A/N: Well, here's Chapter Nine! I'm really sorry that it took me so long to update, but I had writer's block for this story, and I also started up another one on my own and one with a friend (Snoopy 511 – she's a great author!) Once again, I want to say thanks to my reviewers, though I would have liked more... That's about it… so here's the next chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own the real Harry Potter characters – as in Lily, James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, some of the teachers, and a few other students whose names I have mentioned – but I do own the ones I've invented. I think that should be pretty clear for those of you who are familiar with the Harry Potter series. For those of you, who aren't, well, too bad.

*

"Sorry, James but I was… where is he?" Lily said out loud to herself. She had just run into the History of Magic classroom, five minutes later, and found that it was empty.

"And I thought he'd be waiting for me…" Lily muttered. She would have been there in three minutes, but it took her a while to find the classroom. She knew it was opposite the DADA room, but she wasn't sure as they were due to have their first class the following Tuesday. (A/N: September 1st isn't always a Monday… meaning that they wouldn't have started with a full week…) What surprised her even more was that James knew.

"Oh well… I guess the only thing I can do is sit here and wait."

What she didn't know, however, was that James Potter was in the room, and was observing her very closely from behind a curtain of silvery material – he was wearing his Invisibility Cloak. He did not want to disclose his possession of such a valuable item to Lily, but he merely wanted to use it to try and figure out what he thought of him. He had been constantly recollecting how she looked when she was angry and upset, and the memories stunned him. He didn't know why, even though something at the back of his head kept prodding him in the right direction. He refused to believe it. He couldn't. It was Lily. She wasn't like the girls he had met before, so why should he feel that way about her?

Who even said I have feelings for her? Why are such vile thoughts even crossing my mind? I'm only supposed to pretend, pretend being the key word in the sentence.

"Oh, when is he going to get here? Poor git, he probably forgot about the whole thing…That probably would be pretty easy for him, what with the swollen ego he has and the fact that he's nothing but a brainless git…" Lily said to herself. She had no idea that he was there as she was speaking, and at that, moment was fighting the urge to walk up to where she was sitting and kick her in the shins.

"But he's nice, I guess," she continued, much to James' surprise. "He voluntarily suggested that we help out each other, and he was also so nice to me during dinner that first night, even though he was a beast these past two days. I really don't know why I can't get along with him." At this, she sighed and shook her head. James was wondering if she realized that she was talking to thin air about him, but he reckoned not. He decided that he'd better make some sort of an 'entrance', before she started to wonder where he was, but stopped, because she was still talking.

One thing that neither of them knew was that James' friends happened to know that he was present under his Invisibility Cloak, though they could not see him either.

"Ouch, Peter be careful! Can't you see where you're going?" Remus whispered forcefully over to the heap of robes that was Peter. He had tripped over the hem of Remus' robes and had fallen flat on the floor.

"I'm sorry! But it isn't my fault if your robes are so long," Peter said defensively.

"Hush up both of you! We'll get caught," Sirius said, breaking up the argument. "Besides, Lily's talking again, and I can't here what she's saying while you two dunderheads are gibbering,"

"Oh, that's nice! You're nearly as loud –" Peter began, but he was hushed up when two hands were clamped firmly over his mouth.

"Hmm… I guess he's not going to show up after all. Stupid git, he might have told me he was going to forget! Or rather, I should have remembered, after what happened on Wednesday." (A/N: September 1st was a Wednesday that year. Just thought I should let you know.)

She had remembered very clearly that James had asked to speak to her after the feast, but unfortunately, neither of them had gotten the chance to talk to one another afterwards, as they were ushered upstairs by the Gryffindor prefects, Andrew Wilson and Eliza McCarthy. Both had apparently forgotten while going to bed, but had remembered that they were to meet some time after midnight, and had ran out at the same time and crashed into one another as they ran into the Common Room. The din had caused some of the students from both dorms to wake up. Eventually, the Prefects walked in and dispersed the crowds. Both Lily and James were flushed red from embarrassment at being the cause of the chaos in the middle of the night. Both of them were still teased once in a while by the incident.

