Lily sat on the swing, a book in her lap and her worn out sneakers kicking the dirt. The swing was much to small for her now, and if she swung too high, the poles would start to come out of the ground. Petunia didn't come here with her anymore. She hadn't since Lily was eleven. Petunia was only a year older than Lily- though she acted like she was more than that. And Lily was positive that Petunia would leave them as soon as she could. Not that Lily complained much.

Lily often came to the park to read her new books- she had gotten them as soon as the letter for her supplies came in the mail- and as always, she bought extra. She had been counting down the days until September 1st, tomorrow, and spent a lot of her time on the swing, reading. She couldn't apparate down to Diagon Alley when she wanted to get more books- she was learning that this year, for she turned seventeen January 30, in time for Apparation- so instead she would tell her parents and walk down to Diagon Alley and spend the day there. Occasionally her friends would join her.

"Lily."

"Didn't I tell you I didn't want to talk to you?" Lily spits back, not looking up from her Ancient Runes book. She already knew who it was.

"I know- but please, you know I didn't mean it-"

Lily stands, snapping the book shut and looking dead in Severus's eyes, who looks rather startled. "I said, I didn't want to talk to you. And well done- you've ruined my time here."

Severus looks up at the sun that was setting over the hilltops. "Surely I didn't ruin it that much- it's getting dark."

"And I'm getting annoyed. Good bye, Severus."

