DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately, I don't own Harry Potter. Otherwise I'd be rich and I'd build Hogwarts.
A/N So this started out as a one-shot but I had so may ideas so *deep breath* I am taking The Plunge. Help you all. I'm not sure how long this fic will be yet, I still need to properly plan it out, but hopefully it will be mildly amusing and you won't hate me too much. Enjoy
UPDATE: I am so sorry for not updating this for ages! I feel so terrible! I've been involved with the school production for the past week so I've been in school until 11 each night (I know, kill me now) and I'm trying to catch up on all the homework I missed while doing that. Plus it's my GCSE year so, you know, kind of busy. I hate making excuses but I've honestly had no time! I'm nearly on top of it all now though so as an apology I'm going to try and get two chapters up by the end of next week. Screw homework :)
September 5th – Lesson 1
Lily leant against the cold walls of the dungeon, trying to catch her breath after the sprint to the dungeons. Alice raised her eyebrows at her hasty and somewhat inelegant appearance but Lily gave the smallest shake of her head and Alice turned back to laughing at something Frank had said. Lily would tell her later but waiting for door to the dungeons to open for potions clearly wasn't the time.
Barely had her cheeks returned to their normal colour when the classroom door swung open, revealing the dungeon classroom she'd come to love over the last six-and-a-bit years. She'd miss her corner seat, the wooden table she shared with her friends, even her slightly nutty professor. She noticed that the classroom looked slightly different to how it had last year though.
Before, where there had been five of the square tables, there were now only four. She knew Marlene had dropped out at the end of sixth year after having a nervous breakdown at the end of last year and trying to drown herself in her mysteriously brown invisibility potion. Lily and Alice did try to persuade her to carry on. As they pointed out, despite being the wrong colour, the fact that they couldn't see her head for a good twenty-four hours meant that it was pretty effective.
Still, there should surely be eighteen students left, she hadn't heard about anyone else dropping out. As she looked round the room however, she saw that only four of the five Slytherins had returned, and Julius Croyne of Hufflepuff hadn't made an appearance either. Lily made her way over to the desk in the front corner of the room where Alice was already sat.
"Frank not sitting with us?" She asked with a hint of a sarcastic smile playing at her lips.
"We agreed that we'd sit separately in class, this is out NEWT year, we can't afford to get distracted," Alice replied disappointedly, looking wistfully at the table next to theirs where Frank was sat. He caught her eye and blew her a kiss which she pretended to catch and press to her heart.
Lily ducked her head down to pretend to get a new ink pot out of her bag so that they couldn't see her laughter. Since they got together over the summer, Alice and Frank had become inseparable and made a point of making it clear to everyone that they were very much In Love.
When she felt it was safe to raise her head again, she saw that the Slytherins had commandeered the table furthest away from Slughorn's desk, and were currently snickering about something that Mulciber had said. Lily saw with relief that Severus had sat with his back turned to her; at least she wouldn't have to catch his eye every time she glanced around the room.
Turning to see the desk behind her, she could see that the four of the Ravenclaws had taken the table they had last year and were talking animatedly about the potions they had seen as they'd walked in. Lily smiled and rolled her eyes, turning back to face the front.
"So," Alice began. "Who d'you reckon we'll have sitting with us this year?"
A look of confusion passed over Lily's face, followed by the horror of the realisation she'd just come to. Since Marlene had sat with them last year and there had only been nineteen in the class, they'd been quite happy as their little three. This year however with the Slytherin and Julius gone, and presumably one other to make the class sixteen, and with only four tables of four, there would be no spare seats.
It wasn't that Lily didn't like new people. It was just that she took a while to warm up to them and she'd been really happy with the arrangement last year. Now though, everything would change, and change was something she wasn't particularly fond of.
Lily groaned and was about to reply when loud laughter was heard from just outside the door. Sure enough, three of the four Marauders sauntered through the door, Sirius leading the way and Remus at the back smiling and shaking his head at his friends' antics.
The three stopped in the doorway when they saw the classroom before them. After a brief discussion, Remus headed over to sit with Frank, who had been joined by two more Ravenclaws, and merrily sat down and began chatting.
