Disclaimer: Sadly, I am not J.K. Rowling and therefore did not invent most of the characters and places in this fanfic.
“Come, come back to me, my darling
I wasn't prepared for this
Oh, I wasn't prepared for this
When the day is blue
I'll sit here wondering about you.”
I Wasn’t Prepared by Eisley
“So, it’s time for our traditional back to school mockery session, show us the goods, Lily,” said a teenage girl, leaning back comfortably in her scarlet seat.
The train let out a steaming whistle. The sound of hundreds of goodbyes echoed around them as the train began to leave the station.
“What?” replied Lily, absent-mindedly, as she sifted through a folder packed with leaflets and notes.
“Oh, come on! The letters! What did he send you this year?”
Lily felt her stomach knot slightly. She ignored the question and resumed her intensive folder organization.
“Lily! Pay attention! Violet and I are dying to know! We look forward to this every summer,” said the girl again, pushing back her golden mane to reveal a set of inquisitive blue eyes. “Did he send any poems? Please let there be poems.”
A curly-haired girl, who had been silently gazing out the window, laughed at this.
“Remember last year?” she said. “What was it again? ‘Lily, oh Lily, you make me so silly...’”
Lily frowned while her two friends erupted in hysterical laughter. After their brief fit, both girls turned to her with questioning looks.
“He didn’t send me anything this year,” Lily said. She said it quietly and very unwillingly. She had begged him for years to just leave her alone, and for the first time, he was listening. This is what she had always wanted. Why did it bother her so much?
“I can’t believe it;” said her blonde friend. “You mean to tell me that for the first summer in five years, James Potter has not bombarded you with a daily flow of letters?”
“Yes, Sarah, that is what I said,” Lily replied sharply.
At this Sarah cocked an eyebrow.
“I’m sensing a very hostile tone from you, Miss Evans. You couldn’t possibly be upset that he hasn’t written you?
“No, I’m not upset! I’m just nervous about my first meeting, that’s all, and you’re distracting me from my preparation.”
Sarah smirked.
“Do you know who the Head Boy is yet?” asked Violet, pushing a pair of glasses over her brown eyes.
“No, I have no idea. But I got along pretty well with all of the guy prefects the past two years, so I don’t think it should be a problem. I’m pretty sure it’ll either be Lupin or Macmillan, though.”
“No, Remus didn’t get it,” said Sarah.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” muttered Violet. “I guess that means you’ll be stuck with Macmillan.”
“Don’t say it like that, he’s fine,” replied Lily. “He’s just a bit pompous at times. I know he’s expecting it, he told me everyone in his family was Hufflepuff prefect and later one of the Heads.”
“Believe me, talk like that will get very irritating after awhile,” said Violet.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? You haven’t been followed around for years by the school’s resident big head!” cried Lily.
Sarah burst out with a peal of laughter.
“I guess it’s a good thing that Potter’s not Head Boy, then.” She resumed her laughing, and finished it off with an enlarged version of her signature smirk.
Lily felt her stomach flip.
“Sarah, what do you know? Did Remus tell you who the new Head Boy is? It’s not… it can’t be…” stammered Lily.
“Don’t be silly, I don’t know a thing,” she said, and she pulled a large pillow down from the storage rack and closed her eyes to sleep, the smirk still on her lips.
Lily glared at her and began to gather her things together.
“It’s time for my meeting. I have to welcome all the prefects and hand them their lists of duties. And suddenly, I’m feeling really nervous about seeing who the new Head Boy is. You don’t know, do you?”
“No, I’m as lost as you are,” said Violet.
“Wonderful,” said Lily.
* * * * * * * * * *
“Potter! You couldn’t have warned me that it was Potter!” cried Lily.
“Calm down, Lily. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise,” said Sarah.
“Didn’t you think I might need some mental preparation for news like that. As a friend, you should have told me!”
“Relax! I practically told you anyway. And after I saw your reaction to him not writing you, I thought you would be happy about spending more time with James dearest,” laughed Sarah.
“Just cut it out, will you? You know that I can’t stand him. Just drop it,” Lily fumed.
A few prefects passed by the compartment, and Lily stormed out to join them. Violet turned to Sarah with an expression of shock drawn on her face.
“Wow, you really upset her. What do you think that was about? I mean, she usually gets annoyed when you bug her about James, but she seemed exceptionally mad this time,” said Violet.
