Disclaimer: I do not own any HP characters, including (but not limited to) Lily Evans, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, or Peter Pettigrew. Characters such as Gabrielle, Katherine and Christine are used for plot development, and are purely fictional. Any relation to actual people is completely coincidental.

A/N: Just so you all know, my goal for the prologue was 1000 words, my shortest chapter, I promise. I didn't want to give too much away. From there on out, my goal for each chapter is 2000 words, and I will only write less than that if it is ABSOLUTELY necessary to the plot. Chances are, my rough draft will be less than 2000, and I will revise it and expand upon it to make more.

This story is rather important to me, for reasons that will be made more clear as the story progresses. I will not accept any flames. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

As it is now, I have a few chapters written, and a few more with pieces written. I won't make any promises that I will finish this, as I have not yet finished any of my chapter fics. But, I'm hoping with some constant encouragement, I'll actually write, and may actually finish it. If you have any ideas, feel free to tell me about them, though I make no promises that your ideas will be included. I have an outline, and I plan to stick with it.

Now that that's taken care of, on with the story:

Prologue

Life itself is filled with twists and turns. You expect it to go one way, and instead it goes the complete opposite. My life is the prime example of this. I went through my childhood, living in an ordinary neighborhood, and expected to grow up and live in the same neighborhood all my life. That changed when I got a letters telling me that I had been accepted into a prestigious school for my last seven years. That wasn't the biggest shock, but I'll get to that later. Once I got to the school, I began to form a new set of expectations, of blending into the crowd, getting the work done, graduating, and becoming a Healer. Nothing extraordinary. Of course, nothing seems to go the way I expected.

My name is Lily Evans. And before you ask, Lily is not short for Lillian. It's just Lily. The prestigious school I've been attending for the past six and a half years would be Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. That's right, I'm a witch. Just my luck to grow up in a completely normal neighborhood and be the farthest thing from normal that my neighbors have ever seen. Not that they know. About me being a witch, I mean. No, that has been my family's secret since I got my acceptance letter when I was eleven, with strict instructions to curb suspicion about where I disappeared to nine months out of the year.

As for my expectation for blending in, it didn't work too well. I can blame my red hair for that. If I had been a brunette or blonde like the rest of the female population at Hogwarts (or so it seemed), I could've blended in so much better. It didn't help that no one in my family has a drop of magical blood in them. That would make me a muggle-born witch, and people like me aren't looked at too favorably by a quarter of the student population at Hogwarts, and even some of the staff.

Of course, I like to think of myself as better than those that would put me down, simply because I don't discriminate based on status. Just a glance at my friends will tell you that.

There's Gabrielle, who moved to England from France when she was ten, and comes from a high society family, and will probably marry into another one right out of school out of obligation to her family. Then there's Katherine, who is one of the poorest pure-blooded witches at the school, whose dream is to simply get through school so that she can get a good job and help support her family. Christine finishes the group, being an average, half-blooded witch, with just enough will to get through school before starting up a business in London.

We're all Gryffindors, supposedly the bravest girls in the school. We all claim that we'd probably fit into another house better, but then there wouldn't be enough Gryffindor girls for our year. I suppose there must be something brave in us, or the sorting hat wouldn't have considered putting us in the house, but we haven't found it yet. Then again, we're not exactly looking for it, either. So far, we're all content with our studies, not necessarily in the school sense, because, with the exception of myself, the others don't care all that much about school work. Or at least they don't obsess about school work. One of the things I both hate and love about them.

The rest of my expectations have mostly been right on. I've studied and studied to catch up with all the students that grew up with magic. And I've come out on top. I was made Head Girl at the beginning of this year, much to my surprise and the delight of my friends. Of course, they just thought that they could get out of trouble with me being in a position of power. I don't think that idea lasted too long. They do get access to the prefect common room on occasion, though, since most of the prefects prefer their own common rooms to the shared prefect one. We have run into the Head Boy and his friends a few times, as they seemed to have the same idea as we did. But I'll get to him later.

The main surprise in my life, though, hasn't been getting noticed, or even learning that I've been a witch. As odd as it might seem, the biggest surprise was falling in love. The person I fell in love with made it even odder, but I never dreamed of falling in love while I was in school. I always thought that people weren't mature enough for love in their teens. All the talk about people finding their soul mates before facing the real world was some sort of ridiculous concept to me. I never really thought of myself being in love until I had established a career, maybe bought a house. I wasn't the type of girl that would imagine her wedding as a little girl, and dream to have it happen as soon as possible. And truly, I didn't have much interest in boys. Not that they've exactly been interested in me, and if they have, they do a mighty good job at hiding it. It has made things simpler, though. I don't have to worry about putting makeup on, or dressing in the latest styles. I could just be myself. I figure I'm not going to go out of my way to catch anyone's attention, and if it was 'meant to be,' it'll happen regardless of whether or not I try to make it.

Enough of my philosophy on love, though. The reason I'm here is to tell you my tale, my life from the moment I discovered my love, though I didn't know it at the time. No clichés, no elaborate plots, no fancy descriptions (well, maybe a few, but I'm a girl, what do you expect?). I'm going to tell it exactly as I see it, with hindsight, of course. It started about nine months ago, now…