“Ready, mate?” said a dark-haired boy, impatiently brushing a dark lock of hair that was falling over his eyes.
“No, Sirius,” said James Potter crossly. He was the messy dark-haired boy with hazel eyes, and he was trying and failing to light a Dr. Filibuster’s No-Heat fireworks sparkler with the flame beneath their cauldron. After what seemed like the thousandth time, it sputtered to life with a hacking noise.
“What’s that sound?” asked Professor Slughorn said, stopping in front of their cauldron. James hastily hid the sparkler under the table.
“Nothing, Professor,” said Sirius Black quickly. “Just me coughing. I’m allergic to the fumes of this potion, see.” He started coughing away. As if on cue, the potion James and Sirius were brewing gave off a smell of burnt rubber. Slughorn stared at the both of them suspiciously but walked off. James knew he only did that because they were both in his Slug Club.
“Thank Merlin,” breathed James, quickly withdrawing the sparkler from under the table. The wood was beginning to chip off with the explosive sparks, and the sparkler was getting dangerously shorter with each passing second.
“Hurry,” hissed Sirius urgently. “You’ve got to throw it soon.”
“I know,” James hissed back. “But who to throw at? Snivellus’s too far away.”
“Anywhere! What about Evans?”
James hesitated. He had lit the fireworks sparkler to throw at Slytherins, and not at fellow Gryffindors. Lily Evans was a tad strict with their rule breaking, and it was tiresome when she interrupted many of their tricks, but still, James wasn’t comfortable with the idea of throwing a firework sparkler at her.
Sirius, seeing his hesitation, grabbed the sparkler out of his hands and threw it into Lily Evans’s cauldron when she turned away to chop her asphodel roots.
Time seemed to slow down as the sparkler flew into her cauldron. James watched the sparkler with bated breath, it cut through the air so swiftly, arcing over people’s heads, then, slicing through air silently, fell into Evans’s cauldron with a graceful splash.
Evans whipped around. Nothing happened. Still, she looked over at James with a suspicious look.
James still couldn’t breathe. How long more till the firework sparkler took effect? One… Two… Three… Four… Five…
So far so good. Maybe the sparkler was put out somehow before it reached Evans’s cauldron.
Six… Seven… Eight… Nine…
KABOOOM.
Green potion flying everywhere. Duck. Duck again. DUCK!
(Those were the first things that came into James’s mind after the explosion. Actually, they didn’t just come to James’s mind. They came into everyone else’s minds.)
Lily Evans stood covered head to toe in green potion. She looked first at the emptied cauldron, then at James. James cowered in her stare.
“What happened?” barked Professor Slughorn. “Lily, are you injured?” He pointed his wand at her robes and muttered something; the green potion vanished from her robes immediately.
“No sir,” said Evans. “I hadn’t added the asphodel roots yet, so the potion was harmless. But what Potter did was totally unforgiveable. He could have hurt someone.”
“Potter?” said Slughorn, frowning.
Darn it, thought James. Why does she point every prank to me? Doesn’t it occur to her that Sirius might have been the one who did it?
“No, no,” said Slughorn in a reassuring sort of tone, “James wouldn’t do such a thing, he wouldn’t hurt a fly!”
“Professor, sir, I assure you he did!” Evans insisted. Then she turned to look at James coyly, who was rather taken aback. He thought she’d look at him murderously instead. He hadn’t expected this tactic. “Didn’t you, Potter?”
Her gaze was so intense. He was drowning in those emeralds. His mind took on a dream-like state.
Then he felt a sharp nudge in the ribs. “Ouch!” he gasped in surprise and pain. It was Sirius.
“Go on and retaliate!” his best friend hissed. “She’s trying to make you admit you did it. Go on, say you didn’t!”
“Oh” er” Professor, I really didn’t throw anything into Evans’s cauldron,” said James quickly. “I swear on” on Merlin, sir.”
“There you have it, Miss. Evans,” said Slughorn triumphantly. “Mr. Potter here did not do a single thing to your cauldron. Now what I say, is that you forget the matter, and you can spend the rest of the lesson doing whatever you wish, Lily. What say you to that?”
