Note: I found this one, I didn't write it.
Lily hated James with a passion. Her dream was to impale him on their picket fence. He constantly teased her about playing "boyish" sports, made fun of her hair, and called her "small fry". That irritated Lily the most. She hated it when people brought her height deficit to attention. She didn�t think 4�11" was too short for an almost eleven year old. After all, she would grow more eventually. The Potters were an unusual family by the Evans� standards. Their twin children had been home schooled until the age of eleven, now they were being sent to an elusive boarding school. Their children were turning eleven today, and Lily was going to be forced to spend 4 hours of torture at their birthday celebration. Lily would have given anything not to go, but her parents had resorted to bribing her. If she stayed at the party for all four hours, and remained reasonably polite, they would take her to a hockey game, and get her the pass to meet her all time favorite hockey player, Nicoli Sanatini. Lily�s parents were very rich, so if their favorite daughter wanted to meet him, then they were going to let her, only after she had fulfilled her part of the bargain. Lily gritted her teeth just thinking about having to spend four God forsaken hours at the Potter residence, listening to their devil-sent child belittle and tease her for the entire party. Lily made a grim resolve to remain polite though, she wanted to meet Nicoli, and she would give her eyeteeth to do it. She swooshed another three-pointer right as the dreaded neighbor came strutting through the gate that separated their yards. She would have loved to permanently scar him with her softball bat sitting by the back stairs. James said with complete arrogance, "Well, I got my letter of acceptance to the school my family has attended since we became the Potters."
"Well how nice. I know I would be absolutely thrilled to be accepted St. Brutus�s
School for Incurably Criminal Boys!" Lily laughed.
"Ha, ha, funny. I�m sure you�ll be laughing when you�re sent there." James told her meanly.
"That�s it Potter. This means war." Lily told him devilishly.
"Ooh, I�m scared." James said in a falsetto voice.
"You should be. I will show NO mercy, and take NO prisoners." Lily told him, but she neglected to say, starting after your party. Lily then threw her basketball at the retreating James, catching him squarely in the back.
"Just remember, you�ll be on my soil tonight Evans!" James called out.
Lily continued shooting, then decided to get ready for the party that was in a couple of hours. First, she cooked something to eat; she wouldn�t put it past James to poison her. Afterwards she showered and changed into a clean peasant-style blouse and flared jeans, conveniently overlooking a package on her bed. These were her best clothes; she refused to buy girlie stuff like her sister, Petunia bought. She came downstairs about twenty-five minutes after she had gone upstairs, to her mother�s absolute mortification.
"Lily! You can�t wear that; this is a dressy party! Wear the outfit that I bought you today, its laying on your bed." Lily�s mom told her.
"MOM! A DRESSY PARTY FOR TWO ELEVEN YEAR OLDS?!!!" Lily shouted in disbelief.
"Exactly. Go get changed now, and I�ll fix your hair."
Lily went reluctantly upstairs and changed into the emerald green sleeveless top and khaki skirt her mom had bought her. Then her mother insisted on taking Lily�s hair out of the perpetual ponytail, and actually curling the ends of it, sending shudders down Lily�s spine. She thought she did look remarkably nice. She could only imagine what kind of teasing James would do to her. Lily and her family, excluding Petunia who had been staying the week at a friend�s house, walked through the Potter�s door at exactly 6 o�clock, punctual as usual.
"Oh, you look lovely!" Meredith Potter told Lily sincerely.
"Thank you ma�am" Lily thanked politely, "I�m very happy to be invited to your party." Immediately earning besotted smiles from every adult in a 10-foot radius. She saw James and immediately wanted to choke him with his bow tie. Actually, she could think of no greater pleasure. The only thing between James and being strangled was the three boys surrounding him. Lily had no one to talk to, but she was used to this, so she went to the Potter�s library, which was opened to the guests, and sat down with a copy of "The Chosen" written in French. She pretended not to notice four boys staring at her from around the door. They all stared at this lovely girl and finally one of them asked,
"James, do you know her?"
"Yes and no. I know the girl who lives next door and wears jeans, not the one who dresses up and looks nice." James whispered back.
"Well, beat me with a wet noodle and call me goofy, James Potter isn�t being incredibly rude for once." Lily said sarcastically. "After all, it's your fault I had to come to this stupid party, and get dressed up like a ham for Christmas."
The three boys with James couldn�t believe their ears. Although James was just eleven years old, girls fell all over him. This one wasn�t. Lily continued, "I also thought you would be wise enough to stay out of my way tonight after what you said to me.
Watch out, I might lose my control and choke you with that ugly bow-tie of yours."
Two of the three boys started laughing, and the other cowered with apparent fear. The boy that was James�s height with neat black hair and gray eyes said, "Hi. I�m Sirius Black. I�ve never seen a girl stand up to James like that."
"Nice to meet you, Sirius, I�m Lily Evans, and I live next door."
"And I�m Remus Lupin, nice to meet you Lily Evans." the boy with dark brown hair and chocolate eyes said.
"Hi, Remus, nice to meet you." Lily told him, he seemed very nice. "And this is Peter Pettigrew" Sirius said, motioning to a short boy with blonde hair. Lily nodded her head; the boy was still cowering with fear.
"Uh, Lily, you look nice tonight. Thanks for coming." James said politely.
"You�re not welcome you moron. I only came because my parents bribed me with the chance to meet Nicoli Sanatini." Lily said, still smarting from James�s stinging words from earlier.
