My story starts on a crisp September morning, at the beginning of my seventh year in Hogwarts. I had come to Kings Cross with my parents, but they had already left. Petunia hadn’t come “ she said she had ‘stuff to do’. I wasn’t fooled by that. We hadn’t spoken for months. She was probably sneaking out with her weird new boyfriend right now.
It was a bit weird standing alone on the platform. A couple of years ago, Sev would have been with me, but now… I sighed. He was probably with all his Slytherin pals right now, bullying a first year. My thoughts drifted. I pulled my new badge out of my bag and began playing with it absentmindedly. I still couldn’t believe that I had been chosen for such an honour, couldn’t grasp the significance of those two shining letters ‘HG’. It was a privilege, and yet it was slightly scary as well. I wondered who the Head Boy would be. Hopefully someone like Remus Lupin; the prospect of a Slytherin Head Boy was just too awful to think about. Someone good-looking would be kinda nice... Hold on, did I really just think that?
“Lily! Oi, Lils!” I was suddenly jolted out of my thoughts. My friend Katie was waving her hand backwards and forwards in front of my face. “Hellooooo?” she repeated.
Katie Wood and I had been best friends ever since both of us got attacked by that biting plant in our first Herbology lesson, and had to spend two weeks in the hospital wing. Stuff like that really brings you together. Katie’s probably the prettiest girl in our year, with her silky, naturally straight brown hair, hazel eyes, and annoyingly perfect skin; but she’s also the nicest and incredibly modest about her looks. She is so pretty that a lot of people get the wrong idea about her. Especially boys. But she can be super-shy too, so the boys have learned to admire her from a distance.
“Katie,” I said, embarrassed, “I was just, um…”
“Away with the fairies? God, Lily, how do you manage to get such good marks in everything when you’re always daydreaming?”
“Err….my natural brilliance, I suppose,” I said, laughing.
“You wish.” She rolled her eyes. “Hey, congratulations, OK?” She hugged me quickly.
“Thanks. I’m still in shock.”
“Don’t be so modest, Lils. You totally deserve it.” She smiled. “I’m so glad it’s you and not some awful Slytherin.”
“Don’t count your blessings yet, we don’t know who the Head Boy is.”
“God, imagine if it’s someone like Avery or Mulciber,” Katie muttered. “Lily, you’ll have to push them under the Hogwarts Express. I don’t think I could stand them.”
“Yeah … problem is, they might just possibly send me to Azkaban…”
“You’ve just got to hope it’ll be someone like R- …” She broke off suddenly, blushing for no apparent reason.
“What’s up?” I said, turning to see what she had been staring at. There was nothing really interesting to see except Remus Lupin, laden down with suitcases. He looked tired and worn out but his face broke into a smile when he saw us. I liked Remus; everyone did. He was popular with girls, who saw him as a genuinely nice guy, and with guys, who respected him. I didn’t much care for his choice of friends, though. But more on that later.
“Hi guys,” he said, cheerfully enough. We both said “Hi” back, simultaneously. Well, Katie said it to her shoes, but I’m sure he understood it was intended for him.
“Wow!” said Remus, looking impressed. “Do you guys always manage to speak together? It’s like you’re twins!”
“Actually, me and Katie were separated at birth. Look at all the similarities between us.”
“Oh, definitely,” said Remus. “Well, one of you’s hair is on fire-”
“Hey, I think the correct term is ‘auburn’,” I interrupted.
“And the other’s hair is…” Remus’s gaze lingered on Katie just a little too long, “…is…er, brown.” He looked slightly dazed. From her thorough examination of her shoes, I gathered that Katie had also noticed his attention to her. I had to bite my lip hard to stop myself laughing.
“Look, can we board the train already?” I said, trying to snap them both out of it. “It’s nearly eleven. The Head Girl can’t miss the Hogwarts Express.”
