Author's note: And so it begins, another MWPP/LJ fic. Yeah, it's been done to death, but I couldn't care less. I don't know where things will lead, I don't know if anyone (including myself) will come out alive, I don't even know if it will ever end. But, as God (The Goddess, Buddha, Krishna, Allah) as my witness, I have to write it. It is... my destiny. And also, yes I do mean "barred" owl, and not barn. I like the species better than the usual snowy and barn everyone else uses.
Also, if you read this when it first got put up, there are a few minor edits to make some problem sentences flow that I added when I put up Chapter Two.
Disclaimer: All characters created by Joanne K. Rowling belong to her, and I make no claims whatsoever to own them. However, I do think I created Nan and Stella, even though Nan will never truly belong to anyone but Nan. Just don't go trying to steal her off for yourself, as she will probably hurt you worse by herself than anything I could ever dream up. And really, anyone who'd steal Stell' is just a bad, awful person.
Chapter One
Converging Parallels
A light rain, really more mist-like in quality than anything else, had begun to fall by the time James Potter stepped through the barrier and onto Platform Nine-and-Three Quarters. He ran his fingers over his head in an attempt to remove some of the excess water (and make his wiry brush of black hair lie flat, though he knew that was hopeless). He pushed his cart off to the side, out of the way of the entrance and looked back over his shoulder at the barrier with mock impatience.
"Sirius Black, if you don't hurry up everyone will miss the train because you're blocking the only door," he chided in a piercing falsetto.
"Oh, forgive me Mother Dear!" came the lilting reply through the arch. A moment later, Sirius Black materialized, carrying two cages and wearing a marked look of melodramatic suffering on his face. "Here," he said, "take this idiot of an owl before I'm forced to chuck it under the train." He covered his eyes with the back of his hand and with a flourish held out the larger of the two cages.
James rolled his eyes and took it from Sirius. The owl in it seemed to have hooked one of its talons around the top bar of the cage and was now happily swinging upside-down. He hastily unstuck the claw, which sent the owl tumbling rapidly, though good-naturedly, to the bottom of the cage. James fondly scratched the back of its head. He set the cage atop the trunk he was pushing and started toward the train.
"How can he help being a little eccentric?" James asked Sirius as they strolled through the crowds of people swirling around the train platform. "You'd probably be a little loopy too, if you'd spent as much time with Nan as he has. Howard's just had the misfortune of being imprinted with human qualities that aren't exactly... 'the norm'."
"Boys, the only reason there is to continue living on this earth is to bring something new to the world. If that makes every artist, poet, musician, freethinker, and me eccentric, then I really couldn't care less." A woman with white hair sticking out all around her head in every direction possible and wearing a sort of wrap-around dress of a sort of gray-purple-blue-greenish shade ("Wearing clothing of only one color is like having a personality with only one quality to it; both are genuinely boring.") came striding through the barrier pushing Sirius's trunk and taking no notice of who had to jump out of her way as she strode along to catch up with them. A few feet from the train she wheeled the cart to a stop and turned to the two boys.
"Well, since we're finally here," she said, "we can rest a minute. Now, was there any last minute advice I wanted to give you two?"
She stood a moment chewing on the end of her thumb, obviously scanning her memory.
"Oh, that was it. Now, one, I want owls. I really would rather hear of your exploits-"
"What, us have exploits?" Sirius interrupted, giving her an innocent look so as to suggest he had never even heard the word exploit.
"Oh, come boy, if I thought for a minute you two together would be perfect angels the whole time you were at school I would be exceedingly worried. But, as I was saying, I would rather hear of your exploits from you in their all great glorious detail than from the dreadfully boring and unimaginative teacher who will most likely be giving you detention for them."
"Okay Nan, can do," assured James. "Of course, I'll probably use up more paper than all the other first years put together if we're going to tell you about all of them."
"Well, in that case, just tell me about the enormously brilliant ones." She smiled and paused again. "What else? Oh, in the charms corridor there's a loose brick with a cavity behind it that's very useful for hiding things. Always remember not to walk through any of the ghosts, as it's not only cold, but very impolite. And please," she took on a grave look. "Please don't go into the forest by yourselves. I know you think highly of your skills as rule breakers, but it really is dangerous, especially at night, and it's no place for you to be for any reason."
They both nodded their heads soundlessly. A shrill whistle sounded from the direction of the train.
