Disclaimer- don't own it, never will. This is the disclaimer for the whole story!
Lily Evans swore loudly as the box of heavy laundry detergent slipped out the back of her old Ford truck and onto her toes. It was her first official day of summer vacation, and she was alone, unsupervised, and a witch. And her new improved appearance helped too. Suddenly she remembered why she looked the way she did, and felt miserable. And just as suddenly her foot gave a painful throb, jerking her back to reality.
" Owww. This is stupid. How am I supposed to spend a summer alone if I can't handle a box of evil laundry detergent?" she wondered aloud, face tilted toward the sky.
Lily's parents and her oh-so-adoring (not) sister Petunia had made an agreement with her: she could come to Maine with them and spend time with her sister's fiancée's family or she could stay all alone in Northern California in a beach house. To her parents surprise she picked the beach house. In a small town called Pismo Beach, Lily Evans was going to have fun for once in her miserable, anti-social life.
James Potter was not the kind of person to stay alone in a small town all summer. He was the kind of person who was always surrounded by friends and family and girls. But when his parents had given him the choice of a cruise to Antarctica or the summer at a beach house in Northern California, he chose the beach house without any second thoughts. The first few days were pretty boring, just going to the beach and hanging around town without anything to do. Then things started looking up. A cute girl moved in next door, even though James hadn't really seen her that much. Mostly she went in and out of the house, bringing in stuff from her truck or going back and forth from the grocery store. And today , it seemed, was his lucky day, because Cute Girl Next Door happened to have dropped a very heavy box on her foot and was having trouble getting it off. He watched her struggle for a little bit, then got off his porch to help her. It wasn't because she was cute or anything, it was because he was a gentleman. Really.
Cute Girl was still trying to pull off the box when he got over to her driveway. " Hey, want some help?" he asked.
Cute Girl didn't even look up before saying yes. James lifted the box with ease and set it down beside her. Quidditch came in handy sometimes. Like when you're hitting on a girl.
" Thank you so much. My name is Lily, what's yours?"
Lily? Nice name. " My name is James." Short, sweet, simple. No last name, James decided. What if she knew him?
" James what?" So she was inquisitive. If she was going to live next door to this 'James' guy, she might as well know his last name.
" Lily what?" he said back, his tone pleasantly teasing.
" You first."
" No, you first."
"At the same time?"
" Deal."
" 1...2...3..."
" Evans"
" Potter."
James just about fainted. Surely this girl wasn't Lily Evans, the anti-social nerd who went to Hogwarts. Evans, as James referred to her, was fat. This girl was not. Evans had bad acne, and bad posture, and well, bad everything. This girl had not a blemish in sight , a perfect body, a perfect… everything. The last time James had seen Lily Evans was three weeks before they finished sixth year, and Lily had been falling down five stories, screaming for help. Had James helped? No. He had thrown his Invisibility Cloak over himself and ran to the nearest safe broom closet. The next couple weeks he didn't hear or see her anywhere. He figured she gotten a broken leg or something and went home. Apparently not.
Lily felt like she was going to be sick all over her newly-pedicured feet. James Potter was the most arrogant, womanizing , egotistical, and cowardly person she had ever met. He was the bane of her existence, to put it lightly. It wasn't like he ignored her, because Lily would have been fine with that. No, Potter, as Lily called him, lived to torment her, to prank her, to make her life a living hell every single day. But the prank he 'played' on her at the end year was the worst. It was low, even for James Potter.
Lily had been walking back to her dorm from the library at 10:00, the same time she always did, because the library closed at 9:45. When she was on the fifth floor, skimming her hand along the railing, someone grabbed her and pushed her over the railing of the staircase. In the split second before she fell , she recognized James Potter throwing off an Invisibility Cloak to look down at her. She yelled and screamed and stuck out her hands for him to grab, to pull her back up, but he didn't. He watched her fall down and never looked back.
