TURN BACK TIME:

A Prologue

Part One:

Ready, Set, Bang!

Disclaimer: I think we ALL know that Harry Potter, his parents and every other thing and person in this world belong to J.K Rowling. (Though the characters have their own ideas about this.) We are not J.K Rowling. Understood? Please do not sue us; we swear we are making no money or anything of the sort from this. We just love the characters too much to stay away. Well, I do, anyway.

Summary: This is the prologue to "Turn Back Time", which will be up here shortly. Witness the first meeting of Lily Evans and James Potter, and watch as friendship turns to enmity over a prank gone wrong. Will they learn to forgive and forget or will they stay furious forever? Fate lies in their hands.

Authors' Note: This story is a collaborative effort between Wild Star and Dark Beginning. Wild Star wrote most of this chapter and it's up to Dark Beginning to get the next up. So please, bug her if there's a delay! :)

As we said in the summary, this is the prologue to the story "Turn Back Time", which will soon be up on fanfiction.net. This will provide you people with a little of the backstory for that, so you will understand exactly why Lily and James have the relationship they do. It can also be considered a story in its own right. Hope you like! What are you waiting for – start reading, already!

Lily Evans looked around her in amazement. So there really was a secret wizard railway here after all! She knew those people at Diagon Alley had said so, but still . . .

She stopped as her gaze fell on the big red train. Right, now I've got to get my trunk on that thing, she thought. Easier said than done. Her big iron trunk weighed a ton, and Lily, who was small for her age (actually, just plain SMALL) had no hope of lifting it.

After several futile attempts, she gave up and decided to ask someone for help. As she was wondering whom to ask, however, a distraction arrived in the form of someone tripping over her trunk and falling down.

"Oh, no, sorry, are you all right?" Lily exclaimed. The person - a boy with long, untidy black hair and twinkling black eyes - got up. "Of course," he said, grinning. "It'll take a lot more than a small trip to kill ME!"

"Well, I wasn't really worrying about you dying," Lily said, smiling. "I'm Lily Evans, by the way."

"Sirius Black. Hey, do you need any help with that thing?" he said, pointing at the trunk.

"Too right I do," she said. "It's a bit too heavy for me."

"Me and James'll have it on the train in no time. Ah, there he is. Just in time!" Lily looked up to see a boy with black hair even messier than Sirius's (if that was possible) and deep brown eyes walking up.

"Hey, James. This is Lily. Lily Evans, meet James Potter, my loyal sidekick."

"In your dreams," James said, laughing. "Hello, Lily. Nice to meet you!" He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"'Right Jamie, no more time for fun and games, we've gotta get Lily's trunk on the train," Sirius said. "Here James, you lift, I direct."

"No, I don't think so!" James retorted. "How 'bout, YOU lift, I direct?"

"Hey, I have an even better idea!" Lily said, trying not to laugh. "Let's do it this way - you BOTH lift, and I'LL direct you!"

"Oh, fine," James and Sirius said at the same time, pretending to be angry. Lily just laughed and got out of the way.

Five minutes later, Lily, James, Sirius and the trunk were all safely aboard the train. "See you later, Lily!" Sirius said. He looked like he was trying not to laugh. James added, "If you see a greasy-haired, slimy looking git anywhere looking for us, you haven't seen us, okay?"

"Sure," Lily said, looking at them suspiciously. She could see that her two new friends were definitely the Prankster type.

Sure enough, two minutes later, Lily heard agonizing screams coming from some way down the train.

"POTTER! BLACK! I'LL GET YOU BACK, YOU GRYFFINDOR SLIME!!!"

Then suddenly, the door to her compartment burst open revealing a skinny, hook-nosed boy who looked like his hair was literally made of dung (it smelt of it too).

After spotting her, he asked, "Have you seen Potter and Black? They are going to pay for this!"

Knowing that her guess had been correct, she stared up at the boy with wide, innocent eyes and said, "I'm afraid I really don't know who you're talking about."

He stomped out of the compartment, muttering angrily under his breath.

As he was walking out, Lily called out to him and said, "And you'd better wash your hair. It smells like you had a bath in dung!"

He just growled back at her and continued on.

Lily laughed to herself. She could see this term was not going to be uneventful.

Suddenly, James and Sirius came charging through the compartment's open door.

"Hey Lils!" Sirius exclaimed, grinning like a maniac. Both of them seemed to be in a very good mood.

"We heard what you said to Snape!" James said, bursting into laughter. "That was a good one, that! I have to remember it!"

"Oh, so he was called Snape, was he?" Lily enquired. "He didn't seem to like you two very much. I wonder why?"

"I don't know," said Sirius, very innocently. "Maybe he mixed us up with someone else? Not like we ever did anything to him, did we, James?"

"Right!" James chimed in. "We never turned his broomstick invisible-"

" - Or made his robes say 'I'm a slimy-headed idiot'-"

"-Or charmed his hat to keep falling off his head -"

"-Or turned his hair green-"

"-That was an improvement, if you ask me-"

"-And we definitely, didn't EVER throw any Dungbombs into his compartment on the train!"

"It was brilliant, wasn't it?" James said enthusiastically. "Especially when those two landed in his hair!"

They both started laughing again. Lily couldn't help but join in.

"So how come you hate him so much?" she asked curiously. "And what are Dungbombs?"

James and Sirius both looked very surprised. "You haven't ever heard of DUNGBOMBS?" James said in amazement. "I can't believe that!"

"Well..." Lily said. "I hadn't really heard of witches and wizards and magic till I got my Hogwarts letter. I didn't even know I was a witch! I mean, strange things always happened to me, but -"

"OH, I get it," Sirius said in relief. "Phew! I was afraid you were going to say you were one of those people who hates jokes and pranks! My neighbour's like that, it's lucky for me really!"

