Ok hi everyone! I guess I should say that I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters! :) I want to thank my friend Shel (Aly) for helping me decide to write this story and helping me come up with title (I'm bad with titles).

Oh and just a note...be open-minded! :) I decided to be original and put her in Slytherin...since everyone basically puts her in Gryffindor.

Another note-when you're reviewing the story, if you don't like it, please put in what you don't like about it-so I know how to improve. :)

The World Isn't Perfect: Ch. 3

The Christmas holidays passed quickly for Lily. Her parents spoiled her and her sister Petunia annoyed and made fun of her. She spent most of her time impatiently waiting for Christmas.

When it came, she was not disappointed. Her parents had bought her lots and lots of expensive presents, but the things she got from her friends at Hogwarts were the most exciting. Tara had sent her a small bottle with the words, "Freckle be-gone" on it. It had an attached note that said:

Dear Lily,

I remembered how much you complained about your freckles, and I mentioned it to my mom. She gave me a bottle of this, and said that it got rid of all of your freckles. I hope it works for you!

Merry Christmas,

Tara

She nearly squealed for joy with this news. Her face would soon be freckle free! Before she rushed off to try it, though, she decided to open the rest of her presents.

There was a large package wrapped in bright red paper with the names, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter scrawled across it. She hurriedly unwrapped it, but made sure to leave the name "James" unripped. Inside there was a bunch of assorted candies. She smiled and popped an every flavored bean in her mouth and grimaced. It was lima bean.

She moved onto the next and last present. It was from Severus with an attached note:

Lily,

Sorry this isn't a very fun present, but when I saw it I remembered your problem with getting up on time. Its an alarm clock that knows when you have to get up and wakes you up...it starts out nicely calling your name, but if you don't get up it jumps on you and starts screaming...

Hope you have a great Christmas...

Severus

Lily pulled out the alarm clock with a laugh. It was just what she needed. She hoped she didn't become so annoyed with it that she ended up breaking it, though.

After opening the presents, she tried the freckle cream. It worked just like Tara said it would. It was perfect! She now had a perfect complexion, which she spent the rest of her vacation showing off to her sister Petunia.

***

Lily returned to Hogwarts excited to see her friends again. She was disappointed, however, that none of them were there waiting for her when she arrived.

A bit sulkily, she made her way to the Slytherin common room. There she found Snape. He was pouring over a book. She cleared her throat in a low and expectant tone.

Without looking up he said exasperated, "Really Lucius, if I don't catch up on my Potions work I'm going to fail. My parents even sent me back to school early so I could turn it in..." He then looked up briefly.

"Ooh..." he said surprised. "Its you Lily, welcome back." He then went back to pouring over his book.

With a small "humph", Lily went up to her Dormitory and put away all of her things. She put her new alarm clock on her night stand. She had tried it out, and it had worked, even though it was jumping up and down and smoking by the time she finally got up.

She decided to go back downstairs to see how close Severus was to being done. When she got there, he was looking over a piece of parchment looking pleased with himself. She went over and sat next to him

"This is all your fault, you know," he said. "That planner you gave me for Christmas that magically tells me my grades and teacher comments...uh...my parents got a hold of it...and they weren't too pleased with how I'm doing in Potions..."

"Well its your own fault! You never do any work in that class," she said in a huffy voice, but at the same time feeling bad that she had got Severus in trouble.

"But...its so boring! I already know everything I need to know about potions..." he said defensively.

Lily sighed and rolled her eyes. "Well how many more do you have to make up?"

He looked down at his parchment, "This should do it...I've gotta go turn it in now. Wanna come?"

"Um..." she said slowly, "as tempting as going to talk to the Potions teacher about late work is...I haven't said "hi" to the rest of my friends yet...I'll catch you later."

"I can't say I blame you, Lily," he replied walking towards the door, "see you."

Lily followed him out and then went in search of Tara and the "Gryffindor group."

She found Tara first, who ran up to Lily with complete excitement.

"Lily!" she yelled, "how are you? I see the freckle be-gone worked! Look...my mom gave me makeup for Christmas...and all the guys are talking to me now. I mean...James talks to me now, Sirius smiled at me, and even Severus looked at me twice!" She giggled, "Could life get any better?"

Lily rolled her eyes and thought how fun it would be to push her down the stairs, but she wisely decided not to. "I guess not," she replied simply. Lily personally thought that the makeup looked ridiculous on her. Tara was only 12! All the guys looking at her? Humph. She thought. Guys are just stupid enough to do that.

Quickly making some excuse, Lily left Tara with some of her other friends. She didn't think she could take much more of Tara right then.

Luckily, she soon found James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter all standing around talking somewhere near where she guessed the Gryffindor common room was.

"Lily!" they all cried as one, except for Peter who was looking put out about something.

"Guys!" she yelled back happily.

After having a happy conversation with them all (except Peter who was sulking because he didn't get any candy for Christmas), she returned to the Slytherin common room to do some reading. The sorting hat experience had made her decide to study more. She was determined to be a top student, if only to prove that stupid piece of cloth wrong.

***

And prove the piece of cloth wrong, she did. Lily became one of the top students of her year. She even was able to help Severus with some of his essays, and in return, he helped her on the ones she didn't understand, which were mostly the essays for Potions class.

The months passed very quickly for Lily. She spent her time either studying or doing fun things with either her friends in Gryffindor or her friends in Slytherin. During this time, Lily actually made a few more friends in Slytherin. Snape's friends started to accept her as a regular, and even the girls in her dormitory finally decided to like her. Which made life much easier.

