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.


Chapter Twelve – Deception

The potion was finally ready after a month of secret preparations. The Marauders were grouped solemnly around Sirius' spare cauldron, watching the thick concoction bubble. Its violent hissing echoed through the secret passageway that led from Hogwarts to the Honeydukes storage room in Hogsmeade.

Remus tightened his grip around a flask he was holding. It was time.

Taking a deep breath, he carefully ladled some potion into the flask, careful not to spill any. James handed him a freshly-plucked strand of his hair. Remus held it and looked at it, willing himself not to feel guilty, before finally dropping it into his flask as well. The potion's colour instantly took on a hue of midnight blue.

Doubtful about the consequences of his next action, yet sure that he would have to take it, Remus gulped down the flask of Polyjuice Potion. He did it quickly, so as to prevent himself any time in which to change his mind.

The potion took effect immediately. Remus started to transform, a process which was painful, and yet vaguely familiar. He realized that it was the same type of pain that he experienced once a month—although this one, thankfully, was on a smaller scale.

His friends stood watching in astonishment as Remus slowly morphed into a taller, dark-haired replica of James. He had already been wearing a spare set of James' robes and shoes; only now did they finally feel comfortable. James reached for his wand, conjured a set of glasses identical to his own, and handed them to Remus.

He put the glasses on and suddenly, everything was clearer. Peter held a pocket mirror up to Remus' face. Or, rather, James' face.

Remus-James nodded, feeling more confident now that he knew that the Polyjuice Potion had been effective. "Good. I have an hour now, right?" he asked, and was surprised to hear James' voice come out of his mouth. It was a weird feeling.

The other three nodded uncertainly; having a second 'James' right in front of them must have been rather unnerving.

"Well, I'd better get going, then. You guys clean up, I'll meet you later in the dormitory." With that, Remus headed back up the passageway and found himself standing beside the statue of the one-eyed witch five minutes later.

'Now, where to look for Lily…' He made up his mind awhile later and headed off to Gryffindor Tower, hoping that he would find her there.

Inside the common room, however, Remus saw not Lily, but her friends.

"Uh, do you girls know where Lily is?" Remus-James asked them while trying to muss up his hair in imitation of the real James.

Mandy, a usually good-natured girl in his year, eyed who she thought was James rather suspiciously. "Why would you want to know?"

Remus was unsure of his next move. Should he act like James and put on an arrogant grin? No, not if he was planning on winning Lily's heart. "I – uh… I was hoping maybe I could talk to her…"

The girls looked up at him sympathetically and he knew that his hurt-puppy face was working. Despite a slight twinge of guilt, Remus felt triumphant. If it was that simple to melt their frosty outsides, Lily would be almost as easy to win over.

"I think she's in the library, but don't go too hard on her, okay?" Alice said in a tone so sweet it was almost motherly.

Remus nodded and smiled his thanks, then proceeded out of the common room. He walked briskly, choosing the shortest possible route to the library. He knew that his time was limited – fifteen minutes were gone already! He quickened his pace.

Remus was about two-thirds of the way to the library when a group of girls appeared in front of him. He peered at them, trying to remember why they looked familiar other than some of them being in his classes. Oh no, were these –

"Hi, James," a girl named Larissa said flirtatiously. The statement seemed to echo as the other girls in the group repeated it.

– James' admirers. Remus' stomach clenched. Why did James have to be so bloody popular?

"Hi," he grunted and tried to push past them, but Larissa managed to grab his arm.

"You and me this weekend? Where do you want to go?"

Remus frowned in thought. Who was it that James had been going out with recently? He'd thought Larissa had been James' girlfriend during fourth year… "Are you… my girlfriend?" he asked, just to make sure, but felt stupid nonetheless.

Larissa and some of the other girls giggled. "No, silly, Katie was, until you dumped her this morning. But I could be your girlfriend if you want me to be!" She twirled a lock of hair around her finger.

"Oh… um, no, sorry. I – you kind of… creep me out," Remus said earnestly, mussing James' hair.

Fake, forced tears welled up in Larissa's eyes. "What? Am I too fat?" she screamed, and ran away to the nearest girls' loo.

After barely a second of stunned silence, a girl, followed by another, and another, asked excitedly, "Can I be your girlfriend, then, James?"

The noise was giving Remus a headache. "Leave me alone! I don't want a girlfriend right now, okay?" he shouted over the noise of the too-eager girls trying to get him to choose one of them to go out with.

He managed to pass the girls this time and continued on his way to the library, only to have another girl grab his arm. Remus kept walking, hoping to shake her off, but she walked with him, clinging to his arm.

