Driving Me Crazy

~Part One: Lily's Revenge~

Chapter One: Finding Allies

"You're crazy!" he shouted

"No I'm not, you are!" I replied. Only a little question, I thought to myself. Only a little question. Who gave him the right to shout at me, anyway? And then to call me crazy! I couldn't believe him, but I couldn't argue anymore, either.

"Okay then, might I ask why I'm crazy?" a glint in my eye that promised daggers.

"Simple," he replied, giving me that superior look. "It's full moon: Remus is away, and as if we could pull a stunt like-."

He stopped mid-sentence. Partly because I had just hit him, partly because he knew if he kept going I'd hit him again. "Are we going to be serious now?" I asked, sugary sweet. James just glared at me, rubbing his jaw.

"Full moon?" I whispered, "Isn't that the whole point?"

Okay, it started like this...I'd always been friends with Snape, ever since I could remember. It was purely logical that our relationship progressed, but for him to now do this... It was unbelievable. I had spent an entire day sobbing into onto my best friend, Sky's, shoulder, and after that... Well, I'd found revenge. I'd gone to my best friend's enemy, James Potter. Oh, of course I wasn't dating him! I wasn't stooping that low! No, I was just planning the demise of my newly made enemy, Severus Snape.

Why had he done that to me? I had thought we were friends, the best of friends; of course, he had his odd quirks, but he had still been loyal to me! Notice the "had", as he certainly wasn't now. Oh how I hated him! To embarrass me like that! We had been good friends, but, no, that wasn't enough for him. He wanted to take that step further. I said "no"…

How I HATED him.

He went around the school and told everyone how bad I was. In bed.

The shame! The embarrassment! Am I not allowed to be enraged? Mad? Crazed! For Christ's Sake! I'm only fourteen!

Horror of horrors! He deserves to die!

I stopped and stared at myself. Well, I didn't actually stare at myself, more I just mentally was shocked at myself, and thought of it as staring. I was the passive, kind, studious Lily Evans! Wherever had this nasty streak come from? But I knew the answer to that even before I thought of it. Severus had his nasty points too, so some of it must have rubbed off on me.

We had been spying on the marauders for years now. Severus had always hated James, so I naturally followed suit. Although I thought his reasons extreme (he basically hated James because he hated James, that was about it) I still sympathised with him, I mean, I was his friend, wasn't I? We had noticed that the Marauders had a few secrets a long time ago, but the fact that Remus was a werewolf just hadn't clicked. Or at least, it hadn't to Severus. I had been studying this particular Marauder for some time, but hadn't wished to tell Severus of his particular... abnormalities... as I was obviously worried at what the end result might bring. Oddly enough, the Marauders had never pulled any major pranks on me - I suppose they never noticed me. As I said, I was quiet. I was also a Ravenclaw, so I suppose they didn't associate me much with the Slytherin.

I glanced up at James, pulling myself out of the reverie. I wonder what he thought of the smile that graced my face. I doubt I would have recognised myself, with that evil grin and those wicked eyes. Distractedly I pushed my red hair back behind my ears.

"So, what do you think," I questioned him.

"You're insane. This is simply too dangerous! You're giving into revenge and, while I hate to be the serious one..." He dropped off, not meeting my angry glare.

"Fine," I snapped, "So much for telling me you hate him - you do realise that he wouldn't have thought twice about doing the same to you..."

"And that's another thing," he argued. "How is it that you know so much about Snape? I haven't even seen you before!"

I just smiled at him. He might not have seen me, but I had certainly seen the Quidditch king. "Don't you worry about not having seen me," I reassured him, "the question is, are you In or Out?"

James glared at me - again - I had been certain he'd help me with this, but now I wasn't so sure...

"Fine then," I answered his glare. "You're obviously Out. How about I just go find someone else... Say, Peter?" Smiling evilly with the thought of revenge, I turned away and placed my thoughts on hopefully - or more, they'd better be - my allies.

***//\\//\\***

"Peter!" I called happily. Peter glanced at me, then uncomfortably looked away. "Peter?" I asked, walking up to him. "What is it, Peter?" Once again, Peter looked at me, though he refused to catch my eye."Umm..." he mumbled. "Who are you?"

I stared at him, aghast. Of course; he had never met me. But still, in my unreasonable state, I had expected him at the very least to have known all about me. After all, I was the "flower slut". I mentally chastised myself for becoming distracted, and then again for distracting myself with chastisements. Breaking out of my confused state, I responded:

"Why, I'm Lily Evans, Peter!" I need to ask you something..." If anything, Peter looked more nervous at the prospect of a question. He stood there, jittering, acting as though he wished he were anywhere but this corridor where I had found him.

"Er," he replied. "Wha- what is it?" He stuttered. If anything, my smile widened... perhaps he might prove helpful.

"Well... Do you think that the Marauders would be interested in helping me pull a prank?" I asked.This time Peter did look at me. "A prank?" He asked, as though it were the last thing he'd thought I'd say. Looking a little less nervous, Peter questioned: "On who?"

