Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does. Big surprise I'm sure.
A/N: I just wanted it known that I am a Strong Person. During the writing of this story I typed the word 'seriously' and refrained from joyously indulging in my favourite and yet slightly tedious every-Marauder-fanfic-has-at-least-one "'I'm serious'-'no, I'm Sirius!'" joke!
Oh, and I'm pretty sure this is slightly AU. Not in a James-is-actually-Snape's-half-brother-and-Slughorn's-secret-lover-and-Lily-is-actually-a-half-dementor-gymnast-slytherin. No, this is only AU because it doesn't really fit into the normal timeline (its only out by a few months though) but not in a completely major way and you'd probably only notice if you thought about it hard. And the characters are all still near enough canon (I hope), or at the very least fanon.
Dandelions
Chapter 1: Evans and Potter
"Fight! Fight! Fight!"
The kids skidded down the corridor, pushing and shoving each other, falling over in their haste not to miss a single second of the event of the century.
"Who is it this time? Diggory and Jones again?" panted a wiry third year to the fourth year currently pushing him out of the way.
"Get out of my way! It's Evans and Potter!" the elder boy yelled excitedly.
"Evans and Potter?" The smaller boy whooped then gave his opponent an extra shove and raced out of sight round the corner where the rapidly growing crowd were cheering and jeering.
The Entrance Hall was fit to burst; there were children of all years running backwards and forwards, pushing each other roughly to get the best view. It was reminiscent of a Gladiatorial spectacle with the savage crowd of schoolchildren yelling, screaming, and thirsting for blood. The spectators at the front would later smugly tell their friends that they had had front row seats; they had heard every single insult, had seen the beads of sweat on their faces, and had experienced the hatred, the sheer electricity of a legendary argument crackle through the atmosphere towards them like an indescribable wave of energy.
A large ring had been formed around two aggressive figures who were predatorily circling each other and sneering, unconsciously building up the tension for the onslaught of classic insults that would soon be viciously slung through the air. The dark head of James 'the demon' Potter nodded along in time to the war chant ringing throughout the hall, a dangerous grin adorning his usually handsome face as he circled his prey. Any observer not familiar with the 'prey' would think that it was hardly a fair fight; Potter was strong, sharp-witted…a hunter through and through. She was smaller than him and prettier, with her long mane of red hair and bright smile…at first glance, she was a girl who needed to be protected from someone like Potter, not thrown into a ring with him. However, the eagerly awaiting student body knew what to expect from their Head Boy and Head Girl. Lily 'sabre tooth' Evans may have been slight but she was the sharpest witch of her age, with a tongue to match, and (though he would never admit it) Potter knew from personal experience that she could also throw a punch and make it hurt.
"What're you waiting for, Evans? Scared?" he sneered from across the ring.
"Oh, please, Potter. Is that the best you can come up with? Taunting me about being scared of you? I'm not eleven and I'm not scared of someone who could be outwitted by a garden tool," she retorted derisively, hands on hips.
"Ooh, it's starting!" a tiny first year whispered excitedly to her neighbour. Silence had fallen the second Potter had opened his mouth, no one wanting to miss even a syllable.
"Oh, I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself-" Potter began with a smirk.
"Save your breath for your inflatable girlfriend, Potter."
The crowd tittered nervously, wondering how he'd take the obvious knifing of his ego. The combatants began to circle each other once more, like two panthers waiting for a chance to strike.
Potter was the first to speak, stepping forward quickly, into the middle of the ring, directly challenging her. "You know, Evans, I've been wondering lately…well, some people say you're two-faced-" He smiled charmingly and crossed his arms as Evans prowled around him. "But I disagree. I mean, if you had two faces, why would you wear that one?"
There was a roar of approval from the crowd. "Go Potter!! Kick her arse from here to Basingstoke!" bellowed a deceptively innocent looking first year.
Lily glared at the child and growled. "Now I know why some animals eat their young."
"No comeback? My, my, we are slipping."
"Shove it, Potter," she said, stepping up to meet him in the centre of the ring, toe to toe. Annoyingly, she had to bend her neck to look him in the eyes, but she straightened her shoulders and glared right at him. "You know as well as I do that I'm much prettier than you. I mean, everyone has the right to be ugly, but you're just abusing the privilege."
The crowd "ooh-ed", to Lily's great satisfaction.
He shot her a quick grin and leant down slightly. "Am I now? Well, at least I've got my brain. Actually, an interesting thought just crossed my mind-" He sent her a serious look. "Does your head whistle in a cross wind?"
The crowd "ahh-ed", to James's great satisfaction.
"A thought crossed your mind? It must've been a long, lonely journey…" she said with a grin.
Potter growled, stepped back and gripped his wand, which didn't go unnoticed by her. "Ooh, you're such a- a-"
"A what?" She smirked at him. "A wonderful and caring person? A perfect example of womanhood? A-"
"A pain in the arse," James said dryly, sending the audience into howls of laughter once again.
"You know, you have very striking features," Lily said, thoughtfully. "How often, exactly, have you been struck?"
"Oh, really, Evans, how clever, resorting to meaningless insults. I'm ashamed of you," James said, stalling for time. He thought furiously, desperately trying to come up with a perfect put down.
