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"Oi, watch it!" yelled James in a loud, obnoxious voice as Madame Pomfrey pressed a salve to his burns.
Lily thought he quite deserved the discomfort of the cold salve for his particularly poor potion and clumsiness with his dragon blood. Even by James's poor standards in Potions class, the class that day had been quite impressively bad. Lily had never had to leave class for the hospital wing before.
"If you would stay still, Mr. Potter," Madame Pomfrey said calmly while rubbing the salve on a burn on his arm, "this would be much quicker and easier." Despite James's complaints for the past fifteen minutes, she had retained her patience with him. This was a feat worthy of a medal, Lily thought.
James yelped again when more salve was dumped on his burns and Sirius snickered in the hospital bed next to him, awaiting the salve for his own burns. The salve was effectively banishing the burns and swelling, but it was very uncomfortable and even painful while it was working. Lily, whom had much less burns than James and was already healed, stood up. "May I go back to class now?" she loudly asked Madame Pomfrey to be heard over James's complaints.
"Not going to wait for me, Evans?" James teased before Madame Pomfrey could reply. He feigned great offense at her words. "What if I can't walk by myself?" This was accompanied with a wink.
Lily completely disregarded his statement and waited for Madame Pomfrey's reply. The older woman said kindly, "You may, Miss Evans." Relieved, Lily hastily left the hospital wing, slinging her book bad over her shoulder.
She would have just enough time to return to the common room and change out of the robes that the potion had singed before heading to her next class of the day: Transfiguration. Unfortunately for Lily, James was going to be in that class as well, and undoubtedly would be even more obnoxious than usual because of the Potions incident that morning. Professor McGonagall wasn't nearly as tolerant as Professor Slughorn; she would not be so lenient with James if he fooled around or was careless.
"Hungarian Horntail," she told the Fat Lady when she reached Gryffindor tower. The portrait swung open, revealing the vacant common room—all the other students were in class. Lily climbed the stairs to the dormitory that she shared with Alice and two other girls in their year. She picked out a pair of robes from her trunk at the foot of her bed and quickly changed, making a mental note to get the ruined robes fixed as soon as she could. She would need to take them to a shop; the damage inflicted in Potions would not be easily fixed by a simple spell.
Dressed in fresh and clean robes, Lily climbed back down the stairs. She crossed the common room and climbed out the portrait hole just as Sirius and James climbed in.
"Hey, Evans," James said happily. "Glad to run into you here."
Irritated, Lily ignored him as best as she could and avoided him as she exited into the hall.
"Wait! Evans! Accio Transfiguration book!" James cried, waving his wand. His Transfiguration book quickly joined him and he followed Lily out of the portrait hole, trailed closely by Sirius. Neither of them bothered to change out of their robes, Lily thought with annoyance. Their robes weren't destroyed.
Class was just ending; in the corridor, students were filing out of the classrooms, filling the halls with loud chatter and a crowd that made it easier for Lily to evade James and his best friend. But James was persistent just as much as Lily was evasive.
"Evans, come on," groaned James as he struggled to catch up with her brisk stride, dodging a group of fifth years.
"Tough luck, mate," Sirius said consolingly to him.
They were the first to arrive in Transfiguration. The tabby cat was sitting on the desk of McGonagall, looking down at some papers. Lily took her normal seat, and, like in Potions, James sat beside her with a cocky grin. Transfiguration was his best subject and he loved showing off.
Lily took out her book and a piece of parchment to take notes on, tuning out James's and Sirius's laughter. Out of her peripheral vision, she could tell that James was pointing his wand at a quill, making it do a strange sort of dance across the table. When he caught her looking, he made the quill saunter up to Lily, bow and make a gesture that looked like it was asking her to dance. She looked away quickly, hiding a smile, and went back to heading her paper.
"Are… are you okay, Lily?" a tentative voice asked. Lily looked up sharply into the black eyes of Severus Snape. He gestured to her face and robes, obviously concerned about the Potions incident.
The quill stopped dancing.
There were a million things Lily wanted to say or do at that moment. Things like: 'Since when do you care?' or 'Where are your Death Eater friends?' or 'Leave me alone, dammit!' She chose none of these things, and replied quietly, but shortly, "I'm fine."
He opened his mouth to say something more, and then closed his mouth as he eyed James with strong loathing. Lily sighed and looked down. Severus Snape said nothing more and sat down among his friends, very quiet.
"Are you actually okay?" James muttered to her, sounding genuinely concerned.
Her patience with Snape did not extend to him. "Leave me alone, Potter," she told him with cold animosity in her voice.
He did not reply; this was unusual. Lily peeked up at him and was surprised to see that he looked… hurt. She felt her anger ebb. Damn it, Potter, she thought desperately, don't. She found it increasingly hard to be mad at him when he looked so sad… so forlorn. "Sorry," she murmured quietly, gently, in the softest voice she had ever used with him.
