AN: She finally updated! Yeah, sorry, I've been writing lyrics for a while, and I'd forgotten the papers that have all my chapter ideas on them at one of my friends' houses. Whoopsie! But, not to fear, I'm back people! And now, the newest installment of 'The Awakening'!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, but it makes me happy that JKR doesn't hate us for messing around with her characters! All for the good of one's imagination. =) Thank goodness for her.
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Lily was chewing on a piece of Honeyed Ham, enjoying the taste as she listened to those around her. James, whose arm was tossed around her shoulders in a casual display of affection, was laughing at a joke that Sirius had made, most likely at the Slytherins' expense. Lily found that his jokes had become quite a bit funnier since Severus' last curse on James. Along with this fact, she'd noted that she thought of the black-haired Slytherin much less ever since. Her thoughts were more often focused on her classes and the Marauders. Her hands were filled still, even though they were now reduced to only Sirius and Peter pulling all the pranks.
Lily pulled her gaze away from Remus, who was taking part in a large, two person reenactment of a joke he'd caught wind of over the last summer, to gaze at the Slytherin table. Severus was sitting with Avery. A girl named Laureen was on his other side, chatting over Severus with Avery. Lily had always thought the girl had a jonesing for Avery. Just as she thought this, Avery turned his head to send a seething glare at her, Laureen turning her head in time to do the same. She blinked for a few moments at the two people she used to spend time with. She'd never liked them, they were into dark things, things that worried Lily. However, they'd never been anything less than civil to her, she assumed because of Severus...
---------------FLASHBACK--------------
Lily smiled to Severus, laughing happily at a joke he'd made about James. She'd always loved how he could make fun of her fellow Gryffindors despite their taunts and tricks, as she was quite inable to convince or cajole them to leave the boy alone. James Potter was the worst. He was the leader, the others did anything he bade. She didn't even understand how he could treat the boy the way their little gang did. James claimed, on every possible occasion and in every public setting, that he was madly in love with Lily. He'd done so since third year, and in complete ignorance of the fact that this was incredibly embarassing, he'd yet to prove it to her and they were now into their fifth year here at Hogwarts.
Albeit, on every Friday there was a fresh bouquet of beautiful conjured Lilies outside her dorm door, every Wednesday found her recieving at least one Chocolate Frog from him via randomly picked classmates, and every Saturday there was some proclamation of his love for her to be gaped at in the Gryffindor common room. Both the day before they left, and the day they arrived back from any and all school breaks, there would be a poem or article of some sort written by him, at the beginning of this year she had recieved a beautiful sketch that must have taken him all summer, of a gorgeous Orange Lily, her name scrawled over and over to create it's stem. She would never admit to anyone, but she kept all of his written pieces, and the picture would be brought home with her over the holidays, to be placed safely into a scrapbook back at home. She was absolutely certain that if anyone knew of this, it would quickly get around to Potter, who seemed to have ears everywhere, and she'd never hear the end of it. She shuddered to think of what would happen then. The girls in her dorm already smelled of Lillies wherever they went as they used the conjured flowers to decorate everything in the room.
She brought her attention back to Severus as Avery shoved the fourth year who'd been sitting next to him aside, pushing his way into the seat so as to chat with his fellow Slytherin friend. Lily nodded in greeting, doing the same to a girl who'd only recently become friends with the boys as she sidled into the seat next to Lily, their hair, red and black, looking a shock to all onlookers. She tucked into her mashed potatoes, drizzled with gravy, as Avery and Severus spoke, discussing their new DADA teacher, Professor Raindau. Lily thought that he was rather lacking in the department, and Avery laughed boisterously at something he'd said during a lesson the other day. Lily never truly payed attention in that particular class. She had a Note-Taking Quill take notes the Professor gave them, but she spent most of the hour focused on reading their assigned texts, which gave quite a bit more information than the Professor himself.
It was Thanksgiving Eve, a time for celebration across the globe. The Great Hall was covered with festive objects, including cornucopias and turkeys floating above, which she suspected were truly just odds and ends that had been Transfigured to look like the desired objects. On most days, one would sit with their own house at their own table. However, she found ahead of time that she would much preffer to sit with her best friend on this particular night, a night for giving thanks. Earlier in the day, after their Potions lesson was over, she'd stayed after for a few moments to ask Slughorn permission to sit at his table. The man, whom she knew admired the ease with which she fell into Potions, had agreed that he would not complain if she sat with Severus. She knew that McGonagall would not look anywhere but to Gryffindor table for her, and after the feast she could simply say that she preffered to spend her Thanksgiving in her own way. The Head of Gryffindor would not complain, and it wouldn't truly be a lie.
