Author's Note: Hello all! I'm back again! Yes, with the same story, I don't know why it was deleted…(Oh and by the way, if you don't get the "Red Snitch" bit, I'll change it. I had real trouble finding a suitable title. What it means is, James symbolizes the "snitch" bit, and Lily's a redhead, which is the "red" bit. Sorry if you didn't get it…) NB This chapter has now been edited and is very different!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Or his parents.

Love or Hate:

The Tale of Red Snitch

Chapter One- Party Time

Lily looked around the busy platform. A few metres away from her stood a group of Ravenclaws already in their Hogwarts robes, talking. By them stood some second-year Hufflepuffs eagerly catching up on what their friends did in the summer holidays. Parents were dashing around frantically with their children, looking for responsible adults with whom they could place their little darlings with during the journey. And leaning lazily against the train was Lucius Malfoy with his "acquaintances"—that is, sidekicks. Searching for familiar faces, Lily's eyes rested upon a group of Gryffindor boys in her year—Frank Longbottom, Terence Jones, and of course the famous "Marauders" Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black and… James Potter. Yes, the boy who was so annoyingly arrogant and conceited… How Lily despised him. Funnily enough, he never seemed to realize this and consistently asked her out—unsuccessfully, of course.

"Boo!" came a voice from behind Lily, interrupting her train of thoughts and making her jump.

"Oh, hi Marlene!" laughed Lily.

"Hi Lily!" said her old friend brightly, obviously happy to see her. "How're you? How were your holidays?"

"Not too bad, actually," Lily answered nonchalantly. "Yours?"

"Fine, apart from an encounter with a gross and spectacularly ugly sea slug—I'll tell you the story later. Anyway, where's Alice?"

"Dunno, haven't seen her yet," replied Lily—but they didn't have to wait long. A few seconds later, through the crowd came no other than the dark-haired, blue-eyed Alice herself. "Hey!"

"Hi!"

A loud horn sounded, and the three made their way to the scarlet train.

"Anyone seen Victoria or Rosmerta?" asked Marlene once they had found a suitable (that is, empty) compartment.

"Victoria and Rosmerta are together, naturally, chatting up some Ravenclaw boys," said Alice. "I passed them on my way to you two."

"Typical," laughed Marlene, rolling her eyes.

"Well no matter. We'll catch them up later," shrugged Lily as she shoved her small trunk to the far corner of the compartment.

"How come your trunk is so small, Lily?" asked Marlene in disbelief. "I can't live without my two big ones, and still it seems I never have enough stuff!"

"We went camping in France for a few weeks, and I've learned that you don't need material objects to have fun," explained the redhead, sticking her tongue out. "Unlike some people."

"Hey, you did not just--"

"I went to Austria," Alice interrupted Marlene. "It was really nice."

"I bet your holiday wasn't as nice as mine," boasted Marlene childishly, apparently having forgotten to be mad at Lily. "I bet you weren't rescued by a love god!"

Lily laughed and immediately the three of them began to chat and catch up on what they'd missed during the holidays.

At last, the subject of school arrived.

"Guess what?" said Lily excitedly. She had been meaning to tell them this before, but forgotten it when Marlene had told them about the sea slug (which involved falling into a lake, being picked up by the handsome young man, then chased by the sea slug… except with more horrific details).

"What?" chorused her two friends.

"I'm Head Girl!" she blurted out.

"Wow! Congratulations!"

"Cool! I knew you'd make it, Lily."

"I wonder who the Head Boy is…"

"Good point," said Lily thoughtfully. "I haven't spared that much thought yet."

"Bet it's Ja—I mean, Potter," said Marlene, hastily when Lily glared at her—she hated her friends calling James by his first name. Or as she said, "treating the disgusting bighead as if he actually had a brain and feelings".

"Get real! No, it'll be that Samuel Harding, he got a 'special services to the school' award and most of the teachers like him, that stupid Hufflepuff…"

"Probably Lupin," suggested Lily reasonably. "I mean, he is the Gryffindor prefect and Dumbledore trusts him and all that…"

"Hang on…" said Marlene, "I know! It'll be Frank!"

Alice suddenly blushed at the sound of Frank's name.

"Oh yeah, I forgot, you are going out with him, aren't you?" said Marlene loudly. Lily grinned—Marlene always knew how to wind people up.

