The next day, Lily opened her eyes to find herself lying on a couch in the common room. She slowly got up, stretching as the events of the previous night rushed back to her. Yawning, she looked around the common room to see Sirius sprawled on a couch nearby. She smiled and stood up to walk over to her friend. She stopped in front of him, in a dilemma as to whether she should wake him up or not. Deciding in the negative, she stooped lower to whisper, "Thank you" in his ears before turning around to return to her dormitory.
*****
The next afternoon, as Lily was making her way down the charms corridor, Sirius caught up with her. "Hey, redhead!" Lily smiled mischievously before turning around to face Sirius with a non comprehending stare. "Do I know you?" she said, putting on an overly `mean girl' -accent and continued walking. Sirius at a loss of what to do, and stood rooted to the ground staring after her. A second or two later, She whipped around and burst out laughing. "You idiot! I was kidding!" He visibly relaxed, before smiling and walking up to her. "Don't ever do that again, or else!" he said in an overtly chauvinistic voice. "Or else What?!" she teased smilingly.
"Or else" He made a swift movement, and before she could react, he was tickling her. Lily squealed, twisting and turning, trying to get away from the pair of hands that seemed intent on torturing her.
*****
That afternoon Lily entered the common room to find it relatively empty. Spotting a familiar raven haired boy, she walked over to the corner occupied by him, settling down comfortably in an armchair.
"Lo stranger!" she greeted him.
James merely looked up at her and stared blankly before looking away. Puzzled, Lily raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything, preferring to pull out the original hardbound version of `The Hunchback of Notre Dame' from her backpack and immerse herself in it.
She snapped back into reality around half an hour later when Sirius rambled over to her seat, "Hey Lil! Hey there, James! " James looked at him before wordlessly picking up his things and walking away. Sirius looked at Lily puzzled, "What did I do?" Lily merely shrugged before turning back to her book. I wish I knew.
*****
Two weeks later, Lily's status has catapulted from `new girl' to `class topper'. They're lessons in Beauxbatons had been fairly advanced and Lily was finding it quite easy to cope up. She and Sirius had been growing quite close to each other after the incident in the common room and they could hardly be found without each other. James had quite returned to normal and she was getting along well with him too. Lily was still finding it quite hard to get used to the whispers in the corridors and the occasional pointing that followed her. She also found it quite unnerving that some girls had seemed to take some kind of a dislike towards her.
One afternoon, she was walking with Sirius to the divination tower, and was laughing as he playfully tugged at her ponytail when they were stopped by a rather tall, pretty blonde, who was not looking that pretty at the moment. Her forehead was twisted into a frown and her eyes were narrowed. "Oh, Sheila. Hey" Sirius said. The icy blonde glared at him, "We need to Talk, Alone." She spat, the last bit of which was directed at Lily.
Lily shrugged before walking away. She had no intentions of leaving seeing that this seemed like a rather interesting conversation to eavesdrop upon. Instead, she hid behind the statue of a rather imposing witch and surveyed the couple in front of her.
"Shoot" Sirius said in a relaxed tone. He was totally cool, his hands in his pockets, unbothered by the fact that the girl in front of him, who incidentally happened to be his girlfriend was spitting with rage.
"I want to know what you're up to" Sheila said.
"Why, Sheila dear, I was under the impression that I'm listening to what you've got to say."
"Not THAT. What's going on between you and that Evans girl?" Sheila was livid by now.
Sirius pushed his head back and laughed. "So that's what this is about! Nothing. We're just friends!"
"Oh yeah? You expect me to believe that? Sirius Black, I tell you this, I am your girlfriend and I have more right to you than anyone else in this bloody school. Don't you dare mess with me, do you understand me?"
"No" Sirius was fed up now.
"No what?"
"No to the fact that you're my girlfriend. Not anymore. You're dumped." Sirius said coolly before turning around and walking away.
Sheila stood there gaping at him, her mouth open. She wasn't looking a bit like the pretty sophisticated blonde she normally was. Someone should tell her to shut her mouth, Lily thought dryly before stepping out from behind the statue of the witch and joining her friend.
"I'm sorry." She said to the dark haired boy.
"Don't be, I've been looking for a reason to dump her for ages! You're a blessing in disguise!" Sirius grinned at her.
Lily had to smile. She whacked him on his arm. "Idiot!"
"Likewise"
******
The word had spread like fire that Sheila had been dumped by Sirius, and by the next morning the entire school knew that the reason had been a pretty red haired Gryffindor. There were many stories floating around, as not many people had witnessed the actual scene and those who had had been convinced by the others that one; Sheila had walked in on Sirius and Lily kissing in a deserted corridor or two; Lily had convinced Sirius to break up with the blonde or three; Sheila had walked in on Sirius and Lily kissing AND Lily had convinced him to break up with her. All in all, most people believed that Sirius and Lily were going out.
