The next morning, I woke up feeling like poo.

Honestly. There was just no other word to describe it. I peeled open my eyelids and rolled over, shivering slightly even though I was sweating. Opening my mouth, I attempted to talk but all that came out was a weird sounding croak. My throat – Merlin, let's not even get started on how raw and swollen my throat felt. I tried calling out for Marlene.

"Mar!" I called as loudly as I could, but all that came out was a tiniest whisper. I cleared my throat (which felt like someone was scraping a fork down my gullet) and had another go.

"Marlene!"

I sounded horribly nasal now. My head swam slightly as I attempted to sit up, my body feeling like a sack of lead, and I snuffled miserably when no-one came. Oh, god. I was dying. McGonagall had poisoned me in my detention with her yesterday. She must have slipped it into the polish when I wasn't looking. My eyes filled up with tears as I wondered how Marlene would manage without me. Oh, God, my life was wasted! I hadn't even reached sixteen! I would die a virgin. I hadn't evened tasted fire whiskey. Why hadn't I done something rebellious when I had the chance? I could have ran around the school naked if I had known yesterday was my last day on earth. I tried calling out one last time, desperate for Marlene to be by my side as I spoke my last words.

"MAR!" Ouch – bloody hell, that hurt. It had done the trick though, as Marlene bounced up from God-knows-where and stood beaming down at me as I lay dying on my bed.

"GOOD morning, sunshine!"

I was starting to regret calling her. Merlin, she was never unhappy. When they cart me out in my coffin I swear she'll be smiling and saying cheerfully: "Ah, well, never mind, who's for a cuppa?" My eyes filled with tears again. God, I would miss her.

"Mar, I'm dying. I want you to have my clothes and jewellery," I just about managed to croak out. My chest gave a wheezy rattle. "Tell my family I love them loads. Say thanks a lot to all my Professors for teaching me, but make sure they sack McGonagall, because she killed me, you see."

"Lily, what are you talking about?" Marlene bent down, putting her face right up close to mine. "Do you have a cold?"

Cold? She though this was a COLD?

"No, I told you, I'm dying!" I went into a hacking cough. Marlene raised her eyebrows.

"Riiiiight," she goes, "Do you think you can survive long enough to get to the Hospital Wing?"

I shook my head sadly. She was still in denial. "Marlene, that's very sweet, but you forget. No spell can bring back the dead. I love you very much. Slap Potter for me…"

It was getting harder to talk. My eyes were starting to drag closed. The world faded away…

…and then someone was shaking me, calling out my name. "Miss Evans? Miss Evans?"

Did all angels sound like Madam Pomfrey? Or was she some twisted form of the devil? Reluctantly, I opened my eyes and stared blearily at the blurred outline of the healers stupid white hat. "Am I dead?"

I heard her chuckle. "No, but you do have the flu. Just sit there while I find you some Pepper-Up potion, then you should be feeling much better."

I wriggled slightly as I heard her rummage around in something, then looked about me. I was still in the dormitory, and I could just see Katy, one of my room-mates, peering interestedly at me out of the corner of my eye.

I glared at her. "Bugger off."

She looked mildly offended. "I was only concerned!"

"I don' need yow pity," I slurred, wanting to slump back into my pillows and fall asleep forever, but Pomfrey chose that moment to violently grab hold of my head and force a load of honking potion into my mouth. Merlin – she is BRUTAL, that woman. I wouldn't be surprised if she was a gorilla in a previous life. After choking and nearly hurling the lot over my bed, I managed to gulp it down, and surprisingly felt a lot better. Like all the fog had been pushed out my head.

Katy giggled at me. "Your ears are steaming!"

I gave her a withering look. "Shut up." Tentatively, I pulled my legs out of my tangle of blankets and rested my feet on the floor, and then stood up. Hooray! No spinning room! Three cheers for Pepper-Up Potion and the gorilla woman! I gave Madam Pomfrey a smile as she packed away her potions, and she gave a curt nod in reply as she swept out of the room.

"Yes, thank you for being such an obliging patient, Miss Evans! Not at all, Madam Pomfrey! I feel much better now! Good morning!" Katy gave me a strange look as she picked up her brush and started running it through her bouncy blond hair, rolling her eyes at me in the mirror.

"You're so weird, Lily," she sighed loudly, "You do know talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity, right?"

I was stung. "Yeah, well, you do know that…that brushing your hair… is the first sign of loserness?" Oh, class, Lily, just class. What a wonderful insult. She was sure going to regret messing with me after that. Right on cue, Katy started giggling.

"Loserness?" she repeated, thunking down her brush and striding out the door, "Yes, Lily. Of course." She went downstairs, still laughing away to herself.

