Butterfly Seasons Chapter Three - An Unusual Offer
Title: Butterfly Seasons
Author: Laliath (aka dancinggoldfish/Irelynne/Anya)
Rating: T/M (language, thematic elements later on)
Timeframe: MWPP
Summary: Lily Evans is a prefect who happens to have a lot on her plate: her sister's getting married to a jerk, James Potter won't leave her alone, and there are way too many rumors going around. Just one of those would be bad enough, two would be hell, but three is unimaginable torture. Good thing she's capable of holding her own, and perhaps things will turn out to not be as bad as she thinks.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, objects, spells, places, etc. belong to JKR. I just happen to be playing in her sandbox.
Notes: Multi-chapter fic. The lovely aseret789 did a fantastic job beta-ing this chapter!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | TBA
*~*~*~*
The Gryffindor common room was quiet as the sixth years prepared for McGonagall’s Transfiguration exam the next day. Lily felt cotton-headed as she stared at her textbook. It was a warm autumn day outside, and she could see the sunlight streaming in through the windows, beckoning her to toss aside her books and delight in the outdoors.
“Why the weary sigh, fair maid? Anything this valiant knight may do to alleviate your troubles?” a deep voice asked.
She looked to her left. James Potter was sprawled across the couch she was sitting on. “Magic away McGonagall’s test and I’ll be yours forever,” she quipped, looking back to her books.
She could feel Potter straighten. “A tall order for someone who won’t even look at me,” he commented, tone light as he carefully relaxed once more next to her.
“Perhaps I consider it impossible,” she returned, moving over to curl up on the other end of the couch, books in her lap, making sure her skirt covered all the necessary parts.
“That sounds almost like a challenge, Lily Evans,” he replied. When she looked up, he had an odd expression on his face, as if he’d popped a Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Bean in his mouth, expecting a peppermint flavor and tasting sprouts instead. But then someone called his name and he looked away, his face smoothing into an expression of unconcern.
Lily took advantage of his distraction to recover herself. The conversation had taken on tones of something else and she wasn’t sure what. Did Potter actually take me seriously? she wondered. Or was it just another joke?
Potter moved, and she hurried to bury herself in her textbook. Without saying a word, he slid off the couch and disappeared into a corner of the room. Lily forced herself not to track his movement across her field of vision. Instead, she kept her eyes on the pages of her book.
Even half an hour later, wand movements and incantations were failing to resonate in her mind, complex spells continuously wiped away by thoughts of sunshine and relaxation. She slid her feet down until her legs lay parallel upon the cushions, and something crinkled in her pocket, underneath the textbook that lay in her lap.
“Oh!” she muttered under her breath as she remembered the letter she’d received that morning, and she pulled it out of her pocket, fought with the envelope. Eventually the victor, she smoothed the slightly crumpled pieces of paper over her lap.
When she was little, Lily had always admired and envied her mother’s handwriting. The smooth spirals of p’s and o’s and q’s, the elegant slashes of the crossed t’s, and the easy-going beauty of m’s and l’s marching across the page always seemed to be the epitome of perfection to Lily. She’d practiced trying to emulate her mother’s writing for months, until she received her Hogwarts letter and realized that even though Petunia’s handwriting looked just like Mum’s (except for the little hearts over the i’s), she, Lily, despite her messy scrawl, was special too.
But this letter - her mum’s t’s weren’t perfectly crossed, and the p’s and q’s and o’s were smushed together so that they were no longer perfect circles, but squiggly little ovals. Even the beginning was wrong. Instead of the customary To my dearest Lily, it read, simply, Lily.
Lily,
Your letter reached us at a very busy time, quite the busiest since you left for Hogwarts in September, for Petunia asked for assistance in planning her wedding! Yes, your sister finally confessed that she and Vernon were to be married. They were planning on a winter wedding, but then I pointed out that the time table was simply too packed to pull off the wedding of Petunia’s dreams in that abbreviated period of time. As a result, they have rescheduled it for a week after your school ends.
I have you penciled in as one of Petunia’s bridesmaids. I know that it is more traditional for the sister to be the maid of honor, but your sister pointed out that the position of the maid of honor has many duties that you would not be home to plan. So Petunia’s uni roommate, Lauren Baker, will be her maid of honor and you will be her chief bridesmaid. The wedding will be beautiful and grand, but I do swear that I don’t know how brides-to-be sleep with all that must be done.
Your father sends his love. He is very busy, for he has recently been promoted to the position of head postman at the office, for dear Mr. Harold is retiring. He and Mrs. Harold are moving out to Falmouth next month, and your father is to take the vacant post. This, of course, is a welcome promotion, for it means that your father will no longer be out at all hours delivering mail, but instead managing the post office. And your father is very excited, for you know how much he loves working with the postal office.
As for what else is new here in Brighton, there really isn’t much. Things have been extraordinarily quiet, as they always seem when you go off to school, perhaps because there are no more incidents of hair being dyed bright green or supernatural jumping.
You asked for my advice with this boy, James Potter. I hope you know me well enough at this point to guess that I wouldn’t tell you what to do, but I do counsel that you take a step back. Of course, your five years of previous experiences with him are going to color what you think and feel about him, but I think that you know that very few people would have continued such a pursuit in the face of such fierce adversity for merely a lark. So be nice, Lily. You do have the temper that goes along with your father’s red hair, and you don’t always think before you act - which has led to some very interesting situations, as I am sure even you will admit. I can almost see you rolling your eyes at this advice, and I’m not suggesting that you run off and marry this boy, but everyone does grow up, Lily - even you and James Potter. He can’t be the same boy he was as a first year, a fact that even your letters reflect: there are fewer notes on a “bullying” Potter than an “annoying” Potter, or a Potter who made a “brilliant move in the Quidditch match last week” in your mail home. And I doubt very highly you would be feeling confusion about what to do if he was still that “messy-haired abomination with scrambled eggs for brains.”
Of course, you know best. You are the one who sees him everyday, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more going on that you did not put in your letters. I don’t expect you to tell your mother everything, Lily! Best of luck with everything.
I hope that everything is going well with your studies and you aren’t forgetting to have fun now and again. Your father and sister send their love as well.
Love, Mum
Lily smoothed her hands over the letter again and read it several more times. No matter how rushed it seemed in handwriting and in prose, it was still a comfort from home, and she wrapped her mother’s words and advice around her like a warm security blanket.
“Good letter from home?” Marlene’s voice interrupted her.
Lily looked up, saw her friend leaning over the back of the couch, and smiled. “It’s pretty good. Tunie finally announced her engagement.”
Marlene made her face. “Who would want to marry that cow?”
“Dursley, apparently,” the redhead said. “They’re getting married in the summer, so I’ll be able to attend. And I’m a bridesmaid.”
