It began as any normal day, like most days that end up not so normal as planned. It had started a week after school had begun with 16 year old Lily Evans getting up at three in the morning because she couldn't sleep. Most people assumed Lily got good grades due to the fact she studied all the time because she had nothing better to do. But that wasn't the case. Lily Evans certainly had better things to do than study all the time, although she did a lot of it. She got the good grades because she studied when she couldn't sleep. She rarely slept before two in the morning or after four, which, as you can imagine, made her a little more short tempered than most people. She lived the life of constantly drinking something with caffeine in it. Whether it was coffee, tea, soda pop, or some type of caffeinated potion, which was hard to come by. She could have easily taken sleeping potions if she brought this factor to the school healer however; it was extremely hard to wake up from those sorts of potions. That could prove to be dangerous if someone were to sneak up on her and try to kill her so she avoided taking those potions unless she had something important going on the next day, such as exams or an important test of which she needed to be fully rested.
If people thought Lily was smart when she was all drugged up on caffeine, they should see her when she was completely rested and up to her full potential. She remembered once when, before she had heard of magic, she had been watching a muggle movie about a spy or an assassin (she couldn't remember which), she had commented about how she wanted to do that. Her mother had replied that she certainly fit the position well.
So Lily spent her morning working on her potions homework due three weeks from then, sipping on a cup of tea she had gone down to the kitchens for. After she had finished with the particularly easy homework, she worked better in the early morning and late nights, she took a shower, got dressed, and cleaned the entire dormitory from top to bottom. Not that the last task was in any means hard, all she had to do was wave her wand a couple times. She looked at the clock. Only seven. Giving the room a last glance, she headed downstairs to the Great Hall to eat, going at a rather slow pace. She had finished eating before any of her dorm mates had even opened an eye.
While at breakfast, she screamed at Potter, then at Black, then at Potter again. She then proceeded to yell at Pettigrew and lowered her voice dangerously at Remus. After that she screamed at Potter again, lectured the four boys, yelled at Black, denied Potter of joining him in the broom closet, began to shout at him for his behavior, screamed at Black for laughing, yelled at Remus to keep better control of his friends (after all he was a prefect), screamed at Pettigrew for something (he looked left out), rejected Potter when he asked out on a date (again), screamed at Potter some more about being an arrogant arse, which turned into a fight with Potter, slapped Potter, screamed at him once more to make sure she got in the last word while he stared speechless, grabbed her bag and stomped off right as her dorm mates walked into the Great Hall. They all looked at each other, sighed and followed her out, wishing they could eat instead and saying they would get up early the next morning (something they had been promising themselves for a long time). A very productive and normal morning indeed.
Lily knew from the moment she had left the Great Hall that she was being followed. She really wasn't in the mood to turn around considering she knew it would be her dorm mates and frankly, she did not want to talk about what happened. She didn't know what had ticked her off really. Lily knew she had a short temper sometimes, she was famous around Hogwarts for it, but never was she that short tempered. Except around Potter. Something about him threw her off. She never was one for causing a scene, especially like the one she had just caused. Sure she had fought with Potter before but not normally in front of the entire school. Talk about bad timing. She normally kept her cool, and tried hard not to scream at people, once in a while she didn't, but that was to be expected. But not around Potter.
Around Potter she felt all self control fly out the window and it was all she could do to not punch him or curse him into the next year. She got into quite a few of duels with him, normally he didn't do much to strike back, but she didn't quite get the feeling of pleasure she got when her hand made contact with his face, or gut, depending on what she felt like that day. Or her favorite, the knee in the groin. She sighed. Today was going to be a long day, with everyone talking about the fight. Take everyone's mind off her sending Potter to the hospital wing in only the first week back.
