Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter... and if I did, do you seriously think I would be typing this disclaimer right now? Exactly. I own nothing. =(
A/N: As I said in the summary, this chapter is here to show what the characters are like and how they act. It may seem a little dull but things definetly start getting better in the third chapter... anywho, on with the story
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“Moony,” James suddenly asked slamming his pumpkin juice down onto the table, “Why do you think Evans hates me so much?”
“I can answer that for you,” Sirius interrupted, “she thinks you are an arrogant prat that will never change. Plus she thinks you are immature.”
“Padfoot--,” James started but was cut off by Sirius.
“You can’t forget that she hates the way you always dump girls after only a week.”
“Padfoot--”
“Oh yeah, she also hates how you always prank people and never get anything worse than a detention.”
“SIRIUS!--”
“And she also--”
“Thank you, Black! Actually I was thinking more along the lines of advice,” James said glaring at Sirius.
“Oh, then why didn’t you just ask Moony?” Sirius asked confused.
“Sirius! Oh forget it; just eat,” he said angrily.
“So Moony, why do you---,”James saw that Sirius was about to answer his question again so he quickly rephrased it. “What do you think I should do to make her go out with me?”
“Well, for starters, don’t call her Evans. Maybe if you’re nicer to her, she’ll start being nicer to you,” he replied. Although Remus could have given much better advice, he decided that he should go step by step on this so James wouldn’t mix his advice up and do something wrong.
“That’s it? Be nice? I could have gotten better advice from Padfoot!” James said picking up his backpack and getting leaving the Great Hall.
“Hey, maybe I’m finally going to be the smart one in the group,” Sirius said happily. Sirius got up and followed James out to his first class.
Remus rolled his eyes as he and Peter left.
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“Hey Ev--- Lily,” James said as she walked into transfiguration with Arielle.
Lily turned and, to her dismay, found out that James had been the one to greet her. “Uh, Potter,” she replied eyeing him strangely. Lily had realized by now that the only time James said anything to her was to either tease her or ask her out, both to which she hated giving replies to. James turned around to smile at Remus.
“It’s working! She actually responded to what I said!” James said excitedly. Remus gave him a small smile even though he knew there was very little chance that Lily would ever go out with him.
Lily and her friends sat down at their desks and put their books on the table just as Professor McGonagall started talking.
‘Gosh, Lily looks so beautiful. Why doesn’t she want me?’ James thought in wonder as he started at the back of her head. Professor McGonagall was obviously saying something important since Lily was bent over her parchment and was writing furiously. ‘Am I really that bad? I’m going to change for her. She doesn’t like it when I hex Snape, so as hard as that will be, I’ll stop. Maybe then she’ll actually give me a chance. Maybe then…’
James stopped his thought halfway done as he realized that Lily had stopped taking notes and had turned to look back at him. He gave her a charming smile and ruffled his hair and she rolled her eyes. Giving her a questioning look, he realized that she had been staring because the whole class had been waiting for an answer.
“Mr. Potter!” Professor McGonagall called for the third time. James suddenly realized that he had still been staring at Lily.
“An answer, please, Potter,” she said sternly.
James, completely clueless to what was going on due to his constant thoughts of Lily, responded with a weak, “24?" Overcome with embarrassment, he saw that everyone, Lily included, started laughing and only stopped because they saw the look on McGonagall’s face.
“24,” repeated McGonagall wearily. She paused to shake her head and continued, “Potter, if you feel that staring at Ms. Evans is something you need time to do, I suggest you do it out of my class. 5 points will be taken from Gryffindor.” With that, she turned and quickly wrote the answer on the chalk board.
“I expect you all to understand at least the basics of what we went over today for the test tomorrow. Class is dismissed,” she said glaring at James and Sirius. Everyone picked up their books and trudged out of their class to their next period.
“You are so pathetic, Prongs. You got house points taken away from the head of Gryffindor,” Sirius joked, patting him on the back as they started walking to class.
“Don’t you embarrass me enough outside of class, Potter?” Lily muttered as she shoved her way past James and into the corridor.