"Stupid g – James, I was wondering when you'd get here," Lily said suddenly as she reached the door.

"Oh, sorry about that," she added, when she saw that he was massaging his forehead. They had knocked their heads together when they tried to walk through the door together.

"Oh, it's alright… I think. Sorry I was late," James said, grinning at her. She smiled weakly.

"So, I got some stuff from McGonagall's cupboard," he said as he dumped a few matches on the table.

"Okay, thanks, I guess. Um, so where do I start?" she said. As the two put their heads together (A/N: not literally!) and worked on Transfiguration, they didn't notice that Lily's friends were also in another corner of the room.

"Okay, are you guys ready?" Suzanne whispered to the other two.

"Suzie, I'm not sure if this is going to work," Pooja said quietly.

"Of course it will. I devised it, so how can't it work?" Suzanne said, a bit over-confidently.

"A variety of ways…" Sammy whispered to Pooja, who tried to stifle her giggles unsuccessfully.

"Oh, shut up you two. We'll get caught in the act of making history. Are you guys ready?" Suzanne repeated.

"Yeah, we're ready, Suzie," Sammy said, winking.

"Okay, Sammy, you cover Lily, and Pooja, you keep your wand on those matches," Suzanne instructed.

"And what are you going to do?" asked Sammy with her eyebrow raised.

"Supervise, what else would I do? I dare say it'll be hard for you to follow my instructions as carefully as I would like you to, so I'm going to make sure that you do so," Suzanne said shortly.

"Yeah, sure you are –" Pooja began, but stopped when she saw the glare that Suzanne gave her.

In the opposite corner of the room, the boys were doing something quite similar.

"Okay, men, be ready to fire when the time is right," Sirius said.

"Fire, what do you mean fire? Are we supposed to shoot them or something?" Peter asked, befuddled by his speech.

"You're not supposed to take it literally, nitwit! Now pay attention, they're about to start," Remus explained. The three boys and girls in hiding prepared to take close watch on what they were to do.

"Remember, Pooja, only charm them when Lily's bending over it. That way, she'll think that James did it. We don't necessarily want James to get mad at her. That'll make things hard. Remember, only when Lily's trying, not when James is. We want Lily to get mad, not James. Remember –"

"I know, Suzie! I know! We've been through it nearly ten times, for goodness sake!"

"Shut it, you two," Sammy called from where she was squatting so that she could watch the boy and girl in a well-hidden spot.

"Alright, now the art of Transfiguration is very simple to understand, as well as do. At least, it is like that for some people," James added when he saw the look Lily gave him.

"Okay, will you stop acting like a walking encyclopedia and just get to it? Jeez… and I thought listening to Professor Binns was the most boring thing on earth," Lily said, a small smile on her face.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't have to rub it in. But, alright, I'm sorry if I affected your usual bedtime, your highness," James answered sarcastically. Lily rolled her eyes, but giggled all the same. James normally hated giggles, since when girls usually did it around him, it was meant for attraction. In Lily's case, however, it was sincere and not as 'bubbly', and therefore he didn't mind.

"So, basically all you need to do is make sure that you're pointing your wand at the matchstick, nowhere else or it won't work, and make sure you saw the incantation correctly. Watch –"

Lily watched as James whispered the magic words, and within milliseconds, the match Lily had been holding up for him had turned silvery and pointy.

"Ooh, let me try!" Lily said excitedly. She picked up her wand and James held up a match for her. She pointed her wand at the match, opened her mouth wide to say the incantation, and then stopped.

"What's wrong?" asked James.

"I – uh, do you think you could tell me the incantation again? I, well, I forgot."

"Jeez, Lily, it is Transfirthreesio, remember?" James said, looking at her in disbelief.

"Oh, right, thanks, I'm just short of memory right now."

