Sound of
Silence chapter I
Hello
Darkness my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again.
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left it's seeds while I was sleeping.
And the vision that was
planted in my brain
Still remains...
Within sounds...of silence.
-Simon
& Garfunkel "Sound of Silence"
The boy that walked into the Great Hall was either
unknown to her, or her sense of observation was gone. Lily cocked her head to the side. She scanned him over.
Tall, dark haired, pale skinned, with light eyes...and bandaged around
both wrists. Aïe, if that means what I think it
does...But, no, she reasoned, that's a muggle thing. A wizard would probably find a more reliable
way of committing suicide. The boy
walked off and seated himself at the far end of the Gryffindor table. A
loner. Well that's strange, I thought
loners went to Slytherin.
"Earth to Fire!"
Remus planted himself in front of her and waved his hand under her
nose. Then, imitating a very annoying
stuardess voice, "Houston, we have a problem.
Your circuits are dead."
Lily put her hand up in irritation. "That guy over there, is he new or
something?"
"Hu? Oh
him. Yeah, Dumbledore told the prefects
this morning. He's been home schooled
his whole life. He's in our grade."
She turned, and sat down. "Did Dumbledore tell you..." her voice shrank to a whisper
"...what happened to his wrists?"
Remus shrugged.
"No idea...Some mashed potatoes?"
"No. Where's
Sirius?"
Remus made a face.
"Don't know, don't care. Look,
if you're not going to have any mashed potatoes..." Lily handed him the bowl.
She looked over to where the new boy was sitting. "There's something strange about him..."
"Oh for God's sake Lily! Are you sure you don't
want any mashed potatoes? They're
really good." Lily sighed in
exasperation. "Fuck the mashed potatoes, Remus!"
Remus stared at the bowl. Lily
grinned. "Not literally." Remus mumbled something unintelligible under
his breath.
"Have I been missing anything?" said a genial voice
from behind.
"Well Moony, here, was just about to mess up that
bowl of potatoes." Lily collapsed on
her plate, laughing.
"Is that so?"
Sirius was eyeing Remus in a particular way. "Do you have an attraction towards mashed potatoes, old friend?"
Lily caught motion put of the corner of her eye. The boy was leaving the hall. She left a stuttering Remus and a grossed
out Sirius to sort things out, and left in pursuit of him.
She caught him by the sleeve right outside the
Hall. "Hi, I'm Lily Evans, my
nickname's fire. I was curious, I've
never seen you here." She smiled, but
the boy didn't return it. He looked her
up and down before replying "I'm James Potter."
"So, hum...Where you been before now."
"Home."
Ah. An antisocial freak. Wonderful.
"And..."
"And what?"
The boy frowned, looking vaguely annoyed.
"Well..." Lily spluttered "nice meeting you!" She grabbed his hand and shook it, only
realising her mistake when he winced and withdrew it.
"Oh, euh, sorry.
Accident?"
He smiled darkly.
"What do you think?"
"Right. I'd
better go, hum, classes, you know." She
walked away, embarrassed.
***
"So, who was that guy?" said Sirius as he plopped
down next to Lily in potions, their first subject after lunch.
"Bleugh."
"Was he, uh, nice?"
"Bleugh."
"Er...Fire?"
"Bleugh."
"Oh, I get it!"
He put his finger in the air, and grinned. "You've decided the only thing you would respond to any question
was 'bleugh'! Very amusing." He chuckled to himself.
"Your intellect is dazzling." Remus sat down behind them. "So now what do you want, a hug or a dog
biscuit?"
"From a guy who's attracted to potatoes, neither."
"Oh for Christ's sake!" Remus buried his head in his hands.
Lily let her mind wander away from the squabbling
boys. She scanned the room for the boy,
and found him sitting in one of the dark corners of the room. Oh
dear. a REAL antisocial freak.
"Evans!" Lily
looked up, bewildered. Professor
Teamhair (pronounced T'yower) had
apparently started class. "So," he
said, shooting Lily a dark look, "Miss Evans will show us how to get started on
our experiment. How, miss Evans, would
you alter lead to make gold."
"But, isn't that impossible?" There was a dangerous glare in Teamhair's
eyes. "I mean," she faltered on "when
the alchemists tried it, they ended up messing all this stuff u--"
"We will forgive miss Evans from coming from a
close-minded muggle community," Teamhair cut in, "but not for failing to listen
in class. Detention, Evans. See me after class." Lily sat back down, cursing herself.
After she had arranged to meet with Professor
Teamhair, Lily ran down the hallway to catch up with her friends. Their next subject was Divination, and as
much as Lily hated it, she wouldn't have missed today for the world. they were going to experiment with
clairvoyance, something Lily had been interested in for a long time.
