Disclaimer: I'm only a junior in an American high school. I couldn't pass as JK Rowling if I even wanted to!
A/N: Welcome to The Devil Wears Quidditch Gear. Yes, the title is a spoof off of the recent movie The Devil Wears Prada, BUT the story has nothing to do with the movie. It's my new Lily and James story (after I deleted my other one because it was simply going nowhere) but I have good hopes for this one. It takes place during Lily and James's seventh year and each chapter will, in some way, relate to Quidditch.
Again, this story is in no way related to The Devil Wears Prada ( I haven't even seen the movie yet! lol). So, I hope you enjoy the first chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. This chapter takes place during their fourth year; the next chapters all deal with their seventh year, however.
Please review!
Chapter 1: It All Started with a Dare
A fiercely cold breeze whipped through the trees, nipping at any bare skin that wasn't protected by some sort of material. Many students pulled their scarves around their necks tighter as they continued to laugh and talk about the latest Quidditch game. Gryffindor house had, unsurprisingly, snatched a victory away from the Slytherin team once again and the spectators were now leaving the pitch, chatting animatedly.
Lily Evans couldn't help but wonder why she was standing outside the changing rooms as the rest of the school bypassed her on their way back into the warm, welcoming, sweet smelling castle. Goosebumps erupted across her skin as the bitter cold seeped through her robes and her sweater, chilling her to the bone. Her long red hair was suddenly caught up in the wind and it swung around viciously; she attempted to control it with her hands but only ended up tangling it worse.
"Oh, screw it," she muttered to herself, rubbing her arms for warmth.
Leaves rustled and a stick snapped from behind her. "Now, Lily…"
"Holy hippogriff!" Lily exclaimed loudly, nearly jumping out of her skin. She calmed down slightly realizing that the two people who had just scared the mess out of her were only her two friends. "You scared the magic out of me."
Two girls approached her, each one smiling. One of the girls stepped up to the plate. "You do remember what you're supposed to do, right?"
"Marlene," Lily began impatiently, "you were only muttering the plan to me during the entire duration of the game."
"So you do remember," Marlene replied cheerfully, her straight brown hair swaying in the crisp air.
"Unfortunately."
The other girl smiled reassuringly at her friend, giggling slightly. "Oh, liven up. It won't be that bad. He's one of the most popular boys in school, you know."
"Dorcas…you expect me, out of all people, to care about his status?" Lily responded.
Marlene joined Dorcas as both of them began giggling. "He's extremely cute too," Marlene said, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively before she and Dorcas went into another round of high-pitched laughter.
Fed up, Lily simply stared at them, refusing to even crack a smile. Sensing that they weren't going to get any type of positive reaction from their friend whatsoever, Marlene patted Lily on the shoulder. "Well, we'll just leave you to it, then." She winked at her friend before linking arms with Dorcas and the two happily skipped off giggling like a bunch of love stricken girls, leaving Lily on her own outside the team changing rooms once again.
Stupid friends, Lily thought, knowing that she would end up forgiving them later anyways.
Some students smiled and waved at her as they passed and she returned the gestures only half-heartedly. It was kind of hard to be friendly when your heart beat was racing at a dangerous pace and your mind was trying to figure out the best way to grab a guy and snog him senseless. Lily shuddered at the thought, turning her head to glare back at the changing rooms.
If it weren't for her bloody friends or that bloody game of Truth or Dare Lily Evans would not have been standing out in the cold waiting for one of the star Chasers of the Gryffindor team to come out (fully dressed, hopefully) so she could corner him. In fact, if it weren't for any of that, Lily probably would have been up in the common room with Marlene and Dorcas right now, laughing at the looks on the Slytherins' faces when they had lost.
So, she purely blamed her situation on that cursed game of Truth or Dare. Never pick dare again, Lily thought to herself. She knew she should have said truth; everyone knows not to pick dare! Merlin, why had she been so stupid?
Actually, it wasn't fair to place the blame solely on the game; her friends were at fault for giving her the wretched dare in the first place. In the eyes of Marlene and Dorcas, the dare was simple enough and should be treated as a privilege. As they had constantly reminded her, many girls would die to be in her shoes. And, as Lily had constantly reminded her friends, she would gladly switch her neon green flats with some other girl at any given time. Lily had absolutely no desire to make out with some oh-look-at-me-I'm-so-cool-because-I-can-fly-on-a-stick Quidditch star.
