Potions Class
Lily Evans was running late. The never-late, ever-punctual Lily Evans. Running late. She couldn't believe it either. If it hadn't been for the terrified group of first years her punctual reputation would've been saved, however, being a school Prefect, she supposed it was her duty to help the incredibly small and turned around Hufflepuff's to their next class. Luck was on her side however, because the class she was currently running too was Potions with Professor Slughorn. It was no secret that Hoarce Slughorn had a soft spot for the cheeky, fiery, brilliant potion maker that was Ms. Evans. Lily knew about Slughorn's feelings for her and therefore wasn't all that concerned about her tardiness.
"I should be okay. I'll just explain the situation and Ol' Sluggy should let it fly." That was Lily Evans' last thoughts before she ran, bodily and clumsily into him.
James Potter was running late. No surprise there. The house elves were very persuasive and he just had to have that last piece of pie before class. Little did he know that when he nicked down there after Transfiguration, that he would end up being late for Slughorn's class for a record 4th time this week. And he also had no idea that would lead to yet another detention. If he had... Well, to be perfectly honest he probably would've done the same thing anyway.
Licking the huckleberry jam off his fingers, he wasn't paying attention to the direction he was heading.
This caused James to smack head-on into the woman of his dreams.
"Ow!"
"Ooo that one hurt."
Both injured parties picked themselves off the floor, each rubbing their head. James smirking at the fortuitous circumstance, Lily glaring daggers at each of James' visible pearly whites.
"Late are we Evans?" James said with obvious glee.
Lily was adjusting her white school shirt, and gathering her books. "I was detained with Prefect duties." Standing up she added, "Which is more than I can say for you, I'm sure." and with a huff she head towards the dungeon door.
At precisely the same time he did.
After the silent debate of who would enter first, and all the awkward shuffling that ensured, Lily finally enter Potions class a whole seven and a half minutes late, with none other than James Potter trailing behind her.
"Ah! Ms. Evans. Good of you to show." Slughorn said from the front of the class, where he had obviously been lecturing. "And Mr. Potter!" Slughorn continued with general surprise, "Late again, are we?"
Thoroughly ignoring the professor's acknowledgment of her irritating and unwelcome companion, Lily plowed on ahead, to the front of the class, trying desperately to make herself as invisible as possible. The second she had opened the dungeon door, the entire class turned and looked in her direction. Lily did not like it, James however kept on smiling and even waved to Sirius from his position by the entrance of the classroom.
"Professor, I am terribly sorry." Lily began once she had gotten to Slughorn's wide side. "I was held up with Prefect duties, and I couldn't get away." She had tried to say these words quiet enough for only the Professor to hear, however seeing as the entire classroom had gone silent, wondering just what had happened to cause perfect Prefect Evans to be late for class, she had every confidence everyone had heard it. Even the snoozing Slytherins in the back dark corner.
Slughorn considered this for a moment before speaking again. "And what's your excuse?" He asked unkindly to the dark-haired trouble maker in the back of the classroom. James was still standing just inside the door, silently communicating with Sirius and Remus on the other side of the classroom and therefore gave a start when addressed directly by Slughorn.
Quickly recovering from a moment of panic, James shrugged his shoulders, gave a noncommital grunt and a small head shake, before strutting to the front of the class where the only open table remained.
Slughorn and Lily simultaneously rolled their eyes and sighed. Slughorn removed his eyes from James' unconcerned form and faced Lily. "Well since all the other students were here on time, they were paired off accordingly. You and Mr. Potter shall be partners for the remainder of this session." Lily thought there was a little something harsh in his voice and made a mental note to pick him up some crystalized pineapple the next time she was in Honeydukes. "Ms. Evans, if you will." Slughorn gestured to the empty space beside Potter.
"Definitely needs more pineapple." Lily thought irately while settling into her seat, next to her brand new, and incredibly annoying lab partner.
James grinned appreciatively at her, Lily, quelling the urge to jab him in the eye with the quill currently residing in her right hand, just shifted her chair as far from him as possible and began taking notes.
Forty-five minutes later Lily, had finished coping notes from the board and began today's project. The Sense-Enhancing Solution. James had sat next to Lily all throughout lecture and tapped his quill. This of course had resulted in Lily reprimanding him when Slughorn's impressive back was turned. (For the love of Merlin Potter! If you don't stop that tapping I will shove that quill so far down your throat, you will choke on feathers for weeks!) James had shot back with a none-too-quiet retort. (A little testy aren't we today Lily!) Slughorn had reprimanded the two of them for disrupting class once again.
