Nostalgic for disaster by Discombobulated-chum-bucket Nostalgic for disaster by Discombobulated-chum-bucket
Summary: For James Potter, head journalist of the Daily Prophet and four-time winner of the Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile competition, life couldn't be any more perfect. Enter one perpetually narked off Lily Evans...Insanity ensues. AU LJ.
Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to claim it as my own, I must say that it takes a true genius to think up something like Harry Potter. I'm just another bored teenager up to her ears in homework, how could you possibly mistake me for the mastermind that is J.K Rowling. Besides, if it were mine, it would be the James Potter series not Harry Potter…and James'd have dimples…and he would be head over heels for me…hehehe
A/N: The Bucket's back and better than ever. Um…I read the stuff that I had put up last year and cringed with every word. So I am thinking of deleting it. Cowers in fear I'm really sorry but it was written last year when I was on a sugar high and is a really stupid piece of writing.
NOW ONWARDS
x.O.x
SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR…READ AND THEN REVIEW!!
x.O.x
Chapter One
James Potter raked a hand through his already tousled black hair and strutted his way past a row of desks, occasionally smirking at the odd girl as he walked by.
James was happy, very happy. And why shouldn't he be? After all, it was no small feat to become head journalist of the Daily Prophet within only two years when there were many much more older and more experienced workers than him.
But if truth be told, it wasn't just his writing skills he had to thank when it came to the crunch (even though they were a major part of it), but also his looks and even more so, his personality, that seemed to charm most people.
"Oi, Potter!" boomed a jovial voice. James turned around to see his boss and best friend, Sirius Black grinning maniacally at him.
James Potter and Sirius Black had bonded on their first ride on the Hogwarts Express over a mutual passion for writing. Since then the two had been almost inseparable.
They were soon joined by Remus Lupin, a brilliant boy who had been shunned for a large part of his life due to his lycanthropy and a rather dull, mousy boy named Peter Pettigrew, who the other three had rescued from a mob of burly Slytherins.
The four boys quickly gained quite a reputation at Hogwarts. With the combination of brains (Remus), looks (Sirius) and talent on the Quidditch pitch (James) they had quickly climbed the social ladder. Peter on the other hand, simply tagged along with the other three, unsure as to why he had been chosen to be friends with such popular people and yet honoured.
As the years went past, the boys grew older but still one thing remained the same: James's and Sirius's love for writing. Together they started up Hogwarts's own newsletter, which satirised the Daily Prophet, the Wizarding newspaper that, according to the dastardly duo, "was going to the dogs".
When they had graduated, James and Sirius joined the Daily Prophet. The two took the entire paper by storm. Not only was the pair rather gifted in the looks department but they also introduced a new flavour to the old newspaper.
If James had been a talented writer, it was nothing compared to Sirius Black.
Within the first year, after writing a very daring and compelling article on the lack of backbone in the former minister for Magic, when it came to opposing the ever growing dark forces, Sirius had impressed the editor in chief so much that he was promoted to Junior Editor.
"Hey Padfoot, missed me?" James said punching his best mate in the arm.
"No, I see you everyday unfortunately." Sirius replied. "Anyway James, as I was about to say, the public is going wild. They absolutely loved your story on the scandal at the ministry and its lack of security. The Daily Prophet is the No. 1 Wizarding newspaper and I owe it partly to you, and mainly to me of course. (Here James rolled his eyes) Oh and congratulations on winning the Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile competition again. It's unbelievable; the whole wizarding world is in turmoil thanks to Voldemort and Witch Weekly still do that stupid competition every year. What's even more insane is that you won when I'm still alive and kicking."
"Gee thanks," James relied dryly.
"Oh yeah and one more thing, James, we have a new journalist coming in today. His majesty, the editor in chief, says that she's just transferred back to England from Germany. You two are going to be working together on our next story. Can you come by my office at two so you can meet each other?"
"Of course I'll be there. I would never miss the chance to meet a hot new journalist."
x.O.x
Lily Evans smoothed out nonexistent wrinkles in her bottle green robe. She pulled her thick wavy auburn hair into a ponytail and then pulled it back out again. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her bright green eyes stared back at her worriedly. Lily sighed and swept her hair into its previous ponytail,
"Lily! Stop! You've been fixing and re-fixing your hair for at least thirty minutes!" Lily's best friend Alice Longbottom burst out. After watching Lily fidget nervously with her hair for the past half hour Alice had finally had enough.
"Oh Alice, I'm so sorry!" Lily said wringing her hands in despair, "I'm just so nervous about going to work at the Prophet. It's the biggest newspaper in the wizarding world and I don't want to blow it on something small."
"Lily, you'll be fine. You look gorgeous. I'd better go now; Frank's waiting for me at home. In fact…" Alice added checking her watch, "You'd better get going as well. It's almost 2 o'clock."
"Thanks, Alice. See you at six for dinner," And with that Lily turned on the spot and disappeared with a faint popping sound.
x.O.x
Sirius leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk and closed his eyes. The day was almost over. All that was left was…
"'Sir, the new journalist is here. Should I send her in?" A mousy haired youth's head spoke from with in the fire that was crackling away merrily in the fireplace.
"Yeah, floo her up." Sirius replied without opening his eyes.
"Yes, sir."
Minutes later, a girl who looked no more than twenty ungracefully tumbled out of the fireplace where the young boy's head had been.
She picked herself up of the ground, straightened out her robes and tomato-red hair and turned to face the desk where Sirius behind which Sirius was lazily sitting. She stood awkwardly at the desk unsure of whether to wake the handsome young man who was apparently sleeping. There was something familiar about his face but she couldn't quite place her finger on it but seeing him seemed to bring back memories of Hogwarts; of life before she moved away.
