Hate Everything About You

Summary: Lily Evans is convinced that James Potter is bad down to the core. What happens when she realizes that this isn't true?

Disclaimer: I don't own any of J. K. Rowling's characters, locations, or other such ideas. I do, however, own Mandy, Amber, and other random characters in the story.

A/N: Six months. I know. Just… read the chapter, heh.


Chapter Eleven – Feelings

The next few weeks were a bit of a blur for Lily. Potter had barely spoken to her since their detention (thankfully), Mandy had begun attending more intense Quidditch practices for Gryffindor's match against Ravenclaw in November, and the sixth years' load of homework refused to back down.

Lily lay on her bed, facing the ceiling, her curtains fully open. She should have been down in the common room doing her homework, but as it was, Lily was sick and tired of any form of it – she couldn't even bring herself to practice some advanced charms that the class would be starting on the next day.

Sighing, Lily decided that thinking about how much she hated her homework wouldn't make it go away. She sat up and made to reach for her books to carry them downstairs, but decided that, for once, her never-ending essays could wait until later. Lying back down on her bed, Lily started to think about things other than homework – namely, Remus Lupin.

For a sixteen-year-old boy, Remus seemed as though he was anything but. Instead, he was mature, friendly, thoughtful, sweet and funny – there was no trace of deceitfulness, boyishness, or perverseness in him. He was honest, true, and absolutely perfect.

Lily reveled in memories of his warm, grey eyes, his tantalizing smile, his perfect hair – she really wanted to run her hands through his hair –

Lily was startled by the sudden show of her hormones, as well as Mandy's sudden appearance at the dormitory door. Thoughts of Remus nearly gone from her mind, she sat up to take in Mandy's muddy figure and stormy expression.

"What's wrong?" she provided when her best friend remained silent.

"Bloody Potter is what's wrong," Mandy grumbled. She trudged in and performed a cleaning spell on her Quidditch robes to rid them of mud.

Lily raised her eyebrows. "What's he done this time?"

"I've told you about our new Seeker, Lisa Chapman?" Lily nodded and Mandy continued, "Well, she's only in her second year and isn't half bad. A lot of potential. But Potter kept on…" She stopped, rubbing her temples in frustration.

"Kept on what?" Lily asked.

Mandy bit her lip, thinking. "I don't know… it was like he was trying to improve her. He would get frustrated with everything she did and tell her what to do and boss her around."

"Didn't Andrew do anything about it?" Lily questioned. Andrew Spinnet, a boy in his seventh year, was a Beater and the captain of Gryffindor's Quidditch team.

"That's the thing, he tried to shut him up. But bloody Potter insisted that he knew more about being a Seeker than anyone else on the team! And I told him, 'You can't be Seeker and star Chaser all at once.'"

Lily silently congratulated her friend for showing Potter what was what and continued to listen.

"But then he whirled around and said, 'I'd shut my mouth if I were you, Kirkwood. You're not going to be captain next year, so why are you acting like it now? Now go guard your hoops and mind your own business.' It was so – he was so –"

Her eyes seemed to fill with tears and she began taking deep breaths, struggling to keep from crying.

The redhead got up from her bed wordlessly to give Mandy a reassuring hug. Potter hadn't ever been rude to Mandy – probably for the sole fact that she was Lily's friend – and this must have come as quite a surprise to her. Not only that, but what he had said was extremely hurtful.

Lily released her friend and found that the side of her head (the one that Mandy had rested her head against) was muddy. Although Mandy had gotten the muck off of her Quidditch robes, her face and hair were a whole different story.

"I guess we should both take a shower," Lily giggled.

Mandy grinned, no longer close to bursting into tears. "I'll wait for you to finish."

"No, it's fine," Lily said, "I'll use the Prefects' bathroom."

"Alright," she said, but as Lily turned to go, called out, "Wait, Lily!"

"Yes?"

"Don't – don't do anything to Potter, alright? He may be a git, but he's still a person. He still has feelings."

Lily was tempted to snort and make it clear to Mandy that Potter had no feelings whatsoever, but decided against it. Not only was Mandy in a fragile state, but she was also her friend.

"Sure. I won't hurt him," Lily sighed. "You know, sometimes you're just too nice for your own good… Amanda."

Lily grinned and ran away before Mandy could catch up to her and surely hex her to death – or worse.


