By Chikadee Potter
Chapter 2
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Hello James." Lily pursed her lips as she began writing, this time using shocking pink ink.
Hello James.
I was just wondering, how do you like my new ink? I'm sure it blinds you and if it did, I'd laugh at the expense that you'd never be able to see another girl's beautiful body again. There, that might keep your hormones in order. Good God, you are an incredibly horny pig. Haha, you know I'm joking, partially. By the way, what did I tell you about my name. I refuse to be known as 'carrot top' or even 'red'. You obviously know my name is Lily; be the smart boy that you are and use it. Yes, I know you're extremely intelligent. While I was waiting in line for chopped bats wings the other day, I couldn't help overhearing this one girl behind me gush over how fantastic you were. My my, I didn't know you were that cocky eh? Well, I guess it suits you. Just kidding. By the way, if we ever meet, promise me you won't use my head as a table. See you at Hogwarts.
Love, Lily
Lily smiled as she signed her name and called to Athena again, telling her to hurry up with the letter. Tomorrow was the day. The wonderful, glorious day in which the sun would shine as she would take up her packed bags and leave Petunia. Speaking of Petunia, she was probably sulking that she'd have to take Lily to the train station. Papa had basically ordered to, with no exceptions. Lily loved her father dearly, but the darling man was just so busy and Petunia had basically shunned her since they had found out she was 'special.' Lily was lonely, in a way. Hogwarts was one of the keys to filling that hole in her heart.
Petunia banged on the door loudly and walked in, dressed in a yellow satin halter and a jean skirt that ended mid-thigh.
"Lily, I have a date with Vernon tomorrow. What time do you need to be at the Station?" Petunia rolled her eyes as she said this.
"10:45 would be fine. I hope you have fun with Vernon." Lily smiled shyly at her older sister
"Whatever." Petunia turned her heel and swiftly walked out of the room. Lily sighed and began to fluff up her pillow, pulling the covers over her smooth pajamas. Wait a minute, Lily frowned. The time was about 11:06 pm. Where on earth was Petunia going at this time of the hour? Lily hurriedly kicked off her covers and ran to the door. She opened it in time to see Petunia put on black high heels, her hair put up stylishly in a messy pony tail and large hooped earrings in her ears.
"Petty, where are you going?" Lily frowned, a condescending tone in her voice. "Does Papa know?"
"Mind your own business." Petunia spat. "I don't care if he knows, I'm going out with Vernon and don't call me Petty."
"But---"
"Lily, for God's sakes. I'm 21, you're 16. You can't tell me what to do. Just because you have some sort of authority over in that freak school of yours, doesn't mean you can tell me what's right and wrong. Now go to sleep otherwise I won't take you to the station tomarrow."
Petunia stalked off, the heels of her stylish shoes clicking angrily as she walked. Lily shook her head and closed the door, walking back to the bed. To her surprise, Athena was already back and preening herself as if congratulating herself for such a fast delivery. On her pillow was the crumpled parchment and scrawled writing of James Potter. It looked messily hurried, but nevertheless to the point.
Hey Red.
Tough luck, huh? Once I get into nickname-mode, you're stuck with it forever until I think up of a better one. Anyway, Let's meet tomorrow at Hogwarts when the Great Feast is all over. I'll wait outside the doors and hope to see your lovely face and beautiful body. (laugh here). Congratulations on being Prefect, Remus told me. As for the girls, can I help it if I'm just absolutely, brilliantly, intelligently, and good-handsomely so? I know you know the answer. Must go! See you tomorrow!
One and Only James Potter
Lily rolled her eyes but grinned. That James Potter was quite cocky but hilariously so. She hadn't seen him for herself yet, so she wasn't exactly the person to say if he was good-looking or not. However, Lily had heard many many girls rave about this Hogwarts king and Sirius and Remus as well. What she had also heard was that his grades were fantastic. He denied being a genius, but everyone knew he was a prankster. Sirius and Remus often told her their plans. However, Sirius and Remus told her that James didn't really study. Somehow, he was just 'intelligently'-so without even the use of a book. Lily frowned. Was that possible?