“She’s just upset because she can’t come to terms with her own feelings. She’s crazy about him, and she won’t admit it.”
“Still, something must be bothering her. I wonder if something happened.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Violet and Sarah made their way across the Great Hall to the Gryffindor table. Sarah took a seat next to a thin, sickly-looking boy and soon began talking to him and his friends. A few moments later, Lily walked in and took the seat next to Violet. When she noticed with whom her friends had chosen to sit, a look of apparent irritation spread across her face. Violet noticed this and leaned over to Lily.
“You know how close Sarah and Remus are and she hasn’t seen him all summer, just let it slide, ok?” said Violet.
Lily sighed. Sarah Weston, that quick-tempered, loud, instigating best friend of hers, just happened to be lifelong friends with the person most unlike her; quiet, intelligent Remus Lupin. It was a friendship that puzzled most people, and sometimes Lily wondered if Sarah did not use Remus just to be closer to his popular friends. It was these friends that Lily had a problem with. Remus, Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black and James Potter were inseparable. Peter, although he was lazy and rather on the slow side, she could tolerate. It was Black and Potter that drove her to the brink of insanity. They were so rude, shallow and conceited that she could barely stand to be around them. Potter had harassed her for ages with claims about his undying love for her, which she knew to be false. He liked the chase and nothing more.
Violet had been correct in her assumption that something was disturbing her friend. It was precisely Potter that had her so agitated at the moment. His affection for her had infuriated her for years. When he did not write to her over the summer, instead of feeling relieved and content, as she rationally should have, she was disappointed and upset. These feelings only escalated when she went to the prefect meeting. Potter walked in, made the announcements, and walked out. His greeting to her was a quick ‘hello’ accompanied by a brief smile. He did not beg with her to date him, or bow before her, or kiss her hand, or call her one of his concocted pet names. She had always hated these sickening displays, but now, she almost missed them.
Sitting at the Gryffindor table, after the Headmaster’s annual greeting speech and once the mountains of delicious food had appeared for their dinner, she struggled with these new emotions. She did not want to have feelings for Potter, and so she made up numerous excuses to amount for her disappointment in his new attitude towards her. None of them were very persuasive, and not even she was convinced. Still, she tried as hard as she could to believe that she was merely coming down with a strange bout of the flu.
A smooth voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Lily?”
She looked up and saw a pair of hazel eyes staring into her own. It was Potter and he was asking her a question. But why was he calling her “Lily”? She was always “Evans” to him. He had even apparently dropped his superiority act around her. She was shocked to find that she was not at all happy about this.
“Yes, Potter?” she grumbled.
“Lily, will you “”
Overcome with a flood of relief, Lily replied before he had finished his sentence.
“No, for the last time, I will not go out with you, Potter!” Things were finally back to normal, why had she worried so much?
But she noticed that his friends were all chuckling and that a slight flush had appeared on his face. She had just done something stupid, she knew it.
“Umm, actually… will you pass the chicken?”
Her face was burning so much she almost wondered if something scalding had been poured on her accidentally.
“Well… good… I’m glad that you… I’m… Here’s the chicken.”
“Uh, thanks,” he said.
An awkward silence ensued, that Sarah filled up with a few cricket sounds, which Lily could not have appreciated less. Seeing Lily’s face, Sarah leaned over to Black and successfully drifted the attention away from her embarrassed friend.
At the end of the feast, Lily was not nearly as sufficiently suffonsified as her friends, who had stuffed themselves with food and conversation. She had spent the evening moping, which was highly uncharacteristic of her. As she was leaving her seat to help lead the students to the common room, she saw Evangeline Wilson, a Ravenclaw girl with frosty blue eyes, chocolate locks and renowned gossip-spreading skills, approached Potter. She knotted her porcelain arms around his neck and planted her lips on his. The scalding feeling had long left Lily’s body and she now felt as though she were plunging through icy waters. She just stood there, horrified, as they laughed and embraced. She felt an arm around her shoulder that led her away gently. Sarah dragged her all the way to the common room. Once they reached their dormitory, Sarah sat down next to Lily and with calming eyes said “I’m so sorry, Lils.”
Lily struggled to find the words, but try as she may, she could not form them. After several attempts, she finally gasped out, “James Potter… has a girlfriend.”
A/N: Hey everyone, this is my first fanfic, so please tell me what you think! Any criticism is greatly appreciated! Hope you enjoy it.