"Can't you at least tell us a joke?" she said, and stood on her toes in attempt to lay her head on his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Remus exclaimed, pulling his arm out of her grasp. 'It is so bloody hard to be James with all of his annoying admirers following me!' he thought angrily as he turned around to face the girls, his wand out.

"Are you mad, Jamesie?" one girl gasped.

Remus scoffed. "Yes, furious. Murderous, even," he said sarcastically, "So much so that you'd better stay away if you value your lives." It was hard to keep from rolling his eyes.

The clingy girl giggled nervously. "Jamesiepoo (Remus snorted), you know you'd never hurt me! Especially not since we're going to be at the Astronomy Tower tonight, snogging each other's lights out."

Staring, Remus would have laughed if not for the fact that he was completely disgusted by this proposition. "When did I ever agree on snogging you?" he demanded furiously.

"You just did," the clingy girl giggled.

"Ugh! Just get away from me! I don't even know your name! Leave me ALONE, okay?" With that, Remus turned and ran as fast as he could to the library, leaving James' admirers behind and knowing that he'd already wasted twenty of his precious minutes.

Remus slowed down as he reached the library doors. He leaned against the wall for a moment, waiting for his breathing to slow down and for his anger and shock to subside; he didn't want that stupid run-in to ruin James' chance of finally going out with Lily.

He shook his head, still rather angry about what had just happened. "How did I agree to this?" he said aloud before entering the library quietly. Here came the hard part.


Lily pounded her forehead against the tabletop in frustration (she had adopted Amber's annoying habit of doing this), feeling as though she'd lost all hope. Her six-foot long Potions essay was so stressful that it was driving her nuts, and pounding her forehead on the table wasn't doing much to help her finish it.

In the midst of all the banging, Lily was surprised to feel somebody lay their hand on her shoulder. She stopped bashing her forehead in and instead let it rest on the table's surface. Who was standing behind her? Could it be Remus? Lily decided that her best plan of action would be to lift her head and find out.

She turned and rolled her eyes. "Oh, hello, Potter," she greeted coldly.

"Hi, Lily," he said in a tone that was anything but cold and sat down in the chair beside her. "Why were you giving yourself a concussion?" he inquired innocently, still with a warm tone to his voice.

Lily looked at James. This wasn't like him… he was being… nice. Nice, and not arrogant or, well, horny. She frowned before realizing that he'd asked her a question.

"Oh, right, that. I wasn't giving myself a concussion, I was banging my head in frustration," she said matter-of-factly.

"Um… why?"

Lily leaned back in her chair, folded her arms, and nodded towards her essay.

"Ouch, that Potions one. Pain in the behind, that one is."

Lily was again surprised at James' sudden lack of arrogance as well as swearing. She sighed. 'Might as well talk to him while he's not being a prat,' Lily thought, knowing that she'd gone mad. Was it desperation? She had no idea.

"I've written two out of six feet's worth of information; that's only a third of what I should be writing, but that's everything I know! I mean, what else is there to know about the Aging Potion?"

James picked up the parchment and skimmed through it. "Well, you've said who invented it, but not how… You've mentioned the ingredients; try writing out the significance of each one. If you still don't have enough, just elaborate with specific examples of how it's been used and all that."

Lily's eyes widened. "Wow, you're good, Potter! I've no clue why those ideas didn't occur to me… No wonder you're a top student."

James smiled – just smiled. No arrogant grinning, no 'but of course, I'm the greatest guy ever, want to go out with me?' type of stuff. Just a warm, friendly smile. Lily was astonished even further when he said, "Feel free to use my ideas. I've already finished my essay, and it's nothing like yours. Mine's a load of garbage, really, but I don't really care – who wants to rewrite six feet on Aging Potions?"

"Snape might want to," Lily chuckled, snapping out of her state of shock. "Anyway, thanks for all that. I, uh, I'm done for today, though. I'm sick of all this work." She started packing away her things and James bent down to help her.

As they stood up, James began, "Lily…"

'Oh no, here it comes. Just when I thought he'd changed miraculously overnight,' Lily thought to herself.

"Yes?"

"D'you maybe want to go for a walk? Just, you know, to talk awhile?"

She tried not to stare at James incredulously. "Umm, sure, I guess."

Lily was beyond confused. Why on earth was Potter being kind and polite? Why did he sound unsure of himself, for once in his lifetime? They walked awkwardly toward the Entrance Hall, side by side. Lily began to worry about being seen with Potter, but somehow found that she didn't care much. Instead, she found herself worrying for her sanity.

Opening the oak double doors, the two were immediately met with the cold November wind. Lily shivered slightly.

"Want to get your cloak?" James asked.

