Disclaimer: I do not own anything you recognise in this story, and some things you may not. [I have a penchant for including characters in my stories that barely made appearances in the actual books.] But I have almost NO ownership of anything in this story.
The pairings that will be incorporated into this fic are as follows:
Lily/James; Sirius/OC; Remus/OC; Peter/OC; Alice/Frank; and a couple more that I'll add when they pop up. That said, I would like to stress that almost anything you want changed is able to be changed. I have plenty of OCs in this fic who will interact with canon characters, and if you happen to ship (OTP, brOTP, etc.) any of them, shoot me a review and I'll see what I can do. :)
/
Lily Evans smiles reassuringly at her parents as she pushes her trolley through the barrier at Platform 9 and 3/4. Even though this is her sixth year and her parents have seen her do this countless times before, they still worry. Lily supposes that she would worry too, if she was one of them and had not known the existence of magic until five years ago. Petunia, her elder sister by a year and a half, just rolls her eyes and sniffs haughtily at her parents' anxious faces. Even though Lily knows by now that her sister cares nothing for her, she still feels a pang of hurt deep inside her at the callous treatment.
As she passes through the barrier, she feels the now familiar sense of enclosure before she's on the other side and waving at her many friends and acquaintances. As Lily moves quickly to the left so as not to be run over by the next student, she spots her friend Elaine near the train.
Elaine Roberts is, like Lily, a Gryffindor, but she is also a Pureblood. The Roberts family traditionally have about one in three children in Slytherin house, but Elaine is the first Gryffindor for many generations, the others tending to gravitate to Ravenclaw, or, occasionally, Hufflepuff. At present, she is the only Roberts attending Hogwarts, though she does have several second and third cousins in Ravenclaw and Slytherin. It would seem natural for Elaine to befriend others in much the same situation as herself, but she'd never been one to be stereotypical. Instead of spending most of her life with Purebloods or Halfbloods, Elaine chose to hang out with two Muggleborn girls, Lily and their other best friend, Asha Taylor.
As Asha is nowhere to be seen at this time, Lily heads over to join Elaine, but stops in her tracks, about two feet away, when she sees the boys Elaine is animatedly conversing with: James Potter and Sirius Black. Really, Lily has no quarrel with the latter, except that she considers him generally annoying and immature because he chases all the eligible girls in the school at some time or anther. Lily and her friends estimate that there are less than fifteen girls in fifth, sixth, or seventh year that have not yet let Sirius Black into their pants.
But James Potter ... He makes Lily mad. He makes her irrational. And most of all, he embarrasses her. When a boy confesses love to you in your second year, having spent the first pranking and generally being an annoying git, you would almost certainly not be amused. And if it happened regularly, like once every two days, in various and embarrassing ways, eventually you get to the irrational despising and shrieking point. Lily has been at this point for four years, and James Potter looks unlikely to be giving up. Lily sighs― Merlin knows she hates the guy, but fate just has to bring them together on the first day.
Thankfully, James turns and walks off, presumably to greet Remus, who has just arrived. About to follow him, Sirius spots Lily and grins at her.
"Hey, Evans."
"Hello, Black," she says nonchalantly.
"Lily!" Elaine shrieks and hugs her best friend.
"Elly!" Lily squeals back.
Sirius watches this, evidently bored. At last he sighs. "Look, I'll see you at the feast tonight. I'm going to see where Wormtail is― he might miss the train again if I don't. And Prongs is about somewhere with Moony."
"He's over there." Elaine points to James, who's currently about to board the train with Peter, apparently having left Remus.
Lily looks in the direction Elaine points, and wrinkles her nose. "In fact, they're all over there."
"Great," Sirius says. "Well, unless you want me to bring them over here, I'm off. Unless of course you'd want to say hello, Evans..." He lets the sentence trail off, looking at her suggestively. "I'm sure Prongs wouldn't mind."
She gives him a funny look. "I bet he wouldn't! He'd be asking me out left right and centre, that's what he'd be doing!"
"Give him credit where it's due, Evans, he hasn't asked you out in months! You've got a bit too high opinion of yourself, if you ask me―"
"I wasn't asking you."
"―Assuming he'll be all over you as soon as we start the year!" Sirius gives her a trademark Black stare, coldly calculating and insinuating inferiority. Then he turns to go back to his friends, with a final parting shot at her: "Give him a chance this year, why don't you?"
Lily huffs and stalks off into the train. Elaine shrugs, tells Sirius to say hello to James for her, and then follows her friend into the train to start their sixth year.
A/N:
*waves* Hi, I'm Katie, and this is my first story on this website. I've got accounts on other sites, though :) Reviews are love, as is any commentary at all ღ
