Unofficial Portkey Archive

After her discussion with Professor Dumbledore, Lily was more than ready to find James. . .

"Potter! Potter!" she called, wandering through the halls. Where was that boy anyway?

"James, wait up!" she yelled, seeing a mop of black hair disappear around the corner.

She sped up towards where he had disappeared, and turned the corner.

James was leaning against the wall, eyebrow crooked. He let off an air of coldness, as he watched her look nervously at him. "What?"

The frigid tone set Lily aback. "I'm sorry for being so mean, and so rude, and Iwanttobeyourfriendnow."

"What was it that you said?" asked James, still as cold as an iceberg.

"I really want to be your friend," Lily said, blushing scarlet. She looked like she was on fire; her hair and face both deep shades of red.

"But I don't like watching people get hurt, so promise not to pull any pranks on Sniv. . .Snape, okay?" Lily asked.

Lily stared at the ground, now unsure of what to say. She jumped when a hand was stuck out in front of face. She grasped it with hers, shaking James's hand firmly.

"You know if you'd had an arm wrestling match, you'd probably win, don't you?" James said, smiling.

Lily blushed, her cheeks as red as a rose.

The next morning found Lily shoveling sugar into her porridge, and just as quickly into her mouth. Humming to herself, she smiled as she made her way through the overflowing bowl.

Marlene McKinnon, a dark haired friend of Lily's, slid onto the bench next to her.

"This isn't good," Marlene said, pointing to the rolled up newspaper that she had pushed towards the smiling Lily.

Lily set down her spoon, and picked up the Daily Prophet, and with a practiced snap of her wrists, opened up the front page.

MUGGLES ATTACKED
Auror investigations have turned up empty handed in a series of attacks over the past seven years.
On September 1st, an attack on a Muggle house occurred, and after further investigation around the crime scene, it seems to have been by a group of criminal witches and wizards. This is a part of a series of attacks, seeming to grow more and more frequent and destructive. Ten Muggles were killed, five injured, and a large amount were needed to have their memories erased.

Lily stared at Marlene, shocked and worried.

"My. . . parents. . .," she said, her eyes wide with fear, her mind rushing into twenty directions, yet her feet were unable to move.

"They're alright," comforted Marlene, motioning to a list of the injured and deceased Muggles. Lily scanned the list, and sighed.

"But it's still getting worse and worse, starting with our first year here," Lily said, scanning the Great Hall. None of the other students seemed to be caring about the Daily Prophet- after the number of attacks, the students were no longer interesting in receiving news of death and destruction, daily, for seven knuts. Only the staff members had Daily Prophets amongst them, and Lily saw Dumbledore shake his head in sadness.

-------

James looked up at the bleary Hogwarts sky. The clouds seemed to be mirroring the lumpy porridge on the Hufflepuff table, and it left James feeling unsettled. Why couldn't the great hall have cheery weather, even if it were raining cats and dogs outside? Grumbling, he made his way to the other Marauders, where they sat at the end of the Gryffindor table, surrounded by other seventh years.

"Nasty thing, this weather," he announced to them, sliding onto the bench.

Remus shrugged, "At least we can study for N.E.W.T.S. without having to be distracted by beckoning blue skies."

"How can you be so damn optimistic?" grumped Sirius, who seemed barely awake.

James sighed, and leaned over the table to reach the biscuits. He looked down the table, and saw Lily smiled at her friend, and James swore that he had never seen a more beautiful thing. Her eyes sparkled with green delight, contrasting with the gray sky, and her hair seemed to be like a sun that light radiated from.

"Oi, Prongs," Peter called to him, shaking him out of his revere.

"What?" James asked, unsure of who was talking to him.

"I was just asking whether we should do another prank on Professor McGonagall," Peter grinned, his cheeks round and eyes shiny with excitement.

"Sure, let's," nodded James, and Sirius finally woke up from his half-sleep.

"Hooray!" Sirius grinned childishly.

The Marauders laughed and began to brainstorm, and James quickly stored away the memory of Lily's smile, in a dusty corner of his mind, full of recollections of his favorite memories.

