PLEASE NOTE! Here's the second chapter, hopefully Chapter Three will be up shortly (next weekend at the latest) But I would like a little help from someone on HTML. Thus far I have been incapable of using it here and maybe someone (*hint, hint*) could help me??

Disclaimer: I own nothing, though it would be lovely to owner the Potter franchise, because then I could buy out Microsoft. :) (PLEASE ADOPT ME JKR!) Oh and the charming Michelle Branch owns the excerpts from 'Tuesday Morning'.

Chapter 2: Tuesday Morning

There was a soft knock on the door at 7:00 on September 2nd. Lilias Evans rolled over, the warm bedclothes overtop of her were just too lovely to leave.

Her visitor knocked again.

"Bollocks!" she muttered. Her bedroom was a step up from the year's before, being Head Girl had its perks. The crackling fire at the other end of the room hummed merrily as she slid off her four-poster and moved across the rich red carpet to the door.

"Com...ing" she yawned loudly. She pulled open the heavy oak door; only to find herself face to face with the last person she wanted seeing her at seven AM. Mussed auburn hair, and a thin, rather exposing navy cotton nightdress did not make the cut for visitor attire.

"Morning, Evans," said James Potter with a smirk moving into the entrance way, as she yanked open the door, one hand covering her mouth, in attempts to stifle her yawn.

"Potter!" she shrieked, and so utterly embarrassed by having him see her in such a state, she slammed the door on his arrogant grin with such fervor that the doorframe rattled.

James tottered backwards as his glasses snapped in two, and his forehead throbbed painfully were the door had struck him.

Lily, both palms against the door, attempting to keep it shut, breathed heavily, her heart hammering, WHAT WAS HE DOING?

"Evans!" he shouted, ignoring his broken spectacles that had fallen to the floor. He leaned a shoulder into the door and twisted the knob, opening it an inch.

Lily tried with much difficulty to push it closed again, feeling her cheeks flush, and every last part of her scream with anger. "Do you know what time it is?" she demanded.

"Yes!" he answered, "I'm here to talk to you, is that okay?" he cried through the inch of opening, peering in as much as he could, "God, Evans! Just open the bloody door!"

"NO!" Lily snapped, still pressing on the door with her hands.

James sighed. "Lily is it okay if I just ask you something?"

She nearly let the door fall open; she was so surprised by him calling her by her first name.

When he didn't hear an answer, he quickly fit in his question, "What am I supposed to do? I-I'm effing Head Boy, and I've never done this before..."

"That's not why you're here!" she snapped.

"What??"

"You didn't come to badger me about your duties, what do you really want Potter?" her temper was rising with her voice.

James scowled, and retorted, "Fine, forget it, I'll just ask Remus what he does as Prefect."

The door suddenly slammed under her hands, and once again the frame rattled loudly.

Lily stood there in stupor for a moment, Had he really left? Was he just waiting on the other side, or had he gone to his room across their hallway?

She had avoided seeing him the night before, which was amazing, because at the top of a spiral staircase that began in the Gryfindor common room, were their own separate and single bedrooms, three feet away from each other.

Lily paused, her hands still resting on the door, hard and cool underneath her fingers. It was indeed the first day of school- a Saturday of all things, and it meant two free afternoons away from class before the beginning of the term. But why was James up at seven AM anyway? She may have hated him, but she knew better then anyone that he and Sirius never rose before twelve on the weekends.

She pressed her head against the door, and then slowly revolved around, slipping down to the floor, the orange and red flames in the hearth winked at her jovially, but she shut her eyes slowly, blocking out the image.

This was so ridiculous.

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By nine Lily finally emerged from her bedroom, fully dressed in her Hogwarts robes, her head still hurting from the morning's affairs. She wasn't even twenty-four hours into the new term and there were already too many things going wrong.

She had no urge to talk to Ani or Alice who were relaxing in the common room and instead she slipped through the crowded room and through the portrait hole, her notebook clutched under her arm, hoping to wander the grounds instead.

It was warm and breezy outside, under a crystal sky, the heat of summer still hanging dolefully in the air. Lily inhaled the fresh winds that blew up out of the Forbidden Forest; it even had a pleasant air in the bright sunshine.

Lily fell, as she always did, into a silent daze at the Hogwart's surroundings. The first day always did that to her, nostalgic melancholy. Within a few moments she had collapsed under the shade of the Beech tree at the lake, and was planning on just sitting and mediating for a bit, when voices startled her into semi-consciousness. Glancing around, she noticed James and Sirius walking towards her, James's broomstick (a Cleansweep Six, the latest and fastest), over his shoulder. They were approaching from the Qudditich Field, but apparently didn't see her. Before she was to be caught under the tree and have to listen to either one, she scrambled up the trunk of the Beech tree, her climbing skills as a child had finally come in handy.

