Chapter 2

James Potter was leaning against the wall next to the Prefects meeting room, hands in pockets. His glasses had slid to the end of his nose and he looked deep in thought, which isn't like him at all. I let go of the door handle to the train car in shock which slams making both him and me jump. The instant he sees me he reaches back to mess up his jet black hair with a seductive grin and thoughtful look gone.

"Took you long enough, girly-girl," he said, shoving his hands back in his pockets as he walked forward and leaned in so that his nose was an inch from mine. "I thought maybe you'd forgotten. How irresponsible."

"What are you doing here, Potter?" I growled, spreading my fingers out like a fan and covering his face with my hand as I pushed away. "Where's Remus?"

"Aren't crushing on my best mate now, are you Evans?" he asked with a fake pout and crossed arms, turning his body away slightly.

"Answer the question, Potter."

"You are, aren't you?!" He exclaimed, jumping back and pointing his finger at me, a look of fake terror shooting across his face.

"No!" I shouted, grabbing his hand and pushing it down out of my face, hitting my breaking point. "I just need to know where he is so I can get this patrol done!"

"You're holding my hand, Evans." He said with an evil smile. I looked down and see that I had both of my hands gripping his wrist. I jumped back, letting go as quickly as possible. I realized I was blushing so I move my hands to cover my face and turned around so that my face was to the wall. He laughed.

"Moony just got over some bad cold or something but he's still real tired. He asked me to take over this patrol for him so he can get some sleep." He said, finally answering my question.

"He wouldn't do that. What did you do?" I asked into the wall.

"You're right," he said, laughing again, I heard a jingling sound as he pulled something out of his pocket. I turned around to see him holding a clear vile with a light, almost clear blue liquid in it. A small label reads 'Sleep Potion'. "He needed it."

I stare at the vile for a second. It seemed caring, almost like he had done it with the thought of his friend in mind. He had, technically, poisoned him without permission and stolen his Prefects badge but he had done it so that his friend could get some extra sleep after a bad cold. Way to caring, not like Potter at all.

"What do you get out of it?" I asked skeptically. His face dropped, I turned to face towards the wall again to hide a blush of anger at myself. I had said something mean again.

"Sorry …" I mumbled, banging my head lightly against the wall. There was an awkward pause; I was really good at making Potter sad. Last year that would have been an absolute thrill to me but for some reason, this year-

"I get to hang out with you."

"Wait, what?" I ask turning to see a grinning Potter.

"That's what I get out of this!" He replies, pointing to the potion before returning it to its place in his pants pocket. Honestly, to think I felt bad for a second but he really is pure evil.

"C'mon," he said, pushing past me to open the door to the student train cars with a little bow. "Ladies first!"

I stepped past him, ready to get this patrol over with. I hear Potter slide the door closed behind us as I began to walk. It suddenly dawned upon me how idiotic and irresponsible I was being. Why am I letting him come along? I should be scolding him for drugging his friend, yelling at him for being so annoying, shouting rude names at him like "sodding pile of dragon dung" or "disgusting toad face". That's what I would have done last year, it's only been a couple hours since my return to the magical world and I'm already acting nice to James Potter. Mind, I'm not exactly being nice, but compared to how I treated him last year. Merlin, I've almost had a civilized conversation with him and now I have to spend a half an hour alone with him and not only do I feel as though it might be bearable, I agreed to it.

I suddenly feel a weight on my shoulders, I realize it's been there for a while and that I'd just been deep enough in thought that I didn't noticed it. I see a hand dangling next to my left ear out of my peripheral vision. The person is wearing a silver, expensive looking watch. I grab the wrist and angle it so that I can read the time. If we keep at this pace we'll be able to make it up and down the train once, perfect. I let the hand dangle again to look at Potter who's being strangely quiet. He's staring at me with one eyebrow raise and a half surprised half confused look on his face. It makes him look like an idiot, not that he doesn't always look like an idiot.

"What?" I asked, crossing my arms and scowling at him.

"I'm trying to figure out if you're completely mental or if you're actually letting me keep my arm around you." His confused look had turned into another seductive smile. I feel my face burn red again, realizing I was probably more of an idiot than Potter. I stared down at the floor as I pushed his arm off which I could feel was shaking with his silent laughter.

