Chapter One - Judge A Man By How He Treats His Inferiors

"He's such a prick! Have I ever told you how much I hate him?"

"What did he do now?" The blond girl smirked as she watched her friend ranting about James Potter. Again. It could only be Potter, as she was never complaining about anyone else.

Lily Evans was walking next to her best friend. Her Care Of Magical Creatures class had just ended and on her way to the Gryffindor Common Room the red-head had ran into Marlene McKinnon, still heated over Potter.

"You never take me serious. This is serious, Marlene. Potter's a toe-rag."

"Lils, you keep using that word over and over again. He's a 16 year old boy. Look at Sirius. No better than him but still, I fancy him a great deal and he's a good guy."

"Well, neither of them is. And Black's even worse than Potter. Potter just keeps strolling around the castle as if he was... I don't know! As if he was the freaking King of Toe-Rag-England."

"King of Toe-Rag-England?" Marlene burst out laughing, shaking her head. "You're impossible, Lils."

Lily rolled her eyes. Marlene never understood her! Maybe never wanted to understand her. At least not since she had a crush on Sirius Black. Had to happen. At some point in time, every girl in Hogwarts had had a crush on either of the Marauders. Though Lily had never heard someone crushing on Peter Pettigrew.

"Am not! He's impossible, not me."

"Then tell me what he did and I'll see if you're right this time." She most of the time was and Lily knew that. In the end, Lily would always be right about James Potter. Though at first, Marlene never agreed with her.

"He ran up to Daniel Coy and without him doing anything, Potter just pushed him into the Lake. All his books were soaking wet! And instead of helping Daniel, what did Potter do? Just stood there, laughing at him", Lily complained, blowing a lost strand of red wavy hair out of her eyes.

" And he teased Severus. Again. He always does, every day. Severus never did anything to him, did he? If anyone should punish him, it should be me, not Potter. I just can't believe this boy! A few days left and we'll be off, finishing our sixth year. Did he grow up? Even a little? No, he didn't! Not at all."

Lily was foaming with rage and she didn't even understand where it had suddenly come from. Of course, Potter has always been annoying but over the last few weeks, Lily had grown even more sensitive about his actions.

"He's impossible. He just steps on everyone all the time", Lily continued, "Does he even think about anyone except himself? I don't think so. I can't believe that Remus still is his friend. He could do so so much better than that. So could Pettigrew. I'm telling you, Marlene, Potter will drag them down with him if they keep being his friends. They will drown in his arrogance; they'll be suffocated by how thick he is. If he would care about them, even a little, he'd tell them to go and look for a better friend."

"So what about Sirius then? Not worried about his well-being?" Marlene interrupted her friend's rage, although she should by now know better than to interrupt Lily Evans when she was ranting about how thick James Potter was. Marlene was the only one who could talk to her when the red-head's temper was showing. Perks of being her best friend.

"I don't care about Black; he's just as thick as Potter." Lily snorted. She really couldn't stand Potter. At all. She couldn't stand Black either, but somehow it was only ever Potter who ended up in her hate-speech.

"Hey, Evans", she heard a too familiar voice behind her. As she spun around, her ponytail spinning with her, she was rather surprised to find Black standing there on his own, without the rest of the infamous Marauders.

"Black. What do you want? Don't you have to pull a prank? Don't you have to make someone feel miserable?"

"I'm about to, darling. Hey McKinnon." Sirius Black nodded in Marlene's direction, throwing her a smile which Lily could only hate.

"Well, if you want to make me feel miserable, congrats. You succeeded. I saw your face and was miserable. You know what would top it? Seeing Potter. That would be the death of me." If Black was going to be a prick, so could she. Lily knew, of course, that Sirius had done nothing to upset her. Not this time. But he had stopped her rant and she was still just so furious that someone had to pay for it.

Instead of an expected heated reaction, Sirius looked at her, all stern and, well, serious. It confused her, but just a bit, and she would never show him.

"Let me tell you something, Evans." He stepped closer, so close that it was really uncomfortable. Still, Lily would never admit that Black or Potter or anyone could make her want to run away. So she straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

"Then tell me, Black. Tell me."

