Disclaimer: jkr owns it all... sob sob Chapter 1—The Plan Lily Evans was furious. . No—she was more than furious. She was seething. She stormed into the Great Hall, where everyone was eating lunch, and crashed into a seat at the Gryffindor table, next to her best friend Alice. “Um…. Lily?” Alice asked tentatively. She chewed her full, cherry-colored bottom lip and probed Lily’s face with her wide, blue eyes. “Are…. are you okay?” Lily didn’t bother to respond. She huffed impatiently and swept her long, wavy, dark red hair over her shoulder. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then,” Lily’s other best friend, Amelia, said mildly. She began to shovel pasta into her mouth like there was no tomorrow. “Mil, that’s disgusting,” Alice informed her distastefully. Amelia started to retort (undoubtedly something inaudible due to the amount of food in her mouth), but was interrupted by a splash of elephantine proportions. There was a shout, a muffled CRASH, and Severus Snape stumbled into the Great Hall, sopping wet… …And in a hot pink minidress. The Great Hall exploded in laughter as Snape turned a deep red. As he turned and ran out, there was another yell; a shouted curse; a BANG; the sound of running footsteps; and James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew strolled casually through the entryway. They were all trying (and failing) to hide gigantic grins. Lily looked ready to murder someone, namely James Potter. Amelia glanced at Alice. “Intervention!” she muttered, so that only Alice could hear. “And fast.” Alice nodded. They jumped up and each grabbed one of Lily’s arms. “Let’s go to the library, Lils!” Amelia said in a falsely cheerful voice. The library was, of course, one of the only places in the castle where they would never find James. Lily knew they were only taking her away so she wouldn’t yell at James in front of half the school, but she didn’t really care. Potter…. she found herself thinking venomously. Where did he get off cursing the Slytherins anyway, especially Snape? It wasn’t like they had done anything to him. Well, they did now, but in the beginning it had been him that started it. He just likes to bully, Lily told herself angrily. He’s just a violent, bullying, arrogant bastard. “You guys can go,” Lily said tiredly, once they had reached a table in the library. “I’m alright. And I know you have to finish that essay for Slughorn.” After making sure Lily really was okay, Alice and Amelia left the library. Once they were out of earshot, Alice turned to Amelia. “I wish he would stop doing stuff like this. He’s alright, really, aside from the pranks.” “I know!” Amelia replied. “If he would just deflate his head a bit, she might give him a chance.” Alice stared. “Lily?” she said in a highly skeptical voice. “Give James a chance?” Amelia just shrugged. “They were made for each other.” Alice shook her head and just kept walking. ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Lily slumped in the library, her head in her hands. It really wasn’t fair. Why did she have to be the one Potter was after? Wasn’t it clear by now how much she hated him? She turned him down every single time he asked her out. She’d lost count by now, but the last time she remembered counting was number two hundred and sixty-four. Well, at least it’s seventh year, Lily thought wryly. Only one more year of this torture. She sighed and opened her bag. Lily was not Head Girl for nothing—she studied whenever she had the chance. Unlike some people… ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ James stared moodily down at his roast potatoes. Lily had just given him one of her signature death glares, the ones that she reserved just for him. Oddly enough, that didn’t make him feel special. “Prongs?” Sirius questioned, poking him with a fork. “Hello? Anyone home?” James started, then glared at Sirius. Remus snorted. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” “Shut your traps,” James muttered. Peter’s mouth dropped open. Sirius spared him one withering glance, then said to James, “Prongs, mate. Get over her! You’ve been chasing her for two years! She’s obviously not worth it. I mean, look at me, for example. I don’t chase girls—Head girls, no less! —for two years, and I’m okay!” He winked at a passing blonde. She rolled her eyes and told him, “Get over yourself.” Remus and James both stared at Sirius pointedly. “Okay, bad example,” Sirius admitted. Peter snickered, and Remus began to chuckle. “Oh, go boil your heads, the both of you,” Sirius said irritably. Then he turned back to James. “Anyway the point is,” he said, brandishing a piece of steak-and-kidney pie at him, “Get on with your life!” James stared at Sirius. Then he pushed his plate aside, cradled his head in his hands, and muttered, “Where did I go wrong with you, Sirius? How did you manage to turn out like this?” This drew another chuckle from Peter and Remus. “No, seriously, Prongs!” Sirius insisted. Then, slowly, an expression of utmost delight began to dawn on his face. “What?” Remus asked warily. “What are you planning, Padfoot? I know that look!” “Oooh, another prank?” Peter squeaked, practically bouncing in his seat. “You could call it that,” Sirius said with a wicked grin. ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Lily was curled up in front of the fire in the common room, in her favorite armchair. Her Potions book was open, and a nearly completed essay for Slughorn rested on page fifty-three (Bowtruckle Eggs and Their Uses in Potion-Making). She was staring into the fire, thinking about how it was only a week into the year, and already Amelia was dating some Ravenclaw. She shook her head, smiling slightly. Suddenly, Potter and his band of Marauders popped into her head. She frowned. Potter occupied too many of her thoughts, she decided. She was always thinking about those bloody Marauders—worrying what prank they would pull next, wondering who the next victim would be, and hoping that whatever happened, she wouldn’t have to clean it up. She sighed and gathered up her books. Slughorn’s essay would have to wait—she was going to bed. ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ “Get up, Prongs.” “Mmmphff.” James pulled the quilt on his four-poster bed over his head and decided that tomorrow he would wake Sirius up at the crack of dawn and see how he liked it. A different voice made its way through James’s sleep-deprived half-consciousness. “Get your lazy self out of bed. We have to launch our plot, remember?” James shot out of bed. “Oh yeah! I forgot!” “We noticed,” Sirius muttered darkly. Peter giggled. James ignored them both completely. “How much time do we have, Moony?” Remus smirked. “Because you don’t even function properly before noon? Five minutes.” James yelped and dove under his bed for his socks. “Now remember,” Remus coached from Sirius’s bed, which was next to James’s. “Don’t talk back to the teachers, like you usually do. Don’t talk during class. And, most importantly, do not hit on Evans!” James nodded as he pulled a shirt over his eternally messy black hair. His hazel eyes sparkled with mischief as he replied, “Got it.” ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Lily sat at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall at breakfast that morning, a plate of eggs and kippers in front of her. Meghan Brown, a fellow Gryffindor (and someone that Lily was not too fond of due to her shallow and annoying personality) sat across from her. She was telling Lily a story about her current boyfriend, Jonathan Lewis, who was a Hufflepuff seventh year. “...And then I was like, ‘Well, what does it matter to you?’ and he was all, ‘Well, of course it matters to me, I’m your boyfriend, aren’t I?’ and then I said...” Lily’s mind began to wander. She watched Professor Flitwick cross the Hall and hoped he wouldn’t give them too much homework that night. She had Head duties with Derrick Macmillan, the Head Boy. He was a Hufflepuff and had a slightly pompous manner, but she liked him all the same. “...Because he’s just so possessive, you know?” “Yeah…of course,” Lily said quickly, pretending she’d been listening. Suddenly, her mouth dropped open. James Potter had just walked into the Hall, accompanied, as usual, by his moronic friends. It wasn’t him that had shocked Lily so much—it was what he did next. He sat down a few seats away from her, opened his Transfiguration book, and began to take notes. He looked up as Sirius handed him a glass of juice, saw Lily, and gave her a polite smile, nothing more. Lily felt as though she’d run into a brick wall. Potter had actually smiled at her. Not a smirk, a smile. He hadn’t hit on her or even noticed her when he first walked in. “Lily?” Alice asked from her seat next to Meghan. “Earth to Lily!” “Look to the right,” Lily said in an amazed tone. Alice, Amelia, and Meghan glanced once, then did a double take and stared. Other people were starting to notice as well. James didn’t even look up. Amelia turned back to Lily. “The apocalypse must be coming.” Lily just shook her head, mouth still wide open in shock. A/N: PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!!