I looked at the clock in the front of the car. It was 10:45. 10:45! I was going to be late. Me, Lily Evans, newly appointed Head Girl of Hogwarts and resident slob of the Evans household, was going to miss the train to school. I would have to suffer the painful humiliation of arriving by… I don't even know how I would get to Hogwarts if I missed the train. Or worse, what would happen once I did arrive. Detention for a month, probably. Beheading. Expulsion. They'd take away my Head Girl badge, at the very least. Merlin, how was I going to survive a whole year of being Head Girl if I couldn't even catch one train?
"Hurry up! Hurry, hurry, hurry or I'm going to be late!" I squealed at my parents as we cruised down the street.
"We're almost there, Lily, don't worry." my dad said soothingly, obviously trying to prevent an outbreak and possibly murder. Not that I got angry at little things. At all.
"Go faster!"
My mum sighed from behind the wheel. "It's a red light, Lily. We can't."
I huffed and pouted. I hated it when she used logic.
Several excruciating minutes later we arrived at Kings Cross. Dad helped me load my trunk and owl onto a trolley and we speeded toward the platform. I didn't even bother to check if any Muggles were watching as I plummeted into the brick wall that was Platform 9 ¾. The big clock on the platform read 10:58 and the Hogwarts Express was still in the station. I breathed a sigh of relief and slumped against the wall.
"No time for that now, you have to put your trunk in the compartment!" Mum fretted, from whom I had apparently inherited my stress gene from. I said hasty but heartfelt goodbyes as I lugged my trunk toward the train and started the painful process of louvring it up. Damn all those 7th Year books we had to buy. Damn how bloody heavy our uniform is. Damn everything.
"LILYYYYY!" I heard a familiar voice yell from across the platform, slowly getting closer. "LILY! ITS ME!" I felt something slam into me with the force of a 10 tonne lorry.
"Yes, I know, I know, Emmeline." I wheezed from the midst of the bone-crushing hug my best friend had enveloped me in. "Good to see you too. But I still have a trunk, and owl and myself to get on this bloody train before it leaves in a minute."
With Emmeline's help, I managed to get my trunk on the train. Hightailing it down the corridor, I slammed the door open to the Heads compartment, right down the front of the train and threw myself in just as the train pulled out of the station. Luckily I managed to get myself inside before the force of movement threw me right back to the end of the train. My owl, Strix, complained loudly at the indignity of it all, but I was too busy focusing on breathing techniques and attempting to revive the carroty mess that was my hair to take much notice.
"Alright there, Evans?" I heard a voice say, every syllable lathered with smirky arrogance. Slowly and full of dread, I raised my gaze to observe the face of my impending doom. The human incarnation of Satan himself. The living form of torture that had been sent from the heavens to taunt me. Evil in its true nature, wearing loose jeans and a blue shirt and grinning at me with such casual confidence it made me want to hurl myself out the window. Here he was, in the Head compartment, with his trunk placed neatly in the overhead compartment and his owl sleeping quietly on the seat. This could not be happening. It was impossible. Dumbledore would never subject me to something like this. Yet here he was, badge leering at me as he brandished it in my face as proof.
James Potter was Head Boy.
I hadn't even considered, not even for a moment, the possibility of James Potter being Head Boy. I had always thought it would go to Remus, or Jonah Peggs, a Ravenclaw I had had a crush on for all of 5th Year. Never, in the most remote corners of my mind, had I considered that Dumbledore would have the absence of mind to place Hogwart's fate on the shoulders of the most immature, inappropriate, annoying, underdeveloped, deviant, degenerate moose to ever grace the universe. What in the name of Merlin's left butt cheek was he thinking?
I must have been standing there like a gaping fish for quite a while, because Potter's egotistical smile had begun to slip awkwardly.
"I-you-Dumbl-wouldn't- You're HEAD BOY?" I stuttered, my brain still in a state of shock and clearly not fit for the task of developing sentences.
"Don't look so shocked about it," he said, the smirk creeping slowly back up his face. "Just think of all the quality time we'll get to spend together."
My breathing grew heavier as my shock made way for anger. How on Earth did James Potter get Head Boy? With a whole grade of worthy applicants, how did Potter win? I would have preferred the most despicable Slytherin every day of the week over him. For crying out loud, I would have preferred a turnip over him. Dumbledore must be going senile in his old age. That's the only explanation. Merlin, the year hadn't even begun and it had already gone wrong!
I stormed outside and made my way to the second last compartment on the left, the same one me and Emmeline had been using since Second Year. She and my other friends, Hestia Macardell and Marlene McKinnon were occupying three of the seats. I slumped into the nearest seat and tried to calm my breathing down.
"Lily? How'd it go?" Emmeline pressed. "More importantly, who is Head Boy?"
