"Quick, he's looking!"
This had been the slogan of my life for the past week. It was always, "Amanda, walk with me, Severus is coming over here," or "Quick, I think he just looked our way," and I didn't mind, not really, it was just beginning to get annoying that I was now the star of Lily's pet show. Besides that, I had gotten absolutely no where in my article. This whole process was just extremely tiring, so when Lily cued me, of course I chose this exact moment to take a quick snooze in my Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook I had been pretending to study for the past hour. It was a Saturday, for Dumbledore's sake. I didn't know that by signing up to be Lily's friend, I had been signing up for endless slave labor.
"Whommawhazit?" I yawned hugely, not bothering to hide the fact that I had been taking a nap.
"Have you been asleep? I was talking to you the whole time!" Lily shrieked loudly, and I guess maybe it was the lack of sleep that made me snap at her. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.
"Sorry, Evans, but you're voice is a shrill lullaby to me. Bores me right to sleep." She ignored me, of course. Lily seemed to have a tendency to ignore things that weren't directly on the agenda like on Thursday when I stopped to watch the sunset and she ran right into me because she was finishing up some extra credit reading for Potions class.
"Look like you're intrigued with whatever I'm saying. He's coming over here," she gritted out from behind a brilliant smile. I turned to look over my shoulder only to find the greasy git himself moseying over to our library table in the corner. Arrogant arse.
"...and?" I turned back towards Lily, playing dumb. This had actually turned out to be a pet peeve of Lily's. I had already made a note of it in my journal, before you ask.
"I'll do your Potion's essay," she promised. I straightened up in my uncomfortable hundred year old wooden chair. If Lily could do my homework for me, I could focus on her exposé. Brilliant, that one. I nodded at her reluctantly, and her smile shifted from fake to genuine, back to fake.
"This sure is a step up from Black and Lupin, Lily. The child of death eater's and the mud-blood. What a pair you two make," he sneered at us, but when he spat out mud-blood at my new friend, I saw something fleeting dash across his pit less eyes. Remorse, maybe even regret? I didn't have time to register it before I was up across out of my chair with my wand under Snape's crooked nose.
"I could kill you right now, Snape. You may think that now that you have a slippery brand on your arm that you're invincible," I pushed up his sleeve with my fingers and Lily gasped behind me, but Snape didn't even flinch, "but I guarantee you that I've had worse curses used on me by the time I was ten then you have ever even read about in your entire life. Careful where you're treading, bloody git." I pushed my wand farther under his chin before pulling away and grabbing my stuff from the table.
I was already halfway towards the library doors when I heard Lily catching up with me. I didn't slow down, not even a little bit, because honestly? I didn't get angry. I got mad, sure, but I never got angry. It was scary, and I hated being scared. It was scary that I couldn't control what I did when people mentioned my parents. I was scared out of my mad, and angry that it made me scared.
"Amanda, please. He didn't mean it," Lily called as she jogged behind me and I imagined her burning hair swishing behind her, long and beautiful. I tugged at my own choppy, stringy, blonde hair in anguish. Life was cruel, wasn't she?
"Is that the lie you've been telling yourself for years? He does, Lily, he means every word. If he didn't mean it, he wouldn't have said it. Don't you get it?" I was angry again, and it was infuriating. Lily locked her eyes on mine, and I focused on slowing down my heart rate.
"Do you ever say anything that doesn't have a hint of bitterness?" Lily asked me, but she smiled, and I was shocked into laughing. Had the soulless ginger just made a joke? This was almost as surprising as McGonagall's sarcastic funny.
"Do you ever say anything that makes James Potter jump your bones any less?" It really just sort of slipped out. I'm blaming it on the shock. She laughed, and I made a mental note that she actually did have a sense of humor, dark as it was.
"I guess that's a no, then," she giggled. I couldn't stop myself from joining her. That's how we were ten minutes later, stumbling into the Great Hall, leaning against each other for support as we laughed hysterically.