Sighing and saying her prayers, Lily turned off the lights and snuggled under the covers, hoping that she'd be able to dream and remember this time.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Lily trudged on the scarlet train, lugging her black trunk behind her and pulling her red sweater closer to her body. The weather was chilly. The wind kept blasting at her and Lily wished she'd brought a coat. All of the things were in her trunk and she really didn't feel like digging through her trunk. Last night was absolutely horrible. There was a huge storm and Lily had barely slept a wink. Now with dark circles under her eyes, hair a bit messed up from the wind, Lily curled up in her compartment and rested her cheek against the cold glass window. Her eyes slowly drooped as she sought refuge in her dreams.
~!~
"Prongs!" Sirius, Remus and Peter yelled as James finally pushed aside the compartment.
"Took you long enough," Sirius smirked and rested his head on his hands. "Did you sleep in or something?"
"Naw," James grinned boyishly. " I forgot to bring the dung bombs."
Sirius' eyes lit up and Remus groaned. "Prongs! Don't forget, I am prefect. I could report you."
"But you won't right?" James put on puppy dog eyes and looked innocently at Remus.
"Yeah, you won't, right Remus?" Peter tried to imitate James' look but only succeeded in looking stupid.
"Wormy, stop doing that or your face'll stay the same way and trust me, no one will like it." Sirius pushed Peter's head to the side, smirking.
"Anyway," Remus pulled out another book. " I need to finish the chapter, don't bother me. I'll need to know about this because I'll be missing it for the full moon."
Peter stopped his squalling and Sirius dropped his hand immediately.
"Don't worry," James patted his shoulder. "Moony, you know we'll always be there."
"Yes, I know." Remus smiled but didn't look up.
"C'mon Padfoot!" James jumped up from his seat. " Let's go put these dung bombs to use!"
Sirius grinned and at once, rose and took his wand out of his pocket. Peter followed, not knowing what else to do, his chubby body form looking far worse than his friends' perfectly sculpted and statuesque forms.
"Who are we going to find?" Peter asked timidly, smoothing down his thin blond hair.
"Why Snivellus of course!" James called jovially.
Sirius grinned, showing a set of straight white teeth. "Wonderful."
The Marauders, minus Remus who was studying intently at the compartment, snuck over to where the Slytherin compartments were and found with delight a certain greasy-haired, hook-nosed person engrossed in a potions book, standing outside.
"Hey Padfoot, you go first." James whispered as he pried open the box of dungbombs. Sirius took his wand and slowly levitated three of the foul smelling bombs overhead the black haired slytherin. James, next, levitated five dungbombs and brought it above where Sirius had levitated the other three.
"On the count of three, release yours, and on five, I'll release mine." James grinned, his eyes sparkling mischievously.
"One…..two…three…." Sirius flicked his wand and down came the dungbombs, exploding unfortunately on young Severus Snape's head. Sirius snickered, struggling to hold in laughter because the look on Snape's face was priceless.
"Four….five…" James flicked his wand and down came the remaining five. The stench was so powerful and the sound was so loud that many other Slytherins had opened up their compartments to see what the commotion was.
Snape's face turned purple with rage as he saw James, Sirius and Peter snickering down the hall. He dropped his book in fury and pulled out his wand.
"Expelliarmus!" He bellowed, positively quivering in fury.
James and Sirius dodged the spell easily, smirking. "Now now Snivellus. Is that anyway to say hello to your fellow student?"
"Go to Hell." Snape spat.
"My, that's horrid language don't you think?" James blinked, sarcastically astonished. The slytherins had closed their compartments because of the horrible smell.
"I do believe we ought to teach him a lesson," Sirius mused and pointed at Snape quickly. " Scourgify!"
Snape's mouth began to foam with pink bubbles and he began coughing violently.
"I think our work here is done." James smiled cogenially. "We just wanted to say hello."
Snape couldn't do anything but stick up his middle finger at them.
"Let's go." Sirius said, smirking and turning his back as they walked off.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
James and Sirius were still guffawing over the look on Snape's face when they entered the Great Hall for the welcoming feast. Peter was pretending as if he had really played a part and snickering with them as Remus silently walked with them, occasionally saying hi to several pretty brunettes who came up to hug him.
"Hi James!" Marissa, Melanie and Alina chirped at him and waved, giggling happily.
James grinned back at them, a dimple appearing at the side of his face and winked. He walked on, running a hand through his hair. Sirius was also grinning and winking at some girls, but more or less just smiled and sat down at their usual spot.
