I'm so sorry I haven't updated in awhile! I've been super busy with work lately and also other plot bunnies have been demanding I write about them. But enough excuses, I'd better hide as here comes Lily and James with the disclaimer. Lilybelmae runs away, dodging a hex from Lily and James.
Lily: That disgrace of an author, Lilybelmae, thankfully does not own the Harry Potter universe.
James: The universe is owned by the supremely talented and beautiful JK Rowling.
Lily and James hurried to the Headmaster's office as quickly as their legs would carry them. They did not want to be stuck in each other's body for any longer than was necessary. It was already pretty awkward just looking at each other never mind living as each other. When they reached Dumbledore's office, Lily called out,
"Cauldron cakes!"
The staircase to the office appeared and the Head Boy and Girl quickly climbed up, hoping the Headmaster was there to help them. They entered Dumbledore's office and saw the old wizard sitting cheerfully at his desk, filling out forms and eating yellow lemon shaped candies.
"Why, hello Mr. Potter," he said, looking at Lily's body. "And hello to you too, Miss Evans," looking this time at James' body. "What brings the two of you here this morning?"
"Well," James admitted rubbing the back of his, or rather Lily's, head. "Evans and I had a row yesterday during potions and I accidentally added the wrong amount of knot grass to the switching solution we were brewing and it exploded on us causing us to switch bodies,"
"I see," Dumbledore replied calmly. "I better call Professor Slughorn in immediately as I do not know for certain what the antidote is for switching solution. Please have a seat, he should be here shortly."
The two Heads sat together quietly for once and ashamed that their squabbling lead to this incident. It wasn't long before Professor Slughorn arrived and he looked far from happy.
"Lily and James, I am so disappointed in you," Slughorn scolded. "You know better than to walk away if a potion has spilt on you. You should've gone directly to the hospital wing,"
"Yes, Professor," Both Heads answered sheepishly.
"As it is," Slughorn went on. "Switching solution must be rubbed off as soon as it touches you to prevent something like this from happening. Since it's too late for that you must unfortunately wait for it to wear off,"
"But, Professor-" Lily began.
"I do not want to hear excuses, Lily," Slughorn cut her off. "I wish there was an antidote as much as you do, but unfortunately it takes about a month for this to wear off and the two of you will just have to put up with being each other until then,"
"Alright," Lily conceded.
"Should we tell anyone?" asked James.
"Absolutely not," Dumbledore answered firmly, giving James a pointed look. "We don't want any of the other students to use this unfortunate incident as inspiration for mischief. You'll just have to learn to be each other. You are dismissed,"
"Yes, Professor," the Heads replied in unison, then they headed back down to the Great Hall for breakfast.
When they arrived at the Great Hall, Lily had to fight her impulse to go sit next to Alice and Mary, whilst James had to fight his to go and sit with the Marauders. Lily sat down next to Sirius who chortled mirthfully,
"There you are! We were beginning to think you'd lost it this morning. Eat up!"
Lily stared down at a massive English fry-up and gulped. Now, being raised in Great Britain, you'd think Lily would love the combination of fried bread, fried eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, and black pudding. Lily, however, abhorred fry-ups as she thought they were greasy and disgusting. She couldn't refuse to eat the one in front of her however because it was James' favourite breakfast apparently and to do so would give away that there was something amiss with James. So, Lily picked up her fork and began to eat the beans first, which caused Remus to give her a weird look.
"What?" Lily asked, a forkful of beans dangling halfway to her mouth.
"Nothing, it's just I've never seen you eat your beans first," Remus replied. "Like ever. Usually, you scarf down your bacon first. You feeling alright, mate?"
"I'm fine, Remus," Lily insisted. "Never better,"
"You sure you're ok, Prongs?" Sirius asked reaching out to feel "James'" forehead.
"Yes, why?" Lily asked, slightly agitated.
"Because you never call us by our first names, Prongs," Sirius pointed out. "Only ever by our nicknames. Are you sure you didn't whack your head or something when your potion exploded yesterday?"
"Yes, Si-I mean Padfoot, I'm fine!" Lily grumbled. "Now bugger off and let me eat!"
"Alright, Mr. Grumpy, geez!" Sirius huffed putting his hands up in surrender.
Lily looked back to the fry-up and started gagging down the bacon. She shuddered and tried not to make a face at its greasiness. Down the table, James, who was sitting next to Alice, was faring no better with his breakfast of porridge. James loathed porridge; the texture grossed him out and he couldn't believe that Lily liked this stuff. He had a harder time keeping the disgusted look off his face, which caused Alice to cry out,
"Lily, are you feeling alright, love?"
"Er, yes, Alice, why?" James asked.
"Because you're making faces at your porridge and you look like your about to throw up." Alice pointed out. "You love porridge, are you sure you're feeling ok?"
"Yes, Alice," James groaned in annoyance. "I'm fine!"
"Ok," Alice surrendered. "Just don't come crying to me if you throw up later,"
The two Heads managed to make it through breakfast without further incident, but the day was only beginning. James had to fight to keep himself awake and take notes in Lily's arithmancy class, knowing she'd kill him if he made her look lazy. He also had to put up with people being down right horrendous to him in the halls. Ok, they were being jerks to Lily, but it was still hurtful and irritating. They gossiped about her, calling Lily a "goody-goody" and "Dumbledore's Number One Swot". It made James sick to hear these comments and it was taking every ounce of strength inside him not to hex all these people into oblivion. No wonder Lily complained about having to work hard to maintain her image as Head Girl, James thought. People were downright cruel and disrespected Lily left, right, and centre if she didn't keep up a perfect image. James was just about at his limit when he heard a Slytherin boy say,
"Out of my way you dirty, kiss-arse mudblood,"
James' blood boiled and he did something down right stupid: he hexed the boy with a stinging hex to his abdomen so strong it made the Slytherin wet himself. The whole hallway burst into hysterics, but this was short lived as Professor McGonagall made her way up behind "Lily".
