Prelude: Nasty Beginnings
December, Sixth Year
It was the end of the first semester; there were only several days before the Hogwarts Express would take most of the children home for the holidays. The responsible students had already packed their trunks, but the others waved it off, always saying, “I’ll do it later.”
The students of Gryffindor Tower ages eleven to seventeen were gathered in the common room, enjoying the end-of-term party that the prefects had managed to get permission to throw. The air was filled with laughter and delighted squeals. There was a table against the wall that was completely covered in sweets and refreshments.
There was a steadily growing crowd gathered around two boys playing chess at a table. The boys were good friends, best, in fact, and shared a bond stronger than most. One boy was leaning forward in his chair; his hand stroking his chin, his hazel eyes narrowed behind round, wire-rimmed glasses as he studied the board. He had dark hair that was perpetually messy, whereas his adversary also had black hair, but it was tamed and fell elegantly to the collar of his shirt. His own gray eyes flicked from the board up to his opponent, awaiting his move.
Abruptly, the boy with the hazel eyes leaned back in his chair, linking his fingers behind his head, and smirked. His eyes twinkled with mischief as he looked across at his best friend.
It was the gray-eyed boy’s turn to narrow his eyes. “What are you thinking?” he asked suspiciously.
“What do you say we size this up a bit?”
The gray eyes remained narrowed as the boy considered. After a moment his answer was clear by the grin that spread across his lips beautifully. Several girls in the crowd sighed dreamily. The boy leaned back in his chair, copying his friend’s pose, and he asked, “What did you have in mind, mate?”
“Why don’t we make this match a little more…realistic?” suggested the other boy slyly, gracefully arching a single eyebrow. He’d practiced that in the mirror before bed for weeks.
In response, the gray-eyed boy stood up, pushing back his chair, and stepped away from the table.
Lily Evans had been watching the whole thing out of the corner of her eye. She was a prefect, and rightfully so; however, she didn’t think her partner was as fit for the title. Remus Lupin sat relaxing in an armchair near the fire, watching his two raven-haired friends with lazy indifference. Lily glanced at him and huffed out a breath, effectively blowing a strand of auburn hair out of her emerald green eyes. He won’t be much help, she thought.
She stood from her own armchair. Back straight, shoulders square, and chin up, she marched determinedly over to the table where the two friends were playing. The boy with the glasses had also stood and backed away from the table. His wand was in his hand, and just as he was about to wave it, Lily gave him pause.
“Don’t you even think about it, James Potter. We’re not allowed to use magic; it was one of the conditions to having this celebration.” She kept walking until she was only standing several inches from him, and planted her fists on her hips. Her forehead barely reached as high as the tip his slightly-too-long nose.
Despite her stern warning, James smiled at her and smoothly slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Relax, Evans, it’ll be just one teeny, tiny spell. What harm could it do?”
He felt a quick prick of envy when she easily lifted one delicate eyebrow. He bet she’d never had to practice. “Do you really want me to answer that, Potter?” she replied.
“C’mon, Evans, live a little. You need to lighten up.” Lily looked over at the boy with the gray eyes.
“Hush, Sirius,” James scolded mildly. “I got it.” Turning back to Lily, he said with a charming smile, “Just one enlargement spell, Evans. Please…it’s all in good fun.”
She didn’t even bat an eye. “No,” she insisted firmly. “What if something was to happen?”
James removed his arm from across her shoulders to take her chin in his hand. “Trust me, Evans. I know what I’m doing.”
After that, things proceeded too quickly for Lily to keep up. James deftly leaned down and pecked her on the cheek, freezing her in disbelief that he would dare to be so bold. While she was distracted, he pulled out his wand again and gave it a complicated swish. “Engorgio!”
The chess set began to grow. And grow, and grow. The crowd cheered and Sirius whooped in excitement. Soon the table could no longer hold the weight of the rapidly enlarging board game and collapsed from under it. By now the pieces alone were knee height.
Lily had come out of her daze when the table had broken. She stepped forward, pulling out her own wand and stopped the game from growing any bigger. The damage was already done, however, and the pieces seemed to have developed a mind of their own.
As the size of house-elves, the pieces started running amok around the common room, thoroughly trashing it. Gryffindor students screamed and dashed for their dormitories, hoping to get there before the chess pieces did.
Only a handful of students stayed behind to try to do some damage control. Lily was one of them; she kept cursing herself for being so easily distracted by Potter, of all people, while she stunned the knights and queens and kings.
One knight had apparently dodged all efforts to take him down. He started thrashing his sword around wildly. While she’d had her back turned, the piece had come up behind Lily. His sword caught her side, slicing her flesh in one clean, deep gash.
She gasped and quickly stunned him. She held both of her hands to her side, which was gushing crimson liquid, soaking the side of her shirt and seeping easily through her fingers. No one seemed to notice though; they were still busy stopping the last few rebellious chess pieces.
