Lily emanated emotion powerfully, more than anyone James had ever met. As she crossed the room to him now, her lips pursed, James rubbed his finger dry with his robes and braced himself.
"Get away from the fountain. Let's go," she said curtly, and passed him towards the horizontal els. James's heart sank. She wasn't yelling at him yet. That meant she was long past merely angry. He touched the water in a silent goodbye to the goldfish.
"James!" Lily exclaimed when he didn't follow her. "Act your age, not your -- shoe size!" She entered an elevator and James gazed after her. For a split second as she said that Lily's eyes had flickered down, and he knew she had not originally planned to say "shoe" -- and while that was an extremely harsh (and untrue, James thought) insult, it was enough for him that Lily at least recognized for once that he had one.
The el doors started to close before James got there and Lily made no move to stop them. Maybe he'd get lost in the huge hotel and starve to death, she thought furiously and illogically. But James squeezed through the doors at the last minute and faced her cold fury calmly, his hazel eyes open to whatever she had to say as the elevator lurched gracefully to the left.
"Was Ellen Bones originally intended for this trip?"
James shuffled his feet, deciding how to answer, and then leaned against the metal wall, face downcast.
"Yeah."
"What did you do for her to make her switch places?"
Damnit. He hadn't really wanted her to find that out. He knew she'd be bitter enough all week as it was, and knowing that she could have been here with her best friend would make her hell to hang around with. James half-considered acting confused; but he knew Lily wasn't stupid and all it would do was make her madder.
"I kissed her."
"You kissed her!?" Oh, if looks could kill, James thought. Lily took a deep breath. Here comes the hurricane.
"Well, if your little scheme was to come here and bask in laziness for a week at away from school, you can pack up and leave now, because the notice the hotel got was that two females were coming from Hogwarts and they booked us only one room and now that meetings start tomorrow, all the other rooms are full or reserved, so now you are sharing a room with me, and there is absolutely no way you are ever going to do anything but go to these meetings, take notes, and write up the reports Dumbledore wants. You're not going to contact your little friends, you're not gonna even touch your Invisibility Cloak, and the lights are going off every night at ten. Got it?"
The el had stopped; she flung around without waiting for an answer and left, heading towards a staircase. James opened his mouth, closed it, and hurried after her.
She was right. This trip was not going to be anything like he planned.
Hell, it was going to be so much better.