Rivalry
May, 1976
Lily was sitting on a swivel chair in the corner of the common room, parchment held out in front of her. Books splayed around her in a circle in alphabetical order, open to important pages so she could merely spin around to get the information she wanted. This was how she and Remus (who was actually quite a decent bloke. Why he was friends with Potter and Black was anyone's guess) were spending many of their evenings lately; OWLs were only a couple of weeks away, after all, and most people were studying.
James bloody Potter, on the other hand, was intermittently giggling with and exploring the mouth of this week's redhead in front of the fireplace. Loudly.
The crazed expression in Lily's eyes must have been getting evident.
"If you'd rather move to the library..." Remus suggested meekly after she punched a hole in the parchment with her quill.
"No. It's fine."
A pause. "Would you like me to ask them to—"
"Let's practice disarming."
Remus' expression flashed alarm. "Perhaps we should start with cheering charms."
"Disarming. Now."
Okay, thought Lily, maybe referring to her as this week's redhead was a bit harsh. In fact, it was the only girlfriend Potter had ever obviously had. Maybe there were others, but she usually tried to pay as little attention as possible to what or who Potter was doing. Expelliarmus. Besides, the girl didn't matter. It was the fact that he was beingso incredibly public about it. ...At OWL time. Expelliarmus. It was incredibly distracting, and frankly it was disrespectful. Just because he was an incredible slacker who would never amount to anything, didn't mean the rest of them didn't have to study.Expelliarmus. But then, that was Potter for you: always the arrogant, expelliarmus, bullying, expelliarmus, toerag—
"Lillyyyyy," Remus cried tiredly, holding up a hand. Lily jolted back to reality and saw him blown back against the far wall of the common room, wandless and looking as though she'd just served him a series of concussions. Which she had.
"Oh, Merlin, Remus I'm sorry," she said, rushing over to him to help him to his feet. "I don't know what I was thinking about, I'm so sorry..."
"It's... it's fine," he said, wincing and massaging the back of his head. "Can I have my wand back now?"
She looked down in her left hand to notice Remus' wand. "Er. Yeah," she said sheepishly, handing it to him. "I'm so so so sorry. You're, um, welcome to disarm me into the wall if you'd like," she offered, smiling slightly.
Remus cracked a smile and shook his head. "That's all right. I'll settle for gloating more than usual when I do better in exams than you."
Lily smirked. "Uh-huh. I'm sure."
Remus grinned and started back toward their circle of books, but was caught by sudden dizziness and began to slump over. Lily, fortunately quick on the uptake and also inordinately strong, caught him before he fell too far. "Oh-kay, mister Lupin, that's enough excitement for you for a while I think," she puffed as she helped him to the nearest chair.
"I concur," he said wearily, though smiling. "I guess—"
"MOONY MAY I HAVE A WORD WITH YOU."
Remus cocked an eyebrow and looked just past Lily to make eye contact with James, who had detached himself from the redhead and was looking with extremely wide eyes at his friend. Lily turned and regarded him with raised eyebrows and crossed arms.
"Feel free to yell a bit louder Potter, I'm not sure everyone in the Slytherin common room heard you."
James' expression was venomous. "Like you were really studious with your blowing Moony against the wall."
"At least I study."
"I don't need to study, Evans. Call it natural talent."
Lily frowned. Ordinarily, James would have thrown in a few declarations of affection and a handful of date requests by this point of the conversation. "Sadly, Potter, I don't think you'll be tested on sucking face."
The smile spread veeeeery slowly across James' face. "So you admit I'm a good kisser."
"What?" asked the redhead loudly.
Lily kicked herself mentally and changed tacks. That wasn't... what she'd meant. "When have we ever kissed outside of your sadistic dreams?"
"That time you 'tripped' on your way to the Great Hall and happened to land—"
"You had one of your friends trip me under that ridiculous Cloak of yours. You happened to position yourself just so..."
"You kissed back."
"It wasn't a kiss, and... I... did no such thing." This was not going how Lily wanted it to. Oh, yep, there was the blush creeping into her cheeks. Good show, Evans. Well done.
"James, is this true?" the redhead squeaked.
"Not now, Amanda," he said, waving a hand dismissively.
"Yes, not now, Amanda," Lily repeated in a mocking tone.
"Listen, Evans," James started again in a cooler tone. "I'm sorry that you thought you had to employ Moony here to pretend to be in love with you just to make me jealous—"
"WHAT?" Remus asked loudly.
"But I've got Amanda now, and she's... well, she's far less flightythan you are, so you're just going to have to live with not being the centre of my attention anymore."
"HE'S JOKING," Remus proclaimed.
A cruel smile flickered across Lily's face. "Yes Potter. That explains the note you had a house-elf place on my pillow last night."
"Whaaaat?" Amanda whined.
"She's joking," James assured her.
"I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHY HE SAID THAT," Remus persisted.
"Dearest Lily," she quoted in a sarcastically dreamy tone. "I cannot place into words how I feel about you, but I'll be damned if I don't try."
"That wasn't me, Evans, I don't write like that."
"Everything about you is intoxicating in the most marvellous way possible. There are occasions where I can't think straight for how much your beauty dazzles me. Et cetera. Et cetera."
James frowned. "You memorized it?"
"JAMES YOU SILLY TOSSER WHY DO YOU MAKE SUCH JOKES."
Lily ignored Remus and blushed. "My memory retention is on overdrive, okay? It's a side effect of studying. Plus it was so needlessly extravagantly written it was laughable."
"...Needlessly extravagant?" Remus croaked.
To Lily's surprise, James didn't make a snide reply as was usual custom. He merely stared at Lily for a moment, then at Remus, then back at Lily before suddenly launching from his chair and striding across the room toward the stairs to the dorms.
"Oh,sorry, Potter, did I offend your declaration of so-called affection?" she asked as he strode toward her, though, despite her tone, she actually felt somewhat badly.
James kept walking and didn't reply. It struck her too late that it wasn't the dorms he was heading toward, but her. Before she could stop him, he tilted her head up lightly and caught her lips in his own; by the time she realized what was going on, he'd punched Remus on the shoulder and left the common room.
She stood still for a long time, puckering lightly at the air. "Ungh," she stated eventually.
"Ungh," Remus echoed, massaging his shoulder and looking severely disheartened.
"Ungh!" cried Amanda as she scurried into the dorms.
Remus cleared his throat lightly. "Shall we call it a night?"
"Yes, I think so," she replied flatly without looking at him.
"Right then. Goodnight, Lily."
"Goodnight."
Lily ignored James more than usual the next day.
James and Moony kept their distance for a while after that.