At the Beginning Part II
The Start
*
No one told me
I was going to find you
Unexpected
What you did to my heart
When I lost hope
You were there to remind me
This is the start
*
"That's NOT funny!" shrieked Lucy, going a shade of deep red. "Those things hurt, you two!"
"Come on Lucy," cooed Elise Soothingly, "We'll get you up to Madame Pomfrey. And maybe, if we hear a good explanation when we come back, we won't have to tell her what happened."
Lily seriously doubted they'd hear anything of the sort, from the proud way in which Sirius and James were chuckling as Lucy and Elise got up to leave the breakfast table. They'd just replaced Lucy's real teacup with a nose-biting one they'd purchased by mail order, and the results had been quite to their liking.
"It really isn't that funny, you know," said Lily, feeling it was her duty as a girl of Gryffindor and a friend of Lucy's to say something. "What has she ever done to you anyway?"
"Nothing," said Sirius rather too casually, which had the effect of making him look more evil than ever.
"It's a person's duty to make life hard for the ones they love," added James.
"Besides, Lily, I can tell that you're not that offended anyway, so don't even try that I'd-never-try-that look. I caught you giggling, young lady."
"Ooh, sometimes I think Remus is the only boy around with any sense at all! Oh, and you Peter, of course." Lily added the last part in as an afterthought. It was so easy to forget little Peter, who seemed to make a point of walking around in the other three's shadows, James and Sirius in particular. Besides, in truth, she really didn't think Peter was clever at all. He was extremely forgetful, and hadn't made it through a single class yet without making a mistake. And they were about a month and a half into the school year.
"Oh, I dunno," said James, helping himself to around his fourth hot roll, and proceeding to smother it with butter, cream cheese, and several different flavors of jam. "Sometimes I think Remus is pretty loony too."
"By the way, how's your mother, old boy?" asked Sirius, giving Remus one of his amazingly rare truly sympathetic looks.
"M-my mother?" stuttered Remus. "OH, my mother! Oh, she's recovering quickly now, thank you. Er, not quite out of danger yet, of course, but th-the doctor said she's making some-progress."
Having said that, his eyes darted hastily down to his plate, and he began cutting his sausage almost mechanically.
"His mother?" Lily mouthed soundlessly across the table to James, as Sirius had left the table in search of the milk jug.
"She was sick," James whispered, leaning halfway across the table so Remus wouldn't hear any of their conversation. It was a rather touchy subject with him, as he'd found out the hard way. "Really sick, so he had to go and see her. He was gone for a few days a week or two ago, don't you remember?"
Come to think of it, Lily had noticed that Remus had been missing from a few of their classes, but she hadn't given it a second thought. "I thought he was with Madame Pomfrey, I suppose. Oh well. I'm sorry for him."
"But don't bring it up," James warned. "He gets all weird, and he stutters, and turns sort of pink. There you are, Sirius! Did you remember to bring me a glass?"
"Here's one for you," said Sirius, surveying the three glasses of milk he'd brought from the Ravenclaw table. "And one for-how about one for Peter?"
"Uh-oh-what did you put in it this time, Sirius?" Lily recognized that maniacal sparkle in his dark eyes.
"Oh, nothing horrible. Just a bit of hiccupping powder. Ah, our little Peter. James is right: it's one's duty as a person to hurt the ones you love just a little bit..."
* * *
"Now would you please pipe down class? We're ten minutes into the lesson already, and we're supposed to be working on bloating potions, which is rather difficult and time consuming! Please!"
Lily exchanged glances Erin Williams. The two were sitting towards the back of the class, which happened to be Potions with the Slytherins, their second most tedious class (History of Magic being the first, of course). The scene in front of them was all-too-familiar. Several students were in disarray, tripping and falling over each other in a vain struggle to place themselves in seats as far away as possible from the dung bomb that had just been dropped by an anonymous first-year in the front of the room. Professor Gingold was standing on the chair behind her desk, waving her arms furiously in an attempt to calm her students. While an extremely nice person, it was agreed throughout the school that she was hopeless when it came to handling her classes.
"It's all right now, really!" cried the flustered Professor, her hair slipping out of its braid and clinging to her damp face. "It's stopped smelling now, anyway, as I've already poured the quenchius potion over it! There now, that's a good class. You can come sit over here, Peter, by my desk, if you can't find another seat."
"Tha-hic-nk y-hic-you, Pro-hic-fessor."
The Slytherin side of the room erupted with laughter, and even a few of the Gryffindors giggled as well. A few of the girls, anyway, thought it made up in a small way for Lucy's treatment that morning. Lily turned around to glare at James and Sirius, who were sitting with Remus directly behind her. All three were looking rather smug. James noticed her and winked. The whole scene made her feel uneasy. She was sure they were plotting something or other.
