"I HATE POTTER!" could be heard even in the common room that night, louder than the students' chattering. A couple of first years shifted uncomfortably in their seats, the second years eagerly looked around to see the victim's expression, while the third years and above simply shrugged the matter off. After all, it was common knowledge within Hogwarts that the Head Girl despised the Head Boy, so these words were hardly new.

Lily Evans sat on her bed with her chest heaving and her face red from her sudden outburst of rage, while her best friend Mary Macdonald calmly snacked on a sugar wand beside her. Neither girls were aware of nor cared that the rest of the House had heard.

The other witch waved the sugar wand in Lily's face. "You know, if you list everything bad about James Potter in alphabetical order, you'll feel better," Mary suggested. "At least, that's what Mum always told me to do when I have issues with certain gits in this school. Excluding James Potter, that is." She accentuated the last comment, knowing how much her tolerance for the Head Boy bothered her friend. To be frank, Mary actually thought that the two would make an excellent couple, if only Lily would admit her feelings...

Lily stared at Mary for what seemed like forever before finally agreeing, "That might not be a bad idea. Well, here goes nothing..." taking a deep breath to calm herself and sort her thoughts, she began Mary's challenge: "Potter is annoying, bothersome, cute—"

"Cute?" Mary repeated, raising her eyebrows as she caught the adjective. Cute and Potter had never been heard escaping from Lily's mouth at the same time, except for the time when she had rejected Potter's asking her out by claiming that Cedric Diggory was cute ("Diggory is ten times cuter than you, Potter!"). For her to say something like this...

Face flushing red, Lily snapped, "No! That's not what I meant! Argh, I meant crazy! Crazy! I mean, he practices Quidditch even in the rain! Or snow! What kind of person with a normal mind would do something like that?"

"That's boys for you," Mary answered with a shrug, slightly disappointed. "They're all like that, Lily."

"Anyway! Moving on! Distracting—"

"Distracting?" Mary echoed. "Really, Lily, anyone would say that you've actually fallen in love with the boy."

Lily felt her body shake as she replied furiously, "I have not, Mary! He distracts me as in I can't focus because he's constantly bugging me! And if I can't focus, I can't study! If I can't study, I can't get a perfect score! If I can't get a perfect score—"

"Okay, okay, I get the point!" Mary cut her friend off. She half-smiled. You really are hopeless, Lily. "Continue on, please."

Lily shot her a glare. "Egregious, flamboyant, git—"

Mary interrupted her for what seemed like the umpteenth time. "Git isn't an adjective, Lily."

"Gloating, then. Satisfied?" Lily said. "Impeccable—" Mary opened her mouth again, but at Lily's warning look, she closed her mouth and gestured for her friend to continue. "Judgmental..."

At this, Mary couldn't stop herself from speaking, "Why judgmental?"

"Because, Mary, haven't you seen how biased he is? How he treats those poor Hufflepuffs and Slytherins?"

"Not anymore," Mary corrected. "Haven't you seen how he has changed?"

For once, Lily was at a lost for words. After what seemed like forever, she agreed softly enough so Mary wouldn't hear, "You're right." He had changed. He hadn't even asked her out once since the beginning of their last year, for Merlin's sake! Lily secretly admitted that she missed those times. Feeling her face heat up again, she changed the subject back to adjectives, but for the life of her couldn't think of a 'K' one that described Potter: "K...K..."

"Kingly?" offered Mary.

Not that Potter was a king or anything, but Lily nodded nonetheless. "I suppose," she said, "he strolls around like he owns the place. So kingly it is! But he hasn't done that this year, has he?" She had to confirm it, because otherwise her brain (which was quite used to Potter's past behavior) would never be able to comprehend this fact.

"Nope," Mary said, and resumed licking her sugar wand while Lily continued with "Lame...he is lame, Mary! Have you seen those stupid pranks he's done in the past? I mean, remember that time when...when...oh, what was it? I can't bloody remember!"

She cursed under her breath while Mary looked on with amusement. "Just admit that his pranks were pretty clever, Lily."

"I will admit that his pranks are clever the day I fall in love with Potter!" Lily declared, clenching her hand into a fist in determination. She irritably batted Mary's comment of "Which will be soon, I hope?" away with a wave of her hand. "Now, where were we? M! Oh, right! Okay, so Potter is m...muscular..." she trailed off as she realized her mistake and covered her mouth with her hands, as though she couldn't believe she had uttered those very words.

