Disclaimer: I do not own harry potter, or anything remotely related to it. (except for the books, but not really because they were written by J.K Rowling, obviously. I just bought them from a bookstore...) I wish I didm because then I would know what's going to happen. But alas, I don't so time for me to shut up.
(A/N This chapter might be a little too long... I got kind of carried away I think. Anyways, let me know what you think :) )
Lily Evans stood on tip toe to kiss her Father goodbye, before turning to her mother to do the same.
“Have a great year, honey.”
“We’re so proud of you.”
Lily smiled, and forced back the tears that were threatening to spill. This was her seventh year, and she still found it hard to say goodbye. Of course, once she was on the train she always forgot about her homesickness.
She faced her sister. “Bye Petunia, I’ll miss you,” she said, not very sincerely, but appropriately.
Her sister’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes when she replied, “I’ll miss you too, make sure to write.”
Lily nodded, and hugged her sister who remained as stiff as a board. Lily didn’t expect anymore from her. When Lily was fourteen, Petunia and her had made a pact to be civil to each other for their parents sake. Lily had come up with the idea with hopes that Petunia would eventually be sincere instead of faking it. No such luck though, it was still all an act.
“We’d better get going, the train will be here soon. Love you sweetie,” her parents kissed her again, before walking away. Lily waited until they were out of sight, and then went through the barrier. Her parents never went with her, it made Petunia too nervous being around so many ‘freaks’.
Lily pushed those thoughts out of her head. She couldn’t help but grin at the sight of the red steam engine. Soon, she’d be home, where everything was perfect, happy and wonderful...
“Hey Lily!!”
Or almost perfect... Lily tried not to visibly cringe as a third year boy came up to her. Timothy was a fellow Gryffindor, he’d been having some problem with charms last year and Professor Flitwick had recommended he go to her. It hadn’t taken many tutoring sessions for him to develop a crush on her. Since then, she couldn’t quite shake him.
“Hello Timothy,” she greeted him with a forced smile.
“Do you want help with your trunk, Lily?” He asked with wide enthusiastic eyes.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary, thanks. I’m a seventh year now, I’ll just levitate it into my compartment. I’ll see you around though,” she politely dismissed him. It was true, she could do magic without having Ministry of Magic owls sent after her, that it just so happened to give her an excuse to get away from Timothy’s admiration was just an added bonus. Lily doubted he could have helped her anyways, he was rather short and scrawny. As he walked away, looking a little disappointed, Lily told herself that she’d done the right thing. He needed to find someone his own age, and pursue her. If he kept on chasing Lily all he’d get was rejection, and that was harsh for a thirteen year old.
She whipped her wand out of her jeans pocket, and a few spells later her trunk was soundly in the Heads’ compartment at the front of the train. Lily decided to take a quick look for her friends before the train left, which was in five minutes.
“Lily!” A familiar voice called. Lily span to see her best friend Raven Sheppard running towards her. She laughed and opened her arms as Raven came in for a hug.
“Oh my god, I’ve missed you so much! There’s so much I have to tell you!” She said excitedly.
Lily grinned, “I’ve missed you too! How was Germany? I can’t believe you went away and left me all alone for the whole holiday!”
Raven had long brown hair, so dark that it was almost black. Her face was dusted with freckles and her skin was tanned from the summer sun. Being a red head, and fairly pale, Lily didn’t tan noticeably like her friend did.
Raven smiled, and as she did so her blue eyes sparkled, “It was such a blast! Next year we should travel the world Lily! Foreign boys are so attractive!”
Lily laughed at Raven’s enthusiasm. She was always making plans for what they should do once they left Hogwarts. Sometimes they’d talk long into the night, dreaming up things to do. Lily was about to respond, when suddenly she was lifted up off her feet and twirled around.
“Potter! GET OFF!!” She screeched. This was a tradition he’d been practicing since second year, and to be truthful, Lily found it rather amusing but she wasn’t about to let him know that.
“As you wish!” He said, as he always did, and let her down. She stumbled, dizzily for a moment, grabbing on to Raven for support, who was laughing so much she couldn’t breathe. Lily looked around for James, but as usual he’d run off before she could compose herself and curse him. She sighed and rolled her eyes at Raven, who had leaned against a wall for support.
