A/N: Britz, Lily and James went out in November of fifth year.. They went out on maybe four dates.. And they were both too stubborn to admit that they liked each other even a teensy weensy bit.
"Lily's in LOVE?" James repeated, spitting out his coffee.
"Dude, that stuff will kill you." Sirius said, pushing a glass of orange juice in front of him. "That's what Coco told me."
"I knew she had a crush on somebody, but in love? Lily can't be in love. She's never believed in this love stuff. Wow.. Lily in love.." Munguldus mused.
"Watch out Hogwarts." Ronan muttered.
"Watch out Hogsmeade." Peter said.
"Watch out England." Remus said sarcastically.
"So, who is it?" James asked with interest. "If she told Coco she probably wants to tell us."
"Coco said Lily said she didn't say.." Sirius began, but Lily popped up that instant.
"And he said that she said that he said she said I was totally--..." Lily mocked, taking a bite of toast. "Since when have you guys been gossipers?"
The Marauders stared at her.
"Why are you looking at me like I just Frenched Snape?" Lily asked. "I'm here at half-past eight, with a few minutes to spare, actually."
The Marauders stared at her.
"Freaks." She muttered, heading for her Charms class.
Coco, Leola, Jennifer, Mia, Diana and Clarisse rushed through the halls to their Charms class, hoping not to be late, and hoping to get a seat next to Lily. They knew the Marauders weren't going to sit next to her, because they too were rushing to get to Charms on time.
Just as they scrambled through the doorway, Aphrodite passed by them and took the last seat next to Lily.
"Lillian!" She said in an angelic voice. Coco winced.
"What do you think of Aphrodite?" James whispered two rows behind Lily and Aphrodite during their Floating Bubbles lesson.
"I think she's a cold-hearted--.." Sirius began, but James was leaning his head on his hand dreamily. "Oh shit, Houston.. We've got another floating overly-hormonal teenager on the premises. How are we ever going to get through this year?"
"Eww.. Gross... It's Lily Evans." Aphrodite muttered to one of her new friends (she had been Sorted into Ravenclaw, but her friend was a Hufflepuff named Grace).
Grace looked confused. "Lily's popular. And nice. And smart. And she's pretty."
"Oh she is?" Aphrodite pondered aloud. "That changes everything a bit. But honestly, she is such a freak."
Lily waved and Aphrodite posted a fake smile, waving. "Where do you know each other from?" Grace asked intently.
Aphrodite smiled at the gullible young first year. "We were in Charm School together. Lily had a long way to go, but she's made it.. It seems as if she followed every rule of the Charm School way until this Potter character came about.. I need to see what is so interesting about him.. At least she's still keeping a popular entourage.. But all this goodness and hard work jazz.. Rather diligent and boring, isn't it?"
The naive Hufflepuff only nodded.
"Lily!" James called from the front of the Potions lab. "We have to do a love potion."
"What?" Lily muttered stupidly.
"A love potion." James said again, slowly.
"Aren't those illegal or something?" Lily muttered uncomfortably.
"Lily, you've been having these weird sort of stupid dreams, its like your thoughts have all been screwed up." Munguldus said in a Robin Hood costume, pulling back an arrow about to aim at her heart. Suddenly he was Cupid and looking very stupid trying to pull his diaper back up. Plus, his head was the normal size but his body was the body of a short, chubby flying baby. "Lily.. Lily.. Lily?"
Lily woke up from her dream, drooling on some very bad-tasting silky shawl thingy. She had the Marauders (minus James) staring at her in the Divination classroom.
"LILY!" Munguldus shouted.
"Wha--.." Lily muttered, trying to go back to sleep.
"I said you've been having all these weird sorts of dreams, like your thoughts were ingredients to a potion and they weren't mixed very well." Munguldus repeated. "At least that's what my calculations add up to.. I have to check the book.. LILY!"
"WHA--??"
"What was your dream about, Lily?" Remus asked sweetly, trying to get an A in Transfiguration for the first time.
"James was dere, and we was in the Potions lab and he said dat we needed to do love potion but I uncomfortable, said 'twas illegal.. And den Munguldus said that me been having weird stupid dreams like potion in Robin Hood costume.. Den he was Cupid, but with his head and 'twas real big. He was aiming at my heart and den somebody told me to wake up." Lily muttered, going to sleep.
Each member of the Marauders was flipping through their dream-translation books.