“My condolences,” Marlene muttered. “How’s the studying coming along?”
Lily made a face, mirroring Marlene’s expression earlier, and she shook her head. “Like molasses.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Oh, it’s absolutely brilliant.”
“Want to take a break and get something from the kitchens?”
Lily tossed aside her textbook. “Gladly.”
*~*~*
It wasn’t until later that night, after several hours of games in the sun, that Lily remembered her exam. She was already in her dorm, pajama-clad, curled up under the covers listening to Dorcas read aloud the funniest bits of a letter from home.
“- so she stuck her nose up in the air and marched through the door. But Katie’s bicycle was still in the doorway where she had left it, and Mrs. Gray tripped right over it and landed in the flowerbed. Your father couldn’t stop howling and slapping his knee as Mrs. Gray was gasping like a fish, and even I was laughing too. So of course, it was little Katie who helped Mrs. Gray to her feet, and little Katie who went on to compliment Mrs. Gray like we had told her. Mrs. Gray is towering over Katie, all sharp-angled and sour faced in her best blue silk robes, and little Katie says, ‘Your brown robes are very pretty.’ You can imagine that Ms. Gray wasn’t too pleased.”
“Katie’s ten now, right?” Meg asked from her own bed as she brushed her hair.
“Yep. We’re expecting that she’ll get her letter this summer, after she turns eleven,” Dorcas replied as she put the letter in her trunk.
But then Lily startled everyone when she leapt out of bed, cursing and running for the door. “Lily, what’s wrong?” Alice asked, popping her head out of the adjoining bathroom at the noise.
“McGonagall’s Transfiguration exam tomorrow! I didn’t study for it!” Lily moaned as she yanked open the door and skidded down the stairs.
“Well, technically, you did,” Marlene pointed out as she followed Lily, more sedately down the stairs. “Before you and I went to get those apples, you were reading your book.”
“That doesn’t count,” Lily retorted as she began looking for her textbook and notes. She lifted the cushions on the couch and got down on her knees to look on the floor under it, but her book was nowhere to be found. “Damn it!” she swore as she pulled herself back up to her feet.
“Lily, it’s nearly eleven; you need to get some sleep,” Dorcas said even as she began looking around the common room for the book. “If you don’t get any sleep, you won’t remember anything you studied.”
“But I didn’t study at all, and I can’t find my book, so even if I went to bed now, I couldn’t study tomorrow during breakfast and before class!”
“Take a breath, Lily, we’ll find it,” Marlene assured her friend. “And even if we don’t, you can borrow my stuff. You’re making a bigger deal out of this than it is.”
“’Lene, I’m practically failing Transfiguration as it is, and we’ve only had one other exam! You know what my grades were like last year! I have no idea how I managed to get into the NEWT level!” Lily said, the words tumbling out of her mouth so quickly they were practically a jumble of letters all mixed up together, the emotion slurring the enunciation even further in her outburst.
“Because you went psycho right before OWLs and refused to talk to anyone while you studied your arse off,” Marlene muttered.
Lily glared at her friend, then turned back to another couch, tearing off its cushions. “Where the bloody hell is it?”
“Where the bloody hell is what?” a frustrated male voice demanded from the opposite side of the room.
Lily looked up in time to see Remus Lupin, on the stairs to the boys’ dorms, add to Black’s comment, “You’re making enough noise to raise the dead, Evans. What’s the matter?”
“My Transfiguration book and notes! They’re missing,” the redhead retorted.
“Check the table,” Potter interjected, his head of messy black hair popping out between his two friends.
“You took it?” she said accusingly as she rushed over to the table.
“Paranoid much, Evans?” Black retorted. “Do you not remember the Exploding Snap game earlier today?”
Lily blushed red right to the roots of her hair as she remembered the mess the Gryffindors had made of their common room right before dinner. “Sorry,” she mumbled as she grabbed her book. She didn’t wait to hear Potter’s reply.
*~*~*
After arriving in Potions class the following morning, Lily sat down next to Snape with a tired thump and not a single word. The Slytherin eyed her for a second, then asked, “Ready for McGonagall’s exam?”
“No,” she growled, pulling out her textbook and flipping it open to the potion they were working on. “At this point, it should be deep purple, almost brown,” she informed him, glancing between their cauldron and the book.
He took her hint of silence and only spoke when it was required for the potion. They were able to finish the next thirteen steps before class ended, and Snape held her back when she started to rush out. “I’m sure you will make us all look like fools with the examination,” he said.
She managed a small smile. “Thanks, I hope so. Good luck yourself.” Catching sight of Marlene and Alice waiting for her at the door, she nodded goodbye to him. “See you in class.”
The girls were quiet as they walked through the hallways of Hogwarts, each reviewing the required knowledge for the examination. McGonagall wasn’t in the classroom when they arrived, so they took advantage of her absence to sit down at their desks and review their notes as they waited.
“-lieve it! Absolutely ridiculous! Three grown men, fighting as if you weren’t even first years! Sit down and don’t you dare move an inch!” McGonagall’s voice snapped furiously from the hallway as the door banged open. “Everyone in your seats!” the professor barked as she swept in. Black, Potter, and Snape followed at her heels, all looking more than just a bit worse for wear.
The gray-haired witch swept around her desk and placed her hands on its surface. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said commandingly, waiting for the last chair to be scraped across the floor and the last titter to die away. “I have an announcement to make. Some enterprising fool stole your exams last night.” The room went deathly silent, and Lily felt her heart thump. Then McGonagall bent down and pulled out an incredibly thick stack of parchment. “So I was up quite late last night making another exam,” she continued. “I am in no mood to be tried in any way, and whatever patience I had disappeared with the fight I had to break up between those buffoons.” As she said this, her free hand indicated Potter, Black, and Snape, and Lily could see spots of color burning on the Slytherin’s cheeks as the Gryffindors tried to look triumphant. “So I will not tolerate any foolishness today,” McGonagall finished.
Her wand waved, and the large stack divided into smaller sections that flew out to everyone’s desk. Lily winced as hers slammed down with a loud smack. “There will be a practical examination once you have completed the written portion,” said McGonagall. “Begin.” She flipped over the hourglass and slammed it down loudly.
Lily bent her head over her desk, bright red hair brushing the parchment. Her quill rested in her hand above the exam as her green eyes scanned the questions. She fought down a rising sense of panic as she realized how very few of the questions she was able to answer.
What are the steps required to change a nonliving object into a living creature? Assume for this example that the nonliving object in question is a rock and the living creature is a bird.
What is the type of spell required to change a single thing (such as ears or a tail) on a living creature? Assume for this example that you are not merely switching the objects with those of another animal.
Why is the Animagus Transfiguration so discouraged? Provide at least five specific examples.
Lily chewed on the end of her hair. Bugger and fuck and all those words, she thought to herself as she stared unseeingly at the list of questions. Are there any here I can answer?
