A/N: Ok HP and all the stuff you recognise from the books aren't mine. I don't own them and I make no claim to them what so ever.

CHAPTER ONE

Revenge and Reflections

She relaxed back into the cushioning comfort of the sofa and laid her hands over her swollen stomach. She could feel him moving again, him or her, Lily wasn't sure of the sex of her yet unborn child. As she closed her eyes she was flooded with feelings of hope and contentment as well as ones of fear and regret. Hope for the future of the life growing inside her as well of regret for the type of world her baby seemed sure to grow up in. Contentment for all the good things in her life such as James, Remus and Sirius and fear for the dangers that she knew these, the three most important men in her life, were facing on a daily basis.

'If only we could all go back to when we were at school.' Lily reminisced. 'Life was so much simpler then. No worries other than O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts and no fears for what lay ahead. Yes life had been much simpler at Hogwarts.'

Lily closed her eyes and thought back to her school days. A soft smile spread over her primrose lips and she allowed herself to become lost in waking dreams of her life five year before hand.

"Make way, coming through!"

A dark haired boy streaked past Lily in a flash of ebony robes trimmed with red and gold.

"Watch out. Move!"

A second adolescent ran past his dark, greasy hair falling across his face as he pursued the first.

"Impedimenta!" screamed the second boy and a flash of white light shot from his wand and hit his quarry in the middle of the back brining him to an abrupt halt, in the middle of almost deserted corridor.

Lily hid and watched as Severus Snape skidded to a stop and rounded on James Potter fuming. "You are dead Potter you filthy little blood-traitor. You have tormented me for the last time."

Lily had no idea what James Potter could have done to infuriate the Slytherin prefect to such a degree, but she was not surprised. Snape and Potter were always at each other and traded hexes on a regular basis.

In fact if it hadn't been for the fact the she, Lily, loathed Snape for both his cruel nature and obsession with the Dark Arts, she would have almost considered him an ally, for she could think of no-one who regarded Potter with such distain as Snape did unless it was herself.

Lily watched with interest as Snape raised his wand and pointed it squarely between Potters eyes.

"Cru..." Snape had barely opened his mouth when he fell to the floor.

Lily would have been puzzled by this if she had not heard a deep voice from the shadows opposite where she was hiding muttering an incantation.

"Stupify" Sirius Black lazily stunned Snape before unfreezing James.

"My god Padfoot I thought you were going to just stand there and let him torture me!" James gasped shaking his arms and legs to relieve the stiffness, a residual effect of Snape's Impediment jinx.

"No fear Prongsie. I wouldn't have let the little slime ball touch you."

"Did it work?" James enquired "Did you have time to pull it off?"

That was enough for Lily, she stepped out from behind her concealing statue and confronted the two Gryffindor seventh years.

"What did you two just do?" she demanded.

"Shit Evans, where did you come from?" gasped Sirius

"Never you mind Black, but I saw the whole thing and heard what you were just saying and I'll ask you again, what have you two been up to?"

James adopting his usual charming smile, answered in a confidant voice. "Nothing Evans, just paying back Snivilus for what he did to Moony earlier."

"And that was" snapped Lily. She quite liked Remus Lupin but she didn't agree with students taking revenge on each other, especially the type of revenge that Potter and Black usually dished out.

"Well," began Sirius in a smooth tone, "Snivilus here decided that it would be a laugh to place a Hurling hex on Moony's broom."

"So Remus lost control fifty feet up and if it hadn't been for some sharp flying from Sirius here" James chimed in. "You'd be a Head Girl short one seventh year prefect to support you."

"Exactly" said Sirius

"Yeah. By the way Pads that was some excellent flying out there."

"Thank-you James"

"And why did you not report Snape's actions to his head of house or Professor McGonagall?" demanded Lily in a huffy tone she could already see where this was going.

"Because McGonagall's in Hogsmeade picking up stuff for the Halloween Feast and Snape's head Professor Gardener would never believe us, and even if he did he wouldn't care." Retorted Sirius in disgust.

Sirius thought that Lily was much too fond of rules despite the fact that he thought she was pretty hot.

"Well that is still no excuse for whatever you've done. Ten points from Gryffindor each." She turned on her heel and walked away.

"No fair" screamed Sirius at her retreating back. "You're punishing your own house and you don't even know what we did."

"No, I'm punishing you two and I don't care what you did, I'm sure it was perfectly horrible." Lily said as she again turned to face them.

"Now un-stun Snape and get back the common room before I put you both on detention for breaking curfew." Lily turned and stalked off her curtain of deep red hair swaying as she left.

"She must be the world biggest bitch!" Spat Sirius as he watched Lily Evans walk away.

