Chapter 1- In the Begining
Lily Evans opened her eyes and sighed. She was filled with equal amounts of trepidation and anticipation, the cause of the latter obvious as tomorrow marked the start of her Seventh and Final year at school, but the first a bit more elusive. Lily knew that something bad was going to happen today… but what was it? After a few minutes of pondering the inevitable disaster approaching, Lily got up and started her morning routine. This involved a 20 minute yoga session while listening to her favorite Beatles album, a shower, and the ever so necessary make up application. While humming along to "Blackbird," and applying mascara, Lily sighed over her reflection. She had fair, clear skin, eyes the color of jade, and fiery red hair. While most people loved Lily's hair, she herself abhorred it, and secretly wished she was blonde, even the lipid blonde her older sister Petunia had.
Oh.
Right.
That was what she had forgotten. Petunia was coming over tonight, along with her whale-ish fiancé Vernon. Just what Lily wanted on her last day before school starts! Petunia and Lily used to be quite close when they were younger, but that was before everything changed. That was before Snape, the flowers and swings, and that wonderful letter. That was before Lily's life turned completely upside down, and became a million times more wonderful than she had ever hoped.
Because Lily Evans is not a normal 17 year old girl. In fact, she is nothing close to a normal 17 year old girl, and this is precisely the reason why Petunia and Lily are no longer close. When Lily was about 10, she and her sister were playing at the park one day, when Lily did Something. This Something was not a normal Something, in fact, some might call it witch craft. Those few would be right though, because Lily's trick made it evident that she was not Normal. This was soon pointed out by a pale, pasty, boy who had been watching nearby.
Severas Snape had watched Lily a lot, and this was when he was certain his guess was true- Lily Evans was a witch. He told her this, much to Lily and Petunia's dismay, and in the case of the former, indignation. Yet this was not a bad thing, as Snape hastened to explain, but in fact a wonderful blessing. Lily would get to attend the best possible school for magical education in the world- Hogwarts- and what's more, she would get to spend almost every day with Snape! This was beneficial, because the two quickly became fast friends.
When Lily received her letter at age 11 welcoming her to Hogwarts, her parents were just about as thrilled as she was. There was however, one member of the house hold who did not partake in the jubilation. Petunia Evans was jealous, angry, and a little bit scared of her younger sister. Due to lack of maturity, she reacted to this in a very Petunia-y way, by simply saying "freak!" to Lily whenever she was vaguely close in proximity. This tradition continued to present day, and Lily never quite grew used to the sting. Hurt, she never quite worked up the courage to stand up to her older sister, and instead usually turned to Snape for comfort. Luckily he was never far away that summer before their first year at Hogwarts.
Present Lily sighed as she reflected on those past years, they were filled with joy and struggles with her new school, and a wonderful group of friends. They were also riddled with gaping holes of strife- her constant spats with the ever present James Potter, her friends various break ups, and finally her estrangement from Severus last year. For Severus had done the worst thing he could possibly do, and by calling Lily that hateful word he officially ruined any chance of reconciliation. As Lily mourned the loss of her best friend, she found her thoughts turning to the others who joined her at Hogwarts.
Lily's friends were the light of her life, and she would probably be horribly lost right now without them. Louisa, Lily's closet female friend, had perfect, wavy, waist length black hair, gorgeous deep blue eyes, and a perfect body. Louisa Hempstock was easily the prettiest girl in their entire year, and basically every boy lusted after her. Fortunately for them, Louisa was also held very firm beliefs in the relm of "free love," and was constantly slipping off somewhere private with a boy. While Lily did not exactly approve of her friends shenanigans, Louisa's other traits of fierce loyalty, outstanding intelligence, and her bubbly loving nature enabled Lily to look past any possible faults. Polar opposite to Louisa was Lily's second best friend, Eleanor Maloney, or Ellie. Ellie had curly dark brown hair perpetually slicked back in a bun, flawless chocolate brown skin, and beautiful eyes with glints of gold in them. Ellie was quiet and studious, and never stepped a toe out of line. In all of their years together, Lily had never known Ellie to even look twice at a boy, as Ellie was firm in the belief that relationships were for the real world outside of Hogwarts, and spent most of her time in the library studying, or reading on the stone bench by the lake. That left Alice Derille, Lily's third closest friend. Alice was short and on the curvy side, but that did not stop her from being one of the prettiest girls in the school. Alice's pale gold locks framed her face like the perfect picture it was, all rosy lips and pink cheeks. Alice was the only of the four girls to have a boyfriend, she and Frank Longbottom had been together for two years now, and everyone was very sure they were to be married right out of school.
