A/N: A second in my series of L/J one-shots. Set at the end of sixth-year, about six months before the first. After the Marauders hit new lows, Lily has a daring plan to get rid of her nemesis once and for all.
Thanks a bunch to Sugarquill824, my one reviewer so far. I love R/Hr too; my upcoming main-line fic has much fluffy goodness, right up to the point where you RAFO. One of my other back-burner stories is R/Hr but not even slightly fluffy.
You don't want to read A/Ns all day so on with the action. The Gryffindor Common Room, May 1977.
James Potter strode into the Common Room looking, as usual, as if he owned the place and had stage-managed the past five minutes to enter at precisely the right moment. Which, come to think of it, was precisely what he did at least half the time. The other half happened naturally. Where any ordinary mortal would have come in just as something far more interesting occurred on the other side of the room, James entered as if on cue. A brief lull in the volume of conversation was more than enough; he and Sirus made their entrance and announced in portentous tones,
"Our problems with The Slug are officially at an end for the week. We figure that should be long enough for Poppy to undo the effects of our latest masterpiece."
To Lily's disgust, the majority of the Gryffindors looked impressed and began to beg for details. The more visible half of the Marauders were, of course, happy to oblige.
"Does everyone know what Polyjuice Potion is?"
A ragged chorus of "Yes.", "Get on with it." and "Yerwhat?" ensued.
"Right, well that was our Potions project and if you use animal parts instead of human you get ... interesting results." Sirius' grin at this threatened to engulf his face. James merely winked at the horrified look on Lily's face. Having been in the fateful lesson, she knew all too well where this was going.
"Such a pity, then, that Snivellus 'forgot' to put in his hair –"
"The grease would have wrecked it anyway."
"Thanks for that Sirius. Anyway, somehow a bit of toad skin got in there instead. Can't think how that happened, but you know how Slughorn always tests the potions from his very best students. We don't dare do anything to our Perfect Prefect there, but that slimeball is another matter entirely. So, our esteemed Professor of Potions is now even more toadlike than this morning. An improvement to his looks; better yet, Snivellus gets the blame. And all because of the geniuses who are – all together now – THE MARAUDERS!"
The last was repeated by most of the older students; only Lily kept a completely straight face before breaking out in shrieks of official fury, threatening in approximate order of effect detention, expulsion, exposure, evisceration, execution and Quidditch bans. All the while James looked unconcerned – even the last got no more than a brief narrowing of the eyes - save that intolerable smirk. Many, many house points later, the smirk spread into a full grin and he murmured, "Now I've spared you the pain of Snivellus' company for a few evenings, we can slide off to the Astronomy tower any time. It's got to be better than poring over Potions textbooks with El Greaso."
A red mist wavered in front of Lily's eyes as her harangue, which she had been rather proud of at that point, was forgotten in the general hilarity. Shouts of 'You tell her James!' and 'Aren't you going to answer him?' did nothing to help her keep calm; James Potter was going to regret this if it was the last thing she did. A small voice whispered that if she tried to play the Marauders at their own game it probably would be. Severus had a habit of getting into strange accidents. Regulus Black had been found hanging from the Quidditch hoops not once but three times. Julius Avery, who could not swim, had suffered an unfortunate accident with some Gillyweed in his salad at the end of their fifth year. No, attacking James by pranks or hexing him in the corridors was a bad idea. In the meantime...
"Potter, the Astronomy tower is very draughty. Somewhere ... warmer?"
"You WH- er, you mean it? How about the Three Broomsticks then?" he replied, looking satisfyingly stupefied at this apparent change of heart. Her comeback revealed the depth of his misunderstanding.
"Try Hell. Alone."
At this his expression wavered between relief at being back on familiar ground and something else that might have been disappointment. Without another word he stalked over to the fire, threw a small second-year girl out of the best armchair -she looked pathetically grateful to have the honour of giving him her seat -and waved Black and their shadow Pettigrew over beside him, undoubtedly, she thought sourly, to cackle a bit more over the mess they'd made. She didn't see his eyes flick back towards her as she cleared the pranksters' crowd of well-wishers away from the portrait hole.
