Volume 1, Chapter 1: Lily
Lily lay in bed, breathing deeply, her thoughts preventing sleep. She had tried the usual tricks �“ tensing and relaxing each muscle, telling herself the same line over and over again, even counting sheep �“ her parents had suggested this, convinced that it actually worked. Well, she had proved their theory wrong.
Lily gave up worrying about it and let her mind wander. She glanced at her clock. It was nearing 1:30. She knew she would regret it at school the next day, but she didn’t know what else to do. Lily thought of the people at school. She thought of Jimmy Warner �“ the boy whom she liked; she thought of Miranda Dellerby, the girl who seemed to have everything Lily wanted. Then another person popped into her head.
It was a boy. One with black hair, long enough to make her mother gasp. Lily wondered why she had thought of this boy. She rarely saw him. Come to think of it, Lily couldn’t recall ever seeing him at school, which she found odd, because it was a small school and she was sure he lived close by.
Then her thoughts shifted once more. From the strange boy, she began pondering on how strange she herself was �“ what coincidences seemed to happen around her. Some people said they were cursed with bad luck. Well, Lily was sure she was.
A few weeks ago at school one day, Lily had been rather depressed. She had been dwelling on the fact that Miranda Dellerby had just got into the cheerleading squad, and Lily had heard that Jimmy had gone especially to watch her perform.
As Miranda stood at the door of the classroom flirting with Jimmy, who was several grades ahead, Lily sat in her desk with her books arranged nicely in front of her. She sighed. Didn’t boys ever admire good qualities? Lily worked so hard in school to be at the top of her class but it seemed like the only people who ever noticed were the kids who made fun of her.
Lily didn’t notice Harold Parker, who slid into the seat next to her, until he reached across and yanked her red ponytail, yelling in an obnoxiously high-pitched voice, “Tomato-head!”
Lily’s face flamed, making her likeness to a tomato even more striking. She saw Jimmy turn to look at her, for the first time, it seemed, and utter a loud guffaw. Lily gritted her teeth. She couldn’t calm down enough to think that teasing was just the way young boys showed affection. Her head wasn’t cool enough to think that Jimmy just may be somebody too worthless to get upset over. All she could think about was how unfortunate she was and how nothing ever seemed to go right for her.
Steaming, she gathered her books and got up to exit the classroom, although there were just two minutes left before class started. But to leave, she would have to pass through Miranda and Jimmy who had now gone back to speaking as an excuse to stare at each other. As Lily approached them, she had a nasty thought…she could drop her books on Miranda’s delicate toes. So, as she squeezed through them, she let them go. The books fell, but they did so uncommonly slow, and it almost seemed as if they were defying gravity. Then, as Lily glanced back, she could hardly believe her eyes, because the books seemed to have moved right in midair. Then, with more than normal speed, they zoomed down to meet Jimmy’s feet with a painful ‘crack!’
Jimmy yelped and grabbed one of his feet. Lily raced back to him and retrieved her books from the floor, apologizing profusely; but she was shaking her head, wondering about what had just happened. It’s almost as if the books knew who her anger was really directed at.
Ever since, Jimmy had acted like Lily actually existed. Whenever he saw her he sent her venomous looks. And then, just yesterday it went from bad to worse. She had gotten detention and her grade had nearly been brought down a whole letter.
Mrs. Morris was Lily’s English teacher. Lily had to work extra hard to please her. Sometimes she felt like she succeeded; other times, she felt like she shouldn’t even bother. Mrs. Morris had given them a particularly difficult assignment the previous Friday. For their end-of-term paper, she required at least 800 words on a subject from England’s grand history. She had specified that it had to include all the figures of speech, and she would judge all spelling, structure, and composition mistakes.
Lily worked endlessly, working on each sentence as if it were the last. The day they were due, Lily turned it in with confidence. After class the next day, however, Mrs. Morris publicly asked her to stay after, using a very stern voice that caused all the students passing her to exit accidentally “bump” into her and hiss “Oooh, Evans!”
“Miss Evans,” she began crisply, when Lily approached her desk warily. “I have read your essay and would like to discuss it with you. As you know, very often, I find your writing quite good. But I must say, Miss Evans, despite your immaculate spelling and relatively good construction, I find your subject matter extremely distasteful!”
Lily was not of the maturity to be able to handle such situations with a great deal of wisdom. Looking back on it, she wished she had said something along the lines of, “Oh, Mrs. Morris. I wasn’t aware that we were being judged on our subject matter. I specifically remember you saying you would judge our spelling, structure, and composition. As you have already mentioned, you find these without fault and can have nothing further to say to me.”
Alas, Lily did not have quick thinking at her command, a gift she would forever long for, and so she was left to simmer silently while the dreadful Mrs. Morris finished her soliloquy.
“My other students have chosen subjects such as the noble kings and queens and heroic knights of the past, a fascinating one on the Stonehenge, one of the Saxons against the Normans, and a very…interesting essay on the organization of the parliament.
“But, Miss Evans, yours was fearful. No one wants to read of witch-burnings. This, I’m afraid, puts England in a very bad light, and many of the people whom we view as good appear in your essay to be villains.
