A/N: Hello there! So, I'm rewriting the few chapters of TLC that I've already posted - I'm sorry to those that have already read and enjoyed them, but they weren't what I wanted them to be, and I hope you like these just as much!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and all of its elements that I've borrowed and possibly desecrated (that last bit is a matter of opinion, I suppose)

Self Actualization Part I

Lily Evans had spent a good deal of the summer before her seventh year thinking about herself.

Of course, not in a vain or narcissistic way. More in a self-actualizing-that-will-result-in-positive-change-for-her-and-those-around-her way. Lily Evans wasn't very high on herself, and she tried very hard to seem that way to everyone else.

Her personal reflections were centred around realizing how she viewed the world, and how it affected how she interacted with those around her. What she had noticed was that she lived as though she were the main character in one of the books she loved so much, which wasn't a very good way to live as she most definitely wasn't in a book.

That summer she forced herself into stark reality - that people were never going to fall into predictably romantic dialogue patterns, that she wouldn't always have a smart reply and deliver it without hesitation or stuttering, and most importantly, there was no handsome man that was secretly in love with her and was going to sweep her off her feet in some dramatic public display of romance before she would graduate and leave Hogwarts forever.

She assumed that these misconceptions were not only due to the fact that she had been raised on a healthy dose of literature, but also to her finding out she was a witch all those years ago (or, just that witches and wizards even existed). Magic was, up till that point, the stuff of fairytales, and so if that crazy second world existed, why couldn't the rest of the fairytale?

But that summer, she planned on going back to Hogwarts a little less expectant, and just enjoy her last year without putting all her energy into willing her own Mr Darcy into existence. The world would not play by her rules, and she spent the summer months embossing those words onto her mind.

She had thought about confiding in her friends regarding these thoughts, but always decided against it. Annalise would shake her head, Mary would say that it wasn't possible for Lily to turn her back on her nature, and Alice would say something comfortingly sweet about how it was nice that Lily had a good grasp of who she was and that she should do anything to make herself happy. It's not that Lily didn't want to hear these answers, but more like she decided that she wanted it to be her own, secret personal mission.

She would be successful, for a short time. But Lily Evans couldn't not live in hope and beauty, and despite herself, she would (happily) slip back into her optimism.

A/N: I hope you agree with me that that was better! It's gonna draw more parallels between her and James, and I just think it is much better written than my first try...

Please review and tell me what you think! Brownies may or may not be a possible reward.

~magicdawn