Disclaimer: Characters and settings are property of J.K. Rowling. What you don't recognize is mine.
A/N: HERE IT IS! The sequel to A Marauder's Girl. Sorry for the wait; it was just SO HARD to write this chapter. I'm having major writer's block on this story. The good news is I'm not having writer's block on my other one! Expect plenty of updates for that. But I'll finish this one eventually, I promise.
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Shades of Grey Sequel to 'A Marauder's Girl'"Lily!"
Lily Evans, newly seventeen-years-old, fell out of bed as an unearthly screech resonated in her hearing. "Get out of bed now, or we're leaving you!"
"Like I'd have a problem with that," she mumbled under her breath. Since returning home from school two weeks before, all she'd heard tell of was Petunia's impending wedding. Lily knew that, by the end of the summer, she'd be thoroughly sick of hearing about dresses, catering, churches, ribbons, and flowers. Just yesterday, Lily had heard yet another argument about flower arrangements.
"Darling, I think lilies would be lovely," their mother, Rose Evans, suggested gently, a smile on her face. "So classic, and—"
"Mother!" Petunia had shrieked. "Lilies symbolize death! You just want them because of you darling Lily – I already made her a bridesmaid, what more do you want?"
At that point, Lily had hastily excused herself, predicting what would follow: "Petunia, Lily's your sister! Of course she's got to be a bridesmaid!"
Lily wouldn't have minded this wedding nonsense so much if her mother hadn't insisted she be involved. She knew that Rose just desperately wanted her two daughters to get along, but forcing them into a bridal shop together was definitely not the way to go about it.
"Lily!" Petunia shrieked again. "Get down here now!"
With a sign of resignation, Lily got off the bed and began to hunt for her jeans. She'd seen pictures of the dresses for the bridesmaids Petunia had chosen, and had resigned herself to looking more like the wedding cake than anything else. She'd always preferred a more classic, understated look, but Petunia had flat-out rejected each and every one of Lily's suggestions.
"LILY! NOW!"
With a thoroughly miserable expression on her face, Lily pulled on her shirt and trumped down the stairs, taking care to be as slow and obnoxious as was possible. Once down there, she saw Petunia eye her jeans and sniff haughtily (Petunia herself was dressed in a tasteful floral skirt with a matching blouse). "About time," she said acidly. "Didn't you wear those jeans yesterday?"
"So what if I did? You can wear jeans more than once."
Petunia sniffed again.
All in all, the car ride to the bridal shop was far from fun. Petunia insisted on playing the most awful music, and worse still, humming along to it. Actually, Petunia hated to sing, but she knew that Lily hated it when she sang, and so she did.
Ordinarily, Lily would have been happy to finish things as fast as possible, not caring what she looked like for the stupid wedding, but once she saw the bridesmaid dress, she could hardly restrain herself. It had ruffles, taffeta, bows, and above all else, it was pink. "You've chosen pink!" she cried in horror, not caring when all of the store attendants turned to stare at her. "Pink's my absolute worst color and you know that!" She looked at Petunia's smug face and hissed, "You chose it on purpose!"
"I did not," Petunia shot back, "it's just Yvonne's best color, and I want her to look good!"
"Yvonne is a brunette with brown eyes! She'll look good in any bloody thing, can't you pick something else?"
"No," said Petunia loudly, shoving the dress at her. "Go try it on, and we'll see how it fits."
"Absolutely not." Lily backed away, determined to be adamant about this. It was one thing to look like a wedding cake, it was another thing to look like a hideous pink wedding cake. "I refuse to wear that."
"Then you can't be a bridesmaid, either!"
"Fine!" Lily cried, and made a hmphing noise. "As if I wanted to be one anyway!" With that, Lily stormed out of the store. Petunia didn't bother to follow.
She quickly turned into an alley, grateful that she'd passed her Apparation Test hardly a week before. Concentrating on home, she was gone with a crack.
Rose Evans leapt away from her tulips as her younger daughter materialized beside her with a fierce scowl. She couldn't get used to that. "Er… didn't go well, I take it?" she asked slowly. Lily gave her the dirtiest look she could summon up, before storming into the house without another word. Rose sighed in defeat.
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James heard a sharp whistle blast from below him, and resigned himself to another stern talking-to from his Quidditch coach. Barbara was scowling at him as he landed in front of her. "Yes?"
"Potter, perhaps you haven't noticed, but this is a team sport." She gave him a fierce look. "That means you have to play with your team. Not by yourself. Understand?"
