I wanted to write about an anti-Lily. I have read so many crap fanfics about her as this psychotic, PMS monster that was in serious need of anger management, so I thought the time was ripe to portray her as simply a normal teenager. So here is the Unconventional Lily.

I originally had a different author's note here, but I got a review that prompted me to change it. Very interesting, I think. Normally I wouldn't bother, but I found that I actually did respect their viewpoint on the matter, so here is the space-waster. If that anonymous reviewer ever comes back, thanks for the advice.

Lily Evans was stretched out on her bed, fingers laced together behind her head, and was staring aimlessly at the canopy above her. It was a Saturday night—well, actually, as she thought about it, it was most likely Sunday already. Two of her roommates were asleep, and her best friends were no where to be found. But that was alright with Lily—sometimes it was nice to have time just for herself.

On most nights, given the opportunity to go straight to sleep, Lily would have gladly taken it. She was a seventh year now, and the Head Girl, so with all of her advanced classes and patrol duties, free time was a rare luxury. Extra hours of sleep were taken and relished, and she was planning on sleeping until noon the next morning, but at the moment she was wide awake. It was a curious change.

Despite the general opinion, Lily Evans was not perfect. Not that she believed that anyone thought that of her, but she had a fairly large reputation to live up to. However, Lily, while quite clever, was not a super genius, not the top of all her classes, not a teacher's pet. She was bright and hardworking when she needed to be. The position of Head Girl was given to her because of her work ethic, which appeared to the general population of Hogwarts to be quite great. On the contrary, though, Lily Evans was completely normal.

She was a decent student, and she hoped that she was a good friend. Two of her best friends (who were both currently M.I.A.) Lily had the fortune to be rooming with, and the other half of her group were a couple of nice kids from Ravenclaw that the three girls managed to make friends with. Of course, being in separate houses made it difficult, but their group dynamic worked out very well, actually. The time that the two houses spent apart made time together feel so much more special.

Lily considered a select four girls to be her closest friends, and while she spent the majority of her time with them, she was actually quite social with the rest of her house. But generally people kept to their own groups of friends, and only really crossed during classes. With the small exception of the Marauders, this proved true.

During fifth year, James Potter got his notorious crush on our heroine, and Lily had spent a majority of the year completely detesting him. But, she reasoned, back then she was a mere fifteen-year-old, and at the start of the year was even fourteen. So her loud and sometimes-irrational outbursts were childish parts of her past. Now James Potter, also having matured a bit since then, only made the occasional pass at her, which she didn't really mind so much, because sometimes it was nice to have someone direct their attention at you in that way.

Not that the Marauders were Hogwarts "gods" or anything. In reality, they were just four normal guys, but with a couple more slightly exceptional genes. All four of them were very clever, and they weren't really bad looking either. Lily and her friends, when discussing, as they have many times, the appearances of any eligible single guys at Hogwarts, have mentioned Sirius Black to be fairly decent-looking, while the other three come up behind him. But the Slytherin Quidditch captain—now, he was hot.

So while Lily pondered life and its meanings—more so guys and their general "ness"—the door of the dormitory was pushed open, and Erin Langston and Amelia Joplin crept into the room and over to their friend's bed. Lily glanced up at them.

"Hello, hello. Where have you two disappeared off to?"

Erin pulled her bag off of her shoulder and set it on the bed. She unzipped it and sifted through the contents as quietly as possible, as to not wake their sleeping bunkmates. "We were in Hogsmeade," Erin said absentmindedly.

"Ah. Tell me—was it more exciting, or less exciting, than staring at the ceiling of my bed?" Lily asked as she rolled over to peer into Erin's bag.

Amelia stuck her tongue out. "Nice way to spend the evening, Lil. We got ourselves a little happy down at the Three Broomsticks. Sucks to be you."

Lily made a face. "That's great. You could have at least invited me."

Erin snorted. "We didn't stay for long. But we did bring back this." With a smile, Erin procured two bottles of Firewhiskey. She and Amelia slapped hands.

