Three – The Early Chicken . . .

It was only once Lily had stormed up to the Heads' Dorm, run through the hall, up the stairs into her room, locking the door behind her, and slumped against the panelling, that she fully realised what her outburst at Rita Skeeter had made her do.

"Oh bugger," she muttered quietly, sliding down the door and laying her head on her knees. She'd really done it now, she thought miserably. Not only did she now have to learn how to fly, but she had to have James Potter teaching her, of all people, and to make matters worse, she'd announced it in front of the whole school, so there was no way she could back out of it now.

A few knocks echoed through the Heads' Dorms, making Lily jump clear out of her skin. Lily frowned. Who would want to talk to their Head Girl now? Everyone was still at dinner and Potter knew the password. Unless he was trying to get her to come down and talk to him.No, even he wasn't so stupid as to force Lily to talk when she was pissed off. That was just suicide.

Lily got shakily to her feet, as if she'd been at the Ogden's, opened the door to the stairs and went down into the Hall, regarding the double doors suspiciously. Taking her wand out of her bag that she'd dumped by it, she muttered 'Transparencia,' and drew a small rectangle on the wood. The wood seemed to vanish, presenting her with a pair of hawk-like eyes and a mop of dirty blonde, spiky hair.

"It's me, you silly-billy," called Verity from the other side of the door, "Don't you know by now that I'm the only one who can see you in this state without needing a cremation appointment?" Lily smiled and sighed, opening the door.

Verity stood holding a tray with some dinner on it. Grinning, she swept into the room and put it down on the coffee table.

"Hey, nice!" she exclaimed, gazing round, "Blimey, this place is dolled up for one of the Queen's garden parties, innit?"

"Yeah," Lily agreed, picking up a BLT from the tray her friend had brought. "Wanna tour while I tell you what happened?" she asked with her mouth full, spraying bits of lettuce on the carpet.

"I thought you'd never ask," Verity said, smiling and looping her arm through Lily's.


All through dinner, people kept coming to congratulate James on his finding a new Seeker for his team. Of course, there were a few 'And there was me thinking it was your lucky day, mate,' and also a few 'Are you sure you're still going to be alive after this year?' and, of course, a few 'I cannot believe you chose her and not me! Mark my words, Potter, you'll be sorry! Hey! What are you-? Gerroff me! You haven't heard the last of meeeeee!'

"He's been needing help for years," remarked Remus, skewering a tomato on his fork.

"I wonder what caused Lily to change her mind," said Peter thoughtfully, a tone that was extremely rare to be caught coming out of his mouth, and by rights, should have been put in a museum.

"The way a girl's mind works is a mystery as deep as a well, Wormtail, ol' buddy," Sirius said, "And should only be attempted to be understood by fully qualified deadly stunt-wizards." He turned his eyes to his best friend. James was staring off into space as if all his thought processes had been put in a Deepfreeze.

"Are you conscious, Prongs?" asked Remus, with a slightly amused look on his face. James blinked and jerked his head round to look at all his friends.

"Yeah, yeah," she said softly, "It's just . . ." his face cracked into a grin that looked as if it was going to swallow up his whole head, "I'm going to teach Lily Evans how to fly!" Sirius rolled his eyes and put a finger to his ear.

"Zzzz! Yes, is this W.I.S.E#? We've lost contact with Voyager Prongs18! Repeat! We'vee lost contact with Prongs18!"

"Save your carbon dioxide emissions, Padfoot, he was long gone ages ago," grinned Remus, earning himself a small, back-handed smack from the boy in question.

A shadow fell across their table and everyone, including James looked up curiously. Amos Diggory was standing with his arms folded over his chest, looking like he wanted to take something outside.

"Can we help you?" Sirius asked, with a look on his face that suggested he was talking to a bucket of mouldy frogspawn.

"Actually, yes, you can," the Hufflepuff said with suppressed anger bubbling through his voice. He wasn't talking to Sirius, he was talking to James.

"Oh brilliant," Remus said cheerfully.

"Yeah," agreed James, "We can either help you leave, help you get some anger management, or help you drown yourself in the lake, the choice is yours."