"Shut up," muttered Alice.

"What didya say? I'm afraid I can't hear very well," joked Marlene.

"Oh, shut it."

"I beg your pardon!"

"Just SHUT UP!"

"Now, now," came a boy's voice from the door of the compartment. James Potter's voice, to be exact.

"Get out Potter," snapped Lily, sharply.

"Evans?" James's head jerked to her direction. However, (thankfully) by now he had abandoned his hobby of messing up his hair whenever he was near Lily. "Hello, Ev--"

"What are you doing here?" demanded Marlene, interrupting him.

"Well, I was just walking by when I thought I would pop in for a friendly chat," explained James, flashing Lily a smile. She looked away, avoiding him.

"You mean you wanted to annoy us?"

"Not annoy, McKinnon, just greet."

"Greet with a hex, yeah," muttered Lily. "Just go away, will you?"

"I will if you go out with me, Evans," said James quickly. "Please… if you come with me to Hogsmeade, I won't ever annoy you three again."

"The day I go out with you is the day I'll go out with Snape,"said Lily, hoping that by bringing Snape, James's enemy, into the conversation, James would get the picture and back down. "Never."

James stiffened, affected by Lily's threat. But not one to retreat, he adopted the puppy-dog-eyes expression. "Evans, please…"

"No!" shouted Lily. "NO. Now will you go away please? I'm trying to have a conversation with my friends."

James turned away and was just about to leave when something silver caught his eye.

"Didn't you hear what she said?" snarled Marlene. "Because I'm pretty sure we just asked you to leave."

James ignored her. Still staring at Lily, he said, "You're… Head Girl?"

"What's it to you?" snapped Lily. Why did he want to know?

James didn't reply, but cast a look at his robes. There, in addition to his old Quidditch Captain's badge that he had acquired in his fourth year, was a brand-new silver badge sporting the letters 'HB'.

Lily gasped. This couldn't be right. Nobody in their right mind could make the infamous trouble-making idiot James Potter the Head Boy. No way. It just wasn't on. "You… you're… Head Boy?!"

"Yeah," said James, trying to sound casual, but it was obvious that he was pleased with himself.

"Told you," murmured Marlene under her breath to Lily, who elbowed her.

"But you weren't even a prefect!" she exploded. "I mean, wasn't Remus lined up for Head Boy?"

"Well, Remus was going to get the job," admitted James, "but then I was chosen instead."

"Dumbledore chose James over Remus?" hissed Lily to Marlene. "Is he insane?"

"Probably," muttered Marlene, raising a carefully-plucked eyebrow at James.

"I know," said James loudly, "let's go to my compartment to celebrate!"

Lily looked at him blankly. What was he on about? "What?"

"Us being Head Boy and Girl!" boasted James, as if it was obvious that it was a cause for celebration."Come on, this way!" He gestured them to follow him out of the compartment. But before Lily could refuse, Alice had already stood up, and Marlene was tugging at Lily's arm.

"He's mad! What's so great about having to do stuff with him all year?" whispered Lily as they made their way to the boys' compartment.

Instead of replying, however, Alice put a finger to her lips. Lily shot her a puzzled look, and Alice nodded her head towards the compartment that James had just entered. His loud voice entered the corridor as they heard him speak to his friends.

"Hello, I'm back! Listen, I have a little surprise for you lot…" He seized the three girls and dragged them into the compartment, where not only the four Marauders were, but Frank Longbottom, Terry Jones and a Hufflepuff boy Lily recognized as troublemaker Jerome Longley.

There was silence.

"Err… hey," said Marlene awkwardly. "Uh… I think we better… go…" She made a movement towards the door, but Sirius said "Nonsense!" and pulled her back in again.

After some more silence, Frank began to talk and within seconds the cramped (and mostly male-dominated) compartment was filled with voices. Marlene was chatting to Sirius, Alice was sitting with Frank and was sharing a very non-verbal conversation, Lily was discussing the subject of wizarding zoos with Remus, Peter and Terry, and James had gone to fetch more people with Jerome. Despite her disliking of James and disapproving of Jerome (his pranks were nearly as bad as the Marauders', except he wasn't as imaginative as them and didn't have many good ideas, meaning that he mainly resorted to doing things like leaving leeches in people's dormitories, which thoroughly disgusted her), Lily was reasonably enjoying herself.