"Really, oh wow! I�ve seen him a few times on television. You are lucky Lily." James said with awe. He had seen Nicoli on a Muggle TV show while he was at a friend of his parents� house. "Well, then James, you most certainly may come with us when we go to visit him next week." Mr. Evans said, coming in on the tail of the conversation. Lily groaned; she knew her dad thought James was a good kid, but this was going too far. "Papa! James does NOT want to go." Lily said in a voice that usually got her anything she wanted from her parents.
"My dear, that is up to James."
"I would love to go Mr. Evans.." James said triumphantly.
"Excellent, you may also bring your friends here if you wish." and he walked out of the room.
"Hey Sirius, Remus, Peter, do ya wanna go?" James asked.
"Sure", both Remus and Sirius said. "I have to go home." Peter said, and actually left immediately.
Lily growled at them causing James to smile angelically. "I believe its time for cake and ice cream. Let�s go to the dining room." James told them.
Lily wanted to dump the cake on James. She sat down at the table, to her complete disgust, between James and Remus. She was very tempted to switch the place cards. James had a chocolate cake, and Gina had a white cake. They both blew out their eleven candles without a problem whatsoever. Lily chose chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream, but as soon as she got the food, she had to clench her hands together to keep from decorating James with it. She ate only a small amount of the cake, and she just stared at the rest. To her surprise, the cake flew out of the bowl and onto James; all while her hands were tightly clenched in her lap. Lily�s family was the only Muggles in the room, so every witch and wizard gasped at this display. There were whispers around the room, �this little girl must be very powerful, she just levitated that cake. Can you believe her parents are muggles, some pure bloods aren�t that good. And she hasn�t even gone to her first year at Hogwarts.� Lily turned horrified, yet gleeful eyes to James. She couldn�t help it, she just burst out laughing. Shortly after her, Remus and Sirius cracked up with laughter. James slowly started wiping the cake from his face, then said, "Oh, my God, you�re a witch!"
"That�s it! I am tired of you calling me names and picking on me!" Lily said, then grabbed her ice cream and rubbed it on James�s white shirt, then picked up Remus�s third slice of cake and smashed it on James�s face and walked calmly out of the room to her house.
Lily slammed into her room and changed her clothes. It was still early, so she left a note for her parents. It was a safe neighborhood, so she went running. Running, not jogging. Her purpose was to expend all of her energy just so she could resist the urge to go into James's house and finish the job she started. She would set him afire, or maybe she would wrap him in the tablecloth and toss him in the river. She started grinning at this idea, and she was laughing so caught up in her dreams that she didn't see the group of people heading into her direction until she ran right into them. Lily all decked out in running pants and shoes with a matching top ran right into James Potter and his crew, sending all of them flying to the sidewalk. Lily was pleased to see that James had ended up cushioning her fall, rewarding him with a scraped harm. She scooted so that she was sitting on her own on the sidewalk and looked at Sirius and Remus. "Sorry you guys, I was plotting James's death, I didn't see you." Lily said as they were getting up.
"No problem, here, let me help you up." Remus told her, extending his hand.
She accepted it and went to stand up, but collapsed again. She looked down at her ankle, and it was already swelling up. "Oh, no! My ankle!" Lily wailed.
"What?" all three boys questioned cluelessly.
"My ankle, it is injured rather easily, especially compared to my active lifestyle. I will never be able to compete at the tennis tournament this weekend now!"
"Uh, that's disappointing, but maybe you ought to concentrate on getting home first Lily." Sirius said.
"Would you guys go and get my dad. He'll be able to carry me back to the house?"
"I'll go I guess." Remus said, leaving James and Sirius looking helplessly at Lily.
"Umm, Lily, when I called you a witch earlier, I didn't say it to be mean. It was a compliment. You see, we're all wizards and witches in my family. Sirius and Remus and Peter are all wizards too. We're all going to Hogwarts this year. You'll probably get to go too, if you do get accepted, you will get a letter on your birthday." James explained to Lily.
"Okay, I'm sorry I got so mad then. You're usually so mean to me, I just expected you to say it with a mean spirit. But really, a witch? That�s so cool!" Lily also apologized.
"You're right, I have been rather mean to you. All of our lives in fact. I apologize, truce?" James questioned
"Sure, you'll probably be the only wizard or witch I know at this school anyhow if I get to go. I probably ought to be civil to you." and they both smiled, signifying the start of a new friendship. Lily looked up and saw her dad running down the sidewalk, with a panting Remus trailing after him.
"Did papa's princess get hurt?" he asked Lily, who was obviously his favorite child.
"Yeah, it�s my ankle again."
Logan Evans kneeled and examined his daughter's ankle, "Sweetie, it looks like you've really done a number on it this time. You're lucky it�s not a break, but its pretty close to it. Don't put any weight on it for two days at least."
"PAPA! I HAVE to compete in the tournament Saturday." Lily pleaded, as if her father could magically make it well.
"Sorry, Princess, but I can't make it better overnight. I'm no magician."
Lily turned her eyes to James and Sirius.
"My mom might be able to do something for it." James told his new friend. Mr. Evans carried his daughter to the Potter residence and explained the problem to Meredith Potter. She asked Mr. Evans to leave the room and pulled out her wand.. Lily's eyes widened.
"Lily, I wouldn't normally be able to do this until you've received your letter from Hogwarts, but it is obvious you're a witch. It was amazing how you made that cake land on James. And without a wand! Truly amazing! Well, anyhow I'll just use a simple spell that will repair the muscles, and if you don't mind, strengthen them, and you won't have this problem anymore."
"Sure, that would be great!" Lily said enthusiastically.
