Chapter 1- Explanations and Beginnings
Expected the unexpected.
That's one of Ryan's favorite phrases. She should know, with her family. But that's beside the point.
Expect the unexpected.
That phrase reminds me of James Potter during this last year, our seventh year and final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Every time I thought I had him figured out, he'd do something to completely mess up any ideas I had about him.
What a way to start out my story. With a name like that. If Alice or Morgan or Ryan ever found out I wrote that, well, I bet you can guess. Well, unless… Unless you don't know who we are. In which case you would be wondering `Who is this boy that this girl is rambling about?'
Allow me to explain. For those of you who know James Potter, better known as Potter until this year (as far as I was concerned), bear with me for a minute. For those of you who don't, for one thing, where have you been for the last seventeen years? I'm warning you now; I may not be the best person to tell you about him. We never really got along until this year, and that's only because we were forced together. Well, I say that now, but… Never mind.
Up until this year, Potter was just an arrogant, bigheaded prat (and that was nicely coming from me) who liked to entertain himself by asking me out. James and I always had sort of a love/hate relationship. More hate than love on my part.
Common known fact- James Potter has a crush on me. Yes, James Potter, Hogwarts second most eligible bachelor fancies ME. Until this year, I thought he only asked me out to get on my nerves and because I was one of only three girls in our year (one being one of his best friends, the other being completely hung up on Frank Longbottom) that hadn't gone out with him. And the only girl that point blank refused - repeatedly - to go out with him, as well.
Of course, by now you're probably wondering who I am (or maybe you've already figured it out). Lily Anne Evans, seventh year Gryffindor and (as I said) the only girl in the history of Hogwarts to turn down James Potter. Repeatedly. You can hate me if you want, but it sure never kept him from dating. At least not until… Right, on with the story.
To understand fully why I hate Potter- or used to at least- you would have to know more of the story than I feel like (and have the time to be) telling. Potter and his three friends call themselves the Marauders. James Potter, known to his friends as Prongs and the leader of their little group. Sirius Black, Hogwarts' most eligible bachelor and second in command, also called Padfoot. Remus Lupin, the only male Marauder worth talking to and the other prefect in our year, but known to his friends as Moony. And then there's Peter Pettigrew, called Wormtail, the most nervous person I've ever seen in my whole life. And lastly there's Ryan, who doesn't have a nickname (besides Rye and Wheat and occasionally Fireball-- the stupid things Black comes up with) and therefore isn't technically a Marauder in the eyes of many. Which is, honestly, understandable. Sure, she hangs around them more than anyone else outside their group, but…
Ryan actually gets along with all of them. Not just Remus, like Alice and Morgan and I do, but all of them. She plays Quidditch too, which could have something to do with it. In fact, she's the only Lady Marauder (according to the boys, but a lot of people don't consider her a Marauder because she didn't come in until much later; our fifth year, to be exact). And the first girl Sirius Black ever kissed, but that's her story. I used to never be able to understand how she does it, how she manages to get along with all of them, but, then again, she said she's known them most of her life. Three out of the four of them at least.
By now you're either extremely confused or extremely frustrated. There's always that chance that, by now, you're both. So I'll let you get on with the story. Our story. The story of eight seventh year Gryffindors in a time when no one was safe.
-Lily Anne Evans
~*~*~*~*~
Lily Evans sat in the Head compartment, flipping through a book. She wasn't really taking anything in though. Her mind was on other things. Such as who her partner was and where he could possibly be.
Not that it matters, she told herself. He's not going to ruin this for me.
She glanced at her watch. Only twenty more minutes until they had to meet the prefects, and the Head Boy (whoever the hell he was) still hadn't shown up.
"Still no sign of him?" Alice Carter, one of Lily's best friends, asked, coming into the compartment and sitting across from her.
Lily shook her head. She sighed and put her book away. "I still don't know who it is either." Alice smirked. "What?"
"I'm just thinking about what would happen if Snape was the Head Boy," she said, grinning.
Lily shuddered. Severus Snape was the seventh year Slytherin prefect. He was in a serious need of a hair washing, to put it nicely. "Don't even joke about that."
Alice grinned even more, ignoring her. "Or what if it was Potter?"
"I'd die," Lily said simply.
"I'm sorry to hear that," a casual voice said from the doorway of the compartment.
Lily looked up and had to bite back a groan. James Potter stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe with an amused look on his face. "Potter."
"Lily Evans, what a pleasant surprise," he said, smiling slightly.
"I'll see you later, Lily," Alice said, standing up and walking over to the doorway. "Come to our compartment when you're finished, alright?" Lily nodded and Alice brushed past James and out of the compartment.
"Looks like she's in a hurry to get somewhere," James said lightly.
"What are you doing here?" Lily demanded.
He grinned and pointed to the badge on his chest. It was of the Hogwarts' crest with the letters HS in the middle. Lily had to hold back another groan. There was no mistaking the badge. Hers was still in her pocket.
"Didn't you know?" James asked, his smile fading slightly. "I got a note telling me who the Head Girl was."
Lily's had gotten a note too, but in her excitement, she had lost it before finding out who her partner was. But she wasn't about to tell him that.
"I mean," James continued when she didn't say anything, "we are going to be partners."
Lily was still trying to process the information. Dumbledore actually expected her to work with James Potter? Ha, as if. Never in a million years. Did he not know that she and Potter didn't get along? Or was this some kind of experiment to see which one of them cracked first?
"How did you get it?" she asked after a few seconds.
James shrugged. "Makes you wonder if he's finally lost it, doesn't it?"
Lily almost nodded, but stopped herself. Instead, she moved onto another subject. "We need to get ready for the prefect meeting."
