Of Raindrops, Flowers, and Wishing Wells
– Matters of Head and Heart –
By PottedLilies
This story is dedicated to pinkpearl89, Queenie's Broken Heart (thanks for staying with me longer than anyone else!), hpdreamer500, ivyflightislistening, StaceyGibbly, UndercoverHufflepuff, Kmonae, Marteczka's Quill, SecretlyAGryffindor, -the smell of autumn-, MessrsMWPP, raneonthewyndoepain, Claire Lafleur, and Loona22. You all stuck with me for so long (years in some cases!) and I owe all of you so much. You are the best freaking reviewers any author could ever hope to have and I am so blessed to have had you as a part of this adventure. Thanks for making it all more magical.
FULL SUMMARY: CANON. He had been a bully since the day they met, nothing more, nothing less, and Lily Evans had always hated him for that. But beginning in their Fifth Year, James Potter slowly but surely grew up into the man that the world came to know him as—brave, strong, loyal, and above all else, in love. Lily watched those changes as they came and eventually found herself closer to James than she ever thought she would be. Finally in their Seventh Year, she made the choice that would change the world. One day she said 'yes.' This is that story, of how the famous couple came to be, and how they and their friends found hope, camaraderie, and love as the first shots of war rang in their ears and tore their world apart.
Rated M for violence, character death, mild language, rape/abuse, and sexual themes – but there is nothing too graphic in any of the cases.
Disclaimer: Lily Evans, James Potter and all related characters belong to J. K. Rowling. This is written for entertainment purposes only. Everything you recognize is JKR's, while OCs are entirely my own creation. The quotes at the beginning and end are not mine unless otherwise stated; I will try to credit them as best as I can.
Long live the walls we crashed through, how the kingdom lights shine just for me and you.
I was screaming long live all the magic we made, and bring on all the pretenders—I'm not afraid.
Long live all the mountains we moved. I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.
I was screaming long live the look on your face, and bring on all the pretenders.
One day we will be remembered.
— Taylor Swift, Long Live
Chapter One: Potter and Evans
(September 1, 1975)
Over the course of a too-short lifetime, Lily Evans and James Potter each accomplished more than most witches and wizards who lived long lives could ever claim to have achieved.
She made a friend that defied all odds.
He went against all odds to help a friend.
She changed everything about herself for the sake of her family.
He changed for her.
She helped another battle the government for rights due years before.
He refused an offer too good to be true from the same system.
She trusted blindly, for better and worse.
He forgave an enemy, for better, and a friend, for more than that.
She fought evil men, and sometimes, she won.
He rescued her when she didn't.
They saved the lives of friends and enemies alike in ways too numerous to count, and became the foundation and the definition of the phrase there are all kinds of courage.
But their greatest accomplishment was something far less extravagant. It was not something that anyone would build a monument to or write about in the papers when all was said and done, yet, once all of the glitter of heroism had washed away, this simple thing would be what they were remembered for, always. It was the great story they left behind in the hearts of those that they encountered throughout their lives.
This, above all else—they fell in love.
The Adventure
Her cold, bare feet dragged in the grey sand as she swung back and forth in the swing. The wood beam above creaked in protest at the weight, as though it had not been used in many years, and the chains reeked of rust and mildew.
It was, like everything else in the small industrial town (ironically named Lantern City), in desperate need of repair, but the landlords that owned most of the area around the old factory had never seen fit to waste money on something the children would not use. Few people went outside at all due to the thick smog that hung in the air like a dark, suppressive cloud, and those that did hurried from one place to the next, shielding their faces and never stopping to speak with anyone.
The only residents of the town were those who worked in the factory, and over time, they had taken on the filthy, grey look that had seeped into the small brick houses and stamped out any amount of color there once was. Their faces were ashy; their hair was somewhere between grey and mousy brown and hung limp about their thin, sallow faces; their eyes were flat and pale, and no longer told the million little stories that most eyes can convey.
She looked up suddenly when she heard the sound of feet on the cobblestone street, and saw a man in the dusty, grey uniform that all of the factory workers wore. His salt-and-pepper hair looked out of place on such a young man, but the shadows of lines forming on his brow told her what she already knew—work at the factory aged people far too quickly, drained them much too soon.
He caught sight of her sitting in the swing and seemed unable to look away, like he was suddenly a child brought into a toy store for the first time and astounded by the innumerable colors and sounds. She blushed and turned her head, and the man kept walking, but she could feel his eyes on her as he made his way down Spinner's End and turned onto Factory Way.
Her mother had once described her as the stained glass windows in a dreary old church, and while the once-beautiful windows in the church at the end of the road had long-since been boarded up, the girl could understand the analogy. Perhaps, had she lived in the little town year-round, she would have faded, too, but she attended school far away, and as such, had maintained her vibrant color.
Her skin was pale, but not in the sickly way that most in the town had, and accented with freckles. Many girls her age hated their freckles, but she was able to see them as just one more part of the spectrum. Cracked pink lips framed her wide mouth, which was full of too-big teeth that all showed when she smiled, and her shockingly green eyes were almond-shaped and surrounded by thick dark red lashes. But easily the feature that stood out the most was the long, red-bronze hair that curled softly and thickly down her back.
She had, however, inherited the rail-thin figure that was common in the townspeople, though while at school she was able to gain a small amount of weight. She always appeared too thin to truly be healthy. During her time at home, she seemed to absorb the smell of smoke from the factory until she could not get it out of her skin for weeks into the school year.
She coughed, the smog getting into her lungs and affecting her breathing, but still she sat in the swing. She was waiting for him.
She and him—an unlikely pair that was misunderstood wherever they went. While at home, the locals assumed that they would be yet another marriage of convenience, as so many were, and at school, people thought of their friendship as impractical, impossible even.
He was supposed to be there, and the only reason she could imagine that he would be late would be that his father, who was far too fond of liquor, had been rampaging drunkenly about and hurt him or his pacifistic mother.
As soon as the thought of her friend in trouble crossed her mind, she was on her feet, but a second set of footsteps interrupted her.
"Lily!" her mother called in a weary yet commanding voice. "Lily, come home, you have to leave for the station!"