All in all, not one of Lily's best days.
Now here she was with her brand new potions partner (she shuddered slightly) working on the project for the day. Surprisingly it had been going relatively well. That is until...
"Ok, now add the eye of newt in three equal additions, and stir counter-clockwise forty-seven times or until potions turns the color of a ripe blood orange." Lily said, in a slightly confused tone.
"Well, that's vague." James replied with a snort, while counting out how much eye of newt needed to be in each equal addition. "I mean, who writes this shite?"
As much as Lily hated to admit it, and believe me she truly hated to admit it, Potter had a point. And without first allowing her mind to catch up with her mouth, she spoke back.
"I know what you mean. How ripe is ripe? Are we talking middle of the harvest ripe, or end of the summer ripe? " Lily said clearing up the station, and prepping the potion for the addition of the eye of newt.
James, done with his measuring, countered with "I know. And do you mean the orange of ripe skin, or the deep red-orange of the ripe flesh?" With that he added the first addition, and the potion turned from it's dark purple color to a fascinating yellow-grey hue.
"I know what you mean." Lily agreed laughing. "It's about as descriptive as 'Potion will thicken slightly.' I mean, what bollocks." Watching as James added the second addition to the ever-changing potion.
"No wonder there are so many potion related injuries." James chuckled back, locking eyes with Lily for the first time that day. They were looking at him with disbelief and mirth.
"Potion related injuries?" Lily replied with a sarcastic eye-brow quirk.
"Well yeah!" James replied, no longer paying attention to the hand that was dumping the last addition of eye of newt into the delicate potion. He was far too excited at the fact that Lily was speaking and joking with him as if he were a real person and not something nasty stuck to the bottom of her new shoes. "You know, cauldron burns, vicious potion scalds." He stopped here to chuckle a little at the look on Lily's bewildered face.
"Oh haha." She interjected. Scooting her chair closer to James' and eyes twinkling with joy. Her mind only half on the potion between them.
"Eyes lost from dreadful stirring rod accidents." James finished, laughing along with Lily, happy with their new found closeness.
Unbeknownst to the two flirting teens, James had finished adding the eye of newt, and the potion (which was to be stirred at least 25 times already in a counter-clockwise motion) was beginning to boil over.
Stirring rod poised to stir, head towards James, Lily asked, "Do you actually believe all the rubbish that comes out of your mouth?"
James moved ever closer and said in a very serious tone, "Every word love."
Lily rolled her eyes inelegantly and turned back to the potion.
Just in time to see sickly pale potion, the consistency of over-cooked pastry cream, shoot out of the cauldron and land all over the classroom. From the ceiling, their desk, the desk of their neighbor, the back wall and on Lily's perfectly scripted notes. With a shout Lily made a mad dash for her notebook, burning her thumb on hot potion in the process, while James fiddled around with his wand trying desperately to extinguish the flame beneath the now sputtering, jumping, red-hot cauldron.
After the cauldron had calmed and the resulting melee had died down, Lily and James jumped to their feet and rounded on each other.
"How could you do this?! This is all your fault!" Lily screeched, eyes flashing dangerously.
"My fault!?!? You are the one who didn't stir!" James shot back, pointing an accusing finger at Lily's chest
"But you were the one who didn't tell my you had finished adding the eye of newt!!!"
"Maybe you should've been paying attention!"
And then another voice spoke. "Actually it's both you faults." Severus Snape sneered from his position in the back of the classroom. "You both should've been paying attention."
Simultaneously, Lily and James turned to Snape. "Shut up Snivellus!" just to turn back and continue glaring daggers at the other.
"Enough!" bellowed Slughorn. He was striding from the back of the class, where he was helping another student when the explosion went off. "Ms. Evans, Mr. Potter." Only when addressed did Lily and James turn from each other and face their very agitated Professor. "You two have disrupted my class for the last time today. Ms. Evans I expected better from you." Here Lily lowered her gaze, guiltily studying her shoes. And then Slughorn said the dreaded magic word.
"Detention." He said strongly and curtly turned and walked to his desk. James just shook his head in a aggravated sort of way, but Lily, never having had a detention before, shot her eyes back to the teacher.
"But Professor--" Lily began.
"No arguments Ms. Evans. Detention. Tonight at eight with Mr. Potter here."
Lily sighed and sat back down at her potion-covered desk, cursing her rotten luck.
Today was shaping out to be a very bad day indeed.
