Here we go again. Thank you for all the support for chapter one, here's a long whopper of a chapter for you all.
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The first step in any good relationship is to have a foundation in friendship. James Potter liked to claim late on in his relationship with Lily that a proper relationship had its foundation in enemy-ship. Nonetheless the first step in Lily and James' friendship happened late one Saturday afternoon.
"Look Lily, I know you reckon he's immature and stupid, but I think that's what you need in your life!" Lily's long-time friend Marlene described, as they walked through Hogwarts courtyard with their friend Alice. "A bit of excitement!"
Lily scoffed. "Excitement? All giving Potter a chance would give me is a headache!"
"Well you better invest in some earplugs," Alice muttered, nodding at the four boys sauntering towards them.
"Evans! Hey, Evans!" James yelled on the approach, "I'm really sorry for hitting you with note at lunch, it was an accident!"
"Oh yeah? And I'm sure the fact it said Go out with me, Evans was just, what, a slip of the pen?" Lily bit back, scathingly.
"Most girls would take it as a compliment, Lily. You just got asked out by the second most popular guy at school," Sirius replied.
Remus laughed. "For what, the hundredth time!"
"Actually the seventy sixth!" Peter squeaked out.
"Get back in your cage, Peter," James jeered nastily, "And let's be honest, I'm more popular than you Sirius."
"Maybe with the teachers at least, just because you flirt with them all!" Sirius retorted
The girls stared at the Marauders, taking glances at one another. "Can we just leave now, or?" Lily whispered.
"No Lily," Sirius cut in. "We are here to invite you lovely ladies for an evening of entertainment with us in Hogsmeade village!"
"Hogsmeade? It's not a Hogsmeade weekend?" Alice asked with some confusion.
"We're willing to let you in on one of our many secrets, in exchange for your company," James responded, his eyes only for Lily.
Lily rolled her eyes and turned to walk away, but Marlene grabbed her arm. "Come on, Lil', let's just see what this 'secret' is."
James shot Lily his most 'charming' smile and waggled his eyebrows in what he thought was an intriguing manner. It must have half worked as well because begrudgingly she agreed to go (knowing she could just hand in Potter and his friends if what they were doing was against school rules). The Marauders led the girls back into the school, following Sirius who held an old scrap of parchment, to an ugly statue of a witch with only one eye.
"What, do we stare at this ugly statue and imagine ourselves in Hogsmeade?" Lily asked sarcastically, when no one made a move.
"Don't offend ol' Gunhilda, she discovered the cure for dragonpox," Sirius responded, tapping the statue with his wand. "Dissendium."
The large hump on the statue's back opened to reveal a dark passageway. With a last check of the parchment in his hand, Sirius gestured to the entrance, "Ladies first."
"As much as I'm impressed you have some knowledge of wizarding history, I don't think we're just going to wander into some strange passage just because you said to." Marlene replied, frowning.
"Don't worry it leads to Hogsmeade." Remus chipped in helpfully.
"You promise?" Alice asked, eyeing the dark expanse warily.
"Promise," He responded sincerely, locking eyes with Alice.
Marlene and Alice looked to Lily, who pulled an exasperated face and nodded. The three girls stepped through the passageway into the darkness.
"Just a bit further in!" James called out, sniggering with Sirius.
"This better be safe!" Lily called, with a note of danger in her voice.
Peter frowned at his friends. "Don't you reckon we should warn them about the-"
A sudden screeching noise interrupted his questions. Lily, Marlene and Alice had inadvertently trodden on the steep slide which led to the main tunnel, and now lay at the bottom in a crumpled heap.
"Potter!" An unimpressed Lily Evans yelled, causing James to be thankful he was still stood at the top of the slide.
"Did we not mention the..?" He asked Sirius mockingly, holding back guffaws, "I do apologise ladies; there is a short slide into the tunnel you should be wary of."
"Yes, it can be quite painful to fall down it. So I've heard, I mean." Sirius responded, sliding gracefully down into the tunnel.
"I swear to Merlin, when your 'mate' gets down here I will kill him." Lily growled at him, dusting herself off passive aggressively and igniting her wand with a quick Lumos charm.
Sirius chuckled. "Well here he comes!"
James slid into the dimly lit passage with Remus and Peter in tow. He grinned at the seething redhead meekly, bracing himself for any attacks whether physical or verbal.
Lily stared at James for a moment. "Asshole." She grumbled, pushing him into the rough tunnel wall. Lily stalked off into the immeasurable darkness and called out; "I assume we go this way?"
As she walked on furiously a small voice inside her head asked; why do you hate him so much? That joke was as much Sirius' fault as James, but you're only mad at him. But voice got squished by Lily's fury. She recounted just why she hated Potter in one simple word. Chocolate Frog.