Flora Evans, like the rest of the townspeople, was thin and wiry, with flyaway hair that had already lost its color, though she had barely hit forty years of age. She was dressed for work, in the same non-descript factory uniform that everyone wore, and dark bags hung under her once-bright eyes. She had a straight, pointed nose that she had passed down to both of her daughters, and a long neck that seemed far too elegant for a lowly factory worker.
Lily glanced at her watch and felt her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. It was much later than she thought, for the haze paled the late-morning sunlight into little more than dawn.
"I'm coming, Mum," she answered, flinging herself from the swing with too much force and flying into the air, but some magic seemed to hang there still, because it caught her and set her lightly on her feet. "Is Dad still at the house?"
"Yes," said her mother as Lily ran up to her. "He's trying to wake your sister."
The redheaded girl snorted, and it sounded deafening in the quiet street. "Why bother? She doesn't want to see me; this is probably her favorite day of the year."
Petunia Evans, Lily's older sister by two years, was seventeen and selfish—and selfish was not a word often used to describe the inhabitants of the industrial town. But the Evans girls liked to break the mold, it would seem.
The greed Lily could have lived with, just as Petunia put up with Lily's limitless curiosity and complete disregard for boundaries—personal or otherwise—but the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back had nothing to do with either sisters' flaws of character. What shattered their relationship beyond repair was Lily's acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry some years prior.
Petunia had always been the star student of the family. She was well-behaved in school and made top marks in all of her classes, while Lily had frequently let her own imagination get the better of her and found that more often than not she turned in doodles and poems rather than assignments.
Once Lily went to Hogwarts, she was able to escape the grey that surrounded them and explore a whole new world, so explore she did. Classes were the last thing on her mind when suddenly she was living in a castle, so when Professor McGonagall sent a letter to Lily's parents saying that she was doing poorly in lessons, Petunia was absolutely livid. She had felt that she could do far better were she just able to go, though the Headmaster had personally told her that it was impossible.
After that, Petunia had started slipping. She had fallen in with the bad crowd at the small public school and gotten into things that she should never have become involved with. Years later, she would blame those mistakes on Lily, but while she was seventeen and selfish, all she could see was that the worse she was, the more attention she received.
So Lily, since unselfishness was the nature of most of the townspeople, had decided to play the role of the good student, not so that her parents would be more proud of her, but so they would have someone to be proud of if Petunia lost all sense of herself.
Flora Evans gave an exhausted sigh and looked with tired eyes to the chimney that towered over the cramped houses. "Neither of you are right in this," she told her daughter honestly. "She's wrong to be jealous of you, and you're wrong to goad her on."
"Mum, I don't –" Lily began, but she was cut off.
"You do." It was a statement, indisputable. "When she makes you angry enough you find little ways to gloat. And both of you are wrong."
Lily huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, blinking fiercely as the smog made her eyes water. "Fine, maybe you're right. But it's her own fault for hating me in the first place."
Her mother looked as though she wanted to argue, but an old bell rang from the factory, signaling the start of the day for the workers, so instead, she smiled and said, "Good luck this year, sweetie, you'll be fine. And be sure to write! You know that your father and I love to hear about everything that happens at school—especially these new Prefect duties of yours! We're both so proud."
Flora wrapped Lily in a tight, brief hug and let go.
"Bye, Mum," Lily told her as they started in opposite directions, one for the factory and one for the little grey brick house, crowded between the others around it. "I'll see you at Christmas. I love you!"
A shaggy grey dog chased a scrawny dust-colored cat from behind the waste bin as Lily ran to her house. She called a quick goodbye to the community pets before throwing open her peeling front door.
"Whoa!"
"Oh, Dad!" Lily exclaimed, the two together easily the loudest thing for miles around, save for the constant hum that emitted from the factory. "I'm sorry! Did I hit you?"
"No, no," Mr. Evans chuckled, patting his daughter's shoulder. He was a tall man. Thin, with broad shoulders that looked slightly out of place, bushy eyebrows, and silver hair. There was always a bit of grey stubble sprouting across his prominent jaw, and his large hands were rough and scarred from years of work. "I heard you coming."
"Oh Godric," Lily swore under her breath as she once more glanced at her watch. "I've really got to run, and you're going to be late, too."
"I know," her father replied, pulling her into a quick hug and planting a kiss on top of her flaming red head. "Your trunk is by the fireplace and that bag of powder is on the mantle. I'll see you come Christmas, all right? I love you."
"Love you too, Dad." She kissed his cheek, and he was out the door.
Standing a trunk on-end and maneuvering it into a tiny fireplace is no easy task, and it was especially difficult with Petunia watching snobbishly down her long, angular nose. But Lily eventually managed, and with a pinch a Floo Powder and the words "Platform Nine and Three Quarters," she was gone, trying not to grin triumphantly back at her sister before she left.
"Ah!" Lily exclaimed as she stumbled out of the fireplace and landed on her back between the cold, hard pavement and her heavy trunk. Grumbling, she heaved the luggage off herself and stood up, all the while trying to absorb the thousand new colors and sounds that assaulted her senses after the dreary scene of Lantern City.
The train, crimson and glistening, emitted white-grey smoke that somehow looked friendlier than anything back home. Hundreds of people flocked the platform, some already wore long, black robes, while others were haphazardly dressed (Lily caught sight of one wizard wearing flippers and an old witch with a feather boa tied around her waist). Students called to their friends over their parents' shoulders, and parents yelled their goodbyes as their children dashed away. Toddlers were crying. Cats were whining. Owls were hooting in their cages.
Just as Lily had brushed the worst of the ash off herself, something tiny and blonde slammed into her side, and tackled her back to the ground.
"Alice?" Lily asked, rubbing her backside and inhaling the expensive perfume that only her best friend had the money to wear. "What did you do to your hair?"
Alice Hinton was a petite girl with light blonde hair that had once been long and lustrous, but since Lily had seen her last, it had been chopped impossibly short, and stuck up all over her head.
"I got tired of dealing with it," Alice explained, getting to her feet and dusting herself off. "Besides, short hair is all the rage in Paris right now! I thought I'd bring Hogwarts a bit of style."
When Lily met Alice back on the first night of their first year, she thought that she had, quite literally, found her polar opposite. With her mother being the Editor-In-Chief of the Wizarding World's most popular fashion magazine, The Trendy Witch, Alice was wealthy, well-dressed, and sophisticated, but she was also absolutely full of herself. She had seemed to think that she was somehow above Lily, who had arrived with the dirty look and smoky smell of the industrial town, wearing secondhand robes and the like.