"I love it when you get embarrassed, girly-girl, you get this really cute blush on your face and-"

"Shut up," I cut in, crossing my arms and turning to face the window on the opposite side of the corridor as Potter. "And don't call me girly-girl."

Potter doesn't say anything else, at my command but I could have sworn I could still hear him chuckling to himself. I continued to stare out the window. We were speeding across a huge plane of dried yellow grasses with the occasional green shrub spotting the landscape creating green and yellow tie-dye looking scenery. The flying colors reminded me of car trips I used to take with my parents and sister in the autumn. Petunia always seemed to get sick so I would end up staring at the window as to avoid the sight of any vomit so that I wouldn't get sick myself. It would never fail to calm me down so that I could escape the smell and sound of my sister vomiting. Just as now I was able to escape my embarrassment. So just as I was about to turn and say something witty to Potter… SMACK!

I fell backwards, clutching at my face as I fell. I had run face first into the wall separating the current train car we were in to the next. Potter's loud laughter filled my ears as he caught me before I was able to tumble into the ground. I jumped out of his grasp and turned around to see him clinging to a compartment door in an effort to stay on his feet as he slowly slid towards the floor in laughter. I watched in horror, all of the calm feelings I had collected now gone, as our fellow students poked their heads out of door ways to see what was so funny as Potter began to recollect loudly as to what had happened.

"Merlin, Evans! You just kept walking like some zombie women with no intention of stopping! I wasn't going to say anything cause you told me to shut up. So I just watched as you sped towards the wall as though you thought you could just bull the god damn thing down, like, no stopping Lily Evans, bitches! You had this intense look on your face and then BAM!" He walked forward and slammed his head into the wall which produced giggles from the onlookers and a deeper blush from me. "And suddenly that intense look was gone and instead you had this idiotic surprise look like: 'Oh! When did that wall get there?"

He said the last bit in a high-pitched annoying voice that was obviously supposed to sound like me. People watching, especially the girls were clutching their stomachs in laughter. I had had way too much embarrassment for one day.

"Everyone back in your compartments or you get a detention before we even arrive at Hogwarts," I could see the clear fear in the students faces at the harshness in my voice as they pushed and shoved they're way back into their compartments, I then turned on Potter. "And you, you are never ever to speak of this ever again!"

I whip around and slammed open the door to the next train car where I could see a group of first years gathered in the hallway. I barked at them to return to they're compartments at once, my voice seemed to surprise them for they jumped, a couple yelped in fear as they scrambled to get out of my way and out of the corridor.

"Calm down, Evans," Potter said, catching up to me, still trying to keep back laughter. "You have to admit, it was pretty funny."

I narrowed my eyes, glaring sideways at his smiling face, refusing to reply.

"Alright," he said, a mature look crossing his face as though he were about to compromise. "I'll never speak of it again if you promise to calm down."

I still refused to say anything but stop glaring and toke a couple of deep breaths to show I accepted. He smiles, I notice that he has perfectly straight white teeth; to be honest Potter actually has a really attractive smile. I shook myself, what was I thinking?

"So," he said, putting his hand behind his head to mess up his hair again. "How was your summer, Evans?"

"Honestly, this again?" I asked in annoyance, quickening my step so that I was walking a couple paces ahead of him, he caught up easily while sill walking at a regular speed.

"What?" he said raising an eyebrow, pushing his rectangular glasses up his nose, closer to his hazel eyes. "I really want to know!"

"Why? Or are you just trying to annoy me?"

"Because," he said, pausing for a second and looking down at his shoes. "I was a little worried…"

"You?" I asked, looking at him with raised eyebrows and a slight smile. "You were worried about someone other than yourself?"

"Evans, maybe you haven't noticed," he said, smiling as he pulled the small vile of light blue potion out of his pocket. "But I am not completely heartless."

"Alright, not completely." I say with a smile. He stared at me for a second, a strange look in his eyes. I was about to ask what was wrong but then he stepped in front of me, opening the compartment door to the next train car, stepping aside to let me pass through before him.

