Little Whinging, Surrey, was the ideal place for any family to take residence. Declared by many fashionable lady's magazines to be one of the most charming suburban areas in all of the United Kingdom, it was viewed with high admiration. With pristine and immaculately-kept parks, with some of the most successful public schools in the country, with a low crime rate, and with plenty of caring neighbors, it was the utopian town. Unblemished by the flaws of humanity, it attracted many a young family in the hopes of raising their children in as perfect conditions as they could find. Here in Little Whinging they hoped they could raise their children in happy friendships with the other children on the street, attend schools led by some of the most praised teachers in the area, and more. One of these families was the Evans.
The Evan's were your typical, conservative family. Mrs. Evans worked as a bank-teller for Little Whinging Credit Union, while Mr. Evans was employed as a plumber at the Dursley Brothers, a business of great prosperity in the community. They were not, as you can imagine, the wealthiest of people, though they earned enough money to persist. They raised two perfect young girls, one named Lily and the other Petunia. One would imagine that these two girls behaved most kindly toward each other, treated each other with great fondness and respect. This was not the case, however: Petunia maintained a rather antagonistic attitude toward her sister out of envy. Indeed, even her parents were a bit afraid, a bit intimidated by their daughter. You can imagine why they were a bit frightened of her; for the last three years she had attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Strong conservative Christians, Mr. and Mrs. Evans insisted three years ago that their daughter would not attend such a school, that they would refuse to let her be integrated into the society of the occult. Their proclamations wavered as Albus Dumbledore himself, headmaster of the school, arrived to inform them that practicing magic was compatible with Christianity, that the powers which Lily possessed and could harness through an education were not derived from the devil. Initially skeptical of this claim, they finally could no longer defy the inevitable and agreed to allow their daughter to attend the school. They monitored her closely to ensure that, as Dumbledore claimed, she was not susceptible to demons. As time passed her parents grew more open to Lily's abilities. There was no observable evidence that she had succumbed to the powers of hell, as they had feared; she was the normal girl they had always known.
On the other hand, Petunia, possibly jealous or still attached to her passionate Christian ideals, still rejected silently her sister. Petunia was convinced that she based her opinion solely on the Bible on which the family relied, a charge that her parents rebuked. How could the magic Lily was performing harm anyone, they asked her. What damage had she done by performing magic, they wondered. It was to their astonishment that their daughter resisted Lily. It was only modern that they accept her. They didn't know how she did it, magic, but they knew that it was modern. Even though they were a bit uncomfortable around Lily, it was no reason to justify rejecting her entirely!
Of course, it was only the Evan's who were aware of the peculiar fact that Lily was a witch. They had, at the demand of Dumbledore, refrained – as if they even needed a reason – from divulging this information with the neighbors. They claimed that Lily was attending a boarding school in Scotland for girls planning to pursue entering a convent and becoming a nun. The neighbors were appalled that a girl as bright and as ambitious as Lily would lower herself to such degrading standards of poverty and slowly the memory of her vanished from their minds, though they sometimes met her over the summer when she returned home. Sometimes they even met her during the Christmas holidays while she was out shopping for gifts for her parents at the mall on the other side of town. It is at this time that we begin our story: during the Christmas holidays.
The sun hovered vividly, low in the western sky on this fair Tuesday afternoon. An orange fireball, it transformed the clouds into a calming pink and the sky into a mystical purple. The snow sparkled magically beneath the last remaining rays of light, glistening like diamonds and dazzling the eye. The cold that Mother Nature had inflicted upon the landscape had forced the residents of Little Whinging to withdraw into their warm and comforting homes, soothed by a cup of hot cocoa and a blazing fireplace. No one, with the exception of a brave child, left their homes, and if they did, they returned inside as quickly as they could before their faces burned with cold even more.
Two souls were rebelling against the social norms, however. A young man about the age of fourteen and a woman of about the same age were standing around a snowman, attending to his features. The girl raised her hand to place a carrot as the nose. Grinning softly, she pushed the carrot in until it was secure. The boy lowered his face to grin amiably at her. He had fair skin, softly curved cheeks, and gently disheveled black hair that was concealed for the most part beneath the cap he wore. His piercing grey eyes stared fiercely into her green ones. She, her head raised defiantly, watched him anxiously as her orange hair dangled in its typically graceful way behind her. Her lips curved lovingly and her nose was profuse with mucus. Cheeks rosy from the freezing weather, her ears red, and her body shaking, she proposed to James Potter, "Shall we go inside now? I think I have had enough of this weather, James."