Regardless of the fact that the guy was in fourth year along with her, Lily had hardly paid any attention to him. In fact, she only knew his last name because the only time she'd even bothered to pay attention to him was when her professors would call out his name during class to hand him yet another detention.
His surname was Potter, and that's all she knew. Well, she also knew that his friends called him Prongs, but she doubted that the seemingly un-meaningful name was his first name. She'd also learned through the grapevine that the Potter boy was practically a self-proclaimed celebrity. Most of the girls at Hogwarts adored him, swooned over his smile and hazel eyes, and threw themselves at him in hopes of getting a date. The worst part was that he took advantage of every opportunity. Did this boy not sound arrogant?
Lily found the desperate girls and the self-obsessed boy pathetic and had never given Potter a second glance, which had led her friends to believe it would be incredibly funny to dare Lily to kiss him. Ha-bloody-ha; was she the only one not laughing? She tried to control her gag reflexes. She vouched to never agree to play Truth or Dare again…
"You could have waited for an autograph back in the common room."
Clutching her racing heart, Lily jumped and spun around for about the second time that day. "P-Potter," she stuttered out, calling him by his last name because she didn't know his first.
A lopsided smile spread across his features as he ruffled his already messy black hair. He leaned against a tree casually, his arms crossed across his chest. "Evans." Nodding off to her, he placed his broomstick beside him tenderly, as if it were his most prized possession.
So, he only knew her last name as well. Now she didn't feel completely stupid. Actually, screw that. She felt completely foolish. How was she supposed to just plant one on him when they weren't even on a first name basis? She didn't want to be known as some…scarlet woman for Merlin's sake.
Just do it. Just walk over towards him and get it over with.
While her mind seemed to know what to do, her feet didn't. It was as if her brain signals weren't reaching her feet quick enough as she tried to move forward to get closer towards him. Before she knew what was happening, her left foot had somehow gotten stuck on the hem of her robes and she felt herself lose her balance. Shrieking in a very undignified manner, she began flailing her arms about as she felt her feet leave the firm ground. The next thing she knew she was inhaling the sweet smell of dirt and moldy grass.
Potter jumped back, clearly startled, and looked down at the girl who had just practically tripped at his feet. His mouth twitched. "Are you alright?" he asked, trying to contain his laughter as the corners of his mouth fought to turn upward into a grin.
Lily could only imagine how ridiculous she looked. Attempting to keep her blush at a bare minimum, Lily jumped to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster under the current situation. "Just peachy," she replied defiantly, smoothing her robes out. The nerve of him! He hadn't even offered to help her off of the ground and he had the nerve to laugh at her. Maybe he was just as conceited as she thought him to be.
The dare; don't forget about the dare.
Lily scowled at the voice in her head that oddly sounded like Marlene's. If she had had enough sense she would have simply walked away and forgotten about the dare altogether. Yet, being fourteen, Lily still believed that under no circumstances could you turn down a dare. She didn't quite fancy being called 'a chicken' for the rest of her life. Darn young teenage antics.
She glanced at the bespectacled boy and suddenly felt a huge urge to hex the smirk right off of his face. "I know I'm incredibly good at Quidditch and all, but…" he began, grinning at her as if she were highly amusing, "there's no need to fall down at my feet like I'm some sort of god."
Ew. Gag reflexes. Who did this kid think he was? "I tripped, you dung beetle," Lily retorted, brushing her hair out of her face. If anyone knew Lily, they understood that the Muggle-born witch wasn't some prissy, shy girl. No, Lily Evans spoke her mind.
Surprising Lily, Potter's smile widened. "Dung beetle? Now, that's one I've never heard before. Though I'll take that as a compliment—" his eyes twinkled happily as Lily shot him a half confused, half disgusted look—"some foreign tribes worship dung beetles, you know."
Was there no end to his witty, arrogant remarks? It would be much easier for her to go through with her dare if he would just shut his large mouth. Her deep emerald eyes narrowed, observing him as if he were some ugly blast-ended skrewt that stood in her way, which in a sense he was.
The boy was tall and lanky, like someone had attempted to stretch him out in a short period of time. His face was handsome, however, adorned with his black fringe and round-rimmed glasses. But, Lily wasn't like normal girls, and just because he did have the potential to be, dare she say it, good looking, Lily couldn't help but hate the guy.
She must have been glaring at him for too long, for Potter ruffled up his hair again. "Did you wait out here just to ogle at me?"
