A Lily By Any Other Name

Act II: Lily

Never in all the six, incredibly unfortunate, years she had known James Potter did Lily ever think the boy actually had an off-switch.

After scrawling the final sentence for her Potions essay, she put down her quill and looked up at her four roommates.

"Is it just me, or is Potter being... I don't know, quiet?"

Marlene snorted, not looking up from her own parchment as she continued writing. "Translation: He hasn't asked you out in weeks and you're sad."

Lily turned bright red as the dorm was filled with a variety of snickers and cackles. "No! I mean, yes, he hasn't recently, but that's not what I mean. And," she gave a pointed look at Mary and Alice as they erupted in a stifled fit of giggles. "I am definitely not sad about it."

Dipping her quill into the ink pot, Marlene allowed herself a sly smirk. "Of course, my mistake."

Dorcas chimed in, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Hmm I think Lily's right. Potter's been a bit off at Quidditch practice recently. Nothing serious, just a bit more zoned-out when we're not in-game. At first I thought it was because of the Bludger incident last month, like maybe his head is still a bit messed-up or something, but I think it's just him being weird. I talked to Black about it during drills the other day and he said that Potter's been busy lately with a class project. Wouldn't say what though, just that he was real excited about it."

Alright, that was weird. Despite initially underestimating him in first year, Potter was actually a very intelligent and hardworking student. As much as Lily hated to admit it, she found herself having to push herself harder in order to stay at the top of the class against most of the so-called Marauders. Still, Potter being genuinely excited about a class project? As far as she knew, there weren't any interesting assignments coming up for any of the classes she shared with him. And unless he was jumping with joy over the Transfiguration presentation for next week (turning teacups into gerbils), she couldn't imagine why he would be so motivated.

"He couldn't be meaning the Muggle Studies end-of-term assignment, could he?"

Lily turned to Mary, curious. "You're discussing final assignments for your elective class already? It's only November!"

The brunette sighed, putting down her Charms textbook. "Yeah, Budam's trying to hype the class about it. I'm guessing he's sick of all the late submissions from last year so he's trying to prevent people from putting it off. I'm thinking of performing 'Bohemian Rhapsody' on the piano, but I'm not sure. He approved it awhile back, but I have no clue how I'd get a piano in the classroom anyway."

"You do realize magic is a thing, right?" Dorcas chimed in.

"Wait, you have to perform a song for a Muggle Studies project?" Alice cut in before Mary could answer Dorcas, looking as confused as Lily felt. What was this class?

"Er, no. It's a pretty vague assignment. Basically, we can do whatever we want as long as it 'demonstrates our appreciation for Muggle culture.' It's pretty cool how we get so many options. Don't know what Potter is doing though."

"Well, knowing Potter, whatever it is, sounds like it's going to be interesting." Marlene said lightly, reading over her essay once more before putting it down with a satisfied nod. "Lils, can you hand me your perfume bottle? Maybe if I spray some of it on my essay, Slughorn will smell the extra brain cells and give me a higher mark."

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"Hi, Remus!"

Lily smiled as she saw her fellow prefect making his way toward her, his light brown hair looking a bit messier than usual. She knew he got sick about once a month and, while she never asked him outright about her suspicions, had a completely unrelated guess that the full moon was approaching.

He returned the smile, albeit a more tired one, once he stopped in front of her. "Hello, Lily, how are you?"

Sometimes it was hard to believe Remus was friends with Potter. While they were on par academically, they just seemed so different. Remus was so kind, so polite. And Potter, well... he was an obnoxious toerag, to put it delicately.

"I'm great. Should we start on the third floor? I heard some second years were trying to sneak into locked classrooms the other night."

As they did their usual rounds, they started up conversations about their days and how difficult the Potions essay was ("It's your fault, you know. Slughorn probably wanted to make this one harder after you finished the in-class essay within the first half hour." Remus sighed.). As they rounded a corner on the fifth floor, they eventually landed on Lily's favourite topic: book discussions.

"So what did you think of The Outsiders?" She asked excitedly.

He paused before answering. "Johnny deserved better."

"He did."

"His letter to Ponyboy at the end and how he wanted Dallas to know... It is a great book."

Lily smiled. She saw Petunia reading the book when she visited over the Christmas break a few years ago and decided to purchase a copy of her own. It wasn't often that her sister showed any emotion other than disgust in Lily's presence and she was curious what could have moved Petunia to the point of tears.

"It really is. The character developments are just so complex and beautiful. Goes to show that even jerks can have a heart."

Lily did not like the knowing smile on Remus' face. Like she was starting to understand something he knew all along. She was not fond of the implications.

She cleared her throat. "Anyway, speaking of real-life jerks, what's up with Potter? I heard he's been acting weird recently."

"Concerned?" Remus asked lightly, a hint of playfulness laced in the word.

'What is with everyone today?' Lily thought.

"Not concerned, just curious."

"He's been brainstorming and planning for a Muggle Studies project. James said it's going to be big, but he hasn't told us much else about it. He's being all secretive about the details and he's been spending more and more time alone to work on it, but I think I have some ideas as to what it could be."

They had finished their rounds and were now in front of the Fat Lady's portrait. After telling her the password, they entered the empty Common Room. But before they parted ways to head to bed, Remus turned a bit to look at Lily. "I wouldn't worry about James, by the way. He gets like this when he sets a goal for himself."

Lily rolled her eyes, although not irritably. "I never said I was worried."

Remus chuckled, heading upstairs. "I aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved. Anyway, goodnight. See you tomorrow in Charms."

Lily blinked as he disappeared into the boys' dorm.

'What on earth was that about?'

Author's Note: Now that I'm rereading this, I am starting to have doubts about posting it lol. I promise it gets better, but yeah I will most likely be developing it a ton more after posting all of the original parts here. Please feel free to give me feedback! I did a lot of research so the characters/professors/lessons are pretty accurate to who would have been there in 1966 (and I made up characters to fill in the holes of the HP canon history), but I'm sure I made a mistake somewhere. And I am quite rusty in writing as a whole, so any constructive criticism in that department especially would be absolutely appreciated! -Trip