Finding Gilbert
When she was very little, Lily would pretend she was a princess. Her mother's old dresses were the flowing gowns of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, the tool shed was a magnificent castle with turrets and fluttering flags. Her sister used to call her silly, but Petunia was older and couldn't be expected to understand.
Lily tried to get Petunia to play with her, but Petunia would change the stories Lily made up, or would complain about the dustiness of the tool shed, or whine about not getting to be the princess. Lily would try to explain what she saw to her sister; how the big bush was really a wolf that would eat them if they weren't careful, how the cracked teacup wasn't a teacup at all, but a golden chalice fit for a queen. Eventually Lily gave up and decided she liked playing alone better anyway.
Her father finally agreed to read the Lord of the Rings to her when she was seven, and she wouldn't let him skip the scary parts. She would look over her father's shoulder, reading along, to make sure he didn't skip a word. And suddenly she was no longer a princess but a warrior maiden. They were so much more interesting, anyway. She fought imaginary dragons and muttered made-up elvish under her breath.
Her mother would look out of the window and shake her head and smile at the sight of Lily completely alone in the garden, putting flowers in her bright red hair. Today she had said she was Goldblossom, or something of that nature, as she skipped out to the garden singing about someone named Tom.
Later, when Petunia's friends were visiting, Lily would escape to her favorite spot under the big oak with a book. The silly boys Petunia and her giggly friends never shut up about were not nearly as interesting as the men in books, Lily thought. She thought Gilbert was the most interesting of them all. It was so romantic how he loved Anne through all those years she thought she hated him, and then how Anne finally realized that she loved him back. Lily liked the part where he rescued Anne from the water. She decided that when she grew up, she was going to marry a man like that, not one of Petunia's silly boys.
That summer, Lily started quoting Tennyson instead of elvish. That summer, Lily got a strange letter in the mail, and learned that there were others like herself who saw the world in a different way.
"Mum look! Look! Wizards!" Lily shouted excitedly after the shaken Mr. And Mrs. Evans tumbled through the barrier of platform nine and three quarters. Mrs. Evans looked around at the bright red train and the children wearing robes and carrying owls and wondered if they had made a mistake. She didn't even know where this Hogwarts place was. But when she looked at Lily with her new wand sticking out of her pocket, her schoolbooks under her arm, and the biggest smile she had ever seen spread across her face, Mrs. Evans knew that this was where Lily really belonged. Finally, it all made sense.
On the train, Lily searched for a compartment that wasn't full of older students or boys. She stuck her head in one and found two boys laughing uproariously about something. The one with glasses looked up and winked at her. Boys, they really were all the same. She closed the door and heard one of them whistle.
She ended up sitting in a compartment with several children her age. It turned out they all came from wizarding families, and she felt a little out of place for not knowing what Quidditch or who the Minister of Magic was. She tried not to show it, and reread her copy of The Lady of Shalott for the hundredth time as the boys and girls around her chattered about something called the Chudley Cannons and if they would ever break their losing streak. Lily wanted to know what they had lost, but didn't ask.
Middle of first year, and the boy with glasses and his whistling friend had made names for themselves. Potter and Black were feared by the younger students and even some of the older ones for their excellently timed, extremely deadly dungbomb attacks. Worst of all, it seemed that Potter had taken a particular interest in driving Lily insane. He would toss bits of paper at her during class that said things like "quit being so smart" and "know-it-all". Then he would tease her when she answered something incorrectly. Lily retaliated by ignoring him completely.
Second year, and Potter continued with his antics. Only now he could levitate the bits of paper so that they would hover right in front of her until she grabbed them so the teacher wouldn't see. She retaliated by levitating his books out of the open window. Professor Binns didn't even notice.
In third year, things took a decidedly different turn. It seemed that Potter fancied her! Oh, the horror! The notes began saying things like "Go to Hogsmeade with me and I will never bother you ever again for the rest of your life" or simply "I like your hair, can i touch it?". Lily retaliated by hiding in the library and reading Pride and Prejudice. She imagined Potter wearing one of those atrocious neckties from the Regency and had a good laugh.
Her friends told her she was an idiot to keep refusing Potter all through fourth year. Lily told them that Potter was an idiot for not giving up as she muttered Incendio, burning the rose into nothing. Lily wasn't particularly fond of roses anyway, she said.
Lily often wondered if the Fearsome Four, as she liked to call them, had any plans of ever growing up. She rather doubted it. Fifth year, and they were still as insane as they had always been. Black's new hobby seemed to be hiding in closets and popping out when unsuspecting prefects walked by trying to act dignified. It was hard to be dignified when you'd just had one of the worst scares of your life.
