AN: I am sooooo sorry!!!! Writer’s block really sucks! The actual first chapter of the story is so hard, cuz you don’t know where to start off! Okay, one last thing to say before I let you all read:
Disclaimer: These fish all live in JK’s pond. I just catch them, play with them for a while, and then throw them back in!
‘Mum!’ I hollered down the stairs. ‘Where are my robes?’
‘How should I know, James?’ came the exasperated reply. ‘You need to learn to take better care of your belongings.’ I rolled my eyes. Mothers. A few minutes later I called again.
‘Mum, do you know where my Defence Against the Dark Arts book is?’
‘No, James.’
~Five minutes later~
‘No, James, I don’t know where your cauldron is.’
~Three minutes later~
‘Mum, have you seen my wand?’
‘YOU LOST YOUR WAND?!’
‘Okay,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘Not going to get any help that department.’
‘Having trouble finding your stuff, mate?’ Sirius Black walked casually by my bedroom door and leaned against the door frame with a grin on his face. ‘I finished packing two hours ago.’
‘Padfoot, if you’re not going to help, get out,’ I said while pushing stuff aside to look for my wand.
‘Oooh, is Ickle-Jamesie-kins jealous of brilliant-minded Sirius?’ He shrugged. ‘Oh, well. If you’d rather listen to your dear mum’s shouting, fine by me.’ He made to walk out the door, but I reluctantly stopped him.
‘Okay, Sirius. Please help me! I can’t stand listening to mum’s yelling!’ I pleaded. Sirius grinned. Not good.
‘Not until you tell me I’m the coolest Marauder.’
I glared. He raised his hands. ‘Hey, if you don’t want my help-’
‘Oh, alright!’ I snapped. ‘Sirius, you’re the coolest Marauder,’ I said as fast as I could, as though the faster I said it, the less torture it would cause.
‘Why, thank you, James,’ Sirius rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, about your wand; have you checked under your bed?’ My mouth dropped open.
‘Oh.’
Sirius snickered quietly as I dropped flat on my stomach and fished around under my bed.
‘Aha!’ I exclaimed triumphantly, pulling out the eleven inch mahogany wand. ‘And I saw that,’ I added as Sirius rolled his eyes. He raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, of course, you saw it. That was kinda the point, idiot!’
‘Padfoot,’ I said, ignoring his last comment, ‘do you know where my Sneakoscope is?’ Sirius suddenly became very interested in the long scar from the previous full moon that extended from his left elbow to his forefinger.
‘Padfoot.’ No reply. ‘Padfoot.’ Still no response. His eyes were determinedly glued to the gash on his forearm. ‘Sirius. What did you do with my Sneakoscope?’ At this, Sirius’ gaze slowly shifted to mine and then back to the cut on his arm. I sighed. A mischievous grin crept onto my face.
‘Hey, Padfoot,’ I said slyly. Sirius warily lifted his head to look at me. He narrowed his eyes at the evil look on my face, anticipating a plan. ‘If you don’t tell me where my Sneakoscope is, I’ll tell that girl- Janice or something- that you have a massive crush on her.’ Sirius rolled his eyes and started to examine his forearm again.
‘Prongs, you should know me better than that. I’m only interested in one girl for a week at most. I was over Jackie months ago.’ I disgustedly shook my head.
‘Wait, does that mean you’ve found someone new?’
‘That is exactly what it means.’
‘Who is it?’ I asked curiously. Sirius frowned.
‘I’m not going to tell you, you’ll just make fun of me.’
‘C’mon, mate, would I?’
‘Yes, actually, you would.’ I kept badgering him for another few minutes, but he remained adamant. I finally gave up, irritated that I couldn’t get him to give in. Suddenly, I got an idea.
‘Accio Sneakoscope! ’ It came soaring into the room through the open window, which made me think that Sirius had thrown it into the duck pond we had in our backyard. I caught it triumphantly.
‘Wow, Prongs,’ Padfoot clapped sarcastically. ‘It only took you half an hour.’
‘Shut up,’ I spat through gritted teeth.
‘Well, Prongs, I’d love to stay here and observe you- struggle- with your packing, but I have a letter to write.’ He clapped me on the shoulder, and then walked out of the room.
‘Wait, to this girl? Who is she?’ I bellowed out the door, but Sirius merely waved and continued down the hallway. He stopped suddenly at his door.
‘By the way, Prongs? Don’t forget the Map this year, okay? I don’t want to have to owl your dad without your mum knowing again, alright?’