She cleared her throat and Sirius's eyes flickered open.
"Sorry, I drifted off there…" He trailed off as he made eye contact with the woman standing before him. "No way. James is gonna love this." He muttered to himself.
At the mention of "James" something clicked into place and recognition flickered across the woman's face.
"Sirius Black," She said.
"Hi Evans. Haven't seen you since Graduation."
x.O.x
"Would you excuse me, James? I have to use the bathroom."
"Yeah sure, go ahead." The pretty blonde stood up and made her way across the restaurant. James admired bum as she strutted into the bathroom shaking her hips in an unnecessarily exaggerated fashion.
She's hot. Now if only I could remember her name…ARGH! Bloody hell!
James batted away the memo that had been constantly flying around his head like a particularly boisterous mosquito during his date.
"Go away, will you!" he said to it frustrated as it attempted to burrow its way into his ear. Sirius had sent the memo with James to his date so that James would not forget to attend the meeting.
He tried vanishing the dratted thing only to find that it had become even more enthusiastic in its efforts to pull him away from his date.
James checked his watch. It was five minutes to two.
"Alright, alright! I'm leaving!" he said to the memo swatting it away from his left nostril where it had begun to jam itself.
He quickly paid the bill and dashed out before the girl returned from the restroom.
"Jamsie-poo!" a girl threw herself into his arms as he stepped out of the restaurant. "Where have you been? I spoke to that idiot you call a friend, Sirius, and he said you had irritable bowel syndrome and were at St Mungos! I went to St Mungo's to see you and they said that you never checked in! Is it someone else, James? Are you cheating on me? Huh? Or is it because I'm fat? Am I so fat that you have to pretend to have some disgusting stomach bug just so you don't have to see me? Just because you're some big shot journalist doesn't make you better than the rest of us! I thought you were different, James, but you're just like the rest of those men. I can't believe this! How could you do this to me? I love you!"
James groaned inwardly. Bloody Sirius, he thought furiously, of all the diseases he could have picked, he chose sodding irritable bowel syndrome! Typical.
"James Potter! Are you even LISTENING to me?!"
Oh bugger.
x.O.x
"I cannot believe I'm working for Sirius Black." Lily groaned, "Ugh. Of all the people in the bloody world I get stuck with the one that has flatulence problems. Just my godawful luck."
"That was one time!"
"You farted on my potions assignment in seventh year and blew it up!"
"It happened nearly two years ago! How do you even remember things like this?"
"You would remember it too if your potion had blown up all over Potter and he cursed all your hair to fall out."
"Haha I remember that! You walked around bald for two weeks and then it grew back all over your face instead of your scalp!"
"Shut up, Black. How you became an editor so soon when you have the maturity level of a ten year old, I will never understand."
Sirius grinned widely. "What can I say, the senior editor was blown away by my talent and my gorgeous good looks that he was compelled to give me this position."
"Two years along the track and you are still an arrogant arse with a ginormous head only to be rivaled by Potter himself." Lily said. She looked around the office properly for the first time and noticing posters of motorbikes and a magically enlarged photo of James, Sirius, Remus and Peter hanging off the walls. "How can you get away with having all that stuck all over your walls? Aren't you a little old for sticking up posters everywhere?"
Sirius shrugged, "I'm indispensable and you haven't changed either," he said observing her bright red hair. "So where did you disappear off to? I always expected you to become an Auror or something but you seemed to have vanished into thin air."
"I took a gap year. Where is the rest of your little gang?" Lily asked trying to move the topic of conversation as far away from her absence as possible.
"Well, Remus works here at the Prophet now. I finally convinced him to let me recommend him last week. Unemployment was really not suiting him. I have no idea what happened to Peter. Haven't spoken to him in ages."
She paused before asking tentatively, "What about um…Potter?"
Oh, if only you knew, Sirius thought.
x.O.x
James was running through the busy streets of London. It was 3.00 and he was an hour late to meet Sirius.
"CRAP!" he yelled as he almost got run over by yet another vehicle; the tenth one so far.
Sirius had better be grateful, James fumed as he knocked over a fruit stall and a gaggle of pimply teens outside a computer store, I left my date half way through and I didn't even get her address and to add a cherry on top of a fantastic day I was assaulted by a crazed, stalker, now (thankfully) ex-girlfriend. He unconsciously rubbed his still-smarting cheek where a red handprint resided, compliments of the aforementioned ex.
James burst into the Daily Prophet building, which appeared, to the prying muggle eye, as a construction site.
Finally after running up three flights of stairs, down five, across an innumerable number of corridors, meeting countless dead ends and all the while swearing furiously and thinking up slow, painful ways of killing Sirius Black, James threw open the door of said Sirius Black's office.
"I'm here!" he panted, doubling over clutching a rather painful stitch in his side.
He looked up to see a rather tall, red haired girl staring at him with startled green eyes and a shell-shocked expression on her face.
"YOU!"
A/N: Teehee. Bet you really hate me now. VERY IMPORTANT!! PLEASE READ AHEAD!! AHEAD ARE QUESTIONS TO FEED THE HUNGRY PLOT BUNNY!
QUESTION 1: What should Lily's reaction be?
Oh my god! Look at his muscles/eyes/hair/etc! Good grief he's changed.
OR
What the beep is this loser doing here?
QUESTION 2: What should be going on between James and Lily?
mutual loathing
OR
the canonical love/hate story
OR
is Lily is James's ex from Hogwarts?
OR
Something completely different (please specify)
Answer the questions and you get virtual chocolates…best answers will be in the next chappie.
Much Love,
DCB