rA/n; Chapter 18! I cannot believe that this story has gotten so long! Ok, so recap here: Lily and James aren't friends anymore. They're sort of like unspoken enemies, you know? Anyway, now we pick up in their fourth year where things really start happening. Big, big, BIG things! Bear with me while I describe all of their new physical characteristics, you know, the ones that make Lily and James seem really preppy and stuff? LOL. Plus, we meet up with Sabrina and Misty again; sorry I've been sort of skimping on them!
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| Fourth Year |
"POTTER!" Lily Evans yelled loud enough for the entire breakfast hall to hear.
"Just another ordinary day…" Sirius Black commented.
"In the life of Lily," Remus Lupin finished.
"You'd better run, James," Sirius advised as Lily stalked over to their table. James gulped and ran out of the room in record speed.
"Where's James, that sneaky little rat?" Lily snarled, flipping the tablecloth over their breakfast to see where James had hidden.
"What're you talking about?" Remus asked, going rather unsuccessfully for a look of innocence. He tried also not to notice her once-red hair, which was now a mass of piled up blue hair with yellow zigzags.
"Don't defend your doomed friend, Remus!" Lily threatened, looking up from her search.
"Yeah Remus! Don't defend – yes! Do not defend James, Lily will definitely get to him!" Sirius said loudly in a convincing tone. He winked over exaggeratedly at Remus over Lily's back.
"Don't be daft –" Remus started but was briefly quieted as Sirius's leg connected with his shin. He let out a loud yell and a few unsavory words.
Lily jerked up like a marionette on taut strings. "James isn't here, is he?"
Sirius blanched. "What're you talking about? Of course he's here!"
Remus shot Sirius a confused look but smiled when Lily looked at him. The hair was really getting to him.
"No, he's not! You two wouldn't be so impassive if he was here!" Lily said, using one of her big words again.
"Listen lady, I may not know what 'impassive' means but he's not here! He ran out," Sirius said pointing and not knowing what he was saying, "that way!"
Lily suddenly whooped triumphantly and Remus groaned, burying his face in his hands. "Sirius, you're an utter hopeless idiot."
"What'd I do?" Sirius asked confused. His eyes widened and he clamped his hands over his mouth, cursing.
"Thanks Siri," Lily said with a smirk. She nearly skipped out of the hall, with all eyes watching Lily Evans with blue hair.
The corridor outside of the hall was nearly deserted, save a few students scrambling to make it to breakfast before lessons. Three of those people, she noticed, were Sabrina, Misty and Arabella.
"Hey! You guys!" Lily called waving to them. Arabella and Sabrina squinted at Lily, hesitant as if not to come over or not.
"Lily! Oh," Misty said trotting over and stopping in her tracks when she saw Lily's hair. She put her hands on her hips and took on a lecturing tone. "You tried to dye your hair, didn't you?"
Lily groaned and touched her hair, which felt sticky and full of mousse. Sabrina cast a wary eye over Lily. "What'd you do to your hair?"
"Oh, Lily! I could've helped you dye it! But – but your red hair was so lovely!" Misty lamented, reaching out her hand to touch Lily's damaged hair. At the last second, she thought better of it and pulled her hand away.
Arabella nearly burst out laughing when she noticed the zigzags in Lily's hair. "Girl, I don't get you."
"Stop! Stop – talking!" Lily said in clipped tones, holding up her hand to stop the flow of questions.
They all stood there, shocked at Lily's tone. She never ever snapped at anyone! Well, save James Potter.
"Sorry Lily, it's just your – your hair, you know? It looks… well – ridiculous!" Sabrina said in an apologetic voice, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.
"Yeah, style courtesy of James Potter," Lily said with her teeth clenched.
All of them gaped at her. "James did that to you?"
Lily snorted. "Who else would do this to me?"
"Maybe it was Sirius!" Misty offered. Arabella chose to remain out of the conversation and sauntered away to breakfast.
"Sirius is much too busy with other things to play stupid pranks," Sabrina sniffed.
"Like what?" Misty asked her incredulously.
"Yeah, what is he doing when he isn't playing pranks with James? Studying?" Lily scoffed and the thought of Sirius Black focusing on his studies was so outrageously funny that they all couldn't help themselves and burst out laughing. Nearly everyone in the school knew the only thing he cared about was girls and pranks.
Sabrina looked agitated, however. "No, Sirius is not that childish!"
"Oh, he isn't?" Misty asked with an amused twinkle in her eyes.
