This story is being greatly edited. When I began it I was twelve, and my writing has improved greatly. This editing process may take a while, granted, but—I'd just like to fix it up. Yeah. Okay. Read?

Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.

Love is a Funny Thing, Chapter 1

Lily Leah Evans sat in a squashy blue armchair in the Gryffindor common room, carefully writing her Muggle Studies essay in her trademark neat handwriting. Her chair was alone, quiet in its little corner far removed from the crackling fire, around which boisterous and noisy students sat. She simply could not concentrate, even though she was top in her Muggle Studies class, being a half-Muggle herself. Halfway through an in-depth explanation of how a television worked, she stopped.

Her sparkly emerald-green eyes flashed in annoyance at the scene unfolding nearer to the fire in the common room. It was the typical sort of night: James Potter and the rest of the "Marauders" were messing around and goofing off. Lily thought he was a rather annoying boy, certainly nothing special.

Sadly, her view wasn't shared by the majority of the female population of Hogwarts. Many a girl in the sixth year aspired to be one of the Maurauders' girlfriends. It was a very much desired position to hold.

Lily, however, failed to see what was so attractive about him. Why were the girls so obsessed with him? Granted, his looks were okay. The lopsided grin wasn't anything special, just a way to charm teachers and students alike. And his hair. Didn't he know what a COMB was, for goodness sakes? Apparently not, because two strands of his hair never stuck the same way. Then there was that annoying habit of his ruffling his hair, like he thought it looked cool, like he'd just gotten off of a broom. Lily found this little quirk especially annoying.

Then there were his friends. Sirius, who, in Lily's opinion, was as bad (or worse) as James himself. He was a fellow prankster, and was not without the gift of looks himself. Sirius was extremely tall and muscular (he held the position of the Quidditch beater, while James was the chaser), with hair that flopped into his stunningly deep gray eyes.

Despite his looks, however, Lily and found Sirius to share some of James's irritating traits. Sirius easily went through one girl a week; he never paid attention in class, instead preferring to crack loud jokes and shoot spells at teachers' hair while they were turned around.

Then there was Remus Lupin. Strange, really, that he was a Marauder. It wasn't that he was ugly—far from it. In fact, Lily could at least understand why some girls fawned over him as if he was the newest WarloGloss lipstick. His eyes were kind and gray, although they were a friendlier shade than Sirius's; he had sandy hair and was tall, although he often appeared to be worn and tired.

No, Lily appreciated Remus for his personality. He didn't harbor the same arrogant traits that Sirius and James held in abundance. He was more of a quiet person.. Remus was also top in mostly all of his classes, along with James. Sirius was extremely intelligent as well.

For some reason that she couldn't fathom—and this infuriated Lily greatly—James and Sirius never seemed to study, but passed all their classes and exams with flying colors. It was unfair, is what it was.

Lastly, there was Peter Pettigrew, who belonged with the group least of all, in Lily's opinion. Peter was a sweet boy, no doubt, but why did he want to get mixed up in Potter's sort of crowd, Lily did wonder. He was a short, chubby boy with thin mousey-blonde hair and watery blue eyes.

He wasn't especially smart (Lily had tutored him on several occasions), while he helped with pranks, Lily suspected he didn't come up with the plans, and if you didn't know, you probably wouldn't think he belonged in a prestigious group like the Marauders. But he did, and that was the end of that.

Lily, frustrated by the noise, pushed back a lock of her fire-colored hair, which right now matched her fiery temper. James was currently discussing a possibility of opening a kissing booth at the upcoming, first annual Hogwarts fair.

"Just think!" he was saying excitedly to Sirius. "We could be, like, PAID to snog girls! How come we didn't think of this before? We'll be raking galleons—we'll all split it between us. Remus, we could buy you some new robes, couldn't we?"

James looked over at the robes Remus was currently clothed in.

"Haven't you had that one since second year?" he asked, a bit quieter at least.

Lily could see Remus declining the kissing booth offer. It brought a smile to Lily's lips. It gave her hope. Maybe Remus could change his friends. Or maybe not, she countered, as she listened to Sirius's response.

"Yeah! Brilliant idea, James mate." Sirius was wearing a wide-eyed grin similar to James's. "How much should we charge per snog? I'd say 3, maybe 4 galleons per kiss, how about you, Prongs?"

"Maybe it could be like, time according to price. How about a galleon a minute?" James suggested.

Lily couldn't stand another moment of this ridiculous, big headed talk. She headed straight towards the red velvet-covered couch that the four were sprawled on.

"Much as I admire you boys' , erm, marketing skills", Lily began, dripping that word with as much sarcasm as she could muster, "you've got to be quiet, or else leave the common room. Some people," she continued, "would like to actually to complete some schoolwork instead of making plans for degrading snogging booths."