But neither girl was quick to make friends of any sort. Lily was bullied about the smell—people teased her about smoking the bathroom—and she was made fun of for her red hair and freckles, which she had always been proud of before. They made her doubt herself. And then, after Lily decided that she would try to be a good student, they made fun of her for that, too. Alice, on the other hand, was mocked for her snobbishness. She was continuously excluded from group and social events, which, to her, was the worst possible slander.
The two girls always ended up forced to sit by each other in lessons, for there were no other seats available (save for Potions, where Lily sat beside Severus Snape, her best friend from long before school had started), but they still never connected until the end of their first year.
A pair of boys who had been particularly nasty to Lily had thought it would be funny to push her into the old, overgrown ditch on the edge of the Forbidden Forest and leave her there overnight to listen to all of the animals moving about. They thought it would scare her, which of course it did, but they did not count on a group of Slytherins locking Alice out of the castle that very same night. She had been wandering the grounds in search of Hagrid, the gamekeeper, when she had tripped and fallen right into Lily's ditch (Alice became quite clumsy when she was nervous). Needless to say, neither found the other's presence comforting at first, but once darkness fell and the Forest came to life, each was glad that they were not alone.
At the time, Lily had thought that the truce they had formed would be temporary, but she soon learned that some experiences can bring people together in unbreakable ways, and it just so happened that being stuck in a ditch by the woods was one of them.
After Hagrid found them the next morning, the two girls became inseparable, not that anyone else in the school paid them any mind, but they had—very gradually—changed each other for the better. Alice told Lily that she was a prig and that she was trying far too hard to be a good girl. She also taught Lily a few handy fashion tips and a way to get the dusty look out of her skin and the smoky smell from her clothes. Lily, on the other hand, brought Alice down to earth. She explained to the blonde that the reason she had no other friends was simply because she thought herself too good for all of them.
Once they had that heart-to-heart, their housemates began to notice the subtle changes in the girls' personalities, and soon, most found no reason to poke fun at them anymore.
Lily laughed at her best friend and shook her head, pulling out her wand and extracting the grime from her clothing. "If you truly wanted to bring style to Hogwarts, you wouldn't be wearing that shirt. Even I know that the Wasps are at the bottom of the League, and I hardly ever read the sports section in The Daily Prophet."
Alice glanced down at her yellow and black striped t-shirt with the Wimbourne Wasps emblem emblazoned across the front and crossed her tiny arms defiantly. "I'm loyal through thick and thin, unlike you, missy, who just cheers for whichever team is winning."
Lily shrugged as she and Alice lifted her trunk onto a nearby trolley. "But that way you're never disappointed."
"One day," said Alice, winking up a Lily. "You'll find a team that you just love and they are going to be simply terrible. I can't wait for that day."
Once on the train, the two girls pushed their way through the throng of students that crowded the aisle and headed towards a compartment somewhere about halfway along.
"My stuff is already inside," Alice explained when they reached the door. "If you want to bring your trunk in, I'll go find Vanessa."
As soon as Lily nodded, Alice had dashed away, her blonde head disappearing in the crowd. She turned around to open the compartment door when she ran headlong into someone going in the other direction.
"Sev!" Lily exclaimed, relieved to see him alive and well. "Where were you this morning? I was really worried."
Severus Snape was a pale, thin boy with a hooked nose and long black hair that always looked a bit greasy. Many students taunted him for his below-par appearance, but to Lily, he looked like magic.
It had been this boy who had first told her she was a witch, had first introduced her to the world in which she now lived. When she was young, before she entered Hogwarts, his words had seemed like fairytales—so far away, yet ringing with some deep, nearly unreachable truth. It was as though he had brought his own words to life the day he ran to her house and pointed to the owl flying towards them with her first Hogwarts letter.
He smiled when he saw her, an easy smile that lit up his black eyes. "Hi, Lily. Sorry, I should have written you, but my Mum had to bring me early this morning so that she could be home to make breakfast for Dad. He's been sick."
"It's all right," Lily grinned, hugging him briefly. "But can you believe it, Sev? It's already our Fifth year."
Severus nodded, looking around at the people in the hallway. "Time flies."
"Are you looking for someone?" Lily asked, following his eyes. "You can some sit with the girls and me if you want to."
"Thanks, but I told Mulciber I'd sit in his compartment." He was looking at her strangely, as though waiting for a reprimand.
Lily felt her nose automatically wrinkle in disgust at the thought of the dark-complected Slytherin boy with a fondness for curses. However, Severus had never had many friends in his House, so for the moment, Lily decided to say nothing about his choice. He had picked her had he not? Maybe there was more to Byron Mulciber than his reputation suggested.
So she just shrugged noncommittally. "Okay, well, I've got to run. There's a Prefect meeting in a few minutes and I need to put my stuff away."
His face relaxed a bit and he looked down at her proudly. "I told you you'd get the badge."
"Yes, you did," said Lily, rolling her eyes and smiling. "You're brilliant and psychic and I cringe at your powers."
Severus chuckled at her sarcasm and ducked into a compartment to their right. "I'll see you later, then."
"Bye," she responded with a wave.
Alone again, Lily slid open the compartment door and pulled her trunk inside. Alice's belongings were strewn about, taking up almost all the space allotted for luggage, as the petite witch had a tendency to over-pack. Chuckling to herself, Lily attempted to lift her own trunk up onto the rack.
"Oi, Evans!" called someone behind her. "Need a hand with that?"
Lily did not have to turn around to know who it was. "Not from you, Potter, thanks."
"Don't be daft, Evans," he said, and Lily could feel his presence directly behind her as he helped push her trunk into place.
She immediately ducked under his arm and moved to the other side of the room, glaring all the while at James Potter.
He had never been particularly tall, in fact, Lily had always been eye level with him, but it seemed that he had finally hit his growth spurt over the summer, and he had hit it hard. James was much taller than she, but he had the lanky appearance of being stretched out rather than simply growing.
James seemed to notice that she was sizing him up, for he rumpled his already untidy black hair—a habit of his that annoyed Lily to no end—and winked one of his hazel eyes, which were framed by rectangular, wire-rimmed spectacles.