And she turns on her heel and strides back down the long, worn down dirt path that she and Petunia had traveled down so long ago.

~~~~~

"Bye Lily! Have a good year at Hogwarts!" Lily's mom gives her a hug. Her dad hugs her as well, but Petunia had just stayed in the car.

"I will."

Her dad ruffles her red curly hair, and she tries to flatten it down, which proves difficult. "Send us letters. And candy." He rubs his stomach. "Witches and wizards make good candy."

Lily grins. "Then maybe I should send you some Every Flavor Beans." She glances at the clock. "I better be going- bye! I'll see you at Christmas!"

She turns around, which is hard because her trolley is so packed, and runs through the barrier. It's dark for a moment, but then she's on the platform, and a scarlet train sits on the tracks, blowing steam out of it's pipe and loading up students. Lily maneuvers through the crowd with her trolley and eventually gets to the steps. She unloads her two suitcases and hand bag, and then her two carry-on books for the ride to Hogwarts. As she's unloading, Marlene, Em, and Alice come squealing up to her.

"Lily! Lily!" Alice says. "Lily you won't believe what happened this summer!"

"What happened Alice?" Lily grunts, pulling one suitcase out and setting it onto the floor.

"Frank came over to hang out a few times this summer, and we kissed!" Alice squeals, and Lily grins at her. Alice has had a crush on Frank Longbottom for the longest time.

"That's awesome Alice!"

Marlene and Em fidget slightly as Lily gets out her second trunk. "Listen, Lils. Alice was going to sit with Frank, and I wanted to sit by Anthony Bones and maybe his sister, and Em wanted to sit with Alex Macmillon."

Lily heaves and puts the second trunk down. "So what you're saying is, you guys are ditching me for some boys?"

Em huffs. "Come on Lils, you would understand if you ever actually dated someone."

Lily frowns at her. "I'm just choosing to focus on my studies right now. Maybe if someone asked me out, I would."

"What about James?" Alice asks, and Lily whacks her arm with one of her carry on books.

"Shut up and go sit with your boyfriends."

Marlene frowns. "Are you sure?"

"I'm fine, honestly- just go. I can do some reading on the way there instead." The three thank Lily for being so understanding, and board the train. Lily finally gets everything unloaded and set up, she sighs, ready to heave it all up the narrow stairs.

Naturally, Lily had packed a portable library again this year, and both of her trunks were extremely heavy. She was sweating by the time she had managed to get them both up two steps, and there was still three more to go.

"Need some help, Evans?" A voice asks, and suddenly James is there, taking her bags from her and lugging them up the stairs. Last year the Marauders had comforted her when she was upset about Severus, and then asked if they could be friends with her. She agreed, and she didn't regret having them as friends yet. He grunts in effort and finally gets to the top, handing them back to her so she can wheel them down to put them away. "Merlin, Evans. what did you pack in here, boulders?"

"No, just a lot of books." Lily responds with a grin.

"So, where are your other friends?" James asks casually.

Lily frowns, stuffing her suitcase in one of the compartments and sitting down. "They said they wanted to ride with their boyfriends, and so I guess I'm sitting alone."

James smiles. "No you aren't." And then he sits down across from her his hands behind his head.

"What about Sirius, Remus and Peter?"

"They'll sit with you too."

Lily smiles, and is about to open her book up when the compartment door is slid open roughly, and a energetic looking Sirius comes in. "The party has arrived!"

"And the 'party' can carry his own trunk." Remus says, following in behind him. "I left it in the aisle."

Sirius turns and walks out to grab it, and then his laugh is heard. "Peter! What're you doing on the floor?" Sirius asks.

Peter groans, getting to his feet and stumbling into the compartment. "I tripped over your trunk."

Sirius laughs and shoves his trunk up next to Lily's, and then plops down beside James. Remus sits next to Lily, and Peter sits by Sirius.

"So Lily, how was your summer?"

Lily thinks about Petunia teasing her and making her upset, and Severus bothering her at the park and even at Diagon Alley when he ran into her there. "It was... it was okay, I guess. How was yours?"

Remus shrugs. "Some people have it worse, I suppose." He says. Lily smiles- Remus was very optimistic for being someone who always had to worry about being a werewolf.

"Always so optimistic." Lily says.

"Well my summer was great, thanks for asking." Sirius cuts in, making Lily grin. "I moved in with the Potters- did you know that Lily?" He asks her, and Lily shakes her head.

"Why'd you move in with James?" Lily asks, frowning.

Sirius looks at the ground. "My family is a bunch of losers and traitors to You-Know-Who, that's why." The temperature in the room seems to drop at his words, which were dripping with coolness. "But- the Potters are way cooler."

"Duh." James says.

Lily opens her book and is able to get through a whole chapter of it without being interrupted once. But naturally, James wouldn't leave her alone for too long.

"Evans, what're you reading about?"

"Quidditch."

"That makes no sense at all." James responds idly, and Lily frowns, setting her book down.

"And why doesn't that make sense?"

James shrugs. "Well it's just that you've been on the Quidditch team since second year, so there's no way you don't know how to play... and you play well, so what's the point of reading about how to play when you've already mastered it?"

Lily smiles slightly when he says that she's good at Quidditch. "It's teaching me tricks to use in the game and how to touch up on them- that's why I beat you in our Wronski Feint competition last year."

Sirius laughs suddenly. "Prongs you got beat by a girl!"

The happy look in Lily's eyes turns murderous and she takes out her wand. "What did you say?"

Sirius realises his mistake and shrinks back into the seat. "Um, nothing?"

"Wrong answer."

And then she jinxes Sirius with a Strip- Jinx, which you could likely figure out by the name. Sirius stripped down to his boxers, and then Lily lifted the jinx and replaced it with a spell that made his armpit hair grow and grow until it reached his waist, and it made a bush of chest hair erupt on his bare chest.

The other boys roar with laughter, and Lily smirks to herself at the sight of Sirius's monkey boxers. Right on que, two giggling Hufflepuffs open the door, and they both smile.

"Hi, we were just looking for-" One girls starts.

"-Sirius Black." The other finishes, and Sirius turns around, stripped down to his monkey boxers and chest and armpit hair growing wildly.

"Well, hi ladies." Sirius says, trying to play it cool while the others hold in their snickers and grin behind their hands. He makes to leans against the wall, but trips and falls onto his bum.

The girls stare at him for a moment. "We were actually um...."

"We have somewhere to be." And then they both shut the door and dash off.

As soon as they leave the compartment explodes with laughter, and Sirius turns to Lily, confidence still evident on his face. "Come on now Evans, take the jinx off."

"Just get dressed."

"You know very well that the jinx prevents me from getting dressed until you remove it." Sirius says. "Get rid of the hair too."

Lily waves her wand and makes the hair disappear, but doesn't remove the Strip- Jinx. She grins cheekily at him. "You know what I think the other girls here need to see you in your monkey underwear first."

Sirius grins wickedly. "You mean girls like you?"

"What?"

Before she can react, Sirius pushes Remus over lightly and takes his place next to Lily, grinning. "Come on Evans, I know you like seeing me with no clothes on."

"Technically you do have clothes on." Lily says weakly as he gets closer to her. "Those lovely boxers of yours."

Sirius moves closer to her, so that his body is pressed right up next to her. "Tell me Evans, are you feeling..." And then he leans his face close to hers cornering her. "Flustered?"

Suddenly a very red- faced James wrenches them apart. "Yes, she is feeling flustered, because she is forced to sit here with your nude body pressed up against her." Jealousy blooms in his voice- but Lily doesn't catch it.

Sirius moves away just as Lily removes the jinx. Remus and James pretty much switch places so that now it was James sitting next to Lily while the other three sat on the other side. "James are you jealous?"

"Shut up, Sirius." James says, but he avoids Lily's gaze. He had agreed to lay off a bit on Lily if she would be their friend- so now he was just bugging her a lot about dating her instead of everytime he saw her face.

"Oh, do we have some tension? Maybe just a hint of," Sirius leans in to James. "Jealousy?"

In response, James hits him again with a Strip- Jinx, and as Sirius stands there helplessly with his trousers around his ankles, James gets up and leans out of the compartment into the aisle. "Hey ladies! You can come back now- he's decent!"

