A/N: Sorry for the delay in this chapter! I've just had tons of shit to do, and I wasn't entirely sure where I was going with this. But I am now! *grins* I hope I'll appease your anger at the wait by making this a bit longer :)

Just a heads up: James and Lily now hate each other. It gets kind of explained later on in the chapter, but basically Lily thinks James is a pompous, self-absorbed freak, and James…doesn't like Lily because she thinks he's a pompous, self-absorbed freak :-D

R/R!

***

Lily made her way quickly through the throng of chattering people in the hallway. With muttered excuses of "sorry," she dodged and ducked, hoping to make it to Potions on time.

The bell rang just as she stepped into the classroom, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Vibrance spotted her and tapped the seat nearby eagerly. Professor Gekkon was standing at his desk, arranging some papers. Lily was thankful he had not noticed her - he would have assigned a detention had she not been in her seat a minute before the bell rang!

"Late again?" Vi asked with a twinkle in her eye.

"Not this time!" Lily protested as she sat down.

"Uh huh. Probably 'cause you ran the whole way. I'm thinkin' Blake was particularly - "

She was interrupted by the loud slap of a ruler against the desk.

"Do you have something you'd like to share with the class, Ms. Whistarre?" Professor Gekkons asked venomously.

"Uh…no, sir!" Vibrance said quickly. "Sorry, Professor, I was just discussing, er…my - my average! In this class, I mean. Not any other class, of course, because you know I would never dream of talking about anything other than potions, because it's just my favorite subject, and - "

"ENOUGH!" the professor roared. His face had turned a brilliant shade of red from anger, which would be quite comical had it not been so horrifying from where Vibrance was sitting. "Ten points from Gryffindor for speaking out of line, and another five for cheek. I require a certain amount of respect in my classroom, and I will get it. Is that quite clear to you, Ms. Whistarre?"

"Yes, Professor," Vibrance muttered sullenly.

Professor Gekkon gave her one last evil look before turning on his heel in satisfaction and heading back to his desk, lecturing about some potion Lily did not care about.

"Prick," Vi muttered.

Lily grinned sympathetically at her before turning to fix her eye on the professor. However much she felt for her friend, she was not about to earn herself a reprimand from this…tomato-face, lizard tongued, larger-than-Jupiter - well, prick. She scratched down notes, although she had no clue what on earth he was talking about.

Remus'll help me with it, she thought hopefully.

It had been an interesting year in many respects, so far. The first month of school had already come and gone, and a lot had happened to Lily in that short period of time. Like the goddamn 'womanly cycles,' she thought grimly. The lessons were already markedly harder than they had been in either first or second years, the teachers meaner and much more likely to hand out detentions at the blink of an eye.

Still, Lily had her friend to count on - she didn't know what she'd do without them - and there was always Blake.

"Lily Evans!" Professor Gekkon called suddenly.

"Yes, Professor?" Lily asked. She quickly reviewed what she had just subconsciously registered form his lecture.

"What is the key ingredient to making a black-eye potion?"

"Um…that would be three drops…three drops of a - of a werewolf's saliva!" she cried triumphantly.

"Very good, Miss Evans. Five points to Gryffindor. Now, who can tell me what must be done so that the potion can be properly completed? Yes, you in the back, what's your name? Gregory. Go ahead, Gregory…"

Lily's thoughts drifted away, carried by the flow of the Professor's droning voice. Where was she? Oh, Blake.  It had been funny, really. Throughout all second year, the two of them had been good friends - very good friends. Arabella had winked, Sha had nudged, and Vi had all but squealed around the two of them. Lily shifted her shoulders a little uncomfortably. As much as she loved her friends, the fact that they were so into her and Blake's relationship bothered her a little. But, she thought rationally, they'll grow out of it when they get their own boyfriends. Besides, I'm just being a little possessive.

Blake had asked her out only a few days after school had started, and she had been happy to say yes. Not that it'd been unexpected, of course…Blake wasn't very circumspect about those things. But the two now spent every spare moment cuddling in corners and sneaking kisses when possible - the very model of two teenagers still giddy with each other.