"Like what you see, Evans?"
Lily pursed her lips and rolled her eyes—Potter would never change.
He, like most pureblood wizards, had grown up in an ostentatious manor in the country, with house elves to attend to his every need, and money enough to take care of his every desire. His parents, elderly even by Wizarding standards, had had him late in life, and doted upon him accordingly.
James Potter was as spoiled as they came.
Alice had grown out of her superiority complex early on, but James never had. His favorite pastime was taunting others—for their looks, their intelligence, or simply because the opportunity presented itself. Most students found his antics funny (though some only laughed because they were afraid he would turn on them next or because he was extremely popular on the Quidditch pitch). But Lily never had. She had been one of his primary targets back in first year, and she now despised bullies of any kind.
"Not in the slightest, Potter," she replied, stopping herself from rolling her eyes a second time as a group of girls past by the compartment and gave James looks of interest. "To be honest, I'm surprised those scrawny legs can hold up your fat head."
Lily certainly did not consider herself a vindictive person, but James Potter always managed to bring out the very worst in her.
He had asked her out a total of eighty-seven times in the past four years, and both parties were aware that every single time had been a joke. There were numerous reasons that he did it—because he thought she was a snob, because it annoyed Severus Snape, because it gave him someone to argue with—but mostly, he just liked to take the piss out of people, and she hated it.
"But," she continued, indicating to the girls outside. "You might want to try them. They're clearly interested."
James turned around and saw the group of giggling fourth years staring through the compartment window. They blushed when he looked at them, but he winked and they burst into fits of laughter and conversation.
"Look at how tall he's gotten…"
"What happened to his nose?"
"I think it looks really masculine…"
"Can Fifth Years be Quidditch Captains? I bet he got the job…"
Lily snorted and stepped up on the bench to rifle through her trunk, searching for her new Prefect badge.
James was a talented Quidditch player, though a bit too young to be captain. By the time he left Hogwarts, he would be able to play for any team in the League, and that was the only direction he could see his life going—everyone knew that.
He twirled his wand between his fingers for a moment before glancing out into the corridor again. Lily watched as his eyes landed on Archie Jones, a Hufflepuff two years their junior, who was drinking a bottle of water and joking with his friends.
"Hey, Evans, watch this…Impervius," James muttered, grinning.
The water refused to leave the bottle as Archie's lips became waterproof, and when the younger boy brought it up to examine it, the water burst out and soaked his face and hair.
"Set him right," Lily ordered, jumping down from the bench and placing her hands on her hips. "There is simply no reason for you to do things like that, Potter."
But he did not seem to hear her, for he was grinning proudly as the students around Archie erupted into laughter.
Lily huffed and pulled out her own wand, which she pointed at the third year and muttered a counter curse and drying charm.
"Nothing wrong with making people laugh, Evans," James told her, sauntering forward and stopping only a foot away from her.
"There's nothing right about doing it at other people's expense," argued Lily, noticing that his glasses were marginally crooked, and that his once-impeccably straight nose seemed to have been broken over the summer—no doubt because of his obsessive Quidditch playing habit. "You're lucky there are such ignorant people in the world, Potter," Lily told him as the students in the hall continued to laugh. "Otherwise you would not be nearly as popular."
"I don't need popularity, Evans," he said with a would-be heart melting grin. "All I need is you."
"Cute," Lily told him sarcastically, resuming her search for her badge and extracting a quill and parchment as well for the meeting. "Don't you have somewhere else to be? I have a Prefect meeting soon."
James cocked an eyebrow and crossed his arms, a smirk planted firmly on his face. "Prefect, huh? I should have known they'd pick the prig."
Lily gave him a cold look. "Better than the impudent bully."
Before James could respond, a male voice filled the compartment. "Would all Prefects please report to Compartment Number One? All Prefects to Compartment Number One."
So with a final glare, Lily gathered up her things and brush past James into the hall.
Princes and Frogs
James smirked after Lily and followed her out, though he turned the opposite way and headed back to the end of the train, where he entered the last compartment on the left.
The first thing he saw was Sirius Black—who had been his best friend and partner in crime for the last four years—sitting with his feet propped up on the bench across from him and his hands behind his head. Sirius was easily the better looking of the two boys, though James would never give him the satisfaction of admitting it. He had a sort of regal grace about him that James could simply never capture. When the compartment door shut with a snap, Sirius opened his dark grey eyes and grinned in that wolfish way of his.
"Where've you been, mate?" he asked as James took the seat beside him. "We were worried you'd miss the train."
Sure enough, at that very moment, a whistle sounded and the Hogwarts Express lurched forward.
"'Course not," James assured him. "I bumped into Evans. Turns out she's been made Prefect."
"Bloody hell," Sirius groaned, shaking his head. "We'll have to watch ourselves this year with Prefect Prig on our case all the time."
"She's not that bad," piped up Peter Pettigrew, speaking for the first time. "She helped me out in Charms last year, she's the only reason I passed the practical exam."
Peter Pettigrew was Hermes reincarnate. He had the slight figure and pointed features that the Greek god was alleged to have possessed, and was more of a trickster than even Peeves the Poltergeist. He had an all-encompassing sense of humor that drew others to him, and he tried to always speak the best of people unless they truly deserved otherwise.
"You would say that," James commented, amused. Then, to Sirius, "How was your summer, mate? I didn't hear much from you."
His best friend scoffed and blew dark hair from his eyes. "My mum tried to redecorate my room, only to find that nothing would come off the walls. She locked me in there for a few weeks because she thought it'd be a good punishment."
"Was it?" asked Peter, a blonde eyebrow arched above his small blue eyes.
Sirius smirked. "Punishment, are you kidding? I got be away from the lot of them for all that time," He leaned back in his seat, a faraway smile on his face. "Couldn't ask for a better summer at Grimmauld Place."
Sirius Black. Gryffindor. Ladies' man. Prankster Extraordinaire. That was all most people ever saw of him, and no one ever expected him to be anything more. However, the people closest to him knew better. They had seen the bruises and heard the Howlers that Sirius had received from his parents ever since he had been sorted into the House of the Brave years earlier. They knew that he dreaded the summer, but suffered in silence, because Sirius Black was not someone who wanted pity.
