Perfect Prefects

Perfect Prefects

She was beautiful. Astoundingly beautiful.

Especially when she was ripping me a new one.

"I can't BELIEVE you!" Lily Evans, perfect prefect. The copper-haired beauty of Gryffindor had stunning emerald eyes that shined as bright as her newly-polished Prefect badge; I could stare into them for hours, bewitched without the use of any magic charm. "Placing Jelly Legs traps on unsuspecting Hufflepuffs! The school nurse is furious! AND you're a PREFECT, James! You're supposed to be setting an example for younger students, not abusing them like that!"

I merely blinked in response, hardly remembering the tarnished silver "P" attached to my robe's lapel, with a dreamy gaze and a cheesy smile on my face. I wasn't listening at all to what she was saying, but gosh, her lips looked so very pretty when she was furious with me.

Of course, Lily Evans being mad at James Potter and his troublemaking friends was hardly rare; our dangerous yet hilarious pranks were infamous throughout Hogwarts, and Lily couldn't stand what she called so flippantly my "immaturity". And it wasn't like it was difficult to tick Miss Evans off; the perfectionist Prefect was extremely proud of her magical House, and she expected nothing less than excellence from the rest of us, especially a fellow Prefect like myself. Lily Evans was a perfectionist control-freak, and she expected the same from me.

I loved her still, anyway.

I felt a sharp nudge against my shoulder, breaking me out of my trance. I turned around quickly, facing a very serious looking Remus Lupin, giving me a concerned look. Behind him stood our fellow partners in crime, aloof Sirius Black, yawning at Lily's griping, and quivering Peter Pettigrew, who gripped tightly his Potions textbook, disliking any kind of reprimand. The three were paying close attention to the scolding - perhaps for the exception of Sirius, who looked bored enough to perform a Silencius Spell on the redhead - and Remus looked particularly concerned with my non-response to this verbal bashing.

"Are you even listening to me, James?" I whipped my head back towards the sharp biting tone, and spied my scowling beauty standing before me, her milky white arms crossed sternly across her chest. Ah, now her chest...I could spend an eternity staring at her chest, but I'm pretty sure she'd have something to say in protest on the matter.

I blinked - a few times in succession, which is excellent progress for me while my Gryffindor belle was in the room - and smiled, the cheesy grin returning to my face. I did the unthinkable that late afternoon, something not even Sirius had the guts to do. I spoke back to Prefect Lily Evans.

"No, Lily," I said, my voice amazingly even. "I wasn't listening to you at all."

Timid Peter gasped behind me, and I could swear I heard Remus groan. Lily's indescribable emerald green eyes widened with rage, and all four of us sixth-year troublemakers knew she would completely blow her top any moment now. But I was the only one to do something to stop it.

"You have a beautiful name, do you know that?" I chuckled, and said her name again, the letter bouncing off my tongue and floating so melodiously in the air. "Lily." My breath came out almost like a sigh. Speaking to her like this had been a mere fantasy of mine before, and now I was so giddy I felt like I was high up in the heavens on my broomstick, though I knew that my feet were planted firmly on common room ground.

My Lily, however, did not share my joy. "If you think you're going to sweetalk your way out of this, James -" she began furiously, and it looked like she would spout flames from her ears at any given moment.

I interrupted her without skipping a beat. "It fits you rather well, doesn't it?" I asked her. She stopped speaking immediately, and her endlessly emerald eyes widened not out of anger, but of shock. Nonchalantly I began walking towards her, closing the large gap between us. "I mean, sure you have some bouts of peckishness and...foolish anger..." Another gasp from Peter proved I was being stupidly courageous about this, but hey, I wasn't in Gryffindor for nothing! "...but I have seen beyond that. I can see the real you, Lily Evans...and the real you is beautiful."

"W...what are you trying to pull here?" my beauty stuttered, and although she was still standing her harsh Prefect ground her voice was now far from scolding me. I could hear a befuddled Remus whisper "What are you bloody doing, Potter?" behind me, and Sirius's face was undoubtedly in the form of a snicker. I ignored them all, though in the back of my head I knew I would receive the ribbing of a lifetime when this whole escapade was over. I returned my full attentions to Lily, whose elegantly pale face had lost its anger and was now warily staring at me in confusion and disbelief.

I reached into my right pocket and retrieved my wand, my lips still forming my complacent smile. Waving the stick of beechwood over my left hand, I recited gently, "Lilium manifesto," and with a flurry of purple light the thin air over my outstretched palm was replaced with a breathtakingly lovely white lily, glistening like morning dew.

"A beautiful blossom," I said, "for an equally beautiful girl." I presented the flower to her, Lily's stern expression instantly fading, and she took it gingerly from my grasp. She looked completely dumbstruck, and her phoenix red lips formed a small "o" of confusion.

My excellent and knowledgeable friend Sirius, who had on many occasions needed privacy away from his friends in order to make it with some Ravenclaw girl or another (for Sirius was the kind of bloke to enjoy the company of the female Ravenclaws), knew that it was time to bow out. With a few mumbled words to our colleagues (and a playful shove to Remus, who probably wanted to stay and see what would happen next) the three left me alone in the common room with what had to be the most gorgeous girl in all of Hogwarts.

Lily's eyes took a quick glance over at the retreating Gryffindors, and she opened her mouth to speak - most probably to demand their prompt return - with the angry fire in her eyes blazing once more.

Sensing opportunity that my friends never counted on giving to me, I snatched up her scowling mouth and kissed her fast. My lips pressed against her flushed, red ones in a mix of surprise and awkwardness - it wasn't my first kiss, nor did I believe it was Lily's, but for me, it was the only one that meant so much to me before. Kissing Lily Evans was like capturing a goddess in your arms; pure beauty and light, wrapped up in fifty kilograms of milky white skin, soft copper hair and the greenest eyes this side of Hogsmeade. Lily Evans was my goddess, and as I held her in my arms in this kiss, I had captured her.

She had at first struggled against my kiss, startled by my sudden growth of backbone, but that moment was quite short-lived and before you could say "Perfect Prefect" the perfect Prefect was melting in my arms and kissing me back. The prank was long forgotten, and Lily's apparently one-sided argument was absolved with a kiss.

When our lips finally parted, my Lily looked at me with eyes no longer glittering with anger. "Twenty points form Gryffindor," she mumbled, "And you're just lucky I don't report you to Dumbeldore -"

I silenced her once more with a heated kiss, to which she didn't protest at all. Hopefully by the time I was through with her - oh, God, let me never be through with her! - she would forget all about the House points and soon have other things on her perfect Prefect mind.

She truly was astoundingly beautiful.

Especially when she was in my arms.