The Transfiguration Classroom

James blinked at her. And blinked again. "No, I didn't know." He shrugged. It was no matter to him. He didn't usually know when there were tests anyway, but he seemed to do alright with a quick once-over of his book as the papers full of questions of doom were being passed out. You don't get to Head Boy without a little smarts and a little luck. And James Potter seemed to have both, so put that in your juice box and suck on it, Lily. James grins at her, glad to see her laughing. "Oh, pink. Right..." He put on a fake serious face, nodding emphatically as he turned his hand back around, changed them to pink, and then leaned back as if there were actually too bright to be too close to. "Oh Merlin, absolutely stunningly brilliant pink. Careful, prepare yourself for this, I don't want you blinded." He turned his hand around quickly, tilting his head comically. "Perfect, right?" He laughed so hard his whole body shook. "Maybe it's better on you." He passed his wand over her fingernails, turning them all a softer, nicer pink and making their lengths match again. Oh god James your girliness is showing or something. The things you do for love.

OhGod, what even...?
Lily says she likes her juice box just how it is, thanks Potter. (Although she has no idea why Marlene pretty much just pissed herself laughing at all the wrong ways that sounds.) She waits, eyebrows raised in expectation as he concentrates on the task. She half expected him not to do it, and when he turns his nails to show her she recoils in much the same manner as he had. "Merlin, Potter, warn people before you flash those around. You near blinded me," she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. "It really is your colour, though. You just need a bit of glitter and you're set." The slight smile on her face freezes when he turns his wand on her hands, changing her nails until they are pink and smooth and even. Her nose wrinkles. "Definitely not." She begins to change the colour because she cannot deal with the pink at all, but it is far slower going because she can only manage one at a time. And yes, that frustrates her a lot.

"I did warn, you actually. Weren't you listening? Maybe you were distracted by how good looking I am," he winked at her, laughing and hoping she realized it was a joke, mostly. He actually was extremely good looking after all. James watches in slight amusement as she goes through and changes her fingernails one by one. He crosses his arms over the back of the chair he's sitting in, just watching her work, the little face she makes when she concentrates and how hard she works to make them as perfect as she can. "So do we really have a big test tomorrow or did you lie to me for your own cruel amusement. I can never tell with you."

"Well I do make a habit of not listening to you, for my own sanity," Lily recovers, rolling her eyes as she realises he had indeed warned her. "And the only thing about your looks that distracts me is wondering how on earth your neck supports that big, over-inflated head of yours." She falls silent for a couple of minutes, because she wants to get both sets of nails complete, even, and perfectly matched in colour. Only when she is done does she look up, her face straight but the glitter of wickedness in her eyes. "I'll leave it to you to find out whether or not I'm serious on this one."

"For your sanity and not your eyesight, apparently," James added. "And don't worry, obviously I do neck exercises every night, just in case one day my head might get too big for my neck to hold it up. I'm preparing for the future." He grinned sarcastically at her, quiet again as they both concentrate on watching her do her nails, Lily to get them right, and James because he's just intrigued to watch her do just about anything. He frowned slightly. "Guess I'll see tomorrow, then." It becomes quiet again, but only for a moment before James speaks up once more. "So, uh, classes going well? I haven't talked to you since that first day in the Great Hall. Bet you've missed me."

"Suppose I just value my sanity more highly than my eyesight," Lily muses. She rolls her eyes again at his confession about his regime of neck exercises. "Well I could almost say I'm impressed, you preparing for the future and all like that. Surprisingly mature," she quips, glancing up again and holding his gaze for half a second before she looks back down. Her hands are perfect, but it's easier to check them to make sure the colours are dead on than it is to have nothing to do beyond admit the fact she's having a civil conversation with Potter and has yet to feel the urge to punch him. "Classes have been going brilliantly, actually. Well, mostly." Transfiguration will always be an uphill battle for Lily (even if she does manage E's for all her hard work), and Potions is always a fun exercise in avoiding Sev, but such is life. She ignores his suggestion that she missed him, because she does not have all day to work on debunking his delusions.