"Uh huh…" James said unsure.

"Okay, here goes: Transfirthreesio!"

"Go, Pooja, do your stuff! Remember, you're charming the match!"

"Come on Pete, you can do it! Remember, aim for the match!"

There was a small flash of light and the match emerged – as an abnormal object that neither Lily nor James had ever seen before. It looked like a cross between a match and a needle, that is, like a match, it had a bump that could be lighted, but at the end that should have been the handle it had gone round and had an eye. In between, it was a mixture of colors and materials: wood and metal, silver and brown.

"Oh, screw it! Pooja, how could you mess up?" Sammy whispered, after which she swore so badly that Suzanne had to cover her mouth with her hand in a frenzy to shush her up.

"Jeez, Sammers, you don't have to swear! It wasn't my fault. Lily probably messed up too, and I could have sworn that someone else did something too…" Pooja said thoughtfully. But Suzanne made her thoughts crash down again.

"Someone else said something too? I've never heard such nonsense! You two must be the most messed up people on the planet! Really, you think someone else has come up with the remarkable plan that only someone with genius like mine could come up with?" Suzanne asked.

"Uh, by the kind of genius you have, do you mean no intelligence at all?" Sammy asked, with her finger tapping her chin.

"Oh, shut up."

"Well, gee, Lily, I guess you're halfway there," James said, turning his head this way and that.

"Oh, why on earth can't I do it right?" asked Lily, exasperated. No matter what James said, Lily felt that Transfiguration was the hardest subject in existence.

"You're probably not trying hard enough. Come on, this is why I brought us so many matches."

"Remus, it's not my fault that it messed up. Please don't yell at me!" Peter said, cowering with fright in another corner of the room.

"Jeez, Pete, I'm not going to eat you or something. Now sit up straight!"

"Aw, now look what you did, Remy! Poor Pete's scared of you, now," Sirius said in a baby voice.

"Grr, can't you people stop mimicking me?" Remus asked, annoyed. "If you want to carry this thing through we'd better concentrate and not fool around. Get the picture?"

"Yes, Mother!" Peter said, with a childish smile on his face. Remus just groaned.

"No, no, no, you're doing it all wrong! Here, let me show you again," James' voice, said, as he grew more and more frustrated. This time, it appeared as though James missed the target, for as soon as he spoke, the ring on Lily's finger turned into a slug.

"Eck, James, get it off me! Get it off me! Get it off me, now!" squealed Lily.

"Alright, alright, just stand still. I can't imagine why my aim went wrong…"

"Because you're a brainless git, that's why, Mr. Potter! That was my favorite ring, you hear. And now you've gone and transfigured it into a slug! Eck, you'd better change it back, before I hex you!" Lily said, her hands on her hips, or rather, one on her hip as she tried to shake the slug off her other one.

"I am not a brainless git! You got in the way!" James said defensively. Things were not going as planned.

"Just get the slug off me, and stop arguing." James couldn't think of anything to say to this, so he complied with her requests.

"Now, show me again," Lily directed.

"Pooja, did you do that?" asked Suzanne.

"No, did you?"

"No… Sammy, did you do something?"

"Nope, I didn't do anything, either."

"Strange, I guess you were right after all, Pooja. But who could be trying to do the same thing we are?" Suzanne said her brow wrinkling as she pondered the answer to her own question. The three girls were silent for a while as they thought who could be hiding in the room too.

"I think I know who," Sammy said, breaking the silence. From her hiding spot, she pointed to a corner that was hidden by another bookshelf, but was near a mirror. In the mirror, however, they could see the reflection of three strangely familiar boys…

"Those gits, what are they doing here?" Suzanne asked.

"They're probably here for the same reason we are," Pooja answered.

"I know. That was meant as a rhetorical question."

"Okay, we didn't come here for a lesson in proper English. Now pay attention," Sammy said, breaking their conversation before it turned into an argument.