As it turned out there were plenty of questions she managed to answer, like one asking for the spell required to change a needle into a match and back, and one requesting the beginning steps of Conjuring Spells. She even salvaged the thirty-point question about the theory behind the Inanimatus Conjurus spell. The panic that had sent her stomach on course with a roiling hurricane receded as she realized that much of the exam was new concepts built on old material she already knew. At least this way, she could rationalize her way out of the paper bag.
Not all of the sick feeling was gone, however, and much of it rushed back with all the force of a furious wave whipping through tired trees in a coastal storm when she rose to take the practical portion of her exam. The palms of her hands were sticky and hot with sweat, and her wand slipped across her slick hand. She had the brief, impossibly irrational concern that her wand would fly out of her hand during her demonstration, but then she tried to distract herself by silently reviewing all the Transfiguration spells she knew.
Then her irrational concern vanished as if it had never existed, replaced by ice cold panic. The spells were there, flirting with the very edges of her memory, but nothing was brave enough to step forward except for the spell to change buttons into beetles.
“Miss Evans?”
She started, quickly looked forward to see Professor McGonagall, looking impatient. “Sorry, Professor,” she mumbled.
McGonagall’s lips were pursed, but that was her only reaction. “Begin.”
“Begin what?” Lily asked, bewildered and completely clueless as to what she should be doing. She looked out over the classroom, turning red as she noticed all eyes on her.
“Miss Evans, were you listening to a word I said?” McGonagall asked, managing to look even more impatient than before.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her reply earned her a long, measuring look that made her feel as if her every part was being individually weighed on a pair of scales that only McGonagall could read. “You are to conjure a chair - points for its prettiness and the softness of the cushion, points off if anything is missing - and then vanish it again.”
Lily felt herself go pale. And this would be why I hate Tranfiguration, she thought to herself as she desperately tried to remember the required spells. She couldn’t remember anything about vanishing spells, and she wasn’t sure she even remembered anything beyond the first step of conjuring spells.
“Feel free to begin any time, Miss Evans.” McGonagall’s gentle reminder had the redhead’s face burning, and she gripped her wand even more tightly, shifting her stance back and forth.
Taking a breath, she placed her wand in the beginning position and muttered the particular incantations required. A simple chair began to appear, except she was having a hard time with the legs - she’d never particularly liked this sort of spell, in which force of imagination played such a big role. The legs were of all different heights, giving the chair a lopsided appearance.
If there was one thing that Lily would choose to change about herself, it would be how easily she got frustrated when things weren’t going right. And now, predictably, she could feel frustration bubbling up as so little of what she was trying was going right, and that frustration corresponded to sloppier wandwork, until nothing was going right.
“Is there anything else you wish to add, Miss Evans?” McGonagall asked, gesturing towards the “chair” in front of her. Nothing had changed about it for the last five minutes, except for some randomly flashing colors, and now Lily stood there, staring at it, before lowering her wand.
“No, ma’am,” she muttered quietly, wishing that there were some way for her to disappear, to not have to stand in front of the entire class for them to witness her abysmal conjuring.
At least McGonagall didn’t prolong the agony by announcing the faults of her “chair” to everyone. Instead, she scribbled down some notes on her parchment before looking at Lily again. “Feel free to begin vanishing, Miss Evans.”
“I can’t,” Lily mumbled, miserable. She just wanted the stupid exam to be over.
An eyebrow climbed up McGonagall’s forehead, then back down. “Very well.” A simple wave of her wand vanished the ugly chair.
Head held high, Lily made her way down the aisle, able to move only because of her Gryffindor pride. She sat down in the seat between Marlene and Alice, ignoring their commiserating looks and instead focusing on castigating herself. You stupid fool! You want to be an Auror - you can only do that with NEWT Transfiguration! And then you went and bollocksed this up! Are you trying to screw up all your hard work from last year?
*~*~*
Lily skipped lunch and headed straight for the tree by the lake. After checking to make sure no one was around to see a prefect clambering in such an undignified position, she pulled herself up the branches until she was perched on a thick limb overlooking the water. Spreading her skirt over her lap, she propped her elbows up on her knees and looked out, deliberately facing away from Hogwarts and all associated with it. She could have been anywhere, given the view.
“My life sucks,” she mumbled morosely as she pulled her knees up and hugged them, only managing the difficult balancing act thanks to years of experience.
“Want to talk about it?”
The deep voice from below startled her, and her legs immediately shot down. “What the hell are you doing here, Potter?” she spat, gripping the branch’s bark in an effort to regain her balance.
“Getting yelled at by you, apparently,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Then, he began climbing up the tree. “Potter!” Lily shouted at him, backing as far as she could away from the black-haired boy while remaining on the tree branch.
“Yes?”
“Bugger the fuck off!”
“No can do, Lily.”
The redhead’s eyes widened as Potter plopped himself down on the branch next to her. “Excuse me?” she asked indignantly.
“We need to talk.”
“We’ve got nothing to talk about, and before you ask, Potter, I will not go to Hogsmeade with you next weekend,” she said hurriedly.
“Wasn’t going to ask you that,” he said with a quiet confidence that she hadn’t noticed before. “No, it’s something else.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow, waiting for elaboration - she was almost interested, for once, in what he had to say. The sooner he said whatever it was that was bothering him, the sooner he’d be gone.
He merely grinned cheekily at her and looked out over the lake.
She refused to play his game. Absolutely refused. No way in a million years would she let Potter trick her into initiating a conversation with him. She swung her legs and counted to a hundred in every language she knew, which was English and French, only she didn’t know past fifty-nine in French, so she couldn’t count to one hundred. “This is bollocks,” she muttered to herself. “See you later, Potter.” She pushed herself off the branch and landed on the grass. She winced as her right ankle wobbled a bit on the landing, but she continued walking towards the castle, ignoring Potter as he leapt out of the tree and hurried after her.
“Hey, Lily, wait! Aw, come on, wait up! I want to talk to you!”
She spun around so quickly that he skidded on the grass to avoid running into her. “Is there something you want, Potter?” she asked, her sweet tone and flashing eyes at odds with each other.
“I told you, I want to talk to you,” he replied, running his hand through his hair.
She eyed his sticking-up hair for a second, then retorted, “Odd, I didn’t notice much talking when we were sitting in the tree.”
Potter rolled his eyes. “I was hoping that you would ask me what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Potter,” she warned, turning on her heel and continuing to stride towards the castle. “I noticed. That’s when I decided you had crossed the border over into insanity and that being around you might cause me to be infected as well.”
“Charming as usual,” he muttered, running both of his hands through his hair now, so that instead of approximately half of the strands of hair standing up straight, all the hair on his head now had the appearance of having been electrically shocked.
