Twisted Reality by ficexchange

Merry Christmas, Laura (LovelyLily)!

Twisted Reality

James Potter took a deep breath. Something was wrong and he couldn't put his finger on it. He could distinctly sense that everything was not as they had been when he last had been in his dorm and it was getting to him. Finally, he decided to shrug it off as paranoia (for what he didn't exactly know, but he blamed it on his subconscious mind). It was very rare for him to be actually care, but today had been a strange day overall. His friends had been acting differently, although they all claimed he was the one who was mental.

He walked into his room and rummaged through his closet in search after a clean shirt. His best friend had managed to spill dessert over his clothes, which now weren't looking very pleasant at all. He quickly put it on and left his robes on his bed; since classes were over he had no need to put them back on. With a quick look in the mirror he shrugged and left the room in order to find his friends again.

Only a couple of meters after he had entered the corridor James bumped into someone, quite literally.

"Hello, Potter. Please watch were you're going next time," he heard cold voice say as he felt his entire body freeze in the position it was in. "I rather like being able to walk down a corridor without barging into someone like you." With that, Lily Evans left and James sighed. He had, though perhaps a bit late, realised that he wouldn't ever get through to her. Especially not after the week before when had, without thinking (since he didn't have any other mode when it came to her) complimented her on her clothes, although it did not make him sound nice, as intended, but rather made it sound like he thought of her like a common slag.

Of course, Lily was insulted. He understood her completely and was mulling over his bad luck all the way to the Gryffindor common room, where it was very likely that his three best friends were. When he muttered the password to enter he didn't want to think about it anymore. He'd just go inside and have a laugh with Sirius. Who, he soon noticed, was acting quite strangely.

"Sirius, you do realise it's a Saturday evening, right?" he asked in horror as he sat down beside his best friend who was acting quite uncharacteristically. A pair of glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose (James knew that he owned them, but since he barely needed them he never used them) and he was reading a book, which James realised, when he had looked closer, was actually their Charms textbook.

Sirius nodded in reply. "Of course," he said silently as he resumed his reading.

"Are you quite sure you're feeling okay?" James asked slowly and frowned slightly.

"James, would you mind keeping your distracting thoughts to yourself? I'm only doing what any respectable boy would do on a Saturday night. In difference to him," Sirius said and scoffed in the direction of the fireplace before returning to his book and entirely ignoring any further attempts on indulging him in a conversation.

James looked in the direction Sirius had shown him and nearly fell off his chair. Things definitely were strange at the moment.

Remus Lupin was sprawled over a couch, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and socks. His hair was tousled and his eyes were gleaming suspiciously as he was talking and flirting with the three female sixth years around him. James walked closer and noticed a big bottle of what seemed to be fairly strong alcohol on the floor next to him. The bottle was only half-full, something that actually made James think he'd have nightmares about it.

"Remus, mate, what are you doing?" James asked loudly over all their chatter.

Remus swung an arm in his direction. "James, good to see you mate! Come sit down here, the company's awesome!" he exclaimed quite drunkenly and grinned.

"Moony, I do hope you're feeling quite all right," James said and took a firm grip around the back of the sofa. "Why is the pair of you acting so strangely?"

"What do you mean pair? We're five over here!" Remus hollered in reply, causing James to flinch at the loudness of the situation.

James groaned. "You and Sirius, you idiot. And where's Pete?"

"Sirius and I aren't a pair! Why would you say that?" Remus had suddenly sat up straight, looking into James's eyes harshly.

"Never mind," James replied quickly. "I thought you said you were going to study for the Charms exam this Monday?"

At first, all he got in reply was an incredulous stare and insane laughter. "Never! It's Saturday, James, Saturday!" After a few seconds silence you could hear Remus talk excitedly again. James couldn't even muster up the energy to understand what he was talking about, since his drunken voice barely had made sense before either. Instead, he just turned on his heal and walked out of the common room, far too exhausted to be able to deal with the complete personality flip that apparently had occurred.

