A/N: Thank you all so much for all the support you have given me! I feel so loved! Okay, so here is my third chapter . . . I hope it satisfies all your cravings! Once again, my meager possessions definitely do NOT include the works of J K Rowling . . . unfortunately. If that were the case, I would be living in a mansion and working hard on my sixth novel. Unfortunately, I'm just a poor lowly student . . . who posts her random Harry Potter thoughts on the internet.
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James and his friends laughed in triumph. On the table before them lay a plain piece of brand-new parchment.
After years of hard work, the Marauders' Map was done at last. The three more intelligent boys had brainstormed all summer, and had set the final spells five minutes before.
"Come on," said Sirius, "let's go out tonight. Imagine, all of Hogsmeade is open to us."
Remus agreed. "You know, I never liked sneaking out before, but now, with this map, how can we be caught?"
Peter said, "Yeah! Think of butterbeers and Honeydukes chocolate!"
James sighed. "I wish I could, but I can't. I have hall patrol."
Sirius grinned. "Ah, our Head Boy is too good to hang out with us. I'm sure you're too busy, Prongs, because you'll be snogging in a broom closet with the Head Girl. Come on, you guys. Let's leave little James to his own business. He's too good to hang with us."
James knew better than to protest. Why ruin his friends' fun because of his duty? He watched as they prepared to leave, and nodded when Sirius asked to borrow his invisibility cloak. What good would it do him tonight anyway?
When his friends exited their dormitory, protected by the cloak, James followed them. He had to meet Lily, anyway. Seeing her again cancelled out any regret he had about missing the Hogsmeade excursion.
When they entered the common room, Lily was already there. "Hi Evans," said James smoothly, and as they exited through the portrait hole, James' friends followed them unnoticed.
Lily's POV
James and I walked through the empty corridors of the school. Tonight, we were probably doing so unnecessarily, because after all, who sneaks out of bed on the first day of school? I was annoyed. This was becoming more of a chance for James to flirt with me than anything else.
And flirt he did.
"So, Evans, how about playing some quidditch with me before season? I mean, even if you're as good as Emily says, I'm sure you could do with some tips." That arrogant asshole! Not that I'd mind playing quidditch with him, but they way he phrased the question made me clench my teeth in anger. Even more aggravating was the thought that I actually had a crush on the guy.
"If I want free quidditch lessons, I'll ask for them."
"Hey, no need to be polite. I'd be more than willing to play with you."
"Do I look more than willing to play with YOU?"
"Hey, you never know." He ran his hand through his hair. No wonder his hair was always so messy. "You know, hall patrol seems completely pointless."
I agreed, but I would never openly agree with him. "Maybe it looks pointless to you, but people do sneak out at night, and it's out job to make them stay in bed!"
James gave a mock sigh. "Ah. And we're doing our duty by keeping the evil little students from having some fun."
"I guess I shouldn't even try explaining that to you; I guess you sneak out every other night."
"More than that actually," said James matter-of-factly, which annoyed me. "But not anymore. I suppose my carefree bachelor days are over now, since it's now my responsibility to spend every night with you." The insinuations of his statement were nauseating.
"God, I can't believe they made you Head Boy."
"Neither can I, really. I thought it might be Remus, since I wasn't made a prefect. Rather, I hoped it would be him, because I was afraid they'd give the title to little Snivellus."
Snape was, as always, a sore subject to me, as he seemed to be the only person I knew who didn't want to be friends with me. I mused, "He doesn't like me."
"Which," said James, always seizing every opportunity, "is already enough reason for me to hex him every chance I get."
God, he was a flirt. "That's highly unnecessary. As I've said before, I'm capable of fighting my own battles."
"I believe you. Especially when it comes to pumpkin juice." He said it without any hint of bitterness, because James really wasn't a bitter person. That was one good thing about him. If only there weren't so many bad things!
I changed the subject. "Do you really sneak out every night?"
"More or less."
