Lily hates James hates Lily

Lily entered the common room to find it mostly deserted, excepting Karana Halone, one of her classmates. Karana was bent studiously over the History essay Proffessor Binns had assigned, making Lily smile. Karana wasn't half as dumb as she pretended to be; but sh would die if she thought anyone knew.

"Hey," Lily said, plopping herself down next to Karana. "How far'd you get on the history?"

Karana jumped, looked over at Lily, and hastily folded her essay over. "Not very far," she said, although the thick role she held in her hand argued otherwise. "How were the tryouts?"

Lily smiled, displaying a full set of white teeth. "Very nice, actually. Professor Wood was stumbling over himself when he saw how fast I could go." She chuckled, remebering Wood, but stopped herself as she recalled James. There was something very disturbing about the way he'd been acting, and she couldn't quite lay a finger on it.

"Well, I probably should get to bed." Karana's eyes twinkled. "Need to get my beauty sleep, you know." She skipped up the stairs, leaving Lily alone with the dimming firelight and her own uncomferting thoughts. Determined to think about something else, she turned instead to the open book on Egyptian mummies Karana had left open. Regretfully, she began her own essay.

James was just as focused as he walked through the hallways; but his thoughts were taking a slighlty different turn.

"...the nerve! She is the most annoying, repulsive,... There aren't words to explain it!" James told his friend, frustrated.

"Of course there aren't words to explain it." Sirius grinned at the double meaning of his own words. "But you've found plenty of words tof ill the space between the Quidditch field and the common room."

James slouched in front of the portriat hole, currently empty as the fat lady had gone to visit one of her friends. "Sirius, today... she almost beat me. And I was going ALL out. Nothing held back."

Sirius looked at his friend pitingly, but his words were stone cold and unwontingly serious. "So now you know what it's like to actually have to work, don't you?" James looked up, suprised, but Sirius wasn't finished. He chuckled without humor. "It's actually kind of ironic. If you put in half as much effort as she does into classes, you'd be ahead of her by far. But you don't give it your 'all' in that, and you don't give your all in Quidditch. Until today, that is. When you were challenged."

James couldn't bring himself to look Sirius in the eye, but something drew him to it, anyhow. There was anger, and scorn, and... pity? James wasn't sure.

But he didn't have to figure out. "C'mon, dearies, what's the password?" The fat lady scooted pack into her portriat.

"Hobberwiggles," James muttered, standing up as the portriat door swung open. He would have walked through, but Sirius grabbed his arm in sudden intensity.

"Think about it," he whispered. Then, all of a sudden, he was himself again. "But thinking isn't exactly up your alley, is it? Oh, well,...

Lily twirled the eggs idly around her fork, not paying them the slightest attention. She was too tired to think; she'd been working on the History essay until well past midnight.

It's what you wanted , she chided herself, sparing energy to berate herself. Focus on school work so you don't have to bother with anything else. She looked up, and found her gaze rest immediatly on James Potter. Like him, for instance.

She'd never let him know how close he'd hit her when he mentioned eating disorders and homework. Lily was slowly realizing how other people must percieve her; a workaholic. Work was her refuge, her cover. And when someone pointed that out...

... especially James Potter ...

I have to care first , she quoted herself bitterly. I care. But no one is ever supposed to know that.

Finding her thoughts to be rude company, Lily went back to localizing her energy in breakfast.

James was in a slightly better mood.

After he got over the initial shock of Sirius's speech, he'd concluded that all he had to do was try harder. If he had been that good at Quidditch without effort, just think of how could he could be!

True, Sirius had brought up the sore spot of classes. But classes just weren't important to James; besides, would he rather people think of him as someone so utterly cold and unfeeling?

But just as he'd neatly catagorized her, he glanced her way, and noticed the redness around her eyes, both from lack of sleep and crying.

Crying? Lily didn't cry... It was then that James realized he might just have hurt her.

'I'd have to care first . He vividly remembered her words. It had seemed like a curse; she'd never care, so she'd never get hurt. But maybe she did care what other people thought of her, she just pretended she didn't. We not entirely unalike, James realized with a shock. But just as he was about to continue with that thought...

"Prongs, you look like you're THINKING!" Sirius exclaimed, secretly pleased, but not showing it in the least. "Dangerous habit, really."

"I could of sworn you told me to do something of the sort last night," James said, smiling, mentally telling himself to forget Lily. "Oh wait... then you told me I wasn't very good at it." He lifted an eyebrow at Sirius.

"I think, therefore I am," was Sirius's only reply. This puzzled James, but he decided not to dwell on it.

"Time for Transfiguration," he said, standing up. "Let's get there early; it's too cold a morning to get stuck sitting next to an icicle." With one last glance at Lily, he headed out of the Breakfast Hall.

As though fate had been peeved at James's boldness, Proffessor Mcgonnall had decided they should work in pairs today; and that Lily was to be James's partner.

"I'm not happy either," she told him, dumping her stuff on top of his. "You don't have to look so thrilled." Sarcasm was in her voice, as always, but she seemed to be bordering on hysterics, and James couldn't quite bring himself to make a nasty retort. That didn't mean he was going to be nice.

"So you can scowl and frown ad carry on about having me as a partner," he said, taking a firmer hold on the frog, "but I'm not allowed to do the same?"

"You're welcome to, being a partner with youself must really suck," Lily said shortly, flipping through the book to find the particular spell.

"Do you expect people to be nice to you?" James asked, feigning intrest but with underlying tones of sarcasm.

"Never expected anything of the sort from you," Lily told him shortly.

"And I supposed that's why you're so upset?" James tried to sound disintrested as he flicked the dust off his wand, but couldn't quite manage it. "Because some one you assume is the nastiest being on earth happened to return the favor?"

"SNOUTUS!" Lily shouted, giving the frog a nice long snout. Turning to James, she replied, "I was tired. That Histoy essay took me forever."

"Lovely excuse." James gave the frog a tail.

"Egotistacal jerk." Lily covered the frog in fur. "Why do you assume everything revolves around you?"

"But doesn't it?" James pushed his hair back a bit, preparing to make the fina transformation of frog to ferret. But Lily beat him to it.

"Frogulus Ferrutus!" She swished her wand over the creature with a tab bit more style than was really needed, but netherless produced an adorable lookng ferret. Which immediatly proceeded to bite James finger.

"Even the ferret seems to think it worth while to hate me." But James didn't smile.

So, I know it's not as good as the others, but i felt like i should at least go into the personal thoughts a tiny bit. Please r/r. O, and whoever it was that caught the one thin lily couldn't figure out about james; ty, it made my day. Anyhow, yeah, r/r, so u can tell me the billions of ways this sucks, so i can fix it, but i swear the rest won't be this bad.