"Oh yeah, you guys." James said suddenly as they waited for the first years to sort into their houses. "Go up to the dormitory without me ok? I'm going to finally meet Lily Evans." He grinned and raked a hand through his hair.
"Aw…widdle Prongsie is going to meet the girl of his dreams." Sirius teased.
"Don't be stupid, mate." James laughed and punched Sirius in the arm. "Like I said, she's cool from her letters, but I don't know what she's really like."
"Meh, well don't worry." Remus shrugged. "We'll go up first."
"Who's Lily?" Peter said stupidly.
"No one," James said quickly and smiled before turning to the Headmaster who was finishing his speech. "Oh look, it's time to dig in!"
~!~
Lily looked across the hall to where a certain messy haired boy with thin silver-rimmed glasses sat with Sirius and Remus, and that stupid Peter. He was busy laughing and occasionally flirting with several girls who sat around them. It was known to all that the most popular boys in Hogwarts were Sirius, Remus and James. And there he was, James Potter looking decidedly handsome in his grey sweater, black trousers and flowing black robes all covering his white collared shirt and red/gold tie. He was extremely tall, as Lily noted in bewilderment. Yet, he wasn't as buff as Sirius, but not as thin as Remus, though still a bit on the thin side.
Lily rolled her eyes and looked down at her food as she saw a pretty girl with blonde hair and black-lined brown eyes feed him a taste of her steak and kidney pie.
"What's wrong Lily?" Marionne Phillips, an extremely intelligent strawberry blonde who happened to be Lily's only 'closer' friend, asked. Crinkling her eyes, she smiled. "Not that you're usually loud, but today you've been unusually quiet."
Lily smiled and shrugged, " Just glad to be back here at Hogwarts I guess." She pulled her black robe tighter around her body.
"amen to that, Sister." Marionne nodded, her blue eyes opening wide. She shook her shoulder length hair and adjusted her square glasses. "Are you cold?"
Lily felt alarmed. She didn't feel like changing out of her nice red sweater so she evidently decided to screw the rules and keep it on. Not a good move for a Prefect. She was hoping that no one would notice, but it was too late. Marionne's blue eyes grew even wider as she pried apart the black robe and saw the stylish red sweater.
"Oh that sweater is gorgeous! It matches your hair so perfectly….but, isn't it against the rules…" Marionne trailed off and looked at Lily in bewilderment. " Did Lily Evans just break the rules?"
Lily's face flushed and she nervously combed her long fingers through her sleek ponytail held up by a rhinestone clip. She had managed to neatly clip her hair up, change into her uniform and pin on her prefect badge all in the second of time when she was woken abruptly by the screeching halt of the Hogwarts train.. "Er….Yeah."
Marionne looked alarmed. No one, especially a Ravenclaw Prefect dared to break the rules. Marionne leaned closer and grinned.
"Well done, Lily." She winked.
Lily hurriedly finished her dinner and waited for Headmaster Dumbledore to dismiss them. When he did, immediately the first years looked up as Lily walked towards them with a fellow Prefect by her side.
"My name is Lily Evans," Lily smiled at their awed faces. " I am your one of your Prefects, come and follow us."
"I'm Ashton Fletcher, call me Ash." He grinned boyishly at them as they followed him and Lily. " As you are a Ravenclaw, when we get to our portrait, we'll show you where your sleeping dormitories are. Everyone within the common room will be like family. You are allowed to be in the Library as well. Please obey curfew and any other set of rules that the Professors have laid down for you."
Lily walked up to a picture of a slender Lady sitting in a living Garden. " This week's password is ' Pinnacle Objection.' Please remember it." As Lily and Ash led the first years into the royal blue and silver common room decorated with several flowing fountains and plush couches, Ash led the boys to their dormitories and Lily led the girls to the upper dormitories.
"your trunks are already put at the foot of your bed." Lily said simply. "Please do take your time to get settled in. Breakfast is from 7 to 8 in the morning tomorrow. Don't be late." Lily smiled and bid them farewell, taking off her black robe and stopping by her own dorm to put in on her bed.
"Where are you going, Lily?" Marionne asked, taking off her black soled shoes and lying back on her pillow.
"Er--- Library." Lily smiled and hurriedly left, taking her bag of books with her. While trying to leave the common room, Ash stopped her and congratulated her on making Prefect.
" Don't forget, not that you will, We have a meeting tomorrow at 9." His warm brown eyes twinkled as he smoothed down his soft light brown hair.
