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The Summer from You-Know-Where
Lily Evans felt like she was going to scream... and it was only the first week of summer! I already have to deal with my sister in the summer but now I have to deal with that egotistic jerk too!!!
She had taken a walk around her neighborhood, only to find that one of her least favorite people had moved into the big, old house down the street. When she saw that there were boxes and stuff outside the house, she walked over to have a look. When she finally got to the house, to her displeasure, James Potter was lounging under the oak tree out front..
"Potter?!" she exclaimed. As James looked up to see who had spoken, his expression turned rapidly from puzzlement to delight.
"Evans!!!" he shouted happily. "I didn't know you lived near here!"
"WHAT are you doing here?" Lily asked disbelievingly.
James walked up to her, threw his arm around her shoulders and replied, "Well Evans, my dear, my family decided to move here. I had no idea you lived in this particular neighborhood too. What a wonderful coincidence!"
Lily pushed him off of her and stormed off, walking back up the street to her house. James followed. "Going so soon?" he inquired as he caught up to her.
"Leave. Me. Alone," Lily said through clenched teeth.
"Wouldn't dream of it!" James replied. Lily didn't respond to this. She did, however, turn sharply down her driveway, walking extremely fast. James continued to follow her as she walked up her porch steps.
"So this is where you live," he said happily. Lily answered by slamming her front door in his face. That didn't stop James, though. "Ok!" he shouted cheerfully. "I'll see you tomorrow!"
"Lily, who was that young man you were being so rude to?" Lily's mother asked as she came inside. Lily slammed the door and stalked into the kitchen, in which her mother was doing the dishes. "Well?" she continued expectantly, as Lily threw open the fridge.
Lily sighed and answered, "He's this arrogant jerk I know from Hogwarts who has a crush on me and he's moved into that old house down the street." Lily muttered something about useless groceries, as she shut the fridge, fruitless in her quest for food.
"He didn't seem too bad," her mom replied.
"You don't know him like I do," Lily retorted. With that, she marched up the stairs to her room and collapsed onto her bed. She hadn't been lying down for a minute, before a large barn owl swooped into her room. "I wonder who that's from," she muttered to herself, "as if I don't already know." Lily took the scroll of parchment off the owl's leg and to her surprise, the owl stayed there and waited. She read the letter and then threw it down in disgust.
It said:
Dear Evans,
How nice it is to see you again! Would you like to accompany me to the ice cream place in Diagon Alley tomorrow? We'll go by Floo powder. If you don't respond I'll keep asking.
Love,
James
Lily turned the piece of parchment over and wrote in big, bold letters: NO!!! She tied the parchment back onto the owl's leg and it flew off. That guy just can't take a hint!
Thus began the summer Lily referred to as the holiday from hell.
.:*:.
The next day, Lily decided to walk over to the park. She'd go the long way so she wouldn't have to pass James's house. When she arrived at the park, she immediately turned back around, because as soon as she entered through the park gate, a boy with extremely messy hair ran over to her. "What are you? A stalker?!" Lily shouted at him.
"You could say that," James replied, once again following Lily. She suddenly had an idea. She walked over to a cluster of trees and hid behind them.
"What are you do-," James was interrupted by a loud CRACK. Lily had disapparated.
She apparated onto her bed. At least he can't follow me that way. She had gotten her license the previous month.
.:*:.
To say that Lily loathed the following month, would be the understatement to end all understatements. It was filled with James popping up everywhere she went, coupled with an endless amount of annoying letters from the afore mentioned idiot.
In the first week of August, Lily and James got their Hogwarts letters. To Lily's displeasure, James was in all of the nine N.E.W.T. classes Lily was taking. She discovered as much when she was assaulted by her stalker while on a walk.
Even worse, he announced, "Evans, guess who the new Head Boy is?" Lily had a strange sinking feeling appear in the pit of her stomach. No…she prayed, Don't let it be so. Dear God, don't let him be…
"Me!"
Lily nearly screamed. She was the new Head Girl. She didn't even have to say it. Somehow he already knew. "See? Now you'll have to spend time with me this year!" he informed her. As Lily marched off down the sidewalk, James called after her, "I've also been made Gryffindor Quidditch captain too!!!"
When Lily thought she couldn't take it anymore, in the third week of August she got a letter from her best friend, Auri Thompson, asking her to come over to her house for the rest of the summer. Plus, Lily's parents said she could go, and Lily's other friend, Jamie Spencer, would be staying at Auri's house too.
The next time she saw James, she was practically skipping. "Hey Evans, why so happy?" he asked.
To James' surprise, Lily actually smiled and replied, "Because tomorrow I'm leaving for the rest of the summer." Then Lily continued to skip down the sidewalk, leaving behind a rather dumb-struck James.
.:*:.
Lily thoroughly enjoyed the last week of summer. She went with Auri and Jamie to Diagon Alley to get her school stuff, practiced Quidditch in Auri's backyard (Lily and Auri were Chasers on the Gryffindor Quidditch team), and pretty much had fun. It even almost made up for her less than satisfactory summer.
Other than seeing James in Diagon Alley (he had made a point to shout, "Hey neighbor!" and ask her out, only to be turned down as usual), Lily had had her first James-free week for almost the whole summer. When Lily told Auri and Jamie about it, they had said they felt like pitying her and laughing at the same time. But alas, August thirty-first came and went, and the next thing Lily knew, she was boarding the Hogwarts Express.
AN~ How's that? When I was editing this, it kind of scared me as to how atrocious my grammatical skills were back then. Alas, that's life. In fact, I have the tenth-grade writing test tomorrow (yeah, I'm a sophomore with no life). Wish me luck!
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