Chapter 6: The Dark Mark

High explosive girl you turn me on
So volatile like a walking atom bomb
Just takes one spark to kerosene
You go off like nitro-glycerine

- Ash – Detonator-

Towards the end of the potions lesson that morning, Lily managed to become Professor Slughorn's favourite pupil and simultaneously win Gryffindor house 15 house points. She had left the lesson in high spirits and looking forward to transfiguration. Hannah left for the grounds for Herbology, while Lily went (following Hannah's detailed directions) up the stairs to transfiguration.

'Almost on time Potter, Black! I'm impressed!' Professor McGonagall noted cynically regarding a dishevelled James and Sirius standing in the doorway with a thin-lipped smile. 'But this year you will be taking your NEWT's so even you, Potter would do well to turn up for lessons once in a while. As for you Black, I wont even go there…' Sirius and James exchanged humorous glances and headed for the back of the classroom. 'Not this time Potter. Sit by Miss Evans over there, maybe she'll be able to control you somehow, god knows no one else can.' James looked a little surprised, but then his face split into a huge grin as he flopped down in the empty chair beside Lily. With it came a waft of extremely good-smelling eau de cologne, somehow, however, this only served to aggravate further. She shuffled away from James as far as she could, without even acknowledging him and turned back to the lesson.

James soon grew bored of sitting beside Lily Evans in transfiguration. His hand had been repeatedly slapped off her knee, and even off her thigh once, which had received him a very dirty look. Obviously, this wasn't going to go anywhere today, so James turned his attention to all the other girls in the room. Every time Lily glanced at him, he was flirting with some girl and no doubt taking in nothing of the lesson. Lily found herself, once again, wondering, how the hell Potter had managed to get himself elected as head boy.

'Mr Potter, you seem to be paying close attention to the lesson today.' At this, Lily involuntarily let out an extremely un-ladylike snort, which triggered several snickers and a lop-sided grin from James. 'Care to demonstrate what I have been explaining to the class for the last half hour?'

'What might that be?' Professor McGonagall cast him a look,

'How to transfigure a feather into a swan. Up here Potter' James got up from his seat with a nonchalant shrug and made his way to the front of the classroom. He took a feather from the box Professor McGonagall was holding out to him, placed it on the floor and pointed his wand towards it. The feather instantly transformed into a beautiful white swan. James looked at it critically, then seeing a glass of water on McGonagall's desk, levitated it to the ground and with a fluid motion of his wand, the glass of water had been replaced by a small lake that filled half the classroom across which the swan was swimming happily.

'Yes very nice Potter,' sighed McGonagall 'five points to Gryffindor, though in future I will be less tolerant of your showing off.' She motioned for him to sit back down. James returned to his seat looking very smug indeed.

Once the rest of the class had received their feathers and were transfiguring them into swans, Lily confidently cast the spell to transfigure hers, but she only got it right on her second attempt, the first time, the swan she had created had no wings. James missed none of this and when Lily glanced his way, he was wearing a huge self-satisfied smile across his face. Lily threw him yet another dirty look, before turning back to her work.

James couldn't help noticing that Lily looked extremely beautiful when angry, her eyes shining and her cheeks pink… He shook himself in annoyance, what was his problem? And since when did he like being totally rejected?

Once the lesson was finished, Lily stuffed her books into her bag and hurriedly left the classroom. James ran after her.

'So, Evans, what was it that you wanted from me?'

'I want nothing to do with you Potter' Lily spat

'Sure didn't seem that way this morning when you strolled into my room wearing nothing but a towel' James replied smugly, smiling from the memory.

'It was an accident' Lily said through gritted teeth 'I want nothing to do with you and your bloody huge ego!' James raised an eyebrow in amusement.

'So I'm guessing you won't be meeting me in the common room tonight?'

'For someone so good at transfiguration, your possession of common sense is shockingly low.' She almost screamed at him, her temper fuelled by her anger that he had actually managed to beat her in transfiguration without the slightest bit of attention. 'I refuse to be a notch on your belt Potter. So don't even go there!' with this she tossed her red curls and stormed off down the corridor down to lunch.

Relationships between Lily and James remained much the same over the next few weeks. Lily either made a point of ignoring him, or when she couldn't contain herself, she would scream at him and she didn't care who heard. They were forced to cooperate in head meetings, but even then, all conversation was kept to a minimum and only where absolutely necessary. James had resumed his tradition of dating a new girl each week, but only Sirius saw that he now did so half-heartedly and that his gaze was always focused on Lily Evans.

Remus, on the other hand, was rapidly becoming one of Lily's best friends. Virtually all her free time was spent with either Hannah or Remus. They spent many hours together In front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, studying, reading or just chatting animatedly. It was on occasions like this that James found himself seething. He was so used to getting any girl he wanted whenever he wanted, it was almost unbearable to see Lily Evans, the girl that had occupied all his thoughts since the second he had laid eyes on her, sitting with one of his best friends. The fact that she didn't even acknowledge his presence in the room only served to infuriate him further.

The first Hogsmeade weekend drew near and Lily found herself wandering round the village alone, walking into every shop she passed and looking round with great interest. Having been home-tutored, she had only been to Diagon Alley a few times and this was her first time in Hogsmeade. She was particularly fascinated by Zonko's joke shop, pranks of every nature seeming alien to her, especially those made much easier to carry out with the aid of magic. She spent a good half-hour examining the things sold there so as to know how to take care of things if one of the pranks was pulled. Something she had no doubt about once the students had stocked up after the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year.

