Plot Summary (in case you've forgotten) In her final year at Hogwarts, the lonely Lily Evans is faced with a new challenge and a new fear. Slowly she begins to see the world through a new light, regaining her self-confidence, and finding a group of friends she could trust forever. This is told through the eyes of Lily Evans, and is not your average LJ fanfic. I try to keep to the real story as much as possible.
Chapter 3: First Day
First night meant no one was required to patrol the corridors, and that a mad rush of confused and exciting students were everywhere. I found it my duty then, to make sure that everyone had returned to their Common Room safely, and that there wasn't a sole First Year lost in the Sixth Floor corridor, or anything of the like. However, once I had made my rounds, I returned to where my new home- the Head's Quarter.
The soft pitter-patter of rain flowed sweetly into the castle, which reverberated into a beautiful melody that brightened up my night. I paused, listening to the last of its calming tones, before I finally proceeded to enter the Head's Quarter. I was stunned! The room was perfect, not too large, but then not too small. A quiet fire echoed in the back right corner, bring heat and light into the 19th century styled room. The dark brown wood mingled with the rich tones of deep red, lightly touched with the rest of the house colours. Two comfortable sofas were set out right in front of the entrance, as well as separate desks, located side by side on the left side. Next to them, and along the right wall, were shelves and shelves of books. Some were marked as old logs of the on-goings of the school, while others held common titles, such as Hogwarts, A History. Either side of the room had large oak doors with intricate moving designs of the Founders, the one on the right with Gryffindor and Slytherin, and the left one with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. But what surprised me most, was right in front of the large window that stood directly in-front of me, was Potter.
Potter. I had not expected to see him until the next day, during one of our lessons. I expected him to be doing one of his "special" Marauder meetings, laughing at someone, trying to look cool, while being a total idiot. But no—he was sitting there, staring as the rain fell slowly onto the far-reaching grounds of Hogwarts. I walked towards the left door, assuming it was the one for the Head Girl, but slipped on the edge of a rug, and came crashing down on my knees. Feeling rather pathetic, and daring to hope that Potter had not noticed, and pulled myself up. Sadly my luck had died, and I stood up to face Potter: eye to eye.
"Evans." She said rather gruffly.
"Potter?" I asked in a similar tone of voice.
"I suppose you think you've worked wonders for me," he added rather spitefully
"Wonders? Potter don't waste my time- if you've got something to say, just spit it out!" I voiced, angry at the re-emergence of his arrogance.
"What were you thinking putting a Cheering Charm on me? Thinking you could cheer me up so that you don't have to feel so awful around me? So that you don't feel so guilty-"
"Guilty, Potter? Guilty for what? Your arrogance and naivety? For your superfluous ego-dominated attitude? I feel no guilt."
"I suppose, then your charm was a measure to justify your heartless manner to me in the carriage?"
"And what manner was that?" My anger was surfacing, my pale cheeks beginning to turn red with anger.
"The rudeness in suggesting that seeing Thestrals was good." His ears were turning pink, and his height was beginning to threaten me. He walked closer, as if trying to create a fight.
"What was I supposed to say Potter? Beg and plead to you? Oh Potter, Potter, love me forever, and I'll make it all disappear! The charm I placed on you was an attempt to make you not look as bad as you did, in front of the school." I added aggressively
"The school? What about the feelings I felt? I was dazed, cursed into this emotional high ride, to come, once again crashing down, perhaps deeper into my sorrow? But I suppose Evans, you would be glad with that, considering how much you've liked to torture me the past few years?" He started to turn away.
"Torture you!" I shouted. Jets of anger were freely flowing out of my ears by now. "All I've done to you today was attempted to be nice to you, hoping that you'd have matured slightly over the holidays. Yes, I feel for your loss, but that does not give you a right to force your arrogant beliefs down my throat. I just thought, that since you are overly concerned about your appearance, you might not want to look so sad in front of everyone else. You might appreciate that little compassion I had, but no, you think yourself-"
"What do I think of myself Evans, since you know me so well? Huh? I would like to hear this, because if you know what I think of myself, I would love to learn, since I certainly don't know what I think of myself." Potter was glaring at me with an ice-cold stare.
