Coercive Measures

By Dimantrien

Summary: For years, Lily and James shared a mutual enmity that was never lost between them…but what if they were forcibly dragged, kicking and screaming, into romance? Makes for quite an interesting relationship, don't you think? -

A/N – You've heard the same old story—Lily and James loathe each other to the deepest pits of hell, but after a lot of coincidental encounters, they start to think, hey, he's/she's not so bad after all…and then they fall in love and live happily ever after. Or at least, until Voldemort merrily goes to murder them, the psychotic git. Well then…I guess the plot of my fic applies that same succession of events, but then again, isn't that why it's called love/hate? With the ever-growing number of Harry Potter fan fiction, it takes a brilliant and creative mind to churn out an idea that is, in its entirety, original. So, I've decided to try out something wherein Harry Potter's pater and mater create quite a hilarious spectacle by being coerced into more-than-platonic relations. I might not be up to scratch with originality, but innovation still counts for something, doesn't it?

Dedicated to all the lovely people who read and supported my other fics…and to those who pointed out that I hadn't been writing L/J stories lately…hehe, you know who you are! XP

The idea of this story was inspired by Meia's HemuLoki MLR fic. Cheers to her.

Chapter 1: Rumor Mills (in which Lily and James find out that denial doesn't get anybody anywhere)

It was yet another typical September day in Hogwarts. The ceiling of the Great Hall perfectly depicted the raging storm outside. Students who had Care of Magical Creatures as their first class were rejoicing the cancellation of that day's lesson, and were heading back to their respective dormitories to have a bit of a lie-in. Others, who weren't as lucky (especially those who had Potions in the freezing dungeons first period), were left in the Hall, eating their breakfast with eyes half-closed. As it was still the first week of class, students were still adjusting to the early waking time.

Except for one student. This person confidently strolled into the Great Hall, hazel eyes wide awake and alert behind his glasses, a smug smirk curling at the corner of his lips. He was carrying something behind his back, heading in the direction of the Gryffindor table, or more specifically, toward a red-headed girl sitting with her friends. He caught bits of their conversation as he neared.

"Your head's in your toast, Midori," Raine Sumner was saying, her pale blue eyes shining with amusement as she addressed the girl beside her and across the redhead.

Midori mumbled something in a language that her two companions couldn't quite decipher—or maybe it was just gibberish. She raised her head slightly, a few crumbs clinging to her shoulder-length black hair. She blinked, as if just realizing where she was. "Yeah, well, this plate's kinda soft."

Raine raised an eyebrow at her and the redhead laughed. "Do you want birds to make a nest out of your hair? You do realize that McGonagall's making us do cross-species switches today, and she's bringing ravens to class," Raine said dryly, swatting at the Oriental girl's hair in an attempt to shake off the bread crumbs.

"I don't remember her saying anything like that, and I would assume that you don't either, as we were both busy trying to exorcise that mad ferret we were supposed to turn into a squirrel," Midori replied, gingerly picking up her toast and taking a bite.

"Unlike you, I actually listen to what the teachers are saying, no matter how horrendously boring it might be, and I definitely heard McGonagall saying that—right, Lily?" Raine prompted, glancing at the redhead.

Lily opened her mouth to respond, and at that moment the hazel-eyed boy behind her stepped forward, cutting her off and making the trio look up at him.

"Good morning, ladies," he said pleasantly, his eyes roaming over all of them before settling on Lily, whose mouth had curled into a scowl.

"'Morning, James," Raine and Midori said in unison, at the same time Lily coolly asked, "What are you up to now, Potter?" Her two friends exchanged weary looks and resumed eating.

"Why do you always assume that I'm planning something terrible?" James asked, a look of feigned hurt on his face.

"It probably has something to do with the smug expression that seems to be permanently glued on your face."

"He doesn't look so smug to me," Midori remarked, and Lily shot her a "not helping" look.

James grinned at Midori before looking back at Lily. "You should really learn to keep that temper of yours in check, Evans. Anyway, I just came here to give you this," he said in what seemed to be genuine sincerity. He was holding out a red heart-shaped cardboard box.