Diggory lunged forward, slamming his palms on the table and knocked over a bowl of kiwis. He leaned into James's face as James stared calmly back with a slightly curious look on his face. The population of the Hall spun round, ceasing all talk to watch. Most of them couldn't believe their luck; two seventh year spats in one day? This was just too entertaining!

"Look, Potter," Diggory spat, "I am not having a perverted freak like you going anywhere near my Lily any more than necessary. It's dangerous enough for her to share Heads' duties with you, (Merlin knows what goes on in yout mind at night with her only a few metres away,) but you teaching her to fly is going too far. If you don't mind, I will be teaching Lily how to fly, not you."

James lowered his hazel eyes from Diggory's watery blue ones, and located a napkin lying in on the table a little way away. He picked it up perfectly calmly, removed his glasses and started wiping off all the spit flecks that had accumulated on his lenses through Diggory's rant. Tossing the napkin back on the table, he replaced his glasses and regarded the Hufflepuff for a few seconds.

"Thank you for that, Diggory. I'm touched that you think me impulsive enough to try anything on Lily, but the fact is I've been in love with your girlfriend for close on six years and I've been living within a few metres of her for nearly seven. Despite this, I'm sure far more perverse, twisted and disturbing things have gone on in your mind at night, even with you all the way on the other side of this castle, so . . . you know . . . thanks, but no thanks," James said pleasantly.

"I wasn't asking you not to touch my girlfriend, Potter, I was telling you that you won't," Diggory said poisonously.

James stood up, causing Diggory to jump backwards off the Gryffindor table rather quickly.

"Yes, well, that's funny isn't it?" James said, his voice rising a few notches. "It's funny how you can assume Lily's your possession, your property," he said disgustedly. "But guess again Diggory, because she's not! And neither is it your business to decide whom she wants to touch her and whom she doesn't, and, of course, it's not your right to decide who teaches Lily to fly.

"Now I offered her a place on my team for our house, and there is no way in the horrors of Azkaban that I'm putting the education of my Seeker in the hands of some Pretty Boy Hufflepuff, so I'm sure you'll understand why I have to tell you to take your request and go strangle yourself with it."

"Enough!" came a voice from the direction of the top table. McGonagall was standing next to Diggory and the boys hadn't even noticed her stride towards them though their argument. "What a repulsive display of inter-house competition gone astray," she said sharply. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr Diggory, picking a fight with the Head Boy, and you Mr Potter, should not have answered back. Now, Miss Evans will be taught the art of flying by Mr Potter, as she requested only fifteen minutes ago, and I will be taking twenty points from Hufflepuff and five from Gryffindor. Good evening to you both."


"Loopy-loo."

As James entered the Heads' Dorms, he saw Verity close the door to Lily's staircase and grin at him.

"Howdy!" she said cheerfully, as James walked over to one of the sofas and flopped down exhaustedly.

"How's Lilo?" asked James, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"She's a tad upset," said Verity gently, throwing herself down next to James and settling her trainers on the coffee table. "She regrets saying yes to you and she knows she can't take it back because she fears the wrath of Gryffindors everywhere. What happened to you? You're supposed to be jumping for joy, you've just got yourself a Seeker."

"Oh, it's nothing," James said, "Diggory just went all over-protective and psycho on me, accusing me of being a perv and telling me not to touch his girlfriend."

"You know, personally, I think he's a psycho too, and a wanker at that." A panicked expression crossed Verity's face. "You won't tell her I said that, will you? She'll be after my blood."

"Your secret's safe with me, Hooch, I've only just found myself a Seeker, I don't want my Chasers popping off left, right and centre."

"You should probably pray Lily doesn't kill you this year, then," grinned Verity.

"So why did she say yes?" asked James, chucking his glasses next to Verity's feet.

"Aw, that evil Skeeter girl got up her nose, saying she wouldn't be able to handle the pressure."

"Merlin, what a cow," muttered James.

"I'll say," agreed Verity. "So what's the plan, lover-boy? How're you gonna make it worth Lily's while, huh?"

"Merlin knows," James said miserably, "Oh, this is awful. If Lily's feeling crap about it, then I hate the idea. I can't have her on the team if she's gonna hate it and hate me for it. What am I gonna do, Verity?" he asked hopelessly.

"James, come on, man," Verity said, a bit worried. "Get a grip, everything's gonna fine, you'll see. I'm sure with you teaching her, she'll love playing as much as you do. Don't worry, she won't regret it for long."

