Ginny Ha-ha would like to dedicate this story to 'A. P', who will be much missed. :(

Please read & review! It's much appreciated!

Conspiracy Theory
Part 4: Despite everything, I still hate you!
By Ginny Ha-ha and duva

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James climbed through the portrait hole with a look of pure revenge on his face. He glanced around the common room before spotting his friends sitting in a corner. He smiled to himself. Sirius had his back turned towards him.

Unfortunately for James, one of the other two must had told Sirius this, as he gave a small yelp (which James had privately nicknamed the girlie scream) and bolted from the chair. James shook his head.

"Why why, a little edgy, are we, Padfoot?"

Sirius smiled nervously.

"Eh.... sorry?" he ventured.

That was it for James.

"HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?! I HAVEN'T BEEN THAT EMBARRASSED SINCE I WALKED INTO THE GIRLS' CHANGING ROOMS IN OUR SECOND YEAR!!! WHY... WHY.... WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO ME?"

Everyone in the common room turned too look at them, many of them grinning at the idea of James accidentally turning up in the girls' changing rooms, but James was too angry to notice. Sirius, however, looked quite uncomfortable.

"Look, Prongs, I was just teasing you."

James sniggered. "Yeah. Teasing, like you always do. Well, guess what Sirius; it isn't funny anymore."

With that, he turned on his heal and left the room.

Sirius stood looking after him, mouth open.

"Wow," muttered Remus under his breath.

The colour slowly returned to Sirius' face and he turned towards the table. His face slowly widened into a grin. "Look at that," he smiled. "It seems like Fleureat was actually right."

~*~*~

Fleureat, Sam and January sat in the library, waiting for Lily to show up.

"I'm bored," January whined. "How long have we been here? At least five hours!"

Sam looked at her in exasperation.

"Jan, we haven't been here for longer than twenty minutes."

"See?" January said, with a look of horrified regret on her face. "I am wasting my life away in this rotten place! One day, I'll be dead, and then you'll all be sorry!"

"Shut it, both of you," Fleureat snapped. She was feeling a bit nervous. The girls had decided to spice up the plot - Lily needed to overhear something more... something juicy. All had not been going exactly to plan.

"There she is now," Sam whispered suddenly. Lily walked into the library and sat on the other side of the shelves the girls were sitting behind, just as they'd hoped. Fleureat smiled.

"... And then I heard James say that Lily is really clever, and he thinks that's ever so sexy," she said, quite audibly. They had decided this was a good approach, as Lily was very proud of her brains. "Apparently, he's tired of all the bimbo Hufflepuffs following him around... he wants someone to match his own intellect. And of course, he thinks Lily is really pretty too, although he admires her mind more."

"Wow, Fleurie," January put in, trying to conceal her smile. "He must have it bad for her."

"I've been saying that all along," Fleureat said happily. "And I am always right."

"Sure you are," Sam giggled, as they got up and left.

Before they walked out the door, Fleureat turned around and glanced over at Lily. She sat staring straight ahead, her books ajar, smiling like a fool.

Bingo.

~*~*~

"... Then mix the potion six times anti-clockwise, sprinkling in essence of thyme..." Professor Gizmos instructed the class, demonstrating, vaguely aware that no one was listening to him. No one cared how you made a voice-diminishing potion. January Forthwright was trying to get her hair to curl by wrapping it tightly around a pencil. Someone was tapping out The Gollywog's Cakewalk on their desk. Sirius Black was lazily flicking bits of desiccated daffodil at some innocent victim.
Lara Abbot and Scarlettine Hyams were happily eyeing up Jason Livesea and Wilmot Emanon. Fleureat Stonesfield was grinning at some thought that probably shouldn't be heard by young children. Professor Gizmos sighed. The only two attentive students were James Potter and Lily Evans. This was typical. He decided to continue anyway. "... remember that anti-clockwise is very important, students, because otherwise the potion will fail to work. Then, after lightly brewing the potion for five minutes, it is ready for testing. Now; partner up."

Slowly, the class seemed to lumber to life. January unwound her hair from the pencil, and she and Fleureat grinned at each other in mutual agreement to work as a pair. Professor Gizmos groaned. Those two were trouble. His misgivings were not lessened, when he noticed that James and Sirius were also partners. It was going to be another one of those days. He decided that he couldn't cope.

"Actually," the sound of his voice caught the class' attention briefly, "I think I will put you in pairs to work together."