"Fireworks?" grinned Peter.

A splendid show of multi-colored, twisting and bouncing fireworks popped into the pranksters' minds.

"Wait- no, we're settling off those in Snape's cauldron today," cautioned Remus. Sirius and Peter promptly rolled off of their bench and began to slap the stone floor in laughter.

"Sure won't have any greasy hair anymore," tittered Peter.

"He won't have any hair if the spell works right," snorted Sirius.

"Just what did you add to the fireworks?" asked Remus, and James, stared inquisitively at them.

"First class is Potions," laughed Peter evasively, and scurried out of the Great Hall.

"What is it that you two are planning without us?" asked James, turning to Sirius. But it was too late, as Sirius had already dashed out of the Great Hall, right behind Peter.

James felt a sinking weight in his stomach as he and Remus went after his friends, but he just brushed it away as a case of cramming too much food in his stomach at once.

How wrong he was.

-------

"Accio fireworks," whispered Sirius. Not much later, a knobbly package zoomed close to the floor, through the Potions classroom doorway, and into Sirius's awaiting hand.

"Padfoot- you've got the `special' fireworks, right?" asked Peter. Sirius nodded, patting his rather lumpy pocket.

Lily turned around from her cauldron and looked wonderingly at the Marauders. The door had opened; no one had come in or out...

No, he wouldn't dare...

He would dare. A shower of sparks was sent over the Slytherin desks and Lily didn't wait to see the results. She rocketed out of her chair, and sped towards James.

"James Potter, what have you done?" she shrieked, oblivious to the laughter coming from the Gryffindor students and the howls of the angry Slytherins.

"Did you like it?" he beamed, watching the sparkling, glittering and festive fireworks coming out from a rather pale-face Severus Snape. Suddenly, he realized Lily's threatening tone of voice, and turned towards her, just as she reached out to grab his collar

"I didn't like it at all!" she screeched. "I was going to be your friend, but you decided to celebrate it with another of your nasty tricks!"

Lily continued yelling over the bursts of fire works. "You said you wouldn't, you promised!" With a swish of her wand, she banished the fireworks, but not before a large `Snivellus Loves Lily' flashed in red and pink.

Luckily for James, Lily didn't see. Unluckily for James, she heard about it later.

------

Lily nearly tore the door off of its hinges as she angrily entered her Transfiguration classroom, cursing under her breath.

"Damn that silly boy, damn him," she muttered, flinging herself into her seat and getting out her notes.

"Lily, how can you walk that fast?" panted Marlene, collapsing into the stiff wooden chair next to Lily.

"Oh, sorry about that," Lily turned to the girl, smiling apologetically at her. Her mind was still a storm cloud of anger, though.

Lily Evans had never been more upset in his life. Well, maybe she had been more upset when the biased Potions teacher had taken off points for `Not washing the cauldron clean enough', but that didn't matter. But why did James have to mess up their repaired friendship?

"Why?" she murmured to herself, in a barely audible voice.

"What did you say?" asked Marlene, who was now taking parchment and ink out of her bag, and placing it carefully on the desk. She flicked a few stray hairs out of the way of her dark eyes.

"Oh, nothing," replied Lily airily. "Just some little thoughts."

Thoughts as little as Hagrid, that's for sure, smirked Lily. Lily glanced out of the window, and noticed the morning gray fog and rain were rolling away, enticing cheery sunlight to dance across the dewy greens.

"Treat by Toleration," wheezed her dog-eared planner, as she copied down Marlene's notes on the Potions homework.

"You're still using that?" chuckled Marlene, remembering the long-ago first year Christmas they had shared together, and Marlene had given that to her.

Lily nodded, listening to the planner announce her night's schedule. "... Potions homework after dinner, Prefect Meeting at nine..." Lily groaned.

Marlene looked on with a knowing smile. "Treat by Toleration," she sang gaily. Lily grumbled at her friend, slumping with her head in her hands.

"By the way, did you know what the last firework said, after you left?" Marlene questioned, biting her lip in worry that Lily would tip into more animosity towards Potter.

Lily shook her head. "What did it say?"

