Disclaimer: I only own what you don't recall from the HP series.

A/N: so, 427 people have so far read my story ... but only 25 review! what's up with that? I'm not posting anymore if people don't review. Takes the fun out of things. Please review... please?

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It was written by Charmelite. By the way—she's coming to visit, so the plot will pick up and there may be slight differences. You'll be warned when it occurs. Happy reading.

Abarraine and Charmelite. 9 July.2005.

When She Smiles:

Euphoria

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Saturday 8 November, 1973

!-Mayan-!

(9:36 PM, in the dorm)


A lovely and long awaited Saturday entry!

It's currently just another chilly Saturday evening; I'm up late and the dorm room is perfectly silent! My mind is currently unable to create any sort of elaborate introduction for just another ordinary day like this one, so why try? I'll just admit to you my failure, and hope that you shall all be able to look beyond this sorry excuse for an intro and enjoy the rest of my entry.

Like it or not, this is the way it's going to be. Happy Saturday!

(Earlier that morning)
Omniscient

May looked up at the grandfather clock in the common room—eleven-fourteen in the morning. Then she shifted her eyes impatiently towards the girls' staircase. After taking in the emptiness, she gave her seventeenth irritated-sounding sigh of the morning, and picked up last month's issue of Enchantress from beside her, and begin flipping aimlessly through the pages for a third time.

The familiar articles jumped out at her; she practically had them memorized now. "Bewitch him, or ditch him?" "17 steps to remove unwanted back hair." May chuckled quietly to herself as she read over the ridiculous measures someone would go through all in the name of hair! It was no wonder that Siena, Blaise, Lydia, and Geminey would both live and die by these articles.

May tore the back hair article from the magazine and conjured an envelope out of a lone piece of parchment. She shoved the article inside and scribbled Geminey's name on the front of it. She then made a mental note to remind Sirius to give the envelope to Gem later. There's nothing quite like boosting a girl's self confidence. A cruel trick? Perhaps, but May was sure that when it came to Sirius, Gem would try just about anything.

May continued flipping through the magazine, and her mouthwatered as she came across an ad for 'MadameOxford's stuffed blueberry tortillas'. An ancient looking woman with long gray hair and what looked like the start of a gray beard, came walking towards her with a steaming plate of tortillas. She then teased May's eyes as she sent the tortillas rolling off the plate and used her wand to make them begin dancing around the edges of the page. May's stomach rumbled, reminding her of just how hungry she was. The grandfather clock stole her attention away from the tortillas. It chimed loudly to announce that it was indeed half past eleven in the morning.

May threw the magazine onto the table. Lily couldn't sleep all morning! This was getting ridiculous! They had already missed breakfast, and May decided that if she let Lily sleep any longer, they'd be missing lunch as well. Now, sleeping in is one thing, but missing lunch... May didn't even want to think about all the horrendous possibilities, so she stormed up to the dorm, wand in hand, ready to blast Lily out of that bed, not even contemplating 'no' for an answer.

The dorm room was quiet for once. She was greeted with silence—an unusual sort of bliss. The roommates had taken off for one of their weekend retreats to Siena's mansion. So for the second time this year Lily and May had the entire dorm to themselves. Euphoria.

The curtains were drawn tightly around Lily's bunk so May quietly snuck around the back side of the bed. Careful not to make the slightest noise, she grabbed a pillow off of her own bunk—protection from that high and forceful kick that Lily directed at May's head every morning when she was ruthlessly awoken. May waited for a moment, then threw open the curtains with a savage yell. May ducked behind the pillow, waiting for that jolting kick... but after a few seconds she realized that the blow wasn't coming.

What kind of trance was Lily in? She couldn't actually be asleep. May dropped the pillow to see what had come over her friend, but was shocked to find that Lily wasn't in her bunk at all. May's jaw dropped, and she looked to the dresser that they shared. Sure enough, Lily's wand was missing from the top of it. This could only mean one thing—Lily had gotten up extra early and hadn't been deprived of any breakfast.

"Why can't I ever win?" May muttered helplessly to herself while leaving the dorm. She put her wand back into her pocket (forgetting all about her 'wand safety etiquette rules 101'), and skipped down to the Great Hall in a defeated sort of manner. Lily better have a good explanation for this.

