Okay. I tried to make this chapter big because this is the last time it
will be updated in a while. I am going on holiday! I will return June 10,
my birthday! And I can promise you another chapter on June 11! Enjoy this
chapter. (I purposely made sure it was not a cliffie!)
James's first thought was 'This is amazing; which chair's mine?'
Despite their wish to stay in the common room and chat, the prefects herded them up to their separate dorms; boys on the right, girls on the left. (a/n I know it's the opposite, but I can have it any way I want!)
"See you tomorrow Sirius, Remus…And James." Lily said. She had decided he wasn't that bad. It had to be an accident he picked up the books he did…right?
Lily entered the dorm expecting the same wallpaper, same fabrics, same everything as the common room, but what she saw was… "White?"
The girls stared for a minute until Lily let out a single hysterical laugh.
"I got it," She said. "We have to decorate the room ourselves!"
"Yea." Everyone agreed.
"That bed's mine!" everyone frantically started claiming beds. Then after everyone was satisfied with their bed, they moved their trunks to what would be their home until the end of June.
Lily got the bed by a desk and a wardrobe. Monica was on her right. There were two desks, each with three drawers. Suzie suggested everyone get their own drawer. It turned out to be a very good suggestion.
After the general examining of the room was done, the girls decided to sit down and talk about how they wanted to decorate the room. Cooper took charge—she seemed to be a natural leader and was very secure with herself.
"What I think," Cooper began "Is that the room should reflect each of our personalities. Maybe we could section off the wall space and paint our sections our favourite colour."
"That's a good idea, Cooper." Monica agreed.
"I'll go get a quill and parchment to write down our ideas." Lily said helpfully
"So," Lily asked once she had returned with the parchment, "What's everyone's favourite colour?" "Red" Said Serena
"Pink" said Cooper. They all looked at her. "What?" they went on.
"Blue." Said Monica
Suzie's favourite colour was green, Venus's was purple, and Lily's was yellow. They agreed for the circular rug in the middle of the room to be red with a Gryffindor lion in the middle. Finally after an hour's planning, they went to bed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The boys walked into the dorm only to see… "It's white." Sirius said as if everyone else was blind. "You're so observant, Sirius. I wouldn't have noticed had you not pointed that out," James said sarcastically.
"But why?" asked Sirius, undaunted.
"Isn't it obvious? We get to paint it ourselves—very clever idea in fact, bet it was Dumbeldore's." Said Remus.
"Oh, ahhhh!" Said Sirius and James together. Just then a plump boy walked in.
"Hi. I'm Peter Pettigrew, nice you meet you all." He said this all very nervously.
"Why, hello, Peter!" Exclaimed Sirius.
"Glad you meet 'cha, buddy, glad to meet 'cha!" James said while shaking his hand furiously.
"Yes, welcome, welcome!" Remus added
"You can be the first one to choose your bed. Which one do you want?"
"Ummm… That one!" He sat on the bed closest to the door.
"That's mine!" James said pointing to the one in the left corner.
"I got the one next to James!" Said Sirius who ran and jumped on his bed, breaking some boards, causing his mattress to fall through to the floor.
"Oomph!" He said, and then started laughing. Everyone started laughing.
"And that leaves me with the bed by the bathroom and the wardrobe. What good company I'll have!" Remus said jokingly. He'd wanted that bed anyway. If he had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he wouldn't have to walk far. They all lay on their beds for some time before Sirius spoke.
"What colour do you want to paint it?" He asked. "Red." Everyone answered together.
"With gold lions." James added. They all agreed. And with that, they went to sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning, Lily woke up rested and happy.
At breakfast, she cheerful manor was only improved by the fact that she shared the same schedule with all of her friends. She started thinking of her room. 'How shall I decorate it?' she thought for a moment before Cooper tapped her on the shoulder.
"Come on, it's time for Transfiguration."
"Okay." Lily replied. She gathered up her things and followed Cooper, Venus, Serena, Monica, and Suzie to the first class of the day. When they arrived, they met the witch who helped with the sorting. After the usual "Welcome to my class, but beware" pep talk, Professor McGonagall separated the class into pairs to work on turning a match into a needle.
