As It Was Meant to Be
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Author's Introduction:
As you may have noticed, my lovely Harry Potter fan fiction, "Falling Through Glass" has died. It's kind of hard to continue a story when one of the main characters is abruptly KILLED (curse you, J.K.). But since our friend Mr. Black is my favorite character to write, I decided to continue writing about him. And the only way to do that was to go into the past.
This story takes place in the Marauders' seventh year at Hogwarts and is told from the perspective of Lily Evans (Potter). Some of the OC's you will recognize from "Falling Through Glass". Others, you will not. But I hope you enjoy this story, just the same. And so begins "As It was Meant to Be".
(everything you recognize from the Harry Potter series belongs to J.K. Rowling; everything else belongs to me)
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Chapter One: Lily's Owls
A torrential rain slapped against the windows of the Evans house. It had been raining like this for three months straight it seemed-the coldest, rainiest summer in ten years, according to the newscasters. Rarely, the sun would peek through the clouds as if to tease, but would disappear again moments later leaving nothing but cold and rain. It had, in fact, rained so much that people's lawns were drowning. The only lawn in Surrey that was not drowning was the lawn at the Evans house.
This was largely due to Lily Evans' skills as a witch. Every time she saw that the lawn was getting a bit too much rain, she did a simple evaporating spell and everything was back to normal. Her parents would kindly turn their heads when Lily did this as they knew that she was not supposed to be doing magic so obviously in front of Muggles (a term which they proudly bore). They still, however, found ways of rewarding her for keeping the lawn alive-things like being allowed to use the car or being allowed to have a weeklong holiday in France with her friends from school. Therefore, for Lily, it had been a relatively pleasant summer, all things considered.
Still, the rain was beginning to get to her that late August day. She wasn't a terribly good driver and wasn't too thrilled with the prospect of driving in the rain for more than a few minutes at a time. It was too rainy to walk anywhere and the house seemed to be getting smaller by the minute, largely due to the activity in her sister's room next door. Petunia Evans, Lily's older sister, had found that spending the time with her boyfriend Vernon Dursley was an ideal use of the rainy weather. From the sounds that emanated from the room next door, Lily could tell that they were not playing cards, but her tastes prevented her from guessing what was going on beyond that. Her sister Petunia being very thin and bony and Vernon only being describable as "large", the images that continuing her train of thought brought to mind were beyond disturbing.
Trying to block out the nearby sounds, Lily lay down on her bed and began flipping through pictures she had taken that year at school. The main people who kept showing up in the pictures and waving were her two best friends, Anaral Karadhras and Shannon Callahan, Anaral with her amazingly long blonde hair and Shannon with her sparkling blue eyes. And there was Lily, always in the middle with her deep red locks. As she looked at their smiling faces and waving hands, Lily couldn't help but think, Only a week and a half left until school.
School, for Lily, was an escape. She attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for she, Lily Evans, was a witch. Nine months out of the year, she would learn how to do magic of various types in the magnificent school. Lily's best (and favorite) class was Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Beata, a retired Auror from Italy. Lily especially liked how Professor Beata taught mostly from her experiences, rather than from a textbook. She wanted to be an Auror herself one day, fighting against dark wizards and keeping the world safe. So far, she was well on her way, having received several Outstanding O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) and being in mostly N.E.W.T. classes (N.E.W.T.s being the "Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests" which qualified a witch or wizard for work in a specific field).
Lily twirled a piece of red hair around her pointer finger as she thought about the classes she would be taking this year-her seventh and final at Hogwarts. While Anaral was in all of her classes, Shannon was studying to be an apothecary and was only in N.E.W.T. level Potions with the other girls. Lily and Anaral also had on their list Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Basic Concealment. The week before, she'd gone to Diagon Alley with her mother to pick up her books and supplies. She'd hoped to run into Shannon and Anaral there, but found out later that they wouldn't be in Diagon Alley until a few days before the start of the term.
Still, it had been a delightful trip. Her mother, proud of her work in school, had agreed to buy her something she'd never had before: an owl. The beautiful barn owl was now sitting patiently in her cage, preening. Lily hadn't an idea what to name the owl; she was wavering between Taliesin and Pendragon. She was about to open the cage and let her owl parade around the room as he had become accustomed to doing, when there was a sudden tapping at her window. She was delighted to find outside two owls, one from Anaral and the other from Shannon, each bearing a letter in its beak. She opened the window and they flew in, dripping water all over the place and depositing the letters on her desk.
