I'd like to point out that though I take an immense amount of pride in this story - It wasn't so good at the beginning. I think we all can see our writing change, and mine certainly has. So, the first couple of chapters are written in a different way from the rest of them, and I ask you not to judge too quickly. I would rewrite if I could find the time, but all I can assure you is that it does get better. I appreciate reviews of any sort, but I don't appreciate negative reviews, that aren't justified. So, if you hate my story -- Give me a reason why, other than because of the way I spell 'Ohkay'. Thanks.
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, or rights to anything JK Rowling created.
Summary: October, 1977. 7th year at Hogwarts for James Potter and co. The Marauders do what they've always been doing, and Lily Evans is, of course, along for the ride.
Chapter 1
"October Beginnings"
abc.
James Potter was everything I hated, mainly because he was everything I wanted. He was handsome, and charming. Suave and sleek. Composed and strong.
He was everything a Potter should be.
His family was well-known in the wizarding world. So many generations of Potter's having ranked high up in the Ministry of Magic. I think his grandfather was Minister of Magic at some point. But none of that is here nor there.
James Potter was the smartest wizard in our year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. That's how he came to get Head Boy. His friends were all gorgeous save for Peter and they were all popular including Peter.
Even though they were so popular, it's not like every girl wanted them. Especially not James, because he kept to himself. Something I'll elaborate on later.
Every girl wanted Sirius, though, because he's quite the lady's man. It's like that character written in a story, that always has to be the same. No matter how many lifetimes Sirius may have lived through, and no matter how many stories he could be written in to He'd always be the flaming gorgeous, idiot, with a list of non-ceasing come on lines.
Remus Lupin was quite like James. He kept to himself a bit less than James, however. He'd laugh loudly along with Sirius, while James laughed his quiet "heh, heh, heh" of a laugh, his eyes staying downcast. And Peter was just along for the ride, it seemed.
No one understood why James was so...introverted, with the friends he had. Loud, boisterous, Marauders. Or how he could be. Sure, he had a few girlfriends. So did the rest of his friends. Usually just flings, to keep themselves satisfied. But James only had serious relationships, because he would never get in to one if it wasn't going to be serious.
You ask any girl he dated, and they'd tell you He wouldn't kiss until at least the fourth date, and that would be without any tongue. He opened doors, pulled out chairs, held hands, paid for dinner, and assisted with coats Some girls just wanted to date him because of his flat-out, genuine, chivalry. But those girls who just wanted to date him because of his gentlemen ways, and boyish good looks Ended up falling deeper than they expected.
I don't think in all the 7 years I had known him or known of him had we spoke one word to the other.
He'd send me small smiles like he'd send to everyone he passed by in corridors, and perhaps asked to borrow a quill one time in Potions class, in fourth year. But never had I actually talked to James Potter. I only observed him, because he was interesting. Watching his small motions, and movements. The way he'd rub his index finger over his right cheek, just below his glasses when he was asked a question in class, or by anyone, for that matter. Just the little things were absolutely entrancing, because he had such a way..
You probably think I'm obsessed with detail. Or obsessed with digging into other peoples lives. Well, you would be too if you had my friends. My friends were rather ditzy. I had one best friend, and the rest I just...acted stupid with. I think it was something to do with Sirius Black. All of them had snogged him at one point, and I think that did something to them.
Anyways. My friends are another story, another time. This is James Potter, and the Marauders. This is uncovering into an engima. This is exporing my 7th year This is my story of how the Marauders changed everything that was Lily Evans into Lily Evans, plus.
I never once imagined I'd be giving credit to James Potter & the Marauders for who I turned out to be...
What I hoped was a good person.
Mid-October, 1977
The Gryffindor common room was always some place I didn't mind being. Especially now that I had this shiny, Head Girl badge pinned to my chest. I could tell those bickering little 13 year olds to keep it quiet, and I could set a curfew for the 1st & 2nd years. I could deduct points, and I could stay up as late as I wanted.
Being a 7th year with privilages was turning out quite good.
I was sitting on the carpeted floor, leaning up against the couch, with my stuff spread out on the oak coffee table...
I was waiting for James Potter.
I had to admit I was nervous. This was...the James Potter. This was the James Potter that was so stiff sometimes acted like he had a stick up his ass and quiet that other people just became quiet when they were near him. They were like me, they couldn't help but watch him.
And I was also nervous because this was the first time in a month and a half of Head duties that we were actually going to speak and discuss things.
It was funny. I always liked the Marauders. Always talked with them, and joked. We were just all friends, because we were in the same year, I suppose. But I could warm up to Peter more than I could warm up to James.
