Switched Chapter 26: Facing Alice, a harry potter fanfic

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Too bad, so sad, cry for me.

Author's Note: Sorry it's been so long. This chapter gave me a lot of trouble. I wrote two different versions of the second half of it, something I very rarely do. Typically, once it's on the screen, I love it or at least find it acceptable. The chapter isn't overly long, but I hope it's alright. Hopefully I'll be updating soon. Happy Easter!

Replies:

MissKlutz-I'm glad you like the story so much! I really try and write things that are funny because I like to make people laugh. Thanks.

orlando's elven princess-Thanks! I'm glad you like the story so much. Sorry the update kind of took a while.

hazeled eye marauder-Thanks. I try to keep things as original as I can.

x4eyedblondiex-Thanks. I love the idea of them switching places, but you're right a lot of the stories out there where they do that are really weird.

Synthiacat-Thanks!

animerocksjapanrocks-Thanks, Rachel. :-)

Don'taskmewhy0991-Thanks!

whoa!39 story's?-Hi, most of those 39 stories are finished. I just have about 6 here that I'm working on. I haven't started posting my other works in progress. I'm glad you like the story so much!

sour-peach-Thanks so much! Really? I've never had rocky road. I'm a mint chip, orange sherbet, and vanilla person.

Augurey Song-Thanks! Great enthusiasm. :-)

helloshanti2-Thanks! I've been working on writing the scene where they sing nad dance. So far i think it's coming out well. :-)

lizziee-Well, I won't tell you how Alice will be, because then it'll spoil this chapter. I hope you like it.

hunni-bunni23-Thanks. Sorry my updates aren't very fast; I can only post as fast as I write.

Jedi Knight Bus-Thanks! I'm glad you like it. I love making people laugh.

luv-nave-I hope the show lives up to your expectations. I know I kinda spent a lot of chapters building up to it. This chapter is the last part of day 6, so then they have Sunday, and then the show is the next day.

Zesuit-Thanks. Hm, I hadn't even thought about them messing up their act. That's a possibility though now. :evil laugh: Unlikely, but possible.

fanglessphysco-Thanks! Glad you liked it.

J.E.A.R.K.Potter-Thanks!

meenyrocks-Thanks! I'm glad you like it.

Lunatic Pandora1-I think he liked the thought of revenge enough to bypass the whole uncomfortable clothing thing.

certified-weirdo-Thanks! I think you'll like them a lot, at least, I hope so.

DOJ-Thanks. I love it when people point out specific lines that they liked!

Gwendolyn James-Thanks. I see Lily as somewhat violent. Hehe.After all, she hit or tried to hit James a couple of times in this story. Thanks!

books4me-Thanks. Dumbledore gets an appearance in the next chapter after this. :-)

GoSnOgGaTrEe-I'm so glad you like it. No I haven't said the name of the song yet. I'm keeping it a surprise until they actually preform it. Though, I must admit I gave a very tiny hint last chapter, but I don't think anybody got it because it was so small.

PhoenixPlume-Thanks! I'm glad you like it.

Chapter 26: Facing Alice

Lily and James walked with the others as far as their paths stayed the same. Soon however, Trevor and two of the girls turned aside to go to the Hufflepuff common room and shortly after that the two remaining girls left them for Ravenclaw. Lily and James were nearly at Gryffindor Tower when she stopped suddenly.

"What's wrong? Other than what I'm wearing, I mean," James said to her, laughing at his own joke.

"Let's go back down to the kitchen and get some ice cream," she said, turning back the way they'd come. She started to take a step.

James arrested her with a hand on her forearm. "Oh, no you don't. As much as I love ice cream, I know you just want to get out of talking with Alice." He paused thoughtfully before continuing. "Come to think of it, I don't want to see her much now myself."

"Then let's not. Let's go to the kitchens. Or the Owlery. Or we could go and prank the Slytherins," she offered. She really didn't want to face Alice.

"You've got to face her sooner or later, you know," he said gently, putting an arm around her. "We can delay it if you'd like, but it won't do any good. You know that."

"I know," she said softly. It was stupid. Alice was her best friend. She knew she'd done some not so bright things this week, but she didn't think that agreeing to the switch was really one of them. James was right; besides, she had no reason to fear losing Alice's friendship. If that were the case, Alice wasn't really a friend to begin with and Lily knew that just wasn't true.

"We'll face her together. She can't be too pleased with me. Yesterday she started screaming and lecturing me." Surreptitiously, he got her walking again towards Gryffindor Tower.

Lily looked at him questioningly, not even realizing that her feet were carrying her to the one place she would rather avoid at the moment.

"Well, Lily, if it had really been you she was lecturing, it wouldn't matter so much; you're roommates. But when she was lecturing me all she was wearing was her towel." He blushed slightly. "I wasn't looking. I averted my eyes. But she might not exactly think of that when she sees me."