Lily glared at the box as if it had the hidden intention of biting her hand off once she touched it. The bespectacled boy before her shoved it into her arms before she could protest. He could hear her counting quietly under her breath. When she reached 100 (and when it seemed like half the school had glued their inquisitive eyes onto the two sworn enemies who were caught in a rather unusual Valentine's Day-like scene), she opened the box and predictably, there was chocolate inside. The note on the label read "strawberry-filled."

The redhead forced a smile. "Potter, you shouldn't have."

"Oh, don't worry about it. I wanted you to have it."

"No, you really shouldn't have. How did you know I was allergic to strawberries?"

James smirked, letting fall his innocent façade. "I have my sources," he replied, apparently pleased with himself. He turned around and walked off, calling over his shoulder, "Enjoy the chocolate!" with an arrogant wink.

Lily threw a withering glare after him, all in futility as he already had his back to her. She tossed the offending "gift" rather roughly onto the table and huffily sat back down. "I hate that git," she muttered as Midori grabbed the box and started devouring its strawberry-filled contents.

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"Hey, did you hear about Potter and Evans?"

"Yeah, saw them this morning…"

"I never expected—"

"No way, those two are always at each other's throats…"

"He gave her chocolates…"

"Well, they do spend quite a lot of time together, come to think of it."

"Right. And 99.9% of that time is spent shouting and throwing hexes at the other so…"

"I guess there's a first time for everything."

"I can't believe we hadn't noticed it until now…"

"They make a cute couple though, don't they?"

"I knew there was a reason they always stayed behind during the prefect meetings…"

"Potter and Evans what?"

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Lily was starting to become peeved with the constant whispering that commenced whenever she passed by. It felt a lot like a gust of hot wind brushing through her skin accompanied with simultaneous hissing, and after her little encounter with James, it would suffice to say that she was royally pissed off. The thing that riled her up even more was the fact that she had no idea what the hell everyone was talking about, and for what godforsaken reason it had anything to do with her.

Occasionally, though, she would receive a knowing smile from random people in the hallways. Some girls, whom she immediately recognized as Potter's worshippers, greeted her with a death glare instead. She was sure she hadn't done anything to deserve that…yet. She didn't recall disfiguring any part of Potter's person in the past few days, nor anything else that might merit her a fresh black mark on their records.

Her temper was at its limit, she knew, but she couldn't blow up at just anyone, so she decided to go straight to the source to let it all out. She spotted Potter coming out of the Ancient Runes classroom, surrounded by fellow seventh year students.

"Congratulations, James," a blonde girl in pigtails whom Lily recognized as a Ravenclaw was saying, nodding in James' direction before heading on her way.

"Yeah, didn't know you had it in you," a guy from Hufflepuff added, grinning at him.

"Gee, thanks," James replied, obviously basking in all the attention.

As Lily neared them, a cocky guy from Ravenclaw glanced at her, smirked, then slapped James on the back. "Potter, you lucky dog." The rest of the group became aware of Lily's presence, and after a few more congratulatory claps on James' shoulder, they dispersed, some of them winking at Lily as they passed.

Lily couldn't take it anymore and went up to James, grabbing a fistful of his tie and forcing his face to be level with hers. "What the hell did you do?!" she screamed at him, unable to mask her extreme irritation any further.

James looked honestly confused, though that didn't stop his face from forming into a scowl when he was so rudely forced to uncomfortably stoop down (he was a lot taller than the redhead, after all) to Lily's convenience. "I didn't do anything to you!" he replied defensively. He paused. "At least, not since this morning."

"Well, that probably has something to do with it!" Lily shrieked, thoroughly annoyed with his clueless expression.

"Something to do with what?"James asked, starting to become annoyed himself. Why was he still stooping down, anyway? He quickly straightened up when a wide-eyed fourth year Hufflepuff saw them within three inches of each other's face.

"Are you an idiot? Why is everybody whispering whenever I step within a five-meter radius of them? Why do they keep throwing me winks? Why do they give me sly looks when they think I'm not looking?!"

James made a huffing sound as he straightened his tie. "I don't see why I should be solving your problems. I'm sorry if you have some trouble dealing with paranoia and your absurd insecurities, but really, you didn't need to confide in me," he said sarcastically.

