A/N: I apologize profusely about the delay in this chapter. You know it goes – life happens and gallops along and it doesn't stop for anyone. And I don't think I could ever fully articulate to you the breadth of trouble that this stupid chapter has caused me. But I hope future updates will come much quicker, and much more smoothly.
So…here's your next chapter, better late than never. Hope you like it.
II. The Lucky One
And they tell you that you're lucky.
But you're so confused,
Cause you don't feel pretty, you just feel used.
At the end of her third year, Tom Colton – an excessively, almost outrageously, handsome Gryffindor in the fourth year – asked Lily out on her first real date. And Lily, blushing furiously, checked around her vicinity twice to make sure it was indeed she that he was referring to.
He was. Professor Binns had recommended that Tom talk to Lily about his low essay marks, because she was a good writer and he most certainly was not, and he had found, to his pleasant surprise, that Lily was not only knowledgeable, but that she was sweet, and talkative, and crinkled her nose when she was thinking hard, and had a laugh that sounded a little like she was choking.
There was something about her. Some air of freshness and earnestness. Some kind of potential trying so hard to burst out of her.
She was so self-conscious, yet he liked that about her. She thought about what she said and what she did. She wanted to do everything right. She wanted to impress. Her bright green eyes were practically transparent, and Tom felt like he knew her.
So he did ask her out – and to her astonishment and both of their delight, she accepted. They got a drink at the Three Broomsticks on their last Hogsmeade weekend of the year, and spent the afternoon talking, talking, talking.
Lily was giddy with excitement. Tom Colton was perhaps not the sharpest student – his essays were still unfortunate at best – but he was nice to her and asked her lots of questions and had the loveliest smile.
The next night, when they stayed up late in the common room together, and Lily was trying to explain to Tom how to write a thesis statement, he leaned in and kissed her.
Her first real kiss – soft, warm, a little pressure and then a release. His face lingered close to hers, his eyelashes like perfect rounded commas. She could feel him breathing on her chin, feel the electric shock and awe inside of her. She marveled at his solidness and his heat and his realness – at this apparent desire he had to kiss her.
She had thought plenty about kissing boys, but had never once imagined that one would want to kiss her back.
But this one did. So clumsily, but eagerly, she leaned back in and kissed him again.
The essay and the half-written thesis statement – as well as Lily's own pile of homework – lay forgotten on the table. She spent the evening kissing Tom, over and over and over again until she was drunk with it, until she had gorged herself on the scent and the taste and the feel of him against her, his wandering fingers wanting her rather than some other prettier girl.
When it was over, and Tom excused himself to bed, Lily stopped him and blurted out, "So does this mean you're my boyfriend?"
His smile made her blush.
"Yeah, Evans, I guess it does."
She bit her lip, dragged her toe across the floor. "You can call me Lily, if you like."
He walked back towards her, gave her another heady kiss on her mouth, gently tucking stray wisps of her hair behind her ear.
"Good night, Lily."
"Good night, Tom."
He probably slept soundly after a long, long day of class and homework. But Lily could hardly sleep at all.
The summer was a long one, especially since she had only now acquired a boyfriend, but Lily spent a good chunk of her time owling Tom back and forth. He was gracious in his answers, gave enough detail to satisfy her curiosity but always kept his letters short and to-the-point.
She tried to do the same, tried to mimic this perfect English gentleman quality that he had to his writing and his personality, but she ended up writing too much anyway and hoping he would find it cute rather than cumbersome. As the summer went on, that was indeed the way he seemed to interpret her overflowing narratives, because he never stopped writing promptly and sweetly, telling her that he missed her.
That he missed her. Sweet Merlin.
September came closer and closer, and secretly, Lily hoped that she and Tom would become Hogwarts sweethearts and could tell their children the story someday, of how they fell in love the year she was in third year and he was in fourth, and they kissed in the common room and wrote letters all summer, every summer, until they could get married and stay together for the rest of their lives.
It was silly, really – fanciful girlish daydreams – but she couldn't help it. Lily was in love with Tom Colton. Wasn't this what it felt like, meeting The One?
