Disclaimer: Hogwarts, the characters, etc. all belong to J.K. Rowling. I own nothing but the plot.

Chapter 10: The Drunkard and the Banshee

Lily awoke to the sound of deep, throaty laughter.

"So tell me again what happened, Minerva?"

"It's not a laughing matter, Horace. It truly sounded like a banshee and a drunkard had somehow managed to trap themselves in the same room! I unlocked the door and these two came barreling out..."

"And you stunned them?"

"They were running around like madmen, Horace! What would you have done?"

Lily spotted a rather rotund man standing beside Professor McGonagall, wholehearted chuckles issuing from his mouth, causing his entire belly to vibrate.

Lily looked around. The bed she was lying on had white, hospital like sheets. The room was airy, with skylights that let in beams of sunlight. Oh yeah, and James Potter was lying on a bed a few yards to her right, arms folded behind his back, staring at the ceiling.

Lily shot him a dirty look that he didn't see. The round man turned all the way around to face her. He grinned at her, drawing attention to his spectacular walrus mustache.

"So this is the young lady who performed the most impressive impersonation of a banshee Hogwarts has ever seen!" he exclaimed, a broad smile appearing above his ample chin.

Lily's first instinct was to blush with shame, then hide under the covers and never come out again. However, her anger at James Potter for getting her into the situation in the first place was greater. "Thank you sir, but I believe the credit for that goes to Potter over there." she said charmingly.

"Oho!" The professor cried. "Is that so, Mr. Potter?"

"Sure. Then that would make her the drunkard. Pick your poison, Evans." Potter said nonchalantly.

"I seem to recall that you were the one who was singing 99 bottles of Firewhiskey at the top of your lungs, Potter." Lily countered.

"Whatever." Potter deadpanned, resuming his dull stare at the ceiling.

The professor clutched his belly, laughing. A woman dressed in white robes entered the room, waving her arms as if to shoo out an irksome fly. "Professor Slughorn, I must ask you to leave the Hospital Wing so I can tend to my patients." she said, looking rather irritated.

Professor Slughorn rolled his eyes, but complied.

Madam Pomfrey began to fuss over them. "I never...in all my years here, I never!" she grumbled. "Stunned by a teacher! Although I can't say I blame poor Minerva. I ought to take a vacation for the next seven years." she grumbled, trying to force Lily to swallow some kind of nasty smelling tonic.

Lily wrinkled her nose. "Open...your...mouth." Madam Pomfrey said through gritted teeth, giving up on Lily and instead attempting to wrench Potter's jaw open.

Right on cue, something exploded behind the curtain, filling the air with smoke. Madam Pomfrey rushed toward the source of the explosion, wand out.

Lily had jumped about a foot when the explosion had occurred, but a huge grin had spread across Potter's face. Three figures emerged from the smoke. Lily recognized them as Sirius, Remus, and Peter, the three fools who would actually hang out with Potter.

"C'mon mate, let's get out of here." Sirius muttered.

The four boys exchanged a round of high fives.

Remus glanced worriedly through the clearing smoke in Madam Pomfrey's direction. "She'll be back any moment now."

Potter nodded and the four of them crept through the smoke and out the door. Lily watched them with wide eyes. Madam Pomfrey's coughs grew louder as she moved through the smoke toward Lily.

In a split second decision, Lily darted through the smoke and followed Potter and his friends out the door.

The halls hummed with the sound of the students journeying to the Great Hall for dinner. Lily joined the pulsing mob moving toward the huge double doors. She was starving. Someone crashed into her. Lily stumbled.

"Oh! Sorry Lily..."

She looked up into the beetle black eyes of Severus. Her face broke into a smile. Really, all she wanted was to talk to him.

"Hey Sev! You won't believe what happened today, I-"

"Uh, listen Lily. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"What? What's up with you, Sev? First you just leave with those two blokes on our way to Hogwarts! Hogwarts, Sev! Now you won't even talk to me!"

"What about you?" Sev demanded. "Pulling a prank with that prat, Potter, and then running off with him for the rest of the day!"

"I did not run off with him!" Lily began, but he cut her off again.

"Potter and his friends are trouble, Lily. Don't you remember what happened on the train?" Severus demanded, raising his voice slightly.

"Of course I remember, but-"

"I've got to go Lily." Severus said suddenly, catching the eye of one of the boys he had left with the day before.

Just like that, he was gone. Lily felt like something inside her didn't fit right. Severus had always understood her perfectly. She'd always thought that they would stay best friends at Hogwarts. Apparently she was wrong. Everything had gone wrong from the moment she was sorted into Gryffindor.