In a few words, he was boisterous, but brooding, ambitious, but unmotivated, dependable, but impulsive, diplomatic, but utterly tactless. Personality-wise, he was quite ambiguous. And the girls of Hogwarts saw him as a mystery that they thought they would be the one to solve.
None of them would.
By his family, Sirius was expected to marry a pureblooded girl with decent looks and notable ancestral background. By his friends, he was expected to fall for some half-decent slag somewhere down the road and lead a moderately happy life with her. By the female population of Hogwarts, well, each of them expected him to fall for her.
None of them were right.
"What about you, Pete?" Sirius asked, closing his eyes again. "Do anything exciting this summer?"
"Nothing in particular," Peter answered leisurely. "My mum was with the neighbors most of the time. They're Muggles, and they've got a son with one of those diseases that they don't know how to cure, so she's been bringing him soup and slipping Healing potions into it. So I was alone and I mostly read up on…" he glanced at the door to make sure no one was listening-in. "Animagi. There were some really interesting techniques we haven't tried yet."
Peter Pettigrew was brilliant at magic.
In theory.
He excelled in History and Astronomy and was decent in Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures, but when it came to actually performing spells, he seemed to have some sort of block. He did not know the reason, for none of his friends seemed to have any problems with magic on the whole, but they helped him out as best they could, so he never complained.
"Excellent," said Sirius.
"The next full moon is on the twentieth," James informed them. "If we work every night, maybe we can make it. I know I'm getting really close."
Peter nodded in agreement. "And as soon as we do that, we can really get to working on the map."
Sirius and James grinned at him, all three boys hoping for their most exciting year yet.
And, let the record show, it would be just that.
Heroes and Thieves
Remus Lupin doodled absentmindedly in his notebook as he waited for the Prefect meeting to begin, and he jumped slightly when someone sat down hard in the seat beside him.
"Lily?" he asked, looking up to see flaming red hair and familiar green eyes that flashed slightly as she looked around. "Something wrong?"
"Just Potter being an idiot," she answered, blowing her bangs from her face. "He's already being an arsehole to the younger students, and he hasn't forgotten the 'I love Lily' joke yet."
"James loves to get a rise out of people, and you're someone who will give that to him. As long as you react to his jokes, he'll continue to take the mickey out of you."
"I know," Lily replied with a huff, pulling out her parchment and setting it on her lap. "But it's hard not to get angry with him, especially when he mistreats the underclassmen. I know what's it's like for James Potter to make the early years hell, and I don't want that to happen to other people."
"I'll try to talk to him," Remus promised her, for he was her friend as well as James'. "Perhaps he'll make an attempt at maturity this year."
Lily's snort of disbelief was drown out as Quinn Matthews, the Head Girl, called for everyone's attention and began the meeting.
Quinn was a short girl, with curly black hair and a button nose, horn-rimmed spectacles perched on the tip. She was capable and kind, though not necessarily the leaderly type, which was where her partner, Gideon Prewett, came in.
Gideon was a giant, six foot eight with fiery red hair and crystal blue eyes. He had freckles head-to-toe and a crooked smile that could make Grindelwald himself feel like all was well with the world. His presence was commanding and comforting at the same time, and with him in the room, everyone felt at peace. He was one of those the people—the one that everyone called a friend and considered an ally. He was a confidant to those who needed a listening ear, a companion to the bored and lonely, a brother, defender, and peace-keeper all wrapped up in a single soul.
Both the Head Boy and Girl were organized and timely. Quinn was action-oriented, while Gideon preferred to take time to think about his options. He had a suppressed creative talent, and Quinn had a knack for bringing out the talents in others.
The two were a perfect team.
"Welcome to the new Prefects," said Quinn, grinning and pushing her glasses up on her nose. "And welcome back to the old. We'll start with the basics."
"First," began Gideon, smiling warmly around the room. "We have a list of every school rule Hogwarts has for each group of prefects." He pulled thick rolls of parchment crammed with miniscule handwriting out of a bag and passed them around as he continued. "I don't expect you to memorize them all overnight, but read over them in your spare time and try to get a feel for things. I'm sure you all can judge what's right and wrong and act on it, or you wouldn't be here."
"Second," Quinn went on, shuffling a much lighter stack of paper. "These are your patrol schedules. Two pairs patrol every night, one from nine to ten, and the second from ten to eleven. Gideon and I take the eleven to twelve shift every night."
"Patrols are pretty easy," said Gideon, speaking mostly to the new prefects. "All you have to do is walk through the halls and make sure no one is out of their Common Rooms without a note or a medical emergency. You check the empty classrooms and broom cupboards for students who are…" as he trailed off, his ears turned red, matching his flaming hair.
"Up to no good," Quinn finished for him, eyeing a few of the Slytherins sitting in the back of the compartment. "You can take off points, unless they are fellow prefects, and give detentions as you see fit, but everything you do must be recorded on a special form that you can find in the Head's Dorm, which we will show you sometime tomorrow."
"The next thing we need to discuss," continued Gideon, "is Filch's list of Forbidden items. We've been asked to read it too you." Quinn sighed in distaste. "So here it goes…"
Remus tuned them out, knowing full well that more than half of what was on that list would find its way into his dormitory by the end of the week. It was simply unavoidable with James, Sirius, and Peter as his best friends. Instead, he took the time to examine the other prefects in his year.
There were Amos Diggory and Shay Fagan from Hufflepuff, which was not surprising, since the two of them were their House's top students. Sitting in front of them with their clipboards out and quills scratching fervently were Olivia Montague and Edgar Bones from Ravenclaw. Constance Malfoy—a cousin of Lucius' with the white-blonde hair and grey eyes to prove it—and Darius Selwyn sat in the very back of the room with the older Slytherin prefects. Constance popped her gum loudly and tossed her long hair over her shoulder, looking like the epitome of boredom. The towering Kingsley Shacklebolt, one of the sixth-year Gryffindor Prefects, sat just in front of Remus and Lily with his partner, the short and squat Ellie Smith, and on Ellie's other side was Anita Turnpin, the only Seventh Year Gryffindor, since Gideon was made Head Boy.
Together, they were, allegedly, Hogwarts' best and brightest.
Remus sighed tiredly as he ran a hand through his golden brown hair and found a few greys left in his palm. There had been more of them than usual since the last full moon, and the fifteen-year-old hoped that no one would notice.
