Chapter One
"Lily, get up! Mum is waiting for you!" Petunia Evans was trying to get her younger sister, Lily Evans, up and out of bed, but was having little – no, wait, zero – success. Petunia had tried everything: smacking her with a pillow, squirting her in the face with water. Lily was a heavy sleeper, though, and wouldn't budge. Now, Petunia was yelling, causing the dog, which was standing at the door, to cock his head to the side. "Good Lord, Lily, get up! Mum says that you'll be late!" At this, Lily's eyes fluttered open. She stretched her arms up over her head and tried stifling a yawn, but with little success.
"L-l-late for what?" she asked, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Petunia rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"You're telling me that you actually forgot about that freak place, for once? I don't believe it. Is the world possibly coming to an end?" Lily sat up straight in bed, her long, red, loosely curled hair – which looked quite unattractive in the morning – flew in front of her face. She quickly pushed it away and glanced at the calendar hanging from her wall, then cursed as she pushed the covers from her legs and stumbled out of bed.
"Thank you, Petunia, for waking me up. Now leave."
"Like I'd want to stay," she mumbled. She looked around Lily's room before she walked out, a look of disgust on her face; it was as if Lily's room had been contaminated. She slammed the door behind her, but Lily ignored it and immediately ran to her dresser to find something, anything to wear. Clothes spilled out over the edges of her dresser drawers and she rummages to the bottom to pull out a fairly wrinkled pair of jeans and a long-sleeved, emerald shirt, then dashed to the bathroom. She knew she wouldn't have enough time to take her usual morning shower, so she threw on her clothes and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She kicked her pajamas to a corner of the bathroom and gave herself a once-over in the mirror. She looked like the living dead without the little make-up she usually wore, but she knew that if she took the time to put it on, her mother would get antsy.
She exited the bathroom moments later and grabbed the handle of her trunk, which she had put outside the night before, and drug it to the top of the stairs where she pushed at it, and sent it thunking loudly down the staircase. This drew her mother out of the kitchen
"Is sliding it down the stairs really necessary, dear?" her mother asked her, watching the trunk as it came to a quick halt on the living room carpet. She had a half-full cup of coffee in her hands and was stirring it with a spoon idly.
"You ask me that every year, and every year I say that, yes, mum, it is, because if I were to drag it, it would surely flatten me." She saw her mother shake her head at her typical response and answered the phone as it rang. Lily dragged her trunk to the front door and sat perched on top of it, waiting her mother to end the phone call.
Five minutes went by and Lily stood. She wanted back to the kitchen, her brow furrowed, and she peered at her mother through the doorway. She was still on the phone.
"Mum!" she whispered, then pointed to the clock. Her mother waved a hand at her.
"Good morning, Julie." Julie? As is Julie Potter? Why on earth was her mother talking to Julie Potter? She had to be in as much of a rush as they were. Lily listened over the conversation curiously. "This is Marian…yes, Lily is great. Petunia too. Yes, I was hoping you hadn't left for the station yet. I've got a huge favor to ask you. Would it be at all possible for you to take Lily with you? My boss just called and…oh, thank you! Ok, yeah, she's on her way over now. Thanks again, Julie. Uh huh. Buh bye." Marian hung up the phone and looked over at Lily, who was now looking at her with a pleading look in her eyes, and her arms crossed. "Oh, lily, don't give me that look. They need me in this meeting, and I have to be there in…" Marian glanced up at the clock, and then quickly grabbed her purse. "Five minutes." She quickly drank her coffee then took the mug to the sink.
"I know, but…mum! It's James." There was a hint of disgust in her voice.
"Lily, James is a perfectly nice boy. He doesn't bite."
"Wanna bet?" Lily mumbled under her breath.