Sure he was everything I said he was at the beginning. Handsome, suave, sophisticated, and composed. Handsome, suave, sophisticated, and composed. Handsome, suave, sophisticated, and composed. Over, and over. God, and he was all of that whilst being a quiet, mysterious-type, guy.
Plus, he didn't seem to like me much.
It was strange, the things you pick up on over the years. The people who gradually befriend you. The people who you instantly notice. The people who seem to avoid you as much as possible.
Now, I was never trying to be paranoid. I do realize that Hogwarts has, probably, over 1000 people. And I do realize there are loads of people in Gryffindor alone. But James sat near me in most classes. His friends hung out with my friends, and we should've had hung out with each other. But as quiet as he was, it was like he became quieter when I was around.
I noted that most people were staggering off to bed. It was a Thursday night, and most people just wanted to get Friday over with, so they were off to the dorms by around 10. The Marauders only three of them, I quickly realized, and James wasn't one and a few other 7th years were left.
I chewed my nails, as I waited for James Potter to make his appearance. He was rather pissing me off.
At 10:45, Peter & Remus were off to bed, and Sirius came over to the couch I was slumped against.
"Prongs well, James, is upstairs, by the way."
I blinked. "Doing what?" It sounded stupid, but if he was off sleeping or something, I was going to kill him.
Ah, and to the surprise of no one, he was in fact sleeping. James Potter liked his sleep, it seemed apparent to us over the years. Honestly, he worried me at times. He worried all of 7th year girls, really. Was the boys dorm really the interesting, we always wondered. No, it really wasn't. Because before 7th year was over, I had seen it many a time. No, Mr James Potter, in fact, did like his sleep, and didn't like the common room.
Yeah, I changed that.
"I dunno. Sleepin'." Sirius rumpled his hair up, while yawning. "Ohkay, later."
"Later?" I remember raising my eyebrows until my forehead creased painfully, and Sirius snickered slightly.
Sirius was so nonchalant. Which was something else I never understood until much, much later. He was a Black, for christ's sake. We all knew about it. Regulus Black, and his relatives in Slytherin. He should've had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but he carried it off so well. In earlier years, I thought he was a conceited prat. (Which he actually was, in a joking way.) But after...after they showed me all that mattered, I realized, yeah, Sirius Black was a good guy. Even better guy for putting up with how James was. And, yeah, finally, I admired him for everything he went through. (Took me some years to admit that one.)
"Would you like me to go wake him?" I could've punched him, really.
"Please and thank you, Sirius." I sighed exasperatedly, and leaned back against the couch.
"All right, Lily." See, he was a good guy.
3 minutes and 22 seconds later, James finally emerged, rumpling his hair in that way only him & Sirius did.
"Sorry," He yawned and murmured, situating himself on the opposite side of the coffee table, so that he was facing me.
It just seemed to hit me, like a bucket of cold water James Potter apologizing for over sleeping, at night...Was the first actual word he had said to me. That one word had started it all. That one word was the beginning of an era, almost. Was the beginning of salvation and redemption. Was the beginning of all that mattered.
"It's ohkay. We've not much to cover anyways." It would be hard to forget the way his eyes looked. A hazy...hazel, colour. They always seemed misted over with infuriatingly deep thoughts. Green, and brown merged into one...
His eye colour didn't mean much to me then. But I remember the flush in my cheeks as he rubbed his eyes, and placed his glasses back on, and then looked at me.
"Ohkay." God, the way the corners of his mouth kept twitching upwards for a moment...I thought he was going to say something more.
"Um," I cleared my throat uncomfortably, and James stretched out until his back came to rest against the couch behind him. He folded his arms over his chest, and focused his eyes on the parchment & books spread out on the table.
"I thought we didn't have a lot to cover." He raised his eyebrows, though only slightly. As if he didn't want to let on that it bothered him, or that he couldn't handle it.
He was always like that.
"We don't. It's just a load of shit I'm trying to catch up on."
This would be the first time he smiled at anything I said.
"Head girl behind in her studies? Alert the media." I smiled a bit, too.
"It's hard sometimes, I guess. I mean, I've never liked classes. I just...don't want to have to be extra-studious, because I'm head girl. I don't even know how I am head girl. I just...Ohkay, so I was thinking not a lot of balls or dances. Nothing for Halloween that was a wreck last year. We should just have...inner-house parties, or something. Maybe a dance for Christmas. Maybe not. Maybe one at the end of the year, and nothing for Valentine's day."
"D'you hate dances?" James Potter asked in a monotone, sitting up, and jotting the things I had just said down.
"Basically."
James nodded. "Noted."
There was five minutes of silence in which I pretended to look over notes, and he pretended to write them. Things had become oddly tense.
