Disclaimer: I have no rights over Harry Potter or his parents, Lily and James. They all belong to someone called Joanne Kathleen Rowling, whom you just might have heard of somewhere. ^_^ And the word "Hobbit" belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien. :^)

Author's Notes: Here's a little one-shot fic I wrote for you James/Lily readers out there... I just can't get enough of them. :^)

Quenched

by Mica Mouse

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Ugh, how I hate this term's seating arrangements.

Having used this Transfiguration classroom for six years, I could have easily pointed out every other possible area for me to be seated in. Professor McGonagall could have placed me on the first seat by the door, or diagonally backwards to the left, or at the very end of the classroom, or three seats across from where I'm seated at the moment, or right beside the teacher's desk, or on the roof, or even somewhere down the aisle outside.

Anywhere but here. It didn't even matter if I had a chair or not. As long as I wasn't anywhere near him.

Oh, but nooo. The seats had to be kept until the end of the year, she said. Until the end of my sentence in purgatory.

He just hated me. He hated me so much he had to play a prank on me at least twice a day, just because I had exceeded him in Charms and had scolded him and his friends for being so immaturely obsessed with humiliating people through their pranks. And because he hated me, I hated him too.

And sure enough, there I was behind him during Transfiguration class, glaring at his unkempt field of a head, jet-black weeds thrashing all over his scalp to announce their plans for world domination. It occured to me as unbelievably rash of him not to even get his prank-loving hands on a single comb, especially since he frequently hogged the Hogwarts mirrors to admire his reflection. Were the words 'hygiene' and 'good grooming' even in his vocabulary?

"Miss Evans, what is it in Mr. Potter's head that manages to take away your attention from my lecture?"

Eep.

A snigger rang out in front of me. Ignoring it, I looked up immediately, feeling my cheeks burn slightly in humiliation as my eyes met those of Professor McGonagall's.

How I hated being reprimanded by a teacher. I wanted to be a good model student. This is why it seemed disturbing to even think of someone like... oh, I don't know-- James Potter--- to value his good looks and pranks over schoolwork, and yet manage to achieve good grades, anyway.

"Er, I'm sorry, Professor. It-- it won't happen again."

At least not in front of her, it won't. Who could resist thinking of One-Thousand and One Ways to Kill James Potter for Being Such an Insufferable Git?

"Well then, Miss Evans, I suppose your mind is now present enough to transfigure this water beetle into an upright glass of water?"

Oh, goodness! It was fortunate I had read my Transfiguration book twice during the past week. Now, all I needed to do was remember how I was supposed to wave my wand for this.

"Oh, erm, of course."

I walked up to the front platform carefully with my wand, and glanced down unsurely at the water beetle. It crawled around twitchily, moving around in its rectangular glass pan of water as the rest of the class watched on. If I could have magnified its face a hundred times closer, I'm sure it would have looked remarkably like James. I crossed my fingers mentally as I attempted a swish and a quick double flick with my wand.

"Novo Vas Aqua!" I uttered promptly, secretly hoping that I had done the correct wand movements. If only I hadn't rambled in my thoughts during Professor McGonagall's lecture! She was sure to have mentioned something about proper wand swishing!

Unfortunately, lady luck seemed to have fled my side that day. The beetle merely stared at me, pausing as though to say, "Hah! Is that all you can do?"

Another set of sniggers from the class, particularly audible from the seat in front of mine. Hmph, no surprise there. I took in a deep breath, scraping for words in my head as I briefly attempted to recall anything I could about wand-waving. How did it go again?

"Novo Vas Aqua!", I repeated, this time with a symmetrical double swish and a flick.

I was happy at first to see a reaction of shooting water from the glass pan, but that lasted only for the briefest of moments, because I soon realized that this was Transfiguration, not Charms. Realizing this, I winced with shut eyes as the beetle came soaring along with the sprouts of water, right into the middle of the class. Several girls screamed. James Potter led the boys' shameless laughter.

With this kind of disturbance going on, it didn't take long for Professor McGonagall to flick her own wand and do some charm work herself.

"Accio, Brychius Hungerfordi!"

The beetle came floating back from someone's hair and back into the glass pan as though the whole encounter was being rewinded. Professor McGonagall pursed her lips into a tight line until the class settled down. She could toss daggers of reprimands without even saying anything at all.

