Ring. Ring. Please ring.

I glanced at the clock on the wall of the transfiguration classroom and begged it to speed up.

'Please,' I promised, 'speed up now, and I'll be your eternal slave'.

Slave to a clock – no idea how that works, but we'll make it work.'

No response.

I lay my head down in annoyance, on the cold and graffitied desk I'm lucky enough to call my own.

Well in transfiguration, anyway. I slowly moved my head in order to observe the people around me.

James Potter was staring at Lily again; he was so obvious it was irritating, if not slightly sad.

His best friend (and possible lover... I have my suspicions) was trying half-heartedly to get his attention, while staring at Lucia Melvin.

Lucia had grown a fair amount over the summer. And not in height either.

But her mother wouldn't by her a new uniform; so her blouse was… lets say constricting to certain appendages. Which meant that No boy over the age of eleven could maintain any self-control – and felt the need to stare at her chest whenever she was within eyesight.

Pathetic.

Oh my god.

It's only been twenty-five seconds since I last looked at the clock. Merlins Beard, when will this torture end?

This is worse then being hung, drawn and quartered – good god, it's like being cut, bisected and right angled.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

"Miss Frost, what would this torture you are referring to be?"

Torture? Did I say that out loud? Crap!

"Please enlighten us," Professor Magonagall waved her perfectly manicured hand in the general direction of the rest of the class. Her and her damn smug look…. She can take that hand and shove it up her –

"We're all waiting Miss Frost?" she continued, cutting off my thoughts.

"Well Professor," I said, meeting her stern look, with a sarcastic grin of my own, "I'm so much looking forward to our next transfiguration lesson, I believe is the start of the whole teacup to Turtle thing, that everything is torture to me. Even Care of magical creatures will be hell when I know transfiguration heaven is so close!"

Bell rang. Finally.

Thank you sweet Merlin.

"Well class, tomorrow bring your text books." Professor Magonagall said, rather taken aback by my quick, sarcasm-ridden reply.

I leapt out of my seat so eagerly that I almost knocked Lily over. No time – got to escape transfiguration!

"Hey! Watch it!"

"Sorry Lil." I picked up my books from where I'd dropped them, and sighed as I saw my timetable on the back of my school diary.

Potions next.

Escape one hell – only to enter the next.

See Potions was all well and good, if you don't happen to be Lily Evans best friend. Which really was the case with everything.

Granted. She wasn't necessarily the prettiest or most popular girl at Hogwarts, but at least people knew who she was!

I mean, Professor Slughorn (not to mention one James Potter) practically physically swooned when she came into the class (for very different reasons of course. Well, at least I hope so).

She was the vivacious, intelligent, pretty girl with the gorgeous red hair.

I was her loser sidekick. Mediocre in all of my classes, Care of magical creatures excluded. Plain in personality and appearance, and lets face it – I could stand lose a few kilos. But I'm not bitter about it, Not at all . . . well maybe a little.

"Eudora? Earth to Eudora?" Lily waved a hand in front of my face. I was snapped back to reality. "Lily, am I not allowed to drift once in a while?" I grinned and smacked her hand away from me.

"Sure, once in a while – but you've away with the fairies for most of the day."

"They're better company than you is all."

Lily hit me, and laughed.

"Come on, Potions awaits us!"

I could barely contain my excitement.

After twenty pointless minutes of lecturing us all about how inept our essays had been lately (except yours of course Lily) Slughorn gave us an essay topic and told us to work silently for the next hour.

Of course what I did however was give begin to give myself a divine tattoo, a love tattoo as it were.

Of Amos Diggory.Hufflepuff hero and... in my eyes a Love God.

A splash of Hollywood good looks, a charming smile, deep brown eyes. The shiny hair, the devastating grin . . . Drat. It didn't look like Amos Diggory at all… more like an upside down Hippogriff.

Art was yet another talent I didn't posses. I looked over at Lily, she was bent over writing her essay furiously, I guessed I should start on mine.

"Ten Reasons Why Famous Potion Master Drexyl Mornington was chosen to become the spokesperson for 'Newts Eye Potions Inc.'