"Bloody Potter and his stupid bloody pranks," Lily found herself grumbling for at least the fifth time that day, not that she was counting of course. It was only ten in the bloody morning too! Three hours after the fight in the Great Hall. Not that she was surprised, Potter was already acting worse than the past five years. As the years at Hogwarts went by, Lily found herself muttering these words more and more often. She was just so sick of the boy! It seemed the only thing he ever did was annoy her. That and play pranks but those tended to annoy her also. And if he wasn't annoying her on purpose, he was constantly bloody asking her out, which was also annoying. And if he wasn't doing those, he was torturing some random, innocent person. That annoyed her a lot. And if he wasn't doing that, he was torturing Severus Snape, which bugged her also. And if he wasn't doing that he was flirting with his next victims and sticking his tongue down their throat. Not that Lily minded that, better them than her, right? It was more the fact that no one wanted to see two people practically doing it on the wall. That just downright disgusted her. And if he wasn't doing any of those things, he was walking around like he was God's gift to Earth or something or going on and on at how great at quidditch he was, which really Lily had seen better. Well actually probably not, but she wouldn't ever admit it. And she really didn't like his friends, except Remus. And if he wasn't doing any of those, which really how much free time can a person have, he was running his hand through his hair or eating or sleeping or goofing off or not doing homework or talking or walking. To sum it all up, Lily pretty much hated everything to do with James Potter. She really did.
***
Today was a good day. Although every day tended to be a good day for James Potter. Lily Evans had talked to him! Never mind the fact it was mostly her yelling and him just standing there watching her like an idiot but she talked to him!
"Mate, I don't get it," Sirius Black said. "What is with that girl? All you were doing was standing there!"
"She talked to me," James felt giddy. It was stupid, really, this he knew. But he couldn't help it. There was just something about her that James admired.
"I wouldn't call that talking really," Sirius thought. "More like, yelling."
"Don't burst the poor boy's bubble, he's lucky he got that far. Normally she just ignores him," Remus said.
"Burst the poor boy's bubble?" repeated Sirius, laughing.
"Yes," Remus had turned red.
"With that line, Moony, you are never going to get a girl."
"I can get a girl just fine, thank you," Remus said glaring at his friend, as he patted him sympathetically on the back.
"Your cheek is still looking red," Peter commented.
"Still?" James put a hand up to his cheek. It still stung from his earlier encounter with Lily.
"Did you guys ever get what she was screaming at us for anyways?" Sirius asked as the four friends turned the corner to their next class.
"Not really," mused Remus, "I tend to ignore her when she is in these moods."
"How can you possibly ignore something that manages to screech that high? My ears are still ringing!" Sirius rubbed his ears as if to make a point.
"I thought she liked you, Moony," James said frowning. He rubbed his cheek and winced of that morning.
"She does and I like her just fine. But I don't really want to hear about how I should better control my friends. You guys aren't dogs and I'm not your mother. And I highly doubt even if I was, that the three of you would listen to me. So I don't see a point into listening to someone yell at you for something you can't control," Remus shrugged.
"You got that right!" Sirius smacked James's hand.
Remus shook his head. "My point exactly."
The four of them continued laughing all the way down to Potions.
***
Lily stalked into the Potions classroom and quickly found a seat at a table.
"Hey," Lily said, dropping her bag.
"Hi," Gina Bennett, one of Lily's dorm mates looked up from a huge book.
"What are you doing?" Lily gave her friend a weird look.
"Hmmm? Oh I'm reading," Gina said not looking up.
"Yes I got that, but why? I didn't know you even knew what a book was," Lily laughed, teasing her friend.
Gina snorted. "It's not like I volunteered to read a book. Ugh. I have to do this essay thing for one of my classes."
"What class?" Lily asked, curious. As far as she knew, none of the classes required reading a book.
"History of Magic. I hate that class. And Professor Binns is so boring. Plus he looks as if he was going to drop dead any day now."
"How does any of that have to do with reading a," Lily turned over the cover, "A wizard romance novel?"
"Well it was written a while ago and it's not just a romance novel, it was based on this one dude's life. It has a lot of old and ancient spells and stuff. It's actually really good. This guy liked to experiment and create a lot of spells and actually, it is because of him that the Wizard War of 1834 was started. So it describes his life before and during and after. But basically, he is in love with this chick and she hates his guts. But neither really understand each other. They get into this huge fight which they manage to drag the entire wizarding world into. Something about her wanting to control the world and him wanting world peace. Very dramatic. A friend is looking over his work one day and comes across a spell he is working on. One that would make people switch bodies. So the friend makes them switch so they can understand each other and she falls for him. Obviously she had already started a bunch of crap before then that no one knew. But it is unlikely that the war would have been started if he hadn't been inventing the spell that could make you switch bodies. It's really complicated how the war started. They were two of the most powerful witch and wizard ever. Both are pretty famous for some of their spells. The war was actually pretty bad. Almost pushed the wizard race to extinction. I haven't gotten very far into it yet but it is the year 1833 so the war is going to start soon. I'm almost failing his class, which I really can't afford to be failing it, again."
