A/N: Yes, I know, it took a while. Hope you like it, and thanks to everyone who reviewed! I love you guys! It's not all that long, but hopefully the next one will be. I'm not sure how much longer this will last, depends where the muses take me...

Chapter Ten: A Very Rude Awakening

Lily Evans and the Bloody Baron were sailing in a little boat on the Black Lake. Lily was dressed in her Pride and Prejudice best, including bonnet, and the Baron had donned James Potter's Quidditch robes for the event. Lily wasn't quite sure what the event was, but she knew that the Giant Squid, who was wearing a pink and yellow polka-dot top-hat, was also likely to be attending. However, he seemed to be in a bad mood.

She headed towards him in her kayak (where had the little boat gone, and where was the Baron?), concerned by the frown on his face. A small part of her subconscious protested that squids didn't really have faces, but it was quashed when the squid fixed her with one baleful eye and smacked her over the head with a tentacle. Lily panicked as she felt the suckers over her face, she couldn't breathe, and her bonnet had fallen off-

Her eyes snapped open. There was someone in front of her.

She shrieked when she recognized James Potter, and he yelped and fell off his chair. While he picked himself off the floor, grumbling about banshees, Lily tried to form some coherent thoughts.

Her first was where the hell did my bonnet go?

Not good. Her head was messed up.

Her next was I need the loo.

At least it made sense. She sat up with a groan.

"Are you alright?" said James, waving to Madam Pomfrey, who bustled towards them when she realized Lily was awake, but stopped to tend to a First Year who seemed to have sprouted Devil's Snare in place of hair and was being throttled by her own pigtail. He looked awake, though he was pale and there were dark circles under his eyes.

"Yeah- yeah, I'm OK. What happened?"

"Err- you were knocked out by a Bludger. Cracked your skull and four ribs, punctured a lung, broke your arm and Merlin knows what else"

Lily winced.

"Why are you here?" James squirmed and didn't meet her eyes.

"Err, the others are out and asked me to keep an eye on you"

"How long have they been out for? Three days?" said Lily shrewdly, and James reddened even more, self-consciously ruffling his hair.

"Err... ahem. Well, since I'm on babysitting duty, and have taken such good care of you"- Lily shifted uneasily- "any chance of you calling off your little revenge?"

"It isn't mine, it's for everyone you've ever pissed off" said Lily, smirking as James paled.

"Well, everyone who you've pissed off who I get on with" she conceded. He visibly relaxed and sat with a sigh against her bedpost, causing her to squeak in pain and grab her head.

"Evans? Are you ok?" said James again, looking concerned.

"Yeah" said Lily, clutching her head, "just still recovering from the shock of waking up next to you" James chuckled.

"Yeah, must be a shock for any girl to wake up next to me. You probably thought you were still dreaming, eh?" it was now Lily's turn to laugh, although the effort hurt her head.

"And how are things on Planet You Wish?" she said, making a feeble attempt to sit up.

"Pretty good. I just fed Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange to a Chimaera and we're having treacle tart for lunch" said James, grinning.

"What about Bellatrix Black?" said Lily, remembering the very public duel between Sirius and his cousin on top of the Hufflepuff table the previous Halloween.

"Well, I wouldn't feed her to a Chimaera, because, frankly, that's cruelty to animals. I have orchestrated her destruction by slow dissolving in a vat of Basilisk venom and Bubotuber pus. Her sister will be forced to dye her hair Weasley red and attend the Malfoy ball in men's dress robes before being chucked off a speeding broomstick at high altitude" Lily raised an eyebrow.

"You're a sadistic bastard, you know that, Potter?"

"Yes, I do. It's one of the many reasons that feisty vixens such as yourself always seem to be so magnetically attracted to me"

"You're passable at Quidditch, Potter, but humility isn't a strength of yours, you know"

"Well, let's just pass that useless trait by, then"

"You really don't make use of your skills in the field of pranking, you know, Potter. You ought to start an assassination firm"

"Or join the Aurors, and destroy the Ministry from within!"

"You could be a spy amongst the Death Eaters!"

"Nah, I'd rather go to the grave in possession of all my private parts, thanks"

"Join the Mafia, then!"

"The what?"