James seemed surprised by this, almost like he didn't know how to react to a Lily who was not shouting at him to leave her alone. "It's okay," he replied in a voice just as soft. She shivered involuntarily and then, chiding herself for being foolish, went back to her paper.
James didn't say anything else, and for this, Lily was grateful. She went back to the sanctum and privacy of her confused thoughts. What was with her today? Being nice to James Potter? Apologizing for snapping at him? Had someone slipped Essence of Insanity into her pumpkin juice that morning? Surely she would have noticed, being the Potions whiz that she was. There had to be an explanation. It must be the stress of the upcoming exams. She, Lily Evans, did not like James Potter at all.
Lily knew she was being petty in her thoughts, but she didn't care.
For once, she wasn't paying close attention when Professor McGonagall gave a lecture on the turtles they would be transfiguring into ravens. She barely even noticed when McGonagall called on her to pass out the turtles to the class. Her name had been repeated several times before James lightly prodded her side to get her attention.
Blushing a deep red, she rose from her seat and took the box of small, green turtles from an irritated McGonagall, passing them to the class as quickly as she could before sitting back down, still pink.
"You're beautiful when you're blushing," James whispered to her as she sat down.
She didn't have the opportunity to reply before Professor McGonagall began speaking again. "Remember the incantation: Corbeausis. By the end of the period, everyone should be able to at least give their turtles feathers. Those who fool around shall see me after class for a detention. Proceed."
Lily soon realized she should have been paying better attention to the lecture at the beginning of the class; after uttering 'Corbeausis,' several times, the only thing she had accomplished was scaring her turtle into hiding within its shell.
"You tap its shell three times while saying it," James told her pompously. He tapped his turtle's shell as a demonstration and said, "Corbeausis," firmly. To Lily's aggravation, black feathers sprouted out of the turtle and it grew a beak. It was not quite a raven, but was far closer than others' attempts.
"How do you do that?" Lily grumbled, in spite of herself.
He smiled at her. "Magic," he replied cheekily.
"Well done, Mr. Potter!" McGonagall exclaimed as she spotted his feathery turtle. She approached the table and tapped his raven-turtle, reverting it to its turtle state. "Try tapping more firmly, and you should have the spell down," she advised him. She caught sight of Sirius's turtle, which had just let out a raven-like screech and ruffled its black feathers, and shook her head, bewildered. "Mr. Black, Mr. Potter, you amaze me," she informed them as she turned Sirius's almost-raven back into a turtle.
"Nice, Padfoot," James told his friend. "Did you hear? Apparently, we're amazing at Transfiguration." His voice pretended shock. They both laughed heartily at that, which Lily did not understand.
She tapped the turtle three times and said, "Corbeausis." Her turtle turned an unhealthy shade of blackish-green, but did not sprout feathers or a beak. She enviously eyed James, who, on his third attempt, had produced a raven.
"Evans, don't tap quite so hard," James told her, as his raven bit at his fingers.
Lily glowered at him, annoyed with his superior tone and his success. He grinned at her. "Like this," he said, tapping his wand of the shell of her turtle as a demonstration. Grudgingly, she copied him, tapping lightly on the back of her turtle.
"Corbeausis," she said. Feathers sprouted from the turtle, much to her annoyance. Stupid James had helped her. Urgh, she thought, how annoying; he was right.
"Good job, Evans," he said seriously, looking at her without a hint of a joke in his face.
This threw her off. "Thank y—Whatever, Potter," she corrected herself just in time.
He laughed, the seriousness temporarily gone. "That's why I love you, Lily," he told her jokingly. She flushed furiously, looking down at her very tightly clenched hands in her lap.
"Leave me alone, Potter," she told him, suddenly very tired of his childish crush.
He lightly touched her cheek and she glowered at him for it. "Sorry, I can't do that," he told her regretfully. A strange thing happened to Lily then—something that had never happened before because of James: her breath caught in her throat and she found that she could not look away from his green eyes.
"Prongs, check this out," Sirius said, laughing. James looked away from Lily to examine what his best friend was showing him, and she slowly released the breath she had been holding.
Lily was more confused than she had been for a long time. Was James Potter attempting a new tactic: kindness and gently flattery? Well, it was more effective than his previous attempts, Lily confessed to herself. However, she thought haughtily, it still would not work because James was a toerag, a speck of dirt on the bottom of her shoe, and she was never going to go out with him. Not even if every other Y chromosome vanished off the earth. She would date the Giant Squid, in that case.
James was an arrogant swine, she reassured herself as the bell rang and she stood from her seat. He was just simply an ass.
"Evans, you forgot your book," he called after her as she left the Transfiguration classroom. "Here." He slipped it into her book bag kindly and then slowed down to allow Sirius, Remus and Peter to catch up with him.
Lily looked back at him and he caught her eye warmly. The warmth, and lack of lusty amusement, confused Lily even further.
I was insane for thinking I could possibly have a oneshot. It is terribly difficult to stop writing about Lily and James. They are such genuinely lovable characters. Thanks for reading, please review, and have a fantastic day.
Mel.