Lily carefully made her way to an armchair to sit down. The cushion was vomiting stuffing, but she didn’t notice as her vision grayed around the edges. Blood began soaking the armchair, too.
“Lily?” came a voice. A girl with chocolate brown hair and eyes to match poked her head around the back of the armchair in which Lily sat. “All the pieces have been stunned. Are you okay? You look sick…” The girl trailed off as she came around the chair and spotted Lily’s wound. She gasped. “Oh my God, Lily! Why didn’t you say anything?” She pulled Lily to her feet. “Come on, I’ll take you to the infirmary.”
Lily smiled at her best friend weakly. “Thanks, Charlie.”
Charlize Simmons cleaned the blood from the chair with her wand before conjuring a very long strip of thick cloth. “Here, this ought to help clot it better than your hands.” The brunette wrapped the cloth around Lily’s waist before supporting her out of the portrait hole.
Lily lie on her side on one of the stiff, blindingly white beds in Hogwarts’s hospital wing while the nurse, Madam Pomfrey, muttered some healing words and lathered some ointments on her cut.
When she was finished, Madam Pomfrey straightened with her fists on her hips. Glaring down at the two girls sternly, she said, “May I question how you acquired such an incision?”
Lily glanced at Charlie, who was looking at her with meaningfully wide eyes. Seeing she would be no help with an alibi, Lily tried to draw up a reasonable one on her own. “A small…hazard at the party in the Gryffindor common room,” she finally said, attempting to hide the uncertainty in her voice.
The nurse gave her a dubious look and Charlie gaped at her. Not wanting the nurse’s doubts to deepen, Lily discreetly gave Charlie a hard pinch on the leg.
“Small? Dear child, a cut this size was nowhere near an accident.” Pomfrey’s gaze intensified. “You haven’t been using magic when I know for a fact that Professor McGonagall disallowed it, have you?”
“No,” Lily replied. Too quickly.
“I daresay I’ll have to report this to your Head of House, Miss Evans.”
“No! It’s no big deal, really. Everything’s been taken care of already.”
“I must report this,” Madam Pomfrey stated with finality. “Now, make sure you come back in the morning for a change of bandages. It should be cleared up by lunch tomorrow.”
With that she shooed Lily and Charlie out the doors.
After walking through a couple of corridors in silence, Charlie couldn’t hold back any longer. “Why on earth did you stick up for them? They’re ignorant jerks that deserve a detention for arguing with a prefect and going against firmly stated rules! And that Lupin! They’re his friends, and he didn’t do dung about it! He should have his badge revoked! It was all way out of line!”
“I’m not a tattletale,” Lily said simply. Charlie tutted.
They reached the Fat Lady and gave the password. Upon entering, Lily and Charlie were met with Peter, Remus, Sirius, and James sitting alone on the couch in front of the fire. The room was empty and clean, all remnants of the party and chess game gone. When they heard the girls enter, all the boys’ heads turned toward the portrait hole simultaneously, faces blank. Then James spoke.
“So, one little mishap and you have to go running to McGonagall? I knew you were stuck-up and rule abiding, Evans, but I didn’t think you’d be a blabbermouth, too. Just in here, McGonagall. Gave us a good talking to. She’s not happy with the prefects,” he accused, glaring at her coldly.
“Little mishap? You call setting an armed…thing rampaging about minor? Someone could have gotten seriously injured!” Lily countered, returning a glare just as cold, unconsciously rubbing her side. Remus noticed this and furrowed his eyebrows, but didn’t ask.
“Stop being so melodramatic, Evans! I was handling it! Nothing happened!” James leapt to his feet.
“You were handling it? Funny, I remember myself having to stun the blasted things! How dare you make assumptions without knowing the half of it! Don’t you realize you started the whole thing? You and your sickeningly conceited ways of gaining popularity!”
James’s eyes flared with rage. That had struck a nerve. “At least I know how to have fun! You know fun, right Evans? Well, you’ve probably never experienced it, but you’ve probably read all about the theory of frolicking in a bloody book once! I’m surprised you know what sunlight looks like, the way you keep cooped up inside with your nose buried in encyclopedias!”
Lily was gaping in spite of herself. The argument had taken a drastic turn and had gotten very personal. Of course she knew what sunlight looked like, felt like, and that it can be bad to get too much of it without using precautions.
It wasn’t worth the time and energy to fight with James. She knew she had the ammo, but it could take a while for her to think of it fast enough. He had needle-sharp tongue, and was quick to think of comebacks. He also had a hard head, so hard that even if you could bash words into his head with a hammer, he would still be stubbornly convinced he was right.
Lily snapped her jaw shut, stared at James with an honest hurt look for a moment, then calmly walked to the girls’ dormitory staircase with Charlie, who was flushed in the cheeks and had her fists clenched, following behind her.
From then on, the Marauders kept their distance away from Lily and Charlie, and vice versa, only speaking went it was absolutely necessary, and even then it was short and curt.
From Abomination to Adoration by grape_2010
Chapter Notes: **REWRITTEN!**