AN: Truly. No offence meant. All in good humour and such…
Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc belongs to JKR. Ideas included are not all my own etc… And I am aware I have lifted chunks from Marauder and Dramione Guides, but they're mine so it shouldn't be a problem. And is it bad that the plots are so generic I can transfer then with little to no alterations from a parody of one ship to another?
Lily was sitting by the fire late one October evening, happily minding her own business with her transfiguration essay. She was currently waiting for Remus Lupin to return from his detention with the rest of the dreaded Marauders so that they could start their prefect patrols, and the essay was intended to keep her mind off of her own personal packet of humiliation, Mr James Potter.
He'd asked her out again today and she had almost been tempted to say yes just to see the look on his face, but she hadn't. She was under the impression getting out of a date with Potter would be a very difficult task.
She stretched as the clock chimed eleven.
"Where are they?" she asked the owl sitting on the chair beside her before turning back to her textbook.
And then she paused, turning very slowly back to the neighbouring chair.
Where had that owl come from?
She looked around in confusion, but all the windows were closed and she was the only person still up. She was certain it hadn't been there before.
The owl stared at her and Lily stared back.
And then it cooed like a dove. She very nearly fell out of her seat in shock.
It was flapping its wings now; apparently indicating to the bundle it was carrying with its feet. It looked like a book. Intrigued Lily sidled forward, not wanting to scare the bird, but it gave up its burden happily and hooted to itself before opening its wings and leaving up to sit on one of the supporting beams of the common room ceiling.
Lily cast a final glance at the bird and decided to open the unnamed package. She had been right; it was a book. A leather bound book with a brilliant red cover and a gold embossed title.
"A Beginner's Guide to Lily-James Romance." It proclaimed.
Lily raised an eyebrow.
Who's idea of a joke was this?
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A Beginner's Guide to Lily-James Romance. (All you need to know when throwing two star-crossed lovers together.)
The fandom is home to a surprisingly extensive collection of fics from the era of Harry Potter's parents and many among these focus on the coming together of Mr James Potter and Miss Lily Evans, and the love-hate relationship they harboured before eventually marrying and producing our little hero. These stories are some of the few that can flawlessly combine fluff and angst, never once straying from the canon, but it is not an easy task, and in this guide we aim to give you a few pointers as to how to make this work.
The Fairytale:
Lily Evans: Muggleborn. Hated by her sister for her magic, abused by peers for her heritage. At eleven years old her life changed forever and Hogwarts opened doors she didn't even dream existed. A believer in equality and peace, she was Gryffindor's brains and beauty all in one.
He was her rival, her schoolyard nemesis. Similar in so many ways they were divided only by his folly. His gang wreaked chaos in the order of her dreams and she could not take him seriously. His name was James Potter and his mission was her.
There were fights, tears, blood and sadness but in their seventh year of knowing each other something amazing happened. They fell in love.
A war raged around them and they struggled into married life plagued with prophecy and fear. Their son was born and terror peaked; isolated and known only to a few they put their trust in one man. And he failed them.
They died that night, green the colour of their tragedy and the world wept.
The LoversSo, Lily Evans and James Potter are your typical fairytale pairing. They're attractive, powerful and live in this whopping great castle surrounded by lakes and mountains and other super-romantic scenery galore. Given the set up it's almost impossible to imagine anything could go wrong at all.
James and Lily: the high school comedy – You see, the sad thing is, with this pairing there are not enough ties in the actual canon to stop the author floating the couple into an American high school. And Lo! Welcome to Hogwarts High! There's suddenly a bloody prom, and lip-gloss and hair straightening parties where people listen to stuff that's in the charts now! Sub-cultures take over and you find yourself hating everyone because no one that stereotyped should be allowed to breathe! They try to be funny. And they're not. And they try to be romantic. And they're not. And, of course, they try and be original. And. They. Are. Not.
James and Lily: the tragic romance – It's sad. Well, actually it's not at all. It's happy and funny and there are little romantic sappy bits that make your heart sing a little and then there's a sudden void. And they're dead. And you're left thinking 'oh' with a little sad face on. Because it was really unfair of J.K. Rowling to go and make them die.