"Don't play dumb with me, Potter. I know you have something to do with this. Why else would everybody congratulate you?" Lily demanded.

This time James looked genuinely puzzled. "As a matter of fact, I was just wondering myself."

"You mean you don't know why they're congratulating you?" Lily asked incredulously. The raven-haired boy shook his head. "Then why do you keep thanking them when you have no bloody clue what they're talking about?!"

James shrugged. "What? It's only polite."

Lily threw her hands up in the air. "Ugh! You—are—a—complete—moron," she seethed. After a moment, wherein she appeared to be muttering a mantra under her breath (James could barely hear it, but it sounded a lot like "I will nothex stupid prats, I will not hex stupid prats…"), she took a deep breath and roughly grabbed the cuff of James' sleeve, dragging him down the corridor.

"What are you doing? Let go of me," James demanded, unable to pry off her tight grip on his school robes.

"I'm going to try to get to the bottom of this, and if I'm going to suffer for it, then you should, too," was her reply.

"Oh so sadistic," James remarked sardonically, giving up on trying to pull away from her, and ignoring the fact that he was succumbing to his worst rival's wishes.

By lunchtime, in the Great Hall, Lily Evans and James Potter found out that they were dating.

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"So, Stebbins, remind me why you were congratulating me again?" James asked the Hufflepuff, prompted by Lily's fixed glare on him.

Jonathan Stebbins looked at him as if he were asking the obvious. "Why, to congratulate you on your relationship, of course," he responded plainly.

"Whose?" James asked, baffled.

"Yours," Stebbins said, looking like he was fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

James couldn't understand. "Er…who?"

"You," the Hufflepuff answered again.

"With who?" Lily stepped in, her temper starting to flare again.

Stebbins stared at her for a moment before his face broke into a grin. "Come on, you don't need to hide it. This isn't the kind of thing people like you two should be so modest about. 'Sides, the whole school knows already; did you really think you could keep something this big from everyone?"

There was a deadly silence, before…

"WHAT?!"

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All eyes followed the spectacle of Lily Evans dragging James Potter by the tie as they exited the Great Hall.

"Wow. Evans seems to be really in control of things, doesn't she?" a sixth year remarked to his friend.

"She's a feisty one. But I reckon that's the way Potter likes it."

"The great James Potter on a leash? I don't think so. Must be a constant battle for dominance…"

"They'll probably still be at each other's throats. Restraint isn't exactly one of their strong points."

"….. Did you mean that literally or figuratively?"

"Don't even go there."

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Nothing was going well for James that day. Well, maybe he got a moment's satisfaction from seeing the look on Evans' face when he gave her that box of chocolate, but he was really starting to regret that now. Especially since one of the adverse results included being dragged around by his tie. Oh, and being mistaken for Evans' suitor-turned-lover. By Merlin, was all of Hogwarts blind or just plain stupid?

"Ow!" he yelped as Lily gave a particularly hard tug. "Will you stop doing that? I can walk by myself just fine, you know." He finally wrenched her hand off his tie and started massaging his aching throat, muttering about hot-tempered redheads with homicidal tendencies.

"What are we going to do?" said redhead exclaimed, panic laced in her voice. "I don't want to be paired up with you. This is all your fault, Potter!"

"Do you think I'm happy about it? Who wants to be stuck with a wench like you?" James retorted, still sour from the abuse on his poor neck.

"If you hadn't pulled that stupid stunt of yours this morning, we wouldn't be having this problem in the first place," Lily shot back. She looked out over the lake and seemed to be pondering whether she should jump in or not.

"You don't need to be so melodramatic about this, Evans. All we need to do is tell everybody the truth, then we can go back to hating each other in peace," James said.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Since when did I stop detesting you, anyway? Come on, let's just get this over with so I can rid my mind of all the horrific images involving both of us in more than platonic terms."

James couldn't suppress a smirk. "Why, I never knew that you think about me that way, Evans," he remarked slyly. "Maybe those rumors aren't entirely off-base—"

Lily calmly pocketed her wand again after performing the Silencing Charm, shooting James a look of utter disdain before stalking back to the castle. After James' highly amusing mime imitation (which involved a lot of furious flaying of arms and rude hand gestures), she finally muttered the countercurse. After all, he wouldn't be able to help her talk to the other students about their preposterous presumptions if he didn't get his voice back.