Keeping up with the scheduling of Prefect rounds could be a complicated business if you weren't used to it. Every week, Prefects were paired with a different house. Thus, there were two 'groups' that alternated patrol nights for the week (not including Sunday; only the Head students had rounds seven nights a week) before the houses rotated again. Within the house pairings, students would patrol in partners with a Prefect in their year.

This week, Prefect-wise, Gryffindor was paired with Slytherin and together, they were assigned rounds from 9-11p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Remus had spent Monday night ignoring Severus Snape's insults and Wednesday ignoring Fiona Fortescue's sulkiness (he still didn't know if it was because he was a half-blood or because he wasn't James), but it was tonight – Friday night – that he was dreading.

It would be his third time patrolling with Lily since that fateful afternoon when he'd agreed to help James win Lily's heart – or break it. Every time he spoke to her, Remus felt dreadfully guilty, knowing how she felt about him, yet being prepared to use that feeling to James' advantage.

Remus ran a hand over his face. It was October 25th – less than a week before Halloween and, to his dismay, three days before the full moon. This month's transformation would probably be harder on him than usual – James would have to spend part of the night finding fluxweed for the Polyjuice Potion, since it had to be picked at the full moon. That would mean that Remus' company would be reduced by one third; and his pain would probably double.

He sighed and busied himself in his schoolwork to take his mind off of the full moon. Just as he finished his work, his wristwatch beeped to tell him that it was time to leave for his patrol.

"Lily, Lily," Remus breathed. "Why must you fancy me?" With that, he set off to find his fellow Prefect.


Footsteps echoed through the hallways as two very quiet Prefects patrolled the fourth floor corridor.

"Busy night, huh?" Lily said, unable to bear the silence any longer.

She saw Remus nod quietly and wondered what was on his mind that was so troubling.

"I mean it," Lily continued, desperate for conversation, "we haven't seen one student out of bed tonight. Not one. That's got to be a record."

Remus smiled this time. "No, there was that one night last year…"

"That doesn't count; the castle was so frozen over that day that we had to wear our cloaks and hats inside! Nobody would have even thought about sneaking around that night."

"Yeah, I guess," Remus said quietly and went back into his clouded state.

Lily tugged on her robes, which felt about as comfortable as the unnerving silence that the two had – yet again – encountered.

Remus spoke up after awhile. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Lily said, hoping desperately that his next question would include the words 'Hogsmeade,' 'tomorrow,' 'with,' and 'me.'

"What would you do if… if you agreed to do something for a friend that would end up hurting another friend?"

Although she should have been disappointed, Lily received this question with a considerable amount of surprise.

"I probably wouldn't do it, but I guess it would depend on who it is that you'll be helping and who you'll be hurting, as well as the possible extent of the damage. Sorry, Remus, I can't really help you with that."

"That's alright. I was just wondering."

"Well, why do you ask?"

Remus looked down and suddenly seemed very interested in his shoes.

"Okay, you don't have to answer that if you don't want to," Lily said, although she was dying to know what could possibly be stirring up his conscience.

"Thanks," he murmured.

"Can I ask you something, too?" Lily blurted out before she could stop herself.

Her companion looked up and regarded her with an interest that seemed mingled with some other emotion—was it dread? Finally, Remus nodded.

Swallowing, slowly gathering her courage, Lily asked, "If you fancied someone and you didn't know if they fancied you back… what would you do?"

Again, Remus looked at her as though observing a particularly interesting puddle of vomit. "I guess I'd—ask her if she fancied me?"

Lily frowned. "But what if you weren't up to hearing a no? What if you were too scared?"

"Then… I would forget her and move on," Remus lied.

Looking troubled at this advice, Lily said, "That doesn't seem very strong-willed, though, does it?"

"I guess not," Remus sighed. "Maybe that's just me."

"No, don't say that, you're—"

Lily was cut off as she tripped. Her stumble was so sudden that she sailed through the air, falling. Remus managed to catch her around the waist just before she landed face first on the stone floor and set her down gently.

"What just happened?" he asked, surprised.

"I don't know… I tripped over something…" Lily looked over to where she'd taken off to find that there was nothing there. In fact, there wasn't anything in the hallway at all save for Lily, Remus, and several sleeping portraits.

"How could I have tripped over nothing?" she said in disbelief.

Remus fidgeted. "Maybe it was Peeves. You never know what that troublemaker is up to."

"Yeah," Lily agreed. She took a step toward Remus. "Thank you for, you know, catching me."