“Then why are you so desperate to spend time in my company?” she retorted, hurrying up the steps inside.
“Apparently, your earlier diagnosis was correct,” he snapped, before shaking his head. “Damn it, I didn’t come out here to snap at you. Your spellwork in Transfiguration today was appalling.”
The sudden shift in topics had Lily frowning as she tried to follow his train of thought, and then she was poking him in the shoulder. “Gee, thanks, Potter. I was just so desperate to be reminded of it,” she hissed at him before spitting the password at the Fat Lady and clambering into the portrait hole.
He winced, then followed her. “That didn’t come out right.”
“I hope that’s the case.”
“What I was going to say was, I’m rather good at Transfiguration.”
“I’ll be sure to shout your praises from the Astronomy Tower,” she retorted icily. “Now if you’re done trying to either get compliments from me or make me feel even more humiliated about today, please go away.”
“I’m not trying to do either!” he burst out.
“Then what are you trying to do?” Lily asked carefully.
“I was wondering if you would be willing to let me help you. I mean, you did well enough last year when you were able to buckle down and study, and I’m rather good at Transfiguration” - Lily’s lips twitched - “and you, apparently, are not” - her lips turned downwards, so he hurried to finish - “and I thought that I could help you.”
“You mean, tutor me?” she asked incredulously.
He shrugged, rubbed a hand through his hair once more. “Yeah,” he finally muttered.
“And what do you get out of it?” she asked suspiciously.
“Well, I was hoping that if I did something for you, you would do something for me, a sort of ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’ kind of deal,” he replied. When she said nothing but continued to stare at him, he elaborated: “A date?”
She nodded, as if receiving confirmation of something important. “I see. Well, thank you oh so much for your exceedingly kind and philanthropic offer, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline it.” Potter looked confused, and he didn’t move. “Potter?”
“Yes?”
“My answer is no way in bloody hell.”
“Ah.” He looked crestfallen for a second, then brightened. “And -”
A book, snatched off the common room coffee table, thudded into his shoulder. “Potter, whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it,” Lily snapped, grabbing another book over an outraged third year’s objections.
Potter raised his hands in a protest of innocence. “I was just going - hey, watch it! We have a match on Saturday! You could have injured me!”
“And what a tragedy that would have been,” she retorted coldly as she turned and marched up the stairs to the girls’ dorms.
*~*~*
Potter wouldn’t leave her alone after that, and even though she refused to give him the time of day, he was constantly dogging her footsteps.
“Lily-flower, will y -”
“No.”
“Come on, Evans, at -”
“Go away, Potter.”
“Will yo -”
“Absolutely not.”
“What is -”
“No.”
“At least li -”
“Not bloody likely.”
Lily took to surrounding herself with as many friends and acquaintances as possible. Even during her patrols, she tried to have at least one other person with her. That meant, of course, that Lupin was ignored nearly every night, but Lily figured that it was fair enough, seeing as he had been the one to tell Potter their patrolling schedule, as a consequence of which the Quidditch captain now showed up every night as they headed out. She was beginning to suspect that Potter was arranging the Gryffindor practice schedule around her patrols!
She was doing worse than ever in Transfiguration, and she lay the blame squarely at Potter’s doorstep. If she hadn’t been forced to go to such extreme methods to avoid his stalking, she could have actually put the necessary time into trying to understand the difficult coursework. Yes, it was all Potter’s fault, she decided for the umpteenth time as she peered around the corner to make sure the coast was clear. No Potter or his cronies. Excellent.
She hurried forward, only to hear his voice calling her. “Evans, wait up! We need to talk.”
Not bloody likely, she thought grimly to herself as she sprinted for the library doors, but he was faster and beat her there. He wasn’t even gasping for breath, either, she noticed jealously.
“Get out of my way, Potter,” she spat, trying to reach around him for the door handle.
He shifted so her hand only met skin and clothes and she yanked her arm back as quickly as she could. “We need to talk, Evans,” he told her earnestly.
“No. You and I have nothing to talk about,” she retorted primly.
“I’m sorry, alright? I shouldn’t have pressured you for a date in return for tutoring. It was stupid,” he confessed, his hand busily tugging and fiddling with at his hair.
She relaxed only slightly. “Apology accepted. Is that all?”
He stepped towards, and she immediately stepped back. This snatched a quick bark of laughter from him and she noticed that his hand increased its messing with his hair tenfold. “The offer of tutoring still holds,” he told her earnestly, his voice cracking with the second word.
She tensed up and moved away again. “You never do anything out of the goodness of your heart, Potter. What do you want?” she demanded.
He shifted in place, and she noticed with a start that the expression on his face was sheepish, not arrogant or a pitiful attempt at seduction. “Ordinarily, I would say the pleasure of your company, but I could use some help with Charms.” He held up the corresponding textbook, and his cheeks grew pink.
Once more, she found herself relaxing inwardly even as she bit her lip in thought. Potter was good at Transfiguration - better than anyone she knew, except Black, and Black hated her just as much as she hated him. But Potter drove her up the wall, and then some. Was it really wise, sacrificing her sanity for her Transfiguration grade?
Screw it, she thought as she took a step forward, hand outstretched. “Deal.”
Potter’s face lit up so that it resembled a Christmas tree as he eagerly grasped her hand, and she began to feel slightly uneasy. Potter was normally easily excitable, but the only time he’d reached this level of glee was last year when Gryffindor had defeated Slytherin to win the Quidditch Cup. What did I just do? she wondered to herself. “Potter, you can let go of my hand now,” she snapped.
He didn’t let go, but just kept on staring at it - and her - with a stupid, silly, sloppy grin on his face. She could feel her insides shrivel up at the intensity of his giddiness as she fought to free her hand. “Potter, let go!”
“Sorry,” he muttered weakly as he finally separated his hand from hers.
“Should we start, then?” she asked briskly, moving towards the door.
To her surprise, Potter flushed, rubbed his neck. “N - now?” he asked, his voice cracking. “You mean, you don’t want to go off and change your mind and call me a weird stalker?”
Now it was her turn to flush. “Not at all,” she said primly. “I made a deal and I keep them. Now let’s go. I’m not really in the mood to flunk another Transfiguration quiz.”
*~*~*~*
Chapters one and two can be found in the memories or by following the tags. Chapter four is about halfway written, and I have two other fics that I need to finish looking over. Let me know what you thought, please :D
In addition, due to other circumstances, aseret789 will not be able to beta for me after August. Would anyone like to help me out? Just to give you an idea of what I'm looking for, I use a beta to check characterization, grammer, spelling, continuity, etc. I do already have someone to Brit-pick (even if I have been negiligent in getting stuff to her in a timely manner to beta), so you don't need to worry about that (of course, I would never say no to getting it all in one package ;p). Anyway, leave a comment with your email address if you're interested, and we can chat.