Anaral's letter was sealed with what seemed to be expensive sealing wax. She was the last in a very famous, very old wizarding family, dating back to the prehistory of England, and her father tended to have a lot of money. Still, Lily had become so used to the violet sealing wax and the large letter "A" printed on it that she didn't hesitate to rip the letter open.
Dear Lily,
Shannon and I both arrived at Diagon Alley last night; it's a shame you couldn't be here with us. It just isn't the same without you. Anyway, it's just as rainy here as it is in the rest of England, so we've been shuffling around between shops under these horrid umbrellas that my mother bought. They smell like Limburger cheese.
We've run into several people since being here, people like Gilderoy Lockhart (I swear, he does whitening spells on his teeth every night), Bellatrix and Andromeda Black (their sister Narcissa brought them), the Marauders (of course), and Severus Snape. James Potter was, as usual, asking about you, but we didn't give him any information, so he got bored with us pretty quickly. Sirius Black, on the other hand, stuck around for hours on end. . .but I expected him to.
What time are you getting to King's Cross on the first? Let me know.
Love, Annie
Lily sighed. The Marauders were a group of boys who lived in the same house at Hogwarts as Lily and her friends. They were all seventh-years, and, as Lily had thought up until about three months before, not worth the time or effort it seemed to take to befriend them. The most noticeable Marauder by far was James Potter; he seemed to be the leader of the pack. For the majority of the past six years at Hogwarts, Lily had found James to be annoyingly arrogant, always messing up his dark hair and winking his hazel eyes at whomever he could find at the moment. He seemed to have taken a liking to Lily right from the start, but he, up until the end of the term that past spring, had disgusted her.
The end of the previous year had been a bit chaotic. Lily's house, Gryffindor, had won the annual House Championship, and her entire class had taken a trip to Stonehenge on the last day. For the majority of the day, Lily had managed to avoid James (which wasn't easy, considering that Anaral had just started dating James' best friend Sirius Black), but as they were leaving, she caught him looking at her with a look of such genuine interest and admiration that she couldn't help being caught off guard. From that moment and for the rest of the summer, Lily had found it impossible to stop thinking about James for more than a moment or two.
Unwilling to dwell on the fact that she'd missed him, she moved on to Shannon's letter.
Dear Lily,
I saw Annie sit down with a quill and parchment to write you a letter, so I figured I would do the same. Have you looked through the new Potions book yet? Anything I should be worried about?
Annie has spent most of her free time today with that Sirius Black. I don't really mind; he's not as bad as James. And he seems to really like her. Remus Lupin couldn't make it this week, but that Pettigrew character was here. He's not terribly talented, is he? Ah, well. I'm sure he'll find something to do with his life, once he's through at Hogwarts.
Annie's parents have been really worried about something lately, though I'm not sure what. They keep sneaking off to their room early to talk (yes, really, to talk). It's making Annie nervous. I told her it was nothing to worry about, but I don't think that I believe that myself.
Anyway, can't wait to see you on the Express!
Love, Shannon
Lily felt moderately cheered to read her friends' letters, and wrote back immediately. She also toyed with the idea of writing to James, but figured that seeing him on the Hogwarts Express would be enough for the time being. Everything finished, she sent the owls off to deliver their letters, by which time the noise next door had died down considerably. The rain seemed to have let up a bit, too, but just as Lily was about to leave her room and go downstairs for something to eat, there was a knock at her door. She opened it to find a furious-looking Petunia standing there, holding an owl, and hastily wrapped in a dressing gown.
"LILY, KEEP YOUR STUPID OWLS OUT OF MY BUSINESS!" she shrieked.
"I was keeping my owls out of your business," Lily answered calmly. "I don't know where this one came from."
"Like hell you don't!" Petunia's voice lowered in volume. "I don't want Vernon to know anymore about your. . .your freaky habits! Mum and Dad should have thrown you out a long time ago, when you first started acting like this."
Lily grabbed the owl out of her sister's hands, and it hooted loudly. "Why, Petunia? Ashamed that you aren't able to do magic? Think that if I'm gone, Mum and Dad will love you more or something?"
Petunia looked fit to be tied, but before she could come up with an adequate response, Lily stepped back into her room and closed the door. She was too happy to see this letter to want to deal with her sister at the present moment. The handwriting on the envelope betrayed its contents-the letter was from James Potter.