"I won't," Lily promised and nodded hastily before waving goodbye. She rushed out of the portrait, hoping that James would still be there and waiting. He should know that she was prefect and that she had to make sure of the first years first.
Ugh, Lily thought. Running in heeled Mary Jane shoes isn't exactly comforting. She ran through the green house, through the courtyard and finally stopped sprinting long enough to see James Potter patiently waiting in the distance. Lily smoothed down her hair and picked off imaginary lint on her sweater. Pulling on her white knee socks and smoothing her pleated heather-grey skirt, Lily walked slowly towards James who was leaning against the Great Hall doors.
Lily squinted. Wait, he wasn't alone. A tall girl, much taller than she, with golden blond hair and long legs stood next to him, chattering happily as she twirled her hair. James seemed to be equally as happy because he smirked several times and ran a hand through his messy hair. Lily bit her lip, she didn't want to intrude on anything and plus, that girl was extremely pretty. No doubt, she was probably James' girlfriend. No matter, Lily squared her shoulders and held her chin up high, gliding silently towards James and the pretty girl.
"So Saturday than?" The girl asked him, smiling coquettishly with her pretty pink lips. "Oh please say yes."
"Fine," James mock sighed. " I guess so…No wait. Yes. Yup. I'll see you there." He nodded his head and grinned at her. At that moment, Lily walked over, silently. She saw in slow motion, the girl was about to say something but turned to look at her, beautiful blue eyes widening at the intruder while James blinked several times and stared.
" Um..er.." Lily stuttered, and a pretty blush creeped up to her cheeks. She smiled at James, proudly showing her straight and even white teeth. The blonde girl just stared at her, a bit confused. "Hello James, pleased to finally meet you. I'm Lily Evans." Flashing one last 'confident' smile, Lily shyly turned her heel and started to walk away, leaving a gaping speechless James and a confused blonde beauty.
"I'll see you on Saturday, James," The blonde haired girl pecked him on the cheek and walked off, hips swaying.
"Bye Gretchen," James murmured still staring at the retreating figure of red. Good heavens. That was Lily Evans? THAT WAS LILY EVANS! What on earth was Sirius and Remus smoking?! Only pretty?! Merlin! That girl was gorgeous. Although the uniform was sort of concealing the slender legs, he could still make out the slight curves of her hips and waist. Good God. He had totally just blown a chance to talk to her. James felt like such an idiot. Their first meeting and he had just stood there, quite speechless. Hopefully Lily wouldn't think that he had blown her off….oh Merlin! He hoped not.
Trudging back to the Gryffindor common room, he couldn't help but let a goofy grin grace his handsome face. If that girl was really like what she was like in her letters, oh boy. James wouldn't let her get away.
He stepped into the common room, still grinning goofily, not noticing Remus and Sirius lounging by the fire. Sirius nudged Remus and they both sprouted identical smirks.
"Wow-ed by Lily, I bet." Sirius said cheekily.
"I'll bet, Padfoot ol' pal." Remus said still smirking and pushing his hair out of his eyes.
James came out of his daydream and plopped down beside them resting his feet on the mahogany coffee table before them. "What the hell do you mean she's pretty? Good God, that girl is simply amazing. Why haven't any of you dated her before?"
Sirius and Remus looked at each other and shrugged.
"Well, she liked Padfoot over here, a long time ago." Remus said.
"Looong time ago," Sirius said nodding. " It was extremely complicated."
" I have enough time," James said, feeling a bit jealous.
"Well, there was that time when we were probably 8 or 9," Sirius guffawed at the dubious expression on James' face. " It was like little kiddie love, you know? I gave her my famous pick-up line and she kind of slapped me, but later admitted her feelings."
Remus chuckled and added, " It was really funny. Can you imagine Padfoot saying ' I have a lot of girlfriends. Would you honor me by being the first one?"
James laughed heartily as Sirius shook his head, his elegant locks glinting in the gold light.
"Anyway, so I even named my first owl after her." Sirius tried to continue.
"Silly. S for Sirius and L for Lily." Remus interjected, smiling brightly and dodging the pillow that Sirius chucked toward his head. "Ok, ok I got it."
"But after a long time of not seeing her, I just…I don't know. You know, James, I just forgot about her." Sirius shrugged. "Anyway, so when we met up in the same class in Prep school, I guess Lily never had closure to her feelings and she had a crush on me. The funny thing was, I was over it and I had to tell her that she just wasn't my type of girl."