"Well," she said, her tone reverting back to its normal level of gaiety. "I suppose that's all. You two had better get on then, before they leave you behind."
"Alright Nan," James gave her a quick hug. "I'll send you an owl tonight, after everything, and tell you which house I got and all that. Though we both already know of course."
"Don't be too sure about things like that, James my boy. Both my parents were in Ravenclaw, but I was a Gryffindor. And your mother's brother was a Hufflepuff, of all things! You really never do know. Still, I don't think you two will have much trouble getting into Gryffindor; I have a fairly good guess that they'd be nuts to put you anywhere else."
"Alright then Nan," said James stepping up onto the train. "We'll see you when we see you!"
"Goodbye boys," said Nan. She seemed about to turn and leave, but called out again, directing her halloo to Sirius this time.
"Sirius dear, hold on just a minute."
He turned around to face her.
"You know your mother would have come today if she could, don't you? Because I won't have you go off thinking she didn't try."
Sirius gave her the sort of half-hearted grin he always gave people when they said this sort of thing. "I know Nan. She was busy, it wasn't her fault." He knew Nan could hear the disappointment in his voice anyway, no matter how he disguised it. Nan always knew things like that. It was one of both her best and worst qualities at once. However, she'd never been one to offer advice where it wasn't wanted, so she said nothing more about it.
"All right Sirius, I'll see you again later this year then. Have fun, and," she gave him a wink, "try not to get caught."
Sirius smiled at her and headed off into the train feeling considerably better. That was another good thing about Nan; she never left a conversation to hang dismally in the air. He hurried off to catch up with James. They had to start planning what should go in that loose brick space soon. He wondered if they'd think to search the first years' luggage for contraband items when they arrived...
On the platform Nan watched as the train chugged soundlessly out of sight, until only a thin plume of smoke that hung in the air was the only thing left to give the impression of a Hogwarts Express at all. "Well," she murmured to herself, "I'll be blown if there don't go the most detentions Hogwarts could ever hope to see."
When Lily Evans had gotten the letter, she'd felt as if every hope and prayer she'd ever even chanced to dream had been answered. There had been something different about her, it wasn't just her head. It was the best feeling in the world for her, the one of being proven right. Right about now though, she was feeling like she'd rather be back in her old school with those girls knocking her about and everyone calling her "Little Lil" like she wasn't a proper human with feelings than standing here, on the brink of something she knew could change everything she'd ever thought. The Hogwarts Express was looming huge and menacing before her, like a great beast waiting to carry her off to its lair. In a way this struck her as funny, as she usually liked looking at old things; antique frames and the cracked sepia toned photos she found in the attic of her house back in Liverpool. And this train was certainly an antique. One of those old ones that shot steam out the top and gave a whistle you never heard anywhere else. Funny, because if she wasn't here facing the unknown all by herself, surrounded by people who had known about magic their whole lives, she'd probably've been having a grand time.
It wasn't as though she was supposed to be alone today. Her parents had brought her to the station, were about to get out of the car along with her and see her to the train, when Petunia, her sister and only sibling, had started to complain loudly that she felt sick and needed to go home immediately. Her parents genuinely thought she was sick, and had apologized to Lily nonstop, saying they really had take Petunia home, she sounded so bad. But as Lily was pulling one of her bags out of the back seat, Petunia had leaned over and hissed at her,"Yeah, sick of you." Lily had quickly hugged her parents through the windows and bolted off, making a wide trail behind her as she dragged her trunk through the gravel parking lot and hoping they wouldn't see the tears streaming down her cheeks.
A good cry in the ladies room later, she had emerged no worse for the wear. A man standing by the barrier had helped her get through to the platform, but now that she was here, a trace of panic was starting to creep back up into her mind. She was considering just turning around, walking right back through the barrier and away into London by herself, when an elderly woman pushing a cart nearly ran over her. She'd jumped aside quickly enough, but it almost proved too much for her to bear. She'd grabbed her trunk and turned to the barrier, intent on just getting away, anywhere but here. That was when it hit her.
Why should she have to go?
She had a right to be here. She was magic (at least the school had said so), and she was a person just like any of them. They didn't have anything to hold over her head, so why should she let them push her around? The answer was she shouldn't, and she wasn't going to. And anyone who thought they were going to was in for a nasty shock.
And so resolving, Lily Evans grabbed the handle on her trunk, turned on her heel, and strode off toward the train, having finally made what would prove to be one of the most important decisions of her life.
