A/N: Last chapter. Written at eleven at night. That should explain things.... Enjoy.
~*~
Chapter Three:
Lily Evans, Wonder Witch Extraordinaire
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Some of them were staring at her. Those shady people around Knockturn Alley. Lily didn't like it. At all. She stood there on the cobblestone street, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. Geneva hooted her discomfort. Lily shushed her and looked around.
Now don't let this situation give you the wrong impression. Lily is indeed a very intelligent girl, and I'm sure that if her head wasn't so full of confusion and anxiety that she would have done the smart thing and ran back down the tiny, long alley and into the comforting streets of Diagon Alley, even if it did mean facing the Queen of Detentions. But Lily was too caught up in being uneasy to do the smart thing.
As her luck would have it, two boys strode towards her at that moment, each with a decidedly evil look about them.
"Well, look what we have here, Severus," sneered the one with white-blonde hair. "A lost little girl." Lily narrowed her eyes, indignant. The boy was more wimpy-looking than she was, and that was saying something.
I am not wimpy-looking.
"What's your name, girl?" nodded the one with oily black hair.
"Mary Poppins," said Lily promptly.
"That's a dumb name," said the Oily Bloke.
"So is Severus," retorted Lily.
"What're you doing here, Poppins? You don't look like you belong here. You're prolly a muggle. You're a filthy muggle, aren't you, Poppins?" sneered Sir Sneer-a-lot.
"Like you're really fit to call anyone filthy." My, wasn't Lily being brave? The Oily Bloke and Sir Sneer-a-lot exchanged looks.
"I'd say you need a lesson in manners, Poppins," stated the Oily Bloke, smirking cruelly and stepping towards Lily. Sir Sneer-a-lot grinned/sneered with vicious anticipation and stepped towards her as well. Lily didn't have time to run. But she didn't need time. She didn't even need to run. Because it was at that precise moment that the two goons were hit in the face with something disgusting looking that, a few seconds later, exploded on their faces and sent them unconscious to the ground. Bella emerged from the alley directly afterwards while Lily was staring down at the buffoons in wonder.
"Gunpowder pudding," said Bella to Lily as she too looked down at the boys. "Always comes in handy." She put her hands on her hips and turned to Lily. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to Knockturn Alley? How come you didn't take me with you? I rescued you! You owed me!"
"You said you didn't expect me to pay you back..."
"I only said that because I meant the opposite!"
"Well, that makes sense," replied Lily in a bitter tone as she drug her trunk and Geneva down the tiny, long alley, back to Diagon Alley.
"I'm glad you think so," returned Bella as she strode along side Lily.
"I could have handled it back there, you know. You didn't have to come along with your gunpowder jell-o---"
"Gunpowder pudding."
"Whatever. I would have been fine."
"Oh, yes, Mary Poppins, Wonder Witch Extraordinaire, knows how to get herself out of every little bubble, does she, hmm?"
"That's 'Lily Evans, Wonder Witch Extraordinaire,'" corrected Lily. Bella rolled her eyes.
"That's twice I've rescued you, you know. I think you should treat me to oyster ice cream."
"Oh! Look! They're giving away free furry purple monsters with orange teeth!"
"WHERE?!" And Bella trounced off in the direction Lily pointed. Lily shook her head and wandered around Diagon Alley, not really knowing where she was going, just relieved that she was no longer in Knockturn Alley.
"I like that Bella child," said the purple cat that annoyed Lily so much. It had just materialized out of nothing.
"You would," she snapped at it.
"My, my, just a tad bit irrate, aren't you?" Lily glared at the cat. "What are you planning on doing now? Walk around until you bump into Dumbledore the Butterfly?" Lily's featured dissolved into a horrified look. "I suggest you get your wand, dear."
"But--- Well, I suppose... I was going to, anyway."
"Of course you were, dear." Lily glared at the cat again.
"Go away."
"Don't you want me to lead you to Ollivander's Wand Shop?" Lily considered the purple feline.
"I'm not going to have to give you oyster ice cream, am I?" The cat blinked.
"No. Though a grenade launcher would be nice..."
"Just take me there."
"Will you get me a grenade launcher?"
~*~
Lily stepped into Ollivander's Wand Shop some thirty minutes later, quite annoyed. She was nearly at her wit's end, and the day wasn't showing any signs of letting up.
"Ah, Mary Poppins. I've been expecting you..." Lily blinked.
"I'm Lily Evans, sir." Ollivander blinked and squinted at her.
"Well, yes, of course, that's what I meant." He snapped his fingers and a tape measure was suddenly measuring her while Ollivander disappeared down one of the aisles, muttering to himself. By the time Ollivander had returned (with an armload of boxes of wands), the tape measure had twisted itself tightly around Lily and seemed to be stuck. Ollivander snapped his fingers again (after he had placed the wands on the counter) and it was gone. He then unwrapped the nearest box and handed Lily the wand. "Try this one."
