The Transfiguration Classroom

I'm going to be humming the Lion King songs all night to get me through this shift, I know it... And one day, one day, one day Lily will love introducing James to the wonder of Disney. Lily feels a stab of annoyance as he ruffles his hair and her eyes flash with it. Why does he always have to do that? "Merlin, I wish you'd just shave that ridiculous head of hair off and be done with it. Without it you might actually focus on something else once in a while." Her voice is acidic, but as quickly as her mood appears it is gone again, and she is shaking her head ruefully. "You know, if you're pinning the future of your entire Pride on Pettigrew's sandwiches, you're in for a long, bitter winter."

James grins and shakes his head. "Oh, no. Can't shave it, that would be horrible. You've thrown books at me a few too many times, I'm afraid I might have a lumpy head," he told her with a wink. "You're probably right though, about the sandwiches." James lowers his voice to a whisper, leaning forward a little with a real serious look on his face. "They're not very good. But don't tell him I told you that. Peter gets this awful, sad look on his face if someone says something about them not being quite satisfactory. So I just eat them and tell him they're brilliant and he's cheerful and my belly's full and no harm's done." He shrugs and sits back in his chair again. "Perhaps I ought to explore other sandwich options. Say, Evans!?" He immediately bursts out laughing, knowing better by now than to suggest that Lily take over the sandwich making for the Marauders.

Lily watches James winking and laughing and joking with her -there's something almost surreal about the whole experience- and shakes her head. When he makes as if to suggest she make his sandwiches before collapsing in peals of laughter, her jaw drops. "Git!" she snaps, and snatches up the closest thing to whack him over the head. Sadly, it is only a roll of parchment, and what's worse is that Lily realises she's grinning at his joke. "You know, in some strange and almost disturbing way, that's almost sweet. Eating Pettigrew's sandwiches, I mean. Of course, the solution to your problem is that once in a while you could make your own bloody sandwiches," she points out. There's a few seconds of silence. Lily might even call them comfortable. But no, that can't happen. She shifts in her seat and frowns. "Some study partner you make - we're meant to be concentrating."

James ducks as she swats at him, though luckily it's only with parchment this time, sparing him any further brain damage from her fury. He's absolutely beaming back at her, having a glorious time joking around with the most beautiful girl he's ever seen, especially right now because she's actually smiling back at him for once. He feels like his head's about to explode with the idea of that, Lily Evans actually smiling at him and - dare he think it - laughing with him. He shrugs at her sandwich solution. "He likes doing it, though. It makes him feel important." He watches her, a little smile still on his face as they sort of just sat there. It grows wide again as she said they were supposed to be studying. "Well, you distracted me. I think." He narrows his eyes as if trying to remember who distracted who and how they started talking about sandwiches in the first place, but can't find where the thought train barreled off the tracks, and so he shakes his head and turns to the book in his lap once again. "Alright, more animagus questions... is it learned or hereditary? And what sorts of witches and wizards are able to become animagi? I mean, brilliant ones like you and I, or ones like ol' Edgar Bones the champion bogie flicker of Hufflepuff," he laughed.

Lily tucks her hair behind her ear and considers. That sounds like Pettigrew. And somehow, it also sounds like Potter, letting the smaller boy carry on with showing his devotion in a way that serves him best. The dynamics of the Marauders, as they fancy themselves, is a subject Lily has found herself meditating on quite a lot over the years. It's fascinating to see them together; four boys thrown together by the whims of the Sorting Hat that really should not fit together, but somehow just do. "The sycophant and the egomaniac, it's a match made in heaven," she murmurs. She shakes her head. "No, no, it's you who got off track," she insists, though the study session derailed into conversation with frightening ease and Lily herself cannot pinpoint the moment they jumped tracks. "It's learned," she says promptly. "Any witch or wizard can become one with the proper study, training, and dedication, even Edgar Bogey." She smirked. "Well, if he could keep his finger out of his nose long enough to concentrate, that is."

"Edgar Bogey?" James laughed, tilting his head and leaning toward her, as if making sure he heard her right. "Now I've got you makeing nicknames you would earlier have told me were very rude indeed." James continued his laughing, clearly enjoying himself and also impressed with the name she'd come up with. "Right, well technically I suppose Edgar Bogey could do it, but to be an animagus, the witch or wizard has to be very powerful and skilled," he quoted from the book with a mock official voice, "or at least get a load of help from other talented wizards I suppose." He thought of Pettigrew, and how hard it was for he and Sirius to try and help the guy figure it all out. Luckily though, the three of them had worked together and gotten it mastered, avoiding any of those situations all the books warned about where it could go 'horribly wrong'. "Okay, something else... is your life span affected by your animagus? And does the appearance of one form affect the appearance of the other? Human affecting animagus and vice versa?" James was talking without looking at the book now, as if reciting from memory. Which of course, he was.