"Whatever."
"Don't you whatever me, young man! I was told you were good, but now you act as though you couldn't play to save your life! What's the matter with you?"
"I just don't want to anymore," he intoned in a dreary voice. "I mean, what's the point? There isn't one, really. I throw a great red ball through a hoop. Whee."
"Why are you even at this camp, then?"
"Hell if I know," he replied, and noticed his teammates, two Chasers named Anna and Rachel, looking at him irritably. He hadn't passed to them once since the start of their practice, which was turning out to be no different from all the other practices they'd had together. At the special camp in Canada, all the specific types of players had been separated into groups of three, with two others of the same player. Anna was from the United States; Rachel from Australia.
"Look, Potter, you've got potential," she told him, leaning on her cane heavily. "Enormous potential. But it's going to go to waste if you don't use it. Got that?"
"Yeah. Got that." His voice was still toneless.
"Well, would you please try a bit harder?" James didn't answer; she threw up her hands in disgust. "Team dismissed!"
Anna and Rachel immediately began to protest, in between shooting James disgruntled looks, as if it were somehow all his fault – which it certainly was. James didn't care. It wasn't his problem; he began to walk morosely away.
So close, he thought fiercely. That close. She would have gone out with me, and then I had to go and ruin it. I can't believe it.
Since Lily's rather sudden rejection of him on the train-ride back, James hadn't known what to do with himself. He'd wandered around his ancestral home, eliciting stares and mutters from nearby portraits. It was harder without Sirius around; Sirius would have known how to cheer him up. Janine was no help at all; although she was entirely supportive the day of and after the train ride, she'd forgotten about him rather soon, what with the arrival of Quidditch camp. He knew that Janine and Lily had fought, probably about him, but she steadfastly refused to talk about it, admitting that she'd been a bitch, Lily had been a bitch, and it had culminated in a bitch-fight in the loo. He gave up asking.
As if she knew he'd been thinking of her, Janine was sitting in the swing in front of the cafeteria, her broomstick lolling to one side, still in her practice clothes. "Done a bit early, aren't you?" she called.
James headed for her, not knowing what else to do with himself. "Barb dismissed us early."
"Ah. So you pissed her off again, did you?" He glowered at her. "Well, you must admit, that's what you've been doing. I've watched you play, and you're not really doing so well. It looks like you don't care anymore." She glanced at him through lowered lashes. "Do you?"
"No."
"I didn't think so. Lily's birthday was last week, did I tell you?"
"Several times, actually. And no, I didn't send her a gift, so don't ask. Why do you care, anyway? I thought you weren't friends anymore."
"Of course we're still friends," she replied loftily. "We've had a fight, and now we're taking a short break from one another. Probably for the best, what with me being in Canada and her in England."
"What about?"
"Excuse me?"
"What did you fight about?"
She gazed at him. "That's none of your business."
"Like hell it isn't. You fought about me, didn't you? That's nice of you, Janie, but I hardly need you to champion my cause in front of her. I'm a big boy now." He was reminded of a time when Lily had told him more or less the same, and irritably stamped down on that memory.
"I said, it's none of your business. Oh, there's your coach." James whirled, to see Barbara descend on him, a resigned look on her face.
"H'lo, Garnet," she greeted the girl, who waved lazily at her. "Potter, I've spoken to the director. He'd like a word with you in his office. Now."
"I was waiting for my summons," said James mockingly, and without so much as a fare-thee-well, he followed Barb to the cabin that served as Underwood's office. He'd been to see Derek Underwood, the director of the camp, twice already, and this would be the third time he'd be berated for his behavior. "I can see why he'd try and put it off, though. I'm so charmingly charismatic. Everyone wants to resist me, but in the end," and here he gave a dramatic sigh, feeling more like Sirius by the moment, "they cannot, and they are forced to give in."
Once upon a time, Underwood, who was now in his sixties or so, had been a great player for the Stonewall Stormers, but an injury had turned him to setting up a camp for would-be pro players. "It's wonderful to see you again, Potter. I can't tell you how I enjoy our little chats."
"Me too," said James, his face absolutely straight. "I think it's time we took our relationship to the next level."
"Oh, you do, do you?"
"Yeah. In fact, let's elope and get married – I hear that's the popular thing now, at least back home it is. D'you want to wear the dress, or should I?"
"You think you're witty, don't you." It wasn't even a question.
"I try, sir."
