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Almost Dreamlike by Jersey Princess
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Almost Dreamlike

Jersey Princess

This is a new story and a new project for me! I'm the girl who never finishes her stories, though swears she will and then puts them on hiatus…I also say I will finish a story before I get started on the next, and see how well that idea went, lol!

Anyway, this is a new idea composed from an idea I had when I was reading another girl's (Emma's). She gave me permission to use the dream at the beginning of the story, and so that works out. The story pretty much focuses around that. There won't really be any plot for this story; it's just a plot bunny to get me over my rather severe Writer's Block. You all know how that feels, I'm sure…

I'm a beta reader for so many people! I love you all, you're all amazing authors! Keep it up!

Thanks to all of you who put me on your author alerts or favourites list. I'm honoured. I didn't know so many people liked me! In fact, half of you I have never even heard of because you haven't reviewed me…

Anyway, summary:

She surveyed the room with wide, unknowing eyes. She didn't recognise any of this. She turned to the person lounging on a chair next to her and smiled gently, knowing, almost dreamlike, what she was supposed to say and do.

Lily has a dream, before she gets her letter from Hogwarts. Then she recognises James as the boy in her dream. And then…shit happens. You know the score. Yet another LJ written to get over WB, with no real plotline, main focus on the dream. Oh, and yeah, Lily is a loner. Not a LJBFF! OMG, what is the world coming to?

Disclaimer: use of the dream belongs to Limbo Gal (Emma). The fight idea comes from ZombieGurl98 (Katie). Luv ya two, you rock and are both amazing authoresses (and Emma is one of my beta-guinea pigs)! KIU girls! Oh, and the rest of the story should be my idea. I think…Anybody you do not recognise belongs to me - coughralphdukesandianbankscough -

This is PG-13, as usual. All of mine should be, apart from The One I Really Want. That rating is being upped at some point in the far/near future to R…Wouldn't you all like to know why…lol

Please R/R, lyl, enjoy the ficlet! Written purely for humour reasons and out of boredom (no profit coming from it! Yes, this is another disclaimer; freak out, bang your head, whatever…)

Oh, and I have a new account along with friends Beth, Jessie, and Christy. We're called The Miss Marauders on ff net.

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Chapter 1, The Invitation

She surveyed the room with wide, unknowing eyes. She didn't recognise any of this. She turned to the person lounging on a chair next to her and smiled gently, knowing, almost dreamlike, what she was supposed to say and do.

"Honey, Harry wants to see you. Can you be a dear and fetch him? Jamie, please?"

The boy, for that's what he was, or Jamie, she supposed, chuckled and laughed, his floppy black hair falling behind his thin-black-rimmed glasses and into deep hazel eyes. He was very muscle-y and tall, with arms she wanted to dive into and lips she wanted to kiss. He stood up and went into the room next door, and came back carrying a baby with black hair like his father, but emerald eyes she knew were the copy of her own.

The girl reached out to take the baby from his father and smiled. Her baby boy was safe.

Just then, the front door slammed open. The black-haired boy rushed downstairs. "Lily! Take Harry and run! I'll hold him off!"

He rushed into the pathway of a tall man with literally bright red eyes and a stare that could rival Medusa's. He pointed a stick-thing at the boy, and started muttering evil words.

The emerald eyes of a little eleven-year-old redheaded girl flew open. It wasn't unusual for her to have had that dream, it had just never been so vivid before. She panted quietly, trying to get her energy back from being so scared.

"Hey snot-face, breakfast," a horse-like girl with short blonde hair and way too much neck snapped at the redhead, as she poked her head around the door of her younger sister's room.

"Get out, horsy," the redhead replied, yawning. She slid out of bed and grabbed her pink dressing-gown. She slipped her feet into fluffy bunny slippers and padded softly out of the room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen.

"Oh hey, honey," a tall woman with red hair like her younger daughter's and blue eyes like her other's, said cheerfully. The redhead smiled at her mother.

"Hey Mum! What are we going to do today?"

"Well, Vernon is coming over to see Petunia, so I thought I'd take you out to have some fresh air!" her mother told her, smiling.

Petunia Grace Evans was the horsy big sister who didn't fit her name one bit. She was fifteen that year, and going out with an extremely fat dark-haired boy with almost no neck, known, to her redheaded sister, as `the pig'.

Petunia bounced into the room a moment later, all dressed up for Vernon. She walked over to a cupboard to get some cereal and a bowl, and screamed at the sight she saw.

Flying up to the window was a large brown owl.

The owl tapped its nose on the window and Petunia fainted. Their mother, Lauren, rushed over and let the owl into the room. It flew over to the redhead and stuck one of its legs out. She saw there was a letter tied to it, and undid the tie. She read the name on the letter.

Miss L. Evans

The third bedroom

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

"Well, it's for me," she told her mother and her unconscious sister. She opened it up and a letter fell into her hand.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Miss Evans,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July,

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

The redhead stared in awe at the letter. Lauren took it out of her hands and read it herself.

"Can I go, Mum?" the girl asked.

"Lily-Marie…" Lauren began. "It is most obviously a prank letter. There is no such thing as witchcraft or wizardry, etcetera. Now have your breakfast and then go and get dressed, we're going out soon."

Lily-Marie, or just Lily as she liked to be called, sighed and obliged, believing her mother was right.

They left a short while later and headed into London, where they were going to go shopping.

They went into many shops, including about four bookshops and several record stores, when Lily noticed something funny between the latest record shop and her favourite bookstore that most definitely hadn't been there the last time she went past.

"Mum, look there! Have you ever seen that pub before?"