"If you paid attention, you might find some more surprisingly mature things about me. But you're too worried about your sanity to use your eyesight and notice it." He quirked his eyebrows at her with a little grin. "Just mostly? Evans, I know you. You're top of pretty much every class, so they can't just be 'mostly' brilliant, can they?" Mostly, he's just trying to continue the conversation, which he is very greatly enjoying having. It's almost like last time in the great hall, when they had a little conversation, at least until he said something and she got upset and it was fighting all over again. He hoped the outcome this time would be different, but wasn't willing to bet any money on it just yet.

Smart money would definitely be to not put any money on them having a pleasant conversation from start to finish. Lily's lips twitch upwards, she's actually only joking around with him as she says, "I'd definitely rather just hang on to my sanity, thanks. And either they can be going 'mostly brilliantly', or I'm just being modest. It's an interesting quality, modesty. You should consider giving it a go sometime, Potter, it might be a nice change of pace for you," she suggests, not really expecting that to fly with him anyway. She is deliberately not allowing herself to think about how she is having a semi-pleasant conversation and a not-terrible time right now; it'd be too much for her to process if she really does intend to keep some of that sanity of hers intact.

"Modesty?" He mocked confusion. "Never heard of it. Must be new. You'll have to explain it to me sometime it seems utterly fascinating." His sarcasm was obvious but he grinned widely at her all the same, unconsciously reaching up and mussing up his hair again, just in case it had started to fall back into some sort of flat arrangement on his head. Peter told him once to gel it so it would stay up. He told Peter that was stupid because half the point of it was to keep doing it throughout the day, because of course when he touched his hair it would just make all the ladies, and by all the ladies he means Evans, want to touch his hair too. And one day, all the ladies, as in Evans, would not be able to resist, and the ruffling would then be taken care of by all the ladies, meaning Evans, rather than himself. Ergo, gel was a 'get all the ladies', meaning 'get Evans', plan ruiner, and therefore stupid. "So, modest Evans, if there's a transfiguration test tomorrow, we should probably study." He ignores the fact that she already is. Scooting his chair a bit closer to the table, he grabs her transfiguration book from where it was sitting off to the side, and carefully flips through to find the most recent chapter.

Lily smirked, playing along. "Bugger that - you need to write to Oxford, get them to send you a dictionary because I'm not going to spend all day explaining words to you. I'd give you a list to look up, though, because I'm sure there's a picture of you under 'toerag'," she tells him conversationally. She watches him ruffle his hair, her expression twitching a little because Merlin it would be so much nicer if he would just leave it alone for five minutes and let it sit in its natural, crazy mess-- wait, what? No. Scratch that, concentrating too hard for too long must have short-circuited her brain for a second, there. Of course, by the time she has processed all this, Potter has gotten hold of her book and is thumbing through it to the latest chapter. "Hey, that's mine! Get your own. Oh, who am I kidding, you don't own books. Fine, just don't make a mess of it, you can test me on the Animagus theories if you're so keen on pretending to study."

"Oxford, right, I'll remember that," he told her with a grin, looking out over the tops of his glasses at her. Nudging them back up his nose, he tightened his grip on her book when she said it was hers, just in case she tried to snatch it away. "Alright, alright. Animagus theories?" He stood up from his chair, spun it quickly around so that it was facing the correct direction, and sat back down, pulling her book into his lap. "Can't have you cheating, Evans," he explained. Leaning the chair back on two legs, he glanced over the page, trying to decide what to ask her. "Okay, we'll start easy, so we don't stress your delicate brain out too much, so you can keep your sanity and all those nice things you talk about so much. Definition of an animagus?"

"Right," Lily scoffs, rolling her eyes. She's never cheated before and has no intention of starting now. It seems like such a cop-out to her, and Lily would much rather challenge herself. "Don't think you've got to worry about the delicacy Of my brain, Potter; clearly I'm already barking mad for agreeing to this. An animagus is a witch or wizard who can take on the form of a specific animal at will. Now ask something interesting," she orders. Even Pettigrew should've known that one in his sleep, and Lily sometimes wonders how that boy manages to dress himself every day.

James chuckles to himself, leaning back in his chair a bit more and crossing his hands behind her head as he looks at her. "Someone's saucy today. Alright, how many registered animagi are there in the 20th century?" Dropping his chair back to all fours, he leans forward, narrowing his eyes at her. "And what were their forms?" He quickly reaches for the book in his lap tilting it up as if she were going to peek at its pages open on his lap. "AND, bonus points for the four previous to the 20th century," he mumbled quickly before she could start answering.

