Lily Evans was lying in a hospital bed. Again. And Lily Evans was growing quite tired of this new routine.
“Miss Evans, would you care to tell me why are you in my hospital wing for the third time this week?” Madam Pomfrey demanded, folding her arms across her chest in suspicion. Lily sighed and pointed a single finger to her right, where a slightly amused James Potter sat in a visitor’s chair. Madam Pomfrey raised her eyebrows at his casual demeanor of mirth.
“Er “ sorry,” he apologized, straightening up a little and running a hand through his dark, messy hair. “We had a little accident.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Madam Pomfrey muttered under her breath, turning back to Lily and examining her carefully. “What is it this time?”
Lily took a deep breath and settled her cold gaze on James expectantly as if waiting for him to speak for her.
“I “ er - accidentally glued her tongue to the roof of her mouth,” James explained finally. Madam Pomfrey stared.
“Excuse me?”
“I was helping Evans with her Head Girl training, see, and we were practicing countercurses -”
“Are you telling me you meant to attach Miss Evans’ tongue to the roof of her mouth?” Pomfrey asked, her eyes wide in disbelief.
“Just so we could practice the countercurse,” James emphasized. “Only…that didn’t go so well, and, er, you must be familiar with the curse. The longer it’s held…well, the harder it is to remove.”
Madam Pomfrey’s lips were so thin they looked almost nonexistent. Her expression was unreadable. Next to her, Lily was still staring daggers at the boy, as if she still couldn’t believe she was in the hospital wing once again.
“I’ve heard,” Madam Pomfrey replied finally. She regarded the gold shiny badge on his chest with skepticism. “Well, Miss Evans, you’re in for quite a lot of pain, I’m afraid. The good news is that you should be on your way out of here in a little over an hour. I’ll be right back.”
As Madam Pomfrey bustled over to check on the Quidditch player a couple beds down, Lily turned her attention to her hands, which were folded neatly in her lap. She pointedly avoided James’ gaze, who seemed to look amused again when he realized this. He watched her determinedly analyze her fingers for a while, wondering how much longer he could hold in his laughter.
“Please tell me this is the first time you’ve held your wand backwards,” he said finally, grinning so widely he felt as though his face may split in two. Lily’s head snapped around to look at him, looking furious. She was fuming. James wouldn’t have been surprised if there’d been green sparks shooting out of her eyes. As it was, however, all James could do was chuckle.
The day had gone pretty much how Lily had expected it to. She had gotten up, grabbed a quick breakfast with Alice in the Great Hall, attended all her classes, and then met James in McGonagall’s empty Transfiguration classroom to finally complete her Head Girl training. And just as she had foreseen, the two of them had gotten into yet another argument “ this time about James’ irritatingly demeaning method of reviewing important spells.
To be fair, Lily should have realized earlier, James was probably just imitating the way Dumbledore had gone over them the day Lily found herself in the hospital wing for the first time. However, Dumbledore’s right to talk down to Lily was justified; he was after all, one of the most powerful wizards of the age “ if not the most powerful ever. James, on the other hand, was the boy who had released a rather large amount of pixies into the Great Hall on the last day of Lily’s sixth year. Quite a different type of achievement than, say, Dumbledore’s defeat of the powerful Gellert Grindelwald.
The argument had escalated so quickly that both Lily and James found themselves whipping out their wands and pointing them at each other, all the while continuing to yell. After a particularly annoying comment from James, Lily had decided that she’d had enough. In one victorious moment, she raised her wand and brought it down again, choosing a spell she considered a personal favorite. A split-second later, she found herself flying backwards with a very unpleasant sensation in her mouth.
Twenty minutes later, she found herself in the hospital wing with a bruised ego and an annoyingly pleasant Potter.
“Here you go, Miss Evans. Drink up but don’t swallow. Tip the potion into your mouth and hold it until I say the countercurse,” Madam Pomfrey instructed, handing Lily a smoking goblet and pulling out her own wand. Lily stared at the thick, orange, bubbling solution in her hand and looked up at the nurse as if she were crazy. “Unless you wish to have an incapacitated tongue for the rest of your life, I suggest you do as I say,” Madam Pomfrey said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other impatiently. Lily groaned and lifted the goblet to her lips reluctantly.
The potion tasted even worse than it looked, Lily realized as her eyes began to water in pain. Fighting back her gag reflexes, Lily tried to concentrate on Madam Pomfrey’s muttering. She absently felt the tip of a wand against her cheek.
“Now spit,” Madam Pomfrey allowed, removing her wand and storing it back into her nurse robes. Lily couldn’t even see past the tears that had welled up but she leaned forward and spit the potion back into the goblet cleanly. Wiping away the tears from her eyes, Lily looked desperately at Madam Pomfrey, who was watching her with a blank expression.
“It’ll unstick itself in the next few minutes,” Madam Pomfrey explained. “Perhaps in the future, Mr. Potter, you will be more careful about wielding a wand. Or picking one up, for that matter.”