"Personally Prongs, I don't think you should just give up," Sirius said, as they neared closer, Lily peering down from one of the highest branches.

James sighed, his eyes were sort of red, and he was scowling.

Lily had hoped they would continue up towards the castle, but instead Sirius came and sat down under the Beech tree, James followed him, although reluctantly.

"Padfoot for you, getting the girl of your dreams has never been more then smiling at her," he sighed again, "*some* us aren't amazingly handsome." James placed his broom next to him, and stared out over the sparkling lake, sunlight dancing over its crystal blue.

"Lighten up mate!" answered Sirius, he was watching James intently now, and when he saw that this didn't seem to make a wit of difference, he said patiently, "Look, Prongs, I've known you for a long time, and I have never seen you get this worked up over some girl before. You've found someone that may be perfect for the rest of your life, where as I, I'm still dating girl after girl. I've liked them all, sure, but it's not like I'm going to get anything more than a good snog fest and something to do on a Friday night."

This didn't seem to brighten James's attitude at all. "Sirius you don't get it!" he cried, "I've tried everything..."

"Have you tried telling her you love her?" Sirius asked.

James's eyes snapped back to Sirius's face, which was still gazing at him in concern. "Well no..." he answered looking back out at the lake again.

"Well there you go then!" Sirius leaned back on his hands, looking mildly bored, as if the matter was all cleared up and there was nothing else to do.

James turned and stared at Sirius again, "You don't understand, I *can't* just walk up to her and say..."

"Well why not?" interrupted Sirius looking surprised, "What's wrong with that?"

"Because it's not normal!" pressed James. "She hasn't got a clue I like her and..."

"And whose fault is that?" James didn't answer.

"If you're this concerned, why don't' you just ask a different girl out and see how it goes? Maybe *she'll* be the one, or maybe you'll just get your mind off of it for a while."

"Do you think that's possible?" asked James, still staring out over the Lake.

"It's worth a shot, don't you think?"

"Yeah, I suppose."

"Good man!" Sirius clapped his hand on James's back and sighed, looking as if he was enjoying the sunlight and the morning immensely, but he glanced at his watch and suddenly shouted, "Oy! Prongs, we gotta go meet up with Remus, we promised we'd discuss this month's plans." He jumped up and James, nodding followed suite and they wondered up to the castle.

Lily watched them go slightly surprised. So Potter had a secret heartache, how precious. She sighed, why were men so clueless?

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By October, Lily was happily into the groove of attending classes, doing her homework and attending Head Girl duties. James it seemed; felt that after their argument on the second day of school was warning to stay the hell away. And for this, Lily was grateful. They barely saw it each other, and avoided working together as often as possible, even evading the chances of seeing each other in the morning. It didn't bother Lily the slightest, and she secluded herself in her work, studying frantically in the library, reading everything extra she could and rarely speaking to anyone.

One breezy Monday afternoon, the day before Halloween, Lily was sitting in one of the wide, open courtyards, which was completely empty, the way Lily liked it, her nose buried in 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte, the first time in weeks she had touched a book just for pleasure purposes. Her schoolwork was done, her classes finished, and there was nothing else she could do, as Seventh years got Halloween day off. Leaves blustered past her feet, red, yellow and orange, the sky slightly cloud covered, leaving the heat to stay for a few more days, at least until it rained.

She would have ignored her surroundings completely until she heard someone yelling at one corner of the courtyard. Scowling, she glanced above the leaves of her thick volume, and spotted to her dislike, Narcissa Black shooting curses at a tiny Gryfindor First Year.

Lily jumped, instantly and whisked across the courtyard her wand out, auburn hair flying in all directions.

"What do you think you're doing??" she demanded, as she grew level with Narcissa, who looked up, and the little first year, which Lily recognized as a Muggle-born girl named Serena Martin. She was lying on the ground, arms and legs snapped close to her body, and Lily recognized it as the Full- Body-Bind Curse, 'Petrificus Totalus'.

"Oh, Rena!" she crouched down next to her, and muttered the counter curse. Serena's body relaxed and then she smiled up at her, but continued glancing at Narcissa warily. "It's okay," Lily whispered, "Just go up the common room, okay?" Serena nodded weakly and jumped to her feet shakily, fleeing the courtyard.

Lily rounded on Narcissa, anger boiling within in her very veins, "Just what do you think you're doing?" exclaimed Lily, for the second time. "How *dare* you curse a first year! Twenty points from Slytherin!"

"Picking on my sister are you, Evans?" came a loud voice from a few feet away. Lily turned and saw Bellatrix Black striding towards her, looking furious.

"No," sneered Lily, "You're sister cursed a student, she disserved her punishment."