As you might have guessed, James was paired with Lily. All her friends were partnered together except for Venus, who was partnered with Cody Smith. But she seemed very pleased with the pairings. On about his third attempt, James was successful in changing the match. Professor McGonagall was extremely happy with him and rewarded Gryffindor 5 house points.
So while James sat there watching, Lily was still trying to transfigure her match. "Come on you stupid match!" she exclaimed while prodding it with her wand, "Change into a damn needle!" To her surprise, the match changed into a needle. "Ah!" she shirked in joy.
"Professor, I changed mine too!" "Excellent—two students—that must be a record!" She said fondly. Lily had clearly won her over with her spunk. When she walked off to see what was the trouble with some Ravenclaw students, James started to talk—laugh more like it.
"Change into a damn needle!" he said chuckling, "Never heard that one before. Let me try." He changed his needle back to a match and said, mimicking Lily perfectly, "Come on you stupid match! Change into a damn needle!" And to both their surprise, it changed. This caused them both to start laughing even harder than James had been before. After a while, Lily took out Quidditch Through The Ages and began reading.
"So you like Quidditch?" James asked disbelievingly.
"As a matter of fact, I do." Lily replied curtly. "Have you ever seen a game of Quidditch?" James asked.
"No, I've only read about it. They history's quite interesting, you know."
"Yea, yea. Very interesting. Like what?" he asked. In truth, James only knew all the rules and how to play. He was never much on history.
"Well like…" Lily searched her brain for some interesting bit of information.
"Here." She said handing him the book. "You can read it. This is my second time anyway.
"Wow," James replied, "Thanks." Just as he was about to say something when Lily gasped, clapped a hand over her mouth, and brought out a medium sized notebook, which looked very battered. She scribbled a few words, read it again, and smiled. She shut the book and put it back in her bag. "What?" James asked.
"Oh, nothing," Lily said obviously very happy about something, "I only just had the best idea I've ever had!!" She finished, beaming.
"I know you're going to tell me even if I don't ask, but I'll ask anyway. What is this idea of yours that is so brilliant?" Lily laughed.
"Well, is your room completely white?"
"Yes, we are going to colour it this weekend."
"Yes, us too, except we are going to design the room to all our personalities, get what I mean?" "Yes."
"And I just had to most fantastic idea about how to decorate my part of the room!"
"How?" James asked.
"Handprints." Lily said simply. James racked his brain for how she was possible going to decorate her room with handprints. And then it clicked. Unintentionally his mouth curved into a smile.
"I'm guessing that means you like my idea." Lily said.
"Yes, it's great. So are me, Sirius, Remus, and Peter invited to put our handprints on the wall too?" "Yea, sure. Why not?" Lily said spontaneously. "But you haven't heard the best of it yet! Every year, at the start of the first term, everyone can put up their new handprint next to their old one to see how we grow up." Lily gave a small smile that more resembled a grimace, although the prospect of growing up was horrible.
"Wow!" James said, "That's cool!"
"Thank you." "So when are you going to colour your room?"
"I dunno, I was thinking about Saturday, but I have to discuss it with my roommates first."
"Yea." James agreed. "Look—" James told Lily, "I'm sorry about the book thing. I really didn't know what I was picking up."
"It's okay." Lily, "I understand. And I'm sorry too." So once again, the two were friends. With nothing else to say, they sat in silence the rest of the lesson. Well, not really. James was reading "Quidditch Through the Ages", and Lily was busy reading "Hogwarts: A History", which to James looked like an immensely boring book that he would never tough. It was a nice silence though—happy and comfortable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At dinner that day, Lily asked Suzie, Monica, Cooper, Venus, and Serena what they thought about her handprint idea. They all loved it, but it was decided that they would only be in her area so they weren't all spread out everywhere. Plus, they all had their own ideas about how they wanted their area.
Suzie wanted her wall green with blue bubbles bloating on the walls. Her personality: bubbly. Monica wanted waves painted like the ocean. Her personality: soothing.
