"I know, Jamie," I said, and he looked completely horrified. His mate who sat beside me, Sirius, laughed so hard it almost hurt to listen.
"Jamie?" said another of James' mates, Remus, raising an eyebrow.
"Not in public!" James hissed at me, and I giggled.
"You let her.. call you.. Jamie!?" Sirius asked, still laughing.
"It's not like I let her!" He replied, red in the face, "I just can't make her stop!"
"I-I'm gonna like you," Sirius added, pointing to me, and I couldn't help but smile. Remus chuckled a little, and the quietest boy, Peter, even grinned.
"Ahh, shut up, Sirius," James said, swatting him, "I don't need to hear you go on about enjoying my sister. Next thing I know, you'll be holding her hand, and I'll have to kill you."
"Sister?!" Remus said, shooting a look at me. I supposed to anyone besides Sirius, who'd already met me when he visited this summer, couldn't tell James and I were related. After all, the only feature we shared were our brown eyes. His black mess of hair didn't exactly mirror my brown curls.
"Yep," James said, not exactly smiling, but not really frowning, "This is my little sister, Brilliance Potter." I waved. "This is her first year." he added at the end. He puffed out his chest proudly, reminding me it was his second year.
"How did such an airhead like James," Remus asked, "come about a sister so intelligent?"
James stuck his tongue out, but I replied simply, "Never really worked that out, honestly. Mum and I reason Dad dropped him on his head one too many times."
"Hey!" James protested, "Dad never dropped me!"
"Maybe he threw you?" Sirius suggested, and I bursted into laughter. James was about to hit me, but a red-haired girl walked by with a greasy-haired boy, and caught his attention.
"Oi! Evans!" He shouted, and the girl snapped around. He grinned. "Meet my sister yet?"
"Oh, God," the girl said, appauled, "There's another one of you?"
"Hogwarts will fall to ruins," her friend agreed, and they walked away laughing.
"Who are they?" I asked.
"That's Snape," Remus said, pointing at the boy, "James and Sirius call him 'Snivelly'."
"Yes, we do," said Sirius. He pointed at the girl. "That's Lily Evans!" He drew hearts in the air as he said her name.
"The one from your journal?!" I shrieked before cracking into laughter again. This time, he hit me.
That was six years ago, and now I sat on the train, in the same seat, as I had. Next to me was Padfoot. Chubby little Wormtail sat across from us. I now knew, and quite often used, their nicknames. Not much had changed these years except that Lily no longer spoke to Snivelly. Two years ago he called her a Mudblood, and she hasn't spoken kindly to or of him since.
"Oi, Brill," Padfoot interupted my remembering of said events, "What are you staring at?"
"Was I staring?" I teased, "My mistake, I was trying to figure out of if that was a zit on your forehead, because it looks like it might just sprout legs and walk away."
"Touche," He replied with a laugh, then went silent momentarily. "I have a zit?!"
"Not really," Wormtail said. Padfoot sighed with relief.
"Darn it, Wormtail," I said bitterly, "You spoil my fun. Where's Prongs and Moony at?"
"Doing their headboy and prefect duties," Padfoot replied, "God only knows why Dumbledore made Prongs headboy this year. Maybe because Lily is headgirl and he's doing some love control?"
"Prefect duties!" I remembered, "I've got them, too! I completely forgot!"
Sirius made a "shoo-shoo" motion. "Off with you, then."
I got up and bolted out of the compartment, and went to the prefect compartment.
By time I got there, my little yellow Hufflepuff badge was crooked, my hair was in my face, and I was panting from running. Snivellus smirked at my pain, and Lily tapped her foot.
"We had to start the meeting without you," she said impatiently. "You know, even your brother had the class to show up."
"Hear that, Brill?!" Prongs said excitedly, "Lily says I've got class!"
"We were making the schedual for patrols," Lily stated, "And you weren't here to give your input, so we gave you patrol with Snape." She said his name bitterly, obviously still hurt from the past events.
