Hey... this is my first attempt at a LE/JP story so I hope you all like it. Feel free to leave me any constructive criticism that you think will help me improve the story. I'm sorry that the first chapter isn't really that exciting but it will improve as more chapters pass. I'm just trying to set the scene with this one.

Hugs and stuff

Katie

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to anything mentioned, described and included in any Harry Potter related book/movie or product. This is just my interpretation of how Lily and James got together. All rights reserved to J.K. Rowling.

Summary: After a confrontation with James after potions, Snape decides to seek his revenge in a way James will never expect against an old friend. Will James realize what he's up to in time to stop him before someone important gets hurt?

Innocent Victim

"I'll make you pay for this, Potter!" A voice hissed in my ear as I shouldered past him. I ignored him, not taking his words seriously, knowing from six years of experience that he is no match for me. Severus Snape may talk the talk but when it comes to walking the walk he just doesn't match up. He gets so worked up trying to think of the nastiest, dark hexes he can throw at me that in the split second he's deciding, I can normally get in one good hex that will most of the time, literally stop him dead in his tracks.

"Whatever, Snivellus," I told him with an arrogant smirk on my face that I know seriously pisses him of. Actually, coming to think of it, I think my continued existence on the planet is one huge annoyance to him but well, that's not really my problem. It's sort of a bonus in a way, I guess. "You've never got the better of me and you never will," I pointed out before continuing on my way.

There was a loud thump as someone did the counter curse and Snape fell from the ceiling from where I'd hung him after he'd tried to hex my back as I left potions. I heard him curse under his breathe before there was a rustling sound as he climbed to his feet. Footsteps echoed behind me but I ignored them.

Well, I ignored them until he put his hand on my shoulder and tried to force me round to face him. "Get your slimy hand off my shoulder now!" I hissed at him under my breath. "Before I hex the living daylights out of you permanently," I threatened.

He removed his hand and I carried on walking but he still wouldn't let this go. He increased his pace until he was in front of me, turning to face me, completely blocking the corridor so I couldn't get past. I sighed. In the past I would normally just have blasted him out of the way with a spell or something but I couldn't do that now. I was head boy now, meant to be a responsible, rule-abiding role model for the younger students. Technically I shouldn't have hexed him either before and stuck his feet to the wall but if the teachers find out about it I could just argue that it was self defence because he did attack me first, unprovoked as well for once.

"What do you want, Snape?" I sighed, wanting to get out of this corridor and to the Great Hall where I could get some dinner. I'd missed lunch today because I'd needed to look up some information on Lethifolds for a Defence essay that had been due in after lunch. As a result it felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself in an attempt to get something to digest. For a moment I wondered if it was possible for a stomach to eat itself but then the logical side of my brain reminded me that this probably wasn't the best time to be debating whether it is possible or not for a stomach to digest itself. I pulled my mind back to the present. "You've never beaten me in a fight, Snape, and you never will so what is the point of making an even bigger fool of yourself by trying to threaten me." I pointed out calmly.

He glared at me for a moment, his eyes cold but sparkling with malice. As much as I loathe everything that Snape is and everything he stands for, even I have to admit that he is intelligent in his own way. Hell, in our first year it was rumoured that he knew more dark curses and how to perform them than any of the Slytherin seven years, who at the time prided themselves on their so-called superior knowledge of those kinds of spells. He was the seventh year male prefect in his house and he knew how to control the other students in Slytherin, stopping them from stepping too far in their rule breaking and often malicious activities aimed at the other houses.

"Well?" I prompted when he still didn't say anything. Patience, especially when I'm hungry isn't a strong point. "Are you going to tell me whatever little childish threat you have for me and stop blocking the corridor so the rest of us can go to dinner or are you going to just stand there and stare at me like that?" I said sarcastically.

"Excuse me," A soft, gentle voice broke into our, well, I guess you would call it a confrontation although that seemed like the wrong description for it until Snape decided to snap out of whatever trance or train of thought he was lost in and get the point. "Please could I get through?" The voice spoke again.

I looked down into the emerald green eyes of Lily Evans and felt a deep sense of peace settle over me. In contrast to her fiery red hair, Lily is one of the most calming and gentle to be around a lot of the time. She hates confrontations and tries to believe the best of everyone, even the Slytherins, showing kindness to everyone she meets. She's the kindest person I think I've ever met, so non-judgemental in a way that was rare to see in people nowadays. That doesn't mean to say that she doesn't have a blazing temper that occasionally she unleashes when someone really upsets her, but for the most part she tries to be everyone's friend.

Hell, she was even Snape's friend for five years before he made the stupid mistake of calling her a Mudblood in front of most of our year group after one of the OWL exams in fifth year. Back then I'd been an arrogant little berk and had been hexing Snape because I was bored and wanted to show off in front of her and a crowd of people. I won't deny I had, and still have, a huge crush on Lily Evans. I think to some extent, secretly, so does every guy in the school, even the ones that call her names and despise her very presence because she comes from a muggle family.

