Going To Lunch

Jumping over the trick step, James turned into the Entrance Hall on his way to the Great Hall. He was starving, but, really what was new? His mouth watered at the thought of all the food lying wait behind the Great Hall double doors. Quickening his pace, James was nearly at the double doors when he heard a noise that caused him to turn around.

Alli was in the Entrance Hall on her way to lunch when she heard someone coming. As a habit, she looked back to see who it was and was delighted to see that it was James. She nearly called out to him but then remembered that there were other people in the hall. She ducked behind a statue, an action which thankfully went unnoticed by the other students and waited for James to get closer. "Psst, James," she whispered to him when he made it to the statue of Gertrude the Glutton that she was hiding behind. "James, back here," she continued in a whisper.

James swore he heard his name, but looking around, he was only met with people giving him strange looks. Granted, he had stopped dead in the middle of the Entrance Hall. He raised an eyebrow as he heard it again, this time closer to him. He peered down and saw Alli's face looking out from behind a statue which was far too ugly to have been made, in his opinion. Merlin, she's short, James thought as he stepped behind the statue to stand beside her.

"Hello there," he said smiling. "Do you make it a habit to hide behind hideous statues?"

Alli rolled her eyes at him. "Only when my boyfriend is coming and there are other people in the corridor and I don't want to cause a commotion by doing this..." She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her level before kissing him soundly. She was hungry but lunch could wait a little while, she decided.

James stepped closer to her, returning her kiss with equal fervency. He had the feeling that his head could be seen from the top of the statue, so he remained slightly stooped after they had come up for air.

"I really do hate all this sneaking around. What I wouldn't give to just alert the entire Great Hall right this minute. Get it over and done with." He heard the echo of what he just said in his mind, and shook his head. "That sounded worse than how I meant it," he said. "I just hate keeping you a secret."

Alli considered what James was saying. She hated keeping him a secret too, especially whenever she saw some other girl looking at him, even though he didn't tend to notice that they were eying him, but there were other things that they had to take into consideration.

On one hand, they wouldn't have to duck behind truly awful looking statues that had no reason to exist (let alone be placed in a very public area) just to sneak a kiss here and there. On the other hand... "James, half of my friends would never speak to me again," she said, keeping her voice low to avoid attracting attention from passing students.

James crossed his arms over his chest, which would have looked far more impressive had he not been stooped over.

"Then, surely, those are the half you could do without," he said, angrily. He breathed out, not really meaning what he said. He understood that they were in a difficult situation. Hell, the majority of his own house would think he had lost his marbles if they found out he was dating Alli.

"Sorry," he apologised. "Just pissed off about it, I guess. I don't want to have to care about what others think."

Alli frowned at James' comment. His apology went mostly unnoticed. He wouldn't have said what he did if he didn't mean it at least a little bit. "They're my friends, James, I'm not just going to toss them aside and I'm not going to let them do that to me. Some of them are okay with it. Well, Tom is, and I'm sure some of the others would be too. But I know that some of them won't understand and I don't want to lose them any more than I would want to lose you," she said in the same hushed tone. She realized that this would be the first time that he'd heard that she had told Tom. She hoped he was okay with it because she didn't want to start a fight.

"Wait," he said, holding up his hand. "Tom knows?" It wasn't that long ago, that they were fooling him into thinking that they hated each other in the kitchen, and now, all of a sudden, he knows about them.

"When did that come about?" He didn't know how he felt about the whole situation. James knew that the relationship Alli had with Tom differed from what they had, but they still kissed, which annoyed James to no end.

"Yeah, long story," Alli said sheepishly. She probably should have talked to James about it before telling Tom, but it had all worked out fine so there was no problem with it as far as she could see. "In the common room, after he beat up Anthony McGuire..."

She still felt rotten that it had been because of what she said that he had done that in the first place. "But like I said, he's fine with it. We're like actual friends now! Not like... whatever we were before," she said.

James frowned. He didn't like the idea that Tom had hurt Andy so much that he wound up in the Hospital Wing again, and he disliked him even more so for knowing something that James had yet to tell his best friend. James didn't like the idea of even thinking how Andy would react to the news. It wouldn't be a fun conversation, that's for sure.

Not like... whatever we were before.

James crossed his arms over his chest, but didn't comment on what she said, fearing he couldn't take back the words that would most likely arise. He took a couple of deep breaths instead.

"What happened that day anyway?" James asked. He had really only got sketchy details about the fight that broke out between Andy and Thomas. All he knew was that fists were thrown, and Andy, being the brainy not brawny Ravenclaw, didn't really stand a chance.

Alli's eyebrow raised as James crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry, do you have a problem with me being friends with Tom?" She could easily relay the story of what had happened to him and move on, but she was a little annoyed that James didn't seem to like the idea of having any sort of contact with Tom.

James stared down at her, his eyes slightly narrowed. James didn't think that he had a problem with it, or, until this moment, he hadn't really given it much though, but now that he had, he realised that he did have a problem with it. A wise man would have lied about his feelings right about now, but James wasn't the brightest crayon in the box.

"Yeah, maybe I do," he said, defiantly. "Not much I can do about it though."

James confirmed Alli's suspicions rather quickly. "Why? What is wrong with me and Tom being friends?" she glared back at him, waiting to see just how big of a hole he was going to dig himself. She wondered what he thought was going on that he wasn't comfortable with her being friends with Tom. She knew that she wasn't doing anything wrong yet James seemed to think that she was.

James threw his hands in the air, not caring that they would definitely be visible above the statue.

