Chapter 1: A Rough Start
It was a rainy day. Lily Evans stepped inside Hogwarts castle dripping from head to toe, chatting animatedly with Alice Prewett. Upon arriving at the Gryffindor table, she stopped talking and gathered her auburn hair in both hands, attempting to dry it. After a long minute of wrestling with her long hair to completely rid it of the water, a sudden smile lit up her face. She took out her wand , said an incantation, and her hair became dry almost instantly. Despite the calm look in her light green eyes, excitement was bubbling inside of her from the moment she stepped foot into the castle. She could use magic. When she was at home, her parents, being muggles, got quite irritated when she took her wand out, especially her sister. Petunia had always been envious of Lily , especially when Lily had received the letter about attending the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was then seen that Lily was a part of something special, exclusive, which Petunia was not a part of. Therefore, Petunia made it her goal in life to make Lilly as unhappy as possible.
It was her fifth year at Hogwarts and she felt particularly happy about being back. The only thing that was causing a small amount of annoyance was the fact that she had not been made a prefect. She was so expecting to be selected as prefect. Lily made no trouble in her fourth year, attempted doing better in her studies(although she wasn't sure what that had to do with becoming a prefect), and even brought an apple to all of her professors once a week, on her mother's advice ,of course, to get on a professor's good side. She never exactly got the reason why the food presented had to be an apple. Why not chocolate, or anything else for that matter? An apple? The apples had no effect whatsoever apparently because she had not been chosen as prefect. Maybe the apple technique only worked for muggles…
"He's staring at you again", she suddenly heard Alice say.
Lily snapped back into reality, "What?"Her friend jerked her head in the direction of a tall handsome boy across the table with tousled jet-black hair and hazel eyes. James Potter. Their eyes met for a brief moment and he gave a large dazzling smile, but then just as he started to wave to her, she turned her back on him. Her cheeks threatened to flush but she didn't allow them to.
Alice tossed her dark brown hair over her shoulder then turned to look at Lily eagerly, "So what do you think?"
"You want to know what I think about him? Oh I'll tell you what I think. I think he is an arrogant, snobby, show-off, idiotic little brat!"
Her friend laughed
"Its true!" Lily continued, ignoring her friends giggles. "He thinks that just because he's now captain of the Quidditch team in addition to being seeker, it suddenly makes him a king or something. Just look at him! He's the most conceited person ever!" As though on cue, James started messing up his hair frantically with his hands. Did he think he looked cool or something with his hair messed up like that?
"Well you know what I think? I think he fancies you" Alice said staring at Lily with her eyes wide. "You know anybody would kill to be you , right?"
Lily merely grunted.
After the sorting had finished and the feast had ended, Lily and Alice got up from the table and were about to head towards their house when something caught Lily's eye. There was a boy on the end of the Slytherin table with shoulder length black hair , a hooked nose, and pale skin. He was scribbling furiously on a piece of parchment and as though sensing someone was staring, he looked up. His coal black eyes met with Lily's light green ones. Severus Snape. Severus and Lily were not exactly on good terms. They had been best friends when they were nine years old, excited about being able to go to Hogwarts together, but when they were put in the two rival houses, everything changed. He changed. When their third year began, he became meaner and started having a sort of evil aura about him. At the beginning of that year, they got into a huge fight where she had been trying to confront him about how much he had changed. From that time on, they hadn't spoken even once. They both pretended like neither one existed. Lily had only seen him once last year, as he was always in his own world, away from everyone else. He stood up, not breaking their eye contact, and Lily noticed how much he had grown. He had gotten a lot taller and more muscular it seemed (although she was not quite sure because of his robes) and his cheekbones were more prominent. If she didn't know any better she would even call him somewhat attractive. If she didn't know any better.
They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity until he finally tore his eyes away from hers, hastily grabbed his things, and stormed out of the Great Hall.
"Are you okay?" Alice asked with a concerned tone.