Maybe she was just one of the lucky ones. She happened to find her soulmate at the age of thirteen. Stranger things had been known to happen.
His fifth year and her fourth year began. Lily searched the train for Tom, but couldn't find him, and resolved to meet him during, or perhaps after, dinner.
Once they got to the castle, Lily asked Alice and Mary to save her a seat for dinner. She wanted to find Tom. The summer apart had been too long; her stomach was doing victory somersaults at the idea that she would finally get to see him in person again, add another kiss to their growing collection of kisses, the memories of which she had revisited so many times over the summer as she lolled about the house, missing him.
As she craned her neck, squinted at the crowd, her eyes like lasers searching for Tom, an entirely unwelcome hand tapped her on the shoulder.
"Heya, Evans!" It was James Potter, grinning broadly at her shoulder.
He had grown taller since the last time she saw him. The last of the childish roundness in his face was fading. His jaw was sharp, his muscles more defined, his voice a little deeper – but his hair was still floppy and messy and stupid, and his hazel eyes still twinkled the same way, promising mischief.
"Oh, it's you." Lily rolled her eyes.
"Well, that's no way to greet a schoolmate after such a long summer," chastised James. "You were supposed to say—" and here he took the liberty of putting on a high falsetto for accuracy "—oh, hello there, Potter, how very nice it is to see you again. I hope your holidays have treated you well and I look forward to another year of magical learning and cooperation alongside you."
"And you were supposed to keep on walking when you saw me, and yet you stopped to chat," said Lily dryly. "I'm sorry, we've both screwed up. Shall we try again tomorrow?"
James shook his head, his smile lighting up his face, emanating such genuine, warm amusement, that Lily had to work hard to suppress her own smile.
"You're incorrigible," he told her, and she thought it was such a strange word for him to use. He was fourteen going on forty, apparently – and a kitschy, precious forty at that. Incorrigible. Who said such things?
"I'm holding you to it – let's try again tomorrow," he whispered in her ear, then disappeared into the throng of students.
Lily shuddered from the unexpected warmth of his breath on her ear, then sighed irritably and kept searching for Tom.
She found Tom that night as the Gryffindors retired to the common room, thrilled to be together again but exhausted by the traveling and the long day. Lily caught him as he was about to head upstairs to the fifth-year boys' dormitory.
"Tom! How are you?" she asked.
He smiled his cool, polite smile, the one that made her melt a little. "Hello, Lily. Good to see you."
And she bristled, believing him.
"I'll let you get up to bed. Another long day tomorrow. But we should have lunch."
"Of course. I'll keep an eye out for you."
"All right. See you then."
"Good night, Lily."
"Good night, Tom."
He disappeared up the staircase.
After spending a summer daydreaming about what it would be like to have a boyfriend, Lily found that the reality was significantly less glamorous than she hoped.
For one thing, life marched on regardless of her relationship status: there were spells to master, essays to write, potions to memorize. Alice and Mary were up to their own shenanigans – Mary had a mad crush on Remus Lupin and Alice had just started dating Frank Longbottom – and the three sat around the common room late into the night, gossiping about their love lives.
For another thing, Tom was extremely busy. He had his O.W.L.'s coming up in June, and their time was limited. Tom was deeply ambitious; he had big aspirations for a Ministry job. He had a carefully-constructed five year plan for his post-Hogwarts career – and if everything worked out correctly, he expected to shoot up the ranks of the Auror office. He talked at length about these plans with a light in his eyes that Lily had never seen before, and when he blew her off to do homework in the library, he put his hand kindly to her shoulder and told her that he knew someone as sensible as she would understand.
But what made things especially complicated was the fact that over the summer, James Potter had become an even bigger prat than he had been in third year.
He had always been boisterous, but this was the year that his creativity flourished, and the students of Hogwarts either suffered or rejoiced in it.
Skill-wise, he was second in the class now, behind only Lily. Unlike Lily, however, he used his magic to put hexes on people he thought were pompous or self-important (which was the height of irony, really) or people he simply wanted to take down a peg or two. It was not entirely uncommon to walk into a side corridor during the day and find James practicing the Leg-Locker Curse on Severus Snape, or one of Snape's cronies. When the subject of James's wrath was widely disliked, the students were deeply entertained, and cheered him on, only increasing the size of his already-swollen ego.