"What's wrong?" he asked, clearly mishearing her, for surely she didn't need to ask that question.

"He put my best friend in the Hospital Wing for starters! And him kissing you, I'm not cool with that. Never have been, never will be." James knew he was angry and the reasonable part of his mind was telling him to calm down, but James couldn't at the moment.

"James!" Alli hissed, grabbing his arms and pulling them back down safely below the top of the statue and hoping that nobody had seen them. "He only did that because of something that I told him and he feels awful about it and I'm taking him to go apologize properly tomorrow now that his little girlfriend has had some time to cool off and she won't just toss him out as soon as we show up there!"

She should have known that the kiss would play into this somewhere. "And he didn't kiss me! I kissed him and it's really hard to explain but it wasn't a kiss like how I kiss you, it was..." she paused to try to think of how to explain it to James. "It was just to see how he would react in an awkward situation. That's all." She was starting to get the feeling that she was digging herself a hole now.

James half wanted to wrench his hands away from her, but understood that no good could come from that. He listened to what she said, more confused by the second.

"What did you tell him?" he asked. James wasn't aware that Alli had anything to do with the fight between Andy and Tom, and upon learning that she apparently did, he didn't know how he felt about that. The little girlfriend comment didn't slip past James either. He was confused about that too. Who's little girlfriend? Surely not Andy's? Perhaps the Ravenclaw had been keeping things from him like James had from Andy. James felt a tinge of guilt about the entire situation. If he had been a better friend, perhaps things like this wouldn't have happened, or, at least, he'd know what was going on in Andy's life.

"And he didn't kiss me! I kissed him..."

If Alli was trying to comfort him, she was doing a rubbish job. He had to remind himself that they weren't together when this took place, but the reminding didn't help curb his anger. He blinked a few times, trying to understand what she was trying to say.

"An awkward situation?" James asked. "Kissing you made him awkward?" James suddenly felt a whole lot better about the entire thing.

Alli sighed. It was a really long story and she didn't really want to go into how she was trying to make Tom into a proper Slytherin. "It doesn't matter because we're going to fix it and everything will be fine and it will never happen again," she said, waving the question away.

"Yes," Alli said, even though it sounded a little offensive to her. "I just sort of did it. He didn't have any sort of warning, I didn't say anything about it, I just did it. He didn't get a say in anything and I didn't do it because I think he's cute or anything like that. There were no feelings involved anywhere. Are you satisfied now?"

James had the feeling that she was trying to avoid his question, but seeing where they were at the present time, it was probably wise not to get into it.

He leaned back against the statue as he listened to her. He nodded slowly, believing what she was saying. After all, he was awkward about kissing her, and Alli said there wasn't any feelings behind what she did, so, James didn't really have anything to feel angry or jealous over. What he was feeling was hunger though.

"Satisfied enough. I'm starved though." His stomach agreed with what his mouth was saying as it emitted a loud grumble.

Alli let go of his arms now that he was done trying to draw attention to them but she was still miffed that he didn't trust her. Sometimes she felt like he was suspicious that she went around snogging everyone she possible could behind his back, even though she would never do that. "Go on then," she said, still a bit annoyed and knowing that one of them would have to leave before the other to avoid suspicious looks. Nothing was more suspect than two people walking out from behind a statue together.

James looked at her cautiously. He knew she wasn't happy and he wasn't so stupid to think that he wasn't to blame for her unhappiness. Though he was torn between leaving the statue and stuffing his face with lunch and staying behind the stone concealment, he decided that he was better off staying put for the moment.

"Are you pissed off with me?" he asked, not one to pussyfoot around the subject.

Alli was sorely tempted to lie to him just to get him to go away so that she could get on with her day, but she just couldn't do it. "A little," she said, feeling defeated. She sighed.

"You don't trust me at all, do you?" she looked up at him and frowned. It didn't matter that she'd told him before that kissing Tom hadn't meant anything and it worried her that this wasn't going to be the end of him being jealous over it, no matter how hard she tried to get him to understand that she didn't like Tom like that and she never had.

James took a step forward and placed both of his hands on either side of her face. He leaned down and gently placed his lips against hers, pulling back to rest his forehead against hers lightly.

"It's not that," James said, being honest. He did trust Alli, he truly did. James had come to realise that he wasn't jealous of Tom because they shared an 'awkward' kiss, it was the fact that Tom had what James didn't. The opportunity to be friendly with Alli in public. To be able to walk to class with her or to sit in a common room by the fire and talk to each other until the early hours of the morning. James would just once like to just to be seen with her in the company of others and not have put on the act of ripping each other's throats out.

"It's just hard," he said softly.

Alli returned his kiss and figured that they were probably done fighting. For now.

"I know it's hard. If it wasn't hard, we wouldn't be hiding behind a statue right now. Someday we'll be able to just do whatever we want without anyone caring and without caring what anyone else thinks, but that day is not today," she said quietly. Just because one of her friends didn't care that she was dating a Gryffindor didn't mean that the rest of them wouldn't care.

"Tell you what, since I told someone, you can tell someone, too," she offered. "Just as long as it's someone that you know we can trust."

James nodded slowly. She was right. They weren't ready for the entire school to know about them just yet. There would be time for that, James hoped, later on.

He looked at her, thinking about her suggestion. The only person he could think about telling was Andy, but... James really didn't know how Andy would take the news.

"I guess he's trustworthy," James said, though he wasn't 100% sure about it. James was sure that whatever he told Andy was sure to go straight to Bri...

James' brain switched on finally. Little girlfriend... Brianna.