Marlene felt regret pour into her body; down to her very toes. "Well. . ."

"Well?" Lily repeated Marlene's word in a questioning tone.

`Snivellus Loves Lily, was what it said," Marlene said bluntly and timidly went on to describe the colors, and everyone's reaction.

To Marlene's utter amazement, Lily let out a snort.

"The Marauders seem to be losing their touch," she declared loudly, aiming her voice towards the back of the Transfiguration, where the Marauders usually sat. Remus and Peter were sitting there, but James and Sirius were gone.

I guess that's a good thing, though, Lily thought. Then I won't have to transfigure his nose into a stick.

Remus and Peter were ahead of the dark haired boys, talking animatedly to each other. James and Sirius watched them, the hoarse voice of Moony, and the higher-pitched sounds of Wormtail echoing on the granite walls.

"Do we really need to go to our first day of Transfiguration?" grinned Sirius, trying to pull his best friend out of his dark mood.

"I don't know," James shrugged, staring at the ground. His hands that were usually messing up his hair were tucked into his pockets.

"I'm sure McGonagall will dearly miss me- but we deserve our first day off," Sirius said, looking at James hopefully.

James looked at him from the spot where the other Marauders had disappeared around the corner.

A slow grin inched across the spectacled boy's face. "No- I don't think McGongall would mind."

The mischievous grin faded as it tried to infect the hazel eyes, however.

-------

That was the perfect thing to carve on the tree- L.L.S.

"Padfoot, old man, can I borrow your knife?" James asked his friend from under the shade of their oft-visited beech tree.

Sirius tossed over the always very handy knife he never traveled a step without.

"Thanks," James told him. Sirius smiled at him, but soon went back to tickling the Giant Squid, his body pressed firmly in the wet grass.

James squinted at the signature covered tree. Where was the perfect place to inscribe his thoughts? To the right of a 'A.P.+ F.L. = True Love', and huddled next to a 'Sirius is dreamy!' exclamation, James carefully carved out each letter.

L. For `Lily's'.

Another L. `Lovely'. For her sweetness, for her curt, lovable come-backs, and for all of the times she looked furious but James still liked her for that.

S- for `Smile'. For her mind-boggling, endlessly dazzling, heart sparking smile.

And after James finished carving and watched the clouds float by, he couldn't help but continue to think of the girl. . . The girl that was mad at him again, though.

-------

"James!"

The afore named sat up and wiped the drool off the side of his mouth. He had gone off to dreamland sleep, and had obviously lost track of time. The once-gray-turned-blue sky had dissolved into a gold-red and rather bright sunset.

"Whaatimisit," he mumbled to himself incoherently.

"What?" asked the voice that had woken him up.

James looked up and grinned. "Hey, Evans."

Lily sighed- she hadn't wanted to come down to the lake to wake up James, but he needed to be present for the Prefect Meeting. And Lily never wanted to break a rule.

Lily looked down at the yawning boy, who was tousling around with his hair, "How are you doing, Sleeping Beauty?"

"Fine, fine. I always knew I was beautiful, thank you," he smirked, fluttering his eyelashes at her.

Lily couldn't help but laugh, and a appreciative chuckle floated out of her smiling mouth.

"That's the first time you've ever listened to what I've said," he told Lily.

"It's the first time you've actually said something worthwhile," she replied curtly, but she was still smiling.

"So you do think I'm a Sleeping Beauty?" James asked, his eyes twinkling with delight.

Lily shook her head with a hint of smile at the messy haired boy. She was busily examining the well-carved beech tree.

"What d'you think this means, LLS?" asked Lily, unknowingly pointing to James's recently carved momentum to her. She brushed away the wood shavings attached by a splinter of wood.

"Er...," he trailed off, unsure of what to say.

"Come on, tell me," she told him, poking him with her elbow. Her bright green eyes shined with mirth, ready to here one of the Marauder's infamous jokes..

James couldn't figure out a way to get out of this one, glancing at the stone-still body of his best friend hopefully, but no luck. Unless...

"It means 'Lily Loves Snape.'"

James would have given anything to wipe the disgusted expression off of her face.

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