But it was too boring to comprehend, so I began touch ups of my Amos Diggory/Hippogriff tattoo. I finished the light and shad of Amos' heavenly grin and coughed in a signal to Lily that communication was desired.

I held up my hand to show Lily the tattoo, she smiled in that tired way she usually does when I explain to her why yet again I've neglected to do my homework, but immediately after looked up at professor Slughorn and went back to doing her essay.

Slughorn, Or 'Old Sluggy' to … well no one, was glaring at me from his desk. His high regard for Lily did not unfortunately extend to me.

"Miss Frost, Whats your problem?" He said not in an unkind way.

"Oh God Professor, So many . . . Tragic broken home, hideous genetic inheritance, huge arse."

Lily rolled her eyes, and a couple of Ravenclaws giggled.

"If you spent half as much effort on your school work as you did trying to be amusing you'd be head of the class instead of class dunce."

I figured if I wanted to avoid yet another detention this week, I'd better do my essay. So with an audible sigh (which caused a few more Ravenclaws to sigh, and Professor Slughorn to clear his throat in what I figured was meant to be a threatening way) I set to work on my essay.

I worked progressively throughout the lesson, and stopped when I heard Professor Slughorn tell us the lesson was over and to bring our essays to the front of the classroom.

Lily and I as per usual were the last to hand in our essays, as she handed in hers, Slughorn told her when the next Slug Club meeting would take place. She smiled good-naturedly and walked out of the classroom, where I knew she'd wait for me. She knew by now that most teachers had something to say to me at the end of class, and would always wait for me out of eyesight, more so she could listen in than out of friendship.

But I appreciated it all the same.

I handed my essay in and Professor Slughorn mad a long, sad speech about how well I would do if I tried, and how terribly I was underachieving. All my teachers were upset about it apparently. I imagined them all weeping in their offices. There had never been an underachievement like it, apparently. This was almost an achievement in itself.

I listened to his tirade (I'd heard one like it from most of my teachers since fourth year) and nodded, trying to look tragic and guilty and left the classroom to find Lily shaking her head.

"He's right you know." She said, as we walked towards the great hall for lunch.

"About me being the class dunce? Harsh Evans. Harsh."

"No – about how you have a tendency to… I don't know." She shook her head. And I stared at her.

A tendency to what? To what?

"A tendency to. . . ?" I motioned with my hand.

"Nothing, Look we're in sixth year, I mean there's only one more year left."

"Well done Lily, your genius often astounds me. That you've managed to work out how much longer we have left at school after an already vigorous day of studies. . . well its mind blowing, it truly is." I was only messing. She knew it too. But she still gritted her teeth.

"You know where I'm going with this, Eudora." She said frustrated.

"Do I? Should've picked Divination instead of potions then"

Getting a rise out of Lily usually put me in a good mood, but today was not the case. Because I did know where she was going.

"I'm not even going to bother." She shook her head.

"Well, I can't say that I'm too disappointed about that." I smiled. "But that's not to say, I don't appreciate your concern, oh mother hen you." I laughed, as she grinned.

"Mother Hen?" She raised her eyebrow, which might I add was plucked to perfection and maintained regularly – very different to my own standards of eyebrow maintenance . . . which you know meant I'd do them when they began to grow out of control and affect my vision.

I pointedly ignored her I admit it. I couldn't think of anything to call her so I went with Mother Hen. I figure if I pretended I hadn't said it – it would go away.

We entered the great hall and walked towards the gryffindor table. Which is how we met in the first place, we sat next to each other the first night here when we'd both been sorted into gryffindor.

"Don't look now, here comes Potter." Lily, turned and tried to hide her face behind a text book – though I must say the flaming red hair sticking out from behind it was a bit of a giveaway.

"Lily!"

"James." She said through gritted teeth, slowly pulling 'Arithmency grade 6' from in front of her face. James, and his band of merry followers squeezed in next to us, James and Peter on either side of Lily who sat opposite me, and Sirius and Remus next to me.

Apart from Remus who'd been decent enough to ask me permission before he sat down beside me, none of them gave off the slightest impression they'd even realised I was there.

But you get used to this kind of treatment.

Well you do if you're a sixteen year old under achiever named Eudora Frost.