Chapter 2

Of daily routines and faking friends

Disclaimer: See chapter 1

:O:

Lily sat in the bathtub that night thinking. More accurately, thinking about boys.

Even more specifically, Potter.

Oh, how she could not get him out of his mind! He was cocky, arrogant, bullying, rich, spoiled brat, yet some how, she was attracted to him. But she could never admit this to her friends. Elaine thought of the marauders as stupid low class entertainers. She was wrong, Lily thought.

James came from a well-respected, pure-blood wizard family, and his parents owning large estates all across Britain. She knew he was loaded. Which this attribute added to his big head and arrogance.

He did exceptionally in every class, but she never saw him with a textbook open, ever. He was Gryffindor's Quidditch Captain and chaser. He was popular and well liked by other students, excluding Slytherins. The marauders played pranks and all sorts of jokes (which were pretty funny, but Lily had to bite her tongue from laughing aloud) , and although they used to hex innocent first years few years back, they have cut back to just hexing Slytherins.

He has changed, or better yet, matured more during the summer, Lily could tell. He basically stopped the torturing of innocent Slytherins and being good. At first Lily found this odd, but soon realized that he was doing this to change her mind about him.

She used to find him asking her out all the time very bothersome, but over the years since 4th year, she learned that she did have some feelings for him. But she could never date James, she had a reputation too. She was a goody-two-shoe, well-mannered, and intelligent girl, she couldn't go out with the prank king Potter.

Yes, Elaine is right. I'm better off without him. I'm going to marry a rich and well-respected man who works at the Ministry, Lily thought. But it's so boring! He would be out all day and you're going to be the house wife, taking care of kids, doing dishes, and doing laundry. What would be the point of living?

To top all this thought about Potter, she was so busy and stressful these days. She thought working and having no free time would help get rid of Potter in her head but somehow it made it worse. She couldn't sleep; she was always tossing and turning, finally falling asleep at 3 in the morning.

This is so confusing, Lily thought as she got out of the tub and turning on the shower.

:O:

"So Lily, who's our new candidates this year?" Felicia asked, licking her spoon slowly and agonizingly, while a group third year boys drooled into their oatmeal. Her blonde hair, blue eyes, slim figure, and athletic abilities made every boy in the school drool a puddle on the floor.

"I'm not sure, I'm really busy from the Head Girl duties and the N.E.W.T.'s are coming and-"

"Lily, just because of those doesn't mean you can't have a boyfriend," Elaine said cutting Lily off.

"I'm going to focus on my studies this year, no more distractions," Lily said as she put some toast on her plate.

"Oh, Lily, where's all the fun? Guys are not distractions, they are pleasure," Elaine said mildly. At that comment Lily choked on her orange juice. Marlene patted her back, and rolled her eyes at Elaine's comment.

It was common knowledge that Elaine was Hogwart's most wanted girl. The others girls pondered why, because she was just plain brunette haired girl, but the boys had a rumor going around about her in bed. As much as she was being called a slut she was most skilled in potions, her best subject.

"Um, no thanks Elaine. Dating isn't my thing, and it gets tiring at times," Lily managed to say.

"Lily, you hardly even looked around! I mean you had like 3 boyfriends last year! I had about, um….20..." Felicia said covering up, her blonde hair getting in her face.

"Don't be ashamed Felicia. I go through about a boy a week. The other girls are just jealous of our confidence, intelligence, and beauty," Elaine replied coolly as other girls at the Hufflpuff table gave them nasty glares.

"You know Elaine," Lily started to say, "You should stop dating and focus more on your studies so you can do well on N.E.W.T.'s as well."

"Lily, what is going on with you this morning?" Elaine asked softly.

"N-n-nothing. Everything's alright, just I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, that's all," Lily stuttered.

"I hope its got nothing to do with Potter, Lily. What have I said? Potter and his marauders are filthy low life's, doing silly jokes." Elaine said even more softly and vehemently.

"Although, that Sirius Black is some catch," Felicia added dreamily, which resulted a nasty look from Elaine.

"No," Lily said softly back, looking at her hands folded on her lap.

"Good girl Lily, I'll introduce to some other boys. I'll make sure he has a pretty good background," Elaine said as she got up from the table and walked out of the Great Hall with Felicia following her close behind.

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"So, my fellow marauders, what would be our first prank of the year?" Sirius asked the other boys by the fire in the common room. It was after hours and they always were the last to leave the common room to go to bed.

"Any suggestions? Mooney?" Sirius turned to Remus.

"None, Padfoot. Why don't we try studying more often instead of planning for pranks?" Remus asked pausing to read from his novel.

All three other marauders gasped, as if to say that was the crime of the century.

"Mooney, are you alright? I mean since when did we ever studied, ever?" Sirius asked, still shocked from what he heard before.

"Yeah, I mean it's our tradition, our reputation! Why should we suddenly stop pranking because we are in our last year? Since it's our last year, it should the best yet!" James exclaimed standing up from where he was sitting.

"Yeah, ditto on what Prongs said," Piped Peter.

"It was only a suggestion, Prongs. No need to get over excited. And what happened to being a good boy so Lily will go out with you?" Remus asked raising his eyebrows, knowing that James would have nothing to say back on that topic.

"Um…a few pranks here and there won't ruin my chances. Besides, I've decided to wait until Christmas break and if she doesn't, then I am moving on." James retorted back, crossing his arms on his chest.

"Good boy, Prongsie! Here's a cookie for ya!" Sirius said mockingly and grinning widely.

"Really?" Remus asked ignoring Sirius.

"Yup, really. I'm not gonna do the chasing anymore. If she doesn't truly like me then I've got no choice but to stop and move on."

"If you say so Prongs," Remus said slowly, not entirely believing what he's saying.

"Come on, enough with Evans, and let's go get some food!" Sirius said breaking up the conversation which always seemed to revolve around Lily. He was getting quite tired of James whining like a kicked puppy and Remus giving him advice.

"Yeah, let's go! I already got the invisibility cloak." James said as he took out his cloak from underneath the seat.

"Off to the kitchens we go!" Remus sighed and got under the cloak as Sirius took his book and threw it across the common room, to get his attention.

"Some things never change."

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A/N: Hi! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I got the impression that Lily did like James but pretended to hate him, from the mugglenet and lexicon interview with J.K. Rowling.

Here it is if you don't believe me.

MA: How did they get together? She hated James, from what we've seen.

JKR: Did she really? You're a woman, you know what I'm saying. Laughter.