Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling; you know what is mine and what is hers.

Author's Note: Goodness gracious, many apologies for the long wait. This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, I'm sorry! I'm having a bit of a block (hence the very, very late delay) but the next chapter is all planned out. I promise.

Lusting the Loathed

Chapter Three - Unpleasant People

Chapter Song: Incubus - Drive

Lily couldn't help but feel left out after finding out that Samantha, Marlene, and Andromeda went drinking without her. Yes, she herself had been drinking, but she was doing it by herself. She felt it was a blatant attempt to isolate herself from them... more than she already was. After being elected Head Girl, she'd been spending less and less time with them. But could they really blame her? With all her new duties and the pile of seemingly never-ending homework, how would she even have time to 'fit them in'?

Honestly, sometimes she just felt like ditching her Head Girl position, curse all the professors, and snog the first guy she saw.

Fat chance of that happening, however.

She knew it. She was losing her drive. Her will to be perfect and the top of her year. What was wrong with Lily? Why couldn't she go back to being herself? The girl who finished all her homework, never procrastinated, and was praised by all the teachers?

Somehow, Lily knew that girl was inching away and away each passing day. She could just... make the best of it for now. Realizing this truth, she heaved a sigh and stared at the pile made up of three beautiful girls, all equally passed out and heaped in a pile, one on top of the other, snoring peacefully.

She heard a sharp knock at her door.

Lily cursed mentally. Whoever it was knocking, the Head Girl caught with her three drunken friends heaped in pile in her room would not look good.

"Uh, I'm coming!" Lily yelled quickly, trying to think of a way to get rid of them. She was the Head Girl of Hogwarts; surely, she could come up with a solution.

Then it clicked. An invisibility charm! Lily brandished her wand and murmured, "Evanesco."

The pile containing Lily's best friends disappeared instantaneously. Lily couldn't be happier.

"Lily, it's James! I don't need your Transfiguration book anymore, I found mine. Sirius nicked it the night before and didn't want to give it back because he spilled ink all over it," James cried irritably from the door, "but if you don't want to open the door, or you're not there, or whatever, I'll just leave it here."

"No, really, James! I'm coming!" Lily shouted.

She rushed over to her mirror and ran her hands through her auburn hair, trying to make herself presentable, even as she wondered why she cared how she looked to James Potter. She fluffed her hair, straightened out her clothes and ran to her bathroom door.

"Sorry," Lily said, out of breath.

James was just returning to his side of the bathroom, but he turned around once he heard Lily's voice. "Locked your door, now, huh?" He seemed slightly disappointed.

"Not to shock you or anything, you did quite surprise me. What if I was... naked or something? We wouldn't want that happening now, would we?" Lily asked, crossing her arms and leaning on a cabinet, filled with fluffy, white towels.

"Well, now that you mention it..." James started, looking mischievous.

"No, I'm keeping this door locked," Lily said firmly, with a hint of a grin. James wanted to see her naked. Actually, as soon as Lily thought about, he probably wanted to see all girls naked. "Now, I think we should establish some ground rules to keep ourselves in check here and to ensure our own privacy. For both our sakes."

"Goodness, Lily," James asked satirically as he sat on the tub. "Why so strict all of a sudden?"

She shrugged uncomfortably, fumbling with a one of the towels sticking out. "It would be all... weird..."

"Weird?" James inquired. "What would be weird?"

Lily swallowed. "Um, if... the Head students got... too close, I guess."

"It'd be great. Shame, though." James shook his head. "Ah well, Lily. Whatever makes you comfortable."

Lily smiled appreciatively... but still felt awkward. "Thanks."

"I'll make it a habit of knocking. No more barging in, I swear," James promised, standing up.

"Good," Lily replied, pushing the towel fully in. "I'll keep my door unlocked then."

"Nice," James grinned.

Lily rolled her eyes.

"Well, uh..."

"I've got to run," Lily answered.