"Hey, just so we're clear, you've not got me doing anything, Potter," Lily announces, frowning in consternation. Merlin, did people really see her as someone so tied to the straight and narrow that such a simple and obvious choice in nickname used once was cause for celebration? Lily sighs to think about it, but she's really begun to notice how easily people label one another. She'd never much considered it in her younger days, but something about the whole 'Mudblood' Incident had opened her eyes to it and she can no longer ignore it. She's either 'Prefect', 'Mudblood', or 'Model Student', it seems. And no, she's not yet come to the realisation that she unconsciously labels her peers just as they do her...
"Anybody could be very powerful and skilled with the right dedication and concentration," Lily points out in a distracted voice, her mind preoccupied. The way Potter had thrown in the afterthought about getting help from other talented wizards was so casual, so unpractised... it jarred with the mock officialism of his previous words. She chews her lip, giving him an 'I-Know-There's-Something-Funny-Going-On-But-I-Can't-Prove-It...Yet' frown. "Well, yes, I suppose that's true. With the right guidance anybody could learn how to transform. Erm, no, the life span of the witch or wizard isn't affected by their animagus; your life span is your life span, being able to change form doesn't change that. And as for physical characteristics..." She thinks for a few moments. "It's a bit more complex than that. I don't know if it's a case of the animal form having any real impact on the human form, rather the perception of them changing, you know? For example, McGongagall doesn't have sort of a feline quality to her face because she takes the form of a cat, but once I knew she was an Animagus and had seen her transform into a cat, I developed a greater perception for those features. It's more the other way 'round; defining features stay the same. Eyes, prominent birthmarks, things that make up the physiology of a person are transposed onto the animal form. But non-genetic things, like a scar, would be less likely to show on the animal."

The corner of James's mouth tugged downward in an impressed expression. "Well worded. That made more sense than what the book says. You could tutor people on this, you know." He laughed, glancing at the book to pick something else to ask her about, though in his mind he wanted her opinion on several other things. Of course, he couldn't ask her too much. She had of course figured out that Moony was a werewolf (or has she not yet?), and if he wasn't careful, she'd figure out that he, Padfoot, and Wormtail were animagi as well. "Alright, what about human perception of things while in animagus form? Do you still think like a person and remember things or would a dog just want to chase his tail and a cat want to lick itself?" Immediately, without truly meaning to, James burst out laughing and nearly fell out of his chair. It was a moment before he could collect himself enough to explain, and even then he could only gasp out two words between fits of laughter. "McGonagall! Licking!"

"Yeah, right, I'll stick to tutoring Charms and Potions," Lily scoffs. She'd be ace at that... until someone asked her to actually demonstrate a spell. "Maybe you ought to consider it, though." She thinks it would do him some good, put his talent and energy into helping people rather than picking on them. She shakes her head, letting go her suspicious feelings a little to focus on the challenge of a new question. While she knows about Remus' condition, she's not yet begun to conceive of the possibility that Remus has his friends keep him company every month. When they were still friends, she always dismissed everything Sev had to say on the subject, believing it impossible that the four would be up to something together so often when she knew exactly where Remus was. She's kept it to herself since about midway through third year when the clues finally slotted into place for her -she hasn't even told Remus she knows because she doesn't want him to think it changes anything in their friendship- and whenever Sev went on one of his 'Those-Boys-Are-Up-To-No-Good' tirades she quietly diverted him from the truth as seamlessly as she could. She'd loved Sev, but even then she'd known deep down he couldn't be trusted with that sort of information.
She opens her mouth to answer, but her lips snap closed once more when Potter startles her by nearly falling off his seat in a fit of laughter. "You're mental. Oh! Oh, Potter, gross! Thanks, when I fail this subject because I can't concentrate for wondering if McGonagall has ever coughed up a furball, I'm going to kill you!" She shudders and rubs her forehead as if she's trying to erase the thoughts he has implanted from her mind.
"Bugger, what was the question again?" She's forgotten, thanks to the disturbance.