***

The time for end of the year tests came much too quickly for everyone. All of the students were studying hard. All except one: Severus. Lily tried to get him to study. She prodded, nagged, bribed, and even threatened him to study. Severus flatly refused.

One day, Lily was feeling extremely mad at him for having fun while the rest of them were miserable. She finally threw down her books and stalked off to find him.

When she found him she looked him right in the eyes. "Snape!" she yelled, "it is no fair that the rest of us are miserable! You won't even pass your tests! You'll have to retake second year!"

He just looked at her.

Then Lily did something rash. "James studies! He has the patience to! You're gonna fail and end up in the same year as me!"

Severus stared at her cooly and remarked, "Well of course James needs to study. I don't need to. I am smart enough to pass without. I did last year and I will again."

"How are you so sure?" she asked in a nagging tone.

"I just am," he replied. "Besides, it just proves that I am better than James, not that I need any more proof..."

Lily gave him a disbelieving look. "Well I guess you can go off and have fun by yourself. I'm going to study like everyone else so I'll pass and won't have to retake my year."

"Fine," Severus said, unconcerned. "I will have fun. See you later."

Lily felt like sticking her tongue out at him, but instead stalked off towards the Slytherin common room.

***

During the next few days, Lily thought she was going to die from studying too much. The first day of exams came, however, and she was surprisingly still alive, if a bit sick.

Her first test was potions, which she managed to get through without blowing something up. Gaining confidence as she went, she moved on to the next, Defense against the Dark Arts.

All in all her tests went ok, except for the History fo Magic. She got confused on some of the Goblin names, and ended up just guessing on some of her answers. By the end of the testing time, Lily thought she had never done anything else in her life but study and take tests and that she would never do anything else ever again.

Tests eventually ended, though, and the whole school erupted with joy. Lily even decided to forgive Severus.

The waiting period before knowing the test scores was spent playing outside. The end-of-year feast was soon, and it looked like Hufflepuff was going to win the Housecup. Ravenclaw already had won the Quidditch Cup, so both of those houses were extremely happy and bragged at every opportunity. Especially Tara.

"We have the best Chasers ever!" She bragged one time as she walked up to Severus and Lily.

"I'm sure," said Severus sounding unconvinced, "but I doubt they could get past me if I were on the Slytherin team."

Lily sighed quietly. Severus was going to try out to be the Slytherin Keeper for Quidditch next year.

After waiting for a minute, Lily decided no one was paying attention to her and left Tara and Severus to their arguing. She was beginning to think Severus really liked Tara. She was beginning to think every guy liked Tara.

Lily went upstairs, considering writing a letter to her parents asking for makeup.

"No," she thought sadly, "that would be ridiculous."

With nothing else she wanted to do, Lily laid down on her bed to take a nap.

***

Lily woke up with a start, feeling her alarm clock standing on top of her. She was getting better; it had not started jumping yet. She was not that surprised that she had gotten up early, though. Today was the day the tests scores came out.

Quickly, she sprang out of bed and looked for her clothes. She was ready and downstairs in record time.

Severus, surprisingly, was there waiting for her.

He said in a confident voice, "Want to go see our placement now Lily?"

She sighed slightly at the cockiness in his voice, but agreed.

The hallways were packed with excited looking students. Lily closely followed Severus' path that he made as he fought his way through the crowd. They finally reached the door where the scores were posted. Lily quickly checked foe her name among the first years. She found it easily near the top. She was second in her class. The only person that beat her was Jessica Jefferson, a Ravenclaw who she had only met once.

Jessica, Lily admitted to herself, was smart, beautiful, talented and graceful. She was perfect. She had short brown hair, tan skin, and almond shaped deep brown eyes. For some reason, Lily didn't like her much. She tried to convince herself that it was not because of jealousy.

Stopping thoughts of Jessica, Lily turned her thinking back to Snape.

"Severus," she asked, "How did you do?"

"I got first," he said as if it was nothing unusual.

Lily looked at him in shock, "What!?" she screamed, "You didn't even study!"

"Yep, I told you." he said in a cocky voice, "I am just naturally smart."

"Humph," she retorted, "not studying will catch up to you one day. Who got second?" she asked curiously, wondering how her Gryffindor friends had done.

"James," he said with a slight edge to his voice, "but I still beat him, and he studied!" He took on a very confident smile, then turned his attention to the first year list.

"Good job," he said to Lily, sounding strangely proud. "Don't worry about being second, you couldn't hope to beat Jessica. She's so smart, and so...perfect," he said with a dreamy note to his voice.

Lily tried not to throw up or hit him and said calmly, "Yes, I suppose so."

"Well," Severus said happily, "shall we go celebrate? All of Slytherin will be proud of us. Life will be a big party until its time to go home."

***

Lily stood on the train platform in front of the Hogwarts Express. She had decided to ride with Tara, to avoid an unnecessary argument between Severus and James. Besides that fact, Lily really liked hanging out with Tara, even though she was a little jealous of her, with her long blonde hair and blue eyes.

Packing her luggage on the train and finding a seat, Lily let her mind wander to the past year. She couldn't believe it was already over. She'd miss her friends, but Severus and her Gryffindor friends had promised to write, and Tara, who didn't live far away, promised to visit.

On the train ride, Lily and Tara talked and giggled about boys, did each other's hair in ways that they would never actually wear in public, and discussed summer plans. Lily sighed contentedly. Guy friends were wonderful, but sometimes she just needed to have some girl talk.

The ride was over too soon, and she stepped off onto the train platform. She hugged and said bye to Tara, then went off to find her parents, who would take her home for the summer.