This is it
This was it. My last year at Hogwarts, though Lily with an unhappy sigh. While she would be glad to be rid of the immature people she called her peers, she would desperately miss her friends Katie and Lauren. Best friends since they hoped on the train together, it had been Katie that took Lily through the barrier between platforms nine and ten for the first time and it had been Lauren Lily had rescued from a group of older teasing students. They had bonded fast, Lily mused as she pushed her way through the thick of students and parents boarding the train to Hogwarts, and had been almost inseparable ever since.
"LILY! OH MY GOD YOU'RE HERE" shouted a voice at the top of its lungs, the shout preceded a crushing hug from two extremely happy girls. Lily could only laugh as Katie and Lauren proceeded to talk at the top of their lungs as fast as they could, without letting go of her and her luggage.
"So you missed me then?" Lily asked with a grin as she struggled between the two of them.
"Are you kidding?" asked Katie, "I've been barely able to function without you, I've been so bored!" she exclaimed, Lily and Lauren laughed. Katie had a reputation for never being without a boyfriend for more than a week, so the chances of her being bored while on summer holidays was highly unlikely. As Lily passed her luggage to the porter, Lauren began to fill her in on what she was looking forward to in classes. Lauren loved school so much Lily knew that she would have already read and reread all of the text books within the first week of buying them. Consumed as they were with filling Lily on anything and everything that had happened Katie did happen to notice a flash of light under Lily's cardigan.
"OMG!" Katie exclaimed dragging each syllable out until it was its own work. "Your head girl and you never told us!" grabbing Lily's shoulders and shaking her. Laughing as she freed herself from Katie's grip.
"Sorry" Lily replied with a sheepish grin, "I just wasn't sure if I should tell, it kinda seemed like bragging".
"And since when did Lily Evens ever care about bragging?" asked Lauren with a smirk. Lily shook her head and with a wave goodbye went to the Prefects compartment to wait for the head boy to begin the meeting. Of course Lauren was right, Lily had never had a problem with voicing her opinions or confronting others about theirs. But she would never consider herself the champion of egotism, that podium belonged to a certain darkhaired young man that Lily had christened an "insufferable egotistical bonehead" upon their first meeting at age 11. Of course being 11 and male, this bounced right off James Potter, who had just proceeded to announce his undying love for poor Lily in the great hall in front of all their year mates. Of course, such first impressions are lasting and often unforgiving but James had made it or so it seemed to Lily to make her life a living hell for the next six years.
Now all of that was going to change, because as headgirl, Lily would have her own common room, have authority to hand out punishments, within reason of course and avoid all contact with the devilishly handsome Potter. Shaking her head at her disgusting thoughts Lily proceeded into the Prefect compartment, since when had she thought Potter good looking? She had always made a point of being perfectly clear in her distain for him, so why she thought on the drive to the station, had her chocolate bar reminded her of the colour of his eyes? So preoccupied with her thoughts, it took Lily a moment to realise that someone else was in the compartment.
"Umm…excuse me?" Lily asked the guy in the corner whose face was obscured by a book. The guy in the corner lowered the book and Lily sighed with relief, it was Remus. He was the only Marauder that she could stand, while she had no idea why he was friends with Potter and Black, she held him in high respect. Lily and Remus had spent a lot of time together since 3rd year as prefects, of course Dumbledore had made him headboy.
During 5th year Lily had stumbled upon the truth about Remus, while she'd had her suspicions, to have them confirmed had been a shock to say the least. But after some pretty long conversations with Remus, she had convinced him that she would tell no one, and she had told not a soul to this day.
"Hey Lils how's it going?" asked Remus smiling, as he put the book on his lap. Lily dropped into the seat in front of him.
"Yeah its ok I guess" she said smiling, "Kinda sad though isn't it? She asked knowing he would understand. Remus has always felt the same way about Hogwarts that Lily did, it was home.