***
James stared down the train's corridor, trying to decide which compartment to hide from Sirius in. The first one he tried was full of giggling girls, much too annoying for someone to hide in properly. The next contained a bunch of surly looking boys, probably Slytherins, who glared at him so angrily when he opened the door he hastily shut it again. He was just about to go check the other end of the train when Howard let out a soft hoot in the opposite direction.
"Trying to sneak off and leave me, were you?" Sirius grinned at James. "Come on, let's go find somewhere to sit."
"Okay, but you have to open the doors. Here," James pointed at the door across from the one he'd tried last, "check that one."
"Oh, I'm sure," Sirius retorted. "There's probably some huge man-eating monster in there. I say this one." He grabbed the handle to the angry Slytherins' compartment.
James was just about to step back and take in all the hilarity of his joke when a noise from behind startled him. Sirius's hand dropped from the door and he turned, James following suit.
Two practical boulders of human beings were standing at the end of the aisle over a third person very much smaller and fairer than themselves. The noise had come from the cage the smaller boy was carrying, which had fallen to the ground and banged against the wall. The owl inside it was screeching hysterically.
"Hey you little sneak," the larger of the two lumps was saying, "what's wrong? Not gonna say hello to your old neighbors? We used to be such good friends back then. What happened?" The two boys sniggered unpleasantly.
"Leave me alone Avery, you know I'm not worth bothering with," the small boy said.
"Correction," said the second boy, "we enjoy bothering you for exactly that reason. No one cares about you."
"Come on Nott, I haven't got any money or anything. Just let me go." A note of panic was becoming apparent in the small boy's voice.
James had been summing up the situation up to now, but this seemed like the correct moment to take some sort of action. It was apparent these boys were going to beat the smaller one to a bloody pulp if he or Sirius didn't do something. He was just about to yell at the one called Avery when someone did it for him. And it wasn't Sirius.
***
Lily stood in the train's lavatory, looking at herself in the mirror. No, it wasn't her imagination; she looked different. Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true; her hair was still dusky red, still pulled back in the ponytail she'd put it in that morning, the few stray strands not long enough to stay up falling over her eyes. But now they weren't Mum's eyes, they weren't Dad's eyes. They'd always been Mum's or Dad's, the unstriking green, almost dull really, everyone in the family had. But they weren't anymore. These were someone else entirely's eyes. These were Stella's.
Stella had been tall, Stella had been dark. Stella had been lovely, had been smart, had been funny. Stella had been everything Lily had ever thought a person could be, but most of all, Stella had been her sister. She'd always been there with advice, had always been protective when she needed to be, always compassionate when it was wanted. She'd been the bridge between Lily and Petunia, helping them to get along better and understand each other when they'd started bickering constantly.
Lily had loved Stella more than anyone, because she'd been more than her sister, she'd been the only friend Lily had most of the time. So when Lily had gotten the letter, of course she'd wanted to tell her.
It had been a beautiful day in July, the sun shining brightly while tiny sheep-like clouds sailed through the sky. It seemed all the more expansive that day, simply filling with the happiness one couldn't help but feel on a day like that day. Lily had found the letter addressed to her in the mailbox, had opened it and read the words on the funny light brown crispy paper, hadn't believed a bit of it at first, then believed it all in a great rush, like a tidal wave overtaking a village in the depths of an 11 year drought. She had run hollering into the house, waving the letter and jumping up and down in front of her mother till she'd had to collapse in a chair and hand her mother the letter breathlessly. Her mother screamed and hugged her, had called her father at his office, pulled him out of a meeting just to tell him. She'd started to dial the number of Stella's work, but Lily had stopped her, saying she wanted to tell her herself.
Stella had worked at a record shop round a few corners from the house on Sutcliffe Street. It didn't take Lily very long dashing through the alley's and back gardens to arrive across the street from the shop. She had looked up to see Stella exiting through the front door, apparently coming home for a lunch break. Seeing Lily she'd waved merrily, glanced up the street, and started across to meet her.
That's when the roaring of the engine had split the summer air, the car had come screaming around the corner, and Stella had died. And Lily had run into the street, fallen to the ground next to her, had screamed. Had made the sky go hollow in a single breath.
Nothing had mattered the rest of July. It didn't matter that they threw the drunk man who'd hit her in jail forever, it didn't matter that the service was lovely, and that Stella would have liked it; it didn't matter that the sun no longer seemed bright and the grass green.
