DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters of the honourable J.K Rowling
The Truth
THE DIARY OF LILY EVANS
Tuesday 1st of August
This is the beginning of the Diary of Lily Evans. I don't know what on earth possessed me to start a diary, and I doubt I ever will. I can't be held accountable for anything written after this point, and even as I am sure no one will ever get their hands on it, should this unfortunate event occur, rest assured I will state the truth and nothing but the truth (as the truth seems to me anyhow). Any person/place/thing cast in a bad light – it is your own doing.
And now, as I am one of those obsessive people who feel that they might one day forget their own identity if they don't record it in their secret diary, my name is Lily Rose Evans and I am seventeen years old. My father is called Peter and my mother is called Angelica. My despised sister is called Petunia, and our ginger cat is called Ginger. I go to Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (the fact that fuels the despised sister's eternal wrath), and I am Head Girl in my last year there. Now that I have told you all the things that are quite boring, I shall document my day so far.
It is the second day of school for the year (I should have liked to start the diary on the first day of school because what if I should want to look back on the first day of my seventh year in years to come and find no evidence of it? I almost convinced myself not to start the diary at all) and already I am wishing it were holidays and I was back with the despised sister writing invitations for her upcoming wedding. It is nine o'clock at night and I am sitting in my four poster scratching away by candle light. I just hope I don't wake the other girls. This is not because I am kind and considerate (although I am), but because there is no worse punishment than listening to the woes of Theresa Grey (the girl in the next bed) after six o'clock on any given day. But I am veering off the documenting of my day. It began at seven thirty when I woke up, and went down to breakfast. All the congratulations of my peers on becoming Head Girl were lost on me, as I was still seething from the revelation of the day before. That disturbing discovery being the appointment of James Potter to the position of Head Boy. Now you, innocent Diary, will not see the sheer horror of this piece of information. Your face will not blanche at the enormity of it, you won't have ground shattering visions of a future in which the school life as you know it is plunged into darkness – or more likely – madness and mayhem. No, you won't look incredulously into the benign face of Headmaster Dumbledore and fear for his sanity.
You see, we have a history, James Potter and I. For most of our school life we have been – at odds. To put it mildly. Or perhaps James Potter and the entire school have been at odds. And although this information would be nothing new to most people, I will relate it to you, dear Diary, so that I might laugh over it later on.
James Potter and his little gang, or Sirius Black and his little gang, whichever way you like to put it, have dedicated most of their Hogwart's careers to causing as much trouble as possible. Without getting expelled, of course. Sirius Black and James Potter have always been best friends, and their other two cohorts, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin, are very close with them too. They to this day call themselves the 'Marauders', an utterly ridiculous title if you ask me. But the thing that I have always found peculiar is the way everyone loves them for their pranking ways. For example, last year, Sirius Black could tip raw frog entrails all over one of his female classmates, and the next day she'd be mooning over him – conveniently forgetting that he doesn't care a toss about her and spent the previous day having a good laugh at her expense. The only sensible reason is Black's astounding and ill-deserved good looks, and Potter's unquestionable skill on the quiddich pitch (A magical sport – should someone read this in a thousand years time when the game is dead and gone) and now, of course, his promotion to head boy (when he's never even been a prefect before). It just shows how disgustingly shallow everyone is. Why, I must be one of the only seventh year Gryffindors who doesn't hero worship the pair of them, boys and girls included. Although, to be fair, the 'Marauders' haven't been nearly so obnoxious lately, and Potter hasn't been randomly cursing people for a laugh since the middle of last year. But still, it could be the lull before the storm. Just because Potter appears to have become less arrogant doesn't mean he has. I feel absolutely sure that the so called congratulatory smile he gave me this morning was more of a triumphant smirk, as if to say 'ha¸ beat you again Evans'. I realise I have used more italics than is proper, but I am trying to emphasise a point. Oh dear, I seem to have gone on for a whole paragraph about James Potter. I'm starting to make myself sick. Damn that boy! Here I am trying to record my day and all I can do is fume about him. Oh well, there is always tomorrow – or the next day. Argh! What is the point of a diary if you don't write regularly? I know I won't, however good and obsessive my intentions are.