"Nah, she plays by the rules. All the time, no matter what." Sighed James "So should we un-stun him?" he asked gesturing at Snape.

"No it'll wear off in a few hour leave him. Serves him right any way, he could have killed Moony, stupid git." With that James and Sirius turned and walked back to the Gryffindor common room.

"Will they never grow up!" Lily sat in the Gryffindor common room still fuming over her run in with the Marauders two most prolific practical jokers.

"Lils what do you expect? Firstly they're boys, second they're Marauders and third they're James and Sirius. They've never taken anything seriously in their lives. They have the biggest egos in the school and they think they're invincible." Lily slowly relaxed and nodded agreeingly with the opinion of her oldest and closest friend Rosemary Baskins.

Rose was a petite, blonde pure blood witch and had almost as little time for James and Sirius as Lily did.

"I mean if you think they're bad now you should have seen the stunts they pulled before Hogwarts. I remember them feeding Gillyweed to my cat when I was seven. Tilly was stuck swimming around the pool for over an hour. She couldn't come out on account of the gills. And then there was the time they stole James's dad's wand and turned my hair orange."

"Ok I get the picture." Lily said a smile on her face. The idea of Rose with orange hair was rather amusing to Lily. "But I mean they're seventeen when are they going to start acting like adults?"

"Probably never. Hey don't sweat it Lils their not worth it, believe me."

"Yeah I know. Anyway we've still got that Transfiguration essay to do for McGonagall, let's get to it."

Lily and Rose opened their books and settled down to their homework oblivious to the hushed voices of the boy seated across the room.

"Keep it down Padfood if Evans cracks it with us again we'll be scrubbing bed pans in the Hospital Wing for a month"

Unlike every other student and most of the teachers James found Lily to be more than a little intimidating. Part of it was the fact that she had even more brains than he did when it came to school work the other reason was the fact that James was more than a little smitten with the auburn haired beauty.

"Yeah whatever. I just don't know what you see in her Prongs?" complained Sirius "Sure she's smart and got a killer body, but man that tongue of hers could strip paint off walls and the temper behind it. God. I recon you should just forget her James and go out with one of the hundreds of girls who are practically throwing themselves at you."

"What and end up like you Padsy? How many girls have you been with? Thirty? Forty? Or are their some even I don't know about?"

"He's right you know Sirius. You have got a bit of a reputation over the years. 'Love 'em and Leave 'em' Black I heard one of the girls call you the other day." Piped up Remus.

"Yeah but their's no shortage of takers for my brief but passionate affections is their Moony."

Remus Lupin fixed his dark eyed gaze on James. He was at it again. Every now and then the Marauders lost James as he drifted off into the place in his head he so obviously went when he was staring at Lily.

Remus considered James's track record where Lily was concerned. James had noticed Lily the moment she stepped onto platform 9 ¾ , so had Remus. It was hard not to even at the age of eleven Lily was stunning, her hair sat bobbed on her shoulders and formed a brilliant red-gold halo around her heart shaped face. She was looking around nervously and accompanied by two worried looking parents who seemed to find all the noise, steam and people a little off putting.

'I'll bet you two sickles she's Muggle born" said Sirius once he saw what his friends were looking at.

"She's beautiful" breathed James.

"Yeah not bad" said Remus "Why don't you go and talk to her." James had set off and that had been where it had all gone wrong.

Lily watched nervously as a bespectacled urchin with messy black hair approached her.

"Hey ya, I'm James Potter, I'm going into first year. You're Muggle born right?"

"I'm what?" queried Lily

"Muggle born your parents are muggles, can't do magic."

"Um yeah."

"Gee that must suck, having parents who are useless muggles." And that was James's first big mistake. Lily was very proud and protective of her family with the exception of the older sister Petunia who she hated.

Lily stared at this James Potter boy with disgust and disbelief. 'What right did he have criticising her parents he didn't even know her name let alone anything about her or her parents. Lily scowled and let loos with what her parents always referred to as her secret weapon, her temper.

"How dare you?! You don't know a damn thing about me or my parents. I have never met anyone so rude, arrogant and conceited in my whole life."

James jumped back at the violence of the reaction he'd received. 'What was this girl's problem?' He'd only be expressing how much of a downer it must have been to have parents who couldn't just whip up dinner, clean the house or mend a grazed knee with a flick of their wands. 'This girl is mental' James decided and turned to head back to his friends.

As he approached Remus and Sirius again he realised that he had never even found out the girls name.

'Those first few moments had set the tone for James and Lily's relationship from that day till now.' Thought Lupin, James was deeply infatuated with Lily and Lily couldn't stand James. 'And that's the way it'll forever stay' he mused.

If only Remus had foreseen the events to shortly follow he would have been grinning rather than frowning.