"Hey, Elty," I squealed as I plopped down next to him without my support system of Lily Evans who had gone off to sit with the rest of the Gryffindors.
"You're awfully chipper, Amy," he told me, waving a potato fry in my face. I grabbed it from him.
"Who told you?" I questioned him as I made up my plate. One of the best and worst things about Elton was that he always knew what was happening in everyone's personal lives. It came in handy when I wanted a good story, but not if the story was about me.
"Tiffany Burton, actually. She had been three rows over from yours. That's practically a primary source." I rolled my eyes. One of the things I always lectured Elton on was spreading something around the school before he even knew if it was true or not.
Elton was actually fairly popular, and it was a mystery to him why I wasn't as well known as he was. I had tried to tell him dozens of times that teenage witches and wizards didn't care how smart you were; if you weren't pretty, you probably won't survive in the metaphoric jungle that is adolescence. Elton was pretty, with his tall stature, wide shoulders and deep blue eyes. Therefore, he was well known. I was not.
"Ah, right." I nodded in false agreement. He didn't notice my mockery, and started blabbing on about what Frank Longbottom had said to his girlfriend Alice today was simply the cutest thing he had ever heard someone say who had heard it from someone who had heard it from someone who had heard it from someone who had heard it from their sister who had heard it from Alice.
"And then she said that-"
"Elton, don't look now, but to your right over your shoulder, James and Lily are most definitely flirting," I mumbled to him. He turned around and looked anyway of course, it the most conspicuous way possible. I ducked under the table when he stood up to get a better look without the fat whale that was Amos Diggory getting in his line from the Hufflepuff table. "Elton Meyers!"
Elton sat down, huffing out. "That was not Lily and James flirting. That was James and Marlene McKinnon that were flirting," he corrects. I shrug at him and we both go back to eating dinner before the realization hits us both at the same time. We snap our heads up and look back over to Gryffindor table.
James has had other girlfriends before, sure, but it's always been so obvious that he doesn't like any of them and that he's just using them. Sometimes they know it, but most of the time they don't and it always ends in tears. But James Potter has never flirted with anyone but Lily Evans in his entire life because he has never had too. Somehow, he even pulls off the glasses and crazy hair. Quite a feat.
So to see James Potter flirting with Marlene McKinnon was a shock to my mind. What the hell was happening? I looked back to Lily, who was picking up at her food morosely, and I could practically feel the angst emanating off her from two tables over. Pity that she hadn't said yes to him earlier, wasn't it? Sirius, Peter, and Remus appeared to be in as much astonishment as Elton and I were, staring open-mouth at the pair while they studiously ignored them. At this point, most of the Hufflepuffs had caught on and were staring as James Potter plundered on at his seemingly successful flirting technique. Then the Ravenclaws looked up from their books, along with Elton and I, to gawk, then the Slytherins… well, you get it.
I think James was getting really tired of it, actually. I don't know what clued me into it. Probably how he touched his hair incessantly, even more than usual, or how bright red his face turned. Finally he stood up, abruptly ending the conversation with Marlene to yell at us.
"WILL EVERYONE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?" James screamed. The Great Hall was completely silent, and even Dumbledore stopped talking to McGonagall to look at James. He turned even redder, made his hair even messier, and stormed out of the Hall in a rush. Sirius got up and followed, while Marlene-the little slut-looked after him in fright. Truly, James Potter had scared the students many times with his hundreds of pranks, but I don't ever recall the smile being absent from his face while he did it. It seemed James had slipped up and dropped his wall of cool before he could stop it. This was something that just did not occur.
Elton, of course, smelled gossip, and while everyone slowly went back to what they were doing, even Lily, he made me forsake my perfectly good dinner to get the juicy story first hand. Sometimes he was a real pain in my arse, you know?
We pushed open the heavy oak doors and followed the sound of voices down the hall to an abandoned classroom. Most classrooms were abandoned in Hogwarts. It's like the founders were asking us to procreate at a young age inside the castle. This was why I hesitated before just barging in. Voices, empty classroom, come on. I can't be the only pervert out there.