Lily had received notice from Slughorn that detention will be held in the potions storeroom that night and that she didn't need to bring anything. Ten minutes to eight, she left the common room, the comfort of her friends, and her homework behind, and began to head down to the Dungeons.
Somewhere on the third floor she turned a corner too sharply, while looking at her feet and miserably pondering the fact that she was on her way to detention, and ran into a familiar face.
"Ooof!"
"Good god!"
She looked up to see James Potter rubbing his backside with one hand and adjusting his glasses with the other. "We can't seem to stay away from each other, now can we Evans?" James said with a chuckle and reached out his hand to help her up.
She grabbed his hand before remembering that she was still very angry with him for landing her in detention, and being generally obnoxious. Ripping her hand from his grip as if it had been red-hot, she just rolled her eyes (refusing to even justify his comment with a response), and continued walking towards detention. He, of course, followed and continued talking to her, as if she had not just completely ignored him.
"Oh c'mon Evans. Not even a witty retort?" James asked hopefully, pulling long strides to keep up with Lily's quick steps. Lily merely glared at him, emerald irises ablaze, before continuing on in her journey to detention.
Keeping in time to her steps, James made a bold move. "Listen Lily," James began, stammering, "I'm really sorry okay?"
Shocked, Lily stopped walking, turning on her heel slowly to see if James was serious. "I am. I should've told you I was done with the potion." At this he ran a hand through his hair, but Lily finally saw it for what it really was, a nervous habit, rather than an annoyingly vain gesture.
"And I was just wondering, if maybe, you know, we could make some sort of... truce?" James was looking very uncertain now, and Lily's eyes were growing wide. "We are going to be stuck together for the next few hours or so, and I don't want things to be..." a short pause here as James searched frantically for the right word. "... unpleasant."
"Unpleasant?" Lily repeated, disbelief laced throughout every syllable.
"Yeah." James cut in quickly. He could see that he was doing a pretty lousy job convincing her of his intentions. "I don't want it to be awkward or anything." Giving up his whole speech as a lost cause, James looked down at his beat up trainers and mumbled. "Sorry. Believe it or not, but I never want things between us to be unpleasant." Dejectedly James turned from Lily's shocked look and began shuffling down the hallway towards detention.
"Huh." Lily huffed out when she was able to speak again. "Is that so?"
James stopped walking, and answered Lily without turning. "Well, yeah."
"Well, in that case." Lily swallowed her pride, and caught up to where he was standing, "I'm sorry too. I should've been paying attention." Lily was now looking at the titled floor, avoiding James' surprised gaze. "I guess Severus was right. We were both in the wrong."
Snorting at the thought of Snape being right about anything, James pushed aside his great dislike for his greasy peer, and focused on the task at hand. Putting his right hand forward, he asked his companion "Truce?" James' eyebrows were raised, and he spent most of his energies fixing his face into what he hoped was a genuine expression.
Feeling ridiculous, Lily shook. "Truce." And with that they both turned and walked toward the dungeons.
After they were silent for a little ways (both silently questioning what just happened between them and what it actually meant, the other oblivious to their counter-parts musings.) Lily spoke up and broke the tensions.
"Do you think it's going to be dreadful?"
"What? Detention?" James responded. "No way. Slughorn's detentions usually aren't. No matter what for. And he especially wouldn't give you anything to terrible."
"You think? I was hoping it was going to be something simple. Like lines or something?" Lily said, smiling despite herself and tuning a corner.
"Merlin! I hope not. Lines are awful. I'm hoping it'll be something with Hagrid. Now those detentions are usually fun." James said while guiding Lily down one of the castles more rickety staircases. Lily laughed lightly at the fact that he seemed to know everything that needed to be known about detention.
Pushing open the Potions storeroom door Lily asked, "Just how many detentions have you had?"
Grinning like the Cheshire Cat, James replied with a quick "Just this term?"
"Ah! Ms. Evans, Mr. Potter. Glad to see you made it." Slughorn boomed, his mighty voice swallowing Lily's answer.
It was when the two teens looked up towards their Potions teacher was when they noticed something amiss about the storeroom. All the cabinets and shelves had been emptied of their strange ingredients, and the desk that usually occupied the space underneath the very small south-facing window, had been pushed to the center and covered in a old sheet. On this table, Lily noticed there was one paint roller, a paint tray (for said roller), a medium sized paintbrush, and a single bucket of paint. Next to this array of painting supplies, stood Slughorn, in all his velvet smoking-jacketed glory, arms spread wide, as if he was Father Christmas bestowing gifts upon little children.
With a barely audible groan Lily stepped forward.