She sat at her accustomed pouf, with some of her
other friend, Taryn, Alpha and Omega.
Taryn was café-au-lait
coloured, with blue-green eyes, and long wavy black hair. Alpha and Omega (whose parents had a weird sense
of humour) were identical twins. They
both had sand-blond hair, and large brown eyes.
Professor Trelawney began in a drawling voice: "My
dears, the moon has just aligned with Saturn, making it safe for me to transfer
this knowledge to you. My crystal ball
has assured me that no horrible things will be happening to you this week, so
you will be obliged to hand in all your homework in time. I am sure no manticores will attack you
tomorrow, or the day after, so I'll be assigning something to each and everyone of you at the end of
class." At this, she stared hard at
Remus and Sirius, who had a knack for coming up with life-threatening episodes
which would happen to them the minute they laid foot out of Divination to get
out of homework. And it usually
succeeded, too, except that Prof. Trelawney had seen right through the last
one, and was now watching the two boys, and indeed anyone who thought of
imitating them, very carefully.
"Clairvoyance, or Necromancy," she started again, "is
the art of predicting the future. You
must have a very good aura in order to do this--" several snorts resounded in the dungeon "--and you must listen to
me carefully." she swivelled around, in
what was apparently a desperate attempt to look mystic, but ended up on her
rear in the middle of the room.
laughter echoed throughout the room, making her flush bright red. She got up and went on with the lesson,
however.
"We will start with natural prediction. For this you must connect with the
earth. only if you and mother nature
are one will she divulge her secrets to you.
This is called a 'connection'.
You will know when you have connected, but supreme concentration is
needed to accomplish it." She sat on
one of the poufs, in the Buddha position, and stayed absolutely still for the
rest of the class, while the students goofed off. Near the end though, they were interrupted when James Potter
stood up and said: "I'm sorry to
disagree with you, professor, but that's not how it's done." Trelawney looked up and blinked at him. "I beg you r pardon, dear?"
"That's not how it's done." repeated the boy. Then, more cautiously, "you know who I am,
don't you?"
"Can't fathom that, dearie."
"And she call's herself a psychic." whispered Remus.
"I'm the Potter boy."
Prof. Trelawney's lips moved, but no sound came out.
"She said 'The Necromancer'." Remus turned on his chair to face
Sirius. "You lip read? I never knew that!", but Sirius motioned him
to shut up.
Trelawney stared at the boy some more, and whispered,
"Well, my boy, you're more adept than me at this. You're excused from class."
"Thank you." and James rounded up his things and
left.
***
Lily fell on her bed and drew the curtains
closed. She did not wish to
participated in the fourth year gossip her friends staged each night, before
going to bed. The needed time to sort
the weird things that had happened today.
She was still curious about the boy, and is wrists, and while she was
thinking about it, she became very dizzy .
She lay down a bit, wondering what had just come over her, and feeling
considerably more light-headed than was comfortable, when she heard a voice in
her head.
Anyone
getting this?
Good lord.
What's happening to me?
Hey. Who are you?
Lily Evans, who wants to know, and how the hell did
you get into my thoughts?
Lily...Oh,
right. You're that redhead.
Who are you?
Why is
that important?
Why is tha--Bloody hell, you've infiltrated my brain,
wonder how you did it, too, and you're asking my why your identity is important!
Whoa! Don't get mad. It's James.
How are you--
Communicating
with you? Telepathy.
Eh?
You know,
mind to mind liaisons. I'm a
Necromancer, you know, a psychic. I do
those things.
Oh...and you can do that to anybody?
Anyone
with a brain.
That's hum...comforting. Can you hear all my thoughts?
No, just
the main one--that's your replies.
Wew.
I'm
laughing.
...
And you
are to.
How d'you know?
I hear
your main thoughts, remember.
Why d'you pick me?
I
didn't. You just responded to the
call. Maybe you're important to me
somehow. Okay, I need to leave
now. Goodnight.
Goodnight.
****************************************************************
End of part one.
Let me explain for this weird version of the Lily/James saga: I still haven't found anywhere in the book a
passage saying that James, or Lily, for that matter came to Hogwarts in their
first year. Rowling implies it, but she
does not state it. The only rule that I
had to follow in this was that he and his friends managed to become Animagi at
the end of their fifth year. Therefore,
I had to leave time for James to make friends, and to start in the Animagi
busyness. I know it's weird, but I
decided that this Lily and James fic would have nothing to do with the
classical love/hate version. Review
this, please, and tell me what you think.
Suggestions more than welcome.
This will hopefully be the first in a series.
Dependably yours,
-Mordor