Nothing you recognize is of my creation. They are those of Miss J.K. Rowling. I know that most of you must be weary of James/Lily fics, and it's terribly understandable if you lose patience with my story quite quickly. I am a recent fan of the ship, and this is my homage to them.
"Must you go so soon?" moaned a perfectly flushed, perfectly breathless Douglas Adams as Lily Evans, his girlfriend of a remarkable two weeks, pulled away slightly from his intimate embrace in order to properly look at him, and flash him a wide, sympathetic smile.
"I'm sorry Doug, truly," Lily implored, running a conciliatory finger gently down the handsome length of his nose, giggling. "But this sort of thing comes with dating the Head Girl, I'm afraid."
Douglas gave her an amiable nod—what must be the tenth one he had spoiled her with that week—and reluctantly slackened his tight grip on her waist, taking a small step back, and watching with an amused grin on his face as Lily quickly straightened her school robes, and expertly adjusted her long, thick hair. "What's McGonagall having you do this time?"
"McGonagall? Oh, I wish," Lily sighed heavily, forcing herself to appear absurdly thrilled at the hideous prospect of sorting out yet another insufferable Slytherin first year,"It's a request from Slughorn. Apparently this one came across a baby dragon on a trip to Hogsmeade,"
"A baby dragon? Well, that's certainly a first," Douglas replied, genuinely alarmed,
"Yes, and guess whose unfortunate job it'll be to coax the first year into giving said baby dragon up," Lily had to practically restrain herself from groaning out loud so great was her displeasure.
Normally, she wasn't particularly opposed to counseling first years. Truthfully, some of them delighted her, reminded her quite easily of herself at that age: very frightened, enormously worried, and preoccupied with every passing male that ever shed them a bit of attention...
But Slytherin first-years were an entirely different sort.
They didn't cling to Lily, they didn't gaze at her adoringly with eyes widening to the size of saucers, and mouths open as though she were a Goddess appearing before them in the flesh. No. The moment they chanced the smallest glance at Lily's house colors, they immediately went irreversibly sour, regarding her with nothing short of unrestrained hostility as though she had done something horribly, unforgivably wrong.
Douglas waited for Lily patiently by the doorway, and leaned in softly to give her a final kiss. "See you later then," He whispered, smelling the small tangle of hair she had tucked behind her ear, and Lily gave him a tiny, amorous peck on the nose. "See you." It had taken ages for Lily to finally settle on a decent bloke, and Douglas Adams of Ravenclaw, while not exactly the most exquisite-looking specimen, was the ultimate remedy for the kind of boys she had been accustomed to dating, in the past.
'And change for the better,' Lily decided inwardly, hoping that with any luck, James Potter would finally cease pestering her, and move on for both their sakes.
"I don't want to talk to you!" Eleven-year-old Isa Blakemore exclaimed, sounding perfectly as though she had been deceived—which she probably was, thought Lily, bemused—as she tiredly made her way inside the small, dark classroom Slughorn had arranged to be empty for the both of them.
'Can't exactly say that the feeling isn't mutual, though,' Lily thought miserably, growing slightly wary of the small Hungarian Horntail that sat, glowering at her with great, rotund, yellow eyes on Isa's lap.
"Isa," Lily began, her throat decidedly dry with her obvious lack of enthusiasm, "I'm afraid that Professor Slughorn has informed me-"
"That chubby old man ought to keep his livery mouth shut!" Isa shrieked, hugging the dragon close to her chest as though it were a harmless stuffed animal,
"-of your dragon," Lily continued, refusing to flinch, "Now, Isa, I'm sure you know perfectly well that it is against school rules to keep anything other than an owl, a cat, or a toad-"
"Those things are boring!" Isa gave an affected little shudder at 'things,' "Marjorie here is the pride of the common room!"