"That will be it," she said sternly, eyeing me like a watchful cat. "Transfiguration, Miss Evans, and not Charms. I trust you will listen more carefully next time?"

I nodded politely, still flushing to match my skin with my hair. Walking up to my seat, I felt a surge of anger run through me as the nasty, ash-headed James Potter flashed me a despicable wink, accompanied with an annoyingly wicked smirk.

And oddly enough, it made me blush even harder, from anger or embarrassment I really wouldn't know.

Anyway, if you think he'd stop at that with a satisfied feeling from having me humiliated before the entire class, you'd be wrong. Because shortly after I took my seat, James raised his hand ostentatiously.

"Professor McGonagall," he called, voice composed and confident. "I would like to have a go at that."

Argh! Over-confident git!

It was then that I decided, that after class, I would have to give him a piece of my mind.

---

Ah, nothing else like humiliating Lily Evans to end another school day. What a pleasure it was to see her, getting reprimanded for jeering at my own faults! And you should've seen the look on her face when I transfigured that beetle perfectly. It was almost enough to make me feel like I had topped her in Charms! Hah, I'm an absolute genius.

Or at least I felt like one until she bickered at me after class.

"Argh! You are such a blighter, you know that?" she spat, halting before me as my friends and I made our way towards our dormitory. "Why-- why do you have to make such a hefty deal of humiliating me?"

I smirked at her coolly. "Weren't you the one glaring at my head? Listen, I know you have a crush on me, but you just aren't my type, alright?"

Ooh, are those smoke signals from her ears?

"First of all," I continued, "you've got red hair. I know it's terribly ugly and-- well, wispy, and it just isn't what I like in a girl. Perhaps if it were something of a strawberry-blonde I would take another look at you. And second, green eyes. Ick. Can you just imagine how our future daughter would look like if she had your eyes?"

Erm, okay, James, I think your mouth's said enough... and no, I don't think that angry dent in between her brows was caused by a bump into a huge nail...

"Third, I hate the shape of your face. It's too small, you know. I would really prefer something similar t---"

SMACK.

I couldn't believe it. She actually slapped me hard on the cheek! Was it something that I said?

"You listen, James Potter, and you listen well. Because a few seconds from now, you are going to find yourself so badly hexed, your own poor mother wouldn't be able to recognize you!"

Heh, right. Like the goody-two-shoes would actually do something like that.

I looked down on her, feeling like a giant from my 6-foot frame to her...well, insert one of my sniggers here... 5-foot-and-an-inch. Hah! Hobbit.

"R-Riight. What can you do, throw me off into the fireplace with your pathetic use of--" --I heightened my voice into her own, mocking her pathetic interpretation of that spell she was supposed to cast a while ago-- "-- Novey Vas Aqua! Really, Evans, a swish and---"

Hey, why was she taking her wand out of her pocket?

"---double flick? Hah! What a pathetic--"

"Novo Vas Aqua!" she suddenly blurted out, doing a perfect double-looped swish with my signature flick at the end. Damn! She copied my demonstration back in the classroom!

The last thing I remembered seeing was a flash of white, which had covered Evans reddened face completely and pushed me into the wall. Oddly enough, instead of a light thud into the wall, I heard myself emit a ting! as I dropped lightly into the carpet. And I felt weird; it was as though all my insides had been turned into jelly!

My ears didn't seem to be there, but the first thing I heard after that encounter was a pair of angry footsteps walking away from me. No doubt it was Evans; I could actually distinguish the sound of her own uptight-prefect footsteps from everyone else's! And there was a rough blast of laughter from above me... a Siriusly demented kind.

I tried to open my eyes, but I simply couldn't. It seemed like they had been open for ages, and that I didn't even have to blink anymore... and where were my glasses? They seemed to have vanished somewhere... maybe they were tangled in my robes, which had fallen into a cluster around me, but then again, I felt like I didn't need them anymore... anyway, whatever happened to them, my vision seemed to work perfectly normally.

"That, in S-- haha... Salazar's... hah!... underpants was absolutely the be--ha... best prank I have ever seen!"

Until of course, I saw Sirius laughing at me--- and he was ten times his usual size.

"Padfoot! What happened to you?"

Sirius was laughing so hard, he had to cough in between his own damned laughter. Ha. Serves him right.

"The question is-- what happened to you? You're a--", insert more of his insolent laughter, "-- glass of water! And I think your clothes merged with you inside the glass! Heh, it's so weird hearing you talk without a mouth."

