Hi, everyone! This is my first fic ever, just a little one-shot of how I imagined Lily and James found out they got Head Girl and Boy. I hope you enjoy it and maybe please leave a review? 3 Also, I'm on Twitter if you want to talk, you can find me at acci0pr0ngs!
I do not own Harry Potter nor do I support JKR.
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"Lily, honey, James is here!", Mrs. Evans called from the downstairs landing.
It was a nice sunday morning brought by the beginning of August, which everyone expected to be hotter and welcomed the fresh weather just fine. Lily had invited James over for breakfast to celebrate their three month anniversary, although the pair had yet to spend a day apart during their school break. Sixth year had gone by in the blink of an eye, and seventh year, the dreaded NEWTs year, would go by even faster, so they wanted to enjoy their new relationship and spend every possible moment together.
Lily checked her reflection in the mirror one last time and saw the picture that hung above it. It was muggle, static, because she couldn't have many magical artifacts in the house to not raise suspicions to any visitors, but it showed all of her friends on their last days as Hogwarts sixth year students. It featured Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black - who was pretending he was stealing Lily from James' arms -, James Potter - pulling his best friend's hair to get him away from his girlfriend -, Lily Evans - laughing hysterically at her boyfriend and his best friend -, Mary Macdonald, Marlene McKinnon and her girlfriend, Dorcas Meadowes - one year senior to the rest of the group and had just gone through her graduation ceremony. The photo was taken on an instant camera, bought by Sirius Black, who had been absolutely entranced by the muggle object that could print photographs in a few seconds, albeit they were still.
That June day had quickly become one of Lily's happiest memories. She and James had just started going out, but were already deeply entranced in one another to make up for lost time. It was a day full of laughter and love, a small relief from the war going on in the wizarding world that the teenagers knew they would be called upon to fight once their school days were over.
During the summer, Lily and James agreed to stay as far away from talk of the war as possible, which they found was quite hard to do. The Daily Prophet had at least one headline everyday about an attack or a new regulation that was approved, the Diagon Alley was eerily empty, stores were closing, people were disappearing and families were running away from the country. The girl feared more than ever her return to Hogwarts, as the school itself was starting to feel the effects of the outside world's battles, after a few older students started to declare themselves as death-eaters. She was uneasy about the safety of muggleborns for the upcoming school year, as she was often targeted by some dirty hexes and received daily threats that should scare her away - but they only made her more willing to fight.
The war had worsened, and no one knew what to expect come September first. Lily agonized over who would be chosen as Head Boy and Girl, especially because one particular prefect in her year, Severus Snape, ex-best friend, Slytherin house student, James Potter's biggest enemy, was now a suspected death eater. The run for Head was tight, and Lily knew Severus' name was bound to be a runner up, so it made everyone a bit anxious as to who would be setting the students straight and whose rules they would abide by. Would Dumbledore select a suspected death eater as Head Boy? There was no way of knowing. He always acted on reasons nobody else understood, and Lily hoped he would pick a rational choice for the highest position of authority a student can take at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. To this day, Lily can't tell if the Headmaster was logical on his decision, and it came as quite a shock to her, but more on that later. The girl pushed those thoughts away and broke her gaze from the picture, deciding instead to focus on her boyfriend waiting for her for a lovely meal downstairs.
When she arrived at the kitchen, James was having a lively conversation with Mrs. Evans about his plans for after school. They were sitting around the breakfast table, and Lily stood in the doorway watching them with a shy smile on her face. "Well, Mum wants me to go to the Auror Academy, but that is absolutely the last place I want to go. I'm set on Quidditch, though, I want to play it professionally", he told her.
"I'm sorry, dear, but what is an auror?", the older woman asked, and Lily couldn't miss James trying to hold his laughter every time someone called him "dear" - Sirius did it often, especially in the situations in which he couldn't laugh, and Lily secretly found it adorable. Mrs. Evans looked as if she was trying to recall conversations with her daughter; there was just so much she didn't understand about the wizarding world. And even though Lily and James talked frequently about this in the house, there were still so many gaps to fill.