And I hope it stays that way forever, Lily thought sappily.

Vibrance glanced at Lily from the corner of her eye and quirked her lips into a smile. The latter blushed red, sure Vi knew exactly what she was thinking. How did she do that? Lily spent the rest of the class looking very attentively at Professor Gekkons and scribbling down some notes. She'd have plenty of time for other thoughts later.

After class, Arabella and Sha caught up with Vi and Lily in the hallway. All four were headed for the divination classroom, which was almost as far as you could get from the dungeons where potions where taught. Still, they walked slowly and talked about everything; Professor Dehlaney did not seem to care if students came in as much as ten minutes late, so long as they managed to read something in tea leaves or crystal balls.

"Spill," Vibrance ordered without preamble.

Lily blushed again and shifted the books in her arms. "There's not much to tell," she said slowly. "After Transfiguration, he just…kissed me. A little. And told me he loved me. And then I left." She thought that sounded a bit curt, but there was no other way of putting it without going into…explicit detail. The other girls, though, didn't seem to mind.

"That's so cute," Arabella squealed.

"Yeah, and I'll bet you left out a lot of valuable information between 'he kissed me' and 'a little,'" Sha said with an evil grin.

Vibrance smiled at Lily. "I think he really likes you, Lils."

"I hope so!" Lily said a little too loudly.

"Yeah, he definitely does," Arabella said offhandedly. She scanned the crowd, looking for someone. "I could've sworn…Look, there he is! Hey, Sirius! Over here!"

Sirius, a couple feet away, gave a start then waved and grinned to the four girls. He turned to say something to Remus and James, who were also with him. Peter also gave the girls a smile and hitched up his books. Divination was the only class all eight of them had together.

"Hey Bella!" Sirius chirped when the girls had finally reached him. "Hey Vibrance, Sha…" He gave an exaggerated wink. "Hey, Lils!"

Lily laughed and gave him a look of mock warning. "Careful, Sirius! I have a boyfriend and I don't think he'd appreciate your flirting."

Sirius grimaced. "You're right, I should try my luck elsewhere. I am, as of now, rather attached to my limbs. Don't want to have them ripped out, you know."

"Yeah," James said. He smirked at Lily. "That boyfriend of hers is freakishly strong. I don't understand why he's so defensive of Lily, anyway - it's not exactly worth it."

Lily looked at him condescendingly. "Look, Jamesie-poo, just because he's a bit more buff than you'll ever be, doesn't mean you have to be so jealous of him!" She patted his arm and gave him a sickeningly sweet smile. "After all, you can always get by on your brains when your looks fail! I mean…wait! I forgot you don't have any!"

Remus rolled his eyes expressively and yanked Lily away. He certainly had no problem competing with Blake. "Cut it out, you guys!" he said with the sound of someone repeating something for the fiftieth time.

"Yeah, seriously," Sha said nonchalantly. "If you guys were any more hostile, I could almost think you luuuuuurve each other!"

Arabella barked a laugh and Peter snickered a little at this. Lily scowled.

"That's real mature, Sha," she said sarcastically.

Sha grinned at her cheekily. "But it's true!"

"You guys," Peter interjected, "We're already going to be several minutes late. Can we try not to make it any more than that?"

"Quiet, Peter," Sirius exclaimed. "This is way more fun than Divination! Don't you agree, Arabella?"

"Oh, definitely, Sirius! I definitely agree…with Peter. We should really get going," Arabella said.

James shrugged. "Not like we learn anything in that class anyway, but…yeah, let's go."

Lily scowled once more at him for good measure before walking next to Vibrance at the very farthest she could get from James.

"I don't know why you hate him so much," Vi said in a low voice. "The rest of the female population seems to think he's some sort of god."

Lily snorted. "Exactly! He's so self-absorbed and arrogant! He thinks the whole bloody world revolves around him, and doesn't give a shit about other people."