"How in the world are you failing it already?" Lily stared at her friend in disbelief.
"Eh, not an important issue. Anyways I asked him and he told me that to make me more interested to find a true book about one of the wars we were studying and I could write an essay about it. I wrote my aunt and she said that her grandmother gave this book to her and that it wasn't completely about war."
"And that made you want to read it?" asked Lily, skeptically.
"Uh, not quite. It turns out it was banned it the early 1900's. Apparently it caused a ton of trouble so I decided to give it a try."
Lily snickered. "Of course."
"Hey!" Roi Hensen sat down, after placing her book bag on the floor and kicking her legs up onto the table. "Holy shit! Are you reading?!"
"Shut up," Gina looked up glaring. "It's for an essay."
"Hello," Chandler Mitchell sat down at the table, filling up the last seat.
"Hey," Lily looked up from her book bag from which she had been trying to retrieve her potions book.
"Are you…" Chandler never got to finish her sentence.
"Yes! I am reading a bloody book! And yes I knew how to fucking read and I know what the hell a book is!" Gina shouted, slamming the book down onto the table
"Miss Bennett! Please refrain from using that sort of language in my classroom!" Professor Slughorn had entered the classroom at the exact moment.
Gina shot Lily a glare as she tried to stop herself, unsuccessfully, from laughing.
"Today, we are going to be learning about… Thank you for joining us, boys," Professor Slughorn boomed across the classroom and made everyone turn to look at who Slughorn was talking to.
Lily already knew who it was going to be. She turned around to see Black and Potter slip into their seats across from Remus and Pettigrew.
"Now that everyone is here, we are going to be learning about some different potions the next few weeks. They are, and you might want to write these down, the blood-replenishing potion, a cough potion, Oblivious Unction, Mandrake Draught, Murtlap Essence, Pepperup Potion, Skele-gro, and the wound-cleaning potion. Now, who can tell me what all these potions have in common?"
Lily raised her hand. "They are all are used to heal a person, in different forms and levels of severity of course."
"Very good Miss Evans! Five points to Gryffindor! Now over the next six weeks groups of four will be researching all these different types of potions. You should find out who invented these potions, some background on the people, what the potions do exactly, some examples of which they are used, famous uses, and any other interesting information you may stumble upon. In two weeks I want all of this done. I then want your group to chose a potion that you will be making. No groups will have the same potion so you better have that decision before. If you get an easier potion, you will be given two to make. You will have exactly a month to finish these. The longest potion here will take a little less than a month so I wouldn't fall behind. I will provide all the ingredients. Your group will then present your potion to the class along with additional research that you have done. Any questions? Good. Now I'm going to pair you into groups of four. When I do, please get with your group and start discussing who is going to be doing what."
Lily felt like groaning. Of course this had to be the class with the Slytherins.
"Group one is Evans, Hensen, Rosier, and Potter."
Lily stared at the man in disbelief. There was no avoiding Potter was there?
"Group two is Snape, Reyes, Tessa Michaels, and Pettigrew."
Lily gave Alice Reyes, her last dorm mate who had been sitting next to her longtime crush, Frank Longbottom, a sympathetic look.
"Group three is Black, Longbottom, Mulciber, and Aubrey. Group four is Lupin, Bennett, Avery, and Nott. And group five is Mitchell, Gestner, Chelsea Michaels, and Lago. Oh and Macdonald, you will be in group four since we have an uneven amount."
Lily looked at Chandler whom was giving Slughorn the same look Lily had.
"Okay, now go meet up with your groups. Just a warning, there is very little class time given to work on this project and you must make your potions in my classroom. Use your time wisely. I'll be back in a minute," Slughorn walked out of the door.
"All Slytherins!" Chandler moaned. "All Slytherins. All the bitchy, whining, stuck up, girly Slytherins! Out of all of the people in the classroom, why did I have to end up with them?!"
"Well it could have been worse. You could have been with the death eater wannabes," Lily suggested.
"Ugh. I would even prefer that. They are not nearly as bad as those three."
"You have a point," Lily shrugged. "At least you're not stuck with Potter."
"I would gladly trade you," Chandler whined and picked up her bag. "Well I better go meet with them. If I don't come back, you know who is behind it."