As she fell Lily yelled and screamed, but nobody ever came out of the dormitories to help her. Later she heard whispers that Sirius Black had heard her screams and tried to help her, but James told him that it was nothing, only Peeves making noise as usual. Lily saw the floor of the entryway coming up at her fast, and tried to roll over in midair to prevent herself from landing face-first. In doing this, she did more damage to herself than she would have if she had fallen directly on the floor.
Lily saw the face of the stone angel looking up at her as she fell. She had miscalculated. Instead of landing on the cold floor, she was going to hit the statue dead-on. The last thing she remembered was a searing pain on her back, the sound of breaking bones, and then everything went black and she floated into a mercifully painless oblivion.
The next thing Lily remembered was the scratchy feeling of hospital wing bed sheets and that same searing pain in her back. She slowly, fearfully, opened her eyes to see perfectly- and she wasn't wearing her glasses. She held up her arms, expecting to see mangled, bloody limbs with blood soaking through some bandages- instead she found smooth, creamy white slim arms without so much as a scratch on them. Slim arms, perfect eyesight, and the only pain she was feeling was the one in her back, when she should've been in a body cast or dead. Something was wrong with her, but when she opened her mouth to call for the Mediwitch, her voice was no longer hers, but that of some musical being.
Immediately Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore came rushing over to her side.
" Miss Evans, how do you feel?" asked Dumbledore, looking worried.
" Fine, and that's what's wrong. I fell five stories onto a stone statue- I should be dead. And why I look and sound so different?" asked Lily, still unsure of her own voice. Thinking back, the first thing she should've done was get Potter expelled for doing this to her, but she was too scared of what was happening to her.
" Miss Evans," began Dumbledore. " The statue you broke had a spell on it, a spell that made the recipient physically perfect, or beautiful in every way. But-"
" - my back. That's out of place. If I was physically perfect, I would feel no pain. So why do I?" she murmured, shifting uncomfortably.
" Very good, Miss Evans. It seems that the spell had a defect- the first place that the statue came in contact with your body would have permanent scarring. I'm so sorry."
Lily couldn't think or breathe. All she could think of was what a mess her back would be. Her next thought was, 'what will the rest of my body look like?'
" Could you get me a mirror? I…I want to see what I look like." They nodded and brought her the mirror, closing the curtain around her. She took off everything she had on, drew a shaky breath and turned to face the mirror. And she was shocked by what she saw.
Remembering what she had seen in the mirror that day, Lily shivered in the warm sunlight. She had seen a slim, curvy, beautiful young woman with shining, deep red hair that fell just past her shoulder blades and legs that seemed to go on forever. She had seen perfectly arched brows, full, pouty lips, sparkling emerald eyes that glistened like jewels, and a waist that she had never dreamed possible. She had unsurely smiled at her reflection, showing off straight, white teeth that would have taken years with her braces still on.
She took another deep breath and turned to face her back. And then she wished she hadn't. Her back was a huge network of raised, purple welts mixed with scabs and occasionally oozing blood. She could tell that the scars would be equally nasty, and probably would cover her entire back. The tears stared leaking out of her eyes, mixing with her blood and stinging. She dried her eyes , re-dressed her wounds, and walked out of the Hospital Wing, determined to make the most of her summer.
Lily brought herself back to Earth, still staring at James in a mix of shock and anger,. How dare he come right up to her and ask her if that was really her, as if her new appearance wasn't shocking enough to her? How dare he act friendly to her, when he ruined her life? How dare he even glace in her direction! Suddenly Lily felt sick of James Potter and everyone like him, everyone who hung out with him, everyone who liked him.
" Get away from me, and don't ever come near me again. You're pathetic and you disgust me. God knows how you even have any friends." she picked up the detergent, walked to her door, opened it, and slammed it as hard she could in James hurt and bewildered face.
A/N: hope you all liked it and if I get at least 9 reviews I'll update weekly! Reviews are appreciated, be sure to check out my other fic- The Whole Truth. Thanks so much!