"Yes, we better. You look bad, Lily," James said concernedly. Having said thus, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her against his chest as they stumbled through the deep snow back to the door of the Evan's residence. Lily shivered but James guided her. At the door he released her; she dug around in her pocket for a key, withdrew it, and inserted it into the lock. Opening the door, she ushered him inside. James, stomping his feet on the rug and leaving plenty of snow on the floor, watched Lily as she deposited her coat on the couch in the living room and approached the blazing fire, tossing off her mittens and letting her hands be warmed. James looked at her and wondered to himself what man could resist the allure of a girl as amazing as Lily.
Lily tossed aside her hair, throwing it out of her eyes, and watched the flames crackle. Her hands extended toward the flames, she didn't notice that James was approaching her, removing his coat as he did so. Once behind her, he lifted it around her shoulders, letting it cover her shivering body. Lily, surprised at first, accepted the offer and let him wrap the coat around her.
"Thank you, James," she whispered as she continued to view the fire.
"It was my simplest pleasure. You look awfully cold, Lily," he answered.
"I can't help it that I am. You were the one who forced me outside to make that travesty of a snowman!" Lily cried mockingly.
"You were the one who insisted that you were bored. What else were we to do, do you suggest?" James wondered.
"We could have read literature," Lily retorted, "or done the homework Horace Slughorn assigned us over the holidays."
"Literature is only appreciated because people like to talk about it but never read it. Homework was only designed by the educational establishment for being delayed until the last moment. I would hope that we will never do either."
"You are such a maliciously uncivilized spirit, James!" Lily cried, turning around and poking a finger into his chest flirtingly. James grinned and so did she. "It is no wonder that my parents are not that affectionate of you. Perhaps they were right in saying that you were barbaric."
Laughing, James replied as he collapsed on the sofa by the window, "But wouldn't life be awfully dull if there were no barbarians?"
"Oh, James, you are deplorable!" Lily murmured as she lowered her hands and sat down on the sofa beside her beloved. "Why did I never listen to my parents and heed their warnings?"
"Following what your parents say is thoroughly not modern, my dear," James laughed gently, curling a finger through Lily's shining hair and indulging himself in its perfume. "It is more expected that we do what we want, you know."
"Those who don't know their history are bound to repeat it," Lily rebuked happily.
"History is but a tedious series of people whose greed for power causes them to hurt everyone else; there is no cause and affect, there is no plot, and there is no pattern. And its only lesson is humility, I am afraid."
"That is more like it, James," Lily sighed. "If only you acted more like that most of the time, my parents would be more willing to welcome you."
James grinned and rested his hand on top of Lily's, letting his fingers entwine with her own. Wrapped around his fingers, Lily's cold ones gained some warmth. Silence prevailed between them for a few moments as they watched the fireplace peacefully, James resting his head on Lily's shoulder. He wore an expression of pure contentedness on his face.
"I forgot to tell you something, Lily," James said carelessly from his position.
Lily, her face nestled in his hair and enjoying it, replied, "What is it?"
"I received a most peculiar note from Remus Lupin in which I was told that he has fallen ill from the dragonpox and has been moved to St. Mungo's until he recovers."
Lily withdrew her head, shocked, from James, looking at him with horror. James nearly fell down onto the pillows in the quickness of her move. She stared at him as if she didn't know him, as if he were a person with whom she wasn't familiar. Aghast, she proclaimed, "I am astonished that you are so un-loyal that you are not by his side at this very moment!"
"His case is not that severe, Lily," James reassured her, raising his hands to calm her.
"Are you sure?" she questioned.
"Yes, he has promised me that it is nothing to worry about that and that he is almost entirely recovered."
"That is good," Lily sighed, letting her worries wash away. "I could not bear to date a man who wasn't there to help his friends."
"Oh, I think you could, Lily," James flirted.
Ignoring him, Lily asked demandingly, "Do you intend to write him?"
"I have not sent a response yet," James answered.
"Not even a wish of good luck?"
"I am afraid I have not."
"What a most inconsiderate person you are! Perhaps that is the reason you are as appealing as you are!" Lily muttered.
"I promise you I shall, as soon as we are done here, send him an owl wishing him well," James guaranteed.
"Thank you, James. Tell him that I wish him well."
"I shall," James said.
"You bother to reply to all of those of letters from Gladys Gudgeon, your chaser, but you don't even care to speak with your friend in St. Mungo's. I am amazed at you, James," Lily observed.
"The difference between the letters from Gladys and the letters from Remus is that hers are actually interesting. Remus, as you know, is not the most exciting personality," James said firmly, throwing his head against the pillows with his hands behind his head. Lily watched him with admiration before tossing the pillow behind her toward his chest and he caught it. Laughing, he added, "Gladys is a lovely girl."
"The way you speak about her, I have to wonder whether or not you are in love with her!"