The Great Hall was crowded on the beautiful Saturday morning. The delicious aroma of pumpkin-battered onion peels greeted May's senses as she spotted Lily across the hall. Lily was surrounded by her usual posse—James on her right, Sirius on her left and Peter and Remus across from her.

They all seemed to be engaged in a heated conversation. Lily's cheeks were bright red, nearly the color of her hair, and she was intensely pounding her fists onto the table. May moved a bit more quickly towards the table, prepared to save Lily from whatever kind of trouble the marauders were giving her at the moment.

"May!" shrieked Lily as May took a seat across from her. "It's about time you got out of bed! I've been waiting down here forever!" May sighed and glared at the onion peels in front of her. "We've all just been having a debate."

May's eyes lit up. "Oh! Whatever about?"

"Well, we've actually been trying to get Lily to help us," Sirius blurted out, "We"—he motioned to the three other Marauders—"had no idea where to start on our Muggle Studies debates. So we figured Lils would be thee ideal person to ask—"

"And unfortunately," James interrupted, "we've gotten nowhere!"

May could see that at least this bit was true, judging by the redness in the boy's faces and by the way that Lily was jabbing at the onion peels with her fork.

"So, what's the problem?" asked a confused looking May, not quite understanding the point of the debate.

"Well, Lils is convinced that I've taken the entirely wrong standpoint on my debate topic!" Lily made a sort of grunting noise and chomped down on an onion with an unusual amount of force for a petite red head as James informed May of their debate.

"But she won't tell me how I'm supposed to start it—it's like I'm supposed to think for myself or something..." James winked at Sirius. "I'm already sick of this bloody project!"

"Isn't that the point?" said Remus logically. "James, you've obviously got a great debate if even Lily disagrees with it! Why ask for her help? After all, isn't that the main point? Differing view points..."

May could now see through the Marauder's cheap little scheme—they were just trying to get Lily worked up enough so that she would unknowingly give them an entire branch of topics to work with for their own side on the Muggle-topics debate in class. Such clever little boys they were. But May honestly couldn't blame them for wanting all the extra help they could get. The moment that professor McVay had passed out the curriculum for this little 'project', May was positive that it would prove to be a doozy.

The class would spend two weeks pouring through research on their individual topic assigned to them by the professor. Then a formal debate would be held, student by student. A Gryffindor would debate against a Ravenclaw who had an opposing view point, and a winner would be chosen. Whichever house collected the most wins would receive a night in Hogsmeade as prize, and the losing house would be stuck in the castle and made to prepare a five-course Muggle meal for the teachers and Muggleborns. Lily won both ways as far as she was concerned; on one hand, she didn't take the class, as it was completely irrelevant to her life, so no huge speech needed, and the other hand, if her chums failed, she got a free meal!

The Gryffindors had been less then thrilled when they received news of the project, and they had been even less excited to hear that they would be competing against the Ravenclaws. The all around academically over-achieving Ravenclaws. Bloody bogus.

Had this project been any sort of paper, or a written report, the Marauders could have found a way to scrape through it without any sweat. But this time it would be different; a competition, a battle of wills—eh, or wits! Most importantly, something even more valuable was at stake. Pride. May and Lily both knew that under no circumstances would the Marauders allow themselves to lose anything (well, save Peter). This was a project that the four of them would actually study and prepare for. They'd hate every minute of it, but they'd still do it.

"I honestly don't understand what you all are so worried about!" exclaimedLily, interrupting May from her thoughts. "The entire project sounds exciting to me! I only wish that I could have the chance to do a debate like this..."

"You'd find anything to be easy Lily! You're the know-all of Muggle related... err ... thingys!" Sirius threw in lightheartedly. "You just want to compete because you know that you'd win."

"Sirius, I'm not suggesting that I would win, I'm merely saying that it sounds like fun."

"Sure—two weeks of strenuous labor and sheer torture; that's about all the 'fun' that I'll be able to handle for a good while!"

"And you're certainly no saint!" added James after noticing Lily's delighted-looking smirk. "You'll be getting a free meal out of all this without putting forth a bit of effort!"

Lily laughed at the two exhausted-looking boys. "Hey now, don't burn me for my background, I had no say in the matter!" Lily smirked.

"So you boys better hit the books, lest it'll be you serving me that salad, and all twenty of those appetizers! I can taste it already!"

James and Sirius turned back towards their food and pretended to ignore Lily. Lily took advantage of the silence and turned her attention back to May.