"Yeah it is…look Lil's l actually just came in early to give you a warning" he said still holding onto the book in his lap, as if he would need to use it as a shield soon. Lily frowned not understanding.
"A warning about what? You're meant to be here, we have to greet the prefects soon" she said slowly as if explaining it to a first year. Remus griped the book a bit tighter, this was going to be messy.
"Actually Lil's I'm just a prefect, so technically I'm early" he said cautiously as he watched her frown at this information.
"So…you're not headboy?" she asked trying to get her thoughts straight, he shook his head. That's weird, she thought. If Remus wasn't headboy, who the hell was?
"Is it that snobby Ravenclaw guy? What's his name Toby…Tim…Tam?" she asked Remus who had now stood up and was edging toward the door.
"Uh actually Lil's…" he said, but whatever Remus was going to say next was drowned out by a huge crash outside the compartment. Lily sighed angrily, students should know better than to be causing trouble on the train, especially she thought, right outside the prefect's compartment. Striding past a silent Remus, Lily pushed the door open to reveal, of course, James Potter and Sirius Black in the middle of a wrestling contest surrounded by students placing bets.
"What the hell is going on here?" she asked loudly to no one in particular, everyone froze. Except for James and Sirius who proceeded to greet her just as loudly as Katie and Lauren.
"Hiya Lilyflower!" they yelled from their position on the floor, while trying to disentangle themselves much to the crowd's unhappiness.
"You two should know better!" she scolded them, trying not to laugh when Sirius fell back down.
"Oh come on Lily, we're just happy to be back" said James grinning down at her. When had he got so tall? And had his hair always been sexily messed up like that? She wondered until she realised what she was doing. Stop it right now, she told herself. Potter is not attractive, you're just having one of those days so get a grip! For the second time that day, preoccupied with thoughts about James Potter of all people, she failed to notice something she should have seen immediately but of course her thoughts being elsewhere she did not think this may not be the appropriate time to confront it. Upon seeing "HEADBOY" pinned crooked to his shirt, Lily lost a grip on what little patience she had with the two.
"YOUR HEADBOY?" she screeched in the packed corridor, students that had begun to move away now that the contest was over, stopped in their tracks. James just grinned.
"Yeah, cool huh?" He asked with a happy smile on his face, but the look her Lily's broke his heart a little bit.
"Uh no I'm sorry this is NOT cool on any level!" she yelled back, "This job is supposed to go to someone responsible, not someone with half a brain".
James frowned "Lily l happen to be an extremely intelligent person and Professor Dumbledore picked me so he must think I'll be ok" he was a bit hurt and at fact she thought him so stupid he wouldn't understand he'd been given a huge job. Lily took a step back and had a deep breathe, it was such an automatic reaction to yell at him and normally she got some cheeky response about how much "loved" her but this time, nothing. A serious response, maybe she had actually insulted him.
"I apologise Potter I'm taken by surprise is all, I'm sure Dumbledore has perfectly good reason for picking you" she replied stiffly extending her hand. James just looked at it for a moment and then took it in his own large one.
"I appreciate the apology Evans" James responded just as stiffly, miffed by her quick change in persona. Students muttered around them and went back to compartments now that there was no fight, normally Potter and Evans could fight forever. Lily stood watching them until the last student had wondered a safe distance away, before she realised she still held James' hand.
"Sorry" she said with a faint blush in her pale cheeks. James shrugged and walked into the prefect's compartment behind her. What was that? Lily stood stuck to the spot, had he just dismissed her with a shrug? James Potter never walked away from her! Whirling around, refusing to let it mean anything she marched into the compartment and shut the door behind her.
They had managed almost an hour in each other's company without a single argument, prefects came and went from the head compartment to give reports as needed constantly surprised by the peace. It may have been helped by the amount of people in the compartment, surrounded by friends since the end of the meeting, James and Lily hadn't needed to speak to each other.
"Ouch! Sirius that hurt!" complained Katie as she sat down rubbing her head, she had just smacked it on the rail above the seats.
