Hi again. Thanks for all your reviews for the previous fics; most of them have been great. Anyway, I just realised, I've been forgetting to write disclaimers. Anyway, this one's for all of them, any characters that you recognize belong to JKR. If I owned them and Hogwarts, I wouldn't be writing fanfics, would I?
Anyway, a little while ago I got a review saying that Lily & co didn't act like 11 year olds, and that is true, so I now officially pronounce them all to be older than 11.
Anyway, I'm going to stop ranting now.
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'Lily…' Jasmine started, trying to sound innocent.
'Yes Jasmine?' Lily answered calmly.
'What's going on between you and James?'
'Nothing.' Lily could tell that Jasmine didn't believe her. 'Look Jasmine, seriously, there is nothing going on between James and me.'
'If that's the case why is he shooting glances over at you?'
'He is not.' Lily told her, looking over at James who was deeply involved in a conversation with Sirius and two other Gryffindor boys.
One of the boys, who had light brown hair, looked over at Lily and nudged James.
She quickly looked back to her uneaten breakfast.
'Lily, you've got to eat you know.' Jasmine told her forcefully.
'I'm not hungry.' Lily told her.
Jasmine sighed and started on a piece of toast.
Lily opened her bag and took out her timetable.
'Lily will you stop checking that thing?' Jasmine asked her. 'Your making me nervous.'
Lily sighed, and continued looking at it. Their first lesson was Herbology. Whatever that was.
Lily snuck another look at James. He looked like his usual self again.
Suddenly, the bell rang for them to go to there first class.
Lily got up quickly and stuffed her timetable back in her bag.
'Lily, slow down, we're not going to be late.' Jasmine told her, getting up calmly.
'Sorry, I'm just nervous.' Lily took a couple of deep breaths.
'I know, so am I a bit.' Jasmine admitted.
'What are we talking about?' Sirius asked, popping up beside them suddenly, and was closely followed by James, and the two other boys.
'Nothing of importance.' Jasmine told him vaguely, looking at the boys.
'Oh, this is Remus and Peter.' James told them. 'They're Gryffindors too.'
'Hi. I'm Lily and this is Jasmine.' Lily told them. 'She turned to Jasmine. 'Can we go now, I really don't want to be late for our first class.'
'What? Oh yeah, sure.'
They all made their way out of the castle and down to the first greenhouse where a couple of Hufflepuffs were waiting.
Peter looked almost more nervous than Lily, if that was possible, but no one noticed, they were too busy trying to peer in through the greenhouse windows.
They weren't very successful; the windows were all fogged up.
'Hello dears.' Everyone turned around to face a short, plump, young witch who was wearing a pair of dragon hide gloves. 'I'm Professor Sprout, your Herbology teacher.'
She walked to the door and unlocked it, then ushered them all inside.
It was very humid in the greenhouse. There seemed to be almost no oxygen.
Lily felt something move on her arm. Slowly, she turned around to see a large, fury, purple plant edging its way up to her shoulder.
She gave a small squeal and jumped away, straight into James' arms.
James looked down into her eyes. 'Whoa, calm down Lily.' He told her, still holding onto her.
Lily took a deep breath, then realised that she was in James' arms. She started to struggle, and he reluctantly let go.
There was an awkward silence. 'Sorry about that.' Lily said sheepishly, straightening up.
'Don't worry about it.' He told her kindly.
Just then, Professor Sprout began to speak about the different greenhouses.
After Sprout had finished speaking, she put everyone into groups of four and told them to replant a pile of bulbs.
Lily was put into a group with two Hufflepuff girls and Remus.
Remus reached for a bulb, then turned to Lily.
'Are you and James dating?' He blurted out curiously.
The Hufflepuff girls looked up.
'No.' Lily said irritated. 'We are not dating, why?'
'Because you were both shooting glances at each other at breakfast.' He told her knowledgably.
'That doesn't mean we're going out.' She told him. 'Or going to go out.' She added.
'Yeah, whatever.'
Lily looked at the window of the greenhouse. In it, she could see James' reflection. He looked bored, but not disturbed by the fact that he had been rejected the previous night.
She started to repot the bulbs. She was glad James wasn't upset, but he could at least show some emotion.