"Me too," James agreed.

"Bye." Lily rushed out and slammed the door closed.

She exhaled, hoping it wasn't too drastic of an exit.

"Fuck, that was close," Lily muttered to herself as she returned to her room.

She heard murmurs, bangs, and all sorts of curses. It was probably Marlene, Andromeda, and Samantha... and they've probably all realized they were lying on top of each other. Lily hoped they hadn't thrown up. That would've been a gruesome and nasty sight to clean up, even with a wand. Realizing her three loving friends were still invisible, she cancelled her invisibility spell.

"Ah, fuck, you made us invisible, Lils?" Marlene asked.

"I thought we Apparated or something," Samantha grinned.

"Merlin, my head hurts," Andromeda groaned.

"It's called a hangover," Lily informed her. "And you can't Apparate on Hogwarts grounds! How many times have I told you?"

"We know, we know," Andromeda replied irritably.

"Well, you guys woke up fast," Lily commented dryly. "Any idea as to why you guys show up at my room on a Saturday morning?"

"Since you're the bloody Head Girl now, we figured you'd be up," Samantha slurred.

"Yeah, cause you guys woke me up. Well, I think you guys should just take a quick nap or something. You guys obviously cannot leave here right now like...this. You're obviously still drunk and you guys can't even form a sentence without slurring! Who knows what sorts of trouble you'll get yourselves into!" Lily replied indignantly. She shuddered to think of the Head of Gryffindor, Professor McGonagall, would do if she found them in their current state. Lily knew she had to keep them in her room and since they were still drunk and didn't have a strong grasp of the situation, it wouldn't be too hard.

"No, we'll go," Marlene replied tipsily. "We know when we're not wanted. Thanks for letting us crash, though, Lily. It was fun while it lasted."

"Yeah!" Andromeda added.

Too bad as soon as she got up, Marlene fainted and landed on Andromeda who coincidentally landed on Samantha.

They were a big drunken pile again.

Lily grimaced. They were lucky to have her. She brandished her wand and magicked all of them safely unto her large bed and pulled her blankets over themselves.

"Accio Parchment! Accio Quill!" Lily muttered. As soon as the materials reached her hands, she quickly jot down a note, telling the intoxicated trio to stay where they are when they woke up, don't do anything stupid, and that she would be back soon. She left the parchment floating above their heads so when they woke up, they would definitely see it.

Lily ran to the other end of the room and, grabbing a coat and her book bag filled with her homework, she left. She knew she couldn't stay in her room, what with James next door and her friends passed out on her bed. She just wanted to find a quiet place to do her homework. She didn't want to go to the library; she'd been in there too many times and Madam Pince was annoying as hell. No, Lily needed somewhere new. She needed a tranquil place to take her stress away, somewhere where she could concentrate. Ever since this James Potter and Head Girl business, she found that she had a lot of trouble focusing on her assignments, and now she had a load of homework that seemed, even with a free weekend, to be undoable. She used to dislike him... mostly because he charmed her hair bright pink back in third year. It stayed like that for a little over a week. In fact, the dye in her hair was so strong, it leaked on her face. That was why people started calling her 'pinkeye' instead of 'green eyes'. He set a tarantula in her room fifth year. She yelled at Remus to do something about it, after all he was a prefect, but he just looked amused and kept on reading that stupid Defense Against the Dark Arts book while she was trying her best not to hex James into oblivion.

She still hadn't found her destination. It seemed like Lily was roaming the halls carelessly. Lily turned around, figuring out where she was. Maybe she should make a left turn at the portrait of Sir Wellington on the second floor and then go down the st-

SMACK!

Unknowingly, Lily had collided with somebody, and a seam on her schoolbag split, causing all the contents of her bag to pour out.

"Damn," Lily muttered under her breath. She looked up to see whom she had bumped into. Great, Severus Snape. "Sorry Snape... I d-didn't..."

