Seasons of the Witch

Celestia0909

*** Prompts displayed at the end of story to avoid giving out spoilers ***

Summer

The industrial town that she had lived in since she was born was hazy with heat and there was a dizzying restlessness in the air that was only emphasised by the steady buzz of locusts and dragonflies as she steadily tiptoed along the low brick wall next to the creek. She had heard on the wireless earlier that it was supposed to be the hottest day in a decade; and as she slowly toed her chunky brown loafers off and sat cross-legged on the riverbank, she seriously regretted leaving her house.

Of course, the reason she had come out was to escape the enquiring questions from her mum and dad – both of whom had intercepted the brilliant white owl that belonged to the Potter's and gleefully beckoned Lily down to retrieve her letter with annoying knowing smiles on their faces. She loved them both of course, but she really hated how perceptive they could be.

In the half hour since she had received the blasted letter, she hadn't thought to reply to it and had left the house to the loud screech of Porpentia. Taking the letter out of her denim dungarees, Lily read it again and traced the words that James had written:

Dear Lily,

Dad's funeral is tomorrow and I just wanted to thank you for remembering and sending that box of fudge, tell your mum thanks too. Remus and Peter are staying over until after it's over, of course Sirius is already here.

I don't want to force you into it but I would really like it if you could come, of course, you don't have to, here's the details just in case:

St David's Church in the Puddlemere town square

4:30 to 6:00

Dinner and cocktails at my house – 11 Hanover Lane

Send Porpentia back with your reply.

James

The death of Fleamont Potter had made the front page of the Daily Prophet a week ago and she had sent James a large box of homemade caramel fudge under the pretence of her mother making it. In actuality, Lily had spent an entire afternoon flipping through countless cookbooks from her mother's bookshelf before finally giving up and asking her for help; at six in the evening Lily packaged the fudge and sent her own brown owl, Hamlet, to deliver it to the Potter's house.

Lily jumped and sat up at the sounds of soft shuffling and crunching of branches in the trees to her back, she fingered her wand in her pocket and glanced behind her; a lanky figure cloaked in black was huddled behind a thin beech tree and she scowled.

'Get out of here Severus.'

The sallow faced boy stepped out from behind the tree and self-consciously pulled his oversized dark grey blazer closer to his chest. He had a fresh bruise on his cheek and his hair had grown since she saw him get off the Hogwarts Express a few weeks ago. Quite frankly he looked like shite and she tried to quash down the pity she felt, reminding herself that they were no longer friends and would never be again.

'I said leave,' he was closer to her now and she stared angrily at the creek as a mass of black sat down a metre away from her. 'Did you follow me here?'

'No…yes, but only when you passed the canning factory.' She didn't believe him and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him wring his hands nervously. 'I just wanted to say – '

'– that you're sorry? What for this time Severus?'

It was no secret that Severus and his gang of Slytherins were pitted to join the Death Eaters, and as she eyed his forearm, she wondered if he had the dark tattoo on his pale skin. She tried to ignore his staring and Lily went back to reading the letter from James and considered how she would get to Puddlemere from Cokeworth – surely there was some sort of cross-country train route going there? Otherwise, she'd have to give Remus a call tomorrow to see if they could carpool.

'What's that?' Severus was eyeing the piece of parchment in her hands, looking especially offended by the letterhead and she knew that he knew who it was from.

'None of your business,' she quickly shoved it back in her pocket and put her loafers on.

'What's going on between you and him anyway?'

'It's none of your business Severus,' she had dusted herself off and was walking away from the boy when she felt a firm hand grip her wrist painfully. 'Let go.'

'No, not until you tell me what's going on with the two of you!' she tried to pry her wrist away from his grip and she glared as he tightened his hold.

'I said it's none of your business!'

'If it's got to do with you and Potter, it's got everything to do with me,' his eyes narrowed into thin slits and she wondered if he was just blinking. With great difficulty she finally released her wrist and took a few steps away from him.

'You have no right sticking your nose into my business, you lost that when you decided to be friends with Mulciber and his lackeys. I know you've done dark magic Severus. I'm not having this row with you again, it's been two years and I'm done with this thing between us...' she took a few deep breaths and ran her hands through her long hair before fixing her attention back on him again. 'Please, don't talk to me again; you made your choice years ago Sev and you need to move on,' and with a whirl of red Lily sped away from him.

The heat had nothing to do with the sweat running down her neck or the moisture escaping her eyes; but red faced and sweaty Lily stormed back the way she came, incredibly aware of a dark pair of eyes following her.

Autumn

'Oi Evans! Fancy coming to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?'

Lily sunk lower into her chair and feigned interest in the thick leather bound Household Charms encyclopaedia that was stacked on top of a pile of parchment; she repeated the same line several times until the tall figure walked away and grunted a few unsavoury comments about her to himself.

