here is the first chapter of my new story - Mistakes, based off of the 'Lily and James' section of my 'Slughorn's Party' mini-series.

just a short one to start but there;s more in store.

Do not own! (lol, twilight reference embeded somewhere [i dare you to find it]

(For those reading this who have already read it but are now reading it again because i changed it, this is simply the previous first two chapters together as one)


Chapter One – Embarkation and Humiliation

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep…

"Silencio" A half-asleep voice cried from under a mountain of sheets. Lily looked out the window that was directly opposite her bed. Lily always hated her mum for putting her bed where it was, the sun practically blinded Lily every morning when she woke up. Lily begged her mum to change her room around but even when she moved it around herself her mum just came around and changed it back.

It was 7:00 on the 1st of September and Lily's alarm was trying to remind her that in less than 4 hours she would be leaving her quaint little, peaceful, normal neighbourhood and getting on a magically enchanted train leaving from a secret platform at Kings Cross Station, that you get to from running through a seemingly solid brick wall no less, that brings almost 300 witches and wizards to attend a magical school in a magnificent castle hidden somewhere in the Scotland, where Lily will begin her 7th and final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Lily? Are you up yet? You need to get up! You haven't even finished packing yet! Come on, Get Up!" Lily's mother berated her, climbing the staircase that separated her bedroom from the rest of the house.

"Mum, I'm up!" Lily insisted, though she was still considering going back to sleep, at most for another hour or so then waking up later, she could always just magically pack her trunk, her mother wouldn't know the difference, but her parents really didn't want Lily to use unnecessary magic around the house; it freaked Petunia out a little. She didn't like to be 'constantly reminded that her sister is a complete freak', or so she said.

Lily's mum, Catherine, had reached Lily's mezzanine-like floor and started rapping on her door. "Lily, if you don't get down to breakfast in the next 10 minutes I'm coming in to get you!" she warned through the double locked-cupboard barriered-magically sealed door Lily used to ensure her privacy.

"Eugh! Mum, I'm up! I'll be down soon."

Lily looked around her room; the furthest she had gotten in regards to packing was arranging her homework to make sure she'd done it all and hadn't forgotten any key textbooks or vital essays and the back of a draw in her desk; but socks? Pjs? Underwear? Still in the draw.

Lily looked from the full draws to the empty trunk beside her bed and back again.

"Screw it." Lily decided, Lily whipped her wand out from under the pillow, where she kept it very single night, "Pack" she commanded her belongings. At once her clothes and books and personal effects all rose off the ground, out of draws and from inside cupboards and folded neatly into her trunk. "Packing: done."

Lily apparated down to the kitchen to get some breakfast before she got dressed and brought all her stuff downstairs, Petunia was waiting.

"Can't you do that freak thing somewhere else?" She asked rudely,

"Good morning to you too Petunia, lovely day isn't it? Isn't the weather superb?" Lily replied sarcastically. Lily went straight over to the toaster and proceeded to make her traditional start-of-school-year breakfast: one piece of toast with jam and a glass of orange juice.

"Lily, are you sure you don't want anything else?" Catherine asked concerned for her youngest daughter's well being.

"Mum! I've told you the same thing for the past six years! The start of term/Sorting banquet is always huge and everyone always over-eats on the train ride there. "Trust me, I'm fine!" She reassured her worried mother. "It's all I need."

Lily sat down next to Petunia who immediately got up to sit somewhere else. After nearly 8 years of this sort of behaviour, Lily was used to it, but it still bothered her. Why couldn't Petunia juts accept me for me? Lily always found herself asking herself.

One barely filling breakfast, a 'quick' shower that took over half an hour, and a mad dash to the train station at 10:00 later the Evans family were waving goodbye to their youngest daughter for the 7th time as she turned with her trolley filled with her oversized trunk, her owl Hooters in her cage, and her Cleensweep 7 broomstick to walk through the magical barrier to Platform 9 ¾.

"Lily!"

"Lily!"

"LILY!"

Three hyper-energised 17 yr old girl practically tackled Lily to the ground as soon as she stepped through the barrier.

"Alex, Marissa, Alice, I missed you guys!" Lily responded as soon as she could breathe again. "How were your summers?" she asked, determined to settle back in as soon as possible.

"Oh, you know" Alex replied off-handedly, "How was yours" Alex asked, with apparent ulterior motives,

"Why?" Lily asked suspiciously,

"Nothing," Alex replied innocently, "It's just that we heard James payed you a little visit over the summer and we were wondering if anything might have happened, you know." She concluded as all three of them stopped to start eagerly at Lily keenly awaiting her response.