"Very well. Musculoso Repartim!" and Lily felt a tingling sensation in her ankle. Just about the time it subsided Mrs. Potter said, "Preventium Injuriusin" and Lily's ankle felt good as new. That Saturday, the three boys were sitting under the boiling sun, next to Mr. and Mrs. Evans and Petunia, watching Lily on the tennis court. Lily battled out the championship match, winning with an ace. The crowd gave her a standing ovation.
She shook hands with her opponent, then the judges, and jogged to the locker room for a quick shower before the awards ceremonies. Thirty minutes later she came back up, wearing a black pair of shorts and matching white top. Her braids were decorated in honor of the occasion with metallic emerald ribbons. She stood on the podium and accepted her trophy, grinning for her parents' pictures. As soon as she was allowed to leave she ran to her parents for the first time since before the match stated. She hugged them, still clutching her trophy. In fact she was so happy she was hugging everybody. She even hugged Petunia and some strangers. The boys didn't get out of her way fast enough and she hugged them, then moved on to some of her father's business associates. The next weekend they did indeed meet Nicoli Sanatini, then went out to eat pizza. The boys marveled at Lily's ability to eat an entire medium pepperoni pizza on her own. On Lily's eleventh birthday an owl flew in the window. It was bearing the Hogwarts letter, accepting Lily into their school, along with the list of supplies. Lily thought that was great until it mentioned Diagon Alley. Nobody in her family knew where Diagon Alley was, or the Leaky Cauldron. She went ahead and sent the confirmation letter to Hogwarts anyhow, she would ask James about the Diagon Alley. The Potters gave the Evans a detailed map of how to get to Diagon Alley, and what to do once they got there. But to Lily's disappointment, James didn't ask Lily to come with them. She got over it though; she couldn't expect to immediately become one of his group. On August 20th Lily and her parents went to Diagon Alley, leaving Petunia at a friend's house. They got in easily and went straight to Gringott's. There, Lily was given vault 315 with a balance of 1000 galleons, which would be added to every birthday and Christmas. Lily went to get her robes at Madame Malkins, then to the pet shop. There she bought a jet-black cat with emerald green eyes that matched her own. Towards the end of the afternoon all Lily had to was buy a wand. She was saving it for last. Her parents were resting at the cafe across the street. As it turned out, James walked through the Ollivander's door the same time as Lily. The spooky man came out and said, "Ah, the ones who will release us all. Come my children. You, Mr. Potter, may go first." after several tries James got a mahogany wand. He said, "I'll wait for you Lily, if you wanna go with Sirius and Remus and me to get some ice cream."
"Sure" she said.
"And you Miss Evans. You shall give us our freedom. Here, try this wand." in a very short while, Lily left the store with a 9-inch yew.
"Gosh, was it just me, or was he a few cards short of a full house?"
"Definitely missing something." Very soon, it was September first, and they were going to platform 9 3/4. Lily saw James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter hoisting their trunks onto the scarlet train. She started to run over to them, but her mother was telling her to be good and the like. She kept watching the boys, and she saw them get on the fifth compartment. Then she saw them hanging out the windows watching her. Her dad was saying, "Now princess, remember, if anything goes wrong or you need us for anything, we're only an owl away. We bought our own, so we will send her to you often. I love you princess, we hope to see you at Christmas."
"Yeah, Papa, I love you too."
"Now my dear, be good, work hard, and we love you." Her mother said.
"Yes, Mom, I love you too."
"Princess, be good, we love you, we can't live without you, you're everything to us, you're our only child, who cares about Petunia" Petunia said in an annoying voice.
When Lily walked on the train she saw James, Sirius, and Remus pretending to cry and say, "Oh, Lily, we will miss you so much."
"Would you shut up! Your parents couldn't wait to get rid of you!"
"Hey, our parents love us too!" Sirius said indignantly.
"They love it when you're not there is more like it." Lily told them sarcastically.
Remus said, "Actually, I think my parents do like the vacation away from me." earning a triumphant look from Lily and disgusted looks from James and Sirius.
Peter stuttered, "My p-parents al-always t-try to get me t-to visit a friends house."
"They're trying to get you out of your shell Peter." Sirius said sarcastically.
Peter crept over to a chair, and everybody followed, except Lily. She didn't really want to butt in, so she continued to another compartment. Nobody noticed she wasn't following until she was gone.
"Hey, where did Lily go?" Remus asked,
"Who knows." James said,
"Really, you guys ought to be a bit more concerned, she's our friend." Remus continued.
"Actually, she's mostly your friend. She wants to kill me most of the time, she ignores Sirius, but you two hang around each other like Gilligan and Skipper." James pointed out
"Who�s Gilligan, but, Remus, you like Lily don't you?" Sirius said,
"Yes I like her, but she's only a friend. I actually try to be nice to her." Remus defended himself.
"Remus has got a crush on Lily." Sirius sang, and James joined in.
"Remus and Lily sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes love, then comes marr---"
"STOP! I DO NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON LILY! GOOD LORD, THE WAY YOUR ACTING YOU WOULD THINK YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON HER JAMES" Remus cut in.
"I most certainly do NOT have a crush on Lily Evans. You could find a prettier girl at a dog pound." James said to make his point.
"James, you really went too far there." Sirius said, and James turned around and saw Lily storming out of their compartment. "Uh, I guess I probably ought to go talk to her, huh?" James asked.
"Yeah, especially if you don't want her to remain an enemy. I think she hates you more than Severus Snape. And she's a lot tougher." Sirius said.
"No joke, I'll go find her." James decided, and started walking through the compartments until he saw her sitting with Severus Snape. "Lily, don't sit with them." James shouted,
"I don't see why I shouldn't, they don't insult me and call me names like you do." Lily told him.