Anyway, today was the first day of classes, obviously, and we Gryffindors were lucky enough to have a double potions class. I cannot stress to you how much I regret taking potions. I must have been off my head, or on drugs or something. If I had another chance, nothing would induce me to take potions again. But at the end of fifth year I had some fool idea of being an auror (dark wizard hunter in case you were wondering), and to do that you need to get a good NEWT in potions. The day had been going fairly well, apart from the Potter encounter, but the look of malignant delight on the face of Professor Lalli, our potions teacher was enough to put anyone off their day. Alright, so it may not have been malignant delight, but it was certainly delight. Actually, Professor Lalli is a disturbingly OK person for someone who spends their time experimenting with horrendous ingredients alone in a dismal dungeon. She enjoys it. She takes delight in teaching it to us, and if someone does it wrong she brightly says,
"Oh, that's alright! You just try that again!" and no matter how many hours it takes, that unfortunate soul will get their potion right. And yes, I am being cynical, but if I can't say it to my diary, who can I say it to? Professor Lalli does have her upsides, off course. She is about the only teacher who did not go into a serious tirade about how it is our NEWT year and we should be studying hard from the first. As if we didn't know it already. The same teachers made the same speeches last year to remind us that it was the start of our NEWT years and that we should be studying hard from the first. But not Miss Lalli. She went on business as usual, launching straight into the complicated but ultimately fulfilling experience of making a potion that will turn Salamanders purple. And the whole class did it without complaint. Even Sirius Black does not argue with Professor Lalli, for there is simply no point. Smart comments wash over her like water off a duck's back, and intimidation techniques would work better on drifting sea jelly. So really, the teacher is not the reason I hate potions. The reason I hate potions is because I am getting my marks by the skin of my teeth and I have an attitude problem when it comes to bubbling cauldrons of sliming gunk.
So after our super duper first lesson we had Defence Against the Dark Arts, which ordinarily is a really good class – when we have Professor Dupinkay teaching it that is. Apparently Dupinkay is off visiting his daughter in Switzerland and will be back as soon as possible, and in the meantime we get to sit round and listen to Mrs Substitute (that's not her real name, but I feal I cannot even bear to write it down) dictate what seems to be our entire text book non-stop.
At lunch, to cap the day of as one of the most depressing second days of school ever, Egbert Crilmer, or 'Eggy' as he is known to most people, all but forced me to enrol in what he likes to call his "Our Little Charmers Club". Seems to think I would be an 'asset to any organisation' and that it would be a 'perfect tragedy' if I didn't put all my exceptional charming skills into benefiting my peers. Sirius Black didn't fail to point out that every current member of the OLCC is male and that he was sure my charms would not go unnoticed.
Perhaps I can throw myself from the top story of Gryffindor tower. Or better yet, perhaps I can throw Eggy from the top story of Gryffindor tower.
Yours Sincerely
Lily Evans
Tuesday 8th of August
Dearest Diary,
It is a week since my first entry. I really am pathetic. But then, I have been busy, what with Eggy's damned OLCC meetings. If you thought the first day of seventh year was bad, you'd better stop reading now for fear of cardiac arrest. In the first week we were piled with such a massive amount of homework that the sheer wait of it caused actual physical pain. Each and every teacher ranted for a full half-hour about how we have to pull our socks up and study – this is the rest of our lives we're ruining – and then they have the gall to tell that since we have 'squandered class time' we shall have to make up for it with extra homework. I ask you. I know that this might not sound like the kind of thoughts your typical head girl would have, but I'm telling you, Head Girls everywhere must have some kind of anger release system like this to deal with these kind of conditions – how else would we be able to behave all meek and responsible?
But homework and merciless teaching staff are not all I have to cope with in my everyday life. The small mindedness and sometimes downright stupidity of my fellow students is becoming exceedingly hard to bear. For example, one of the girls in my dormitory, Lina Matherson, who has been 'going out' (although the only place you can go is Hogsmeade, and you do that every other week with your friends, but anyway…) with Sirius Black for the past week, suddenly realised what a worthless slime he is at half past eleven last night and began bawling her eyes out. One would have thought she might have got the picture when Black snogged Rebecca Seymour in full view of the whole common room last Friday. He told Lina he was on a dare but it was obvious to even the partially sane (me, namely) that he was lying through his teeth. So late last night, for no immediate reason Lina Matherson had a momentous revelation, or perhaps even a paradigm shift, and she yelled into the night,
"Sirius Black is a ****ing b*****d and I HATE him!"
Not all that awe inspiring perhaps, but accurate none the less. Today Lina managed to give Black the cold shoulder all day. Quite an achievement for most girls (a slight exaggeration, but still the truth).
Anyway, back to me. My Head Girl duties, while not all that taxing, do require me to spend a less than desirable amount of time with James Potter. Though he hasn't said anything atrocious to me yet, I know he must have something up his sleeve. Even though I wish it not, I do know James Potter, and I just know he hasn't given up the 'fight for my love' as he referred to it at the beginning of our sixth year.