~~~~~

The train ride was long, but Lily spent much of it reading and then just laughing and talking with the boys. They were good company- at least they didn't talk about the cute sixth year Ravenclaw all of the time like Marlene, Em and Alice did. But, they were boys, so what did they do instead? They talked about the other gender.

When they thought Lily wasn't listening, for she had gotten out her book, Sirius grins. "Hey, have you guys seen Gwen, the Hufflepuff girl? Blimey, she's hot."

"She is?" Remus grins. "I haven't seen her."

"How hot?" Peter asks.

"So hot that if I touched her skin, I'm pretty sure I'd have to go to St. Mungo's with a third degree burn." Sirius grins. Peter and Remus both smirk.

Remus cracks his knuckles. Lily had never really seen him talk about girls- but he had to have before. Unless he was gay. Which would be no better- then he would just talk about boys. "Are you going to make a snatch at her?"

Peter laughs. "You're seriously asking Sirius Black if he's going to make a snag at the hot Hufflepuff?" And then he grins to himself at his word play.

Sirius nods. "In fact, I think I'm going to when we get off of the train. Which, according to our conductor," he then puts on a fake voice to sound like their conductor, and he does a scarily good job. "will be in five minutes."

The only person, Lily noticed, not taking part of the conversation was James. He was sitting in the corner and, trying to stare at Lily without being too obvious. He couldn't help it- her hair was so long and bright red and beautiful- her eyes a piercing green. A few freckles were visible on her nose, and sometimes when she heard something stupid she would scrunch her face up in the most adorable way-

"JAMES!" Sirius hollers at the top of his lungs after several failed attempts at getting his best friend's attention. "APPARENTLY I CAN ONLY GET YOUR ATTENTION IF I TALK IN THIS HIGH OF A VOLUME, SO THAT'S WHAT I'LL DO. WE'VE ALL GOTTEN CHANGED INTO OUR ROBES- IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO GO GET YOURS ON."

"Blimey, Sirius, okay, I'm going." He gets up and leaves to change, and as soon as he's gone, Sirius shakes his head.

"It's not working, or at least I don't think it is. What do you two think?" Sirius asks Remus and Peter, who both shake their heads as well.

Remus frowns. "It's clearly not."

Lily sets down her book, shocking all of them. "What's not working? And why wasn't James adding to your hot Hufflepuff girl conversation?"

Peter pipes up. "You were eavesdropping!"

"I was sitting right here!"

"Then you were eavesdropping from a close distance!" Sirius says.

Remus shakes his head. "I reckon we should just tell her."

Sirius groans and does this stompy thing with his feet a few times, but then sighs. "Alright alright."

"Tell me what?" Lily asks, getting impatient.