"Me? Tutor? Well, I'd only tutor feisty redheads, so the others would be out of luck," he explained with a smirk. James however breaks out into a renewed fit of roaring laughter as Lily mentioned the idea of a hairball. Instantly, the mental image of ol' McGonagall hunched over her desk, coughing and hacking and retching with her back curved in haif and her tongue making horrid flicking and licking motions as she coughed up a rather large clump of grey fur onto some papers she was grading, well the image was just too much. James did fall out of his chair this time, landing on the floor beside it with a thud where he remained laughing for a moment before picking up her book and setting it on the table overhead, climbing back into his chair with quite a nice poker face that only lasted until he met her eyes again. Then he remembered it all over again and it was all he could do to keep from laughing. "Right, uh the question was do wizards keep their human thinking abilities in animagi form, or do they fully become the animal, thought processes and all?"

"Lucky for the feisty redheads, they get along just fine without you," Lily returns. She watches Potter completely erupt in laughter to the point where he can no longer stay upright, and finds she can't help but give in to the temptation to chuckle along a little bit because really, McGonagall plus furballs is always going to be at least a little bit amusing. The grin lingers around her lips as she watches Potter make a valiant attempt at controlling himself, and fails immediately.
"Right. I don't think it goes wholly one way or the other, whatever the textbooks say." She flounders a moment, her hands flailing as she searches for the words to press her point. It is, after all, serious business to be disagreeing with a textbook. "I know Cliodne said taking on the form of a sea bird was so freeing that it seemed like every aspect of humanity and her human identity gave way to pure animal instinct, but it doesn't make sense for that to be the whole story, does it? I mean, if she truly became a sea bird and was wholly confined to that frame of mind she would forget who she was, and how to change back, and then she would just be a sea bird forever and Cliodine would have ceased to exist! If I was ever able to properly study the condition of the Animagus, I would start from the hypothesis that the animal instincts might rise to the surface when in animal form, but the core of the witch or wizard is still the same."

James quirked an eyebrow, as if saying 'oh really?'. "Well the fiesty redhead was the one struggling with her fingernails when I came in, but if she's so sure, I won't stop her." He listened intently once again as she went on a small rambling but perfectly sensible and understandable mini speech about animagi having human feelings to a degree because of this and that. "Again, that made more sense than the book. It only seems logical that the animagi would have to keep at least a little of their human mind otherwise how would they know they should turn back into a human afterward? I suppose that's what they mean by something going horribly wrong, maybe they get stuck in their animal forms forever? Not sure how that all works, though." He was sure, at least mostly, but of course he shouldn't prove himself an expert on the subject to her. He knew better than that. "So in animal form they have their wizard brains, but do you think in wizard form they ever think like their animal?" He knew Padfoot did sometimes, but then again, that was Padfoot and one could never be completely sure that he was an average case of an animagi, though it made him a brilliantly wonderful best friend. But James didn't think he ever acted like a deer. Then again, what trait would deer be famous for that could carry into a human form anyway.

Lily's cheeks turn a deep pink as Potter points out the effort she was putting in, and the not-quite-seamlessly-perfect results. "Oh, shove it, Potter! I wasn't struggling, I was practising. It's what responsible people do when they don't have the luxury of natural talent in a particular subject," she snaps, glaring mutinously at him. 'Arrogant toe-rag!' she seethes inwardly. She silently berates herself for forgetting that this is Potter she's been sitting here laughing and studying with, and more fool her for not expecting him to act like a pig at some point.
She bites her lip, flustered, and shuffles the parchments on her desk around to gather them up so that she can shove them in her bag. "Don't know what I was thinking-- Of all the people-- Should have expected as much--" Lily finishes shoving her belongings into her bag then stands up. She shoves her hair behind her ear so that she can glare down at Potter and holds her hand out for her book. "If you're just here because it gives you some perverse little thrill to see me have to work harder than you to get anywhere on this, then you can bugger off, Potter."

As soon as James glanced back up at Lily after asking the question, and he saw her expression, his smile disappeared. "I... I didn't mean it like that at all, Evans!" His eyes were searching her face, trying to get her to just look at him despite her clear intentions to gather up her things and storm out, like things always ended for them. "Evans, would you calm down for a moment and just listen to me?" But she was shoving her things into her back and tucking her hair back and standing up glaring daggers down at him instead. He stayed where he was, large hands wrapped around her book, eyes wide and expression pleadingly sad. To think things had been going so well and one teasing remark had set her off like that. Ignoring her hand that is waiting for her book to be placed in it, James stares up at her and finally gets a chance to talk, knowing that she'll stay at least a moment or two because he has her book. "Evans, that isn't it at all. I didn't mean to offend you but apparently I can't have a conversation with you without doing that at some point or another. I wasn't trying to upset you, I swear on Merlin's baggy Y-fronts. So I will NOT bugger off and you will sit back down and we'll finish studying this chapter because for once in our lives, Lily Evans, I want to have a conversation between us end on a positive note, if you don't mind." He blinked, paused a moment, and then added with a desperate breath, "Please?"