"Listen, Lily, about that, I was just trying to make a point-"
"About me being uglier than any dog? Yeah, that's real flattering."
"He called you a dog?" Snape said indignantly.
"Same as, Severus. He is always mean to me. He never has anything nice to say."
"Nobody insults Lily and gets away with it." Severus said nastily, and pulled out his wand and put a jelly-legs curse on James, causing him to collapse.
"Wow, Severus, that's neat. Can you teach me to do that?" Lily asked.
"He will not, because you are coming back to our compartment, and we are going to explain a few things to you." Sirius told her forcefully.
"And just who do you think you are? Maybe you ought to be concerned with taking care of James and leave me alone." Lily said angrily.
"No, listen to us Lily, we need to tell you something. Please come back to our compartment and let us tell you something." Remus asked her.
"Umm, okay Remus. See ya later Severus." Lily gave in.
"Don't count on it." Sirius grumbled. Lily docilely followed Remus back to the compartment thinking, boy, he really is good looking. And nice. Extremely adorable. Too bad he has God-awful friends. She sat down across from Remus, but wished she hadn�t' when it turned out then she would be between Sirius and James. Lily adopted the stony stubborn look she got whenever she didn't want to do something. "What do you want?"
"Lily, Snape and his crowd aren't good people to hang around." Remus started to say calmly until James broke in.
"He's the slimiest creature you'll ever meet! You can tell he doesn't know what shampoo is just by looking at him. And he dishonest! He'll sneak up behind us and use some hex on us. He's done all kinds of tricky sly things." James almost yelled.
"It all started one time in Diagon Alley when he ran into us, then stepped on us. He didn't have the decency to help us up! Then twenty minutes later, he put something in our food to make us grow spots." Sirius picked up where James left off. "Well, I don't know" Lily was still hesitant, so the boys kept telling her more stories about all of the dishonest and mean things he had done. There was no way they could make this much stuff up.
"Fine, you guys. I'm going to quit hanging around Severus, but I will NOT be mean to him." About that time a lady with a huge candy cart came by and said,
"Can I get you anything off of here?" and four boys were immediately swarming the cart. After they had bought everything except three bags of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans and two cauldron cakes, so Lily bought these.
"You guys aren't really going to eat ALL of that are you?" Lily asked in disbelief.
"You better believe it. We'll be lucky if it lasts the train ride" Remus told her.
During the train ride James and Sirius and Remus got into a long discussion about quidditch.
Lily spoke up, "What is quidditch?"
"Oh, so Miss I Know Everything About Sports doesn't know about the greatest sport of all time?" James said.
"I've never heard of quidditch before smarty."
"Well it�s a game played on broomsticks, where..." and Lily was soon very informed about the greatest sport of all time.
True to their word, they had just finished the last piece of food when the five-minute call was sounded, and Lily went to change into her Hogwarts uniform.
There was a mass exodus as students were piling off the train. The first years were directed to the lake shore, where they were instructed by a huge man, Hagrid, to get into the boats, four each. Lily started walking to a different boat, because she thought that the four boys would want to sit together. She had just got sit down in the boat with James's sister and another girl who was named Adriana when Remus came running over to the boat and sat down next to Lily.
"Why aren't you sitting with them?" Lily asked, motioning to the boat James, Sirius, Peter, and now another boy was occupying.
"I didn't want you to have to sit by yourself." Remus explained, and the boats started sailing.
When all of the first years met in a room outside of the great hall Remus received several teasing looks from James and Sirius. They had already explained the houses to Lily, and Lily truly wanted to be put in Ravenclaw, but if she couldn't be in it, she wanted to be in Gryffindor. Sirius was the first one to be sorted, and he was put into Gryffindor. Lily was next. She tried on the hat and it was saying "well, I can see you wish to be in Ravenclaw, you have a great mind. But you have immense bravery, and incredible ability. Gryffindor is the only house that can develop these abilities.. Yes Gryffindor would be a good choice. Promising things will come from you in Gryffindor. "GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted out loud. Lily was a little disappointed, but she got her second choice.
As it turned out James and Remus both got in Gryffindor, but Lily almost fell out of her chair when Peter got in.
Professor Dumbledore said, "Hello students, I think you should know this year's new rules. In addition to all other rules, you are forbidden from the forest, as always, but there is a new addition to the forest. The whomping willow is a tree that will beat the living daylights out of you if you get near it. Quidditch tryouts will begin in one month. Now everybody enjoy the feast." and everybody was able to do follow that rule easily.
After everybody had received their schedules Lily found out their first class was flying lessons. Lily immediately asked James, "Will you please teach me to play quidditch after our lesson tomorrow. I would like to play on the house team." receiving surprised looks from them all. It was obvious they didn't think she could do it, and she promised herself she would. After the feast was over they followed the prefects to their common room. They were told that they needed to remember the password that would change weekly to gain entrance. This week's was "Hobgoblin". Lily went straight up to the first year girls� dormitory where she found her new roommates. When she walked in she saw four other girls there already and she said, "Hi, my name is Lily Evans."
"Hi, I'm Adriana Malcolm." the brunette with medium height said.
"You know me, Lily, but to everyone else, I'm Gina Potter." James's sister with his black hair introduced herself.
"I'm Renee Rinaldi" said a girl with short light brown hair, glasses, and freckles.
"I'm Amelia Rengutin." said a pretty blond girl that was about five inches taller than Lily. Amelia continued, "I saw you with James Potter, and I want you to introduce me. Now."
Lily started laughing, "Who do you think you are? I don't have to do anything besides go to sleep right now."