"Good point, James." Distracted by James's conversation, by the time Lily realized that her treacherous feet had carried her to the portrait of the Fat Lady it was simply too late. They were there and the Fat Lady was waiting for them to give the password.

"Come on, it's time to go face her."

She glared at him. "You tricked me."

He gave a small smile and shrugged. "We'll face her together."

Lily hesitated. Alice was the sort of person who usually had a calm, sunny disposition. Occasionally however, Alice got angry, and if Alice was angry with you it wasn't wise to be within a mile of her. "Oh, alright. Let's get this over with."

James smiled encouragingly at her, said the password, and the door opened to reveal a party going on in full swing. It was not the biggest party Sirius had ever thrown in the common room, but it was a good-sized one to be sure. Aliec was sitting off in the corner where she could keep an eye on the door to the common room. Frank, having worked up the nerve the nerve, had thrown caution to the wind and was asking her to dance, even though he officially disapproved of this sort of party in the common room when people wanted to study. Still, he couldn't help but feel happy that Gryffindor had won again. At any other time, Alice would have gladly said yes to a dance with him, but at the moment her eyes were firmly fixed on Lily and James, standing in the doorway.

Lily took a deep breath and proceeded toward Alice, ignoring Sirius's indignant questions about what was so important that "James" had missed half the party.

"We need to talk," Alice said, not breaking eye contact.

"I know," Lily said. She looked around. Frank was in front of her. Sirius was flirting with a couple of sixth years. Remus and Peter were speaking with Estelle and Toby. Good. The Dormitory would be empty. "Let's get out of here," offered Lily.

Alice nodded, getting up from her seat and getting up and following her towards the boys' dormitory.

James made to follow, but Alice stopped him with a hand on his arm. "We need to be alone right now." Without another look back at Frank, Alice hurried to catch up to Lily, disappearing on the stairs.

Frank looked angrily at the person he thought was Lily Evans. "Why didn't you stop them?"

"What?" asked James, feeling confused.

"James Potter is up in the boys' dormitory with Alice," Frank said, his teeth gritted.

"Then why don't you go get her?" James asked, figuring that that was the obvious solution to Frank's problem.

"Weren't you listening? She followed him up there and it was her idea in the first place. I thought she might like me…but apparently not. James went and ruined everything like he always does," Frank said glumly.

James was somewhat offended at these remarks, but he couldn't help feeling a little guilty. Well, there wasn't anything he could do about that now, was there? It wasn't as if he could just tell Frank what was going on, could he? Frank wasn't Alice or Remus after all.

Lily sat on James's bed while Alice paced and ranted.

"I can't believe you're acting so irresponsible, Lily! How can you do something like this without telling me? Without telling anybody?"

"We didn't think about it when we did it. We just wanted to prove who had the tougher life. We didn't think about the fact that we couldn't be in our own dormitories or the fact that we had to shower or anything like that. It never crossed our minds."

"And how did you get the spell, huh?"

"I didn't. James did. I didn't know he'd snuck into the restricted section to get it until after we'd already made the switch. After that, what could I do? Go to Dumbledore and say, 'Sorry, sir, we made a mistake, can you change us back'?"

"The Lily I know wouldn't have done that. And she wouldn't be sticking up for James Potter," Alice said. There was a mixture of disappointment and anger in her voice with a little bit of betrayal.

"James's isn't such a bad guy. He may be an arrogant, big-headed, Quidditch-obsessed prat most of the time but he isn't always like that. He has good qualities too."

"Lily, do you realize that for almost a whole week he's had your body?" Alice asked, clearly distressed.

"I know. That wasn't something we thought of when we agreed to switch. We didn't think about the fact that we couldn't sleep in our own dormitories or that we'd have to shower or any of that sort of stuff. I wouldn't have trusted him a week ago but now…I trust him. Mostly anyway.But if I so much as suspect that anything inappropriate has taken place other than just getting dressed, I'm going to hex off his…" Lily searched for a word to use. "...his 'manhood' in the most painful ways I can think of."

Alice laughed a little as though she'd love for that to happen. "Why did you want to switch places in the first place?"

"I told you. We got into an argument about which one of us had the more difficult life. Switching places seemed like an ideal solution when we agreed to do it. I guess it wasn't such a good idea."

"If you could go back, would you still do it?" Alice asked, moving to sit on the bed next to Lily.

Lily was quiet a moment. "Yeah. This is going to sound crazy, but I would. I'm learning a lot I didn't know about James and his friends. It's certainly something to get to see the world through somebody else's eyes. Did you know James is a great dancer? He's smarter than I'd like to admit, too. He just doesn't like to do class work. He passed the Owls with marks as good as mine, but as for classes he has horrible study and homework habits. And you and I both know how vain he is, but did you know he has a whole shower caddy with moisturizers and things?"