I let out a loud and intense dying whale noise as I slid further and further down my seat. Emmeline and the rest of the Gryffindor Seventh Years attempted to look worried, but I could tell they were fighting back the giggles.
"It's him." I mumbled.
I expected shocked gasps. Murmurs of sympathy as they attempted to hug the pain away. Maybe even a few tears. Not a confused "What?" as they looked at each other and shrugged with that she's crazy look.
"It's James Potter. He's Head Boy!" I cried dramatically, ensuring no room for confusion. Now they would understand. Now they would sympathise. Merlin knows I needed it.
What I did not need was this: my best friends, rolling on the floor or doubled up laughing their butts off as I grieved. Those bloody annoying, narcissistic, self-obsessed pricks!
"You-Pott-Head Boy!" Emmeline crowed in between guffaws. I frowned at her. Best friends were supposed to be kind and supportive in times of need, not laugh at you!
"That's it." I grumbled. "I'd rather spend time with Potter than you lame excuses for dorm mates."
Potter was still sitting in the compartment when I returned. He looked up when I approached. Automatically, his hand gravitated to his hair and he plastered on an easy smile.
"Miss me already, Evans?"
"You wish," I grumbled, wishing for a better comeback. "We have a lot to do. Let's get started."
James was actually surprisingly focused as we set out to write a speech for our first Prefects meeting and organise the patrol roster.
"Do you think I could get everyone to call me 'Captain'?" James asked me as we planned our introduction speech.
I pretended to consider it. "No. Although you might have more luck with 'dickhead'." James puckered his lower lip in an attempt to look sad. "In fact, you probably won't even have to ask them." I continued.
James clutched his chest dramatically. "You wound me." I rolled my eyes and threw a wad of scrunched up paper at him, which backfired as I had not taken into account his abnormally fast Quidditch reflexes. He caught the wad and threw it straight back at me, which unfortunately worked perfectly as it hit me square in the face. I ignored his crow of laughter and went back to the list of things that we needed to tell the Prefects at the meeting.
WHAT TO TELL PREFECTS AT MEETING
1. Introduce selves
2. Present patrol roster. Adjust if necessary
3. Go over rules
4. Explain situations in which it is or is not appropriate to assign detentions.
5. Exemplify the many ways in which one James Potter is an insufferable twit
James peered over my shoulder. "Hey!" he exclaimed, snatching my quill and adding his own ideas to the list, which may or may not have included my being intolerable snot. I snatched the parchment back, and kept trying to write. James, being the git that he is, had pulled out his wand in the meantime and had begun magically changing everything I was trying to write into Lily Evans is a prat. I groaned and tried to grab James' wand from his hand, which was not as successful as I had hoped considering that James was a Quidditch player with Quidditch reflexes, toned muscles and was about a foot taller than me to boot. Regardless, I was determined. I jumped on top of him, reaching out to grab it… I was almost there... Damn Potter and his long arms…
The compartment door swung open, and an overly enthusiastic Sirius Black bounded in yelling "Prongsie!" at the top of his lungs. He stopped in his tracks when he noticed the… unusual position James and I were currently tangled in. James was lying almost flat on the seats, and I was sprawled on top of him, sitting on his stomach with a leg either side of his waist, reaching over his head for the wand which he held out above his head.
James peered around at Sirius, which required quite a bit of neck twisting considering my boob was hanging right in front of his face, and he had to manoeuvre around it without planting his face into my boobs.
"Padfoot!" he exclaimed. (I'd never understood the nicknames the four Marauders gave each other. Prongs… what exactly was his prong? And where? I could think of nowhere that Sirius or his friends had any right to know about. And Padfoot. Why were they thinking about the bottom of Sirius' feet? Why was it so nickname worthy? And Moony and Wormtail. I don't understand)
Sirius' smile had widened mischievously. "I can come back another time. Wouldn't want to interrupt anything." He said, backing out of the compartment.
I flushed scarlet and pushed myself as far away from James as I could. "It's not like that!" I said hotly. "I was just trying to grab his wand!" I winced. That sounded bad. From the smirk on Sirius' face, he noticed it too. "I mean he was trying to…" I gave up. "It's not what you think." I finished lamely.
The other two Marauders arrived just then.
"Everything all right here?" Remus inquired, poking his head through the compartment door.
"Just spiffing" Sirius beamed, looking decidedly chirpier than he had a minute ago. "Evans here was just trying to grab James' wand."
Remus looked amused. "Already? You two are getting along better than I thought."
A/N: Okay, this is my first story and all, so PLEASE REVIEW.
Shoutout to nymeria-and-ghost for being a fabulous person and giving me much needed criticism on my choices of names.
Thank you and enjoy!