Lily was getting quite tired of the number of people who kept glancing in her direction at breakfast. At a loss of what to do, she decided on ignoring the stares and in the girls' cases, glares, before launching a heated discussion with Anne, one of the twins in her dormitory about the truth in Greek mythology.
Lily was soon turning into Slughorn's blue-eyed girl, seeing that there wasn't a single class in which he didn't praise her. Lily didn't mind. She truly enjoyed Potions which to be honest wasn't all that different from Muggle cooking. And Lily had learnt the latter when she had been ten. One day, Slughorn had a rather important announcement to make.
"This term, I'd like to try out a rather new experiment. I believe that along with Potion making abilities, which some of you have in abundance," he stopped at this point to smile at Lily "Teamwork is an other important quality that takes a Potion maker far. One cannot always count on oneself as there is never a perfect Potion, and everything can only be bettered. So I have decided that we are going to have a new system for your grading this year in Potions. I shall partner you with another person and no matter whether you are friends or not, you shall have to work with them all year. The Potion work for the rest of the year shall be rather practical as most of the theory has already been completed."
He then began to divide the class into partners; Sheila looked rather disgruntled when she was partnered with Severus Snape. She had been eyeing Sirius rather hopefully. Lily on the other hand smiled when James was shooed into the seat next to her, and Sirius occupied the seats behind her along with Shannon, the brunette from her dormitory.
"Your first project would be to prepare an original Potion, it maybe anything, but it must be new. I'd like to see your originality, in say, two weeks? You shall be free to use the Potions rooms and stocks whenever you want as long as you have my permission."
As the bell rang, Lily rushed out of her seat, fairly happy. Something original? Now that was a challenge that she was ready to accept.
*****
"So what are you going to do about the Evans girl?"
Lily stopped in her tracks, which had been making their way into the girls' bathroom. Inching forward, she saw a group of girls standing in the bathroom, applying gloss, straightening their hair, and the follows.
Sheila tossed her head effectively, "What am I going to do about her? Well, I don't know. She's too much of a slut for me to do anything about her."
A dark haired Indian girl said, "Isn't that a bit too harsh now, Shei? I don't think she's a slut!"
"Oh yeah, Anita? Well, let's just say she's not as innocent as she looks. Don't you see the way those four guys treat her? Like she's some queen or something? What could she have possibly done for them to act like that around her?"
Another blonde girl whom Lily didn't know turned on Anita. "Didn't you have a crush on Remus, Anita? Well, you're chances seem pretty slim now. Who knows, Evans might be in a broom closet, locked up with dear Remus as we speak."
Anita whom Lily now recognized as a Gryffindor junior, looked a bit pained but refrained from arguing, as though she was thinking of what she had jus been told.
"Eh-my god, she's such a bitch. Can you believe she was actually talking to me the other day as though I was a friend of hers?" Lily felt a jolt as she recognized the speaker as Anne, her own dormitory mate.
"Oh, she's not as sweet as she looks. Do you know she was expelled from Beauxbatons for unlawful behavior?" Sheila said
"Unlawful behavior? What did she do?" Another girl asked.
"Apparently she was caught in a compromising position with one of the guys there. That's what I heard, at least. Who knows how bad she could be?" The blonde who had convinced Anita about Lily's "slut status" said. Lily now recognized her as one of the girls who hung around Sheila very often. Lily remembered Sirius telling her about the extent the girl could go to get what she wanted. Her name was Melanie or something.
"Eaaaw. She's so sick. Who would have ever thought? And she's so clever too."
"Who knows what she's doing to get marks? My friends at Beauxbatons told me she was never good at studies."
"Ah, we're late, let's go."
Lily hid behind a niche in the corridor as the group of girls walked out. When they had disappeared she sunk down, her knees giving way, absorbing what they had just said. Slut? Expelled from Beauxbatons? Remus -- he was like a brother to her…Lily wasn't able to comprehend anything from what they had said. Why her? What had she done wrong? She buried her face in her knees, as a silent tear ran down her face.
A/N:
I'm sorry about not updating for so long, but I've just started Junior college, and there's a lot of pressure… Hope you understand.
Secondly, this chapter is kind of like a tribute…. Well, not tribute, but its something I've been feeling strongly against lately… All of us at one point of time or the other have bitched about some girl or the other. It's really sad, I should know, but I just hope that if u felt u'r heart go out for Lily, u'd refrain from bitching about anybody in the near future. It's not nice to be called a slut… It's just a thought
Don't mind me, I'm rambling. If you liked the chapter please review, I really need some inspiration right now! If you didn't, please let me know why! Thanks.
And lastly, it's my birthday!!!!!!! On the 19th!! Yaaay!
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