Author: Laliath (aka dancinggoldfish/Irelynne/Anya)
Rating: T/M (language, thematic elements later on)
Timeframe: MWPP
Summary: Lily Evans is a prefect who happens to have a lot on her plate: her sister's getting married to a jerk, James Potter won't leave her alone, and there are way too many rumors going around. Just one of those would be bad enough, two would be hell, but three is unimaginable torture. Good thing she's capable of holding her own, and perhaps things will turn out to not be as bad as she thinks.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, objects, spells, places, etc. belong to JKR. I just happen to be playing in her sandbox.
Notes: Multi-chapter fic. The lovely aseret789 did a fantastic job beta-ing this chapter!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | TBA
*~*~*~*
The Gryffindor common room was quiet as the sixth years prepared for McGonagall’s Transfiguration exam the next day. Lily felt cotton-headed as she stared at her textbook. It was a warm autumn day outside, and she could see the sunlight streaming in through the windows, beckoning her to toss aside her books and delight in the outdoors.
“Why the weary sigh, fair maid? Anything this valiant knight may do to alleviate your troubles?” a deep voice asked.
She looked to her left. James Potter was sprawled across the couch she was sitting on. “Magic away McGonagall’s test and I’ll be yours forever,” she quipped, looking back to her books.
She could feel Potter straighten. “A tall order for someone who won’t even look at me,” he commented, tone light as he carefully relaxed once more next to her.
“Perhaps I consider it impossible,” she returned, moving over to curl up on the other end of the couch, books in her lap, making sure her skirt covered all the necessary parts.
“That sounds almost like a challenge, Lily Evans,” he replied. When she looked up, he had an odd expression on his face, as if he’d popped a Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Bean in his mouth, expecting a peppermint flavor and tasting sprouts instead. But then someone called his name and he looked away, his face smoothing into an expression of unconcern.
Lily took advantage of his distraction to recover herself. The conversation had taken on tones of something else and she wasn’t sure what. Did Potter actually take me seriously? she wondered. Or was it just another joke?
Potter moved, and she hurried to bury herself in her textbook. Without saying a word, he slid off the couch and disappeared into a corner of the room. Lily forced herself not to track his movement across her field of vision. Instead, she kept her eyes on the pages of her book.
Even half an hour later, wand movements and incantations were failing to resonate in her mind, complex spells continuously wiped away by thoughts of sunshine and relaxation. She slid her feet down until her legs lay parallel upon the cushions, and something crinkled in her pocket, underneath the textbook that lay in her lap.
“Oh!” she muttered under her breath as she remembered the letter she’d received that morning, and she pulled it out of her pocket, fought with the envelope. Eventually the victor, she smoothed the slightly crumpled pieces of paper over her lap.
When she was little, Lily had always admired and envied her mother’s handwriting. The smooth spirals of p’s and o’s and q’s, the elegant slashes of the crossed t’s, and the easy-going beauty of m’s and l’s marching across the page always seemed to be the epitome of perfection to Lily. She’d practiced trying to emulate her mother’s writing for months, until she received her Hogwarts letter and realized that even though Petunia’s handwriting looked just like Mum’s (except for the little hearts over the i’s), she, Lily, despite her messy scrawl, was special too.
But this letter - her mum’s t’s weren’t perfectly crossed, and the p’s and q’s and o’s were smushed together so that they were no longer perfect circles, but squiggly little ovals. Even the beginning was wrong. Instead of the customary To my dearest Lily, it read, simply, Lily.
Lily,
Your letter reached us at a very busy time, quite the busiest since you left for Hogwarts in September, for Petunia asked for assistance in planning her wedding! Yes, your sister finally confessed that she and Vernon were to be married. They were planning on a winter wedding, but then I pointed out that the time table was simply too packed to pull off the wedding of Petunia’s dreams in that abbreviated period of time. As a result, they have rescheduled it for a week after your school ends.
I have you penciled in as one of Petunia’s bridesmaids. I know that it is more traditional for the sister to be the maid of honor, but your sister pointed out that the position of the maid of honor has many duties that you would not be home to plan. So Petunia’s uni roommate, Lauren Baker, will be her maid of honor and you will be her chief bridesmaid. The wedding will be beautiful and grand, but I do swear that I don’t know how brides-to-be sleep with all that must be done.
Your father sends his love. He is very busy, for he has recently been promoted to the position of head postman at the office, for dear Mr. Harold is retiring. He and Mrs. Harold are moving out to Falmouth next month, and your father is to take the vacant post. This, of course, is a welcome promotion, for it means that your father will no longer be out at all hours delivering mail, but instead managing the post office. And your father is very excited, for you know how much he loves working with the postal office.
As for what else is new here in Brighton, there really isn’t much. Things have been extraordinarily quiet, as they always seem when you go off to school, perhaps because there are no more incidents of hair being dyed bright green or supernatural jumping.
You asked for my advice with this boy, James Potter. I hope you know me well enough at this point to guess that I wouldn’t tell you what to do, but I do counsel that you take a step back. Of course, your five years of previous experiences with him are going to color what you think and feel about him, but I think that you know that very few people would have continued such a pursuit in the face of such fierce adversity for merely a lark. So be nice, Lily. You do have the temper that goes along with your father’s red hair, and you don’t always think before you act - which has led to some very interesting situations, as I am sure even you will admit. I can almost see you rolling your eyes at this advice, and I’m not suggesting that you run off and marry this boy, but everyone does grow up, Lily - even you and James Potter. He can’t be the same boy he was as a first year, a fact that even your letters reflect: there are fewer notes on a “bullying” Potter than an “annoying” Potter, or a Potter who made a “brilliant move in the Quidditch match last week” in your mail home. And I doubt very highly you would be feeling confusion about what to do if he was still that “messy-haired abomination with scrambled eggs for brains.”
Of course, you know best. You are the one who sees him everyday, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more going on that you did not put in your letters. I don’t expect you to tell your mother everything, Lily! Best of luck with everything.
I hope that everything is going well with your studies and you aren’t forgetting to have fun now and again. Your father and sister send their love as well.
Love, Mum
Lily smoothed her hands over the letter again and read it several more times. No matter how rushed it seemed in handwriting and in prose, it was still a comfort from home, and she wrapped her mother’s words and advice around her like a warm security blanket.
“Good letter from home?” Marlene’s voice interrupted her.
Lily looked up, saw her friend leaning over the back of the couch, and smiled. “It’s pretty good. Tunie finally announced her engagement.”
Marlene made her face. “Who would want to marry that cow?”
“Dursley, apparently,” the redhead said. “They’re getting married in the summer, so I’ll be able to attend. And I’m a bridesmaid.”
“My condolences,” Marlene muttered. “How’s the studying coming along?”
