Chapter One

Contrary to popular belief, all you need is not love, but a good cup of tea

"Really, I need to study!" Lily protested. She shuffled franticly through the papers on her desk, like a dog digging. She had just had her charms notes, now where were they? She had put them down, and right afterwards she had picked up her Arithmacy book. They had to be somewhere.

"Lily, I don't think you've heard a thing I've said!" strangulated Bethany. If Lily wasn't so busy, she would have looked up to find that her friend's skin was as red in anger as Lily's was when she was embarrassed. Despite the fact her friend seemed on the verge of setting a full body bind on her, Lily was still engrossed in the amazing piles of paper on her desk. To the sane world, excluding Lily, her notes created a horizon on her desk rivaling that of the Alps. The charms notes were still in hiding.

"Because I'm trying to study," muttered Lily, eyes narrowing in on something faintly Charms like. Yes, here they were! With a sigh, Lily slipped them back in the pile. Those were from sixth year.

"For someone so perfect and organized, I think you'd figure out that your notes are on the top of the left most pile," interrupted Cassandra as she breezed through Lily's head girl room on her way to Quidditch practice. Lo and behold, the notes where Lily's friend had said they were. She grabbed them, almost fearful they'd run away. It could happen.

"Oh, Bethany? Congratulations!" Cassandra left with a wide grin. "It's time to work on the second connection."

Lily was so confused that she was forced to abandon her studies for a moment. "What is she talking about?" she asked, observing her friend, who had a rather goofy smile on her face.

"Remus and I are going out!" Bethany screamed. Lily screamed too, and rushed over to hug her friend. Bethany had been in love with Remus ever since they had met on the train before their first year at Hogwarts.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Lily exclaimed.

"I was trying to! But you were being a total prat and trying to study for a test you have next week!" Bethany was failing miserably at being angry, she was just too happy.

Grinning merrily herself, Lily did a little dance while reading her charms notes. Bethany reached over and snatched them out of her hands with her elegantly painted fingers. "Lily, stop it. You're going to get the full story whether you like it or not."

In the face of the inevitable, Lily was forced to admit she was much more interested in every last detail of the event than in the exact wand movements and the history of the charms in her notes. With Lily's attention secured, Bethany collapsed into the insanely soft leather armchair that occupied the corner. She draped her legs over the arm, and Lily saw the very bottom of high heeled shoes peek out from of Bethany's robes. Although she supported every attempt to secure Remus, she would never sacrifice the well-being of her feet to get a guy. But that really wasn't the issue, exactly how Remus made his highly acceptable proposal was.

"Well, I felt like today was the day and I'd die if I didn't finally admit how I felt about him…"began Lily's friend in a dreamy state. Lily smiled from the window seat. She and Cassandra had heard their love-struck friend bemoaning her coming death without Remus since the three of them had finished the treacle tart at the opening feast first year.

"So, I decided, if it was the day of judgment, I better be dressed correctly…"

"And you would need to be able to kiss him with some degree of ease if the foreseen event did occur, hence those impractical shoes," Lily wryly added.

"Lily! I was unsure! I hoped, but who could say if he felt the same way? The shoes were not for that purpose!" emphatically explained Bethany, with a great deal of amazement, and so she thought, the truest case of righteous anger in history. "And they are not impractical!" she added.

"Obviously not, as they seemed to have fulfilled your purpose in buying them and must have been very useful at the time of judgment," Lily agreed. She remembered quite well that the shoes had been bought for the intent and purpose of getting Remus when Cassandra and Bethany had stayed with her for the summer. She had been forced by her mother and sister to introduce her two friends to muggle shopping, something she didn't much enjoy herself. From that day on Bethany was lost.

"Lily! That is not true. I don't understand you!" Bethany whined, impatient to continue her story. Lily, although awfully tempted, let the matter die. For once she would let an opportunity go by for teasing Bethany about her height. Lily was a scant three inches taller, but that still didn't make her friend anything but short. It was especially obvious when Lily compared her to Remus, who although not amazingly tall, had to be close to six feet.