"You know that's not true!" Vi said indignantly. "He definitely cares about Remus, and Peter and Sirius. Not to mention Arabella, Sha, and me. And what about Vanessa?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "What about her?" she spat. "He pretends to like her just so he can make out with her every opportunity he gets, and then dumps her within a week! Only to get some other poor sap who's too fluff-brained to realize James Potter isn't what people think he is!"

"Lily," sighed Vi in exasperation, "why don't you have more tolerance for people?"

"I have plenty of tolerance for people," Lily retorted. "But none for James Potter."

She moved then to chat with Arabella and Sha, as well as exchange a few bantering words with Sirius, who always jumped at any opportunity to flirt outrageously with her and Arabella. Lily suspected he flirted with her specifically because she was dating someone. As for Arabella, however, she had no idea why Sirius would take interest in her. Then again, she shouldn't be surprised…Sirius was the biggest flirt in the year, except the few times when James was single.

Professor Dehlaney looked at the group vaguely when they finally entered the room. She did not seem to register anything about them, only that they were an interruption to her class.

"I sense a disturbance in the waves of destiny," she said mysteriously. "Something great will happen. Something great, and yet insignificant. Evil, but good. It will happen soon, but who knows? Perhaps it will happen late."

A few girls who were easily impressed by the teacher's words began tittering in the back. Lily rolled her eyes expressively and leaned over to Sha.

"That's just vague enough to work!" she whispered. Sha stifled a laugh behind her hand.

Professor Dehlaney made a great show of blinking and twisting her head around, feigning surprise. She brought a beringed hand dramatically to her forehead.

"I must have slipped into a daze… The inner eye knows no time, children. It may see when you least expect," she said in a hushed voice.

Sirius gave the girls a poke and began mimicking the Professor silently, only adding a hefty amount of eye-twitching. He finished by falling dramatically to the ground and giving one last spasm. Arabella and Sha couldn't help themselves - they erupted into laughter.

"Something you find amusing, Ms. Figg? Ms. Brown?" asked Professor Dehlaney in an icy voice.

"Yes," Sha said boldly. She jabbed Arabella (who was still laughing) sharply in the ribs with her elbow, causing the latter to fall to the ground sputtering. "Our inner eyes predict amusement in the near future. A good joke, you know. You know about jokes, don't you, Professor?"

Professor Dehlaney gave her a withering stare - one that Sha chose to ignore - and adjusted her purple shawl.

" You obviously do not understand the depths that the Eye delves into. Why, it would be too much for your untrained mind to handle. The Eye does not make jokes, my dear child. You must have misinterpreted," she lectured.

"Sure it does!" Sirius said brightly. "Just the other day, in fact - "

"That's enough, Mr. Black!" Professor Dehlaney snapped. "I will hear no more on the matter!" She twitched at her shawl once more and looked at the rest of the class. "Today, we will begin palmistry. It is not so difficult as some other aspects of Divination, but it does require a certain amount of focus. You will partner up to begin, and I expect it to be done quickly. Begin…now!"

There was a flurry of movement in the classroom. Remus and Peter paired off with little more than a flicker of the eye and Vi and Sha did the same. Several of the other students had already formed their pairs. Arabella, inexplicably, grabbed at Sirius' arm and raised an eyebrow. Sirius gave her a cheeky grin and looked at James apologetically. Before she quite knew what was happening, Lily was by herself while the rest of the class picked some pillows to sit on. Almost by herself. One other person seemed to be without a partner, and that person was -

"Mr. Potter, find a partner and sit down, please."

James grimaced and looked around desperately. Deciding to take his chances, he said, "There's no one left, Professor. Can I join with Remus and Peter?"

"Don't be daft, Potter," said Professor Dehlaney impatiently. "Miss Evans is standing right there. Now the two of you better sit down before I lose my temper!"

Lily scowled at him and went to sit in the only available space, which was a considerable distance from her nearest friend. James looked positively murderous as he sat down as far away as possible from her while still being in the same general area. 

"Now that that's settled," said the professor, "we can begin. Take you partner's hand and notice the lines in his or her palm."

Lily and James eyed each other like strange cats for a moment. Finally, Lily sighed in exasperation and stuck out her hand so quickly she almost slapped James. Her small smirk told him it was not entirely accidental. He held her wrist with his thumb and index finger and tugged.