By the beginning of August, however, only one thing mattered: it had been her fault. She'd been the one who'd distracted Stella. Had she not been there, Stella might've seen the car and jumped out of the way. Lily blamed herself. Petunia blamed Lily too, but she also blamed the letter. Lily had sat in the attic the afternoon of the funeral, crying softly among the boxes and old mirrors and the dressmaker's dummy in the corner, when she'd heard Petunia shout up the stairs, "None of this would have happened if you weren't such a freak Lily, and you know it!" She'd sunk into a hole, it seemed, and she couldn't do anything but sink deeper.
But by the middle of August, a light had appeared out of the consuming sadness of her sister's death: school. Ever contrary to Petunia, Lily didn't blame the letter for anything, because she knew Stella'd have been happy for her. And to think that she'd soon be able to go and leave all the sadness and hurt her house held was like a comfort no well wisher or relative could give. So when the family had set off for London she was feeling better about the situation than she had been .
Diagon Alley had been so overwhelming for her parents and her sister they'd ended up staying inside the Leaky Cauldron, leaving Lily free to explore the shops by herself. She'd skirted some of the noisier, more crowded ones, not wanting to be around that many people, instead sticking to arcane book shops full of volumes containing wizarding history, and even chancing a few visits to The Magical Menagerie, where she looked at every owl six times before finally asking her parents if she could have one. To her suprise they'd agreed quite easily, and she'd left the store with a large barred owl with liquid black eyes and a soft voice the last full day of their stay in London.
Lily had wanted to stay at the Leaky Cauldron, but her mother had insisted on staying with a friend who she'd known in grade school. She'd run off by herself right after they'd arrived on Thursday evening. The woman, her name was Delilah or something like that, had greeted them with a cordial "Oh you poor things!" and proceeded to talk endlessly about how shocked she'd been at the news, how she disapproved of the drink, how she thought they must be in an awful way. Truthfully, Lily hadn't been in an awful way till the woman started talking about it. She had hastily stood up and announced she was going for a walk. She got as far as the beginnings of Hyde Park, where she'd climbed a tree and watched the sun go down, wishing Stella could be there.
But now she was... or at least it seemed like it, seeing those eyes in the mirror. Stella was gone, she knew that, but maybe, just perhaps, not as gone as she thought.
Quite suddenly her contemplations were interrupted by a noise from down the hall. At first Lily stopped, thinking it might just have been a regular train noise, but the image of the eyes and the promise she'd made herself forced the door open all on their own and draged Lily along behind them out into the corridor.
Two boys were standing against a door to the left about 6 feet away from her, looking farther down the way. The objects of their attention seemed to be two large boys standing over a smaller blonde one who sat on the floor practically cowering at their feet. She couldn't hear what they were saying too well, but by the look on the smaller boy's face, this wasn't a pleasant little chat. She felt anger welling behind her eyes as she watched, and it exploded from her lips before she knew what she was doing.
"What in bloody hell do you think you're doing?!?"
"Such language Lily!" Mum gasped in her head.
All of the boys, including the ones by the door,realized she was there and turned to look at her. She strode down the hallway with steps three times larger than she usually took and stopped in front of the largest boy.
"Leave him alone."
The boy looked at her like he had never been talked rudely to in his life, and maybe he hadn't, but he regained his composure almost almost before he lost it. He looked her up with apparent disgust. "Shove off you little mudblood, 'fore that little mouth of yours proves a bad thing," he told her. But he wouldn't meet Lily's blazing eyes when he said it.
Lily swung round to face the blonde boy on the floor. She held out her hand to him, but a bigger hand gripped her arm, hard.
"I said-" started the large boy, hanging over her, but he never finished. Lily swung her fist at him so hard and so fast not even a gazelle could have moved in time. Lily's hand came away bloody, as did Avery's nose.
The boy let go of her and stumbled back, bleeding all over the place and completely stunned with shock. So did his friend. So incredibly unthinkable was what had just happened to them that they could only stand and watch as the girl, this little redhead with green, green eyes, hoist up the small boy and his cage and steer him into an empty compartment, closely tailed by the two boys who had been standing behind them, watching the morning's odd events unfold.
Okay, next we'll be getting aquainted. Or maybe we'll be having another series of confusing flashbacks. You'll just have to come and see...
Review, and I will grant you three wishes*.
