Once upon a time, a gifted person had a wonderful idea on a very long train ride. She went home and wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and finally was able to publish her idea in the form of the Harry Potter series. Unfortunately, that person is not me. I didn't think of Harry Potter, and I'm certainly not going to try to make money off of any of this. So don't sue me.
Hey people! Home sick Friday, and we're coming into a weekend where my mom wants me to stay home and rest (other than soccer game and tryouts for indoor soccer, which I'm insisting on going to). Which is good for you because it means you'll be getting chapters faster. Just so you know, I spent the morning planning out the basic timeline for all of years 5 and 6 (would have done 7, too, but my attention span evaporated). I can tell you that this is gonna be a rather long fic. Please, stay interested, and keep reviewing, because that keeps me interested...
Chapter 7 was too long for me to summarize, suffice it to say that the "moment" had arrived. Lily's in for a shock.
Chapter 8, This is Just the Beginning:
Lily sat down for dinner, feeling relaxed and happy. Her day, which had started out so poorly, had redeemed itself. Lily had spent it unpacking, and laughing and talking with Sara and Alanna, both of whom were relieved that Lily had lost her tense demeanor of the morning, and had turned back into the friend they knew and loved.
They were all surprised, though, when Jemma came over and took the empty seat next to Alanna.
"Why aren't you sitting with your boyfriend?" Sara asked, eying her twin suspiciously, but Lily interrupted before Jemma could answer.
"It doesn't matter, Jemma, you're always welcome here with us. Especially if it means you're not with the marauders over there." Lily said marauder as though it were the lowest insult in her vocabulary. Clearly, she hadn't forgiven them, even if she had temporarily stopped screaming at them.
Jemma laughed. "Gosh, Lily, they're not as bad as you make them out. Although they are planning something. They keep jabbering nonsense and knocking things over, so I figured I'd come over here before I got something on my new robes."
"Well, you're welcome to sit here," Lily laughed. "For the sake of your robes if nothing else." Lily glanced over at the marauders, and saw that it was true; they were all as jumpy as could be.
Lily saw James glance in her direction, and she quickly focused her gaze on Remus instead. The last thing an arrogant jerk like James needed was to see a girl staring at him. He got enough of that from people like Kelsey.
Through the corner of her eye, Lily watched James lean over and whisper something to the other marauders. They nodded, and he sat back. Then he jumped as if someone had tapped him on the shoulder (even though no one was there, the idiot). And looked at Lily. Again. Then he got up and made his way over to where Lily and her friends were sitting.
"Not again," Lily moaned. "Didn't they get enough of tormenting me this morning?"
Jemma grinned, "I more got the feeling that you were tormenting them."
Lily frowned and opened her mouth, but it was at that moment that James arrived.
"Hey, Lily," He said cheerfully, not seeming to notice the other girls.
"It's Evans to you, Potter," Lily replied stiffly.
"Right, well, I just wanted to apologize for earlier." James didn't seem put off in the slightest by the fact that Lily obviously wanted nothing to do with him. "You, know, for..." He paused, not knowing what, exactly, he was apologizing for. "For upsetting you and all. I didn't mean to."
Lily stared at the boy in front of her, submitting him to a silent scrutiny. There was no way he had just come over here to apologize. No, he had another reason. But what could it be?
"Fine," Lily said, deciding that the best course of action would be to simply get rid of James as quickly as possible. "Apology accepted." Then she just looked at him.
James still didn't seem to get the point. "D'you guys mind if I sit down?" he asked.
Lily stifled a strong urge to say 'no.' That would be just a little too rude. Even though it was James Potter. She shrugged noncommittally instead.
Sara and Alanna looked suspicious.
"Girls," Sara corrected. "We're girls, not guys."
James somehow still managed to ignore the obvious hostility. Lily was impressed in spite of herself. Either James was thicker than he looked (which would be difficult) or he was a really good actor.
James sat down, smiling honestly, and Lily actually felt bad about acting so unreceptive to his attempt to be friendly.
Lily opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Reluctantly, she forced the words past her lips. "I'm sorry for acting so antagonistic just now. And for yelling at you earlier." She fought the urge to add 'even if you deserved it.' That would just negate the apology, and she'd have to start over again.
Something appeared briefly in James's face, but he quickly squashed the emotion, whatever it was. Surprise? Glee? Or something else?
"Look, Lily..."
Lily didn't correct him on the name.
"...I actually came over to ask you something. Um, I know it's out of the blue, but, Lily, d'you—would you please go out with me?"
The Great Hall was suddenly, either by accident or design, completely silent.
A sneak peak into the consciousness of Lily Evans:
Lily's brain halted, focused on that one question, and her thought processes came to a complete stand still. Then, slowly, her brain restarted, working overtime to make up for the four to five seconds for which it had been completely dead to the world.
She blinked, neurons working furiously. JamesPotterIsSittingThereLookingAtMe...ExpectingSomething...WhatDoesHeWant?...HeAskedMeSomethingHeAskedMeToGoOutWithHim...HeUUGH!
Lily's brain caught up.
