A/N: This is a rewrite! Nothing is changed but the very bottom. Screwed that one up, I did.
That's Not Right!
By Emily VanScoy
Chapter 1The silly girl that she is, Lily Miriam Evans took a deep, slow breath of air, which immediately filled her lungs with the purplish smog that had filled the small, cramped Potions classroom.
"Bugger!" Lily coughed into her hand, hacking away as Marlene McKinnon patted her back, grinning.
"Aw, poor Lily. At least you'll be able to live with lung cancer!" Marlene continued grinning, even if it annoyed Lily to no ends.
"How is that any consolation?" said Lily, scowling into the sleeve of her white school shirt.
"'S not. I just like saying lung cancer," said Marlene, continuing with the complex stirring pattern for the potion.
"Oh, that explains. Really, it's such a pretty phrase," muttered Lily sarcastically.
Marlene smiled, but quickly stumbled to the side as Dorcas Meadows nudged her to talk to Lily.
"Hmmm, I wonder why you chose this table?" Dorcas pondered aloud, as Lily glared. Marlene, a confused look on her face, said, "Why?"
"Oh, nothing important. Just that Lily's a perv!" Dorcas grinned like a maniac at this, Lily blushing like a crazy tomato on steroids, spluttering something about 'what are you talking about?' and 'You know nothing!' and even 'I shall die for my country!'
Okay, maybe not the last one- Dorcas and Marlene probably couldn't tell. Or care, for that matter.
Happily passing the time with mutterings, hacking coughs, and lung cancer, no one really noticed Marlene's lagging arms or the slow decline in speed of her Potions spoon- but, of course, they noticed when Marlene had almost fainted into the chair behind her.
Lily, in the corner of her eye, saw the slow decent, and, out of shock, didn't exactly rush to her best friend's aid.
Of course, the first thing she did do was yell, "Bugger!"
As Dorcas lifted Marlene into a standing, or, rather, leaning position, Marlene's shirt lifted up and a shockingly purple bruise that spread from her skirt's waist to where the shirt covered it, and all across her navel.
"What the hell?" whispered Lily, helping Dorcas support Marlene on the other side, throwing Marlene's limp arm around her shoulder.
"What's all the fuss?" said Professor Slughorn, approaching the table out of the purplish smoke. He stopped cold for a second upon sighting Marlene, and Lily really thought he was about to puke into one of those monogrammed handkerchiefs he was always carrying- but Slughorn acted in a manner almost befitting a Hogwarts professor.
"Let's just get her to the Hospital Wing, shall we- erm, you?" Slughorn bustled around the table, making flittering hand gestures and his jowls bouncing on his chubby face- quite a hilarious picture, really, if Lily did have an unconscious best friend on her shoulders.
"Right then- off you go!" Slughorn's shifty eyes settled on Marlene's spreading bruise, and as he opened the Potion's door, he said, "Tell Madame Pomfrey I'll bring up the potion." And with that, he snapped shut the door, and Lily could almost feel the curious stares of the other students trying to burn through the door.
"What the hell?" repeated Lily, with Dorcas nodding in agreement.
"This is bloody nuggets," Dorcas muttered, running her free hand through her short, curly brown hair.
"Bloody nuggets?" asked Lily, her brows knitting together in confusion.
"Of course! Nuggets, nuts. Crazy," Dorcas rolled her eyes at her friend's 'stupidity'.
"Ah. I should start carrying that 'Dorcas Dictionary' you say you published," Lily said, settling Marlene's arm across her shoulder more comfortably. Marlene began to regain consciousness and stumble along, bringing some relief to Lily's straining muscles.
"What happened?" muttered Marlene, her eyes trained on the ground in front of her.
"You buggered out," Dorcas said plainly, lifting Marlene as high as she could to clear some steps up to the Hospital Wing.
"You fainted," clarified Lily, barely able to lift Marlene off the ground, much less help Dorcas get her up the stairs.
"Oh," said Marlene simply, and that was that.
Once Madame Pomfrey had bustled about and made enough fuss for Dorcas and Lily to be satisfied with their friend's well-being, they said their fond farewells ("See you tonight" and "Don't die") and set back to what was left of the Potion's class period.
"What d'you reckon Slughorn meant by 'the potion'?" asked Lily, rubbing her arms against the chill December air that snaked through the corridors.
"Probably something to help with that nasty bruise. I'll bet Marlene fell off her bed yesterday," replied Dorcas, she herself firmly protected against the cold in her school robes.
"Yeah, right. I would've woken up," Lily said, always skeptical.
"You're not the lightest sleeper in the dragon den, Lillers," Dorcas pointed out, grinning, and towering over Lily as they descended the stairs to the Potion's dungeon classroom.
"What does that even mean?" Lily said incredulously, as they opened the heavy wooden door to the Potions room.
The thick, choking purple smog was gone, replaced by a wispy, almost mystical looking gold fog. Slughorn, hearing the heavy door creaking open, hustled over to the two girls and started making hand gestures as he talked.
"Well! Girls, you'll have to split up, we made some new partner arrangements in here… Groups of three, now, instead of four!" Slughorn failed to mention that the students had really just grabbed their best friends and started working, and not listening to a word of his instructions past 'We're making a potion!'
"Great, Professor, who am I partnered with?" asked Dorcas, who really couldn't go wrong- she was friends with pretty much everyone in the room.
"Mr. Lupin and Mr. Pettigrew, if you please?" Slughorn said, tugging on his robe-like suit with a seemingly agitated nervousness.