For of course you do not know it, my dear diary, but Potter has long possessed and unseemly infatuation with me. From fourth year onward he found it his civic duty to tease me to death or convince me to be his girlfriend. By turns. His techniques were so excruciating that my feelings for him were verging on hate there for a while. But, touch wood, he hasn't asked me out once this year, and we have barely exchanged more than a few polite civilities, and our Headship duties together are filled with blessed silences. I almost feel empty, you know. But that's just stupid. He'll surely be back to normal before long and I'll be wishing him a thousand miles away.
I appear to be dedicating more and more diary space to James Potter. But maybe this is not so strange, I mean, he has been a big (however unpleasant) part of my life, and what is a diary if it is not somewhere to record what life is like. Maybe I should include something about my true friends. Not that I have all that many. I mean, I liked well enough, but I'm not on hugging/kissing/pouring my heart out terms with many of my classmates. In fact, call me a man, but while I find these activities rather embarrassing, Lina Matherson in particular seems to get an undeniable pleasure from them. My two closest friends would have to be Celine Varaten and Victoria Ellis-Chan.
As I am sitting in a corner of the common room by myself and it is midnight, I have the peace and quiet to give you a detailed description of my two greatest friends. (I really must get out of the habit of staying up late. I have transfiguration first thing tomorrow and must be on my toes). What can I tell a diary about Celine Varaten?
Well, she's slightly taller than me and I call her Queen Celine, mostly because it rhymes and partly because she at times reminds me of some great monarch regally giving out orders to her loyal subjects (Victoria and I, predominantly). We've been friends since our first year, Celine and I, and I can safely and un-sappily say that we'll be friends for ever. Of course, due to her overly confident, queen-like nature and my not often exhibited but quite fiery temper, we've had our grievances – even to the point of sleeping out in the common room because we couldn't stand to be in the same room. But generally we've been the best of friends for seven years, a great achievement I'd say. As well as supreme bossiness, Celine has other qualities. She can turn into an appropriately indignant and even sensitive (if I'm lucky) friend at the trop of a hat and I don't think there's anything she won't say to anyone if she's fired up enough. She's also one of those rare and infinitely beautiful people who can yell at James Potter till he sufficiently cowed and not likely to come back for more. She also has a curious obsession with muggle bands (The Beatles in particular), and will avidly watch any taped football game she can get her hands on (not being muggle born herself, she spends a lot valuable holiday time in front of my television and supports our local team). But, I have to say, the true reason that I love Queen Celine is that her hair is redder than mine. In fact, it is positively orange, while mine is a darker almost-auburn. It gives me no end of delight to compare our hair colour and say to myself, "Well, at least my hair isn't carrot coloured." Yes, friends are good that way. (I loved the Anne of Green Gables Books, by the way). Especially friends who are likely to get their own back when certain juvenile males care to call us the 'Bobsy Twins.'
We didn't recruit Tory into the 'group' until fourth year, when Celine decided she couldn't bear another minute of seeing the infinitely shy Tory, a Ravenclaw, hanging around being bored stupid with that (according to her majesty anyway) frightfully bookish Theadora Cole and equally scholarly Edward Stevenson, just because she was too scared to make friends else where. I did remind her at the time that we ourselves were partial to getting our schoolwork done and that I had never so much as sniffed at a detention, but Celine of course declared that this was completely different, and anyway, did you see us giving up our Hogsmeade Weekends to do practice arithmancy papers? So it was that Tory, wether it was for or against her own will, was rapidly but quite naturally made friends with and adopted into our little group. It was Celine's philosophy that Tory was far better off shyly going along with whatever we did for the duration at Hogwarts than shyly going along with whatever intellectual pursuits Miss Cole had in mind. I was not totally convinced, but it all turned out that Tory had an great sense of humour and is to this day one of my very best friends (and the slightly more sensible of the two if truth be told). I for one am sure she was destined to join our group, and seeing as Miss Cole and Mr Stevenson are even now probably cramming for the one unimportant question Professor McGonagall of Transfiguration will randomly ask the class tomorrow, I have no pangs of guilt at Celine's subtle redirecting of her life at fourteen.
So, yes, they are my two real friends. I really cannot abide some of the other Gryffindor girls, but as Head Girl I must at least be civil even to the likes of Theresa Grey and Lina Matherson.
Do you know, it's nearly one in the morning, I better go…oh dear, someone's coming down the boy's dormitory stairs….wait a moment…
Hello again. Do you know what just happened? Sirius Black, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew just waltzed across the common room and out the common room entrance! And they didn't see me! And Potter was carrying an invisibility cloak! The Head Boy thinks he has the right to go and rampage around the castle as childishly as he did when he was a mere student, does he? And drag his friends along with him? Obviously I have been wrong about thinking he had changed! Oh, I'm so angry I could throttle him…I can hardly write…ooh, I should like to dob on him! I shall have to ponder this over night. Is it worth the ridicule? Humph…goodnight!
Lily Evans