Summary: My name is Lily Evans and I hate a lot of things. In fact, my friends have compiled a detailed list of all the things I hate, taking up 17 rolls of parchment, 3 paper cups, 6 napkins, and 2 t-shirts, but they pay special attention to James Potter and relieving me of my hatred of him. They have been paying such attention to him for the past 5 and a half years. I have come to the conclusion that it's their life's mission to get me to date him. Over my dead body.
Disclaimer: HA!
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Hate is Such a Strong Word
Chapter Three: Lady Luck, what the hell?
Well, this is death.
Organizing Slughorn's private stores of Potions ingredients. With him hanging over my shoulder, explaining where everything goes and exactly how he's going to help me make in life after Hogwarts. Oh, and every other word I hear is "OHO!" Who does he think he is, Father Christmas? My God, If he doesn't shut up in the next three seconds…
"Now, Lily, you need to work in Magical Law Enforcement. Lots of Charm work there, and that's your specialty!" Don't make the joke, don't make the joke, don't make the joke… "Just a charmer, aren't we, Lily! Hohohohoho!" Aaaaaaargh!
I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him…
"Oho! The bezoars! They go outside in the student stores, actually, if you could just put those there." I grab the stupid little stones and rush outside, hoping to escape Father Christmas. Though, I must admit, I never thought Father Christmas would act like a pedophile walrus. No luck. He's following me. Maybe he'll get stuck in the doorway and I can run away and never come back.
What I wouldn't give…
Damn.
"You see, Lily, I know a bunch of people in Magical Law Enforcement. Brunhilda McMullan, for instance. Put her there myself, she'll give you a job, just say the word, m'dear, and I can have you working with the Ministry as a summer job." I'd rather tear my own heart out with a spoon.
"Actually, sir, I didn't really plan on taking a summer job, and anyway, isn't it a bit soon to be looking for a job? I'm only halfway through sixth year." Say yes. Say it is, and say that you'll just leave me alone and shut the hell up before I gouge out your eyes and pull your spleen out through your throat.
"Ahh, it's never too early to start looking for a job, Lily. Never too early." Hmm, apparently he hasn't noticed the odd twitch I've developed over the past four freakin' hours I've been in this detention. Let him just die. Just keel over and die and remove me from my current torture. Please, God, please. I'll do anything.
"Well, I'm not really looking now." I fake a yawn, hoping that maybe he'll take the hint.
"Oho! Will you look at the time! That's all for tonight, Lily, m'dear. You can go back to your tower now." Haleluia. Haleluia. Oh, Haleluia. I'm so happy I could cry.
"Goodbye, Professor."
"Goodbye, Lily!"
And good fucking riddance.
--
Well, it's midnight, I'm exhausted, and I haven't finished my Transfiguration homework, so it looks like I'll be up at 4:30 again. Hopefully I won't walk into the wrong dorm this time. I don't think I could live with Potter's teasing if I did.
Not that I can now, but that's beside the point. I walk into a secret passageway, and there he is. Oh joy, oh joy, oh happy day. How the hell does he know where I am all the freakin' time?
"Well, hello there, Lily! What a pleasant surprise!" Do I look pleased? No. I am not pleased, nor is this a pleasant surprise. This is about as pleasant a surprise as the time my sister bribed the doctor into telling me I had syphilis when I was 14. In front of my parents. Turns out, I really had the flu, but my parents wouldn't listen to my insistence that I did not have an STD as that would have involved sexual activity, something that only people with a life engage in, which I do not, sadly, own. They still send McGonagall letters, insisting that they know my every move around school. Where they get the owl, I'll never know. I'm beginning to think they bought one. Which is really strange, my parents being muggles. I can't fathom how they would have gotten an owl without me being there. Not to mention the distinct lack of wizarding funds.
Anyway, yah. Really not a good time for Potter to show up.
"What the hell do you want?" You know, I never thought I could feel such hatred as I do right now. I thought Slughorn was bad enough, but this is just sick. What did I ever do to piss off the gods?