"You'll be working in groups of three today-well, we'll need one group of four. Oh no you don't, you three," said Professor Gingold in what would have been a sharp if she had been anyone else, jolting her red head toward James, Sirius, and Remus. "I'm not having a repetition of last week's exploding cauldron, or the previous week's 'We didn't mean to give Severus that extra nose-it's so big as it is we wouldn't dream of adding some on-next week we'll try and reduce the size, how would that be?' No, I'm assigning your partners. Black, you work with the twins. Lupin, you can work with Tenmarr and Ellowit."
Lupin paled a bit at this. Madison Tenmarr and Jonathan Ellowit were both Slytherins, and had known each other for a long time. It was one of the greatest joys in their life to be alone with one other person they knew they could bully, and Remus knew he fit that description.
"And Potter-she looked around at the classroom, where many students had already huddled together. "If Peter works with Elise and Erin, and-all right. Potter, you can be one of my foursome. Pair with Jenkins, Nott, and Snape."
Lily stared at her professor. Was she mad? Everyone knew that James and Severus Snape were worst enemies. They'd never spoken so much as one word to each other unless it was part of a particularly snide insult. She turned around to look at James, who also looked incredulous.
"Well, get to work, everyone!"
"We'd better get this over with, then," muttered Lily, as she and James gathered up their things to move across the room to where Snape and Nott, a mousy-looking boy with pale skin and a smug expression, sat sitting in wait, neither of them looking too happy with the arrangement either.
"Ok, here's the deal," whispered James, softly but firmly upon reaching their other partners. "You don't say anything to us, and we won't say anything to you. We'll cover the first half of the ingredients list, up to the shredded roots. You take the second half. And then we'll all just dump it in and stir."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Fine. I wouldn't speak to you if you paid me, Potter."
"Shut up, Snape."
"Come on, you two. Shut up and stop bickering!" Lily pushed the beetles towards Nott and Snape to quiet them down, and hurriedly handed James the knife so he could start dicing the roots. She herself took to prying the wings off the flies that lay in piles before her.
"Can you believe her, putting us with them?" James muttered angrily to her, dicing his roots heedlessly, causing them to be uneven and messy.
"We'll just have to live with it. It's only one class, after all."
"I know what you're thinking, Lily. I'll be good, I promise."
"Good."
"Unless he starts something."
"James!"
"What, do you expect me to just stand here while he makes fun of all my friends? Sirius for being a half-blood, Peter for being awkward, Remus for being...well...Remus. Can't explain that one. But he's the most horrible person I've ever met, I'm sure!"
"Just ignore him..."
James snorted, but didn't say anything else for a little while.
"Pass me the leeches, please, Severus."
"Get them yourself, Mudblood."
Lily sensed, rather than saw, James' face going red. "Don't say anything," she prayed quietly. "Please don't let him say anything."
"Here, I'll get them," she muttered softly, after a few dreadfully tense moments.
"Don't." James sounded calm and quite determined.
"It's really okay, James, it's not a problem..."
"Don't you dare, Lily. He refused a perfectly reasonable request on your part. He insulted you in one of the worst ways without any provocation. He's completely able to pick up the leeches, and pass them to you. They're right near him anyway."
"No, James, please don't make a big deal out of this..."
'No, Muggle scum. He believes he has a perfectly good point. Perhaps he does. I'm interested in seeing how he's going to make me."
"Don't go there, Snape," warned James, dropping his dicing knife and forgetting about the potion, which the rest of them had done a while back.
"What are you going to do to me, Mr. Muggle-lover Potty?"
"Why I'm going to--"
He stopped in mid-sentence and whipped out his wand, shouting something Lily couldn't quite distinguish. Snape, between sneezing fits, grabbed his wand out of his pocket, and began yelling at James. Soon, the two of them were sneezing, coughing, scratching, dancing, and tumbling all over the room, amid the screams of several students and the ever-present smirk of Anthony Nott.
Lily clapped a hand to her forehead and sunk down under the desk. Why did James always have to be the hero?
"Stop this! Stop this madness at once! Finite Incantum!" screamed Professor Gingold, climbing up onto her chair once more and pointing her wand all over the room, jumbling up all her spells and ending up giving several students half-body binds and jelly-legs, including Severus and James themselves. This did have the effect, however, of stopping the ruckus.
"You," she gasped, pointing at James, "and you," she added, moving her finger to Severus, "to the hospital wing, now. I'll deal with punishment later. And the rest of you can go too. The room's too much of a mess to continue with your potions." She looked around miserably.