Remus Lupin was a werewolf, though the only people aware of this fact were James, Sirius, Peter, and a few of the teachers. He had been bitten by Fenrir Greyback (a man who chose to embrace his wolfishness rather than try to separate himself from it) when he was a small child because the older werewolf was seeking revenge on Remus' father, John Lupin, though Remus had never been told what his father had done to offend Fenrir in such a way. This was due, in part, to the fact that his father had left soon after the incident. He had said that he would go abroad to see if other countries had found a cure, but that had been years before and he had never returned.
Yet, Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, was a trusting and generous man who was always ready to expect the very best in people, so he had allowed Remus to attend school. The only condition involved was that each full moon, Remus would take a secret passage under the Whomping Willow (a tree with a penchant for walloping those who came too close), and transform in the Shrieking Shack—away from the students of Hogwarts.
No one ever guessed, except for his three closest friends, but Remus was always frightened that someone would see through his thin excuses of his mother's failing health as his reason for disappearing once a month, and the scars that formed all over his body as the years progressed would surely be a dead-giveaway soon enough.
Aside from the scars, Remus was a naturally handsome fellow, with a strong jaw and piercing eyes the color of copper. He was tall and thin, but it suited him, and the veins in his arms protruded sharply whenever they were strained.
In spite of his animalistic side (or, perhaps, because of it), Remus was a wonderful person. He was overly helpful and exceedingly generous, as though he felt he somehow needed to make up for his monthly transformations. He was brave, more-so than most, but he also knew how to choose his battles, and rarely threw a punch without first thinking it through.
However, Remus had a difficult time trusting others, for he was always afraid that they would learn his secret and reject him, or should they remain his friend, he was terrified of hurting them in some way.
The girls of Hogwarts saw Sirius Black as the tragedy and the mystery, but looking closer, Remus certainly gave him a run for his money.
"…And Whizzing Worms," concluded Gideon, rolling the long list back up.
"I guess that's everything, then," said Quinn, gathering up her things. "Just remember to round up all of the new first years and show them to your dormitories. Try to make them feel at home; the first night is always a bit scary."
"We'll give you the passwords to your Common Rooms on your way out with your patrol schedules. Don't forget, Fifth years, to meet us in the Great Hall tomorrow after dinner so we can show you the Heads' Dorm and the Prefects' bathrooms," Gideon finished. "Thanks, everyone."
One they were out in the hall again, Remus and Lily breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief.
"Well, that was possibly more boring than History of Magic," Lily observed, scanning the sheet of parchment she had been handed. "And that is saying something."
Remus chuckled, looking over her shoulder. "If that's what being a Prefect is like, I think I'll just resign now. And look! We get to patrol Saturday night. Brilliant."
"At least we can sleep in on Sunday," Lily told him, grinning. "Constance and Selwyn got the late shift Sunday night, and they'll have to be up early Monday for classes."
The two Gryffindors laughed together as they squeezed through the crowded train and made their way to their compartments.
"Anyway," Lily went on. "I'm glad I'm not you."
Remus lifted an eyebrow in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I would hate to be a Prefect and have Potter, Black, and Peter for mates. That's got to put you in a bit of a sticky situation."
Remus grinned slyly and slid Lily's compartment door open for her. "They can't be punished if they're never caught."
"Lily! About time," said a tall brunette, tossing a Caldron Cake at Lily as she entered the compartment. "I was about to have to wrestle Alice to save some of the food for you."
"Were not!" Alice argued, turning up her nose, but when with a look from the brunette, she was forced to cough up two Chocolate Frogs and half a box of Every Flavor Beans.
Lily laughed and plopped down on the bench between them, ripping open the cake first, suddenly ravenous. "Thanks, Ness. I knew I could count on you."
Vanessa Reese was the final member of the trio, a position that she had secured just after Christmas break the term before when she had discovered that Caradoc Dearborn, her boyfriend of a year, had been sneaking around with her previous best friend, Waverly Rivers. Lily and Alice, both knowing what it was like to be a bit of an outcast, had taken her in, and the three girls had been friends ever since.
She winked at Lily and turned her attention to her fingernails, which, as usual, had a layer of dirt stuck beneath them. With ecologists for parents (a wizard father and Muggle mother), Vanessa and her two younger brothers spent most of the summer outdoors, trekking in the woods, looking for animals and plants for the Muggle documentary the Reeses were filming.
"Mmm," Lily moaned, licking the icing from her fingers and closing her eyes in contentment. "I always forget how good the food is here."
"Wait until the feast—" Vanessa began at the same time that Alice let out a loud groan from behind the latest edition of Which Broomstick.
"What?" Lily and Vanessa asked together.
"The Wasps play the Kestrels this weekend, and the prediction here is that they're going to get creamed," she complained. "It says that the Kestrels invested in the new Nimbus 1700's for the entire team! Those are the best brooms on the market, and the Wasps are still flying the 1001's."
"Really? Let me see!" Vanessa exclaimed excitedly, snatching the magazine away. She quickly scanned the article before jumping up out of her seat. "Yes! This is fantastic! They'll be at the top of the league in no time after this. "
"Oh, shut up, Vanessa," Alice grumbled, pulling out a glossy copy of The Trendy Witch instead.
Vanessa, who had been an avid Kestrels fan since her father had taken her to her first match years before, stuck her tongue out childishly at Alice before sitting down cross-legged on the seat and reading the article more thoroughly.
Lily shook her head in amusement and turn to Alice, nodding to the fashion magazine the little blonde had absorbed herself in. "Haven't you read that by now? I would think that with your Mum being Editor-In-Chief, you would get advance copies."
Alice shrugged, flipping a page absentmindedly. "I do. But Mother threw another one of her parties this weekend, so I didn't have much down time. She sent me all over on errands—the caterers, the florists, the designers, the guests, the whole shebang."
"Oh," was all Lily could say. Sometimes, she felt rather bad for Alice. She and her mother were extremely well-off, but it often seemed that Ms. Hinton never had much time for her daughter.
"So, Lily," Vanessa began, glancing at their blonde friend as she tried to change the subject. "Who's the other Gryffindor prefect?"
"Remus, thank Merlin," Lily told her, sighing with relief. "I'm hoping that maybe he can keep his friends in check this year."