"Well, love, I've got to get going and so do you. The Potters are waiting. I love you and behave." She pecked Lily's forehead and gave her daughter a brief, one-armed hug, then headed out the front door, briefcase in hand. Lily stood there, staring at the front door, thinking about how she'll never forgive her mother for putting her through such torture. Making her ride with James was like getting bad marks on a homework assignment. Only worse. She groaned audibly and called a half-hearted good-bye up to her sister, then grabbed the handle of her trunk and opened the door. She had been prepared to back out of her door, dragging her trunk with her, but she bumped into something – or someone, rather – and jumped, making a squeaking noise. She whirled around to find James standing in front of her, eyebrows raised haughtily. Lily scowled.
"Oh, it's you."
"'Morning to you, too," James said. She rolled her eyes at him and waited for him to move out of her way before pulling her trunk the rest of the way outside. She then shut the door. "You might want to hurry up. My mum's all hell-bent on leaving now." Lily shot him a look of frustration.
"You realize that it's going to take me at least five to get over there with this stupid thing, don't you?" James watched her for a second and then muttered something that she could not comprehend, then lifted her trunk onto his shoulder. Lily was about to protest, but then saw how easily it came to him and stared at him, open-mouthed. "D'you think you could, I dunno, walk so I can get this bloody thing in the trunk?" Lily snapped back into reality and quickly moved across her lawn towards his house across the street.
"You shouldn't make it look so easy," she called over her shoulder. He was sure she had, somehow, meant that as a cool retort, or perhaps had something else in mind to say after it, but he chose to take it as a compliment.
James followed after her, the trunk all but weighing him down.
"And that was supposed to mean what?" he asked her curiously.
"Well, you act all macho about it, as if you lift trunks on a daily basis. There's nothing new there, of course, but you just shouldn't act that way. Especially when people expect you to be that way. So when it comes time to prove something, and you can't you'll look like an idiot."
"so you don't already think I'm one?" He wouldn't believe if she said she didn't.
"Oh, you'll always be an idiot in my eyes, James Potter," she said in a false, dreamy voice, and batted her eyelashes at him over her shoulder. She made her way across the street to the Potters car, where the back of the car was already open. James slid Lily's trunk inside, then closed the hatch. He rubbed his aching shoulder. He pulled the neck of his shirt down and saw that the trunk had dug into his skin.
"Look at what your trunk did," James said, rubbing the indentation in his skin. Lily peered up at it, then shrugged.
"It's not as if I asked you to carry it. You had a fit of gallantry and took it upon yourself to carry it over."
"A fit of what? Gallantry? Hardly. I just didn't want us to be late."
"Hmm. Right." Lily looked over just as Mrs. Potter walked out the front door. She smiled brightly when she saw Lily.
"Good morning, Lily, dear."
"'Morning Mrs. Potter." Lily waited for James to climb into the front seat before she opened the door to the back and slid in.
"So, Lily, are you excited about school?" Mrs. Potter asked her as she ducked into the car as well.
"Yes, I am. Very much."
"James was almost gushing about this upcoming school year."
"Gushing, eh?" she interjected, and was glared at by James from the front seat. She did her best to not snicker.
"Oh, yes. He went on and on about Quidditch, and being back in class. He assured me that this year, he would be on his best behavior, and keep up those excellent grade of his. He didn't make Prefect this year, but he says that Remus did. As I hear it, you were a Prefect last year." She saw Mrs. Potter glance at her through the rear-view mirror.
"Yes, I was. I got the badge again this year."
"Good for you! James mentioned how studious you were. He also confessed to me that he would like to be Head Boy next year. From the sounds of it, you've got a fairly decent shot at being Head Girl." She saw Mrs. Potter beam at her in the mirror, and she smiled back. So James had talked about her in a way that didn't make her want to slap him. This was interesting.
Too bad she didn't do the same for him.
