Wandering Romance, Unwavering *A Lily and James Fan Fiction*
Both were from completely different worlds. One was from the world of magic and the other from the realm of muggles. But both attended the same school: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Their story is a long one that ends where it also began: Platform 9 ¾.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Harry Potter series or memorabilia. This is purely fictional. Anything that sounds familiar most likely belongs to J. K. Rowling, if not someone else.
Author Note: Finally got a new chapter out! And I even changed the grammar to United Kingdom lingo. Figured that would be fun to do. Fixed all the other chapters as well. The story is essentially the same. I am actually surprised I managed to get this out. I usually take ten years to do so. Oh well. I will get the next chapter out as soon as I can. Warning, though. I will have an enforced two month break this summer. Boot camp here I come!
Chapter Five
Lily looked down the table towards the four boys. The hazel eyed one who wore way too much fabric was scolding the boy who had fairly colourful language. He was sitting down now, but all the same, he was still glaring at the boy, mentioning his parents. An owl, snowy, soared to him and sat on his shoulder as a letter fell next to his plate. The thick parchment boded to be a fairly thick letter, which the boy opened. The redhead was so preoccupied with the boy that she didn't notice Professor McGonagall standing next to her, trying to hand her a piece of paper.
"Lily!" Kimberly yelled, the whole hall jumping, Lily and Professor McGonagall included. Lily quickly looked to the professor before she was caught by the hazel eyed boy.
"Miss Evans, you may stare at the boys some other day. For now," McGonagall was interrupted.
"Yeah, just spend class time staring at James. He is really cute! I wonder why…do you think Mary Walish knows much about him?" Lily looked at her. The girl pretty much shouted that to the whole hall. Mary walked up behind her.
"Our parents are friends. I know more about his parents than him, seeing as I have only met him once. Hello, professor." Mary sat down next to Mary, who was sitting there previously.
"I don't know anything about him. I am a half-blood, remember? I am just as new to the scene as Lily is."
"How does being half-blood make you new to the scene? I thought that was muggle-born."
"My mum raised me, and she is a muggle. My dad wasn't around. I am going to live with him now, though. This should be really fun this summer!" Kimberly continued to babble about her parents, how her mom and dad never got married, and how her mom happened to live four streets down from the Potter family. Apparently, she always knew she was a witch, but knew nothing of the culture. Her dad was always busy during the year. He apparently worked at the Ministry and the Minister of Magic was rather crazy and demanded work all the time. She spent Easter with him, though, and they always had corned beef rather than the traditional ham.
Lily looked at the paper in front of her and studied it. It consisted of her schedule. She looked over at Alice Prewett, who, she discovered the night before, was a second year. She stood up and made her way over to the girl. Sitting next to her, she gave a big smile. Alice frowned.
"I don't like that smile." Lily giggled.
"I have a question," Lily said. Alice immediately stood, along with another student, male and tall. He held a transfiguration book, the third of the series she had the first of.
"Are you a third year?" she asked him, forgetting about Alice altogether.
"Frank." Alice turned back to Lily after introducing the boy, even if it was sparse. "What did you want to ask me?"
Lily stared after Frank, who was leaving hesitantly.
"I hope I didn't interrupt you two…" Alice softened.
"You didn't interrupt anything. What is it you wanted to ask me?" Lily blinked.
"Well, I was going to ask you to show me around to the Charms classroom," Lily hesitated and turned, to head over to her friends, "but you were going to be busy, so I won't–"Alice grabbed the first year's arm.
"I would be glad to show you. Frank can come, too." Alice spotted someone. "Oy! James!"
James Potter looked up and stared at Alice. She dragged the red head, Lily, over to him. He merely blinked at her.
"Yes?" She smiled at his tone. He didn't know her and was curious as to why she was talking to him. Remus and Sirius, left earlier, when Peter suggested that they try to find the class before class started. James would have gone with if not for the fact that the charms class was the one class he knew where to find. Remus should have known how to find it, too, seeing as it was the last class they found before they finally found the Great Hall.
"I have a letter here," she said, causing both James and Lily to focus on her hand. James' gaze didn't leave the letter. "It seems your mum wants me to guide you to all your classes. So you don't get in trouble for tardiness. I don't know why she would be concerned. But she is." James immediately looked at his own letter. He knew exactly why she deemed it necessary for him to have a chaperone. She had written that she would be "extremely delighted not to get any letters from the headmaster concerning the inability to find his first class of the day, so to go from class to class immediately following each so that he would be on time. She clearly had not expected him to manage to find most, if not all, of his classes before breakfast.
"I already know where the classroom is for Charms. I found it when Remus got the two of us lost on our way here, actually." With that he stood, about to leave.