"Oh. 'S all right, Lily, I'll be off, then," and Dorcas strolled toward Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew's cluttered table, where Lupin had a greenish-gold potion brewing in the bottoms of a coal-black, almost grey-looking cauldron. Rather unique, in Lily's opinion.
"That leaves you, Ms. Evans, ah…" Slughorn, obviously knew his student politics, and was rather reluctant to announce Lily's new partners. "That leaves you with Mr. Potter and Mr. Black."
If people said that Slughorn never disliked anybody, they were dead wrong; not just because everybody hates someone, but also because James Potter and Sirius Black were living proof. Slughorn really didn't like them, probably a feeling that rubbed off Lily and onto him- Slughorn was so easy to manipulate.
Lily grudgingly, and slowly, made her way to Potter's table, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, as if to keep them from performing some nervous habit or such.
"Hullo, Evans, so nice of you to join us," greeted James, his trademark grin never out of place. Lily scowled in reply, and dropped into a seat. Sirius returned the frown, not even glancing her way more than a second.
"What are you doing now?" Lily asked, turning her eyes to the more green-blue than green-gold potion in the steamy cauldron in front of her, directing her question at either of the boys.
"Still trying to cut up the boomscale droppings into perfect quarters- nearly impossible," James said, setting his chin on his hand, and, funnily enough, looking extremely feminine. It was probably hard to avoid, thought Lily, when you were James Potter- skinny face, slanted eyes, full lips, and very feminine. Except for the lack of breasts. Yes, that was decidedly manly.
Lily grimaced, her tone one of contempt. "That far behind? Really! You should know better," and with that, Lily raised her wand, and gave the boomscale droppings a sharp jab. They neatly slid into a neat pile, all perfect fourths of the original size.
"Bah. You took the easy way," scowled Sirius, dropping one fourth of the pile in and shoving the rest into the dustbin at the end of the table.
"I took the magic way," muttered Lily. James grinned again, and continued stirring, every so often consulting his Potions book, which was more befouled by scribbles that Lily had ever seen.
"Really, must you deface everything you get your hands on?" asked Lily, her tone sharp and sarcastic. James looked up, and followed her gaze to his textbook.
"Nah, not really. Only the inanimate things, really."
"Great vocabulary, Potter," muttered Lily, rolling her eyes. Boy, was that a comeback!
"I know, right?" There was that feminine 'feeling' again. He'd be a great girl, thought Lily.
Sirius stared at his best friend and Lily, his grey eyes glazed over, finding nothing interesting in the banter between the two.
His mind was a blank slate, and as he searched for something interesting to do or think about, his first thought was Evans.
Great, what was he supposed to do with that? Lily Evans was a bratty know-it-all, always on the teacher's good side, and absolutely annoying. And James was absolutely obsessed!
And with nothing better to do, Sirius concocted a plan to liven up Potions for a long time…
Lily felt someone's gaze, and breaking off her conversation, turned her head to look at Sirius. He was looking at her like someone who was extremely bored, or insane. Lily reasoned that it was the insane part, and thought no more of it.
"So, what do you say?" James's question, accompanied by a tap on the elbow, brought Lily back to the present.
"Huh-?" Lily said, disoriented. Lost in her own thoughts, Lily hadn't even noticed that James had continued his conversation.
"I said, what do you say about Hogsmeade?" James looked so hopeful. Lily actually felt a little guilty for a second, but her iron will crushed it (or, in other words, she was too stubborn for her own good).
"Not on my agenda, sorry," Lily said, and she nervously twisted her plain, hemp-thread bracelet that braided itself around her finger, like she had charmed it. James immediately launched into more conversation, all the while stirring the potion by twirling his wand in the air absently, which kept the silver spoon they were using going at hyper-speed. (Lily once considered this cheating, but in her fifth year she had to prepare a potion that had to be stirred five hundred times, twice, in two different directions. Spells were her God then.)
When, finally the double period finally let out, Lily grabbed her bookbag off her chair's back and grabbed Dorcas's elbow, which was roughly at Lily's shoulder- an exaggeration, but Lily was like that.
"How were Remus and Peter?" Lily asked, rummaging through her bag for a quill and parchment for her next class.
Dorcas laughed, and ran a hand through her hair, as if to tame the frizz. "Not bad. Remus did a lot of the work, and I enjoy humiliating Peter."
Lily scowled, and, realizing there were no classes left – it was the end of the day – shoved her quill into her bag.
"You really shouldn't pick on him, Dorcas. He's been trapped into a lowly existence as the Marauder's lackey, even lower than a Marauder."
"But that's the fun of it! Really, Lily, liven up," Dorcas smiled and led them up the stairway of the dungeon, and into the Great Hall for dinner.
"Bah. Nothing funny about it."
"There's a difference between fun and funny, Lils," muttered Dorcas, who was digging into her turkey and mashed potatoes, as Lily would soon be doing, too.
A nudge on her shoulder brought Lily's head up, and she scooted over to make way for Marlene, grinning.
The small girl wedged herself between Lily and the next Gryffindor with ease, and grabbing a plate, she began to load it with tons of food, belying her small figure.
"What? No explanation?" Lily asked, her eyebrows raised in bemusement. Marlene shrugged.
"Nothing to explain. I fainted," Marlene looked away as she said this, and Lily rolle dher eyes. Marlene was so terrible at being vague and such.
"I saw that huge bruise! What happened?"
Marlene muttered something unintelligible, and Lily leaned in closer.
"What was that?"
"None of your goddamn business," and that was all she would say on the subject.
Really, Marlene needed to realize who she was best friends with.