Hello! This is the rewrite of She's taken? which has been improved and will be updated every week.
If you are new, I hope you enjoy this. If you read the original, I hope you enjoy this more, and please don't refer to events that happened in the original in reviews. There have been some major changes.
If anyone wants to beta this story, let me know.
Lily loves?
Lily stood in the queue next to her best friend. Severus Snape looked at her anxiously as she waited for her name to be called.
"Well hello there, sunshine!" The boy from the train appeared. "I never did catch your name, care to share?" Lily mentally groaned. She hoped she didn't end up in the same house as him. Where did he say he was going? Gryffindor?
The first student was called to be sorted but Lily just looked at him and said, "Not really."
The boy's friend appeared and grinned. "We meet again Snivellus!"
Lily and Severus both scowled. The second boy opened his mouth to speak but McGonagall called "Black, Sirius" and he walked away to meet his fate. As he was placed into Gryffindor, there was no mistaking the relief on his face.
Lily began to bite her nails. What if her name wasn't called? What if she didn't like her housemates? What if-
"Evans, Lily."
She pushed her way to the front and sat on the stool. The whole school stared at her, and her palms began to sweat. Everyone was fixated on her. She was too busy panicking; she almost missed the dry chuckle of the old hat.
"Don't fret, I may have a mouth but I'm not going to bite," The hat said. Magic was weird. "Ahh, a muggleborn. Slytherin probably isn't a good idea then. But you certainly do have a brain up here so you would fit in like a puzzle piece in Ravenclaw. However, what about that stubborn streak? Hmm, you seem to have a lot of potential. I expect great things will come from you. I think you belong in GRYFFINDOR!" the hat bellowed the last part, deafening her. As long as that annoying boy didn't get his wish, she supposed she could tolerate his friend.
She walked to her new house table amongst the booming applause, avoiding sitting near Black, Sirius, instead opting to sit beside an attractive fair haired boy. He didn't look much older than Lily, probably a second year.
The boy smiled at her, kindly. "Hi, it's Lily, isn't it? I'm Connor. I hope we'll see a lot of each other this year."
Lily grinned back and they chatted for a bit, when a girl walked over. She resembled Connor, and looked happy to be in Gryffindor. "Oi Conn, budge up! I'd like to sit down but your fat arse is taking up so much room!" Lily thought to herself that it wasn't fat, it was actually quite nice, but before her thoughts made her blush, the new girl plonked herself in between them, turned to Lily and continued, "This prat you have the misfortune of sitting next to is my brother. I'm Meghan. I'm sure we will become good friends."
Lily smiled at her. "He's actually the nicest boy I've met so far. The two prats on the train just kept insulting me and my best friend. That's him, there" she said pointing out Severus, who smiled at her.
At that moment, another girl sat opposite them and introduced herself as Marlene McKinnon. Lily noticed the boy from the train had been called and now "Potter, James" was her housemate. To make matters worse, Sev was sorted into Slytherin. At least that was where he wanted to go.
Lily spent the rest of the meal chatting and laughing with her new friends.
Connor was a huge fan of some magical sport called quid-ditch? He wanted to play on the school team and hoped to try out for keeper. Lily assumed that was the Quid Ditch version of a goalie. He was talking animatedly about it with Marlene, who apparently knew all about it because of her sister and wanted to be a chaser or a beater? What sort of game is this Quid Ditch? How can players be allowed to beat each other up?
Meghan was really fun, it seems like she'd be the life and soul of a party. She already had a limited knowledge of the magical world that she'd learned from her brother and she was explaining everything Connor had told her. "I can already do a spell! Wingardium Leviosa!" She thrust her wand viciously at her plate. The potato flew up quickly, then even more quickly splatted on her plate, splashing a little gravy on her.
Life would never be boring around Meghan.
They had Herbology first. The girls walked past another first year leaning against the wall. It was Potter.
"Hello there, ladies," he winked. An eleven year old. Trying to flirt. Maybe if he was a complete heartthrob and was a few years older, but he wasn't, so Lily rolled her eyes. He was ridiculous.
Apparently Meg disagreed. She fluttered her eyelids, trying (and failing) to look alluring. Marlene smiled back at him.
Thus the James Potter Fan Club was born.
Lily thought that ignoring Potter would give him a clue that she wasn't impressed but he still insisted on sitting next to her. Lily instantly thought it was going to be a long lesson.