Lily made a face, mirroring Marlene’s expression earlier, and she shook her head. “Like molasses.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Oh, it’s absolutely brilliant.”
“Want to take a break and get something from the kitchens?”
Lily tossed aside her textbook. “Gladly.”
*~*~*
It wasn’t until later that night, after several hours of games in the sun, that Lily remembered her exam. She was already in her dorm, pajama-clad, curled up under the covers listening to Dorcas read aloud the funniest bits of a letter from home.
“- so she stuck her nose up in the air and marched through the door. But Katie’s bicycle was still in the doorway where she had left it, and Mrs. Gray tripped right over it and landed in the flowerbed. Your father couldn’t stop howling and slapping his knee as Mrs. Gray was gasping like a fish, and even I was laughing too. So of course, it was little Katie who helped Mrs. Gray to her feet, and little Katie who went on to compliment Mrs. Gray like we had told her. Mrs. Gray is towering over Katie, all sharp-angled and sour faced in her best blue silk robes, and little Katie says, ‘Your brown robes are very pretty.’ You can imagine that Ms. Gray wasn’t too pleased.”
“Katie’s ten now, right?” Meg asked from her own bed as she brushed her hair.
“Yep. We’re expecting that she’ll get her letter this summer, after she turns eleven,” Dorcas replied as she put the letter in her trunk.
But then Lily startled everyone when she leapt out of bed, cursing and running for the door. “Lily, what’s wrong?” Alice asked, popping her head out of the adjoining bathroom at the noise.
“McGonagall’s Transfiguration exam tomorrow! I didn’t study for it!” Lily moaned as she yanked open the door and skidded down the stairs.
“Well, technically, you did,” Marlene pointed out as she followed Lily, more sedately down the stairs. “Before you and I went to get those apples, you were reading your book.”
“That doesn’t count,” Lily retorted as she began looking for her textbook and notes. She lifted the cushions on the couch and got down on her knees to look on the floor under it, but her book was nowhere to be found. “Damn it!” she swore as she pulled herself back up to her feet.
“Lily, it’s nearly eleven; you need to get some sleep,” Dorcas said even as she began looking around the common room for the book. “If you don’t get any sleep, you won’t remember anything you studied.”
“But I didn’t study at all, and I can’t find my book, so even if I went to bed now, I couldn’t study tomorrow during breakfast and before class!”
“Take a breath, Lily, we’ll find it,” Marlene assured her friend. “And even if we don’t, you can borrow my stuff. You’re making a bigger deal out of this than it is.”
“’Lene, I’m practically failing Transfiguration as it is, and we’ve only had one other exam! You know what my grades were like last year! I have no idea how I managed to get into the NEWT level!” Lily said, the words tumbling out of her mouth so quickly they were practically a jumble of letters all mixed up together, the emotion slurring the enunciation even further in her outburst.
“Because you went psycho right before OWLs and refused to talk to anyone while you studied your arse off,” Marlene muttered.
Lily glared at her friend, then turned back to another couch, tearing off its cushions. “Where the bloody hell is it?”
“Where the bloody hell is what?” a frustrated male voice demanded from the opposite side of the room.
Lily looked up in time to see Remus Lupin, on the stairs to the boys’ dorms, add to Black’s comment, “You’re making enough noise to raise the dead, Evans. What’s the matter?”
“My Transfiguration book and notes! They’re missing,” the redhead retorted.
“Check the table,” Potter interjected, his head of messy black hair popping out between his two friends.
“You took it?” she said accusingly as she rushed over to the table.
“Paranoid much, Evans?” Black retorted. “Do you not remember the Exploding Snap game earlier today?”
Lily blushed red right to the roots of her hair as she remembered the mess the Gryffindors had made of their common room right before dinner. “Sorry,” she mumbled as she grabbed her book. She didn’t wait to hear Potter’s reply.
*~*~*
After arriving in Potions class the following morning, Lily sat down next to Snape with a tired thump and not a single word. The Slytherin eyed her for a second, then asked, “Ready for McGonagall’s exam?”
“No,” she growled, pulling out her textbook and flipping it open to the potion they were working on. “At this point, it should be deep purple, almost brown,” she informed him, glancing between their cauldron and the book.
He took her hint of silence and only spoke when it was required for the potion. They were able to finish the next thirteen steps before class ended, and Snape held her back when she started to rush out. “I’m sure you will make us all look like fools with the examination,” he said.
She managed a small smile. “Thanks, I hope so. Good luck yourself.” Catching sight of Marlene and Alice waiting for her at the door, she nodded goodbye to him. “See you in class.”
The girls were quiet as they walked through the hallways of Hogwarts, each reviewing the required knowledge for the examination. McGonagall wasn’t in the classroom when they arrived, so they took advantage of her absence to sit down at their desks and review their notes as they waited.
“-lieve it! Absolutely ridiculous! Three grown men, fighting as if you weren’t even first years! Sit down and don’t you dare move an inch!” McGonagall’s voice snapped furiously from the hallway as the door banged open. “Everyone in your seats!” the professor barked as she swept in. Black, Potter, and Snape followed at her heels, all looking more than just a bit worse for wear.
The gray-haired witch swept around her desk and placed her hands on its surface. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said commandingly, waiting for the last chair to be scraped across the floor and the last titter to die away. “I have an announcement to make. Some enterprising fool stole your exams last night.” The room went deathly silent, and Lily felt her heart thump. Then McGonagall bent down and pulled out an incredibly thick stack of parchment. “So I was up quite late last night making another exam,” she continued. “I am in no mood to be tried in any way, and whatever patience I had disappeared with the fight I had to break up between those buffoons.” As she said this, her free hand indicated Potter, Black, and Snape, and Lily could see spots of color burning on the Slytherin’s cheeks as the Gryffindors tried to look triumphant. “So I will not tolerate any foolishness today,” McGonagall finished.
Her wand waved, and the large stack divided into smaller sections that flew out to everyone’s desk. Lily winced as hers slammed down with a loud smack. “There will be a practical examination once you have completed the written portion,” said McGonagall. “Begin.” She flipped over the hourglass and slammed it down loudly.
Lily bent her head over her desk, bright red hair brushing the parchment. Her quill rested in her hand above the exam as her green eyes scanned the questions. She fought down a rising sense of panic as she realized how very few of the questions she was able to answer.
What are the steps required to change a nonliving object into a living creature? Assume for this example that the nonliving object in question is a rock and the living creature is a bird.
What is the type of spell required to change a single thing (such as ears or a tail) on a living creature? Assume for this example that you are not merely switching the objects with those of another animal.
Why is the Animagus Transfiguration so discouraged? Provide at least five specific examples.
Lily chewed on the end of her hair. Bugger and fuck and all those words, she thought to herself as she stared unseeingly at the list of questions. Are there any here I can answer?