James and Lily: the feel-good ball of fluff – They make your toes curl with smiles until you want to go and watch something really, really gory just to get the happy-sappy notions out of your head. When written well they're lovely, though often an acquired taste, but when written badly they are to be avoided like the plague lest you be sickened/bored to a melodramatic and premature death.
James and Lily: the angst of unrequited love – They don't quite work really. James whines on and on and on and on and on and you sit there patiently waiting for the big bang where she changes her opinion of him and all lives happily ever after but yet he just keeps going on and on and on and on and on until you eventually decide that the author doesn't actually know what to do when she gets to that big bang moment. So she keeps on with the moaning until inspiration strikes her.
The best stories usually follow very familiar patterns:
1 - The Notebook/Journal. Jam-packed solid with witty jokes, silly code names and records of Marauder pranks. James' infatuation or Lily's gradual acceptance recorded for everyone to see in a pleasing variety of italic, bold and underlined sentences (each typeface recording the thoughts of a different character. Genius.)
2 - Sharing a common room. (Head boy and girl.) Essential in all fics where you wish to bring two people who hate each other together. Shutting them in a room will obviously make them see the good points of the other and eventually cause them fall in love. These fics tend to entirely avoid the subject of Voldemort and an upcoming war to favour teenage angst and grammarless fluff.
3 - Beauty and the Beast. Only reversed. So that James is the beauty and Lily the beast. It's brave and daring and yes an entirely new (cougholdcough) take on canon, but sadly we could never call it original. (The same also applies to Lily Is Ugly. The real question is even if she was hideous would it be likely that James Potter should be the one to give her the miracle makeover and break the spell? Also, reliable sources (i.e. J K Rowling) state that she is in fact not.)
4 - Hogwarts High. See above. From an English point of view it's taking ultimate stereotype of American school life and, if possible, making it even more stereotypical, but there are still delighted reviewers so there must be something in there that people can relate to.
5 - James Jumps Lily. And is not castrated for his efforts. Something along the lines of: 'she'd never done anything like this before and she was beginning to realise that she liked it'. Could probably be as sordid as you wanted if she's going to respond like that, but they tend to only go as far as snogging.
6 - Spin The Bottle. A girly sleepover that the Marauders somehow manage to gatecrash or perhaps a little bit of fun and games in the Gryffindor common room. Either way, it doesn't take a genius to work out what happens next. The result is similar to that of number 5, though perhaps the author thinks she's being slightly more subtle in her approach.
7 - Hogwarts holds a production of Romeo and Juliet. Guess who gets cast? Yup, and what? They don't happen to actually live the play as well as acting it? No! I never would have guessed it! The bad thing with these fics is the distinct lack of suicide at the end.
8 – Professor Potter/Evans. A worrying thought. One is a teacher, the other a dazzling student and in spite of the rules they eventually fall in love. Slightly AU but that never stopped anyone.
9 – Prince James and Maid Lily. A classic AU set in the Middle Ages. Castles and swordfights galore and he might even slay a dragon for her. The Marauders are spread out between the two as carers and friends (thought don't expect to see much of Peter) and after much journeying through foreign lands the lovers find one and other. Joy.
10 – Lily and/or James discover The Books. Whether by a rogue, unaddressed owl, or a Floo gone wrong, our favourite little witch and/or wizard find the story of their future and by this discovery somehow realise their feelings for each other. An interesting idea, applicable to pretty much any ship in the fandom, but overused and perhaps best avoided due to tendencies to quote huge chunks of books we've all already read.
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Back in Gryffindor Common Room Lily's eyes bugged. She was reading a book about her and the hateful Potter apparently coming together in matrimony in many disturbed and unrealistic ways and on top of it all the book itself was telling her that her reading The Book was preposterous and a poor way to throw people together. And 'ship in the fandom'? What was Fandom? It sounded like an old wizarding word for sea, but she'd certainly never heard of it. Did any of the last few pages make sense?
She blinked and tried to get it straight in her head. Reading a mysterious book, possibly even The Book, and said book was telling her that people shouldn't make her read The Books… despite the fact she'd have to read The Book it to know not to.