Over the summer, Sirius also appeared to have acquired the advanced skillset and arrogance of his best friend – but worse, Sirius had become quite good-looking too, with his dark hair and expressive eyebrows and haughty, crooked smile and rather well-developed biceps. Every girl in every year was wildly in lust with him.
Thus, the two of them were the kings of the castle, wildly applauded wherever they went. Remus tried to reign them in a little, in his gentle way, but Peter just seemed happy to share the limelight and egged them on with his earnest admiration. They were virtually unstoppable.
James, especially, was maddening. His careless cruelty – especially to Severus – made her blood boil.
It only made her appreciate Tom more, whenever she did get to see him. Tom, her steady, dependable, kind, polite boyfriend. Tom, who would never make tentacles come out of a student's face just because he was a Slytherin who apparently looked at him the wrong way.
Tom was perfect. Once his O.W.L.'s were over, she was sure their relationship would blossom even more. And she was willing to wait that out.
When James found out that Lily was steadily seeing Tom Colton now, his first reaction was complete befuddlement.
How could Lily Evans – that smart, spunky girl who turned him down – go out with the human sleeping pill that was Tom Colton?
Tom was so dull, and Lily was so bright; she laughed so genuinely and he barely chuckled; she cared so much and he seemed barely present; and James couldn't understand why she mooned over him all the time, yet he focused on his schoolwork instead of her and she let him do it.
She was too good for him. That was the fact of the matter. James had developed a bit of a soft spot for Lily Evans; she was surprising, and funny, and her nose crinkled a little when she smiled. The summer had done good things for her – the babyish roundness of her face was gone now, and her hair was a darker, deeper red than last year, and some of her nervous know-it-all energy had given way to a more confident, less neurotic young woman.
There was just something about her. Something he couldn't put his finger on. But he noticed her more than ever this year, saw her laughing with her friends and diligently finishing up essays at midnight in the common room and chasing fruitlessly after Tom Colton – and he couldn't help himself. He was drawn to her without knowing how or why.
This resulted in him trying to get her attention the only way he knew how – by being the very brightest and most obnoxious version of himself.
He became extra outrageous when she was around, showing off his best tricks and retorts, knowing he'd done his job right when a faint red blush crept up on her cheeks and the tips of her ears, when her face crumpled up like a grumpy child. She kept protesting, telling him to stop it. But he always said something snappy and final and waltzed away, plotting his next act of destruction with Sirius, who found annoying Lily almost as much fun as he did.
She had this way about her. He got smiley and silly and flirty when she was nearby, and reveled in her obvious irritation. He tried to prove to her that he was a lot more fun, and a lot more interested in her, than Tom Colton.
Unfortunately, Lily didn't quite see it that way.
Every once in a while, he got extra crazy around her, and her patience wore thin, and she got snarky. She told him off. Sometimes she yelled at him. The adrenaline ran high, everything about his stupid face annoyed her, and she stomped off angry. It didn't happen all the time, but it was a part of her life now – having to fend off James Potter and his lunacy – and the two of them remained at an uneasy balance.
James was more popular than ever for his antics, but now Lily's name was increasingly heard in student gossip, often attached to his name. She was Lily Evans, the cleverest witch in her year; Lily Evans, the sweetheart who always had time for a favor; Lily Evans, the only one who knew how to put James Potter in his place.
The edge that James had always suspected in her, became common knowledge to the students as well. Lovely as Lily could be and often was, she was not someone who allowed people to walk all over her. Not even someone as illustrious as James Potter.
One day, while Lily was busy working out problems for Transfiguration, James sidled up to her in the library and asked her, point-blank, "Evans, why are you dating Colton?"
Lily blinked. "Oh, hello to you too, Potter. I assume your day is going well? Or perhaps not, since you've opted to come here instead of set fire to the Potions dungeon or something."
