Use Your Imagination
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters are not mine. They belong to Jo Rowling. Yep. It's all Jo's.
Chapter One
"Evans!" a voice shouted from across the hallway.
Fifteen-year-old Lily Evans groaned and kept on walking, faster even. She was in a bad mood and didn't want to deal with James Potter right now.
James Potter had been bugging Lily since their first day of Hogwarts. Let's just say that he didn't make a good first impression. He was carrying a potion of some sort, and ended up spilling it on Lily, making her hair poof up like an afro and change to a shocking pink color. It stayed that way during the Welcome Feast. Lily had never forgiven him.
Not that he ever asked for forgiveness. Instead, the first two years of Hogwarts, James just annoyed Lily to no end, calling her names, poking her, but he avoided pulling any pranks on her.
During their next three years, James had simply continuously asked Lily out, getting a no every time. Lily knew he was just going to embarrass her and that was the only reason he'd ask her out. It was because she's the only witch who'd have said no.
James was a rather handsome guy. His messy jet-black hair and his soft hazel eyes. He was thin and lean, but being on the Quidditch team handed him plenty of popularity, Especially since he had friends who were pretty popular as well.
Not that Lily wasn't well-liked, she just wasn't Miss Popularity. She didn't like the air of popularity. She was a smart witch, well known as the smartest in the class.
"Evans! Don't you want to hear what I have to say today?" James called again. Lily began walking faster now.
"I don't care Potter, I have a class to get to, one you're not in thank god!" she shouted back as she continued walking, now going up a staircase on her way to Arithmancy, her next class.
"I was just going to ask you out again! You won't be able to resist me much longer!" He had stopped walking at the foot of the stairs. Lily didn't even look at him as she kept walking.
"I'm not resisting, I just don't like you!" she yelled down.
"Stop lying to yourself, you know you find me irresistible!" James shouted with a smug smile.
Lily finally stopped walking at the top of the stairs and glared down at James. "Potter, I do not like you. Get it through your thick skull. I would date any other guy on the planet before I dated you. Even Severus Snape!"
"Ouch, you really hurt me Lils," James feigned being hurt.
"IT'S LILY NOT LILS!" she screamed down at him before running up the next staircase.
James laughed to himself as she walked away and he started towards his own next class, Care of Magical Creatures. "She knows she likes me."
XxXxX
Lily practically threw her books down in frustration as she sat down next to her best friend, Melody Bones. Melody and Lily hadn't gotten along in their first year of Hogwarts, probably because Lily was a bit of a loner and Melody was a people person. They were both smart though and very competitive.
Somehow though, while serving detention together near the start of their second year, they had begun shouting at each other, only to realize that they had a lot in common. They had somehow become friends.
Melody was always surrounded by friends, but she always made room for Lily. Lily got along with Melody's friends, but she wasn't much for big groups of people.
"James again?" Melody quirked her eyebrow as the bell rang. Lily groaned. "I'll take that as a yes."
"OWLs are coming up in two weeks yet, no he can't study, he has to irk me!" Lily murmured as the professor began the lesson. Melody shook her head, smiling to herself. Lily growled. Melody always assumed that Lily liked James. In fact, she had one accidentally spread a rumor that the two were going out in third year because she had seen them getting a drink in Hogsmeade together.
It turned out James had bought Lily a butterbeer which she accepted sweetly before dumping it all over his head. He had left a live frog in her backpack the week before.
Once the lesson was over, more review for the OWLs, Melody and Lily exited the classroom, gripping their books tightly as they walked around the school to get back to their dormitory to drop off their books before dinner.
"He just kept yelling after me the entire time I was walking to class," Lily complained. Melody watched her friend burst out in anger as she did daily whenever James Potter was involved. Her fiery and fierce personality matched her red hair, and her green eyes blazed whenever she mentioned James. In contrast to Melody's deep sunkissed skin, Lily's was milky. Melody had bright blue eyes and deep chestnut hair. Both were on the short side, but not by an extreme amount. And both were beautiful in the eyes of all the guys at Hogwarts.
Melody went through a phase in her fourth year where she dated a good deal of the guys at Hogwarts, including James for about a week. She often vouched to Lily about how bad a boyfriend he was, flaking off half the time and ignoring her.