"Yes you do. My father is the second in command to the owner of Mentinen, the computer company.", Amelia said, she was muggle-born too.
"MY father is Mitchell Evans. Does that ring a bell? Well it should. He owns Mentinen. And its sister company Mocanting. That means my dad is your dad's boss." Lily said in an equally nasty tone, two could play that game.
"Well, I never." Amelia said fussily
"Well, I have." Lily mimicked, sending Amelia flouncing to her bed, drawing the curtains.
"That was great Lily, she's been like that ever since she got here."
"Anytime Renee. I'm going to sleep as well."
Lily woke up happy the next morning. She couldn't wait for that dummy Amelia to try to mess with her again. She was just like Petunia, so Lily knew it would be easy to put her in her place if needed. She dressed in the red Gryffindor flying uniform for flying lessons, their first class. She also braided red metallic ribbons in her hair, which she put in two French braids. She and Gina were ready at the same time, and they walked silently down the stairs together. Gina went off to breakfast on her own, and Lily went down with James, Sirius, and Remus.
They all quickly ate breakfast and went down to the quidditch field. The instructor was an eagle-eyed witch named Madame Hooch.
"First of all, everybody pick a broom. Good, now say UP!" the five friends had found brooms next to each other and they all shouted UP. James, Sirius, and Lily were the only ones in the class who got their brooms to come up on the first try. Remus got his on the second try, and Peter had to have Madame Hooch raise his broom for him.
"Good, now mount your broom, and on three, kick off. 1...2...3!"
Within seconds, ten Gryffindors rose into the air. Everybody except for Peter (big surprise) got off the ground and hovered as directed. The rest of the lesson was spent flying around, and Lily was having the time of her life. After the lesson Madame Hooch pulled Sirius, Remus, James, and Lily over to the side. She said, "Listen you four, you are all excellent flyers, and if you wish you may use the quidditch field in the evening to practice if you wish. If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity come to the field from 4-5 every night available."
"We'd love to." James said after getting confirmation nods from his friends.
Their day started out wonderfully, and it continued along that way. Their second class was transfiguration. It was hard, but fun. They even got to start transfiguring that day, a match into a needle. Then they had lunch. The Hogwarts food was impeccable, as they would come to find out, as usual. Their next class was divination. James thought he would fall asleep as soon as he got in there, it was suffocating. Sirius and James sat at the same table, and Remus and Lily shared another. Peter ended up sitting with a leftover Hufflepuff, who they were in the same class with. The insect resembling teacher came in and said in a light voice,
"Ah, I am Professor Trelawney, I will be teaching the art of seeing. Not all of you will truly be able to predict the future. You! Miss Evans, trade seats with Mr. Black. Yes, that's it. You two have great powers together, nothing on your own, but everything when your together."
Sirius and Remus muffled their laughs, and Lily glared at James because she wanted to sit with Remus and gaze into his adorable chocolate brown eyes. She could already tell this class was going to be a bunch of malarkey, so she let her mind wander. She was thinking about changing her appearance some how to make Remus like her back. She would have to consult some of the girls in her dorm about this.
"Okay class, the best way for you to learn this difficult art is just to jump in and give it a whirl. Everybody drink this cup of tea I will give you then have your partner read it."
James and Lily raced to see who could drink theirs the fastest, then passed the tea leaves. James felt something his the back of his head, and he reached for it and pulled away a tea leaf that Sirius had thrown at him. James threw it at Lily, who threw it back at James.
"That's it, you two. Detention! Nobody mocks the great art of Leaf reading! It will be served from 7-8 tonight. Be here!"
"Professor! You can't give us detention for that!" James said indignantly.
"I most certainly can, and if you don't watch it I'll take points from Gryffindor" effectively shutting James up. As soon as they left the classroom Lily slugged him with her book bag.
"Way to go James! You moron! You got us detention on our first day here!"
"Relax Lily, it won't be that bad. We will still get to practice quidditch tonight though."
"Well, isn't that just dandy. I had other plans besides quidditch tonight. I'll need all the time I can get. I don't need DETENTION!" Lily yelled at him.
"Well, exxcccuuuseee me. Blame Sirius, not me. He started it." and Lily turned her furious glare on Sirius.
"Remus threw it at me first."
"Remus, you dummy, its all your fault" Lily said, though she wasn't really mad at him.
Their next class was potions, and Lily wrangled her way between Peter and Remus. She could already tell that class would be a breeze, and then it was over. Immediately after they went down to the quidditch field.
James, Lily, and Remus were all going to try out for chasers. Sirius wanted to be a beater, so he hit bludgers at them, while they tossed the quaffle. They practiced for their hour, and then went to dinner. At 6:50 James and Lily dragged themselves away from the table to detention. They saw Professor Trelawney at the Head Table, so they stopped to talk to her.
"Are we supposed to go up to your room for detention?" Lily asked
"Yes, dear. It�s too bad that you have detention; it�s the friends you choose. But James must remain your friend, its important to us all. He will be your downfall." Trelawney said.
"So, you children already have detention? On your first day?" Professor Dumbledore asked
"Yes, sir. Throwing tea leaves." James answered.
"Ah" he said, with a slight smile. As they turned to leave with Professor Trelawney they saw Dumbledore say something to McGonagall. As it turned out, James and Lily spent thirty minutes washing teacups, then thirty minutes polishing crystal balls. They were finally released. Lily rushed up to her dorm room, glad to find all of the occupants there except Amelia. She rushed in and said, "Can you girls help me? As you can see, I'm nothing special to look at, and I was wondering if you could help me look, well, more girlie?"
