Looking into the Past

Chapter 2

A/N- So we are now starting on Lily's diary. There will be segments with Harry's immediate reaction and then chapters devoted to Harry's time. The diary chapters will always start off with an entry and the ones in Harry's time with have the date in Italics.

Tuesday, Nov. 15, 1976

Dear Diary,

Hello. Your name is now officially Cassidity. Why? Because I'm cool like that. My name's Lily, just in case you were wondering. And you should be wondering since I now own you and all. I promise not to be a total bitch like that. I'm sorry. I'm in a funky mood right now. Truth be told, I think I'm PMSing, so you'll have to forgive me. Rather, that is, I hope you'll be able to forgive me? Am I babbling too much? I sometimes have a problem with that. I would shut up, but that would rather defeat the purpose of having a diary, wouldn't it?

Let me tell you something, I'm a witch. Even if I weren't, my life wouldn't be normal. My father hates my mother and me. He has always hated us, but when I turned 11, it got worse. That's when my letter from Hogwarts came. Hogwarts is a school for magical children. You spend 7 years here and then you graduate and go out and get jobs in the wizarding world. But, you see my father detests anything that is not normal. And clearly, by being a witch, I am not normal. So then I started getting hurt worse. And my mom tried to save me by telling father that she's a witch too. That really wasn't a smart move on her part because then she started getting it worse too. Have I mentioned yet that life sucks?

Mum used to be a healer before she met father and fell in love. She had always liked muggles and often after leaving work would go to a muggle coffee shop. Father worked there, he was fresh out of university and looking for a job, but the for time, the coffee shop was his home. Since mum went there everyday he saw her often and soon worked up the courage to talk to her. They started dating and then got married. Father started beating her when he realized she made more money than he did and refused to give up her job. They had my older sister Petunia and he took a liking to her. Then I was born and I looked just like my mum, so I started getting hurt too. Mum used to heal us, but when he realized that was happening he threatened to kill me so she had to stop. At least now I can escape the beatings more often being at school for most of the year. I always worry about Mum. She has a secret account at the bank and is saving for us to be able to get our own apartment and move far away from father and Petunia. She should have all the money soon, I hope...

See, I always have this problem with not being able to see the brighter side of things. But I try to see the brighter side, I really do. It's just not always easy. But that's what being a teenager is all about, isn't it? All teens have problems, some learn how to deal with them and some don't. But whatever. I've gone really off subject now, haven't I? I have. Oh my god I am so bad at keeping a diary. My mind wanders so much. It should stop wandering, shouldn't it? I dunno. Sometimes my brain works too much and I think too many thoughts and I just get all confused and want to cry. It's not fair. Stupid overactive brain. Be overactive for someone else, I got enough on my plate as it is. Do you want me to shut up yet? Because I will, if you want me to. Though that doesn't seem really fair since you are my diary and all. You know the place for my thoughts. So I'm going to continue to write and you can bitch if you want and maybe when I get tired, I'll stop writing.

So anyway, I can't really think of what to write besides my babble and have decided that you deserve to know some general knowledge about me because that would be a good thing to know. As I've said my name is Lily, Lily Marie Evans. I'm 15 years old, soon to be 16 and am a Gryffindor. Gryffindor is one of the four houses at Hogwarts and if you really want to know about the houses I would suggest reading Hogwarts: A History. That's a really long book though and probably pretty dull so I really wouldn't recommend it even though I just did. If you're reading this diary then you should already know about the houses. And if you don't then put this down right now or die. And I mean that in the friendliest way possible, I really do. My birthday's December 13. I'm awaiting a letter from mum on that day because she was hoping to have all the money saved by then. She said it would be my special birthday and a reminder that being a witch isn't something to be ashamed of. And it really isn't. Just sometimes after hearing something over and over again you begin to believe it is true...

