Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 3 - Manipulation

For the next few hours, the Potter/Evans group worked in silence, glaring at each other once in a while, but otherwise trying hard not to acknowledge each other's existence. Other individuals in the house got into the habit of stopping their conversations whenever Lily or James entered the room. In fact, the whole house was deathly silent for the rest of the day. Well, was deathly silent until around five o'clock that evening; right when everyone though that the horrible day was about to be over.

"Potter!"

"Evans!"

Godric's Hollow seemed to shake as the two cries were hear simultaneously and the entire rest of the house stopped to listen. A few bumps and bangs were heard from the upstairs direction of where the cries came from. They were followed by some muffled yells that seemed to resound through the halls. After about five more minutes of struggling, the noises stopped and everyone watched the staircase with bated breath, waiting to see who would be the survivor.

To everyone's surprise James Potter came down quickly, a scowl on his face and his wand gripped tight in his fingers. His hair was a brilliant neon pink that seemed to blind anyone who looked at it straight on. He also had a cut lip and a black eye. Skipping the last two steps, he jumped down to the ground, stalking towards the door, and slamming it shut behind him.

A few glances were exchanged, but no one dared speak.

Approximately 30 seconds later, Lily Evans calmly walked down the stairs. By her calm face and dignified pose, you would have thought that she was the apparent winner in the battle, but the rest of her appearance told otherwise. Her hair, normally a brilliant red orange, was stripped with a putrid green color and stuck up at odd angles along her head. Her skin was also tainted a bit (a spell which seemed to be wearing off) to a dull blue color that horribly clashed with her complexion. Despite the change in her body color, they could see the blush still in her cheeks as she tried to remain dignified, stepping through their gawking faces and out the door.

As soon as the door clicked shut, all of them ran over to the windows and watched. James had, thankfully, disapperated already. Lily, keeping her dignified stance, walked about 50 meters away (past the non-apparation line) and was gone with a pop.

"Ah, did we have a plan B?" Sirius said with alarm as everyone pulled back and looked at each other with horrified expressions. "'Cause I believe we might have just made it worse."

"Is it possible that those two really weren't made for each other?" Frank said with disdain.

Alice, glared at him crossly with her arms folded. "Way to break the moment Frank."

"Don't you remember how happy both of them were in 7th year?" Remus said with a slight grin.

"Leave it to James to go and ruin a perfect thing," Frank said darkly.

"Don't you dare blame James for what happened!" Sirius shot back. "You weren't even paying attention; it wasn't his fault at all!"

"He was the one who ruined up the Spring Ball..."

"But Lily had told him that she didn't like the theme anyway. I still remember James missing sleep over that fact that she was so unhappy about something. He was trying to cheer her up when he pulled that prank."

"I supposed the fact that she was allergic to bees never crossed his mind," Alice said sighing and flopping down onto one of the kitchen chairs.

There was another bout of silence as everyone tried to think of what to do next. The problem was that they just happened to be working with the two most stubborn people in the world. Everyone there knew that those two were both still head over heels for each other. The problem was getting them to get over their pride.

"We could try the old 6th year trick," Peter put in with a grin.

Sirius also managed a smile. "Unfortunately, that trick only works with 16-year-olds, Wormtail."

"Let's not be hasty," Remus said quickly. "It wouldn't hurt to try. Besides, I think we can all agree that James still acts like he's a 16 year old."

"And that's on a good day," Frank said through a chuckle.

"What do you think Nikkkie?" Siruis said with a half grin, turning to the black haired girl who had, so far, managed to stay out of the conversation.

"I think it's great that you two are trying to get them back together again," she said cautiously. "But I don't quite remember what the 6^th year trick is..."

Sirius' grin widened and he turned to Remus who chuckled a bit.

"Think back to our 6th year Nikkie," Remus said mysteriously. "Remember what got you and Sirius together?"

"Finally," Peter added, smiling.

Nikkie's eyes went wide as she remembered, and they all saw the blush creep onto her face.

"You don't mean that that was...that was you!" she said in accusation. "Boy I thought that luck had just played a bad joke on me!" She rounded on Sirius who put his hands up in defense. "I suppose you knew about this?"

"Actually," Sirius reasoned, "this was one of the few pranks that I did not have a hand in."

"James and I though of it to get you and Sirius together," Remus explained. "A harmless thing, really, if you think about it. But it does manage to get the job done. You and Sirius are living examples of that."

Nikkie seemed to consider this for a moment and finally nodded her head in consent. Grins broke out on everyone's faces and they all started talking at once, their voices rising as they got more and more excited.

"But!" Nikkie yelled loudly over everyone's voices and at once they quieted down to look at her. She was giving them all piercing glares.

