Year Zero
You are ten years old, living in a small town in the English Midlands. Its name is Cokeworth, and there's a grand total of four hundred people where you live.
Your older sister, Petunia, is twelve, and she practices her make-up skills on you. It looks horrendous, but she's your sister and you love her, and so you walk around with blue eyeshadow on your lids.
James Potter from down the street teases you mercilessly about the way the blue clashes with your complexion. Your hair may be flaming red but at least it doesn't look like a bug crawled on top of it and died.
Year One
At the age of eleven, you decide to enrol in the local school, even though Petunia attends a much fancier institute in London. She tells you only freaks choose to go to Hogwarts Secondary School. Ever since she got that boyfriend of hers, Evan, she thinks she's the bloody queen of England.
You spend your summer holed up in Mrs. Pendleton's house, and come September, you're sorted into Gryffindor, one of the four houses.
Potter is there too, the prick.
Year Two
You're twelve, the king of the world. Your teachers love you (even Minnie, though she swears you're nothing but a bloody marauder).
This year, Evans wears her hair in braids at least three times each week. She looks beautiful, of course, she always does, but you still miss the way her hair would lick her collarbones.
When you ask her why she doesn't wear it down as often anymore, she looks like she's going to cry and runs as soon as the bell rings. Later, Mary tells you that she can't be certain, but she thinks it's because Petunia came back from boarding school with a sharper tongue, and half the insults are squirrel-related.
Year Three
Year three brings football. Try-outs are approaching and you desperately want to make the team. It's the same routine every day: school, football, sleep. Rinse, repeat. Your grades don't falter even though you can't remember the last time you've done homework.
Evans asks you about it and you reply that you know it all already. She scoffs, and you can see her limbs twitching to leave, but for some reason, she stays.
You score the winning goal, smirking, because you knew you'd be brilliant. You knew it already, but your heart still thumps faster when you hear Evans cheering in the crowd for you. It's probably just her way of thanking you for mailing a box of slugs to her sister's dormitory in London, but still.
Year Four
He's got a cat, the stupid blighter. This is how you find out:
Friday, three p.m. You've just got out of school, and as you're walking home you see Potter in the distance (he's lucky enough not to have any Geography classes that year), walking with… something. You can't figure out what it is, except for the fact that it's alarmingly orange in colour.
You wait until he's out of sight and you slip inside his house. You've been helping Mrs. Potter with her flowers since the summer, and when you ask her about it, she tells you all about Algernon and Potter's weird desire to treat him as if it were a dog.
You tell Mrs. Potter you have no idea how such a barmy kid can be related to such a sensible woman, and she agrees.
James Potter, a cat lady. Who would have thought?
Year Five
Year five is… oddly silent. It throws you off. Potter's away for a year abroad, and it's weird not having his laughter filling up every space.
Mathematics is too quiet, English isn't challenging enough, and Algernon is gaining weight. Your friends think you're absolutely off your rocker for walking Potter's cat, but it's the least you can do.
Physical Education has stopped being fun, and you don't look forward to the walk home as much as you used to.
When he comes back, he's different. He's taller, but his shoulders are also broader, like he's filled out. He's no longer lanky, but he's still a specky git.
At least, that's what you tell him when you throw your arms around his neck, the minute you see him coming through the train station. You hide your face in the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent, like pine trees, and leather, and home.
Year Six
The two of you get paired in a Science project. The goal is, and you quote, "to get to know each other." It's pointless.
As if you need help getting to know Potter.
As if you haven't been part of each other's lives for just over eight years. You were nine when you first saw his car pulling into his new driveway.
As if you need any more reasons to fall in love with him.
You're fully prepared to ignore the whole thing, but Potter, of course, has a different idea, the uncooperative tosser.
"What's your favourite colour?" he asks.
"Brown."
"Brown? What kind of favourite colour is that?"
Of course, your favourite colour isn't really brown. After all, Potter's eyes aren't brown, they're hazel, but you figure it would probably be way too suspicious if you'd started going on about what is obviously someone's eye colour.
Besides, for all his faults, Potter isn't stupid, and he'd see right through you, the git. You stop yourself before you can write any more sonnets on his beauty, or the cut of his jawline.
"It's mine. What's yours?"
"Red," he replies, tugging on the end of your ponytail.
You swat his hand away. "Prick."
"Git."
Year Seven
It's a mess. Honestly.
It's two a.m. when you're woken up by the annoying shrill of your phone. Your finger hovers the decline button – you have a maths test in the morning, after all – but when you see it's "Red" calling, you pick up the call.
Bile climbs up your throat because something terrible must have happened. Otherwise, why would Evans be calling you at two in the morning?
When you answer, she's crying, and the sound breaks your heart in two.
It's her sister.
Ever since Evan dumped her for a blonder model in your sixth year, she's been spiralling out of control. Tonight, it's alcohol poisoning.
"I'm coming to get you."
"No, James-"
"Where are you?"
She's silent for a moment, before replying with "West Midlands Hospital."
"Stay where you are."
When you get there, she clings to you like you're her only lifeline, and you relish in the sweet scent of her hair and the warmness of her skin, before remembering her green eyes are too glassy for you to properly enjoy this.
When you get home, over two hours later, you explain everything to you parents. Evans takes the bed and you sleep on the small couch by the window.
You wake up and she's there with you, even though there's clearly not enough space for the both of you, and your heart softens when she explains how she hadn't wanted to sleep alone that night.
You kiss her forehead and revel in the warmth, Mathematics be damned. Soon, however, your father is at the door, beckoning you to go downstairs because Mrs. Evans is on the phone. You've missed P.E. already and you couldn't care less.
Evans picks up the landline and something on the other side colours her cheeks pink. Her hair is a mess, she has morning breath and her vision is probably still blurry, but you wouldn't change it for the world, wondering what it must feel like to wake up each morning blazing hot, because Lily Evans is like the sun and you are willing to burn.
You survive the day, and you come home from school. Algernon is on the leash, ready for his walk, and you spare a glance at the house up the street, you're surprised to see Evans running towards you.
She arrives, and her cheeks are flushed, probably from the run, but maybe from something else.
"Potter," she says, and when her lips touch yours, all you see is red, and green, and gold.