Crap.
A million possibilities rushed through her mind, from dropping the class right then to summoning two of the Ravenclaws and sticking them permanently to the two chairs opposite her. Her hand was actually twitching towards her wand when Sirius cheerfully plopped himself down on the seat opposite Alice and James slid gracefully onto the stool next to him. He looked up and shot her a lazy, crooked smile which faltered somewhat when she returned it with a glare so cold it could have frozen fiendfyre.
Since they'd both been appointed heads this year, Lily had avoided James as much as was humanly possible. She made sure to sit on the opposite side of the classroom at the first prefect meeting, and had organised patrols so that there was no way their paths could ever cross. A year of potions sitting opposite him was not something she had envisioned as being a problem.
"So where's the beautiful Marlene this year?" Sirius inquired, grinning sideways at James.
"She… um… didn't feel the subject played to her best strengths" Alice replied slowly, and Lily loved her just a little bit more for twisting the truth slightly from the hysteria that had actually taken place.
Unfortunately, Sirius' memory seemed to have returned and he broke into a wide smile. "Oh yeah, the Invisible Head Incident! Greatest disaster of the year that was, depriving us all of such a lovely sight."
Lily raised her eyebrows and curtly informed Sirius that she would be telling Marlene everything he'd just said.
"Please, be my guest!" He laughed. "The whole school knows that I think she's stunning, funny and wouldn't mind spending an hour or two locked in a broom cupboard with her if you know what I mean." He finished this statement with a wink in Alice's direction and proceeded to get his books out.
"Sorry about him -"
"Hey! Don't apologise for me being the fabulous person that I am!" Sirius protested, whacking James over the head with the textbook he'd been retrieving from his bag.
"Ow Padfoot! DO you know how much those things weigh?!"
"Aw shut up, you get hit with those bloody bludgers all the time; your head can't get much more damaged!"
Lily let their voices fade out as Professor Slughorn, late as usual, bumbled into the classroom.
"Sorry, sorry! I know, late again! This will be the year though girls and boys! I can feel it!"
Lily rolled her eyes at this yearly resolution, and zoned out as she doodled on the corner of the piece of parchment in front of her.
"Today's lesson will just be a quick recap of a potion we made last year, just to get you back into the swing of things! You all remember the Swelling Solution I presume? Turn to page 14 of your books; I will be checking them in one hour!"
The class sprang into action, turning pages and gathering ingredients. The sound of idle chatter filled the room, but the front table was noticeably silent. Sirius seemed to have given up on trying to engage in conversation and the others were bent over their textbooks. Ten minutes later though, Lily was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the lack of talking she was used to.
"It's unusual to see you four separated from each other, Black" she began tentatively, looking up to see three shocked, if slightly relieved, faces looking at her. "What's going on? Finally getting sick of each other?"
"I don't know how you could even insinuate such a thing, Evans! Remus for some reason believes he will be able to concentrate better if he sits away from us, and your friend's little mental episode rather put Peter off this particular class. On a brighter note though, it means we all get to be potions buddies!" He smiled deliriously at her, and she couldn't help but return a small smile.
The rest of the lesson passed without incident, and by the end Lily not only finished her own perfectly brewed Swelling Solution, but also had time to try to fix Alice's gloopy mixture. It wasn't entirely effective, but at least it was stirable now.
Something was wrong though. Throughout the whole lesson, James had been completely polite towards her, not once asking her out as she'd become accustomed to, merely talking to Sirius and focusing on his potion. It was unnerving, and Lily did not like it one bit.
She was relieved when the clock showed two minutes to the end of the lesson, she needed to get to lunch and analyse this with Alice and Marlene. She just couldn't comprehend this sudden change in character. After receiving the usual torrent of praise from Slughorn and promising to check she was available for the next Slug Club party, she grabbed Alice's hand and pulled her out of the room, leaving an amused James Potter staring after her.
A/N: I'm going to apologise now for the waffliness of that, I am aware that there was no plot to that whatsoever. It was kind of necessary to set everything up though, so hopefully from now on it might be a tad more interesting. Please review to let me know what you think (or to point out any glaringly obvious mistakes I've made and failed to spot!)