'It's safe to come up now,' utterly relieved, Lily let the book fall to the table and leant her forehead against it exasperatedly.

'He's asked me out three times this week, it's exhausting.'

James took his glasses off and wiped them haphazardly on his white dress shirt, making sure to get his fingerprints off the lenses. They had been drafting the timetable for Prefect's rounds and were interrupted when Jackson Foley and his gang of Hufflepuff quidditch jocks disturbed the serenity of the back corner of the library.

'Hey Lil…' James leant toward her, the smell of his musky cologne overwhelming her senses as he got closer. '... Fancy coming to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?' He said it an alarmingly accurate imitation of Jackson and roared with laughter as she blushed and looked at him in disbelief.

'You're such a prat,' she muttered as his laughter died down. A table of Gryffindor third-years glanced at the Head Boy and Girl curiously before going back to their own work. Lily quickly stuck her tongue out at him and went back to doing the timetables, cross-checking each Prefect's other activities with their corresponding scheduled times for rounds.

The already complicated relationship between her and James Potter had gotten even more complex since his father's funeral, also known as the day that she snogged him for the first time – accidentally of course. Neither of them had acknowledged the incident but she knew that he thought of it sometimes because of the secret glances and tension that had been increasingly occurring between them.

Last week she had caught him staring at her mouth as she explained the dates for Hogsmeade visits before Christmas at the Prefects' meeting; two days ago the Gryffindor quidditch team had thrashed the Ravenclaws and he had sought her out and hugged her tight in the common room after party; and yesterday as they cleaned up after the Halloween party, he had brushed his palm against the side of her face, apparently there was a fake spider in her hair - even though there were no fake spiders to begin with.

She snuck a peek at him and admired how much he'd grown since term had started. His hair, usually cut close to his head, reached just below his ears and curled around the nape of his neck and she knew that the back of it was an absolute mess; his nose, formerly too long for his face, had grown on him and there was a bump from when a bludger had hit him square in the face at the last quidditch match of last year; his shoulders too had broadened and his arms were lean and tan like his neck, face, and chest that peeped out from under his shirt.

Perhaps her favourite thing about him were his hands; strong, tan, callused, long fingered, and completely James'. Nobody else had hands like him. She had spent far too long thinking about his hands since they'd snogged last summer. She had thought of how her hands would feel in his; how his hands would feel as they brushed through her hair; whether they'd be firm or soft against her cheeks; and how they'd feel against several parts of her body.

'Are you alright? 'Lily jumped and smiled at James, giving him a feeble thumbs-up. He grinned back at her and bent his head over his half of the tables again; and as James picked his quill up and scribbled a few words, Lily was wondering how she'd ask him out to Hogsmeade later…

Winter

She was positive that her hands were about to fall off as Lily tried to wedge her fingers into her fluffy maroon gloves. Every other part of her body was warm and toasty except for her troublesome appendages, and she could've sworn that her fingernail was turning black from frostbite before James roughly pushed the glove onto her hand.

'Thanks.'

'Don't worry about it,' he smiled at her and bounded over to a brunette girl standing a few metres away from them who was laughing with her friends about something.

'Vapid cow,' her eyebrows shot up at the disgruntled voice beside her and she looped her arm around Sirius' as he violently pushed his fur hat further down his head. 'I can't stand her.'

'None of us can,' another voice, a deeper one, chimed in and Remus Lupin joined the group, followed by Peter. 'Hey Lily, welcome to the club I guess.'

Lily's friends had gone off with their own boyfriends or had some studying to do and thus she had decided to spend the third Hogsmeade trip of the year with three of the four Marauders. All four of them glared at the couple that was about ten steps ahead of them; the girl threw her head back and laughed at something that the black haired figure whispered to her. Lily hoped she would trip and fall flat on her beautiful face.

Violet and James had been dating since early November; after Lily had chickened out of asking James to Hogsmeade, Violet had made a scene over dinner and they had been going out for two months. The girl had even been invited to the annual Potter Christmas party – which Lily would have gone to had it not been for her sister, Petunia's, engagement party the day after. Two days after the party, Lily had received a long letter of complaint from the most mischievous of the Marauders and thus she and Sirius Black had formed an unlikely bond over the vapid cow who had stolen his best friend and her potential boyfriend from right under their noses.

In all manner of speaking, Violet was actually quite a pleasant girl. She was on the Hufflepuff quidditch team and quite beautiful in an unconventional avant-garde kind of way too; all of the sixth-years that Lily had spoken to seemed to be in awe of the girl who happened to be a Prefect as well. Lily understood why James was with her. Violet was everything that she was not. Where Lily was bookish, Violet was exceedingly athletic; where Lily was stubborn and, at times, unyielding, Violet was easy-going and flexible; and perhaps that was why James had lost interest in her.

