WINDFALL
My Confessions
By Godswake
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-Prologue-
My name, at the point in which I'll begin writing this memoir, used to be Lily Evans. I was an innocent, a maiden fair, who during her teenage years experienced both pain and relief, witnessed both beauty and disaster, and felt the deepest spectrums of love and hate. For such was the drama of my teenage life. The drama, the romance, the adventure, the hilarity, the tragedy… I think back on my younger years now, and view the flashes and colors and still photos and poetry of it all. It's all of it so convoluted, so broken. But its memory holds so much. That is, perhaps, what stirred me to write it all down. Fear of being forgotten. Fear of forgetting my own life. Or myself, even. I want to record it while I'm still young.
I got the letter when I was eleven, as I suppose everyone always has and always will. I was enrolled in a girl's boarding school in south London and the thick epistle from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was very last notice, in addition to being a bit of a shock. My parents were confused, as I was, as to the validity of this place, and it seemed almost a comical idea. Hogwarts? Wizardry? Uh-uh. It was fishy, and I had no objections when my parents ignored the invitation.
But then more letters came. Eventually, the amount had multiplied profusely and they were showing up in the most unlikely of places. (Scores of manila envelopes swept into our living room through the fireplace every evening around six.) Gradually, mine and my family's attitude about them shifted from apathy to curiousness to downright fascination. Eventually, whatever persuasive and intriguing powers these letters held were enough to convince my parents to allow me to go to this "wizarding" school. Sure, it was strange. Hell, it was very strange, but why not, you know?
It was an interesting summer, that one. Little did I know, I wouldn't begin living until I came to Hogwarts. That living was enhanced in its depths when I met the venerable James Potter. My cycle and my whirling relationship with and around and about this boy molded me like the whim of an unseen artist. I was the clay, and somewhere out there, a force was shaping me. And though it would take me years to admit it, I loved James. I loved him and that would carry me through the darkest of times. I admired him so…
But he wasn't the only peer I had that deserved praise. Some others I held in high esteem were Morgana Tudor, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin. Morgana was my greatest friend, and there never was a girl more appropriately named than she. She was wickedly powerful in her magical skill, much like her literary counterpart from the Arthurian legend, and with her surname she could trace her lineage directly back to the English monarchy that ended with Elizabeth the first. Though regal and aloof to many, to me, there had never been a kinder, more loyal and beautiful person. She was my mother, sister, friend and confidante all in one delicious package.
Sirius Black and Remus Lupin are not to be forgotten. These two young men, both self-proclaimed "marauders", brilliant and handsome to boot, came to be my rocks, my crutches, my tourniquets in my hour of need. Their wit, charm and sensitivity were impossible not to be drawn to, and I still get lost in their smiles.
These people are so mentioned because I need to stress to you, dear reader, how I was raised. It wasn't my parents (boring, lonely, disinterested muggles who loved me well enough but didn't know or understand me) or my older sister (a wretched girl with a stupid name. Petunia. Ha.) that deserve that credit. It was my friends. Even those who weren't my friends, those I loathed, or those I wasn't quite sure about, defined my person in some way. They all had their place.
From third year on, I came to recognize beauty, wisdom, intelligence, humor, love and life like they were old friends, simply because in those days, those virgin years, all these aforementioned qualities were impossibly frequent. And I hardly ever stopped to appreciate them. One thing's for sure. I appreciate them now.
Before Hogwarts, my memories were virtually nonexistent. They begin only after I started a new life, and then they rear up in Technicolor and just wont quit. I don't even care, though, because those eleven insignificant years lacked that one essential ingredient to make them shine and last: magic.
Magic was what I woke up for every day, and Hogwarts had it. It was everywhere. The air tingled with it, the food tasted like it, and I saw it in all my friends. Magic and its mystery sustained me and my overly self-conscious person from a spiral of drastic tragedy. It was that undetectable scent; that music in the air that saved me from the nightmare of mediocre life. Magic. James…
In my muggle days, I dreamed of greatness. The more I dreamed, the more anxious I grew: would greatness ever come? Perhaps this was impatient of me (I hardly yet qualified as a pre-teen), but as you come to know me you'll see that my soul (painted like a picture for you in this journal) is constantly yearning for some intangible element of success… I'm ambitious, to say the least. And my thirst for achievement would only be quenched when I left my old home and found a new one.
I was a pathetic child. I daydreamed constantly, and found only minute satisfaction in my fantastical lusts for a more meaningful life. At ages ten and eleven, I was reading Shakespeare, Tolkein, Sophocles, Chaucer… if only to get an evanescent taste of my ideal utopia. Every character in these books, plays, and poems may have had hardships. They may have had problems. But they were unordinary. They were original. They were great, and to me, that deserved all levels of respect.
Now I'm thinking back on it, that may have been my initial fascination with James Potter. He was great. He was so full of life and so happy and so revered by all who knew him that he made me just as jealous as I was awe-inspired. Before we even had our first encounter in third year, fierce inner battles had brewed with in me between the side of me that loved James and the side that loathed him.
I hated him from the first moment that I saw him. He was cocky; throwing his weight around like some movie star even when he was only a first year. He was loud, rude and annoying; no one could ever get him to shut up, save for the headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, and even he couldn't suppress James's rowdy nature sometimes. I didn't like that everyone I knew worshipped him (with the exception of a few Slytherins). On the contrary, the school's love for him had a counter effect on me, making me wince or shrink whenever I saw a hoard of girls following him around. It made me sick.
But sometimes the good cancels out the bad. From a distance, when I wasn't busy despising James, I was busy falling for him. I couldn't deny he was beautiful, but I also had trouble ignoring his humor and wit, his brilliance, his charm, his general good nature and the way he valued his friends. I really liked that. Sometimes I would even imagine that he and I were an item, but such visions were brushed away quickly, leaving me ashamed. I still hadn't even spoken a word to him yet.
And the way things were going, I probably never would. James was everything I wasn't: popular, attractive, charismatic, outgoing, funny, athletic, smart, brave- why should he ever stoop so low as to say a few words to me? Or at least, that was the rationale that I found myself periodically drilling through my head. James would never even notice me. I was dumb, ugly, obtrusive, fat, ignorant and, worst of all, a mudblood.
I used to have major self-esteem issues when I was young. When I was staying with my parents, I had taken pills for a form of chronic depression that resulted in rather self-destructive behavior. Suicidal thoughts, cutting and deriding myself were commonplace. Fucked up, I know. But what would really set me off was the whole pureblood movement thing. It had been bad enough before, when all I had to deal with was fat vs. skinny, ugly vs. pretty, and stupid vs. smart. Now it was mudblood vs. pureblood. Worthy vs. unworthy. Needless to say, none of it helped my self-image or any prospects of any sort of relationship with Mr. Potter.
If fate, or serendipity, hadn't caused James and I to cross paths that September day in third year, I don't think I ever would have spoken to him. But his medicine, his whole being, would turn out to be exactly what I needed. He would be my sanctuary, my redemption, and my ultimate restoration.
So, welcome to my life. Welcome to the beginnings of a story that will undoubtedly become a saga, even a legend. And as it's the sick and twisted propensity of human nature to take pleasure in others' pain and even more in others' euphoria, you should enjoy this memoir. You have with its pages the very pieces of my soul. Take care of it, and enjoy.
A/N- so there you have it, my first chapter, which is actually more like a prologue. No. It is a prologue. Haha. Anyway, hope you liked it. I'll try and update asap. .
-Godswake.
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