She hated him. Really, really she did, just not that much, only a little... okay maybe not... he was alright... he was great... she liked him. She loved him.
"She hated him." "Nah, she didn't." Lily Evans may not have always admired James Potter, but no matter what he did, she never seemed to manage to hate him either. This takes place in first year, and I may add an event set in each year at Hogwarts where she's furious at him, but he always manages to remind her that she doesn't really hate him. Food fights and antics.
First Year
He was the worst. He was rude, arrogant, loud and annoying. And he thought he was better than everyone else. Why couldn't he just be nice? Why couldn't he leave her alone? Lily Evans was fuming as she stomped down the stairs towards breakfast in the great hall. She'd only been at Hogwarts a few weeks but so far everything was amazing, everything except for James Potter, that was. He was quickly becoming the bane of her existence. Why couldn't he have been in another house? Or another year? Or another school? Or another universe?
Trying to calm herself she took a deep breath, deciding that it had been almost fourteen hours since the reason for her anger had occurred, she'd had a (somewhat) good night's sleep, why not just pretend it never happened and start the day off on a good note. No point letting Potter ruin her day. Nodding to herself, Lily decided this was a great idea and managed one and a half flights of stairs with a smile before she raised her sleeve to push some of her red hair out of her face and caught sight of a patch of green on her wrist that she had missed.
Unable to stop herself, she let out an angry shriek at the site, causing some older students to shoot her a mix of annoyed and concerned looks. She did not have the presence of mind to be embarrassed. She removed her wand from her robe, pointed it at her skin and muttered the spell she had spent over two hours searching for in the library the night before, which she had tried to sneak to with her cloak pulled low over her face so no one could see her, or more accurately, so no one could see that her skin had been turned green from head to toe.
Potter! she thought angrily. Oh, she was going to kill him for this.
The whole thing had started a few nights ago when he had overheard her telling her dormates, Marlene and Mary, that she had thought wiches were horrible green-skinned hags before her friend Severus had told her the truth, and she'd been both shocked and delighted. Potter had, for some reason, found this much more amusing than it should have been, and though Lily now realised she should've been more concerned over his interest, at the time she had brushed the whole thing off. She regretted it now. Last night he'd pranked her so that she'd turned green "to be like the witches you'd thought were real", and he'd added that as a bonus, green was the colour of Slytherin, which she should wear because she's a traitor by being friends with one of them. The entire thing was ridiculous, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't release her anger.
She had just reached the great hall, deciding that the best course of action was to give Potter a good telling off to vent all her frustration and then she could happily get on with her day, when something occurring inside caused her to forget about Potter and his antics for the first time since she'd woken up. As she entered the great hall, a horrible, magnified voice was all she could hear. Floating over Sirius Black's breakfast was a screaming red envelope, and though Lily was a muggle born she recognised it for what it was because it was the third howler he'd received since arriving a few weeks ago.
"DISGRACE OF A SON! WE SHOULD THROW YOU OUT FOR THE SHAME YOU'VE BROUGHT UPON US. CONSORTING WITH MUDBLOODS AND BLOOD TRAITORS! HOW DARE YOU NOT BE IN SLYTHERIN!" The voice continued to shout at Sirius as he sat still in his seat, staring blankly at the envelope. Everyone else in the great hall was silent, watching the event unfold. By now it was no secret that Sirius' family weren't pleased with him, everyone knew that they'd expected him to be in Slytherin and they were very disappointed he wasn't. Though Lily didn't particularly like the boy, he was too like Potter for her to get along with him, she also couldn't help but feel sorry for him. She knew a little what it felt like to not get on with family because of Petunia, though she couldn't imagine having a family as awful as his seemed. At least, she considered, however much of a prankster he might be, he's a good enough person not to believe in the stuff his parents wanted him to. In the few weeks she'd been at Hogwarts she'd learned just how much some wizarding families hated people like her. Say what you will about Potter or Black, but neither of them were that kind of horrible. In fact, they seemed to be interested in muggle stuff, possessing a similar fascination for the strangeness of muggle things that she possessed for the strangeness of wizard things.
Lily was pulled out of these musings as the howler finally burst into flames and she took a seat a little bit down from the boys, her previous idea of yelling at Potter momentarily forgotten. People were still staring at Black, most with sympathy, though many at the Slytherin table looked gleeful. Despite herself, she couldn't resist stealing a few nosey glances at him. He was still staring resolutely at his plate, not eating or acknowledging Potter who was talking to him quietly, seemingly attempting to reassure his friend. People around the great hall were still staring, starting to whisper now too. Potter was looking slightly desperate as he attempted to reassure his friend to no avail.
After a few minutes Potter seemed to decide his current tactic wasn't working, because without warning he jumped onto table, picked up one of the gooey breakfast pastries, dipped it into his porridge so it was extra disgusting and with ridiculously good aim, lobbed it straight across the great hall so it smacked a laughing Bellatrix Black right in the face.
Once again, the entire hall went silent, as they stared from Potter, his face set in a mask of determination, to a slack jawed Bellatrix, watching as the pastry slid comically down her face, then to the silent staff table where the teachers who were present were also watching in shock. For a few moments nobody moved, then, seeming to come to their senses, the Slytherins started yelling, many of them firing food back at Potter with anger, some using their wands to aim it. For a brief moment Potter stood alone, being pelted by bits of breakfast as he made a valiant effort to fight them all back, then many of his fellow Gryffindors jumped to his aid, a now grinning Black included.
Full warfare broke out for a few chaos filled moments, Lily dodged some toast, debating for a moment if she should join in, then deciding she might as well join her house mates. She was just about to pick up something to throw back when a loud bang and a blindingly bright shower of red sparks exploded above them, causing, for the third time that morning, silence to descend on the great hall.
"ENOUGH!" Shrieked Professor McGonagall, tight lipped, sparks practically flying from her eyes. "Potter, get off the table!" Potter, who was now standing in the middle of a puddle of pumpkin juice, was staring dumbly at McGonagall, but jumped off at her command. "How immature! A student from my own house starting a food fight! Thirty points from Gryffindor, Potter, and see me this evening for detention." Potter didn't see the least bit fazed, in fact he smiled at her and said, "Of course, Minnie."
Lily expected her to start screaming at him for using that nickame like she'd done in their last class, but then Potter cast a covert look at Black, who seemed a completely different boy to the one who'd been staring at his plate only minutes before. Colour had returned to his face, his eyes were once again shining mischievously and he was smiling. Like Lily, McGonagall didn't miss Potter's glance towards his friend, and like her, she must've jumped to the same conclusion that despite knowing he'd get in trouble, Potter had deliberately started the food fight not for the simple joy of causing mischief but to distract his friend from that awful howler. Perhaps not the best method, but it had certainly been effective. Regardless, obviously understanding Potter's motive, McGonagall didn't yell at him anymore. "My office, six o' clock," was all she said to him, before waving her wand to clean up the mess he'd caused and yelling at the other students to get to class.
As Potter and Black walked out of the great hall, Lily could see they were both grinning, Potter clearly believing that a detention and thirty points were a small price to pay for his friend's happiness. With her earlier anger at him still forgotten, she acknowledged that he was at least a good friend, which meant perhaps he wasn't all bad.
She still hated him though... but nah, she didn't.