“Lily, you’re Head Girl?” Remus said eagerly, fumbling with his suitcase. I nodded, relieved that he had come to his senses. We boarded the train, and headed for an empty carriage. Remus and I chatted about being Head Girl, and to my disappointment I found out that he hadn’t been given Head Boy.
And throughout this conversation Katie didn’t say anything. Not a single word. OK, so Katie’s quite shy, but this silence wasn’t like her. I flashed her a few concerned glances, but I couldn’t ask her outright what the problem was.
“So who would you prefer as Head Boy?” Remus suddenly asked Katie. She flinched in surprise.
“Well,” she began hesitantly, “someone from Gryffindor, obviously-”
Bang. Someone screamed. “What on earth-?” muttered Remus. We exchanged anxious glances. It sounded like the noises were coming from only a few carriages down.
“That’ll teach you to laugh at me, Mudblood!” someone jeered. There was another bang and a squeal, and then the sound of footsteps, heading towards us. The three of us drew our wands, pointing them at the door. A moment later, the door was pushed roughly open, and a girl walked in. She had long, thick black hair, dark hooded eyes, and a sneering mouth. Her eyes swept over us, looking at me and Remus with particular distaste.
I stared back. “Having fun, Bellatrix?”
Bellatrix stepped forward and some other people came in after her; Avery, Mulciber and “ my heart sank “ Severus. All four had their wands out and pointing at us.
“So,” said Bellatrix. She motioned to Avery and Mulciber and they headed to block the doors at the other side of the carriage. “So. Looks like all the freaks are in this carriage. The Mudblood, and the, er…” She paused, looking at Remus. “the one with the furry problem.”
Remus’s schoolbag slid from his grip and landed with a crash on the floor. Me and Katie stared at him. He was very pale, and trembling slightly.
“Looks like I struck a nerve there,” sneered Bellatrix.
“Got fed up of beating up first years, then?” I said, almost casually. I wasn’t letting her wind me up. Not yet.
“Hey, I don’t do it to all of them,” she shrugged. “Only those whose blood is “ er “ not pure enough.”
“You’re disgusting,” said Katie, suddenly.
Bellatrix stared at her blankly. Apparently she had forgotten Katie could talk.
“You know, the new regime won’t stand for people like you,” she said finally, changing the topic.
“Oh really? So what exactly is the ‘new regime’?” I challenged.
“Oh, don’t play stupid, Mudblood. You know what’s going on “ what’s happening to your kind.”
“All I know is you’re twice as stupid as I could ever act, and I bet you don’t even understand what I’m saying.”
Bellatrix looked confused. Wow, she really is stupid.
“How many OWLs did you get again? Let’s see…” I pretended to count on my fingers. “One…two…three. Hmm…not so impressive, is it?”
Bellatrix’s expression changed to a scowl. OK, so maybe she did understand what I had said. Oops.
“You dare-” she hissed.
“Yeah, I dare,” I said. “I'm not scared of you, you're pathetic.” But my hand clutching my wand was trembling, for the truth was that I was scared of Bellatrix. She knew all this Dark magic, and her speciality was torture, using curses like-
“Crucio!” yelled Bellatrix suddenly, pointing her wand at me. I hadn't made any attempt to defend myself; my mind was blank and my wand hung uselessly in my hand. In the split second before the curse hit me, I could only stand there and wait for the pain...
And then a hand shoved me hard, so hard that I stumbled and fell to the floor. I felt the spell whiz past me as I fell, a millimetre away from my face. The spell ricocheted off the wall and smashed through a window. Showers of tiny pieces of glass covered the floor, some falling on my clothes and hair. I brushed them off, then looked round at Severus.
He was standing next to Bellatrix, his expression smooth and unreadable. I had never really been able to work out what was going on in his mind. He had been my best friend, and yet sometimes it seemed like I barely knew him. But unless I was very much mistaken, it was his hand that had pushed me. He had saved me from an agonising torture. Or had he?