“Wait Ev”Lily. I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” James said sadly. The infuriated look in Lily’s eyes was enough to normally make anyone back off but James was used to it. Over the years, Lily had yelled at James so much, he was surprised she had more insults and comments to throw at him.
Her intimidating look was replaced by one of utter repulsion and sadness, “That’s Evans to you! Why can’t you just leave me alone, Potter? Leave me alone and find someone else to bother.” She turned and stalked away leaving James to stand in the near empty corridor, teary eyed. Arielle, knowing that James wasn’t as bad as Lily made him out to be, gave him a pitiful glance, then turned to follow Lily to their Potions class.
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“Nicole!” Arielle yelled, “For the last time, I do NOT like your bloody cousin, Sirius!”
“Yeah, sure you don’t,” she said sarcastically, “Hey, if you two get married, we could be cousins!”
Nicole Black, a tall girl with dark hair and bright blue eyes, had been best friends with Lily and Arielle since their 5th year. Even though Lily and Arielle had known her before then, they were never exactly friend until their 5th year when they three started being in each others company a lot more than usual.
She was never very good at keeping secrets so Arielle didn’t tell her that she actually did like Sirius for fear that she would tell her cousin. But Arielle, trusting Lily to keep quiet, had confided in her.
“Just like you don’t like Remus, right Nicole?” Lily asked with a smirk on her face. Nicole turned red but still managed to say in a dignified way, “Of course.”
“It’s not healthy to hide your feelings,” Lily said imitating one of the annoying girls in their room named Julie. Julie was one of the ditzy girls that Lily and her friends hated. She was constantly reading Witch Weekly and was head of the JPFC, SBFC, and the RLFC. In order to find out all of the latest gossip that hadn’t come her way yet, she had taken to saying that to her other three roommates: Lily, Nicole, and Arielle.
“Kind of like how you hide your feelings about James, right Lily? You know he isn’t really that bad. I do happen to spend a lot of time with him, seeing as I am his best mate's cousin. He is very sweet and he really likes you Lily. Why don’t you give James a chance?” Nicole replied, hopefully.
Lily, still upset by hearing any mention of James in any way, started speaking in a calm voice and ended up yelling at the top of her lungs, “I do not, nor will I ever like Potter. I won’t give him a chance even if he was the only male species on the planet. Nor will I ever befriend Potter or be in contact with him in any other way unless absolutely necessary. Even if, by some weird freak chance, I agree to go out with that cretin, I will magically and verbally assault him on our date. Even after said date, I will still never like Potter and will decline any further date requests. And just to make it perfectly clear that I have no feelings for Potter at all, I will say it again. I DO NOT LIKE JAMES HAROLD POTTER!” By the end of Lily’s little ‘speech’ she was fuming mad and taking in deep calming breaths.
Arielle and Nicole stared at Lily with their mouths open at that strange, not to mention loud, proclamation.
“Uh, Lils, a simple ‘no, I don’t’ would have done it,” Arielle said trying not to burst out laughing.
“Plus, like that old famous guy once said ‘You can’t hide what’s inside’!” Nicole said. At that statement, the laughs that had been waiting to come out from the Arielle and Nicole finally came out which caused Lily to get even madder.
“You should have been there when McGonagall said that James should stop staring at Lily. She turned this bright red and she muttered to herself ‘Stupid Potter is so full of himself’. It was hilarious. Lily totally likes James. She just doesn't want to admit it,” Arielle said to Nicole, completely ignoring the dirty looks she was receiving from Lily.
“Yeah, and just yesterday,” Nicole started.
“Guys, I am still here!” Lily yelled. Startled, her friends looked at her strangely.
“We already knew that Lily,” Nicole said.
“Yeah, the whole world knows that by now seeing as that little declaration of ours was so loud.
“I think I’m going to turn in for tonight,” Lily said glaring at her friends. Trying not to get Lily mad at them, her friends waited until Lily was out of earshot to continue talking about her and James.
“It’s only eight!” Arielle commented, “Stay with us.”
“For the rest of the night, I’m going to read. And do you know why? Because books don’t respond to you,” said Lily as she started walking back to where she had left one of her favorite books.
