Chapter One – The Blue Carriage and the Sprain
'Ten minutes, mum! It's leaving in ten minutes!'
Lily Evans hurried along the platform and looked back to see her mother, father and sister pushing and shoving through the crowd. Well, technically, her mother and father – her older sister Petunia was trying to keep a nice fair distance between the rest of the family and herself.
Lily was a witch. She was just about to start her seventh and final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; that is, if she could actually get through to the platform on time. She waited for her parents to catch up and glanced at her Head Girl badge with a nervous expression for what would be the millionth time.
Not that she was nervous about being Head Girl; she, for one, knew she deserved the position wholeheartedly. No, what she was nervous about was who her partner-in-crime would be. She'd received a very cryptic note from her friend Penelope over the summer.
Hey Lily,
You're Head Girl? Congrats! But then again, it's not as if this wasn't expected …
Having lots of fun here in France with my family, but can't wait to get back to Hogwarts nevertheless. Missing you guys like crazy! Must run now.
Oh, but one more thing … I did knock into a certain brand new Head Boy during my stay …this'll be interesting, I assure you. P
See you on the train!
-Penny
A loud sob notified her that her family had finally caught up. As Lily's mother, Meg caught her up in a bone-crushing bear hug; she caught sight of Petunia's thin lips scowling at her.
Petunia Evans had a very medieval attitude towards anything magical; she hated it and didn't dare speak of it.
Or speak to Lily, for that matter.
But Lily chose to ignore this and turned to her mother's tearful face.
'Do remember to write to us … or owl us … let us know how everything's going …', she said tearfully.
'Um, a bit of an emotional over share, Mum', Lily said jokingly.
'Yes, of course, sorry dear …', Mrs Evans said, 'and let us know if you've decided to come home for Christmas, okay? If you're not too caught up with Head Girl duties, we would love to see you, even for a short while.'
Lily's father cleared his throat and she turned around.
'Be good, okay angel?' he said, and added in low tones, 'and say goodbye to your sister.'
She glanced at Petunia, who was standing away from her parents and pretending not to know them. She was regarding Lily with a look that most people reserved for something disgusting on the sole of their shoe.
She walked over towards her and the two sisters 'embraced', while Petunia hissed in Lily's ear, 'Have fun at your freak school. Freak, freak, freak. Good riddance.'
Lily sighed and smiled sweetly at her sister.
'The same to you too, Petunia dear. I'll try to owl you as often as possible' – ignoring her sister's horrified look – 'and I hope you have a good year, too.'
She turned to the barrier and reminded herself, as she had done so every year that it was not solid.
Didn't stop her from being any less nervous.
Her family watched girl and barrier merge into one … then she was gone.
Lily had finally hoisted all of her luggage onto the train and she wandered up and down, looking for her friends – or even an empty carriage, for that matter.
As she was searching, she walked into a carriage that was entirely electric-blue, from the walls to the carpet.
While she stood there trying to work out what the hell had happened here, she heard four distinctive peals of laughter.
She'd walked head on into Marauder territory.
The Marauders, a group of Gryffindor boys, infamous for their pranks and complete disregard for the rules, consisted of James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.
The boys were generally liked by most of the Hogwarts population – and generally liked a lot by the female population.
Remus and Peter were fairly inoffensive – the former had even been made Head Boy (and truth be told, Lily hoped he was Head Boy, too). Peter seemed like quite the tag-a-long – cool by association.
Even Black was bearable. That is, when he wasn't playing the clown, showing off or flirting with every female in the immediate vicinity … which was, as it happened, a lot of the time.
It was Potter she had a problem with.
James Potter.
Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, a complete utter ladies man, an excellent flyer, got top marks in all his classes and had good looks to boot. He was every bit as easy on the eyes as Black was.
Along with Black, Potter was one of the most popular boys at Hogwarts.
And he was very much aware of it.
Nearly every girl at Hogwarts was desperately in love with him, and they had reason to be; he had a roguish charm unlike any other, but to Lily he was nothing more than an arrogant, bullying exhibitionist.
When he wasn't messing up his already untidy hair to give the impression he'd just got off his broom, or executing a famous Marauder's prank, he was harassing Severus Snape because of 'the fact that he exists' as Potter had so charmingly put it when she had questioned him.
Lily's
very low opinion of him wasn't improved by his habit of asking her
out at every opportunity. Something he'd made a point of doing
every day since mid-Fifth Year.
To Lily's frustration, her
rejections only seemed to make him more determined.
One of her greatest fears at the moment were of Potter becoming Head Boy, but she assured herself repeatedly that there was no way that Dumbledore could have gone off his rockers all that much. This still didn't stop the nightmares she's been having recently of a huge Head Boy badge with Potter's face on it chasing her around.
Just the thought of him had her grinding her teeth together involuntarily.
Of course, the second she walked into the carriage, she had to make one of her unintentional trademark entrances.
She stacked it.
This one was definitely unintentional – the Marauders had strung together a bunch of Toothflossing Stringmints and tied them across the entrance to the carriage, hoping to make a fool out of anyone who happened to pass by.
She shut her eyes – mainly because she was terrified that when she opened them she would be looking straight into a pair of hazel ones. As she heard footsteps nearing her and tried in vain to climb back up again when she realised in horror that she would need a hand, and there were quite a few heading her way right this second.
'Well, well, what do we have here? …'
Well, that's it. Review, guys! Also, sorry about the ultra-clichéd on-the-train first chapter.
--Nabii