloody James again! He's so annoying - you know he scares off any bloke who's the slightest bit interested in me -"
"Oh shut up. He doesn't do a fucking thing to them - he's honestly a nice guy, and you're awful cocky if you think he has to beat them away with a stick."
She rolls her eyes. "I can't believe we're having this conversation. James. Is. An. Arse. He's cocky and arrogant and a git - he picks on people who don't deserve it -"
"If this is about your little charity case boyfriend, you should know that piece of slime's just getting what's coming to him -"
"He's not my boyfriend!"
"So you agree that Snivellus is a nasty little toad scum as well then?"
"Bugger off, Black - I don't want to talk to you anymore. I don't know why anyone would think the two of you are so brilliant! I pity Remus and poor Peter for having to put up with the pair of you - you both do think you're better than the rest of us non-talented oafs, don't you - or at least you do until you get the notion that you want to shag one of us mere mortals -"
Sirius gives a harsh, bitter bark of laughter. "You think I’d give a damn if he only wanted to fuck you?"
*
The ninth time he asks her to the Yule Ball (on the way to the greenhouses, out in the snow), she shoves him hard, and he stumbles and falls backwards into the wide unwelcoming white. "God damn it, Potter - are you that thick? You are a bloody stalker - don’t you understand the meaning of the word ‘no’?"
James cries then, and he hasn’t cried since he was three Mum hadn’t let him play with his toy broom past nine.
There are only so many times your heart can get broken before it breaks for forever.
Besides
Author: Scela Letifer
Rating: R
Pairings: Various (predominantly Lily/James), implied Harry/Hermione/Ron
Disclaimer: Not mine, never was, never will be.
Challenge: Unrequited Love
Summary: Ever wanted to be the greatest love story of your time?
Author Note: This is one of the oddest things I’ve written, and I can’t really put my finger on why. The tenses and points of view in this story jump around not because the story teller is more than one person, but because the story teller is not in a sane state of mind - he tends to loose grip on what are his own thoughts and what he perceives as others. Thanks for the beta, my minions (pinguia and psycho_scottie).
You always wanted to know the truth didn’t you, and I suppose I owe it to you, don't I? Or I owe it to him, but you belong to him anyway, right?
They hadn't seen the rat, and that's how this story is going to begin.
*
There's this boy, a boy who's almost the stuff of legends, and there's a girl too - the beautiful sort. Beautiful like madness and red and brilliance. He loves her (no, loves her) and tells her so a million times, and becomes stupider and stupider with each second he spends following her like an abused child starving for a little more touch from anyone (no, not anyone - just her) and it's sort of pathetic, but when is love not pathetic?
*
"I just want someone to love the socks off of me - someone who loves me unconditionally - someone who loves me just for being plain old Lily Evans," the girl said to Martha Doohickey once, and he heard her, and boy, it's that a riot.
Peter's the type who moves without grace, but with purpose - who sees hypocrisy and irony and the petty cruelties that make him detest the female sex. Peter knows that James pours over poetry books in hopes of finding something Evans likes, asks her few friends what her favorite flowers are, what's her favorite food, her favorite color (because he wants to be one of her favorites too), and that he never, never looks at another person quite like he looks at her. Even back in first year, he'd gawked at the gangly, speckled girl swearing she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. It's the same dazed stare he has when he's spotted the snitch - Evans is gold to him, and he can't help but chase her.
*
"Stop bloody stalking me, you pig," she screams at him after he asked her to the Yule Ball for the fifth time. "What the hell is your problem?"
"Please, Lily - give me a chance - I'm mad for you."
"Why don't you get a life and leave me to live mine in peace?"
And James isn't the type to cry, so he doesn't, but he can't stop thinking about her and fuck if he knows why. He prepares for another night of planning Operation Seduce Lily 6.5, because loving means you don't give up (even when your heart's lost another battle).