"Ha," Alice snorted, brilliant blue eyes appearing over the magazine. "That's highly unlikely."
"I know," Lily sighed, pulling Intermediate Transfiguration from her duffle bag. She flipped to about halfway through and took out her bookmark, trying to immerse herself in the chapter on Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. "But there's nothing wrong with a little wishful thinking."
Crystal Village
Five years ago, the talk began,
The darkness was approaching,
Evil was waiting in the wings,
Prejudice was encroaching—
Lily's focus on the Sorting Hat was interrupted as she was hit in the side of the head by a grape, which Sirius Black had bought off the food trolley on the train. She gave him a withering look, causing him to grin, and turned back to the Hat.
—I fear things have since grown worse,
A fight might soon commence,
So wherever I put you,
Unite at all expense—
Lily pressed her lips together in frustration and tried to ignore Sirius. Years ago, she might have opened her mouth and tried to catch the grapes, but she was a Prefect now, and had to set an example for the younger students. Luckily, one of his shots missed and hit Alice in the back of the head. The little blonde witch spun in her seat and pointed her wand down the table at him, causing him to grudgingly put the grapes away. Sirius had been on the receiving end of Alice's wrath far too many times over the past four years to knowingly cross her.
—Hufflepuffs, be true and fair,
That's where your talent lies,
And Ravenclaws, be bright and know,
Rivals can be friends in disguise.
Shrewd Slytherins, the ends don't
Always justify the means,
Use those cunning minds for goodness,
And you're on the winning team.
And finally, brave Gryffindors,
You're strongest when you stand as one,
End petty feuds and prideful acts,
Or you will be undone.
Four separate Houses you might be,
The bold, the sly, the just, the wise,
But you must learn to work together,
For through each other you will rise.
The applause was a bit more scattered than normal, and even Sirius and his friends had stopped fooling around to consider what the Sorting Hat had said. There had been hardly any mention of Lord Voldemort, the leader of the five-year rebellion against Muggleborns, in the paper all summer. There had not been anything troubling, actually. All had seemed to be well in the Wizarding World. And even if there had been something wrong, it was unlikely that unity amongst the Houses would change anything in the bigger picture.
Professor McGonagall unrolled her list of students and began to call off names, and the Hat seemed to consider each one for a longer period of time before placing them in their respective Houses, as though it worried it would somehow make a wrong decision.
The Sorting ended as "Young, Stephan" was placed in Ravenclaw and there was a more hearty applause as Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, with a long beard he tucked into his belt and half-moon spectacles, stood from his seat and spread his arms wide to the students. There was a smile on his old, wrinkled face and a twinkle in his bright blue eyes.
"Welcome, each and every one of you, to a new year at Hogwarts," he said slowly, though he old voice still managed to contain surprising energy. "There are many things I wish to say to you, however, now is not the time. Dig in."
There was an outburst of cheers and shouts of excitement as the enormous Welcoming Feast appeared on each of the long House tables.
"Excellent!" Lily heard Sirius and James exclaim together, before they half-dove onto the table and devoured everything within reach.
She rolled her eyes as Marlene McKinnon and Adeline Mason, two Gryffindor girls a year below Lily, giggled at the boys, blushing and waving when Sirius winked in their direction.
"Lily, Alice, Vanessa, I didn't see you on the train!" said Mary MacDonald as she and the other Gryffindor fifth-year, Waverly Rivers, moved down the table to join the three girls.
Alice hastily scooted over on the bench to make room for them, elbowing Vanessa in the side as she did so. The brunette glared at Alice briefly before promptly turning back to her food and ignoring all of them.
Waverly bit her full bottom lip, big brown eyes cast downward sadly. She was a pretty girl, half Chinese, half Caucasian, with just the right combination of characteristics, but she always seemed to look younger than she truly was. Of course, that had not stopped Caradoc from cheating on Vanessa with her, but Lily wanted to put the past behind them. After all, the five girls had to live together.
"I was in the Prefects meeting for most of the morning," Lily explained, perhaps a bit too-loudly in an attempt to ease the tension in the air. "They had to read Filch's list of forbidden items, and that took ages."
"You got the badge then?" asked Mary, matching Lily's volume and pushing a stray chestnut curl from her eyes. "I figured you would. Congratulations!"
"Thanks," said Lily. "So did you have a good summer?"
Mary was the only other all-Muggle girl of the five of them, so Lily always counted on her for things outside the Wizarding World. She had short, russet brown hair that curled tightly and close-set, aqua colored eyes. She was a small girl, though not a petite as Alice, and very sweet. Nearly everyone she met adored her.
"Wonderful," she told the redhead. "There was a Shrieking Silence concert in London. Emmeline and I went—it was our first Wizarding concert—and they were brill."
"Vanessa went too," said Lily, trying to lure her friend into the conversation. "Shrieking Silence is her favorite band."
"I know!" exclaimed Mary, pushing her curls from her face. "I've been staring at that poster she puts up in the dorm for four years. Agrippa Gibson is even better looking in person!"
"Isn't he?" Alice agreed, elbowing Vanessa in the ribs again, but the brunette remained fixated on the peas she was pushing around on her plate. "My mum did a photo shoot with the whole band once for her magazine. All four of them are stunning."
"I have a picture from that shoot on my bedroom wall!" Mary exclaimed. "I saved that whole issue. I adored that part with—"
She was cut off as a grape flew across the room and straight into her mouth.
"What the—?"Mary choked, coughing it up into a napkin.
Alice and Lily simultaneously jerked their thumbs at Sirius, who was laughing hysterically with James, Remus, and Peter. Mary blushed faintly. Like so many of the Hogwarts girls, she carried a bit of a torch for Sirius Black. But currently, Lily knew, she was in a happy relationship with Derek Greene of Ravenclaw.
"Anyway, how's Derek?" Alice asked, winking at Mary and clearly trying to get her talking before the other girl could start pining after Gryffindor's heartthrob again.
The rest of the night went by smoothly, save for the continued silence between Vanessa and Waverly. And finally, as the last of the dessert cleared itself away, Professor Dumbledore stood to speak.