"Since the store cupboard hasn't had a proper painting in ages, I decided that you two shall be the lucky ones to restore this fine room to it's former glory." Slughorn explained, sweeping his arms across the room."You will get 3 hours. That should be plenty of time. If not..." Here he trailed off in a dramatic sort of way. "... tomorrow we shall meet again."
Lily's eyes were as round as saucers by the end of this little speech. "But sir..."
"No buts Ms. Evans. Paint. You are wasting precious time." With that Slughorn left the room and, with a cheeky wink to James, closed the door.
Sighing, Lily picked up the tray and roller, before James could get it, and headed to the wall with the tiny window, leaving James to struggle to paint the wall covered in shelves and cabinets, with nothing but a single paintbrush. Oddly he didn't seem in the least bit bothered by this.
With a queer bounce in his step he gathered up the brush and paint can, dumping a generous amount in Lily's tray before heading in the opposite direction to get started. "Now see, this is far better than lines. We'll be done in no time."
In reality he was right. The potions storeroom, could hardly be called a room at all. More of a glorified cupboard, but despite "the truce" Lily didn't want him to think she agreed with him, so said nothing.
With a sigh Lily began to paint.
It was rather dull work, and James seemed to be moving along at an even pace, despite his tiny brush.
It wasn't until Lily had finished half of her first wall that she looked down at her clothes. Swearing loudly, and causing James to crick his neck with the force with which he spun to face her, Lily threw her mostly dry roller on the floor and began fretting over her tee-shirt.
Speckles of paint covered her from head to toe (she didn't even want to imagine what her hair and face looked like) and she was desperately trying to remove it. Unfortunately she started rubbing at it. This, of course, only made it worse and made her sour mood deepen.
"Stop rubbing it." James instructed from his place by the opposite wall. He had paint smeared across his forehead and had tiny flecks of paint on his forearms, and chest. With a chuckle, he added. "It'll be okay."
Lily stopped her ministrations, glared at James, picked up her discarded roller, and with a guttural, very un-ladylike noise turned back to her half-finished wall.
James, who had never understood women's affection for clothing, continued on putting his foot in his mouth. "It's just an old tee-shirt." Lily didn't respond, not that he had really expected her too, and so he returned to his work.
Minutes later Lily spoke in a voice so low he almost didn't hear it over the soft scraping of the roller. "It's more than just an old tee-shirt. It was a gift from..." Lily sighed. "Never mind. You wouldn't understand." Silently agreeing that he wouldn't, James said nothing.
"The point is that it was important to me and now it's ruined." Lily continued, voice growing stronger with each word. "All because of stupid detention." She spat the last word with venom, the strokes of the roller getting more and more agitated. James wanted to warn her against taking her anger out on the wall, seeing as her increased painting speed only added to the paint flecks on her now ruined-but-still-important shirt. But seeing how angry she was, and knowing how he wanted to keep things 'pleasant' between them, James wisely said nothing.
It was a little while later that James spoke. "You know. Being a witch, you can probably just magic the spots off. It's not ruined."
Lily glared at her now completely painted wall. "Gee, Thanks Potter!" scathing sarcasm dripping in every syllable. "How would I have ever gotten on with out your guidance?"
James turned back to his half finished wall. Sighing he thought that maybe the whole "truce" thing might've been a pipe-dream after all. Silently wondering if things were ever going to change between the two of them, James finished the shelf he was working on with a few sure strokes, and moved in the bare wall beneath it.
Two and a half hours past quickly and silently.
Lily, furious, with herself for getting so worked up over her appearance, with James for being right, and with Slughorn for having her paint in the first place, had covered more wall, and had finished most of the job. Passing more time than she wanted to admit, wanting to apologize to James every time she walked behind him to pour more paint in her shallow tray.
James had worked at a steady pace, little brush working furious stokes all throughout the room. His desire to finish the job on time, and leave the room in which an increasingly agitated red-head occupied, fueling his energies. However for the past ten minutes he had been rather distracted, humming in his head, a song he had heard on the old record player Remus had rigged up in the boy's dormitory. It was a catchy tune, reminded him greatly of his three good buddies, and made him want to say "bugger this" and quit, if only to go hang out with them.
Sighing he dunked his brush in the never-ending bucket of paint and continued his work.
Lily was just going over what homework still needed to be done and which she could hold off until tomorrow (she had even constructed the introduction and conclusion of her Defense Against the Dark Arts essay in her mind while she worked) when she heard something that made her stop short.