Lily had pulled her fiery-red hair into a low ponytail, used a simple charm to straighten it, and had performed a rather difficult charm, which would wear off while she slept after the feast, on a single outfit so that rather than her Gryffindor badge and colors, it instead displayed Slytherin's. She kept her head rather low, always worrying that one of the other Professors would catch her and she'd be in great amounts of trouble. As she slowly ate her potatoes, listening to the conversations around her, a startling conversation caught her attention as she merely caught a whisp of it. "....and I mean, how dare she sit here, the dirty little mudblood. She should just go back to her own table with the other pathetic..." She yanked her attention forcefully away from the 6th years' conversation and concentrated with all her might on Avery, who was now saying something about how his uncle, a Pureblood scholar, would have been a much better DADA professor, because he knew about the Dark Arts and he could teach them 'useful' information.
Lily lifted her head at this, the prospect of what exactly Avery would find 'useful' about information on the Dark Arts disturbing to her, but instead of staring at Avery, her eyes focused on someone else entirely, two tables over. Three boys were staring at her. One, whose name was Remus Lupin, was glancing sadly at her as he chewed his food, though he didn't stare as the other two did. He merely moved his eyes between the food on his plate and her, the sad look always there. Sirius, the boy next to him, glared rather visciously. She noted that it wasn't truly at her, though, more just her vicinity. Turning to look three seats down from herself, there sat his brother, Regulus, involving himself in the full-blown conversation that had apparently erupted between the Slytherin's at Avery's remark. Turning her gaze from him, she returned to the staring Gryffindor's, the last of which was the most intriguing to her. James Potter was staring at her, a mixture of expressions on his face. He looked a cross between dumbfounded, amazed, offended, and utterly confused. She would have smiled at his expression, his mouth hanging open a bit, were it not for the fact that the expression itself confused her.
She pulled her eyes away, a difficult task as now the fellow Gryffindor's surrounding him were trying to discover what had him so enthralled, while Peter Pettigrew remained oblivious, shoveling food into his mouth with amazing speed. She'd whipped her head down so fast that, had she not caught it at the very last second, her ponytail would have fallen into the remains of her splendid dinner. She merely stared at the table, until the food disappearing pulled her back to the world. She mumbled to Severus that she wasn't feeling well as the desserts, pies and pumpkin juice appeared on the table, turning her back to the Professors and nearly running, trying to keep her gaze off her house table as she left the Great Hall. Deciding to take the long way back to the common room, which would incidentally take her out of sight the soonest, she whipped a left corner as soon as she passed through the doors to the Great Hall.
There was, mercifully, nobody in the common room or dorms when she returned, and the only questioning on her outfit was recieved from the Fat Lady, whom she ignored and couldn't hear any longer once the portrait closed behind her. Lily sighed, standing alone in the middle of the common room for a moment. She pulled her hair down, it puffed in the front as it fell forward, resting against her green-and-silver clad chest. She shook her head, stalking up the stairs to her dorm. She'd left early for the dinner to meet up with Severus in an empty hall to perform the charms on her clothing, so she was utterly surprised when she reached her dorm's door.
Nearly the entire stairway for 6 steps was covered, to the point that she wondered how people had gotten down to the Great Hall from the dorms above. There was a string of Lillies, tied together by the stems, wrapped around the entrance to her dorm. Three separate cornucopias rested on the steps around the door, filled with fruit and the like, which looked real. There were at least seven boxes of Chocolate Frogs, and three bags of Every Flavor Beans. There were also cornucopias that looked as though they were made of Licorice Wands, filled with various candies that she did and didn't recognize. She noticed Lillies sitting here and there amongst the presents, it took her only a few moments to realize that they were candies themselves. She started. They must've been special-made, they'd have cost a fortune. As she started to feel overwhelmed by the gifts, she realized that this was the reason she and Severus hadn't been bothered during their last trip to Hogsmeade. James would have been much too busy, enlisting the help of his three closest friends to help him retrieve all of this and get it back to the castle without her or any other gossiping students noticing.