And she'd be damned if 'Lily-James Romance' was her future.
She shook her head.
This had to be Potter's doing.
-
11 – Mysterious OC descends on Hogwarts to play matchmaker. Mary Sue. Probably from America as the author incarnate (with specific alterations to make her less like a Harry Potter Fanfiction writer and more like a MAGIC WIELDING GODDESS!11!1!eleven!1!one!) or from Beaxbatons as the author's dream clever-brilliant-beautiful person. They meet the wonderful James Potter and like him lots, but then become best friends forever with Lily and decide it would be so mean to peruse Potter when Lily is blatantly his soul mate. Despite the fact she hates him.
12 - Masquerade! Well. If she can't see him she's bound to fall in love!
13 – Personality Transplant. James has a change of heart. And head. And general emotional set up. And then Lily notices. And they live happily ever after. (Until they're murdered by a rampaging Dark Lord rarely mentioned at the beginning of the story.)
14 – Jealousy. James gets sick of waiting for Lily to like him and ends up asking out her nice OC friend. Lily gets bitchy and mean and makes said friend cry before realising she was in love with him all along. And then she finds him and does a bit of a Mr Darcy speech about how against her better judgement she rather likes him. And he either jumps at the chance, or following the Pride and Prejudice theme, is offended by the tone of her announcement and decides she likes OC friend better. This, of course, is a vehicle used by the author after realising she's still getting lots of reviews and wants more. The story is therefore stretched while Lily attempts to win James back.
15 – Gang Wars. You see, the Marauders are not the only gang of pranksters in Hogwarts. Lily Evans is at the head of a fearsome gang of four girls, equals to the Marauders in everything. Their name varies from Shakespearian to gangster and you know from the beginning each girl has been tailored to match perfectly with her own Marauder. But then the boys overstep the line and war is declared. There are pranks and duels and teary shouting matches and one by one the girls fall for a Marauder each. If the review count is going well James may even end up with someone who isn't Lily for a few chapters! (Loosely inspired by Romeo and Juliet.)
16 – Enter Marauder 2. Damn. Lily Loves Sirius/Remus. An angsty tale of heartbreak and betrayal but in the end it's friendship over love (well, for Sirius/Remus anyway) and James gets the girl.
A Few Generic Scenes:
"Go out with me Evans?"
"I HATE YOU!"
"Alright Evans?"
"SHUT UP! THE ANSWER'S NO!"
"Doing anything this weekend, Evans?"
"Get LOST, Potter!"
"Evans?"
"Yes, Potter."
"Go out with me?"
"No."
"Lily?"
"…"
"Erm… Evans?"
"What did you call me?"
"Your name?"
"You called me Lily."
"Erm, yeah."
"You called me Lily…"
"Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me?"
"…Okay."
"…"
"…"
"You just said yes?"
"Leave before I change my mind, Potter."
"She said YES!"
The Name Transition – They learn each other's first names, a giant leap towards LOVE.
The Secret Trading – It's late at night, they're sitting around the common room fire (perhaps a little closer than usual) and they gradually begin to spill their souls. Her sister hates her and he turns into a stag every full moon. How could they possibly stay apart after a heart to heart like that?
The Snape Meets Moony Fiasco – Some authors seem afraid to skip past this event, so it is very often used as The Turning Point. Lily witnesses James' heroic courage in saving his worst enemy and gradually begins to realise she's falling in love. Of course, this happens right at the end of sixth year so she needn't admit to such feelings until early in seventh year. How convenient; it even matches canon.
She Sees Him Sleeping – and he looks so exhausted after all that hard schoolwork he must have been doing. No silly grin, no arrogant, challenging eyes, just a little boy, sleeping like a baby. Well, what can she do? She admires him, conjures up a blanket and leaves to dream of James Potter asleep by the fire.