"Well you should look where you're going" said Sirius with a smirk, "Not looking at the bloody contraption in your hand". Katie shook he head at his obvious disgust at Muggle technology.
"Well excuse me for trying to stay in contact with some normal people while I still can" she said blithely, holding her iPhone out the window of the train trying to get signal and away from magical influence at the same time. Sirius just shook his head, turning back to help Peter try and construct a card castle that had enchanted chessmen fighting on it. Watching Katie message someone on her iPhone, Lily went over and sat next to her.
"New boyfriend?" she asked Katie who glanced over at Peter who was almost crying as Sirius had 'accidently' knocked over the cards.
"Well he was" she replied with a smirk almost identical to Sirius' not that Lily would dare ever tell Katie that. Lily just shook her head.
"I can't believe you just let him go" she said with a sigh, Katie had shown her a photo of her of this summer's entertainment, and he was gorgeous. Oliver skin, dark hair and eyes to match he looked sensual and from the look on Katie's face when she spoke about him, Lily had no doubt he was.
"Well l couldn't exactly say "I just have to go to Magic School for the next six months and then you know I'll come back and visit" could i?" she asked with a laugh. Lily laughed too, Katie enjoyed every moment, no holding onto yesterdays. She wished she could do the same, she'd had no boyfriend since Rob and it had crushed her when it had ended. While she'd been the one to kill the relationship, the ending had been overdue and she had begun to suspect he was cheating on her. It had been almost three years and with a nod to herself, that was long enough.
With the plan hatching in her head, she pulled Lauren away from Remus who Lily knew liked her friend a lot. But Remus was too worried about his condition to do anything more than watch from a distance and Lauren was too shy to ask, hopefully Lily thought has she pushed her girls into an empty compartment this plan would help them all.
"You want me to do what to you?" asked Katie incredulously, Lily sighed.
"I want you to make me sexy" she said brightly, Katie shook her head while Lauren just sat there mouth agape.
"I can't believe your FINALLY going to let me do this" Katie squealed excited rushing out of the compartment to get what she would need. Lily turned to Lauren with eyebrows raised in question.
"I'm surprised but not unhappy about it" she said to the silent question, "Its time you moved on" she said quietly when Katie came bustling back into the compartment with Lily and her trunk. Lily nodded, yes, it was time. And this year there would be no reservations, she would be as she liked. Over the summer there had been many strange and gruesome deaths as Voldemort and his death eaters had stepped up their attacks. Lily knew that time may be short for them all, so she had best make the most of it.
As prefects moved up and down the train to tell students to change into their robes for their arrival at school, Katie was placing the finishing touches on Lily's appearance. She stood back with Lauren to look at Lily critically, finally she threw her arms up.
"I am the master" she proclaim with a grin, "You may thank me constantly when you've had a good tumble thanks to my talents".
"Katie!" scolded Lauren, with a grin and a nod at Lily. Slowly Lily turned not daring to believe that this might actually help her anti-guy situation. Looking at herself in the window they had charmed to act as a mirror, Lily felt her heart lift. She was hot. She had always worn her school skirt below the knee, it was now a full inch above. The school shirt had been shrunk a size to fit like a second skin, hair that Lily constantly wared with, now fell in loose silky curls around a face with light make up and glossy lips.
"Wow" was all the stranger in the mirror could say, turning her hugged Katie tight and then Lauren who had kept Lily's transformation within sensible limits. Katie given her way would wear a mini skit but under lily's eye kept it semi-acceptable. Lauren opted to stay the same during this extreme make over with the exception of her hair, which she had let Katie layer. After a final check in the mirror, Lauren turned to Lily and grinned.
"James is going to wet himself when he sees you" she said laughing while Katie joined in. Lily could only smirk. Yes, Potter would but he wouldn't be the only one and she would see to it that no one ever treated her like an accessory ever again. This was it, her year.