"Yeah . . . yeah," he grinned. "Tomorrow's Saturday, we'll start then!"

"Er, maybe you should wai-" started Verity, cringing slightly, but James had already jumped up from the sofa and skipped off to his staircase.

"Verity Hooch, you're a star! What would I do without you?" he asked, and closed the door behind him.

"Well, you probably wouldn't be looking up various counter-curses in the Library tomorrow," Verity answered, slipping out of the double doors.


James was decidedly nervous as he banged the doorknocker on Lily's door the next morning. Swallowing, he gripped the handles of the two brooms he was carrying in his left hand and got himself in the right frame of mind should he need to duck for any reason.

He'd gotten up ridiculously early that morning, washed, dressed, attacked his hair with especial care and gone down to the kitchens to ask for the blackest and most disgusting coffee he'd ever drunk to make him awake enough to face Lily.

He gave a small gasp as Lily wrenched open the door in her nightdress and fluffy slippers, holding a wand and looking as if she would have liked to have a shotgun under her arm. James though it should be made a criminal offence to be that gorgeous this early in the morning.

It took her a few seconds to recognise him while she groggily focused her brilliantly green irises. Then she took a deep breath and said,

"Potter, you have exactly three seconds to tell me why you are rousing me from my lovely bed at the sinful hour of seven a.m. on a Saturday, before I knock you out, cut your skull open and scramble your brains with an egg whisk. Go," she ordered.

"Flying lesson!" James said quickly. "Quidditch pitch! Come on!"

Lily stared at him.

"You have got to be joking," she said hoarsely, "Potter, it's Saturday morning, it's freezing . . ." she trailed off, unable to think of another reason, "And I hate you," -good enough, "Why in the name of my lovely, warm, cosy bed would I come out with you?"

"Because you're going to need a lot of practice at flying if you want to get good enough to 'kick serious arse' as you told me yesterday, and I want to teach you as well as I can so as you can make a complete fool of that cow, Rita Skeeter who insulted you."

Lily raised her wand to his throat.

"I don't know how you found out about that, but I want you never to speak of it again."

"Of course, my dear Lilo, now go and get dressed," James said, before Lily sent him an irritated look and slammed the door in his face. "And don't wear a skirt!" he shouted through the door as an afterthought.

Thankfully, it wasn't windy, but it was still cold enough to make you want an extra half hour in bed if it had been a Monday morning, and Lily wouldn't stop grumbling all the way down to the pitch.

"Come on, Lilo, it's not that bad," James said reasonably, "Here."

He pulled out his wand, plucked two blades of grass from the ground and transfigured them into a pair of red silk gloves and a matching scarf.

"Thank you, Potter," she said sarcastically, "But if you hadn't dragged me down here in the first place, then I would have no need for you to show off your transfiguration skills, anyway."

"Wow, an underhanded compliment," James smiled, "This is progress."

"No, it's not, I still hate you more than anyone else in the entire world."

"You're such a charming, pleasant conversationalist," laughed James, trying to hand her the gloves and scarf, but she wasn't having any of it.

"Only to people who deserve it," she answered, forcing him to drape the scarf round her neck and yank her hands out of their folded position to tug the gloves on.

"There," he said finally, slipping her last little finger into its place. "Better?"

"I suppose so," she said resignedly, a little of the annoyance had worn off from that morning and she was starting to realise that it wasn't too bad being out in the cool fresh air on a Saturday morning with James. He was being quite sweet to her as well, and she really was finding the whole situation . . . tolerable, but only as long as her fingers were toasty of course.

They'd arrived at the Quidditch pitch and James had tossed the brooms he was holding down on the grass. Lily stared at them with a mistrustful expression, fiddling with the tasselled end of her scarf.

"Right, you take that one," James said, pointing to the smaller, thinner one of the two, (Lily had hoped he wouldn't say that), "That's a Sparrow Sixteen, good for small, light people like you, and I know-" he said, holding up a gloved finger, "-That you have an extremely fast metabolism."

Lily tried to hide the beginning of a small, exhaled laugh but failed.

Huzzah! James thought delightedly, Shecan laugh!

