"Letting her handle it was a bad idea." Coco said hurriedly as she rushed up to where her friends were hanging out (the Ravenclaw Quidditch team locker room).
"Why, Coco?" Diana asked worriedly, sitting up.
"She just, um, kissed James." Coco said, rubbing her neck nervously.
"WHAT?" Leola demanded. "That is NOT part of the plan. Princess Lily cannot kiss her true love, the next victim of the Venus flytrap!"
"She really didn't kiss him, he sort of kissed her." Coco explained. "And David nearly walked over to them while they were kissing. She had bopped him on the head with her shoe."
"Smart girl." Mia said as she put the finishing touches on her nails.
"Well, he can't fall in love with her!" Jennifer protested. "That would ruin everything!"
"What's to ruin?" Clarisse asked. "Or is this some sort of Ravenclaw-Divination thingy?"
"No, no, no! We wanted him to fall in love with her, but only when she's ready!" Diana explained.
"Well, that's the way love is, I suppose. It's one of those scary unpredictable things that just never goes away until you don't want it to." Mia said wisely.
"But you know she's going to hate him forever, right?" Jennifer asked.
"Why?" Leola wondered.
"You know Lily. She has everything planned out exactly the way it should be. So far, he's complied. But that kiss was a daring and dangerous thing to do. He nearly jeopardized her social status and her relationship with her boyfriend." Jennifer explained.
"How would HE jeopardize her social status?" Leola wondered. "He's popular."
"But if she was caught cheating on her boyfriend, she'd be changed from teen queen to teen whore." Jennifer said with a snap. "Like that."
"Wow.." Leola murmured. "She IS going to hate him forever."
"Lily." Sirius said, tapping her on the shoulder. Lily jumped ("Wow! That must have been, what, six feet?") up into the air, and started breathing heavily.
"What, do you want to kill me?" She demanded. She had her hand on her chest and she was leaning on a windowsill for support.
"Sorry." Sirius said, jumping five feet from her to assure safety. "You're late for your DADA session with Remus."
"Sorry, Si.. I've just been having a bad, bad week." Lily muttered, rubbing her temples.
"That will have to be fixed, won't it?" Sirius said with a smile. "And, we know."
Lily didn't realize what he meant until he was gone.
"Sorry, Wolfie." Lily muttered as she threw her books down on the table.
"Don't call me Wolfie." Remus said, checking his watch. "Funny, you're never late for breakfast.. With Jay-Ames."
"Dammit! You know?" Lily cried out in frustration, as she began to bang her head on the table's surface. "How do you know?"
"Sirius and Munguldus can read your mind." Remus said as he dealt out a game of Exploding Snap. "Deal you in?"
"Sure." Lily said between bangs. She scribbled herself a note. "Do.. Not.. Think.. Around.. Sirius.. Or.. No, especially.. Munguldus. Voila!"
"Won't that be a little hard? No, wait.. You WON'T be able to think because they hang around Jay-Ames." Remus teased.
"Doesn't a girl get any privacy around here?" Lily demanded.
"Is that a rhetorical question or what?" Remus asked with a sly smile after a moment.
"You lost me." Lily added, catching on.
"I can't do anything without the Marauders finding out somehow.. You kissed a Marauder. Did you EXPECT privacy or something?" He recited in a high-pitched voice. Lily started laughing.
"Figures that it wouldn't stay quiet. Who else knows?" Lily said after backing away from the table. The game of Exploding Snap was on fire. She put it out with her wand.
"Your Ravenclaw friends, the official and unofficial Marauders and you." He said simply as he wiped away the ash.
"Which Ravenclaw friends?" Lily asked wearily.
"Not Aphrodite nor the macaroni-and-butter dude. The ones that always hang out on the tower with you." Remus assured her.
"Does James know you know?" Lily asked as she completed her DADA worksheet. Remus went over her answers.
"No, but won't it be fun to mess with his head? Or are you suddenly not going to do that anymore?" Remus replied.
"Does Lily Evans ever pass up a prank, in whatever form it may be?" She retorted as her answer. Remus smiled. He circled the incorrect questions and darted out of the library to go tell his friends.