"So you are always quiet, no matter who's around." I looked around the common room, realizing we were pretty much alone.
This didn't sit too well with James Potter.
"Evans, this is the most we've spoken in 6 years, and it wouldn't probably be the best time to start throwing your observations in my face," He was too proper to be harsh. "You've always been one to make assumptions."
"Now who's the one making assumptions? We've never spoken, yet I've always been one to make assumptions?"
"I suppose we're even then. You stay a judemental bitch, and I'll stay quiet," He tore the piece of parchment that he had written on off, and handed it to me. "Here. Goodnight Evans."
Well, we were off to a good start.
But that's just it We weren't. I wanted to try, because...What the hell was I going to lose in gaining another friend?
God, it took me ages to win him over. He was stubborn, too, by the way. Determined.
James Potter had thick, sticky-outy, black hair. He had thin-framed glasses, because he was near-sighted, and he had broad shoulders. He had perfect posture, and he had a nice chest. His arms weren't over-muscular, and his legs were long, which made us wonder how he was so good at Qudditch. He had hazel eyes, and a nice, husky, voice, along with a set of pearly whites. His handwriting was neat, his feet were a size 11, and he always needed to wear socks to bed.
His name was James Potter, and it took me about a year to find out his middle name.
They were always called the Marauders. I don't even remember the first time I actually heard it said, it was just almost like instinct to refer to those 4 boys as...the Marauders.
Wormtail, Moony, Padfoot, and Prongs.
They were four guys who not many understood. They were four guys who seemed to slack off as much as possible, but work hard. To be assholes, but be undeniably sweet. Keep to themselves, but let everyone know. The Marauders contradicted everything that they were.
I didn't care if people didn't like me. I know there are people who don't like me. There are people I don't like. I have my friends, though, so it's nothing that I dwelled on. It's nothing I realized, and it's nothing that bothered me.
Until that night with James Potter. It drove me crazy. I couldn't stop thinking about how he was so short with me, when I didn't even mean anything by what I had said. And he called me a judgmental bitch.
I called him QUIET. It was something simple, and it was something that could be taken as a compliment, or taken as nothing at all. I had never actually spoken to him before, but after being around a person for 6 years and some, you realize who's quiet, and who's not. You realize a bit of their personalities, whether you speak to them or not.
But you don't call somebody a judgmental bitch when you've never spoken to them. How would James Potter know if I was a judgmental bitch if he didn't actually know me? I don't go around calling people out, and telling them how absolutely ugly they are. Or sneering at people when they talk to me, because they hang out with a certain crowd, or something. I think I'm fairly nice. The only people I may be a bit judgmental towards are the Syltherins, but who isn't!
And at first it had made me mad, and I made a mental note not to ever talk to him again. We could split the Head Duties.
Later that night, though, I just...I started wondering if I really was that damn horrible. I mean, I had acquaintances. Almost-friends. I had one I guess best friend. Jada.
Honestly, Jada was great. She was so little, and sweet-sounding, but could be such a bitch. She might've been just over 5 feet, and had straight, light brown hair, that fell past her shoulders. She liked boys, and I knew that boys caused problems. We clashed over that a lot. Her always having a boyfriend, and just not being there when I needed her.
Laying in my bed, realizing how absolutely right James was. I was going over it in my head, and recalling everything I had just thought. I thought my best friend was a bitch. The closest thing to a best friend I'd ever had. I thought all boys were the same. Obnoxious, decieving, assholes.
I was a judgmental bitch.
I hadn't cried in front of anybody for...years. I hadn't cried, at all, for months. But the next day it seemed all I could do.
I threw myself into the shower, and dressed in my uniform, untying the double knots in my shoes as I walked down the stairs in to the common room. The laces were too long, and when I just tied them once, the ends drug along the ground.
I was thoroughly cursing my lazy habit of kicking my shoes off and untying them the next morning.
"Oh, bloody hell." I bemoaned, sinking to the floor at the end of the stairs, and tossing my schoolbag onto the floor, as I dug through it, looking for my wand.
Tears were filling my eyes, and I remember how absolutely awful I looked that morning, despite the random bouts of crying.
I was fair-skinned anyway, so the dark circles under my eyes from not much sleep, and lots of crying contrasted horribly with my skin.
Finally I tossed my shoe to the floor, and threw my head in my hands, the tears falling faster when I seen Jada leave the common room with a boy. Boys. God damn boys.
"May I be of assistance?" The voice was a guys, and sounded fairly amused. I turned 'round with a look of desperation on my face.
