Chapter 5: Smile
"Remus, what day is it today?" James asked tapping Remus with his quill. They were sitting in separate ows in Transfiguration class while McGonagall sat at her desk stamping papers, and occasionally marking things off with a quill.
"It's Tuesday, James," Remus huffed impatiently turning around to face him. "And we're in the middle of a test."
"Right." James nodded as Remus turned back to his 'test' "Tuesday... hey Sirius?"
Sirius was lounging on his desk, having finished his test early like James. "What?"
"Did I fall asleep on the wrong side of bed this morning?"
"What do you mean?" Sirius asked raising his eyebrow.
"Did I fall asleep on the right or left?" James asked more impatiently.
"MR. POTTER! MR. BLACK!" McGonagall shouted suddenly standing up and making her way up to them. Everyone in class turned to look back at them and Sirius grinned at the attention
"WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A TEST-!"
"We're done with that actually professor." Sirius grinned waving his parchment in the air. "I even did the bonus question at the end-wait no that was James." Sirius nodded proudly. "He choose C."
James nodded. He had chosen C. "I did choose C."
And to no one's surprise except theirs they were both given detention for the whole week at the end of class.
"It's hardly fair. You guys weren't cheating-" Remus turned to them. "You weren't right?"
James and Sirius gave him both wicked grins that said, 'you'll never know' and Remus sighed as they walked along the corridor to their next class.
"Left." Peter said suddenly.
"What?"
"You slept on your left last night." He turned a deep shade of pink "I heard you asking Sirius and Remus so I-Left. That's what side you slept on."
James slapped him on the back affectionately. "Thanks Pete. You're always looking out for me."
He glared pointedly at Remus and Sirius who rolled their eyes.
"My bad Jamesie we'll make sure to watch out for your sleeping and eating habits for the next three months." Sirius grinned.
"And it should be noted," Remus added. "That you didn't brush your hair today-or ever for that matter."
"I was born with it." James shrugged. His hair was a black mess on his head and to this day neither he nor his mother had been able to contain it. "It's a Potter thing."
"Whatever you say Jamesie." Sirius ruffled his hair affectionately.
"You said left right?" James asked Peter who nodded enthusiastically.
James pondered over that fact and what he had done that day-and the day before. He always slept on his left, he ate the same breakfast, he wore the same robes, he didn't comb his hair like always...then what had changed?
"Oye did I do something different today?" He asked his friends. "Maybe I got up too early or-" They turned around the corner suddenly causing James to jump back. He knocked into Sirius behind him, who fell on his side causing a surprised Remus to drop his books. Peter somehow ended up in the mess and had ended up on the ground along with them.
"Watch it, mate." Sirius wheeled onto James helping him get up.
"Did you see it?" James rubbed his eyes and blinked twice. Lily had just walked by with Mary. "You saw it right? I wasn't dreaming?"
"Saw what?" Sirius asked. "Can you even see? I thought you might have needed new glasses since you obviously can't walk straight."
Lily Evans had smiled at him. A real smile.
"James?" Peter asked but James shook his head. No, he was definitely imagining things. Lily Evans was a tyrant. She didn't have a single nice bone in her body. The person who had smiled at him wasn't Lily Evans. It couldn't be her.
James entered the potions classroom feeling quite shocked. It couldn't have been Lily Evans, it just couldn't.
"Alright settle down now," Professor Slughorn marched right up to the board, chalk in his hand at the ready. "We started our cure for the boils potions last week and I've graded a little more than half of them already. They're all fairly decent though one group stands out in particular. Mr. Snape and Ms. Evans produced such a potion if someone had said that a group of first years made it- well I wouldn't have believed it!"
James looked up at Lily. She was grinning and whispering to Severus. She was smiling...so the demon did smile-but had she really smiled at him?
"-which you will find of page 19. Your partners are on the board. Get to it!"
There was skittering of chairs as everyone rushed to the board to find their partners for the evening. James saw Lily heading his way, ingredients in her hand, and quickly turned the other direction.
