We moved in, in late August so on September first, I started my last year of primary school. One of my only friends at school was Ashley. At least the boys didn’t go there (Ashley told me they were all home-schooled). Maybe that explained their oddities? The last year of school flew by.
On May fifth, Ashley and I got invited to James’s eleventh birthday party, which was on the fifteenth. I would have skipped it, but my parents were making me go. They had met James’ parents and felt it rude if I decline my invitation. At least they didn’t expect me to buy a birthday present, they did it themselves. What do you get a boy that has every toy imaginable?
The fifteenth came all too soon. An hour before the party, I went to play hopscotch outside. Petunia came out, and said it was time to go. I really didn’t want to go, so I told her, she went inside, and a couple of jumps later, mum came out, her hands on her hips with a very stern look upon her face. I dropped my tossing rock, knowing I was defeated, all the while thinking my sister had stooped too low.
“It’s time to go now, go put on your dress.” I knew there was no arguing with Mum, so I lowered my head, and followed her inside. I ran up the stairs reluctantly, and got ready for the party.
When we got there I went and sat down in the parlor their house was more of a mansion with ten rooms. I really didn’t want to associate with James Potter. Last time Ashley and I tried, he threw a frog at me. I heard people walk by, but no one came in, after awhile I fell asleep. I woke up startled by a knock in the doorway, rubbing the sleep from my eyes I saw James coming in to the room. I tried to hide my dislike.
“I’ve been looking for you all over. I wanted to see if you wanted to play football, but clearly you won’t want to in that,” he said, waving a hand, letting me know he meant my dress. Just then, Mrs. Potter called us for cake, which was a good thing, since I felt like strangling James. Then, at the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder why he wanted to play with me?Why couldn’t he play with Sirius? Why me?
When we got to the dinning hall, James picked the seating arrangements forcing me to sit on his left side, and Sirius on his right. The seats filled up before I had a chance to move, and before anyone worth sitting next to could sit next to me. Remus plopped down on my other side, and Peter on Sirius’s other side. I was officially fuming. After they sang happy birthday, I sat with my arms crossed, and James made a wish, I ask him what he wished for, but he just smiled mischievously.
After we got our cake James turned to me and said, “You’re the only one who hasn’t said ‘Happy Birthday’ to me yet.” I was already mad, but when he said this it pushed me over the edge, and I wished that his cake would just fly into his face. I had shut my eyes trying not to scream at the same I time I wished that messy fate upon him, and then when I opened my eyes I thought I was dreaming. He had cake all over his face, all down the front of his shirt, and in his hair. I was satisfied at whoever was brilliant enough to follow through with my wishes. For some reason, he was smirking at me.
What did he know? Stupid boy! That was it. I couldn’t take it any more.
I screamed, “James Potter, I hate you. I never want to see you again.” With that said and done, I balled up my fists at my side, restraining myself from hitting him, and I stomped off towards my house.
Halfway there, I tripped and hurt my ankle and I just sat there, crying, thinking, I hate James, I hate my ankle, and I hate my life. Then, the four people I least wanted to see at that moment came out. When James saw me he looked as if he wasn’t sure if he should help me, but he came over anyways.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s just that I hurt my stupid ankle. It’s happened before. I think I sprained it.”
“Lily my mum can fix it!" James grinned proudly trying to help me off the ground, but I was fighting him pretty adamantly. I didn’t want to be in debt by him for helping me.
"Really, is she a doctor?" I knew my eyes were blazing in anger. I was trying really hard to be nice, I really was, but it was so hard. Every little thing he did just drove me mental!
"Well, no, but she can help. Honest!"
"I don't want anyone touching me that doesn't have a degree in medicine!" I shouted, forcing my weight on the burning joint just to prove it was alright, and continuing on my trek to the house. Tears were pricking in my eyes with the fiery pain in my leg. It seemed to be traveling up with every step. James followed obviously not getting the signs I was throwing his direction. That was another thing I hated about him. He’s clueless!
“Here if you come with me my mother can fix it up in a jiffy, really.”
“How can she do that? It usually takes about four weeks to heal from a sprain.”
He looked around as if to see if anyone was listening, “You’ll see, I can’t tell you here, it’s not safe.”
“Okay, I guess,” was all I could say. Anyway, I was extremely curious. Then, I let him and Sirius half carry me back to the house.
They took me back into the parlor, while James went to get his mother. When she came in she looked kind of worried, and mad. I thought maybe she was mad at me for my wishing James’s cake into his face, and it actually happening.
She turned to me, and smiled sweetly. She dragged James out of the room by the arm, and stopped just outside the door. I craned my neck to see if I could see what was happening. Her voice was muffled by the wall, but she was pretty upset with her son. “I can’t fix it. How dare you ask me to fix it! No matter how much I want to help, I can’t and you know that.”
James returned almost immediately his head down in shame, and possibly embarrassment. He had told me his mum could fix it, and now he was disappointed. “She went to go call your mum,” he spoke quietly, taking a seat across from me. He kept looking at my ankle which was by now three times its normal size, and turning purplish blue. The pain was unbearable, and now my parents were going to be mad at me for twisting my ankle. Maybe I even broke it! It was hurting enough to be broken. That was it when that popped into my head I realized that I couldn’t take it any more. When a girl’s upset, and has run completely out of options there’s nothing left to do, but cry, and maybe scream, and that’s exactly what I did. I turned to James, and with tears streaming down my face said loudly, “This is your entire fault! If you would have let me sit where I wanted, or even not tried to get me to say happy birthday to you, I would be fine. I would be home by now, and I wouldn’t be hurt! Will you leave me alone, please!?” I knew I was overreacting, but I hated him right now. He boiled my blood just that goofy look he always had on his face when he looked at me made me so mad I could strangle him. I was jealous of Ashley for being out of town this weekend, and not able to attend his birthday party.