"Oh! Just an EX-friend of mine!" There it was, that anger again, I really needed to learn how to control it. "You might know him by the name of Severus Snape." I practically spat the word, so large was my loathing. Some third years walking by looked at me oddly, but scampered when I turned my gaze to them…

I looked back to Peter, who smiled, apparently thinking of fond memories. He then became worried again. "They'd be interested, I think," he mumbled, but I understood him. My smile became wider and wider, though no less malicious."Oh, thank you, thank you!" I cried, but was interrupted by an unhappy Peter butting in to say:"I don't know for certain! Ummm... Umm... Just wait a bit, and I'll ask them. Hmm... maybe you should ask them. I don't know. I'm not in charge, don't ask me!"

I began to feel angry again. "Okay then, who should I ask?" I wondered, guessing immediately that he would say James, which was altogether pointless.

"Why don't you ask Sirius?" he finally posed."Hmm..." I thought to myself. And why hadn't I thought of that? "Thanks Peter!"

Waving, I ran off to search for Sirius, leaving Peter spluttering at my sudden exit.

***//\\//\\***

"Hmmm..."

"Hmm?"

"Hmmmhmmmhmmm..!"

Well, I suppose it was better than my previous "You're crazy," though it still wasn't too helpful. I looked around the dark classroom while I waited for him to reply. The empty room was bare of everything, with dirt on the floors and giant cobwebs in the corners. I supposed that people didn't come in here much, which made me wonder why it had been here that I found Sirius. Becoming irritated with his "hmm"ing I snapped at him.

"Well?" Lily spat, frustrated, "Are you going to answer me? Or just stand there going hmm for the rest of your life?"

"Hmmm" replied Sirius, with a mischievous glint in his eye, now beginning to rub his chin in the mannerism of deep thought. Suddenly he stopped going hmm and looked up at me, a nasty smile on his face."Getting rid of Severus - for good!" Mused Sirius, still rubbing at his chin. "You know, it sounds too good to be true. And to think I never thought of it, that it took someone, some girl," he mocked, "to come up with it! The only thing I want to know, is how you learnt about Remus."

I looked up at him, quickly, trying to see what he was thinking. His face averted from mine, he had a remarkably blank expression as he studied the dusty walls. All I could see if his black eyes were slight sparkles where the light from the hallway reflected in. Trying to match his blandness, I replied:"He's the only male I know that seems to have a family problem of some sort once a month. And at that, they're always around the full moon! Obviously he's a werewolf, what else could he be?" Sirius smiled at my unwitting joke. Seeing the expression, I questioned myself as to what I was doing with such a disrespectful person. Then I recalled what Sirius had said, and decided that perhaps he wasn't so bad after all...

I suddenly realized that Sirius was speaking, so I pulled myself back into the conversation."And if the Marauders don't help you... What happens then?" He asked, sounding slightly bored.

I nearly fumed. "If the Marauders don't help me?!" I thought to myself. If they DON'T?! I nearly screamed, and wanted to tear my hair out. I f they didn't help me I'd become murderous, that's for sure! Then I suddenly thought about it harder - and realized that I had an answer."I believe I'm afraid of werewolves. Very afraid." I stated. "What should happen if I ran screaming around the school, yelling garble about Remus being a werewolf? Why, it would be catastrophic!" I finished melodramatically. Meanehile I watched Sirius' face change from confusion to anger, and then fear.

"You wouldn't dare!" he whispered, fiercely.

"Not if you helped me, no," I replied, sounding sweet to let the words sink in.

"You're blackmailing me!" He said angrily. "Imagine that, Sirius Black being blackmailed by some slut who wants to get even with her boyfriend, my enemy."

I slapped him. As hard as I could, I whacked him across the face and grabbed the robes around his throat. "You arsehole!" I muttered. "You monster. I'm not a slut, and that's why I hate him. Don't make me hate you, too." There was no point in saying that. At the moment, I hated him more than Snape. But I think I hated everyone, even my best-friend Sky. Hearing him gurgling for breath, I loosened my grip slightly. With enough oxygen to breathe, he even found enough to speak.

"It's a good thing I'm helping you then, isn't it?"

Smiling cruelly, I let him go and walked away. Looking over my shoulder, I called:

"Meet you at the lake, tomorrow morning. Let's discuss plans."

Turning back to the corridor, I walked back to my common room.

A/N:

I know this is only a short chapter, they slowly increase throughout the story until my average is around 5000 words instead of this measly 1000+. As you may've already guessed, I have this first part of "Driving Me Crazy" already posted at Fanfiction.net (under the title "Lily's Revenge"). The difference is that this will be the edited version and the entire series will be under one title instead of the shorter stories, ie "Lily's Revenge", "Prelude to a Love Story"…

I will be updating as regularly as I edit until I reach as far as I am within the story, which will then be updating much slower as I will have to continue typing out the stories.

"Lily's Revenge" and the other stories will remain posted on ff.net as an arrow pointing to this one - or for those people too impatient for me to post more edited chapters within this story.

I am doing this at the suggestion of Jess the Great and hope she appreciates it! Thankyou for having put me on your favourites list despite my not having compiled them all together… Please keep reading the story - I promise updates will happen more regularly within the month, for I've got chapter two nearly finished, chapter three well begun and the rest of the story planned out. I'm hoping that it'll all start to snowball pretty soon because I really want to start writing my Marauder piece, which is all about their summer holidays…

-wildcat ohyra-