Hate Everything About You
Summary: Lily Evans is convinced that James Potter is bad down to the core. What happens when she realises that this isn't true?
Disclaimer: I don't own any of J. K. Rowling's characters, locations, or other such ideas. Basically, I own Mandy, Amber, and other random characters in the story.
A/N: I won't even BEGIN to apologize for how late an update this was.
Chapter Seven – Re-cooked?
After a lengthy goodbye with her parents, Lily finally crossed the barrier to Platform 9 ¾. Gripping the handle of her trolley, she surveyed the crowd in search of her friends. She spotted Alice – or at least the back of her – chatting with her parents, and pushed her trolley in their direction.
She paused momentarily to affix her Prefect badge a little more securely onto her t-shirt. She knew that she would forget to pin it to her robes later on if she just kept it in the pocket of her jeans.
Lily was about to continue walking when she felt a pair of strong arms slide around her waist, pulling her back gently. She gasped. What was going on? Who was holding her like that? Lily's first guess was Remus, despite the tiny probability of her crush showing displays of affection before he'd even found out that she fancied him.
Whoever they were, they had a very comforting embrace. Lily felt herself leaning back in his arms, resting her head on his chest. She didn't listen at all to her 'sensible' side's bickering to look up and find out who it was, and instead relaxed. She closed her eyes and her breathing slowed. Lily longed just to turn and wrap her arms around Remus' neck – providing that it was Remus. Of course it was! Who else? She felt his face slowly moving closer to hers from behind...
"Hey, Evans," James Potter whispered into Lily's ear.
James Potter. Lily jumped back in horror, repulsion, surprise. Unluckily, whoever-they-were (much less likely to be Remus now) was right behind Lily, with his arms wrapped tightly around her waist. He fell back, and pulled Lily right down with him.
Lily was lying on her back, on top of someone. Someone who had been holding her before. Someone who she had leaned into. Someone who she was sure was James Potter.
James groaned. "Lil, you know I love you and your beautiful behind, but that behind is jamming into my... you know."
Rolling over onto the ground immediately, Lily scorned herself for staying on top of Potter for that long, but mostly she scorned herself for jumping to conclusions. How could she have thought that was Remus? Sure she could have hoped, but shouldn't she have at least checked first? It was all Potter's fault. If he was going to go up to her and hug her, he should have at least told her who it was beforehand. Then she wouldn't have thought it was Remus, and she would have had a fair chance to escape. Finally getting up off her stomach, Lily's anger surfaced.
"Thanks a lot Potter. If I needed you to give me the Heimlich maneuvre, I would've asked first," she said in an icy tone.
James, who had been grinning, close to laughing, even, narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about, Evans? You enjoyed that and you know it. You only had anything wrong with me holding you when you heard my voice."
"Yeah, when I heard your voice, because I realised it was YOU. If you'd wanted it to last, you shouldn't have spoken."
"Well, I'll remember that for next time," he grinned.
"Oh, there isn't going to be a next time, Potter. Don't you count on it." Lily turned to walk away.
"You still liked it, though!" James called after her.
Lily turned back and came close to James, so that nobody else would hear her. "Yeah, I liked it when I thought you were Re–" she cut herself off.
"Re? What re? Re... remade? Rebuilt? Re-cooked?"
"Sure, when I thought you were re-cooked, Potter," Lily said sarcastically.
James snapped out of the jokes. "Who did you think I was, Lil?"
"My name is Lily Evans, not 'Lil', and I thought you were someone else, alright?"
James looked at her doubtfully. "Alright..."
Lily rolled her eyes and muttered 'idiot' under her breath. She turned around and walked back over to find her trolley (which had been pushed away by the crowd), then toward Alice, who was now facing Lily, an amused look on her face.
"What?" Lily asked.
Alice's grin widened. "Oh, nothing... I just think that our sixth year had a turn for the better before it even started."
Lily frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, we won't have to listen to you and James bickering so much, now that you've taken a liking to him." The grin stayed plastered on Alice's face. It would have gotten even wider if she hadn't already been grinning enough to split her face in two.
Making a face, Lily shoved Alice lightly. "You're supposed to be the nice one, Alice, not the one who makes fun of me!" She stuck her tongue out.
Alice chuckled. "Making fun? Why would you say that?" she asked innocently.
"Okay, why don't we board the train now? It's going to be leaving soon."
"There are still ten minutes, though, aren't there?"
"Yes, but we want to get a good compartment for all of us. We should look for Mandy and Amber, too," Lily suggested.
"Alright, lead the way."
