A/N: Alright, so here's the deal. The other day we were doing these retarded trust exercizes in my Project Adventure class, and as I was groping around, blinfolded, trying to make me way across an obstacle course without tripping over my own feet and making a complete fool of myself, I was thinking about Lily and James Potter. Yeah, only I would do that. Anywho, that's how the idea for this story was born. This first chapter is kind of just a prologue, it's fairly short by my standards, but I felt like it was kind of a stand alone piece. I'll get into the plot in the next chapter if enough people are interested. That means REVIEW! I am an absolute review addict. I won't blackmail you by telling you I won't update unless you review, but it would certainly speed the process along. Wink, wink...

Oh yeah, and James may seem a little bit OOC at the end of this chapter, but just keep in mind that there are external circumstances that are making him act this way, which will be expanded on later in the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I'm just a clumsy teenager who loathes gym classes.

"Trust me!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, dodging a crystal ball he'd hurled at my head, "If I wasn't afraid of being sent to Azkaban, I would have shoved you into a dragon nest by now, and laughed as I watched them burn you to cinders and feast on your pathetic entrails!"

I watched in satisfaction as Potter's eyes widened in alarm. "Geesh Evens-" he started, before the chair I'd bewitched to chase him barreled into his chest and knocked him to the floor.

He wrestled with the offending stool for awhile, it seemed to have him pinned down fairly well. I started walking over the rubble of our latest battle towards him, already planning how best to go about gloating to my annoying, narcissistic, little prisoner.

I was about five feet away from him when the spell hit. It got me right by my collarbone, and seemed to trickle throughout my entire body, making it tingle strangely and feel both icy-cold and fiery-hot. I staggered slightly to keep from collapsing. My concentration lost, the chair became inanimate once again. Controlling furniture is hard work sometimes. Chairs in particular, are quite capable of reaching record levels of stubbornness. Though, I can't really blame them, it must really suck to come face to face with people's fat, smelly, asses on a daily basis.

Fat, smelly, asses. It was funny, really. I started to giggle. The spell was working its way under my skin now, it felt as though it was tickling my intestines. Tickling my intestines! Haha, now that was funny!

I was laughing uncontrollably now, rolling around on the floor, hardly caring that the broken shards of glass from our little 'crystal ball war' were pricking me everywhere, making miniscule cuts appear on every section of my exposed skin.

I watched, slightly curious, as Potter staggered to his feet. He was wearing what I vaguely recognized as a smug smirk upon his features. For some reason, I thought between giggles, this made me quite angry. No, not even just angry, livid. And I didn't know why.

I was confused. Hehe, confused, confuzzeled… some other funny word starting with con-….

I was laughing so hard, the whole world was spinning, until suddenly, something happened. "Hehehehehe…hic!"

I stopped laughing for a moment, I was so surprised. Thankfully, that moment was all my addled brains needed to remember I was supposed to be hexing James Potter, Gryffindor Quidditch captain and Head Boy extraordinaire, into oblivion.

I tried to stand up, but I was too dizzy, "What…hic…did…you…hic…do…hic…to…me?" I choked out, as I tried to pull myself to my feet.

He was looking at me like a bemused parent, and I found that patronizing stare to be nearly unbearable. On a hunch, I took a deep breath before springing to my feet, dizziness be damned, and barreling straight into the stupid git.

My hunch was right, as soon as we both hit the ground, his wand slipped out from between his fingers and the spell snapped off me like a rubber band.

I sat on top of Potter and struggled to pin him to the ground. With my free hand, I reached into my pocket to grab my wand and curse that stupid smile off Potter's ugly face, but found to my dismay that it wasn't there. I must have dropped it while I was rolling around on the ground.

Oh well, I thought, curling my hand into a fist, I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way…

OUCH!!! I hadn't realized punching Potters unnaturally thick skull would hurt so much. He didn't even looked fazed by the assault from my bony fist. Bloody wanker…

What happened next was a mad scramble of shoving, pinching and hair pulling. I was so disoriented by that time, I could barely tell it wasn't my own hair I was trying to rip out of his skull.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" I screamed like a child, pushing myself on top of Potter and trying to slap him in the face.

Of course I missed. He pushed me back to the ground and laughed. Pretentious, miserable, self-centered, egotistical, sonofabitch, candy-assed pygmy puff!

"WHAT!?" he sputtered in surprise.