“Er “ yes, ma’am,” James said, biting back yet another smile. He watched as Madam Pomfrey gave one last calculating look at Lily’s condition before marching away. He turned to see Lily’s eyes once again turning into little pools. It seemed as if the pain were going to continue until the process completed itself.
“You know, Evans,” James began, turning serious, “if we’re going to be Head Boy and Head Girl, you should probably find some way to be around me without constantly getting sent to the hospital wing. It doesn’t look as if Pom-pom’s overly pleased with your sudden increased attendance.”
Lily just sighed, wishing he would go away. She’d already had to endure ten minutes of his laughter before they had arrived at the hospital wing, and now he was pouring salt on the wound by lecturing her. A shooting pain in the roof of her mouth caused Lily to let out a muffled scream. Her mouth felt like it was on fire.
“Are you all right?” James asked, alarmed at Lily’s unexpected reaction. Lily shot James a nasty look just as her tongue gave a particularly horrible throb.
“My tongue is glued to the top of my mouth, what do you think?” Lily snapped angrily before her eyes suddenly brightened. “My tongue’s free!”
“Glad to hear it,” James said, ready to bow out as if Lily’s sudden ability to talk was reason enough to leave. He stood up and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Lily hesitated for a moment, glancing at his receding back coyly and biting her lip.
“Thanks,” she said reluctantly, and James turned back around to look at her. Lily took a deep breath. “You know, for telling her it was your fault.”
“No problem,” James said with a shrug. A ghost of a smile began to play on his lips as he remembered the frozen look of complete self-loathing as she was thrown back by her own spell. “The memory of you firing a curse at yourself is thanks enough.”
Lily cocked her head and gave James a look that seemed to nonverbally ask him if he were always this insensitive. James just blinked at her, smiling. He was paused a few feet away from the bed, and it occurred to Lily that he was intentionally waiting there for her to join him.
“Too soon,” Lily advised, rolling her eyes and jumping off the bed.
“You owe me,” James reminded her teasingly, waiting as she grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
“Speaking of,” Lily began, “what do you say we don’t mention this little incident to Dumbledore?”
“You mean that you held your wand backwards?”
“Well - er, yes, that, too,” Lily accepted abashedly, “but I mean that we didn’t get through the Head Girl training session.”
James looked confused. “Why?”
“It’s obvious that we can’t be in the same room together and get along,” Lily explained, staring straight ahead as the two of them left the hospital wing together. “And I’m sure I know all the spells he told you to go over with me anyway.”
“Fine,” James said, shaking his head mentally. He didn’t have the patience to argue with Lily’s giant ego right now “ nor did he want to. “Would you like to split up our evening walks, then, too? Normally Head Boy and Head Girl accompany each other.”
“We can trade off days,” Lily suggested, looking relieved at his suggestion. “It shouldn’t be too big a deal. I’ll take Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday and you can take the rest.”
“Not that I’m complaining,” James prefaced, “but is there a reason you want to walk aimlessly around the castle for four nights when you could get away with doing that for only three?”
Lily looked surprised. “I thought it was obvious. I assumed you wouldn’t want to spend so many evenings dedicated to Head Boy duties. It might take away from your long nights of doing absolutely nothing with Sirius and Peter.”
And just like that, the momentary calm between them broke.
“Is there a reason you feel privileged enough to act so condescendingly towards me?” James asked, stopping in his tracks and turning to face Lily head on. It was amazing, he thought, how absolutely rude Lily could be to him despite the fact that he had just taken her to the hospital wing. Not to mention, their tremendous height difference. He was at least a foot taller than her, and she still felt as if she had the right to treat him as an immature first year. Lily looked up at James’ set jaw and piercing hazel eyes and felt herself falter.
“Sorry,” she said, not looking entirely like she meant it, “force of habit. I really don’t mind taking the extra day. I’m used to it. Prefects have to walk hallways, too, so I have two years of experience.”
“Yes,” James said dryly, walking forward again, “and we all know how important experience is in walking.”
Lily just stared at his receding back, green eyes wide and mouth hanging slightly open. “Potter, how could you possibly complain to me about my attitude when you're so obviously sporting one as well? I’m trying to be nice." Lily planted both hands on her hips and glared at the back of his dark head.
“Nice?” James asked, spinning around on the spot with an incredulous look. “Evans, I don’t know what you consider ‘nice’ but that was certainly not it.”
“I volunteered to walk the halls for four nights so you only had to for three!” Lily said.
“You volunteered to walk the halls for an extra night because you have a massive chip on your shoulder,” James corrected scathingly, “and you’re trying to remind me that you are more qualified for this job than I am.”
“Well am I wrong?” Lily demanded. “What was the last responsible thing you’ve done?”
“You mean besides taking you to the hospital wing three times in one week because you haven’t been able to get over your bloody ego?” James roared. Lily looked as if she’d been scalded.
“That has absolutely nothing to do with -”
“Miss Evans!”
Lily and James both froze as Professor Dumbledore appeared around the corner, inspecting the sight in front of him with raised eyebrows. Lily and James were standing a few yards from each other, red in the face but looking appropriately disconcerted at being caught by their headmaster.