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Remus arrived in the Prefects' compartment partway through the train ride. He looked around for any familiar faces and spotted Lily right away, with her unmistakable red hair.
"Hullo, Lily," he greeted as he approached her.
Lily turned around and smiled when she saw Remus. "Hi. How was your last week of summer?"
"Pretty good," he lied, remembering the full moon just three days before. He indicated Lily's leg. "I see that you took my advice and got your ankle fixed up."
Smiling again, Lily said, "Thanks again for the address. It was a virtually painless recovery, and saved me a lot of time – especially now that I can walk normally again."
Remus opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted.
"Good afternoon, everyone," Amos Diggory, a seventh-year Hufflepuff and this year's Head Boy, began cheerfully. The chatter died down as he continued, "I trust your summers were all wonderfully spent relaxing, but as Prefects, your relaxing time is now officially over." He managed to keep a cheery tone as he announced this, which was especially astonishing to Remus considering Amos was going to have the most burdens of them all.
Many Prefects gave Amos disbelieving looks. Was it legal for the Head Boy to get down to business so quickly? Remus could tell that many of them hoped for the Head Girl to be more laid-back than Amos was. He guessed that she was, considering she hadn't even made an appearance yet.
Amos grinned. "I knew that would get your attention. Before we begin, I'd like to say congratulations to all of the newly-appointed Prefects, as well as to this year's Head Girl: Violetta Sterling of Ravenclaw."
Violetta emerged from a door leading to the Head compartment, beaming.
"Amos and I are truly honoured to have this amazing leadership opportunity," she said to the Prefects. "Not only will it look great on our résumés, it'll teach us a lot about, well, school, and leadership, and responsibility. I'd like to mention before we start the real meeting that we will greatly appreciate it if you all contribute in making our lives easier. That is, do what you're supposed to do, show up, and stay out of trouble outside of your Prefect duties." She looked pointedly at the Slytherins for no more than a split second before continuing, "You might also have to cut us some slack the first few weeks this term, as this is very new to us and we have about ten times more responsibilities than we had last year as Prefects. Don't be surprised if we ask you for help that is additional to your normal duties, and please note that helping us out will only be voluntary. You don't have to if you don't want to – if you have a lot of homework, for example. Especially our fifth and seventh year students, what with OWLs and NEWTs coming up..."
"Don't worry, Vi, you guys are going to do great!" a seventh year Gryffindor shouted encouragingly.
Violetta smiled. "Thanks, Liz. Alright, I suppose I have been rambling, so I'll hand the spotlight over to Amos, who, hopefully, is more adept a public speaker than I am."
Some Prefects chuckled appreciatively at this while Amos climbed back onto the small stage that was set up for the Heads.
Remus found that his short attention span was getting the better of him. His thoughts strayed away from this year's Prefect duties, and further back to the beginning of the train ride. He'd been sitting in the Marauders' compartment, chatting with Peter, when a rather agitated James burst in, followed shortly by Sirius.
"What's the matter?" Remus had asked.
James had given him a look that practically screamed 'Lily'. Remus had raised his eyebrows to indicate that he was listening.
Then James had retold the story. He'd explained his urge to go wrap his arms around Lily, and how he'd caved in. The embrace had started out well, and then... the regular James-Lily feud.
That wasn't what was troubling Remus, though. James had said that Lily had mistaken him for someone else... Re-someone. All of the Marauders had immediately guessed Remus, the latter trying desperately to prove them wrong, especially James.
If Lily fancied Remus... that would change everything. He'd feel guilty every time he talked to her; their friendship wouldn't be as laid-back. James would also have a much harder time getting Lily to fall for him, unless Remus purposely acted like an idiot to shake her off. Though James would never make him do that, despite how jealous he may feel of his best friend. Remus hoped it would never come down to that. He wanted Lily to hate him even less than he wanted her to fancy him.
Remus glanced over at Lily, who was listening attentively to Amos and Violetta. What if she did fancy him? If James wasn't already smitten with her and if she ever confessed her feelings, would Remus ever ask her out? Probably not, what with the werewolf barrier. He didn't want to hurt anyone, whether it be physically or emotionally.
He pondered over the subject a bit more, trying to think of other Hogwarts boys around their age starting with 'Re'. After awhile he realised how long he'd been absorbed in his thoughts and turned his attention back to the Head students.
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"So how did the meeting go?" Alice asked as Lily entered their compartment.
"It was okay. What did I miss?"
Mandy grinned. "Well, Amber here was telling us a charming story of certain summertime get-togethers..."
"Oh, would you stop making fun of me?" Amber pouted in an uncannily Sirius- like way.