She'd raced over to us when she saw what I was doing to her friend. Another one of her virtues is that she's so stubbornly and unconditionally loyal to her friends and to see me humiliating him like that had triggered off her temper. She'd been yelling at me to put him down, demanding to know why I picked on him when he'd hissed at her that he didn't need help from Mudbloods like her. That had infuriated me, but Lily took it in her stride, not crying or anything like that that most girls would have done. She just took it calmly and turned back to yelling at me. That was the moment I asked her out for the first time. Huge mistake! Padfoot still won't let me live it down.

"Of course," I smiled at her warmly. She was the head girl this year and I was slowly getting closer and closer to her. I had a feeling that this might be the year I finally managed to persuade her to give me a chance and go out with me. I moved out of the way to let her passed. Snape didn't move though. His eyes fixed on Lily and there was a sadness in them that I wouldn't have believed he was capable of feeling if I hadn't of seen it for myself. "Snape? Are you going to let the Head Girl passed?" There was a subtle threat and an edge of steel in my voice that warned him to move out of the way.

"Of course, Lily," He echoed my words, moving out of her way. She gave him a curious glance as though wondering about the sarcasm in his voice and the way that he was staring at her. I noticed that the sadness in his eyes was suddenly turning coldly calculating in a way that sent a shiver down my spine.

"Thank you, Severus," She said graciously. "Thanks James," There was a little more warmth in her voice and a small smile on her lips as she thanked me which made me feel like I was almost ten feet tall or something. She turned her back and carried on walking down the corridor and for a second, both Snape and I watched her progress before getting back to the matter in hand.

"Well? Are you finally going to spit out whatever venom you want to hiss at me and let me get to dinner?" I asked calmly. "Or am I going to have to dock points from Slytherin because you're blocking the corridor?" I offered him a choice, itching to go straight ahead just dock the points from him anyway, but I wasn't going to let a lowlife like him provoke me into abusing my power. Unlike last year when I would have jumped at the chance to dock points from him for even the smallest of crimes, I wasn't that immature. I'd grown up over the summer and now I wasn't going to be manipulated into anything like that.

"I'm surprised you haven't already, Potter," He smirked at me. "After all, that's the kind of thing you do best, lording over your new power over the people who were more deserving of it that you,"

"Unlike some people," I started, heavily emphasising 'some people'. "I don't abuse my power. Now I'm giving you a choice, I suggest you make it before I start docking points," I pointed out.

"Fine," He smiled silkily at my obvious impatience. "I just wanted to remind you that you can't win every fight," He glanced over his shoulders to where Lily was just disappearing round the corner.

"What in Merlin's name do you mean by that?" I demanded, the smugness in his tone making me itch to grab him by the throat and throw him up against the wall where I could beat that smugness out of him.

"Some fights have different rules," Snape pointed out, the smugness in his voice intensifying with each word he spoke. "Different strategies that if your opponent doesn't catch onto fast enough can result in a victory that's devastating in its complete and utter effectiveness," He spoke cryptically, mockingly almost in the way that he talked to a lot of people, almost laughing inwardly at some private joke that only he knew while trying to lord his intelligence over me.

If there is one thing I don't need Snape lecturing me on, it's strategy. I've been the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team for a long time now and successfully led the team to win the cup twice in that time, added onto the other two times that we've won the cup since I joined the team. Unsurprisingly, the last person who I would ever take seriously on things like that would be the person who can't even sit on a broom without with both feet on the ground without falling off it.

"Riiiight," I said sarcastically, drawing out the first part of the word as I saw his eyes light up as though he thought I was going to react to that and start hexing him or something. I wasn't stupid enough to do that. "If that's all now, Snape, can you let us all passed? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to get something to eat," I indicated to the crowd of people who had gathered curiously behind me as if hoping to watch me hex the daylights out of him. In the past, I would have played up to the crowd and done all that and more, but now, now I didn't need to do that. I didn't need to have the attention of the entire school focused on me and what I was doing now. I didn't care if I was popular or now, I just wanted to the things that I knew was right, and not sink down to Snape's level.

"Of course," He said sarcastically polite and stepping out of the way. "But don't under estimate me, Potter. I'm not in Slytherin for nothing," He reminded me.

I headed quickly passed him, biting my tongue to stop myself from saying something like, "No you're in Slytherin because you're a dark arts obsessed creep with no social life or sense of personal hygiene that belongs with all the other slime in this school," or something like that. Just because I had grown up and matured a lot over summer, didn't mean I'd lost all sense of my mischievous side and I knew that was the fastest way to start a large scale fight in the corridor between all the Gryffindors and Slytherins. That would probably be the quickest way to land me in my first detention of the school year, something that I guessed wouldn't impress Lily or McGonagall.