“For your subject matter I could forgive you, had you not seemed to side so strongly with the supposed witches. You make everyone who does not absolutely defy burning them seem hateful!
“At the very least, I expected you to be neutral, although, good heavens, I had hoped for some patriotism from you, Miss Evans.”
Lily told herself she could take criticism �“ and she could. Had Mrs. Morris simply said, “I wished you to be more neutral and not express your own opinion so much,” Lily probably would have walked away better for the advice. However, Mrs. Morris had to insert such insulting words as ‘fearful’ and compare her with the other students, and then accuse her of being unpatriotic! Altogether it was more than Lily Evans could bear. Lily grasped for something to say in return.
“Well,” Lily replied haltingly, “you…you began two sentences with ‘but!’”
Mrs. Morris’ penciled-in eyebrows shot up. She leaned back in her chair as if she’d had the wind knocked out of her. When she had finally gathered herself again, she spoke in a deadly whisper.
“Miss Evans, you ought to speak with more respect to teachers and elders. You will receive detention every day for an hour after school for the rest of the year.” It sounded frightful but there was only a week left in school. Despite that, Lily was mortified; she had never received detention.
“As this essay counts for a good deal of the grade, I’m going to refrain from giving you anything lower than a C+. You should thank me for my generosity and resolve to do better in the future.”
Lily almost sobbed…a C plus. That would permanently bring her grade down to a B, and there was nothing she could do about it with the end so near. She watched as Mrs. Morris reached for a stamp. Mrs. Morris had a neat row of stamps, one for every letter grade down to F. She often let students watch as she marked their papers…her theory was that when it was a good one, it rewarded them better, and when it was a bad one, it would cause them more pain to behold it.
She carefully chose the C+ stamp, deliberately pressed it into the red ink, and slowly placed it onto Lily’s clean, neat, 985 word essay. When Mrs. Morris lifted the stamp from the page, Lily had to do a double take to register what was there.
On Lily’s paper, there, in the top-right corner, was a smug, shiny red A+.
Mrs. Morris looked positively disturbed. She inspected the bottom side of her well-worn stamp carefully. There it was, the C+, just as it had always been. Shaking her head, she pressed it to the essay again. Once again, there appeared an A+.
“Oh, did you just put another one for emphasis?” inquired Lily maliciously. She, herself, was very confused, but she had taken the all too apparent opportunity of tormenting Mrs. Morris.
Mrs. Morris face was in absolute shock. She stared disbelievingly at her own stamp, then slammed it onto her desk and reached for a red pen in her drawer. She found one, and tested on a random slip of paper. She practiced writing a C. Then she let it meet Lily’s paper. It was dry.
“This is absurd!” Mrs. Morris yelped, driven to distraction. She glanced up at Lily and then let her gaze linger. Then she shook her head. She retrieved a black pen from her drawer.
It worked. She wrote C- on Lily’s essay. Mrs. Morris gave a satisfied smile and set about putting her desk back in order. When she looked at the essay to pick it up and deliver it to Lily Evans, there, in her own handwriting, in the same black pen, was instead of a C-, a sentence, reading:
This is a wonderful piece of work that deserves nothing less than an A+.
Mrs. Morris mouth dropped open. She shoved the stapled papers into Lily’s arms.
“GET OUT!” she shrieked. “GET OUT!!!”
It was a long walk home, as Lily had long since missed the benefit of a bus. She had quite a bit of time to marvel over the most recent occurrence. She attempted to make sense of everything she did, but even for a normal fifth grader this was a huge task.
Last Christmas, when she had been extremely content and happy with her family, she remembered that all the bells on their Christmas tree began jingling out the tune of “Jingle Bells;” Lily had noticed it, and so had Petunia, but thankfully it had been random enough to not get her parents attention, as they had assumed someone had just given the tree a good shake.
Lily began to realize that all the strange things that happened around her were not a coincidence �“ they must be because of her. She shuffled her white tennis shoes on the sidewalk. She saw a lilac tree hanging over the fence she was walking along. Lily reached up and grabbed one. Staring at the flower hard, she willed it to close. Lily shut her eyelids tightly. When she opened them, the lilac looked like a bud. As Lily concentrated, the lilac blossomed into full bloom. She laughed out loud.
Having just done an essay on witch-burnings, she was not all too eager to assume that she was a witch, but perhaps a magician with surreal powers; or a fairy! Wouldn’t that be lovely!
Lily broke from her thoughts and sat straight up in bed. That’s why she had thought of the boy with greasy black hair. She had seen him! He had been spying on her. After that all her fantasies of going to live with the fairies washed away and she had run home the rest of the way.
Lily closed her eyes. She was nine, and so thoughts like these didn’t present huge problems. When she would wake up the next morning, her troubles would start anew. For now, she slept.
Heart of (Red and) Gold by type-n-shadow
Chapter Notes: Thank-you, thank-you, to my beta harrypotter627! Also endless gratitude to my friends who got me started writing, not to mention J.K. Rowling who gave me a plot and characters to play with.