Sirius Black. In all of his just-woke-up-and-I-still-look-good glory. His hair was so bloody thick, and wavy girls envied him. It was dark, dark...chestnut-brown. And his eyes were a grey-ish, blue. What would be considered a dull-blue, but it had so much depth that it was just absolutely...mezmerizing. He had pretty eyes.
He was sinewy, he was more muscular than James was when it came to arms, but James was the Qudditch captain, and absolutely fit because of it.
His shoulders weren't that broad, and they were often slouched, followed by his fists jammed into his pockets. Looking horribly innocent, and casual. Girls fell at his feet.
But I, for one, was quite happy with just being friends with him, and Remus.
"Please and thank you, Sirius." He stooped down, and took my shoe, and fiddled with the laces for a moment, before tugging them loose from the knot. He then did the other.
I was just staring off into space, not realizing what he was doing until he was doing it. I wasn't as uncomfortable with it as I thought I'd be.
He bent my knee, and angled my foot out so he could slide my shoe onto my left foot. He tied the laces somehow without knotting them, they were perfect length. He slipped my right shoe on, and tied the laces on that one, too, as I tilted my head to the side and watched him with a small smile.
"You've been crying." He said, not so intelligibly. The red streaks down my cheeks, and the bloodshot to my eyes was more than enough to give that away.
I sighed, however, and wiped a moist trail away from my cheek with the back of my hand.
"Fuck," I muttered, noting the black smear on my hand, and remembering I had put mascara on. "Damn cosmetics."
Sirius seemed as if he couldn't help but grin, and tentatively reached a hand out to my cheek.
"Little bit left there. May I?" I don't think he was ever that courteous before that. Or after, for that matter. I recall him telling me sometime later that a damsel in distress was his weakness. He couldn't help but let the Shakespearen-like words, and sentences flow.
"Of course." I obliged.
His hands were rather rugged, as if he had done much damage to them in a short amount of time. It was an odd contrast, really.
His complexion was darker than mine, and his hands were cool, as they smoothed over my warm cheek, wiping the mascara away. It was...it was then, with Sirius, that...our two worlds really fused. My world, and the Marauders' world.
James Potter had f'ing drove me to insanity with a simple statement, and Sirius Black was going to fix that.
"Can I ask you something?" I asked him quietly, as he pulled his hand back, and his eyes went down to the well-done job he did at tying my shoes.
"Of course."
"Do you find James Potter to be an influential person?" I spoke quickly, and bit my bottom lip sharply as I finished.
Sirius Black laughed, and laughed, and once he finished he cleared his throat, and had a bit of a flush to his cheeks. I'll never, to this day, know why he found it so funny.
"If you find a quiet, kind, shell of a man influential, then sure."
"Ohkay, well...If he called you a bastard, would you take it to heart?"
Sirius nodded as if understanding what I meant now. "Not if he just called me a bastard. Buuut...say he called me a...manipulative bastard. Yeah, then I'd probably be a bit...hurt."
I sat with a rather somber face, as I put my hair behind my ears, and shook my head slowly.
"He called me a judgmental bitch." I wanted to cry again.
"Oh, sweetheart," Charming barstard, Black always was. "That's what's with all the tears? Come now, no boy's worth 'em. 'Specially not James," He grinned his cheeky grin. "Though I didn't realize he tickled your fancy that way."
I scrunched my nose up at the thought of James Potter tickling my, or anybody's, fancy. "He doesn't. I've hardly spoken to the boy in my whole life. But last night, I just...call him quiet, and...he calls me a judgmental bitch. For some reason it's just absolutely...shattered me. It really should mean nothing, for the simple fact that I hardly do know him, and hardly have spoken to him, but it's scary, because at times it's like he's reading me like a book. Like he can find out as much as he wants to of me with a snap of his fingers. And,-"
Sirius was laughing again, and then hoisting himself to his feet. He picked my school bag up, and slung it over his shoulder with his own, and then offered me his hand.
"You know what you need?" He shook his shaggy brown hair from his eyes as we began making our way to breakfast. "You need...more friends. Good friends. Best friends. You've only got catty whores to contend with. James could do with some female influence. Wouldn't it be crazy if you guys...became friends?"
It was my turn to laugh, but I did so quietly. I still felt absolutely depressed. ...And dramatic.
"I don't know, Sirius." We rounded the corner, and made our way down the last set of stairs before the marble staircase.
"Honestly, though. I'd like it if you were around us more. It'd be good. Interesting. Healthy for us all." We arrived at the bottom of the staircase, he strided ahead of me, turned around and grinned at me, then walked off without me. My pink & beige coloured school bag swinging gracefully from his shoulder.
Hope it's half-decent thus far. Reviews would be appreciated. You know you wannnna.
Love
Kaitlyn.