"Anyway," continued the story teller, glaring at her audience, "I saw him at lunch and told him I desperately needed to talk to him and asked him to meet me in the library by the shelf where Hogwarts: A History is after the last class."

"So that's why you didn't hear a thing Professor Arachnia said in Care of Magical Creatures!" exclaimed Lily. Despite her despising romance in anyway concerning herself, it was fascinating.

"I mean what if he didn't come? I'd have fed myself to the hippogriff! But even though I got there early, he was there even earlier! He wouldn't let me say a thing, just 'Before you say anything, there is something I have to tell you' and then he told me he'd had a huge crush on me ever since first year when I punched James on the train after he insulted you, and now that he knew me a little better he was in love with me! I couldn't say anything for a few moments, but then I told him I'd been absolutely in love with him since I met him and after that he asked me out and then oohhhhhhhhhh…" Bethany trailed off, sinking even farther into the cushions in bliss.

Her curiosity and hopes of seven years satisfied, Lily attacked her desk in search of some tea. She had made a cup for studying, before the news, and it seemed to have taken shelter somewhere she couldn't find it.

After some dreamy gazing out the window and sighing, Bethany broke out of her reverie. "You know, Lily, all you need is love."

Lilly, however, was impervious to such romantic ideas. "My mother always said 'All it needs is a good cup of tea.'"

"That might be, but may I remind you, your mother is married? And was she talking about dating a cup of tea? No, I think not."

"Well, that's all I want, if I can find the blasted thing!"

"Honestly Lily, you'll be married to James with three kids before you find your tea. It's on the window sill."

Lily turned very slowly, to face the window. She spent a long time contemplating the position of her tea. It, in fact, was seated on the window sill, nicely silhouetted by the setting sun across the forest. Like a near-death experience, Cassandra's voice came eerily back to her. "Bethany? Congratulations! It's time to work on the second connection."

In a second, Lily went from in shock to violently angry. She hated James Potter possibly more than anything in the world, excepting her friends trying to set her up with him. Married. To… to… him! And children! It was too disgusting for words!

Or perhaps not. "Bethany! That is horrendous! How could you say that?" Lily had totally and completely lost control. She was normally was a bit shy and wasn't predisposed to yelling, but complete and utter hatred of James Potter effaced that with ease. "Whatever gave you that idea? Ewwww!" Lily cried. She couldn't decide if she was more disgusted by the thought or angry at they'd even attempt it.

A little shaken, Bethany still retained her good humor. "Lily, one intermarriage increases the likelihood of another."

This was going too far. "How can you use that against me?" Lilly screeched. Obviously, Bethany was alluding to her favorite book, Pride and Prejudice. At least the character who thought so was wrong on every point in her schemes, but that made no difference to Lily. This was a black mark on her favorite novel, but more of a black mark on her friends for profaning Pride and Prejudice's holy name.

"Well, it was Cassandra's idea," Bethany defended herself. Lily's anger was on a low simmer, allowing her mind to work. Quickly, she determined she was never lending either of her friends her favorite book again, especially not Cassandra who had read it almost as many times as she had. They had used for evil what was only to be used for good. They were evil.

"I have always hated James Potter and I always will! Impossible!"

Lily felt like killing Bethany, because apparently she just did not understand how horrid this was. "Honestly Lily, it would be so cute to have Head Girl and Head Boy dating." Lily made retching noises, and not to be funny. "Anyway," continued Bethany trying to reason, "that's what Elizabeth Bennet said about Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice."

This was heresy! "I AM NOT GOING TO FALL IN LOVE WITH NOR MARRY JAMES POTTER. I WOULD RATHER DIE." Death seemed like a suitable occupation. Perhaps some of her so called friends would enjoy it. That was exactly what Cassandra needed, Lily realized. In an instant she had whirled away from Bethany and was flying down the hall to the Quidditch pitch.

Author's Note: Thank you to the reviewers who caught the misspelled "Lilly". I thought I had changed that. Feel free to throw tomatoes. I am now aware that the Pride and Prejudice reference to intermarriages was in fact Elizabeth Bennet's and not Caroline Bingley's, but I'm not going to change it. Yet.