"No, I'll be fine…"

She regretted it immediately as they stepped outside and tried not to shiver too noticeably. She stuffed her hands inside her sweatshirt pockets to warm them up at least a little bit.

Lily tilted her head up toward the sky as they walked aimlessly through the Hogwarts grounds. The clear, bright blue of the sky above her was gorgeous – although green was her favourite colour (mainly because of her eyes), blue was a close second. She momentarily forgot about the cold, the wind, and even about James as she gazed upwards into the sky's depths.

She snapped out of her reverie as she heard James say from beside her, "It is beautiful, isn't it?"

Looking over at him, she smiled and nodded. They continued to walk, now meandering toward the lake, and Lily again got lost in her thoughts; this time, her thoughts concerning James.

She knew that she was supposed to hate him, and maybe… maybe she still did. But this James was not the normal James, he wasn't the one she hated; the one that constantly asked her out and flirted with her. This James had done nothing of the sort – nothing at all that would suggest that he fancied her. In fact, he'd been nothing but nice to her in these past twenty-five, thirty minutes.

Minutes which, under normal circumstances, would have been seconds. And only on a good day.

Lily cast a sideways glance at James only to find that he wasn't there. She stopped walking and turned around to see where he'd gone. Sure enough, there he was, just fifty metres behind her (but catching up fast, as he was jogging over) with a cloak in hand.

As soon as he caught up to Lily, he draped the cloak over her shoulders and adjusted its position until it fit snugly around her.

This behaviour was so out-of-the-ordinary that all Lily could muster up in her bewildered state was a simple, "Thanks."

"No problem," James said casually and reached up to ruffle his hair, a small smile on his face.

As they resumed their walk, Lily was overcome with the necessity to say something and blurted out, "You didn't have to do that, you know."

"Yes, I did. You were shivering like mad – how could I not summon Ja- my cloak for you?"

Lily, although gratified, regarded him funnily. "Well why yours? You could have summoned mine."

James smiled. "That's not what a gentleman would do. Plus, if I'm not allowed to go into the girls' dormitories physically, it hardly seems right to go about summoning mysterious items from within their depths."

Lily had to laugh at this. She wrapped James' cloak tighter around herself as a bigger gust of wind blew rather viciously.

"What about you?" she inquired, "Why don't you have a cloak? Aren't you cold?"

"No, I'm fine. Plus, you're wearing my cloak, remember?"

"Oh, right," Lily looked down and smiled a bit. "Thanks again."

They finally reached the lake and began walking along its vast shore, marveling at its sparkling beauty.

"Pity the lake never freezes," Lily spoke.

"Why? I like it better this way."

"Hmm, you're right," Lily agreed, "We wouldn't want our mate the giant squid to be trapped under there, would we?" They both chuckled.

After a moment of peaceful silence, James suddenly spoke.

"Can I – hold your hand, Lily?"

"No!" Lily said quickly, drawing her hands away upon reflex. She immediately felt sorry for acting so meanly and tried to think up an excuse. "Sorry, it's just –" Rubbing her hands together, Lily tried smudging some ink that she'd accidentally spilt on them earlier. "– My hands have ink all over, see?" She held them up for him.

James sighed, but smiled. "It's alright if you don't want to hold my hand, you know."

Lily looked down at her feet, blushing slightly. He was being so thoughtful and she, Lily, was… well, she wasn't being as thoughtful. She looked back up at James, trying to read his face.

"Sorry. It's kind of hard for just this one day to erase more than five years of… erm, dislike," Lily explained apologetically.

James nodded. "I understand. You, uh – you probably fancy somebody else, anyway, am I right?"

"Yeah," Lily admitted with a small smile. "But he's always too busy prancing around with his crazy Marauder friends to notice me, aside from the Prefe-" She flushed. "Oops, too much information."

James chuckled. "So you fancy Remus, huh? He thought so and told me. Sorry – it's a guy thing. You girls probably tell each other if a boy fancies you as well, though, don't you?"

Lily nodded.

"So about Remus," James continued, "he's pretty honoured that you like him and all, but he won't allow himself to like you in… a more-than-platonic way."

"Why not?" Lily asked, slightly hurt.

"Well, 'cause he knows I love you too much – I wouldn't be able to bear it."

Lily flushed.

All of a sudden, James stopped walking, and Lily followed suit. He turned so that he was facing her, with his back to the lake. Lily, not knowing what to expect, turned to face James as well.

"What?" she asked as he smiled at her.

"You're so beautiful, Lil. Can't I at least have a hug?" he begged.

Lily rolled her eyes, and for once, it was in a playful manner. "Oh, alright."