"How is it lucky for you if your neighbour hates tricks?" Lily asked, confused.

"Well, when she found dung all over her garden one day, she couldn't tell it was me 'cause she didn't know what Dungbombs were, 'cause she'd never been to a joke shop before in her life - hey, Lily, have you got any Muggle tricks then?" And Sirius finally ran out of breath and paused.

"'Muggle' tricks?" Lily questioned, frowning. She'd heard that word before, in Diagon Alley when she went to shop for her school things, but she didn't know what it meant. She hated it when that happened, because it made her feel like everyone knew all these wizard things except her. She hated feeling left out like that.

"A Muggle is a person without any magical blood in him – or her," James explained. "Sometimes wizards and witches are born in a Muggle family – like in your case."

"Oh, I see," Lily said. "I guess I've got a lot to learn about the Wizarding World."

"You'll learn fast," Sirius reassured her. "Do you know anything about the Houses yet?"

"No . . ." Lily admitted. "What are they?"

"Everyone in Hogwarts is divided into four different houses," Sirius told her. "Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. They're named after the founders of the school. We want to be in Gryffindor; it's far and away the best. Ravenclaw is okay, but Hufflepuff are duffers. Slytherin's the worst, there isn't a single dark witch or wizard in the last hundred years that hasn't been in Slytherin." He lowered his voice. "They say that You-Know-Who was one."

Actually, Lily didn't know who he meant, but before she had a chance to ask, the compartment door opened and a witch with a trolley of food came in. She forgot her question as she, Sirius and James spent the next half hour consuming the sweets they'd bought.

They had been sitting there a while, when suddenly James said, "I'm going to see what Snape's up to. I've got a bad feeling about this, there's no way he's going to let that go sitting down."

"I'd better come too," Sirius said. He glanced at Lily, who was about to say she would come, and said, "Lily, it might be best if you stay here. Then he won't know to watch out for you too – that is, if you're going to join us on our prank runs?" Both he and James gave her their best puppy-dog looks, and Lily laughed. "There's really no need to convince me," she said. "You're looking at the person who won the Marauder Award of my school three times in a row."

Sirius and James looked at her with new respect.

"Brilliant!" James said. "Hang on – Marauder Award . . . that gives me an idea . . ." His face looked thoughtful suddenly, then he grinned. "Come on, Sirius. I'll tell you two when we get to school." He went out the door, and Sirius followed him. Lily could hear him trying to convince James to tell him his idea, but James kept saying, "Wait and see."

They hadn't been gone for more than two minutes when the compartment door opened again. Lily looked up, expecting to see Sirius and James, or maybe even Snape. Instead, it was a short, (but still taller than Lily) slightly thin boy. He had sandy brown hair and deep brown eyes, and looked tired and rather ill.

"Hi," he said, shyly, when he saw Lily. "I'm Remus Lupin. Do you mind if I sit here? The people in my compartment are acting really strange."

"Sure," Lily said. Before she could ask him what meant, and even before he'd even had a chance to sit down, the door opened again. This time two girls came in.

"Hi!" The taller one said cheerfully, grinning at Lily and Remus. "I'm Arabella Figg, and this is my cousin, Samantha Prewett." The other girl gave Lily and Remus a small smile. "Is there space for us here?" Arabella asked. "We had a small ... disagreement ... with the people in our compartment."

Samantha laughed a little at this. "Only you would call it 'small'," she said. Looking at her, Lily thought that she would not have known the two were related if Arabella hadn't told her. They looked extremely different - Arabella was tall for her age, with short, light brown hair, bright blue eyes and a ready smile. Samantha, on the other hand, was short, with dark hair, dark eyes and pale skin. Lily saw that she seemed rather upset, probably because of the fight Arabella had mentioned.

Arabella pasted an innocent look onto her face, and ignored her cousin's comment. "So, what're your names?" she asked, looking at Lily and Remus. Samantha looked annoyed at this, but managed a tight smile and looked at them neutrally.

"I'm Lily Evans," Lily replied, smiling back at them.

"And I'm Remus Lupin."

Remus, Samantha and Arabella sat down, and they all started talking. At least, Lily and Arabella talked, with Remus and Samantha saying something from time to time. Even though they'd only met a minute ago, Lily knew somehow that they would all be good friends.

When the compartment door opened for the fifth time since Lily had arrived, everyone looked up. It was James and Sirius, and they crashed into the compartment noisily. Only this time, James' messy black hair was a shocking shade of pink, and Sirius' nose looked more like a carrot. As everyone burst out laughing, they bowed, grinning widely.

"Anyone good at Charms here?" Sirius enquired. "I don't suppose you know how to get this off?" He tapped at his carrot-nose. "I mean, look at this! I can't even talk to my rabbit, he might be hungry and have my nose for a snack."

"Sirius, you don't have a rabbit," James said, running his hand through his pink hair.

"Oh, right," Sirius shrugged. "Does that mean my nose has to stay like that?"

"Yes!"

"I'm sure there's someone at Hogwarts who'll be able to get it off," Arabella said, smiling. "Who did this?"

James and Sirius exchanged glances, and said together, "Nobody."

Lily couldn't help laughing. "So you found out what Snape was planning?"

Sirius grinned at her. "He made a big mistake. Now we know two of the curses he knows. We just have to find out the counter-curses now!" He turned and looked at James. "I can turn your hair back to green," he said helpfully.

"Erm, my hair's black, not green," James said, tugging at a strand of his hot pink hair. "You know, I think this colour glows in the dark. I've always wanted hair that glowed in the dark."

Everyone looked at him strangely, and he said innocently, "What?"

Before they could go into the mysteries of James' mind, though, the train stopped.

They had arrived at Hogwarts.

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