"You started this argument, not I." I inserted, not sure of what to say. I'd had enough of the fight, I couldn't stand there anymore, without losing my composure, and so, walked into my room silently, tears brimming my eyes.
There was no time to admire the room, no time to appreciate my position. Tears were flowing onto the pillow, as my anger broke with gushes of running water. Self-pity came out as I lay out on those soft pillows. I hated myself, hated everything. Life was a bittersweet game, and I had thus far only played the bitter part. Images of fickle fair-weather friends floated through my mind, and my body curved, my hands clutching my stomach tightly. Petunia's torments laughed in my ears, as her overweight dim boyfriend whispered and pointed at me. I pretended to be unaffected. I have always pretended to be unaffected. The old mask blanketed my emotions with fury, but I could do nothing. I could stand up and fight for others, but I could not fight for myself. My mind ached with anxiety, before the emptiness of a dreamless sleep overcame my suppressed emotions.
The morning was none-the-better. A lack of water to the brain had resulted in a splitting headache, and the loneliness of a single room brought the bright sunshine to a halt. I crawled out of bed, and quickly slipped on my robes, before attempting to find the Head's bathroom. I had guessed Potter had now returned for the undying pity of his friends to discuss the 'horridness' of Lily Evans, but was rather embarrassed to see him come out of the bathroom, just as I was to enter. He blushed on noticing me, and looked downwards, pushing a hand through his wet hair- a nervous gesture, I supposed, as there certainly weren't any other females around for him to attempt to woo.
I quickly had a bath (there were separate quarters for the Head Girl and Boy, thank goodness), and walked out, ready for breakfast and the first lessons that I had: Advanced Potions, Advanced Charms and then Advanced Transfiguration. Potter was in both.
Breakfast was regular. The first breakfast of term meant hoards of people sitting closely together discussing current events, and of course their exciting holiday news, which is of course, exaggerated significantly in order to grab the attention of their peers. First day of term, for me, also meant having to take the only vacant gap in the whole hall (apart from the Slytherin table), which ironically was located right next to my dear Marauder friend, Peter Pettigrew. To those who are a bit confused, and seem to think I am attracted to Pettigrew, as Pettigrew does himself, I am being sarcastic.
As it would be, due to the events that of that summer, the Marauders were pleasantly quite quiet, though Black was flirting with a girl right beside him, pawing as a puppy does another. So much for the macho Sirius attitude. So, anyway, there I was, quietly amusing myself with the delicious food in front of me, when I happen to overhear Pettigrew boasting about his wonderful holiday where he went to France to, as he put it 'Diser mes perfait Frencaise'- so much for perfect French, well at least from what I could remember from Primary School French lessons. So I sort of scoffed into my toast, while receiving a rather odd, but amused glare from Potter. I quickly turned back to my food, and ignored his glance.
To my surprise, Pettigrew carried on, oblivious to my utter disgust, and my lack of attention whatever he was talking about, and spoke about some wonderful French girl who he had met–as I said earlier, exaggeration marks the first day of term. Finally, after drinking to glasses of pumpkin juice, he did stop, only to ask the most inconsiderate, and, well, stupid question I had heard from any Gryffindor's mouth before, "So James, how was your holiday? I'll bet it wasn't anything as good as mine!"
I sat there, shocked at the insensitive nature of the question that flowed so freely out of his foul mouth, that I turned towards him, and quickly asked, "So Pettigrew, who do you think the new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher is?"
He looked at me, once again oblivious to his friends' disgusted faces, and replied, "Who said I was talking to you Evans?"
