“You’re not head-boy?” Lily asked in surprise.
“Nope. I wished I knew who was. But being prefect was good enough for my parents. To tell you the truth, being a prefect was completely dull.”
Lily didn’t say anything to oppose that statement. In fact, she believed that being a prefect was enjoyable.
“Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?” Amos wondered. Lily was taken completely by surprise. But, she smiled. Amos returned the smile. Lily admired his straight, white teeth and his eyes…
It was then, the Lily noticed a group of people watching them through a window. She stopped abruptly. Her eyes traveled across the faces of Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black… and James Potter. Her heart almost stopped beating when she saw James’s expression. He wore the darkest expression on his face that Lily had ever seen.
She saw his finger curled up in tight fists, resting on his knees. She also noticed the bandage wrapped about his head. His glasses were a cracked on his left lens in the upper left hand corner. Behind the glasses, his eyes were full of hatred, darkness, and misery.
A tiny ball of light was swirling sadly around his head.
He still hasn’t given up on me…
When Lily couldn’t stand the view a second longer she turned her head and walked with Amos out of their view.
“I’ll think about it…” Lily announced. She wasn’t sure that Hogsmeade with Amos Diggory was a good idea. Potter would go insane.
“Let me know as soon as possible.”
Even as she walked, James’s condition still lingered in her mind.
~
“That’s it!” James shouted, his temper rising rapidly, “I’m gonna kill Diggory!”
“James! Calm down! We don’t even know if she likes him!” Sirius tried to restrain James.
“Oh, if I had my wand…” James whispered dangerously.
“But you don’t and Diggory has his, so stop being so… inpatient!” Remus reminded.
James took a sharp intake of breath, teeth gritted together. “I’m gonna prove to Lily that I’m not an immature, foolish hot-headed kid.”
“Wow… that is going to be pretty hard considering you are one…” Sirius said thoughtfully.
“Shut up…” James rummaged through his trunk and pulled out a red and gold head-boy badge and walked out the door.
~
Lily was deep in conversation with Amos when someone brushed, roughly, them aside and stormed down the hallway.
“What are you doing, Potter?” Amos Diggory demanded James. Lily was thinking the exact thing herself.
“I’m going to the head-car,” was James’s curt answer.
“Only prefects and head boys and girls are needed to do that, Potter.”
“Well, for your information, I AM head boy.” James jabbed his finger at a badge pinned to his robes.
Lily was stunned. How could James Potter, James Potter, become head boy? Maybe he stole the badge from his friend, Remus. Yes, that would make sense. But at the same time, Lily could see the name “James Potter” etched in the badge. She almost threw up. Doing patrols around Hogwarts with him?
Diggory was also lost for words. Instead of talking to James, he just turned his back. James turned too, and began walking down the hallway.
Lily looked form James to Amos, and then James again. “One minute please,” she begged of Amos, and then she ran after James. She slowed down when she came closer to him.
“Potter?” she asked timidly.
“What?” he growled, spinning around. For a brief second, he was still wearing his dark face, but he relaxed a bit when he saw Lily.
“I-I just wanted to say, um, congratulations on becoming head-boy…” James looked at her with interest, as if expecting more. “A-and I hope you’re O.K. It was a really nasty fall you took on the platform.” James could see Lily bite her tongue.
“I’m fine, actually. Its just a little scratch.”
Lily stifled a laugh right before it came out. “Oh yes, Potter. It’s just a little scratch.”
They both laughed.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” A pale boy with sleek, blonde hair strode up to them. He was wearing a Slytherin head boy badge. He definitely was not a sight that Lily had planned on seeing.
~
“Hello, Lucius Malfoy,” James curtly shot at him, “What brings you here?”
Malfoy paid no mind to James’s comment. He only glanced at James’s head and bandage and asked softly with his cool and chilling voice, “My, my. What happened to your head, Potter? It looks like you tried to run through the wrong barrier.”
James sighed with relief. If Lily had told about James’s fall, which he highly doubted, it had not reached Malfoy’s ears yet.
“Quidditch,” he replied simply, “A rogue blugder knocked me in the head.”
“My, my. Our Hogwarts Quidditch star is defeated by a bludger?”
“Not defeated. More like… hit by.” Lily sniggered quietly.
“Miss Evans… why are you in his company? What happened to you hate for him? Why are you standing up for a immature boy who has irritated you since first year?” James lost some of his confidence. He swallowed but kept on looking straight at Malfoy.
A muscle in Lily’s mouth twitched. “There is nothing I loathe more than a monster who seeks pleasure in other people’s misery.”
“Like Potter?”
“No, like you!”
James smiled. Malfoy raised his eyebrows and said, “Very well. But, luckily, you’re say doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Why, because you’re a mudblood, of course.”
Silence filled the corridor. Suddenly, James roared “HOW DARE YOU,” grabbed Malfoy, and pinned him to the wall.
“Potter! Stop it!” Lily shouted.
James ignored her, and demanded, “You take that BACK! You take that back you son of a-!”
“JAMES!!!”
“What!?!” James turned his head and saw Lily, wand out, and several first and second years, their heads peeking out from their compartments.
James hastily let go of Malfoy, who calmly, walked away, glaring back at James. It was then, that James realized that Lily had called him by his first name…
~
“Everyone back to their cabins!” Lily ordered. The young students slowly closed their door again. When Lily was sure that no one was remaining in the hallway, she whispered hoarsely, “What is WRONG with you?”
“I just-”
“He’s not worth it!”
“But he called you-”
“I know what he called me! But that doesn’t mean that you have to start beating him up! Especially in front of first years! Do you think that a head-boy beating up another boy is going to set a good example?”
“Sorry…” James mumbled.
Lily sighed. “Just lower your temper, O.K.? Malfoy’s just a coward.”
Suddenly, the train’s lights went out and it jerked to a stop. Lily and James fell.
Lily stumbled up and ran down the hallway, shouted, “Everyone is to stay in the compartment! No one leaves! That includes you, Abraham!”
Lily began walking back down the hallway, leaving James behind. The further she walked, the more it became strangely cold in the train. Lily could see her breath. She couldn’t see anything for it had become so shadowy.
“Oh this is stupid of me,” she scolded, “‘Lumos!’” Light filled her hallway from her wand tip. Amos was gone. She looked behind her. James had walked the other way and was now out of sight.
Lily kept on walking forward. She had to find Julianne and Maya. The further she walked, the colder it got. Soon, she was too cold to keep on walking and she fell to her knees, shivering. She heard some whimpering next to her. She twisted to the side and her wand light illuminated a small boy, no more than eleven years old.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked kindly. The boy only swallowed.
“Come here.” Lily outstretched her hand. He boy took it. Lily wrapped the boy in her cloak.
“Come on. Lets find you a compartment.” She pointed her wand at a door and opened it. She pushed the boy inside and locked him inside.
Now she was alone in the hallway. She lifted her head. It was unnaturally quiet.
She took another step, slipped on something, and fell on her stomach. She felt the floor and, by a reaction, withdrew her hands. It was ice. The floor was covering in ice.
Lily turned over and froze, not because of the coldness, but because of a dark, ragged cloaked figure standing right in front of her.
Extremely carefully, she lifted her head. Lily Evans found herself looked directly into the hood of the reason for all of the coldness and silence.
She screamed and her light went out as the dementor reached out to grab her.
“Expecto Patronum!” she yelled. A small wisp of silvery smoke came out, but quickly disappeared.