Lily, who has indeed been ignoring Potter's pleas for her to wait, and paving over his requests for her to just listen while she prepared for her big departure, finds she has no choice but to stop and listen to him when he does not hand her book back. Her eyes flicker between his pleading hazel eyes and the book in his hand, she is weighing up the options and deciding whether or not she wants to snatch her book back and continue with her departure. She blinks, completely thrown by the way he manages to order her about so forcefully and sound so desperately imploring all at once.
Lily sits down.
That little frown line appears between her eyes as if she's not quite sure that's actually what she meant to do -it had been a close call between sitting and punching only a nanosecond ago in her mind- and Lily presses her lips tightly together, feeling them pull downward into a frown. Her frosty eyes fix on Potter and she closes herself off, folding her arms over her torso and crossing her legs. Her foot jiggles impatiently, a stab at a reminder to him that he cannot expect her to wait all day.

Something inside James leaps for joy when she sat down, nearly all of him expecting her to throw something at him or snatch the book and hit him with it or storm out regardless and demand that the book be waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase to the girls dormitory in one hour. But she sat down. James didn't let the joy betray his face, he still knew he was in deep dog shit right now if he wanted to make the conversation okay again. He swallowed nervously, not sure where to start. Surely asking the question from the book didn't seem right, but what else could he say? He decided on apologizing again, girls like that, right? He didn't know. "Evans, look I didn't mean it the way I guess you took it, I didn't want to make you upset." He leaned across the table, big eyes locked on hers. "You're absolutely bloody brilliant, Evans, and I could probably talk all day about how smart you are but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to listen to me talk that much, and Merlin knows you hardly stand for how much I talk already, and you always catch me off guard and I say stupid things that are meant for jokes but I guess it just doesn't translate, and... I'm sorry."

Lily's expression twitches, whether it's going to be a smile or a scream she's not quite sure yet. There is so much sincerity in Potter's face as he stumbles and rambles his way through another apology that Lily looks away. She fixes her eyes on the book he still has possession of and does not even unfold her arms to tuck back the strand of hair that slips forward to curtain her face. She knows he's sorry, knows he doesn't mean to say the things he says, and deep down if she cared to admit it, she's simply a little bit jealous. James is brilliant and talented and she supposes good-looking if her fellow girls are to be believed. He has the world at his feet. And on top of it all he's a Pureblood. He'd tell her a million times it doesn't make a difference, but Lily knows better. She's Muggle-born. Even when she's better than the rest, she's still not good enough for them. Since Sev and the whole Mudblood Incident, Lily has been oversensitive to such things to the point where even an innocent joke not intended as a slight in the least pokes at the wound.
She shakes her head. Finally, she looks up, her expression cool. "Right. Just forget about it. If we're here to study then ask me a question, Potter. What was the last?"

James held his breath while she sat there in silence, seemingly lost in her own mind as she looked anywhere but his face. His eyes never left hers, well, only once to look at the bright red lock of hair that fell from behind her ear like it always did. He was surprised when she didn't shove it back into place again. Letting out a sigh he'd forgotten he was holding in when she spoke up again, he glanced down at her book again, searching for where they had left off. "Well, last thing was still about the animagus affect on the minds, but the flip side. You said that they had to keep a bit of human thought as animals, which makes perfect sense. But I asked about if they keep some animal traits as humans, or not." Looking at Lily, he couldn't help it. It looked so out of place and she looked so darn sad, he just wanted to fix her and have her smiling again. Figuring he couldn't make things much worse, he very quietly muttered "cheer up, Evans," and quickly reached over and gently, but not very precisely, pushed the bit of hair back where it was meant to go, withdrawing his hand quickly and looking quite intently at the book as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. A second later he glanced up at her, hoping she wouldn't be angry for it. "I think it depends on the animal, if traits are carried over into human form."

Lily gives a tiny nod of recognition as Potter speaks, she remembers the question now, although she'd been too intent on her anger to give it much attention at the time. She is not expecting it and does not have time to recoil from the touch as he reaches out and somewhat sloppily tucks her neglected hair behind her ear for her. She bites her lip, holding back a smile. "Death wish," she mutters, but a touch of humour has returned to her face. She throws herself into the question, taking comfort in the familiarity of being studious. "I suppose that makes sense, or it would be fairly subtle in some forms. I don't imagine Falco ran around flapping his arms like wings, for example. And if it's all bound up in personality, then how do you tell the difference anyway? Where does the human end and the animal begin if they're so closely married? Oh! Isn't there a spell according to SBP that lets people trying to become an Animagus find out what form they'll take by giving them the mindset of that animal for a few hours?"