Lily had to suppress what would have been a very nasty cackle indeed, attempting, in her silent fit of hilarity, to picture who exactly in Isa's beloved common room would agree. She had already overheard the Slytherins in her year complaining, all of them passionately lamenting burnt essays, fearfully inspecting the hem of their robes for the slightest glimmer of fire, and pinching their noses hard at the mere recollection of having discovered dried, dragon dung on either their beds, or on the inside of their shoes the night before.
"Listen, I know you love, Marjorie, Isa," Lily tried to sympathize, lowering her head so that her and Isa were on eye level, "But don't you want Marjorie to be happy as well? I'm sure she misses her mother very much,"
"She told me about her mother. She left her there, out in the cold," Isa clicked her tongue, apparently disgusted, blowing loud kisses at Marjorie, who was glaring at her, appearing increasingly harassed, "I'm her mother now."
Lily gritted her teeth, no longer keeping up the effort to seem pleasant.
"Isa, dragons are not to be raised by wizards. They need to be with their own kind-"
"I'm tired of listening to you! I want to go back to bed!"
"Isa, please-"
"NO! You're just jealous! I won't let you take Marjorie from me!"
Lily threw her hair back angrily in frustration, her breathing resembling that of a caged tiger's, 'Do not hex first years, do not hex first years, do not hex first years…'
"I don't care what you say! Marjorie and I are going! And there's nothing you can do about it," Isa hopped off her seat, dismissing Lily boldly with an arrogant thrust of her chin, and before Lily knew what she was doing, she had reached over at Isa with both hands, and had plunked the girl forcibly back on her seat.
"OW!" Isa screamed a little louder than was strictly necessary, clearly hoping to prompt someone from the other side of the door to burst in, and come to her aid.
"Isa, I beg of you, it doesn't have to be this difficult."
Isa was completely silent for a moment, as though from having fully exhausted herself, and with a quick, inspired peek at Marjorie, looked up at Lily, fearlessly meeting her eye.
"If you don't let me out of this bloody room, I'll sic Marjorie on you,"
Lily actually snorted.
"Isa, that dragon will be taken from you whether you like it or not."
"It's not… it's not that bad, Lils," lied an inwardly terrified Belinda Carmichael as Lily, face horribly swollen and scarlet with tears, reluctantly pulled a wrinkled pillowcase off the top of her forehead, revealing a hideous cap of spiky, unkempt red hair.
"My life is completely, and utterly over!" Lily wailed, returning the pillowcase up over her face as though she were afflicted with a deformity, and Pragna Patil, who solemnly bit her lower lip in mingled pity and discomfort, squeezed Lily's right shoulder, gesturing for Belinda to say something more comforting.
"Lils, I don't understand, how did it happen?"
"Isa Blakemore. That's how it happened," Lily sniffled bitterly, wiping her nose on her sleeve,
"I was supposed to take her baby dragon for Slughorn, and-" Lily looked up wildly from her hands, "She had the dragon attack me!"
"Can't Madame Pomfrey issue you a hair-growing potion? Isn't there a spell to make it grow back?" Belinda urged desperately, and Lily shook her head, as though she had already considered, and exhausted both possibilities with no luck.
"Madam Pomfrey says that the potion will take about a month to make, she doesn't have all the necessary ingredients…as for a spell, unless we spend the remainder of the night attempting to invent a successful one…"
"So… what are you going to do?" Pragna swallowed, looking as though she might not like to know the answer, and Lily gazed at her, hopelessly resigned.
"Madame Pomfrey suggests I buy a wig, and since our Hogsmeade trip won't be until this weekend, I have three whole days in where I shall look like a boy, and I'll be a laughing stock! And then everybody would know I'd be wearing a wig!"
"Maybe, you can wear a hat or something... say you had a nasty ink stain, and you had to apply potion on it to get it out... and... the smell is horrible! So-so you need to keep your hair in a hat for three days! Or it will stink up the place-and... should I be quiet now?"
Lily blinked.
"Belinda?"
"Yes…?"
"I think that might just be stupid enough to work!"