"Okay, how about I ask less broad questions," he offers, falling into place beside me. "What's the first thing you did when you got home for summer vacation?"

"Well," I started, thinking for a second. "I'm rather organized, so, the first thing I did was unpack and sort through all the things I would need for next year and the things I could store away."

"Merlin, Evans, is being home really so boring that you have to sort through your trunk?" He asked as though the thought of going through his trunk was painful.

"I wanted to!" I explained, Potter made a fake gagging sound.

"You like it? Merlin, if I went through mine, there'd be shit in there I don't even want to think about!" He said, a disgusted look crossing his face.

"How can you live with that?" I asked, giggling a little. "How do you find the things you need for class?"

"I don't." He replied simply.

"There's something that's always annoyed me…"I say, wrinkling my nose a little at the thought of something that's bothered me since possibly first year.

"What?"

"How do you get such good grades in every subject when you don't go to class?" I ask, looking sideways at him. "And when you do go to class, you and Black are usually goofing off in the back."

"Besides being athletic, charming, and possessing insanely hot features," he winks at me with one of his seductive smiles and I roll my eyes in response. "I'm also a natural genius."

"Yeah, right." I scoff with a questioning look at Potter. I really do want to know what his secret is because, to my great annoyance, he and Black are always top of our class with seemingly no effort at all. They got O's on almost every single O.W.L. last year without studying. I had been studying all year and I still scored lower than both of them, Number One James Potter and Number Two Sirius Black. I might have strangled myself if I hadn't been convinced they had somehow cheated on the exam.

"I swear I've never cheated on anything ever," he said, turning to stare at me, eyes wide. This also annoyed me; it was almost like Potter had been reading my thoughts. "It's just always been easy for me to; I don't know, learn something once and just know it."

I stared at him as he shoved his left hand into his pocket and reached back to, yet again, mess up his already insane black hair. I couldn't help but be a little jealous. If he really could memorize things that easily then I couldn't dismiss the feeling of envy. I studied like crazy for every exam especially finales and yet it never made it into the top five, though I was normally around tenth. He met my slightly narrowed green eyes with his hazel. I glanced away quickly to hide my blush as I realized I had been staring at him. He laughed.

"I love it when you blush, Evans." He purred the taunt to the back of my red head.

"I'm not blushing!" I said angrily, he laughed. "Sadist." I mumbled under my breath.

"Now, Evans," He said with a tone of fake hurt, I could tell it was fake because I could also hear the slight laugh behind his words. "That wasn't very nice. I was just saying your cute when you blush, nothing sadistic at all."

My face reddened even more at his words and then as he bowed me through the next compartment door, just as he had done when the patrol had first began. That had been about ten minutes ago and I realized that we were nearing the end of the train. C'mon, Lily. You're half way there. I would be elated once this damn patrol was done. Potter was really getting on my nerves.

"So, girly-girl…"

"Don't call me girly-girl."

"So, Miss Lily…"

"Don't call me that either."

"So, Evans…" He gave me a half questionable, half amused sideways look before continuing. "What's something fun you did over the summer?"

I bit my lip because, honestly, I had done almost absolutely nothing over the summer. Aside from trying to escape the bullying from Petunia and No-Neck-Vernon, I had spent a lot of time at the small plaza down the road from our house which had a small convenience store, where I would often buy popsicles to suck on under the hot summer sun, a flower shop, that never had any living flowers, a craft store, where most of the annoying old women from the nursing home (that was also in the plaza) could often be found, and a book shop, a dusty old place where I had actually discovered a couple of very interesting books. I had had a summer job at a hard ware store in a neighboring town, which was where I got the money for ice cream and books.

"If you actually are insanely boring and didn't do anything at all interesting over the summer, you can just tell me, I won't judge." I glared at his perfect white smile. He had done it again, reading my thoughts. The truth was that there was one exciting thing I had done over the summer and I had a battle scar to prove it.

"Well, I did get a cool looking injury, you see." I said with a tremendous smile.

"I knew I should have been worried about you," He said with fake concern. "You're so klutzy; I'm surprised you're still alive."