“It’s not that funny,” she scowled.
“It’s pretty funny,” Raven laughed, “Your face is always so funny when he puts you down.” And she went on to describe how Lily’s face got red (which clashed horribly with her hair), and her eyes were sort of crossed and confused looking. Lily shook her head at her friend, but couldn’t help laughing a bit too.
“I’ve got to get to the heads’ compartment!” Lily said quickly as she felt the train jerk into motion, “I’ll come find you later, okay?” Raven nodded and the two girls went their separate ways.
It’s good to be back, Lily thought, waving to people as she made her way to the front of the train. She pondered who the head boy would be. Maybe it was Remus, but she thought it unlikely to be two Gryffindors. Probably one of the Ravenclaws she decided. That wasn’t too bad though, they were very responsible people. Although she hoped it wasn’t Gary. She’d dated him for a while last year, and it hadn’t ended very nicely. They could probably set aside their differences if they had to, but it was an extra effort Lily wasn’t really wanting to make.
Oh well, here we go, she thought as she pushed open the compartment door. A familiar pair of hazel eyes met her green ones.
“Hey Evans,” he smiled, but his voice was cautious as though afraid she might curse him. Which wasn’t such a bad idea, in her opinion.
Was this some sort of mistake? Was she in the wrong compartment? Lily frowned, leaned back and double checked. This was definitely the right compartment, she could see some of last years prefects across the hall.
“Yes, this is the heads’ compartment,” he seemed to have read her mind.
Lily realized how stupid she must look, and tried to recover. “Er... no, I was just uh... I thought I heard my name being called.” James raised his eyebrows at her disbelievingly. She didn’t blame him, she wouldn’t have believed herself either, she was a terrible liar.
“So, you’re Head Boy?” She asked, frowning.
“Yeah, shocking isn’t it?”
Only a lot, Lily wanted to say, but instead she said in a forcibly polite voice, “Just a little bit, congratulations, Potter.”
James’s eyes widened. He’d probably been expecting one of Lily’s infamous angry outbursts. “You don’t mean it,” he said simply, with a shrug.
Lily tried not to scowl. She knew she didn’t mean it, but she didn’t like how he knew it too and that he’d actually said it. “Yes I do,” she snapped, “Your parents must be very proud.”
“They are.” There was a brief moment of awkward silence. “Er... are you going to sit down? It’d probably be more comfortable than just standing there.”
Lily realized she was, indeed, still standing. Oops, she thought turning a bit red. She took a seat across from James, next to the window. She always had the window seat when on the Hogwarts Express and she was determined that James wasn’t going to ruin her own little tradition. They sat like that for awhile, neither talking, just staring out the window, watching as the city was slowly replaced with the countryside.
“Ah, excellent, you’re both here,” said a voice from the doorway. Lily and James both looked up to see Professor McGonagall, a severe looking woman with her hair tied tightly into a bun and an air of someone very strict.
“Hello Professor,” Lily and James said simultaneously, they glanced at each other before looking back up at Professor McGonagall.
“First off, congratulations on becoming Head Boy and Girl. There are many responsibilities, but I’m sure you will be able to handle them maturely,” she gave James a look that said plainly ‘or else’. Lily smiled a bit, some of her worries vanishing. Professor McGonagall would make sure James didn’t leave her with all the work.
“On the third Saturday of every month you will have a meeting in Professor Dumbledore’s office, consulting him in what you are planning for the school. The prefect meetings are the same as last year, once a week on Sundays,” she added for James’s benefit, since he’d never been a prefect. “You will run these meetings, and receive news of each house which you will later inform the Headmaster of. The patrolling schedule will be posted in the prefects meeting rooms and of course the Heads’ bathrooms and such. As Head Girl and Boy you will be the first to patrol, starting tonight. And you must patrol together,” she added emphasis on the word, probably because she knew Lily would’ve gone by herself, it wasn’t like the fact that Lily practically hated James was a secret. The whole school knew. It was also well known that James probably held the record for having a crush on the same girl for the longest amount of time ever. This was one of the things that made James so popular with the girls at school. Each one wanted to make him fall in love with her, to break that crush and to ‘claim’ him. He left pretty much all of them bitterly disappointed, going out with them for no more than a month, before dropping them and once again chasing Lily.
