James Potter Is Going Down
also known as
The Perfect Plan
I am going to kill him! I think furiously as I stride down the hall towards the Gryffindor corridor. This is the last time that I will stand for any of his nonsense. This time, James Potter has gone too far.
'Dopplebeater defence,' I mutter to the Fat Lady, who is looking particularly cheery today. The whole castle has been discussing her recent involvement with a Quidditch player from a painting on the fifth floor, and last night quite a few Gryffindors were locked out of the common room because she was absent from her post…
'Anything wrong, dear?' she asks.
'There will be if you don't open the door,' I tell her, giving her a standard Lily glare. The murderous glare that I have perfected will have to wait for that toe-rag scum Potter.
'Just trying to help,' the Fat Lady murmurs and swings forward to let me through.
'Thanks, but I don't need any help.' Potter's going to be the one that needs help after this,I think to myself.
He's sprawled across the couch, conjuring tiny bluebirds out of thin air with his wand. Sirius is watching him, laughing as he makes each bird disappear in a puff of blue smoke. The entire female population that is in the common room are gazing at the two, a mixture of awe and lust on their faces. I deem myself to be the only sane girl in Gryffindor, apart from my best friend Alice, as far as James Potter and Sirius Black are concerned. Lusting after the main Marauders is simply not in my genetic make-up.
'Potter,' I yell, making him glance up at me. Sirius has his wand posed, ready to make the next bird disappear, but at my sudden appearance the little bird is instead flying around his head. The girls around them sit up a little straighter when I come in, adjusting their robes and pretend not to watch what is unfolding before them. They've seen too many of Potter and my fights, I think bitterly to myself.
But this fight is unavoidable. Not after what he's done this time.
'I hope you have no plans for the next few days…'
He stands up, smiling and ruffling his hair. 'Why, I don't, Lily my love. Go out with me, and I'm sure those few days will just rush by…I'm confident we could find plenty of things to do.'
'Potter, there is no universe where I would ever consider you as a worthy date. How hard is it to get that through your thick head?'
'I believe that one day, Lily dearest, you will come to your senses and finally realise that you and I are meant to be with each other. Once that thought has gone through your head you will agree to go out with me and everything will be beautiful. It doesn't matter how long it takes. Besides,' he shrugs carelessly, 'I'm optimistic.'
The girls titter and it makes my blood boil.
'Well I hope you're optimistic about everything regarding me.'
I think he believes I'm subtly trying to tell him something. He looks at Sirius, who is batting the bird away from his face absentmindedly. Sirius raises his eyebrows at him, and nods his head.
'Wow, I never knew you had it in you, Lily,' Sirius drawls, catching the bird in his hand and squashing it so all that is left is whispers of blue smoke. 'Finally letting the gallant young man take you out!'
I can't believe that this is what they're thinking. Are they mentally unstable? James looks at me and starts to speak, but I can yell louder than him. 'Are you optimistic about the fact that I am now going to hex you into oblivion?'
I stick my hand into my robe and pull out my wand, trembling with anger.
James steps back from me, his face torn between a look of amusement and actual fear. He's been on the receiving end of many of my spells. He knows how long they take to recover from. I step closer to him, and he edges back again. The girls and Sirius look from me back to James as if we're an interesting tennis match.
'Now, Evans, why the hell would you want to hex me into oblivion?'
Merlin, he is so thick. 'Bobby Lane, Potter. Does that name mean anything to you?'
He smiles widely and winks at Sirius. This action makes me so furious I don't know what I'm doing. I step right up to him and point my wand at his chest.
'This is the sixth boyfriend of mine that you have hexed so forcefully that Madam Giles can't fix anything for a week! Are you insane? What are you trying to do? Do you honestly believe I think it's so clever of you to do things like this, that because you're so brilliant at hexing my boyfriends that I'd just fall into your arms and let you carry me off?'
He tilts his head to the side, a small smile creeping across his face. 'Well…'
'Potter!' I screech. 'No! Can't you tell when people are being sarcastic? Why can't you just leave me alone? What are you trying to get at, anyway? Are you just attempting to hex all of my boyfriends so that eventually there'll be no one to go out with but you?'
'That's actually a good idea, Lily,' he says with his trademark smirk. 'I think you could probably join up with the Marauders. What do you say, Sirius?'
Sirius just chuckles. They both make me so furious I flick my wand, and before they realise what I'm doing, Sirius has been thrown backwards, hitting his head on the mantelpiece of the fireplace, and James has been pulled into the air and is being twirled around and around upside down, his robes falling down so that the entire Gryffindor common room can see his bright blue boxers, with tiny brooms zooming all around them.
'Evans!' The thick material of his robe muffles James' voice. 'Get me down or I will do something serious.'
Sirius looks up. 'What did you say about me?'