"Sorry," Moony mouthed to me. I nodded, knowing he had nothing to do with this.
"Gonna suck to be you, isn't it?" Prongs chuckled, and I glared at him. This was his doing.
"You're so going to get it," I growled, then chased him around the compartment.
"Act your age!" Lily shouted at us, "Not you're I.Q.!"
"Aw, Lilyflower," my brother whined, "That hurt."
I slapped his head. "Bet that hurt worse.
That night, the first night of the school-year, they'd given me and Snape patrols. I groaned when I remembered. (I remembered about ten minutes after I was supposed to be there, I might add.) I grabbed my wand and ran to where we were supposed to meet.
"You're late," Snape said plainly, clearly unamused.
"I'm forgetful," I used as my excuse.
"Too bad," he said, "Since I had to wait, now we'll both be out here ten minutes later than scedualed. Congratulations. That's ten minutes of sleep I won't get."
"Aw, does poor Snivelly need his beauty sleep?" I mocked, "You know, you'd have to sleep for a really long time."
"Let's get this over with," he growled.
"Gladly," I said, rolling my eyes and following him down the halls.
Patrol went slowly, and minutes seemed like decades. We were patrolling 10:00pm to 1:00 am, so at midnight, I yawned and sat down for a minute.
"Get up, will you?" Snape said, shaking me slightly.
"Why?" I asked, yawning again, "The first years aren't stupid enough to explore the first night, and everybody else knows Dumbledore would whip their arses if they were out of bed the first day of the year."
"Your brother explored the first night every year," said Snape bitterly.
"And you know this how?" I said. When he didn't reply, I added, "Stalker."
"Can't we get this over with?" He whined.
"Can't I sit for a moment?" I whined back. "My feet are killing me!"
"Fine," he said and sat down beside me. I yawned once more, and I assume I fell asleep, as I didn't remember anything else until fourty minutes later, when I sat up and looked at my watch: 2:36.
I put my hand on my head, and my hair felt oddly... greasy. I turned to where Snape had sat, and there he still was, fast asleep. We'd both fallen asleep! I ignored the mark on the shoulder of his jacket which was clearly the shape of my head.
"Oi, Snape!" I said, shaking him awake, "We fell asleep! It's almost 3 am!"
"We did?!" He bolted up-right and looked around sharply. "It is?!"
"No, Snape," I said sarcastically, "I'm just saying so because I'm a git. Of course we did!"
"Well," he said, standing up and taking one large step away from me while looking at the grease marks in my hair, "I'm going to bed then."
"Goodnight," I said politely, as I'd been brought up to say goodnight to everyone, everynight.
"Eh," he said, waving his arm.
Git, I thought.
Around 3, I had plopped into bed, but didn't get to sleep until 5:50. Now, at 6:15, my alarm went off. I groaned and shut it off. I hated to do it, but I dragged myself out of bed, took a shower, got dressed, and headed to the Great Hall for breakfast. Hufflepuff's table was next to Ravenclaw, so I sat pretty close to a friend of mine, Xenophilius Lovegood. I called him Phil for short.
"Phil!" I hissed, and he turned around.
"What, Brill?" he asked.
"Do I have circles under my eyes?" I asked.
"Not that I can se-.." Phil started, but stopped in mid-sentence, "Oh, now I see it! Yeah, you do. Real bad. Did the nargles keep you up?"
"I had patrol late last night," I replied, "I slept more there than in my room."
"Nice," he said, then his eyes flickered from me to his food back again.
"Just eat," I said, then turned back to my spot. I heard a "thank you" and then the ripping of the toast that had sat in front of him.
I turned around and ate my own meal. From my seat I could see Gryffindor table, and I waved at my friend, Alice. My moronic brother thought, or pretended to think, I was waving at him, and he exclaimed, "Hello, sister dearest!" as he waved back boldly. I put my face in my hands.