"…was almost working," James was saying insistently, "but those prats-"
He cut off when the door closed loudly than we had intended it to. They both whipped their heads toward us, and I tried to hide behind Elton who tried to hide behind me, which is ridiculous because he is a good head and a half taller than me.
"What are you two doing in here?" Sirius spat out, looking disgusted. Elton looked at me with confusion at the same time I realized what he was implying. "Can't you see this is occupied? Horny little pissers."
I stared at him, astonished. Date Elton? Don't make me barf. "I could ask you the same thing," I retorted, my voice making me sound a lot more confident than I actually was.
James jumped away from Sirius, flying over a desk and landing on his bum. Elton, Sirius, and I all laughed mercilessly at him as he rubbed his bruising bottom. "So, if you guys aren't shagging, why are you in here?"
"To spy on you, of course. Quite a show you put on out there, Potter. Magnifique." Elton applauded mockingly, but the sting was lessened by the amusement that was plainly written across his face.
"Thanks," James muttered, still wincing in pain. Sirius decided to jump in.
"Prongs here was just trying to get the girl," he spoke truthfully. James groaned, but it sounded more out of embarrassment than pain.
"James, you're going to have to do better than that. Making her jealous just isn't going to cut it these days. However," I paused and winked at Elton before turning back to James, "she did seem to look a little down when it was obvious you weren't interested anymore."
James, who had been looking offended up until this point, now perked up, pushing his glasses farther up his nose from where they had been jarred down during his "graceful" tumble.
"She looked sad?" He asked, excitement coloring his tone. He looked at Sirius as if to say I told you so.
Elton caught on then. "Oh yeah, depressed, to tell the truth." James now wore a blinding smile, and for the life of me I couldn't fathom why putting a girl he apparently liked through pain was joyful to him.
"That's why," I started, then stopped.
"That's why," Sirius picked up where I left off, sensing my distress, "that's why Amanda has come up with a genius plan that she told me about. Yesterday, you know, before…" he trailed off again.
"What? What plan? I always make the plans!" James protested.
"Yeah, because that's succeeded so well in the past, mate." Sirius rolled his eyes while James pouted.
I pounced on the opening. "Right, so here's the plan," I wracked my brains, thinking of all the rants Lily had gone on about James in the past week. Not that many, but I had watched her rant and rave to whoever would listen for years, so I knew what to say. "First off, you have to stop touching your hair. Frankly, it's disgusting. I said stop!"
James dropped the hand he was raising to his mop of untidy hair. "Sorry. So that's all I need to do? Boom, Lily is my girlfriend?"
This time it was Sirius who gave him so advice to our well thought out "plan", "No. Next you have to start taking things seriously," he ignored James's laugh at the unintended pun that just punctuated his point, "because I know you do and it pisses me off that you don't do it in public."
He thought about that for a moment, and didn't touch his hair the whole time. It made me proud. "Okay, that makes sense."
"Now you have to play hard to get," Elton chimed in cheerfully. I nodded in agreement, feeling like this muggle toy Elton's mum got for me last Christmas of a little man who nodded his head over and over*. It was actually way more fun to play with that it sounds.
"Hard to get?" It was James's turn to look confused now. "How am I supposed to play hard to get? I'm right here," he pointed to himself.
All three of us groaned in exasperation. "You have much to learn, grasshopper," Elton quoted sagely. I did recognized this one from something he called a welly. It had a screen with bright pictures. Muggles really did make the damndest things.
So began my second plight in the goal of writing an award winning article of Lily Evans. Mixing a little love in the equation could never hurt anyone, could it?
*Amanda is talking about a bobble head.
Okay, let's get down to business (to defeat, the Huns). But seriously. I am getting no reviews. Make me cry, why don't you? I kid, I kid.
I'm sorry that these first couple chapters suck, and I thought I could get some really good chapter in on this one, but I obviously failed, so I'm hoping for the next one.
Don't own.
Review!