Cooper wanted plain pink with lost of posters and pictures all over. Cooper's personality: clean and simple.
Venus wanted purple flowers of all sorts decoupaged all over her wall. Her personality: natural. Serena wanted a giant Gryffindor Lion. Her personality: supportive.
That weekend rolled around in what seemed like no time. Saturday morning was, in the girl's room at least, hectic. Lily had talked the girls into using real paint instead of magicing the walls.
"It will me so much more fun!" Lily said enthusiastically.
The first coat went on without any flaws, as did the second. Finally it was time for everyone to put their handprint on Lily's wall. The girls ushered the boys into the room—they didn't want to set suspicion on themselves, as they were planning a big prank.
Everyone went at the wall at once to make it spontaneous. They all backed away and le out an "Awe." It looked fantastic.
"Wicked!" James said.
"Hold on guys—let me get my camera!" Lily shouted. She dug through her trunk staining everything from her pyjamas to her schoolbooks. At last she emerged with a camera and a tripod. Quickly she set it up and hurried into the picture.
"Everyone say cheese!" Lily ordered. "We have 20 seconds!"
"20, 19, 18…" They counted down together. Just as they were getting to 15, James reached out and drew a moustache on Lily's face with his painted hands.
"JAMES!" Lily yelled. Thinking quickly, Lily took both her hands and grabbed James's face. If you had been there and not known Lily, you would have thought she was going to passionately kiss him, indeed, that was what James thought Lily was going to do and he let out a look of pure disgust. But clever Lily pulled her hands down until they met at his chin. As you might have guessed, James now had a fine beard.
"LILY!" He screamed. Now they were down to five seconds.
"Shh!" Lily said "Picture! Smile!"
She threw her arm over James's shoulder making sure to get his clothes particularly painty. They must have been thinking along the same lines because at that exact moment, James threw his arm around Lily.
"ONE!" They all shouted together
"Cheese!" Everyone sang, their faces covered with wide, crazy smiles.
Later in their years, they would sit down, look at Lily's photo books and talk about this picture. James decided there was only one way do describe it—pure happiness. It was present on everyone's face, even James Potter's and Lily Evans's, who were, not for the last time in their lives, happy in each other's arms.
James's first thought was 'This is amazing; which chair's mine?'
Despite their wish to stay in the common room and chat, the prefects herded them up to their separate dorms; boys on the right, girls on the left. (a/n I know it's the opposite, but I can have it any way I want!)
"See you tomorrow Sirius, Remus…And James." Lily said. She had decided he wasn't that bad. It had to be an accident he picked up the books he did…right?
Lily entered the dorm expecting the same wallpaper, same fabrics, same everything as the common room, but what she saw was… "White?"
The girls stared for a minute until Lily let out a single hysterical laugh.
"I got it," She said. "We have to decorate the room ourselves!"
"Yea." Everyone agreed.
"That bed's mine!" everyone frantically started claiming beds. Then after everyone was satisfied with their bed, they moved their trunks to what would be their home until the end of June.
Lily got the bed by a desk and a wardrobe. Monica was on her right. There were two desks, each with three drawers. Suzie suggested everyone get their own drawer. It turned out to be a very good suggestion.
After the general examining of the room was done, the girls decided to sit down and talk about how they wanted to decorate the room. Cooper took charge—she seemed to be a natural leader and was very secure with herself.
"What I think," Cooper began "Is that the room should reflect each of our personalities. Maybe we could section off the wall space and paint our sections our favourite colour."
"That's a good idea, Cooper." Monica agreed.
"I'll go get a quill and parchment to write down our ideas." Lily said helpfully
"So," Lily asked once she had returned with the parchment, "What's everyone's favourite colour?" "Red" Said Serena
"Pink" said Cooper. They all looked at her. "What?" they went on.
"Blue." Said Monica
Suzie's favourite colour was green, Venus's was purple, and Lily's was yellow. They agreed for the circular rug in the middle of the room to be red with a Gryffindor lion in the middle. Finally after an hour's planning, they went to bed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The boys walked into the dorm only to see… "It's white." Sirius said as if everyone else was blind. "You're so observant, Sirius. I wouldn't have noticed had you not pointed that out," James said sarcastically.