"Then you can take Lily with you!" With that, she hurried away before either could respond. "See you two after class!" James stood stunned, as did Lily. But he started out, hearing the girl hurry to catch up with him. The rest of the Gryffindor girls were still sitting, chatting. They took no notice of the two and James was glad. He could just imagine Mary Walish's accusation running through the Great Hall. And the teasing of walking with a girl. He shuddered.
"How do you get to the Charms classroom?" James looked at the red head and blinked. For someone who didn't like him all the much, she was pretty chatty.
"This way," he said, point ahead of him. Lily looked where he pointed and bounced in step next to him.
"We got off on the wrong foot. Several times," she added, as an afterthought. James paused and just gave a heavy breath before bestowing a muted look of annoyance.
"I hadn't noticed." He started to move, only to be stopped again by the red head.
"I'm Lily Evans," she introduced herself innocently. James merely looked at her.
"I know." He continued walking.
"You know, to have a fresh start, both people have to introduce themselves." James turned around and looked at her, he was startled by how close she was to him. He backed up a bit.
"Okay. My name is, as you already know, James Potter." He turned, again, and continued down the corridor.
"Do you know where any of the other classrooms are?" she asked. He looked at her via peripheral vision and studied her. She looked like she had a lot more questions.
"Yeah, unfortunately."
"Or fortunately." James paused and looked at her. Lily was smiling at him and he was momentarily blank in the mind. He shook his head a looked away from her, ignoring the odd sensation of having nothing on his mind.
"Why fortunate?" he asked, started forward again and opening a tapestry. Lily gasped and he turned to look at her.
"What are you doing?" she demanded. He turned and looked at her. She was right next to him and taking his hand off the tapestry.
"There is a corridor behind here," he said, confused by her reaction.
"This is a piece of art! You shouldn't be touching it." James turned towards her, exasperated.
"Calm down, mudblood. No one cares about the precious tapestry except you," James immediately paled and turned to glare at the speaker.
"Apologize to her!" he demanded. The tall girl laughed, her black hair in a flyaway style that reminded James of the picture book his mother showed him. He couldn't remember the title, but he did remember his dad laughing at the absurdity of muggle imaginations. She merely looked at him.
"Oh look, Rou. The little blood-traitor is here to save the day." She laughed again and pushed James into Lily, who looked even more confused. He struggled to stand as the girl continued to laugh as she continued down the corridor, mocking his robes as she did. When he stood, he lent Lily his hand and helped her up.
"What did she mean by that?" Lily asked, wondering why the boy had looked so stricken when the girl called her names. He still looked peaky, though he opened the tapestry again and moved forward. Lily rushed to catch up to him, forgetting about her previous qualms about touching the artwork of the castle. "Well?" she demanded and James sighed, but not slowing.
"It is a really bad name. Don't even let people call you that. Mum and dad wouldn't tell be what it means exactly, but dad told me it is a really bad name for muggle-born wizards and witches." Lily looked at him when he finally slowed with curiosity. He opened a door and peered inside. He grinned.
"Is this the classroom?" she asked. He looked at her, still smiling.
"Yep! And I knew he was short!" James hadn't exactly been quiet as he said that, and when they entered the room, the professor looked unappreciative of the comment, though not angry or irritated.
"Thank you for the lovely description, Mr. Potter. I assume you learned such delicate mannerisms from your curiously inept father." The man said, voice slightly squeaky. James blinked.
"Filius, don't joke. You know the old man doesn't know what he is talking about half the time. He babbles and tends to forget his manners, especially around you." A woman, short, but still taller than the man, commented with a smile.
"I know, but it was merely an observation that he spends much of his time with his father."
"Or he didn't realize just how loud he was." The woman smiled again, taking note of Lily with a nod before heading towards the door. "Hope to see you two in Herbology later." James blinked at this.
"I don't know where Herbology is at…" he muttered. He pulled out his schedule, Lily sneaking a glance at it in turn. It was the same as hers. "And that is next."
"Maybe it is outside," she remarked and James looked at her, shrugging and putting the parchment in his bag. He pulled out a book in return, just as Lily began to go through her bag and pull out hers and took a seat, in the second row. James took the seat behind her before moving and sitting right next to her. She turned and looked at him blankly before rolling her eyes and reading a few pages into the book. She pulled out her notebook and pencil and jotting down a few notes before pausing. She looked at James and saw him looking at her pencil curiously. "What?" she asked, irritated by his intense concentration on her hand.
"What is that?" he asked, staring at the pencil in her hand like it was a foreign object. Lily resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the boy.
"What do you think it is?" Dimwit. The boy blinked before frowning.
"A muggle object." His forward answer caused Lily to look at him without rose-colored glasses. He genuinely did not know what a pencil was. She sighed and handing it to him.