"Potter, you're talented, but-"
"-But unless I utilize my enormous potential, I won't ever make the pro league, I know, so on and so forth. I'm the perfect player, if only I could get my act together, I know, I know. Spare me the lecture."
Underwood looked amused. "I was actually going to say that I'm not sure you have what it takes to make the league." James gaped. "It's not for you. You love Quidditch, I can see that, and it's clear that if you weren't having whatever problems you're having now, you'd be enjoying the game a lot more than you currently are. The fact remains, Potter, that you're a restless spirit, and you wouldn't be content to play the game for the rest of your life. It's fun for you now, but ten years down the line, you'll hate yourself for going that way."
James stared. Nobody had ever said that to him. He thought of Alyssa Comforts, one of Lily and Janine's friends, and thought of how she'd changed after her aunt had died in an attack, how she'd become determined to throw herself into the war, headfirst. He thought of Sirius, who was in France taking classes so that he'd be better prepared for the trials of an Auror following his final year at Hogwarts.
An Auror. That actually had a nice ring to it.
"I've already paid for the camp," he said at last.
"Right, but you're miserable and you're making everyone around you miserable, too. So shape up the attitude until the camp ends, or clear out, Potter, because you're on probation now. One more skipped practice-"
"I've only skipped two!"
"In a week, yes, only two. I mean it, Potter, you can start packing right now if you're not going to take this seriously enough." Underwood gave him a fierce look. "If you had the drive, you would've been a great player. But you haven't got it; you never will. It's not your life to play a sport until you're too old or you've had an injury and been shoved out like me." He gestured to his knee. "So enjoy what's left of this camp, Potter, because once you finish at that school – Hogwarts, isn't it? – you're not likely to play anymore. Do something to help that war you've got going on, why don't you? It would give you something to focus all that restless energy."
"What, and playing sports doesn't let me focus that energy?"
"Some of it, yes. All of it? No. Your friend could do it, but then she's happy to. But you? You're not happy. It wouldn't be enough. Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? The bottom line, Potter – I can't tell you how to live your life or what to do with it. What I can tell you is that if you don't buck up and ditch the attitude, I'm going to kick you out on your ass. Are we clear on that?"
James nodded stiffly. Oddly, he felt a bit better. Underwood nodded gruffly. "Good. You can go, then." He stood to leave, and Underwood added, "Is she anybody at this camp?"
"Who?" James's heart thudded.
"The girl you're thinking on. I know that look, son. You're pining for someone. Your girlfriend?"
James stiffened. "I haven't got a girlfriend."
"Then some girl you like, I imagine." He shrugged. "It hardly matters, Potter. I'm not here to be your shrink. Anyway, most people don't fall in love at seventeen. When you get to thinking about how tough things are, just remember that there are other girls. There always will be."
"Thanks, sir." James was back to feeling worse now. He turned and walked away before Underwood could try and give him any other advice.
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Lily pushed her sunglasses further up her head, standing as a tallish boy with light brown hair headed towards her. She waved, and he smiled as he approached. "H'lo," said Remus Lupin, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Summer going well?"
"It's been all right," Lily said, giving him a quick hug and then stepping back. "Really, though, Petunia's been driving me mad. All she does is blather on about the bloody wedding. I suggested she just elope and leave us be last night – even Dad got angry at that one." She gave him a morose look. "I've just been difficult to live with lately."
"It happens to the best of us," he reassured her. "So I take it Janine isn't talking to you still?"
"I wouldn't know. I'm not talking to her either, so that effectively eliminates any communication, wouldn't you say?" Remus shrugged. He'd known, of course, that she and Janine had fallen out over something on the train ride home – everyone did, the story had been spread around before they'd even reached King's Cross – but Lily had confided in him the real reason the first time she'd come to visit him in Diagon Alley. When James had told her, or at least hinted, that he wanted an exclusive, long-lasting relationship, Lily had panicked. It was difficult enough to deal with her growing feelings for the boy she'd once considered an arrogant toerag, but he'd only made it worse when he had practically professed undying love for her.
Janine, who had been longtime friends with James even before Hogwarts, had suddenly championed his cause on the ride back, calling Lily a fool and a coward for giving up what she considered to be the most perfect boy who had come around. Lily had to admit, reflecting back on it, that Janine rather had a point: most boys had problems with commitment, but Potter seemed perfectly willing to be with Lily for the rest of his life. At the time, though, Lily hadn't considered that most girls would kill for a boy who wanted that much from a relationship, mostly because she'd been absolutely terrified by his confession. Janine hadn't found her long after she'd escaped James, and so what might have been resolved peacefully if only it had happened hours later, when Lily had calmed down, had escalated into such a loud fight that the entire car was likely to have heard them. The two girls hadn't parted amicably.