I raced down the corridor after that, hurrying as fast as I could to reach the Great Hall. Normally I'd stop by at the tower to drop my things off in my dormitory and catch up with Moony, Padfoot and Wormtail before dinner but I was to impatient to do that today. The Great Hall would probably be empty right now because very few people chose to eat straightway after class, most preferring to wait an hour and a half after lessons ended till five o'clock to eat.

It didn't take my friends long to find me. They'd not had any lessons this afternoon, having dropped potions at the end of fifth year and had probably been lazing around in the common room or something. Padfoot collapsed on the bench next to me. "What happened between you and Snape before?" He demanded curiously. While I've tried to stop hexing Snape as much, Sirius has started almost trying to make up for the hexing I don't do by doubling his own. I try to stop him, at least when teachers or Lily are around but most of the time I let him do his own thing. If he gets in trouble then it's his own fault, not that a detention or losing house points troubles him too much. We'll just win them back in class or on the Quidditch field.

"He tried to attack me on the way out of potions," I told him between mouthfuls of food. "I stuck him to the ceiling in defence and tried to walk away,"

"Wow," Moony muttered. "You really are taking this head boy thing seriously, aren't you?" He sighed and I noticed there was a little bit of bitterness in his voice. I didn't blame him for that. He should have been made Head Boy over me, he was more deserving of it than a trouble making, prankster like me. I worry sometimes that he might see me getting the head boy badge as being another opportunity that I didn't deserve being dropped into my lap like it was nothing. That was another reason why I wanted to be a good Head Boy, to show Remus that I wasn't just going to blow off the responsibility.

"I know I didn't deserve it," I started quickly but he just smiled and shook his head.

"Stop worrying about it, James," He chuckled. "You'll do a much better job than I would. Everyone will do what you want them with no questions asked whereas they'd give me the third degree before doing it,"

"Shhhh, Moony," Padfoot rudely interrupted him. "You're distracting us from the important issue here!"

"Since when has Snape been an important issue?" Peter asked, nibbling on a chicken wing. "You hate his guts and everything to do with him," He added unnecessarily, not needing to remind any of us of the ill feeling that was between us and Snape.

"Snivellus has never been an important issue," Padfoot sniffed airily. "The torture of Snivellus on the other hand is a complete different matter," He sniggered.

"Fair point, Mr Padfoot," Peter snickered and went back to gnawing at his chicken.

"Thank you, Mr Wormtail," Sirius laughed. "Now, back on topic, Mr Prongs. We were watching on the map and it you walked away only for him to follow. Methinks you aren't telling us the whole story,"

"Fine," I sighed. I hadn't wanted to tell Padfoot the whole story. It was just Snape posturing and trying to talk tough but at the end of the day, as usual, they would just be empty threats. I wasn't worried about anything Snape could throw at me. "He followed me and spouted some rubbish about making me pay for hexing him, spouting off in that cryptic way of his about there being different ways and strategies to win a fight or something. It's nothing, Snape's not dumb enough to try anything against us," I shrugged.

"Don't underestimate him, James," Moony said quietly. "He's not in Slytherin for nothing," I got a weird sense of déjà vu at that.

"Woah!" I said quickly. "That's exactly what he said! That's creepy,"

Moony shuddered. "Tell me about it," He muttered darkly. Then his voice changed and he was suddenly back to his normal serious self. "But all the same, you should listen to him. You know they don't fight like us in Slytherin. They never fight fair and they'll exploit any weakness they can find."

"Yeah," Sirius glowered angrily at this. He'd grown up in a family that had been exclusively in Slytherin for generations and had seen how the twisted power games that Slytherins loved were played. "And it is sort of obvious to anyone with half a brain who your weakness is," He said dryly, his voice grave for once. He nodded his head over to the main door and I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Lily walk into the Hall with a girl from Hufflepuff.

"He wouldn't dare!" I said angrily at the thought of Snape hurting Lily. It caused my blood to boil. "He worships the ground she walks on in that sly creepy way of his. You know he'd do anything to get her to forgive him if he could."

"True," Moony agreed, though his brow creased in worry as he watched Lily walk over to the Hufflepuff table with the girl and sit down. Moony had quite a close friendship with Lily and he didn't like the thought of anyone hurting her. When he first found out I had a crush on her he made me swear on my family and friend's lives that I would never, ever even dream of hurting her. He looks at her like a younger sister that he never had. Heaven help anyone that tries to mess with her with Moony and I around! "Just ignore him unless he says anything else on the matter. It was probably just Snape trying to get a reaction out of you. I can't believe he'd be that stupid," He said reassuringly.

I clenched my fists around my cutlery. It had better just have been Snape trying to get a rise out of me! He'd be spending the rest of his miserable life as a human vegetable in St. Mungo's if he tried making good his threat!