Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

A Change in the Tide

Chapter 6: Friends and Enemies

Lily was awoken by a light tapping on her door. The door opened with a creak to reveal a man she had met the day previously. He had given her that disgusting excuse of a meal. The man awkwardly stood in front of her waiting for the girl to get up.

"Umm," he started nervously. "Yeah, the captain told me to come down and get you. It is time for you to start your chores."

Lily grumbled into her pillow tiredly and then glanced out her very small window. It appeared to her to still be nighttime. Confused, she decided to address the man. "What time is it?"

The man just stared at her for a second until he thought to reply. "It's four o'clock, Miss." Once again Lily growled before obliging to the orders. The young man left while Lily prepared herself for the day's chores. He returned a few minutes later.

"Pardon me, Sir, but what is your name? I mean, I am going to be on this ship for an awful long time. I might as well know what I should call you. Right?"

"My name is Peter Pettigrew. You can call me Peter, though," the man said.

"Okay. You may call me Miss Evans," Lily said proudly.

The two walked through the ship. Peter led Lily through many cramped hallways before she was standing in front of a long hall. On the sides were small doors. Lily crept over to one of them and peaked inside. Inside, it was shaped much the same as her small cabin except these rooms were slightly bigger. It was obvious to Lily that the men who made up the crew slept here and that these were their living quarters.

Peter suddenly stepped next to her. "You are to make all of the men's beds, tidy up their rooms, and clean all of the clothes strewn on the floor. When you are finished, I will inspect your work and then you will report for your next set of work."

Lily nodded and reluctantly turned to the room ahead of her. Peter watched her walk into the first room, then turned to leave.

Lily entered the cabin and began her days work. She was not used to work, having servants for most of her life and therefore was having a very hard time coping with the work load she had. It took her an hour to finish the first room, not including washing the small pile of clothes she had. The next room did not take as long as the first, but it still took awhile. After three hours, Peter came back to see that Lily had only finished ten of the fifty rooms. He chuckled and said that the longer it took her to finish, the longer she would have to work for. That made Lily try to finish a little faster. It took Lily three more hours to finish the other rooms. Then Lily grabbed the large pile of clothes she had to wash. She was walking towards the washing room when suddenly, she tripped and dropped all of the articles of clothing she was carrying. She dusted herself off from the ground and looked up to see the captain himself hovering over her. He was smirking at her. "Good day, Miss Evans."

Lily glared at him in return with utmost hatred. He just laughed at her then whistled as he walked away, kicking a sock as he left.

Lily huffed and got up. She walked over and grabbed the sock. She then picked up all of the clothes sprawled all over the floor. She entered the room. There were three large empty buckets in the middle of the room. Along the wall, there were jugs of fresh water. Lily poured some water into two of the buckets. She added some soap to the one bucket and then began the painstaking process of washing dirty pirate clothes. Once she was done, she hung them up to dry. Just as she was finishing up, Peter checked up on her. Seeing that she was done, he instructed her on her next set of chores. She was to help the cook in the kitchen prepare both lunch and dinner.

Lily was directed to the kitchen where she met a man named George. He was a portly man in his late forties and was the cook on the ship. He was very nice to Lily but, Lily could not deny that his cooking sucked. She helped him make lunch which looked like her dinner from the previous night. Now Lily at least knew what was in the food she ate although it just made her want to eat it even less.

At lunch time, the tired men filtered into the dining room. George told Lily to serve the meal. She walked into the room holding the pot of stew and began pouring it into the hungry men's dishes. She made it all the way around the table with no problems until she reached the captain. She poured the stew into his bowl. She turned to walk away when she felt something warm slip down her leg. She looked down to see that the back of her leg and her dress was covered in stew. Lily hopped around, accidentally dropping the pot she was holding. It spilled all over the floor. Lily grabbed a napkin and wiped off the scorching hot food from her leg. Then she surveyed the damage around her. Knowing who had done this before she even turned around, Lily fumed with anger. She stepped up to the accused man and screamed at him. "What the hell is your problem. How immature are you? You're a grown man for Pete's sake," Lily paused in her rage. Hatred pulsed through her veins as she stood her ground waiting for the captain to do something.

James stood up and angrily stared at the girl in front of him. 'How dare she address me that way. She has no right to say those things.'

Seeing the furious man in front of her frightened Lily a bit. It didn't help that he was well over a head size taller than her and was very muscular. She cowered a bit but still faced the man.

James swallowed his anger knowing that he could not hit this girl as he so desperately wanted to. Instead, he slowly sat down and pointed to his empty dish. "Get me more."

Lily whipped her head around to look at him. "What? I just spilt all of it. Unless if you want me to serve it to you from the floor?"

"Go make me some more. Oh, and I need a new napkin as well." Lily turned to walk away. "Don't forget to clean up the mess you made on my nice wood floors. Ah, better yet, why don't you clean all of the floors in this room," James continuously added to her already heavy load of chores. The rest of the men just laughed at Lily's predicament.

"I hate you," Lily muttered. Then she ran to the kitchen and set to work. She quickly pulled together a meal and went over to serve it to the man she hated most in the world. She placed a napkin beside him. As she began mopping up the floor, the men began to leave. All of them except for James Potter. He watched her work. Obviously, he wanted to make sure that she was doing everything she had been told to do.

When she was done, James told her that she was to mop up the entire upper deck. When she finished that, she would be done for the day.

Lily trudged up to the upper deck and set to work. The deck was huge and it would take several hours to clean it.

When the men had already finished their dinner and were reporting for bed, Lily wasn't even half way done. She wondered if she would even get a chance to sleep that night.

Just as Lily was thinking this, two men popped up behind her. "Need some help?" a voice questioned. Lily turned to see the young man with sandy hair she had seen earlier with the captain.

She laughed thinking that it was a joke. "I'm serious, I want to help you." The man went over and grabbed an extra mop. Lily stared, surprised that a pirate could be so nice. A second man joined them. He had dark hair and was pretty tall.

"Evening Miss Evans," the dark haired young man said.

"Thank you guys so much for helping me. It means so much," Lily said graciously after a few more minutes. "What are your names?"

The sandy haired man said his name was Remus Lupin. The second man said that he was Sirius Black. They spent the next two hours having small talk. Finally, they finished and Lily hugged both of the men. "I would probably not have finished this until morning without your help."

"It really was no problem, Miss," Sirius replied.

"Yeah, you really didn't deserve to do all of this work. James was being very unfair," Remus said.

Lily's blood boiled as she thought of James. Remus noticed her grimace and added, "He really isn't a bad guy. Trust me. I know him a lot better than you do. Give him time. He has been under a lot of stress and his life hasn't been easy."

"What do you mean? He is captain of a pirate ship. He has no concerns and can boss people around to no end. He is living a stress-free life," Lily said.

"Well," Sirius stepped in. "James was an orphan when he was younger. When he was twelve, he was taken aboard this pirate ship. The old captain of this ship was Harold Clark. He looked after James like he was his son. Recently, Captain Clark died and handed over his position to James. James hasn't quite been whole again without his fatherly figure around. It was hard enough leaving his childhood friends. The reason James is acting so harshly is because he is still trying to recover from all the past problems in his life."

Lily thought about it, but what James did to her was unforgivable. She felt bad for him, but that didn't make her hatred for him disappear.

Lily said goodnight to the men and then slipped off to her quarters for some sleep.

A/N: This chapter was mainly Lily's POV- I will try to share some of James' side of the story in the next chapter. The next chapter will hopefully be out some time over the weekend. Sorry for this late update but I just haven't had the time to write.

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