Wanna know something else sad about me? Everything about me is sad, isn't it? No, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts. Right anyway, there are four other girls in the dorm with me. Three of them are best friends and the fourth is friendly enough with them but a lot of her friends are in another house, Ravenclaw, I think. And I'm not friendly with any of them. Occasionally, they'll steal my stuff. Because they're great roommates like that. Totally awesome roommates. The girl with friends in Ravenclaw, Arabella, she doesn't steal my stuff. Sometimes we talk, but it's about really general stuff, like homework. I dunno, I have problems opening up to people. So technically I guess it really is my entire fault I don't have any friends. God, I am such a loser.

You know, I'm not really all that sad. Well, yes, I am sad in that depressed, sad kind of way. But I was talking about, oh I don't know, like my life I guess. I mean, yes, when I am at home the shit gets beaten out of me and it happens to my mum everyday. And three of the four other girls in the dorm always steal my stuff. And I have no friends. And I'm mentally ill. But you know what? I get really good grades, I'm top of my year in all of my classes except two. And, this is going to be totally vain; I don't look all that bad. I have red hair that goes down to my waist. Most of the time I keep all of it braided in tiny little braids and use a bandana as a hair band to keep it out of my face. I have jade eyes and a splattering of freckles across my nose. My skin is really pale and I'm short, only 5'3", but I look good short. I'd hate to be tall like Petunia. I think that's another reason father doesn't like me, I'm prettier than his precious Petunia. Oh well, such is life.

Oh my goodness, I've thought of another reason as to why I'm not all that sad. All right, so there are four 6th year Gryffindor boys. If you ever meet them, be careful, they're a load of arseholes and love to play pranks on everybody, including complete strangers. Except me. You'd think the only girl in their year without a group of friends would get pranked and teased mercilessly, but it hasn't happened once in six years. I dunno. Maybe they just feel pity for me or something but it's kinda nice. I mean, life at home is shit but life here is pretty good. It could be a hell of a lot worse so I don't think I should complain. Yeah so you know, one has to give those boys some credit. They're incredibly smart and the pranks they do are brilliant. One of them, Remus Lupin, he beats me out for the top grade in Defense Against the Dark Arts. And another one of them, James Potter, he beats me for the grade in Transfiguration.

These guys, they call themselves The Marauders. Although no one is supposed to know that. I know a lot of things no one is supposed to know. I guess that's one of the benefits of being the girl that no one really knows. It's easy for people to overlook you and think that you're not paying attention to one single thing that they're doing. Anyway, The Marauders is their name for their secret group. It's because of this map they made. It shows all of Hogwarts and from what I can tell, you can see where everybody in the castle is. It also shows all of the passageways in and out of the castle. See, I told you they were smart.

You know something? James Potter is hot. All of them are, but I have a crush on James so of course he is going to be the hottest one to me. See, that's the problem with them. They're all too hot for their own good. All of the females in Hogwarts are in love with and they've probably turned at least a quarter of the male population here gay. It should be against the law for four hot guys such as them to exist, but to be best friends, that's down right sinful. They only make each other look better from their hotness. It's not fair! I mean, if they weren't all friends, or if they weren't so popular, I'd maybe perhaps but probably not have a chance with James. No, what am I thinking? I'll never have a chance with James. Not in a million years. I'm too damn pathetic. And undeserving. And freakish. No, I have to stop hating on myself... Stop thinking such bad thoughts...

Okay, yeah, I'll just start talking about one of my classes today. Maybe that will make me feel better. I doubt that it will but it never hurts to try. At least I hope it never hurts. So the Marauders actually only have one elective together and I happen to be in that class. It's Muggle Studies. So this month the class has been focused on what muggle teens do for fun. The teacher, Professor Schroder, introduced the class to Truth or Dare, Clue, Monopoly, and other muggle games. Today he decided that we would take friendship tests. The professor put us into pairs, and whom was I assigned to, but none other than Sirius Black. I know, I forgot to mention this, but he's one of the Marauders, as is Peter Pettigrew. He had a look of bewilderment in his eyes, like he didn't even know that Lily Evans existed. I'm used to that look by now, it happens in all of my classes, I brought it upon myself though.