Potter was even worse than the year before. Lily blamed it on hormones and being fifteen and his uncanny ability to know exactly where she was all the time. It was unsettling sometimes, he'd pop up in the most unlikely places when she least expected it, always saying "alright, Evans?" and grinning like an idiot. This was invariably followed by a spectacularly atrocious Hogsmeade invitation which usually included flowers and getting down on one knee just to embarrass her. The boy was decidedly hopeless. Lily retaliated by going to Hogsmeade with a Ravenclaw, who turned out to be the most boring person she thought she had ever met and who wouldn't stop talking about Arithmancy the entire time. She wished Potter wouldn't sit at the table next to them with Black and the other two and shoot her alternating looks of smug "I told you so" and pouting "what's wrong with me?" It was terribly distracting.
Besides, she, Lily Evans, was never going to go out with James Potter. She would take death first. He was so arrogant, strutting about the castle with his friends like they owned the place. Remus, now he wasn't half bad, she had even caught him reading a battered copy of the Compete Works of D.H. Lawerence on occasion, and he was a good person to ask if one was having trouble with History of Magic or Herbology. But really, a prefect aught to be able to influence his friends and keep them from jumping out of closets quite so often. Pettigrew wouldn't be so bad either if he would just quit hero-worshiping Potter. Couldn't he see that it just made the idiot's head bigger?
At least this year Potter had seemingly outgrown his nasty habit of pulling her hair during classes and hissing "shiny!" in the Loudest Whisper Ever. Now he just stared at the back of her head with a sort of glazed expression. She knew, she'd caught him on more than one occasion, and she retaliated by wearing a bandanna over her hair for the next two weeks. Lily didn't see what was so special about red hair. People always told her that her hair was so pretty, but sometimes she wished she was a blonde like Petunia. Then she would be able to wear pink and burgundy without looking as if she was clashing with herself.
Sixth year, and James was just as insufferable as before. Lily decided that he would never ever outgrow his habit of messing up his hair in what he thought was a dashing manner while grinning and winking at her. "Alright, My beeaautiful Lily?" he would say. She retaliated by handing him a comb and explaining its use with small words to be sure he would understand.
When Lily stormed up to Dumbledore's office at the start of seventh year to demand why James Potter, the bane of her existance, had been made head boy, Dumbledore told her a story she could hardly believe. It seemed that Potter actually had a brain somewhere in his inflated head, and possibly a heart as well. He had really saved Snape's life?
Lily decided to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas Holidays that year. She told herself it was because she was Head Girl and should stay at the castle to make sure everything stayed together, but the real reason was that she didn't want to go home. Her sister had stopped writing to her. Lily's mother said Petunia was just busy with University and her new boyfriend, but Lily knew the real reason was that Petunia hated magic. That summer Petunia had made cutting remarks about people who were different and unnatural. Lily wished she could make her see the world the way she saw it. It was as if she was five again and trying to describe the intricacies of the Wolf Bush to a sister who wanted nothing to do with it.
Not surprisingly, James, Sirius and Peter stayed at school over holiday as well. Remus had muttered something about tests and seeing his family as he left in a hurry with the rest of the students. Sirius had ranted about the vileness of his family and how he was never going home again, ever. James had simply smiled at Lily.
Strangely, he was behaving himself this year. Lily was amazed that he was actually taking Head Boy duty seriously. Of course, he still asked her out once and a while. Lily would retaliate with a simple "no".
So on New Years Eve when a James who smelled suspiciously like firewhiskey sidled up to her and incoherently whispered "youwannagohgsmeawimme?", she surprised herself by saying yes.
Blue sweater? Too low. Brown sweater? Drat, it had a hole. Lily couldn't believe she was doing this. What had she been thinking two months ago, agreeing to go out with James? Momentary lapse of judgment, that was. Or maybe she just felt sorry for him. It certainly didn't help that the Hogsmeade weekend just happened to be on Valentines Day this year. Now she would have to spend all day with James going on about Quidditch and trying to give her flowers. He'd better not try to kiss her or do anything stupid, or he would end up with magical injuries in awkward places. Lily decided on the green sweater, it matched her eyes.
She met James at the big tree by the lake. Why he wanted to meet here, she didn't know. He probably thought it was romantic or something. If you could call six inches of snow and a sharp northeast wind romantic. But she couldn't help smiling as she noticed how nervous he was, he was just sanding there, talking very fast about nothing at all. He always did that before Quidditch games. She had just decided that this had all been a Very Bad Idea and opened her mouth to tell him so when he shyly said "I have something for you". Lily raised an eyebrow as he broke a twig off of the oak.
"Oh, how romantic. You know James, every girl dreams of getting a dead stick on Valentines Day, I mean why get roses when you can get..." but she stopped talking and watched as the twig slowly transformed into a perfect white lily in the palm of James's hand.
"because it goes with your name," he said.
"well... thank you. That was... really nice, James," Lily smiled at him as she took the flower. She decided she wouldn't point out that the lily also happened to be a symbol of death.
A week later when James hit Lily squarely in the back of the head with a snowball, she retaliated by kissing him. Because he might not be a knight in shining armor, or a prince, or even charming, but maybe, just maybe, he was a Gilbert.