"Maybe we would tell you if you quit talking for a second!" Sirius exclaims, but then he drops his voice, glancing at the shut compartment door. "Look, James was overjoyed when you decided to be our friend. Don't get me wrong, we were all excited, you're pretty chill, but James was so happy- one of the happiest times I've seen him, in fact. Anyways, he decided that he finally got to be your friend, he would try to get rid of his crush on you, or at least push it away a bit. And we've been watching him ever since he started trying last year- it's not working."

Lily sits back in her seat, stunned. "He did all of that for me?"

"Yup."

"He likes you a lot- he just wants you to be happy, Lily. And he decided himself that if you aren't happy with him, than maybe he should try to leave you be." Remus says, and scratched his neck, yawning. "I reckon it won't work though- he likes you way too much."

Lily tries to hide a smile, and actually succeeds. She was happy that James had put in all of this work just so she could be happy- maybe she had been judging him wrong all of these years.

Just then James enters, fully changed and grinning. "I just set off a firecracker under Snivellus's bum."

"Nice," Sirius grins. "How did you get.... down there?"

James grimaces. "Let's not worry about that-" he breaks off, spotting Lily. "Sorry, Evans, I had to- he was being a snotrag and talking about You-Know-Who-"

Lily pales, and he stops. All of the boys look at her. She hears their questions, but they all sound muffled, as if she's hearing them through a pair of thick earmuffs. Lily and a few selective Death Eaters were the only ones that knew that Severus served You-Know-Who. Lily stands to her feet, scared. "I- I have to go do something. I'll be right back."

Just before she leaves, she stops and turns around to see the boys still looking at her with concern. "James, I need to borrow your cloak, please."

James hands over his invisibility cloak immediately, and she takes it, thanking him quietly. She pulls it on and slips out of sight, where she proceeds to creep down the hall to Severus's compartment.

A boy enters- Yaxely- and Lily slides in through the small gap in the door just before it shuts, and she winces at she feels it rustle around her legs. She glances down at the cloak, and it was still covering her up- but she had no doubt that everyone in the room had a good glance at her feet. But there was no going back now. She moves into the corner and steps on the seat, pulling herself up to the rack above Severus's head that held the trunks. It creaks as she climbs up it, but she presses forward, sliding between the suitcase and a wall, blocking her from their view. And then she starts to listen.

"-he says that we can all meet up at the Malfoy residence when he calls us." Severus was saying, nodding to Lucius, who was grinning beside him. Lucius's family was rich, and they were known supporters of You-Know-Who- and Lily hated the lot of them. They were snotrags who called Lily and her kind mudbloods straight to their faces and acted as if they were better than them.

"What is the meeting for?" Yaxely asks from across them.

"He wants us to go on some top secret mission." Severus replies. "A woman by the name Sybill Trelawney made a prophecy- one that predicted the  Dark Lord's demise. He said," Severus drops his voice. "He says that the boy is to be born on July 31st, 1980, and he is to defeat the Dark Lord."

"If he knows so much about what's going to happen, enough to find the boy on the correct date and kill him- why does he want us to go get the prophecy?" Nott asks from beside Yaxely.

"I don't know. Maybe to just... check it. Make sure he's got his facts straight before he makes plans to kill a baby." Lily covers her mouth and holds in tears. A poor baby- one that would be destined to save the world, was going to have to die at the hands of this stupid wizard.

"Does he know who the parents will be? Or maybe the childs name?"

Severus shakes his head. "Not a clue- but he'll likely figure it out."

"Attention all passengers, we have arrived at Hogwarts. Please leave your bags, they will be taken separately. Stand up and exit the train safely and orderly. Thank you for riding the Hogwarts Train- have a pleasant evening." The droning conductor's voice says over the speaker, and all of the boys in the compartment get to their feet.

"We should get going- if we get a carriage to ourselves we can continue discussing the plan." Severus says, exiting last of the boys and shutting the door behind him. Lily waits until she's positive that he's gone, and swings herself down from the rack she was on, landing cat-like on the ground and getting up to search for the boys, her mind only on giving James his cloak and how bad she felt for the little boy You-Know-Who planned to kill.

First chapter. DONE.

I have zero things to say.

Adios.

Magisky