Lily pushed her thoughts of Severus away as she caught sight of Alice's dark haired head. "Alice!" she cried.

Alice turned. "Lily! Oh my goodness you wouldn't believe the rumors... I heard you and Potter got locked in that abandoned classroom on the eighth floor together, and McGonagall stunned you! But I told them there was no way that could have happened..."

"Er..."

Alice's eyes widened. "No. Way."

"Great. Now I'll go down in history as The Girl That was Stunned by McGonagall." Lily groaned.

Alice laughed, and the two girls entered the Great Hall.

"Lily!" Mary shrieked, running towards them.

So Lily had to explain what actually happened, first to Alice and Mary, then Marlene, and a lot of curious people ranging from Sturgis Podmore to Professor Slughorn to the Gryffindor ghost, Headless Nick (who had given her such a fright when she first saw him she had nearly fallen into the gravy). Lily glanced over at Potter, who was evidently countering all her attempts to end rumors by dramatizing McGonagall's hair coming out as much as he possibly could, milking whatever attention he was getting for all it was worth. Prat. Even worse, twice during dinner she caught Sev's black eyes staring at her, but refused to make eye contact, which made her feel rather guilty afterward. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore.

She muttered something about the loo to her friends and walked as quickly as she could out of the Great Hall before dinner ended. As soon as she was out of sight of the huge double doors, she broke into a run, stopping only when she reached the portrait of the fat lady, only to find it empty.

"Hey! What happened?" she said stupidly to herself, before realizing she had said it out loud.

"I think she went to visit somebody," said a voice to her right.

Lily turned to find a boy about her age sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall.

"They can do that?" Lily asked, hoping for a normal conversation, not one involving Potter's suicidal de-bunning of McGonagall's hair.

"Yeah. At least, they do at home. Mother's got a lot of portraits of our dead relatives and stuff."

"Oh. Do they come back?"

"Sure. I've heard they like to move from picture to picture around Hogwarts."

"Oh." Lily said, slumping against the wall next to the boy. All she wanted right now was to go to sleep and pretend all of this was a dream. And strangle James Potter.

"Don't you have portraits at home?" the boy asked curiously.

"No. My parents are Muggles, you see." Lily explained, smiling slightly at the look of bewilderment on his round face.

"Really? Both of my parents are magical." he grimaced slightly. "I'm Frank Longbottom, by the way." he added quietly, holding out his hand.

"Hey," Frank said suddenly. "No offense or anything, but aren't you the girl everyone's been talking about, the one who helped James Potter pull out McGonagall's hair in Transfiguration today?"

Lily gaped at him. "I didn't help him! I- I don't know what I did." she finished lamely.

Frank smiled. "I haven't laughed that hard in ages. Are you sure you didn't help that Potter guy out?"

"No." Lily said firmly. "Just between you and me though, I actually was trying to get back at him. He was kinda annoying me, you know? Criticizing my magic just because he was the first to Transfigure the match."

Frank nodded. "He told me I would never be able to Transfigure anything. Not that far from what my mum says actually. Maybe they're right."

"That's ridiculous!" Lily cried. "Just because someone says something doesn't make it true!"

"I dunno. I couldn't Transfigure it. I tried and tried... but I just couldn't." Frank looked at his feet sadly.

"When you tried, did you believe you could do it?"

"What?"

"When you were Transfiguring, did you believe in yourself and try your best, or did you keep thinking about what your mum said?" Lily repeated.

"I guess I was thinking about what she said. And what Potter said."

"That's probably why."

"Ah-hem." Someone cleared their throat loudly behind them. It was the fat lady, back in her portrait.

"About time," Frank grumbled.

Lily snickered.

"Juggernaut." Lily said, and the Fat Lady swung forward to reveal the portrait hole. They scrambled over it.

"See you later." Frank said, waving, and went up the staircase to the boys' dormitory.

"Later." Lily said climbing the girls' staircase and collapsing on her bed.

Author's Note: This chapter is, undeniably, a filler. Sorry guys. I tried to make it longer to cover more filler-y stuff in one shot. ALSO, I want to make it very clear that there will be NO romance between Frank and Lily. They will remain friends, only friends, and nothing else except friends. Frank is meant for Alice, and Lily is meant for James. I just wanted to get that out of the way in case I didn't make it clear in the chapter. However, I will include a decent amount of Frank/Alice romance. :)

Please keep in mind that this chapter was not edited by my beta. This is an unedited chapter I am posting for the sake of posting something.

Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing! I really appreciate it! To the anon reviewer who reviewed as "hermione 101": THANKS! I really wouldn't have written this chapter this early if it wasn't for your review! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. :)

REVIEW! Please!

~VictoryNike