The smile returned to James's face once again as Lily started talking things out and making perfect sense of them. "Good point. I guess it would be hard to tell sometimes, if the animal is chosen by their personality, then they must sort of already act like the animal. And yeah, I think there is! Now there's something that would be fun to try. I could just imagine running around as the king of the lions, roaring at things and shaking my mane, and... wait, just the mindset of that animal, or do you get to be the animal too? Because I want to be a lion." Of course, James knows it'd be a stag and not a lion, but Lily had deemed him a lion and he liked the idea of it, and he had to stick to that to keep her from figuring out the truth, as much as he wanted to tell her. "Think maybe we could figure it out and try it sometime? As long as you promise not to scratch me. I don't fancy having claw-mark scars from you."

"No, I think it's just the mind of the animal in your regular human body, as far as I understand it," Lily says slowly, the faraway look that appears in her eyes for a moment showing that she is straining to remember. Her lips twitch again; imagining Potter running around, glasses askew, roaring at people and trying to act like King of Pride Rock is worth a laugh. She grins viciously at Potter and bats her eyes. "Oh Potter, it'd be quicker and cleaner than that if I was going to kill you," she promises. She chews her lip and there is a short internal battle while Lily weighs up whether or not getting to try an intense and complicated new spell that she wouldn't be able to do alone is worth the indignity of having to make plans with Potter of all people. "Erm, yeah. Sometime," she finally says with a noncommittal shrug.

James refuses to think too much on her expression and batting eyelashes because now is certainly not the time for such feelings. Instead, he grins in silent celebration that she sort of vaguely agreed that they could at least try the spell sometime to see what happened. "Great!" He glanced at the book again, saddened that they were actually very near the end of the chapter. "Well, the last bit is about animagus registration. All animagus have to he registered, but what happens if they don't? And why is it necessary?" This was James's least favorite bit of information, because he really didn't fancy a visit to Azkaban. He just wanted to be there when his friend needed him, was all.

Lily shifts in her seat and looks away. She half expects a cheesy 'pick you up at seven' to follow Potter's enthusiastic 'great!' and now she immediately second-guesses herself. What in the name of Merlin is she doing encouraging him? He's always asking her out and now she's saying yes to making plans -albeit study plans- with him like they do it all the time. Surely now he's going to be undeterrable with his constant... wait. Lily gives Potter a sharp look. Only now does it occur to her: he has yet to ask her out since that day by the lake after their Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL. She shakes her head and refocuses, telling herself to stop thinking about what it means and just enjoy it. "Well it's obvious, isn't it? It's for their own good," she says simply. "What if something goes wrong with the transformation and they need a healer? Especially when they're learning. Or if they ran into trouble while in animal form and couldn't change back. There are spells to force a change, and at least if someone is registered all their identifying markings are recorded. I doubt the Ministry has time to go casting spells at every cat it meets just because they reckon one might be a wizard in disguise." She shrugs. "Between harmless registration and a stint in Azkaban, I know which I'd choose."

James always got a little nervous thinking about the fact that he could very well end up in Azkaban if he ever got caught, but he didn't let it show. "Well, I guess that's all there is about animagi that we need to know." He sighed softly and shut her book, but still held onto it in his lap. "Unless there was something else you wanted to work on while we were at it. I find studying with you to be particularly illuminating." He grinned at her in an almost silly way, but it faded to a more normal smile a moment later as he inwardly hoped with everything he had that she wouldn't leave yet. Of course, he knew she would want to get away as soon as possible. She always did it seemed. But it wouldn't stop him from hoping she would stay, maybe want to look over something else, maybe want to practice some charms or something. She liked studying he thought, so maybe if they were studying more, she'd stay a little bit longer.

Lily gives Potter a look that's mingled guardedness and confusion. She can't quite figure out what he means by studying with her being 'illuminating'. Is he taking the mickey out of her? Or just taking note of the way she words her answers to use in his own work? "Right," she mutters. She picks up her wand and fiddles with the smooth wood between her fingers. "I think I'm just going to practice a bit more, actually." She bites her lip, eyes flickering awkwardly over the boy sitting across from her before they drop to the surface of the desk. Given that she mostly just expects him to show off, she doesn't particularly want him to stick around and embarrass her, but something is holding her back from demanding he leave. Usually she's got a good reason for not wanting to be around him, but since his apology for his last badly-taken joke he's not done anything that warrants ordering him away.