“Are you OK, Lils?” It was Katie, bending over me, her dark eyes worried. I was about to answer when another, awfully familiar voice cut through my thoughts.
“Aim’s a bit off, Bella .”
Everyone turned round. Bellatrix looked possibly even more angry than she had before.
Two boys were leaning casually against the wall, identical smug grins on their faces.
Remus beamed. “Good holiday, guys?”
“The usual,” said the taller of the two, shrugging his shoulders. He had dark hair that fell elegantly into his intense brown eyes, and an air of charisma, maybe, or magnetism, it was difficult to say. “My mum finally kicked me out,” he added, “so I went round to Prongs’s for the rest of the summer.”
“You deserved it, Sirius.” Bellatrix’s voice was full of hatred. “You’re a disgrace to the name of Black, with your filthy friends-”
“Here’s a bit of advice, Bellatrix,” the other boy broke in. “Shut up. Now. Or I will hex you.”
Sirius and Remus laughed loudly, and the boy looked pleased with himself. He glanced over at me, and his hand went automatically to his hair, ruffling it up so it was even messier than before.
James Potter! The most annoying, stuck up prat in the whole universe. I hated his smug grin, I hated how his eyes would roll over me, blatantly checking me out, I hated his stupid pranks, I hated…
“Ah, Miss Evans,” he said, sauntering over to me. “May I escort you to your feet?”
“You don’t need to escort me anywhere, thanks,” I said irritably, pushing his hand away. Well, actually, there was a cut on my arm from one of the glass pieces, and I thought I might have twisted my ankle, but there was no way I was going to play the damsel in distress for James Potter.
For a moment his eyes seemed to darken, as if he was hurt by what I said, but then he looked away. I decided I must have imagined it. James Potter showing some hint of human feeling? Dream on.
“Suit yourself,” he said, shrugging. I got up unsteadily, wincing as I put pressure on my ankle. Bellatrix watched me with an expression of disgust, and I wondered what I had done to provoke such hatred from her.
“Bellatrix Black,” I said, staring back at her, “for attempting to use an Unforgivable Curse and calling another student Mudblood, I’m fining you 60 house points, plus you will have a month’s worth of detentions.”
Bellatrix’s expression became even more sneering, if that was even possible. “And who do you think you are, giving out detentions and whatever?”
“Well, actually I’m the Head Girl,” I said sleekly.
Bellatrix just gaped. One-nil to me.
“Y-You’re Head Girl,” she finally managed, and muttered something under her breath about ‘unfairness’ and ‘Muggle blood’. She must have been pretty upset because she couldn’t even think of a good comeback.
“What was that, Bella?” It was James, attempting to defend me. As usual. Like I need defending by him.
“What’s it to you?” she shot back at him. The sour look was back. There was a rumour that Bellatrix had a thing for James, and perhaps that was why she resented me so much.
“You know,” said James, almost pleasantly, “seeing that the two students with the most power in the school are here, you probably should try to be politer.”
Two??? An odd shiver passed down my spine.
“Two?” said Bellatrix, slowly.
“Wow, you can count.” With a hint of a flourish, James pulled something out of his pocket and pinned it to his jumper. I glanced at it. It glittered in the light and I could clearly see the initials ‘HB’.
I closed my eyes in horror.
I opened them to exactly the same scene. Well, except for Bellatrix looking like someone had slapped her in the face. “Come on, Sev, let’s go,” she muttered. She cast one last scathing look at me, and stomped out of the compartment, Severus following in her wake.
In the silence that followed me, James turned to me and said brightly, “First meeting’s tomorrow, 5 pm, in the Heads’ Room. Think you can make it, babes?”
Ooooh!!
Memories of a Lily by VoldemortsTwinSister
Chapter Notes: Oh yeah, i forgot to say last time, all characters & places are property of JK Rowling, etc.
Please review! It makes me happy. :)