‘Yeah, yeah, Padfoot, I know. And don’t pretend you didn’t like playing secret agent with my dad, because I won’t believe you.’ Sirius merely shrugged his shoulders and walked into the privacy of his room.
The rest of the day I continued to run around the manor gathering my ‘junk’, as my mother calls it; Sirius remained shut up in his room, claiming that he was doing “important stuff” that couldn’t be postponed any longer.
Finally, at one in the morning, I was pretty sure that I had packed everything, though I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had forgotten something; something important. I sank into an uneasy sleep filled with dreams of Sirius dating a mysterious girl, who turned out to be Lily, and forgotten items; I turned up to Quidditch practise without my Silver Arrow and got kicked off the team. Then I went to Transfiguration without my wand, and Snivellus performed the charm perfectly, so I got kicked out of the Marauders and was replaced me as a Marauder.
I tossed and turned until I finally awoke at six-thirty, realizing that I hadn’t packed the Map. Knowing that Sirius would be after my blood if I forgot it again, especially after he reminded me, I quickly rose and placed the parchment gingerly in my trunk atop my robes. Assuring myself that I wouldn’t get kicked off the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and that Snape would never become a Marauder, I fell into an easy slumber filled with images of Lily smiling at me.
***
The next morning I awoke at about ten to my mother shrieking in my ear that we were going to miss the train and as Head Boy I ought to show some responsibility. And if that wasn’t enough, Sirius thought it would be amusing to parade into the bathroom during my shower and start to sing Elvis. Let me tell you, he really can’t sing. His voice may be deep, but he practically jerks his voice around on the notes. I finally shut him up when I hid behind the shower curtain and aimed the burning water at his face. He screamed like a little girl and ran out of the room, cursing at me for ‘ruining his perfect hair style’. Can you blame me? Dumbledore would have done it; Sirius is that bad! By the time I got downstairs, Sirius had fed my mum some cock-and-bull story how I had woken him up by pouring searing hot water on his ‘precious’ face. So I had to endure Mum’s scolding as soon as I entered the kitchen, and Padfoot’s snickering behind his hand. Finally, I managed to get a word in when she stopped for a breath, and I told her the real story, which didn’t help anything. In fact, it made it worse, as Mum didn’t believe me, so I earned myself another scolding for attempting to incriminate ‘Poor Siri’. Then I spent another ten minutes hunting for my shoes before I realized that I had left them in my closet. With Mum downstairs clicking her tongue and tapping her foot and Sirius’ laughter ringing throughout the south wing, I tore up the stairs and snatched the shoes, then slid down the banister and smacked Sirius round the head. Course, then Mum smacked me across the head, but at least I got a moments’ satisfaction.
I didn’t speak to Sirius again until half an hour later when we Apparated onto the Platform (as Sirius told my mum, ‘Because we can’) and had boarded the train with Remus and Peter. Of course, at that point I realized where I was supposed to be and was tossed unceremoniously from the compartment (Sirius grinned and wished me luck in a falsely sweet voice).
‘Hi,’ I said a little breathlessly when Moony and I skidded into the Heads compartment. ‘Right…so…erm…prefects. Er, welcome to you new prefects, and welcome back to the old ones. My name is James Potter and I-’ One of the new Ravenclaw girls giggled and fluttered her eyelashes at me. I ignored her and continued, gaining confidence with each sentence. ‘And I will be your Head Boy this year. The Head Girl is-’ I cut off. ‘Wait. Who is the Head Girl?’ Several girls raised their hands. I rolled my eyes. ‘None of you are very convincing. Who’s the real Head Girl?’
‘James?’ Remus raised his hand. ‘Lily’s Head Girl this year.’
My insides squirmed. Maybe Lily knew I was Head Boy to her Head Girl, and wouldn’t come because of that? Did she hate me that much? I shook myself. We’d worry about that later.
‘Okay, well, as Lily isn’t here, I’ll have to carry on myself. Um here are your patrolling schedules.’ I handed them out with slightly fumbling fingers. ‘Hufflepuff prefects you’ll patrol the train corridors from now until 12:18, Slytherin, you’ll patrol from 12:18 until 1:36, Ravenclaw, 1:36- 2:54, and Gryffindors you’ll patrol from 2:54 to 4:12. Lily and I will then patrol until 5:30.’
‘What’s with the lame time shifts?’ Regulus Black, the male Slytherin prefect, scowled.
