The Seven Year Itch

Chapter 1

Lily Evans sighed contentedly as she boarded the Hogwarts Express. It was her seventh and final year at Hogwarts, she was Head Girl and those damned Marauders had finally graduated.

She walked up the corridor, looking for an empty compartment. Having found one, she pushed open the door and looked around for her best friend.

"Dorcas!" she yelled to a tall, slender girl with long brown hair. "Dorcas!"

Dorcas Meadowes joined her, dragging her heavy trunk behind her.

"Found a compartment?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer, she put her trunk in her compartment and sat down.

"I've gotta go to the Prefect Carriages, y'know-" Lily begun uncomfortably, but Dorcas cut her off.

"Yeah, go off, Head Girl. Make me proud," she said, lying down on the seats.

Lily waved to her one last time and then she was off. On her way to the Prefect compartment, she met a lot of people she knew and many of her friends. When she entered the compartment, she was greeted with applause. Lily was rather popular as she was a friendly person and someone you could come to with your problems. But she could get rather angry when she was provoked.

The Head Boy was Benjy Fenwick, a nice and funny Ravenclaw. He and Lily were soon finished giving out directions to the prefects. They got along well as Benjy was the cousin of Lily's friend Julie, who was in Gryffindor with her. They walked down the corridor together, chatting.

"The Head Boy's a Ravenclaw this year and the Head Girl's a Gryffindor," Benjy contemplated. "We're gonna give the Slytherins hell!"

"Benjy!" Lily said reprovingly. "They're not all bad!"

"But almost," he muttered. Lily shook her head, grinning slightly.

"See you, Benjy," she said, "here's my compartment. But leave the Slytherins alone!"

"Sure," he said, smirking. Lily sighed.

"Why do I have the feeling you're not serious about this?" she asked.

Benjy gave her one last grin and went to find his friends.

"Lily! Lily!" Before she could see who it was, she was practically strangled by someone 'hugging' her.

"Julie?"

Julie grinned, letting go off Lily and flipping her long dirty blond hair over her shoulder.

"How's your summer been?"

"You mean apart from the fact that Petunia kept tormenting me and bringing her stupid boyfriend over to our house? Oh, I was having a jolly time."

"Mine was really cool. We went to France and-"

"Yeah, that's right," Lily said sarcastically. "Depress me by telling me how great your holidays were while I was stuck at home with-"

She was interrupted by Dorcas who screamed, "Will you come into the damn compartment already?"

They went into the compartment where two other friends of hers were sitting, Sally and Helen from Ravenclaw. Sally was a prefect, so Lily had already met her in the Prefect meeting before. She hugged Helen, asking, "How was your holiday?"

"Alright," she said, "we went to Italy."

They spent the whole train ride talking and eating sweets. When it became dark outside, they changed into their school robes.

"So our little Lily is Head Girl," Sally said, clutching at her heart.

"My baby is grown!" Dorcas cried in mock pride, pressing Lily against her chest.

"Dorcas, can I take my face out of your boobs now, please?" Lily asked, her voice sounding muffled while the others laughed.

"She wants me to let go off her," Dorcas whispered, hiding her face in her hands. "My baby's gonna leave me!"

Lily snorted. "Cut the crap, Dorky."

She smirked as Dorcas tried to kick her in the shins, leaving the compartment as the train came to a stop.

"Oh, Lily," Julie sighed. "You know what just comes to my mind? Snape graduated!"

"So?" Helen asked, her brows furrowed.

"He was the sexiest guy in school," Lily said, grinning as she saw Helen's disgusted look.

"I will be so lovesick now that he's away," Julie moaned theatrically.

"I won't," Lily said in a sing-sang voice as the girls made their way over to the carriages. "I already have a new lover!"

"Who, James Potter?" Dorcas asked cynically.

Lily glared at her before smirking. "No, Professor Slughorn."

The girls burst into laughter.

"You know," Lily said when she sat in a carriage with Julie and Dorcas. "I think this year is going to be really great."

"Why?" Julie asked.

Dorcas snorted. "Because Potter is away now."