"You can say whatever you want about me. I don't fucking care. Hell, you can even say that Prongs is arrogant. Because he is, he really is." There was it again, that stupid nickname. It was childish, naming your friends Prongs and Moony and Wormtail and Padfoot. Lily didn't care about it right now. She cared about the fact that Sirius was calm. He never was. He had quite a temper, she had seen it often. Though while Potter, as Lily had observed it, usually dealt with it via keeping calm just to pull a prank on his insulter afterwards, Black most of the time was a drama queen, being all sarcastic and overly emotional, shouting and insulting. Of course she was wondering why he kept a calm voice.

"But never, you hear me, never again accuse him of letting his friends down. James is the most loyal friend one can have. He loves us more than you could ever imagine. More than you could ever love anyone, Evans. You have no idea what he did for us. We were worth less than him when we came to Hogwarts. Like scum. He didn't care, never does. He's a wonderful friend and if I ever hear you talking badly about him being a friend... oh you couldn't imagine the things I'd do, Evans, you couldn't imagine. You're a clever girl, aren't you? Favourite of Slughorn. Try to figure this out: Judge a man not by how he treats his equals but by how he treats his inferiors. Watch him when he talks to kids. Watch him when he interacts with us. Watch who he teases and you will find out one thing: he likes to tease Snivellus because he is his equal. And why, by Merlin, should he spare someone who can keep up with him so easily? James might be an arse, he might be arrogant and boastful and I allow you to say all these things about him. But never again try to protect anyone from his friendship. His friendship's the greatest gift Moony, Wormtail and I've ever been given. You aren't any better than you think of him." Without shooting her a second glance, Sirius turned around and vanished as quickly as he had come.

Lily and Marlene just looked after Black, completely startled. That wasn't the Sirius Black they had grown to know. That was someone who looked like Black but was nothing like him.

"What the hell was that about?" Marlene finally said, after an uncomfortably awkward silence.

"I've no idea, Marlene, I really haven't. Who does he think he is?"

"King of Toe-Rag-England?" Marlene suggested chuckling.

"Oh stop it you." Lily shook her head. "They really think they're the best, prettiest, most awesome guys in school. But tell you what: in the real world, none of them will succeed. Especially not Black. Potter could still be a Quidditch player and he's sort of clever. Well, he's good grades. Doesn't mean he's clever."

"Lils, give it a break, please, I beg you..." Marlene wrapped her arm around her friend's shoulder. "Come on, let's go to the Lake. Take your mind off Potter for a while. Deal?"

"Deal", Lily sighed. Black had made it sound as if Potter was a saint, a messiah who saved them from sinning and burning in purgatory. Bullshit. Potter was nothing like that and Lily only hoped that Black would shut his mouth the next time she met him. And the next time was only a few steps away.

As soon as she had followed Marlene out of the castle, she had spotted them. There they were. The four infamous Marauders, sitting together next to the Lake, playing a game of Exploding Snap.

"Oh come on! Fate is making a fool of us", Lily remarked sarcastically rolling her eyes in annoyance, "I can't believe they're here, too!"

"Lils, why shouldn't they? It's sort of the best place to be right now. And there are tons of other students around. Oh, I've just seen Shannon. Shall we sit with her? She's rather far from the Marauders, so no need for you to get all worked up on how much they stress you out."

"You're making fun of me."

"I might."

Lily sighed and nodded her okay. She knew that from time to time, her obsession with catching the Marauders doing something forbidden to get them expelled was a bit too much to handle for her friends. She knew that sometimes she talked about them way too much for her own good. But now, Lily decided, now she wanted some peace and quiet.

After a while of talking about their plans for the coming summer holidays and speculations about who might become Head Boy and Head Girl (their bets were on a Slytherin girl who was rather shy but determined as well as clever and Lily did hope that Remus would get assigned Head Boy), the friends laid back in the grass and just enjoyed the sun.

Its warm rays were tickling Lily's nose; she quite liked the feeling of it. The grass underneath her felt soft and warm, as if she was at peace with the world, finally come home. After a while she heard Marlene snoring softly. Chuckling, Lily opened her eyes and gazed over the scenery.

There he was. Stupid James Potter with his stupid hair and his stupid plaid button-up shirt. Why didn't he just go away? Didn't he need to plan a prank or practice for Quidditch? Didn't he need to do something else than sitting there, right where she could see him? Ugh, Lily despised him. But then again, he wasn't as bad as the Death Eaters. He was on the good side. It was something.

