-Beastie- James Potter

-3-

- - -

The warm glow of sunlight shown through the window, affectively waking up everyone in the dorm room except Karmen. Marlene had always teased her about the fact that she could sleep through anything but today was a school day. She needed to get up, and Lily had been chosen to do this impossible task.

"Honey, sweetie, munchkin, you need to get up. It's a school day. Please don't make this harder for me, for us." Lily pleaded as she shook Karmen's shoulder, her long curly hair bigger than unusual in the mornings.

Her eyes were still closed shut, hiding the green they adored. The darker skinned girl huffed and grunted like an animal in her sleep, which was an accurate representation of what she was in the morning. Lily rolled her eyes, looking at the slightly older girl. Karmen had her knees loosely pulled up to her chest, making a 90 degree angle, and her arms bent so her hand were under her head. She looked so peaceful when she was asleep.

Lily sighed before saying, "Alright, I'll back in five minutes and I expect you to be up and dressed." So with that, she left and walked down to the common room. They had gotten up early enough that they had enough to lazy around before going to breakfast so Marlene and Alice were already down stairs.

"Sleeping beauty not up yet?" Marlene asked with a small smile with her arms crossed.

"I gave her five more minutes. She was up late last night because of a nightmare." Lily responded, her voice becoming sadder towards the end. All three of them were all aware of Karmen and her nightmares. They didn't happen every night but frequent enough that they noticed pretty quickly and they had been dorm mates since first year.

They stemmed either her controlling mother or her animal nature, scared of losing control and hurting them in the night. So most nights she either didn't sleep at all or just got have very little, relying on the coffee at breakfast and lunch to get her through the day.

"Poor babes..." Alice said, putting a hand over her heart in sympathy, making the two other girls nod along.

***

Five minutes later, Lily walked back up the stairs to their dorm, disappointed but not surprised, to see Karmen still fast asleep in bed but the blankets were pulled back up to her shoulders. The redhead walked over to her bed and ripped the blankets off of her. To her surprise, Karmen was wearing her school uniform now instead of her pajamas.

"Really?!" She shouted in shock, throwing her arms out to her sides. The curly haired girl yawned and stretched like a cat but didn't wake up. Lily grumbled under her breath, walking over to the side of the bed, put her palms on Karmen's back and pushed her off the bed.

She stomped back over to the side she fell off and stared down at her friends, sliver of bright green staring back up at her. Karmen laid on the ground, looking up at her with barely open eyes.

"I'm awake. Well done. Now what?" She asked cockily with a smirk.

Knowing that she wouldn't be able to pick her up and Karmen being the strongest of the group, Lily opened the door to the dorm and looked down at the common room, deciding to get the second strongest of the group to help.

"Marlene, can you come help me? She won't get up."

***

"You feel better now, babe?" Marlene asked as Karmen milked her cup of caramel and cream coffee, keeping the mug close to her face so her face was warm. She nodded sleepily, slowly feeling herself wake up more and more. The Giant Hall was bustling was chattering with students excited for breakfast.

"Good morning, love. You look ravishing this morning!" Hearing the ignorant voice of James Potter made her groan and look up from her mug. Standing in front of her at the opposite side of the Gryffindor table was the toe-rag himself. He was leaned over the table slightly with a cocky smile on his face.

"Sod off, Potter." She said lowly in annoyance with a blank face, hoping it would wipe that stupid smile off his face. But it didn't.

He only broadened his boyish smile and said, "Love you too, sweetheart!" Before walking away back to the rest of the Marauders, who were sitting at the other side of the table which happened to have an unobscured view of the Reines.

Karmen only rolled her eyes and continued to sipped her coffee.

***

Karmen had gotten to Potions class with Professor Slughorn just on time and sat in her assigned seat, two row to the front on the aisle. Lily and Marlene had Transfiguration while Alice had Herbology so she was all alone this period. Except for Potter who happened to sit a few rows behind her.

"Now, for the beginning of the year project, I have decided to not assign potions and let you and your partner choose them together." The class seemed to brighten at the idea of choosing partners until, "And I will be choosing the pairs myself."

Karmen toned out the Professor as he started to read off names for partners. She pulled out one of her blank books from her bag and started to doodle, sometimes flowers or funny plants she had come across but more often then not, she drew human anatomy. Eyes, hands, legs, whatever came to mind.

"Ms. Thorne and Mr. Potter."

Karmen's head snapped up to look at Professor Slughorn as he read off the pairs for the project. Her deep green eyes looked over to Potter, who seemed just as shocked as her but had a wide smile on his face.

She looked at her teacher once again and asked in shock, "Why? Why would just-Why?"

Professor Slughorn gave her a sympathetic look and patted her arm as hemouthed, 'Sorry dear' before continuing to read off names.

Karmen stared down at her desk with wide eyes, completely baffled by the idea of working with Potter.

'Fuck.'