Lily rolled back over but stared up at her friends. "What's the date? That's more than the three of us can drink. Assuming you share, of course."

"You dork, Lil. Don't you pay attention to anything?" Amelia asked.

"I pay attention to my canopy ceiling. See, look—I think there's a bug in the corner."

Amelia rolled her eyes. "We're going to meet up with Mia and Hannah."

"Oh. Why?"

"Because, you dimwit, Mia went out with Christopher tonight, and we need to make sure that she's… happy."

Erin tossed the alcohol back into her bag and grimaced. "That's a lie. Actually, Amelia just wants to know how far Mia let him get."

Amelia spun around to glare at her friend. "No way, you want to know just as much as I do! In fact, it was your idea to meet up with them!"

Lily rolled her eyes and pushed herself off the bed. "No problem, then. When do you want to meet up with them, you know, to make sure that Mia still has her virtue?"

"At one. You've got twenty minutes." Erin told her.

Over at the other corner of the room, a sleepy Emily Johnson raised her head and called, "Would you lot shut up already? Some people here are trying to sleep."

The trio mumbled their apologies before shuffling off to prepare for their midnight rendezvous. Lily was genuinely excited about the meeting—it would give them a chance not only to drink Firewhiskey, but to press Mia for details about her date. And it was important, too. This was her first date, which goes hand in hand with first hook-up, which was something that the other fours girls had already gone through. For seventeen long years, their dear friend Mia remained hopelessly prude. It seemed that this was a cause for celebration after all.

For the most part, Lily liked guys. Though Hogwarts boys could be a bit exhausting, especially considering that A) there were so few of them, and B) that she had know them for too many years, so most of Lily's boy experience came from the summer. In fact, she mused, Lily had not had a boyfriend during her Hogwarts career. It hadn't bothered her nearly as much as it bothered Amelia, though. Amelia loved boys. And Amelia had a lot of experience.

Having a boyfriend might have been nice, Lily thought. Unfortunately, there were very few suitable candidates for the position. In an ideal world, she would be with a tall guy—to balance out her short frame—and he should be intelligent and witty and hopefully good-looking, as the shallow part of her needed. Once or twice this year (or maybe more) she had even considered what it would be like to go out with James Potter. It was obvious that he still liked her, as his occasional racy comments gave evidence to, and he did fit the tall, intelligent, witty criteria—and perhaps he was decent looking. Though too bad he wasn't hot like that Slytherin Quidditch captain.

Twenty minutes later, Lily and Amelia pulled a snoozing Erin off of her bed and the three of them grabbed their wands, and in Erin's case, her bag, and they paddled off down the stairs of the girl's dormitory. The common room was nearly empty, but nobody paid them any notice as they exited through the portrait hole and attempted to power walk as quickly as possible to the kitchens.

They made the journey without incident, and after Erin tickled the pear on the door to the kitchens, they made their way inside where Hannah Lewis and Mia Campbell were waiting, it appeared, quite impatiently.

"Finally!" Mia said, "What took you guys so long?"

"We walked extra slow, just for you, dearie," Erin said as she carefully dropped her bag down on the table and slid in next to Hannah. "You make it here safe and sound?"

"We were fine, if not for a hyperactive Mia bouncing off the walls," Hannah said with a roll of her eyes. "She wouldn't tell me anything. The lazy git just didn't want to have to tell her story twice."

Lily and Amelia joined the table, but not before requesting of the house elves a couple of glasses, some spoons, and a carton of chocolate ice cream. Lily leaned forwards on the table.

"Okay. Let's hear it."

While Erin poured out five cups of liquor, Mia told them how after dinner, she and Christopher had met up. They went out for a walk around the grounds, waiting for it to get dark enough to see the stars. And that they had lay together on the grass and talked, and then there was the inevitable kissing.

"Well," Hannah began, "how was it?"

"Which part of it?"

"What do you think? Was he a good kisser?" she asked.

Mia frowned. "I don't know… it was okay, I guess."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "You guess? Come on, it couldn't be that bad, could it?"