James nodded. "Right," he agreed. He was agreeing with her? He never agreed with her. The two of them never agreed on anything. "We only have ten minutes to get ready for the meeting, but we have a whole year to figure out how we're going to work together." And he definitely was never serious. Lily raised an eyebrow suspiciously.
He noticed her look and said calmly, "Believe it or not, Lily, this is important to me." Wait a minute, did he just…? He did. He called her Lily. Not Lily Evans, not Evans, not my-dear-sweet-Lily-flower or any of those other stupid names. Just Lily. When was the last time he had called her Lily? She was pretty sure it had to be at least second year, if not longer. "So all we do is introduce ourselves and all that other stuff right?"
Ah, there's the Potter we all know and love, Lily thought sarcastically.
"Basically," she replied calmly, standing up. "You do know where the prefects' compartment is, don't you?"
He snorted. "Everyone knows where the prefect compartments are. Besides," he added with an extremely cocky grin that Lily knew only too well, "the prefects' compartment and the Head compartment are the only two Marauder proof compartments." Lily rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to strangle him. "Ladies first, of course," he said, bowing.
She rolled her eyes again, but brushed past him and led the way down the corridor to the prefect's compartment. Only about half the prefects were already there, including Remus Lupin.
"Congratulations, Lily," he said when he saw her.
"Thank you, Remus," she said. Remus was the only Marauder Lily chose to call by his first name. Well, male Marauder. Sometimes she would call Peter or Sirius by their given names, but never James. Maybe it was because she was usually so mad at him, she didn't want to bother to call him his first name.
Lily turned to face James. "We should give them about five more minutes before we start." He just nodded. By the time they were ready to start, all the prefects had arrived.
"Can I have your attention please?" Lily called. Everyone except for the Slytherins stopped talking. Not that that surprised her, but it would've been nice if they listened just once.
"OY, you lot," James said loudly. "Shut up." Lily had to admit, that worked pretty well. At least they were quiet.
"Thank you. I'm Lily Evans, the Head Girl, and this is James Potter." A few of the girls giggled and Lily resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "On behalf of Hogwarts, we would like to congratulate you on becoming a prefect. Today we are just going to cover the basics, and there will be another meeting later on this week."
"You will have to patrol the corridors every so often to make sure no one's getting into any trouble," James said. "After the feast, the fifth years will lead the new first years in your house up to your common room. We have the passwords, make sure you get them before you leave."
Lily had to resist the urge to stare at him in shock. "Sixth years will follow the first years to make sure none of them get lost," she continued, half amazed that James was actually helping, half wanting to make sure she didn't look like an idiot. "Seventh years will be patrolling tonight, mainly on the first floor and the corridors where your common rooms are."
"That's all, I think, any questions?" James asked. Nobody moved. "Okay, you can leave. Just make sure you get your passwords before you go and patrol the corridors every so often to make sure no one's causing any trouble."
~*~*~*~*~
"Guess who the Head Boy is," Alice said, walking into the compartment where her friend, Morgan Watson was sitting.
"Digs," Morgan said distractedly, flipping through Witch Weekly.
"Nope," Alice said, sitting across from her. "Guess again."
"Mathew Davies."
"No."
"Remus Lupin."
"Nu-uh. Getting closer, though."
Morgan's head snapped up. "No."
"Yes," Alice replied.
"Oh, Lily's going to have a fit," Morgan said, smirking slightly.
"Why's Lily going to have a fit?" Ryan Miller asked, coming in and plopping into the seat next to Alice.
"James Potter is Head Boy," Alice said.
"Oh." Ryan nodded. "Yeah, I knew that ages ago." She grinned. "Spent most of the summer making fun of him over it too."
Morgan rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm sure you did. Lucky girl."
"`Because you spent the summer with four of the sexiest men alive,'" Ryan mocked, grinning. "Yeah, yeah. Sexiest. Psh. Sexy my arse."
"You wouldn't be talking about me, would you?" a voice came from the doorway. They turned to see Sirius Black leaning against the doorframe.
"Oh, no, Oh-Great-And-Sexy-One," Ryan said, half grinning, half smirking. "We would never call you unsexy."
"Is that even a word?" Morgan asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking.
Ryan shrugged. "It is now."
"A word created when talking about me, no less," Sirius said, trying to sound offended.
"You should feel honored," Ryan said, smirking at him. "I created a new word just for you, Sirius. Now, do us a favor and go away."
"Rye, I'm offended," Sirius said, putting a hand over his heart. "First you call me unsexy, and then you tell me to go away. What kind of friend does that?"
"Hmm, let me think," Ryan said, pretending to be thoughtful. "I'd say… this kind. Come on, Sirius, I spent the whole bloody summer with you, can't I talk to my other friends for a few minutes in peace?"
"I s'pose," he said, sighing dramatically. "Just because you like them better-" Ryan didn't give him a chance to finish as she jumped up, pushed him out of the compartment, and slammed the door.
"You gotta love him," she said, sitting back down and shaking her head, still grinning. "So, how was your summer?"
"Less exciting than yours, I'd bet," Morgan said.
"Oh, yeah, I'm sure," Ryan said, rolling her blue eyes. "Spending your whole summer either being yelled at by your Quidditch captain or being asked by your Quidditch captain what he should do about Lily Evans or being chased by an insane and previously unknown species just has to better than staying at home, with normal, sane people."
"Being chased by an insane and previously unknown species?" Alice asked.
"Yeah, Peter had a bit of an accident when he was trying to transfigure a lizard," Ryan said, smiling slightly (there was hardly ever a time when she wasn't grinning).
"Bet that was interesting."
"You better believe it."
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