"Someone's wondering how long it's going to be before you fall off that chair and break your head," Lily counters. She chews her lip, that little line appearing between her eyes as she thinks. She knows he's challenging her now, with his additional questions and bonus points, but she won't give him the satisfaction of giving in and complaining that he's making his questions too involved. "Seven, in the last century. Two cats, a rabbit, a fox, a horse, and two ladybugs. No! Wait, it was one ladybug and one dung-beetle. That wizard should probably have kept that to himself," she muses. Then, after a few moments of racking her brains, she admits to herself that she really has no earthly idea about the previous four before the current century; she'd not thought it would be important enough to give particular attention to. She smirks at Potter. "As for the rest, it doesn't matter. McGonagall only cares about the more recent history because it includes her."

"Right, he probably should have. I know I wouldn't tell people if I ended up as something stupid as a dung beetle. Or a rat or a platypus or a squirrel. Squirrels are weird. A squirrel stole my sandwich once, but that's besides the point. Those animagus animals I would definitely keep to myself." He sat back in his chair again, quirking an eyebrow as she explained that it didn't matter about the previous ones. "Lily Evans is passing on bonus points? Oh, but I care. Don't you know them? You can't tell me you don't now them..." he watched her, realizing maybe she really didn't. "C'mon, you've got to at least know the first animagus there ever was. I'll even tell you he turned into a falcon, which should make guessing his name pretty easy." He then proceeded to attempt to subtly cough 'Falco', but knowing James, he's not so very good at the whole 'subtle' thing.

Lily laughs. Mya thinks being a platypus wouldn't be so bad though. Well, a boy one. They have spurs and things. "You can't blame the squirrel for that - it's just an animal, it doesn't know any better! It just saw an easy opportunity and took it, that's all. You know how it is, survival of the fittest. Definitely not a rat, though, that'd just be embarrassing," she agrees. She rolls her eyes, a little impatient with his inability to fathom that she may have been telling the truth. "No, really, wouldn't have a clue. Like I said, there's more important things to focus on. And yes, Potter, I know that the first was Falco Aesalon and that there were at least three known Animagi before the registration system was brought into effect. Oh, and they were all birds of some description," she adds as an afterthought.

"You can have half a bonus point. But only half." James grinned at her, crossing his arms over his chest. "Back to something easier? What about theories about where their clothes go? I mean, what do you think? Think they end up naked, or do they charm their clothes? It'd be bloody cold to end up naked after being something furry, I would think. Not to mention potentially awkward." James of course knows how it all works, but Lily doesn't know that he knows, so his knowing is quite fun to try and get her opinion on it, just to see if she's right or wrong. James knows that he could decide if he wanted clothes or not, though he'd have to decide before hand, so that he could properly charm his clothing before turning into a stag. If he didn't, well, goodbye clothes and lets hope someone has a spare robe around when he turned back into a devilishly handsome young man, or else there might be a riot for his bod. Okay, just kidding, but really, someone with a robe is always a nice thing when the post-stag situation is less than favorable.

Ah, the age-old question. "Trust you to think of that sort of thing," Lily mutters. "Well, that's the thing, isn't it? It's all a bit vague in reports so maybe it's not always the same. Perhaps it's an added bit of magic -more likely a Charm than a bit of Transfiguration itself, I think- and not everyone who becomes an animagus knows it or uses it. Really, though, I don't know why people wouldn't. Talk about an awkward situation if you suddenly had to shed your animal form in an emergency. I suppose some people are into that, though. And Merlin only knows what people would do with their wands," she says. Then, very deliberately, she stops herself going down that path even one step further and redirects her attention. She's just quite thankful that whatever the method for an animagus hanging onto their clothing is, McGonagall knows it. "And when you take someone like Professor McGonagall, you see that in her animagus form, the markings around her eyes actually take the shape of her glasses, so the one thing I really can't help wondering there is how long has she had those glasses?"

James's mouth turns into the comical upside down U, his interest in what she has to say quite sincere. That had always been an issue, what to do with their wands. Luckily they'd been able to charm them like they did their clothes, but there was still that same problem of maybe you didn't have time to do the charm, or maybe you were holding your wand and didn't get it into its holster or a pocket first. Many issues made easier by there being the three of them transforming together most of the time. He burst out with a short laugh at the thought on McGonagall's glasses. "She's probably had those beautiful glasses for quite some time. After all, when they compliment her face as well as those do one ought not replace them. Wonder if that means mine would have glasses. Wonder what I'd be. Probably something regal and awesome. What about you? Ever try and guess what you'd be?"