"Aurors are the wizarding police, mum. They arrest dark wizards. And before you ask, Quidditch is that game I showed you a few pictures of, remember, the one with the brooms, and the hoops, and the three different kinds of balls?", Lily replied, making her way into the room towards the boy. "James is Gryffindor's Quidditch Captain, and he's considered one of the best Hogwarts Chasers from the last century", she added, with a proud grin. The sport really wasn't Lily's favorite topic, but she knew how hard James worked towards it and how much it meant to him, not to mention how difficult it was, and she wore her proud girlfriend's smile every time it came up.
"Oh, yes, I remember. I would very much like to watch a game someday, I always like to know more about Lily's other world", Mrs. Evans told them. The news of Lily being a witch was always a hard topic in the Evans household, but ever since Petunia's wedding and moving out, it became easier to discuss and accept it. After Lily's coming of age her mother even asked her to do some domestic maintenance spells such as doing the dishes.
"If you want to know about Lily's world, Quidditch is no way of doing it", James replied, holding out his arm to hug his girlfriend sideways as she approached him. "I'll talk to my mother to arrange a dinner for us all at home, and then you can see exploding snaps, enchanted portraits and books, and house elves, that's more of the full Lily experience. The house elves absolutely love her." Mrs. Evans looked pleased with the invitation, even though by the look on her face she probably had no idea what a house elf was, and promised to take him up on that, before excusing herself from the kitchen to leave the pair alone.
"Good morning", James told her, looking up from his seat and pulling her into his lap. "Happy anniversary, love", he added, brushing his lips through hers.
"Happy anniversary", she replied, and leaned in for a passionate, but still restrained - they were sitting in her kitchen, for Merlin's sake - kiss. "I'll never get enough of this", she said after they broke for air.
"What, kissing a handsome bloke on your kitchen table?", he smirked.
"Yes, that, obviously", she blushed slightly, "but also you talking with mum, and her interest in the magical world", her eyes gleamed with happiness. "The last six years have been so hard with Petunia's denial, I had to suppress every ounce of magic in myself every time I was home, and now I am doing bloody cleaning spells on the dishes, simply because mum wants to see it. It just feels really good to have my two worlds overlap."
James pulled her closer and she settled on his lap, tucking her head under his chin, while he enveloped her in his arms. "It makes me so happy to see you so happy", he told her, before laying a kiss on her hair. They sat like that for a few moments, just taking in each other and enjoying their bliss, when James asked, "Why haven't you told them about the war?".
Lily flinched a bit. From her position, it was easy to be taken away from both worlds and just stay there, in James Potter's arms, without a thought of the outside world. "I don't want to worry them. They don't even know why Sev and I fought, they think it was just friends growing up and drifting away."
"Do you plan on telling them? I mean, your mum is thinking about plans for after school, she's really curious about wizarding careers. She thinks your boyfriend will be a Quidditch player," Lily ignored the butterflies in her stomach from hearing James refer to himself as her boyfriend, "She'll want to visit your job, hear about what you do. And you already told Alice Longbottom you were joining the Order as soon as you graduated."
"I don't know what I'm going to do, I still have a year to figure it out, but I know that leaving the Order is not an option. The only reason I'm not fighting with them right now is because they said they would only let me in after graduation." Alice and Frank Longbottom, Head Boy and Girl when James and Lily were only second years, had invited some of Hogwarts' top students to join the Order of the Phoenix after they finished Hogwarts, and only then. But when they accepted the offer - all of them did so faster than you can say "blast-ended skrewt" -, they were told some training would begin covertly in their seventh year, with assistance from teachers who were in the group and old students just "visiting" the castle.
"Yeah, I know. I want to be there, too. But we'll do everything we can from within the castle walls and we won't let those death eater gits cause any trouble. I doubt most of them will return to school, that lot thinks Dumbledore is a crazy old rag and they want to teach their children the dark arts at home."