"Now, Lily, how could I betray you? You know that I am solely devoted to you and no one else."
"I cannot believe you," Lily admitted sadly as she turned her head toward the fire. Her eyes concentrated on the blaze for a while and James looked at her with disbelief, his hair as messy as ever from the static.
"You never believe anything," James said. He lifted himself on his elbows and hovered over the pillows, looking at Lily. Lily herself turned her head away from the fire to stare at him miserably. She viewed him with a mixture of emotions before leaning across the couch, lying herself on his chest, her face above his. His chest heaved up and down beneath her and it was a wonderful sensation. James lifted his arms and wrapped them around her back, so that she was in his arms. She moved one of her hands and dragged it softly against his cheek, relishing in its softness. Then before they could help themselves, she had lowered her chin and attached her lips to his for the first time. Soft, tender, and delicious, her lips collided against his. It was like everything she could have dreamed of and more: smooth, pure, and gentle, his lips interacted with hers, going up and down. She couldn't believe how magical it was. Then they withdrew, looking at each other as though they had met for the first time.
"Well," Lily remarked, clapping her hands in distress. "Let's just hope we weren't seen by the neighbors. They are not that tolerant of affection, you know."
"If they saw us kissing and were offended, it would only be because they were jealous," James said proudly, dragging a hand through his hair and grinning.
Lily, laughing at his wisdom, grabbed his cold hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed it with a seductive look in her eyes. James viewed her with great amusement, as though he were both annoyed but amused by her. She let his hand drop down to the tan couch again.
"You know, maybe your parents are right. Maybe my friendship is negating a harmful influence in your life. You are becoming disturbingly obsessed with me, that is clear," James observed.
"Lord Byron said in Don Juan that man's love is of man's life a thing apart – Tis woman's whole existence. I now realize how true he was in acknowledging that," Lily retorted, defending herself.
"Such a hopeless woman you are!" James yelled admiringly.
"I was ever since I first met you, James," Lily muttered as she leaned forward yet again and placed softly another peck on his face. Her hair drifted around her head and collided against his face as she did so. James watched her retreat, watched her fair face, watched her turn back, and his heart yearned for her more than ever before.
"What do you propose we do to make the best of the remaining days of this Christmas holiday, James," Lily inquired hastily, as though desperate to change from the subject from the romantic awkwardness that was alienating them at the moment.
"I thought we could fly over the countryside on my broom tomorrow," James answered.
"Is that not a bit dangerous? Could we not be seen?" Lily wondered.
"No, we could use my Invisibility Cloak, remember?" James said calmly.
"Would it not blow away in the wind?" Lily questioned.
"Not if we attached it by magic to ourselves, dear."
"I am unsure whether or not we should go," Lily admitted. "It seems rather foolish to soar over the countryside on a broom at these times."
"Here," said James, procuring from his pocket a piece of parchment and a quill. "Pretend that I submitted this question to you by owl and you must send a response using but one word."
He handed her the items that she gracefully accepted. Concealing what she was writing with her left arm, she scribbled a quick response on the paper and returned the sheet to James. He took it with ease, as though confident in his hope, but once he viewed the sheet his face registered a look of disbelief.
"I believe you are Confunded, Lily," James declared, with his mouth open in shock.
"I don't believe I am. If I were, I would be drooling."
"You wrote 'no' in answer to the question that I posed to you when you intended to say 'yes'. I am persuaded that you in your happiness were unable to distinguish between how to spell the two. Were you not planning to say 'yes'?" James argued.
"No, I was in perfect mental condition when I replied, thank you very much. And I did want to say no."
James said, returning the sheet to her along with the quill, "Now, why don't you rewrite your answer, to just verify it?" Lily was about to raise the quill again to write the "n" when another hand wrapped itself around her wrist. Frightened, she realized that it belonged to James. He was leaning across the couch and forcing her hand to move in such a way that it created an unintelligible "Yes" on the sheet below her.
"James, have you no courtesy or respect for me?" Lily yelled as he forced her hand along.
"But of course," he replied unworriedly as he finished the job. He collapsed back down on the couch while Lily lifted her hands to her mouth, smothering her giggles. Her eyes were almost filled with tears and James was sure that they were from laughter.
"What time do you propose we meet tomorrow for the event?" James asked, spreading his arm on the rear of the couch around Lily's back and pulling her into his embrace.
Submitting to his arms, Lily answered, "Why not two o'clock tomorrow afternoon?"
"The perfect time, I think," James said and tightened his hold around her shoulders. Then he released her. He rose from the couch and Lily looked at him elevate his body with sadness, as though nothing hurt her more than to be separated from him.
"Must you leave this soon?" Lily asked despondently.
