The Great Hall was quiet that morning. Students sat picking idly at toast and eggs, still full from the feast the night before; it was too early for any post, because they had only been back for a day; and nobody was looking forward to the start of lessons.
The Gryffindor sixth-years had Defence Against the Dark Arts with Ravenclaw first. Their new teacher, Professor Dipply, had seemed like a bit of a wet flannel at the feast. He was balding slightly, and had an off-putting twitch on the left side of his face, so when he smiled, a little bit of grey dribble ran down his chin. James and Sirius had been doing impressions of him all evening in front of a small crowd that had gathered in the Gryffindor common room. Lily wasn't among them, but even she hadn't been able to stifle her laughs during his speech. When he dribbled on the podium, laughter rippled through the Great Hall. James had nudged Peter, and with a smug smile, slyly flicked his wand. The owl's eyes glinted before it sprung to life, circled the blithering speaker, and flew over the heads of the staff, out the window, and into the velvety black night.
"It's going to be awful," groaned Remus into his breakfast. "Absolute torture!"
"I reckon," Dorcas declared, "the fire's lit but the cauldron's empty, if you know what I mean."
"Shush, Dorc," whispered Mary. "He'll hear you."
"No he won't!" Dorcas spoke even louder this time. "Look at him wittering on to McGonagall. He's like bowtruckles on doxy eggs!"
"Hah! Her face!" laughed Marlene through a mouthful of toast.
"Reminds me of Prongs and Evans; I reckon that's love blossoming there," announced Sirius waving his fork around.
As if on cue, Lily came storming down the hall. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes were narrowed; she was having a go at James, who was strolling behind her, smiling at the back of her head, seemingly unperturbed.
"Out of curiosity, Potter, how do you feel about being turned into a toad?" Lily scowled.
"Generally negative," James shrugged.
"That's what I figured," she replied drily.
He winked at his friends as they approached their seats. Lily slammed her bag onto the table, sat down hard, and began to shovel food onto her plate, still glaring at James.
"Great, thanks Lils," said Dorcas with obvious sarcasm as she tore her toast out from under Lily's book-filled bag. Lily didn't hear her.
"Why do you care one way or the other if I snogged her?" James asked, narrowing his eyes at Lily as he sat down opposite her.
"I don't care!"
"No, evidently. Leg-locker curses are a classic gesture of indifference."
"Merlin, Potter, you are so infuriating!" she muttered, heat rising to her cheeks both from anger and embarrassment. "I'm James Potter," she began in a husky voice. She closed her eyes and tossed her hair around. "And I shag girls left and right like some common goblin, because I don't care about anyone!" Lily finished with a final flick of her hair. Sirius hid a laugh in his glass of orange juice.
"Wow. Is my voice really that sexy to you?" James rested his chin on his hand, grinning, and raised his eyebrows.
Lily's stomach flipped. "Gah! Marlene, tell Potter he's a goblin please."
"You're a right common goblin, James Potter!" Marlene took a large bite of her toast. "And you sounded like Michael Caine with a cold," she said, turning to Lily. Sirius was still laughing into his glass and his shoulders started to shake violently.
"What? No I did not!"
"You know, James hasn't had as much action as you might think," winked Sirius, putting down his orange juice.
"Padfoot."
"And he's never even had a girlfriend," added Remus.
"Moony!"
Remus was about to defend himself, when Marlene interrupted him. "What? James Potter has never had a girlfriend! I could have sworn you dated Heather Nutting last year?" James shook his head. "Kirsty O'Bannon..." He shook it again. "Shelley Gwin..." Marlene gasped and she grabbed Sirius's shoulder, one hand over her mouth and her eyes wide. "It's all a lie! Even Lily went out with that snobby Ravenclaw bloke last Christmas!"
"Marlene!" Lily turned deep scarlet.
"Oh come on! You never even snogged him," said Mary coolly.
"Still," Lily grumbled.
Lily looked at James, considering this new piece of information. There had been a slew of girls linked to James Potter, by rumour or reality, since they were thirteen, but then again none of them had ever actually stayed around long enough to connect them with him in her mind.
"I'm just waiting for the right person," James said, looking up at Lily from his plate of eggs. Her stomach flipped again. "But in the meantime, I like to enjoy the occasional snog," he winked.
Lily sighed. "How charming, Potter." She sat back and looked at her massive plate of food. With pink cheeks, she started tentatively placing it back in the middle of the table.
"Hang on, hang on!" exclaimed James. "I'll eat that! I could eat a bloody hippogriff!"
The day's lessons dragged on for what seemed like forever. Dipply, the new DADA professor, had made them copy passages out of the textbook in silence after he caught the Marauders making the things on his desk fly above his head.
"Sixth year isn't going to be some walk in the park," he droned at the class, flailing at the magnifying glass still hovering above his bald patch. "You're going to have to work harder, and take everything more seriously." The class choked down their laughter: he was now holding the magnifying glass over his tight, beige robes, in an area that should never be made abnormally large in front of a group of teenagers. "All of your teachers are going to be giving you double the amount of homework that you're used to." Professor Dipply really drove his point home with a three foot essay on Inferi.