"No. And if you'll excuse me, I've got more pressing errands to do!" Sabrina said twirling on her heel.
"What is up with her?" Lily asked in shock. Sabrina was usually never so uptight. She was usually too busy acting like she was superior to everyone else to care about anything except being well, superior.
"Maybe she didn't get enough sleep," Misty suggested.
"Yeah right, she's just upset because that fifth year wouldn't go to Hogsmeade with her!" Lily said. Lately Sabrina spent more time with the older students than she did with any of her other friends.
"Perhaps. I'm starving, lets go find something to eat!" Misty said.
"You go on ahead, I'm going to find James and tell him to right my hair!" Lily said with spite in her voice.
"Right Lils, you go searching for revenge. Save you a muffin?"
"Thanks, I'm actually really hungry too," Lily said and half considered braving the breakfast hall just to eat, but revenge had a sweet tooth.
"You've got that malicious gleam in your eyes. Don't do anything to poor James, he's probably delusional!" Misty said with a pleading look.
Lily snorted. "I will not be made a fool of that… fool of a Potter!"
"Ooh, good one," Misty said sarcastically and walked off, leaving Lily alone to seek her vengeance.
Lily touched her hair again and found it to be drying. Snarling and muttering to herself, she stalked off before the spell or whatever he'd used on her hair became permanent.
She walked along the sunlit corridor and grimaced at the happiness of the rest of the world: they didn't have their hair dyed by their worst enemy.
"Potter, what are y – " Lily said and almost crashed into a suit of armor. She spotted a telltale mass of unruly black hair behind a desk in the empty classroom she had wandered into. She almost didn't approach because she didn't know exactly what it was.
Deciding to take the risk, she strode right up to the mass of hair and pulled. Hard. James Potter came up with a yelp, trying to swat away her hands but she held her ground. A startled blonde scrambled around on the floor, getting up and trying to flatten her own hair, tugging furiously at her clothes.
Lily smirked knowingly as James slowly stopped struggling. "What do you want, Evans? Some of my hair? Seems you've got enough of it!"
"Cute. Is she yours?" Lily said choosing to ignore to the comment. She pointed at the tall blonde girl finger combing her hair and straightening her robes that had 'mysteriously' been rumpled and her shirt, which seemed to be in the beginning stages of being unbuttoned. She was absolutely crimson.
"She's my girlfriend, if that's what you mean," James said coolly.
"Oh. I see. What'd you do with the other one? Lose her?" Lily said sarcastically.
"Something came up," He said bitterly.
"Right. You trashed her!" Lily said with a wide grin, "and you figured you needed a change of… scenery?"
The blonde shot Lily a murderous look but Lily stared back with her own menacing glare. "Um, James? I'm going to go down to – to breakfast now, ok?" The blonde girl said twirling a piece of her hair around her manicured finger, still looking at Lily.
"Ok. Let me and Lily finish some business," James said and the slightly ruffled girl gave him a peck on the cheek and ran out of the room.
Lily let go of James's hair and he ran to the other end of the room. "Bit early to be having romantic rendezvous, don't you think?"
He pulled out his wand. "Bit early to be pretending you're so high and mighty, Princess?"
"Aw, I'm flattered!" Lily said batting her eyelashes, whipping out her wand as well.
"Honestly Lily, why don't you mind your own business?" James said in an irritated voice.
"Because then my life would be over and I'd just die from boredom – Jamesie," Lily cooed.
"Well trust me, no one's exactly going to be mourning!" James shot back.
"Bite me. Listen, I'd love to meddle with you some more but first you need to change my hair back to normal," Lily said promptly.
James smirked and twirled his wand around. "What, you think it's that easy? Just say 'James, change my hair back?'"
Lily smiled hesitantly. "Yes?"
"Lily, you know I have to hold you up to a higher standard! You've got to get down on your knees and grovel to me," James grinned.
Lily snorted and began to get a bit irked. "Bow down to me first and we'll talk business."
"Hmm… no. I guess you'll just have to walk around with that hair for the rest of the day – or the rest of your life!" James said with an evil glint in his eyes.
Lily gasped. "You wouldn't!"
James nodded. "Oh, yes I would!"
"You put a 24 hour spell or something on it, didn't you?" Lily spat, pointing an accusing finger at him.
James looked at her innocently. "Why would I do such a thing?"
Lily put her hands on her hips. "Stubborn little bugger, aren't you? All right, what're your demands?"
"Demands? Dear Lily, you underestimate me!" James said in a shocked voice.