Lily Gets Dressed – So often painfully explained with every item of clothing described like a bad ad in a catalogue. "…her old blue jeans, slightly flared at the bottom and with a rip in the right knee. And then she selected her favourite royal blue spaghetti strap top. She knew it was a bit daring, the neckline a little lower than wizarding fashion allowed for, but she liked its little silver sparkles on the straps. Then to top the outfit off she applied a small amount of subtle makeup, She didn't like over the top colours, preferring natural shades that accented her colouring. The eye shadow was a pale blue to clash horribly with- ahem – bring out the colour of her eyes and her lipgloss…. Blah blah blah." And we care?
A Brief Guide To The SEVENETIES1 – Muggle Music. Contrary to popular belief, Green Day were not around. The common fall back tends to be the Beatles, a nice well-known alternative which is technically less than a decade out. But then, why don't you try experimenting with glam rock, disco, punk or heaven forbid, ABBA, if you need to comment on music at all?
2 – Fashion. Think flares and denim and if you must, platform shoes. It is unlikely that Sirius' hair would have been short and spiky and at this point maybe you should all be considering avoiding descriptions of clothes and thinking of perhaps stating how different wizarding fashion was to its muggle counterpart.
3 – Technology. It is unlikely Lily and James would have had amusing anonymous conversations over the Internet. (Try using an owl.) Also, no hair straighteners.
4 – Teachers. You never know, McGonagall could have been quite a looker a few decades back… Though do try not to make those Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers too Mary Sue-ish in a way you think is vital to the plot. Also, student teacher relationships were no more legal in the seventies than they are now.
Lily-James by the calendar
Halloween – Home of the Master Prank. This is likely to make Lily hate James even more, but what the hey, there're plenty more months in the year, and you never know, she might have secretly found this one funny.
Please note the absence of Thanksgiving. And yes, such fics do actually exist.
Christmas - One word: Mistletoe. And who says the Yule Ball was a one off phenomenon? There's gonna be a masquerade dammit! Also, the touching choice of gifts or perhaps even a game of Secret Santa could so easily throw our characters together.
New Year – Come on. He's got to kiss someone at midnight. It would be such a shame if it had to be McGonagall or even Snivellus. Go on, Lily, take pity on the boy.
Valentines Day – Well he's going to do something isn't he? It's just up to you, the author, to find something particularly interesting, endearing and inventive for the occasion. Cards, presents and a few well-placed charms or potions and you're all set.
Birthdays – Of unknown dates, so you can put them anywhere to most please your plot. Maybe Lily will have a sleepover in their shared head student common room and James accidentally ends up listening through the door? Or James will have an awful birthday and end up crying by the lake, only to gain the sympathy of the darling Miss Evans. It's all down to you.
Exams – times of heavy stress as I'm sure we all know. Will they begin to lean on each other for revision support? Of course they will! What are fellow head students for?
Summer! – Full of parties, Death Eater attacks and acts of heroism and thoughtfulness. The possibilities of the summer holidays are boundless.
Petunia's Wedding – Lily will most likely end up as an unwilling bridesmaid, but will she catch the bouquet, will James somehow manage to humiliate Petunia in a way that Lily approves of? Will James actually manage to be there at all? 'Tis all up to you, dear author.
Britpicks- There's no such thing as graduation day. It's just the end of school.
- If James does by some miracle wonder into muggle London the chances are he'll use pounds £ as opposed to dollars $.
- Sometimes 'British' sounds very out of context though I doubt many people would be able to tell you why. Anyway, experiment with English, Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish. Britain can also be called Great Britain, the British Isles or again split into individual countries. Yay for our national identity crisis!
And if you're being particularly pernickety:
- Holiday not vacation.
- Mum not Mom
- For funerals: It's a coffin, not a casket.
- Trousers not pants. Too many wizards are casually removing their 'pants' after falling in the lake. NB: Pants are underwear.
- "-our" as opposed to "-or", i.e. armour, humour, colour, neighbour etc.
- and many, many more. There are entire sites devoted to the Anglo-American language gap.
Some films/stories you may wish to refer to for inspiration:
Beauty and the Beast. (Well. Besides the name there's not actually much that ties this idea down. It would perhaps be more relevant if Belle had ended up falling for Gaston. The Potters are unlikely to hold Lily hostage but I you could always try it!)
Romeo and Juliet. (Little infatuated James has many things in common with little infatuated Romeo, don't you think? And their deaths do bring the end of a war. Such relevance.)