Lost in her thoughts, Lily stared at the four just a bit too long, because right as she snapped out of it, she could see all of them staring back at her. She didn't want to admit it, but the look Sirius Black threw her was sort of terrifying. Lily could see James nudging Black's side, obviously telling him to stop whatever he was doing. Much to Lily's surprise, James threw her a weak smile before turning away and grabbing his guitar. He could play, she knew that. At least everyone said he could. She had never heard him. Mostly because she tried to avoid his presence at all costs.

There was a split second in which Lily thought that Black could be right. Potter looked content just being there with his friends, playing guitar for them while Black lay on his back, smoking a cigarette and watching the clouds. Peter and Remus played Wizard Chess. As if Pettigrew could ever win against clever, logical Remus Lupin, Lily thought.

The split second passed and Lily thought again about how they kept teasing and annoying students, pulling pranks, prancing around the school. What was it that Potter was playing? She knew the song. Which was not impressive, as Lily tried to keep up with the music of both worlds, the Muggle world and the magical world. But this wasn't a song by a wizarding band; it was too familiar. Closing her eyes, Lily tried to catch the tune far away from her. She knew it, which was certain. It was a bit older, it didn't strike her as just having heard it but there was certainly something familiar about it.

"Oh for Merlin's sake", Lily murmured as she'd finally figured it out, "that is just so typical Potter." She shook her head, thinking about the lyrics. Fear me, you loathsome, lazy creatures, I descend upon your earth from the skies, I command your very souls, you unbelievers. Of course Potter would play a song like that. The only problem about hating Potter for it even more was that Lily loved Seven Seas Of Rhye. She hadn't heard it in ages and actually enjoyed the sound of her childhood. But never would she say so.

Potter and his friends were unusually quiet. If this would be a normal day, someone would already be dangling upside-down in the air, being laughed at by the two dark-haired Marauders. They would pull pranks on everyone at the lake and Potter would have been over at least four times to convince her to go out with him. But somehow none of it had happened so far. They were calm, like normal teenagers, simply being happy in the sun.

Rather content with the thought that not even Potter could ruin her afternoon, Lily laid back into the soft grass once again and closed her eyes. Oh, how wrong she had been. A few moments later, something or someone tapped her foot.

"Evans? Are you asleep?" she heard the familiar voice. Unusually calm and soft, nearly whispering. Normally, Potter would have burst into her serene state of mind, with this specific edge in his voice which made her cringe every time he addressed her. It was the arrogance that was missing. Was it? No. It was the self-love. The narcissism. Maybe if she ignored him, pretended to be asleep, maybe he would just go away.

"Evans, I can see that you are awake. I know when you're only pretending to be sleeping, I've wat..." He stopped mid-sentence and Lily could feel him sitting down next to her head.

"Look, Padfoot told me what happened earlier. I'd like to apologize for the way he said it. But not for the content. Because he was right. You can say whatever the fuck you want about me. Never ever even think I'd be a bad friend. Those three guys over there are my everything, my family. I'd rather be dead than betray them in any way. I'd gladly give my life for each of them. So please, go back to insulting me, calling me a toe-rag, telling me that you'd prefer the Giant Squid over me, calling me an arrogant arse. I can live with all that. I'm sorry that I've disturbed your afternoon. Keep enjoying the sun. And maybe put on some sunscreen. Your décolleté looks a bit burned."

Lily could practically hear the smirk in his last sentence. She wanted to get up and slap him, but before she had even decided to do so, she felt Potter leaving her side, possibly heading back to the Marauders.

What even has that been about? Maybe Black had been right. Maybe Potter wasn't a bad friend. But he was just so full of himself. Sir Boast-A-Lot, King of Toe-Rag-England. Why did Remus chose him to befriend? She couldn't possibly come up with any other explanation than what Black had told her earlier on: maybe he treated others badly because he considered them to be equal. And, as a boy from a rich and pure-blood family, befriending an always-ill-looking kid, a pariah and the stereotypical loser-type-of-guy was surely unusual. Lily had never seen Potter being mean to them. Teasing them like she teased Marlene, sure. Maybe, just maybe, just a small and tiny maybe, Potter wasn't such a bad friend or such a bad person after all. Then again, in her second year, Lily had also considered Potter to be nice. And it had brought her no-where. So why should now be any different than at that time?