Chapter 5: Reality

...for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and conceited that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set downs. I quite detest the man."

- Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice

The rays of sunlight crept in over the windowsill, dancing over the huge four-poster with blue silk sheets, and the slim curled up body that lay underneath them. The hair spread on the pillow obtained its characteristic glow as the sunlight brushed across the sleeping form of Lily Evans, gently coaxing open her still moist eyelashes.

Lily was an early riser, so as soon as she felt the warmth of the weak autumn sunlight on her cheeks, her eyes fluttered open and found themselves gazing at a deep blue canopy. Lily sat up bemused, unable to work out where she was, when suddenly all the memories of the previous day came back to her: the journey on the Hogwarts express, the sorting hat naming her as head girl, Potter's unsuccessful attempt at seducing her… Lily cringed and dug her nails into the palm of her hand, seething with the humiliation of actually falling for his lame trick. She jumped up and headed for the bathroom, intending to have a cold shower in order to clear her head.

But as soon as she opened the door to the bathroom, all thoughts of Potter flew out of her head. It was absolutely amazing. She had walked into what looked like a tower entirely constructed of stained glass. The feeble September sunlight filtered through the walls, throwing coloured shadows onto the huge tub filling virtually the whole of the space before her.

Not seeing a shower, Lily leant over one of the many taps studding the sides of the tub and twisted it. It released several clouds of wonderfully smelling perfume before she quickly twisted it closed again. By the time Lily had found the taps containing the hot and cold water, the tub was already half-full with bubbles of all shapes and colours and much else besides. Having filled the tub, Lily sunk in, quickly washing her hair before getting out again to find a fluffy white towel with the name 'Lily' embroidered onto it in gold italic letters. She could have sworn it hadn't been there before. Wrapping the towel round herself, she brushed her teeth at the sink in the corner of the glass tower and seeing her makeup was there too, applied a thin coat and headed for the door.

She opened it absentmindedly and before she realised what was happening, she found herself face to face with James Potter, who had obviously just woken up, sitting on the side of a red four-poster bed in his boxers, a groggy expression on his face. Before he could work out what was going on and what an extremely hot girl (whom he didn't remember ever seeing before) was doing in his room wearing nothing but a towel.

Before James could suss out what was going on, Lily had turned bright pink and ran out of the room with a cry of

'Shit!'

Just as the last wisp of red hair disappeared behind the slamming door, did James work out who it was that he had just found standing in his room and the events of the previous night came back to him.

'Shit,' he muttered under his breath, before pulling the covers over his head and involuntarily falling into a light, troubled sleep.

As soon as Lily had run across the bathroom and into her room, she let out a strangled scream of frustration. Why the fuck did she just wander into Potter's room wearing nothing but a towel? This was so goddamn embarrassing! Now he'd think of her as a slut or get ideas or something.

She slumped down on her bed and put her head in her hands. After a couple of minutes of sitting unmoving in this position, she got up, deciding that she would just have to show Potter that she was not attracted to him in any way and that if he ever tried anything again, he'd be sorry.

With these decisive thoughts, Lily glanced at her watch. It was still only seven o'clock. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a green shirt and her school robes over the top. She performed a quick drying spell on her hair, and grabbing a book, set off in search of the Great Hall and breakfast.

As she wandered the still empty halls of the castle, Lily found herself involuntarily thinking of Potter in his boxers…he did have an extremely nice body. Lily actually slapped herself at this.

'He's a manipulating bastard,' she said out loud to herself through gritted teeth.

'Who is?' Lily spun round to find Hannah standing behind her grinning.

'Potter,' she growled. Hannah laughed.

'What is it with you and this huge thing against James?'

'It's nothing,' Lily said dismissively 'so, what are you doing up so early?'

'Looking for you before you get lost,' Hannah smiled, 'and you're not changing the subject. What has James ever done to you?'

'Well, there was the little thing last night, where he tried to get me drunk and then get me into bed with him!' Lily almost screamed in frustration. Hannah's eyes widened in shock and she took a step backwards.

'Lily, you can't be serious!'

'I'm perfectly serious. Hence I think my 'prejudice' against Potter is more or less justified!' Hannah just shook her head dazedly

'James likes to sleep around, but what you just told me really doesn't sound like something he'd do.'

'Well maybe you shouldn't judge people before you get to know them!' Lily snapped, but seeing the hurt look on Hannah's face, she shook her head and said 'I'm sorry, I guess I'm pissed off with James and taking it out on you.' Lily said apologetically and Hannah gave her a smile.

'I think I'd better show you down to breakfast, since you're heading in the opposite direction of the Great Hall,' Lily blushed slightly and laughed.

'What would I ever do without you?' Hannah grinned and they headed down to the Great Hall and to Lily's first day at Hogwarts.