The seal was Gryffindor red and gold, but Lily could hardly be bothered to be impressed with a seal. She ripped the letter open and watched the papers flutter to the floor. She bent to pick them up, blew the dust off of them, and read.
Evans,
Well, hello. I'll bet you weren't expecting a letter from me. I tried to ask your friends where you were, why you weren't at Diagon Alley with them, but they weren't feeling too free about giving away information. Seemed to think I would use it for evil, rather than for good. I finally got Sirius to pry the information out of Annie-I hope she's not too mad at him for that one.
Anyway, how's your summer been? Awfully rainy, isn't it? We were planning a trip to the beach, but the rain cancelled it. I offered to do a couple of sunshine spells for my mum and dad (found those in an old copy of the Standard Book of Spells-they're illegal now, though. Can't imagine why), but my mum said it wasn't worth getting sent to Azkaban over a couple of rain clouds. So no beach for us. I did, however, manage to talk them into getting me a Nimbus 1100 for the new Quidditch season. You should see it- it's bloody cool.
I suppose I'd better get to the point of this letter. I know we haven't gotten along very well in the past six years, and I was just thinking, since it is our last year at school, do you think we could put it all behind us and be friends? It might be very hard otherwise, as Sirius and Annie don't seem to be willing to separate anytime soon. Let me know.
Sirius is living with me and my family now. . .I don't know if Annie or Shannon mentioned this in their letters to you. His family is getting involved in some pretty bad stuff. . .something about a dark wizard. I'm not sure the details of it, but in any case, it's great having him at my place. It's like having a brother.
Well, Evans, I hope the rest of your summer goes well. See you on the Hogwarts Express.
Peace, James
Lily felt a giggle bubbling up in her throat and could barely talk, lest she let it escape. She twirled around and finally landed on her bed, staring at the ceiling. James had written her a letter. The year before, she wouldn't have cared at all, but now-it was the best thing that could have happened. She was still smiling as she drifted off to sleep.
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A/N: And so begins the story that begins the story. . .and so on and so forth. I was planning on starting Lily and James' story in their first year at Hogwarts, but I was too impatient to have them fall in love. So here we are in the seventh year. Most of the stories of the previous six years will be told throughout this story, so by the time it's over, you should have a pretty good understanding of how we all got to where we are now. But in any case, write me a review, and happy reading!
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Author's Introduction:
As you may have noticed, my lovely Harry Potter fan fiction, "Falling Through Glass" has died. It's kind of hard to continue a story when one of the main characters is abruptly KILLED (curse you, J.K.). But since our friend Mr. Black is my favorite character to write, I decided to continue writing about him. And the only way to do that was to go into the past.
This story takes place in the Marauders' seventh year at Hogwarts and is told from the perspective of Lily Evans (Potter). Some of the OC's you will recognize from "Falling Through Glass". Others, you will not. But I hope you enjoy this story, just the same. And so begins "As It was Meant to Be".
(everything you recognize from the Harry Potter series belongs to J.K. Rowling; everything else belongs to me)
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Chapter One: Lily's Owls
A torrential rain slapped against the windows of the Evans house. It had been raining like this for three months straight it seemed-the coldest, rainiest summer in ten years, according to the newscasters. Rarely, the sun would peek through the clouds as if to tease, but would disappear again moments later leaving nothing but cold and rain. It had, in fact, rained so much that people's lawns were drowning. The only lawn in Surrey that was not drowning was the lawn at the Evans house.
This was largely due to Lily Evans' skills as a witch. Every time she saw that the lawn was getting a bit too much rain, she did a simple evaporating spell and everything was back to normal. Her parents would kindly turn their heads when Lily did this as they knew that she was not supposed to be doing magic so obviously in front of Muggles (a term which they proudly bore). They still, however, found ways of rewarding her for keeping the lawn alive-things like being allowed to use the car or being allowed to have a weeklong holiday in France with her friends from school. Therefore, for Lily, it had been a relatively pleasant summer, all things considered.
Still, the rain was beginning to get to her that late August day. She wasn't a terribly good driver and wasn't too thrilled with the prospect of driving in the rain for more than a few minutes at a time. It was too rainy to walk anywhere and the house seemed to be getting smaller by the minute, largely due to the activity in her sister's room next door. Petunia Evans, Lily's older sister, had found that spending the time with her boyfriend Vernon Dursley was an ideal use of the rainy weather. From the sounds that emanated from the room next door, Lily could tell that they were not playing cards, but her tastes prevented her from guessing what was going on beyond that. Her sister Petunia being very thin and bony and Vernon only being describable as "large", the images that continuing her train of thought brought to mind were beyond disturbing.