"Aw, but Sir!" January shouted.

"No buts. January Forthwright, you can work with Raymond Baxter... Peter Pettigrew, you go with Samuella Rue." Lily saw Sam make a face expressive of intense nausea. Peter didn't look too happy either, but Lily knew, that despite everything, they had a sort of mutual friendship, which was basically formed by the fact that they never spoke to each other if it could be avoided.

Professor Gizmos continued to pair up helpless victims. Lily was beginning to doze off, when her name was called.

"Lily Evans... now let's see... ah- hah, let's have the two prefects together. Get to know each other, eh? Hahaha... erm." He paused. "Chop chop, then! I'm sure we wouldn't like Potter to be lonely, would we? Um."

Lily nodded, and couldn't help but notice that her heart seemed to skip a beat, instead of sinking like it normally did when she was put with James. She gathered up her books, and dumped them on the desk next to him.

"Hello!" She gave him a bubbly smile, determined that, just once, she'd be nice to him. After all, he really was quite cute.

He looked up from doodling on the back of his hand. Lily found herself wondering, once again, how he ever achieved becoming a prefect.

"Hi." He gave her a very vague smile back. James decided to make the best of a good thing, and refrained from insulting her. After all, she wasn't that bad, in a cheerfully swotty kind of way. At least she wasn't stupid, and she was certainly pretty. Even Peter would admit that.

Lily added, putting on a sweet tone of voice despite everything, "You get the pestle and mortar and things out, and I'll get the herbs and bits, all right?"

"All right." James coloured the last freckle on his hand in red, and did as she commanded. Arguing wouldn't get him anywhere, he decided. It struck him odd that Lily was actually smiling at him. Maybe Sirius really was right. He was surprised to find that he didn't mind.

They began working on their potion. James wondered why Lily didn't keep making cutting comments at him about his potion-making methods, as she usually would have done. Instead, she chatted happily, making the occasional polite correction of his work.

"Have you worked on that essay we got for divination yet? I've written about three pieces of parchment so far, but I just wittered through them. It took me ages to do the research. If you need any help or anything, just ask me, I might know it, not that I'm saying you're stupid, obviously, but, well, you know..."

"I'll, er, bear that in mind." James blinked, bemused. Lily was certainly acting oddly.

"Great! Remember to mix the potion anti-clockwise," she added, as James began to stir.

"Sure. If we think the potion goes wrong, we can always test it on Sirius. He's practically an animal anyway. He can live without his voice."

"Poor Sirius!" Lily looked a mixture of disapproving and amused. "Sometimes I think Fleureat could do with some... Although we'd better not give either of them anything," she added, sensible as ever.

As the lesson continued, James wondered why Lily was being so nice to him. It wasn't natural, and it was more than a little unnerving. All the same, it was probably better then her actually attacking him.

Fleureat, Sam and January watched from their various corners of the room.

They grinned at each other. Things were starting to go to plan.

~*~*~

Lily waltzed into the common room later that night, humming happily to herself. She hated to admit it, but she had decided that Fleureat was right, James did like her. He'd been really nice to her in Potions, even giving her a compliment when their potion had worked as planned, saying she'd done all the work and he'd never been able to pull it off himself. With a smile on her lips, she threw herself into a chair near the fire. She was so tired...

Suddenly, she heard someone mention her name, and lazily opened one eye. It was Fleureat, Sam and January. They were huddled close together on a couch near her, but she didn't think they'd seen her yet - if they had, they certainly weren't paying any attention to her. Lily listened closer... they were talking about her.

"Sirius told me James was really confused at the way Lily acted in potions," she heard Fleureat say.

"He's starting to believe it." She had a satisfied look on her face.

Lily frowned. Believe it? Believe what?

"I hate to admit it, Fleurie," Sam said, "but for once, one of your plans actually worked out!"

Plans? Fleureat had a plan? What plan? This didn't sound promising.

"I know," Fleureat said, smiling with her entire face. "It's only a matter of time before Lily confesses her love for James, making him fall head over heels for her, and they live happily ever after." She sighed dramatically. "And then they'll thank me."

Lily was having trouble understanding any of this. What exactly had Fleureat done?

As if someone had heard her thoughts, she heard January saying, "It really is brilliant, Fleurie! Letting James think he overheard his friends saying that Lily likes him, and doing the same to Lily. I must say I'm impressed."