Pride and Prejudice. (With Lily Evans standing in for our favourite heroine Elizabeth Bennet. Enter whichever boy you chose (perhaps Peter Pettigrew? He seems very good at betraying James) as Wickham and James Potter becomes your perfect Mr Darcy. With embarrassing aristocrats and humiliating family members, you have a magical interpretation of Jane Austen's best loved novel.)
Cinderella. (She is but a lowly Muggleborn, he a Prince, but what happens when she discovers her true magical heritage and ascends to one of the great high society balls? You decide.)
Ten Things I Hate About You and other assorted chick flicks. (It's in the title really, just take a chick flick and change the names. NB: For particularly tricky plots be sure to label AU in summary.)
Another favourite seems to be reality TV (a craze that so recently invaded our television sets, why not the fandom too?)
Big Brother. (See above. Lock them in a room together and they will fall in love,)
Hogwarts Idol. (Don't ask.)
Possible James PersonalitiesStrangely enough possible James personalities tend not to stem from what we saw of him in 'Snape's Worst Memory' but more from what we are coming to view as the general 'fandom male'. It is worrying that many of the possible James personalities coincide rather well possible Draco personalities from the Dramione ship.
Romantic James. (For details read Romeo and Juliet.) He'll do anything in the name of love. The author gathers together every singe romantic fantasy she can think of and then bombards Lily with them. And still she refuses! Personality favoured in James POV fics.Arsehole James. If we were honest with ourselves, we'd call this one Canon James. He picks fights, invents mean pranks, winds up teachers and pupils alike and is still idolised for some unknown reason. He's good looking but that's about his only redeeming feature. (Usually combined
Funny James. He's witty, he's quick, he makes people smile as well as laugh and eventually he makes Lily realise he's the one for her. We like him, she likes him, everybody likes him.
Bunny Slipper James. Take Funny James and drain all humour value.
Heroic James. He saves Snape's life, he saves Lily's life, he saves little old ladies' lives. He risks his neck for his friends, joins the Order of the Phoenix and saves the wizarding world. Full of many missions and all manner of Superman style rescues. Lily realises she owes him one and they live happily ever after until he dies in a burst of heroic…heroism. (Frequently seen in during-war stories.)
Sex God James. (Generally coincides with Arsehole.) By the age of 17 he has slept around with the majority of the female population of the school. Instead of this making him a slut it makes him majorly sexy. The girls love it but (shock horror) there is one he cannot get. Yup. Lily the prude (because she doesn't launch herself at every opportunity at his 'perfectly chiselled' chest) (undoubtedly a product of quidditch practice). Whether by a manly game of truth or dare or an inspired moment of boredom in which she swishes her luscious red locks at him, he makes her his conquest. After much defiance and many righteous lectures about morals only she seems to possess Lily succumbs to his charms. (A favourite personality in Lily POV fics. Anyone do character development? No? Okay, we'll just leave it to lust.)
Sympathetic James. Sympathetic James will mould to suit any of Lily's problems and generally make them go away too. This personality is usually very good for angsty stories in Lily's POV.
Possible Lily PersonalitiesPossible Lily personalities will range from severely stressed to sexually confused. She can be a hopeless romantic or a tight lipped prude, either way these people can make her fall for the troublemaker.
Workaholic Lily. She has no time in her busy schedule, not even for friends. She loves coffee and the library. She works and she works until she snaps under the pressure, and who better to pick up the pieces than nice Sympathetic James?
Used and Abused Lily. The reason Lily is so into books is because they were her only escape from her drunken/mentally unstable uncle who abused her from a very young age. (And she's a witch for what? Surely not defending herself… No. Definitely not.) Either that or it was a boyfriend. Or maybe a Slytherin. Whichever it was she still needs comforting and who better than Sympathetic James?
Lily the Prude. She's waiting for marriage, whether Potter likes it or not.
Lily the Bitch. She's bitter and mean. She never misses and opportunity to take a sizable chunk out of poor James' ego and she roams Hogwarts like she owns it. She may or may not have her own gang but she most definitely has her own male fanclub, whether she takes advantage of the latter is entirely up to you.