*Wishes must be as follows: 1. I wish Elsha would write more chapters of this story. 2. I wish I could review more of Elsha's work. 3. I wish I could go to http://www.geocities.com/spellotape10 as well as http://dari.topcities.com to appease Elsha's need for hits (though at those places her name is Adrian, for some reason.)
Also, if you read this when it first got put up, there are a few minor edits to make some problem sentences flow that I added when I put up Chapter Two.
Disclaimer: All characters created by Joanne K. Rowling belong to her, and I make no claims whatsoever to own them. However, I do think I created Nan and Stella, even though Nan will never truly belong to anyone but Nan. Just don't go trying to steal her off for yourself, as she will probably hurt you worse by herself than anything I could ever dream up. And really, anyone who'd steal Stell' is just a bad, awful person.
A light rain, really more mist-like in quality than anything else, had begun to fall by the time James Potter stepped through the barrier and onto Platform Nine-and-Three Quarters. He ran his fingers over his head in an attempt to remove some of the excess water (and make his wiry brush of black hair lie flat, though he knew that was hopeless). He pushed his cart off to the side, out of the way of the entrance and looked back over his shoulder at the barrier with mock impatience.
"Sirius Black, if you don't hurry up everyone will miss the train because you're blocking the only door," he chided in a piercing falsetto.
"Oh, forgive me Mother Dear!" came the lilting reply through the arch. A moment later, Sirius Black materialized, carrying two cages and wearing a marked look of melodramatic suffering on his face. "Here," he said, "take this idiot of an owl before I'm forced to chuck it under the train." He covered his eyes with the back of his hand and with a flourish held out the larger of the two cages.
James rolled his eyes and took it from Sirius. The owl in it seemed to have hooked one of its talons around the top bar of the cage and was now happily swinging upside-down. He hastily unstuck the claw, which sent the owl tumbling rapidly, though good-naturedly, to the bottom of the cage. James fondly scratched the back of its head. He set the cage atop the trunk he was pushing and started toward the train.
"How can he help being a little eccentric?" James asked Sirius as they strolled through the crowds of people swirling around the train platform. "You'd probably be a little loopy too, if you'd spent as much time with Nan as he has. Howard's just had the misfortune of being imprinted with human qualities that aren't exactly... 'the norm'."
"Boys, the only reason there is to continue living on this earth is to bring something new to the world. If that makes every artist, poet, musician, freethinker, and me eccentric, then I really couldn't care less." A woman with white hair sticking out all around her head in every direction possible and wearing a sort of wrap-around dress of a sort of gray-purple-blue-greenish shade ("Wearing clothing of only one color is like having a personality with only one quality to it; both are genuinely boring.") came striding through the barrier pushing Sirius's trunk and taking no notice of who had to jump out of her way as she strode along to catch up with them. A few feet from the train she wheeled the cart to a stop and turned to the two boys.
"Well, since we're finally here," she said, "we can rest a minute. Now, was there any last minute advice I wanted to give you two?"
She stood a moment chewing on the end of her thumb, obviously scanning her memory.
"Oh, that was it. Now, one, I want owls. I really would rather hear of your exploits-"
"What, us have exploits?" Sirius interrupted, giving her an innocent look so as to suggest he had never even heard the word exploit.
"Oh, come boy, if I thought for a minute you two together would be perfect angels the whole time you were at school I would be exceedingly worried. But, as I was saying, I would rather hear of your exploits from you in their all great glorious detail than from the dreadfully boring and unimaginative teacher who will most likely be giving you detention for them."
"Okay Nan, can do," assured James. "Of course, I'll probably use up more paper than all the other first years put together if we're going to tell you about all of them."
"Well, in that case, just tell me about the enormously brilliant ones." She smiled and paused again. "What else? Oh, in the charms corridor there's a loose brick with a cavity behind it that's very useful for hiding things. Always remember not to walk through any of the ghosts, as it's not only cold, but very impolite. And please," she took on a grave look. "Please don't go into the forest by yourselves. I know you think highly of your skills as rule breakers, but it really is dangerous, especially at night, and it's no place for you to be for any reason."
They both nodded their heads soundlessly. A shrill whistle sounded from the direction of the train.
"Well," she said, her tone reverting back to its normal level of gaiety. "I suppose that's all. You two had better get on then, before they leave you behind."
"Alright Nan," James gave her a quick hug. "I'll send you an owl tonight, after everything, and tell you which house I got and all that. Though we both already know of course."