"What about the other girls? Jen and Alyssa and what-not?"
"Well, you know Marlene and I are getting along fine. The trouble is, Jen and Alyssa were friends with Janine long before they were friends with me. I suppose they feel they have an obligation to stay on Janine's side." Lily couldn't help but be a little bitter about this. What sort of friends were they, anyway, to take sides like that?
"Well, not necessarily. I haven't even spoken to Jen since school let out." Lily shot him a questioning look; Remus and Jennifer King had been dating, for lack of a better term, in the last few months of the school year. "She's been away all summer, and it's too hot for her owl there, so it's a bit difficult to send post. Expensive, too." Remus shrugged. "I suppose we've separated for the summer."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Remus."
"Don't be. I'm sure we'll get back together by the time school starts up in September." He looked less certain of this, however, and Lily patted his shoulder comfortingly.
"Are you off work now?" she asked, wanting to change the subject.
"No, not yet. I'm just taking my fifteen – I saw you through the window," he explained, a faint blush tinting his cheeks. "Not many people come into the store during the summer."
"Well, I will. I could do with some new reading, I suppose. Is your break up?"
"Will be in ten minutes. Shall we get some ice cream and then head back?"
"Sounds good." As they wandered off, Lily wondered, "Do you suppose Janine and I will get back to the way things were?"
"Before the blow-up on the train? Oh, I don't know. Perhaps not the same. You can't get much worse than the way Sirius and I fell out last year." He looked uncomfortable about what had been termed the 'prank,' when Sirius had more or less told Severus Snape that Remus was a werewolf, and had nearly gotten the other boy killed on top of that. Lily's heart clenched, remembering that James had been the one to save Snape's life at the last moment.
"But you're friends again, surely?"
"Of course we are. No point staying angry at your friends forever – you never know when they won't be there." He looked down the Alley, and Lily remembered, too, that there had been an attack in Diagon Alley not a few months ago, and that Alyssa's aunt and Sirius's uncle had died in the attack. She shivered. "But things aren't quite the same. I've forgiven him, but I certainly won't forget what happened. I wouldn't be able to; neither would he. Your fight, I'm thankful to say, is quite a bit less drastic. Things will be awkward for a while, but I'm sure you'll be getting on again in no time."
"I hope so." Lily struggled with herself, and then admitted, "I miss her, you know."
"I missed Sirius, too. It was difficult without that idiot prancing around to cheer me up whenever I got too serious." Remus paid for his ice cream cone, Lily paid for hers, and they started towards Flourish and Blotts, pausing at some of the windows to peer inside. Lily glanced at the Magical Menagerie, noting a number of lovely cats inside. She pursed her lips. She'd always wanted a cat, but Petunia hated them.
Grinning, Lily told Remus to wait a moment, and emerged moments later with a cat in her arms. Remus stared. "Petunia hates cats," she explained. Remus had to laugh at that as Lily cuddled the cat, which had begun to purr. "This is Azeze; isn't he precious? He's an Egyptian Mau."
Remus personally thought that the cat was anything but precious and that he'd never seen a cat that gave him a more menacing look, but his experience had always been that it was better to agree with a girl than to disagree with her. "Precious," he agreed with a straight face. Lily cast him a half-exasperated, half-amused look that told him she wasn't at all fooled by his ploy.
"All right, fine, you don't like my cat; well, I'm sure he doesn't like you much either. Shall we go, then?"
"I have no idea if they allow cats in Flourish and Blotts," Remus warned her.
"Oh, they do," she said bracingly, although truthfully, she had no idea whether or not they did. As they entered the shop, Remus disappeared briefly to clock in, and reappeared behind a counter, although his business-like posture was somewhat ruined by the wide grin on his face.
"Good day, Miss," he said in a pleasant voice. "Can I help you with anything? Point you in the right direction, perhaps?"
"Yes," said Lily with an absolutely straight face. "I need a book that's going to give me lots of nasty hexes. You see, I maintain a grudge against several people and I'd like to get them back in the most gruesomely disgusting way possible."