"I'm not klutzy." I argued crossing my arms and glaring at Potter. Since we were near the end out the second to last train car, Potter sped up and slammed himself into the wall separating our current train car to the next. He stumbled back with a high-pitched "oh!" and began to laugh as I bristled at his second reinterpretation of my clumsiness earlier. We slid open the car door and when we saw that all we quiet we began to travel back in the direction we had come.

"What's your story? I want to hear if what you think was the most exciting thing that happened over your summer can even qualify as 'interesting'."

I cleared my throat.

"So I was out by the creek in our back yard late one night…" I began, ignoring Potter.

"A dark, stormy night?" He asked, making that spooky swooping sound with his voice on the word 'stormy' while waggling his fingers in my face. I smacked them out of my eyes before continuing. "No, actually, it was quite nice out. You could hear crickets, there were tons of fireflies and you could see the stars perfectly. It was a perfect, clear summer night.'

"Darn." Potter said with disappointment, snapping his fingers as he swung a strong arm in front of him.

"So, when I was younger my dad tied a tire swing to tree that hangs out above the water. I was down by the creek, by myself, on that beautiful clear night," He gave me a sideways look of amusement. "I decided I wanted to swing on my tire swing but I didn't really want to get wet. So, I tried to just step over the water and onto the swing but as soon as I put my weight on it… SNAP!"

"Looks like you're gaining weight, Evans." Potter said while shaking his head at me.

"I am not." I retorted, narrowing my eyes at him. He took a second to look me up and down.

"I wouldn't be so sure…" He shrugged.

"May I continue to the part where I get a miraculous? Then maybe I'll show it to you." I asked, after thwacking him on the back of his head, where his hand was now re-messifying his hair.

"Be my guest." He offered, with a smile.

"Thanks," I said preparing to dive back into my story. "So, the rope snaps and I fall backwards into the water so that my head hits the ground and I got a concussion. That's gone now though and I couldn't show you that anyway. Then, the tire falls on my leg and gives me this." I pull aside my robes to reveal a huge black and blue bruise from my knee to the middle of my shin. I had been wearing sweat pants for the purpose of hiding it on the Platform and I had kept my leg out of Caroline's sight while we were changing because I knew she would bother me about it. I showed it now to Potter because I knew he would appreciate my marvelous injury, to be honest, I was quiet proud of it myself. We had stopped when I uncovered my leg so now Potter bent over to poke at the puffed up skin.

"Now, that," He said, after close inspection. "Is quiet the bruise." He opened up the door to the next train car and we continued to walk.

"Yes," I said with a smile. "It's beautiful isn't it?"

"That deserves an award." Potter decided with a smile. I laughed. I laughed at something James Potter said. Not because it was stupid, though the idea of a bruise award was absurd, but because I found it funny. I had had a conversation with James Potter. And we didn't yell or shout or call each other rude things. Yes, we did bicker a little. But that was us. James and Lily. We didn't hate each other but sometimes we didn't fully agree. We weren't enemies but we were far from friends. I decided that that is what we are. We reached the Prefects compartment. Our patrol was done.

"Well, looks like that's it, Potter. Now go give Remus his badge back and-" I said, turning to face him. There it was, that same thoughtful look I had seen on his face when I had found him waiting by the Prefect's compartment before the patrol. Except he wasn't staring into space, he was looking straight at me. I looked straight into those rectangular glasses and into those hazel eyes. Maybe I could read his thoughts as he had read mine. He smirked.

"Staring into my eyes, Evans? Maybe this really is our year."

"Sod off." I mumbled, turning away to hide yet another blush as I began to march back to my compartment and to get away from Potter.

"Let me see your leg again." He called before I was too far off. I turned with one eye brow raised but pulled aside the cloak, despite my rising annoyance, to show my injury once more.

"That really is a good one." He smiled. Then he quickly tapped his wand against my leg before I could do anything and the bruise was gone.

"Potter!" I howled, glaring at him. I liked that bruise, it made me feel kind of tough. "I knew you were being way too nice! You just wanted to find some way to upset me, you troll-faced… troll!"

"Awh, c'mon, Evans," He said with his crooked smile. "You should be thanking me!"

