Chapter 5: Lily is Friends with Potter!

Lily's, Aurora's, and Elisabeth's (and, incidentally, also James's and his buddies') last class on Wednesday was double potions. The three girls shared a desk with a Ravenclaw girl by the name of Anna.

Normally, Potions was one of Lily's best subjects (on second thought, weren't they all?), after charms of course. Today, however, she did not enjoy it at all and it was pure luck that allowed her to accomplish the day's assignment without major mistakes.

When Professor Slughorn announced that the lesson had finally come to an end, she was the first one out through the doors. She was extremely eager to see if any letters had arrived in response to her lonely-hearts ad. As Elisabeth had anticipated, there hadn't been any replies yesterday, but today it was Wednesday and some letters were bound to have arrived, weren't they? Much to her delight, she found five letters upon her arrival at the girls' dormitories. When Aurora and Elisabeth entered, she was already sitting on her bed with the letters sprawled out in front of her.

Aurora gave a small whistle. "Miss Popular!"

"Have you read any?" Elisabeth asked.

Lily shook her head. "No, I wanted to wait for you guys!"

Aurora squealed. "I didn't think you'd let us read them! Let's begin, let's begin, let's begin!"

Lily cleared her throat. "Well, I thought I'd read them first, one by one, and then decide if you may read them."

"Fair enough," said Elisabeth.

Lily opened the first letter.

If you are anything like you described yourself, I would very much like to go out with you. I'm only a third year, but I'm very mature for my age; please don't judge me in advance.

"Ew, that's gross," she said and headed the letter to Elisabeth, who read it quickly with Aurora peeking over her shoulder, before she tore the letter into halves.

"You're bound to have some nutty replies. Try another one."

"This one wants us to compare our horoscopes," Lily said and threw a letter onto the floor. "This one obviously just wants to sleep with me… as well as this one…," she continued and tossed another two letters onto the floor. "Here's one who wants me to help him with his homework…"

"Only one left," Aurora observed.

Lily paused before opening the last letter.

"Don't forget, you'll probably get more letters tomorrow. And the day after that. Maybe your Mr. Perfect wants his letter to be perfect."

"Or maybe he doesn't want to seem desperate."

Dear Miss Perfect,

We seem to have much in common – I'm also looking for a distraction, and something about you intrigues me.

I don't know how to present myself in a way that will catch your eye, but I feel that I've got those qualities that you, in your so perfectionist way, enumerated. I expect that you got a lot of responses and will most likely not choose me. However, if you do choose to respond to this tiny cry for your attention, I am very willing to embrace this new adventure with you.

Love,

H

"Well, that's without doubt the most promising one this far," Aurora said.

"He seems really sweet," Elisabeth said.

Lily nodded.

"I don't think you should respond immediately," said Elisabeth, "you should definitely wait until the end of the week. Then you can choose the best one."

"You're probably right," said Lily, "I'll choose which ones I want to respond to this weekend."

"Anyone up for playing some quidditch tonight?" James asked his fellow marauders Friday afternoon.

"Do you even need to ask, Prongs?" Sirius grinned.

"I'm in," said Peter.

"Moony?" James asked.

"Or do you have to study?" Sirius said.

"I really need to study, but… maybe I'll make an exception," Remus said, "just so that you'll stop mocking me."

"That's my boy!" James exclaimed and patted Remus on the shoulder.

"Potter! James!" someone called out. The marauders stopped and James spun around.

"Evans," he said, quite surprised at the sight of the redhead coming hurrying towards him.

"You forgot your book," she panted and handed it to him.

"Oh, thanks," he said, "I'd probably have lost it."

"Um…"

"Yeah…" James trailed off and made a move as though to continue down the corridor with his friends.

"Um, yeah," Lily said, "I was wondering if I might have a word with you? Um, in private?"

James frowned but before he had had the time to speak, Sirius had said "See you back in the common room" and headed off with Remus and Peter.

"So," James said, "are you headed to the common room? We'll talk on the way."

Lily nodded and followed him in silence.

"So what did you wanna talk about?" James asked cheerily.

"Well," Lily said uncertainly, "I know it's been a while but I sort of wanted to apologize for slapping you last year."