"Don't be too sure about things like that, James my boy. Both my parents were in Ravenclaw, but I was a Gryffindor. And your mother's brother was a Hufflepuff, of all things! You really never do know. Still, I don't think you two will have much trouble getting into Gryffindor; I have a fairly good guess that they'd be nuts to put you anywhere else."
"Alright then Nan," said James stepping up onto the train. "We'll see you when we see you!"
"Goodbye boys," said Nan. She seemed about to turn and leave, but called out again, directing her halloo to Sirius this time.
"Sirius dear, hold on just a minute."
He turned around to face her.
"You know your mother would have come today if she could, don't you? Because I won't have you go off thinking she didn't try."
Sirius gave her the sort of half-hearted grin he always gave people when they said this sort of thing. "I know Nan. She was busy, it wasn't her fault." He knew Nan could hear the disappointment in his voice anyway, no matter how he disguised it. Nan always knew things like that. It was one of both her best and worst qualities at once. However, she'd never been one to offer advice where it wasn't wanted, so she said nothing more about it.
"All right Sirius, I'll see you again later this year then. Have fun, and," she gave him a wink, "try not to get caught."
Sirius smiled at her and headed off into the train feeling considerably better. That was another good thing about Nan; she never left a conversation to hang dismally in the air. He hurried off to catch up with James. They had to start planning what should go in that loose brick space soon. He wondered if they'd think to search the first years' luggage for contraband items when they arrived...
On the platform Nan watched as the train chugged soundlessly out of sight, until only a thin plume of smoke that hung in the air was the only thing left to give the impression of a Hogwarts Express at all. "Well," she murmured to herself, "I'll be blown if there don't go the most detentions Hogwarts could ever hope to see."
When Lily Evans had gotten the letter, she'd felt as if every hope and prayer she'd ever even chanced to dream had been answered. There had been something different about her, it wasn't just her head. It was the best feeling in the world for her, the one of being proven right. Right about now though, she was feeling like she'd rather be back in her old school with those girls knocking her about and everyone calling her "Little Lil" like she wasn't a proper human with feelings than standing here, on the brink of something she knew could change everything she'd ever thought. The Hogwarts Express was looming huge and menacing before her, like a great beast waiting to carry her off to its lair. In a way this struck her as funny, as she usually liked looking at old things; antique frames and the cracked sepia toned photos she found in the attic of her house back in Liverpool. And this train was certainly an antique. One of those old ones that shot steam out the top and gave a whistle you never heard anywhere else. Funny, because if she wasn't here facing the unknown all by herself, surrounded by people who had known about magic their whole lives, she'd probably've been having a grand time.
It wasn't as though she was supposed to be alone today. Her parents had brought her to the station, were about to get out of the car along with her and see her to the train, when Petunia, her sister and only sibling, had started to complain loudly that she felt sick and needed to go home immediately. Her parents genuinely thought she was sick, and had apologized to Lily nonstop, saying they really had take Petunia home, she sounded so bad. But as Lily was pulling one of her bags out of the back seat, Petunia had leaned over and hissed at her,"Yeah, sick of you." Lily had quickly hugged her parents through the windows and bolted off, making a wide trail behind her as she dragged her trunk through the gravel parking lot and hoping they wouldn't see the tears streaming down her cheeks.
A good cry in the ladies room later, she had emerged no worse for the wear. A man standing by the barrier had helped her get through to the platform, but now that she was here, a trace of panic was starting to creep back up into her mind. She was considering just turning around, walking right back through the barrier and away into London by herself, when an elderly woman pushing a cart nearly ran over her. She'd jumped aside quickly enough, but it almost proved too much for her to bear. She'd grabbed her trunk and turned to the barrier, intent on just getting away, anywhere but here. That was when it hit her.
Why should she have to go?
She had a right to be here. She was magic (at least the school had said so), and she was a person just like any of them. They didn't have anything to hold over her head, so why should she let them push her around? The answer was she shouldn't, and she wasn't going to. And anyone who thought they were going to was in for a nasty shock.
And so resolving, Lily Evans grabbed the handle on her trunk, turned on her heel, and strode off toward the train, having finally made what would prove to be one of the most important decisions of her life.
James stared down the train's corridor, trying to decide which compartment to hide from Sirius in. The first one he tried was full of giggling girls, much too annoying for someone to hide in properly. The next contained a bunch of surly looking boys, probably Slytherins, who glared at him so angrily when he opened the door he hastily shut it again. He was just about to go check the other end of the train when Howard let out a soft hoot in the opposite direction.