"Um, you're welcome. It was nothing, really."

Lily took Remus' hand. "If you hadn't stopped me from falling, my face would have gotten bashed in—not to mention my brains, as well."

Remus withdrew his hand and tried to cover up by scratching his arm. He became uncomfortably aware of Lily's closeness as she took another step forward. He was even able to feel her breath on his chin and became acutely aware of how pretty Lily was. But this realization was made in such a platonic way that Remus couldn't help but feel bad for Lily—she had chosen the wrong person to fancy. They were just not meant to be.

Especially… since Lily was meant to be with James.

Remus stepped back and put his hands on the girl's shoulders. "Lily."

Lily looked down, understanding. She slowly shuffled over to the other side of the hallway and checked her watch.

"It's past eleven," she declared. "We should head back to Gryffindor Tower."

Remus nodded gloomily. There had always been a small, optimistic whisper in his heart that maybe, just maybe, Lily didn't fancy him. But what had happened just now muted the optimism and squashed what could have been Remus' only chance to remain friends with Lily. The reality hit Remus hard: she fancied him and there was nothing he could do about it except to exploit that feeling for his and James' own purposes.


The weekend slipped by unnoticed. There had been a gloomy, Sirius-deprived Hogsmeade visit (Saturday had been Sirius' last detention from 'The Skivvies Incident') during which James, Remus, and Peter had searched around for the last remaining ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion.

By now, it was Monday, and there were only two ingredients left: the fluxweed to be picked at the full moon (which was tonight), and a piece of James' hair that was to be added into the Potion once it was complete, which it would be in just less than a fortnight.

James went over to the Hospital Wing to visit Remus before he left for the Shrieking Shack. After negotiating with Madame Pomfrey and finally conceding to her 'five-minutes-only' rule, James went inside and sat himself down at the edge of Remus' bed.

"Hey," he said, not expecting a response. Remus had been very quiet for the past three days—his impending transformation had drained him of the energy needed for out-of-classroom conversation. James found this rather unusual, despite the fact that pre-transformation fatigue affected Remus regularly; Remus was normally up for a chat, at least.

"Sorry I can't keep you company tonight, Moony," James said. "I know I've said it already… I just can't help but feel dreadful, leaving you with only Sirius and Peter to keep you from… you know."

He saw Remus nod beside him and was surprised to hear him speak voluntarily for possibly the first time in three days.

"I know that was you on Friday." Remus' voice was quiet, raspy; it seemed as though just to speak was hurting him.

James looked over to his friend and raised his eyebrows. "Am I that easy to figure out?"

Remus smiled. "I heard you; you swore when she tripped. You're lucky Lily didn't hear it."

"Yeah. She tripped over my foot," he explained, but when he saw Remus' expression he knew that he would have to elaborate. "I wanted to see her. I wanted to see how Lily felt about you… to make sure that our plan will work. So I put on the Invisibility Cloak and… accompanied you during your rounds."

Despite his fatigue, Remus looked uncomfortable. "And?"

James nodded. "She really likes you. You're a lucky man, mate."

"I don't know about that. Try telling me that I'm lucky after Lily bites both our heads off next week."

Grinning, James was about to protest when Madame Pomfrey shooed him away, insisting that her patient was sick and was surely weary of receiving such stubborn visitors.

He stood in the corridor outside, checking to make sure there was nobody around before donning his Invisibility Cloak and making his way quietly over to the Entrance Hall.

It was past nine o'clock and very dark when James got outside. He looked at the vast school grounds and thought to himself, 'How am I supposed to find fluxweed if it's too dark to see anything? Even if it was midday, I've no idea what fluxweed looks like.'

This was a problem James hadn't thought would arise. He and his friends had managed to gather most of the ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion either from Hogsmeade or from their uninvited visit to the Potions master's private cupboard. The fluxweed, since it had to be picked during the full moon, was a very particular ingredient and the only one that the boys were unsure of as to where it could be found.

They had decided, then, to play with their luck: surely fluxweed could be found somewhere in the Hogwarts grounds or the Forbidden Forest.

Feeling a rush of genius, James took out his wand and called, "Accio fluxweed!"

Nothing happened. It was quite apparent that the Summoning Charm would not work if the Summoner didn't have a clear image of what exactly it was that he or she was trying to Summon.

James sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Time for Plan B.

The only problem was that there wasn't a Plan B—not yet, anyway. After thinking for awhile, James decided to put a Summoning Charm to better use: "Accio Herbology textbook!"