"So, I'm sure you know this already, but the first thing you have to do is stand to the left of your broom and say 'Up!'" Lily sighed and complied.

"Up," she muttered moodily. The broom didn't move. James regarded her carefully.

"Come on, Lily, try again," he told her.

"Up," she said in a tone a little more forceful. The broom twitched. James sighed.

"Look, maybe Rita Skeeter is right," he said slowly.

"Excuse me?" asked Lily, after blinking at him.

"I dunno, maybe you can't handle the pressure, I should have known you wouldn't measure up to me, maybe I should offer the position to Rita instead."

"What!?" demanded the Head Girl, her hand still suspended over the broom in shock.

"Wassamatter, Evans? Scared I'm telling the truth? Scared you'll never be as fantastic as me?" he asked mockingly.

"Shut up!" she shouted, frowning in anger, and a loud smack was heard through the pitch. It may be sensible to assume that Lily had hit James, because he really was asking for it and she was actually thinking of doing so, but before she could draw her hand back, something had slapped into her palm and her fingers had automatically closed around it.

She gaped at James for a second before looking down to discover the Sparrow Sixteen had leapt into her hand. Looking back at the Head Boy, she saw he was smiling craftily, with none of the formal malice in his hazel eyes and holding his hand over his own broom.

"And that is the tone you need to use when getting your broom into your hand," he said cleverly, "Up!" he ordered in the same tone and the broom fell into his palm just like Lily's had. "Now I want you to mount it."

Lily obeyed without much thought, as she was still temporarily shell-shocked from what had just happened. Against her better judgement, she was feeling an odd kind of relief that James hadn't meant all those things he'd said. The reason she was so shocked was that he'd never said anything exceptionally nasty to her, nasty things he used to say to other people on a regular basis, but in fact, it was a long time since he'd said anything nasty to anyone who didn't deserve it.

"Now, to get it to go up, you need to kick off from the ground and raise the handle slightly."

Lily obeyed, but not completely, because as soon as she jerked the handle upwards, her broom didn't rise, but tipped backwards, scaring her out of her wits. If it weren't for James's quick reflexes, she would have slipped off backwards, had he not grabbed the handle and pulled her back down.

"Don't lean back," he told her as she nodded fearfully, "Otherwise, if you're quick enough, you'll flip right over. Now, stay very still, while I show you."

The Head Girl sat stock still as James looked her in the eye for trust and gently pushed the handle up and down, up and down, up and down, until it looked as if Lily was sitting in a bobbing little row-boat on the Atlantic.

"Are you OK with that?" he asked finally, Lily nodded. "Now, to make it go, you lean forward just a bit and keep you handle steady. The faster you want to go the further forward you lean, makes sense?"

Lily nodded, she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

As for James, her lack of words was a little unnerving, this must have been the absolute longest he hadn't been shouted at. It was nice, if a bit strange.

Lily was starting to realise that James quite a good teacher. She had read books about flying, as she had thought it was an extremely complicated process involving unbalanced forces, various aspects of aerodynamics, and Newton's Second Law of Motion, and Lily had mused that it sounded about as difficult and dangerous as tightrope-walking, blindfolded on a piece of sewing thread above a pool full of poisonous sea-urchins.

But James made it so simple, he laid down the facts clearly and definitely, like, 'doing this makes it do this, but doing this makes it chuck you off.' Soon Lily was able to grab a certain sense of the broom and its behavioural patterns, and correspondingly, James stopped giving instructions, and started giving tests.

Although she would rather curse herself to sprout boils, rather than admit it to James, Lily was having quite a bit of fun, and soon James had mounted his own broom and said, "Do you want to play Follow the Leader?"

"Do I want to play what, sorry?" asked Lily.

"Follow the Leader," James repeated. "It's a game we play sometime in practices, improves hand-eye-brain coordination."

"So, what? I have to go wherever you go?" asked Lily.

"Exactly, you up for it?" he asked, in voice that made it plain he wasn't going to go easy on her.

"Of course, Potter," she said, in voice that made it plain she was up for anything. "I've decided I rather like flying and I'm guessing I would like playing even more."

Yes! She likes flying! James whooped inside, as a huge rush flew through his body.

"All righty then," he said, with a grin.