* * *
After an hour of bulbs and dirty finger nails, the bell rang for the class to end.
Lily swung her bag over her shoulder and walked out of the greenhouse.
Once outside, she leant against a nearby tree and breathed in fresh air.
The others joined her a minute later.
'What do we have now?' Jasmine asked.
Lily took out her timetable. '…. Potions, with the Slytherins.' She told them, not looking anywhere in James' direction.
* * *
20 minutes later, when they had washed all the dirt off their hands and gotten their books, they entered the dungeon.
The Slytherins were already waiting there.
Snape nodded at Lily, who smiled back. James' scowled, but said nothing.
The Gryffindors all took seats on the opposite side of the room. James sat down on Lily's right, blocking her from Snapes view.
A moment later, their professor came through the door.
'Good morning students.' A rather ugly witch hissed to the class. 'I am Professor Strapp-' James snorted, and Lily kicked him under the table. Luckily, Strapp didn't hear, and she continued. 'You are here to learn about the intensity and power of potion brewed correctly. Although many think differently, this is not an easy class. Potion brewing is a fine art, I do not believe that many of you have what it takes.' She said this all very softly, but Lily caught every word. 'Today, we will be preparing the ingredients of a simple Ageing potion.'
They got out their supplies and began cutting up rat-tails and boiling beetles.
Strapp kept walking around the tables, criticising Gryffindors, and praising Slytherins.
'Mr Black, do you think you could try to cut up your ingredients a little neater?'
'Potter! Will you stop glaring at the Slytherins and do some work?'
'Evans, please refrain from talking to Avery during my class. You both need to concentrate much harder.'
They worked in silence, occasional whispers broke out from some of the students, but Strapp immediately silenced them by giving out deadly glares.
Finally, the bell rang for them to go to lunch.
Everyone hurriedly packed up their things, and stampeded out of the dungeon.
Once they were out of earshot, they broke out into talk.
'Can you believe Strapp?' Sirius asked outraged.
'She's a demon!' James told them.
'I doubt that hairs even real.'
'Yeah, her whole face is probably a mask to hide the fact that she's a dragon!'
* * *
Late that night, in the Gryffindor common room, Jasmine and Lily sat by the fire. The guys had all disappeared somewhere.
Jasmine suddenly spoke. 'Lily, I know your probably not going to tell me, but what went on with you and James last night?'
Lily was silent.
'Look, I know something happened.' Jasmine urged her.
Lily sighed. 'Alright, we went down to the lake and made-up. Then he tried to kiss me.'
Whatever Jasmine had expected, it wasn't that. 'He did?' She asked amazed. 'What did you do?'
'I stopped him, then we went back up to the castle.'
Jasmine gave her a puzzled look. 'Why didn't you just kiss him back?' She asked.
'Because I didn't want to.' Lily told her hotly. 'Just because every other girl in the school likes James Potter that doesn't mean I have to! I'm going to bed.' And with that, she stormed up the girls staircase into their dorm leaving Jasmine to sit stunned in the common room.
* * *
The next morning at breakfast, about a thousand post-owls flew into the hall and started delivering letters.
Jasmine was sipping on her pumpkin juice, but she spat it out when she saw a large jet-black owl drop a scarlet letter onto her plate.
She uttered an indistinct word, grabbed the letter and ran from the hall as fast as she could.
James looked at Lily. 'What's with her?' He asked her.
'Dunno, she took one look at her letter and then started running.' Lily told him confused.
'Uh oh.' Sirius said solemnly. 'She got a howler. But she hasn't even had time to do anything wrong.'
'What's a howler?' Lily asked confused.
James shuddered. 'Bad news. Parents send them when they're really pissed.'
Lily nodded, and got up to follow Jasmine.
She rushed out into the entrance hall and looked around Jasmine was no where to be seen. She started to head back into the great hall, until suddenly she heard a loud voice coming from upstairs.
"GRYFFINDOR!?! YOU GOT INTO GRYFFINDOR? HOW DARE YOU!! WHAT A DISGRACE! YOU'VE LET DOWN EVERYTHING YOUR MOTHER AND I BELIEVED IN! YOU'RE LUCKY YOU WEREN'T HERE WHEN WE RECEIVED THE LETTER FROM YOUR BROTHER TELLING US OF THIS…SITUATION! YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THE FAMILY NAME!…'
It went on in this vane for some time. When it stopped, Lily headed upstairs to look for Jasmine.