James Potter had been Head Boy last year. Until his sixth year, he had been infatuated with Lily, but when she had constantly turned down his offers to go out with him, he had started to prank and hex her. As Head Boy, he had had the right to give out detentions and dock points and so he had given Lily detention on every opportunity. Luckily, the Head Girl, Alice Daley, had been a friend of hers and had gotten her out of most of the detentions. Which had made Potter prank Lily even more.

"Well, I can understand her!" Julie said. "That prick was picking on her constantly!"

"Without any reason at all, I might add," Lily said.

"Well, if you had just given him a kick in the balls-" Dorcas began, but Lily cut her off.

"Yeah, violence is really likely to solve anything!" she snapped sarcastically.

"Maybe, in this case," Dorcas answered. swirling a strand of hair around her right index finger.

"Whatever," Lily mumbled. "I'm glad he's gone."

"So am I," Julie agreed.

"What? I didn't like him either!" Dorcas exclaimed as Lily and Julie glared at her accusingly.

***

"Zabini, Leanna!" Professor McGonagall called out. A small girl with black, curly hair sat down on the chair, fear apparent on her face. After a few seconds, the hat yelled,

"RAVENCLAW!"

The Ravenclaws applauded while McGonagall took the hat and the stool away. Professor Dumbledore got up, looking at the students. Lily had been looking through her chocolate frog cards, but when she looked up at Dumbledore, they slipped out of her hands. She ducked under the table, collecting them.

"Welcome back!" she heard Dumbledore say. "Before we start our delicious meal, I have a few announcements to make. First of all, the Head Boy this year is Benjy Fenwick from Ravenclaw, and our Head Girl is Lily Evans from Gryffindor."

The students started clapping their hands.

"Lily!" Dorcas hissed. "Stand up!"

Lily hit her head on the table. She quickly appeared from under the table.

"I'm here!" she called, smiling brightly. She heard the other students snicker while clapping. Looking at the High Table, she saw Professor McGonagall glaring at her. But when she looked at Professor Dumbledore, he was clearly amused. She beamed at him, and he smiled back.

She sat down again. Dumbledore continued.

"The second matter," he said as Lily ducked under the table again to collect the cards which where still lying on the floor, "is that our old teacher for Defence Against The Dark Arts, Professor Lerby, cannot continue his work here. The new teacher for Defence is-"

The rest of his words couldn't be heard as the whole Gryffindor table, as well as most of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had starting clapping frantically and roaring with enthusiasm.

"Oh no!" Dorcas whispered. "Lily, come up, you've got to see this, oh no..."

"What's the matter?" Lily asked, sitting on the bench again as she pocketed her cards.

"The new teacher!" Dorcas said.

And as Lily saw who exactly the new DADA-teacher was, her scream of horror was louder than the applause of her housemates.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

***

"What am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do?" Lily whispered over and over again, feeling the strong urge to bang her head on the nearest wall.

"Well, technically there's nothing you can do," Dorcas said pragmatically. "He's your teacher. And if you do anything, he'll give you detention for a month."

"During which he'll probably make you scrub the floor in the dungeons with a toothbrush," Julie added.

"Great," Lily moaned. "Why? Why? I have the worst luck in the world!"

"Why so depressed, Evans?"

Lily whipped around. Standing behind her was the cause for her 'depression', James Potter.

"You know exactly why!"

Potter smirked at her. "Please enlighten me."

"You just came back to Hogwarts to spite me!"

That was childish and Lily knew it, but she didn't care. She would have to spend a year with James Potter as her teacher. Lily was sure that she was going to fail her NEWTs because he would give her so much detention that she wouldn't have any time to study.

"Evans, do you really think you're the most important person in the world?" he drawled.

Lily was on the verge on shouting insults in his face, but she refrained from it. Now that he was her teacher, he could make her life a living hell. No, she corrected herself, that's what he already did last year. Now he can make it even worse...

She turned on her heel, storming away. Julie and Dorcas followed her. James Potter stood there, staring puzzled at her retreating back. Normally, she would have let get her temper the better of her and screamed at him. But, he grimly thought, it won't stay like this. James Potter knew which buttons he had to push to make Lily Evans blow up.