Trust my friends to only think about boys, Lily thought slightly annoyed. James Potter had been asking Lily out non-stop since 5th year and every time she said no, her friends juts grew more and more convinced that she was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Twit-too-hoo, twit-too-hoo

Somewhere off on another part of the platform an owl had broken loose from its cage and started flapping wildly around people's heads.

"Whose owl is that?" Lily asked, laughing and looking over at the people trying to catch the birds and put it back into its cage to be loaded on to the train with the rest of the belongings.

"Isn't that your owl Alice?" Marissa asked

"Oh, Merlin! It is." Alice realised, feeling very humiliated as the owl was retrieved and stuffed back into its cage and then brought over to her to 'keep a better eye on next time'. "How does Pouka keep getting out of his cage?"

"Since when do you have an Owl?" Alex asked,

"And what kind of a name is Pouka?" Lily asked her friend, shaking her head in disbelief.

"It was a reward for doing well in all my subjects last year." Alice defended, "And I like the name Pouka!"

The argument over the stupidity of Alice owl's name was interrupted when Pouka again burst out of her cage and started flying in circles over the top of their heads.

"Oh Merlins Pants!" Alice exclaimed.

Marissa tried to immobilise Pouka with a spell but missed and hit a student instead. He froze in the weirdest crouching position, which caused someone else to trip over him because they weren't looking where they were going and so the cage that they we're holding opened, letting her frog out which then starting jumping around people's feet while she ran frantically after it to trying to retrieve it.

Welcome to Hogwarts, Lily thought, I'm in for an interesting year, I can sense it.

Lily boarded the train with her friends and made they all made their way down to their usual compartment, running into Gracie and Emma along the way.

"Anything from the trolley?" An old, weak voice called from somewhere down the carriage,

"Anything from the trolley?" Slowly trolling up through the carriages pushing an over-filled trolley of various foods and drinks was the trolley lady.

"Anything from the…"

"Could she be any more annoying?" Gracie asked, clearly frustrated, as she slammed shut the compartment's door shutting inside Lily, Marissa, Gracie, Alex, Alice and Emma, and shutting out the draining voice of the trolley lady. Gracie had joined the foursome shortly after Alex had finally restrained her owl and they had managed to get all four of them, and all four sets of luggage, to the right place; and Emma turned up just as they all arrived at their compartment.

"Sooo…" Alex prompted.

"So what?" Lily responded sitting down opposite her and beside Gracie who had already begun 'preparing herself' for her 'grand entrance' to The Great Hall; where, apparently, she would need to be 'absolutely perfect in order to gain the maximum amount of boy attention possible'. Oh Gracie, what am I going to do with you? Lily thought to herself as she shook her head at her friend.

"You…and James…and you and James, and James and you. Any interesting…developments?" Alex asked excitedly.

"Don't over-excite yourself, nothing happened. He came over and was like: 'Hey Lily how have your holidays been?' and I was like: 'Good until now.' Then I slammed the door in his face."

"That you did my love. That you did."

Lily, Gracie, Alice, Marissa and Alex all turned around to see James Potter, along with his never-seen-without fellow 'Marauders' Remus and Sirius, standing in the compartment door-way.

"And it hurt too, I think you might have broken my nose." James continued, clutching his perfect nose if fake-agony.

"It looks just as ugly as before." Lily retorted, refusing to look at him.

James was now standing in the middle of the compartment directly in front of Lily. Sirius and Remus had move in as well so now with Sirius, James, Remus, Lily, Gracie, Marissa, Alex and Alice all in the one compartment, things were getting a bit; smooshed.

James gasped and clutched his chest as Lily's words, feigning heart-break;

"Lily, my enormous (though extremely well deserved), ego has been crushed by your cruel, cruel words."

"Oh stop it Potter, if anything's changed over the summer it's it that I hate you even more now than I did last year" Lily told him coldly, still looking out the window. When it became apparent that this had not had the desired effect of making James leave, Lily turned to face him: "Just go Potter, you're not welcome here." Lily commanded plainly.

James, Sirius and Remus all turned to leave,

"Oh, Remus, wait!" Gracie called after him, "You can stay if you like," she said seductively, luring him back in. Gracie flipped her hair and batted her eyelids (like she always does) and Remus went into, what is now called the Gracie-induced-coma, and started walking back towards her, entranced and oblivious to the fact that not 1 minute ago even he was trying to leave the room.

Lily stepped in front of Remus, turned him around and directed him back out of the compartment.

"Must you do that?" Lily asked Gracie, "We can't afford anymore, unfortunate, accidents today!"

'Sorry, it's been a dry summer." Gracie shrugged, "I need some action!"