A glass of water?! Damn. Now Evans really did it. That's it, I'm going to hex her as soon as I change back! Now, if only I can find my hands...

"A glass of what?!" I repeated, flabbergasted. I made an incredibly feeble attempt to look down at myself and failed miserably, only feeling my insides move sideways like a wave from some body of water. Oh, right, my insides were water. "And you didn't even try to stop her?"

Sirius shook his head, still grinning like a stupid idiot and trying not to laugh anymore. And he failed just as miserably.

"How could I? She looked like she was about to burst! Come on, I'll... er, carry you to Madame Pomfrey--"

"No way! Not her! If anyone else outside this house knows it's me, you can bet your own life's going to be on the line!"

Sirius laughed. "Alright, alright...I'll carry you to Remus, then. He might know a countercurse for this. Besides, everyone's gaping at me with that are-you-nutters look... me talking to inanimate glasses of water doesn't look good at all."

And carry me to Remus he did, wrapping my fallen robes around me. You really wouldn't know how extremely odd it is to see your best friend at this level, especially with an extreme close up of his palm with the help of my thickened glasses. Or would it be more proper to call it glass? Oh, screw it, I wouldn't know.

Soon, we were back in the dormitory (odd though as it was, as we were usually roaming around the school with our very own Marauder's Map just this time around before dinner), with me standing ever so stiffly on Remus' bedside. My three, ever so trustworthy best friends were studying me with wide eyes and tightened lips of stifled laughter.

This wasn't funny!

"Quit staring or I'll hex you when I change back!" I threatened irritably, furrowing my eyebrows deeply and raising a fist.

Oh. I forgot. I didn't have any eyebrows. Or a fist. I. hate. Evans.

Remus finally broke his mouth into a wide grin as he shook his head nonchalantly. "She's really outdone you this time, mate," he quipped, a wide smile still glued onto his face.

Damn you three.

I watched as Remus vanished out of sight for a while, with me unable to shift to my peripheral point of view because I suddenly realized I didn't have one. It was a miracle how Sirius even managed to turn my, er, cylindrical form the right way so my eyes were facing all of them. It completely sucked that I couldn't look anywhere else but straight.

"I found this book from the library on simple hexes," Remus said, placing the book right in front for me to see. "Fortunately enough, the one Lily cast on you was mild. It's only good for less two hours more. But don't get me wrong, it was actually very impressive how Lily managed to work this kind of hex on a human being. If she'd been trained, she would have managed to turn you into a pitcher... permanently."

Peter laughed. "Now that would be classic."

Ah. What truly wonderful friends I have.

"So what do I do?"

"Hmm, I'm feeling rather thirsty," Sirius said, sliding a hand up and down his neck. "Mind if I---"

I glared daggers at him, hoping glasses of water could so. "Shut up or I'll strangle you."

Rii-ight. If I had hands.

"You just have to wait, Prongs," said Remus, clearing his throat of what sounded suspiciously like canned wolfish laughter. "We'll bring you to the Great Hall at dinner. Just pretend you're a table utensil until you change back."

Table utensil?

Alright, so I was going to change back soon, anyway. No big deal, really...

..or at least until I manage to get my hands on that dirty, scheming, insolent witch that Evans is!

"Can you three do me a favor?" I asked, suddenly feeling devilishly determined. "I want you to get back on that Evans. Tamper with her dinner or something."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Revenge isn't very flattering, James--"

"That doesn't matter!" Sirius said outspokenly, slamming a fist on his palm. "I like where you're getting at, Prongsie! Let's hope she's hungry..."

Peter's eyes suddenly glistened madly. "Ooh, brilliant! The elves have got an entire bottle of Dragon Breath Chili Sauce in the kitchens, I believe.."

"Oh, and not to mention that tiny serving of Werschel's Wickedly Haggish Hot Lava I found in the cabinets," Sirius said, smirking devilishly at our lot. "But it won't last long, don't worry, just a minute or so," he added quickly, seeing Remus' reprimanding eyes. "Any trace of the sauce will vanish quickly in a minute or so."

This was going to be fun. Watch your tongue, Lily Evans. You're next.

---

Hah! Look who's talking now, Potter! look who's talking now!

I actually turned him into a glass of water! First of all, I had finally managed to make the spell work! Oh, joy! And secondly, I finally got to give that prat a piece of my mind! How brilliant was that?