The ride to the station was silent except for Mrs. Potters humming a phantom tune. She would usually try to get conversation going between the two of them, but today her efforts were almost nonexistent. This was all good and fine with Lily. She didn't want to ride in the same car with him, let alone talk to him, and if she had to do one, then she would have to be forced to do the other. She despised him, and he knew it, because he tortured her to no foreseeable end. Ever since James had put hair dye into her shampoo, they had been at a constant war. She never told Mrs. Potter about any of James' little 'pranks', as he called them, but she should have. James would have gotten into heaps of trouble, which would have made Lily fairly happy. But that would have been stooping to his level, and she liked to believe that she was better than James Potter. Oh, she'd gotten her revenge plenty of times, getting him stuck in detention, but he was certainly used to those. He got plenty in the span of one week, and he could easily pass them to all of the Gryffindor's and still have some left over. But even though James was used to this, he still made sure that he made her life as close to hell as he could get it.
They finally pulled into the station and when the car came to a complete stop, Lily quickly got out. When the hatch of the back of the car popped open, Lily grabbed the handle and tried with all her might up pull up on the trunk so she would have an easier time getting it out, but had no luck. She sighed and tried again, or would have, if James hadn't nudged her out of the way and taken it upon himself to lift it out effortlessly. He set it down on a trolley that had been wheeled over for their use and said nothing to her as he worked on getting his own trunk out.
'Someone's in a right grumpy mood,' she thought to herself, then wheeled her trolley off towards Platform 9 ¾. She said good-bye and thank you to Mrs. Potter, and disappeared in the crowed of people.
When she reached the Platform, she glanced at the clock hanging above her. She had just under five minutes to get through the barrier and get onto the train. She made sure that no one's gaze was fixed upon her, then gave a running start towards the barrier. She slipped through with ease and smiled to herself when the scarlet steam engine came into her line of vision. She walked quickly to the nearest entrance of the train and pushed the trolley as close as she possibly could, then stepped up into the train and pulled her trunk inside. If only it could be that easy all of the time.
She scooted her trunk down the aisle, earning stares from the people in the compartments as she passed them. She was halfway down the aisle when she heard, "Lily, you dolt! You passed us right up!" She looked over her shoulder and saw one of her best friends, Rosalyn Kilbourne, looking at her with a wide grin on her face. Rosalyn's elbow-length, strawberry blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail as well, and her blue/green eyes shone with amusement. "We even called your name as you passed, silly. Guess you were too absorbed in pushing that trunk of yours."
"Yeah, silly," came another voice that she'd heard quite enough just in that morning, and she sighed.
"James, lovely to see you again." she turned to give him the sunniest smile she could conjure, then worked on pushing her trunk into the compartment that Rosalyn was in.
"Funny, but it almost sounds as if your not thrilled at all." He feigned surprise well.
"It does, doesn't it?" She looked past him at Remus, and nodded. "Don't forget about the Prefect duty we've got." Then she looked at Sirius, said nothing, and walked into the compartment. There, she also found her other best friend, Gabriel Werthington.
"Why do you have to be so mean to that poor boy," Gabby asked her.
"That poor boy? Ha! He's the spawn of Satan, really. Don't let him fool you."
"Well, sure, he can be mischievous, but hardly the spawn of Satan. I think he's rather cute," she said, smiling slyly. Gabby's raven hair shone in the sunlight, and her deep blue eyes looked as if they had a hit of a dare in them, but Lily couldn't be too sure she had examined them right. As the train started up, her bright red curls bounced.
"Ugh," Lily said, collapsing in a seat. "You would think he was cute."
"Oh, Lily, you know you want him," Rosalyn chimed in, playing along.
"You've caught me. He's all I dream about, night and day." Lily gave an exaggerated dreamy sigh and placed the palm of her hand against her forehead dramatically.
"Well, Lil, had I known you felt that way all along, I wouldn't have been such an arse these past few years." Lily's eyes snapped to the opened compartment door. She had forgotten that James had been standing outside. She stood, and watched him as he smirked when she started towards him.
"I'm so sure." When she reached the door, she all of a sudden smiled. "Oh, feelings gone. Sorry." And with that, she shut the door with a rather harsh snap, right in James Potters face.