"Oh," James said, slightly surprised. "I guess… apology accepted then."

"That easy?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Aren't you going to yell at me or be at least the slightest mad?"

"No," said James slowly, "I prefer saving my energy to more important things, such as-"

"Quidditch?"

"Yeah," he said and grinned. "Anyway; I realized that being mad at you or chasing you apparently was a big waste of time and energy, so I'm going to let it slip."

"So… you're not mad at me?"

"Nope."

"So… friends?" she stretched out her hand.

Wtf? Evans wants to be friends with me? Since when?! James thought, but merely smiled and shook her hand. "Friends."

By this time they had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady. When Lily had stated the password, the portrait hole swung open and the two of them stepped inside, parting.

"So what did Evans want to talk to you about, Prongs?" Sirius asked as they were heading down to the quidditch pitch after dinner.

"Believe it or not," James said, "she apologized."

"No kidding?!"

"Yeah I know, totally weird and out of character."

"Seriously, Evans apologized to Prongs. There's definitely something weird with this world."

"She apologized for the whole slapping thing, and then she found it fascinatingly weird that I wasn't mad at her," James explained.

"Are you really not or were you lying to her?" Remus asked.

"I'm not mad at her," James assured them.

"So, what now?" Sirius asked curiously. "You guys dating?"

"Nope," James said. "I'm over Evans."

"Yeah right," Sirius muttered.

"It's totally true. I had a big fat chance with her today and I didn't make anything out of it. Doesn't that prove anything?"

"Prove what?"

"That you lost your stupid bet!"

Sirius sighed. "We all know that you're going to end up together," he said, "why are you being so complicated you people?"

"You never know, Padfoot," Remus said, "maybe they aren't meant to be."

At this Sirius scowled, but James nodded approvingly. "I like you, Moony. We should all listen more to you."

I'm friends with Potter, Lily thought incredulously. Why on earth am I friends with Potter?

"Earth to Lily, Earth to Lily," Aurora said and snapped her fingers in front of Lily. "What's up with you?"

"I think I'm friends with Potter," Lily said with a weird look upon her face.

"What?!" Aurora questioned. "Since when?"

"Since this afternoon," Lily explained. "I'm not sure what happened, but I'm definitely sure we both said 'friends' and shook hands."

"You sure this is not some part of his plan to catch you?"

Lily shook her head. "I'm pretty sure he's given up on me, he has barely spoken to me since last year."

"I guess that's good, then?" Aurora asked. "One can never have too many friends."

"Absolutely," Lily agreed.

"Hey girls, what's up? Gosh, I'm starving," Elisabeth said, as she sat down next to Lily and helped herself to some potatoes. "You can't imagine how stressed I am, I've got so much to do. I've got to read all these articles for The Mirror, and I've got to write an essay of three feet for Ancient Runes…" she trailed off and shoved some meat into her mouth.

"Lily is friends with Potter," Aurora stated.

Elisabeth nearly choked – not necessarily with surprise, it might as well have been due to the speed at which she was chewing. "What?" she coughed. "How? Why?"

Lily shrugged. "No interesting story. But we shook hands and now we're friends… I think."

"That's good, isn't it?" Elisabeth beamed. "One can never have too many friends."

"Just what I said," Aurora said.

"Have you decided which letters you are going to reply to?" Elisabeth said and changed the subject.

"Well it's hard to judge someone based on a letter," Lily complained, "I don't know whether to follow my brain or my heart…"

"Your brain," said Elisabeth, "hearts do the stupidest things.

"Your heart," said Aurora and glared at Elisabeth, "love is irrational."

"Basically I've got three replies that aren't entirely nutty," Lily said quickly to interrupt her friends' squabble.

"You could write to all three of them," Aurora suggested.

"Just because you're a slut," said Elisabeth, "doesn't mean we all are…"

"Girls!" cried Lily. "Please, stop arguing. Focus!"

But none of her friends seemed to care. Lily rose and left her squabbling friends at the table, heading back to their dormitory to write a response to H.

Author's Note: I'm gonna be out of town for a few days, then I'll be home for a few days and then I'm going away for a week. Therefore, I don't know how much updates there will be in the nearest future. Just in case you're interested. Which no one really seems to be, as you don't bother to review. pouts