The rest of the inhabitants of the compartment all rolled their eyes in unison. Gracie's boy-crazy ways were no stranger to them, but they much preferred her to spare them the long, detailed recollections of all her summer 'adventures' as she liked to call them. "I was so bored one weekend I actually had to do it myself once, more satisfying sure, but not as fun. If you know what I mean." Gracie winked.

Lily quickly changed the subject to avoid Gracie bringing up any more stories that they really did not want to hear.

"So, everyone do their homework?" Lily asked cheerfully, schoolwork and spells seemed to be the only two things that animated Lily when it came to topics of conversation.

"Lily, come on please!" Alice groaned, "We've only been on this train less than an hour and you already bring up school? Can't you give us even a short break?" Alice had never much liked school, she didn't do well in things where she had to sit still and concentrate for long periods of time.

"Who's excited for Quidditch? I think we've got a real chance this season." Alice asked. Alice had been one of the Gryffindor chasers for the past three years. She wasn't the fastest on the field but she had tremendous determination and great aim. "I'd better start practising as soon as we get there or I probably won't make it back onto the team," Alice began to worry.

"Don't get so stressed!" Marissa said, "You'll do fine! But I'm with Lily; I did hardly any practising on the holidays! What if I go to class and I've forgotten how to do a Bat Bogey Hex!" Marissa stressed out. DADA meant everything to her; she practised jinxes and hexes every day, 'just in case' she very needed them. Like anyone would every try to mess with her, certainly anyone who had net her wouldn't. She's not someone you want to get on the wrong side of; she had a bit of a temper.

"Oh come on! Like you and Daniel haven't been hexing each other all holidays" Alex said disbelieving,

"I'm thinking maybe they were doing something that sounds kind of similar, but carries a much smaller risk of being turned into a bat" Gracie suggested, "then again, you never know what might, spontaneously happen, in the, heat of the moment"

"Subtle, Gracie, very subtle" Marissa stated,

"Well subtlety was never my forte," Gracie agreed, still staring expectantly at Marissa. "Come on Marissa you and Daniel have been going out since third year! You can't expect us to believe you're still a virgin!"

"Gracie!" Alice reprimanded her friend, "It's none of our business what Marissa and Daniel do or don't do in their free time." She said sternly. Gracie and everyone else went silent.

"Oh who are we kidding?" Alice asked herself before turning to Marissa and asking blatantly, "So have you done it yet?"

"Alice!" this time is was Lily's turn to get mad at her friend.

"I will tell you on one condition," Marissa settled, "You do not ask me anything about it for the next…3 days."

"Unacceptable!" Gracie said firmly, "I have to know details!"

"Either wait for the details, or they don't come at all." Marissa re-stated, "I know you want to know, badly."

"Fine." Gracie agreed, "Have you?"

"Yes." Marissa said clearly and without hesitation, "Do you think we should change into our robes now?" Marissa asked completely changing the subject. "I think we might be nearly there," she continued looking over Alice and out the window at the approaching castle."

Gracie just stared at her in slack-jawed amazement.

"I think we should." Marissa decided.

Everyone in the cabin was just sitting in shock. Completely distracted by what Marissa had just revealed.

"Well, while it seems the rest of you have lost the ability to talk, I am going to change." Marissa told her friends before grabbing her robes and promptly leaving the compartment.

Alice, Alex, Gracie and Lily just looked at each other unable to talk. Lily spoke first.

"Did you honestly expect her to tell us?" Lily asked, "I thought she would just keep evading."

"She left pretty quickly though, and what's with the 3 day" Alex asked suspiciously, "What, does she need, like, time to get her story together, or what?"

"Maybe that's exactly it!" Alex exclaimed,

"What?" Everyone else asked.

"What if it wasn't with Daniel? What if, she cheated!" Alex theorised.

"Come on! There's no use in speculating, we should just get changed," Lily concluded, before she as well got up to grab her robes, though unlike Marissa, she just proceeded to undress in the compartment, after closing the blinds of course.

"Yeah, we must be almost there! Merlin! I'm starving; do you think they'll have pudding?" Alice asked, completely putting behind her Marissa's surprising reveal.

"Oh yeah, and roast beef! Do you think they'll have some roast beef?" Alex asked eagerly.

"What about Turley? Oh Merlin I love turkey!" Gracie added.

The three girls then proceeded to discuss all the foods they were looking forward to at Hogwarts legendary Start-of-Term Banquet while getting changed.

The Hogwarts Express zoomed towards the magnificent Hogwarts castle, bringing forth all the budding witches and wizards of Britain preparing for another eventful year of magic, mayhem and mystery.

And it was certainly off to an interesting start.


Hey, hope you enjoyed that, even if you didnt thanks for reading!

all review/comments/suggestions/opinions welcome!

will update agian soom hopefully.

xx Merryn