Sighing, the other two turned back to watching Lily mess up, James get frustrated, and the boys murmur spells.

"Hey, I just got an idea!" Sammy exclaimed after a few minutes of trial and errors – trial on Lily's part to transfigure the matches and error on the parts of the girls. So far, only the boys had managed to do anything right.

It was a sign as to how bored the girls were that they didn't answer, but merely turned their heads in her direction.

"How about instead of trying to hex them and charm them ourselves, we'll hex the guys? How does that sound?" Sammy asked.

"It makes sense, but what's the point?" asked Pooja.

"Oh, that would work, I guess, but then we wouldn't get anywhere with Lily and James," Suzanne stated.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, Suzie."

"What about me? Aren't I right too?" asked Pooja, looking from one of her friends to the other.

"Of course I'm right."

"You're not completely right, though," Sammy responded.

"Is anyone listening to me?"

"How am I not completely right?"

"Simple – we could always make it look as though the guys are in charge of all of Lily's failures, making it so that Lily hates James' friends, and James will probably try to back them up –" Sammy tried to explain.

"And then Lily will hate James too! If it works, that is."

"Will someone please listen to me?"

"It'll work. But we've got to make sure they don't see us. If we can see their reflection in the mirror, there's a high chance that they can see us just as easily," Sammy said, peeking cautiously around the corner of the bookshelf.

"Let's just hope they're not that smart."

"Hello is anyone home, or have I disappeared into thin air?" Pooja said a little too loudly.

"Shush, Pooja, they'll hear you," Sammy said, waving her hand at her.

"Oh great, just great – you don't hear me until I speak loud enough, and even then all you do is tell me to shush up. That's just great, perfectly great."

"Be quiet, Pooja!"

At this, she just slouched down in the corner, folder her arms across her chest, and watched her two white friends as they planned their course of action. She had half a mind to leave.

"Okay, Pooja, know, when I tell you, you've got to send a tickling charm across the room at Peter, okay?" Sammy whispered back to her.

"How am I supposed to do that? I can't even see him," Pooja complained.

"Stop whining, Poo. Just point it at his reflection so that it bounces off the mirror and hits him!" Suzanne explained.

"Oh, I get it now, Suzie. Okay, operation tickler is underway!" she said excitedly.

"Not yet, Pooja, don't do it yet!"

"I'm not! Jeez, get a hold of yourself. Don't you trust me to do the right thing?"

"Not particularly…"

She just glared at them before turning back to watch the others in the room.

"Okay Lily, let's try once more. Remember, aim is one of the most important things, besides saying the spell right, of course. Come on, Lily, you have to get it this time," James said, though he didn't seem to believe what he was saying.

"Al – Alright, here goes," Lily said, doubting her abilities as much as James was.

This time, however, both the girls and the boys were prepared.

"Remember Peter; point at the matches, or at Lily. And try not to make anything too bad happen…" Remus reminded him constantly.

"Okay, okay, already… Jeez, you'd think you were sending me off to the first Triwizard Tourney or something. But why do I have to do this, Remus?" Peter pleaded.

"Pete, you know we can always depend on you to do something wrong. That's why," explained Sirius, grinning. But his grin faded slightly at the look Remus gave him and since Peter looked even more downcast than usual. "Come on Pete, you can do it."

"Okay, I'll try," he said doubtfully.

Across the room, the girls were having their own debate.

"Here, Pooja, I'll do it. You're hopeless…," groaned Sammy.

"I'm not hopeless, it's just that you too don't have any faith in me and don't offer any encouragement!" she squealed back.

"Hush, Pooja, they'll hear us!" Suzanne squealed back.

"Okay, but I'm gonna get James first," said Sammy, trying to break up the arguments. She steadied herself, and whispered a few words. At the same time, Peter murmured the incantation that they had chosen. Sparks flew – literally.

Lily found that her usually auburn hair had a strange green stripe going through it, and it didn't seem to be a part of her normal hair. Strangely enough, it seemed to be breathing.

