Summary: Lily Evans and James Potter (the latter loves the former and the former hates the latter... remember?) have both been caught. James was up to his usual tricks, but what secret does Lily have? And will James survive her company to hear her tale? Of course...
“SHUT UP POTTER!”
Alright, so it's not all happiness and cherry pie, but when you're James Potter, you take what you can get.
(slight HBP spoilers - mention of a certain teacher)
Categories: James/Lily Characters: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 1348
Read: 2598
Published: 01/05/06
Updated: 01/05/06
1. The One With the Yelling by mme_riphaldin
The One With the Yelling by mme_riphaldin
Detention
Saturday morning. Slytherin dungeons. An odd place to find sixth year Lily Evans, especially with that murderous look in her eyes. He was late.
Not, she thought, that this is a big deal for him. Does this every Saturday. Bastard.
Enter aforementioned bastard stage left.
“Sorry I’m late, Professor,” James Potter said with a winning smile. “Pad “ er “ Sirius thought it’d be funny to see what I’d do if he unset my alarm, so…It’s the first time we don’t both have detention, so he had to sabotage it somehow.”
“That’s quite alright Mr. Potter,” Slughorn said, chuckling slightly. “Let’s just get started. Miss Evans seems anxious to get on with her day. I’ll just go get what you’ll be working with.” Slughorn walked through the door to his office, leaving silence echoing in his wake.
“So… fancy seeing you here, Evans. I never thought the day would come. Lily Flower in detention.” He sidled next to her and whispered conspiratorially, “What’d you do?”
“Sod off, Potter.”
“Got caught snogging Diggory, didn’t you? Told you that boy was hazardous to your health.”
“Potter…” Lily growled menacingly
“I simply must know.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Please…” He gave her his best wounded puppy dog face. “Come on, Lily Flower.”
“No Potter.”
“Call me James.”
“Not necessary. We’re not friends.”
“We could be... Next weekend’s Hogsmeade. Go on, come with me.”
“Much as I’d love to see the shocked look on Black’s face, the answer is no. Just like it’s been no since 2nd year.”
“You’ll never change your mind, will you?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I must warn you that I am equally stubborn. I’ll never change my mind about you either, Lily Flower.”
“Professor, are you coming?”
“Having a bit of trouble finding everything. You two just chat for a bit.”
James’ smile stretched from ear to ear.
“Shut up, Potter.”
“I didn’t say anything, Lily!”
“You were going to.”
“See how well we get along. You know what I’m going to do, say. Why, we’ll even be completing each others sentences soon.”
She slapped him.
“I guess you knew I was going to do that, huh?”
“I had a hunch.”
Lily started to yell, but Slughorn reappeared.
“Alright, everything’s ready, let’s start off with…”
Two hours later…
“Ah, yes, not done with your potions, Mr. Potter? To be expected, to be expected. And… Miss Evans? What are you still doing here?”
“I’m not finished,” Lily ground out, favoring James with the glare of death. He smirked.
“Well that’s quite alright, these are difficult potions. I thought we’d come back in an hour, eh? I trust that is enough time to eat. Off you go then.”
James used all his Quidditch training to grab his bag from the desk as quickly as he could. Nevertheless, by the time he had turned back to Lily, all he could see was a bit of her hair as she disappeared from the room. “EVANS! Oi, Evans, wait up!” No response. Not that he was really expecting one.
“Women, eh, Professor? See you in an hour,” James said as he headed out the door.
Chuckling, Slughorn turned towards his desk. “I’ll need to go to Dumbledore today. I’ll lose my 20 Galleons if I leave my bet as it is. Those two’ll surely be together in less than a year, or I really am a slug.”
After lunch…
“I really enjoyed having lunch with you, Lily. Your unbreakable silence and icy glares really help my digestion.”
“Shove it, Potter. I need to concentrate. I have better things to do than be here with you all day.”
“Yes, well, I would hate to keep you away from the library. And studying. And darling Amos.”
“SHUT UP POTTER!”
“Is there anything wrong, Miss Evans?” Slughorn asked, poking his head out of his office.
Breathing heavily, Lily said, “Nothing at all, Professor.” Shrugging, Slughorn went back to work.
“Um… Lily?”
“What, James?” she whispered fiercly. “What do you want to know? About how I had a huge Arithmancy paper due Wednesday? How I told Amos I wouldn’t be able to meet him by the lake because of said paper? Or maybe you want to know that Alice helped me with the paper and I got it done early and went to find Amos so we could go to the lake and instead I found him in the prefects’ common room with Cecile? Whom he happened to be snogging? Is that good? Or do you simply need to know how I hexed him just as Slughorn was walking in? That’s all, James, that’s all that happened. Now you know how I got into detention. Are you happy?”
“Well, um, no.”
“What do you mean, no?” Lily said dangerously. “What more could you possibly want to know? What other dark secrets must I divulge to get you to leave me alone?”
“Well I don’t “ um, that is “ it isn’t that I’m not “ erm “ satisfied with your “ uh “ with your story “ er -”
“Spit it out quick, Potter, I’ve got a potion brewing.”
“Well, you see, I’m not happy because that’s a horrid story and “ erm “ well, I think it’s really shitty what Diggory did to you, and I’d like to squish him to a bloody pulp next chance I get (if you don’t mind, that is) and when someone is thinking like that and wants to commit deeds like that, well, said person isn’t usually happy. So that’s why I’m unhappy. Yeah.”
Lily looked completely dumfounded.
“Uh, Lily?”
“Yes, James?”
“Your potion’s smoking and bubbling abnormally.”
“Oh.”
It was not until Lily had turned back to fix her potion that James realized what she had said. She called me James. Excellent! Tread carefully now Prongs. Just quietly start a conversation with a different topic and slip in the Hogsmeade question. Carefully, now, carefully.
But even as Mr. Potter opened his mouth to introduce a new topic of discussion (Quidditch, naturally), the words of a certain Mr. Moony slipped into his brain.
“You know, Prongs, part of the reason Lily is always turning you down “ “
“Besides her unhealthy infatuation with Diggory,” Mr. Padfoot had interjected.
“ “ is that you’re constantly bombarding her. Lay off for a while and try again. Don’t ask her twice a moment, and that might yield better results.”
So for the first time in 4 ½ years, James didn’t ask Lily out the first chance he got. He just talked.
And for the first time in 4 ½ years, Lily talked back.
A/N: so that was a bit of a cheesy ending, but it’s alright. Um, yeah, there’s totally a prefect common room. Always has been. Right.
And as for why I picked Amos to be such a jerk, it’s not that I don’t like him (or Cedric, for that matter), he’s just the easiest name to pick, no need for characterization, etc. I’ve nothing against creating new characters for Lily to go out with, but in a little one-shot like this, what’s the point? Amos served his purpose valiantly. And before anyone asks, I have no idea who Cecilia is. It’s a name, that’s it. I’m not going to write a seventh year fic and make her the final horcrux. Don’t worry
And I know that I did not come up with the appellation Lily Flower, but I couldn’t help using it because I love it. I know it goes against the whole “Don’t make up cheesy nicknames for characters that don’t exist in canon” but I don’t care. The end.
And the disclaimer: not mine, never was mine, never will be mine, all JK’s.
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