"But what's the point? There's nothing to do around here, besides visiting the library, and you could get caught!"
"Ah, Evans, you may be smart, but you don't know nearly as much as me on this subject." Wow, so modest, I thought. But probably true. "When it comes to sneaking out at night, I'm an expert. You should try it sometime. We could skip this idiotic hall duty, and have some real fun. And since we're not patrolling the halls, who would catch us?"
"An expert, huh? We're not the only ones keeping students in bed. What about the professors? And that new custodian, Filch?" But I was forgetting my main point. "Besides, it's against the rules."
"Come on, Evans, don't you ever have any fun?"
"Come on, Potter, don't you ever try to learn anything?" I said in a mocking voice.
"In case you haven't noticed, the faculty at this school thought I was a decent enough student to be Head Boy, despite my nighttime excursions." What arrogance! I was annoyed at him, but even more at myself. Why did I put up with this? Because you like him, said the voice in my head. That was annoying, too.
"Okay, I think I'm done with hall patrol. There's nobody here anyway. Go ahead and join your little friends." I turned to go back to our House, and James followed me.
"Can't, sorry. They're probably in Honeydukes right now."
"What? How could they manage that?"
"Sorry, Evans, I can't tell you. I think you'd turn us all in." (probably true) "Unless you promise to join us next time?"
"I think I'll pass."
"Your loss, then." We were at the door of our common room. "See you in the morning, I think we'll have some similar classes."
"See you tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe this year you'll actually study."
"Yeah, I suppose anything is possible."
We proceeded up our respective staircases, and before he opened his dormitory door, he said, "Goodnight, Lily Evans, and sleep tight. We've got a great year ahead of us."
*******
I woke up early the next morning to the sound of Emily bouncing on my bed.
"Wake up, sleepyhead! So you can tell me about last night!"
"Last night? It was boring. And I'm sleepy. Leave me alone." I tried to push her off my bed.
"Can't sorry. You need to get up. It's already eight." Class started at 8:30.
"Crap!" I jumped out of bed and scrambled into my robes while Emily looked on in amusement.
"Chill, Lily. It's really not that late. Just hurry up. Come on, you do NOT need to do your hair. It's beautiful that way. I'd kill to have hair like yours . . . why do you always put it up?"
My hair fell well past my shoulders. What a nuisance. But I was late, so I left it down. Emily and I ran down the staircase, out of the common room, and into the Great Hall. As I gulped down a piece of toast, Emily comopared our new schedules.
"Exactly the same," she announced, "except today and Wednesday, when you have Arithmancy and I have Muggle Studies. And after you finish your meal, we have Transfiguration."
Despite my late awakening, we arrived early to class. Not even the professor was in the room.
"So, Lily," began Emily, "now you can tell me all about your late-night excursion."
"There's nothing to tell. You make it sound so much worse that it was. We just walked around the empty corridors. It was soporific, truly."
"Oh, come on, it couldn't have been that bad," said a voice from behind me, "after all, I was there, right?"
Great. I didn't need to turn around to recognize the voice, so I chose not to. But James was, as always, persistent. "Actually, I found it quite amusing. Evans, you never fail to entertain me." God, why didn't he just shut up?
I decided that perhaps a dose of the silent treatment would be helpful to James. Without turning around, I took out my Transfiguration textbook and began to read Chapter 1. What did it matter that I had already read most of the book already? I needed to prove a point. James didn't push his own point, because a moment later, Prof. McGonagall, a young but stern young witch, entered the classroom and started the lecture. Needless to say, she kept all of us students paying attention.
Instead, James saved his efforts for after class. What he didn't realize was that Sirius had concentrated all of HIS attentions during class on dying James' hair red. Since Sirius sat at the very back of the class, Professor McGonagall hadn't noticed, or had chosen not to notice. When James got up at the end of the lecture, he didn't notice anything about his hair. He simply ran his hand through it to rumple it as usual, and was confused at the sudden laughter that rippled through the room.