"Once more, welcome," he told the students, his voice ringing throughout the Great Hall. "I would like to remind all of you that the Forest is off-limits to all students unless accompanied by a teacher," he gave a few students a pointed look. "Mr. Filch would like me to inform you that magic is not to be used in the corridors, and you may find a list of all banned items on his office door."
A few students, including James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, snickered knowingly, and Lily could have sworn she saw Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkle.
"On a more serious note," he went on, catching the stare of any student who would look him in the eye. "Dark times are approaching, as the Sorting Hat was kind enough to tell you. I am sure that many of you have noticed that Lord Voldemort has been conspicuously absent from the headlines, as of late, but we have recently learned that this is explained by his traveling abroad, recruiting witches and wizards to his cause from all over Europe.
Only the Muggleborns showed any true fear at this statement, and even their reaction was mild at most. To Lily, who was a Muggleborn herself, Voldemort had always been a far-off threat. Sure, she had read many newspaper articles during her first few years at in school about Muggle killings and the Dark wizard's campaign to make the world pure, but such things seemed light-years away when she was safe at Hogwarts.
"My family tried to get me to join," Lily heard Sirius snort from a way down the long house table. She glanced his way and saw his grey eyes flash angrily at the thought of his parents; she felt a small pang of pity for the boy. "I told them to go to hell, of course, and now they're telling Regulus that he should 'uphold the family honor' and do it himself."
"But he's only fourteen," said Remus, and even from her spot, Lily could see his brow furrow. "Surely Voldemort wouldn't take him."
"They're getting him ready for when he comes of-age," James told the others, stabbing a potato with more force than was necessary.
"James is right," agreed Peter quietly; his small features showed his disgust. "They probably want to get the thought into his head now, so that when he turns seventeen, that's all he will ever have known."
Sirius said something under his breath that Lily could not hear, but then Professor Dumbledore raised his arms and the murmuring throughout the hall died away.
"I realize that this is a frightening notion," he spoke calmly. "And so I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our staff, Professor Black."
A tall woman with lustrous black hair and a mouth thin enough to rival Professor McGonagall's on a bad day stood and nodded to the students, taking them all in through dark, heavily lidded eyes.
"There were numerous applicants for the Defense Against the Darks Arts position after Professor Schriener was unfortunately devoured by a particularly nasty set of robes," Dumbledore explained. "But Miss Black proved to be the most knowledgeable in the subject. I feel that she has much to offer Hogwarts."
"Black?" Lily wondered aloud, echoed by many others. "Sirius, is she your-?"
"Cousin," Sirius explained, looking up at the staff table curiously. "Bellatrix, one of the better ones, actually, but I never would have imagined that she'd have the guts to actually teach something anti-Dark Arts. Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella must be thrilled," he finished sarcastically.
"Well, as long as she doesn't support Voldemort," said James. "Then I'm glad she's here."
Lily and Remus led the new Gryffindors through the many corridors of the castle once Dumbledore dismissed them, making sure they knew the password to the Tower before entering it. They stopped in the Common Room and Lily explained where they were to sleep and bathe before sending the exhausted looking children off to bed.
"Well," Remus began when the last of the first years had disappeared. "They seem all right."
Lily smiled, about to agree, when Remus' best friends burst through the portrait hole, laughing loudly. Her grin turned to a grimace as she imagined what could possibly make them so happy.
She hated the fact that, in another life, she might have been able to enjoy the boys' more entertaining pranks (at least, the ones that did not hurt any of the students), but thoughts of her proud parents back in Lantern City were never far from the young witch's mind. So, responsible she would remain.
"What did you do?" she asked, crossing her arms and taking on a defensive stance. She was not keen on using her new Prefect powers against her own House, but with those boys, she knew it might come to that regardless.
James winked at her and took her arm, pulling her over to the fireplace. "Nothing you can prove," he said in a low voice.
"Ugh," Lily groaned, pushing him away from her. "We're here for two hours and you're already up to no good. I don't even know what to say to you anymore."
"I knew I'd leave you speechless one of these days," he said, rumpling his hair and cocking his eyebrow in a seductive manner he had mastered years before. "So I'll make this easy. All you have to do is say 'yes' when I ask you to go out with me, Evans. I'm sure that even in your wordless state, you can manage that."
Lily could feel her temple throbbing in anger. "Look, Potter, I'm not sure if you're asking me out for a bet, or a prank, or just to humiliate me, but whatever the reason, I'm not going to fall for it. Everyone else stopped making fun of me years ago. I don't see why you feel the need to keep doing it."
"I knew it was too good to be true," James sighed, grinning down at her. "Lily Evans will never run out of things to say."
"Yes, yes, I'm a know-it-all. Very original, Potter," Lily said, rolling her eyes and attempting to brush past him.
James held an arm out to stop her. "But you're not. At least, not like Olivia Montague, who just about jumps out her seat every time a teacher asks a question. I didn't mean you're a know-it-all. I just meant that you always have something to say."
Lily quirked an eyebrow and ducked under his arm. "And as much as I would love to stand here and come up with a witty retort to that, I think I'd rather just go to bed."
So she did.
www. pottedlilies. blogspot. com
Well, there it is! I'm so thrilled to finally be editing this story! I hope everything was to your fancy. ;) And I know, crazy-long author notes, but this is the only time they're like that, I promise!
ONE MORE IMPORTANT NOTE: (Sorry I'm talking so much, again, this is the only time I will!) Everything in this story has been researched thoroughly using the Harry Potter books, the Harry Potter Lexicon, Harry Potter Wiki, things J. K. Rowling has said herself, and a few other sources. All of the characters should be the correct age (in the original version, some of them were really off). This means that Bellatrix, Lucius, and a few of the other Death Eaters had already left Hogwarts by the time Lily and James enter their fifth year, but they will still play their own roles in the story! Particularly Bella, as you can already tell. THIS IS BEFORE SHE ANNOUNCES HER ALLEGIANCE TO VOLDEMORT. Some of the characters were mentioned in the books, but they have first names that I have made up, since JKR never gave them names, but for the most part, they should be the characters you know. Everything should fit into canon, and yes, there are OCs in this story, but it will conform to what we know of the characters by the end.
PLEASE REVIEW!
Love Always,
Kayla
In the day by day collision called the art of growing up, there's an innocence we look for in the stars. To be taken to the younger days, when there was no giving up on the people we held closest to our hearts. – Razorblade, Blue October