Lily awoke on the morning of her fifteenth birthday and was immediately on her guard. She knew that whatever Rose and James had cooked up for her this year, it would be expertly disguised and she was determined to sniff out the prank before falling into it for once. She sat up gingerly and eyed the stack of presents at the foot of her bed with suspicion. Opening each one slowly, she found no edibles and nothing else that seemed amiss. Mildly confused, she got out of bed and headed for the showers.
She was fully dressed and walking through the common room before anything out of the ordinary happened. The absurd and surprisingly painful idea that her family had decided to forgo her birthday prank this year had just crossed her mind when Sean Jordan, an attractive seventh year who often hung around with James, suddenly jumped up from the chair where he'd been sitting and fell into step beside her.
"Good morning, Lily," he greeted her. "Are you going down to breakfast?"
"Yeah," Lily answered, slightly startled.
"Is it alright if I join you?"
"Er, I guess so," she said, looking at him strangely. Although Sean was her brother's dormmate and occasionally came around during the hols, she couldn't honestly remember him ever speaking to her directly, much less going out of his way to spend time with her.
"Shame about the quidditch game," Sean continued as if walking to breakfast and talking with her was completely ordinary. "I thought Gryffindor was going to take the cup for sure. Why didn't you play, though? James never said."
"I…well, er," Lily stammered, blushing pink. "I got in trouble and my mum took my broom away until the end of the school year."
"Really? I never took you for a troublemaker," Sean laughed. "What mischief did you get up to?"
"Nothing very exciting, I'm afraid," Lily confessed. "Just skiving off a bunch of classes. I get bored too easily."
"Fascinating," Sean murmured with a smile, turning to face her. Lily stared, wide-eyed with confusion as he moved gradually closer. His warm brown eyes flicked between her own hazel ones and her lips as he leaned forward. Lily mentally panicked as she realized what was about to happen, trying desperately to decide whether or not she should allow him to kiss her.
"Lily!"
Sean jumped back and Lily felt simultaneously relieved and disappointed. She turned to see Violet Finnegan's younger brother, Liam, running down the corridor toward them.
"Hey, I'm glad I caught you," Liam said breathlessly as he stopped between her and Sean, his back toward the older boy. "I was wondering if you might be able to help me with transfiguration? I'm having a bit of trouble and James said you were pretty much aces at every subject."
"Oh! Er, I guess so," Lily stumbled, becoming more and more confused by the minute. "Would you like the meet me in the library after classes are over today?"
"Yes!" Liam agreed happily. "That would be great, Lily. Hey, can I walk down to breakfast with you?"
"Well, I was already walking with-," Lily trailed off as she realized that Sean had disappeared while she was talking to Liam and was no longer in the corridor with them. "Huh, that was weird."
"What was weird?" Liam asked, seemingly unaware that there had even been anyone else in the corridor, much less that he seemed to have vanished into thin air.
"Nothing," Lily answered, shrugging it off. "Let's go and get something to eat."
By the time she entered the Great Hall, however, Lily was well past shrugging anything off. Liam had begun to openly flirt with her almost the moment that they had started walking, causing her no small amount of embarrassment. She tried a couple of excuses to politely rid herself of him before desperately ducking into a concealed passageway while he wasn't looking. She had only just emerged at the other end and breathed a sigh of relief when a sixth-year Ravenclaw boy who frequently hung around with Molly appeared and abruptly asked her to Hogsmeade. She turned him down as graciously as she could manage before storming downstairs to find her cousins.
"What in the name of Merlin's pants have you done?" she demanded, slamming her hands down on the table across from Rose, who was eating breakfast with Violet and Roxanne.
"Good morning, Lily," Rose greeted mildly, ignoring the question. "Happy birthday!"
"Thanks. Now please explain why three random blokes practically threw themselves at me before I could make it from my dorm to breakfast!"
"Random?" Rose exclaimed, looking affronted. "I spent three hours working on that list. There's nothing random about it. They've all been carefully selected."
"List? Aaaarrgh!" Lily growled in frustration. "What are you on about? Explain this, Rose, or I swear I'll hex you!"
"Fine," Rose sighed, gesturing for Lily to sit down. "I stole one of your hairs at the quidditch match. I added it to a very mild love potion that I procured from Uncle George. Then my accomplices and I distributed said potion to fifteen carefully selected boys."
"Fifteen?" Lily asked faintly, her eyes wide and disbelieving.
"They're all fourth year or above, none of them is family, but they are all in some way connected to our group," Rose continued. "That way, we're confident that each one has a good sense of humor and won't mind being made part of the prank."
"Are you insane?" Lily demanded. "How on earth did you get James to agree to this?"
"Yeah, that surprised me too," Rose admitted. "I thought either he or Al would shut it down but they both went along with it. Just goes to show that nothing is sacred when it comes to pranking in this family."
"Al was in on it too?" Lily groaned. "This is a nightmare!"
"Oh, relax," Rose placated. "I already said it was a very mild love potion. It triggers a perfectly run-of-the-mill crush for ten to twelve hours. No obsession, no jealousy, none of those nasty side effects."
"That's not what's got her wand in a knot," Roxanne observed quietly. "She's not just embarrassed and annoyed. She's disappointed. I think someone flirted with her this morning who she fancies and she's upset that it's just the potion that made him do it."
Both Rose and Violet's eyes snapped to Lily, who was blushing brilliantly under Roxanne's scrutiny.
"Who?!" Rose demanded in a whisper. Lily only scowled, covering her face with her hands. After a moment, she felt someone gently wrap a hand around her wrist.
"It's your fifteenth birthday Lily," Violet said softly, grinning as the redhead took her hands away from her face. "I say, go for it. Maybe he really does fancy you. If he doesn't, he'll just blame it on the potion and pretend it never happened. Either way, you get to snog a fit bloke on your birthday and that's not so bad, is it?"
Lily found herself smiling despite her irritation.
"You are a menace, Rose Weasley," she said, narrowing her eyes at her cousin. "I can't believe I'm going to spend my entire birthday ducking through hidden corridors to avoid being asked out."
"Funnily enough," Roxanne offered with a smirk. "There was a story my dad told me about your dad doing pretty much the same thing, only there was no potion involved. Apparently half the girls in school fancied him at one point or another." Lily made a thoroughly disgusted face, causing the other three to laugh.
"That was my inspiration," Rose admitted. "Both Dad and Uncle George thought it was a riot watching Uncle Harry being cornered by smitten girls everywhere he went. I think I'm going to find it equally amusing."
Lily glared at her cousin once more only to give a horrified look over Rose's shoulder as she noticed Hugo's best mate, David, approaching with a rather soppy look on his face. Lily grabbed a piece of toast and a couple rashers of bacon as she jumped up from her seat.
"Dammit," she swore. "Violet, tell your brother that something came up and I can't meet him today but if he still wants me to tutor him tomorrow I'll see him at four in the library!" The three other girls cried with laughter as Lily ducked behind a passing Hufflepuff and darted toward the doors, trying to stuff her breakfast in her mouth as she went.