Evans look like she was about to disagree vehemently, but then she closed her mouth and nodded. The rest of the class, who were watching the episode with interest, turned back to their cauldrons.
James breathed a sigh of relief. Then he rounded on Sirius. “What in Merlin’s name were you thinking?” he snapped. “You nearly landed me punishment!”
“Look, James, either way, a potion will have to blow up. I just saved ours from blowing up,” said Sirius, now adding asphodel roots to the potion. The potion, which was slightly burnt from lack of care (remember the smell of burnt rubber), turned pale blue, when it was supposed to turn a darker shade of blue. “Never mind, with luck we’ll scrape a pass. Though we in the Slug Club hardly need luck.” He gave James a roguish wink, and James returned an exasperated eye-roll.
When the lesson ended, James quickly shoved all his things into his bag, but before he could head out of the dungeons, someone was pulling the back of his robes. He turned around. There stood a flushed Lily Evans.
Now James hadn’t really taken time to observe Lily Evans, but right now, he was standing close enough to study every freckle on her face. Her eyes were mixed with every emotion possible, her dark red hair, though slightly messy, suddenly looked very alluring.
James shook his head. Was he maturing? He couldn’t. He hadn’t planned his millionth prank yet.
“Yes?” he said coolly, trying to mask the confusion he felt.
“Potter, I knew it was you,” she hissed. Funny how such hurting words said with such a tone could actually sound… seductive? James shook his head some more. He had to stop this, he had to stop this, he had to stop this, he had to stop this… too late.
For the rest of the time Evans lectured him, he stared into her green eyes, getting a little dazed. Then suddenly she pulled him towards her.
“You’re going to pay back, Potter… big time,” she said in his ear. Then she turned around and marched out of the dungeon, leaving James behind, staring at her retreating back.
*
“Could you please tell me this: how could one girl who you’ve not looked at twice till today cause you to be so disorientated?” said Sirius while playing Wizard’s Chess with James. “Not that I’m complaining, of course,” he added, as he sent his Queen into the path of James’s King, “check and mate.”
“So fast?” said James blearily. He had spent the whole game strategizing, not for the game, but for the plan to hate Lily Evans. He couldn’t let a mere girl disrupt his bright future in prank-playing.
“Yes, James, wake up,” said Sirius. “We’ve been playing for the past half-hour.”
“Oh. Well, I’ve came up with the perfect plan,” said James without thinking about what he was saying.
“Perfect plan for what?” asked Peter curiously.
“Don’t tell me,” groaned Remus. “A perfect plan to torture Snape?”
“What?” said James, rather confused. “Oh, no, no, it’s wasn’t a plan at all. Sorry… I’m feeling a little disorientated, that’s all.” I can’t tell my friends about Lily” eek! No, not Lily, it’s Evans… Evans, Evans, Evans, Evans…
*
“Who does that idiot think he is?” fumed Lily to her best friend, Felicity Fawcett. “I didn’t do a single thing to his bloody potion! I swear, this time, I’m taking revenge.”
Felicity was trying not to laugh at her friend’s indignance. (Yes, dear readers, same old non-supportive best friend.) “I thought you were always one for the rules, Lily,” she said, smiling at the thought of Lily taking revenge.
“Who says punishing Potter is breaking rules?” said Lily. “I, for one, will not break any rules.”
“We’ll see, Lily,” said Felicity, smiling. “We’ll see.”
Yes, we’ll see indeed, Lily thought. James Potter, you’d better watch your back.
*
After a few days of plotting, Lily felt that she’d gotten her revenge down cold.
It was morning, at the Great Hall. Lily had just slipped a small amount of Gas Potion into Potter’s coffee. She knew it would be Potter who ate it, because”
“Yoohoo, James,” she called as soon as she saw Potter enter the Great Hall.
Potter looked over suspiciously. Lily gave her most alluring smile and said, “Come sit over here, Po” I mean, James. I reserved a seat specially for you.”