"If they kill each other in there, I will disavow all knowledge that I know any of you..."

--*--

The sun was halfway set by the time James reached Perriman Lane where his parents lived. James fumed as he appeared outside his parents home, his mood becoming sulkier as he saw a bunch of silhouettes in the windows of people talking together. He also heard a faint noise of music coming from the house.

Great, just what I need. To walk into my parent's house with a head of neon pink hair during another one of Mom and Dad's brilliant dinner parties...

He raised his wand for a moment, muttering a few words and trying once again to change his hair back, but it still didn't work. He did, however, manage to heal his lip and eye with the healing charms that he had been taught during his first week of training.

"She got you good, didn't she, Potter?"

Started as he was by the sudden visitor, through instinct, James did not jump or even appear startled. His wand smoothly traveled in the direction of the voice and his face remained calm until he saw who the speaker was.

Sighing, James lowered his wand in defeat and scowled in the semi darkness. This was most defiantly not his day.

"Good reflexes, but we still need to work on your attention span." Moody's gravely voice broke through the silence again and James felt even more embarrassment creeping into his system.

"Don't tell me," he said with a hint of annoyance. "that Mother and Father invited you to dinner?"

Moody gave him a crooked and rare smile. "Don't need an Auror to tell you that."

James sighed and ran a hand through his hair, momentarily forgetting its apparent color change and instead, trying to figure out how to explain himself to Moody.

"So if this how you spend your days off from me? Getting in fights with rambunctious young girls?"

James frowned. "Day, Alastor. Singular. Don't let me remind you what I'm doing the other six days of the week. Besides, how do you know it was a girl? Remember that my best friend is Sirius Black."

It had taken James a while to get used to calling the famous Auror by his first name, but Moody had insisted, arguing that it would make his training go smoother if they were more comfortable around each other. James still, however, called him Moody anywhere else.

Moody coughed loudly and hobbled closer to him. "I know a lot Potter, doesn't mean I go blabbing about it to everyone."

James grimaced. Normal conversations with Moody were hard to come by. His trainer had a keen ability to never answer the questions that you want him to and always changed the subject just when you were getting interested in it. But, back talking to Mad-Eye was a hurdle that James wasn't too keen on jumping just yet. Especially not with only a week left of his training.

Instead of answering, James just began walking towards the house. Moody joined him on his right side and they walked in silence till they reached the front porch. James' father, Richard Potter, tall and skinny with his son's same black, unruly hair greeted them there, obviously alerted by Moody's walking stick that clunked up every other step as they climbed the stairs to the front door of the Potter Manor.

"James! Wonderful to see you son!"

James couldn't help but grin as he said his dad and wrapped him in a bear hug. One of the things James treasured was his family and friends. Especially his family, which, in James' opinion, was one of the best you could have.

"Hi dad, how's the party going?"

"Not bad, waiting around for you and Sirius to come and crash it like you did when you were boys," Richard winked at his son and then his grin grew as he saw his hair. "Had a run in with Lily again, didn't you?"

James frowned and shot Moody a dark look. "Why does everyone assume that?"

Instead of answering him, Richard turned to Moody. "Thanks for keeping an eye out for him, Alastor. Goodness knows he can be a handful."

James got the sinking feeling that he was being manipulated. First, Lily Evans manages to curse him, and now no one was answering his questions, not even his father.

"He'll be a great Auror yet." James was pleased to sense a hint of pride in Moody's voice. "As long as he doesn't make any more stupid mistakes."

James' grin dropped and he tuned out the rest of their conversation as he ducked inside, hoping to be able to hurry up the stairs without being seen.

No such luck.

"James! How lovely!"

Gritting back a curse, James turned to see Cathy and Fredrick Lupin, Remus' parents, walking up to him with smiles on their faces. James managed to smile as he shook both their hands as properly as he could with pink hair.

"We didn't know you were going to turn up tonight," Mr. Lupin said brightly. "Is Remus with you at all?"

"Er, actually I think he's still back at my house with Sirius and Peter," James informed them as truthfully as possible. He didn't know how keen the Lupins would be if they knew how their son had spent the last few weeks cleaning out a dirty old house with not so much as a house elf to help. The Lupins, like the Potters, were a rather old wizarding family, rich and powerful, but unusual in the fact that they had never been associated with dark side activities. Their good luck had seemed to come to an end when their only child was bitten by a werewolf, but James reasoned that things hadn't turned out so bad.

"Pity," Mr. Lupin said looking quite put out, "We were hoping to have a word with him before we left in the morning."

James' forehead creased. "Where are you two going?"

They both smiled. "Business trips, as usual. We try to not have them scheduled at the same time, but we've been avoiding them for so long, that it was bound to happen sooner or later."