The pub was tiny and grubby, dark and dingy. There was an old sign hanging over the door reading `The Leaky Cauldron'. The door opened and two young men in robes stepped out, chuckling.

"Muggles! The lot of 'em! They're so…" one of them, a dark haired man wearing a bright red cloak cried out, leaning on the other, a blond in blue. He broke off as he saw Lily and Lauren.

"Hello my dears, you look about eleven," he said, the second part to Lily. She nodded and he continued, "First year at Hogwarts?"

Lily nodded again, but Lauren said, "Surely you cannot tell me the place exists? Do you mean you sent us that letter?"

The man chuckled. "Of course the place exists! My friend Andrew Potter's son is going there this year. Trust me, Albus is amazing! And no, I didn't send you the letter. I'm Ralph Dukes, a good friend of Albus's."

"And I'm Ian Banks, a good friend of him," the blond man put in, pointing at Ralph. "You'll be wanting to see Tom, to let you through to Diagon Alley, I presume?" He indicated through into the pub.

Lauren shook her head hurriedly and turned her nose up. "There is no such thing as magic, and my daughter will not be complying."

"Can't we check it out, Mum? Please?" Lily begged, thinking this sounded interesting. "It's not like I'm five anymore, Mum."

Lauren looked down her nose snootily and finally said, "For a few minutes only. I want to meet this Tom person."

Once Lauren had met Tom, she decided that he was a perfectly decent bloke and allowed him to tell her about Muggles and magic, etcetera. She agreed to let him show them through to Diagon Alley. He did so.

Lily and Lauren stared at the sight of the passage, and went in to buy all of Lily's things.

---

Lily was dropped outside of Platform 9 3/4 on September 1st with her trunk on a trolley and her cat carrier perched on top of that. Her parents had refused to allow her to get an owl, saying that it would cause too many questions. So instead she had a jet black kitten she'd named Morgan.

Lily said goodbye to her parents and Petunia (the latter begrudgingly), and turned to try and find her way onto the platform. She walked down, wheeling her trolley in front of her, and looked at the wall with narrowed eyes. Why didn't Ian or Ralph tell me how to get onto the platform? she wondered silently.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of a squawking owl. She turned to see the back of a boy's head. He had neat pitch black hair. The woman with him, who she assumed to be his mother, was muttering some evil things to him quietly, involving something about Slytherin and stabbing. The boy bit his lip and turned towards where Lily was standing, gawking. She turned quickly and looked around nervously.

The boy walked right past without noticing her. But as he walked through the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10, he showed her how to get through, and so she followed him.

Standing right in front of her was a gleaming scarlet train with the words `Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock' hanging on a sign right above it. She hurried over to the train, but not before she saw the boy with neat black hair (and grey eyes, she realised), talking to another black-haired boy, though this hair was messy. She looked at the way it pointed and was sure she'd seen it before.

The other boy moved slightly and she could see the new boy's eyes. They were deep hazel, and he was wearing black-rimmed glasses. Thin ones. She recognised him immediately as the boy from her dream.

As if to confirm it, the other boy started cracking up and cried out, "She called you Jamie, in public! James, that's hilarious!"

"Shut up, Sirius!" James told the other boy hurriedly. "Do you want the whole world to know?" They turned and headed onto the train. Lily hurried after them and heaved her trunk into an empty compartment, thinking of James and her dream.

---

"Evans, Lily-Marie!" Professor McGonagall called out.

Lily bit her lip and hurried up to where McGonagall was holding the Sorting Hat. She sat on the stool and felt the hat settle over her eyes.

Now, you're an interesting one. Very bright, that's Ravenclaw quality. Thirst to prove yourself; Slytherin, but kind; Hufflepuff. Brave; Gryffindor. You are a tough one, aren't you!

Lily thought back, Please not a horrid House! Please! Not Slytherin, it sounds terrible!

Slytherin would be a great place for you! the hat told her stubbornly, But if you don't want to be in that House, I guess your House should be the opposite one.

It yelled out, "GRYFFINDOR!" less than a moment later.

Lily slid off the stool and headed down to the table, nervous. Not a single person spoke to her that day. She slid into her bed that night, wondering why nobody had noticed her, and whether this was going to carry on for the rest of that year.

It did. James and Sirius recruited two other boys called Remus and Peter, and created a group known as the Marauders. They were the Prankers of the school, and nobody was better than them. They picked on various people as victims, including one extremely unpleasant Slytherin in their year who they liked to call `Snivellus'. Lily was glad they didn't pick on her.

Over the next few years nobody spoke to Lily. Sometimes the teachers even forgot to read out her name on the register. Lily took to pretending to her parents that she had loads of friends, but it wasn't true. Whilst the Marauders were out with their multitudes of girlfriends, she was doing homework in her dorm, along with three girls who didn't even acknowledge her existence. She became top student, alongside James, but people just ignored her scores as they didn't even know who she was. She managed to borrow a few books from the library and not even give them back, because nobody could pinpoint `Lily'.

In all, she had a very, very miserable life. She often wondered if, had she been prettier, people would have noticed her more. But red hair and emerald eyes, combined with freckles, a body that couldn't tan, and an allergy to makeup screwed that idea up profusely. Lily wondered if, were she to commit suicide, things would be better, but she ignored that idea because she knew nobody would actually realise.

Until the next letter came on her seventeenth birthday.

---

Lily is based off me. Not so much the loner thing, as I have friends, but the freckles, red hair, white skin that won't tan, and the allergy to makeup are all mine…plus the descriptions of Lily from the Sorting Hat. It wasn't deliberate, but it fitted, so there!

I hope you enjoyed that, no matter the reason it is for.

Hoping to get over WB soon, and the next chappie of this will be more fun,

J xx


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