Other than these three, Lily had heaps of friends- being the nicest girl in school will do that sort of thing to you. Amung them were the ever present Marauders- a group of four boisterous boys. Mousy Peter Pettigrew, Rambuncious Serius Black, Bookish Remus Lupin, and It. It has a name too, but Lily hates It. Therefor, she does her best to ignore It at all times. However, as only one who has tried to ignore James Potter will know, this is easier said than done. Particularily when he seems so dead set on annoying her at all times. The other three self dubbed "Marauders" were quite nice, and Lily was good friends with all of them. Even Peter, who had an unfortunate habit of looking at her nervously in a rather skeevey manner.
However, despite having oodles and oodles of comrads, Lily had spent the majority of this summer alone. Her budz had all flocked to various parts of the world, only sending her letters every few weeks detailing wonderful events. Lily had finished all her work within the first two weeks of solitude, and so spent the remainder of her holidays lonely, anxiously awaiting word from her friends. During this time, she attempted many different hobbies, and so her room was now cluttered with failed stamp collections, flower presses, paintings, and even a hidden stash of chocolate. By failed, you have to understand that Lily did exceedingly well at anything she attempted, but had mild ADD, and so never quite got into her hobbies. Fortunately that long, lonely summer was coming to an end- and Lily looked forward to tomorrow with great joy. However, she'll have to get through tonight's dinner first.
The rest of the day was spent in dread, as Lily and her mother prepared the house for Petunia's arrival. After hours of cleaning and cooking, Lily finally ascended the steps to her room to don her outfit of choice- a pale green frock that was a few shades lighter than her eyes. About half an hour later, the doorbell rang, and Lily greeted the somewhat unwelcome guests.
"Good evening Petunia, Vernon. How was your day?" Asked Lily in a slightly more gracious manner than she felt on the inside.
"Freak'" muttered Petunia, under her breath. Vernon just mumbled something inaudible and eyed Lily with a mixture of fear and hatred, similar to the expression Petunia wore. Vernon looked at her like that a lot lately, ever since he accidentally caught Lily practicing a spell for school, forcing Petunia to tell him the truth about her sister's special "condition."
The evening continued on in a similar fashion, with Petunia and Vernon doing their very best to ignore Lily, and Mr. and Mrs. Evans doing their very best to ignore this treatment of their youngest daughter. They all have learned from the last time Mrs. Evans tried to rebuke Petunia for her unnecessary actions, which resulted in an estrangement that lasted for months. Lily just sat there and enjoyed her food, while secretly plotting ways to wreak havoc at her elder sister's wedding in a year's time. That is, without getting in trouble by the wizard cops, Lily did not think her first year outside of school would be spent well in Azkaban.
After dinner, the Evans family plus one very whale like non Evans retired to the garden, in order to watch the stars come out. It was a tradition that had been maintained for longer than Lily could remember, ever since she and Petunia were babies. Everyone was silent and meditative in the dusk, each reflecting on their personal flaws or plans. Lily thought of nothing, as only a perfect person can do at such moments in time. Except for her hair, she thought of her hair a lot. All was going well in the meditative sense when Lily heard a faint sort of buzzing in her ear. It was then that she realized Petunia had been whispering "freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak" repetitively for the past few minutes. Lily, being the owner of a very fiery temper (attributed to her hair), got up and slapped the bejeezes out of her elder sister. It was one thing to call Lily a freak when spoken too, but to have Petunia ruin Lily's meditative silence? Outlandish! Unfortunately, this reaction resulted in Petunia and Vernon leaving abruptly and angrily, while Lily was scolded and then sent to her room by Mr. and Mrs. Evans.
Normally Lily would have been upset by being sent to her room, but this time she secretly wished that this time she would be excluded from the wedding party for good. With that last thought in her mind, Lily Evans went to sleep in her room for the last time before school started that year.
James Potter awoke with a start from a dream in which a million owls were chasing him through a forest on his broomstick, to find one very irritated owl awaiting money in exchange for the newspaper.