Perhaps, after getting to know her through their Heads' duties, he had decided that he didn't quite like what he saw and had decided to move on. She couldn't blame him if that was the reason why, she had given him hell for years and she supposed that it was her turn to feel the anguish he must have felt at her years of rejection towards him.

Hours later, Lily giggled as James' arm wrapped around her shoulders and escorted her back to the Gryffindor common room where she thought her friend's must be waiting. She had had an incredibly afternoon with James' friends, drinking butterbeer, sipping on firewhiskey and gorging themselves on rum tarts.

'Why aren't you with Violet?'

'Because I'm here with you…'

'You should be with your girlfriend, I can make my own way back!' Lily slurred and hiccupped.

'Ex, actually. Besides you almost fell into the step there...'

'Bossy twat...'

'Alright Lil.'

They didn't speak the rest of the way and later as she tried to doze off to sleep her mind had finally processed what he had said as they jumped past the trick step; Violet was his ex now.

Maybe she could ask him out tomorrow.

Spring

Lily Evans strolled through the grounds with her boyfriend who stole glances at her every few seconds or so. Her skin warmed with each second as the soft morning sun glowed above them and she sighed inwardly with each soft breeze that blew her thin lace sundress against her knees and thighs.

'Hey, you never did tell me why you broke up with Violet…' she teased her boyfriend who rolled his eyes and ran his spare hand that wasn't holding hers through his mess of black hair.

'She just wasn't you Lil.'

'No, come on, be serious!' she shoved him lightly with her shoulder and he chuckled at her.

'I'm being serious! You've ruined me Evans,' Lily didn't want to ruin their morning by arguing with him so she hummed affirmatively and stared at her navy blue painted toes that she'd polished earlier that morning. 'She couldn't stand it. She knew that I still fancied you and she tried to change that anyway. It was stupid, I shouldn't have gone out with her at all, you know…'

She didn't know why she'd brought it up, she had stumbled across Violet as she rushed to get to the exam hall for her charms extension NEWT exam and awkwardly walked off before a word could be said.

Lily and James had officially started going out with one another two weeks after he and Violet had broken up and although the girl had never said anything malicious to either of them about it, she knew that there was a large portion of their peers who thought it all a bit fishy. Three and a half months of dating made it easier for rumours to dispel though and now nobody batted an eyelid if she and James were caught snogging in the halls.

Both of them stopped at the edge of the lake and stared at the castle on the opposite bank. She knew that they were both thinking of the first time they had seen the castle up close in those rickety little boats that Hagrid took them in. Neither of them knew what life was really like for them outside the walls of Hogwarts and she had spent countless nights thinking about how they would survive out in a world that was so splintered by blood status and prejudice.

'Beautiful isn't it…'

'Yeah, it is,' she sighed.

'Alright Lil?'

'Do you ever worry about what happens next?' he paused and took a few minutes to think about what she was saying. She stared at his profile and tried to cement the image of him in her memory; his jaw set and strong as he stared out at the castle before he finally glanced at her and smiled.

'Marry me,' she jumped at his sudden exclamation and he grinned, his eyes lit up with excitement and she knew from his tone of voice that nothing could change his mind. James Potter was just as unyielding as she was when it came down to what he wanted.

'Are you mad?'

'No, marry me.'

'We're seventeen, have you absolutely lost the plot James?'

'There's only one thing I'm sure of after we leave Hogwarts and I'm looking at her.' His hands were on either side of her face and his eyes searched her face for something, she just didn't know what. 'I've been in love with you since I was eleven Lily, you're the only person I've ever been sure of. Marry me, we're going to do it anyway so why not now?'

Of course, marriage had always been on the cards with James but seventeen wasn't when she wanted to be getting engaged. She had always imagined marrying someone when she was twenty-eight and after she had finished her auror training; but looking into his hazel eyes that were actually caramel and brown with flecks of green and gold, Lily knew that she had already decided to say yes.

'I must be mad…'

'Is that a yes?'

'No…'

'Come on Lil! Marry me.'

'No!

'We'll get married anyway, so let's not waste time,' he pecked her cheek and grinned at her. 'Marry me.'

'Oh alright fine, but I want a bloody big diamond Potter,' her lips twitched and she fought against a smile as he engulfed her in a tight hug and kissed her languidly.

He was a fool for asking her to marry him and she was a bigger fool for saying yes; but as James slipped his tongue inside her mouth and tightened his arms around hers, all she could think of was whether James had any objections to coming around for dinner to meet her parents next week…

Assignment #5

Gardening: The Farm

Task 3 - Write a Fit that spans a year

Words: 2,937

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments)

Love, Andy