She was faking it. She was crying on the inside, I bet you anything.

A shower soon spring-cleaned my head for me, and three quarters of an hour later I had made my way into the common room, hair dripping wet and making a damp patch on my robes. Alright, don't panic, it was a Saterday, ok? Feeling moderately happy with the way things were turning out, I looked around for Marlene, couldn't see her, so I grabbed a magazine no-one was reading from the table and flopped down into an armchair with it.

"Ten X Rated Make-Up Secrets Never Revealed – Now Revealed!" Ah, well, that sounded interesting. Or not.

"Black lipstick – striking or ugly?" Maybe for McGonagall, but black lipstick just isn't my idea of – er – strikingness, ta.

"Celestina Warbeck answers the top 100 questions you have always wanted to ask!" Celestina who? Sounds like some kind of vegetable.

Why would I want to ask 100 questions to a vegetable?

Whose magazine was this?

"OI, Evans! Getchur paws off my magazine!'" Someone snatched the glossy mag out of my hands before I could so much as open the front cover. Outraged, I turned around so I could decapitate the thief.

My eyebrows went so high they hit the ceiling. "Black? This is your magazine?"

He stood there, glaring at me as he cradled it protectively to his chest. "Yes it is! And I'd thank you to ask next time you want to read it!"

I stared at him, long and hard. He started stroking it, glaring back at me. "Uh…" I began slowly, unsure of his sanity, "You do realise that that's a girl's magazine?"

For one long, scary moment he locked eyes with me.

And then he burst into tears.

Honestly. That is what he did.

"All m-my life, I've had to p-p-put up with narrow-minded people like YOU!" he shrieked into his hands, which were pressed over his face. Great racking sobs came out of his mouth. I sat there, staring at him, feeling as surprised as a…very surprised thing.

He wasn't finished yet. "Y-you're all so prejudiced! I h-hate you all! Goodbye, cruel world!"

And with that, he threw the magazine at me, ran off with his hands flying dramatically in the air, and went running up the stairs. Almost everyone had stopped to look at him. A few of them were giggling nervously, as though unsure if it was a joke or not. As for me, Merlin, I felt I was going to faint with the sheer randomness of it all. I mean…it…him…how…why…

And then, I smelt it.

"Urugh!" exclaimed a third year, clapping a hand over his nose and glaring accusingly at me. "That's disgusting!"

I watched, horrified as his mate took a long drawn in sniff, gagged and bolted out the room. More and more people started sniffing at the air and choked, backing away and pressing themselves against the common room walls, staring at me, left on the sofa. All around me came muffled "Jesus Christ!" and "Damn!" and "Silent but violent, boy!" I breathed in deeply, and nearly threw up. Rotten eggs. Sewage. Sulphur.

"Oh, no!" I protested, going crimson as a couple of first years pointed at me with their mouths open, "That was not me! I swear!"

Silence. From somewhere in the distance, a cricket chirped. Someone coughed. Tumbleweed went bouncing past my ankles. Everyone was looking at me, and I mean everyone, from the scandalised looking Head Girl to Potter, who was cracking up on the sidelines…

And then it hit me, just as I was looking at James Potter's tears of mirth.

"YOU!" I shrieked, leaping to my feet and pointing a finger at him, "You made this smell!"

Grinning broadly and swaggering to the forefront of the crowd, Potter grinned at me through the fingers pinched on his nose. "Oh, trust me, Evans," he said, his voice sounding rather nasal and trembling with laughter, "If I'd done that, I'd be proud of myself." He took a tiny sniff, then staggered back dramatically. "Who'd have thought you had it in you?"

With everyone glaring accusingly at me, with Potter, Thingy and Moony all laughing in my face and with a smell that made me want to vomit going up my nose, I did the only thing I could think of.

I ran.

And you know what the last thing I saw was before I went thundering up the stairs? Black, running over to Thingy and saying loudly: "Did my distraction work?"

00o0o0o0o0

Ah, the dreaded dungbombs…heh heh. Hope you all enjoyed reading! You know something? I wonder if anyone gets the same amount of reviews as hits. You know, 117 people at least looked at my last chapter, but only ten of you actually bothered reviewing…what I'm saying is, I wonder if ANYONE actually gets exactly the same amount of reviews as hits…

What I'm trying to say is: if you've looked at this chapter (and really, you can't have visited a chapter this far along by accident. It's not like, oh my mouse slipped and pressed the scroll button, then selected chapter twelve by pure coincidence. Silly me!) then just review. Even if you want to say its utter crap and…I don't know, that you've thrown your computer out the window so you never have to read it again. Come to think of it, that would probably just make me laugh. Yeah. Anyway. Going to stop babbling now.

Peace out, dudes.

Bubbles xxx