"It seems as if Lily has some feelings for James and unspoken discomfort with potions, especially things that modify people's feelings. She also feels uncomfortable with Munguldus's predictions.. As if he's stealing her thoughts and distributing them to the people that SHOULD know about them, but she doesn't want them to know about them.. Thus the Robin Hood. She's also afraid of falling in love and of being matched up with someone she knows she won't love, and she fears her heart is at risk." Remus read breathily.
"I think she is going to have an excellent grade in Potions, boys. Miss Evans, please, drool on the other shawl, the lace one.. Drool is so hard to remove from silk.." Trelawney said worriedly before passing their table.
"The lady's right.." Lily muttered while changing her position to drool on the lacy shawl. "Nighty night.."
You mixed me up but good, right from the very start
Hey, go play Robin
Hood with somebody else's heart
"Hi James!" Aphrodite called across the busy corridor. "Oh, James! I need to talk to you!"
Coco and Leola stopped chatting for a moment to drag preppy-looking James away from hearing range of Aphrodite's irresistible voice and into an empty classroom, making him sit down on a desk and crossing their arms, glaring at him.
"What does it mean when two beautiful girls drag a fellow into an empty classroom, make him sit down and just glare at him?" James pondered to himself.
"Lily had a dream about you in Transfiguration." Leola said simply.
"Well, I am--.." James said cockily, pretending to be modest.
"Eww.. Gross. I meant that the translation of the dream was something along the lines of dangerous people lurk under aliases of Greek symbols of love." Leola said, hitting him upside his head.
"Ouch..." James muttered, rubbing the spot she had slapped. "So what?"
"Greek symbols of love.. ("Aphrodite.") Greek symbols of love.. ("Aphrodite!") Greek symbols of love.. ("Aphrodite!!!") Greek symbols of love.. ("APHRODITE!!")" Coco said, Leola staring at James like he was from Jupiter.
James stared back as if he was from Jupiter.
"Aphrodite, you dolt!" Coco said, hitting him on the other side of his head.
"Ouch.. What about her?" James said, rubbing the other side of his head.
"ARGH!" Leola screamed, throwing up her hands in frustration, dragging Coco with her.
"What?" James asked helplessly as he poked his head out the door. "What about her?"
"James is such an idiot." Leola said at lunch. "And, of course, now the Venus flytrap has her eye on 'im."
"That's creative.. The whole Aphrodite equals Venus, and since she's a man-eating whore.. Venus Flytrap! Creative!" Clarisse chirped. Coco was on one side of her, eating a sandwich, and Leola was on the other.
"Shut up, Clarisse." Coco muttered.
"Even after you explained the whole Greek symbols of love thing?" Diana asked with concern.
"Yes." Coco and Leola muttered tiredly.
"So, what are we going to do? About telling Lily and all?" Jennifer asked in a hushed voice.
"Well, she has a boyfriend." Mia reasoned.
"Yeah, we'll have to let her handle it.. In her own way." Diana said determinedly.
"And if that Venus flytrap and that daft prick do anything to hurt her, we kill them!" Clarisse muttered with a scary smile, losing her head.
Leola and Coco whapped Clarisse on her head.
"We won't kill them.. But we will take down the Venus flytrap." Jennifer said reasonably.
"And teach that daft prick a lesson." Mia said excitedly.
"You realize we sound like a really cheesy British mafia TV. show script?" Coco asked.
"What's TV?" Clarisse chirped, again, acting stupid.
"Blech." Leola said, her head in her hands.
"Is that a word?" Clarisse asked perkily.
"Shut up, Clarisse." Diana begged.
"What are you doing, Lily?" Diana asked as she and the rest of Lily's Ravenclaw pals (subtract Clarisse) jumbled up the stairs and to the top of Gryffindor tower.
"I see a brunette." Lily said, squinting.
"Lily! You HAVE a boyfriend!" Leola exclaimed as she joined Lily to squint at the 'brunette'.
"Do you know that it says in Cosmo that squinting is a major turn-off for guys." Jennifer said, waving around a lime lollipop while sitting on the couch.
"Do you know that Jennifer Caitlin Sheen is full of useless information and facts?" Mia snapped, as Coco flopped down next to her. Mia rushed next to Lily and Leola to see what they were looking at.
"Oh, that's Remus." Leola said at the same time as Mia said, "The girl is a Ravenclaw."
"Oh my god!" Lily squealed. "Remus is snogging!" A look of horror graced her face. "Oh my god.. I should never, EVER use those words in the same sentence again, EVER."
"What, where?" Jennifer asked, rushing to the edge.
"Go Coco!" Lily shouted.