At first she thought he was serious. She stared at James, trying to figure out what had happened there. But wait, there it was again, that emotion from when she'd apologized earlier. But this time she recognized it. Damn him, it was glee. The bloody prat was pranking her!
She fought an automatic gag reflex, then fought the urge that was telling her to slap that weasel as hard as possible. Then fought the urge to stick her fork into his smirking face.
He was smirking, too. It was now quite obvious to Lily that this was the prank he'd been anticipating. She'd told him the one thing that would annoy her more than anything else, the more fool her. And he, being James Potter, Arrogant Prat of the Fifth Year, was determined to use it against her. Damn him.
Lily mastered each impulse as it came, resisting the urges to hurt him, maim him, and kill him. That wouldn't be appropriate, not in the middle of dinner. She briefly considered kissing him, just to teach him a lesson, just to teach him that there were certain things one simply did not use as pranks. But that idea was discarded almost immediately. James Potter, Arrogant Prat of the Fifth Year, would doubtless be able to stomach more of that than Lily Evans, Prefect and Well-Rounded Student, ever could.
No, the best course of action would be to get rid of him quickly and with as little fuss as possible. Well, maybe with a little bit of fuss.
Okay, Lily thought to herself, here goes nothing.
Back into the real world:
"Lily, d'you—would you please go out with me?"
The Great Hall was suddenly, whether by accident of design, completely silent.
For a full five seconds, Lily's face was frozen in a picture of pure surprise. Then she blinked. Four and a half more seconds passed.
Her eyebrow, the right one, of course, rose up her forehead, stopping just short of her hair line, and making quite the grand statement.
When Lily spoke, though, her voice wasn't tinged with anger, nor with shock, and it most certainly did not carry the slightest hint of happiness. No, Lily's voice was filled with irony, irony mixed with just the tiniest hint of sarcasm. "Really, Potter, I thought we discussed this earlier. We decided that you shared the characteristics of a hamster, and were slightly better-looking than a skunk."
There was laughter, but Lily didn't turn her head to see who was laughing. She continued to look level-headedly at James.
"Actually, we didn't talk about skunks," James insisted.
"But we ought to have," Lily countered. "Especially with the way you smelled on the train."
A brief pause. Then, "Lils, we're getting off topic. Let's not talk about me. Let's talk about us."
Lily's left eyebrow shot up to join her right one. Damn Potter for setting her off balance again with his corny lines. And it was just when she'd gotten the upper hand. Focus, Lily told herself, focus on embarrassing him and getting him to go AWAY.
Deep breath. Lily forcibly pushed her left eyebrow down again. She opened her mouth to say something, anything to get herself back in control of the situation.
But James was faster. "Come on, Lily, you're pretty, smart, involved in everything. We could have so much fun. Just say yes. Please?" He focused his best puppy-dog eyes on her.
NO, Lily snapped her lips closed against the word; the last thing she wanted was to let James Potter know that his prank had gotten under her skin. But it had. Lily might not care about James Potter and his romantic attentions, but she was a minority in that respect. She didn't even want to consider what everyone else in the Great Hall was thinking about this scene Potter was making over her.
Oh, yes, Lily was mad as heck.
"My name is Evans," Lily snapped, unable to keep her mouth shut any longer. "Don't call me Lily, and never call me Lils. That's a right reserved for my friends."
James faked surprise. At least Lily thought he was faking. She was so angry, and he was such a good actor, well, things were blurring a bit. "Lily—" Then he drew back, visibly hurt. "...Evans. I didn't know you felt that way. I—" His voice broke. "I'll try not to bother you again. Sorry for interrupting your dinner." He stood up and walked uncertainly out the doors of the Great Hall, leaving the rest of the students sitting in their seats, stunned.
Everyone remained that way for a moment, but then the remaining marauders broke the tableau by rushing out to "comfort" their bereaved friend.
As talking once again broke out at all of the house tables, people seemed almost to forget the whole incident. Well, except for the students, girls mostly, who continued to shoot knife-like glares at Lily.
The first of Lily's friends to move was Alanna. She smiled, then started to laugh.
Lily frowned at her, but Alanna kept laughing.
"Lily, you didn't keep your promise. You said you'd throw up on him."
Lily's scowl deepened, but now Sara was laughing too.
"Oh, come on Lily, at least he didn't set off those dung bombs at breakfast..."
Lily was still glowering with all her might.
But then Jemma started to speak. "Lily, what if he was serious? I think you really hurt his feelings."
And then Lily couldn't stand it anymore. She started laughing too.
Outside, James was also laughing. He couldn't stop. Not when he'd tripped on the stairs and fallen down, not when Remus, Sirius, and Peter had come out to congratulate him, and not any time since. No, he couldn't stop laughing, not for anything.
Sirius wasn't quite as bad, though he was certainly chuckling fit to burst for a while. "James, did you see her face?"