"Ah, of course," replied Remus at once. "The back corner of the second floor, Miss, right side. Full of all the nasty Dark Hexes you could want. Might I humbly suggest What Better Way To Disembowel Your Enemies?"
Lily couldn't help it; she started to laugh. Remus was grinning, and as Lily's giggles subsided to brief hiccups, she said, "Tell me there's no such book!"
"There's no such book," said Remus at once, "but if you're interested, the author is Vindictus Viridian, also the author of Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much, More), although that one is notably less dark than the disemboweling one, which I believe can only be found in the sketchier bookstores in Knockturn Alley, or so Sirius told me."
"You're joking. It actually exists?"
"Sirius said it did, but you can't always trust what Sirius says, you know?" Remus grinned. "No, seriously. Do you need help with something?"
Lily sighed. "Not really, no. I just need to wander a bit and find something to read – the summer's been frightfully boring so far."
"I'll bet," said Remus sympathetically. "You ought to have gotten a job, like me. Here, in fact. We could have kept each other company."
Lily laughed, disappearing behind a bookshelf. "Now there's a good idea. At least I wouldn't have had to put up with Petunia."
"That bad?" he called from the other side of the shelf.
"Worse. If I hear one more word about flower arrangements, I may do her in. My mum wants me to be a bridesmaid, of all things, and Petunia, with her typical taste in clothing, has chosen the most hideous dress for her bridesmaids that I've ever seen. It's pink, too, and I look dreadful in pink."
"That's too bad," said Remus. "Couldn't you, you know – opt out?"
"Unfortunately not. I tried that." Lily pulled a book off the shelves, flicked through it disinterestedly, and then continued on. She hardly noticed when Remus came around the shelf and put the book back in its proper place, smiling wryly. "This is the ideal job for you, isn't it? Quiet, affords lots of time to think."
"Yes, it's quite nice. And I do get a discount, which will be more than welcome when I get my book list."
"Financial problems?" Remus glanced at her sharply; she reddened. "Oh, sorry – that was tactless, wasn't it? Never mind."
"No, it's all right. Not that we're having particular difficulty or anything, but it would help a bit if I could save what I can, at least with the way things are. Dad's a Potions Master, or he was, and now he mostly experiments in the back shed," he explained. "The thing is, times have been so difficult now, and the added security that everyone needs is starting to take its toll."
Lily could understand that. When her parents weren't paying attention, she'd tried to place as many security charms on her home as was possible, without causing the toaster to explode from all the magic in the air.
"People have been dying, haven't they?" said Lily sadly.
"Unfortunately. Don't you read the Daily Prophet?"
"Only the headlines. I can't bear it; it just depresses me." She sighed, playing with her new cat's ears, to said cat's vague irritation. "Did you hear about those little boys? And their poor mother…"
Remus shuddered and snatched a book off the shelf at random, and then quickly pressed it into her hands. "No more depressing things, eh? Here. Charm Your Wedding! Might be useful, eh?"
"I'd consider it," replied Lily wryly, "except Petunia would smother me in my sleep if I got caught using magic anywhere near her wedding."
Remus grinned. "So don't get caught." But he reshelved the book nevertheless.
Lily was unbelievably grateful for both Remus and Marlene. Without them, she'd never make it through the summer; it would just be too difficult. Both had been quiet, not pressing for details until Lily was willing to tell. When she had, they'd been sympathetic (actually, Remus had been properly horrified that James had more or less confessed undying love for her, and had smacked his head. Lily was quite certain that she'd heard him muttering about how James could do nothing right without his help, which had made her reluctantly giggle a bit).
By the end of the afternoon, she'd filled Remus in on the horrors of Petunia's wedding planning (and repeated several of the past horrors she'd already told him), made plans to meet in Diagon Alley in a week with their new booklists (hopefully), and had even managed to find a few books that might interest her. As she bade him goodbye, Lily couldn't help but feel a tinge of anxiousness as she saw people hurrying along the street, not stopping to chat with each other as they once would have.
Hugging her books to her chest, Lily apparated home, to the relative safety of her bedroom, where, although she desperately missed some of the wonders of the magical world, the horrors that came side-along couldn't touch her.
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A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Please-pleas-please check out Time of Our Lives, as I will confess that that one is easily my favorite, even though a lot of people said they liked this one better. Leave me tons of reviews; remember, no review wastes my time because I LOVE THEM ALL, especially the long ones that have questions and are full of advice! And thanks for sticking with me guys; it means a lot to me.
So much love - Peaches