"Hmm." James scratched his chin, suddenly thoughtful. "That's an interesting idea – will definitely keep it in mind, run it by Sirius – but I'm being honest. Why Colton?"
He was in one of his stubborn Moods; he wasn't going to leave until he got what he wanted. Lily sighed, closed her book, and folded her hands on top of it, willing herself to remain calm.
"It really isn't any of your business, Potter," she said.
"I'm genuinely curious what you see in him," he told her. "I've met bread more interesting than Tom Colton."
"He is my boyfriend, and he is nice to me, and I like him. What else could you possibly need to know?"
"What it would take for you to break up with him."
He was being sincere, all jokes aside; that was almost as shocking to her as the content of his words.
"You have finally lost all your marbles, Potter," said Lily with a snort. "I'm not dumping Tom, nor am I going out with you."
Some of the humor came back as he gave an exaggerated sigh, running his hand through his hair and appearing resigned. "Oh, Evans. When will you learn?"
"Learn what?"
"That you and I—" he pointed to both of them, in case it was somehow unclear "—would be a good thing."
"Please leave," said Lily. "Door's over there."
A big, silly grin played on his lips. "Oh, all right," he said. "Enjoy your homework."
She rolled her eyes, and then he was gone, high-fiving admirers on his way out of the library.
And about two hours later, when Lily left the library, Alice and Mary and everyone else were buzzing with excitement – something about an enormous fire in the Potions dungeon, cause unknown, but that was sufficiently disruptive to cancel Potions for the rest of the day.
This was what she did to him. She spurred him on to his greatest heights; she was kind of like his muse. The redder her cheeks got, the better he knew he had done his job.
In this way, he doted on her. He was the kindergarten clown who pulled the pigtails of the prettiest girl on the playground, annoying her but then offering her mud-pies when she cried. People forgot sometimes, that Tom was the one dating Lily, not James; they were so much more explosive and interesting for the ever-gossiping student body.
Lily never saw any harm in it – besides, of course, the fact that James Potter was an arrogant ignoramus who needed to be reigned in somehow before he caused real damage to the castle and got himself expelled. But Tom Colton felt Lily's sudden burst of popularity far more than she did.
James had taken an interest in Lily, and although Lily vehemently denied any kind of attraction to him, Tom could see the way her cheeks and her ears went red, the way she raised her voice, the way her eyes got dangerous and her tiny body radiated power and confidence. Tom saw the way James got so carried away with her, like what he felt was so genuine that it could only express itself horribly, horribly wrong.
Tom heard rumors – about James, wanting to date her, and all the other boys, who were also attracted to Lily but knew she was taken, both by Tom and by James. And Tom saw the way she suddenly came alive when she talked about him, even if it was to abuse him with such colorful language that he was often astonished such filth could come out of her perfect pink mouth.
There was something between them. Something that defied explanation. And Tom found himself uncomfortable, resentful – a little bit jealous. As sweet as Lily was to Tom, she was something else entirely around James Potter. And somehow Tom knew he didn't have a chance with Lily anymore.
Maybe he met her when she was an awkward third year and hadn't come into her own just yet, but now she was a fourth year, a popular one – an exotic bird he could no longer keep caged – and he knew it was about time to end this.
A week before Valentine's Day, Tom broke up with Lily. And as she burst into tears and asked him why, Tom gave the O.W.L. excuse, saying he had no time for distractions. He didn't dare tell her the other reason, the one that burned in his stomach and wouldn't leave him alone.
Lily was devastated. Alice kept going on and on about how Tom was a hopeless prick and she had never liked him anyway, and she shared her entire Hogsmeade stash from the last trip with Lily, but Tom was her first boyfriend – he was supposed to be long-term – and now he wasn't and she was confused and she couldn't understand what she had done wrong.
"He's a joyless turd with exams coming up," Alice reminded her. "You did nothing wrong. You're a great girlfriend. Look, I'm sure boys will be queuing up to ask you out now that you're available."
And she was right. Boys met her with suddenly friendly eyes in the corridors and in class, and Lily was baffled. She didn't see herself the way they did; she didn't see how much she had grown. All she knew was, she had been dumped and she was horribly upset about it.