Lily and James were sitting at a desk in the common room that night trying to write their essays. Lily was on her third foot; James had written 'This essay is going to be about Inferi', but that was as far as he'd gotten, and now he was tracing the letters L.E. in the margin.
"What in the name of Merlin is an Inferius?" he mumbled to himself. "Hey, Evans...?"
"Listen Potter, if you make one more suggestive comment, I'm never going to speak to you again."
"I imagine that would be difficult, Evans."
"No, it wouldn't, because you'd be dead, and I don't speak to dead people."
"Really? On principle or just out of habit?"
Lily bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. "Don't try to distract me with your funny, Potter."
"Anyway, since when is asking to dip my huge quill in her wet ink-pot, suggestive?" James whispered to Sirius with a grin, leaning back in his chair.
Lily looked up at James. He was sitting at the desk like he was sitting in an armchair. He might as well be, she thought, because he's not getting any work done. Only when James shyly ruffled his already terribly disorderly hair, did Lily realise she was still staring.
"Lily?" She flushed crimson and looked away, her eyes back on her essay. "How do you describe an Inferius thingy again?"
"Maybe if you didn't spend ninety percent of the lesson doodling in the margins, you might have some notes to work from."
James crossed out the L.E. he had just embellished in the margin. "Some of my doodles have lead to genius, I'll have you know!" He said. "The great portkey fiasco of '73- doodle! Anyway, Professor Drippy is so boring!"
Lily agreed. "Even I was drifting off after five minutes!" she admitted. "But then you started making those frogs dance above his head!" James watched her bright eyes light up as she laughed.
"Who are you, and how did you get close enough to Lily to steal her hair for the polyjuice potion?"
"What?"
"I thought Lily Evans was too much of a prig to find dancing frogs funny?"
Lily stopped laughing and blushed. "And I thought James Potter was smart enough to do his homework without my help. What did you get in your O.W.Ls. again...seven Os, was it?" she said stiffly.
"Everyone knows you're as smart as James, Evans," Sirius sighed, picking up a pack of exploding snap cards from the table.
"Smarter," interrupted James.
"Don't be bitter, it's not attractive," Sirius continued, slumping into a chair by the window and shuffling the cards.
"He called me a prig!"
"You were a prig," Sirius smirked.
"'Were' being the key word!" James hastened to add. "I'm really glad you found the Dipply prank funny, we do try. Now how about helping an idiot with his essay?"
"Fine," Lily sighed. "But don't call me a prig!"
"Never."
"An Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard's spells."
He scribbled that down on to his parchment. "And how are they created again?"
"Through Necromancy."
"Uh huh, right," he said noting down a quick sentence or two. "And I'm sure I know this, but why?"
"Oh for Merlin's sake!" She leant over and scribbled it on to James's parchment for him.
"You're so brilliant, Lily, you know that?" Lily noticed James looking down at her arm, which was resting lightly on top of his, so she pulled it away quickly, tucking a strand of deep red hair behind her ear.
"I'll do the introduction, that's it," she blushed, taking his essay, and tucking it under hers, which she had almost finished.
"I think you're pretty terrific too, Evans!" Sirius called from his armchair. "My essay is probably somewhere on the floor by my bed if you fancy doing it when you've finished with James's?"
"Piss off, Black."
"Oh sure! So you'll happily do homework for Prongs, but no, not for your old buddy Sirius!"
"It's called young love, Sirius, give it a rest," said Marlene, hopping on to his armchair.
"So how do you feel about doing my introduction then, Mar?"
"Do you honestly think I know anything about Inferiuses?" she rolled her eyes. "As if you were planning on doing it anyway."
Lily folded up her Inferi essay and tucked it inside her DADA textbook. "It's got nothing to do with love, Mar. I'd just rather do the introduction than have him wittering on at me all evening."
"Yeah, sure," Marlene nodded, winking at Sirius.
"It's just the introduction!" Lily turned to look at a group of fourth-year girls who were standing in a clump by the window. They were giggling loudly as they watched their friend walking with a boy in the courtyard below. Suddenly they all dived at the floor, squealing.
"Potter?" Lily narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Are those girls wearing Stop Hunting Giants out of Civilisation and Forcing them to Live in Ever More Confined Spaces badges? Only, I was trying to convince them for fifteen minutes at lunchtime, and they wouldn't cave."
"It seems, Evans, that you were right about my charm and good looks. They found me practically irresistible."
Lily spun back round to face James with her eyebrows raised. His hand was poised over a pile of exploding snap cards. "I never said anything about good looks, Potter," she said.
"It was implied," James replied grinning.
Lily rolled her eyes. "I'm going to bed," said Lily bending down to scoop up her things. James leant back into the sofa, a smirk playing on his lips. His glasses slid down his nose.
"What a great view," he said slowly.
Lily spun round, her red hair flying. "Eyes up, Potter!"