He drew his broom handle up and zoomed towards the sky, hearing Lily whizzing along behind him. Thinking fast, he sped up and Lily fell behind, she soon caught up though, just as James had started zigzagging between the goal posts. James tried everything he could think of, loops, barrel rolls, dives, but he couldn't seem to shake her off. Each stunt taught her something new about flying and made James more delighted than ever with his find for the team.

By now his speed was constantly extremely fast, as fast as the Snitch in fact, which was very, very good if she could keep this up. Nervously, he flattened himself completely against his broom, levelling his knees with the tail and his speed reached new heights, he was going to need it if he wanted to pull this off. When he'd tried this with the team, none of them had made it, so James sped towards the middle hoop without much hope.

Making sure he was exactly in line, he banished his fears, chucked a little prayer to whichever heavenly beings just happened to be watching, and closed his eyes. Soon, he felt the whoosh of the hoop around him and breathed as he felt it skim the top of his head. Rising up above it, he turned to see Lily flat against her broom, elbows in, scarf streaming out behind her, and held his breath as she flew through the hoop like a piece of red thread going through the eye of a very small needle. Panting, she came to his level and laughed at the look on his face.

"Was that it?" she asked teasingly.

"N-no," James said quickly, "Of course not." He dived again going with the most random path and spotted the lake. It glistened with an air of innocence and James zipped towards it, hearing Lily laughing behind him. Soon she stopped, it was clear he was going too near the water and he wasn't stopping. Lily let her competitive streak get the better of her and continued to follow him but the blue kept getting nearer and near, until James was almost splashing into the water.

Like a game of Chicken, James's toes skimmed the water, sending ripples gliding across the surface. Lily stopped beside him, staring at the water beneath her dark eyelashes and breathing hard. He cheeks were pink behind her freckles, wisps of hair had escaped from her plait and there was an exhilarated smile on her face. She looked at him with her eyes sparkling and James was sure that in that second, his brain must have evaporated inside his skull.

"Well done," he said at last, "You won."


That night, Lily was busy in the Heads' Dorms completing her Charms homework. Verity was sprawled across the purple sofa, her nose buried in a Witch Weekly.

"Did you know," she asked Lily, her eyes still stuck to the article, "That taking a leisurely fly around your local Quidditch Pitch or Park is beneficial for the skin and prevents acne?"

"No I didn't, actually," smiled Lily, draping ivy round a shoebox that served as a fairy's den. She'd gotten the idea from the set of a play she'd once been to see: A Midsummer Nights Dream, but because her shoe box was so small, and her little fairy models half the size of her forefinger, she'd had to make her ivy smaller as well, so she hoped she'd get extra marks for that. "Maybe Potter should have given the Seeker's Position to Hortensia Midgeon instead."

"No, I don't think so," said Verity offhandedly, "I think it's been very beneficial for your face."

"What?" asked Lily, placing a tiny Titania on a swing of ivy hanging from the ceiling of the shoebox.

"Well, you haven't stopped smiling all day!" Verity said. "I'm starting to think you're bribing Madam Pomfrey for a secret stash of morphine."

"Verity, you know if I had any morphine, I'd share it with you," Lily grinned, slipping the lid onto her shoebox and writing her name and house on it.

"Duh," Verity agreed. "So what happened with your first flying lesson? Give me all the juicy details."

If there had been any juicy details, Lily wouldn't have been able to give them, because there was a knock at the double doors. Verity flipped her magazine shut and flipped herself onto her stomach so she had a view of the door.

Lily levered open the door curiously and said, "Oh! I was wondering when you'd come to see me!"

Amos Diggory swept past her, looking as tense as springs on a trampoline.

"Well, I'm off Lily," Verity said, taking a very clear hint as to where she wasn't wanted.

"Bye, Ver, see you at breakfast," said Lily, handing her friend her magazine and watching her slip out the door. No sooner had Verity arrived on the other side of the doors, than she had crouched down and glued her ear to the wood. Inside the Heads' Dorms, Amos was pacing, Lily watching him with a serene look on her face.

"So what happened?" he finally asked, standing still for the first time in thirty seconds. Lily wondered where her 'hello' kiss was. Oh no, things were bad.

"When, Amos?" she asked calmly, "Today, yesterday, this morning, the night of the Belgian Invasion of the 1242 Troll Tribe wars?"