She sighed, resting her weight against the cold stone wall. So this was the reason he'd stared at her with that odd look. Oh, the things that must have been going through that poor boy's head. He could've thought he'd truly made her hate him, or that she hadn't recieved his gifts and was currently worrying over where they'd ended up. She briefly wondered who he'd asked for help from to get everything up to it's proper place before she realized that if he was worrying over where it had ended up, she could help with that. Pulling out her wand, she pulled off an extremely advanced, silent Wingardium Leviosa, floating the foods, candies, and all else into the dorm. She let it all set on the floor between her bed and Alice's, there was no way to hide it all. Besides that, the girls had probably already seen it. She walked back into the stairwell, gently pulling the flowers off of the entranceway. Using a simple sticking charm, she hung them from her bottom left bedpost, which was just about the only place in the room that was Lily-free until this moment. She turned and shut the door before stripping out of the green-covered uniform and shoving it into the bottom of her trunk, pulling out a simple red long-sleeved shirt and a pair of black sweatpants, as the night was beginning to cool down, and dressing in them.
Mulling over her presents, she picked out one of the boxes of Chocolate Frogs and, grabbing a quill laying on her bedside table with a jar of ink, she quickly scratched out a statement on the golden part of the box. Setting the quill down and screwing the lid back onto the jar of ink, she leaped up from the bed and rushed down the stairs. She bounded up the boys' staircase, stopping to peer in doors here and there. She knew when she'd found their room, as James' broom stood against the wall next to his bed. Their room looked like a tornado had been conjured in the middle of it; there were books, parchment, broken quills and Daily Prophets on nearly every flat surface. Sirius' bed, which was telltale by the 'PlayWizard' poking out from under his pillow, was devoid of it's blankets, which had fallen to the floor by the foot, a corner held up, wrapped around the bedpost. She shook her head, it looked like the poor House Elves were terrified to come in here for some reason. She gazed around for a few moments, trying to detect a place where Potter would immediately see the candies. She eventually shook her head and set them on his pillow, the only clear place in the room. She exited quickly, pulling the dark wooden door shut behind her.
She rushed even faster down the stairs this time and raced up her own, entering her dorm and shutting the door as she began to hear the sound of people talking down in the common room, dinner must have been over. She hopped onto her own bed, picking up a bag of Every Flavor Beans and opening her copy of 'Defenses Against the Dark Arts And How to Properly Perform Them'. She'd just popped an orange-colored bean into her mouth, which turned out to be orange-flavored, as she'd expected, when Alice, Molly, and Lucy came rushing into the room, not even shutting the door all the way in their haste. All of the sudden, questions and comments were being thrown at her by the girls. It took a few moments to get them to be quiet, which ended up requiring her raised voice, but when they did, there was a whole new noise, which quieted the four girls in the room better than Lily had. There was an extremely loud 'whoop'ing sound down in the the common room, and male laughter that was every bit as loud. Lily dropped her head into her hands, she had no doubt that if there weren't jinxes placed on the girls' stairs the boys would have come up, whooping and laughing all the way.
Sally Murdoch, a fellow Muggle-born and their last roommate, came rushing into the room. She looked directly at Lily. "Really? 'Thank you so much for the gifts, these seem to be your favorite???" The girl questioned, quoting precisely what she had written on the box. As Molly and Alice toppled over on the latter's bed in fits of laughter, Sally continued. "Really, Lily. Those four are down there acting like we've just one the Quidditch Cup!" She stated, clearly exasperated. Molly sat up, her smile wide, obviously barely holding back the laughter. "Which we may just do, now that James is already soaring!" Whatever else the ginger-haired girl was going to say was lost to another fit of loud laughter, which the other three girls joined in on as Lily grabbed a handful of the candies in her lap and tossed them at Molly and Alice.
--------------END FLASHBACK--------------
"Lily? Lily, are you okay?" James' deep voice, becoming saturated with worry, sunk into her head, pulling her back from the memory. She blinked and looked around her, eyes coming back into focus quickly. The Marauders and the other Gryffindors that surrounded them at the table were all staring at her with worried expressions on their faces. She blushed at all of the attention and ducked down a bit, unconsciously trying to disappear under James' arm, still heavy on her shoulders. The others started to laugh at her obviously surprised and bewildered face, James smirked at her a bit. She stuffed a forkful of mashed potatoes, the same as in her memory, into her mouth to distract herself. The others went back to the conversation that she had missed, while James kept watching her. She shook her head as she swallowed. "I'm fine, really. I was just... Reminiscing." She explained. He watched her warily for a few more moments, before apparently deciding she wasn't lying. He kissed her on the cheek and she smiled, blushing, while they all went back to enjoying their Thanksgiving meal, the cornucopias and fake turkeys floating above as usual.
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AN: How was that for a return??? R&R please!!!