The boys most interested in her newly single status were considerate enough to give her time after her break-up, knowing better than to leap right in and ask her out. But, as ever, such considerations never occurred to James Potter – and at lunch the day before Valentine's Day, he marched up to her table and conjured canaries out of thin air, as well as a single rose.
He was such a show-off – those spells were for sixth years, not fourth years – but he preened under all the attention, offering a perplexed Lily the rose and asking if she wanted to be his valentine the next day.
"Are you absolutely out of your mind, Potter?" she demanded. "Of course I don't!"
"Why? You've broken it off with Colton, haven't you?" He actually appeared confused.
"Yes, I have – only a few days ago – and I'm not up for anything yet, especially not from you." She glared at him, hoping her anger would diffuse the tears that suddenly welled up inside of her at the thought of the break-up.
"Evans, don't be ridiculous." He placed the rose before her, beaming like the ringmaster at a carnival with an audience hanging on every word. "Be my valentine."
She couldn't help it; she lost her temper. She sent the birds after him, pecking furiously at him. He defended himself in the nick of time, but then she sent the Bat-Bogey Hex at him, and stomped off as he struggled with the great flying bogeys, and Sirius tried to stop laughing long enough to remove the hex.
She couldn't believe him, honestly. Insensitive prick. The world was going mad.
To further prove her theory right, Severus confronted her three days later, once the Valentine's Day buzz had died down. He tried desperately to convince her of James's rotten character, of some secret Remus may or may not have been keeping. He was agitated, as though he'd been planning this for days and it was coming out in a torrent, so long as he had her there to listen.
But Lily wasn't in the mood to listen.
Severus had become so different these days, hanging out with a crowd of Dark Magic lovers who caused far too much trouble. This group wasn't like Potter and his gang; Potter was mischievous, and he sometimes crossed the line of decency, but he was never outright cruel. He never sought to grievously injure. He just wanted a laugh, and his sense of humor could get a little nasty.
Severus's friends, though – Avery, Mulciber, all of them – they weren't the same kind of mischievous. They weren't out for a laugh. Their sense of humor was more sinister, and Lily didn't trust them. She was rather afraid of them. And here was Severus, who used to be her best friend, letting himself get drawn into that circle, a circle Lily saw as one of no return.
They were growing apart. Maybe she should have expected that; they were so different after all. The only thing they really had in common was that they were a witch and wizard living close to one another in a Muggle town. Now, they were in school and they had their own friends and he only rarely resembled the eleven-year-old boy who earnestly held her hand and brought her into the magical world.
Seeing him this way – warped, well on his way to ruin – made something snap in her. She wasn't just going to accept this the way she always did.
This time, like she had begun to do with James Potter, she raised herself up to her full height, and she finally stood up to him. She told him off. She said she knew James Potter liked her, but that he was a prig and she didn't return the sentiment – and anyway, he, Severus, was on a path she couldn't abide by.
He walked away then and she found herself mourning him. She wasn't sure how long their relationship could remain intact, when they grew more and more divergent in every way that mattered.
It was true, the world was going mad. Tom wasn't The One, or even close; James Potter was a thorn in her side that kept finding his way back to her like a boomerang; and Severus Snape, who was supposed to be her best friend, seemed poised to become an enemy. He was certainly edging towards the wrong side, the one she knew she would fight to eradicate once she was old enough.
She was no longer meek and strange and thirteen. She was fourteen, and ever closer to becoming the woman she was going to be for the rest of her life.
She knew she was viewed as the perfect girl – smart and pretty and funny and kind. But she didn't feel perfect. She just felt a bone-deep tiredness that defied her age, because no one was who they seemed to be and she wasn't sure what she really was beneath the veneer, and none of this made much sense.
Would it ever?
A/N: Like I said, this one gave me a lot of trouble. If there are any parts that don't work here, please POLITELY explain so that I can keep it in mind for next time. (I know you guys are all probably lovely, but I've had some issues with rude anons lately, so I'm a little sensitive right now and I figured I'd highlight the "politely" bit.)