"She's glaring at me again," James hissed to Sirius. "What do you reckon I did this time?"

"Dunno." Sirius flicked a parchment ball off the desk and smirked when it hit the back of Marlene's chair. "Did you...hex someone?"

James frowned. "I told you, I stopped that," he said reproachfully."

"Pranked someone?"

"Not that I recall."

"Then you're out of luck, mate," said Sirius loudly, uncaring of the fact that Binns was mid-lesson at the front of the classroom — but then again, Binns taught as though he didn't know he had a classroom-full of students in front of him. "I can't help you."

James shushed him and craned his head to see Lily again. She had returned to her notes but she was muttering something under her breath, and Alice was looking strangely at her.

What was going on? What had he done?

"Why do you keep staring at Potter like that?" Alice whispered, one eye on Binns — like it mattered.

"What?" Lily snapped out of her daze and turned her head away from Potter. "I'm not staring at him."

"Merlin help me," Alice muttered. "What did he do now?"

"Nothing," Lily snapped. "I wasn't staring at him. I was staring at Black because he's flicking parchment balls at Marlene."

Alice frowned. "Are you sure about that?"

"Alice," Lily hissed warningly, and Alice, with a slight shake of her head, dropped the subject and turned away.

Lily turned to her own notes — and found she couldn't concentrate. Her mind was back in the Potions classroom, back when she'd found Slughorn setting up for his next class. When she'd gone back for her bookbag, and she'd found a line of potions at the front of the classroom, and one of them smelled so good she had to take a look.

She'd known what it was right away — Amortentia, from the color of the potion — but what had baffled her was the smell. It smelled like freshly-cut grass and treacle tart and broomstick polish — something that shouldn't have smelled as good as it did.

There also could be any number of people who smelled like that — but treacle tart. Only one person consumed an unhealthy amount of treacle tart at all meals. There was only person who came by her section of the table to ask if they had any.

After that, the clues had fallen into place, and Lily didn't know why she was so upset.

Maybe because she hadn't expected it to be Potter.

422 words

Hufflepuff Fight Club - Heal - (action) Glaring