"And why would I do that?" I spat. "I liked that bruise! It made me feel like an adventurer or something!"

"Just saving you a lecture from Caroline about how you have to be more careful!" And then he disappeared into the next train car and when I opened the door, only seconds later, to continue the argument, he was gone. He could disappear just as quickly as he could appear and I hated him for it.

OOO

I slid open the door to the compartment where I had left Caroline. She sat in the seat to my right as I entered; she was surrounded by wizard candy wrappers and other unwrapped treats. She smiled at me as I took the seat across from her. She didn't say anything because she was currently having trouble chewing threw a licorice wand. She knew everything about the wizarding world and had a lot of wizarding money to buy wizarding sweets with.

Caroline is a pure-blood and both her parents have jobs high up in the Ministry. She lives in a big mansion in some wizarding community called Grasswater. Her neighborhood is made up of mostly huge mansions spread far apart. Hers kind of looks like a ginger bread house with white trim and light blue shutters. She has a huge back yard that's fun to camp out in over the summer. I've been there a few times but not this summer because Caroline was away so much.

"So how was patrol?" Caroline asked, having finished her piece of candy and was now searching for a new snack to munch on. She tossed me a chocolate frog and picked out a cauldron cake for herself.

"Terrible." I announced as I slouched into my seat and began unwrapping my chocolate frog.

"Why? What happened?" Caroline asked, looking up in surprise from her cauldron cake.

"Potter." I answered simply.

"What'd he do this time?" Caroline asked, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, ya know… drugged his best mate, took his Prefects badge and did patrol with me." I said casually, tossing the Salazar Slytherin card I had pulled out of my chocolate frog wrapper.

"He did what?" Caroline leaned forward, eyes wide.

"Apparently, Remus had some type of cold so Potter gave him a sleeping potion so that he could rest." I said, brow furrowed as I munch on a frogs head.

"No," Caroline whined. "The other part!" I looked up at her, confused. What was she talking about? What 'other part' was so interesting to Caroline? "About him going on patrol with you."

"Oh," I said, still a little confused. "Well, I didn't see any way to get rid of him and I kind of just wanted to get the patrol done…"

"You spent 30 minutes patrolling a train with James Potter and there wasn't a famous 'James, Lily Row'?" I frowned at her. I wasn't sure what she was trying to get at.

"No," I said simply. "I suppose not."

"So the 30 minutes were actually bearable?"

"Of course not!" Confusion was beginning to turn to anger. "I had to talk with Potter for a half an hour! There's nothing bearable about that! It was torture."

"Really?" questioned Caroline sitting back to stare me down with an evil grin. I was beginning to feel rather uncomfortable.

"Yes…" I replied, but to my surprise and obviously not Caroline's I sounded unsure.

"I knew it!" Caroline said, almost to herself, pumping her pale freckled arm.

"Knew what?" My voice cracked a little. Building confusion was turning to stress and stress was causing me to panic. I began to curl a piece of my red hair around my long finger. "You know what? I feel like you've been hiding something from me ever since we first met up. There's something you're not telling me."

"Of course not!" Caroline said this with a smile while avoiding my eye. She popped a Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean into her mouth and immediately scrunched up her nose and spit it back out. "I don't know what that was but it was disgusting! Try this one, Lily!" She tossed me a green one and I reluctantly popped it in my mouth, noticing the change in subject. Suddenly my mouth burned.

"Jalapeño!" I spit it out waving my hand like a fan into my mouth, I could feel my eyes watering. I saw Caroline's eyes watering as well, except hers, with laughter. And so for the next hour or so, we sat in our compartment sampling everything from marshmallow to dirty socks, strawberries to hair. So for the time beginning, laughter washed away all of my worries, including thoughts of whatever it was Caroline was trying to hide from me.

Chapter 2, over and out!

Wow, it took my like four months to write this because I have a lazy procrastinating butt.

Oh, well.

This stories kinda like a practice run to see if actual writers think I can actually write XD

ANYWAY, hoped you liked it :3

Thank you to TheKikGeek for the review and Obsessed-and-Undecided for the favorite and follow!

Thanks for reading!

superzoemonster