"Finished your detention with Sluggy, then, have you?"
"Yes. As a matter of fact, I'm going to bed right now."
"Well, then, I'll just go with you." The grin on his stupid face makes his meaning evident. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die.
"Afraid not, Potter. I think I can find my own way."
"Oh, can you?" Jackass.
"Yes. Unfortunately for you, I am not as drunk as all of the other women who somehow find you attractive enough to sleep with you. Terribly sorry." He looks stunned for a moment, then regains his composure.
"I do not have to get a girl drunk to get her to sleep with me, Evans. Besides, I'm not the one who does that all the time. That would be Sirius."
"Ah, so Sirius is the pimp of the Marauders. Does that make you his bitch? Or is that Lupin?" Oh yes. I went there. He's starting to look a bit angry. In fact, he's starting to look pissed.
"Don't shit about my friends, Evans." He hisses. Wow, I was kidding. Maybe he really is Sirius's bitch.
"Oooh, have I hit a nerve? What, never said it out loud before?"
"You know, Evans, I have no idea what the hell I see in you sometimes. In fact –"
"- You'll leave me alone from now on? Good." And, with that, I walk away.
Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have been so mean. But he gets on my nerves so much. If he wouldn't be such a git about everything, then I wouldn't have to be so cruel to get him to leave me alone. But that would make sense. And Potter can't make sense, ever. I think it goes against his beliefs or his instincts or something. I mumble the password (Wingardium Leviosa – I swear, they get more original every second) and head into the empty common room and head up to my bed. Screw the essay. I can do it in the morning.
--
"LILY ELIZABETH EVANS, GET UP NOW! IT'S 8:00!"
Oh my holy shit. Classes start in 30 minutes. Transfiguration starts in 30 minutes. Transfiguration, which I do not have my completed homework for, starts in 30 minutes.
Lady Luck, what the hell?
I let out a screech as I fly out of bed, throwing on my robes, catapulting into the bathroom, brushing my teeth and attempting to brush my hair, all while putting on my shoes. All so I can get down to breakfast with enough time to copy Jenn's essay because there's no way I can pull of my own right now. It isn't until I rush back into my dorm that I glance out the window, and I freeze in mid-step.
Last time I checked, even in winter, the sun is up somewhat by 8 AM.
Um…
Oh, don't tell me…
My roommates are grumbling. No one is awake. No one could have screamed at me to wake up. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and then glance at the clock on my bedside table. It's…
Ooooh…
"Lily, what the fuck are you doing up at this time? It's… It's 4 in the freakin' morning! We just got to sleep an hour ago!" Jenn shouts. You know how you can feel it when you're blushing and your entire face is turning the color of the freakin' setting sun, and all you can do is just sit there like a diseased tomato because you know there is no way to defend yourself? And you can feel everyone staring at you, no, glaring at you, because you went totally stupid and screeched and woke everyone up? Yeah, that's about the feeling I'm getting.
This is not a good way to start my day.
"Uh… Sorry. I, uh, thought it was morning…" Wow, I sound remarkably like a mouse. A vividly red mouse, but a mouse all the same. Can mice even turn red? Wow, that's a strange thought. I mean, if a mouse walked in on two of his mouse friends, what would he do?
Y'know, maybe I really do need psychiatric help.
"You thought it was morning? Hmm… Generally there is light in the morning, caused by the rising sun – which, by the way, is nowhere in sight – so shouldn't that have clued you in before you screamed your bloody head off?" Jenn is so mad she's hissing at me like a snake or something. Oh, crap. Well, I suppose when you're already digging your grave, may as well dig it nice and deep. I mean, if I'm going to die, might as well die in style, right?