"Yeah, at least you got to kiss a guy," Erin said bitterly.

Mia tapped her finger to her chin in thought. "I guess…" she started, "like, you always read in books about how the girl who can't get a boyfriend, well she meets this guy and then there's all this sexual tension where the reader is waiting in agony for them to just bloody hook-up already, and the kiss is supposed to be this magical, amazing thing in which the female is always bedazzled by her boyfriend, and the whole thing is just supposed to be super-intense. You know?"

Lily nodded. She understood. "Yeah, we know."

"Well, I really like Christopher and all, but, well… I just didn't think it was all that much fun."

Amelia laughed. "Oh, don't worry, sweetie. It will improve. The first time just sucks because you don't know what you're doing." She paused and took a spoonful of ice cream.

Mia shook her head. "And what is the deal with tongue? Romantic? Yeah, right—no way in hell! Eugh!"

This caused the other girls to laugh too, and Erin raised her glass in salute. "Amen, sister. I couldn't agree with you more."

She passed around the other four drinks, and Hannah raised hers up to toast. "To Mia's death to prudism. Congratulations, Casanova."

With smiles, everyone clinked their glasses together and drank to their friend. Once done with her sip, Amelia put her glass down in thought. "So, since we're on the subject of boys, has anything interesting happened to the rest of you? I personally couldn't be more bored."

Lily rolled her eyes. "You're such a slag. Didn't you hook-up with Ben Harvey a week ago?"

Amelia shrugged. "Yeah, but I always hook-up with him. That's not interesting at all."

Erin grabbed a spoonful if ice cream too. "Well, you know there's nothing exciting on my end. Ever since…what was it? Five months ago—when Daniel and I broke up. I haven't been with anyone."

She turned to Hannah, waiting for the taller girl's story to share. Hannah shrugged. "Nothing from me, either. At the moment I'm simply living vicariously through Mia, though in my own personal fantasy, my Christopher would look like that gorgeous Slytherin Quidditch captain."

Lily snickered. "He is quite good-looking. Though I think he has a girlfriend, at the moment."

Hannah dropped her glass on the table with a thud. "What? No way!"

Amelia nodded. "Yes way. He's going out with another Slytherin. I think it's Lucinda Zaltria, but I'm not sure."

"Bloody hell," Hannah mumbled, "What a letdown…"

Mia took a big sip of her drink before turning to Lily. "Well? What about you? Anything interesting happening with you?"

Lily sighed. Of course not. Things were just as dull, boy-wise, as they had been since the end of the summer. They were already well into October, and while it had only been a few months since she had had even a little bit of romance, it felt like much more time had passed.

"No, I'm just as boring as the rest of you lot."

Amelia studied her for a moment. "Are you really?"

"Very much so," Lily responded, gazing at her friend in confusion. Amelia had a strange look on her face.

"Because, well, I could be wrong, but I think that I've seen a bit of a spark between you and Potter lately."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "That's highly doubtful."

Erin smirked. "Oh, I disagree, Lils."

"And why is that?"

"I love how this is unfolding into a Socratic debate," Hannah said with a smile. "Come, ladies. Do continue."

Erin set down her glass and crossed her arms on the table. "I think that despite how much he jokes, James Potter has real feelings for you."

Amelia nodded, "Yes, I agree."

Lily shrugged. "Of course he has a crush. That was apparent to me for a while. It's not like we're friends or anything—why else would he pay so much attention? Though that is where I think it stops, and he has no more real feeling for me than the rest of us do for, say, our beloved Slytherin Quidditch captain."

Hannah let out an agonized moan. "Then he's in love with you! Madly in love with you! Oh, how I do adore that Quidditch God."

Mia rolled her eyes. "Geez, Hannah. Get over yourself," she turned back to the discussion and regarded Lily. "Not your best example, I must say."

Amelia picked up the conversation again. "Well, Lily. What is your opinion of our dear Mr. Potter?"