"But why?" asked Sirius, undaunted.
"Isn't it obvious? We get to paint it ourselves—very clever idea in fact, bet it was Dumbeldore's." Said Remus.
"Oh, ahhhh!" Said Sirius and James together. Just then a plump boy walked in.
"Hi. I'm Peter Pettigrew, nice you meet you all." He said this all very nervously.
"Why, hello, Peter!" Exclaimed Sirius.
"Glad you meet 'cha, buddy, glad to meet 'cha!" James said while shaking his hand furiously.
"Yes, welcome, welcome!" Remus added
"You can be the first one to choose your bed. Which one do you want?"
"Ummm… That one!" He sat on the bed closest to the door.
"That's mine!" James said pointing to the one in the left corner.
"I got the one next to James!" Said Sirius who ran and jumped on his bed, breaking some boards, causing his mattress to fall through to the floor.
"Oomph!" He said, and then started laughing. Everyone started laughing.
"And that leaves me with the bed by the bathroom and the wardrobe. What good company I'll have!" Remus said jokingly. He'd wanted that bed anyway. If he had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he wouldn't have to walk far. They all lay on their beds for some time before Sirius spoke.
"What colour do you want to paint it?" He asked. "Red." Everyone answered together.
"With gold lions." James added. They all agreed. And with that, they went to sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning, Lily woke up rested and happy.
At breakfast, she cheerful manor was only improved by the fact that she shared the same schedule with all of her friends. She started thinking of her room. 'How shall I decorate it?' she thought for a moment before Cooper tapped her on the shoulder.
"Come on, it's time for Transfiguration."
"Okay." Lily replied. She gathered up her things and followed Cooper, Venus, Serena, Monica, and Suzie to the first class of the day. When they arrived, they met the witch who helped with the sorting. After the usual "Welcome to my class, but beware" pep talk, Professor McGonagall separated the class into pairs to work on turning a match into a needle.
As you might have guessed, James was paired with Lily. All her friends were partnered together except for Venus, who was partnered with Cody Smith. But she seemed very pleased with the pairings. On about his third attempt, James was successful in changing the match. Professor McGonagall was extremely happy with him and rewarded Gryffindor 5 house points.
So while James sat there watching, Lily was still trying to transfigure her match. "Come on you stupid match!" she exclaimed while prodding it with her wand, "Change into a damn needle!" To her surprise, the match changed into a needle. "Ah!" she shirked in joy.
"Professor, I changed mine too!" "Excellent—two students—that must be a record!" She said fondly. Lily had clearly won her over with her spunk. When she walked off to see what was the trouble with some Ravenclaw students, James started to talk—laugh more like it.
"Change into a damn needle!" he said chuckling, "Never heard that one before. Let me try." He changed his needle back to a match and said, mimicking Lily perfectly, "Come on you stupid match! Change into a damn needle!" And to both their surprise, it changed. This caused them both to start laughing even harder than James had been before. After a while, Lily took out Quidditch Through The Ages and began reading.
"So you like Quidditch?" James asked disbelievingly.
"As a matter of fact, I do." Lily replied curtly. "Have you ever seen a game of Quidditch?" James asked.
"No, I've only read about it. They history's quite interesting, you know."
"Yea, yea. Very interesting. Like what?" he asked. In truth, James only knew all the rules and how to play. He was never much on history.
"Well like…" Lily searched her brain for some interesting bit of information.
"Here." She said handing him the book. "You can read it. This is my second time anyway.
"Wow," James replied, "Thanks." Just as he was about to say something when Lily gasped, clapped a hand over her mouth, and brought out a medium sized notebook, which looked very battered. She scribbled a few words, read it again, and smiled. She shut the book and put it back in her bag. "What?" James asked.
"Oh, nothing," Lily said obviously very happy about something, "I only just had the best idea I've ever had!!" She finished, beaming.
"I know you're going to tell me even if I don't ask, but I'll ask anyway. What is this idea of yours that is so brilliant?" Lily laughed.