"This morning," Amos said sharply, "In your flying lesson, with Potter." Lily sighed.

"You have no need to worry," she said, "It was early, it was freezing, and I learnt quite a bit."

"Did he try anything?" asked Amos, his voice getting angrier for some reason.

"No, you know if he had, he'd be in the hospital wing by now with his fingers in a pickling jug on his bedside table."

"Are you sure?" asked Amos furiously. Lily was confused, it was as if Amos was deliberately trying to find some sort of misdemeanour in James's behaviour. But there had been nothing, Lily thought suddenly, nothing to hold against him.

"Yes, I'm sure," she said, starting to get irritated, "James was a perfect gentleman."

"Oh? A perfect gentleman?" asked Amos, acting as if it was an interrogation. "Starting to think quite highly of that stupid arsehole now, are you?"

"What? Right this second? Well, compared to you, yes, I am!" Lily shouted. Then she gaped, she'd never shouted at Amos before. Usually, all her shouting was spent on James. "Amos," she said quickly, "What's the matter with you? Why are you acting like this?" She started to walk towards him, but he backed away with a repulsed look on his face. He didn't even answer her question.

"Lily, I hope you understand why I don't want to see you again," he said coldly.

On opposite sides of the same door, both at the same time, Lily and Verity gasped.


a/n

#W.I.S.E – not canon, don't worry, invented by me and stands for Wizard's International Space Exploration

Writers' desert has finally been scaled, or at least I hope so. I luff my reviewers so so so so much! You have no idea. Ok, let me try and explain to you how much you people cheer me up.

Today, I lost my phone, and I was in such a mess, you don't even understand. I was suffering hot flushes, crying on the floor, shaking with fear and anguish, wondering what in the name of all hell was I going to do without a phone this weekend. My phone is like my gateway to my friends (ie. My real family.) Anyway, then I phoned a lovely person called Emily on Jackie's phone, and she told me that I last had my phone in the language lab, and did she want me to go down and check if it was there?

The short and short of it was that she found it, and I was once again with phone and happiness. It was like being reunited with all my best friends at once, and the hugs from my friends in joy were a perk as well.

Anyway, the feeling I get when I read all the reviews, one by one, is like finding the contacts on my phone again, one by one, and when I log onto ff . net and see how many reviews you lovely people have left me, it feels like I found my phone again.

Wasn't that an inspirational story?

FrighteninglyObsessed: OMG, original is the best compliment that a Harry Potter fanfiction writer could even get. I think we should all join in with beating Rita over the head with an economy can of hairspray. What a stress reliever. I may just put that in the fic.

walkingcensure: Aw, thank you my luff. Your review was: heart-warming flattering very to the point

babeephatangel: Haha, thank you darling.

siriusforeva: Trust me, babe, me too.

soccerchic1989: Amos and James have a 'thing', don't they? Actually, it's more that Amos has a 'thing', and James just gets sprayed by it. And what is with that boy Amos at the end, huh? What is that about? Tomorrow I'm going to see the Killers at Shepherds Bush Empire and I can act all haughty because half my year is going and they never would have caught onto the Killers if I hadn't bought the CD, and lent it to everyone to burn, but there you go. Urg, bug collections are nasty. Urg.

urges: Sirius is rather fabulous, isn't he? I may do some fan art if or when I get around to it. You have that pic in your notebook? That's so cute! Aw! I luff you!

vickiicky: Cool name.

GSCer: Well I hope not, coz I have a nasty habit of falling of my chair with laughter at flamers. Then I tell all my friends and they fall off their chairs with hilarity. It really is a fun time all round when someone flames me. Constructive crit, however, I take as seriously as a triple heart bypass, so feel free.

Elspeth Renee: Thanks honey, how doesn't like Quidditch?

madame-knight: Your name plays havoc with my imagination, luff. I think I may have to write a medieval fic now.

shortywithbrains: Remus IS cool. Go Remus!

Tsusetsu: You forgot how good I am? Not very, that's what you forgot. Grammar is for suckers. Where are you man?

SnakeEyesHannah: I love thanking reviewers! It makes me feel nice. I like talking to people, you know? . . . Aw, screw it, I'm just a chatterbox, so sue me.