Lily tried that one. It shattered the shop window and Ollivander promptly snatched it away, replacing it with a different one, which sent three boxes falling on his head from their place on the top shelf above his counter. Ollivander wearily placed wand after wand in Lily's hands, and by the seventeenth try, poor Mr. Ollivander knew he'd be needing a trip to the medi-wizard in the morning.
"Maybe I'm just not magical," suggested Lily as she sullenly place the eighteenth wand back in its box.
"Mar--- er, Lily, you know that you wouldn't have gotten that acceptance letter if you weren't. You're just as magical as the restt of us. Probably more so than some. That's why finding you a wand is so difficult, because you're special."
Lily was too intelligent to buy into Ollivander's little speech, but she smiled gratefully all the same, letting the man think that he had helped her. She took the wand he held out to her.
And as Lily cautiously moved the nineteenth wand from right to left by an 2.4 inches, a most wonderful thing happened: Lovely golden stars were emitted and Ollivander, who had taken cover behind his counter, stood slowly. Then he began clapping and shouting congratulations, even knocking off half the price of the wand in his enthusiastic relief. And Lily was certainly not one to object.
~*~
After depositing the remains of her money in Gringotts, Lily wandered around Diagon Alley a bit more. It was getting old. She had gotten everything she needed from her list, and she needed to go home. Her parents were undoubtedly worried about her. Either that or they hadn't even noticed she'd left, but either way she needed to get back. Who knew what her parents would get up to without her there to watch them?
The problem Lily faced was not knowing exactly how to get back. She knew the way she came; but that passageway wasn't there anymore.
Perhaps the only way to get in or out is by having one of those things open whatever it is, thought Lily. She stood staring at the air where the passageway was supposed to be and sighed. It was useless. She turned around and sat on her trunk, peering at Geneva.
"Fine mess this is," she said to the owl. "Maybe if I clicked my heels together and---"
"DETENTION!" screamed the Queen of Detentions. Lily looked up to see the horrid woman standing before her, pointing her awful finger accusingly. An entire horde of people was behind her, compiled of all the people Lily had met so far. Dumbledore the Butterfly was singing "Yellow Submarine" and yelling for her to join in. Pat and Phil were bobbing around, singing with Dumbledore, obviously drunk off that Irish whiskey. Madame Malkin's assistant was cackling madly while pointing a needle at Lily. Peter was tugging at his mother to take him to Quality Quidditch Supplies while pointing to Lily, saying, "But she got to go!" The Three Madmen were bobbing on brooms in Quidditch jerseys, gesturing at Lily and laughing over her flying skills. Crabbe and Goyle were there, ice cream sticking to their chubby faces, still arguing in that intelligent way of theirs. Bella was yelling to Lily about her new pet fluffy purple monster with orange teeth, whom she had named Owen. The Oily Bloke and Sir Sneer-a-lot stood by, spewing out insults and mocking the poor girl. Ollivander was running around with his hands over his head, screaming things like "Take cover!" and "Get down!" And the purple cat's face was magnified and almost translucent in the sky. "When can I have my grenade launcher?" it kept asking her.
It was truly maddening.
At last, at long last, when Lily just could not hold up any longer, she grabbed her wand and held it in front of her. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, hoping to block out all the voices. They didn't cease.
"STOP!" she yelled.
And they stopped.
~*~
Lily opened her eyes and looked around her. She was in a bed. Her bed. In her room.
A dream. Just a dream!
And she sprang up, smiling like she's just been proclaimed Ruler of the Universe.
And that's when she heard a hoot.
She closed her eyes briefly before glancing at the corner of her bed. And owl sat there. Holding a letter in its beak.
Lily closed her eyes and dropped backwards onto her pillows. No. Bloody. Way.
She sat up and looked at the corner again. The owl was still there, staring at her oddly.
"Don't look at me like that," she snapped at it. It hopped onto her lap and dropped the letter there, staring up at her expectantly. She picked it up and flipped it over, recognizing the seal and the green ink.
Well, on the bright side, I can eat my eggs this morning.
~*~
A/N: I begun at 11. It's 1:40 now. That's my excuse.
This is the last story I'm posting on fanfiction.net. I don't feel like telling you why. Instead I'm just going to say that I've decided ff.net is too much trouble for me anymore. So this is just to say so. So that you're not wondering where the hell I am or if I've been kidnapped by spoons or something equally evil. Because I know you would wonder about me, because I know you care about me. Don't look at me like that....
So yeah. Be a dear and review.