“Sorry, Professor,” Lily whispered quietly at once, glancing at her shoes. James didn’t say a word but was looking at Dumbledore apologetically. Dumbledore’s expression was a mixture of disappointment and distaste and he was staring at the scene before him as though he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
“Miss Evans,” Dumbledore said finally in a low yet powerfully commanding voice, “you and Mr. Potter will both compose yourselves and meet me in my office in no more than ten minutes. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir,” Lily said obediently. Dumbledore saved one last look of displeasure for the scene in front of him before sweeping away down another hallway. Lily looked at James hesitantly and realized with a start that he actually looked nervous. Without saying a word, James gestured in the direction of Dumbledore’s office as if to say ‘after you’.
Ten minutes later, Lily was seated in front of Dumbledore’s desk, her hands wringing themselves in her lap. Next to her, James was sitting as still as stone, hazel eyes glancing around at the trinkets and portraits that surrounded Dumbledore’s extravagantly decorated office. Dumbledore himself was seated across from them, considering them over his half-moon spectacles. His elbows were resting on the table, arms raised so that his hands were facing each other, fingertips touching. They had been sitting in utter silence for almost three minutes. Even Fawkes hadn’t made a noise.
“Well?” Dumbledore asked. “Would you like to explain to me why my Head Girl and Head Boy were standing in a hallway today screaming at each other? Miss Evans, how about you?” Lily swallowed, unable to look Dumbledore in the eye as he waited patiently for an answer. “All right then, Mr. Potter, would you care to enlighten me?”
James looked over in Lily’s direction before clearing his throat and saying, “We’ve, er, been having problems getting along. Sir,” he added quickly. Dumbledore nodded slowly.
“I see,” he said simply, “and why is that? Miss Evans, perhaps you can take this one?”
Lily took a deep breath and felt her heart pounding in her chest. “I don’t agree with some of the things he does or says,” she answered diplomatically, unaware of how else to word a six-going-on-seven-year hatred.
“In terms of his Head Boy duties?” Dumbledore asked. “What has he done or said that you haven’t agreed with?”
Lily was at a loss. “No, sir, not in terms of his Head Boy duties. I don’t agree with how he’s behaved in the past. He treats people with disrespect, he constantly disobeys the rules, and his attitude shows that he thinks he’s better than everyone else.”
James turned and stared at her, dumbfounded. “I think I’m better than everyone?” he asked. “You’ve been the one who takes every opportunity to remind me that you’re better at this position than I am!”
“I never said that!” Lily said, her green eyes wide.
“You might as well have,” James said.
“Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore interrupted again, holding out one hand in a signal for them to stop talking. He closed his eyes and brought his hand to the bridge of his nose where his fingers rested lightly. For a few moments all Lily could hear was Dumbledore’s steady breathing. Then suddenly he opened his icy blue eyes and sighed.
“It is clear to me now,” he began, “that I underestimated the history you two seem to share. For some reason you both are refusing to set aside your differences and accept your professional duties as Head Boy and Girl. I would like nothing more than to remove the two of you from your positions of honor.”
Lily felt her heart sink into the depths of her stomach as a fresh wave of sweat broke out over her hands. Closing her eyes briefly, she had the acute feeling of wanting to slam her head into the desk in front of her. How had she let James Potter ruin her only chance at being Head Girl? What was it about him that had her going absolutely mental?
“Nevertheless,” Dumbledore continued, “as I explained to Miss Evans when she came in previously, the positions are yours “ however much I currently regret that decision. Yes, I will admit I have never been more disappointed in you two; I thought both of you would have the responsibility and the character to take your duties seriously. Apparently, however, I was very wrong.” Lily glanced over at James and saw her expression mirrored on his face as well. It was truly amazing how guilty Dumbledore could make a pair of students feel without raising his voice at all. Even James was wearing a remorseful face.
“My poor judge of character, though, does not give you both an excuse to continue to behave as poor role models. I am confident I will never again see either one of you acting anything less than what I know you can be. Am I correct?” Dumbledore asked, peering at Lily and James intensely. Both of them nodded silently.
“Wonderful,” he said. His eyes twinkled knowingly in Lily’s direction. “Hopefully this time around, this conversation will have some effect on you two.” Lily felt James’ curious gaze on her and she swallowed uncomfortably. “Well, goodnight, Miss Evans, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore said graciously, his blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “Have a very pleasant rest of the evening.”
Taking that as their cue to leave, James and Lily both stood and made their way to the door.
“Ah, one more thing. Mr. Potter?” Dumbledore said, and James turned to see Dumbledore standing regally behind his desk. “I trust you and Miss Evans here have completed the Head Girl training she missed earlier this week?”
James snuck a glance in Lily’s direction and saw her shift uneasily. She looked back at him with a blank expression, though James thought he saw her green eyes looking particularly anxious. Sighing, he reached up to tousle his hair. “Yes, sir,” he lied, looking Dumbledore straight in the face. “We finished this morning.”