He left dragging his minions with him. My parents and the Potters came in. My mum glanced at my ankle and decided that I had to go to the hospital. As my dad carried me to the car, James came out, and asked if he could come. I couldn’t open my mouth quickly enough to tell them no, so my parents being the friendly people they are said sure. James jumped into the car beside me, and I just scowled crossing my arms my swollen ankle elevated on the compartment between my parents’ seats.
We got there, sitting for hours, waiting on a doctor. I had fallen asleep. My mum had given me some extra-strength pain killers, and I was in heaven at the moment. No, I take that back, James Potter was sitting beside me.
The doctors took x-rays of my ankle, and found that I had broken it in two different spots. While I was getting a cast on, James was looking totally mystified at the hospital. He was being weird. Had he never seen a hospital before? When I got my cast on the doctors gave me a pair of crutches, and as they instructed me on how to use them James whom had slipped out to the bathroom, chose to reappear at the exact moment I fell down practicing. He started to laugh hysterically, and I hit him with a crutch. He fell silent immediately, and when it came back for a second blow, he dodged it easily.
“Now, now, Miss, they’re not weapons,” the doctor chuckled, writing something in my chart before he left, handing a sheet of paper with instructions, along with a prescription, to my parents.
On the car ride home, I turned to James, my parents were chatting in the front seat so I whispered, “Earlier, when I got really mad at you, who threw the cake in your face?”
For the first time since I had met him, he looked dead serious. I had also never known him to be speechless. “Are you eleven yet?”
“No, I won’t be eleven until June twenty-first, why, and please answer my question.”
He grinned mischievously at me, but said nothing more. Why wasn’t he answering me? He was once again making me mad, but I suppressed my rage, and stared out the window not daring to look at the boy again.
*********************
A month later, on June twenty-first, I turned eleven. Then it happened; my entire life changed in a split second. I got a visitor and a mysterious letter on my birthday. I was invited to study at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft, and Wizardry. It was one of the happiest days of my parents’ life, and also one of the worst of mine. My big sister disowned me completely, and said she would never speak to me again. I felt heart broken. I had always love Petunia. She was my sister, and I loved her unconditionally, so when she screamed at me and told me I was a freak, and an outcast, I spent the night in my room, crying.
When we went over to the Potters later that week, James had hounded me mercilessly to come over, but I had not told him about the letter or visitor. I was positive that was why he was so weird on his birthday after the cake flew into his face. James showed me his letter and I told him about mine, so he congratulated me on being a witch. Apparently, he too was going to attend Hogwarts. Mrs. Potter answered all my parents’ questions. She explained that whenever someone with magical abilities was born, their name was written down, and on their eleventh birthday, they received a letter to go to the school closest magical school. She went on to explain how I would live at the school during the term and come home for holidays if I wished. Mrs. Potter promised that while at school James, if I needed it, would watch out for me. I was, of course, furious. I could take care of myself!
She explained that magical people when they had the right training used a wand (a narrow piece of wood) to direct their flow of magic and is able to use it for pretty much anything. She told us as much as she could, and then told my parents to bring me by before September 1st with some money for school supplies, and that we would go to Diagon Alley with Ashley and her mother (she was actually a witch and her mum was, too, and worked for the Ministry of Magic). I was surprised to be surrounded by so many magical people that hadn’t ever mentioned anything about this!
When we got to Diagon Alley, I didn’t know where to look first. There was so much to look at. So many funny looking people dressed weird. First, we had to go to Gringotts (the bank) to transfer my Muggle (non-magical) money into wizard money. It was amazing to see all the different creatures working in the bank. When we exited the bank, I looked around again, and this time looked more closely at the stores lining the street. There were hundreds of stores. The biggest included Madam Malkin’s Dress Robes For all Occasions, Gringotts, Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor, Flourish and Blott’s book store, a potions store I couldn’t make out the name, and lastly, even though it was a lot smaller than the rest, it probably had the most customers was Ollivander’s wand shop. I got all my stuff in these stores. My robes according to the list had to be black with the Hogwarts symbol on it (an H with a Lion, Snake, Badger, and Raven touching it) on them, a pewter caldron, potion supplies (such as dried beetles and dandelion roots), books for transfiguration, potions, charms, history then a general book of spells grade one, and my wand. It was ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow and with a dragon heart string. But the whole time in Diagon Alley, what I had first spotted was an owl, and that was all I really wanted. What made it worse was James had shown me his before we had left. Unfortunately, I was out of money.
We got home about seven thirty and all I could think about was how much I wanted school to start. That night, the Potters came over for dinner and during the whole thing, even though it was rude I totally didn’t pay attention to them, because I was in such a hurry to tell my parents every thing I had seen, but I didn’t want them to think of me as weird for not knowing before hand.
That night, I fell asleep thinking I couldn’t wait for September first to come and the school term to start. I was so excited to be joining this new world. To learn everything I could (I had already read parts of my text books. I was hoping to memorize them because I knew all the other students would already know more magic than me. I didn’t want to be farther behind the others).
When the day finally came, I couldn’t even imagine what laid in store for me.
Lily and James, A Love Unfolding by lupinslover
Chapter Notes: My new beta suggested I split my first and second chapters in to 1, 2, 3 & 4 so I am...yeah so sorry to those of you who already read this