"James, what did you do?" Lily squealed as she felt her head, but as she looked at him, she couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"What's so funny? And have I grown a beard or something?" James asked, feeling his face.

"You'd better look over in the mirror over there," Lily said between breaths. As James looked into the mirror, he let out a cry that made everyone else in the room jump.

"I'm – I'm – I'm a primate! Damn it, what did you do to me, Lily? You've transfigured me instead of the stupid match! Jeez, you can do Transfiguration, you just need to work on your aim," James screamed.

"Well, that's nice! I'm the one with the living slime in my hair!" she screamed back at him.

"Oh, isn't it? In case you didn't notice, I complimented you! But all you care about is your bad hair day," he said, turning back to look at her.

"Oh, really, somehow, I couldn't sense the fact that you were actually trying to be nice! It seemed as though you were putting me down… for a change!" she said hotly.

"Well, that certainly shows a little of your true intelligence, doesn't it?" James snapped back.

"Whoa… I really think we made them fight this time. But what's with the slime in her hair?" asked Suzanne.

"Wow, are you telling me that the Super-Smart Suzie doesn't know what happened? I'm shocked!" Pooja said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Shut up!" Suzanne barked.

"It's the stupid gits… they certainly helped us, anyhow. But we'd better get that tickling charm over. I don't care what you say, Suzanne, but I'm getting Sirius back," Sammy said.

"What are you getting him back for?" Suzanne asked, puzzled.

"I'm getting him back for the last seven and a half years, as well as for all the insults he's thrown at me and Lily – that's what."

Suzanne and Pooja just looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders. Sammy, her eyes shining, muttered the words with her wand pointed to Sirius' reflection in the mirror. Unfortunately, there was a sudden obstruction that she hadn't anticipated.

"Well, if that's what you think, fine! I'm leaving!" Lily yelled back at James. She proceeded to walk out of the door, making the boys scramble around for a place to hide in their corner, but they soon stopped and stared at her. Sammy's Tickling Charm had hit her instead, and before long, Lily was bent over double, wheezing and giggling for all she was worth.

"Lily, what happened?" James asked, shocked. Due to his inexperience in Charms, he couldn't understand what she was doing.

"I – don't – know!" she said between breaths. "You – cursed – me – or – something. Stop – it!"

"I didn't do anything! Jeez, talk about unfounded accusations," James said, a little pissed that she was constantly accusing him for anything and everything that happened to her.

"Just – do – something – already!" she squealed. Getting tickled once in a while was bad enough, but when it happened for a few minutes on end it got slightly painful.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop it – Finite Incantatem," he whispered. Almost immediately, she stopped, and looked up.

"Stupid idiot, why did she get in the way?" Sammy said.

"She didn't try to, dummy! If she knew you were going to hex Sirius, she would have probably given you a clear shot!" Suzanne snapped.

"Oh, shut up," Pooja said the two of them, glad that for a change she wasn't causing the problems.

Lily on the other hand, was throwing as many insults as she could think of at him.

"You idiot, you say you're trying to help me, and then you hex me! What kind of a teacher are you?" she yelled.

"It's not my fault that you can't do Transfiguration! You're the jerk who can't even do the easiest subject in existence!" James snapped back.

"Hey, I can do Charms! Who needs Transfiguration anyway? It's useless!" she screamed.

"What the hell do you mean? Transfiguration is like the basis for magic! You're just too thick to notice!"

"What do you mean? You stink, you now that?" she snapped at him. With that, she walked out – for real.

James blinked, staring at the spot where she had been standing seconds ago. Then, he said to himself, "Jeez, talk about feisty. She might at least have said sorry for turning me into a monkey." Slowly, and silently, he walked out to class.

*

A/N: So that's it! Once again, sorry it took me so long to update, but this chapter got really long and I kind of had writer's block… boo hoo… and plus I didn't get very many reviews (hint, hint!) So, please review! I might write faster then. :)