Lily then proceeded to give a description of the Mafia, which she had a pretty thorough knowledge of- having made many attempts at contacting the criminal organisation during her last year at Muggle junior school in hopes they could dispose of her sister for her in return for her birthday money. James seemed almost indecently interested, and Lily was halfway through listing the major mob bosses when she was interrupted by a loud shriek from the door behind her.

"LILY!" The next second James had been hurled the length of the ward to land on a slug-spewing Hufflepuff Third Year as Andromeda, Emmeline, Alice, Ted, Sherine and Frank burst in, all clutching various items that they had obviously bought in Hogsmeade. Lily realised she must have been unconscious for an entire week- or, she realised as she saw the glimmer of an Invisibility Cloak under Frank's rucksack, they had simply snuck out.

"OHMYGODWEWERESOWORRIED!" screamed Andy, leaping on her best friend, who started to choke under the weight of what seemed to be Honeydukes's entire 'Unusual Flavours' section until Ted pulled Andy off her and sat her down in James's vacated seat, then silenced her with a wink. Lily gaped at him in admiration.

"How did you do that?"

"What?"

"Shut her up!"

"Oh" Ted smirked. "I have my methods"

James, who had by then Vanished all the slugs on his robes, grinned roguishly at him and gestured towards Lily behind her back.

"I'm sure I'd like to try out some of those methods myself. But since you guys are back and Evans is OK, I'm going to go and catch up on three day's sleep. Later" he picked up his cloak and walked from the room, staggering slightly.

"We've just been to Hogsmeade, Lil, look!" squealed Andromeda dumping a load of sweets into Lily's lap. Lily ignored her and addressed Alice instead.

"Has Potter really been here since the match?"

"Yup, three days, and he hasn't slept a wink!"

"Look! New fudge, Lil!"

"I mean, Stalkerish, much? Cute, and all. You know, he carried you all the way up from the Quidditch pitch"

"Vanilla, see, and there's some blood lollipops-"

"Dumbledore would probably have done it, but he was trying to stop Andy murdering Sirius-"

"I mean, I know you don't like them, but they were on two for the price of one, so-"

"And there was a full-scale riot going on, so basically we were getting people to the Hospital Wing by any means possible-"

"Actually, I reckon they're kind of an acquired taste, because I tried one for the hell of it and now I'm addicted-"

"You're one of the lucky ones, you know, Ernest Davies got hit with a Hurling Hex and his little brother used a Shrinking Solution to make him light enough to carry-"

"You know, I don't think there are any left after all"

"- and, as far as I know, he's in that matchbox on Madam Pomfrey's desk. I hope she hasn't forgotten about him..."

The group lapsed into silence, punctuated by Frank's gleeful laugh as he discovered that Ernest was indeed in the box on the desktop.

"So, what happened when I got hit?" said Lily, taking some vanilla fudge from Andromeda's bag and settling herself back against her pillows.

"Well, You fell off the stands" said Emmeline "And I was just about to start screaming my head off when James practically dive-bombed you and caught you just before you hit the ground!"

Sherine gave a muffled sob.

"We were so scared for you, Lily!" she said, looking so small and helpless that Andromeda clenched her fists in the blankets and Lily gave her an impulsive hug. Sherine was a bit irritating, to be sure, but she wouldn't hurt a fly.

"Sherine was so scared she didn't notice that Narcissa Black was about to hex her" commented Emmeline. "And got knocked out cold. Darryl Spinnet carried her to the Hospital Wing; she was let out the next day, though, it was only a Jelly Legs Jinx and a few nasty swellings" Sherine threw herself at Lily, howling.

"You were lucky you missed most of it" said Alice. "It was so stressful. Dumbledore took hours to calm everyone down. We all had to help clean- Frank, what are you doing?"- Frank dropped Ernest back in the matchbox with a scowl- "We had to help clean up the Quidditch pitch. There were body fluids everywhere. It was so disgusting"

"Look, guys, Lil needs sleep" said Ted, smiling at Andy then pulling her after him. The others went, leaving Lily alone with a pile of sweets.

She was halfway through a pile of Fudge Flies when she realised, with a shock, that she had had a civil conversation with James Potter, and had not thought about revenge since.

What was the world coming to?!

XxXxX

A/N: Just remembered- a spaz attack is due because HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS IS ONLY FOUR DAYS AWAY!

(squee) - Riddle Xx