The answer was yes, even if James couldn't get enough breath to voice it properly. Yes, he'd seen the unadulterated shock on the face of Lily Evans when he'd popped the question. He'd waited a full nine and a half seconds, then seen her right eyebrow lift. And then she'd hit him with a witty comeback. Just as he'd predicted. She'd been holding her own for a moment, too, but he was James Potter, and he wasn't planning on letting her win this battle. He had cut her off, then, pretending shock of his own when she had declined his offer. If there was one thing a marauder knew how to do, it was act, and it had taken hardly any acting at all to convince the entire student body that Lily Evans had broken his heart.
Oh yes, things had gone according to plan. And now James was sitting in a pile of dirt, laughing his head off at the success of it all.
Finally, he wiped his eyes, and looked up at his friends, standing above him.
"Damn, but that was good."
"The best," Peter agreed eagerly.
"A classic," Sirius stated.
Even Remus was forced to admit it had been funny.
Sirius laughed, "Geez, James, she knew what you were up to and she couldn't do a thing." He turned to Remus. "See? Evans was smart; she knew what was going on. And it only made the whole prank funnier."
"James," Remus tried to calm his friend down. The bouts of laughter were starting to get a tad alarming. "It was funny, but it wasn't that funny."
"But it was," James felt he had to make Remus understand. "Moony, this is Lily Evans, prefect, straight-A student. She wouldn't be caught dead obsessing over a boy, and certainly not over a boy like me. She told us, point blank, that she'd rather I pranked her all day long than go out with me." Here James couldn't help but start to laugh again. "See, Moony, pranking her is no big deal any more, after four years of that she's seen it all. Now we have to get creative." James felt the excitement building in him, knowing that this was the start of something big.
"And we did get creative," he continued. "We did it, we've got her. The one thing she can't stand is me, so that's what we'll give her.
"From now on, I'm in love with Lily Marie Evans. Got it?"
There was silence. They'd all been surprised to find that James Potter would pretend to like Lily Evans for even one night, especially considering his reputation. The fact that he was considering doing it indefinitely was shocking beyond words.
"But Prongs, mate," Sirius interjected, trying to get his friend to see reason. "If you were going to do this, you'd have to be convincing; you'd have to give up on girls. You couldn't be 'in love' with Lily Evans and snogging others on the side. It's madness."
But James could feel something, a determination, a feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Padfoot, I've been out with tons of girls, they're not that interesting anymore. They giggle and flirt and kiss me. So what? I'm bored of them. I want something new."
Remus caught James's eyes, looked through them, trying to see what was inside. "James, Lily's a girl too, you know."
But James just laughed. "So? It's not like I'll ever go out with her. And anyway, she's not like the other girls. She doesn't treat me like they do."
"Naw, she treats you way worse," Sirius muttered.
James ignored him. "Evans can really hold her own in a fight, and I intend to take full advantage of that. I just started a war, boys and that was the first battle."
"But Kelsey—" Sirius brought up the name in a last-ditch effort to change his friend's mind.
"She's in her dormitory, stomach-ache," James explained. "I'll break up with her first thing tomorrow.
Silence.
"Oh come on. We ought to go inside and get some rest." James's hazel eyes were twinkling wickedly. "After all, what you saw today was just the beginning."
HEY! I just realized that I had to update today. You see, I posted chapter one of this story exactly ten days ago today. That's write; you got eight chapters in ten days. Please, people, even if you don't like it, review and tell me what I can do better. (And, of course, if you do like it, I most certainly want to know that too...) Thanks a bushel to all you fantastic people out there.
Thanks to the great people who reviewed...YOU ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED...
PinkyTheSnowman: As always...thanks a bundle. And I may just die and never finish this story if you don't put me out of my misery on the piano issue...and yay, I made you laugh. My goal in life is accomplished.
Gillybear: Hee, glad you're enjoying. Yes, vertically able. Because someone like me can't stand to use a word as bland and boring as "long." Nope, I have to complicate things by making up new phrases....
QueenofDarkness13: Yay, glad you're enjoying. Okay, I'm going to act thick for a moment....I rock? Like those hard grey things? The ones that prehistoric people used as tools?.....Okay, moment over. Thanks a bundle for reviewing.
Dobbyfan18: Very much so. Thanks for all the ideas of things Lily can throw at James...author begins frantically taking notes...I'll be sure to use them if ever I'm in a bind.
A Cute But Psycho Bunny: I always love your reviews...why do you think I post? Duh, it's so I can see what you and the bunny men think of the chapter...oh yeah, they're all rather evil...but it's all just beginning...
DobbyGrl: Yeah! I'm so glad I made you happy...yes, well, I'm glad you like the plan. It took me a while to find a way that James could be constantly flirting with Lily like he does in the canon. Without him actually realizing he likes her, of course. I mean, it's just so much more FUN when they hate eachother, right?
Andy: You have no idea how happy your review made me, thanks SO MUCH for the compliments. People like you are exactly why I want to be a writer when I'm older.
Okay, then, keep a lookout for new postings...on this and on "Oddments and Essays"...and check my account w/ Pinky, which is SiriuslyInsane62442. It's my outlet for the pure randomness I won't let myself put in here.
Your favorite doomsday penguin,
manchot du destin.