This is a typical response whenever Sirius hears the word 'serious' around him. I groan in frustration and flick my wand at him. He jerks up and starts dancing furiously. 'Be a gentleman, Sirius, and keep the girls entertained,' I say sweetly. He glares daggers at me, twirling a pirouette, but my attention is back on James.
'You infuriate me, Potter,' I scream at him. 'You are so incredibly frustrating! Why can't you be responsible and mature for once? Is that so hard to ask? You're Head Boy, for Merlin's sake! What do I have to do to get you to stop bugging me?'
James laughs, his face red from all the blood obviously pouring into it. 'You have to ask, Lily my love? Just go out with me and all this will be done with.'
I let him down on the floor roughly and I bend over him, my eyes narrowed into tiny little slits. 'Never, Potter. I will never, ever want to go out with you. You'd do good to remember that, if you don't want to end up like poor Bobby in the hospital wing.'
'But Lil-'
'Shut up for once in your life, Potter!' I cry, and wave my wand at his face. Five pegs immediately clamp his lips shut and he lets out a groan of pain. 'Serves you right,' I tell him.
He glowers at me and waves his wand. The pegs fall to the ground.
'Do you ever wonder, Lily,' he says seriously, 'that perhaps you annoy me as much as I annoy you?'
I'm surprised at the depth of his words, but I'm far too angry with him to pay too much notice. 'Just keep away from me, Potter.' I jerk my wand and he is shoved back about six feet, to make my point. I sweep past him to the girls' dormitories, turning back to look at him once more. 'By the way, Potter,' I say, as he looks at me with a tiny bit of hope in his eyes. 'Nice boxers.'
He goes so red I think he's probably beaten even my best record of blushing.
'Aurgh!' I scream as I enter the dormitory. Only Alice is in there, and she jumps about a foot off the bed when I scream.
'Merlin, Lily, what are you so uptight about?'
'What do you think, Alice?' I slump on my bed, feeling sorry for myself. 'Why does he have to make me this angry and this upset? I hate having to use magic against anyone, but when it comes to Potter I just can't resist!'
'That's because he's such a git it's impossible to resist!' She comes over and sits next to me on my bed. 'We've only got another year here, Lils. And then you'll be out of his way forever.'
'Seven years too late,' I mutter.
'Life's tough.' Alice shrugs.
'I don't know why he's got this obsession with me. He's asked me to go out with him at least twelve times a day ever since we started here. And both being Heads? We're supposed to be intelligent, mature leaders. Which are adjectives never to be associated with the name James Potter.' I look at her desperately. 'He drives me insane, Al.'
'I think it's about high time you taught him a lesson,' Alice says.
'A lesson? What about?'
'A lesson to show him that there's no stuffing around with Lily Evans.'
'And how would I do that?'
'Hit him where it hurts the most.'
'And where's that?'
She looks at me as if I'm the one insane, not the radish-for-brains Potter that is downstairs. 'You, Lily.'
'Me?'
'He's always going on about you, right? You, Lily. You're the only girl James Potter has ever paid attention to – or at least attention that lasts more than a Quidditch game.'
'I wish he'd give it up, Alice.'
'So go out with him. Pretend to love him. And then, once he's completely yours, dump him. Get him where it hurts the most.'
I'm shocked. 'Alice, that's horrible!'
She shrugs. 'Yeah, I know. But honestly, I think the world, or at least Hogwarts, could do with a bit less of James Potter's ego. And you're the only one that is able to fix him, Lils.'
What she's saying is wrong, but it's appealing. 'You're right, Al, but I do happen to have something called a boyfriend. Bobby Lane, remember him? He's down in the hospital wing right now because of that toe-rag Potter!'
'Exactly why you have to do this, Lily.'
I laugh at her. 'You make it sound like the world is hanging on my decision.'
She shrugs. 'Maybe it is.'
'I'll have to think about that one. Potter and I changing the world by me going out with him?'
'Look, you never know. And anyway, Lils, about Bobby, weren't you going to break up with him anyway?'
I start to blush. I wish I didn't tell Alice so many things. 'Well, now how's it going to look to him? He's going to think that I found Potter's pranks so amusing that I wanted to go out with him!'
'Oh well, tough luck. Bobby wasn't worth it anyway.'
Everything she's saying is making sense, but doing something like that? Going out with someone and then breaking their heart? And I'm not talking about Bobby Lane. Potter, however much I hate him, has wanted to go out with me since first year, even though I personally can't understand what he sees in me. I don't think I can do something like that to him. Even to James Potter, who is my sworn enemy…it's wrong. It's against all of my morals and genes. As well as inheriting the hate-Potter gene, I also got the treat-others-the-way-you'd-like-to-be-treated gene. Of course, that gene somehow disappears when a certain Head Boy does something absolutely inexcusable.
'Come on, Lily. It's the perfect plan.'
Getting James Potter back for all the stupid stuff he's done in the past?
The opportunity is too great to pass up.
'Okay,' I say to Alice, as she grins at me. 'I'll do it.'