Title: Figured You Out
Disclaimer: I am J.K. Rowling, and I DO own Harry Potter. I'm just posing as a fourteen-year-old loser who doesn't own anything.
Chapter 1: In Your Skin
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Lily and James sat in Dumbledore's office, scowling, and scooting to the edge of the chairs so much so that if they were to scoot to the side anymore, they would've fallen off. And Dumbledore was merely watching the pair of them with amused interest.
It was the beginning of their seventh year, and they both had head boy and girl badges gleaming on the front of their robes. They were also soaked and shivering, because apparently, Lily had decided to toss James in the lake, and James dragged Lily with him.
"Do either of you care to explain yourselves?" Asked Dumbledore calmly.
"She started it!" Said James, pointing an accusing finger in her direction.
"Oh, how mature," Lily rolled her eyes.
"I have a request for you two," said Dumbledore, putting on his half-moon glasses and shuffling his papers, "and if you do this, you will not have to serve a detention."
"What is it?" Asked James.
"I would like you to bring me a certain potion from the closet down the corridor. The potion is a deep red in color, and it's in a large flask. I'd tell you the name of it, but it wouldn't help matters any, because Professor Reagan forgot the label." Dumbledore smiled. "It is behind a portrait of a man called Gatsby the Fantastic. The password to the portrait is Oddment."
Lily gaped at him. "That's it? That's all we've got to do?"
"That's it." Dumbledore smiled.
"Good enough for me," replied James. "Lets go."
"But…it doesn't take more than one person to get a single potion vial," said Lily suspiciously, but James was already tugging on her sleeve.
"Don't jeopardize our luck, come on!"
He dragged Lily from the room, missing the mischievous twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes.
"Gatsby the Fantastic, Gatsby the Fantastic," mumbled James, searching the walls. Lily stopped as she found the portrait, but apparently James missed it, as he continued walking down the corridor.
Lily cleared her throat loudly and pointed at the picture with her wand. It was a large picture of what looked like a jester, grinning stupidly. Lily vaguely wondered why anyone would bother calling him 'fantastic.'
"Oh," said James, "I didn't see it."
Lily rolled her eyes and said, "Oddment."
The portrait swung open revealing a small closet full of potions. Most of them looked rather important, being either a ruby red or a lime green. There was only one fairly large red potion vial. Lily grabbed it and said, "Let's go."
She swiveled around as she got no response. James was busy staring at an electric blue potion, enticed.
"James, what are you…looking…at…" Lily's eyes widened at the potion as well, and with her mouth slightly agape, she reached out for it as well, a glassy look beginning to form in her eyes.
James grabbed it first, but it slipped from his fingers and dropped to the floor. The vial was shattered, and the potion began pooling out slowly, mist coming out from it.
"Whoops," said James.
"Whoops? Whoops? That was probably really important!" Lily exclaimed, the spell broken. "And what's that smell?" She added, sniffing slightly. It smelled like burnt rubber, and she noticed the blue mist was swarming around her and James.
"Let's just get out of here," said James.
"You would leave when you've spilled something important on the floor," scoffed Lily, but followed him out of the portrait as well, with no intention of telling anyone what happened, the red potion still grasped in her hands.
They each walked back to Dumbledore's office, staying as far away from each other as possible. As much as James was infatuated with Lily, he didn't want to be on the receiving end of her wand for awhile. And Lily simply thought James was just as stuck-up as ever.
"Fizzing Whizbees," said Lily as they got to the two stone gargoyles. The gargoyles sprung to life and leapt aside, allowing Lily and James to enter.
"Well done," said Dumbledore, "just set it on my desk and go on back to your common rooms."
James and Lily were already halfway down to the Gryffindor tower when Lily began to feel lightheaded, and she stumbled slightly. James began to feel slightly lightheaded as well, but grasped Lily's arm, and asked,
"You alright?"
"I'm fine, James," she spat, batting his hand away.
"I just asked," mumbled James, but they were already standing before the Fat Lady.
"Password?" Asked the Fat Lady, yawning.
"Snargling Snorkacks." Muttered Lily, holding her head and walking inside.
They separated, Lily going to her friends, and James walking to his.
"Oh, don't get your knickers in a bunch Peter, James will be back soon…Why, here he is now!" Said Sirius.
James rolled his eyes. "Know what? I'm not feeling too well. I'm going to bed. See you guys later."
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"Are you sure you don't want to go to Madame Pomfrey, Lily? You look ill." Said Lily's friend, Allison. Allison had curly brown hair and eyes to match, but had much less of a temper than Lily, and she tended to be the peacekeeper between Lily and the Marauders.
"I'm fine, don't worry, I'm just going to go, and take a nap." Lily yawned, and also exited the room.
All night, however, Lily found herself wishing she did go to Madame Pomfrey's…at least for a dreamless sleep potion, as she tossed and turned all night. Sweat beaded on Lily's forehead; she kicked off the blanket, and squeezed her eyes shut.
Finally, Lily managed to fall asleep, somewhere around the middle of the night, while her dorm mates were already nestled and snoring peacefully.
And James had found himself in the same predicament, finding that he couldn't stay still, as if he had drank too much caffeine directly before he went to bed.
Though eventually, like Lily, he had also fallen asleep around the middle of the night, not noticing the silvery light that had engulfed him. And Lily didn't notice either…
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Lily woke up, and rubbed her eyes tiredly. Everything was still really blurry, but she blamed her exhaustion for that. She frowned and rubbed her eyes again, but nothing was clearing up.
