Chapter 2—Transfiguration with Muffin

"Rise and shine, Muffin!" Sirius yelled into James' ear the next morning.

"Go away Siri…" James mumbled and swatted at Sirius with his right arm. The Marauder skillfully stepped out of James' range.

Remus laughed as he watched. Every morning, Sirius yelled for "muffin" to get up, and every morning, James mumbled something incoherent and attempted to hit Sirius. By now, James had started responding to Sirius' wake up calls on a subconscious level and it was difficult for poor Sirius to wake James up, as well as avoid being clobbered in the stomach.

Unsuccessful, he sighed and threw his hands up in frustration. After a few moments, his eyes gleamed evilly as he said, "You leave me with no choice, buddy." And within moments, he used his wand to cast a jet of water at James.

Five seconds later, James woke up, spluttering. "What. The…?"

He looked around and found his dorm empty. Glancing at the clock, he noticed that breakfast started in 5 minutes.

"Shit!" James yelled before jumping to his feet and quickly getting ready. In 2 minutes, he was running down the steps to the Great Hall.

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'Wow' Lily thought as she watched James sprint into the Great Hall. 'He looks pretty good with his hair all wet and messy… wait! What's happening to me? I sound like one of those shallow girls who fall in love with looks!' Lily mentally slapped herself before directing her attention to her toast.

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"Today, we are going to learn how to transform animals into other animals." Professor McGonagall announced to her Advanced Transfiguration class. "I will put you into pairs, as this is very difficult…"

Lily continued to doodle on the margin next to her notes, appearing to be disinterested, although she was really listening. Once, she glanced up, and saw a horde of boys looking hopefully in her direction, before she quickly averted her eyes.

"Malfoy, Black" McGonagall began, but hastily changed her mind after she saw the two boys glaring daggers at each other. "Er… that is to say, Malfoy and Guffany… and Black and DeLaurier."

"Lupin, Hadger."

"Evans, Potter"

Lily felt strangely excited about working with James, even though she knew the only reason McGonagall had paired the two of them together was because Lily happened to do very badly in transfiguration, and James did very well. Maybe she had a chance of both having fun and doing well this time…

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"You have to be more loose when you say the spell… You'll take someone's eye out with your wand gripped so tightly!" James laughed as he watched a sweating Lily try the "Morphus" spell over and over. As if on cue, sparks flew from Lily's wand and blasted a piece of parchment on McGonagall's desk into flames, and the cat they were experimenting with, shrieked. Both students dissolved into a fit of laughter as the Professor looked over disapprovingly.

"I can't do this!" Lily gasped between her laughing.

"Ok just try and picture a rabbit. Something small. And lightly hold onto the end of your wand. Say it almost lazily… 'Morphus'"

"Morphus!" The cat jumped and promptly turned purple

"No… Morphus… not Morphus!… Mooorphus."

"Mooorphus" And Lily's eyes grew wide as her cat turned into a very ugly, yet whole, rabbit.

"Awesome! See? Not so hard, eh?" James asked after Lily had spent 10 minutes perfecting the "Morphus" charm.

"Yeah I guess. I mean, I've never had so much success at transfiguration before!" Lily smiled as she casually flicked her wand at the poodle—which transformed into a goldfish.

The two of them shared a smile before the bell rang and they hurried to put their stuff away. As she walked to Arthimancy, Lily thought that she not only had immense success in the class, but also fun.

A/N: Yuck... I hated writing that last sentence, but hey this is a romance is it not? Anyway, I promise it won't get all mushy and I will take this fanfic down before my characters begin to spout cliched phrases of romance... deal?

P.S. Reviewing might be nice.