Lily paused. A difficult question, to be sure. It was hard to pinpoint a specific opinion, what with all of the Potter-induced trauma in the past. She had gone from finding him amusing (first day of first year), to popular and cocky (most of first through third year), to annoying (forth year), to insufferable (fifth year), to embarrassing, albeit funny (sixth year), to now… she didn't really know. He was, at times, obnoxious, and at times charming. He could be such a typical perverted-idiot guy, yet when the situation called for it, he was also mature. He was certainly friendly, most definitely affectionate, and in the strangest way she couldn't help but like him.

The big question was, in what way? Lily didn't think it was anything beyond their general chemistry. She was also firm in the belief that Potter was the same way. She was sure that the reason he talked to her in that too-personal, lack-of-personal-space way was because besides their good-humored banter, he actually had nothing else to say to her. Their interactions had a rhythm to them—and changing their relationship in any way more would throw off their equilibrium. It was an unspoken rule that they did not dare break.

Lily stayed silent while contemplating this. It was only when Amelia poked her in the side that she snapped back to reality.

"Well? What is it?"

Lily frowned. "I don't know. But I do know that Potter and I in a relationship would never happen."

Hannah stared at her. "Really? Doesn't seem that way from what I see. And remember, I don't see that much, being halfway across the castle all the time."

Amelia's eyes lit up—her inner gossip was taking over. "Well, well. Do tell, my dear."

Hannah paused, her head tilting to the side as she deliberately prolonged the moment. "I saw them talking one time outside of the library…"

"So that's what they call it these days," Amelia said with a grin.

"And," Hannah continued, "I didn't hear too much of what they were saying. But judging by body language alone, I came up with interesting results.

"There was definitely some kind of attraction, or, dare I say it, chemistry, between them. Let's face it, Lil—he doesn't hesitate to make physical contact with you."

Lily mused over this for a moment. That was true—a valid point. It was a type-two interaction on her scale. According to Lily, they had three methods of conversation, types one, two and three. Type-one was quite common—strictly a comment thrown her way, in which ninety-nine percent of the time it was jokingly. Type-ones could be anything from a suggestive remark to a compliment to an "Evans, duck!"

Type-two interactions proved to be more entertaining. They were type-ones, but to the next level. It could start with a comment that, generally speaking, he would not have said in front of his grandmother. And then, with response from Lily, the conversation would continue. Instead of being somewhere in the too-personal range, it was also in the lack-of-personal-space range. So in addition to a conversation that would easily make her blush, Lily did not find it uncommon to feel a tug on her hair, or a hand on her knee, by the in-your-face James Potter.

Type-threes were simple and boring. "Professional" conversations between them—most commonly over head duties or certain more-serious topics. It was only during these interactions that she believed that he had a bit of maturity in him.

What Hannah had witnessed was one of the more physical interactions between the two of them. Lily didn't particularly care that her friend had seen her and Potter—it wasn't as if they were doing anything bad, of course. And above all, she never minded when he was playful like that with her. Lily had grown up surrounded by girls who seemed to be able to get any boy that they wanted, but it was never that easy for Lily. She hadn't kissed a guy until she was fifteen years old, and even then it was an opportunity that, if she had passed it up, she feared she wouldn't get another one for years. This, of course, was an exaggeration, but although people told her that she was pretty, boys had never fawned over her as they had other girls.

So now that there was this funny, witty, charming guy that, while not amazingly good-looking, was still tall and cute and gave her attention in that way, Lily found that she actually enjoyed their strange interactions. She liked the feeling of being wanted. And even if she would not admit this out loud to her friends, it was the truth. Because really, who wouldn't?

Unfortunately, Lily and James had an established fine balance, and if it changed, she would lose the little that she had with him. It was painful to think about, but she would not lie to herself. Their conversation was always influenced by one of two things—"suggestion", or work. And even if other topics filtered in here or there, the center of it all was always one of those two things.

Lily twirled what was left of her drink around in her cup. She glanced up at her friends, and then drank the rest of it before speaking. "Potter is physical with me because he can be. But outside of that and head duties, we have nothing in common, nothing to talk about, and no other relationship."