Whilst Lily was moving the crowd and glaring daggers at the back of Potter's head, the unseated second-year was firmly told to "Stop staring at Potter, he won't be interested in you anyway." by a tall fifth-year with short blonde hair whose name Lily vaguely connected with an annoying laugh and a name which sounded like a Muggle spot-remover her sister used. Without the energy to tear strips off yet another student, Lily retreated to the comparative safety of the sixth-year girls' dorm, where her best friend Jancy Quaine was waiting for her with a look of mingled indignation and envy. Without waiting for her to speak, Lily let loose a screech of sheer frustration which echoed off the walls and provoked banging on the floor from the Common Room below. With her anger temporarily relieved, Lily gave a quick explanation of what had happened downstairs, ending with a rhetorical wail of "...and he'll pay for this, but I don't know how. How do you get a simple idea through to James Potter?" Jancy's answer was unusually specific, if not particularly helpful.
"Give him what he asks for." That, retorted Lily, was not the point. The idea was to get rid of the idiot, not keep him hanging around.
"Exactly. If you just acted like everyone else he wouldn't bother baiting you. How hard can it be for a genius like yourself to pretend to think two very handsome lads are alright?"
"Too hard. Besides, I want him to regret annoying me. Severely. Maybe if I did agree, then... no, too nasty. I can't act that well anyway." Despite Lily's regretful tone, a little glint appeared in her eyes as she dismissed this nebulous plan. Jancy was less willing to let it go.
"You said you wanted it to hurt him. Go on, spill."
"Oh, alright then. This is what I was thinking. How about if I start – slowly – pretending I think he's OK. Make him work a bit 'cause he'd never fall for-" she broke into an affected squeal, plainly based on that spot-remover fifth year.
"'Oh James I love you I've been wrong all these years kiss me now please my one and only!' Even he isn't enough of a prat to take that seriously. No, what I'll do is slowly convince him that he's getting somewhere. Then I let him ask me out one last time, we have a few nights out – don't worry, I won't let him take any liberties – and then I give him a taste of his own medicine. Reject him, in public, once more. That'll show the bastard. He's done it to girls before; I bet he didn't know how much it hurt them. Violet Spaven was in tears after he told the whole of Hufflepuff tower she was a slimy cow and he wouldn't touch her with a ten-foot Hippogriff prod." With a snort at the cruel accuracy of Potter's insult, she drew herself up as if expecting to be struck down on the spot for her cruelty. What she was not prepared for was her slightly odd, harmless dorm-mate and friend breaking into peals of hysterical laughter. That just didn't happen. Somewhere, Jancy had developed a sneaky streak to go with her fierce protectiveness and absolute, unshakeable loyalty.
"That's gasp brilliant. Impaled upon his own sword, the cocky bastard. If he doesn't gasp take that hint he deserves worse." Whilst Lily was slightly shocked by this new side of her friend, she was more than a little worried. The plan was supposed to be a fantasy, not deadly serious. Now it was both, and she was finding it a pretty good idea. After all, she mused, it's nothing he wouldn't do to me. Nothing, really, that I haven't done to him before – I've hardly been gentle in turning him down.
"Right. For the next few days I'm angry with him. By the end of term I'll tolerate him in the same room. At the start of next year I promote him to the human race and he gets to ask me out sometime in November, or whenever the time seems right. In the meantime, the Marauders are funny and when he asks me out I-"
"Don't let him get to you." Jancy's interjection was logical and accurate, but distinctly mild.
"As I was saying, I try not to hex him, smile if I can and when Black isn't in sight even flirt a bit. No, bad idea. Smile will do, until the time comes." There. A Potter-Repelling Charm better than anything she could have done in lessons. Filled with relief at finally having an answer to the intractable problem of James Potter, she pulled Jancy into a quick hug, whispering "Thanks." as she did so. Jancy merely gave a conspiratorial grin. This plan was going places. With any luck, to a packed Common Room. As Jancy blew out the candles, she grinned out of her window at the full moon outside. Its serenity was quite fitting; her Marauder worries were, if not over, goingto end in the foreseeable future. All would be right with the world.
A/N. Second chapter. More to come, including Potter's Worst Day, in which everything possible goes wrong at once, The Break-Up Downstairs, from James' POV, the Original Sin, or 'why does she hate him so much anyway?', the Werewolf Prank, gardening for Marauders, an interesting DADA teacher, a ball with a difference, a certain Prince and his sleeping beauty, a rat in the woodpile and the World's Biggest-Ever Duel – six sides, few alliances and about three dozen participants including all our old and new friends. Reviews will encourage me to write more and faster. If it's that bad, still tell me and I'll write something else. Basically, I'm a very new writer and I need to know what's good, bad, ugly, derivative, disastrous, hilarious etc. I'd review yours if I started it; it's not fair to read something written for no profit and not give something back, however small.