"Ow! That hurts, Potter!" she muttered.

"It's supposed to," he snarled back.

"Now," Professor Dehlaney said loudly, shooting them a warning look, "notice the line depicted on page 42 of your books. This is the longevity line. Observe how long it is, according to what's written, and inform your partner. Then try to notice any oddities in the line. This shows exciting or meaningful events in your partner's life. I will give you a few minutes to do this, then we will move on to the next important line."

James glanced at his open book on the ground. "Looks like you'll be dead by tomorrow!" he said in a happy voice.

"Ha ha, Potter," Lily said sarcastically. "You're bloody hilarious, you know that?"

"Yeah, I do," he said casually.

Lily rolled her eyes. "What about oddities? Notice any of those?" She tried to look at her hand closer but James yanked it away from her. Lily glared at him. "Come on, Potter, just do something right for once in your miserable life!"

James bared his teeth at her in something that was obviously not intended to be a smile. "I'm getting there, my bonfire-haired friend," he said mockingly. Lily looked menacingly at him and he quickly looked down at her hand. "Um…ok. Here…that'd be - " he glanced at his book again - "a few years from now, I guess, your line branches out. And then after that, there's a little skip…thing. And more branching out. And then it gets all thin and weird looking. Like every other bloody line on your bloody hand."

"Thank you, Jamesie," Lily gushed, doing a fairly good impression of all the other girls in third year. "That was like, sooooo informative!"

"I know it was," James said blandly. He looked across the room, obviously hoping to get some sympathy from his friends, but Remus and Peter were behind another group and Sirius was thoroughly engrossed in Arabella's hand. Lily was almost positive he would be making allusions to himself throughout the whole longevity palm reading.

"All right, your time is up," said the professor after a few more moments of glaring between Lily and James. "I hope that was very informative for you all, and that you used your book in order to interpret what you saw." Lily gave James a flat look at this, and he gave her a disarming grin. She sniffed. "Now," Professor Dehlaney continued, "please switch roles and do the same for your partner. I'll give you less time, this time - you must become accustomed to seeing these things without having to look them up."

Lily reached out to grab James' wrist, and he quickly twitched it away from her. She reached out for it again, and he pulled it a little further.

"Potter, you git," she said through gritted teeth, "why don't you just give me your fucking hand so we can get this over with? I really don't like this anymore than you do, but I intend to get a good grade in this CLASS!"

At "class," she leaped forward and tried to grab his hand again. James had anticipated this, though, and quickly leaned back. Lily, carried by her momentum and unable to stop, landed squarely on James, winding him for a moment. He gasped for breath and stopped moving his hand away. Lily jumped at this occasion and grabbed his wrist before giving him a final punch in the ribs for good measure. James grunted and narrowed his eyes at her. She grinned at him.

"I hate you, Evans," he muttered, and spat in her face.

Lily laid on him, stunned, for a moment, then let out a deafening shriek and grabbed his hair in a death grip. She twisted it fiercely and yanked on it as hard as she could. James snarled at her and kneed her in the stomach. She rolled off him with a groan, and he pounced atop her.

"Children!" Professor Dehlaney shouted. "Children, stop this at once!"

Lily and James were past caring, though, being too engrossed on unleashing all the hate they had between them…on each other. James grinned nastily at Lily. He kept her pinned with a knee on each of her shoulders, straddling her. He made an elaborate show of licking his hand before spitting in it. And spitting in it again. And again.

"You like palmistry, do you?" he asked threateningly. "Well why don't you HAVE SOME MORE?"

He stuck his hand in Lily's face, rubbing it harshly. Lily let out another screech and bit his hand. Hard. He yelled and tried to pull it loose, but she held on grimly. Her hands, however, were still pinned, so she writhed futilely beneath him, trying to provoke more damage. 