"It is a pencil. It allows me to write without running out of ink. Or without having to dip a quill in a jar constantly to write a letter. It uses lead and you have to sharpen it when you need to." James turned the pencil around in his hand before taking out a piece of parchment and writing on the top of the page. Lily watched as he continued to write underneath it, as though mesmerised. Without thinking, the boy began to doodle, forgetting completely that Lily was waiting for her pencil. A moment passed before the girl gave up and just picked another pencil out of her bag and continuing with her notes.
James turned to hand the girl her pencil, only to find she had another one in her hand. He looked at the pencil again and twirled it around and around, flipping it in the air and catching it over again. The classroom began to fill up and seconds before the bell rang, Remus, Sirius, and Peter burst into the room and took the last available seats in the front of the front row, directly in front of the teacher. The classroom was dead silent as the teacher took roll. When that was finished, the tiny man gave an introduction.
"Welcome to Charms. I am Professor Flitwick and I will be teaching you Charms. Charms is a brilliant subject, really, and one you would do well to succeed in. Charms are useful for other classes as well, particularly Defence Against the Dark Arts, with Professor Periwinkle." Professor Flitwick winked before continuing on, explaining what they were going to do in the class as well as what they would be likely to get to through the course of the year. James ignored it for the most part, merely playing with the pencil in his hand. Until it floated out of his grasp. He reached for it, only to have it fly further away, irritated, he jumped and grabbed for it, only to have the object fly out of his reach again. He jumped, and finally grabbed it and looked around, expecting to see his dad in the room. The man was, and was laughing uncontrollably – much too hard to have done that to his son. James looked at the teacher, who smiled slightly as he continued as though there were no interruption was the messy haired boy standing in his desk. No one was listening to the teacher with their full attention though. They just wanted to learn all the spells to be learned in the class. If the teacher could do that, they could do anything. As class let out, students murmured their excitement for their next lesson. This time, James followed his father, who offered to show him the way to the next class after they dropped off his new robes. Lily, the red head, stood outside, looking around, and, seeing James, she ran over, following the two, man and son, to the greenhouses, directly to Greenhouse 1. His father said goodbye and disappeared.
Lily watched as the man walked away, a larger version of James, except with a sharper face and blue eyes. She glanced at James, who strode into the greenhouse a bird with ruffled feathers. She held back a giggle. She walked in and spotted Severus. Smiling, she trotted over and sat down next to him. He scowled in the direction of James, and she tried not to take too much from that.
"Hello, Sev!" He turned at her cheer and immediately smiled. She started to speak when the teacher came into the classroom and started the introduction of herself. She called roll, giggling when she reached Sirius, who happened to be bouncing uncontrollably at the idea of a plant called boob. He got it mixed up with bulb, though no one who realized this bothered to correct the barking boy. He would figure it out eventually, either on his own or when the teacher snapped at him repeatedly for vulgar language.
Sirius received three detentions in two minutes. Lily was impressed. All were related to vulgar language. The whole class was, really. When Sirius said 'boob' again, the whole class waited to see what the teacher would do. Sprout, a stout woman, merely blinked, visibly exhausted by the boy, merely ignored Sirius and continued on with her lesson, an introduction, really. Lily was diligent, but mostly ignored the lesson in favour of watching James take notes in his journal, a muggle artefact probably transferred over from the ages of similarities. Her own journal, while different, was also open, though blank. She snuck a peak at Severus' and decided to borrow his notes, if not James' if it proved wise enough.
James tried to ignore Sirius and get his dad's teasing remarks out of his head by focusing on Professor Sprouts monologue about plants. Most of the information he already knew from the last few years of helping his mum plant her garden. But he took notes all the same. He was distracted, however, by his father's comment about Potters falling in love with red headed women, saying they were the only ones who were able to put up with them. James thought it sounded disgusting, but he didn't say that out loud. He learned not to comment on girls being disgusting from watching his neighbour tell Mary MacDonald that girls were dog poo with cooties. No, he was not stupid enough to follow in the muggle boy's footsteps. The bell rang moments later and James hopped out of his seat, the door and castle his destination. He was halfway to the castle when footsteps caught up to him. Looking behind him, Lily had caught up.
"You know, you don't have to follow me everywhere." James started to walk again, and Lily kept pace.
"I know, but you seem to know where you are going. I figured I would follow you for today and find my own way tomorrow." Her voice echoed as they walked in the doors into the Entrance Hall, and along the corridor as James slowly tuned out the babbles and merely let her voice play like music in his ear.
He didn't notice the teachers staring as they passed, wondering when he would make the mistake that was bound to happen. None expected it to happen in the one class he wanted to be in ever since he received his Hogwarts letter. And no one expected Lily to be the one to make him mad. But then again, Lily didn't expect herself to get angry over him not accepting her thousands of apologies, either.
Just a note: I got nothing much except I figured I would make Lily the one who causes the huge hatred between herself and James. Figured I would add in that twist.
XOXO, I.L.K.13