This time, the Charm was successful and James followed the book's progress as it flew down from his dormitory window in Gryffindor Tower. He caught the book once it reached him and pried it open.

"Lumos." His wand lit, James flipped quickly through the book for any pictures or information concerning fluxweed. Perhaps his search was too quick—both the pages flying by and the limited amount of wand light caused him to see little more than blurs of ink on each page.

Closing the book, he set it down on the ground and rested the tip of his wand on the front cover. James muttered an Indicator Charm, a very useful piece of charm-work that, as he'd heard Lily say when they'd learnt it in class in September, was "like an index, but simpler." When the incantation was uttered, followed by the word one was looking for, each page with said word written on it would glow a pale blue that would darken if the word appeared more than once. Naturally, this was an extremely useful Charm when it came to conducting research for essays—especially during NEWT years.

A small section (only about ten pages, really) of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi was glowing a deep blue, with paler-glowing pages dispersed throughout the rest of the book. Needless to say, James went right to the dark section in search of a picture of fluxweed to accompany the pages' numerous mentions of it.

Said picture was easy to find (it showed a fluxweed plant budding, growing, dying, then starting all over again) and James quickly found himself searching all over the grounds for something that even remotely resembled the textbook's illustration.

"Fluxweed looks remarkably like grass," James found himself thinking as he stooped over to examine a possible candidate in his search. Judging by his lack of success in the last slow, silent quarter hour and by the fact that the Hogwarts grounds were so incredibly vast, James could tell that his expedition would take longer than he'd bargained for.

To pass the time, James began running through imaginary scenarios in his head of how adoring Lily would be when the Marauders' plan pulled through.

Oh, James, Lily would say to Remus after he'd taken the Polyjuice Potion, I don't know how I could have possibly been so oblivious to your charm these past few years… Oh, yes, I would love to go out with you…

Then, during their Hogsmeade visit together (with the real James this time, of course): You are so funny, James! I'm so glad that you chose me to be your girlfriend…

And one day, James would confess, Lily, the day I asked you out… That wasn't me, it was Remus using a Polyjuice Potion. But Lily would laugh and say, Wow, really? I couldn't tell the difference! Well, I'm glad that your plan worked or else I never would have realized what a great bloke you are… and what a good kisser, too…

James drifted out of his reverie, slowly returning to a reality in which Lily had not yet fallen head over heels for him. A reality in which he had not yet found the fluxweed.

James looked up to see that he had somehow made a beeline to the greenhouses. It was then, right when it was in his face, that it hit him. The greenhouses! There were magical plants to be found there, obviously. How could he have forgotten this treasure trove of possibility?

Trying to remember during which year, if any, he had studied fluxweed in Herbology, James made his way into a greenhouse and searched.

He had reached his third greenhouse, Greenhouse Four (he'd gone in reverse order), when he found precisely what he was looking for. He stooped over to pluck a few sprigs of fluxweed that were softly lit both by his wand and the moonlight coming through the glass roof.

James was quietly triumphant as he crept back into the school to mix the fluxweed into the Polyjuice Potion.


The Halloween Feast came and went and Lily found herself in quite a good mood. The food had been delicious as per usual, and the decorations had been particularly fetching. Not only that, but the Marauders had not pulled off a single prank; in fact, they had been absent for a good half of the feast. That had made Lily particularly glad, aside from the fact that Remus hadn't been there, of course.

Her friends, too, had seemed to be in a cheerful mood. Amber was more buoyant than she had been in weeks as she, Lily, Mandy, and Alice shared the huge box of sweets that she'd received from her mother. Mandy seemed excited rather than stressed about the Quidditch match that was happening in less than a fortnight (probably just a temporary effect from the chocolates), and Alice was peacefully happy like she always was, unfazed by her high amount of sugar intake.

Lily munched slowly on a chocolate, letting the flavour spread through her mouth.

"I love Halloween," she murmured.

Her friends nodded in agreement.

"I have an idea!" Mandy exclaimed, "Halloween can be our lucky day!"

Lily raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you know how on your birthday, if something good happens to you, it's always 'because it's your birthday.' Halloween can be a day like that for us, too!"

"That's… interesting," voiced Alice.

"I think it's the sugar talking," Amber supplied.

Eventually, though, they all agreed to name Halloween their "lucky day" and went to bed soon after.