Cauldrons, desks, and chairs were scattered all over the room; upside-down and out of place. Ingredients were strewn all over the floor, and several puddles of things that didn't quite mix were exploding right and left. There was a mass attempt at evacuation, causing several students to be trampled on their way out. Quickly as she could, Lily squeezed through the classes and out of the door.
* * *
Months had passed since the unfortunate series of events in Potions class, and Christmas had come upon the school like a tidal wind, blowing the majority of the school away. Lily, however, had decided to stay, as her parents would be visiting Muggle relatives in North Ireland with Petunia, and she wasn't quite up to going back to Muggle life. The rest of the Gryffindor girls had gone home, however, so she was left at the castle with Peter, James, and Sirius. Remus had gone home for the holidays early, in fact, as his aunt was dying and wished to see him before she was gone.
"-and during Astronomy that night, when there was a half-moon..."
"Shut UP, Peter," whispered Sirius harshly, spotting Lily, who had just looked up at them from her chair in the common room by the fire.
"Oh, hullo, Lily!" said Peter brightly, stumbling on the very last step down from the boys' dormitory.
"Merry Christmas, Peter," she smiled, looking up from the copy of Witch Weekly Elise had lent her last week.
"Not quite yet," correct Sirius, lowering himself into an armchair nearby. "Merry Christmas Eve, more like."
"Well then, Merry Christmas Eve, Peter."
"What time's the feast tonight, anyway?"
"Can't you think of anything but your stomach, Sirius? But it's at eight," answered James, looking into the fire.
"It's 8:20."
"No, it's not, it's at eight."
"No, I mean, it's 8:20 right now."
"I wondered why it was so quiet in here," declared James, jumping out of his chair as though he'd just been electrocuted. "Let's go then, I'm starving!"
"Can't you think of anything but your stomach, James?" Sirius yelled after him, darting out of the room as well.
* * *
Either the feast that night was the best one Lily had ever had at Hogwarts, or she was just starving.
"It must be both," she decided, as she ambled back toward Gryffindor's common room later that night. She was alone, as James, Sirius, and Peter had left very hurriedly halfway into the feast, without any sort of an explanation. She wasn't very curious as to the reason, though: the boys were always planning something.
"I'm just glad I'm on their good side," she said out loud. "Oh-rose water."
The portrait of a fat lady in a pink dress swung open, Lily climbed inside the common room, expecting to see the three boys huddled in a corner, discussing their newest scheme. However, they were nowhere to be seen.
"Odd," she said aloud again, enjoying the emptiness of the room and reveling in the ability to talk to yourself without having older children stare at you. "But they'll come down soon enough," she convinced herself, and once more, picked up Elise's magazine.
They didn't come down. Lily read, and read, and read some more, but there was no sound of anybody save a few fifth year girls whose giggles from upstairs blew through the grates in the common room.
At first, Lily wasn't worried. After all, James and Sirius were smart, and perfectly able to handle themselves in all sorts of situations. Not, of course, that anything bad could be happening to them at all. No, Hogwarts was perfectly safe. Wasn't it? She was pretty sure. But that wasn't exactly sure.
"Oh bother!" she said aloud again. "If they're not going to come down to me, I'll just have to go up to them!"
Admittedly nervous now, Lily crept up the stairs to the boys' dormitories. She wasn't exactly sure which one was theirs, having never been up here, so she pressed her ear to one of the doors. When she didn't hear anything, so she moved on to the next one, again without any luck. From behind the third door, however, voices could be heard, talking low and fixedly.
"No, we can't ask for help, Peter, are you mad? We're not supposed to be doing anything like this at all! We'd get in huge trouble. We can't tell anyone."
Lily recognized the voice as belonging to Sirius.
"Not even the new Transfiguration teacher? She's head of out house, you know--"
"No one, Peter."
"Not even--"
"No, James, not even Lily," said Sirius, cutting him off in mid-sentence.
"But we'll tell Remus, won't we?"
"No, Peter, we won't tell Remus." It was James' voice this time. "He'd try to stop us. And it's for his own good."
"I really don't know if this is such a good idea."
"Don't chicken out, Peter! We need to be in this together!" Sirius sounded almost desperate.
"It's just that...what if--"
"Don't even start that, Peter. There are too many what ifs that I'm sure we'd all burst if we went though the whole list."
"Besides, we're better off focusing on the positive side of the thing, rather than the negative," chimed in James' voice.
"So we're all in, then?"
"Yes."
"Er-all right, yes! Just don't look at me like that, Sirius, it makes me nervous."