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It was the first of September 1971. Lily Evans sat alone in a compartment on the Hogwarts express, after leaving her muggle parents and angry muggle sister behind her on the platform. Her entire body shook with nerves and excitement. She'd barely been out of her home village before and now she was embarking on a fantastical journey with no one to accompany her but her cat, Schrodinger. Severus Snape had offered to sit with Lily on the train, but his friend's had sneered at Lily's blood status (when Snape mentioned it) so Lily decided she'd rather sit alone.
The door suddenly opened, "Hi, erm, do you mind if I sit here?"
Lily smiled meekly at the sandy haired boy who stood in the doorway and nodded. He pulled his shabby case into the compartment and sat across from her.
"I'm Lily Evans," She introduced herself, pulling at the hem of her muggle skirt, "What's your name?"
The boy coughed, "Remus, Remus Lupin."
The pair sat quietly for a moment, taking in the blur of countryside going by. All of a sudden Lily's cat jumped up onto Remus, startling him so greatly he knocked it back onto the floor.
Lily gasped and took hold of Schrodinger, "Oh, Remus, I'm sorry!"
"No worries," He chuckled, "He just startled me. What's his name?"
"Schrodinger, I-"
"Schrodinger? What in Merlin's kind of name is that?"
The voice alerted Remus and Lily to a new presence in the room; two boys stood confidently in the doorway of the compartment – as a smaller boy cowered behind them.
"Oh, well, an Austrian philosopher had a theory based around cats and-" Lily stammered, feeling intimidated for the second time that day.
"A what?" The taller boy with glasses and dark messy hair asked, "A philly-what?"
"I don't know what she's talking about James, she may as well be speaking gobbledegook for all I know," The other boy responded.
Lily mouthed the word gobbledegook, as much confused by this as they were by philosophers.
The boy called James noticed this, "Sirius, mate, I think she's a muggleborn."
Lily felt wary of the excitement in his tone, and the grin the other boy shot at him. She'd been in the wizarding world for only twenty minutes and this was the second time wizards had singled her out because of who her parents were.
"What's your name?" Sirius asked and Lily told him quietly. "Lily, would you like a chocolate frog?"
She looked at the purple box apprehensively, "It's not a real frog, is it?"
James laughed, "No! Why would we give you a real frog?"
Lily shrugged her shoulders and took the box from him; Remus narrowed his eyes at the two boys wondering what their plan was. As jumpy as she was feeling, Lily's fingers were almost too shaky to open the wrapper. It didn't help that she could hear the boys laughing at her for some unknown reason. When she finally pulled the lid off the box a large brown animated frog jumped out and attached itself to her face, smearing chocolate across her cheeks and forehead. Lily began to scream and pry to frog off of her face, with the help of Remus, until it finally jumped out the open window.
"What a waste of good chocolate," James commented, doubled over with tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. Lily stared at the boy, tears of fear and embarrassment streaking her own chocolate covered cheeks. In that moment she knew she hated him, the cruel boy who picked on her for no good reason.
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Lily heard the others approaching behind her and let herself calm down a little. There was no point in spending the entire outing shouting at Potter. She slowed her walk so she could hear their conversation.
"How much further?" Peter moaned, stumbling over yet another rock on the floor. Sirius and James pointed and laughed at this, and even Remus cracked a bemused smile. Yet another thing I hate about Potter, the snide voice in Lily's head hissed, how he takes the mick out of his 'friend'.
"You know how much further we've done this a thousand times," Sirius sighed.
"Well I don't; how much further? We've been walking for nearly an hour!" Marlene complained, raising her lit wand in an attempt to see further into the tunnel.
Remus copied her movements, "You should be able to see daylight any time soon."
Sure enough a dim light appeared from the depths of the tunnel, exposing the ancient beams and bricks holding the structure up.
"Where did this tunnel even come from, anyway?" Lily enquired, poking a rooting beam with unease and curiosity.
"Well, legend says it was originally used to move corpses from Hogwarts lessons gone wrong, to be buried here in Hogsmeade. Magic used to be much more unrefined, and experimental you see," James smirked at the no nonsense expression on the redhead's face, "Kidding. I have no idea."
Despite herself, Lily laughed, savouring this amicable moment between herself and James.
The group suddenly emerged into what appeared to be a large cellar, stacked high with goodies such as sugar quills and chocolate frogs. Good naturedly Lily threw a chocolate frog at James and he covered his eyes in mock-fear, understanding the reference.
"Welcome to Honeydukes cellar, everyone. Take what you want, they won't realise its missing," Sirius announced, winking at Marlene as she rolled her eyes.