"Lily, I'm right here!" Coco said with an air of distaste. "I don't dig Remus.. Munguldus is hotter."
"Well, it's a blonde Ravenclaw.. It's not Sarah.. She's got a thing for James.." Lily said. And then they all realized it.
"CLARISSE!!!"
And of course, they rushed down the stairs and outside of the portrait hole as soon as possible.
Sirius and James looked up. Lily and her female friends were all giggly. That in itself was a huge oxy moron. Munguldus, Ronan and Peter followed Sirius and James as they scrambled out of the Common Room and followed the girls.
"Tiptoe, you elephants!" Lily hissed as they each poked their heads out behind the tree the happy, blissful couple were "snogging" behind. The tree had vines growing up the side and a little wooden white trellis holding back the wild roses, and the couple was sitting on the bench that encircled the tree.
Remus's eyes flickered open. There was one of Clarisse's friends. No, two. No, five. And five of his friends.
"Doesn't a guy get any privacy around here?" He sputtered angrily. Lily tried to keep a straight face as she leaned against the tree casually (in a deep blue cropped sweater, short sleeves, with black jeans, her hair pulled away from her face.. Not that anyone was paying attention or anything..).
"Is that a rhetorical question or what?" She asked pointedly.
"You lost me." Remus said as Clarisse scrambled out of her seat, adjusting her appearance.
"I can't do anything around here without the Marauders finding out somehow.. You're a Marauder.. Did you EXPECT privacy or something?" Lily explained.
"Well.. Yeah." Remus said nervously, running a hand through his hair.
"Dream on." Lily said with a smile. "I am now off to go pound Sarah Barnes to the ground. Ta-ta."
She tried to flick her foot in the air as she turned, but it got caught in the little trellis thingy. She was still on the ground an hour later as James tried to get her out. Her other friends were tiptoeing around somewhere.
"Figures, doesn't it?" Lily asked James as he kept cursing the trellis, which had a mind of its own. "The only guys I can attract eat macaroni with butter or are magical fencing devices."
"You can't honestly believe that, can you?" James asked her as he put the Tickling Charm on the fence, which started to vibrate.
"Yes, and could you mind not letting me bounce up and down?" Lily said in a shaky voice, because the fence started jiggling.
"Honestly, Lil.. You could have had any guy last year.. And the years I was gone." James reasoned as he got part of her shoe out of the trellis. "Comfy down there?"
"That's in then. You are bad luck for my love life." Lily said simply. "I mean, honestly. I haven't been asked out until David, and Snape proposed and I almost married him.. Yep, you're bad luck for anyone's love life."
"Suddenly I turn from being bad for your love life to bad for anyone's love life. Explain, Princess." James asked as he sat down on the bench beside her, removing her shoelaces.
"Well, Remus hasn't really scored since you got back, at least in the second base department.. Ronan and Arabella were split up and you haven't seen Munguldus or Peter with any success! And... Sirius and Helen both lost loved ones.." Lily trailed off, knowing she had no point.
James smirked. "What about my love life? I haven't exactly 'scored' either, not even with you. Though that might change with Aphrodite.."
"Oh." Lily said uncomfortably. "She's one of those man-eating people-ma-bobs and she'll turn you against women forever and.."
James and Lily both looked uncomfortable. James looked mad, even. Then he cried out, "Voila! Your foot is release--.." He stopped because he had only gotten her foot out of her shoe. Her shoe was still stuck. And she had toppled to the ground.
"Sorry, Lils.. I thought.." James said as he scrambled to his knees to help her up. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up, and she looked straight into his eyes.
James didn't know exactly what he was doing, but he pulled her closer to him and gave her a fireworks-starting kiss.
Lily began to panic. She reached for something, anything, as they started leaning on the tree. She found a solid object and pulled it out and banged it on his head. He collapsed.
As soon as James's eyes fluttered open, he saw Lily hovering over him worriedly. "So sorry, just an impulse."
"Yeah, I guess.." James muttered. "What exactly did you hit me with?"
"I got it out." She said, waving her shoe in the air.
"Brilliant, Lily, brilliant." James muttered.
"Lily!" David called. "There you are! Hello, James, what are you doing down there?"
"Lily was practicing her self-defense moves on me.. Said she needed someone with a hard head." James muttered, his heart out of making up a decent excuse.
"She sure does have a sense of humor, doesn't she?" David said proudly as Lily got up. He kissed her on the cheek.
"You have no idea." James murmured. "Absolutely no idea."