"Who do you have?" He asked Peter who was heading to the ingredient's cabinet having seen his partner. "Michael Duke" he answered, "Thank Merlin he made it to class on time though today."
James nodded and turned to the chalkboard to search for his name. Peter was indeed paired with Michael Duke who had a knack for waking up and getting to class late. Sirius was paired with a girl name Alesana Avery and he...he was with Lily Evans.
"There you are!" James froze.
"I was coming right to you-but I guess you didn't see me."
James blinked. She was smiling at him. Lily Evans was really truly smiling at him.
"I must have missed you." James said quickly. "Shall we? I'll get the ingredients."
"Oh," Lily smiled at him again. James was beginning to worry that Sirius was right, and he really did new glasses. "I've already got everything we need-our stations just up there."
James shook his head and followed her.
"Make sure you don't get all that grease on your book Snivellus." James whispered when Snape gave him a particularly nasty look as he walked by-and that's when James hit the floor.
The class giggled in response and Sirius was pointing to his eyes and mimicking squinting. James felt heat rush to his face. He knew who had done this. He turned to Severus who was smiling as he chopped beetles. Then he heard a laugh.
To be more exact, he heard Lily Evan's laugh.
James blinked.
He had never heard anything like it before...it was like a million wind chimes at the same time...
"You okay?" Lily looked down at him. James stood up quickly and nodded. They reached the station Lily had set up and took their places.
James snuck a quick glance at Lily. She was sorting through the ingredients, humming to herself as she double-checked the book to make sure she had the right amounts. James took a deep breathe, shook his head and took out his copy of the book. He looked over the ingredients-anything to get the sound of her laugh out of his head.
"James." Lily said suddenly. "I'm really sorry about the other day. I was just angry about something and I took it out on you."
"Sure." was all James said. He had felt really stupid after sending her those green socks-he just hoped she never found out they were from him. "Thank you."
James panicked. How did she know? "For-for what? I didn't do it."
Lily smiled again. Did she always smile-or was he just noticing it for the first time? "Are you okay? I was just saying thank you for accepting my apology."
"Oh." James relaxed. "Well, that's another thing we Potter are good at."
Lily grinned at him. "Don't let it get to your head James." She turned to her book. "Now it says we need to prep the cauldron to 145 degrees..."
"James?"
James looked at Frank who was pouring over the chocolate frog cards. "Hmm?"
"What do you think of trading these two," he held up two cards "For one Helena Ravenclaw card?"
"Yeah-sure." James muttered. "That sounds good."
"Are you okay mate?" Sirius asked. "You look sick. Did Lily do anything-?"
"She didn't do anything!" James said suddenly. Remus, Sirius, Peter and Frank all looked at him alarmed.
"Okay." Sirius looked down at his cards. "She didn't do anything then."
"Snivellus tripped me." James said remembering the incident in potions earlier. He remembered the feeling of shame he had felt when the others around him had started laughing.
"Who?" Remus asked confused.
"You mean you can't see from those glasses?" Sirius grinned. James shot him a look of annoyance. "Sorry. So old Snivelly tripped my best friend. Guess we need to show him exactly who he messed with."
James nodded. "There I was walking to my table- and then he sticks out his leg and BAM. I'm on the floor."
"Who is Snivellus?" Peter asked since no one bothered to answer Remus.
"Severus is Snivellus." Sirius answered simply.
"Oh okay." Was all Peter said. He turned back to Frank and continued their argument on how many cards was worth a founder card.
Remus looked down at his book only to set it down a second later. "Okay? Is it his middle name?"
James looked at Remus. "No. It's a nickname. He's a greasy Slytherin git so he's Snivellus."
"But his name is Severus." Remus pointed out.
"We know Remus." Sirius took away Remus's book. "But his name is Snivellus."
Remus shook his head, snatched his book back from Sirius and didn't look back up.
"Why?" Peter asked.
"Because," James stood up. "I'm a Gryffindor and he's a Slytherin!" He turned to Sirius. "Remember we saw him on the train Sirius talking bad about Gryffindors."
Sirius nodded and stood up. "You're right. It's about time we taught Snivellus a lesson."