They all trooped out of the cellar, grabbing a box of Bertie Botts every flavour Beans or two as they went. The streets of Hogsmeade outside were suddenly foreign to Lily, Marlene and Alice as they were filled with adults rather than Hogwarts students. Saturday night in Hogsmeade was different to Saturday afternoon. The Three Broomsticks, the Hogs head and many other bars around the village had their doors flung wide open, playing wizarding hits as loud as possible. Older witches in short robes and wizards in brightly coloured ones littered the streets, causing the students to seem adolescent and out of place. Noticing this, Sirius cast a quick charm over their robes so they would fit in a little more and the girls fingered their robes, astonished at how fashionable they were. The boys grinned at their amazement, knowing it was going to be a brilliant night.
"Rosemerta!" Sirius cried on entry to the three broomsticks. A blonde haired witch beamed at him from behind the bar, her cheeks colouring a little.
"Sirius, darling! Are you being a naughty young wizard again?" She teased.
He grinned, "You know me, love."
Rosemerta levitated over a tray of large butter beers and smaller shot-glasses of fire whisky. "Don't you go telling Dumbledore on me!" She ordered, with a giggle.
The gang of students gathered around the large round table, taking in the atmosphere and sipping on butter beer. Lily manoeuvred herself purposefully so she wouldn't be sitting next to James, but instead found herself directly across from her. Therefore leaving herself open to being ogled all night. However Lily avoided catching his eye until the moment Sirius proclaimed a toast.
"To us! And to getting out of Hogwarts for the night!" Sirius yelled. The others lifted their fire whiskies to their mouths and as the amber liquid burned her throat, Lily looked up into James eyes. He stared at her from across the table and whether it be the alcohol or the moment Lily felt sorry for him. Sorry that she always blamed him for the Marauder's antics and hated him without motive. But before her glass had even hit the table she watched him ogle another girl who wore a form fitting blue robe. For some reason this brought a lump to her throat and she washed it away with another fire whisky or two. She chattered aimlessly with Alice about some boy she'd been seeing, only listening halfway. Instead Lily watched James and Sirius following older witches around the bar.
The group then moved a little unsteadily to a bar across the road called the Alchemist, where steaming glasses of unknown cocktails where provided by the dozen load. Lily downed three within minutes and pulled Alice and Marlene to the packed dancefloor. The boys followed and they created a circle where they danced and laughed, picking brightly coloured shots from the trays levitating overhead.
"Don't you think Lily should take it a bit easier?" Remus inquired to James, raising his voice over the throb of the music. He nodded to where Lily stumbled into an older couple, who raised their eyes threateningly at her slurred apology.
James squinted at her through steamed up glasses and shrugged, "She's not my problem! We're not even friends."
"But you want to be!" Sirius teased, looking up from the girl he was dancing with, "Mo-ore than friends!"
"Seriously James!" Remus shook the boy, who was play fighting with Sirius (much to his date's horror), "I think you should go talk to her."
He rolled his eyes and pushed his way across the dance floor. To Lily's astonishment the glass in her head suddenly disappeared, as what looked like three James Potters loomed over her.
"Hey, I was going to drink that!" Lily complained, leaning against James and hitting his chest, "That nice boy over there gave it to me!"
That nice boy turned out to be a fifty year old wizard with a handlebar moustache, who was leering at Lily and making his way back over to her.
"And that's why you aren't having it! Haven't you ever heard of date rape charms?" James lectured, pulling Lily off the dancefloor and away from the strange man. He felt an odd protectiveness over the helpless girl, knowing he'd put her in this situation she'd probably never experienced before.
Lily opened her mouth to give a snarky reply but instead turned the colour of the apple shot she'd had earlier. She careered out of the bar, pin-balling off of anyone in her way to the front door. James chased after her to find her doubled over, stood over a puddle of purple sludge.
"Nice one, Evans," He groaned, rubbing her back gingerly. Lily turned to look at him, her lips tinged purple and her hair in a matted mess. Strangely though, James honestly thought she looked beautiful. But her face turned pale again, "You're not going to hurl again, are you?"
She ignored him, staring at the wall behind his head, "What's that?"
A bright green sign was plastered magically to the wall of the "Toad Lounge". It read:
Do you feel that magical purity is ignored by our government?
Do you believe in keeping magic for all—magical witches and wizards?
Join now to fight the waves of impurity filtering into the magical world
No name or number was given, just an address in knockturn alley and a time.
"Nothing, let's get you back up to the school." As James was considerably more sober than Lily he understood the subtext of "magical purity". Thus what this group's opinion of Lily's blood status would be. He understood how upset she'd be if she was in a state to read the notice properly, remembering all the business with Severus Snape he previous year. And what a toll it had been on Lily. James half carried Lily back up the tunnel to Hogwarts and left her in the care of a female seventh year at the foot of the Gryffindor girls' dormitories. He felt a sense of foreboding as he watched her red head disappear up the staircase, knowing this group were just the beginning.
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Again, reviews would be lovely