"Watch where you're going next time, Mudblood," Snape replied beratingly, shooting Lily a look of disgust. His normally greasy hair was ruffled and he looked more murderous than ever.

She shot him a glare. He couldn't talk to her like that! She was Head Girl for Christ's sake! "25 points from Slytherin," Lily replied smugly.

"Like I care. Take off all the points you want, Evans." Snape narrowed his eyes and walked away.

Lily shook her head at his retreating figure.

Severus Snape was quite an unhappy fellow. He didn't care much for school, but had a deep passion for the Dark Arts, which he was fairly good at. Everybody knew that. He had a band of good Slytherin friends who were equally unpleasant, gangly, and creepy. But mostly, he was upset that Lily had managed to upstage him in just about every subject since first year. And the fact that Lily was Muggle-born and hadn't even discovered magic since the age of eleven while Severus was brewing potions since he was a mere three years old, did not ease Severus at all. The never-ending compliments from their Potions teacher, Professor Slughorn, didn't help much either. Especially since Lily was branded into the highly-elite 'Slug Club'. Lily couldn't blame him for being the bitter, angry, hook-nosed, greasy git that he was. Or maybe she could.

She still felt a surge of pride for ridding the Slytherin house of twenty-five house points. Although, most couldn't give a damn about who won the House cup either way, but Lily still felt a tiny bit of pride.

She patched up her bag and was still gathering up her things, when she saw another hand had helped her.

"A git, isn't he?" Sirius Black asked, who was bending down and handed her her Charms book.

Lily was slightly taken aback. It took a moment for her to register and then replied, "Yeah, smarmy bastard he is. But I did manage to take 25 points away from Slytherin." She took her book appreciatively.

"Fantastic," Sirius beamed, looking impressed. He hated Slytherins and the Slytherin house in general, everybody knew that. Sirius Black was bursting with Gryffindor pride and found it his job to hex or curse anybody who didn't agree with him. "Any reason or were you abusing your Head Girl powers? Tell me you're using them for the good and not the evil and that Dumbledore made the right choice when he picked you."

She grinned. "I would never abuse my 'powers', as you call it. Anyways, he called me a 'Mudblood'," Lily answered, collecting the last of her books and stuffing them into her large bag.

Sirius Black was in the same year as Lily, but this was the first time he truly acknowledged her presence or even talked to her. Perhaps it had something to do with James... maybe.

"That wanker!" Sirius exclaimed, looking seriously offended, gathering up her quills. "You should've taken at least 50 for that! That's a horrible thing to say."

"It's fine, I mean, you'd expect it, coming from somebody like him. It's fine," Lily assured. Sirius still had a questionable look on his face. "Really. He calls me it all the time, but today, he seemed extra bitter about something." She took the quills from Sirius's hand. Damn, another one of her inkbottles spilled all over. She muttered an incantation to get out the ink.

"Well, I was just about to kill him," Sirius explained gravely, although Lily knew he was joking. She knew enough of Sirius to find him funny, kind, and charming (to Gryffindors, mostly); no matter how angry he got, he would never kill anybody. Not on purpose, at least. He bent down and collected the scattered pieces of parchment. "Vargas had to pull us off each other. Lucky bastard, he would've been worse than dead right now if I had my way."

Lily laughed as she tucked her quills into a pocket of her bag. "He deserves it; no wonder he was so foul. Almost getting killed is no happy matter."

"Yeah," Sirius nodded, handing her a thick stack of parchment.

"Well, thanks," Lily smiled, taking it and putting it in her bag.

"No problem," Sirius said, standing up. "Anytime." He offered a hand to Lily, who gladly took it.

Lily walked off, wondering why Sirius had been so nice to her. He didn't necessarily have any reason to be mean to her, but he didn't really have one to be nice to her, didn't he? After all, he and James were the ones responsible for half the hexes inflicted on people in the school.

James. Another person Lily felt awkward about. She pushed all awkward feelings away and walked off.