*
Now, Lily hadn’t always been so virulent in her dislike for this James Potter - it only was like this when it stopped being fun and amusing for her. Up till the end of fifth year, she’d smiled mysteriously whenever chocolates and great bouquets of flowers bombarded her, reveling the love notes and pink, boyish blushes. It’s nice to know someone likes you, especially if it's the same someone who’s the most popular boy in the school. He’s good-looking and has charmed even more than Sirius Black maybe, what with his considerably more favorable reputation.
But what would be the point of falling in love if the person already liked you? Isn’t the point of dating to choose the worst possible person? Lily doesn’t want a boy who’s already willing to marry her. She wants someone who think she’s got a hot arse. Is that really so difficult for Potter to grasp?
*
Sirius loves James, really loves him (in the way that means he can't see the way Remus stares at him in the showers or the way Remus always forgives him or the way Remus hates himself a little because he has this tendency to imagine life at Hogwarts without James), and he actually can't stand Evans (Regulus says blood does tell, but Sirius knows that bitches come from all kinds of breeding), but he wants James to be happy. James is Sirius' life, James is family. So Sirius one day stops joking about and yanks Evans by the back of her jumper into a broom closet as she passes by.
(The hadn't seen Peter, but Peter likes to hide in Lily's book bag - know thine enemy, and fuck Sirius and Remus if they though he was stuffing his fat face in the kitchens.)
They're a little squashed between two storage cabinets, and Sirius sneezes as he breathes in a cocktail of dust and Lily's light perfume. Lily giggles. "Pray tell why have you brought me to this dark and musty broom closet, Mr. Black," she says with a reluctantly dazzling smile. Sirius is the best looking bloke in their year - not that looks matter, Evans thinks (Peter can almost smell her stupid, lying heart with his twitching nose and for once, appreciates Sirius for all of his blunt forwardness and shared hatred of this person who was destroying the person they loved best in the world) and besides, he's got the second best marks in the school. Lily's a bright girl, but she heard he fucked Poinsettia Parkinson and Diana Foster both in one night and still had time to charm the socks off of McGonagall the next day when late for class; hence, it wasn't her fault she that blushed when he looked at her. James, as clever or funny or brilliant or cute as he is, hasn't touched a single bird - awful boring if you ask Lily.
"Listen, Evans," he says in an almost-growl, and she shivers a little because it's kind of sexy really, and breathes a little quicker. "I'm bloody sick of my best friend repeatedly getting treated like shit by the likes of you. I know you think you're pretty enough for you to get away with this, but it's fucking ridiculous now."
She colors, and it's hard to tell where her skin ends and her hair begins. "God - not bloody James again! He's so annoying - you know he scares off any bloke who's the slightest bit interested in me -"
"Oh shut up. He doesn't do a fucking thing to them - he's honestly a nice guy, and you're awful cocky if you think he has to beat them away with a stick."
She rolls her eyes. "I can't believe we're having this conversation. James. Is. An. Arse. He's cocky and arrogant and a git - he picks on people who don't deserve it -"
"If this is about your little charity case boyfriend, you should know that piece of slime's just getting what's coming to him -"
"He's not my boyfriend!"
"So you agree that Snivellus is a nasty little toad scum as well then?"
"Bugger off, Black - I don't want to talk to you anymore. I don't know why anyone would think the two of you are so brilliant! I pity Remus and poor Peter for having to put up with the pair of you - you both do think you're better than the rest of us non-talented oafs, don't you - or at least you do until you get the notion that you want to shag one of us mere mortals -"
Sirius gives a harsh, bitter bark of laughter. "You think I’d give a damn if he only wanted to fuck you?"
*
The ninth time he asks her to the Yule Ball (on the way to the greenhouses, out in the snow), she shoves him hard, and he stumbles and falls backwards into the wide unwelcoming white. "God damn it, Potter - are you that thick? You are a bloody stalker - don’t you understand the meaning of the word ‘no’?"
James cries then, and he hasn’t cried since he was three Mum hadn’t let him play with his toy broom past nine.
There are only so many times your heart can get broken before it breaks for forever.
Besides