Cringing, Lily fought the impulse to pick up his precious broomstick and shove it somewhere highly unpleasant. "No," she said through gritted teeth, her blood pressure rising. Red heads did have a knack of inheriting short tempers.
"So, you're to tell me that you just normally go around staring at guys." He winked at her and Lily felt her fingers itching to wrap themselves around her wand.
"I wasn't staring," she heard herself fighting back. Honestly, she hadn't been looking; she had merely been sizing him up.
Giving her a look of disbelief, Potter eyed her. "You weren't?" he said sarcastically.
"No."
"No, you weren't staring? Or no, you were staring?"
Somehow her fists had rolled themselves into stiff balls. "I bloody wasn't staring!"—he raised her eyebrows at her—"I was glaring."
"What's the difference?" Potter asked innocently, twirling his wand around between his fingers while keeping his eyes on her.
Did he just like to annoy her? They had just met, only talked for about five minutes, and already his life goal seemed to be to drive her crazy? "Staring has different implications than glaring."
He looked at her with mock interest. "Do explain."
Wanting nothing more than to slap him, Lily tried hard to keep her angry growl confined in her throat. "Staring usually means that a person is checking another person—Oh, this is ridiculous," Lily said, throwing her hands up in the air.
"I knew you'd give in."
Disgusted to the bone, Lily frowned noticeably, her foot tapping distractedly as if to help her release her anger. A few seconds passed where both of them simply stared at each other, interpreting who would do what next. Potter simply stood coolly at complete ease with the world while Lily could have sworn that a second longer in this boy's company and steam would begin bellowing out of her ears.
Slowly—and painfully, she might add—she realized that she still had to go through with her dare. Surely her heart was going to jump out of her chest, not out of nervousness but out of the sheer need to run away as far as possible from Potter. Breathing deeply, and knowing that the sooner she did it the quicker she could get away, Lily carefully placed one of her feet in front of the other. After she didn't trip again, she continued until she was a mere inches away from him.
His hazel eyes widened from behind his glasses as he looked at her, the smirk that had been apparent on his face flickering on and off. "Just…stand there," she ordered him as she scrunched her eyes shut out of disgust. Pretending she was anywhere but there, Lily reached out and grabbed his shoulders forcefully, pulling him closer.
I hate my friends. I hate my friends.
It all happened so fast that he wouldn't have been able to get away if he had wanted to. Her lips met his and she quickly kissed him, their lips only touching for not more that two seconds. The sudden action must have caught him off guard, because she had kissed him, pushed him away, and put a few feet in distance between them before he had reacted whatsoever.
Incredibly embarrassed, and extremely grossed out, Lily averted his gaze. Without looking at him, she quickly stooped down to pick her discarded book-bag off of the ground and swung it over her shoulder. She promptly turned to walk away before Potter had finally gotten control over his voice.
"The name's James," he called out as if she had passed some sort of test and could now have the privilege of knowing his first name.
Desperately wanting to get back to her dorm and dunk her head in a tub of very soapy, scorching hot water—or maybe some other strong cleaning chemical—Lily turned around to stare incredulously at him. He smirked back, resuming his original position of leaning casually against the tree as if some random girl hadn't just forcefully kissed him.
"Pull your head out of your conceited thoughts, Potter," she exclaimed, deliberately not using his first name. Something that looked oddly like a look of surprise washed across James's features before it quickly disappeared. It was almost as if he'd never been insulted by a girl (which, Lily realized, he probably hadn't) and therefore he didn't know how to react to such a catastrophe.
Quickly regaining his composure for someone who had never experienced a turn down before, his smirk widened. "Maybe if I was a bit more conceited I wouldn't have realized that that was probably the worst kiss of my life," he retorted easily, straightening his glasses.
There was a silence in which James clearly thought that he had won their little argument (or whatever you wanted to call it). "I'm glad we understand each other, then" Lily finally replied, her tone controlled and completely calmed.
Flabbergasted, James's mouth dropped open for a split second as he watched the red head walk away. Lily couldn't help but smile widely as she turned her back on him. She guessed that no one had ever gotten the last word in with Potter before. James Potter always had the last say in everything, but it appeared that Lily had just beaten him by ending the conversation. Extremely proud with herself, Lily waltzed back towards the castle happily, leaving a very confused boy staring at her retreating figure.
James Potter, Quidditch Chaser galore, had just met his match.
Alright, readers are free to go now. Thanks for reading and tune in later for the next chapter! (Most likely sometime next week.)
Have a wonderful day and please review!
--HeyLookTheSnitch