She took a few steps toward him and moved her arms to wrap them around his neck, a difficult task considering his height. She didn't know why she was doing this, but she found herself smiling as she stood on tip toe to reach higher. Then, when she looked into James' warm grey eyes, she stopped, her arms suspended in mid-air.

Weren't James' eyes hazel?

Her own eyes widened as James' jet-black hair rapidly turned to a sandy blonde.

Lily realized what was going on and with this realization returned her ability to move. She placed her hands on James' chest, and, with all her might, pushed him into the lake.

Surely enough, the person who came bobbing back up seconds later was none other than Remus Lupin.

"That was uncalled for, Lily," Remus sputtered as he treaded water. However, as soon as the words escaped from his mouth, he seemed to pause, realizing that he'd turned back into himself.

"Uncalled for?" Lily shrilled. "Uncalled for! That whole time I thought I was having a civil conversation with James; I thought I'd uncovered a side of him that isn't a complete idiot, only to find that this 'side' was just Remus Lupin using a Polyjuice Potion!

"And yes, Lupin, I did figure it out that quickly," she said in response to his facial expression as he continued to tread water. "And – and you knew that I fancied you! You were purposely toying with my emotions to try and get me to… what, to shag Potter or something equally as INSANE and you call pushing you into the lake in shock UNCALLED FOR?

"I would say that Potter's a madman for, not only trying to ask me out all of the time, but for not caring whether or not it's who he really is that I fall for, but really, it's YOU who's the madman. You, Remus Lupin, the most sensible man I know aside from my father and Dumbledore. Is this how you react to any girl who fancies you? You pretend to be Potter so that she goes out with him instead and you get a load off your back? Well I'll say, Potter is not only innocent of being a madman, he's innocent of being a PLAYER as well! Because that position has been officially filled by you."

Lily breathed heavily, and in spite of Remus' feeble attempts to stop her, felt compelled to complete her speech.

So she did. "Do you not have any feelings? Do you not care that I was head over heels for you, and that since the end of fifth year I was trying to convince myself that we're better off as friends? I – I almost thought that I was in… in love with you, my goodness! Because you were so perfect to me… But no, these things are too good to be true. I should have known! What with Petunia, and Potter, and now you – I can't… believe you did that. I can't believe you're so inconsiderate…"

Overwhelmed by a need for physical support, Lily turned and walked a few paces away from the shore to sit herself down on the grass. She tore at it, taking whole clumps of it out of the ground, shredding the grass into tiny pieces while trying to sort out the jumble of confusion and betrayal in her mind.

She heard water splash as Remus came out of the lake and tried to ignore the sound of his footsteps toward her.

He reached her and took in a breath, about to speak.

"I don't want to hear it," Lily said flatly, continuing to shred the grass.

Remus tentatively sat down beside her and seemed to relax when she didn't do anything to stop him. He, too, began pulling at some grass.

"I had no idea that you felt that way, Lily," he said quietly several minutes later.

Lily looked up at him. "No idea I felt that way? Well that's a load of bollocks! You knew full well how I felt, otherwise you wouldn't have gone and heartlessly exploited my feelings!"

Hanging his head, Remus said softly, "I'm so sorry, Lily."

She stood up. "Stop digging a deeper hole for yourself. You're not sorry, Remus Lupin. If you're sorry for anything, it's that the potion ran out too early, and nothing more. Because you are not sorry that you hurt my feelings, and nothing you say will make me believe otherwise because you and I both know that it's the truth."

With that, she stalked off toward the castle, glad that Remus didn't follow her because she just couldn't restrain her tears any longer.


A/N: Oooh, I updated quickly for once! I personally love this chapter… most of it was pre-written in one of my many notebooks over a long period of time (I think I started during the summer, if not before that) so it wasn't too hard at all to get through it. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Reviews:

Silverfingers – Oh, right, Sirius IS supposed to be better-looking than James… About the MP3s and stuff; yeah, I edited that part out (well I've only edited chapter 5 and under so far), so if you read it over it's all gone now!

Itami – I'd have to say that you're cool like that.

Realmer06 – Yeah, I really wish he would have sat her down and told her, but seeing as I love creating drama… Bwahaha. Glad you like it!

Starrydreams – REJOICE! Lol, haha. Can't wait till next year, huh?

Tina – Sorry, I tend to take my time with these things. This, however, was one of my fastest updates in a loooong time, hope it was fast enough!

Philippa – Wow! I'm so honoured! There are some really awesome Harry Potter fics, though. Go look at my favourites… unless you've read them all already, heheh.

Thanks so much everyone!

Reviews for this chapter would be awesome, you know how much I love them.