Now, why the good professor was inspired to have us take friendship tests with people we aren't friends with, I have no clue. Maybe he was high. Nah, he doesn't look the druggie type. Though, he is young enough for that whole scene... I don't know. I'll just shut up about that for now. Anyway, this first part was a quiz on how well you know your friend. And surprisingly, Sirius left his paper completely blank! I filled out part of the paper on Sirius and actually got some of the questions right. And I think he's gay. Why? Because there was a question "Who do you think this person has a crush on?" And since I really don't know I just put Remus' name down because since it was going to be a wrong answer no matter what I put I figured I might as well have fun with it. And when he read that, he blushed a very interesting shade of red. So perhaps Mr. Black isn't the player everyone thinks he is. Before we graduate I have to find out if he's really gay and if him and Remus have something going on. I have a year and a half to do this, so it should be all good. That would be interesting though... Two of the most popular guys in school being gay lovers...

Anway after the quiz there was a trust test. The basic idea of it was that your partner had to stand in front of you and at any given time they could fall backwards and you'd have to be ready to catch them. And if you weren't ready to catch them then you weren't a trustworthy friend, I think? I don't know. Sometimes I don't even understand muggles and I was a muggle for eleven years of my life. So (and look, more evidence of the Sirius loves Remus theory) Sirius fell into my arms right after Remus fell into James'. I think Remus had a better catching. Though he did fall into another boy's arms and boys are typically stronger than girls and Sirius, well, he's not heavy, but he isn't light either. Anyway, when it was my turn to fall, I didn't get to meet Sirius' arms. Oh no, I got to meet the nice hard, cold floor. All because Sirius was trying to burn James alive with his eyes for daring to fall into Remus' arms. My arse still hurts.

Schroder isn't a stupid guy. He realized that Sirius and I were having problems so he switched our pairs up. Sirius' face lit up when he realized that Remus was going to be his partner. You know, maybe those two are already dating and just keeping it a secret. They certainly act like it. Oh my god, you'll never guess who I ended up with. Actually you probably will because it isn't that hard to figure out. My partner ended up being none other than the one and only James Potter. See, my life isn't all that entirely bad. Anyway, for the last and final part of the friendship test, we had to walk down a flight of stairs blindfolded while our partner helped us. James held my hands! And I held James' hands! And now I promise to stop being such a total girly girl. It's just, it felt so right having him hold my hands. It was so perfect. And plus, if I had still been with Sirius neither of us would have survived. And that wouldn't have been a very good thing. Not good at all.

That was it for the friendship test. There was still a couple of minutes before the bell rang and Professor Schroder announced that next class we would be doing a muggle craft. He didn't say what, but I think it'll be fun. I really like Muggle Studies. It's one of the best classes I take. It's an easy grade and I don't know. I hadn't really meant to sign up for the class in the first place. I was going to take Ancient Ruins but one of the girls messed with my paper and so I got into this class instead. But those bitches didn't mess up my life as much as they hoped too. Because this is just one more class that I get the highest grade in. Can you tell that I like being smart?

Wow, I never knew I could talk so much. Well there's still an hour before curfew so I'm going to walk to the library and check out a few books. The librarian, Madame Gowey, told me that they got a few new books in that I'll probably enjoy. Yes, I know, my life is so pathetic that the only person at this school I can count as a friend is the librarian. But she's really nice and looks out for me. So night. I'll probably write more tomorrow. Something interesting is bound to happen. This is Hogwarts after all! Night.

Lily.

AbAbAbAbAbAb

Harry was still lying on his bed, shock going through his system. He had only heard bits and pieces of his mother's life when he was snooping around the house, eavesdropping on Sirius and Remus. Yes, he knew his mother was unhappy, but he had never heard the reasoning for her unhappiness.

"God, now I seem like such a damn pussy. I hate my life and for what reasons? So what if my parents are dead? At least they never beat the shit out of me. God, I'm such a fucking disappointment. All these other kids who hate their lives actually have a legitimate reason for it. Mum's probably looking out at me from the afterlife and wondering how she could have given birth to such a freaking pussy. Draco is right. I have no reason to hate myself so much. But then again, he's also wrong. The world would be better off without me."

"Harry Potter, I did not just hear you say that! Here I was coming for a surprise birthday visit and instead I'm greeted with that? You have some talking to do," said a person standing at the foot of Harry's bed.