Lily was absentmindedly eating a slice of toast while reading her book, as Hannah had temporarily abandoned her to go sit with her Ravenclaw boyfriend Luke.

'What you reading?' Lily jumped and turned round to find Remus sitting next to her, smiling broadly. When she threw him an annoyed look, he looked bemused for a second. He sighed and said 'I'm sorry about last night, James can be an idiot sometimes, sometimes I have no idea why I'm friends with him.'

'It's not your fault he's a hopeless case,' Lily shrugged and flashed him a smile. Remus returned I gladly.

'So what're you reading?' he asked again. By way of an answer, Lily held up the fairly thick book she was reading for him to see the title: Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration. He raised his eyebrows 'Any good?'

'It's very interesting actually. It says here how to turn a door into a ship,' she laughed 'no idea where I'll need that though.'

'Well next time I'm stuck on a desert island with nothing but a door on it, I'll be able to get home,' Remus grinned

'And of course you wouldn't be able to apparate will you?' Lily laughed

'Of course not! Didn't you know all desert islands have those anti-apparition spells on them just like Hogwarts…for absolutely no reason?'

'Well thank you for the information, I'll be sure to remember that in future' by this time Lily and Remus were rolling round in helpless laughter. Though Lily herself couldn't remember the last time she had laughed so much over such a lame joke.

'Could I borrow that book when you're done?' Remus asked, a little awkwardly, which Lily found surprising, but she didn't say anything. Instead she smiled and answered

'I'll be done by tonight, I'll come find you and give it to you then. Ok?' He smiled gratefully and they chatted amiably as they ate their breakfast.

'We'd better go give out timetables,' Remus said with a sigh, getting up from his seat.

'Where are they?'

'Over there,' Remus pointed to the other side of the hall

'Accio timetables,' Lily said calmly flicking her wand and sending the timetables sailing over the heads of the eating students and with another flick of the wand dispersed the timetables among them. All this was done without standing up and with a piece of toast in her mouth.

Lily bent over to examine her timetable, every now and then muttering something like:

'Charms last thing on a Friday, that's a blessing,' Only a few minutes later did she realise that Remus hadn't moved since she had given out the timetables. He was still standing up with a timetable clutched in his hand, a look of mingled awe and amazement on his face.

'Yeah, I'm surprised we have so many free periods, personally I think it would be more productive if…' Lily began, misinterpreting his look.

'How…?' he stuttered. And only then did Lily catch on.

'Haven't you covered summoning spells?' She said surprised 'I did them in fourth year'

'Yeah so did we, but they're really hard and I didn't even know you could do that.' He said, implying what she had just done when distributing the timetables.

'Charms is my favourite subject' Lily shrugged, lightly dismissing the compliment 'I've had a lot of practice.' She returned to her timetable and continued analysing it.

'It's no wonder you were chosen as head girl' Remus said with a touch of awe. When Lily looked up, he saw her eyes had narrowed to slits, he turned round to see who her gaze was directed at and saw James, Sirius and Peter entering entering the hall and gave a small laugh. 'I won't burden you with their company again, don't worry.' Lily smiled at him gratefully.

'Thanks.'

'I'll see you later then,' Remus said, gently squeezing her fingers and walking off in the direction of the rest of the Marauders.

Lily finished her toast and got up to get her books ready for lessons. She made her way back to the head's dormitories, which she had now memorised the route to. As she walked, she noticed a few curious glances being cast her way, but she walked on: she really couldn't afford to be distracted or she would get lost again.

Once she had reached the portrait, she said the password and stepped through. She went through the spacious common room and to her bedroom, where she took out her timetable and threw the books she needed for that morning into her bag, along with several rolls of parchment, a couple of quills and some ink.

As she was about to leave, she saw something on her bed, which caught her eye; it was a bouquet of stunning red and blue lilies with a note pinned to them. She walked over to her bed and picked up the note. It read:

Dear Lily, I'm sorry about last night, please meet me in the common room at 9 o'clock tonight. I just want to explain. Please.

James

Lily walked into James' now empty bedroom via the bathroom and placed the flowers on his bed, ripping up the note and letting the pieces fall onto the sheets. No way was she going to fall for his pathetic tricks again.

With that, she left for Potions, her first class of the day, which began in ten minutes. It said on her timetable that it was in the dungeons, so she headed downwards, descending every staircase she came across, heading for the abode of the Slytherins.

The dungeons smelt of damp and mould, which crept up the cold stone walls and the flagstone floor. There were virtually no windows, so the winding corridors were flooded with darkness and a permanent air of gloom.