“Here are a list of passwords,” she handed them both a piece of parchment before continuing, “Good luck to both of you, I know you’ll make me proud,” she concluded, giving them both a warm smile. McGonagall really was an old softy when it came down to it, Lily thought.
“Thanks Professor,” Lily said.
“Bye Professor,” James waved and then Professor McGonagall was gone.
“Well, see you,” Lily and James said, again in unison. They jumped up and, since there wasn’t really all that much room, ended up bumping into each other. Lily couldn’t help it, this time she scowled. She stormed out of the compartment, limping a bit because her knee had collided painfully with his. She began to look through the windows on the compartment doors, looking for her friends. She quickly looked away when it was people she didn’t know, but more often than not a few kindly words were exchanged. Lily was fairly popular, she was nice to everyone, except for James Potter, but in a weird way that helped her popularity. She was smart, and always helping others.
She looked through a window to see Severus Snape, sitting by his lonesome self. Lily felt her heart ache for him, even though he was wretched and called her a mudblood, she still felt bad for him.
“What do you want, mudblood?” He asked coldly, sneering at her.
“Just looking for my friends, Snivellus. Sorry to disturb you, I can tell you were in deep concentration,” She replied sarcastically, walking away. Once upon a time she would have stammered a sincere apology, but she no longer felt sorry enough to even make an attempt at being nice.
“And for once, that wasn’t directed towards me!” James had caught up with her.
“You must feel deprived,” Lily said cooly, not even facing him, just making her way along, still checking windows.
“I’ll get over it, after all, we have to patrol for an hour tonight. I’ll have you all to myself,” James said in a tauntingly happy way. Lily sometimes wondered if James purposely wanted to get her mad.
“That doesn’t mean I have to talk to you,” Lily retorted. James was about to reply, but Lily had finally found her friends. Unfortunately, so had James. There sat Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew on one side, while Raven and Stephanie, another one of Lily’s close friends, sat on the other.
“Not the Head Boy and Girl! Honestly, we haven’t been doing anything wrong! Don’t put us in detention!” Sirius squealed jokingly. He held the title of school ‘hottie’, and always had girls fawning over him. Lily didn’t mind Sirius very much anymore, although she still got mad at him when he bullied Snape. Last year they’d been paired up by their Care of Magical Creatures teacher and Lily had found out that Sirius was actually a pretty nice guy. She never fancied him though, in her opinion he was just a friendly acquaintance.
Lily rolled her eyes in response and took a seat next to Stephanie, who was eyeing Sirius. Lily knew that look in Stephanie’s brown eyes, she’d developed a crush on Sirius Black. Even sensible girls like her weren’t immune to his charms.
Lily turned to Raven, who began to fill her in on what happened during her summer. The three girls were laughing and joking, and on the other side the Marauders (Remus had joined them shortly after Lily and James’s arrival) were doing the same. Lily and Raven were decidedly ignoring them, as though they didn’t exist, but Stephanie took quick glances of Sirius every once in a while. My poor smitten friend, Lily thought, knowing that even if Stephanie and Sirius did end up going out her friend’s heart had a good chance of being broken. Sirius was a good friend, but when it came to girls he was a definite heartbreaker.
“So that’s all there really was to my summer,” Raven said, snapping Lily out of her thoughts about Sirius and Stephanie.
“That’s all? That took almost two hours!” said Remus, looking up from the game of exploding snap he and Sirius were playing.
“Well you didn’t have to listen you know,” Raven said in a matter of factly way. “Anyways, how was your summer?” She asked Lily.
“It wasn’t very special. Petunia was usually out with her boyfriend, so I got some peace for awhile,” Lily said.
Raven gave her a sympathetic look, “You and her still don’t get along?” she questioned.