Angry as I still was at him, I couldn't help but acknowledge that wonderful feeling of contentment swimming inside me as I walked into the Great Hall that night for dinner. Really, I felt like skipping; nothing else could ruin the rest of my night, now. Not even the memories of James' own show of shamelessness with his pranks. And not even the sight of those Marauders, sitting there and laughing, just beside the only available seat at the Gryffindor table.

"I see Jamesie-poo hasn't changed back yet," I said, smirking at the glass that was James. I took the glass from beside Sirius' plate, ready to taunt and tease it without having it fight back in anyway. This was just beautiful.

That was odd, though, his friends seemed to still look cheerful in spite of James' changed state. They must've found it funny as well.

"Hey, Jamesie," I teased, giving him a wink as I sat down to eat.

James gave me a glare-- oh, oops, I almost forgot--- he doesn't have eyes. Bloody brilliant.

"Keep your mouth shut, Evans. You're going to eat your words back, I swear," the glass replied in annoyance, making me feel all happy and, er, tingly inside. Heehee. He was wonderful company as a glass of water. He wouldn't have to change back, hopefully.

"Oy, Lily," Peter called suddenly, smiling at me. "You really got us on that one."

"We bow down to your brilliant prankish abilities," Sirius added as he and Peter bowed down to me pretentiously. Remus shook his head amusedly.

Ooh. I'm admired. Excellent!

Sirius bowed down to me once more. "Enjoy your dinner, oh goddess of pranks... James'll never forgive us for this, but that was just too amazing, I swear."

I smiled back at them with a satisfied grin. I finally exceeded James in his top subject-- Transfiguration. And his friends even loved me for it! Brilliant, Lily Evans, brilliant.

Feeling content and happy, I took a spoonful of my food showily, trying to taunt James. How could I miss this opportunity?

"Look, Jamesie boy," I teased again, taking spoonfuls of the food before me. "This food tastes great! Oh, what was that? You wanted to eat, too? Oh, dear, unfortunately, it seems as though---"

That was the last thing I remembered saying. I felt something heavily harsh choke me, and it felt as though my throat had just been burned by a Dragon. My tongue was just fizzing with pain, it seemed like it was actually melting into my esophagus like a bowl of mashed liver. My eyes watered so badly I could have cried my brains out! It was terrible, it was too haggish to describe; every single colour of a tongue of fire seemed to have swirled my oral organs senseless!

I coughed, too caught up with my burning throat to even hear the peals of laughter from James and his demented little friends. I grabbed the nearest glass I could find; but just as my lips met with the first layer of water, there was a rather loud pop, and I found my lips swirling with those of James.

I was kissing James Potter. And both the burn and the taste of the sauce had vanished... magically.

Before I could even tear away, I felt his hand gently snake around my waist. My hands had found their way through his hair-- his messy, untamed hair-- as I felt surges of overwhelmingly sweet nerves jet through me. I never knew he smelled so... lovely... like a masculine version of vanilla and edelweiss. And his lips were perfect-- wonderfully soft... and yet so... enchantingly boyish. After what seemed like a blissful moment of eternity, we both pulled back, staring at each other with surprised looks on our faces.

"Er..."

"Erm..."

"Right."

"Wow."

But who was I kidding with those blank comments? It was my very first kiss, almost tainted with the spice of whatever those Marauders had placed in my food, and was fortunately saved by a bit of magic... or perhaps it was just part of the product for the burn, taste and smell to vanish right after one minute.

Anyway, it didn't matter now. All I knew was that the kiss felt so enchanting, so devoid of lust and loaded with innocent sincerity... it felt absolutely, incredibly, undeniably, exceedingly...

---

wonderfully... undoubtedly... amazingly....

Perfect.

Even though she was Evans.

---

...Even though it had to be Potter.

Ignoring the cat-calls and cheesy applause we were receiving from our housemates, or at least whoever had already seated themselves at the Great Hall, I focused myself on his gray eyes. His blue-gray eyes. His dementedly prankishly teasing blue-gray eyes.

Which didn't seem so demented anymore.

And I would have gladly given myself to drinking an entire bottle of whatever sauce that was...as long as I got to kiss him again. Because at that moment, I knew that no matter how thirsty I would have to be, another James Potter kiss would make me feel absolutely, extraordinarily....quenched.

Darn that unruly hair.

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A/N: Heehee... the first kissing scene I've ever written, I believe. Please don't forget to review!!! ^_^