I've been watching Lily Evans from afar for a year and a half. I've watched her laugh and chat with Marlene McKinnon, the new me, apparently, and collapse into giggling fits with Mary MacDonald. She's grown her hair out. When I first met her, she had long hair, but cut it short just before we left for Hogwarts. I think she reckoned that it made her seem more mature. That was always a big thing with Lily, maturity. Sure, she was an emotional person, and unafraid to scream and cry and make a scene, but she was always convinced that she saw things from a different perspective than the rest of us, that she was an inherently reasonable person. I never corrected her. I valued maturity as well, and she was, in her own odd way. Throughout the five years after, she kept her hair at varying lengths of short. But in the past year or so, it's suddenly at waist length. Maybe she doesn't care all that much about being mature anymore, or maybe she matured from her obsession with maturity.
There was a time, at the end of fifth year and beginning of sixth, when her friends were constantly with her. You couldn't find her without her awful, smirking, red-clad friends. If she had just been sorted into Slytherin all those years ago! We would never have been in this was always Lily and Marlene McKinnon, or Mary MacDonald, or Jenna Lewis, or Callie Aren. Sometimes she branched out and could be seen with her friends in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, people like Dorcas Meadowes or Benjy Fenwick. She spent her time, mainly with the Gryffindor girls, but also with a wide variety of students, both boys and girls, in our year and the years around us, from all houses. Every house but Slytherin. The one thing that brought me relief was that it was never with a Gryffindor boy from our year, except for occasionally Remus Lupin, the filthy halfbreed, unless they were in a group. She never spent time with any of them individually. While she was a bit too friendly with the Marauders for my liking, her and the girls meeting up with them in Hogsmeade, sneaking to the kitchens, she didn't seem to want their company one-on-one.
Of course, this all changed in mid December of our sixth year, when I saw her laughing and heading down to the Great Hall for breakfast with Peter Pettigrew. I felt bile in my throat when I saw it, and I tried to convince myself that it wasn't that bad. It could be worse. After all, Pettigrew was nothing more than a lackey for Potter and Black. He didn't incite anything himself. It was okay, I told myself. It's not like they're close. But I noticed that she was spending more and more time with the Marauders.
And then, on patrol one day in January, I heard voices and went off to investigate. As I almost turned the corner, I heard Lily's silvery laughter floating through the corridors. I froze.
"Nox" I muttered, and then slipped behind a tapestry, moving towards her. The corridor was getting a bit more well lit, and I wasn't sure if there was a candle somewhere in the distance, or it was just my eyes adjusting. I saw her outline, along with two others. They were talking about something, I'm not quite sure what, when Lily laughed and said,
"You can't be serious"
"Course I'm not" the unmistakable voice of James Potter defiled my ears, "He is" So here Lily was, choosing, willingly deciding to spend time with Potter and Black. Lily stared at them, looking simultaneously as if she was regretting all her life's decisions and trying to decide between hitting him and hitting herself. Then, she grabbed a flask from Black and took a swig of it, not breaking her resentful eye contact with either of them. Then she slowly brought the flask down, staring at where I was. Both Black and Potter whirled around, all three of them raising their wands. Panicking, I turned and ran.
"Petrificus Totalus!" I heard Lily shout, and all of a sudden I was on the ground. The three of them ran over, and saw it was me.
"Finite Incantanem" Black muttered. They both raised their wands, but lowered them at a warning look from Lily.
"Get out of here, Snape" Potter told me. I scrambled to my feet.
"I am a prefect!" I spluttered, "And I am on patrol. I'm the one who's supposed to be here. You cannot force me to leave. You all have detention!"
"Levicorpus!" Black cried. "Sorry Lily," He muttered. "He's just too much of a git to resist" I was filled with rage at the use of my own spell on me, and pulled out my wand to curse Black. I got halfway through the incantation when,
"Expelliarmus!" It was Lily, saving Blacks arse.
"Liberacorpus" Potter said, and the three of them left.
Of all the filthy Marauders, she and Potter seemed to be the closest. She was close with all of them, her and the half-breed just as close as they ever were, her and Black ganging up on Potter to play the most ridiculous pranks on him, coming to each other's aid when they needed it, before even McKinnon or the other Marauders got wind of the trouble. She and Pettigrew had a perfectly polished handshake to rival Potter and Black's own. But it was Potter, of all the Marauders it had to be Potter, with whom she spent almost as much time as she did with Marlene.