"Sure Lily, who's the guy?" Gina asked.
"Uh, Remus." Lily said hesitantly.
"Oh, okay, as long as it�s not my brother. I wouldn't wish that kind of torture on anyone."
Lily quickly took down her hair and said, "First, we should do something about this. Maybe cut it?"
"NO!" the three girls shouted simultaneously, staring at the long shining mass of dark red hair that reached her waist.
They all circled around her and Adriana said, "Maybe we should trim the ends, and try a loose perm. That would make it a couple inches shorter though."
"Yeah, that sounds good. Just make it into loose curls. It should be pretty low-maintenance if we do it right." Gina agreed
"And maybe trim up the front so she had a strand of hair on each side about four inches long that she could pull it back if she needed to, or curl to make a ponytail or braid look softer." Renee suggested.
"Excellent idea!" lets do it.
They spent three hours on her hair, and then went to bed, with the promise of make up instruction in the morning. Sure enough, they all got up, with the exception of Amelia a hour early. They decided to go with Lily's natural look, and only used a few strokes of mascara and some pink lip-gloss. After Lily got dressed, with her hair down for once, she looked like a new person. When Amelia got up, she was stunned. She knew she would have to revise her plot to win James now, but she didn't know Lily was after James's best friend, Remus.
Lily remembered that the boys were going to meet her at 8 o'clock to go down to breakfast, so she ran down the stairs, trying not to be late. They were sitting in the common room playing some game.
"Wow, what's that game? It looks cool." Lily commented.
"It's called exploding snap, whoa!" Remus exclaimed when he saw Lily.
James and Sirius looked up too, with equal expressions of awe on their faces.
"Amazing Lily. You look beautiful." Remus said, then as if realizing it turned a dark red.
"Thank you Remus." Lily said.
As they walked through the great hall, on their way to the Gryffindor table, they had to pass the Slytherin table. There they were met with wolf whistles from Severus Snape and his group. Remus turned a fierce look at them, effectively silencing Snape, mainly because he was the mildest one out of the group.
They were some of the first at the Gryffindor table, and as people started coming in, the guys gravitated to where Lily was sitting. Since she was sitting at the middle of the table, so were all of the guys, and Gryffindor's female population were giving Lily jealous looks. Lily wanted to disappear though. Things were going too far. She saw some guys who had to be seventh years sit in the crowd, and she felt very embarrassed, when they smiled, she thought they were laughing AT her. Remus who thought she looked very nice saw her eyes tear up, and he took her from the great hall, before she lost it.
She got to the common room before she started crying. Remus said, "Lily, its okay, tell me what's wrong."
"Its terrible! I just wanted to look nice, so I let the girls in my year fix my hair and make me look nice. I thought I did look nice! Everybody down there was staring at me and laughing at me."
"Lily, nobody was laughing at you. They were smiling at you because you looked nice. You truly do look wonderful." Remus tried to comfort her.
"Thank you Remus. Are you sure I don't look er...trashy?"
"I'm sure. You look stunning." Remus said, and was shocked when she hugged him.
"Come on, Remus, we have charms today."
Lily skipped out of the room, and went to charms. A bewildered Remus followed her. He really liked Lily.
A month later, on October 1st, quidditch tryouts were held.
The four first years were walking grimly out to the quidditch field. Lily's hair was pulled back now, a rare event. This was like a war flag. They all signed their name on the sheet, as well as the position they were trying out for. They saw Anthony Clark, also a Gryffindor first year was trying out for keeper. They were warming up with everybody else on the school brooms they had been practicing with, when the captain, Shane Maddox shouted, "Everybody outside of the field. The tryouts are private. The first years go first, then second, and so on." there were 25 people trying out for the 5 positions that needed filled, and most thought it comical five first years were trying out. They already had a seeker, Shane, and a beater, Caitlin Mentz.
They went in alphabetical order, so Sirius went first. He had to fly around, hitting the bludgers. Then Lily went, throwing quaffles back and forth, and tossing them through the goal. James and Remus did the same thing. The bulletin would be posted the next morning to see who would make the team in the common room. When Lily woke up in the morning, she remembered the quidditch tryout results. She flew out of bed, and ran downstairs. As it turned out, all 24 people who tried out besides her were there already. She managed to squeeze through people to read the list.
Seeker-Shane Maddox-6th year-captain
Beater-Caitlin Mentz-5th year
Beater-Sirius Black-1st year
Chaser-James Potter-1st year
Chaser-Lily Evans-1st year
Chaser-Remus Lupin-1st year
Keeper-Matthew Moratsin-6th year
Practice tonight at 6 o'clock Lily screamed and hugged the closest person to her, who just happened to be Remus. To her surprise though, he hugged her back.
"Congratulations Remus" Lily said
"Same to you, Lily."
"Awww, look at them, they're growing up so fast." James said in a girlish voice.
"Shove off, James" Remus told him
That night at practice, they all practiced their positions, then at 7:30, barely any light left, Shane announced. "I see you all are pretty out of shape. To win we need endurance. Every night the team will run five miles, and on weekends we will lift weights. Understood?" and everyone nodded mutely.
They were let off the running hook tonight, so they dragged in for supper. As the food appeared on the plates Dumbledore stood up to make an announcement.
"Students, this year we will have a Halloween ball. We generally just have a feast, but we will give a ball a whirl this year, no pun intended. You will have thirty days to get a partner for the ball if you so choose, but none is required. It will be a formal dress ball, however, and all clothing to the ball must be black or orange. When you have decided on partners, write your names down on the register in your common room, or if you are going stag, just sign your name." That night in the first year boys� dormitory....