"What? Oh…yeah…I'm just…tired I guess." And with that, they were off to their House following all the other Gryffindors.
After breakfast the next day, Lily took it upon herself to read ahead before her first Potions class. Finding herself a nice shady spot under a tree, she took out her textbook and began to read. Then all of the sudden she heard a yell.
After the yell came much louder shouting and following that, a lot of laughter. Lily whipped her head around to the source of the commotion and saw a group boys crowded around under the tree next to hers; someone was hanging in the air above them, upside down by his ankle. After a closer look at the person in the air she let out a gasp. It was Severus. At that point she didn't know what she was doing or why, but she leapt to her feet and ran towards him. With another gasp of shock, she realized who was keeping Severus up in the air with his wand. It was James. And he was laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world with all his other stupid minions.
"Hey Snivellus!" James yelled to Severus "While you're just hanging like this let me make something clear…" But he had no chance to make anything clear because the next thing she knew she was up in his face shouting at him.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR DOING?" She shouted looking up at James in disgust.
"Evans!" He grabbed her by her wrist(keeping his wand aimed at Severus with his other hand) and yanked her closer to him. Then he brought his lips close to her ear "How have you been beautiful?"
"Ugh!" She pulled herself away from him. James looked upset for a moment but recovered quickly. "Whats wrong?"
"WHATS WRONG?" she pointed up at Severus who was now furiously yelling curse words at James' friends, who were still laughing as if it was the funniest thing in the world. "LET HIM DOWN!"
"Hey, hey, calm down… although you do look really adorable when your face turns red like that" James added with a grin. Lily's jaw dropped at the audacity he had for flirting with her when she was like this, yet at the same time she flushed, only adding to the red color that her skin already was.
"Just…JUST DROP HIM NOW!" she shouted again, but when it seemed that James was stubborn not to listen to her, she added with much disgust in herself "For me…?" At that, James almost immediately put his wand down and stuffed it in the pocket of his robes.
Severus , who had previously been high in the air was now free-falling towards the ground. She half closed her eyes as he hit the ground with a loud thud. Lily ran towards Severus , grabbed one of his arms, and tried helping him up "Are you okay?"
"GET OFF ME!" he said trying to slap her hand away from his arm , but she did not let go. She was frozen in shock at the voice that had just come out of him. It was a deep voice filled with rage that was unrecognizable.
"I SAID GET OFF OF ME FILTHY MUDBLOOD!" Now that was hurtful. If any other person had called her that she wouldn't have cared as much, but he had never called her that before. Hearing him call her that hurt her too much to even bear. Just as her eyes were about to well up with tears, he pushed her away from him with much force. She let out a gasp, staggered backwards, and just as she was about to fall she felt a pair of strong arms around her waist steady .
"WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL HER?" he said letting go of Lily and whipping his wand out of his pocket, pointing it at Severus. Severus smirked and reached in his own pocket but could not seem to find his wand.
"Looking for this?" Sirius Black, one of James' friends said. He was twirling Severus' wand between his three fingers.
"GIVE IT BACK!" Severus yelled running towards Sirius.
"We'll give it back if you apologize to the lady" Sirius said nodding towards Lily.
Severus looked at Sirius in horror "To her? No!"
"Then you won't be getting your wand back" said James with a sneer on his face. That sneer is what did it. He was just using the situation to his advantage. All James really wanted, was amusement. And Lily was not going to allow his bullying to go on any further.
"Just give it to him. It's okay he…he doesn't have to apologize to me." she said pleading with Sirius. Severus took advantage of the moment and snatched his wand, fleeing back towards the tree to collect his possessions. Just as he thought he was finished collecting his things, he started to leave until Lily's voice stopped him. "Wait."
There was a book of his still on the ground covered in some dirt. She picked it up, wiped as much dirt off of it as she could, and started to hand it to him. Their eyes met and his gaze softened for a brief moment before hardening again. He snatched the book from her and took off, his robes billowing behind him in the wind.