"Actually, if you look out the window, there is a faint pinkish glow on the horizon. I think the rising sun might just be in sight. And besides, a lot of girls our age get up now anyway, to, y'know, get ready… and… all…" I trail off at the shadowed look on her face. Okay, so maybe the shadows have more to do with the fact that it's 4 AM than the fact that she's about to rip my eyes out of my head and force me to eat them, but it's scary nonetheless. And I think she might just pull that eye thing. Jenn's quite terrifying when she's angry. And boy, is she angry. I'm kind of getting worried about that vein in her temple, in fact. Looks like it's about to break, and the last thing I need right now is my best friend having massive internal hemorrhaging at 4 in the morning, especially because I don't know any healing spells and no one's awake at this god-forsaken hour. Except maybe Potter and his cronies, but I really don't want to know what they're doing and I'd rather eat my own hand than go to them for help. The only one I could face would be Pettigrew, but he'd be about as much help as that oil stain in my parents' driveway. And I'm quite sure oil stains don't really have that much power over massive internal hemorrhaging.
But, yeah. Jenn is pissed. Royally so. To her credit, though, it looks like she's trying to contain it. She's taking very deep breaths and I can almost hear the little psychiatrist man we went to see three years ago (a dare by Jenn's sister – she seemed to think it'd be funny to go to a psychiatrist and tell him all about the wizarding world, just to see what he said. Actually, it was really funny. The guy's eyes almost popped out of his head, and I think he wanted to commit us to Saint Agatha's Home for the Clinically Insane of West London before we escaped his tiny checkered office. I swear, it was black and white checked all over, the floors were black and white tile, the walls were white, and the ceiling was black, and everything was checked. We ended up having to convince him that we'd said nothing. But he had a lot to say about Jenn and needing anger management, in this really wheezy German accent that made me think he was either going to start spouting off the theory of relativity or keel over and die. And he was hitting on me the entire time. But I digress.) telling her to "take deep, calming breaths and count to one hundred." Jenn had never managed to make it to one hundred. In fact, I'm not even sure she ever made it to one.
"Lily Elizabeth Evans. Just go back to sleep. NOW." With that, she turned and jerked the covers back over her head, and I slowly got back into my pajamas and crawled into my own, now-cold, bed.
What did I do to piss you off, Lady Luck?
What did I do?
--
Naturally, now that it's actually time to wake up, I'm not in the best of moods. Jenn looks like she wants nothing to do with me, and Allie and Marlene still aren't sure whether they heard a bat screeching like a banshee at 4 AM or a banshee screeching at 4 AM.
And I still haven't done my Transfiguration essay, but there's no way in hell Jenn is going to let me copy hers. So, to put it simply, Lily Evans is officially dead. Toast. Gone off to the Great Ice Cream Shop in the Sky (if they serve mint chocolate chip, I'm fine with it). And she'll be covered in spit by the time Professor McG is through screaming at her.
Why the crap did I just call her Professor McG? More to the point, why was I thinking in 3rd person?
Then again, trying to fathom the depths of my subconscious really isn't easy. Or particularly smart for that matter. I'm a little afraid of what's back there. I mean, I could be hiding a deep understanding of the universe, I suppose, but I could also be hiding a deep internal adoration for Bon Jovi, which is enough to give me nightmares.
Yes. I am terrified of a major pop singer.
Number 83 on The List.
There is no limit to the depths of my pitifulness.
But that's beside the point. The point is, I'm going crazy, but it really doesn't matter, because I'm going to die a slow and horrifically painful death in Transfiguration (which I happen to have first – oh happy day!) when McGonagall sees that I have not completed my homework. And I had hoped to get Head Girl next year. Note that emphasis on the "ed," making that past tense. Yes, there go my dreams. All down the drain because Lily has the work ethic of a drunken sloth with three broken legs.
And she's thinking in third person again.
And she has another detention with Slughorn tonight.
I
think I'm going to cry.
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(A/N: I apologize to Saint Agatha's Home for the Clinically Insane of West London, should such a place exist. I, unfortunately, have never been to London, so I don't know if there even is a Saint Agatha's Home for the Clinically Insane of West London. In fact, I'm not even sure there's a Saint Agatha. Anyway... Button to your down, please.)