Lily, however, had to admit to herself that she did feel pretty pathetic, standing alone in a joke shop, just so that she could punish students for using the products sold there. She groaned to herself, since when had she started stooping to such low standards? Why wasn't she, like all the normal people, out with their friends or boyfriends, making the most of their few hours of freedom? Lily sighed and walked out of the shop. Dragging her feet, she walked through the village, absentmindedly gazing into shop windows, she didn't notice as she made her way to the outskirts of the village. She was jolted back to reality when she found herself standing in front of a fence overlooking an old shack. It was boarded up and falling apart, parts of it were blackened, as if it had been licked by flames and it creaked with each breath of the cold late-autumn wind. At the sight of the shack, memories flooded into Lily's mind: a blackened house, still smoking in the cool morning air, endless piles of rubble and smashed glass and the smoky image of a skull with a snake protruding from it's mouth floating in the cloudless sky; The Dark Mark… Lily found herself doing what she had sworn never to do again; she crumpled onto the wet, leaf-strewn soil as her body was wracked by uncontrollable sobs. Reliving that terrible summer morning when Lily had come home from a sleepover to find her parents dead, murdered by the Death Eaters of Lord Voldemort.

She had no idea how long she lay there, reliving her worst memories, sprawled on the golden leaves, her tears seeping into the already damp soil beneath. The sky was beginning to grow dark, yet she felt she didn't have the energy to move. An all-too-familiar voice jolted her back to reality:

'Evans?' Lily flinched as she heard James Potter nonchalantly striding up to her 'What the hell are you rolling round in the mud for? If you wanted…' but he was cut short at the sight of Lily's rumpled hair and tearstained face. In all the time he had known her (even if it was only a couple of months), he had not once seen her cry, yet here she was in a heap on the ground 'God Evans! What happened? Are you hurt?' Mustering the strength, Lily lifted herself off the ground and gave a weak watery smile, desperately fighting away the tears thet just kept coming.

'No I'm fine, really.' James lifted an eyebrow

'Well you sure don't look it m'dear' he noted as the tears continued to seep stubbornly out of the corners of her eyes.

'You're the last person I need making fun of me at the moment Potter' Lily growled venomously at James. His eyes widened, but then he realised what he must have sounded like.

'Evans, I…'

'Why don't you just fuck off Potter?' Said Lily, turning away from him. Her eyes swam, obscuring her vision so that she couldn't see where she was going. But She didn't care. The further away from Potter the better.

'It wasn't meant to sound like that, I'm sorry' James ran up to her and said softly. It was Lily's turn to stare at him wide eyed. Had the infamous James Potter just apologised to her? He had never spoken to her with anything but mockery, this was something completely different. 'Let me at least walk you home.' There was something so sincere and gentle in his voice, that Lily found herself slowly nodding and falling into step with him.

They walked back to the castle in silence, the tears never ceasing their flow down Lily's cheeks. Every now and again her body shuddered with a suppressed sob, at which James would squeeze her hand reassuringly. Despite her usual feelings towards James, Lily was intensely grateful for his company. Just the feel of someone there beside her, even if she did hate that someone's guts, made her feel less frightened and alone.

James led Lily up to their private common room and sat her down on the sofa closest to the blazing fire. He himself, sat down in the armchair next to it, not too close as to make her feel uncomfortable, but close enough to let her know that he was there.

'Are you cold?' he asked worriedly as he noticed she was shuddering, she nodded yes. 'Is it ok if I leave you for a couple of minutes?' Lily looked up at him suddenly, her eyes fearful, 'I'll wont be longer than two minutes, I promise.' She nodded, albeit reluctantly, James gave her hand a squeeze and sprinted out the portrait and down to the kitchens.

On his return, James found Lily sobbing loudly into a cushion. On seeing this, he ran over to the sofa, sat down next to her and pulled her into a tight hug. She did not object, so he stayed there rocking her gently back and forth until a house elf arrived carrying a mug of steaming hot chocolate and a plate of cookies.

Lily sat, pressed up against James and sipped her hot chocolate, eventually the tears stopped coming and she found herself completely numb and rigid, staring into the flames dancing in the grate in front of her. They couldn't help but remind her of what her house must have looked like the night her parents died…'

'Why?' Lily whispered 'Why them? They hardly even knew who he was, what right did they have to arrive in the dead of night and…'She stopped, unable to continue for a few minutes. 'It was all my fault, she said she never wanted to see me again, Petunia said that if it wasn't for me none of it would have happened…' In this jolted fashion, Lily recounted the story of that fateful night to James and eventually fell asleep in his strong, protective arms.

James looked down at sleeping form curled up in his arms. He smiled slightly as he watched her breathe steadily in her sleep. This was exactly what he had dreamed of for so long, yet it was so wrong. He just hoped that she wasn't dreaming of what she had just told him. He was surprised how well she had coped with it thus far; he would have thought she would have broken down long before now.

For once in his life James didn't know what to do, Lily blamed everything that had happened on herself; the death of her parents, the destruction of her home, her family. She believed it so strongly that he was scared that she might do something to harm herself. And he had no idea how to handle it.

A/N: I'm sorry I took so long to update, I had awful writers block, which left me literally staring at the screen, absolutely clueless as to what to write. So I'm sorry if it was a bit weak round the middle.

This chapter was a tad more serious than the rest, explaining Lily's sudden arrival at Hogwarts and her reluctance to tell people about it at the start. Please let me know what you think. All reviews are much appreciated.

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ps. Don't worry, Lily does not become suicidal, she'll get over it, eventually.