"Well, is your room completely white?"
"Yes, we are going to colour it this weekend."
"Yes, us too, except we are going to design the room to all our personalities, get what I mean?" "Yes."
"And I just had to most fantastic idea about how to decorate my part of the room!"
"How?" James asked.
"Handprints." Lily said simply. James racked his brain for how she was possible going to decorate her room with handprints. And then it clicked. Unintentionally his mouth curved into a smile.
"I'm guessing that means you like my idea." Lily said.
"Yes, it's great. So are me, Sirius, Remus, and Peter invited to put our handprints on the wall too?" "Yea, sure. Why not?" Lily said spontaneously. "But you haven't heard the best of it yet! Every year, at the start of the first term, everyone can put up their new handprint next to their old one to see how we grow up." Lily gave a small smile that more resembled a grimace, although the prospect of growing up was horrible.
"Wow!" James said, "That's cool!"
"Thank you." "So when are you going to colour your room?"
"I dunno, I was thinking about Saturday, but I have to discuss it with my roommates first."
"Yea." James agreed. "Look—" James told Lily, "I'm sorry about the book thing. I really didn't know what I was picking up."
"It's okay." Lily, "I understand. And I'm sorry too." So once again, the two were friends. With nothing else to say, they sat in silence the rest of the lesson. Well, not really. James was reading "Quidditch Through the Ages", and Lily was busy reading "Hogwarts: A History", which to James looked like an immensely boring book that he would never tough. It was a nice silence though—happy and comfortable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At dinner that day, Lily asked Suzie, Monica, Cooper, Venus, and Serena what they thought about her handprint idea. They all loved it, but it was decided that they would only be in her area so they weren't all spread out everywhere. Plus, they all had their own ideas about how they wanted their area.
Suzie wanted her wall green with blue bubbles bloating on the walls. Her personality: bubbly. Monica wanted waves painted like the ocean. Her personality: soothing.
Cooper wanted plain pink with lost of posters and pictures all over. Cooper's personality: clean and simple.
Venus wanted purple flowers of all sorts decoupaged all over her wall. Her personality: natural. Serena wanted a giant Gryffindor Lion. Her personality: supportive.
That weekend rolled around in what seemed like no time. Saturday morning was, in the girl's room at least, hectic. Lily had talked the girls into using real paint instead of magicing the walls.
"It will me so much more fun!" Lily said enthusiastically.
The first coat went on without any flaws, as did the second. Finally it was time for everyone to put their handprint on Lily's wall. The girls ushered the boys into the room—they didn't want to set suspicion on themselves, as they were planning a big prank.
Everyone went at the wall at once to make it spontaneous. They all backed away and le out an "Awe." It looked fantastic.
"Wicked!" James said.
"Hold on guys—let me get my camera!" Lily shouted. She dug through her trunk staining everything from her pyjamas to her schoolbooks. At last she emerged with a camera and a tripod. Quickly she set it up and hurried into the picture.
"Everyone say cheese!" Lily ordered. "We have 20 seconds!"
"20, 19, 18…" They counted down together. Just as they were getting to 15, James reached out and drew a moustache on Lily's face with his painted hands.
"JAMES!" Lily yelled. Thinking quickly, Lily took both her hands and grabbed James's face. If you had been there and not known Lily, you would have thought she was going to passionately kiss him, indeed, that was what James thought Lily was going to do and he let out a look of pure disgust. But clever Lily pulled her hands down until they met at his chin. As you might have guessed, James now had a fine beard.
"LILY!" He screamed. Now they were down to five seconds.
"Shh!" Lily said "Picture! Smile!"
She threw her arm over James's shoulder making sure to get his clothes particularly painty. They must have been thinking along the same lines because at that exact moment, James threw his arm around Lily.
"ONE!" They all shouted together
"Cheese!" Everyone sang, their faces covered with wide, crazy smiles.
Later in their years, they would sit down, look at Lily's photo books and talk about this picture. James decided there was only one way do describe it—pure happiness. It was present on everyone's face, even James Potter's and Lily Evans's, who were, not for the last time in their lives, happy in each other's arms.