"So what is with David and you? I mean.. He takes you out every Saturday night, you eat the same thing, dry white chicken, macaroni and butter and water, and he seems to want to marry you.. And.. You kiss another guy." Coco pondered aloud as Friday night in Lily's room continued. Lily rubbed her mask in better. Clarisse had white creamy stuff all over her face, Jennifer had a green mask on with cucumber slices, and Diana had an apricot scrub bottle in her hand, preparing to put it on.
"Correction.. He kissed me. I don't know what's with David and I. He seems to love me more than I will ever like him. But he's somewhat of a boring decoy. Like Sirius's Missy.. A bit of a Red Herring." Lily said through a mouthful of chips.
Leola and Mia hurried in, closing the door behind them. "Sirius.. Remus.. Loads of sweets..." Was all the others could make out of their words. Suddenly there was knocking at the door.
"Let us in. Let Us In. LET US IN!!" The boys chorused. Lily had a sly smile on her face. Coco, who was behind the door, flipped the switch for the lights and let them in slowly, slamming the door behind them. Then, she turned on the lights again.
"AH!!! AH!!! AH!!" They yelled (Leola identified two brunettes and two blondes). "LET US OUT! LET US OUT! LET US OUT!!"
Lily smirked as the boys became more desperate. They started sobbing and banging against the door and suddenly the lights were switched out.
James ran up the stairs, wondering what all the commotion was. Within the confusion, the girls had Charmed their faces to look normal while the masks were still working.
James opened the door to see a sobbing group of Marauders, Sirius, Remus, Munguldus and Ronan. And then he saw the girls, eating popcorn.
"Wimps."
Sirius responded with, "So, James... How exactly does a platform high top, blue with a blue stripe on the white sole, size five-and-a-half taste? Similar to coffee?"
James blushed and pushed the Marauders out the door. "Bye ladies."
The girls, posted at different (and oddly catalog-picture-like) spots all over the room, waggled their right hand's fingers. "Bye-bye!"
The Charms were removed and the girls continued to giggle and laugh.
"What were you thinking?" Sirius asked after a moment.
"I really don't know." James said. "Could you mind untying me now?"
The Marauders had tied up their leader on a chair in the middle of the room, so they could circle him and question him.
"We won't untie you until you confess your never-dying love for Aphrodite, and that you are perfectly fine with David being Lily's boyfriend and you would be completely alright if Lily hated you forever." Remus said simply. "We'll make it plain and simple- Lily won't want anything to do with you. You're not going to try to fix that. We're not going to try to fix that. Her friends are fine with letting you walk right into a fire. You have to promise us that you will love Aphrodite forever, and be polite to Lily and forget love."
"What?" James protested. "You lost me at 'completely hating me forever'. Why would she do that?"
"She'll find reasons. Whatever they are and no matter how unreasonable they are, she'll find them. And you're not going to ask for them." Ronan commanded.
"Okay, since when have you guys turned into the Emotions Nazis?" James asked, trying to stand up, but Munguldus pushed him right back down.
"Since when have you cared about Lily? If I remember correctly, you said yourself the girl was dangerous." Munguldus replied.
"Deal." James muttered sadly. His friends drew up a contract, and, at the bottom, in glistening gold and pink letters read:
And if I, James
Potter, the undersigned, ever feel as if any of Lily's boyfriends are horrible
for no reason, or that any stirring of my heart is for Lily, or that IF and
only IF she gives me reasons for hating me, I cannot pursue her for more. If I
do, something really, really bad will happen and my friends, undersigned
witnesses, will personally do something to me.
"It's what he said the first day of the last camp-out that got me so mad. And now this! Honestly. We're pulling down any photos or drawings of him and putting them away." Lily said. The girls groaned. "I'll change the password to something you'll never remember.." She said musically. Slowly they got up and began to carefully remove things from the walls and shelves.
There was a whole lot of silence. Mia came across a book on one of Lily's shelves and handed it to her. "What about this one?"
Lily smiled in spite of herself. That was her fifth year yearbook. Just like she had predicted, everyone wondered why all of James's Godric Hollow portraits were on the ground.
"Keep it."