“It’s fine as long as my parents are in the room. When it’s just us though, it’s either I’m not there or I’m being snapped at every two seconds. She even said I was breathing too loud once,” Lily kept her voice light, but inside she was rather hurt by her sister’s actions. Weren’t family supposed to love each other no matter what?
“I know what you mean,” Sirius said, surprising Lily. Everyone knew Sirius did not get along with his family. He’d been the first Black in over a century to be in Gryffindor, and as a consequence got a howler from his mother the first morning of school expressing her outrage.
“At least it’s only my sister. It must have been horrible spending time with them all summer,” Lily said, deciding to be nice since she and Sirius were on common ground here.
“I didn’t actually see them very much. I ran away after a couple of days and spent the summer at James’s house,” Sirius said shrugging.
“My god, the poor village,” Lily semi-joked. They had probably terrorized the neighbors with countless pranks.
“We weren’t too bad, were we Prongs?” Sirius said with a mischievous grin.
“I do remember being chased away with cursed pots and pans every once in a while, but all in all I think they’ll miss us,” James replied and with that the two boys burst into laughter, obviously remembering some particular moment in the summer.
Lily shook her head, and turned back to Raven, smiling. “Is your little brother nervous? I remember how scared I was in first year... it seems like forever ago though.”
“He’s mostly excited, although I got him pretty scared about the sorting,” Raven laughed.
“What’d you tell him?” Lily asked.
“I said he had to do a dance routine in front of the entire school, and which ever house liked it the best was the one he got into. It was hilarious, he was practicing all summer.”
Lily’s jaw dropped, but she laughed along with Raven, “That’s so mean!” she said, not meaning it at all.
“Oh, come on. It’s tradition,” Raven said.
“Yeah, my brother said you had to get through an obstacle course, which had a snake pit,” Stephanie pitched in, laughing. “I was so scared, and when I found out we just had to try on a hat, I wanted to kill him.”
They continued to chatter, eventually getting up to change into their robes in the train’s bathroom. This is where Raven brought up James.
“So, James Potter, head boy. Who would’ve thought?” she said.
“Not me, I thought it would be Remus or Gary,” Lily replied.
“Looks like you two will be spending a lot of time together,” Stephanie said.
Lily groaned, “Don’t remind me.”
“He’ll be dead by the end of the month,” laughed Stephanie.
“Or they’ll be grotesquely in love,” Lily could hear the smugness in Raven’s voice. Ever since sixth year, she had though Lily and James were a match in heaven or something. She said she didn’t get why Lily still harbored ill-feelings towards him, he didn’t hex so many people in the halls anymore and if he did they were just Slytherins. Lily argued that Slytherins were human too, even though they did constantly aggravate her. Raven would respond with ‘He doesn’t just pick on Snivellus anymore though, and you know that most of the Slytherins probably provoked him. They hate Potter.’ Lily would roll her eyes and come back with some mediocre argument. The truth was she wasn’t really sure why she disliked him so much anymore. She decided she hated him because of the way he was always so arrogant and thought he was better than the people around him.
“I sincerely doubt that,” Lily said dryly, in response to Raven.
Raven just smiled one of those knowing smiles that made Lily scowl. She decided to change the conversation topic, “So Steph, when did you start fancying Sirius?” Lily said and Stephanie turned bright red, you could even see the red colour through her blond hair.
“Don’t be silly, Lily!” she said, but her voice had gone to a high pitch and she was blushing even more furiously.
Lily and Raven burst out laughing and made their way back to their compartment. The train started to slow down. They shrugged and went to wait by the exit. Being one of the first people out of the train, they got first choice of carriages, and were able to sit anywhere they wanted at the Gryffindor table.
Lily received a glare from Gary, as he sat at the Ravenclaw table with his obnoxious buddies. She gave him a bored look, that said clearly she didn’t care.
“Why are guys such jerks?” she asked aloud. Raven and Stephanie looked behind and saw Gary.
“We’re not all bad,” said James taking a seat next to Lily. This was also a tradition, during every feast he sat beside her. Everyone knew that, since if anyone sat next to her he’d hex them so badly they’d end up in the hospital wing. A poor classmate had met that fate in fifth year.
“Really, do you know of any?” she asked cooly.
