I do not own Harry Potter nor any of the characters.
Alice and Lily had just sat down in an empty carriage as Potter looked at them. He began to make his way over with a bit of a grin on his face.
"Quick, Emmeline and Frank, get over here now!" Lily said quickly, practically pulling Emmeline Vance and Frank Longbottom into the carriage. "Hi to you too," Frank said, but once he saw Alice he didn't complain.
"Hi," Alice said shyly, going red. It was rather odd for her friend to be lost for words, so Lily found this highly amusing. Emmeline, who was a nice girl, and had shared a dorm with her since she was eleven realised what Lily found so funny. There was such an awkward silence in the carriage, Lily and Emmeline were having a hard time holding in their giggles.
After they had reached Hogwarts and Frank was out of sight, Alice turned around and smacked them playfully. "How could you two do that to me!" she whined. "It was pretty easy. I know how much you like Frank. And for how long you have, " Lily answered. "Shhh! He might hear you!" she exclaimed immediately as Lily rolled her eyes. "Come on you guys, or we'll miss the Sorting," Emmeline said.
They reached the Great Hall and their seats just as McGonagall burst into the Hall with a look of cold fury on her face and her nostrils flaring. "She's a bit early isn't she?" Emmeline said. The older students were usually allowed to settle first before the Sorting. McGonagall had just reached the top of the Hall. "Who has even dared to do this?" she almost screamed. It became clear once she produced a Viking helmet. "Who has discriminated the Sorting Hat in such a way?" she demanded. The majority of the students in the Great Hall burst out laughing, and even Dumbledore suppressed a grin, his eyes twinkling.
"If I ever catch who did this, they'll get a months worth of detentions!" she said as she transfigured it back into a battered old wizard's hat. Her eyes looked straight to were Potter and his friends sat, telling them she knew that they did it, but had no way to prove it. "So that was what Lupin was Talking about," Alice whispered. I glared at Potter for interrupting the traditional Sorting Ceremony for a stupid prank.
After the Feast was finished, everyone was up in the Common Room. "So, did you like the remodelling we did to the Sorting Hat, Evans?" Potter had said immediately after Lily had come down from showing the first years their dorms. "That will go down in prank history!" another friend of Potter's, Peter Pettigrew announced. "That Sorting Hat is a priceless piece of Wizarding history!" Lily said annoyed. The prank itself had been rather funny, it was just the fact Potter had done it and was now boasting about it in the Common Room that irritated her. Plus that he got no punishment. "That Sorting Hat was so old, turning into a Viking helmet gave it that modern look it desperately needed," Black said, in a voice that said he knew things about the latest styles, while everyone in the Common Room laughed. She was forced storm out of the Common Room to stop herself from cursing Black into the next century.
As she sank down to the ground on the Seventh floor, beside a tapestry of some mad wizard trying to teach trolls to do ballet, she wrapped her arms around her knees. She had to learn to control her anger. She couldn't let 'The Marauders' as they called themselves, to upset her. That was the main thing, when she got angry, she'd cry tears of anger. That happened a lot, seeing as how her and Potter's screaming matches in the Common Room were legendary. Lily was taking some deep breaths when she heard footsteps. She thought it was Alice and looked up. But no, there, standing directly in front of her was James Potter. "What do you want?" she was immediately on her guard. "I just came to see if you were alright," he said. Lily arched one eyebrow questioningly. "I can be nice you know," he said. Her thoughts began to buzz at that. Was it possible his gigantic inflated head had shrunk since last year? When she still looked unsure, Potter said "Look. I thought I'd try be nice to you this year. The constant screaming in the Common Room of how I'm an arrogant toe-rag was getting old. So I've just decided to be friends with you."
"I do not constantly scream-" but her retort was cut off when Potter stuck out his hand and said "Friends?" Lily thought he was very brave to do that, as she had a reputation among her classmates to know almost as many jinxes as a Death Eater would. "You do know being friends implies not asking me out every twenty seconds," Lily said. Potter pulled a face. "Damn, I hoped you wouldn't bring that up. Are you coming back to the Common Room?" "Okay, and by the way, thanks," the last would she said almost killed her. Potter saw that and grinned. Indeed, he grinned all the way back to the Common Room. Little did he know Severus Snape had heard every last word they had said, and was now cursing Potter with the worst swears he knew.
That night, as Lily lay in her bed, she was thinking, had she actually done the impossible, and made friends with James Potter, the bane of her existence ?