He was whistling. Oh Merlin! Would her torture never end!? The words 'Shut the hell up' were halfway to her mouth when she remembered "the truce". She had already been rotten to him once tonight, and really thought she shouldn't be again. Biting her tongue, she turned back to her work and tried to not let it bother her.
After ten minutes of incessant whistling, she couldn't help herself. "Um... do you mind?" she asked in the most civil voice she could muster.
"Huh?" James asked stupidly. It seemed he was unaware of his constant whistling.
"You're whistling." Lily replied, civility cracking.
"Oh." James looked down at his now paint covered trainers. "Sorry. I didn't even realize."
'That much was obvious' Lily thought but refrained from saying.
A few more minutes passed in silence, until it started up again. This time Lily just sighed audibly, and was actually going to tell him to shut up before she realized that she recognized the tune. Wait an minute? How could James Potter of all people know that song? It was a muggle song, and not even an overly popular one. Trying to wrap her mind around this oddity, her voice spoke before he mind gave it permission.
"How do you know that song?" All painting had ceased and she turned to face her partner.
He answered her question with one of his own. "Was I whistling again?"
"Yeah. But that's not the point. How do you know that song?"
"Remus was listening to a record before I came down here. It kind of got stuck in my head. Sorry." James resumed his painting, and mumbled. "I'll stop whistling since it bothers you."
Baffled by this sudden turn of events, Lily went back to her wall.
James Potter knew a Muggle song? Remus Lupin had a record player in the dorm? At east she assumed it was in the dorm. 'Where else would it be really?' Lily thought. 'I wonder if I could get him to show me how he got it to work.? I'd kill for some muggle music up in my dorm.' And suddenly Lily realized that she was humming.
Humming the same song James Potter had just been whistling.
James had noticed it too. "You know it?" He asked in a puzzled voice.
"Yeah" Lily responded shyly. "They're one of my favorite bands."
"Huh." James replied with a chuckle. "Me too."
And before she could think about what she was doing, and while continuing to paint , Lily began to sing. "What would you think if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song. And I'll try not to sing out of key."
James joined in at the chours. "Oh I get by with a little help from my friends. Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends. Mmm I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends."
Neither had a very good voice, but that didn't matter. And the second verse was just as shaky as the first.
"What do I do when my love is away?" James started.
"Does it worry you to be alone?" Lily countered.
"How does it feel at the end of the day?"
"Are you sad because you're on your own?"
Again to the chours. "Oh I get by with a little help from my friends. Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends. Mmm I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends"
Unbeknowst to the two terrible crooners, they had now moved to the same wall, and each began to dance a little.
"Do you need anybody?"
"I need somebody to love."
"Could it be anybody?"
"I want somebody to love"
It was as if the song had burned away all the foul air in the room and all that mattered was the soft sounding of paint being sloped on walls, and the gleeful voices of friends not caring how they sounded as they sang.
"Would you believe in a love at first sight? Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time. What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you, but I know it's mine." In time with the other Lily and James continued to sing.
"Oh I get by with a little help from my friends, Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends, Oh I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends." Lily and James failed to notice that they had finished the storeroom, and that their deadline was just about up.
"Do you need anybody?" Lily waved her roller about dangerously.
"I just need someone to love" James was unabashedly using his paint brush as a microphone.
"Could it be anybody?"
"I want somebody to love."
"Oh I get by with a little help from my friends. Mmm gonna try with a little help from my friends. Oh I get high with a little help from my friends. Yes I get by with a little help from my friends. With a little help from my friends!"
Collapsing in a fit of giggles, at their own ridiculousness, Lily and James had barely managed to pull themselves together when Slughorn opened the door.
"What could possibly be so funny?" he asked only mildly interested, taking in the rooms newest paint job.
Lily looked into James eyes when she replied with a smile and a quiet. "Nothing."
Feeling as if this little moonlit serenade was going to be their little secret James added a faint. "It's the fumes. We must be going mad."
"Yes. Well, you are free to go." Slughorn took out his wand and began tidying up the room. Lily and James left their supplies at the center table and began the walk back. Frantically expressing this new found closeness and similarity between each other.
And when Lily was finally able to fall asleep later that night she could help but think that maybe James Potter wasn't as terrible as she first imagined, and she was actually glad that she was had gotten detention.
A.N:
This is the first thing I have posted here at and i hope you enjoy it. If you did all my other Harry Potter Stories can be found at under the alias DAC
Link: .?showuid=66874
Disclaimer: Obviously I own nothing but a pile of stinky laundry.
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