Not a Maybe Thing by HoneydukesAddict
At King’s Cross Station on September 1st, Lily Evans paused to look behind her and flashed a smile at her family as they stood looking after her. Mr. and Mrs. Evans smiled sadly and waved, while her sister Petunia stood indifferently beside them. Turning back around, Lily closed her bright green eyes and walked through the barrier between the Muggle world and the life that had been hers for six years.
Appearing at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters moments later, she heard the sound of the train and the voices of people on the platform before she saw them - one voice in particular standing out.
“Lily!” the girl squealed, and Lily opened her eyes quickly, looking around to see where it had come from.
Suddenly, the speaker was right in front of her, and just as quickly, they were hugging and grinning behind the other’s back. Lily held on tight and realised again how much she had missed her friend over the holidays.
“Kathleen! I can’t believe I haven’t seen you all summer!” Lily squeezed her friend again, and let go to get a good look at her.
It was pretty much the same Kathleen Brady she had said good-bye to at the end of last term. She had the same dirty blonde hair, the same sharp, gray eyes, was still two inches taller than Lily and still smiled just as effortlessly. The two of them had been as close as sisters for ages, almost as soon as they had arrived at Hogwarts. Kathleen knew everything about Lily, and Lily could virtually read Kathleen’s thoughts.
“I know, but you know I was gone all summer. At least we got to write, though,” Kathleen said, hugging Lily again. “Well, we have all year together, now.”
“Right. Come on, I need to be at the Head Compartment in a couple minutes.” Lily picked up her trunk and started walking towards the train with Kathleen.
“Oh, yeah, you’re Head Girl! You said that in your last letter. Congratulations again. You know, I really can’t believe we won’t ever be leaving for Hogwarts again after this. . . .” Kathleen trailed off sadly, but then smiled. “But this year will be perfect! Especially now that the Head Girl’s my best friend.” She glanced at Lily, grinning, as they stepped onto the train.
Lily laughed. “Well, I probably won’t be giving you detention, but I can’t just let you get away with everything!”
“Some things, though,” said Kathleen, and Lily nodded, smiling.
“We have to have fun, after all. It’s our last year!”
The two girls reached the Head Compartment and put their bags down. Looking around, Lily saw that almost half of the prefects had arrived already and were milling around discussing their summers.
“I wonder who the Head Boy is. You'll have to work with him all year long. . . . Let’s hope he’s cute.” Kathleen grinned at Lily, who smiled.
“Well, at least we know he won’t be a Gryffindor. Remus is the only one that could possibly be it, but then he’s sick too much,” Lily answered. “Probably a Ravenclaw. The worst thing that could happen is that it could be a Slytherin.”
“Or Black or Potter!” Kathleen laughed. “But Dumbledore is smarter than to make it one of those two. Plus, neither of them were prefects.”
“That would be crazy. I might have to resign!” Grinning, Lily looked around to see if the Head Boy had arrived yet. When she saw no new faces, she sat down next to her bag and tucked her trademark red hair behind her ears.
“I don’t think he’s coming,” said Kathleen as she sat down next to Lily.
Lily smiled at her best friend. “He wouldn’t just skip the first meeting. Just be patient.”
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The loud crack of a wizard Apparating filled a small, messy flat that had an odour like a spell gone wrong. Instantly, loud footsteps could be heard running throughout the place, and a panicked voice yelled, “Padfoot! We have to go NOW!”
“What?” a groggy voice mumbled, sleepily opening his eyes. He seemed confused as he looked over the young man with wild, hazel eyes standing in his bedroom, and became even more bewildered as the man began to pack his trunk. He sat up, took off his covers and got out of bed. “What are you doing, Prongs?”
“You idiot, today is Hogwarts! The train leaves in six minutes!” James Potter, known as Prongs to his friends, stopped packing for a moment and found a clean pair of jeans and a shirt. He tossed them to Sirius Black, also known as Padfoot, who immediately put them on over his boxers.
James finished his packing and charmed the trunk to make it weightless. “How clean are you?”
“I took a shower last night. Let‘s go,” said Sirius hurriedly as he ran a hand through his long, dark hair and picked up the trunk. He looked around his flat and then the two Disapparated to the platform.
Once there, they took off running amid the hustle of students and parents saying goodbye to each other. Sirius cursed as he nearly knocked over a small boy, and then he hurtled onto the train after James only seconds before the train began to move. Breathing heavily, the two began laughing as they leaned against the inside of the train, trying to make their heartbeat return to normal.
“There you are. I've been waiting for you in the Head Compartment for almost ten minutes, but I should've known neither of you would be here until the last second,” said Remus Lupin, approaching Sirius and James from behind.
“Of course not! You know us better than that.” Sirius grinned as he clapped Remus on the back in greeting.
“How’ve you been, Moony?” asked James. “But really, how’s the Head Meeting supposed to begin without the Head Boy?“ The three boys laughed together as they began heading towards the back of the train, stopping only for a moment to greet Peter Pettigrew, called Wormtail, another one of their friends.
The four of them, laughingly called “The Marauders,” had been friends nearly their entire time at Hogwarts. Since James and Sirius had louder personalities than the other two, they usually ended up as the ringleaders of their pranks.