Trying to block out the nearby sounds, Lily lay down on her bed and began flipping through pictures she had taken that year at school. The main people who kept showing up in the pictures and waving were her two best friends, Anaral Karadhras and Shannon Callahan, Anaral with her amazingly long blonde hair and Shannon with her sparkling blue eyes. And there was Lily, always in the middle with her deep red locks. As she looked at their smiling faces and waving hands, Lily couldn't help but think, Only a week and a half left until school.
School, for Lily, was an escape. She attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for she, Lily Evans, was a witch. Nine months out of the year, she would learn how to do magic of various types in the magnificent school. Lily's best (and favorite) class was Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Beata, a retired Auror from Italy. Lily especially liked how Professor Beata taught mostly from her experiences, rather than from a textbook. She wanted to be an Auror herself one day, fighting against dark wizards and keeping the world safe. So far, she was well on her way, having received several Outstanding O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) and being in mostly N.E.W.T. classes (N.E.W.T.s being the "Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests" which qualified a witch or wizard for work in a specific field).
Lily twirled a piece of red hair around her pointer finger as she thought about the classes she would be taking this year-her seventh and final at Hogwarts. While Anaral was in all of her classes, Shannon was studying to be an apothecary and was only in N.E.W.T. level Potions with the other girls. Lily and Anaral also had on their list Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Basic Concealment. The week before, she'd gone to Diagon Alley with her mother to pick up her books and supplies. She'd hoped to run into Shannon and Anaral there, but found out later that they wouldn't be in Diagon Alley until a few days before the start of the term.
Still, it had been a delightful trip. Her mother, proud of her work in school, had agreed to buy her something she'd never had before: an owl. The beautiful barn owl was now sitting patiently in her cage, preening. Lily hadn't an idea what to name the owl; she was wavering between Taliesin and Pendragon. She was about to open the cage and let her owl parade around the room as he had become accustomed to doing, when there was a sudden tapping at her window. She was delighted to find outside two owls, one from Anaral and the other from Shannon, each bearing a letter in its beak. She opened the window and they flew in, dripping water all over the place and depositing the letters on her desk.
Anaral's letter was sealed with what seemed to be expensive sealing wax. She was the last in a very famous, very old wizarding family, dating back to the prehistory of England, and her father tended to have a lot of money. Still, Lily had become so used to the violet sealing wax and the large letter "A" printed on it that she didn't hesitate to rip the letter open.
Dear Lily,
Shannon and I both arrived at Diagon Alley last night; it's a shame you couldn't be here with us. It just isn't the same without you. Anyway, it's just as rainy here as it is in the rest of England, so we've been shuffling around between shops under these horrid umbrellas that my mother bought. They smell like Limburger cheese.
We've run into several people since being here, people like Gilderoy Lockhart (I swear, he does whitening spells on his teeth every night), Bellatrix and Andromeda Black (their sister Narcissa brought them), the Marauders (of course), and Severus Snape. James Potter was, as usual, asking about you, but we didn't give him any information, so he got bored with us pretty quickly. Sirius Black, on the other hand, stuck around for hours on end. . .but I expected him to.
What time are you getting to King's Cross on the first? Let me know.
Love, Annie
Lily sighed. The Marauders were a group of boys who lived in the same house at Hogwarts as Lily and her friends. They were all seventh-years, and, as Lily had thought up until about three months before, not worth the time or effort it seemed to take to befriend them. The most noticeable Marauder by far was James Potter; he seemed to be the leader of the pack. For the majority of the past six years at Hogwarts, Lily had found James to be annoyingly arrogant, always messing up his dark hair and winking his hazel eyes at whomever he could find at the moment. He seemed to have taken a liking to Lily right from the start, but he, up until the end of the term that past spring, had disgusted her.
The end of the previous year had been a bit chaotic. Lily's house, Gryffindor, had won the annual House Championship, and her entire class had taken a trip to Stonehenge on the last day. For the majority of the day, Lily had managed to avoid James (which wasn't easy, considering that Anaral had just started dating James' best friend Sirius Black), but as they were leaving, she caught him looking at her with a look of such genuine interest and admiration that she couldn't help being caught off guard. From that moment and for the rest of the summer, Lily had found it impossible to stop thinking about James for more than a moment or two.
Unwilling to dwell on the fact that she'd missed him, she moved on to Shannon's letter.