Lily had broken herself out of a crush on James. She didn't meet the Marauders at half-past eight every morning, she met her Ravenclaw friends at eight-fifteen before heading for classes. But still, every Saturday morning, Coco would have to go up to Lily's room to yell her awake. And every Saturday morning, Lily would fall out of bed, saying, "I'm late! James is going to hold this over my head--.."
And then she would realize that she wasn't meeting him for breakfast anyway, and in a tumble of blankets and fluffy stuffed things, she would fall asleep again.
But this Saturday morning, Coco came up extra early. Not only did Lily have Quidditch practice, she wanted to see if Lily was really out of love with James. It must have been mid-October now, soon time for annoying Aphrodite to leave (oddly enough, she hadn't been around lately), and David had become more and more devoted to Lily by the hour.
"Lily.. Rise and shine.." Coco whispered.
"What time is it?" Lily muttered, pulling her silky-eye-cover off her head.
"Eight forty-five." Coco informed her, lying all the way.
"Fifteen more minutes, Coco.. Fifteen more minutes.." Lily muttered.
Coco hugged her like a bear. "It's a miracle, Lily! You did it! You fell out of love with James Potter!!!"
"Yes, yes.. Woo-hoo." Lily said sarcastically. "I need fifteen more minutes of sleep."
"Nope, you've got a Quidditch practice." Coco chirped perkily. "Let's get you glamed up so that you knock 'em dead!"
Lily did knock them dead. She was dead tired, but still, in the words of Coco, glam-o to the bone.
James noticed Lily nodding off and thought (and hoped) that Lily would ask for a ride on his broomstick, the best broomstick for fifty miles.
"A ride, milady?" He asked, hovering five feet above the ground, just about where her neck was.
"Why would I want a ride on your stupid broomstick if I've got one of my own?" She asked him.
James was shocked. Lily wasn't like this. Even her month of 'hating' him didn't result in this.
"Are you just going to sit on your broom like an inarticulate idiot?" She demanded. He kept staring at her. "Fine."
She shoved him off his broom and onto the ground, while mounting her own. "Later, Potter."
An hour later, Lily's voice was hoarse with orders. "Beaters- Perfect the Dooplebeater Defense! You're wonderful at it! Munguldus- Your Sloth Grip Rolls are getting better, but keep working on it.. Scrimmage!!! Chasers! Parkin's Pincer at five.. Four.. Three.. Two.. One!!!"
Coco walked onto the field proudly. "Congrats, Lil.. You really did it."
"She did it." James said. "I didn't think she'd do it."
"She has every reason to have a grudge against you. And you're in love with Aphrodite, remember?" Sirius asked him.
"Yes, yes, I remember. Damn.. I've got this prefects meeting to go to.. Later, Si." James said, taking off.
He tried to get his blazer off, and as soon as he had, there was a girl waiting to occupy it. Aphrodite.
Sirius would have recited Aphrodite's biography at the moment, if she had been a normal girl. Long brown hair, like waist-length long, big, almond-shaped black eyes with a hint of evil around them, full figure and tiny waist, five foot five, weighing in at exactly 202.2 kilograms or 101 pounds, interested in men, money and everything in between, has never worked a day in her life. If this information had been given to James, he would never have given her a second thought. But no, there was no Sirius to warn him, and he certainly was not going to listen to a certain redhead ex-friend of his.
"Fashionably late, James." Leola said as James entered twenty minutes past the time the meeting had been scheduled.
"Sorry." He muttered, sliding into a seat next to the closest female prefect he could find, which turned out to be Missy Appleby, an old ex of Sirius's. "What's the meeting about.. We had our monthly meeting already."
"The Halloween feast. We don't want to do a ball.. We have too many of those, and Dumbledore thinks next year will be the last one we do until there's something important to celebrate. However, there is the Hogsmeade Harvest Fair, we could do something with them." Said Snape from his spot next to Lily, who was looking very uncomfortable.
"A dance on the second-to-last night and a costume contest?" Suggested Lola, a fifth year Slytherin prefect.
"Agreed?" Asked Zahn, a Slytherin prefect, sixth year.
"No. Not quite." Chorused Lily and James. They glared at one another.
"Figures the Gryffindors would oppose to what we say." Snape muttered. Lily stuck her tongue out at him, having nothing more appropriate or articulate to say.