"May, I'll be perfectly willing to help you out with your debate if you'll be willing to accept my opinions!" Lily said the last three words a bit loudly, and she threw an accusing look over at the Marauders, who pretended not to notice and continued to stare at their lunch. "What's your topic?" asked Lily sweetly.

"Oh, it's bloody terrible!" cursed May as she began searching through her tote bag for the little bit of parchment that she had scribbled her topic on. "Something I'm sure to lose..."

"HA!" shouted James sarcastically, momentarily forgetting that he was supposed to be pretending to ignore the girls. "Terrible? Nothing can even compare to the word terrible like mine can..."

"I thought you were concentrating on your food!" laughed May. "What's so bad about your topic?"

James read off his topic in his best professional-sounding voice. "Ah-hem, I am to argue that Muggle cheerleading is a sport."

"Now that's not so hard at all..." Lily interrupted, while envisioning Blaise and Lydia like girls trying to form a pyramid. She laughed mentally at the thought. "It takes practice... and skill, not to mention balance..." she added as she saw Geminey mentallyfall from the top pier for a third time. "All of these things are present in a Quidditch player, and you wouldn't try to argue that Quidditch isn't a sport!" added Lily without giving James time to respond.

James thought about all of this for awhile. "Lily?" he asked humbly. "Maybe you aught to explain to me just what cheerleading is..."

"James!" Lily exclaimed in shock. "You've been arguing with me all this time about something you know nothing about?"

James nodded assuredly.

Lily laughed heartily. "You never cease to amaze me James Potter!"

"So what about me!" Sirius jumped in, looking upon Lily as though she was some sort of answer-fulfilling goddess. "Why should smoking be banned from all public places?"

"Secondhand smoke," said Lily simply. Sirius still looked confused. "Public places are for everyone!" Sirius nodded obediently. "So when one person smokes, everyone is exposed to it." Sirius continued nodding. "Smoking causes numerous health problems for both the smoker and the innocent people who are unknowingly exposed to it!" More nodding. "People get sick." Nod. "They die!" Nod. "Sirius do you understand any of the words that are coming out of my mouth?"

"But how can it hurt everyone, it they're not the one smoking?"

Lily continued explaining. "Sirius, Muggle smoking isn't anything like the pipes that wizards smoke. Muggle tobacco is addictive, and doesn't benefit the smoker in any way." Lily defiantly seemed to enjoy having all of the answers for once.

"... And the smoke?" Sirius was still confused.

Lily's eyes brightened. "Let's try this approach. Sirius, having a smoking section in a public building is like having a peeing section in a public pool." Now Lily had the entire table's attention. Her jaw dropped as she was still met with confused looking faces. "It spreads! You can't confine smoke!" she exclaimed.

Everyone laughed, and Sirius's apprehensive face cleared as it all started to soak in. "Wow, thanks Lil, you're a born genius!"

"What can I say?" Lily responded with a smile as she pretended to flaunt her prowess as Muggle-related-situations-and-things genius... or whatever it had been that Sirius called her earlier. "So May, I'm on a roll, what's your topic?"

May read it slowly off the parchment and with an air of disgust. "Why Halloween is frowned upon as a holiday for Muggle Christians, and why it shouldn't be celebrated."

Lily listened carefully and looked up to May dumbfoundedly. "Wow, that one is a doozy! It'll go against a lot of what the wizarding world believes in!"


"Tell me about it," sighed May, not at all keen on gathering more information for her debate.


Lily took the spare bit of parchment from May. "Let me think about it for awhile; I'm sure that the two of us will be able to come up with something."

The six sixth years continued to talk over lunch, and enjoyed every minute of their time together until the dreadful hour of Quidditch practice.

It's nearly midnight, I've been writing for ages! I hear someone coming up the stairs towards our dorm, I hope it's not the head of house, but just in case I better hurry up and finish this.

Hope you enjoyed the entry!

Good night to all!

Love,
May

Thanks to all those who took the time to review, I absolutely live off of feedback. You review, I update sooner, it's how the chain works. I may even read your stories! Yes, you leave me a review and I'll check you out!

Thank you:

kahsmbmarimbaplayer — I'm uber glad you are enjoying my story. I am also glad you took the time to review. Means a lot. thank you! hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Catchy Pen Name — Gracias for all the positive words and the quick beta-ing. love ya doll!

Dragon — May and Lily had to have a connection somewhere :) Thanks for reviewing!