*By the way, I just wanted once again to thank my first reviewers-you guys don’t know how excited I was when I read them. They made my day! Just, so you know I try to respond to all reviews-so be patient if it takes a while! And thanks to my first ever reviewer, I’d like to suggest something. Fancy giving me an insight on your favourite part of each chapter? Only if you’d like to! Thank you all!*
CHAPTER 2-One in a million
“Potter! Stop stuffing yourself and come and do something useful for a change!” Lily was on the point of a nervous breakdown. She knew this kind of cooperation with Potter would not turn out well. She fidgeted uneasily by the entrance of the Great Hall, fingering the bracelet on her hand; a simple black band, with a few charms attached to it, all gifts from her friends and family. It was probably the most precious thing she owned.
He came soon enough, holding the remains of a scone filled with whipped cream. Honestly, that boy could eat the world and still have a great figure. Lily slapped her wrist. She had inwardly complimented Potter. Oh, I knew this wouldn’t be good for me. I’m already going insane!
“Come on, Prefects’ Quarters.” When she saw his blank face, she grinned. “Not that you would know where that is! Follow me!”
Lily marched away from the Great Hall, where the Welcoming feast was still going on, making sure there was a safe distance between her and Potter. No luck there. He caught up with her easily enough and his face had that mysterious smile again. It made him look completely different. Another slap on her wrist.
“Hey, Lily, I just want-”
“No.” Lily stopped in her tracks. “No, no. No, no first names. You are Potter. I am Evans. Ok?” She was sincerely scared and, judging from Potter’s reaction, it was painfully obvious.
Potter grinned as he studied her response. Lily felt her face redden, and lowered her head.
“Sure, Evans, if that’s what you want”. He winked at her and, with no difficulty whatsoever, led the way towards the Prefects’ Quarters, opening the hidden door behind the tapestry of a chimaera trying to attack a small knight who had apparently got there by accident. The Head Girl stood at the door, flummoxed. Potter’s head came out after a moment.
“Are you planning on coming in?”
Lily followed, eyebrows raised.
“I thought you didn’t know where this was?”
“I wanted to-er-respect your maddening madness for rules. I wasn’t supposed to know, was I?” Potter sat on a chair of the round tables. “Although, I can’t say I’ve been here too often. Not too pleasant, is it?”
Lily silently agreed. The room was bare except for a round table with around twenty chairs for each of the Prefects and a small bookshelf, which carried the Hogwarts rulebook (so dusty it looked like it hadn’t been opened for years), the caretaker’s list of forbidden items and a notebook for the passwords.
“Did Remus tell you?” she asked suspiciously, sitting opposite him. But his answer was to be expected; Remus was one of her favourite people in the world and a model Prefect.
“Moony? Nah, he’s as bad as you when it comes to rules. We discovered this place in second year-easily enough. Prefects aren’t as careful as they like to think. Anyway-why are we here?”
Lily crossed her arms, wondering for the umpteenth time why Albus Dumbledore had chosen Potter-of all people!-to be Head Boy. To be frank, she had been waiting to see the badge on Remus’ chest.
“You’re absolutely clueless about this, aren’t you?” Potter smiled apologetically. She shook her head. “We have to make passwords for each house.”
Potter sat up, intensely interested.
“You mean we get to make passwords?” His eyes were flashing.
“I know what you’re thinking, Potter. No way. Forget it.” The Head Boy slumped with a disbelieving look.
“You remind me of Moony sometimes. He always knows what I’m thinking. Almost as if…but, anyway, Evans, please, please let me have Slytherin! Can’t a bloke have any fun?” Potter got up and walked to Lily’s side, kneeling.
Unwanted flashbacks came to Lily’s mind. A bottle in her hand, a cheesy smile on her face and Potter kneeling in a completely different surrounding…
“What are you doing Potter?” she looked scared, for the second time that day.
“Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to marry me. You’ve already said yes. I just want you to let me do Slytherin’s password!”
Lily couldn’t help but laugh. Potter looked utterly ridiculous, kneeling down and batting his eyelashes. She looked at him for a moment and grinned, unwillingly.
“Alright, Potter. You win.”
James sat, unbelieving. I made Lily laugh. Well, that’s a first. With her being sober at least.
“Alright, Potter. You win,” she said, grudgingly, but with a smile.
He smiled back, happily.
“So, any ideas?” came the sweet voice he had longed to hear all summer.
James took a seat next to her and started throwing anything that came to his head, which ventured from the utterly ridiculous (jinglywinglies) to the unarguable swearword (*$@ %@#!).
Finally they managed to agree on four passwords; Pixie Flight for Ravenclaw; Glumbumble for Hufflepuff; Woollongong Shimmy for Gryffindor; and Bloomers for Slytherin.
As they both walked together from the Prefects’ Room, Lily turned to James, with an expression wholly unfamiliar; it was almost friendly.
“So try and find the Prefects to give them the passwords,” she handed him a sheet of paper with her slanted writing on it. He nodded at his first official duty as a Head Boy and began to move towards the Great Hall. As James walked away, she called to him.
“Oh, and Potter?” She approached cautiously and stared into his eyes with her own bright, green ones. “I want you to promise me something. Whatever happens, remember this year you’re a Head Boy-you can’t afford to do what you did last year. Promise me this year will be different. This year, you won’t get detention.” She smiled at his reassuring nod.
James watched her as she entered the Great Hall and started talking to the first years. He loved that girl. No matter how much it hurt. Shaking his head, he wondered what was wrong with him; sentimentality was definitely not his thing. Or at least it hadn’t been.
“So, Prongs, are you going to start giving out passwords or not?” said Lupin, standing in front of a long line of prefects, among which Severus Snape and a bunch of his other favourite students.