Lily Sue. Such a dire occurrence we felt the need to emphasise the point. See below.
The Lily Sue ScenarioHer first name is Lily, her last is Evans, but sadly – for us and them – her middle is Sue. She is an entirely fandom creation and has many, many powers, including Animagus and invisibility at will. She also flies without aid of a broomstick, changes colour, does magic without a wand and reads minds. And she's beautiful (in a painfully over described manner) and yet still no one can quite see why James likes her so much.
James' Goddess Lily. The only acceptable type of Lily Sue. Told entirely from James' point of view, Lily is beautiful, Lily is intelligent, Lily is inspiring and beautiful and clever and beautiful. She can do all sorts of amazing things and she is beautiful. You are sickened by generally he is endearing enough to make it readable.
Lily Is Animagus. No she isn't. And no there is no proof she's not other than she becomes and Lily Sue (see above for details), and Lily Sues are bad. Anyway, the story will go something along the lines of Lily was so clever that one day she decided to become and Animagus for no reason other than the fact she was clever. She was a bird, a beautiful hawk with auburn wings and stunning green eyes (animal subject to change). She flew over Hogwarts grounds like a beautiful spectre until one full moon she spotted something unusual. And Lo! Remus Lupin was a werewolf. And James Potter an Animagus too! Blah blah blah and then she realised she loved him. The end. Joy of joys; with parents like that it's a miracle Harry wasn't born Animagus.
Lily Reads Minds. And you really think that if she read James seventeen-year-old boy Potter's mind she'd find sappy chunks of poetry that would make her fall head over heals in love?
Material Girl Lily. Very much in tune with the author's fashion taste (be it ripped jeans or white crop tops). With the help of her gorgeous, glamorous and popular American cousin or stunning room mate (the author descended from on high in angel form… or so they seem to think) she is transformed from quiet yet righteous bookworm to a wild-child party animal, the more flesh on display the better. This change is particularly appreciated by Sex God James. They get on very very well
Alternative Plot Bunnies (the mangy ones with fleas and yellowed fangs) (do with them what you will):
A. Lily is a lesbian icon. James gets jealous.
B. James wonders into the camp of the enemy and saves her from becoming a virgin sacrifice on the altar of the Dark Lord. He nurses her back to health and they fall in love.
C. James is the healer, Lily the auror. What an exciting and new turn of events. Something happens, he probably saves her life. And voila! Amore!
D. The Lily James marries is actually Ginny, having gone back in time with a time turner and fallen in love with James Potter (he looks so much like his son). When he's killed Ginny realises what she must do to save Harry from dying and carefully alters Voldemort's wand so that it transforms the baby into a horcrux rather than killing him. And then she goes back to her own time before she can be killed. The following chapters will contain incest, betrayal and revelations that Petunia is in fact not Harry's aunt. If you wish you can then lean of the story of Oedipus the King as Ginny remembers just why she liked Harry in the first place and drag it out for as long as you want.
E. Peter actually plays a part! (Now that's pretty damn alternative.)
Thank you for reading and Good Luck with your future Lily-James fics. :)
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Lily looked up at the ceiling.
The owl had gone.
She put the book down carefully.
If this was Potter's idea of a joke he was going to be very sorry indeed.
-
When Sirius returned from the detention, having been kept in ten minutes longer than the other three, he found the common room looking remarkably like a bombsite. He saw Peter miserably trying to fix the most complete of the armchairs and made his way over.
"What happened?" inquired Sirius.
"James is upstairs sulking, and Remus is doing his prefect thing."
"And what's with the… mess?" he cast an eye across the room; even the face of the grandfather clock was smashed.
"Lily Evans," came Peter's response.
"Ah. Damn," said Sirius, sending a worried glance up the boys' stairs.
"Damn," agreed Peter.
AN: Also from the series:
- A Beginner's Guide to Dramione Romance
- An Intermediate Guide To Dramione Romance
- A Beginner's Guide to Marauder's Adventures
Forthcoming:
- A Beginner's Guide to Black Family Dramas (title subject to change)