"Trying to sneak off and leave me, were you?" Sirius grinned at James. "Come on, let's go find somewhere to sit."
"Okay, but you have to open the doors. Here," James pointed at the door across from the one he'd tried last, "check that one."
"Oh, I'm sure," Sirius retorted. "There's probably some huge man-eating monster in there. I say this one." He grabbed the handle to the angry Slytherins' compartment.
James was just about to step back and take in all the hilarity of his joke when a noise from behind startled him. Sirius's hand dropped from the door and he turned, James following suit.
Two practical boulders of human beings were standing at the end of the aisle over a third person very much smaller and fairer than themselves. The noise had come from the cage the smaller boy was carrying, which had fallen to the ground and banged against the wall. The owl inside it was screeching hysterically.
"Hey you little sneak," the larger of the two lumps was saying, "what's wrong? Not gonna say hello to your old neighbors? We used to be such good friends back then. What happened?" The two boys sniggered unpleasantly.
"Leave me alone Avery, you know I'm not worth bothering with," the small boy said.
"Correction," said the second boy, "we enjoy bothering you for exactly that reason. No one cares about you."
"Come on Nott, I haven't got any money or anything. Just let me go." A note of panic was becoming apparent in the small boy's voice.
James had been summing up the situation up to now, but this seemed like the correct moment to take some sort of action. It was apparent these boys were going to beat the smaller one to a bloody pulp if he or Sirius didn't do something. He was just about to yell at the one called Avery when someone did it for him. And it wasn't Sirius.
Lily stood in the train's lavatory, looking at herself in the mirror. No, it wasn't her imagination; she looked different. Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true; her hair was still dusky red, still pulled back in the ponytail she'd put it in that morning, the few stray strands not long enough to stay up falling over her eyes. But now they weren't Mum's eyes, they weren't Dad's eyes. They'd always been Mum's or Dad's, the unstriking green, almost dull really, everyone in the family had. But they weren't anymore. These were someone else entirely's eyes. These were Stella's.
Stella had been tall, Stella had been dark. Stella had been lovely, had been smart, had been funny. Stella had been everything Lily had ever thought a person could be, but most of all, Stella had been her sister. She'd always been there with advice, had always been protective when she needed to be, always compassionate when it was wanted. She'd been the bridge between Lily and Petunia, helping them to get along better and understand each other when they'd started bickering constantly.
Lily had loved Stella more than anyone, because she'd been more than her sister, she'd been the only friend Lily had most of the time. So when Lily had gotten the letter, of course she'd wanted to tell her.
It had been a beautiful day in July, the sun shining brightly while tiny sheep-like clouds sailed through the sky. It seemed all the more expansive that day, simply filling with the happiness one couldn't help but feel on a day like that day. Lily had found the letter addressed to her in the mailbox, had opened it and read the words on the funny light brown crispy paper, hadn't believed a bit of it at first, then believed it all in a great rush, like a tidal wave overtaking a village in the depths of an 11 year drought. She had run hollering into the house, waving the letter and jumping up and down in front of her mother till she'd had to collapse in a chair and hand her mother the letter breathlessly. Her mother screamed and hugged her, had called her father at his office, pulled him out of a meeting just to tell him. She'd started to dial the number of Stella's work, but Lily had stopped her, saying she wanted to tell her herself.
Stella had worked at a record shop round a few corners from the house on Sutcliffe Street. It didn't take Lily very long dashing through the alley's and back gardens to arrive across the street from the shop. She had looked up to see Stella exiting through the front door, apparently coming home for a lunch break. Seeing Lily she'd waved merrily, glanced up the street, and started across to meet her.
That's when the roaring of the engine had split the summer air, the car had come screaming around the corner, and Stella had died. And Lily had run into the street, fallen to the ground next to her, had screamed. Had made the sky go hollow in a single breath.
Nothing had mattered the rest of July. It didn't matter that they threw the drunk man who'd hit her in jail forever, it didn't matter that the service was lovely, and that Stella would have liked it; it didn't matter that the sun no longer seemed bright and the grass green.