A few minutes later, James and Jerome returned, accompanied by Melanie Hagues, a pretty but shy Hufflepuff in the year below them; Victoria and Rosmerta, who shared Marlene, Alice and Lily's dormitory; and third-year Ravenclaw Amy Delvins, who was supposed to be highly intelligent and have smuggled a dozen boxes of banned goods into the school, and have given one of them to the Marauders (later proved by Sirius, who let off three pocket fireworks as well as whizzing confetti and the wizarding version of Silly String, which glowed and sizzled when touched).

"It's getting a bit crowded in here," announced Sirius (stating the obvious), "so who wants beanbags to sit on the floor with?"

With a few shouts of "Me!" Sirius conjured up some beanbags ("Sessiosive!"and plonked himself on the one nearest to him.

After applauding Sirius on his magic (more like his looks), Victoria and Rosmerta began chatting animatedly to Terry and Jerome. Melanie sidled up to Peter, and Amy took Lily's place in the discussion of wizarding zoos with Remus, which left Lily thoroughly disgruntled and with nobody to talk to—at least, that's what she thought, until she spotted James grinning at her. Oh great, she thought.

"Hey…" he said. "Are you enjoying the party?"

"Yes, it's quite good," replied Lily stiffly, "but it's a bit squashed."

It was true; there was hardly enough room to sit down, but it did help that Sirius had summoned the beanbags.

"The more the merrier, I always say," said James airily. "Anyway, you can't deny it's a nice atmosphere when there are loads of people around."

"Not if you're claustrophobic," challenged Lily, being difficult.

There was a short, awkward pause, and then James asked, "So how was your summer?"

"Oh, it was good," said Lily, not really looking at him, but at the trunk to the side that read 'RJ Lupin'. "We went to France for a week."

"Hmmm," murmured James. "I've been there. They've got loads of pixies there, haven't they? Even some of the Muggles know about them, but thankfully not everyone's gullible, so they don't bother investigating further."

"Yes, the pixies are OK," agreed Lily in a non-committal way. "Not a bit like those Cornish pixies Professor Kettleburn showed us a few years ago."

"Oh yes, I remember," said James, smiling, "Annoying little things, went everywhere, didn't they?"

"Yes."

There was another pause.

"Well, everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, don't they?" said James pleasantly. "Shame, we're all going to have to get changed into the school robes now."

Lily peered out of the window to see that the sky had darkened immensely and the Hogwarts castle was distantly in view, confirming James's suspicions.

"Yeah," she said, "we'd better get going."

James opened his mouth as if he was going to say something important, but shook his head and said, "Go on then."

--xXx--

"That party was great!" Victoria said enthusiastically in the dormitories once they'd arrived at Hogwarts, enjoyed the feast, endured the Sorting, and (in Lily's case) been given a lecture from Professor McGonagall about Head Girl duties and have been shown the Head Girl dormitory and common room. "I really enjoyed it."

"Yeah," agreed Alice. "We should have another one sometime."

"Uh-huh," Rosmerta said, "I'm really in the party mood today. I just feel the need to have some fun now, while we remain safe from the teachers and lessons."

"Easy for you to say," muttered Lily, thinking of the speech McGonagall had made to her about responsibility, but nobody seemed to have heard her.

"Hang on…" said Marlene. "I know! Let's have a sleepover party, here!"

"No way!" said Lily incredulously, but no-one was listening to her; they were all too busy discussing what games they should play.

"Yeah, 'dare' is good," said Victoria, "So we've got that first, then the midnight feast (at midnight, obviously), then Marly can tell her tale about the sea slug, then ghost-story telling, then--"

"For Merlin's sake, we're seventeen!" said Lily through gritted teeth.

"Aww, come on Lils, join in!" Victoria said, but using Lily's child name just made her receive a sharp glare.

"No thanks," said Lily coolly, "I have better things to do than play childish games." She took out a fiction book from her bag and began to read it.

"Oh, yeah, when we play 'dare' we could make Lily to kiss James when it's her turn!" suggested Rosmerta excitedly.

"Grrrrr!" growled Lily, burying her head under the pillow.

End of Chapter Une!