The day was off to a frightful beginning. It was mid-December and there was so much stress that Lily was near breaking point.

She had woken up late, missing breakfast completely. There hadn't been any time to conjure something up or sneak a bite before lessons since she had overslept and managed to walk into Transfiguration ten minutes late. McGonagall's glare and the threat of detention had sat upon her unhappily for the entire ninety minute class.

To add insult to injury, she hadn't even managed to properly transform her flowers into a car. It wasn't a complex spell, one she had mastered ages ago. She thought she had, at least. Her flowers had sat before her limply, not even changing color. It was absolutely infuriating.

Then, when she had actually made it to lunch, she spilt her coffee all over her. She had grabbed the coffee in an attempt to cheer herself up, thinking it was the caramel she had every day. Instead it was some disgusting concoction. She had accidentally spat it out and then, while trying to clean it up, spilt the rest of it on her uniform, staining the white blouse and tie. Once she tried to clean that up, she knocked her toast, which she had buttered and just fixed, onto the ground butter-side-up, of course. After she cleaned that up, she managed to upset the table. She finally left the mess and walked out nearly in tears.

As she walked in the only shoes she had time to throw on that morning, a pair of high-heeled slip-ons, the heel of her right one broke, throwing her upon the ground. Wincing in pain and cursing them, she flung the pair out the nearby window. She later found out what little luck she had kept them from hitting Professor Dumbledore on the head.

She had managed to walk, barefoot, down to the dungeons for Potions. It was something she was actually looking forward to. It was hard for her to mess up and Professor Slughorn doted upon her.

"What happened to your shoes?" Pippa hissed from across the table she shared with Lily.

Lily shrugged but didn't reply, attempting to focus on the potion at hand. It was a particularly tricky one. It involved the use of many poisonous ingredients that, if done incorrectly, had a horrible habit of killing the tester.

"How much wallyroot venom do we add?" Pippa whispered, messing up Lily's silent stirring count.

Lily bit her tongue so she wouldn't say something she'd regret. "Five drops," she answered shortly.

"Thanks." Pippa went back to adding the venom while Lily tried unsuccessfully to remember how many counter-clockwise strokes she had made. Was it five or seven? It didn't seem like that big of a deal but over- or under-stirring could make the difference in life or death.

Lily watched James walk over to the cabinets to grab a beaker of some purple liquid. She groaned as the realization hit her. She had completely forgotten to add the most important ingredient and, by skipping it, had compromised the entire potion. There was no way back, no way to fix it.

At the end of the class, Lily walked over to Professor Slughorn with a sigh. "Sir? I'm sorry but I've seemed to have messed up my potion."

He looked at her with a slight smile. "It's alright, Lily, if you've added too much copperjuice. It won't hurt. In fact, it makes it taste better." He was assuming she had added too much.

"Um sir, I didn't add any copperjuice." She braced for the worst. Slughorn, even though he liked her, hated when students omitted the most important ingredients.

"Not a drop?" He asked, an incredulous look coming over his face.

"No sir."

He looked at her and spoke disappointedly. "Well Miss Evans, I can't understand how you can make such a mistake when it's written clearly upon the board and in the textbook that you must add it. I'm afraid I'm going to have to assign you extra homework tonight."

Lily nodded. "Yes sir."

"Write a one thousand word essay explaining why it is pertinent to add in copperjuice into the potion. And don't forget to also do the other homework, which is to write a five hundred word essay describing the aftereffects of the potion."

She nodded again.

"You're dismissed, Miss Evans." Slughorn shook his head sadly as she walked back to her table and grabbed her supplies. The only reason she had confessed was because she knew he was testing the potions personally and she hadn't wanted to kill him. It would've been awful to have let one bad mistake poison a good professor. Or maybe she was overreacting? It was just that kind of awful day.

After Potions she had a bit of a rest period, only an hour, in which she had scheduled in time to go over her Charms notes because she had a test that class. It was a practical examination, Flitwick grading her on how quickly she made the flowers grow (what with them and flowers?), points for beauty added. She ended up wasted her entire study time because she couldn't find her notes (they were hidden underneath her clothes in her trunk—Merlin only knows how they got there) and then once she found them it was time for class. She managed to completely mess up the exam, causing her flower to alternate growing and shrinking with such rhythm it was scary.

Charms was her last class of the day, before Astronomy at eleven. She had ordered the prefects to meet after dinner (during which she argued with Caroline over the location of a missing sweater, spilt pumpkin juice all over the table, and managed to upset Lee-lee). She went upstairs to apply some makeup to cover the scratch she got while falling up the stairs on her way back from dinner before and then managed to fall down the stairs on her way to the Common Room. It was only in the Prefect's Room that she had actually allowed herself to relax a bit.

The meeting went by quickly. She got a few strange looks but she attributed those to her fly-away hair (from falling), somewhat soiled clothes (from spilling), and newly cut face (again the falling). It wasn't until after they left that she looked in the mirror and grew even more upset.

Her lip-gloss, which had been applied in haste, was now smeared across her entire mouth, her mascara had left a few drops beneath her eyes, her tie was crooked; she basically looked terrible. There was no way around it. Today was just a terrible, awful day.

She had previously arranged to meet with James to discuss Head Duties. She took another glance in the mirror before she decided to shirk them. Sighing, she went back to Gryffindor Tower (her bag splitting along the way, ink flying everywhere) and up to his bedroom.

She knocked but it was empty. She saw a piece of parchment lying there and scribbled a quick note on it.

Hope you get this before you go to the Heads meeting. If not then you've already realized I'm not there. Had a bad day and have gone to bed. If you wake up early (really early), wake me please. I've got loads of homework but I haven't the energy to start tonight. I'm citing the bad day as my excuse.

I love you.

Frog's legs,

Nut

Lily then proceeded to her bedroom, where she pulled the covers tightly over her head and sighed deeply.

---

James Potter was a tad bit confused. Not very confused. Not a bit. Just a tad bit confused.

The prank was not going at all according to plan. The problem was that they lacked a plan. For some reason, some completely hated and deeply baffling reason, the four boys had no ideas. There was no way for any of them to think of anything to even remotely resemble a prank they wanted to actually use. It was a discerning experience, sitting there without any idea what to do.

"We could…" Remus began.

"No it wouldn't work because of the…" Sirius answered from his position of lying across the couch.

"What about…" James asked.

"Nope. Already did it…" Remus sighed.

"How about…" Sirius suggested.

"No…" Remus and James said in unison.

Peter Pettigrew looked from one to another, molding his features into the perfect vision of awe and disappointment. It wasn't a completely conscious arrangement of features, more like one that happened both spontaneously and with complete direction. It was a look that should have betrayed internal confusion, an unsure feeling. But it didn't.

"How do you know what the other's saying?" Peter asked, breaking the silence that had fallen after Remus and James's last rejection.

Sirius laughed while Remus and James exchanged a very quick, almost invisible, look of pity. Peter had only noticed it because he was slowly, ever so slowly, training himself to see every spasm in their faces, to recognize anything that might give away his so precious position. That's what his master had ordered, anyhow.

"It's because we've only been friends for seven years, Petey. It'd be hard not to. Don't pretend not to know; I know you know what we're saying too." Remus said kindly.

James nodded. "We know, Wormtail. We know you know."

Peter refrained from answering; choosing instead to smile with the same look of stupid admiration that greatly characterized his features and made him recognizable.