Dear Lily,
I saw Annie sit down with a quill and parchment to write you a letter, so I figured I would do the same. Have you looked through the new Potions book yet? Anything I should be worried about?
Annie has spent most of her free time today with that Sirius Black. I don't really mind; he's not as bad as James. And he seems to really like her. Remus Lupin couldn't make it this week, but that Pettigrew character was here. He's not terribly talented, is he? Ah, well. I'm sure he'll find something to do with his life, once he's through at Hogwarts.
Annie's parents have been really worried about something lately, though I'm not sure what. They keep sneaking off to their room early to talk (yes, really, to talk). It's making Annie nervous. I told her it was nothing to worry about, but I don't think that I believe that myself.
Anyway, can't wait to see you on the Express!
Love, Shannon
Lily felt moderately cheered to read her friends' letters, and wrote back immediately. She also toyed with the idea of writing to James, but figured that seeing him on the Hogwarts Express would be enough for the time being. Everything finished, she sent the owls off to deliver their letters, by which time the noise next door had died down considerably. The rain seemed to have let up a bit, too, but just as Lily was about to leave her room and go downstairs for something to eat, there was a knock at her door. She opened it to find a furious-looking Petunia standing there, holding an owl, and hastily wrapped in a dressing gown.
"LILY, KEEP YOUR STUPID OWLS OUT OF MY BUSINESS!" she shrieked.
"I was keeping my owls out of your business," Lily answered calmly. "I don't know where this one came from."
"Like hell you don't!" Petunia's voice lowered in volume. "I don't want Vernon to know anymore about your. . .your freaky habits! Mum and Dad should have thrown you out a long time ago, when you first started acting like this."
Lily grabbed the owl out of her sister's hands, and it hooted loudly. "Why, Petunia? Ashamed that you aren't able to do magic? Think that if I'm gone, Mum and Dad will love you more or something?"
Petunia looked fit to be tied, but before she could come up with an adequate response, Lily stepped back into her room and closed the door. She was too happy to see this letter to want to deal with her sister at the present moment. The handwriting on the envelope betrayed its contents-the letter was from James Potter.
The seal was Gryffindor red and gold, but Lily could hardly be bothered to be impressed with a seal. She ripped the letter open and watched the papers flutter to the floor. She bent to pick them up, blew the dust off of them, and read.
Evans,
Well, hello. I'll bet you weren't expecting a letter from me. I tried to ask your friends where you were, why you weren't at Diagon Alley with them, but they weren't feeling too free about giving away information. Seemed to think I would use it for evil, rather than for good. I finally got Sirius to pry the information out of Annie-I hope she's not too mad at him for that one.
Anyway, how's your summer been? Awfully rainy, isn't it? We were planning a trip to the beach, but the rain cancelled it. I offered to do a couple of sunshine spells for my mum and dad (found those in an old copy of the Standard Book of Spells-they're illegal now, though. Can't imagine why), but my mum said it wasn't worth getting sent to Azkaban over a couple of rain clouds. So no beach for us. I did, however, manage to talk them into getting me a Nimbus 1100 for the new Quidditch season. You should see it- it's bloody cool.
I suppose I'd better get to the point of this letter. I know we haven't gotten along very well in the past six years, and I was just thinking, since it is our last year at school, do you think we could put it all behind us and be friends? It might be very hard otherwise, as Sirius and Annie don't seem to be willing to separate anytime soon. Let me know.
Sirius is living with me and my family now. . .I don't know if Annie or Shannon mentioned this in their letters to you. His family is getting involved in some pretty bad stuff. . .something about a dark wizard. I'm not sure the details of it, but in any case, it's great having him at my place. It's like having a brother.
Well, Evans, I hope the rest of your summer goes well. See you on the Hogwarts Express.
Peace, James
Lily felt a giggle bubbling up in her throat and could barely talk, lest she let it escape. She twirled around and finally landed on her bed, staring at the ceiling. James had written her a letter. The year before, she wouldn't have cared at all, but now-it was the best thing that could have happened. She was still smiling as she drifted off to sleep.
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A/N: And so begins the story that begins the story. . .and so on and so forth. I was planning on starting Lily and James' story in their first year at Hogwarts, but I was too impatient to have them fall in love. So here we are in the seventh year. Most of the stories of the previous six years will be told throughout this story, so by the time it's over, you should have a pretty good understanding of how we all got to where we are now. But in any case, write me a review, and happy reading!