"Miss Evans!" McGonagall gasped. "I never would have expected this from you! Five points from Gryffindor and you have detention with me tomorrow evening at 7:00 p.m. sharp!"
James gulped and nodded, not believing how fowl his luck had turned. He hurried outside to Quidditch practice, dreading facing Lily.
Lily, meanwhile, had to fight her urge to make meticulous notes in class and just make adequate ones with doodles scribbled on the edges. It didn't help her case that the Marauders, especially Remus, kept giving her weird looks all day as she had to be reminded of several inside jokes amongst the boys. Trying her best to keep in character, Lily hexed a random Slytherin kid in the hall. Remus pulled her aside and hissed,
"Prongs, what the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!"
"What are you talking about Re-Moony?" Lily asked confusedly.
"Why did you just hex that kid?" Remus asked exasperatedly. "He didn't do anything to us! I thought you stopped hexing random people for fun!"
"I did?" Lily asked. "I mean I did, you're right, Moony, it's just old habits die hard and-"
"Yeah, yeah, save it Prongs," Remus sighed. "You know since you did it in full view of Professor Flitwick, I have to give detention right?"
"Oh, shit!" Lily swore.
"What do you care?" Sirius asked. "It's not like you don't get detention all the time anyways,"
"I know, but I don't want to be a bad influence," Lily snapped.
"Don't get your knickers in a knot, Prongs," Sirius laughed, putting up his hands in mock surrender.
Lily glared at Sirius as Remus cut in,
"Your detention is tomorrow at 7 p.m., Prongs,"
"Alright," Lily moaned. "I'll be there. I better get to quidditch practice before the team gets ticked off at me for being late,"
Lily and James both arrived at quidditch practice at 6 p.m. sharp and were about to go to their usual changing rooms when they realized that they were not in their original bodies and would have to go to the opposite gender's changing room. After an awkward time changing in front of the opposite gender, Lily, James and the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team headed out onto the pitch for practice. "James" decided that everyone would work on their specific skill, such as chasers passing and shooting, for the duration of practice. This allowed James to teach Lily how to be a chaser and Lily to teach James how to be a seeker. While James picked up seeking very easily, Lily was having some trouble learning to be a chaser.
"Come on, James!" "Lily" shouted. "You've got this! Just get those dust bunnies out of your head and keep your eye on the quaffle,"
"Ok," "James" sighed nervously as "he" held his hands out to catch the quaffle.
To Lily's surprise, she caught the quaffle perfectly and managed to throw it back to Sirius perfectly too. The rest of practice was uneventful, until Beatrice Talbot showed up at the end. Lily was putting away the equipment with Sirius and Marlene McKinnon's help when Beatrice walked up to "James" smiling.
"Good work today, Jamesie-poo," Beatrice cooed. "You were soooo wonderful! Gryffindor is sure to win the Quidditch cup thanks to my handsome wandsome, boyfriend!"
And with that, Beatrice launched herself at "James" and smooched him hard. Lily shoved Beatrice off of her, shocked.
"What the hell, James!" Beatrice shouted.
"Sorry, Tal-I mean Beatrice," Lily sighed. "I just wasn't expecting you to kiss me. Look, I'm not myself right now so I really don't think it's a good idea for us to be dating."
"Why not?" Beatrice pouted.
"Because, I'm just not fancying you at the moment ok?!" Lily yelled. "Your cooing is annoying and I'm hot and sweaty and need a shower and I don't need you launching yourself at me while I'm like this! Just back off Talbot!"
"How dare you yell at me!" Beatrice squawked indignantly. "You are such an arsehole, James Potter! We're through!"
Before Lily could get in another word, Beatrice slapped her across the face, hard. Lily fell back a few steps in pain and was rubbing her cheek when James reached up, grabbed her by the ear, and pulled her aside.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" James hissed. "You made my girlfriend break up with me!"
"I'm sorry, Potter," Lily whimpered, cheek still in searing pain. "I just didn't think I should be dating your girlfriend while I'm in your body. I'm not a lesbian and I'm not you and it wouldn't be fair to Beatrice for someone who is impersonating her boyfriend to date her. I won't take advantage of her to preserve your relationship, Potter, I just won't,"
"Alright," James agreed. "Fair enough. I can win her back easily enough, I guess. Look, I have to admit something to you, Evans. I got you a detention, but I swear that Slytherin had a dirty mouth!"
"What?!" Lily roared. "Potter, I can't just be getting detentions! If my reputation is ruined, they'll get somebody else for Head Girl! I got you a detention I was going to apologize for but since you got me one, I guess we're even!"
"I guess so!" James snarled. "God, this couldn't be going worse!"
"I'll say!" another voice piped up.
James and Lily whirled around to see Remus, Sirius, Peter, Alice, and Marlene staring at them.
"Just who the hell are you two and what have you done to Lily Evans and James Potter?" Remus asked firmly and quietly.
Lilybelmae (peeking her head back in): Please review, review, review! (dodges hexes) Ahhhh! (runs off)
Lily and James: GET BACK HERE AND CHANGE US BACK LILYBELMAE!