Lily starts to laugh despite herself. "Potter, are you having a glasses-porn moment over McGonagall? Is this why you do so well in Transfiguration? I knew it," she declares, but by the light in her eyes it's clear she is kidding. She shakes her head, still chuckling to herself. "No, no, you'd be like the dung-beetle guy, I know it. As for me... you know, I've really never thought about it," she admits after a moment of deliberation. "Maybe a cat, though I'd like to be something a bit more interesting than just a house-cat," she confesses. All due respect to McGonagall, and Lily is pretty sure she will never become an Animagus anyway, but she likes to think she could be something a bit beyond a tabby. "Maybe an ocelot or the like."

"Oh yes," James added seriously, nodding. "I do desire McGonagall but only if she's wearing the glasses. Good chances though, I don't think she ever takes them off." He winked at her, grinning back at their joke. Merlin's beard, they just shared a joke. "I went to a zoo once. They had these little things called Pallas Cats. They're the size of house cats, but they looked like little leopards." He narrowed his eyes playfully. "So the pocket size cats, but all the danger of the big ones. You are dangerous from time to time, I know for a fact. Granted, some of them had funny furry beards. But I think you could pull off a beard." He looked at her carefully as if he were trying to imagine her with a beard. "AND I AM NOT A DUNG BEETLE!!"

meooowwwwww *eyebrow waggle*
jk here's more

"Yours is a love for the four-eyed ages, but that is far too much information, Potter," Lily announces, and there is a hint of confusion in her smile because she can't quite figure out how she got herself into this mess. Shouldn't she have had about twenty reasons to punch him in the nose and storm off by now? "Fascinating, you went to a zoo and they let you back out again," she comments, laughing again as he loudly protests his dung-beetleness. She strokes her chin as if stroking an imaginary beard. "I'm sure I could pull it off. Anyway, if you're so dead set against accepting that you're a dung-beetle, what are you, then?"



I just fell off my chair and died laughing. The look on Inner!Lily's face was priceless. >.>

James breaks out in quite jolly laughter at her imaginary beard stroking. "Well I don't know. I deemed you a pallas cat with sharp claws, so you have to pick what I am. And NOT something stupid like a dung beetle. I'm sure I'd be better than that, a mammal at least." James sits there quietly, hardly able to stand the waiting to hear what she'd pick for him. Of course he knows he's a stag, which is quite regal and majestic and a very respectable animagus indeed, but it's very interesting as well to see what Lily Evans thinks he would be. After all if she picked something like a sea cucumber, that would just be terrible. He hoped her opinion of him was better than that, and if how they were getting along for once was any clue, perhaps her view on him was finally changing in his favor.

Lily thinks sea cucumbers are too nice for Potter to be one. Plus, they're dull as anything and whatever Potter is, 'dull' he is not. She smiles while James laughs and examines her nails, which are still rather long and sharp. "I don't think I'm much of a scratcher, though. And why does it have to be a mammal? I was going to say a clown fish," she quips. She falls silent then, regarding him with intensity in her green eyes, trying to consider all she knows of him and think of an animal to match his ego and his immaturity, but also his abhorrence of the dark arts and his loyalty to his friends. "Maybe something like a lion, actually. Just not a full-grown one yet," she adds, because he's still in that awkward stage between cub and king of Pride Rock where he has all the fundamentals, but not the maturity to justify his arrogance quite yet.

Sudden urge to break out in song I JUST CAN'T WAIT TO BE KIIIIING!! But James doesn't know Disney movies, those poor unfortunate souls wizards who don't have movies. Lily will have to introduce him to that fun muggle stuff, he'll be absolutely dumbfounded and love them. He laughs when she suggests a clown fish, waiting somewhat patiently and somewhat not as she thinks it over some more. Nodding at her lion suggestion, he lifted his chin proudly. "A lion... I like it. Just growing into my handsome mane," he added, ruffling his hair again. "Maybe I should start working on my roar, too. Every king of the jungle has to have a great roar. And lionesses to do all the hunting. That can be Pete. He makes all our sammiches anyway."