"I am afraid I must return home in time for dinner. Otherwise, I fear my mother may yet again order Agnim our house-elf to cut up my underwear like before," James said. He stretched his arms out and yawned, as though exhausted, before walking around the couch.
"How thoroughly unpleasant…for you, that is," Lily replied quite seductively.
"And you claim that I am an evil spirit, Lily!" He laughed as he collected his coat from around her shoulders. She pushed herself forward to let him take it. Once he had gathered it in his arms, he began donning it quickly.
"See you, Lily," he said as he left the room and opened the door in the entryway, letting the light from the brilliantly red sun illuminate in a thin ray the floor.
"Bye, James. See you tomorrow!" Lily bid farewell as she herself rose from the couch to shut the door behind him. Once the door was firmly closed, Lily collapsed on the floor in a hysterical heap, a grin spreading across her face. Before she could stop herself she had seized the doorknob and had kissed it passionately, relishing in the very fact that James himself had touched it. She swore she could even smell him there.
Lily, realizing how stupid she was, withdrew from the doorknob and sighed, shaking her head; as James had said, she was hopeless.
That evening at dinner, she did not relinquish to her parents the most enthralling development of the day: that she had exchanged her first kiss with James Potter from up the street, her good friend. Mr. and Mrs. Evans were safe under the delusion that their daughter was only seeking a friendship with him; it was clear that they never even considered the possibility of their relationship amounting to a romance. Lily dreaded how they would react to the news; they were already concerned that James might seduce her to criminal mischief, from what she had confided in them about his trouble at Hogwarts. If they were to learn that she had kissed him, she was sure, Mrs. Evans would likely suffer from a heart attack and Mr. Evans would reject her. They expected for her to find a man of far more respectable personality in the community and not a delinquent.
Her parents noticed that she was intensely quiet as she ate her lasagna. Curious, for she usually burst with conversation each night, Mr. Evans interrupted the silence with a question, "How was your day, Lily?"
"Oh, it was mostly dull. I must say I am looking forward to going back to Hogwarts," Lily answered briskly.
"You completed all the homework you were assigned over the holidays, I trust?" Mrs. Evans inquired as she raised a fork to her mouth.
"Yes, I have, Mother," Lily said.
"Always the hard worker, you are, Lily!" Mr. Evans praised her. "Now, as for you Petunia," he added, turning his head to his right to look upon his other daughter, "you should follow your sister's example. You procrastinate too much."
Petunia merely scowled in response and then responded, as though offended, "I have been enjoying the holidays, something to which I am sure I am entitled?"
"Yes, Petunia," Mr. Evans conceded, "but you should find a balance between fun and work. You're going to regret waiting."
"There is still a week left until school resumes. I promise I will begin it tomorrow, father," Petunia said.
"Good," Mr. Evans heaved, returning to his plate. "What have you been doing without all that homework, Lily" he wondered aloud while lifting a fork.
Lily, gulping the water she had been drinking, said, "I played in the snow all afternoon with James. We made a snowman and left plenty of snow-angels in the park."
Petunia snorted, unable to conceal her amusement at this. Mrs. Evans rolled her eyes. Mr. Evans, on the other hand, looked at his daughter as though he could not believe his mature daughter would still pursue such childish things. Hiding his astonishment, he said, "That sounds like fun."
"It was," Lily agreed.
"If I didn't know better, I would say you were enamored with that boy," Mr. Evans said authoritatively.
Lily, her eyes widening with surprise and her faces growing paler – thankfully, no one noticed this – gazed upon her father with shock at such a suggestion. "I, in love with James? You have got to be kidding," Lily rebuked.
"It does seem to me that you are awfully attached to him," Mrs. Evans said, joining defensively her husband.
"I can assure you I am not," Lily stated strongly before occupying herself with chewing her lasagna.
Her parents viewed her with suspicion for many seconds. Petunia looked as though she were disgusted by her sister. After some moments they resumed eating their food; they may have dismissed the topic, but for Lily, fears and anxieties were swarming around her head like a flock of birds, blocking out everything else. She felt as if her parents were constantly watching her, and their stare penetrated her to the depths of her soul. They didn't know, but they suspected, and that was enough to scare her.
She felt as if their suspicions were ever confirmed, her entire world would collapse in a heap; even though she knew that James would always be there to guide, console, and comfort her, she would lose her family, and if anything, she was least willing to abandon that. Nothing frightened her more than irritating her parents. Nothing horrified her more than displeasing them. They may never interfere with her relationship with James, but they would certainly worry that he was affecting her in a negative way. They would never allow themselves to meet the good side of him. That was why she was unwilling to impart the truth: not for her sake, nor for her family's, but for that of James. She wanted to protect him from the truth of how her family regarded him.