"Your hair, James!" giggled Emily. "It looks like Lily's!" And indeed, it matched the shade of my hair perfectly. Maybe Sirius was trying to prove a point as well. James pulled his bangs in front of his eyes and almost yelled in shock, but instead he laughed. "Sirius, I am going to get you!"
Sirius looked innocent. "I just thought you'd like it to match Lily's. Since you seem to like everything else about her. Didn't you say, just last night, that she had the most beautiful hair in the world?" Of course, he said this in a rather loud voice. The class went wild with laughter.
"Class is over," said our professor, nevertheless trying to suppress a smile. "Please take your foolish activities elsewhere."
Did James ever skip a beat? "Okay. Come on, Evans, let's walk to Arithmancy together. Now that our heads match, why should we spare the rest of the school from the sight?"
But behind his flirtatious comment, there was a disturbing fact. "How did you know I had Arithmancy? And since when have you even taken an Arithmancy class?"
He smiled. Of course he had been expecting this. "It's actually quite a long and embarrassing story. If you'd come with me, I could tell you somewhere private." I almost shouted, "Just tell me!"
"All right! No need to get angry!" he said pleasantly, and steered me towards our classroom. "I actually spent ten Galleons on this. Last year, when we turned in our requested schedules, I had to bribe the Head Boy to give me yours. Then I copied it down onto my sheet. Simple, but brilliant, what do you think?"
"I think it's idiotic. Have you ever taken Arithmancy before?"
"Of course not. Why would I have wasted my time on something that boring? Of course, at the time, I had no idea that you were taking it."
"You are totally going to fail."
"Not if you help me, right? You wouldn't let me fail, would you?"
"I AM NOT GOING TO HELP YOU CHEAT YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS IDIOCY!" Of course, everyone turned their heads to look at me, but I didn't care.
"Calm down, calm down. I don't want to cheat, because frankly, I don't need to. But some cozy study sessions--" Luckily, we were right outside our classroom, so I ran in and slammed the door. I could only take so much in a day.
*******
The relations between James Potter and Lily Evans had always surprised the whole school. Everyone wondered why such a smart popular guy would spend so many years chasing after one girl, who was, after all, just a girl. People weren't all that surprised that he liked her, of course. She was pretty, and smart, and perfect. But why did she remain so unattainable? And why did James put up with it? Nobody thought about this mind-boggling set of events more than Bellatrix Black.
She was a beautiful, distinguished girl who had grown up in a prominent family and had been proudly sorted into Slytherin. Although her cousin Sirius faced disapproval from her parents, she nonetheless saw him often, and Sirius never went anywhere without his best friend, James Potter.
So how could anyone blame Bella for falling prey to the charms of James? Like Lily, she tried to restrain her feelings, but after all, how many people had self-control like Lily? So throughout her years at Hogwarts, Bella wistfully watched James Potter, a boy who never looked twice at her.
Had Hogwarts known about Bella's obsession with James, it would have been surprised as well. After all, Bella had never wanted for admirers. Still, Bella was nothing if not persistent, and took every chance she could get to talk to James.
So it was not surprising at all that she cornered him outside the Arithmancy classroom after Lily had left him.
"Lovers' quarrel, James? And what's with the hair?"
He smiled. "I wish. As for my hair . . . it's a long story that begins with your cousin Sirius."
"Ah, always the troublemaker. Tell me about it."
"I wish I could," but of course he didn't, "but I have Arithmancy."
"Oh, me too! Let's go in!"
And they went. Followed by a grouchy Severus Snape. Snape, Bella, James, and Lily, all in one class? It was sure to be an interesting day.
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A/N: Yay, the end of the chapter! So review, review, review! I tried to make this chappie a mix of laughs and angst . . . do y'all like it?
Another note: please don't just give me sugar-coated comments! Since I know a lot of my reviews have been ranked lower than 10, please tell me how I can improve my story! I want to please my wonderful readers (and especially my reviewers!)