I glared. ‘It makes the shifts equal. Question me again and you’ll get detention. That wouldn’t do much for the proud image of the Slytherin house, now would it? A prefect receiving detention.’ He flushed and I continued. ‘You will be told your passwords by your Head of House at the feast! That is all, you may go.’ Remus and Emmeline, the other Gryffindor prefect, were the last to leave. Emmeline gave me a friendly smile then left. Remus and I sat down.
‘Hey, Moony, did you see Lily get on the train?’
‘No, but I saw Kirsten and Andromeda, and they said she had already gone to the Heads compartment.’
‘Maybe she left something here,’ I suggested. We both searched in the racks, underneath every cushion. I dropped to my stomach to look under the seats.
‘REMUS!’
He came quickly over to see what I was holding up. Moony gasped.
‘That’s her wand!’
‘I knew I couldn’t be the only one who lost my wand!’
‘YOU LOST YOUR WAND?!’
‘Sort of,’ I mumbled. ‘I found it again.’
Sirius’ head popped through the door.
‘Technically I found it,’ he corrected, smirking. ‘Along with your shoes, your Cloak, Sneakoscope-’
‘You hid it!’ I snapped. ‘In the duck pond!’
‘No,’ he snickered. ‘Under a lily pad in the duck pond.’
‘Shut up, Padfoot, I heard it whistling.’
‘Obviously-’
‘Weren’t we talking about how Lily could have lost her wand?’ Remus interrupted.
‘Evans dropped her wand?’ Sirius sniggered. “That makes two things.’
‘Two?!’
‘Yeah. I found this outside, in front of the door.’ He held up a braided silver ring with little emeralds scattered across the surface. ‘I knew it was Evans’ because James showed it to us before he sent it last year for her birthday, remember, Remus?He was going on and on about it.’
My jaw dropped.
‘She- she was wearing it?’ I asked shakily.
‘I don’t think that necessarily means she’s in love with you, Prongs,’ Remus said sadly. ‘She may not hate you though.’
‘If this back patting session is quite through, I believe there was an important issue at hand!’ Sirius intervened loudly.
Remus cleared his throat.
‘Right. So, maybe she came in here, saw someone she wanted to talk to, and simply forgot to pick up her wand.’
‘Or it just dropped out of her pocket,’ Sirius added. ‘Either way. And the ring could have been too big and slipped off her finger.’
‘It doesn’t matter how she lost them!’ I shouted. ‘All that matters is that we find Lily and give them back to her!’
‘You’re right,’ Remus said quickly before Sirius could retort. ‘Let’s go.’
So we set off down the corridor, Sirius to the left and Remus and I to the right. Remus and I looked carefully in every compartment, under every seat, and around every corner. But we had no luck until we reached the very last compartment, where we found Alice Michalow, one of Lily’s roommates. I wasn’t exactly sure if they were the best of friends, but it was our last resort.
‘Hey, Alice?’
‘Hi, James, Remus,’ she returned with a smile. ‘How were your summers?’
‘Uh, great,’ I answered distractedly. ‘Listen, Alice, could you do us a favour? Could you check the ladies restroom and check if Lily’s there?’
‘Er, sure… Is…something…wrong?
‘Yeah, she didn’t show up to the Heads meeting. And she left her wand and ring in the compartment,’ Remus supplied.
‘What?’ Alice gasped. ‘I saw her just as she was getting on the train; she told me that she was heading directly to the Heads compartment. I’ll go right now.’
‘Thanks, Alice,’ I muttered.
She strode out the door and across the hallway to the restroom. She was only in there for about three seconds before we heard her scream. Remus and I bolted into the small room and looked where the frightened girl was pointing. Remus gasped. I couldn’t move; the shock was tremendous. Why?
‘James! James! Pull yourself together! We have to get her to Dumbledore!’ Sirius burst into the washroom, Peter following close behind.
I nodded dumbly but was unable to speak. I closed my eyes, but the image was imprinted in my head:
Lily Evans; blood flowing steadily out of her nose and mouth, green eyes hidden by pale lids, auburn hair fanned out, blood seeping through her clothes; slowly drowning in an ocean of her own blood.
AN: Cliff-hangers are so much fun! Mwahahahahaha! If anyone can guess what happened to Lily, I take off my hat to you! Though you’re all really smart… You’ll probably all figure it out. ;) I’ll update soon, I hope! I’m already sure what’s happening next, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll be able to write it quickly, so please be patient! Don’t worry, Kels, I haven’t forgotten you! Please give a round of applause to beta Kelsey, who pushed and nagged until I had wrote this chapter! I couldn’t have done it without you!