Both of the Lupins worked for the Ministry of Magic in the Department of Mysteries, and that was about all James knew about them. James himself had been hoping to apply for that department, but in the end had decided that being an Auror was more along his style.

Besides, you couldn't make casual conversation with an Unspeakable, as they were called. James himself was having a rather hard time figuring out what to say next. You couldn't ask them anything about their work, and they probably already knew everything that was going on in your life. Often the conversations came to very familiar standstills.

But James' hair wasn't pink every day.

"Goodness gracious, James!" Mrs. Lupin finally gasped. "What in the world happened to your hair?"

"I see you met up with Lily Evans again..." Mr. Lupin waggled his eyebrows up and down and James felt the annoyance creep up again. He opened his mouth to ask why everyone was saying that, but decided it was rather pointless, and closed it again.

Though, the Lupin's weren't Unspeakable's for nothing.

"Oh come off it, James! Who else could get away with hexing you?" Mr. Lupin said with a grin, slapping him on the back.

James shook his head in disbelief but managed a small smile. "Yeah, well you should have seen the other guy...I mean, girl," he added hastily.

"I actually believe I saw the Evans' here earlier..." Mrs. Lupin said suddenly, glancing around a bit.

James gulped. "Here? At a Wizarding party?"

"Well, I believe your parent's invited them for the night, yes. Why not? Your families both got very close while you and Lily were dating." Mr. Lupin frowned slightly. "Broke their hearts when you two split up."

Yeah me too...James thought glumly. Wait? Did I actually just think that?

"Well we can't all get what we want," he sighed, nodding to them once. "I need to go get this stuff out of my hair, so if you'll excuse me..."

He inclined his head a bit again and backed away, trying his best to move at a dignified pace. He never really liked going to his parent's parties, especially now that he was old enough to actually attend. When he was littler, he and Sirius always snuck in, playing pranks on the guests when they weren't allowed to come down to the party. Now that they both were always invited to the gatherings, they declined every time. James couldn't decide if he and Sirius had matured, or the party's had just gotten duller.

Probably the latter; James doubted the first would ever actually happen. According to Moony, he and Sirius would be 11 year olds forever.

James had gotten all the way to the bottom of the stairs before he was stopped again.

"James! Didn't expect to see you here!"

James groaned silently and managed a weak smile, turning to greet Mr. Evans with a firm handshake.

"Hello, sir. Good to see you again." He looked around, confused. "Where's Elanor?"

Ryan Evans was a good favored man with a kind face, lined with worry marks. His half bald head was sprayed with a small dash of fading red hair. He was the only person in the room now wearing a robe, though he looked as if he did not feel the least bit out of place at all.

His wife, Elanor Evans also seemed to have a permanent smile on her face. Elanor had blond hair rather than red, and was a bit skinnier than her husband. They were both around the same height so, despite their physical differences, they seemed to fit together.

James knew that they Evans' had another daughter names Petunia. Lily had spoken about her once or twice. From what James had heard, Petunia hated everything having to do with Wizards, especially Lily. It had upset Lily a number of times when she got sent back letters that she wrote to her sister. Apparently they had been close as children but had fallen apart when Lily left for Hogwarts. Since his growing fondness for Lily, James had not taken much of a liking to Petunia, but still had never had the chance to meet her. He found it hard to believe that someone like her could be the member of such a family. Lily's temper was one thing, but Petunia shunned Wizard's like a virus.

Pointing to his hair, Mr. Evan's chuckled. "Lily?"

James had been surprised how kind the Evans still were to him, even after he and their daughter broke up. They seemed to have accepted his apology after Lily's swelling had gone down after the prank he had pulled during the Spring Ball. They still frequently laughed at it during sporadic moments, much to Lily and James' annoyance.

James gave him a genuine smile this time as he realized how well this man knew his daughter and her ex-boyfriend.

"She looks worse, believe me," he said, his bottom lip twitching slightly.

"Oh I have no doubt of that," Mr. Evans said smiling. "Lily's a great witch, and I think you're probably the only one who can truthfully say you bested her in something."

James grin widened and he stored that away later to use in the next fight he had with Lily. Unfortunately, Mr. Evans seemed to notice that.

"No blackmailing me son," he said in a low, urgent voice. For being muggles, the Evans' were always very comfortable around magic and talking about magic. They never seemed angry or scared about it at all. That was probably one of the reasons James' parents and then had gotten along so well. Mr. and Mrs. Potter were as curious about muggles as the Evans' were about wizards. "Remember, I don't have any magic wand to protect me."

Chuckling, but not promising anything, James bid him farewell and headed back up the stairs, fully determined to not only tell Lily what her father had said, but continually rub the fact in her face until she begged for mercy.