"What in the world—" Lily paused. That was definitely not her voice. She tried again, but it was still the same. Did she have a cold? Lily threw aside her curtains, and her eyes widened as she encountered a room full of boys getting dressed. She sat there with her mouth agape for a moment, then Lily quickly pulled the curtains shut again, shoving all mental images from her head.
Why was she in the boy's dormitory? Who's bed was she in? What the Hell was going on?
Suddenly Lily looked down and screamed; that was definitely not her body. Lily managed to stumble from the four-poster bed in a mass of tangled curtains and bed sheets, and she ran to the bathroom, stopping at the mirror.
Lily screamed again and fell to the floor. Her face…she had James' face!
"Hey James," said Sirius, as he entered that bathroom, "What're you yelling about?"
"I'm n-n-not J-J—" Lily stuttered, but Sirius lifted her off the floor and dragged her out of the bathroom.
"Hurry up, you need to get dressed, you're going to be late." Sirius tossed Lily James' robes. Lily stared blankly at them, then looked back at Sirius.
"Well, are you getting changed or not?" Asked Sirius on his way to the door, as he looked over his shoulder, "I'm going to go eat breakfast. If you don't hurry up you'll miss it." Sirius left the room.
Lily quickly pulled on the robes, staring at the wall as she did so, her face burning.
"James, you are going to die," Lily said threateningly while trying to figure out how to put on James' tie. "I am going to wring your neck, set you on fire, and yank every hair out of your head."
"I highly doubt you'd want to do so, considering I'm inhabiting your body." Came the surprisingly calm voice of James. With Lily's voice, in her body…fully dressed. Angry red patches appeared on Lily's cheek. Knowing him, the jerk probably took full advantage of changing in her body.
"What the Hell did you do?!" Lily yelled, poking herself in the chest.
James pulled her fingers off of his torso. "I didn't do anything. I was actually about to ask you the same."
"Like I would want to be stuck in your ugly, messy-haired, conceited body!"
"Warming up to me, are you?" Said James bitterly. "Listen, I have no clue—"
"You had something to do with it, I know it!" Lily yelled.
"I had no desire to be stuck in your body either!" James shouted back. "I don't know what happened, so don't be taking your anger out on me!"
"Then why are you so relaxed?" Lily demanded.
"Because I've already gotten over it; I screamed myself hoarse most of the morning. By the way, your roomies think you're mad."
"Great—just great." Lily took a deep breath and ran a hand through her—James'—hair. "This is getting us nowhere," said Lily, "We should just go to Dumbledore about it—"
"No way, he'll probably think we're just nutcases and send us straight to Mungo's! We're better off figuring this out on our own."
Lily thought about this for a moment. "I suppose you're right…but what if we can't do anything?"
"I'm sure we we'll be able to do something eventually," James said firmly, as if trying to assure himself. "Besides, what d' we have to lose?"
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Lily and James sat further away from each other than normal. Lily found herself zoning out on what Sirius and Remus had to say, and instead began to listen to Allison jabbering on about her newest crush to James, (Who, as it seemed, found it mildly amusing.)
"James, yoo-hoo!" said Sirius, waving an arm in Lily's face, "Were you listening at all?"
"Not really," forgetting that she was James for a moment, then she noticed Sirius beginning to scowl, and she hastily added, "But I am now, of course."
He seemed mollified enough. "As I was saying, I think we should charm all of the Slytherin's hair red and gold. What d' you think?"
"Great idea," said Lily, thinking exactly the opposite. "Not all that original though, is it?"
"Of course it is!" Replied Sirius, "Hasn't been done before, has it?"
"Christmas, our first year," replied Lily blandly. Remus snorted.
"Oh," said Sirius, looking crestfallen. "I don't suppose you could come up with any ideas, Moony?"
"Hey, leave me out of this," replied Remus, shaking his head.
Sirius turned to James, but Lily talked over him, shaking her head. "Uh-uh, I'm head g—boy. I don't need to get into any trouble."
"And so the treachery begins," Sirius said. "They get a responsible position, and their prankster days are over." He shook his head in mock disgust.
"…Anyway, I said 'Hi,' and he actually smiled at me! He smiled! I just about fainted!" Came the animated voice of Amelia Rose. She was a skinny blonde who wore too much make-up, and she's about as ditsy as they came.
James smiled weakly, and as he caught Lily's eye, he mouthed, 'How do you stand these people?'
Lily shrugged, propping her head up on the table with her elbow, vaguely listening to Peter ask her something.
As James got his schedule, he immediately groaned; he had Divination, Herbology, double Charms, and Potions with the Slytherins. He was edging dangerously close to dropping Divination in his own body, despite what his mother would say, but now as he was in Lily's body, he no longer had the pleasurable chance of dropping it.
"Lily, can I drop Divination? Or at least skip it?" Asked James as he joined Lily in the corridor.
"No, James," replied Lily firmly.
"Well, what do you need it for? That new teacher, Trelawny, is just an old fraud who couldn't predict the future if it was written in words, dancing in front of her!"
"Maybe that's true, but I so happen to want to learn it."
"But you will be learning it, in my body!"
"No."
"I'd rather wring my own neck than—"
"I said no, James, so drop it!" Lily huffed angrily, climbing the ladder to Divination. James nearly passed out as a thick perfume smell wafted up his nose, and he buried his face in his sleeve.
"Annoying little twat," muttered James quietly.
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There we go; the first chapter is done. Please review nicely, no flames, and constructive criticism is always appreciated. =) Next chapter up soon, I promise.