I turned around, laughing at his fraudulent attitude, and bit harshly into an apple. Pettigrew was a joke. His strength only really appeared when he was near his so-called friends, where no-one actually took him seriously. In a way, I felt sorry for him, unable to conceive why one boy in this school would feel so insecure as to follow a bunch of boys around only to feel powerful. It made no sense to me. However, bravery must be somewhere in his blood, as he was in Gryffindor after all.
The day continued as any day in Hogwarts had ever been. I sat alone in the second row trying to grasp as much information as possible, while Potter and Black sat elsewhere creating a riot, though it could be argued that they were much quieter this year, and I did see Potter's quill on a page occasionally. Potions this year were where were went meant to work solo this year. This removed any preconceived battles between Slytherins and Gryffindors, as well as kept the 'inseparable two' apart. In fact, for a Potions lesson at least, it was heaven.
Finally after a nice round of Charms, and back-breaking lesson of Transfiguration, the day drew to a close, and after a rich dinner, I retreated to the Head's quarter, only to find Potter sitting on a comfortable sofa, actually reading a Charms book. His eyes bored into the thin pages of the Charms book, and did not even pause to look at me as I entered.
I turned away from, and walked towards my desk, pulling out a 3-foot long piece of parchment, and my best quill and a bottle of black ink. I started to write out my essay on the relationship between Ancient Indo-European Charms and African tribal Charms, and how that formed the modern Charm formation. The links were particular interesting as there were many African Charms, which we, with roots from the Indo-European region, lack, but could do wonders with. The actual link fell down to language, and the change in language related with the movement and development of the Human species. Modern Charms that we learnt had mostly a Latin or Ancient Greek background, so it restricted the diversity of Charms we can do, as well as forced us to have a very narrow and insignificant view of the world of Charms.
Much to my amazement, halfway through my interesting discussion, I felt a light tapping on my shoulder. Knowing it was Potter, I did not turn around, but asked complacently, "What do you want Potter?"
"Lily, you're so polite, you are. I was just walking over to say hello."
I turned around and sighed. Great, Potter pretending to be polite. "Since when did you start calling me 'Lily,' Potter?"
He grinned sheepishly, "I've never called you Lily Potter- I would if you'd-"
"Just move back to your sofa Potter, I'm attempting to get some work done here." I spoke, rather exasperated by his immature behaviour.
"Hey, Lily, I'm sorry. I just wanted to say thank you." He was still smiling, infuriating me with his relaxed behaviour.
"About what?"
"You know."
"No, I don't know Potter, please do enlighten me."
"If it pleases you, my Lady. This morning when you were kind enough to distract Worm- I mean Peter- away from the question he was asking me." He passed his hand through his hair, causing me to shiver with disgust.
"Yeah, sure Potter." I said quietly, returning to my work, before pausing to say something that I would not have expected to come out any other day, "Oh, and by the way, Potter -or should I say Prongs- the whole school knows your nicknames, though I must say some certainly do not suit you characters, except Lupin, of course."
He laughed. "I assure you Lily, they do suit us. Though I do wonder why you make mention of Lupin-"
Sometimes, there are people, who you would expect would be able to catch onto a hint so quickly, but the, well, just don't. "After doing prefect rounds with him for two years, it's a bit difficult not to catch onto certain facts."
James said a few things extra, talking about something or other, which I quietly chose to ignore. Mentally, I had retreated back into my essay, not looking forward to 9pm, when we were expected to Patrol the corridors.
Author's Note: Third chapter up now. Sadly, I won't be able to update for 2 weeks now, I have my Mock exams right now, and I have to do well! Otherwise should be back on track soon. I hate exams! Well, at least this chapter's nice and long :)
Thanks also to:
Whimsical Firefly- Thanks for another review. Lily's not the same here, but its up to you to judge whether she still fits into her character.LilyZWnam77- Told you there was an error. I really can't be bothered, nor have the time to go back and change it, but I will at some point. Thanks!
Thanks for reading. Please Review and tell me if you liked it or not, and where I can improve. Thanks!