"I don't know if I should hope you're right or wrong. Because, I mean, what if one of them gets Head Boy or Girl? Then what, they'll all be parading around the school, not afraid of showing their true colors?", Lily voiced her concerns.
"Oh, come on, everyone knows you're getting Head Girl. You're top in our class in everything but Potions", he flinched at the thought of Snivellous, "and Transfiguration, and that is just because your boyfriend is an unregistered animagus, so that's pretty hard to beat. And you still come in second on those. You're every teacher's favorite, you're in the Slug Club, you've got, what, like five detentions to your name in six years of school, and those are probably all because of some trouble I got you into."
"Four. But they were for Remus, not for you", she responded, referencing all the times she helped the marauders hide Remus' lycanthropy, using her prefect powers to excuse them from class and allow them to sneak around the castle at night.
Being Head Girl was eleven-years-old-Lily-Evans' dream from the day she found out about this position, but as she got older, that dream was taken over by school responsibilities, and being a prefect already felt like she was doing enough for the school. Yes, Head Girl would be nice, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if someone else - decent, that is, not a death eater - got it.
Just then, they heard a low tapping in the kitchen window, and they saw an owl waiting to be let in. As Lily got up, James whined a little, so she kissed his forehead and ruffled his hair, and he smiled broadly. She opened the kitchen window and accio'd a few owl treats from her trunk, while James took to untying the letter attached to the bird's leg. She petted the owl and gave it the treats, searching her mind to see if it was one of her friends' pets. When she looked up, she found James frozen, staring at the envelope. "What?", she asked, and then she saw the Hogwarts tag on the bird's wing.
"It's your Hogwarts letter", he said, in a low voice, but made no movement, still staring at the envelope. "It's heavy", he added, after a few seconds of stunned silence.
Lily tensed. "How heavy?"
"Heavier than my Quidditch Captain badge." He looked up at her, finally broken from his trance. "I really think this is it, love", James held out the envelope to her.
It really did feel a lot heavier than her traditional Hogwarts letters, but she still felt hesitant to open it. "You open it", she handed it back to him.
"You sure?"
She nodded, and he took it back. Carefully, James broke the wax seal and pulled out what looked like a big stack of parchment - and a shiny Head Girl badge, that fell on the table. The boy's face lightened up as he looked at his girlfriend, and both their faces broke into a large grin. She wanted this more than she actually knew. He dropped the papers on the table and swiftly picked her up, spinning the redhead in the air.
"You got it, I knew you would, I'm so proud of you!", he told her, at the same time he kissed her all over her face and she giggled incessantly. After a few whirls, he put her down but did not let go.
"I got it! I can't believe I got it.", she shrieked.
"You really, really did!", he spun her around once more. "And hey, did you know you are actually the first muggleborn Head Girl in at least acentury?", James told her. "Hogwarts will never be a place for death eaters, it's the place where justice begins. You're making history, Evans."
"How do you know all of this?"
"I don't know, I just do", he casually shrugged, but she saw through him.
"You looked it up, didn't you? You actually read about the history of Head Boy and Girl!", she playfully accused him.
"Maybe I did. I knew you would get it, I wanted to be prepared", he said, and she pulled him down for a kiss. She fisted his shirt collar while he held onto her waist, and they stayed like that for about a minute until he broke it and said, "Well, let's read the letter!"
Lily picked up the stack of parchments and began reading the first note out loud, "'Miss Lily J. Evans, I am pleased to have you back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for your seventh and final year. Please note that the list of required books is attached to this letter. The Hogwarts Express will', blah, blah, same thing every year", she skimmed through the all-too familiar welcome letter from the Headmaster until she found the part that interested her. "Oh, here it is! 'You have been selected as Hogwarts' 1976-1977 school year Head Girl, a position given only to students who show outstanding leadership, academic achievement and moral standings. In this envelope, you will find a small guide to your basic Head Girl responsibilities, which will be furthermore explained at your arrival at school. Enclosed is the contact information for the Head Boy, Mr…'", Lily trailed off, looking up at James, in shock.