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"We aren't going out."

"Yeah, for once she finally said something right—ow, Evans!"

"Where was I before this pighead interrupted? Oh yeah, so you see, this is all just a big misunderstanding…"

"Pretty obvious, just look at what she did to my foot! Would any sane girl do that to me?!"

"…You are such a weakling, Potter. Stop acting like a wimp and say what we really came here for."

"Obnoxious co—ouch, what the bloody hell did you do that for?! Er, as this bi—I mean, beautiful cough girl was saying, we are not dating, never have been dating and never will date anytime in the near-and-far-off future. Okay?"

"……….."

"……….."

"Er, is something wrong, you two? Sorry if this idiot isn't making any sense, but I assure you that everything I said was completely true…so…you'll help us spread the word, right?"

"……….."

"……….."

"What is wrong with you fourth years? Is there something you didn't understand with what we just said?! Oh, and let me just correct you that contrary to Evans' twisted belief, everything she says isn't exactly true…like that comment about me being an idiot… Don't think I didn't resent that, Evans…"

"Don't scare them away! Oh, you two, don't listen to this git… And I wasn't lying when I said you were an idiot, Potter… In more ways than one—"

"What did you say?! Take that back, wench!"

"I'm not going to take back something that's true! And don't you call me a wench!"

"Ha, who's denying what she really is, now? You—AAAAGHHHH! You'll pay for that—"

"……….."

"……….."

"Wow, I didn't know there was a spell that could make crickets come out of your ears!"

"Shut up, Livingston, and let's get out of here before we get caught in the crossfire…"

"You don't think they were serious about what they told us, do you?"

"It's called lovers' quarrel, you dolt. Look it up."

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"Any more bright ideas?"

Lily and James were both lying down on beds in the hospital wing, both with misshapen body parts to some degree. The school nurse had managed to get rid of most of the curses but James was still nursing a limp extra arm attached to his right shoulder, and Lily was occupied with trying to ward off the bright red snakes that mingled with her hair.

James scowled. "Well, at least I had an idea."

"Yes, but if the result of that idea meant being stuck here like this, then maybe it would have been better if you hadn't gotten the idea at all."

"I don't see you thinking of anything, Miss I-Know-Everything-You-Insignificant-Scum-Go-Bow-Before-My-Feet."

"How…creative, Potter. Have any more interesting titles to share? Unfortunately for you, I have developed immunity against your childish pseudonyms since fifth year. You'd be wasting your breath, but if you want me to have a good laugh, then go right on ahead."

"…..I really, really hate you, Evans."

"The feeling's mutual, Potter."

They were silent for a while, until Madame Clementine came bustling in, dumping a horrid-looking potion on Lily's locks which instantly killed the snakes (and almost Lily, too, from the smell) and dissolved them. She then proceeded to amputate James' extra arm with a complicated wrist action and a swish of her wand. "Scourgify," she muttered, pointing at Lily's dripping hair, and simultaneously a bottle of shampoo and two seemingly invisible hands started rinsing the top of Lily's head, washing the goo off and emitting a sweet scent.

"Having fun, Evans?" James remarked with a sadistic grin as he watched Lily wincing.

Lily glowered at him, but it was kind of hard to look intimidating when her hair was piled up on her head, topped with running shampoo foam. Her ridiculous situation elicited a snigger from the raven-haired boy. She threw her wand expertly at him, hitting his nose dead center.

"OW!"

"Can you stop goofing off now? In case you forgot, we still have a huge problem on our hands, and you're not helping."

James sobered up and looked thoughtful for a moment. "D'you think, if we pushed them hard enough, they'd believe us and stop acting like rumor-hungry gossipmongers who don't leave our personal lives alone?"

"Potter, they always act like rumor-hungry gossipmongers who don't leave our personal lives alone," Lily replied sarcastically.

"Yeah, but…they're bound to lose interest in this rumor soon… I mean, they have no basis and you don't seriously think they actually think that we're going out…"

Lily groaned. "You never fail to remind me why I call you an idiot."

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A/N – Like it? Hate it? Oh I thought so… In any case, be a good reader and review…