At this point, the whole class was watching with ill-concealed interest, and none more so than Sirius. He hooted and pumped his fist in the air.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!" he shouted gleefully. "Let's go, you guys! Show us what you've got! James, use your other hand and - "

He was silenced by a slap from Sha, but not before having infuriated Lily and James even more. Lily was getting desperate, though. Her arms were useless, and James had begun using his other hand to punch her in the ribs. All of the sudden, an idea struck her. She tugged hard with her teeth, then let go. James was surprised by this and momentarily leaned back. That was all Lily needed.

With a wordless shout, she hooked her right leg around James' neck. James' eyes popped and he fell back with her leg, freeing both her arms. Sensing victory, Lily leaped on him once more and began pummeling him with her fists.

"STOP THIS AT ONCE!" shouted Professor Dehlaney. She had placed a sonorous charm on her voice, and combined with the shouting, this made the students' ears ring. Lily stopped mid-punch and rolled off James as fast as she could. Her hair was in every direction, her fingers bruised, and her face flamed redder than her hair.

"I have never - never, in all my years of teaching, witnessed such a  - such an OUTRAGE!" Professor Dehlaney all but shook with indignation. Her face was redder than Lily's, but for a much different emotion. The entire class was dead silent. Lily flinched, and even James looked a bit cowed.

"Detention!" the professor screeched. "Detention for both of you! A month of detention! And thirty points from each of your houses! Thirty! I can assure you the Headmaster will hear of this!"

Lily's jaw dropped. Thirty points each? That was sixty points from Gryffindor! She hung her head in shame.

"Now. You will leave at once for the hospital wing. I expect twice the amount of parchment for your homework, which you will need to obtain from someone else. Go!"

Lily and James scuttled out, embarrassed and defeated.

***

After they had been healed of their injuries - a great deal of bruises, and some bleeding from James, as well as a dull ache on his scalp - Lily and James sat with their respective friends for dinner. Remus, Peter, Sirius, and the girls had agreed it might be best to keep James and Lily apart for a while to let them cool off (usually, they would all sit together.)

Lily was silent as she chewed, but Vi could almost see a stormcloud above her head. Her features were much too smooth.

"So," Arabella said tentatively. "How about them quidditch players!"

Lily gave her a death glare and returned to her food. Arabella coughed in her hand.

"Oook," she said. "Maybe not."

Sha snorted. "Stop sulking, Lily, it makes you ugly. Personally, I think you kicked some serious ass! And you would have kicked more if that old bat hadn't intervened."

Lily smiled a tiny bit at this. "Yeah, I would have," she admitted, no bothering to keep the smugness from her voice. "But…what about those sixty points?"

Arabella waved her hand dismissively. "Who cares? Sure, people'll be mad at you for a while…but let's face it, Gryffindor is the house that sucks up the most. We'll win those points back, no sweat. And we have the best quidditch team, if you ask me."

"Yeah," Vibrance said. "Especially since our chaser is Ja-"

Sha kicked her in the shin, but not before Lily had heard.

"Especially since our chaser is James bloody Potter," she spat, bristling like an angry cat. "God, I hate him."

For once, Vi kept her mouth shut about tolerance of others, sensing that a mention of it would likely send Lily into hysterics. Instead, she picked a dessert off the table and started eating it, pretending not to have heard.

"Well that's all fine and dandy," said Sha, "but you still have that detention to worry about. I can imagine it won't be too much fun…and it's a month long."

Lily grimaced. "I know. A month with that brat. And I bet I'll need to go see Dumbledore, too. Is it just me, or does he make bad things happen to me?"

Sha and Arabella wisely kept their mouths shut at this comment, and Vibrance changed the subject.

"Yeah, well. There's no point in whining about it now, and I know you know that, Lily," she said, picking another dessert from the rich assortment. Lily wondered how she managed to stay so thin. "You should try to think about - "

She was interrupted when Remus' head popped in between her and Lily.

"Hey," he said quietly to Lily. "Dumbledore wants to see you and James now. He's right over there."

***

A/N: Oooooooh, cliffhanger. Teeheeheeheeehee. Sorry if I went a little overboard on the fighting, but it was just so much fun to write!! Heh. Please write me a friendly review, and I will love you forever. *blows kisses*