"Sirius, I presume?" Lily grinned as well.
Amber blushed fuchsia as Mandy and Alice said in unison, "Of course! Who else?" The latters began giggling not only from saying the same thing at the same time, but also from seeing Amber's expression.
Lily plopped down on the seat across from Amber. "So, would you like to fill me in?"
Amber rolled her eyes, but smiled nevertheless. "Alright, alright. Coincidentally, Sirius and I both live in the same area of London, quite close to Diagon Alley. So one day near the beginning of July I decided to hop over to Florean Fortescue's for some ice cream. And guess who I saw there?"
"Sirius!" Lily laughed. Amber was quite a good storyteller once you got it out of her.
"Exactly," she continued. "So I walk past to see if he notices and sure enough, he's bellowing at me. 'AMBER! OI! OVER HERE!'" Amber was excellent at imitating Sirius. "So I went over and sat down beside him and he got me some ice cream."
"And then?" Lily asked as Amber paused.
"And then we decided to meet at Florean Fortescue's once a week for the rest of the summer."
"Wow, that's a lot of weeks."
"Well, not if you count the two or three that he spent at James' house in Godric's Hollow," Alice piped in.
Lily made a face at the mention of Potter's name. Unfortunately for her, Mandy noticed and was reminded of something else they'd been talking about earlier.
"Speaking of James, how about your little hug-fest this morning?"
"Oh, boy, not this again." Lily rolled her eyes.
Mandy grinned. "Well you didn't explain it well enough last time for us to understand what you were talking about."
Lily leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, sighing. "Look, he came up from behind and hugged me. At first I thought it was Remus so I... liked it... but then he whispered into my ear and I completely flipped out. I started yelling at him and almost let it slip that I thought he'd been Remus and he was standing there stupidly guessing at what I meant by 're.'"
"Ah, so you've made up your mind," Mandy said knowingly.
"What?"
"You fancy Remus."
Lily felt her face get warm. "I – I guess I do, don't I?"
A/N: This is only really half the chap. Well, it was supposed to be. I decided to end it here cause it kinda fit... and so that you guys wouldn't think I died. --;; But anyway, the train ride's not done yet – more in the nxt chap! I'll just tell you that it won't be very Lily-James centred but still something vital to the story.
You know what's weird? Whenever I make people tell stories (Amber and Lily in this chap, for example) they always sound like, exactly how i would retell them. 'Cept I'd probably add in some more imitations of people, heheh.
Alright well enough of my ramblings, time to thank the reviewers!
alyssa and ally341 – you're the same person, aren't you... heheh, well I updated. Yes, pummel me to death for taking over a month – i think i deserve it.
Fallen-Snow – teehee, me and Jenn playing b-ball. Yeah, it is kinda like that, isn't it? Maybe i did that on purpose! gasp we may never know... [Hey, i don't hate football! Do I...??? bleh. w/e u say feifs! XD]
Pigwidgeon188 – yay, glad you liked it; hope u like this chap as well! Eek, sorry for long update. :(
Limbo-gal – heheh, that action enuff for you? NO!?!?!?? lol well toooo bad... grins i'm so nice...
Yuka – they're playing soccer, eh? In europe, soccer is called football. Its actually the other way around, lol. We call football soccer. Heh. Anway, notice how I never had 'em throwing, n there were ppl in net... lol. Nooooo! Shane references!!?!??!??! Imma DIE!! :O:O:O:O:O neway, hope u likes. :]
MooKittee – how many chapters? Alot... at LEAST till the end of seventh year, i might go longer if i feel like it and if people like my fic... neway, here's the update u asked for! Teehee. Im a cheepo.
Distant34 – yay, glad u like it so far. Awk, typing with crossed fingers IS annoying. Im goin at like 20 wpm – 1/3 my usual speed!!
Realmer06 - :] your review put a smile on my face! Not as square as that one... heheh. But yay, you think I improve with every chapter? That's gotta be a good thing! :D and don't worry, I uncrossed my fingers :)
FrEgOrGeLuVeR225 – glad you liked it! hehe, it would stink, eh? I never broken anything... lol, i love your reviews but everytime i reply it takes so long to write your name out cause i keep forgetting the exact spelling!! :P o well, next time you review hinthint i'll get it right without having to look! :D
Soooo... Review if you liked it, review anyway if you didn't! And let's all hope that I'll get the second half of this chap up before the end of school. --;; Okay, I KNOW I'll be able to do that, heh.
I re-edited the formatting of this chap cause i decided to use dashes stead of asterixes n stuffs... so now it's not as confusing to read anymore! :)