Lily gave a small laugh and sighed as she picked up her bag to follow Roi over to where Potter and Evan Rosier sat, a decent looking Slytherin who, Lily was sure, was part of the death eaters.
"Hey, Evans, knew you couldn't possibly resist my charm!" Potter gave her a grin as Lily took a seat next to Roi.
"Like I possibly had a choice, Potter. How do you know I didn't sit here because I am infatuated with Rosier?" She asked snidely.
"Please? That git?" He scoffed.
"As if I would ever put myself into the company of a mudblood willingly," Rosier rolled his eyes and looked away.
"Don't call her that!" Potter shouted.
"I can take care of myself, Potter! I do not need you jumping to my rescue."
"He called you a mudblood!" Potter looked insulted.
"I'm quite aware of what he called me, thank you. It's only a name. If I can recall, you have called me a bitch on numerous occasions." She said coldly.
"I have never. That's Sirius!"
"Oh yeah? What about last year?"
"You mean after you kneed me in the balls? You deserved that! It hurt like hell!"
"So you admit, you have called me a bitch?"
"Once! And you were being a bitch!"
"Excuse me? I was not! And even if I was, it's because you were being a prat! Like always!"
"Better than a know-it-all who spends every second of her pathetic life studying!"
"Pathetic?! Pathetic?!" Lily screeched. At that moment, both Roi and Rosier quickly went to work, trying to hide their faces from their screaming classmates.
"Yeah, pathetic, Evans! Pathetic! It's no wonder nobody will date you! No one can stand you! I'm glad I don't have you as sister! I would have to kill myself!" And it was at that point, James Potter knew he had crossed the line.
The room had gotten extremely quiet, most pitying the boy, knowing that the stunned look on Lily Evans's face would only last so long.
"No one will date me because they can't stand me?" Lily whispered in a voice she used only when she wanted the person she was yelling at to be afraid.
"Er, that's not exactly what I meant," he ran a hand through his hair, glancing around nervously. "Then what exactly did you mean," Lily said, even more quietly and deadly than the first time. "Potter?"
"I, er, not that."
"You are saying that the fact no one will date me because they and I repeat: Can't stand me?!" She was screaming now. "Maybe it's the fact that every time someone asks me on a date, you curse them, or hex, or do something that scares off everyone else! And for the fact that anyone can't stand me?! How can anyone stand you?! I bet your own parents can't stand you. I wouldn't be surprised if your own mother placed you in a cardboard box on someone's doorstep. I would be ashamed if I had you for a son too! You strut around like the God's gift to earth! You are the most…"
"Annoying, pathetic, use of wizard space I have ever known. Yeah, yeah I know, Evans," Potter said, obviously trying to keep his cool.
"You are a prick!" At this Lily shot the first curse that came to mind, sending him flying across the room.
"What the hell, Evans!" He stood up and shot a curse at her which she easily deflected.
"Inform me of this, Potter," she started walking towards him. "Why. The. Bloody hell. Did. Dumledore. Ever. Let. You. IN!" At that moment she was standing in front of him, clenching her fist.
"Why did Dumbledore ever let you in?"
She felt her fist make contact with his face seconds later.
"Evans! You broke my nose!" He held his hand towards
"Deal with it. I'm sure your mother will like the change," With that she turned away from him until she felt a body tackle her on the ground.
"Get the fuck off me, Potter," Snarling, she hit him again.
He hit her back. And that, started the first actual fist fight of Lily Evans and James Potter.
***
"I can't believe you hit a girl!" Sirius was staring at him.
"That is not a girl!" James snarled, holding a tissue to his nose while waiting for Pomfrey to finish healing Evans.
"What's this? Just a couple hours ago you were talking about how great Lily Evans is!"
"That's before she attacked me."
"Please," Remus scoffed. "She's attacked you before and you haven't done anything about it."
"Yeah, what has made this time more different than the others?" Peter asked.
"Oh," Sirius was staring at him. "She talked about your mother."
"She had no right!" James was staring at the floor now.
"James, look, she didn't have a right to talk about things she doesn't know, but then again neither do you. Did it ever occur to you that what might have set her off was that you talked about her family and her friends first?" Remus asked quietly.
"Yeah right. Like that would ever matter. Lily Evans, golden girl. Follows all the rules, good at everything. Perfect life. Perfect grades. Everyone loves that bitch."