"Oh, Merlin, who is it? It's Snivellous, isn't it? Lily, talk to me!", he demandes, but she didn't move an inch, so he went beside her to read the letter himself. "Head Boy, Mr. James F. Potter."
They both stood frozen for a second, until James let out a loud "What?!". Lily looked at him, but she had no words.
"How?! I'm not a prefect! Merlin knows how many rooms I blew up at that school, some they still haven't found out, may I add, and they made me bloody Head Boy? How stoned was Dumbledore when he decided this? How stoned was Minnie to let him do this?!", he let out in a high pitched ramble, and Lily didn't catch a single word of it.
They stood there, just looking at each other, unable to understand what was happening.
"I mean, you fit the criteria. Being a prefect is very common to being Head, but it's not a rule. And the whole leadership, academic achievement, and what else…", she picked up the letter again to read, "moral standing, I mean, you have all that. You bend the rules as if they don't exist, but you've got the moral thing, you know the real limits to things."
"I know no limits! That's all Moony, he's the brain! I'm just, what, their mum? No, I don't want to be the mum-friend! Maybe like the big brother, I just go along. But I have no limits!", he replied.
"James, don't you see it? That's exactly why it's you. You take care. You miss curfew six days of the week and still are one the best students in our year, you never miss a homework, you've got more "Outstanding" OWLs than me or Remus! You know the name of every first year, in every house, and they always feel safe to come ask you for help or cry when they're homesick. Like you said, you're not a prefect but everyone respects you a lot more than Severus, you are the most popular guy in school, and one the best Quidditch players in Hogwarts history. Yeah, it's unexpected, but when you see the logical side of it, it can make sense", Lily reasoned.
"Wait, so you're not mad at this?", he asked, confused. He was afraid of her reaction, given that Hogwarts' biggest prankster had just been given the highest student position of power, but she was smiling fondly of him.
"Merlin, not at all. I was hoping for Remus to get this, but just because he's a prefect, I never imagined they would give it to someone who isn't! It's not a rule, but I don't think that's ever happened before", she responded to James, who was breaking into a smile of his own. She walked back over to him, lacing her arms around his waist. "And you know, Head Boy and Girl have private dormitories", she teased.
James stared at the girl holding him and pulled her for a kiss. He was so happy right now, it seemed like it was all a dream. James Potter, Head Boy, boyfriend, was kissing Lily Evans, Head Girl, girlfriend, in her kitchen, celebrating the fact that they would be dorm neighbors, that any thoughts about Dumbledore's madness, NEWTs or the war completely escaped them.
"And a huge common room", he added, when they broke apart.
"I don't think Dumbledore knows we're together. Would the school Headmaster give two love-sick teenagers private rooms for a whole year?"
"Like I said, I think he was stoned when he decided this. Or maybe it was Minnie's idea, just trying to give us a push in the right direction. We got together at the end of the school year, maybe she never heard the good news, and you know how much she just loves me", James smirked.
"I'm going to overlook you calling Professor McGonagall Minnie, because I'm curious: how do you know about the common room? Have you ever been inside the Head's dormitory?", she inquired.
"I have attended every Head Boy party since third year", he told her.
"There's a Head Boy party?!"
"Well, of course, they always throw one at the beginning of the year. Usually, it's on a night that the Head Girl is on patrol or sleeping over at her old dorm, and it's only for boys, but maybe we could change that old tradition. I don't think there ever was a party where Head Girl and girls were involved, and that would be a lot more fun."
"Merlin, sharing a dorm with James Potter will be an adventure, won't it?"
"Oh, you're in for a ride, Head Girl", he smirked.
"I can't wait, Head Boy", she replied, and pulled him down for another kiss.