He heard the portrait shut behind him and looked back on it in silence. The Fat Lady raised her eyebrows at her and he turned again to leave. The entire situation was so intensely morbid that he couldn't really embrace it all. The rest of the school seemed normal. People were minding their own business (which perhaps was not true, since people liked to gossip) and few students were milling around in the hallways.

In a sudden urge for fresh air he exited the school and aimlessly wandered around outside, thankful that it was still early. After a while of walking he noticed someone on a broomstick high above in the air, with a flying style he had never seen during any Quidditch match this season. He chuckled to himself, if this was the best his fellow captains could come up with, he was safe for this season's cup. The player wasn't especially good, in his tastes.

As he neared the pitch he started to recognise features of the bloke on a broomstick. When he had placed himself in the middle of the field he realised that the person flying most definitely wasn't supposed to be up in the air.

"This is just too much," he said out loud as he watched one of his best mates swirl around in the air. Peter Pettigrew was supposed to be afraid of heights, which he clearly didn't show at the moment.

It was too much for him. James had to admit that he didn't quite like this twisted world, where everything was different. He felt his heart pounding harshly in his chest. Everything was weird and he didn't like it one bit. He turned on his heel to walk back inside, figuring it was not worth getting Peter out of the air. To be quite honest, James didn't want to know. He didn't want to know what had prompted this change and why it had ruined his favourite place to be alone.

On his way back to his room he decided to just go to bed. He figured that perhaps if he woke up he'd find it all a big weird nightmare. Still, the other students were normal. True, he didn't know any of them especially well, not like he knew his own mates, but he had a vague idea of what was normal for everyone.

He said the password loud and clear, hoping it hadn't changed as well. As the doors flung open he breathed out and shook his head. He shouldn't think so much of it, he shouldn't overanalyse the situation.

James went through the room with only a brief glance towards the small group of sofas. At first he detected nothing unusual, but as he stood in the doorway to his room he realised something was extremely different.

On one of the couches lay a pretty red haired girl on her stomach. While there was nothing unusual for Lily Evans to be laying on the sofa reading, there was something distinctly different with her appearance today.

"Evans, why are you not wearing any clothes?" James asked in horror while he silently begged for it to be a hallucination.

Lily raised an eyebrow, but her eyes didn't leave the book. "I'm wearing clothes."

"I honestly don't think that counts as clothes."

"What, never seen a girl in underwear before?" Lily asked with a smirk and started to rise to sitting. James yelped and quickly threw her a sweater that had been on the floor just beside his feet.

"Cover yourself up!" he exclaimed. "As much as I admit that it'd probably be just lovely to see you without clothes, please just act normal. I can't take anymore of this!"

She smiled sweetly at him before slipping the sweater on. As she stood up it fell down and almost covered her bum and knickers. James felt himself gulp as she closed in on him and stood only inches away.

"Stop. Please just stop! Can't you just go back to being the normal Lily again? I think I like her a bit better," he pleaded and turned to walk into his room. He could feel his breathing shorten ad his eyes watering up. He pleaded with himself not to cry—he wasn't a little boy—but this change was just one too many. Lily Evans wasn't supposed to act like that. She was supposed to be private and composed and normal. He looked down on his shaking hands and felt a shudder go down his back. It was so out of character that he was scared. Sirius was acting weird, Remus was drunk, Peter was flying and for some unknown reason, Lily Evans was reading a book in only her knickers.

Just as he reached the door he heard the door he had just come through fling open and the unmistakable steps that most definitely belonged to his three best friends. He slowly turned around and saw them, all very normal, standing in the doorway.

"Priceless mate," Sirius said and grinned. "Entirely priceless. Though I think Evans might've been a bit uncomfortable. I'll have you know, that we could all be award-winning actors, though. You honestly never thought it was a joke?"