One other thing Melody often pointed out was how much James had asked about Lily back when the two had been going out. Melody could tell that one day, if James ever grew up, he and Lily would fit together perfectly.
However, at the moment, this was the thought furthest from both girls minds. Lily's was on a one track rant about James and Melody was rolling her eyes about Lily's one track rant about James.
"How about you don't let him get under your skin so much?" Melody finally exclaimed. "I mean, I understand how much he ticks you off, but can you just try and forget him and focus on something more important? Like the OWLs?"
Lily growled. She had been in one of her better rants. "Fine," she muttered.
At dinner, Lily tried to take Melody's advice. She tried to ignore James three seats and across from her at the Gryffindor table talking about how madly Lily was in love with him. He and his best friend Sirius Black were having a world of fun pretending to be Melody and Lily, gossiping about themselves.
"If you love yourselves so much, why don't you guys just marry each other?" a Hufflepuff fifth year, a friend of Melody and Lily's, Mitch Macmillan called over. Mitch may not have been in the same house as Melody and Lily, but he was one of the guys Melody had gone out with in fourth year, and they had remained good friends. Through that, Lily was drawn into being his friend.
"Aw… defending wittle Melody?" Sirius mocked crying. "Do you wuv her?"
Melody rolled her eyes at Sirius as Mitch rolled his own. Lily seemed ready to stab James and Sirius with her fork as she stabbed her own dinner. "I wish I could use those unforgivable curses on those prats," she hissed at Melody.
"Who wouldn't?" Melody narrowed her eyes at Sirius who just batted his eyelashes innocently.
James and Sirius whispered to each other for a moment before James stood up.
"Not. Again." Lily groaned. He did this at least once a month, standing up and making a fool of himself while making a fool of Lily. Everybody seemed to like James, even Mitch and Melody didn't hate him, except for a few Slytherins perhaps and this one Ravenclaw seventh year James had really ticked off once. So whenever he stood up and proclaimed his love for Lily and how she loved him back, they would all laugh.
Everybody knew how much Lily hated him.
"I LOVE YOU LILY!" James yelled, lifting his wand and with a quick incantation making lilies appear. He threw them at Lily. Then the lilies burst into flames, then ashes, and disappeared entirely.
"POTTER!" Lily screamed, standing up from her seat. James' smile faltered as he saw how outraged Lily looked.
"Gotta run!" he exclaimed, getting up and out of the Great Hall as quickly as possible, Lily fast on his tail. She chased him into the entrance hall and outside Hogwarts where she tripped running down the stairs.
James turned around and ran back to her where she lied on the grass. "You know I love you right?" Lily growled. She had had enough. She was going to lay it down once and for all.
"LEAVE ME ALONE POTTER!" Lily yelled in his face. He backed off for a second, standing back up, getting his face out of hers. "I do not like you, I never will! You don't love me, you love annoying me to hell! Just leave me the hell alone Potter! What did I ever do to you that you did not deserve in return for doing something to me?"
"I'm sorry?" James tried, backing off even more. Lily stood up.
"You know you're not sorry!" she yelled. "Stop asking me out and stop making my life a living hell! All you do is bug me! You poke me, you tease me, you annoy me, you do everything in your power to infuriate me!"
Lily gave him a last glare and ran back into the castle, into the Gryffindor common room and into her dormitory to beat her pillow up in her anger.
Unfortunately, James didn't listen to her. He didn't bug her for the two weeks until the OWLs, but once the OWLs were over, James asked her out. Again. And after beating up on Snape!
She, of course, had refused. James looked slightly hurt for a millisecond. Probably just his pride. Melody and her friends sitting by the lake where Lily had been cheered her later for doing such a good job of yelling at James.
How Lily wished she could just get away from James and never see him again.
XxXxX
Kinda short, yeah, but I want to make this at least a couple chapters, and the chapters aren't going to be very long. Not like with Destiny where the chapters are at least ten pages usually. Of course, that's a different category, but whatever.
So here it is, Use Your Imagination. This is basically an introduction chapter. The real story begins next chapter where we zoom forward to seventh year, and Lily and James have been fighting… again.
Please review!
7-1-05