However Potter just smiled at her. "We got off on the wrong foot, didn't we? I'm sorry for offending you, can we please start again?" At her reluctant nod he beamed. "Hello, I'm James Potter. It's lovely to meet you."
Lily smiled. Maybe she had been too quick to judge him. "Lily Evans," she replied.
Maybe this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
For some reason Lily had never liked Halloween. Bad things always seemed to happen. And this year it happened to be a stormy Sunday night. Lily was running late for the feast. And of course, because it was her unlucky day, she tripped down one of the staircases as it jerked around, taking her further away from the feast. She tumbled down the last step and crashed into a suit of armour. It instantly kicked her away, clanging angrily at her. Lily shrieked in surprise.
"Fear not, Fair Maiden," A voice cried, helping her up. Next thing she knew, James Potter was brandishing a metal sword, challenging the suit of armour to a duel.
Lily stifled laughter. He was so ridiculous.
All of a sudden there was a clash of thunder and McGonagall appeared, frowning in disapproval, although Lily was certain there was a disguised look of amusement on her face.
"Miss Evans, Mr Potter, what on earth is going on?"
James dropped his sword, stepped away from the suit of armour and put an arm around Lily. "Well, Professor, you see, it went like this." He leapt into an exaggerated tale of how Lily was being chased by the armour which was threatening her, and at the last minute he leapt in, saving her from certain death. "So you see, Professor, I must vanquish this foe so its days of terrorising fair damsels in distress are over!"
"I'm not a damsel in distress. I had the situation under control," Lily dead-panned.
James opened his mouth to argue in indignation, but McGonagall beat him to it. "Miss Evans, what happened?"
Lily explained, noticing out of the corner of her eye that the suit of armour seemed to be pulling faces at James. She tried not to giggle.
McGonagall waved her wand at the armour, which froze in place, looking completely normal. "Mr Potter, why were you not at the feast?" she asked the boy.
He flushed guiltily and mumbled, "It's safer not to ask."
Once they were escorted to the feast, James plonked himself down next to Lily and turned to her. "Lily, I've had a genius idea. You may not have noticed but we are both top of all our classes. Except for History of Magic but we have that with the Ravenclaws so it doesn't count. And also except for Potions and Transfiguration. Wanna be study buddies?" he grinned.
Lily gaped. "Study buddies?" she glanced at their friends. "Tell me he did not just say that!"
Through a mouthful of food, Sirius replied, "He did!"
Lily sighed, "Disgusting," before turning to James and saying, "go on. Explain."
"Well, you see, you are amazing at Potions and I am amazing at Transfiguration. However, I'm crap at Potions and you're crap at transfiguration."
"Speak for yourself!"
"Face it, it's true. So if I help you with Transfiguration, will you help me with Potions?"
Lily sighed. Again. "Call me crazy, but you got yourself a deal."
Lily and James became quite good friends. The five of them, Marlene, Meg, Lily, James and Sirius became really close, although Lily did feel a little sorry for the other first year Gryffindors: Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. They seemed perfectly happy being best friends away from the others, so Lily didn't really speak to them much.
However that all came to an end quickly when Lily found James hiding behind a rock one Saturday, charming a bottle of ketchup to squirt itself on Severus' head.
"What are you doing?"
James flicked his head up sharply at Lily's menacing tone. He broke into a charming grin. There was not a single trace of guilt.
From then on, Lily and James were mortal enemies. The girls no longer hung around with the boys, although Mary and Marlene still talked to the boys. Also, Peter and Remus befriended the others as well. They would all be one big happy family if James and Lily could sit in a room together in peace.
"STOP ACTING LIKE A PATHETIC CHILD!"
"OH WILL YOU PULL THAT STICK OUT OF YOUR ARSE? LIGHTEN UP AND TAKE A JOKE!"
"TERRORISING SOMEONE'S LIFE ISN'T A JOKE!"
"YEAH? AND WHAT ABOUT WHAT HE DOES TO US?"
"STOP BEING SO BLOODY IMMATURE AND HE WON'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING TO YOU!"
The arguments were always the same. But towards the end of fourth year, James' yells lost the strength behind them. Secretly he began to fancy Lily. However, it wasn't until OWL season when he sprung the suggestion of a date on her. Obviously it didn't go down well.
And so begins our story, on the train to Hogwarts where our characters begin their dramatic sixth year of school.
Thank you for reading, please review!