He grinned, “I’d say something, but I think I like my face the way it is.”
Lily laughed, “Good call Potter, you’re learning.”
The hall fell silent as Professor McGonagall lead the first years towards the staff table, where there was the classic set up consisting of a three legged stool and the sorting hat.
Lily saw Raven’s little brother, David, looking around nervously. He looked at her and she gave him a reassuring smile. Over the past few years, Lily had spent a lot of the holidays at Raven’s house and she considered David a little brother.
Lily admired the ceiling as Professor McGonagall started to instruct the first years about the sorting. It was a slightly cloudy night, but she could still see some of the stars. Lily loved the ceiling, because she loved the sky. This way, during winter when it was bitingly cold she could still admire it while staying warm. She turned her attention back to the sorting when McGonagall started to read off names, trying to set an example of herself. If people saw the Head Girl not paying attention, they’d think it was okay.
She applauded along with the other gryffindors whenever a first year was sorted into their house, although she really wanted it to be over soon. The Marauders had made purchases from the food trolley, but Lily hadn’t really been hungry at the time, she was regretting her actions now. She was about to remind herself to buy something next time, even if she wasn’t hungry but then remembered there was no next time. The thought depressed her considerably.
After what seemed like ages, the last first year Zimmerman, Jared was sorted into hufflepuff.
Dumbledore stood and opened his arms in welcome, “It’s the start of a new year. We don’t want to delay the food any longer, so let’s eat.” And with that food suddenly appeared on the previously empty platters, bowls and the like. Lily dag in immediately, with enough enthusiasm to rival Peter, who was known for stuffing his face.
Lily finished off her main course and began to take seconds. James noticed. “Hungry much?” he asked jokingly, as Lily took a rather large bite out of a bread roll.
After swallowing, she replied, “I didn’t have anything to eat on the train, and my breakfast was fairly light. Offended that I’m not being all lady like just for you, Potter?” she ended cooly and almost instantly regretted it. He hadn’t said it mockingly, actually he’d said it in a way not many people could. Like he was just merely pointing out something.
“Yes, it breaks my heart. Please stop eating and become anorexic for me Lily!” He said lightly and in good humor. Lily’s response was to throw a bit of her roll at him, before continuing to eat. Although, this time, she did at a slower pace.
Eventually, when the majority of the student population was finished eating, the food faded from the platters and Dumbledore again stood.
Lily fixed her gaze on him, and pretended to be listening. She knew the speech off by heart, it was always the same. First starting with the forbidden forest speech, then it would go to the caretaker reminding them all that no magic was allowed in the corridors in between classes, and finally the quidditch tryouts. She sat there and thought of nothing, just enjoying being back. How she was going to miss this place. She decided right then that she’d make this year the best. She wasn’t going to waste it, this would be the year she’d remember forever.
“And now, everyone pick a favourite tune! It’s time for the school song!” Lily grinned, she loved Dumbledore’s enthusiasm about school spirit. She noticed how the teachers attempted not to roll their eyes. Dumbledore waved his wand and the words appeared in mid- air over the staff table.
Lily began to sing quietly, using a muggle tune for the words. She heard James singing beside her and couldn’t help but smile a bit. His voice was deep and mature, she remembered in second year when he sang in a soprano type of way. She laughed a bit at the thought.
Sirius was the last person to finish, this was always the case. He thrived in attention.
“And now off to bed! There is learning to be done tomorrow!” Dumbledore dismissed them, and the entire school got up and slowly shuffled out of the Great Hall and towards their houses. The fifth year prefects were in charge of the first years, and Lily was grateful. She stifled a yawn, not looking forward to patrolling. Glancing at her watch she calculated that she had two hours. She decided she’d nap for a bit in the common room. Most students went to sleep right after the feast, so she’d be able to get one of the comfy chairs by the fire.
They reached the fat lady and Lily said the password (“Gillyweed”). Raven and Stephanie hugged her before making their way up to their dormitory. Lucky, Lily thought, I wish I could go straight to sleep. She slumped on her favourite red chair by the fire, set the alarm on her watch and slowly drifted off to sleep.