"Yeah, So Padfoot basically turned her down…but they stayed good friends as you can see." Remus finished.
Sirius nodded. It was silent for a moment
"ARE YOU BLOODY INSANE?!?!" James' outburst made several younger girls scream in surprise and gasps from the older girls. The boys just stared at him but James took no notice.
" I mean," James continued in a softer voice after grinning sheepishly in apology to everyone. "You refused Lily?! Merlin! Sirius, if you don't want her, I will sure as heck get her. That girl…."
Remus raised an eyebrow at James, " She's not your kind of girl, James. She likes to read, a bit serious at times, can't tolerate perverts, and if you try to kiss her, I guarantee she'll slap you."
Sirius nodded innocently but than added, "Anyway, go for Lily if you want. No one's stopping you except if you haven't noticed, she has a lot of boys vying for her attention."
" I don't care," James shook his head. " She amazes me. I want to know her more."
"We could help you if you want," Sirius offered, giving James a hearty slap on the back.
"Naw," James decided firmly, "Thanks but no thanks. I want to get Lily by myself."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Lily yawned as she stretched out her arms and climbed into the draped four-poster bed. She'd had a rather….interesting day and dare she say that she was glad that it was over with. She pulled up the velvety blue comforter and swirled it around her body, puffing up her pillow so that she could rest comfortably. Gosh, a warm flush started up her neck and creeped up to her cheeks as she saw James Potter gaping at her like some sort of fish.
Instinctively, Lily pulled on her red hair, wondering if she had done something wrong. True, James Potter was as popular as can be, but it didn't mean as if Lily didn't have the right to talk to him, right? Sighing, Lily turned over on her side and closed her eyes trying to drown out the murmurs and giggles of her room mates.
"He's dreamy and he's hardworking." Shirley Fitch breathed and if Lily had been looking, she would have seen her clutch her pillow dreamily.
"Remus? Yeah..he's kind of pretty in a way, you know? It's appealing. I love his golden hair. If only mine were like that," The voice of Kathryn Fanoccio drifted off into Lily's ears. Lily turned over to her other side and watched the girls chatter on Shirley's bed.
"Actually, I believe Sirius is the best looking one….well, maybe not. I'd prefer Sirius," Christine Thorsen grinned, showing twin dimples on the side of her cheeks. She tossed her honey brown hair and said confidently, "I want Sirius."
Lily practically rolled her eyes and twisted around so that she could see Marionne sleeping. That girl slept probably about 15 hours a day and spent the other hours studying like no tomarrow. Even so, Lily loved her for the humor that she had. Marionne was extremely competitive so it made her hard to keep friends while the fight for grade spots was always there. James Potter was the first in the school, than came Marionne and then came Remus, finally Lily and than Sirius. Lily didn't want to think about that so she turned and lay flat on her back.
" On the contrary, I think that James is well worth the fight." Cullen Jameson smirked slyly as she wrapped the blue comforter around her scandalous pajamas. Lily's ears perked up, after all. This was some juicy gossip that she could blackmail James for. Lily giggled internally, she loved to rile him up.
"James? Oh, you're right. He's definitely not bad."
"Yeah, extremely smooth and worth it….."
"Until he dumps you…"
"It's really not that bad, he still pays attention to you sometimes."
"True."
Seconds ticked by in silence as each girl tried to think up of something to say.
" I dare say, he does kiss extremely well," Cullen said softly, and smiling like a Cheshire cat. "If he's interested in you, you'll feel like the luckiest girl alive."
"How would you know?" Kathryn announced. " You've never dated him."
"He came up and kissed me one time, mistaking me for that girl in Hufflepuff. Gretchen or something?"
"Now that you mention it, you do look a lot like her." Shirley said taking a good look at Cullen.
"What are you talking about?" Cullen snapped smoothly. " She looks like me."
Lily rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, he kisses welll…" Cullen's smirk returned.
Lily groaned into her pillow and got up to pull the curtains around her bed. All four of the girls looked up at the groggy redhead in surprise. "Good night girls!" Lily said sweetly and wrenched the curtains around. After a few seconds, the quiet chattering started again but by then, Lily was comfortably asleep in her dreams hoping that once more, she could remember them when she finally woke up.