"Sit down, Prongs!" Moony begged, "You're embarrassing her."
"Yes, I know!" He replied loudly, "I'm quite aware that I am embarassing my little sister!"
I sat up and laughed like I'd never laughed before. Then I shouted, "Nice try, but you aren't embarassing me! You're embarassing yourself, Jamie!" The whole Hall erupted with laughter, and James sat down, red in the face. I smiled, victorious.
I happened to glance over at the Slytherin table, where even Snape was laughing. He caught me looking and I turned away, what, blushing? Why did I blush? It was only stupid Snape, not like it was someone attractive. Well, that's not true. Besides the greasy hair, Snape was kind of attractive.... Wait..! Ew! What was I thinking?! I couldn't resist turning back, and I saw him smirking. Again, I blushed and looked away. What was wrong with me?!
After breakfast, I had potions, so, gladly, I walked to Slughorn's class room. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten I took a seventh year level potions class. With the Slytherins and Gryffindors. Lucky me. I stood, waiting for the assigned seats at the partners to be paired up.
The last four people standing were me, Snape, Lily, and my brother. It drove him wild that I was in his class, by the way. I took a lot of his classes, actually. In any case, we were the last four.
"And let's have Miss Evans sit with..." Professor Slughorn began. I wasn't the only one to cross my fingers; James and Snape also both wanted to sit by Lily. "Potter."
"Yes!" James erupted and began walking to the seat next to Lily.
"I meant Miss Potter, Mr. Potter," Slughorn corrected. James hung his head.
I stuck my tongue out as I passed him, and I heard him mutter, "I'll get you."
I mouthed, "I know." and smiled.
I plopped myself down next to Lily, who grinned at me, obviously relieved she didn't have to sit by Prongs or Snape. I was glad not to sit with either of them, as well, but I might have liked her sitting with James. Not because I wanted to sit with Snape, because I most surely didn't, but because James had fancied her for a long, long time. I hoped she's come around.
A few minutes into class, I nudged her with my elbow. I did so repeatedly until she whispered to me.
"What?" she asked quietly, careful not to get caught talking.
"How come you won't go out with my brother?" I said, equally quiet.
"Because he's a toerag," she hissed back.
"Not anymore so much," I reminded her.
"Well, I admit he's gotten better..." she said, "But he's still a git."
"Yeah, but he's less of a git than most the other guys in school," I said in a whisper.
"Miss Potter, please stop disturbing our lovely Miss Evans and let her work," Slughorn scolded, and I heard my brother and Padfoot, who sat two rows behind me next to Remus, stifle a laugh.
Potions came to a close and most of the students stampeded out of the classroom. Standing in the dust still was me, Moony, and Lily.
Remus turned to Lily and said out-of-the-blue, "James really fancies you, you know. A lot. You should give him a chance."
Lily turned, her shoulder facing him. "James Potter is an ignorant toerag of a boy. I'm not suprised he's never even had a girlfriend in seven years of schooling."
"Because he's been waiting for you, Lily," Remus said softly.
"Yeah, he's not like Sirius," I added, "Sirius'll date anything that moves. James knows that the right girl would get away if he did that."
"He could have any girl in the school," Remus agreed, "But he wants you, Lily."
"I-.." Lily stuttered. "I don't care!" With that, she walked away in a huff. Remus then looked at me.
"So," he said, raising an eyebrow, "Snape?"
"Huh?!" I said, taken aback. I laughed awkwardly. "What are you talking about, Moony, you crazy boy?"
"Caught you staring at him at breakfast," he shrugged, "You blushed. And you stared at his arse as he left."
"Did not!" I said, my cheeks going bright red.
He raised his eyebrow again in response.
"Tell anyone, and you're a deadman," I scowled, then walked away to my next class. I looked back once and saw Moony's smirking face.
"Idiot Moony..." I grumbled to myself. "Doesn't have a bloody idea what he's talking about.."
*****