"You shouldn't assume things that you don't know either, Prongs," Remus sighed,
"Look I'm done talking about this. I'll see you guys later on tonight." James didn't look away from the floor.
"Later, Prongs," Remus sighed knowing this was his cue to leave. Sirius and Peter followed.
***
That night, Roi, Gina, Chandler, Sirius, Remus, and Peter all sat around in the common room. Lily, Alice, Mary, James, and Frank had all long gone to bed. Even Lily had managed to fall asleep after taking a sleeping potion.
Roi and her boyfriend, Trent King who was a year above Roi, sat cozily on the couch, while Gina was curled up in a large armchair, reading yet again. Peter and Remus sat at a table playing chess and Sirius was making out with a fifth year in another armchair, her on his lap. Chandler lay on her stomach in front of the fire place, doing homework.
"I've got it!" Gina shouted and slammed her book together, startling the eight people left in the common room.
"What have you got?" Peter asked looking up from the chess game.
"Nothing. Roi, Sirius, come here!"
Roi glared at her, then gave her boyfriend a quick kiss and got up. "Night, Trent."
Sirius gave a sigh, "See ya in the morning, Brandi."
"It's Bridget," The fifth year immediately got off his lap and stalked off towards the girls' dorms.
"What do you want?" Roi glared.
"I have an idea. About how to get Lily and James together."
"And how is this?" Roi snorted. "Lily hates his guts."
"And James isn't too fond of her either, especially after this morning," Sirius put in.
"I'm reading this book," Gina started.
"I didn't know you could read," Sirius looked at her.
"I'm ignoring that. Anyways, this girl totally hated this guy and he liked her a lot. But they didn't really understand each other. So this friend switched their bodies around so they could understand each other."
"I thought that book was about the wizarding war of the 1834." Roi looked at her.
"It has a good portion in it of that, but it's about the guy's life and the war was partially his fault. I'm not going into detail but the point is why don't we make them switch?"
"The book tells you how to?"
"Yeah. There is an index in the back of the book telling you how to use each spell."
"Sweet! Let's do it!" Sirius pumped his fist.
"Okay." Gina flipped to the back of the thick book. "I need a hair from each of them. Roi get one of Lily's and Sirius, get one from James. Make sure to get it from their head because it could be disastrous if from someone else. I will also need both of their wands."
Ten minutes later, both were back in the common room holding a hair. "Okay, do exactly what I tell you. Place the hairs facing each other. Now, Roi, take Lily's wand and Sirius, you takes James's wand. On the count of three you both point the wands at the person's hair whose wand you do not have. So Roi you are pointing at James's hair, Sirius, at Lily's. Then you say at the same time parorientet savu dzivi. Then you switch the hairs you are pointing at and say mainit to strukturu. Got it? I will say the words right before you say them."
"You sure about this?" Roi asked looking at the wand.
"Positive. Ok one, two, three. Parorientet."
"Parorientet" Sirius and Roi said at the same time.
"Savu."
"Savu."
"Dzivi."
"Dzivi."
"Okay switch what you are pointing at. Mainit."
"Mainit."
"To stukturu."
"To stukturu."
The hairs rose up together in the air and twisted themselves around each other. Sparks were flying.
"Okay both point your wands at them and say apmainitos ar pratu."
"Apmainitos ar pratu," Sirius and Roi said together. The black hair turned red and long while the red turned black and short. They fell, separated.
"What was that?" Remus's voice came behind the three. They all jumped.
"What was what?" Roi asked innocently.
"What you just did," Staring suspiciously, Remus tried to grab a glimpse of the book Gina was holding.
"You mean practicing for charms?"
"Yeah, sure," Remus gave them one last look before heading up to the boys' dormitory.
"Okay, we cannot tell anyone about this. Everyone swear?" Gina looked at them.
"Yeah," Sirius said.
"I won't tell anyone," Roi rolled her eyes. "Now can I go to bed? Tomorrow is going to be a long day."
Disclaimer: I do not own anything really except what you do not recognize and the plot. But of course you knew that.
AN: So what did you think? I wasn't sure if I was just going to have Gina do it, but I decided it could be more interesting if three of them were in on it. I love constructive criticism or just to hear what you thought. Also about my other stories, I haven't given up on them yet. I have the next chapters written for them partially. I just for some reason haven't gotten around to finishing them. So I thought if I got this idea partially written maybe I could continue with the others. We will have to see though.