Hannah and Amelia exchanged a look before Erin chimed in, "Are you uncomfortable talking about this? Because you can tell them to shut up, you know."

"Believe me, I know," Lily said, "But it's okay. And I want you two to understand what the situation is with Potter and I. Because it isn't going to change."

"Alright, whatever, I understand," Amelia said, "But I have one question."

"Yes?"

"When you two are together, and you're talking about more…intimate things… how do you feel?"

Lily paused. "Like my face is on fire."

Hannah rolled her eyes. "We all know that you blush at everything, Lil. I don't think that's what she was talking about."

"Okay…" Lily thought about it, "In all honesty, sometimes I wish he would follow up on his words. If he says something to me, and we both know it's a joke, there are times that I wish that it wasn't." Like the small instances of physical contact weren't enough. Like how she sometimes wished that their unspoken treaty of semi-platonicness just wasn't there, and that instead of talking with words, they were talking with lips. Big difference there, people.

But it would never happen. They would never work. She saw them standing on their opposite ends of the see-saw, perfectly level, but there was no way to break the balance. If she tried to move forward, they would both fall. If she moved back, they would fall as well. And even if falling was inevitable, they would never be able to fall together.

Mia tapped Lily on the arm. "Does he give you stomach flutters?"

Lily grinned and Amelia shook her head, "The grown-up word would be 'chemistry', love. And it's fueled by a little thing we like to call sexual tension."

Hannah turned to her. "Well? Do you get the flutters?"

"Of course I do."

Amelia, Hannah, and Mia all stared at her. Even Erin, who had grown increasingly bored with the conversation, looked interested.

Amelia sighed. "Sorry, Lily, but all you're doing is convincing me more and more that I'm right. I'm feeling the flutters of success."

"I'm very happy for you," Lily said facetiously, "but personally, I'm ready to be done with this conversation. I stand by my opinion that despite what I might feel for him, Potter and I will never work as a couple. So things aren't going to change. I'm comfortable with where they are now."

"You're comfortable," Erin said, "but are you happy?"

"Ooh, Erin's getting deep!" With that bubbly retort from Mia, Lily shrugged and started to clean up the table. She gathered the empty cups together while the rest of the table was cleared of ice cream and spoons to give back to the house elves. The conversation shifted onto other things—classes, teachers, the upcoming holiday of Halloween, but Lily felt herself pulled into the talk about Potter. It certainly was an interesting subject, but she wasn't fond of her friends' thoughts on the whole. They didn't understand Lily's belief—they probably thought that she was just in denial. The problem was that she wasn't in denial at all—she was just being realistic. It was depressing, but true.

So once the table was wiped down and the remaining Firewhiskey was stored back in Erin's bag, the girls exchanged hugs and kisses, and Hannah and Mia turned right at the door while the three Gryffindor girls turned left. They would see each other the next morning at lunch, but it was still depressing that they weren't in the same house. It made middle-of-the-night meetings such as this one much more difficult.

After shutting the door behind them, the kitchens were quiet. Some of the house elves shuffled back into the main room of the kitchens to start prepping breakfast. Others were off in various corners of the castle, tucked away in the darkness while they worked. One house elf in particular, by the name of Poppy, was carrying a mug of hot chocolate to the alcove under the window, tucked off of the main room of the kitchens.

It was in this alcove that a figure was sitting, mind racing. Originally, coming here had been a goal to study in the quiet, with the benefit of great food to keep the mind energized. However, after dosing for a bit over a particularly boring passage in the potions textbook, sleep was torn away with the arrival of voices. One is always conflicted in those situations; the only way out of the kitchens was through the main room, but the girls would inevitably know that someone had been listening in. Or, of course, the easier option had been to wait out the conversation and try not to pay too much attention.

Ignoring them, however, had proven unbelievably difficult when James Potter heard his name come up.

That futile attempt at a dramatic ending is in attempt to draw readers into the second half of my little two-shot. What did you think?