Once she had reached the dungeons, Lily followed the sounds of conversation and laughter, and came to her classroom, outside of which were a crowd of students. She could see from the crests on their robes that they were Gryffindors and Slytherins.

'Ah look who it is, our new resident mudblood!' was the first remark Lily received as she was spotted. At this she gave a gasp, she had read that 'mudblood' was an extremely offensive word and she had never thought that it would be used at Hogwarts. She had obviously thought wrong. A tall blonde boy was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed across his chest, regarding her with unveiled disgust. Lily quickly recovered herself and snapped:

'Such conduct and use of language wont be tolerated while I'm head girl. Ten house points from Slytherin.' The boy's eyes widened in outrage as he stood up straight and glared at her with vehemence.

'Head girl are we then?' the boy sneered. 'Dumbledore's really lost it this year don't you think? Choosing a new mudblood and that incompetent ass Potter as head boy and girl.' This remark earned him snickers from the Slythierins and glares from the Gryffindors present.

Lily opened her mouth indignantly to take some more points from Slytherin but she found a wand being pointed right at her head. Hers was at the bottom of her bag somewhere; she had not expected she would need it. 'You won't be taking any more house points off me Evans, or you'll regret it. Is that clear mudblood?' The boy spat the last word with such disgust that Lily actually felt a shiver run down her spine.

Just then she saw the Marauders standing and glaring at the boy with full-fledged anger. Only Peter looked a bit apprehensive and wasn't throwing his most evil looks in the direction of the Slytherins.

'Don't you dare call her that, you filthy excuse for a…' James roared, brandishing his wand at the boy threateningly, quivering with rage as the boy spun round to face him.

'Put your wands down both of you!' Remus shouted, 'or I'll be telling McGonagall and Slughorn will be finding out.' Both lowered their wands, excruciatingly slowly and still shaking with anger. 'If you ever talk about Lily that way again Malfoy, I'll subject you to far worse than an angry James!' Remus said in a dangerous undertone to the blonde boy, who flinched ever so slightly at this remark.

Their interaction was interrupted by the arrival of a short fat man, with a shiny bald patch and greying straw-coloured hair and a gingery-blond moustache. Under his lavish robes, he wore a flowery waistcoat with gold buttons.

'Good morning everyone! No bickering I hope?' he said, smiling broadly as he looked around the pupils assembled. 'Ah, Miss Evans is it?' The professor said, the redhead catching his eye. Lily nodded, still a little absentmindedly. 'Very nice to meet you, I'm professor Slughorn, head of Slytherin' he smiled 'and your potions teacher'

'Ok, go in then' he said to the pupils and they piled in to the classroom. The Slytherins piled in first and soon only Lily and the marauders were left in the corridor outside.

'Thank you' Lily smiled at Remus, and spontaneously gave him a quick hug. Remus was a little surprised, but returned the hug.

'It was nothing' Remus smiled back as they walked into the classroom.

None of this interaction was lost on James and he felt himself, for the first time in his life, seething with jealousy.

Remus sat with Peter, as he always needed help in potions and James sat with Sirius. Lily sat on her own, wondering where Hannah had got to. Lily, however wasn't given the chance to ponder over this any further, as Slughorn began the lesson:

'Welcome back, or in the case of Miss Lily Evans, welcome to Hogwarts.' Slughorn smiled down at the class. 'Today we will be making veritaserum, the most powerful truth potion. It is a very complex recipe and has to be made over a period of several days as it needs to be left to mature. At the end of the week we will be testing our potions. Use of pure veritaserum is controlled by very strict ministry guidelines, so we will be making dilute truth potion. Please turn to page one hundred and twenty of your textbooks for the recipe and begin.'

With this, he turned to the board to write something, Lily felt someone sit down beside her. It was Hannah, fifteen minutes late and grinning from ear to ear.

'What took you so long?' Lily asked in an undertone while leafing through her textbook to find the correct page.

'Got a bit carried away with Luke…you know, long time no see…' Hannah said, a slight blush creeping up her cheeks. Lily laughed openly at this.

'You know, I really should be taking house points off for that.'

'Yes, but you wont be,' Hannah grinned

'You're right,' Lily laughed as she set to work powdering her bicorn horn.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Malfoy throwing her a dirty look. She pretended not to notice, but a feeling of apprehension took over her. She would have to be careful with him in future. She highly doubted he would have hesitated to turn her into a slug if Remus and Potter hadn't interrupted.

However, she couldn't work out why Potter had stood up for her. He was just trying to seduce her again she told herself, though a little half-heartedly now. She looked to where he was sitting. He and Sirius were using the leeches as darts, trying to hit Slughorn's bald patch.

He was so pathetic, Lily thought to herself in exasperation, as she returned to her potion.

A/N: This chapter was longer, so I'm expecting more reviews:P