In her chair, Lily was fuming. They had done what?! She stood up and coughed.

Three heads flew around to stare at her.

Fleureat's mouth dropped. January covered her mouth with her hands, and Sam just looked scared. It almost made Lily want to smile. But she didn't, because there was nothing funny about this.

"Well," she said with a tight voice. "I'd never had expected this. But then... with friends like you, who needs enemies, right?" She shook her head slowly.

"Lily, we can explain..." Fleureat cut in.

"You just did, Fleurie," Lily said, close to tears. "I heard you. You're trying to make a fool out of me."

"That's not what we wanted, Lils," Sam said in a small voice.

Lily snorted. "Yeah, right. You're trying to make me look stupid in front of James, and his friends, and my own friends..." her voice died. "But I guess I don't have any friends, do I?"

With that, she ran out of the room, leaving the other three looking extremely worried.

"Dammit!" Fleureat exclaimed after a long pause. "We were so close!"

~*~*~

Lily ran from the common room, fuming, wanting to cry, but not allowing the tears to fall. She didn't go to the dormitory, as she knew that Fleureat, January and Sam would follow her up there, but instead stormed aimlessly along the stone corridors, furious with herself and them.

James had never really liked her, ever. It was all such a dirty trick, and Lily felt like an idiot for believing it. All of them, all of them except her, were in on it, just to make her look like a prat. James was probably laughing at her behind her back right now, him and his stupid, stupid friends.

Lily let out a cry and lashed out furiously at the wall. She was such a fool! An idiot, a plonker, a complete and utter pillock! She bashed at the wall again, fury and intense embarrassment storming inside her. She was so stupid, stupid, stupid! What kind of friends were they anyway?! She could just picture them all, Fleureat, Sam, January, Sirius, Remus, Peter and... and James, all, all laughing at her. The thought of James' laughter stung worst of all. Lily let out a final blow to the wall, before the realisation of pain hit her. She nursed her bruised fist where it had struck the wall, and saw the purpling bruise.

Then the white-hot rage seemed to pass, and she broke down, sobbing. She covered her face with her hands, and the scalding tears tricked down her face and between her ink-stained fingers.

"Lily?" The voice made her jump. She swung round, her face blotched and red with crying. It was James. Another surge of anger hit her.

"You! What do you want?!" She half- screamed at him. He stood and looked at her, perplexed, not sure what to do.

"Lily, are you all right?"

"What does it bloody look like?!" Her breath came in great, ugly, choking heaves and gasps.

"Lily?"

"Come to laugh at me, have you? Made a big enough fool of myself, have I?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about! I know all about it all now! There's no use pretending!"

James was bewildered. He didn't have a clue what she was talking about. "I'm not pretending, I..." he made a sudden movement, paused as if to think again, and then placed his hand on her arm, as if trying to comfort her. He didn't know why he did it. He just hated to see her so upset. Lily didn't swat him away, but hid her face in her hands again, still sobbing. "Lily, please, tell me what's wrong."

Furious at herself, Lily wiped the tears from her now bloodshot green eyes. She shook her head violently. "You'll laugh at me."

"I promise I won't." James squeezed her arm a little, comfortingly. "I swear. Please?"

She stared up into his dark brown eyes. They held no laughter or malice. Lily didn't know why she did it, but she leant forwards, and put her lips on his. Maybe... maybe she didn't really want to play the damsel in distress any longer. This took James by surprise, but he didn't push her away.

Oh, gosh...

Lily drew back, blushing to the roots of her dark red barnet. James felt his mouth gaping like a fish's. He blinked at her like a rabbit in a car's headlights.

"Oh, God..." he heard Lily mutter.

"Wha?" he gaped at her, completely taken aback.

"Potter," Lily forced herself to speak levelly, coldly, "Despite everything, despite what this looks like, despite the fact you're really not that bad... I still hate you. I just want you to know that, all right, cretin?"

James recovered himself as quickly as he could, and said the only thing he could, teasingly, "The feeling is entirely mutual, freak."

He leant forwards, and their lips met once again. They held each other in their arms.

Explanations... well, those could come later.

And Lily decided... maybe James really didn't know what she had been talking about.

It was possible.

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Pretty please review!!!! No, this isn't the last part... there's more to come, we promise!

Edited by duva on December 18 2002 because it was necessary and she has nothing better to do really…