A distinctly Sirius snort reached Lily's ears.
"I just wish we could tell Lily," muttered James.
Lily began to creep away from the door, and over to her dormitory. She didn't approve of most of the things her mischievous friends did, but this sounded particularly morbid. Still, she didn't suppose there was anything she could do, as they didn't listen to her much anyway, and they sounded set on this. She'd forget about it for tonight, at least, and get some much-needed sleep.
* * *
"Aren't you going to wake up?"
A loud, familiar voice woke Lily from her sleep.
"I'm dying to see what she got already," said another familiar voice.
She yawned and opened her eyes to see James bending over her, a predominantly impatient look upon his face.
"Well it's about time!" he cried, grabbing her arm and yanking her up. "We've been waiting here for ages, sleepy-head."
"We've already opened all our presents," said Peter glumly, walking over to stand next to James. "It was almost like you were teasing us with all your unopened packages."
"Here, do this one first," said Sirius, tossing her a rectangular package in bright orange wrapping.
Lily reached for it and undid the purple bow, prying the card loose from the tape that bound it.
"You actually bother with those things?" cried James incredulously.
"Mental," muttered Sirius, with a good-natured smile.
"Here, let me help you with that," said James, leaping onto the bed and tearing at the orange paper almost hungrily. "It's-a green dress robe? Who on Earth'd give you that?"
"It's from Elise," said Lily indignantly, "and I think it's lovely."
"But what's the use of something like that?" asked Peter, confused.
"What does it matter?" asked Sirius impatiently. "Try this one next."
He shoved a little red box into the hands. She simply removed the card this time, and opened the box, to reveal a pair of little rosette earrings.
"How sweet!" she cooed, "If only I had my ears pierced. Well, it wasn't something she really would have noticed, anyway."
"Boy, your friends sure give you weird gifts," said Peter.
"Who was that one from?" inquired James.
"Kelsey Dayton. A Hufflepuff," she added, seeing the confused faces around her. "I met her on the train, and she sort of helped me get used to the concept of coming here-I forgot to get her something! I'm sure I'll find something, though, and she won't be back from her holiday for another week or so. Hand me that flimsy pink one over there, would you, Sirius?"
She tore at the wrapping to reveal a pink and white book, with the words "The Girl's Guide to the Oddness of the Opposite Gender" flashing across it.
"Now that's a weird one," said Sirius, and James and Peter nodded their heads in unison.
"Well, the Heidt twins are weird. Oh, look, they left a dedication! Dear Lily: Lucy and I bought this to try and see if we could figure out James, Sirius, and company. We failed miserably. Hope you have more luck! Love, Sarah."
"Uh-huh."
"Who do those girls think they are, anyway? It's bad enough that there are more girls than boys in Gryffindor this year, anyway. What do they have to go and rub it in for?"
Lily shrugged. "What's next?"
"Here, open Peter's-it's this yellow bag with the white tissue paper."
"It's-Every Flavour Beans! Thank you, Peter, there's been a shocking lack of them around the castle lately. Let me open yours now, Sirius."
Sirius' gift turned out to be a set of jokes from Gambol and Japes, in Diagon Alley.
"I figured you could use some practice, if you're ever planning on catching up to us," he said with a cackle.
James had bought her several pieces of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, a few liquorice wands, and a huge package of chocolate frogs.
"I remembered that time we talked about which wizard cards we had and didn't have, so I opened all the frogs at the shop to make sure they were new. They would have been awfully mad if they found out, but they never did," he told her, a bit shyly.
Lily gave her thanks profusely, before picking up the last package.
"It's from Remus," she told them, opening it to reveal a little silver picture frame.
"Well, Remus was always a bit off his rocker," mused Sirius, leaning back against the wall.
"Yeah, well--"
"Is there anything you want to tell me?" interjected Lily. She'd just remembered the conversation she'd overheard last night, and was suddenly more curious than ever.
"How'd you--"
Peter was silenced by a sharp kick in the shins from Sirius.
"Er-no, not really," he mumbled. "Why d'you ask?"
"Oh, no reason," Lily lied, not really wanting to tell them she'd been eavesdropping.
"Right-er, breakfast, then?" asked James nervously, shifting from one foot to the other.
"Oh, uh, yes, of course," said Sirius, taking either James' or Peter's arms in either of his hands, and beginning to move in the direction of the door. "We'll meet you down there, Lily, as soon as you're dressed. Bye."
And they slammed the door hurriedly behind them.