As it turned out there were plenty of questions she managed to answer, like one asking for the spell required to change a needle into a match and back, and one requesting the beginning steps of Conjuring Spells. She even salvaged the thirty-point question about the theory behind the Inanimatus Conjurus spell. The panic that had sent her stomach on course with a roiling hurricane receded as she realized that much of the exam was new concepts built on old material she already knew. At least this way, she could rationalize her way out of the paper bag.
Not all of the sick feeling was gone, however, and much of it rushed back with all the force of a furious wave whipping through tired trees in a coastal storm when she rose to take the practical portion of her exam. The palms of her hands were sticky and hot with sweat, and her wand slipped across her slick hand. She had the brief, impossibly irrational concern that her wand would fly out of her hand during her demonstration, but then she tried to distract herself by silently reviewing all the Transfiguration spells she knew.
Then her irrational concern vanished as if it had never existed, replaced by ice cold panic. The spells were there, flirting with the very edges of her memory, but nothing was brave enough to step forward except for the spell to change buttons into beetles.
“Miss Evans?”
She started, quickly looked forward to see Professor McGonagall, looking impatient. “Sorry, Professor,” she mumbled.
McGonagall’s lips were pursed, but that was her only reaction. “Begin.”
“Begin what?” Lily asked, bewildered and completely clueless as to what she should be doing. She looked out over the classroom, turning red as she noticed all eyes on her.
“Miss Evans, were you listening to a word I said?” McGonagall asked, managing to look even more impatient than before.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her reply earned her a long, measuring look that made her feel as if her every part was being individually weighed on a pair of scales that only McGonagall could read. “You are to conjure a chair - points for its prettiness and the softness of the cushion, points off if anything is missing - and then vanish it again.”
Lily felt herself go pale. And this would be why I hate Tranfiguration, she thought to herself as she desperately tried to remember the required spells. She couldn’t remember anything about vanishing spells, and she wasn’t sure she even remembered anything beyond the first step of conjuring spells.
“Feel free to begin any time, Miss Evans.” McGonagall’s gentle reminder had the redhead’s face burning, and she gripped her wand even more tightly, shifting her stance back and forth.
Taking a breath, she placed her wand in the beginning position and muttered the particular incantations required. A simple chair began to appear, except she was having a hard time with the legs - she’d never particularly liked this sort of spell, in which force of imagination played such a big role. The legs were of all different heights, giving the chair a lopsided appearance.
If there was one thing that Lily would choose to change about herself, it would be how easily she got frustrated when things weren’t going right. And now, predictably, she could feel frustration bubbling up as so little of what she was trying was going right, and that frustration corresponded to sloppier wandwork, until nothing was going right.
“Is there anything else you wish to add, Miss Evans?” McGonagall asked, gesturing towards the “chair” in front of her. Nothing had changed about it for the last five minutes, except for some randomly flashing colors, and now Lily stood there, staring at it, before lowering her wand.
“No, ma’am,” she muttered quietly, wishing that there were some way for her to disappear, to not have to stand in front of the entire class for them to witness her abysmal conjuring.
At least McGonagall didn’t prolong the agony by announcing the faults of her “chair” to everyone. Instead, she scribbled down some notes on her parchment before looking at Lily again. “Feel free to begin vanishing, Miss Evans.”
“I can’t,” Lily mumbled, miserable. She just wanted the stupid exam to be over.
An eyebrow climbed up McGonagall’s forehead, then back down. “Very well.” A simple wave of her wand vanished the ugly chair.
Head held high, Lily made her way down the aisle, able to move only because of her Gryffindor pride. She sat down in the seat between Marlene and Alice, ignoring their commiserating looks and instead focusing on castigating herself. You stupid fool! You want to be an Auror - you can only do that with NEWT Transfiguration! And then you went and bollocksed this up! Are you trying to screw up all your hard work from last year?
*~*~*
Lily skipped lunch and headed straight for the tree by the lake. After checking to make sure no one was around to see a prefect clambering in such an undignified position, she pulled herself up the branches until she was perched on a thick limb overlooking the water. Spreading her skirt over her lap, she propped her elbows up on her knees and looked out, deliberately facing away from Hogwarts and all associated with it. She could have been anywhere, given the view.
“My life sucks,” she mumbled morosely as she pulled her knees up and hugged them, only managing the difficult balancing act thanks to years of experience.
“Want to talk about it?”
The deep voice from below startled her, and her legs immediately shot down. “What the hell are you doing here, Potter?” she spat, gripping the branch’s bark in an effort to regain her balance.
“Getting yelled at by you, apparently,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Then, he began climbing up the tree. “Potter!” Lily shouted at him, backing as far as she could away from the black-haired boy while remaining on the tree branch.
“Yes?”
“Bugger the fuck off!”
“No can do, Lily.”
The redhead’s eyes widened as Potter plopped himself down on the branch next to her. “Excuse me?” she asked indignantly.
“We need to talk.”
“We’ve got nothing to talk about, and before you ask, Potter, I will not go to Hogsmeade with you next weekend,” she said hurriedly.
“Wasn’t going to ask you that,” he said with a quiet confidence that she hadn’t noticed before. “No, it’s something else.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow, waiting for elaboration - she was almost interested, for once, in what he had to say. The sooner he said whatever it was that was bothering him, the sooner he’d be gone.
He merely grinned cheekily at her and looked out over the lake.
She refused to play his game. Absolutely refused. No way in a million years would she let Potter trick her into initiating a conversation with him. She swung her legs and counted to a hundred in every language she knew, which was English and French, only she didn’t know past fifty-nine in French, so she couldn’t count to one hundred. “This is bollocks,” she muttered to herself. “See you later, Potter.” She pushed herself off the branch and landed on the grass. She winced as her right ankle wobbled a bit on the landing, but she continued walking towards the castle, ignoring Potter as he leapt out of the tree and hurried after her.
“Hey, Lily, wait! Aw, come on, wait up! I want to talk to you!”
She spun around so quickly that he skidded on the grass to avoid running into her. “Is there something you want, Potter?” she asked, her sweet tone and flashing eyes at odds with each other.
“I told you, I want to talk to you,” he replied, running his hand through his hair.
She eyed his sticking-up hair for a second, then retorted, “Odd, I didn’t notice much talking when we were sitting in the tree.”
Potter rolled his eyes. “I was hoping that you would ask me what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Potter,” she warned, turning on her heel and continuing to stride towards the castle. “I noticed. That’s when I decided you had crossed the border over into insanity and that being around you might cause me to be infected as well.”
“Charming as usual,” he muttered, running both of his hands through his hair now, so that instead of approximately half of the strands of hair standing up straight, all the hair on his head now had the appearance of having been electrically shocked.