"It's not that, Snap- Severus. Its just contests are so boring without a twist. How about we only admit people into the final hours of the dance if their costumes fit to the judges' preferences, and there's some sort of king and queen? Or, we could just have the judges at the gates of the Harvest fair and only let people into the dance if their costumes are out of sight?" James suggested, Lily bobbing her head in agreement.
"So it was him, huh?" Snape muttered. She kicked him under the table.
"All in favor?" Asked Maxine, the fifth year Ravenclaw prefect.
"Aye." Everyone chorused, though the Slytherins were a little reluctant.
"I have to blow this Popsicle stand.. I'd love to help plan, but how 'bout I help out on the night of the dance?" Lily piped. "I've got to get to work. I'll make the announcements and the flyers."
She gave James a quick, suspicious peck on the cheek before leaving, then she popped out of sight.
"Apparation?" Lola asked.
"No.. Different form of Transfiguration." Leola said simply.
"Oh."
After five hours of non-stop running in circles, serving meals and drinks, and trying to convince Ilashi Patil that he was not indeed drunk, so he had to stop acting like it, Lily was finally relieved to take a break. And David, the one who had been loyal through it all, greeted her with a kiss and a nice cold drink.
"Thanks." Lily whispered, fixing her hair. "I have to convince Rosmerta not to make us wear these costumes."
"You look cute." David said honestly.
"But I'm cold, Mister Cashmere Sweater." Lily muttered. She waved her hand high over her head to greet her friends.
"I know you might know them, but here, the official introduction. Coco Chen, Jennifer Sheen, Clarisse Dubois, Mia O'Reilly, Diana Thermopolis, and Leola Suarez, you know David." Lily said formally as she got up from her seat to serve butterbeers to the people coming in.
"Lily!" Sirius called. "A lap dance!"
"Dream on, Si!" She called over the noise.
"I will! However, while I wait, how about five butterbeers?"
"Where's your sixth part?"
"Out to lunch, mentally and physically."
"Coming, then."
Lily waved her hand, having Charmed it in an experiment last week, and she reappeared by the Marauders' table with the drinks. "Here you go."
"Well, Lily.. Don't you wish I had killed him when I jumped on him?" Sirius asked as Lily jingled, serving the drinks.
"No, Sirius, he really is nice." Lily whispered, tweaking Sirius's nose like he was a little boy. "At least he hasn't asked me to put on his Ravenclaw Quidditch jacket."
"Yeah, then you'd be a backstabber and a cheating girlfriend." Munguldus muttered. She slapped the side of his head.
"Anything else, boys?" She asked in a loud voice.
"Make room for two." Came a familiar female voice.
Lily spun around to see Aphrodite under James's arm, wearing his Quidditch jacket. As James settled into the little booth, Lily hissed in Aphrodite's ear.
"Picking up after old friend's scraps again, Aphrodite? I knew you hadn't changed. You're just as much a slut as you ever were. Sorry, dear.. Did I say that? What I meant to say is that I wish I had never pitied you. You're going to break his heart and I'm going to beat you down." Lily muttered, but then, in a louder voice. "Got to go, Dite.. But have a nice day."
Aphrodite was semi-frozen. So Lily hadn't forgotten that the trick of the tongue and a plastered smile always got your way. Well, two can play that game. An evil smile played on Aphrodite's lips as Lily walked away, Transfiguring her clothes to something a little more her.
"May I have your attention please?" She asked in a loud voice. "You all know that the Hogsmeade Harvest Fair is coming up, right? Well, the last night, the night before the final day of the fair, Hogwarts and the Three Broomsticks are sponsoring a dance. In order to attend, you have to be wearing an outrageous, creative or knock-out costume, no matter what year you're in. The king and queen will be crowned by the end of the night. Spread the word to your first and second year friends! We will have an outrageous party!"
Lily disappeared into the crowd, and then Sirius said in a loud whisper, "James, what the hell is on your face?"
Aphrodite handed him a mirror, and James saw a huge, yellow covered zit on his cheek. Where Lily had kissed it.
"Evans!!!!" James shouted. "You'll pay for this!!"
"What is he shouting about, Lily?" Coco asked.
"You'll see." Lily whispered as she whipped out a camera with a zoom-in lens. "Just like everyone else."