Upon hearing this, Felicity choked on her coffee. There were cat calls all around the four tables: Evans likes Potter.
Potter still looked suspiciously, but Remus prodded him towards her. Lily thanked Remus under her breath. Potter sat next to her warily, and sat with his back ram-rod straight.
“Drink this, Pot” er, James,” she said, smiling and gazing at him as intensely as she could.
“Why?” asked Potter stiffly.
Drink it because I spiked it and you’ll be farting for the rest of the hour, thought Lily with glee. Out loud she said, “It’s just that the coffee’s incredibly nice today. I think the house elves added something extra today.”
Felicity, cottoning on, said, “Yeah, my guess is spices.”
James drank a mouthful of coffee, and his eyes lit up. “It does taste different,” he said, and then he gulped the rest. In just half a minute he started passing wind loudly.
“What did you do, Evans?” he yelled above the noise his farts were making. They sounded like notes from a trombone.
Lily sat blissfully on her seat and smiled angelically at him. “Besides taking my revenge, I’m not doing much.”
“Darn you, Evans!” growled Potter. But before he had time to take out his wand, Lily already had hers out and was crying, “Wingardium Leviosa!”
Potter was now floating aimlessly in the air. Felicity, who couldn’t resist herself, Summoned his wand. Lily flashed a thousand watt smile while she walked out of the hall” still levitating the farting Potter” with a whole lot of interested students following.
Then she stopped at the side of the lake. Potter, seeing water for miles beyond, yelped, “Don’t drop me in there, Evans, or I’ll” I’ll””
“Fart at me?” Lily said, grinning widely. Her audience laughed. “No, sorry, James Potter, I’ll not listen to you this time. I hope the Giant Squid eats you… No, on second thoughts, I hope he doesn’t. You might give him a horrible stomachache. Anyway… wet dreams, Potter.”
And she released him from her Levitating charm.
He fell into the lake with a sickening splash. The students nearer to the lake ducked to avoid the water, while those further from the lake tiptoed to see what was going on.
Then he surfaced, and swam back to the shore, where he lay down for a while, coughing out water and gasping for air.
“That’s what I call revenge, my girl,” said Felicity approvingly, twiddling Potter’s and her own wand in her long fingers.
“Nicely done, Miss Evans,” called a cheerful voice behind the crowd of students.
It was Professor Dumbledore. Lily turned slowly, dreading what she would see. Every teacher was there in the crowd, Dumbledore among them.
However, to her relief, his blue eyes were twinkling merrily. “I believe Lily Evans has helped you pay back many a prank played on you by Mr. James Potter here. I therefore award Gryffindor twenty points,” he announced.
Everyone erupted into cheers except the Slytherins. Lily just stood there gaping. But Professor McGonagall intervened.
“Albus, Miss Evans here just broke a couple of rules along the way! Surely you shouldn’t encourage her?”
“Yeah, that’s not fair, Professor! You gave her points for torturing a fellow student?!” Potter said, still coughing up water.
“Professor McGonagall,” began Lily, ignoring Potter, “I can prove to you that I didn’t break any rules. I didn’t disrupt any lessons” it was during breakfast. I wasn’t anywhere I was not supposed to be” we’re allowed out here. Oh, and I didn’t maltreat any human beings” he’s not fit to be one.”
“Well said,” squeaked Professor Flitwick, and the whole school burst into applause.
“But it’s still rather unfair,” grumbled Potter.
“Too bad, Potter,” grinned Aphrodite Benson.
“Yeah,” Felicity chimed in. “That’s the way the ball bounces.”
“That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” Lily added, grinning like a Cheshire Cat.
And she could have sworn that the smallest of smiles had just inched across Professor McGonagall’s face.
A/N: Constructive feedback is ALWAYS welcome! (:!
BTW, in the last two paragraphs, the phrases were taken from Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s book” the Boys against Girls series (you ought to go read it!). Just thought I should give her the credit. (: Oh-- and her title gave me inspiration for mine.