By the beginning of August, however, only one thing mattered: it had been her fault. She'd been the one who'd distracted Stella. Had she not been there, Stella might've seen the car and jumped out of the way. Lily blamed herself. Petunia blamed Lily too, but she also blamed the letter. Lily had sat in the attic the afternoon of the funeral, crying softly among the boxes and old mirrors and the dressmaker's dummy in the corner, when she'd heard Petunia shout up the stairs, "None of this would have happened if you weren't such a freak Lily, and you know it!" She'd sunk into a hole, it seemed, and she couldn't do anything but sink deeper.
But by the middle of August, a light had appeared out of the consuming sadness of her sister's death: school. Ever contrary to Petunia, Lily didn't blame the letter for anything, because she knew Stella'd have been happy for her. And to think that she'd soon be able to go and leave all the sadness and hurt her house held was like a comfort no well wisher or relative could give. So when the family had set off for London she was feeling better about the situation than she had been .
Diagon Alley had been so overwhelming for her parents and her sister they'd ended up staying inside the Leaky Cauldron, leaving Lily free to explore the shops by herself. She'd skirted some of the noisier, more crowded ones, not wanting to be around that many people, instead sticking to arcane book shops full of volumes containing wizarding history, and even chancing a few visits to The Magical Menagerie, where she looked at every owl six times before finally asking her parents if she could have one. To her suprise they'd agreed quite easily, and she'd left the store with a large barred owl with liquid black eyes and a soft voice the last full day of their stay in London.
Lily had wanted to stay at the Leaky Cauldron, but her mother had insisted on staying with a friend who she'd known in grade school. She'd run off by herself right after they'd arrived on Thursday evening. The woman, her name was Delilah or something like that, had greeted them with a cordial "Oh you poor things!" and proceeded to talk endlessly about how shocked she'd been at the news, how she disapproved of the drink, how she thought they must be in an awful way. Truthfully, Lily hadn't been in an awful way till the woman started talking about it. She had hastily stood up and announced she was going for a walk. She got as far as the beginnings of Hyde Park, where she'd climbed a tree and watched the sun go down, wishing Stella could be there.
But now she was... or at least it seemed like it, seeing those eyes in the mirror. Stella was gone, she knew that, but maybe, just perhaps, not as gone as she thought.
Quite suddenly her contemplations were interrupted by a noise from down the hall. At first Lily stopped, thinking it might just have been a regular train noise, but the image of the eyes and the promise she'd made herself forced the door open all on their own and draged Lily along behind them out into the corridor.
Two boys were standing against a door to the left about 6 feet away from her, looking farther down the way. The objects of their attention seemed to be two large boys standing over a smaller blonde one who sat on the floor practically cowering at their feet. She couldn't hear what they were saying too well, but by the look on the smaller boy's face, this wasn't a pleasant little chat. She felt anger welling behind her eyes as she watched, and it exploded from her lips before she knew what she was doing.
"What in bloody hell do you think you're doing?!?"
"Such language Lily!" Mum gasped in her head.
All of the boys, including the ones by the door,realized she was there and turned to look at her. She strode down the hallway with steps three times larger than she usually took and stopped in front of the largest boy.
"Leave him alone."
The boy looked at her like he had never been talked rudely to in his life, and maybe he hadn't, but he regained his composure almost almost before he lost it. He looked her up with apparent disgust. "Shove off you little mudblood, 'fore that little mouth of yours proves a bad thing," he told her. But he wouldn't meet Lily's blazing eyes when he said it.
Lily swung round to face the blonde boy on the floor. She held out her hand to him, but a bigger hand gripped her arm, hard.
"I said-" started the large boy, hanging over her, but he never finished. Lily swung her fist at him so hard and so fast not even a gazelle could have moved in time. Lily's hand came away bloody, as did Avery's nose.
The boy let go of her and stumbled back, bleeding all over the place and completely stunned with shock. So did his friend. So incredibly unthinkable was what had just happened to them that they could only stand and watch as the girl, this little redhead with green, green eyes, hoist up the small boy and his cage and steer him into an empty compartment, closely tailed by the two boys who had been standing behind them, watching the morning's odd events unfold.
Okay, next we'll be getting aquainted. Or maybe we'll be having another series of confusing flashbacks. You'll just have to come and see...
Review, and I will grant you three wishes*.
*Wishes must be as follows: 1. I wish Elsha would write more chapters of this story. 2. I wish I could review more of Elsha's work. 3. I wish I could go to http://www.geocities.com/spellotape10 as well as http://dari.topcities.com to appease Elsha's need for hits (though at those places her name is Adrian, for some reason.)