She found her sitting in an empty chamber.
'Hi.'
Jasmine looked up. 'Oh, hi Lily.'
She looked upset, but before Lily could ask what was wrong, the bell rang, and Jasmine quickly got up and rushed out.
'Come on Lily, we'll be late!'
* * *
The next few weeks passed amazingly fast for Lily.
Jasmine refused to answer any questions about the howler by quickly changing the subject.
James and Sirius had discovered a passage out of the castle already so they wasn't spending much time in the common room, when they were though, you could definitely tell. They didn't seem to understand the concept of "being quiet" very well.
One time when Lily was concentrating on her Potions assignment that was due the next day, James and Sirius decided they'd liven up the common room a bit. So they brought in a whole box of fireworks and set them off.
Lily was also becoming quite good friends with Snape. Something that her Gryffindor friends, especially James, were quick to pick up on. But she paid them no attention, she couldn't understand why everyone thought he was so bad. He seemed quite nice to her, she tried to make her friends see that, but they wouldn't listen. They insisted that he was a horrible part human incapable of any humane thoughts and emotions.
So in what seemed like no time at all, the Christmas holidays approached, and Professor McGonagall came round with a list of people staying for Christmas.
Lily watched as her Jasmine and Sirius put their names down, James said he spent enough time at school already.
'James, you spend half-of your school time, out of school.' Lily told him.
'Yeah, but the teachers think I'm in school, so they count it as school time.'
Lily looked at him confused, but decided not to answer back. She was looking forward to seeing her old friends too much to care what James was doing.
* * *
Finally, the day came for Lily to board the Hogwarts Express to go home.
She hugged Jasmine and Sirius goodbye.
'Gee, maybe I should have stayed to get a hug.' James said to them all.
Lily rolled her eyes and ignored him. 'Bye guys, see you in two weeks, send me lots of owls.'
'Sure thing Lily.' Jasmine said cheerfully.
'You two behave yourselves now.' James told them.
'Yes Father.' Sirius said to him. 'Same to you on the train going home.'
James gave a small grin. 'See ya.'
The horse-less carriages arrived and Lily and James hopped into one, waving good-bye to their friends.
When Hogwarts was out of view, Lily sat back in her seat and sighed.
'What?' James asked.
'Oh nothing, I'm just not looking forward to seeing my sister. She's a real bitch.'
'At least you have a sister, it gets really boring being the only child.'
'Yeah, but theirs no sibling rivalry or favoritism.'
'But you'd still have someone to talk to.'
Lily laughed. 'Not with my sister. She hates the fact I'm a witch. She doesn't stay in the same room as me except for meals anymore.'
They continued arguing about this until their carriage stopped at the Hogsmeade station.
The Hogwarts Express was already sitting on the tracks waiting for them.
James grabbed his and Lily's luggage and carried it into an empty compartment.
They sat down and Lily looked around her. Apart from it being very stylish, the train was basically like any ordinary muggle steam train.
She was quiet for most of the trip. James thought it was best just to leave her to her thoughts.
Finally, after it had grown dark, they reached Platform 9¾.
They took their luggage and got off the train.
Lily waved at Geffory, who was pairing students up to leave through the barrier, so the muggles didn't notice a whole lot of people appearing at once. He waved back.
Lily and James went out together.
'Well, I'll see you back here at the end of the hols then.' Lily said to him.
'Yeah, I guess.' James said. 'Bye then.'
'Yeah, bye.' Lily spotted her parents hovering by the entrance to the station.
She headed over to them waving goodbye to James. Petunia wasn't with them surprise surprise.
'Lily!' Her dad called out.
'Hi Dad, hi Mum.' Lily said.
'How was your school?' Her mum asked.
'Fine.' Lily told them smiling.
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Well, that's that, I'm gonna write the next part soon, but it probably won't be up for a couple of day's 'cause I'm going to the beach tomorrow.
Sorry this part took so long, but I got writers block during the middle of it.
Please review. Make me smile. J