Bellatrix raised her eyebrows, looking smug, "She cursed a *Mudblood*," as if she was correcting Lily, "That's not worthy of punishment, I'd say fifty house points to Slytherin would be more appropriate..."

"Some people at the school," interrupted Lily, "realize that bloodline is unimportant and that some of the best witches and wizards are not of pure blood," she tried to look haughty but she was so angry it may not have worked, "and some that are, are pure *scum*."

In one swift stride Bellatrix had grabbed the collar of Lily's robes, her face inches from Lily's and she said in a even, deep voice, "You foul, worthless Mudblood- one of these days you WILL pay for who you are. There are powers beyond save happy Hogwarts that you could only dream of. I hope that *I* will have the honor of torturing you into madness before killing you with a flick of my wand."

Lily stared at her in horror, and Bellatrix threw Lily to the ground, her shoulder and head, colliding with solid stone.

Bellatrix laughed coldly and then spit on the end of Lily's robes before snapping, "Let's go, Narcissa," and she turned on her heel, sweeping out of the courtyard leaving Lily alone on the chilled ground.

She was vaguely aware of what had just happened, the ground was so cold against her cheek, her head was throbbing so hard she could barely think...

Something cold fell on her cheek- a raindrop, and then another. But Lily stayed, paralyzed on the ground. She pulled her legs up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them- not moving. She didn't want to move, ever. Bellatrix's words were reverberating around in her head, over and over, about how she'd torture her...and then kill her...

Her face was growing wet with the rain, her hair growing damp, and her cheeks she suddenly realized, had warm tears on them, the only warmth she could feel.

For a long time she laid there, rain falling harder and harder.

What was it going to take?? She's been here for almost seven years, and she was still worthless, a Mudblood, garbage, trash.

She was a witch, and a good one...WASN'T SHE???? How hard had she worked for her grades and for everything she'd received??? VERY HARD, she reminded herself, harder then anyone else in her year. While James and Sirius were off playing Quidditch, and Bellatrix was cursing people, she'd been studying, LEARNING...oh how she wanted to be an auror. She wanted it so badly that it hurt; it left a hole in her heart, an aching prickle of disappointment, because suddenly she realized that there was no way that she could do it...she WAS worthless- just another muggle...

"LILY!" her name reached her ears, but she hardly heard it. It was pouring now, clouding her vision.

She felt arms, strong arms, lifting her from her stone bed, and carrying her somewhere...someplace that had shielding from the icy droplets that were covering every inch of her. But she didn't feel it. There was no cold, just numbness.

"Lily..." someone whispered, they seemed so far away, "Lily, can you hear me?"

It was a man- she knew that- but who?

Her eyes unclouded slowly and she found herself staring at someone with glasses, messy dark hair, and hazel eyes...

"Potter...?" she murmured. He was cradling her, like a baby, as if she was a small child...

"Yes," he whispered, "yes, Evans, that's right."

He seemed shaky and nervous, like he didn't know what to do with himself.

"Are you alright?" he asked, "What happened?"

"Bellatrix..." she muttered, but it wasn't going to help, her head hurt too much.

"What?" asked James, he sounded angry, suddenly, "did she curse you??"

"N-no..." shakily, she found herself sitting up a little, James still holding on to her. Desperately she tried to pull her hand up and rub her temples- if only her head would STOP throbbing. "S-she grabbed me...an-and said..." her voice was quavering and felt a sob rise in her chest because the words, those horrible words were filling her head, vibrating in her brain like a song she couldn't get out. Suddenly breathing became so hard- she couldn't breathe at all, inhaling sharply, tears starting flowing harder then when she first lay on the ground, plummeting down her face, stinging her frozen cheeks, falling to her damp robes, mingling with rain water. She was sobbing so hard, that she couldn't do anything else. James pulled her closer till her head was resting on his shoulder, wetting his own robes with salty tears...

"Lily," he whispered, "I'm so sorry...no one should ever hurt you like this...you're a beautiful person...and..." he stopped talking as if he was going to start crying himself.

But it didn't matter she didn't care about anything anymore. And his words, sweet and decent, floated somewhere in her brain, but they couldn't wash away the hurt-- they couldn't do a thing.

And so they sat there, for a long time, James rocking her slowly, Lily weeping six years of built up tension, anger and rejection into one long moment.

After what felt like hours the tear flow stopped, the source dried, but the wound still open and sore as ever, she sat up, hiccupping, her eyes red and her whole body aching. He looked at her, warily, as if he was afraid to say anything that may upset her. He pulled out a handkerchief and carefully brushed away the remaining droplets from her cheek.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He nodded and watched her for a moment as she looked at her lap, and suddenly became very aware of the fact that she, Lilias Evans was sitting on James Potter's lap, in the rain.

He smiled weakly and said very softly, "Are you hungry?"