Mary had the most evilest glint in her eye as Lily stuttered, "N-No! What I meant was...manly! Argh, no! I meant malicious! He's pranked Sev so many times in the past few years, he must want to join You-Know-Who or something!"

"If you say so, Lily," was Mary's only reply.

Embarrassed, Lily hid her face in her pillow until Mary prodded her. "We're barely halfway through the alphabet," she pointed out when Lily shot her an annoyed look.

"I'm barely halfway through the alphabet," she snorted. "N's easy, as Potter's a nuisance. But for 'o'...hmm, outrageous? Wait, no, obdurate is better! He has never stopped asking me out until now, and I sort of miss it, but..."

Uh-oh. Lily had made yet another mistake. She moaned and stared at her friend. "Please don't laugh at me, Mary," she begged.

Mary smiled, rubbing her hands in excitement at this newfound knowledge. "Look at you, Lily, head-over-heals in love with James Potter. JUST ADMIT IT ALREADY!" she roared the last bit, earning a terrified yelp from Lily as she moved away from the noise.

Lily hurriedly shook her head. "N-Not on your life! He's the last person I would fall in love with!"

"If you just accept the fact, I'll buy you a pack of sugar wands? Please?" Mary batted her eyelashes at Lily.

"NOOOOOO!" Lily screamed, and this could be heard below in the common room, too.

"Well, who knew you can make such an awful noise, Evans?"

Mary's jaw dropped while Lily shrieked and fell off her bed, right into the arms of the devil.

Well, right into the arms of James Potter, as they were just discussing him.

Sirius Black stood beside him, a smirk on his face as he went on, "You were making such interesting noises I just had to come and see what was going on myself. So, tell me, Flower, what in Merlin's name were you doing?"

Lily scowled at the nickname. "How big is your ego now, Black? How many times do I have to tell you not to call me 'Flower'? And, for your information, I was looking for words that...that..." she trailed off, refusing to reveal what she and Mary were doing to the two Marauders. Especially because it was about James Potter, and James Potter was standing right there. He was bloody everywhere.

"Rhymes with Hogwarts! Yeah, that's it!" Mary jumped in, saving Lily from dying of embarrassment. Lily, however, was wishing that she herself had come up with such a brilliant excuse.

Lily suddenly discovered that she was still in Potter's arms, and with another shriek jerked away from him and back onto her bed.

"But there aren't any words that rhyme with Hogwarts," said James, looking slightly puzzled as he ruffled his hair. Lily hated it when he did that—it drove her crazy. "I was rather curious about it myself, so I asked Dumbledore once. He said the only thing which sort of rhymed with Hogwarts is Pigfarts, but he had absolutely no idea what that meant."

Lily desperately wanted to kick the two boys out so she could finish her list. With a jolt, she remembered that they had somehow entered the girls' dormitory, which had magically enchanted stairs to prevent boys from sneaking up. "Hold on a minute, you two. How did you get up here in the first place?" she asked suspiciously.

The two exchanged a guilty glance (at least they acted like they did something wrong!) before Potter held up his broomstick. "We flew," he said innocently. Lily began to speak, but he cut her off with, "I came because I wanted to discuss Head matters with you, Evans. Ignore what Padfoot said earlier."

Well, that wasn't something that happened everyday! Lily stared at Potter, dumbfounded, and at last found her voice and pointed accusingly at Black, "Then what is he doing here?"

"I only came to make sure Prongs here didn't get hexed," Black explained with a grin, slapping said boy on the shoulder.

"Come on, Evans. Let's go to the library," said Potter, and held out his hand for her.

Lily shot an uncertain glance at Mary, who nodded back encouragingly. "We'll finish it later!" she mouthed, and hesitantly Lily placed her hand in Potter's.

It felt nice. Pleasant, even.

As Lily trailed after Potter down the stairs into the common room and out of the Gryffindor tower, she finished the list in her head.

Potter is...pleasant, quick-witted, radiant, special, talented, underrated (by me, she admitted reluctantly), vivacious, wonderful...

Merlin, she couldn't think of anything for 'x'. But she really had begun to like the boy, it seemed. I'll have to let Mary know before she dies from worry over my love life...

Disclaimer: Harry Potter owns me.

Just another (pointless) one shot idea that came to my mind one night. Anyway...I won't be able to update my other stories for a while, because I'm writing essays for college. /shot/

But yeah...hope you enjoyed it. Review?