“Then why are you so desperate to spend time in my company?” she retorted, hurrying up the steps inside.
“Apparently, your earlier diagnosis was correct,” he snapped, before shaking his head. “Damn it, I didn’t come out here to snap at you. Your spellwork in Transfiguration today was appalling.”
The sudden shift in topics had Lily frowning as she tried to follow his train of thought, and then she was poking him in the shoulder. “Gee, thanks, Potter. I was just so desperate to be reminded of it,” she hissed at him before spitting the password at the Fat Lady and clambering into the portrait hole.
He winced, then followed her. “That didn’t come out right.”
“I hope that’s the case.”
“What I was going to say was, I’m rather good at Transfiguration.”
“I’ll be sure to shout your praises from the Astronomy Tower,” she retorted icily. “Now if you’re done trying to either get compliments from me or make me feel even more humiliated about today, please go away.”
“I’m not trying to do either!” he burst out.
“Then what are you trying to do?” Lily asked carefully.
“I was wondering if you would be willing to let me help you. I mean, you did well enough last year when you were able to buckle down and study, and I’m rather good at Transfiguration” - Lily’s lips twitched - “and you, apparently, are not” - her lips turned downwards, so he hurried to finish - “and I thought that I could help you.”
“You mean, tutor me?” she asked incredulously.
He shrugged, rubbed a hand through his hair once more. “Yeah,” he finally muttered.
“And what do you get out of it?” she asked suspiciously.
“Well, I was hoping that if I did something for you, you would do something for me, a sort of ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’ kind of deal,” he replied. When she said nothing but continued to stare at him, he elaborated: “A date?”
She nodded, as if receiving confirmation of something important. “I see. Well, thank you oh so much for your exceedingly kind and philanthropic offer, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline it.” Potter looked confused, and he didn’t move. “Potter?”
“Yes?”
“My answer is no way in bloody hell.”
“Ah.” He looked crestfallen for a second, then brightened. “And -”
A book, snatched off the common room coffee table, thudded into his shoulder. “Potter, whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it,” Lily snapped, grabbing another book over an outraged third year’s objections.
Potter raised his hands in a protest of innocence. “I was just going - hey, watch it! We have a match on Saturday! You could have injured me!”
“And what a tragedy that would have been,” she retorted coldly as she turned and marched up the stairs to the girls’ dorms.
*~*~*
Potter wouldn’t leave her alone after that, and even though she refused to give him the time of day, he was constantly dogging her footsteps.
“Lily-flower, will y -”
“No.”
“Come on, Evans, at -”
“Go away, Potter.”
“Will yo -”
“Absolutely not.”
“What is -”
“No.”
“At least li -”
“Not bloody likely.”
Lily took to surrounding herself with as many friends and acquaintances as possible. Even during her patrols, she tried to have at least one other person with her. That meant, of course, that Lupin was ignored nearly every night, but Lily figured that it was fair enough, seeing as he had been the one to tell Potter their patrolling schedule, as a consequence of which the Quidditch captain now showed up every night as they headed out. She was beginning to suspect that Potter was arranging the Gryffindor practice schedule around her patrols!
She was doing worse than ever in Transfiguration, and she lay the blame squarely at Potter’s doorstep. If she hadn’t been forced to go to such extreme methods to avoid his stalking, she could have actually put the necessary time into trying to understand the difficult coursework. Yes, it was all Potter’s fault, she decided for the umpteenth time as she peered around the corner to make sure the coast was clear. No Potter or his cronies. Excellent.
She hurried forward, only to hear his voice calling her. “Evans, wait up! We need to talk.”
Not bloody likely, she thought grimly to herself as she sprinted for the library doors, but he was faster and beat her there. He wasn’t even gasping for breath, either, she noticed jealously.
“Get out of my way, Potter,” she spat, trying to reach around him for the door handle.
He shifted so her hand only met skin and clothes and she yanked her arm back as quickly as she could. “We need to talk, Evans,” he told her earnestly.
“No. You and I have nothing to talk about,” she retorted primly.
“I’m sorry, alright? I shouldn’t have pressured you for a date in return for tutoring. It was stupid,” he confessed, his hand busily tugging and fiddling with at his hair.
She relaxed only slightly. “Apology accepted. Is that all?”
He stepped towards, and she immediately stepped back. This snatched a quick bark of laughter from him and she noticed that his hand increased its messing with his hair tenfold. “The offer of tutoring still holds,” he told her earnestly, his voice cracking with the second word.
She tensed up and moved away again. “You never do anything out of the goodness of your heart, Potter. What do you want?” she demanded.
He shifted in place, and she noticed with a start that the expression on his face was sheepish, not arrogant or a pitiful attempt at seduction. “Ordinarily, I would say the pleasure of your company, but I could use some help with Charms.” He held up the corresponding textbook, and his cheeks grew pink.
Once more, she found herself relaxing inwardly even as she bit her lip in thought. Potter was good at Transfiguration - better than anyone she knew, except Black, and Black hated her just as much as she hated him. But Potter drove her up the wall, and then some. Was it really wise, sacrificing her sanity for her Transfiguration grade?
Screw it, she thought as she took a step forward, hand outstretched. “Deal.”
Potter’s face lit up so that it resembled a Christmas tree as he eagerly grasped her hand, and she began to feel slightly uneasy. Potter was normally easily excitable, but the only time he’d reached this level of glee was last year when Gryffindor had defeated Slytherin to win the Quidditch Cup. What did I just do? she wondered to herself. “Potter, you can let go of my hand now,” she snapped.
He didn’t let go, but just kept on staring at it - and her - with a stupid, silly, sloppy grin on his face. She could feel her insides shrivel up at the intensity of his giddiness as she fought to free her hand. “Potter, let go!”
“Sorry,” he muttered weakly as he finally separated his hand from hers.
“Should we start, then?” she asked briskly, moving towards the door.
To her surprise, Potter flushed, rubbed his neck. “N - now?” he asked, his voice cracking. “You mean, you don’t want to go off and change your mind and call me a weird stalker?”
Now it was her turn to flush. “Not at all,” she said primly. “I made a deal and I keep them. Now let’s go. I’m not really in the mood to flunk another Transfiguration quiz.”
*~*~*~*
Chapters one and two can be found in the memories or by following the tags. Chapter four is about halfway written, and I have two other fics that I need to finish looking over. Let me know what you thought, please :D
In addition, due to other circumstances, aseret789 will not be able to beta for me after August. Would anyone like to help me out? Just to give you an idea of what I'm looking for, I use a beta to check characterization, grammer, spelling, continuity, etc. I do already have someone to Brit-pick (even if I have been negiligent in getting stuff to her in a timely manner to beta), so you don't need to worry about that (of course, I would never say no to getting it all in one package ;p). Anyway, leave a comment with your email address if you're interested, and we can chat.