James was the tallest of the four at nearly 6’2”, beating Sirius and Remus by two inches, and Peter had not grown any taller since he reached 5'9" in fifth year. James’s scruffy-looking black hair was always sticking up, no matter what anyone did to try to flatten it. He actually didn’t mind it being so untidy; he thought it looked rather good, even if some people pretended not to like it.
“Oi, Prongs! Evans is Head Girl!” Sirius said, laughing. “Won’t this be interesting?”
“What? Really?” said James, trying to look in the compartment window to see if he could spot her.
And there she was, standing next to her friend Kathleen and talking to one of the Ravenclaw prefects. He thought she looked even more wonderful than she had two months ago. . . . James shook his head to clear his thoughts. Sirius was looking at him funny, like he was about to laugh.
“See something you like, Prongs?” he teased. “You’d better straighten your Head Boy badge before she sees you!”
Trying to hide his smile as James looked down at his shirt in confusion, Sirius opened the compartment door. Quickly, James braced himself for Lily’s reaction to seeing him and the badge pinned on his shirt.
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Looking back a few hours later, Lily supposed it hadn’t been so bad. She hadn’t turned purple after all, just fairly red. She hadn’t shouted herself hoarse, but her throat did hurt a little. And she had only frightened half of the prefects, not all of them. Most people that had heard about the incident were actually quite amused. But certainly not Lily. She was still furious.
“Don’t tell me you’re still upset about Potter!” Kathleen raised an eyebrow at Lily’s clenched jaw and folded arms.
Lily made herself relax. “Well, I still don’t understand why he’s Head Boy. Surely, Dumbledore knows that I can’t stand him!”
“Dumbledore knows all,” said Kathleen in agreement.
The two had stayed in the Head Compartment along with James and his friends during the train ride. After all, the Head Boy and Girl were supposed to stay there while they sent prefects to patrol the train, and no one thought that Lily should be left alone with James until she cooled off some more. But Lily had ignored all of the Marauders and talked only with Kathleen.
“Come on, here’s an empty compartment,” said Lily, stepping into it and locking the door behind Kathleen.
As they began to change, Kathleen asked, “How much time do we have until the stop?”
“About ten minutes. Hey, we haven’t seen anyone except the prefects and the Marauders. We should try to find Peyton, Hallie, and Annis to get a carriage,” said Lily. Kathleen and Lily had shared not only a dormitory with the girls, but also a lot of laughter and fun.
“What about Brooklyn?”
“Mrs. Wycliff took her out of Hogwarts over the summer. She didn’t think it was safe or something,” said Lily gravely. “I’m going to miss her…”
“She was so sweet! But why did her mum take her out? Doesn’t she know Voldemort is more likely to kill her outside of Hogwarts?” Kathleen asked angrily, glaring at her tie as she put it on.
“I don’t know. All I know is that I‘m tired of this damn war.” Lily sighed in frustration. “Come on, let’s go find them.”
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“Yes, I definitely think that Evans will fall madly in love with you this year,” said Sirius. He was stretched out on his back along the compartment seat, lazily eating from his pile of Chocolate Frogs.
“Toss me one of those, Padfoot,” said James. He caught and opened it. “Dumbledore. Here, Wormtail, I already have about twenty of those.” James flicked the card at Peter, who grabbed wildly for it but missed by a foot.
Smirking a little, Sirius sat up. “I’m bored,” he said, stretching his arms.
“You’re always bored,” Remus said dryly. “You ought to be used to it by now.”
“Well, it’ll be different this year,” said James, to no one in particular.
“Of course,” Sirius said, not missing a beat. “I think I’ve already begun to see signs of non-hate in her.”
James rolled his eyes but smiled and helped himself to another Chocolate Frog. As he started to open it, the train began to slow down, eventually stopping at the station in Hogsmeade. “Finally!” he said, and the group got to their feet.
Sounds of excitement and lots of chattering filled James’s ears when he stepped outside of the Head Compartment. For a moment, he forgot about the several long minutes of yelling that had taken place earlier, and he became happy, realizing that they would be at Hogwarts within minutes. His face lit up with a grin, and he motioned for his friends to follow him to get a carriage.
On the way to the nearest carriage, amidst Hagrid’s shouting for the first years and the general scramble to find an empty carriage, James backed into someone.
“Oh, sorry!” he said, turning around.
“I don’t need your apologies. I just need you to get out of the way,” Lily said with a raised eyebrow, motioning at the carriage door that he was blocking.
“Wait a minute, Evans, I believe we were getting into that carriage,” Sirius began charmingly.
“Just get in, we can all share.” Remus pushed his friends in, and they sat waiting expectantly for Lily and Kathleen to follow.
“No, thanks,” said Lily coldly. “I’d like to spend as much time as possible away from Potter while I still can.”
Lily turned around to join her friends in the next carriage, but she didn’t miss the look of pain on James's face. She shook off the feelings of guilt, promising to herself that she wouldn’t be so nasty the next time she saw him, but his expression stayed in her mind all the way to Hogwarts.