We were the last students to arrive at the station, for obvious reasons. As soon as we boarded the train, I could sense that there was something wrong. There seemed to be a lot of commotion coming from the compartments up front. Frowning, I left my trunk with the lads in an empty compartment and made my way to the one where the prefects were supposed to be sitting. Opening the door, I immediately caught sight of what was causing the problem.

The Slytherin prefects were standing at one side of the compartment, all the others on the other. As I opened the door, the room fell silent for a while, then a small, mousy Slytherin boy spoke. ‘Oh, look, it’s Potter, the Mudblood lover.’

I felt my blood begin to boil, and was in half a mind to punch the stupid grin off his face, but as I started walking towards him, I felt a cool hand on my forearm. Looking around, I locked my gaze with the stony glare of Lily Evans. ‘Don’t make it any worse,’ she said quietly, in a voice that was cold and controlled, but trembling a little. I stopped dead in my tracks and she cleared her throat.

‘Alright, everyone, we seem to be having a… situation here,’ she said in the same voice. I noticed her hand was shaking a little as she tucked it into her pocket. ‘I think we need to work this out, seeing how we’re supposed to be role models for the rest of the student body.’ A few of the Slytherins sniggered. I saw Lily tense, and my will to punch someone grew stronger. She seemed to be able to control herself, however. ‘Right,’ she said, voice shaking a little more now. ‘Girls, come with me, the boys can stay here.’

‘What makes you think we’d take orders from a Mudblood like you?’ a dark-haired Slytherin girl said harshly.

‘She’s Head Girl, that’s what,’ I said before I could stop myself.

‘I can manage this myself, Potter,’ Lily said coldly. ‘Anyone who doesn’t step into the next compartment with me right now will have fifty house points taken and enough detention to last until Easter, do I make myself clear?’ The Slytherin girls grudgingly followed her out the door, and I was left with the boys and a horrible, sinking feeling in my stomach.

Potter?

***

‘So, let me get this straight. You and Evans were working, and all of a sudden she just snogged you?’ Sirius asked, incredulous, as we were sitting in my bedroom later that night. I nodded dully. Alright, so I had left out a few parts, such as how I had technically kissed her long before she had kissed me, but he didn’t need to know that. ‘And then she called you James?’

‘Yes,’ I said exasperatedly. I had told him this over half an hour ago, in hopes to get his opinion on why she would regress to calling me Potter, but Sirius’s mind seemed to have stuck on the detail that she had kissed me.

‘And you didn’t tell me? Instead, you let me make a fool out of myself by asking you if you were alright?’

‘Look, would you let that go?’ I said, and cringed at the desperation in my voice. ‘Why the hell would she call me Potter today?’

Sirius shrugged. ‘Maybe she was just stressed; it’d make sense with all of what was going on.’

‘Or,’ I said glumly, ‘she’s decided that last night was a horrible mistake and never wants to speak to me again.’

‘That could also be it,’ Sirius admitted. ‘Did she act as though she hates you?’

My head flew up. ‘Hates me? D’you reckon she does?’

Sirius didn’t answer. He was glaring up at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought. ‘Maybe she was drunk last night,’ he muttered. ‘I mean, there has to be a logical explanation to why she would kiss you.’ I just stared at him in quiet despair. This wasn’t helping. At all.

***

I spent the next few days fretting over what Lily’s calling me Potter meant, and then I realised that I had something else to fret about, and started fretting even more.

Should I send her a Christmas present or not?

I mean, I hadn’t gotten her anything fancy to begin with, just some assorted sweets that I knew she liked and a bottle of colour-changing ink, but if she hated me, she wouldn’t want me to send her anything at all, would she?

‘You’re going to wear out the floor if you don’t stop pacing soon,’ my mother said irritably as I walked past the kitchen for the fiftieth time that day. ‘Sit down, would you?’ I ignored her and walked up the stairs, where she couldn’t see my pacing. The house was quiet; my dad was out running some Christmas errands, mum was baking and Sirius was outside, working on his motorbike again, even though it was raining. So much for a white Christmas.

The thing was, if she had indeed just been stressed and did want to keep on snogging me, sweets and ink wasn’t really an impressive gift, was it? I mean, it wasn’t exactly one of those romantic gifts that made girls swoon and fall head over heels in love with someone.

‘Still thinking about whether to send Evans her gift, are you?’ I jumped at least a foot into the air.

‘Dammit, Sirius, don’t do that,’ I said, hand over my chest. ‘One of these days you’re going to give me a heart attack.’

Sirius grinned at me, his cheeks flecked with motor oil. ‘I don’t see what the problem is.’

‘The problem?’ I said rather loudly, not believing my ears. ‘The problem is that I don’t even know if Lily wants me to send her a present at all, since for all I know, she might like me as much as she likes tripe.’ I drew a deep breath. ‘Maybe she was just feeling lonely and wanted to snog anyone, and she knew I wouldn’t say no,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘What was that?’ Sirius asked, tilting his head to the side.

‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘And if she doesn’t hate me, and wasn’t drunk, she’ll hardly be impressed by some dry ice mice and some old ink, and then she’ll start to like me as much as she likes tripe anyway,’ I said, slumping my shoulders. Talk about a lose-lose situation.

Sirius stared at me for a moment while wiping his hands on his cloak. ‘Don’t be such a drama queen, Jim,’ he then said, throwing his oily cloak at me. ‘Besides, what I meant was that I don’t see what the problem with me giving you a heart attack is,’ he added as he walked into the bathroom.

***

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