"Oh, sod off, Evans, you've been listening to our conversation, haven't you? You'll be first in line in our booth, no doubts about it." James joked playfully, tossing a grin her way.

"Oh, be quiet!" Lily said, her temper rising. "I can't even think of any poor sods who'd be willing to kiss you for even a minute, and I am most DEFINITELY not one of them!"

Lily did not know what it was about James that made her so angry. It was just the arrogant, conceited, self assured way that he always assumed things—that he was the best, that Gryffindor would win the match—even that Sprout would give them a pop quiz.

What infuriated Lily most of all was that, most of the time, he WAS always right.

"Oh, really?" said James pleasantly, his casual, annoying smirk still snugly in place. "Watch and learn, Evans."

"Hey! Which girls in here would be willing to kiss me?"

To Lily's very great dismay, mostly all of the girls in the common room (the exceptions being Lily and about three other girls) raised their hands wholeheartedly.

Lily spluttered and stumbled over her words in open fury. "You—you, little arrogant—"

"Evans, you are such a sweet shade of pink. Are you embarrassed, petal?" Sirius said. This just served to annoy Lily even more. Petal was the "funny" (huh, very funny, Lily thought) nickname that James and Sirius had so kindly bestowed to Lily. It was bad enough to be named after some sort of stupid flower, Lily thought, and just as bad to be nicknamed in a flower-related way, too. Lily retaliated by slapping Sirius, not with full force at all, on his cheek.

"Oooh, is our little petal getting violent?" Sirius said mockingly, opening his eyes as wide as quarters and pouting.

This time Lily really did slap him, full force, on his arm. It left a lasting red handprint. Sirius looked rather shocked, but he didn't retaliate. He simply put a hand to his cheek, wincing slightly in pain.

Lily felt a slight pang of remorse in her stomach; perhaps it had been a bit unnecessary and rude to slap him so hard.

"Nice slap, Evans." Sirius said, in an 'we're-equals' sort of way. "Didn't know you had it in you."

Lily stood, not wanting to say sorry but feeling that she probably should.

Her qualms about slapping Sirius were instantly forgotten when he next spoke.

"I don't think a normal female could have slapped so hard. Hey, perhaps you're not a normal female because you haven't gone out with either of us!" Sirius commented jokingly, still massaging the red handprint on his cheek.

"So, I'm not a normal female, according to you two, because I haven't gone out with either of you? I don't think ever heard something SO dumb. Oh, well. I take that back. You see, this was before I'd heard about your KISSING BOOTH idea…" Lily exclaimed, anger written across every inch of her face.

"Oh, Evans , you're just saying that because you would never have the imagination, the creativity, the sheer wit to think of an idea that begins to compare with ours. It's okay to jealous, petal" James said jokingly, "just recognize your feelings for once, okay?" he said with the tone of an overly concerned guidance counselor.

"So, so you think that the KISSING BOOTH idea is one of sheer wit?" Lily retaliated, her anger getting all the more pronounced as the fight went on.

"Yeah." Sirius broke in, with the "uh, duh" type of expression on his face.

"Well, we'll see whose booth makes more money, won't we, Potter?" Lily said with a smirk of her own.

"What, you're doing a booth?" James exclaimed in surprised, accidentally letting his cool façade slip up for a moment.

"Yes, I am, Potter. And no doubt it will make MUCH more money than your sad booth." Lily explained.

"Fine. I'll make a bet with you, Evans." James said suddenly.

Lily stopped for a second, waiting.

"If our booth makes more money than yours, then you have-to-uhmmmm…." James paused.

He paused, then whispered something to Sirius. Sirius grinned, apparently delighted, and whispered something back to his friend.

Lily tapped her foot. She really needed to get back to that Muggle Studies essay.

"Evans…if our booth gets more money than yours, as it is sure to," a grin of glee was forming on James's mouth, "you have to go out with me."

Lily was just opening her mouth to say, no way in hell! But then she thought. "If our booth raises more money… you have to stop bothering me…like, forever."

"Hey, that's not fair! I'll stop bothering you for… two months. Nothing more than that, Evans, or the deal is off."

"Fine" Lily called to him in frustration. "The deal is ON, Potter. And Sirius", she added as an afterthought. "Prepare to be beaten."

"Oh, I'm shaking in my boots, Evans." James exclaimed mockingly.

Lily stomped off, up the white marble stairs to the girl's dormitory. As she grasped the gold rail going up, decorated with small pictures of Hogwarts' greatest head girls, all saying things like, "tie your shoelaces!" or "pull that hair out from in front of your face!", she wondered what she'd gotten herself into. Sure, she had to win… if only she had a brilliant idea to match the prize that was certain to be hers…

A/N: Okay, okay, sorry that was terrible. Can't help it. Please review ! I wanna know whether to do a second chapter.. only if I get some reviews. Hope you liked. Bye!