James grinned. The Slytherins were going to love this.
Lily was starting to feel completely exasperated. She closed her eyes and tried to remember. But it wouldn’t come.
“Oh, this is stupid.” A pause. “Fat Lady, I’m Head Girl. You HAVE to let me in!”
“Not until I hear the password. As it was given to me,” the Fat Lady answered pompously. “By you.”
“Maybe given by me, but certainly not approved by me! Alright. Woollongo shimmy? No. Woollongo shim? Not even close, I suppose?” Lily cried pleadingly, stamping her foot like the spoilt child she never was.
The Fat Lady just yawned. Lily almost screamed with frustration. She concentrated and mentally ran through the passwords; Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor…then her face lit up with dawning revelation. Her eyes were tearful with relief. Potter had yet to humiliate her as a Head Girl.
“I’ve got it! Woolongon Slimy!”
The Fat Lady didn’t even bother to look up.
Tears of anger started forming in Lily’s eyes. Point to Potter, I guess. Damn! No, Lily, don’t swear; don’t descend to his incredibly low level. Leave that to Sirius. Suddenly it was all too much.
“I am going to KILL HIM!”
The portrait was starting to look bored.
“I have never done this before nor shall I ever do it again. The password is Woollongong Shimmy and make sure you remember it from now on. Is that understood?” the Fat Lady swung, revealing the secret entrance.
Muttering thanks, Lily went into the common room, ready to murder Potter. But it was plain there was no way of finding him in the crowd of chatting Gryffindors. Thinking about the many ways she could make it look like an accident, Lily climbed the staircase to the girls’ dormitory, after being greeted warmly by a lot of Gryffindors, including a particularly warm welcome of a certain fifth-year Lily had tutored last year, Nat Pattinson. Smiling, she headed to her room which now bore the sign ‘Seventh Years’ and was strangely quiet. She had expected the squeals that usually ensued from the girls’ dormitories. No need to mention, of course, that such frivolities were not to Lily’s liking; nor, obviously, was she ever accused of them. At least, not too often.
She opened the door apprehensively and stared at the sight before her eyes. She didn’t really know what she expected; but it certainly was not this. Her two best friends were sitting cross-legged on the floor in apparently deed meditation. She looked over at the two girls that shared the room, who were watching with incredulity.
“What’s going on?” she mouthed.
“I have no idea,” Shirley Malkin mouthed in reply, sitting next to her best friend Katie Finnigan, who was on the verge of exploding with laughter.
Lily decided to take action and clapped her hands impatiently. She had an idea who’d thought this up. The two girls instantly opened their eyes.
“Lily! Finished your duties with Potter, then?” said Alice Vance brightly, in her very posh, English-accent, which she lost whenever she talked about Quidditch or when she was giving Luna a particularly harsh ticking off.
Lily didn’t answer but waited, arms crossed for Luna Davies to raise her guilty head. She didn’t have to wait long.
“What?” Luna snapped, trying but, not succeeding, to hide a smile. “I went on a spiritual journey with my parents and we learnt this new muggle relaxation technique, er, meditation! It’s fun actually! And it works!”
“I don’t care what it is, Luna! We’re at school now, so forget your bizarre, “spiritual”, spooky thingies! Don’t you remember the trouble we got in last year with your self-invented Calming potion? McLaggen kept having laughing fits in the Quidditch Final!” said Lily, hugging her best friend.
‘It’s a miracle we even won that one,’ Alice muttered reminiscently.
“Well, you’re not letting me forget, are you?” Luna answered Lily’s question, ignoring Alice. “I’ll do my best, though. No more self-invented potions. Self-invented spells, I can’t promise. Anyway,” Luna grinned “, how did it go with James?”
The three girls sat on Alice’s bed-the only one without an open trunk and clothes on it-leaving Katie to finally burst out laughing. She had turned maroon in her effort to watch Luna’s meditation in silence.
“You can’t imagine. This must have been one of the worst days of my life,” recounted Lily, leaving out anything that could be considered nice about Potter or anything that betrayed her-slight-change of feeling towards him.
“The password’s woolly gong shimmy? Thank Merlin, I didn’t have to say it. I just followed Remus,” Luna was giggling uncontrollably.
“That boy must be madly in love-you have to be to think of those passwords!” Alice said slyly.
Lily politely ignored her. She was used to her friends’ comments on Potter’s apparent infatuation, but it was the first time she’d considered it. Potter had definitely shown signs of change this year. Maybe he deserved a chance… The Headmaster had trusted him enough to give him the badge…why couldn’t she? The Head Girl slapped her wrist again. Lily Evans give James Potter a chance? There was no chance. Not even one in a million.
A/N: Hope you liked it- I had so much fun writing this chapter. I really wanted to make the passwords hilarious. Inside Info: Ravenclaw’s is pretty normal and, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, Lily thought it up. Hufflepuff’s should be a no-brainer for anyone who’s read “Magical Beasts and Where to find them” (for those who haven’t a Glum-bum-ble is a furry, flying, magical-obviously-bug, which Ron seems to like-or at least a certain part of its name). Gryffindor’s Woollongong Shimmy is a Quidditch move (poor Lily, eh?) and Slytherin’s… well, Sirius mentioned it on OOTP and I’m sure most of you have either heard it or have the imagination to realize what it means! Remember, review!
Disclaimer: Just to remind you. No, I’m not J.K.Rowling and Harry is not my property (do you understand how much it hurts to write that-if you sympathize, review!).
A/N: I know you’re probably thinking “how many notes can you write for one chapter?” but this is a taster of chapter 3: we get to see what’s going on Voldemort-wise in the magic world. Hope you enjoy it!
Thrice Defied by leighpotter
Chapter Notes: First duty as Heads of Hogwarts. Will James and Lily cope?