Lily snorted. If there was one thing James was good at, it was making bargains. "How about I hook you up with Sabrina?"
James made a face. "Too high maintenance."
"Misty?"
"Too… girl-next-door," James said dismissively.
"For the love of – Potter, it's just a girl! You can dump her if you don't like her!" Lily cried incredulously. If girls were food, he'd be the king of pickiness.
"What makes you think I want a girl out of all of this?" James asked.
"Because you're bloody James Potter, the world's biggest womanizer!" Lily nearly shouted.
And it was true. Well, at least to Lily. Every single week it seemed, he was with a different girl and she kept finding them in the weirdest places: the library, her dorm (that got old very fast) and deserted classrooms. Of course, she could see why the girls found him so charming, although she wouldn't be caught dead within a five-mile radius with him unless she absolutely had to. He'd grown out of his lanky, awkward 11-year-old phase and into a broad-shouldered, confident, flirty 14-year-old. The only things that seemed to remain with him were his amazing Quidditch skills and his unruly black hair. The mention of James's hair always made Lily laugh, for all of the girls sighed and giggled to themselves about wanting to run their hands through his 'luxuriously silky hair' and other inane babble and hair flipping. He also seemed to have taken lessons from some sort of professional on how to be confident and seductive and charming all rolled into one. To Lily it looked like arrogance; to the rest of the female population it looked like some new hottie on the teen scene in Muggle music.
"How about we draw up a pact?" James said, interrupting her thoughts.
"What?" Lily asked.
"I said, how about we – "
"I know what you said," Lily snapped coldly, "I just didn't understand. What value is a pact made by James Potter?"
"James Potter always keeps his word," James said solemnly.
Lily raised her eyebrows. This was… probably true. "All right. What sort of pact?"
"If we're civilized to each other, I'll change your hair back," James said.
Lily pretended to think about this. Hmm, being civil to James Potter for the rest of her life just to get her hair changed back? Choices, choices. No, it wasn't worth it. She spun on her heel and stalked out of the classroom.
"No thanks, I'll just ask a teacher to change it back!" Lily called over her shoulder. She couldn't help but grin to herself.
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"What a complete jerk," Lily said emphatically, sitting down beside Misty, Arabella and Sabrina in Charms.
"Who?" Sabrina asked, completely oblivious for once.
"James, obviously!" Misty said judging from the tired tone in Lily's voice.
"Are you still fighting with him? Ugh, that is so 2nd year!" Sabrina said tiredly, flipping her long black hair over her shoulder.
"I think it's interesting how Lily remains to be the only person who hasn't succumbed to James's 'charms'," Arabella said with a roll of her eyes.
Lily laughed. "You seem to be on my side more than theirs as well!"
Arabella shrugged, pulling out her Charms book. "He doesn't bother me, I don't bother him."
"Hey, that philosophy works for me!" Misty said taking her hair out of her ponytail and fiddling with the charms on her bracelet.
"Oh, don't look now Sabrina, here comes Sirius!" Arabella said with a teasing grin.
Sabrina looked alarmed for a second and quickly flipped her hair again, crossing her legs and leaning back in her desk casually.
"Hey Sirius," Sabrina said calmly.
Lily and Arabella stared blankly at each other. Sirius along with his entourage (James and Remus) sat down, much to Lily's dismay, right next to them.
"Hi Sabrina," Sirius said in a friendly voice. Despite the fact that Sirius was James's best friend, he was always nice to everyone. The same went for Remus.
"Fancy meeting you here, Evans!" James said in a mock surprised voice.
"Same here! I mean, I thought by this point you'd be skipping class to go pull some pranks!" Lily said in a completely oblivious-sounding voice.
"I do love my work," James admitted grinning.
"It must be fun to be an arrogant jerk as well!" Lily responded in a fake happy voice.
"Oh, come now Lily – James… James is a lovely person, I'm sure!" Misty said in a breathless voice. Lily looked over at Misty and to be blunt, that's what her eyes were: misty and looking at James with puppy-like adoration.
"… Misty?" Arabella asked, waving a hand in front of her.
"Ye – yes?" Misty asked as if coming out of a trance.
"Yeah, I'm sure James is a lovely person," Arabella said.
"I am!" James said indignantly.
"Lily! Your hair is still the same!" Remus replied suddenly.
"Oh yeah! I'll get it changed after class," Lily said, shooting James a look.
James smirked at her. "Yeah, Lily's hair style compliments of James Potter."