She grinned at him. She'd sparred with him enough to know when he'd run out of witty comebacks. She'd won. That hadn't actually been so hard. In fact, she didn't feel as though she'd reached her full potential today. She was sure she had lots of wittier insults stocked up somewhere inside her. "You're not giving up, are you? I haven't even warmed up -"
"Bogey-eating, vomit-smelling, spawn of the Devil!" he blurted out desperately to the delight of the crowd surrounding them.
She grinned. "Dementor-licking, snot-kissing, puke-loving, sprout-eating necrophiliac!"
The audience groaned in disgust, a chorus of "Yuck!"s echoing around the Entrance Hall.
"Messy-looking, fart-smelling, Snape-kissing, lover of all things evil and grotty in this world!" he shouted triumphantly.
"Messy-looking?" she shouted, raising her wand. "I am not messy looking! Mohicio!"
Potter jumped out of the way and the spellflew straight across the ring, hitting one of the little students who were jumping up and down cheering. The boy screamed frantically as a plume of red smoke swirled in a spiral around his head, resisting his neighbour's efforts to waft it away. When the smoke was gone the crowd pointed and shrieked with laughter. Instead of the normal, sedate hairstyle of a twelve-year-old, the distraught boy was now sporting a bright red Mohican, sprouting up from the middle of his scalp, making it look as though a phoenix had decided to take up residence on his bald head.
"Missed me!" Potter sang, while Evans apologetically tried to change back the spell on the traumatised little boy. "Muddeum Baello!"
She ducked at the last minute and the mud ball flew straight into the face of a grumpy looking seventh year, who had arms the size of Evans's waist, and a neck thicker than Potter's stupid head. Evans crept backwards slowly towards the middle of the ring as the mud-covered boy menacingly took out his wand and she whispered through gritted teeth, "Potter, look what you've done now."
"What?" he exclaimed loudly. "It wasn't me! You were the one who ducked!"
Evans rolled her eyes and took up the dueling position, right beside Potter, their wand arms outstretched as the evil-looking seventh year entered the ring.
"THREESOME!" screeched a boy excitedly from somewhere towards Lily's left, making her whirl around and glare at him.
"Excuse me?"
"Evans, concentrate!" Potter yelled as he ducked a vicious-looking spell that whizzed over his head.
She span back around and shot a spiral of impressive purple flames at her foe, which he deflected with a wave of his wand and hit a fourth year girl who was gasping on the sidelines, turning her into a flamingo.
Potter stared at it, mouth agape then twisted to stare at her. "I thought you weren't any good at Transfiguration?"
She shrugged sheepishly. "I'm not. I was trying to turn him into a tea cosy."
"Merlin! And I thought Peter was ba- arrgh!" he yelped as he was hit by a flash of blue magic that instantly covered his body in a sheet of ice and sent him shivering so badly that he couldn't stand up anymore. With a lightening fast round of spells Evans defrosted him and proceeded to knock out their opponent, effectively ending the battle.
"He was mine, Evans! What do you think you're doing?" He jumped to his feet and rounded on her.
"Saving your arse! What do you think he would've done to you if I'd left you like that? You'd be sporting tentacles about now and be on your way to the Hospital Wing!" Their momentary truce was as forgotten as the large lump of Avery that was sprawled across the centre of the ring and they both stepped over the prone form, standing toe-to-toe aggressively once more. "But then again, maybe I made a mistake. Maybe a few tentacles here and there would actually improve that abomination that you call your face!"
"Well, it makes sense that you'd project your own insecurities onto me. I've always said there's nothing wrong with you that couldn't be solved by a bat bogey hex and a polo mallet, but do you know what would make you look really good? DISTANCE!" he yelled.
With a war cry Evans brandished her wand again and was about to shoot a spell at her nemesis when a sharp voice interrupted her.
"Miss Evans."
Lily's eyes widened in horror and she froze, blinking into James's equally horrified face, suddenly understanding why the crowd's raucous caterwauling had fallen into silence.
"I would greatly appreciate it if you would kindly refrain from cursing Mr. Potter at this moment in time. Both of you come with me, please," Professor Dumbledore calmly said, then turned and strode off down the corridor.
The Head Boy and Head Girl gulped in unison.
A/N: I started writing this story about 2 years ago. Six months ago I stopped writing fan fiction in favour of original stories, but recently I found this story and realized that I'd already written 13 chapters and it would've been a shame if no one ever got to read it. I actually think its one of my best fan fics. So I've decided to finish it and post it.
I admit that most of those insults I didn't actually come up with…I bought a pack of 'insult cards' years ago and they came into good use with the writing of this chapter. So if you recognize some insults, that's where they came from. I've just counted and 10 insults came from those cards. A well spent fiver, eh?
Do you want a little preview of the next chapter? Because I've finished the story before I've posted I can give little hints of what is to come.
RANDOM CLUES (which will probably make no sense):
-A secret liaison (not really because other people are there and it was arranged and its not at all secret but I figure it sounds intriguing and might make you read on)
-The RULES
-A by-Godric-that's-sexy moment
-'P's that won't stay clean
-Engelbert Whitney-Chessington III (I'm not kidding)
If you enjoyed it or even if you didn't, drop me a line and review! I've got an evil plant (called Frank) that eats non-reviewers. This isn't a threat, just a fair warning. Frank can get vicious.