"Who are you going to ask?" Anthony Clark asked in general
"Lily" Remus, Sirius, and James all said simultaneously.
"WHAT?" they all said again
"I'm going to ask Lily." Remus said.
"Well so am I" James told him
"Both of you must have forgotten the little detail that I'm asking her." Sirius told both of them.
"No you're not." James said, "And I'll settle this now, I'm going to go ask her. He used a full body bind on them and went up and knocked on the girls� dormitory door.
Meanwhile in the first year girls� dormitory....
"Who do you want to go with Gina?" Adriana asked.
"I hope Anthony Clark asks me. And you?"
"Sirius Black. He is the best looking guy in our year. We know who Amelia and Lily wants. Amelia wants James and Lily wants Remus." Adriana told them all
"Thanks for the P.A. Renee, who do you want to go with?" Lily asked
"Well, I want that Ravenclaw, Luke McLain to ask me."
"Dream on Renee." Amelia said cruelly. Then there was a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" Lily shouted
"Its me, James. Lily, I want to ask you something."
"Shoot." Lily shouted back.
"Its private. Come out here."
Lily walked out and James automatically said, "Lily will you go to the ball with me?"
"James, I'm sorry, but I'm really hoping somebody else will ask me." Lily turned him down.
James couldn't breathe, he was too embarrassed. He turned around and walked back down the stairs, then up the stairs to his dorm and uncursed Sirius and Remus. Remus asked very calmly, "Did she say yes?"
"Nope"
"Petrifucus totalus!" Sirius shouted at Remus, and he was out of the room.
Lily went back in the dorm and was immediately asked by Renee, "Well?"
"James asked me to the ball."
"WHAT?" Amelia shouted.
"I told him no." Lily went on woodenly, then there was another knock at the door, and Sirius shouted, "Lily, I need to ask you something."
She walked out there with him and said, "What?"
"Will ya go to the ball with me?"
"I'm sorry, Sirius, I was hoping somebody else would ask me."
"Okay." and Sirius walked dejectedly down the same stairs James and just walked.
Lily went back in and said, "Can you believe Sirius just asked me too?"
Sirius found James had already uncursed Remus, and when he walked in Remus asked sadly, "She said yes, didn't she?"
"No"
"Great!" and Remus was off and running to Lily.
"I wonder who she is waiting for?" Sirius asked James.
"Who knows."
"I don't know what I'll wear, providing Remus asks me." Lily said, "Orange looks terrible on me, and black? I don't know about that. I'll write my mum though, maybe she can find me something."
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK the Remus shouted, "Lily, will you PLEASE go to the ball with me?"
"Yes I will!" Lily shouted back, and then opened the door.
Remus stared, "You will?"
"Yes."
They smiled at each other and Remus said, "I'll go write our names in the book."
"Okay, see ya later." Lily said, and flashed him a dazzling smile, then backed into the room, shutting the door.
Remus thought this was perfect, he wouldn't even have to worry about the full moon, it would be the orange harves moon, so he wouldn't have to worry about it. Since it fell on Halloween for the first time in decades, it wouldn't faze him; he'd already checked that out.
Lily turned around and screamed, "YES!! HE ASKED ME!!!" and Remus heard this halfway down the stairs, and smiled.Lily said, "Can you believe it?"
"Yes, we can. You've had guys falling all over you ever since your makeover." Renee told her
"Thanks you guys, I owe you so much for that."
"No problem" Gina told her.
Remus wrote their names in the floating book in the center of the common room, theirs was the third entry. Then he walked back up to the dorm.
"Well, did you get turned down too Remus?" Sirius asked,
"Nope, she said yes." he said blissfully.
"WHAT?" Sirius and James shouted with identical expressions.
"She was waiting on you to ask her?" Sirius asked with disbelief.
"She turned us down for you?" James continued.
"Hey, watch it." Remus said with mock hurt.
"Sorry, but I can't believe it." James said.
"Well believe it. Lily Evans is going with ME to the ball." "So, who are you guys going to ask now?" Remus asked.
"Well, maybe I could ask Gina." Sirius said
"NO! Absolutely not! I won't allow it!" James shouted at Sirius.
"Relax, James, how about Adriana. She's in Lily's dorm, and she seems nice, I guess."
"And I think I'll ask that Genevieve Riggs, from Ravenclaw. How about you Peter?" James said
"I wanna ask Patricia Patterson." he said.
The next morning at breakfast Lily and Remus sat next to each other, earning the evil eye from James and Sirius, though they weren't really mad. Sirius asked Adriana, and they agreed to go to the dance together. James couldn't bring himself to ask the pretty, popular Ravenclaw girl (sound familiar) and decided to put it off for a while. They had fun classes that day, and it turned out, they were all succeeding in them. That night quidditch practice was fun too, but the conditioning wasn't.
They were just about ready to start the conditioning, which consisted of running the entire distance around the Hogwarts land, then a partner run, when Amelia came running out from the castle over to James.
"James" she panted, "I'm so glad I found you. I wanted to ask you to the ball."
"Uh, NO. I would rather go with my sister than go with you." he said flatly.
"Fine, Potter. But you will be sorry for messing with me. My father is second in command for the owner of Mentinen."
"Haven't you learned your lesson yet?" Lily asked in an exasperated voice. "My father is the owner of the company, so I don't think you should mess with one of my father�s friends children."