"And it's a really, really great hair cut, I mean it's so blue!" Misty said gushing.
James smiled at her. Lily sensed a bonding moment, which was a moment she could live without. She thought quickly and kicked James in the shins.
"OW! Fuck, Evans! What was that for?" James swore loudly.
"What? What'd she do?" Remus asked, confused.
"She kicked me!" James said crossly, rubbing his leg where Lily had kicked him.
"Lily! That wasn't very nice," Sirius said.
"What? I didn't do anything!" Lily said feigning innocence.
Arabella raised her eyebrow but didn't say anything; she'd seen the whole thing anyway. Sabrina was too busy trying to engage Sirius into a conversation and Misty was being sympathetic to James's cause.
"James, Lily's foot probably slipped or something, she didn't mean to! Are you ok though?" Misty asked in a sweet voice.
"Yeah," James said glancing murderously at Lily, "I'm fine."
At that point, before any more mayhem could happen, the Charms teacher walked in. The professor sat his briefcase and other things on his desk and sat down behind his desk.
"Welcome back, students! I expect you all had wonderful summers?" Professor Hughes asked.
A few scattered answers reached his ears, seeming to satisfy him. "All right! Time to refresh those minds! How about a pre-meditated pop quiz?"
Professor Hughes was one of those teachers who went out of his way to make the class fun, and Lily had her sympathy for him because on the whole, the entire class was only interested in James and James's posse and what they might do next.
Loud groans came from all over the room, now enthusiastic. Professor Hughes grinned and grabbed the nearest stack of parchment. "Miss Evans! I don't believe I've heard from you yet! Come up here and help me pass these papers out, why don't you?"
Lily reluctantly got up. Despite her fiery temper and quick tongue, she was still the top student (next to James, unfortunately) in the fourth year and a friend to all teachers. No one could figure this one out and they dismissed it as her method of not being kicked out of Hogwarts. And so far, there were no slipups.
"Yeah go on up there, teacher's pet!" James hissed at her as she got up. She pretended to ignore that barb and kicked the back of his chair as a warning.
"You can pass out to that side and I'll pass to this side," Professor Hughes said, pointing for Lily to go to her side of the room.
She nodded and passed parchment to the first row and walked back to the second and then the third. She stepped back behind Sabrina and Arabella's chairs to get to Misty, James, Sirius and Remus.
As she passed James, he suddenly stuck out his leg and she tripped, all of the papers fluttering to the great like giant snowflakes. The entire class burst out laughing as Lily tried to gather up the falling papers and salvage her dignity of being tripped by James.
"Miss Evans? Are you all right?" Professor Hughes asked once the laughter had died down.
Lily looked at James, who smirked back at her. "Yes Professor, I'm fine."
Professor Hughes looked from Lily to James uncertainly but shrugged it off and told them to begin their tests.
Lily slid into the only open seat, which was coincidentally next to James, and dipped her quill in her inkwell.
The first question was easy and Lily easily scribbled down the answer. James sneaked a peek over her shoulder and quickly filled in his own version of Lily's answer.
She looked up in thought to find James staring at her.
"Jesus Potter, take a picture! It'll last longer!" Lily hissed.
James crossed his eyes. "Wasn't looking at you, Evans! I was just simply innocently looking around the room and my eyes, to my poor misfortune, landed on you!"
Lily's upper lip curled into a sneer. "Well sorry, Potter, but you're no prize either!"
"Want to repeat that?" James threatened.
Lily smirked at him. "Sure! You're. No. Prize. Either."
James kicked her shin and she yelled in pain. Instead of thinking of her actions, she leapt out of her seat and tackled James, knocking him to the floor.
"Play with fire, Potter, and you get burned!" She shrieked loudly, groping around on the desk for her wand with her eyes still locked on his.
James struggled and tried to get up but Lily's dead weight was on him and he couldn't get up no matter how hard he tried.
"Is there a problem here?" Professor Hughes asked sharply, coming up to where Lily and James were sitting.
Lily immediately crawled off of James and slinked back to
her seat, smiling like everything was normal. "No, Professor!"
James struggled to his feet, looking slightly ruffled. "No problem here, Professor!"
Professor Hughes glared at them both. "Roughhousing in my classroom is not allowed, Miss Evans and Mister Potter."
"We weren't roughhousing, though!" Lily protested.
"I saw you jump on James, Miss Evans!" Professor Hughes accused in a deadly calm voice.
Lily dropped her head in shame, though flushing from anger at the dispersed snickers in the classroom.