Shit. I didn't mean to say that out loud.

"Shut up!" I screamed, fed up now. All I wanted to do was hurt him, but since I couldn't do that, I'd have to settle for a good verbal thrashing instead. "Why can't you ever just leave me alone and let me have a moments peace?! Every single second of my life I have to deal with you following me around like lost puppy dog! It's pathetic, you're pathetic! If you don't have the balls to get a girl, at least do the world a favor and buy yourself some dirty magazines or something! Seriously, you're like a banshee with PMS! I can't stand you!"

I swung at his face again, and this time I connected with a satisfying slap!

Potter recoiled from the blow, and suddenly the condescending smirk on his face was replaced by a dark scowl. I'd struck a nerve. Suddenly though, I wasn't so sure this was a good thing. "You think you know it all, don't you bitch?" He roared, his face red, his hands rough as they shoved me against the back wall, "You know nothing! You're just a silly, stuck up tightass, who's oh too perfect for the likes of me! Well, guess what Your Highness, I've got news for you!"

As he shouted, he started pushing me harder and harder against the wall, and for the first time that day, I was truly terrified. His eyes were narrow, his jaw set. His face sweaty and brick red, eyebrows dipped dangerously. He looked like a tiger about to pounce. Not the best metaphor, I know, but I was too scared to think of anything more creative at the time.

"You have no idea Lily!" he screamed, pushing me harder and grasping for my wrists, "What I could do to you if I wanted! I could take you, right here, right now, and you wouldn't be able to do anything to stop me!"

He'd managed to grab both my wrists, and now forced them to both sides of my body. I struggled to get away, to move anywhere but here, anywhere but pressed up against the wall, with his body moving closer and closer to mine…

It wasn't until his face was a mere inch away from me that he finally stopped. His breath was uneven, my heart was racing. Not from the unbelievable romanticism of the occasion, from fear.

He looked me right in the eye then, and I could have sworn in that moment that he looked just as scared as I did. But that might have just been my own terror reflected back at me.

He opened his mouth then, and I was sure he was going to try to kiss me. I began trying to gather saliva in my suddenly dry mouth to spit in his face.

But he didn't move any closer. He opened his mouth, and I stood there, paralyzed in shock as he said a few brief words. "I love you Lily. And I hate that I do. But I can't help the way I feel, and sooner or later, you're going to come down from that mile high bejeweled pedestal you've built for yourself, and realize that you need me just as much as I need you."

He loosened the pressure of my wrists. That was just about the time I parted my lips and spat on his miserable face.

As far as spitballs go, mine was pretty good considering the circumstances. He jumped away from me as though stunned, and I took that opportunity to grab his wand, which was lying on the floor by my foot, and point it at him threateningly.

When he realized I had his wand, he moved forward as thought to take it from me. I raised my hand and sent him my best death glare, which was a surefire way to send shivers coursing through even a hardened criminal's bones.

No words were needed. He froze.

Words can't describe what I was feeling at that point. I was so angry, red sparks were flying from the tip of Potter's wand, fizzing around in the air and singeing my fingers, and I didn't even care. I was beyond livid. Beyond confused. Beyond terrified. I was probably insane.

I only sat there, clutching Potter's wand so hard my knuckles had gone white, for about a second. Or at least that's what he tells me, for at the time it felt like infinitely more. Time didn't matter anyways though, all that mattered was me, the wand, and inflicting as much pain upon Potter as was humanly possible.

It's probably lucky Professor Sinstra caught us when she did. There's no telling what I might have done to Potter if I'd had the chance to point his wand and mutter a curse.

Anyways, that's what happened that day in the divination tower. Trust me, the story does get better, but first it gets infinitely worse.

A/N: Yeah, the end got a little darker than I originally intended, but hey, the darker it gets, the brighter it'll be at the end of the tunnel. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself when the schoolwork starts to suffocate me. Anyway, thats it for now. Review if you like it, or if you hate, or if you don't really have a preferance but just feel like saying hi.

A/N2: To anyone reading Checkmate, I'm about three-quarters done with the next chapter. I know it's taken FOREVER to get it up, and you've probably all abandoned or forgotten me by now, but I really am working on it. To tell you the truth, I just haven't been in a very light and fluffy mood lately, and it's hard to write humor when your muse is in a much darker place than you want it to be. But I'm not dead in a ditch somewhere, just in case you were wondering.