Shane Maddox shouted, "Okay, run all the way around Hogwarts property, you will see fluorescent flags that mark the boundary." then he took off, and everybody followed him. At first everybody thought 'how hard could this be?' and were joking around, all of the boys on the team, with the exception of Shane started jinxing each other, but they didn't mess with Caitlin, she was too tough for them. Lily however was free game, so often got caught in jinxes, but she just turned angry eyes to whoever did it and haughtily demanded the counter curse, and they obeyed. They were about halfway around the castle grounds when they started panting, and when they finally made it back to the starting point everybody collapsed, excluding Lily and Shane, who was in better shape than everybody else, but they were breathing hard.
"Okay everybody, ten minutes then the partner run, I'll explain that in a minute." Shane shouted, and everybody groaned.
"Okay" Shane shouted five minutes later, "I'll let you choose your partner today, but if it gets to be a problem we'll have to draw. What we're going to do is a muggle-military drill (is it really?). What you do is carry your partner piggyback at a run, or as fast as you can for 25 yards. We'll progress to longer distances as the season goes along. Then we'll switch, so that each partner has to be the runner once. Okay, on three pick your partner. One.... two.... three!"
"LILY!" Every person on the team shouted and ran over to grab her.
Lily looked at all the people who wanted to be her partner. One of the boys HAD to weigh 250.
"How dumb do you think I am? Caitlin, will you be my partner?"
"Sure" and everybody groaned. James eyed Sirius and Remus, "Remus, will you be my partner?"
"Yeah, I guess."
Sirius went and asked Shane to be his partner, and then there was only one person left, and Shane announced, "Since there are an odd number of players, the odd person will have an invisible weight spell placed on them."
Matthew Moratsin-the 250-was the one without a partner. James, Sirius, and Caitlin would run first. Lily and Caitlin thought she should go first because Lily would probably be too tired to hang on after she ran, because Caitlin was about 30 pounds heavier than Lily's own 98. Just before they started running, Remus grinned at Lily and said, "This should be fun". They were running, and as it turned out, Sirius came in third out of three places. Then it was Lily's turn to run, and Caitlin kept sliding off. She finally made it past the finish line, coming in the same time as Remus.
"Jesus James! You need a diet!" Remus exclaimed, dumping James unceremoniously on the ground.
"Hey!" he said, when he landed roughly, "You�re no lightweight either Lupin!"
Lily meanwhile was lying on the ground, half-dead.
"Shane" she wheezed, "could we only do this maybe once a week?"
"I can see this could be a problem for you Lily. I'll see if I can find a solution for it."
The next morning Lily couldn't get out of bed. Gina, Renee, and Adriana all tried to help her up, but she moaned, and fell back to the mattress, then she finally explained, "We did the partner run last night, and I think Caitlin broke my back."
"Oh, I'll get a teacher" Renee said, and ran out of the room
Professor McGonagall came back looking very worried. "Miss Evans, can you get up?"
"No, it hurts too bad."
"Okay, I'm going to levitate you to the hospital wing."
"Wait! Let me brush my teeth first!" Lily said, she was obsessed with dental hygiene. Renee brought her toothbrush, and she quickly brushed her teeth in bed. Then she was levitated through the common room, to her chagrin, still in her ducky pajamas. Actually they were kind of cute for her girlie side, but not for Lily's tough girl appearance. The students in the common room stared at her.
"What happened?" Remus asked.
"Quidditch practice." Lily said shortly, and all of the quidditch team knew exactly what was wrong.
When she got up to the hospital wing, the very old nurse said, "My dear, what is wrong?"
"My back" and she was flipped painfully over so she was lying on her stomach.
"What happened, it appears to be badly strained. It almost seems as if a hippopotamus jumped on you."
"Well, in quidditch practice we had to do the partner run. I got the lightest person on the team, besides me, and I think she probably weighed thirty pounds more than me."
"That could definitely do it. You are such a dainty child, much like my great great granddaughter. I'll perform a spell, and it should reduce the pain, and help it heal quicker. But no more of this partner running, and avoid any back strain, like standing for more than 10 minutes."
Lily was magiced some clothes, then she went down to the great hall for the remaining 20 minutes of breakfast.
"How�s your back?" James asked when she got sit down.
"Not, too great, but better than before. Guess what, I have a note that excuses me from the partner run."
"Lucky" the three other members near her exclaimed. As it turned out, the partner run wasn't ever used again.
That evening, at dinner, a large, flat box was dropped at Lily's feet by several owls. She peeked inside, and there was her outfit for the Halloween ball, 3 weeks away.
Very soon those three weeks passed, and it was Halloween. The girls were about ready to go up, when James came running over to Gina and pulled her over to the side. "Gina, do you have a date?"
"No. Why?"
"I don't either, I waited too long to ask this one girl, and I kind of forgot about asking anyone else to the ball. I've checked the entire school, EVERYBODY except for me and you have got a date. We will be humiliated. There isn't a student in this school going stag."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Gina, will you go to the dance with me?"
"WHAT?"
"Please, everybody know your my sister."
"That's what I'm afraid of. INCEST!"
"Shut up Gina, come on, you'll be the only girl without a date."
"Fine, James. But I�m not going to dance with you."
"Deal." Then all the girls went to get dressed.
Lily was twisting her hair into little twists, secured into a bun with onyx and pearl studded bobby pins when they asked, "what are you wearing?"
"A dress my mum sent me, but its a surprise, you'll have to wait till I put it on." and Lily continued fixing her hair, leaving a few curls trailing down her back, then some in front. Her mother had sent her a Neiman-Marcus exclusive dress, tailored to her measurements. It was a black silk column dress, with a back that laced up. With is she wore a string of pearls and black heels. She looked stunning she could tell by the wide-eyed expressions of her roomates.