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, "What?" she asked incredulously.

"Let me rephrase: You don't want to go into the school and the common room do you?"

She shook her head, "No...I suppose not, but what's that got to..."

"Hogsmeade is merely feet away," he said simply.

"Oh," she began-

"'Scourigfy'" he whispered, and her robes, which could not be dried on regular circumstances, suddenly became clean because of the dirt and tears that had been caked on in the past hour.

She smiled, "Alright then."

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The Three Broomsticks was quiet and fairly disserted when Lily and James entered, a few wizards here and there drinking and talking. Lily felt embarrassed sneaking in when they weren't supposed to be there, but Madam Rosemerta the owner only smiled at James when they entered.

"Hello, Mr. Potter," she said warmly as she dried a mug with a dishtowel.

"Evening ma'am," James answered, who was holding onto Lily's hand and leading her to the bar. "Two butterbeers please, and some of those homemade onion rings, if you have any."

Madam Rosemerta laughed, "For you Mr. Potter I have them," She gave him two bottles of butterbeer, and then a basket of onion rings which seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Thank you," said James pleasantly. He had let go of Lily's hand so that they he could hold onto the food, but then quickly found a booth, and slid in, Lily then across from him.

She smiled as he handed her the bottle, and then said, "You've done this before, I guess?"

"Sirius and I have done it a couple of time, yeah," he answered taking a swig from his bottle.

"You two are bad," she said, but couldn't help but to smile a bit more widely.

He grinned, "Maybe-well, yes." He finished looking guilty.

They were silent for a moment, Lily looked out the window, the rain was still pouring, it was a good thing they'd conjured up an umbrella for a trip over. It was so dank and gray outside, the sky so cold and foreboding, the complete opposite of the afternoon.

"Thank you," she said suddenly, turning her head to look at James, who had been watching her the whole time.

"It was..."

"No, thank you. I..." she stopped.

James looked at her, but he didn't seem to want to know just what she had to say, he just looked concerned and anxious.

"I love Hogwarts so much," Lily said softly, looking down at her bottle of butterbeer, "But it's so difficult not- not being..." she sighed, "a pureblood-"

"And it shouldn't be," he interrupted her, "You're an amazing witch Lily, it isn't your fault that some people are too stupid to see that."

"Thank you," she answered looking up.

For a long time they sat, the rain pelting the window, talking normally, for the first time ever. Lily was amazed that someone she had despised for so long could think so strongly and honestly- in a way that she did. He understood more than she would have guessed, and he seemed strangely...well mature. A word she didn't often place with James Potter.

But the best part, the thing she couldn't get passed was how he made her laugh. Something she hadn't done in ages.

Bellatrix's words were still captured in a corner of her brain, but not as they had been- not so loud and hurtful anymore.

It was impossible to believe when Madam Rosemerta came up to them and said, "I'm sorry to bother you, but you've got to leave, I'm closing up in five minutes."

They looked up, both had been retelling embarrassing family moments when they were kids, James doing such funny impressions that Lily kept laughing.

"Right," said James, getting up and offering Lily his hand, she smiled brightly and got up, and watched him go to the counter and pay. He ran a hand threw his messy hair and she suppressed a laugh, it didn't seem so arrogant anymore.

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Outside the rain had stopped, and the streetlamps of Hogsmeade had cast a warm glow on the whole town.

James looked at her and she said very seriously, "Please don't take me home tonight."

He looked surprised.

"I just don't want to go home yet," she explained, "I don't want to be alone. Could we walk, maybe?"

He reached out and took one of her hands, so perfectly white; the palms callused from tree climbing, his own stronger and worn from riding his broomstick.

For a long time they strolled over the streets of Hogsmeade, it was well past midnight.

~I remember stormy weather

The way the sky looks when it's cold

And you were with me-

Content with walking

So unaware of the world~

"What do you want to do?" Lily asked, "after Hogwarts?"

There was a pause, "I don't know. My Dad fancies I could play Quidditch, but I don't think I want to."

"Why not?"

"It just seems so...un-job like. And it's risky, you know? I'd never know if I'd get a position or not. What about you?" James peered at her, the dark casting elegant shadows on her beautiful face.

"Well...I think I'd like to be auror."

He stopped, "Really?"

"I'd like to stand up for what I believe in, and make people like Bellatrix Black pay," she cast a disgruntled look at the ground, "Why? Does that surprise you?"

"No."

"Then what is it?" she asked, James was still standing there, looking at her.

"Because that's what I want to do too."

~Please don't drive me home tonight

'Cause I don't wanna feel alone

Please don't drive me home tonight

'Cause I don't wanna go

Tuesday Morning

In the dark

I was finding out

Who you are~

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That's all for now :-).

Reviews are lovely but not a necessity.