The next morning, the girls were still in unbreakable good moods. They pranced down to breakfast and ate and chatted happily, not at all dismayed that they had Double Potions that day.

It was not until the post owls came that they realized that something was wrong. An inexplicable hush came over the Great Hall as Daily Prophets were dropped onto laps and tables.

"What's so mortifying about having your daily newspaper delivered?" Mandy whispered.

Lily shrugged and followed with her eyes her own copy of the newspaper as it descended onto her empty plate. What had begun as a casual glance at the front page turned into a wide-eyed stare.

"Mandy, take a look at this," she said with obvious dread in her voice.

On the front page of the Daily Prophet was a huge, magical photograph of a wreckage—a whole residential street reduced to piles of wood and ash, with dead bodies lying on the ground, and Emergency Healers running to and fro. And, above it all, there hung the Dark Mark.

MUGGLES SLAUGHTERED IN A MERCILESS DEATH EATER ATTACK was the headline. Lily's first reaction was to scan hurriedly through the article to find out where it had happened…

Lily sighed quietly, guiltily relieved to see that the attack had been many miles away from where her parents lived. But it was still a horror to see the picture and to read about this horrible massacre, even if it did not affect her directly.

There were many minutes of silence throughout the Great Hall as people read the article and a few whispers were exchanged. Finally, students began to leave for their morning classes and Lily was reminded that she still had a whole day ahead of her.

Lily stood up robotically and headed out of the Great Hall. Mandy followed her; Alice and Amber had left earlier.

Mandy squeezed Lily's arm in comfort. She was feeling the same way.

"I – I guess Halloween isn't our lucky day anymore," she whispered, her voice thick as though she were on the verge of tears.

Lily looked over to her friend and hugged her. She had never seen Mandy make jokes without a huge grin on her face and, although still saddened by the killings, Lily was glad that her friend was such a compassionate being.

"How about Christmas, instead?" Lily smiled.

Mandy nodded and managed to grin while wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

The two friends continued walking in silence until Mandy spoke up again, several minutes later.

"Promise me something, Lils?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't ever let anyone kill you like that. Don't let anyone else decide that it's your time to die. Die on your own terms, okay Lils?"

"Okay."

"Because that's what I'm going to do," Mandy said forcibly. "Nobody is going to make me die. But, Lils… if I die before you do, promise me you won't cry. Because, no matter what, I would have died because I allowed myself to. Promise me you won't cry."

Lily smiled, but couldn't bring herself to say anything because she was crying already.


A/N: Hey, remember me? Sigh. Here is a chapter that was extremely painful to write and… well, I don't have to remind you how long it took. School is something that really makes you forget that you have a fanfic to write. That, and the little free time you have after you're done procrastinating on your homework is time that is spent relaxing and NOT doing more work (namely, writing—and when you've got writer's block it IS work, I am sorry to say).

In any case, if you want to know what on earth I am up to in terms of writing, go to my LiveJournal,

Ah yes, and a big thank you to as their site contained very useful information that I could not have found on my own as someone was borrowing my copies of the first three Harry Potter books.

Okay, reviewer-thanking time (I'll try to make it short):

Limbo-gal – Thanks! Heh, you'll just have to wait and see what happens…

Jessiquie – Aww, thank you! Yeah, it's true that she'd fall for Remus as opposed to James… but in James' mind, it's just a trivial detail. What a guy.

Starrydreams – The because game IS rather awesome, n'est-ce pas? Lol.

Tikvah Ariel – Yeah, I was stupid before and thought, "Hey I'm lazy so why not make the Muggle world so that it's present day so that they can have all this high-tech stuff?" But I will eventually (hopefully soon) edit those stupid parts out. (By the way... you're the 100th reviewer! Congrats!)

SeleneA – Thanks so much! I'm really glad that you think that Lily's in character… it's what I was going for! Aww, you were so close to being reviewer 100, but you got 101 instead!

Itami Kitsune – Lol, Betsy, how random of you. Glomps you!

Fallen-Snow – You're so cool. I just had to say that, lol. I hope I didn't keep you waiting for so long that you forgot about my fanfic altogether!

Prongs' Princess – So much going on… Yeah, I definitely know how it is, lol.

Thanks also to Jen-bob-ohio, Eggo Waffles, PhyloNish, Isabielle, and Xaphien!

And congrats to Tikvah Ariel, who was the 100th reviewer (Cough. Six months ago.)! What shall I do for you?