* * *
The days passed by pleasantly, turning into weeks as they went, and then months. Easter vacation came and went, with the finals following its footsteps. And then, some time before Lily expected it and far before she felt at all ready, all trunks were packed, goodbyes were said, and the students were packed on the Hogwarts Expressed to be taken home.
She sat herself in a compartment along with Sirius, James, Peter, Remus, and the Heidt twins. Nobody spoke much for the first part of the trip. They all just watched the countryside whiz by, and Hogwarts disappear into the distance. Later, though, they began to travel through woods, and the view was much less pleasant, if more melancholy, so the twins set up a game of exploding snap for themselves on the floor, and Sirius challenged Remus to a game of wizard chess.
"Oh come on, Lily, you're coming back next year," said James finally, after a long bout of uncomfortable silence, even though he didn't look so thrilled himself.
"Oh, I know. But it's different for you. You're part of a wizarding family. You're around magic all the time. I'm going to have to live like a Muggle all summer if I'm going to keep the neighbors from noticing and Petunia from avoiding me."
"At least you have a Petunia. I'm the only child in my whole family. I don't even have cousins, because my dad was an only child too, and son of an only child, at that. My mum's only brother died ages ago."
"Well, then let's stop talking about how miserable we are. Agreed?"
"Agreed. Besides-I suppose I'm not as miserable as I've convinced myself I am. Gobstones?"
"Oh, yes please."
"What's that paper?" asked Peter suddenly, pointing to a bit of parchment on the floor next to where James and Lily had set up their game.
"It's-a bit of newspaper," James announced.
"Must've blown in from the station," shrugged Lucy, going back to her game.
"What's it say?" asked Sarah. She was presently squirted in the face.
"It's about a disappearance."
"Ooh, how mysterious!" said Sirius excitedly.
"Checkmate!" said Remus.
"Some boy, about nineteen, went off on holiday alone and didn't come back."
"Creepy," whispered Sirius, picking up his king and moving it out of Remus' path.
"I guess," said Peter, shrugging off the subject.
"So what are you all planning to do this summer?" asked James, forgetting the proposed game of gobstones and dropping the newspaper article.
"Holidaying in France," muttered Peter. "I'm scared of Frenchmen."
"You're scared of everyone, Peter," corrected Sirius.
"We're going to spend most of the summer in America." Sarah smiled superiorly. "Nick just got a job there, and we're going to help him get settled in."
"Well, I'll be at home," sighed Remus.
"Welcome to our midst," James whispered spookily.
"I don't know about me-a bit of this and a bit of that, I suppose. Same as always."
"There are worse things," Lily scolded.
"I reckon so."
The last bit of the ride was passed in relative peace, and without any intrusions. And then, the train reached London, and began to move more slowly, and more, until finally it stopped dead on the track of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
"Three at a time!" cried a short, balding old man as the students clambered off of the train and through the barrier. "Only three! Hey, you there! I didn't say four, I said three!"
"Shall we?" asked Sarah with a smile, taking Lily's arm in one of her own, and Lucy's in the other. Together, they walked through the barrier, and found themselves once again in the Muggle world.
"Lily!"
"Mum!"
"Have you got all your things with you, dear?"
Lily nodded.
"Then let's move! Oh, Lily, it's so good to have you back. Your father can't wait to see you. Er...Petunia either."
"All right then, Mum, I'll be right there."
She broke loose from her mother and darted through the crowds of people.
"There you are!" she exclaimed at last. "I came to say goodbye. We won't see each other for a few months, you know."
"Right. Er, bye then, Lily. It was really nice to meet you this year and all."
"Right. G'bye, James. See you next year, I suppose."
"Yeah."
"Mmm."
"Bye."
"Bye!" Lily turned around and rushed back to her mother.
"Lily!"
She turned around to see James behind her.
"Th-there's something on your shoe."
"Oh, thank you."
"Right. Just thought you should know."
"Yes, well, I'll see you next year!"
And with a last smile, James ran back to his parents, who engulfed him in a mass of arms.
Lily clasped her mother's right hand in her left, and walked from the station, pausing only once to detach the article about the disappearance from the bottom of her shoe.
* * *
So...this part was very different. Eleven pages on Word to describe Lily and James' entire first year at Hogwarts (excluding the Sorting Ceremony). Things are going to slow down a bit in the later years (I'm planning 11 parts, total, but that's subject to change), but the first couple of years aren't really that important, so I'm just zipping through them with the more essential incidents.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure you all understood the whole Sirius/Peter/James conversation Lily happened to hear, even if she didn't herself, so I won't say anything about that.
I couldn't resist the bit of foreshadowing at the end. Do y'all get it? I hope so.
If you're desperate for a disclaimer, see part 1 of the story.