Tracey: Aw, thank you, babe. What a nice review. I only seem to be clever in writing. Normally I'm as dumb as a parking meter, you know.

Call-Sugarhigh-Police: Thank you very much, savvy?

ZumZumZoo: Haha, I luff you coz u con critted me.

iluvdraco4eva: Yeah, you're right, nothing is more important than my characters and my reviewers. Especially those who give such nice reviews.

kat-firefly: Thank you, I like funny characters, they make me happy.

Only Secret: Entertaining, cheers muchly. People don't seem to like Rita, I think it's a general feeling.

milky way bar: It's because everyone's left over from the last fic I think. If this were my first fic, it would not have nearly as many notes, I think.

mika-mitch: Ah, the joy of randomage. It brings light into my life.

LJstagflower4e: Sadly, Lily wasn't there for the flipping out, but no matter, there shall be plenty of confrontation to come. Yay for drama.

Anne-Janet: Delighted? I'm glad I delight people. How lovely. Tea? :D

Kyki Rivera: It is really?

Jade Sierra Snape: Thanks for the note, I tried to hurry up, but it didn't really work. Oh well.

megaroony: Me either.

Red-Emerald: Oh, yes, I'm down with the vibes, I am. Indeed. I've always wanted to say something like that to an entire hall full of people, and Sirius is cool, so I thought it would be IC for him to do. I'm glad you thought there was emotion in my lines. It is a pretty immense thought, because if James hated Lily forever, would we even have a series of books? I think not. Oh there'll be lots more Rita. She's God awful, but sadly essential to the plot.

charbar: Cheering people up is a good thing for me to do, I feel. Little details rock, they're so funny. Thanks for the review!

foxyie xox: How is Rita gonna get at Lily? Oooooooh, you have no idea. Grins evilly

Smay: Will I make Lily and James end up together? Well, the answer to that is . . . I may . . . or I may not . . . I probably depends on my mood when I'm writing the end of this fic, you know. I could be nice, or I could be soul-shatteringly cruel right at the end when you thought everything was going to work out OK. So, the thing what you have to do is keep reviewing and cheering me up so I have good vibes to write the last chapter with. When I eventually get around to the last chapter, that is. Thanks for your note, honey.

Padfoot1987: I hate Rita, but then again, I love her. It's very odd. The readers however, seem to just outright detester her, but what are you gonna do?

She Devil: Joins in Lily's doing Quidditch!Lily's doing Quidditch!Lily's doing Quidditch!

ebony-plays-the-viola: Not only did you write me an essay, you wrote me two essays! Yay! I love in depth reviews like yours! Mwah Ok, let me do this systematically.

i like how you potray dumbledore...almost synonomys (or however you spellit) to the way that JKR potrays himm...im very estatic about that subject because so many fanfiction storys potray him ghastly off character

Urgg shudders I hate it when people do that. I used to do that, I mean write people desperately off character. I have a shameful history of Mary Sues as well. It's terrible to think I actually wrote things like that. Uuuurg.

you really are starting this fic off with a bang..and it should continue smoothly from here

Are you joking? Smoothly? Trust me, for hereon in, things are anything but smooth. :D

loved the use of savvy in the story

OMG! The word 'savvy' deserves to be enshrined in gold and draped across Tower Bridge!

rita skeeter...we all may hate her but i am glad that she inadvertedly got lily and james together (yes i know that hasnt happened yet...but i jsut have this hunch that they will)

You have a hunch, eh? Well, go look at what I wrote to Smay. There's still time for it all to go horribly wrong, you know.

descripton was fabulous and i think it would be futher enriched by throwin in some similes and metaphors

Thank you, luff. Right, similes and metaphors, similes and metaphors . . .

you are developing these characters wonderfully

Why, thank you.

i am hard pressed to find a story as good as this one...keep going on with this your doing great

I luff you!

Next chappy:

Er . . . Hello? What is with that guy Amos? I mean, who cursed his broomstick? I'm sure I don't know. Boys are such a mystery.

How do you get your own back on someone who slates your sweetheart? Well, are you a Marauder or not?

Who's afraid of the Big Bad Rita? . . . Er, me, for one. Everyone else just seems to hate her.

Lastly, guess how many courseworks I have pending. Go on, guess. And If you feel like it, guess what subjects they are, (if any).