“I think she actually hates James,” Arielle said.
“Arielle, don’t you see the way she always turns red whenever he insults her?” Nicole asked.
“That could be because she gets embarrassed…” Arielle thought aloud.
“I doubt it. There is something that she is not telling us and I intend to find out,” Nicole said looking at Lily reading on her bed.
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“Sirius, I need to talk to you,” Nicole said entering the room that the Marauders shared.
“Okay, what do you need?” he asked, his eyes not leaving the magazine he was reading. She was about to tell him about her suspicions of Lily when she realized that James was in the room.
“Uh, I need to speak to you alone…” she said cautiously, hoping that James wouldn’t suspect anything. Sirius looked up with a concerned look on his face and followed her down to the common room.
“Is something wrong?” he asked. He saw the way that Nicole had been eyeing James and was confused by it.
“I’m fine, but I have a big favor to ask of you,” Nicole said while hoping that he would agree to what she said without questioning her.
“Ahh, favors. My favorite; you do realize that I am going to make you repay the favor,” Sirius said smiling.
‘Uh-oh,’ Nicole thought, ‘He is going to make me do something big!’ She rolled her eyes but still agreed to his terms. Sirius was the one person, besides James, that she knew for a fact was an excellent spy. And a spy was exactly what she needed.
“First of all, I don’t trust you enough to tell you my plan right away. What I am going to tell you though, is that I need you, Remus, and Peter to meet Arielle and me in the Room of Requirement. I need something to get done but you have to have to promise me you won’t tell James,” Nicole said. Nicole knew that while she and Sirius were very close, he and James were even closer.
“Why can’t I tell James?” Sirius asked with a hint of doubt in his eyes.
“I can’t tell you yet!” she said seeing Julie coming through the portrait hole and picking a sofa in the common room to sit on.
“And why don’t you trust me? I’m still your favorite cousin right?” Sirius said just to annoy Nicole.
“Stop talking about that, Sirius. Talk-talk about quidditch!” she said even though she knew once he started, he wasn’t going to finish for a while.
He stood there as if he was contemplating whether this was a good enough distraction or not. “Okay,” he decided. Suddenly, he started jabbering about his favorite sport. Then, he stopped. “Oh my gosh, do you like Ja--” Sirius started asking before Nicole jinxed his mouth to be glued together.
“Shut up! Merlin, Sirius, you are going to ruin my whole plan!” Nicole whispered. Julie’s head quickly snapped up and she ran over to where Nicole was giving Sirius a very dirty look while transfiguring her book into a muzzle for him.
“Nicole, it’s not healthy to hide your feelings!” Julie said eyeing Nicole oddly, “Now, who is it that you like.” Somehow, Sirius had transfigured the muzzle back into a book and was trying to say through glued lips that Nicole liked James.
Nicole, getting more and more irritated by the second, threatened Julie, “Nobody! It’s none of your business! Now get back to your room before I get really mad and decide that it doesn’t matter to me if I get sent to Azkaban at 17!”
As soon as Julie left, Nicole lifted the spell and Sirius muttered, “Well you said that I can’t tell James. The last time I checked Julie was a girl, and a very annoying one at that.”
Too tired to argue any more, Nicole said explaining it slowly, “Sirius, think about it, no Lily and no James. Do I have to spell it out for you?”
Sirius stood there, still confused. “Yes,” he replied.
“Sirius please don’t make me more tired than I already am. Just make sure you get your friends to the Room of Requirement at 7:00 tomorrow evening.”
Sirius opened his mouth to say something but, seeing that Nicole had her wand ready closed it again. He was about to say goodnight and leave when Nicole glued his lips together again.
“Goodnight Sirius,” she said laughing.
‘I’ll get her back for that,’ Sirius thought, ‘Well actually my fan club will. I mean without these lips I can’t kiss, smile, or kiss. But most importantly, I can’t kiss. Did I already mention I can’t kiss?’ He shuddered as he climbed up the carpeted stairs to his room as he thought about what the world would be like without him.
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A/N: Julie is not going to be just some random character in the story. She is actually going to be important.
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