"It doesn't surprise me."

"He even has a tube of zit cream."

Alice raised her eyebrows.

"It's never been opened."

"Ah, emergency rescue for his face in case he ever needs it."

"Exactly." Lily grinned. This was the Alice she knew, friendly and fun. "So tell me, what have you been up to this week?"

With that, Lily and Alice got caught up on life. She told her about having to explain her period to James and how James was accosted in Hogsmeade because of that outfit he was wearing. Alice told Lily about how she completely brushed Frank aside when he wanted to dance and now she regretted it.

Frank waited until the person he thought was Lily Evans went up to her dormitory and then climbed the stairs to get Alice away from James Potter.

He was about to go in when he heard his name. Eavesdropping normally wasn't something he'd do, but he couldn't help it.

"So, how are things with you and Frank?"

"Oh I don't know. It doesn't seem like it should be this complicated. I shouldn't have just ignored him when he wanted to dance. That was really rude; he'll probably hate me for it."

"He won't hate you for it," James's voice assured Alice.

"How do you know?"

"He's a decent guy."

"I was so preoccupied about talking with you, I wasn't even thinking. I'm glad we talked though. I suppose I should go make things right."

"You'll feel better if you do. Besides, I'm exhausted," Lily said, yawning. "I've had a tough day."

Frank crept quietly down the stairs. He didn't want to be standing outside the door like an idiot when Alice came out. He'd talk to her later.

"Goodnight, Lily."

Lily hugged her best friend. "Goodnight, Alice. Please don't murder James in his sleep tonight. He really doesn't deserve it."

"I'll try," she said wryly. Alice left the boys' dormitory to find the party still going on downstairs. Frank was in the corner where she'd left him. "Frank, I'm sorry about earlier. Do you still want to dance?"

"Sure," Frank said. Seconds after he said the word a slow song started to play on Sirius's radio.

A little awkwardly, they put their arms around each other and started to dance.

"Alice, why did you follow Potter up to his room?"

Alice bit her lip. "It's not important."

"Were you snogging?"

"No, we weren't," Alice said, blushing.

"Then why did you stare at the door, waiting for him to come into the common room? And why did you follow him up there like a puppy, not letting Lily come too?" he accused.

Alice looked around the room, making sure no one was near enough to hear them. "You have to swear not to tell anyone," she said, taking his hand and drawing him away from the rest of the crowd and toward the chairs near the fireplace.

Frank said nothing.

"I wasn't upstairs with Potter."

"I'm not stupid, Alice. I saw you follow him up there," Frank said dryly.

"That wasn't him. He and Lily switched bodies this week and didn't tell anyone. I wanted to tell her how stupid she was for agreeing to it, and this was the first opportunity I got to talk to her since I found out about it."

Frank didn't look as though he quite believed it. "How?"

"Potter got some book out of the restricted section and found a spell that would switch them for a week. They switch back midnight tomorrow I think."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

They were both quiet for a moment, not realizing that she still had his hand.

"I thought he'd been acting a little odd this week," Frank said.

"Well, at least now you know why."

Frank laughed quietly. "I would have never thought that sensible Lily Evans would do something this stupid. Honestly. Why would anybody want to become James Potter?" For the most part, he kept the bitterness out of his tone, though it wasn't easy. As much as he hated to admit it, he occasionally wondered what it would be like to be James Potter. To have the spot on the Quidditch team, the spot that he wanted. To have friends that were loyal and wouldn't desert you no matter how much trouble you were in. He would only admit it to himself every great once in a while, but when he did, it w as always a depressing thought.

Alice knew Frank well enough to recognize the look on his face and pulled him into a tight hug without thinking.

Lily fell asleep, grateful not to have to go down to the party at all. Sirius and Peter came up once to get her and bring her down around midnight, saying it was uncharacteristic for James Potter to go to sleep so early on a party night, but she pretending to be asleep.

James was grateful that he wasn't going to have to face Alice on his own yet. She stayed away from the dormitory for nearly an hour and he was fortunately asleep by the time she returned. Unbeknownst to him, she was feeling so light and happy herself that she momentarily had no desire to kill him.

END OF DAY 6

Author's Note: My alternate ending started with:

"Weren't you listening? She followed him up there and it was her idea in the first place. I thought she might like me…but apparently not. James went and ruined everything like he always does," Frank said glumly.

From there, James thought he might regret it, but told Frank to follow him upstairs and they eavesdropped on Alice and Lily. I thought that was a little too OC for James. I could see him doing it on his own, but I couldn't see him bringing Frank, so I nixed it. What do you think? Should I have gone with the other ending? I still have it on the computer.