"I will not tolerate this from either of you two! I will be rewarding you both with a detention. One week with me after dinner," Professor Hughes said. He looked regretful having to award detentions to the two most prestigious students at Hogwarts.
"Detention?" James asked in disbelief. He'd gotten a few detentions in his life, but for an entire week…?
Lily's eyes filled with hot, angry tears. This was all James's fault! Why did he provoke her so?
"Do you both understand?" Professor Hughes asked harshly.
"Yes sir," they mumbled in unison. Professor Hughes lingered for a few moments, staring at Lily and James and then went back down to his desk and helped a few people out with questions they had.
"Oh, and you two will see me after class!" he called offhandedly.
Lily sniffled miserably. "Yes, sir."
"Poor Lily," Misty said sympathetically, once everyone had handed in his or her tests.
"Yeah. Detention for a week, with him!" Sirius said.
Lily sniffled loudly again, trying to prevent the tears from spilling over and saving her reputation of not crying in public.
"Lily? Are you ok?" Arabella asked.
"Yeah, you don't look good," Sabrina commented.
"Nothing's wrong with me! I'm fine, just fine!" Lily snapped, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand.
All of them looked at each other in shock and decided to leave Lily be. James grinned at Sirius and Remus: Lily Evans, Miss Perfect and destined to become Head Girl, had detention! With him!
"Detention already?" Sirius asked, grinning.
"That's awful. I mean really awful, James, why don't you just leave her alone?" Remus snapped, most uncharacteristically of him.
Sirius and James looked taken aback. "Jeez Reemy, all I did was light the fuse! She was the one who exploded!"
"You started it, didn't you?" Remus accused.
"Remus! How can you say such a thing?" James asked in a false injured tone.
"Yeah Remus? How can you be so insensitive? Obviously James has the biggest crush on Lily and is only trying to express his inner feelings in a childish manner!" Sirius said knowledgably.
Remus and James gaped at Sirius.
"Sirius, do you have some sort of untapped source of knowledge somewhere?" Remus asked, completely confused.
Sirius grinned sheepishly. "Um… no! Sorry, must've had a brain lapse."
James looked livid. "How can you, my best friend, accuse me of liking Evans?" James asked hotly.
Sirius admired his nails in a blasé sort of way. "You can tell! Its so obvious."
James turned on Remus who seemed to shrink back his wrath. "And what's your input, Reemy?"
"Me?" Remus squeaked, "well I – um… I – "
But Remus was saved because the bell rang for the class to be over. Sirius and Remus gave James a look as though to say 'please understand we don't not want to hang around with someone who's going to explode' and ran off. James sat there, quietly stewing in his own thoughts and packing up his books.
"Mister Potter and Miss Evans, may I see you before you leave?" Professor Hughes called from his papers.
Lily shot James a look and swung her bag over her shoulder and sauntered down to where Professor Hughes was staring at them expectantly.
"You understand the errors of your ways, do you not?" Professor Hughes asked severely lifting up his thin-wired spectacles from his eyes.
"Yes sir," they mumbled remorsefully, looking at the floor.
"You will both start your detentions tonight after dinner in this classroom precisely at 8:00 sharp. If you are late, 50 points will be revoked from Gryffindor," he said in the same severe tone.
Lily looked at James with hatred once again renewed in her eyes. James just shrugged.
"You may go now," Professor Hughes said, shooing them away.
Lily nearly flew off but James grabbed her arm once they were outside the classroom.
"Back off Potter, you've caused enough trouble for one day!" Lily snarled, wrenching her arm away.
"Look all I want to do is – "
"What?" she sneered, "apologize? Thanks but no thanks!"
James straightened up a bit. "As if! I wouldn't apologize to you for anything, you get what you deserve!"
"The same goes for you as well, obviously!" Lily shot back.
James crossed his arms firmly across his chest. "Look before you really get a bad reputation for being the snotty bitch I know you are, let me just say I'm not looking forward to detention tonight."
"Wow, Potter, good job! You've finally figured out that detention is a bad thing! Maybe if you didn't have such a love for breaking rules you wouldn't have that problem!" Lily spat.
James rolled his eyes. "I mean, I'm not looking forward to detention with you. So lets just say if you get out of my way I'll stay out of yours."
"Isn't that always the case?" Lily asked briskly before turning back to the dining hall.
God, James thought, detention will be hell.
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Woohoo! Yay! Another chapter, another… fight thingy! Lol. R/R if you like or if you hate or you just… um…want to review! Thanks!