A/N: Hey! I really excited to publish that story. Every free minute I had in the past month went to writing and re-writing this story.

I don't own any of the characters and or this fantastic world. J. does!

Let me know what you are thinking about the story. Hope you like it!

Still beating for you/ JilyKindom3027

chapter 1

The day began like always for James Potter. Between screams to wake up, to get ready for school and hasty breakfast James had no time to notice other things, unusual things. Like a rigid cat sitting in the driveway to the house. James ran past her. Not giving her more than a second of thought before he looks at his wristwatch and breathes heavily from what he sees there.

7:57 am. Three minutes till classes began.

James quickly arranged the satchel on his back and ran briskly toward the school.

He was the fastest runner in school, but even he can't get to school 15 minutes' walk in 3 minutes of running.

James cursed in words that his mother didn't know he knew and will never approve his rude language, before continuing on his way.

He jumped onto the road and avoided the last second from cars that nearly hit him. The drivers shouted in panic and stopped abruptly. One of them even got out of his car and started yelling at James, but James was already in the middle of the opposite street and didn't hear the driver that surly cursed his mother who had brought him into the world.

James gets to school in six minutes, a delay of three minutes. He hurried into the classroom and hoped that the teacher had not

arrived yet.

"Mr. Potter, thank you for gracing us with your presence." Mrs. Simour said sarcastically. She was not older than 40, but five years of James Potter in her class, the gray hairs were more visible than all the brown locks altogether. James knew she tried every year to change classes, but no teacher agreed to take over that classroom because of him. For her, James was the cause of all her suffering, and she treated him like that.

"Always, Mrs. Simour, the pleasure is all mine," James said, clearly teasing her as he sat down at his place by the window. He could hear Mrs. Simour's grinding teeth even from the back of the classroom.

James couldn't control the smile on his face. He enjoyed annoying Mrs. Simour. He peeled off his jacket as slowly and as loud as he could before he bounced his feet on the table.

Mrs. Simour ignored him as much as she could, but after half a lesson she explained about a long division exercise in the thousands, James began to whistle loudly out of boredom.

The teacher called James to get the front of the class to solve a complicated exercise that was not up to their level. At least 7th-year math problem, minimum.

After a few minutes, James gave up trying to solve the task before him. He looked at his classmates shyly, not in his usual confident way. The vast majority laughed at him hysterically. Even though they couldn't also answer the exercise, Mrs. Simour had given him.

Shame and humiliation flooded his body like cold water. His cheeks turned red, and James blinked his eyes quickly. Without notice, the chalk flew from his hand and began to write things on the board. On its own.

Within a few seconds of utter silence, the screams and cries of the children and the teacher filled the air. Everyone ran away from the classroom instantly.

"Oh, Mr. Potter." A stern-faced lady with a tight hairdo said as she walked through the door. She wore an emerald green robes. Her square glasses reminded James of the cat next to his house that same morning.

"I'm pretty sure you're the only Muggle-born who managed to break the accidental magic incidents record." She breathed and gave him a small forced smile.

James was stunned and confused. Muggle-born? Accidental magic? What is this woman talking about? His head spun quickly, James lost his balance. He swung on his feet and almost fell forward. He felt his head explode and his eyes shut down uncontrollably.

He didn't feel his body anymore, but he heard a deep chuckle above him before the darkness enveloped him.

The next time he awoke James lay in his bed in his room. He didn't grasp how he got there, but James found comfort in being in a familiar place where he felt so weak and helpless.

After a few minutes of almost total darkness, James could see the slit of the door grow more substantial before a cry of relief came from his mother's shadow.

"My Jamie!" She was hurrying toward him immediately. Hugging him tightly and not leaving him.

"Mom, you're suffocating me," James finally managed to get out in a choked, hoarse voice.

"Sorry, honey." Euphemia Potter let go of her grip a little bit but still didn't leave him.

"Mummmm" James whined loudly and complained.

"Okay, okay," she said, and this time she released him to breathe.

"Son?" A deep, low male voice called outside the door. "Are you feeling well now?" His father, Fleamont Potter, asked while he opened the door wide. The incoming light made James blink his eyes rapidly.

"I feel a bit better," James responded. The weakness began to pass, and the dizziness was already a thing of the past. His stomach ached, the pain was familiar. Before James could say anything, his stomach did it for him. his stomach rumbling, shaking the entire bed and his parents stared at him in shock before beginning to laugh hysterically.

"Wash your face and go down to eat." His father said with amusement in his voice.

"Of course my child is hungry, he missed two whole meals!" His mother said as she stroked his clumsy hair making him feel like a baby, then she left the room.

"Oh and James, there's someone who wants to talk to you downstairs." his father added before closing the door.

James got organized quickly and even took a shower. Within five minutes he was dressed in a new set of clothes and his hair was dripping with water on every step he took.

In his living room with a steaming cup of tea, a teapot front of her and a pile of biscuits was the woman who had entered his class before he passed out. She was still wearing an emerald green robes, and her hairdo was not even a little loose.

James vaguely remembered some of the things she had told him. Muggle-? Magic? Break record? Despite what some people thought of James, he was smart. He could tell what the Lady was wanted to talk about with him was important. Otherwise, she wouldn't stay here all this time. Magic and he broke a record - could she be here to tell him he had magic in his body? It could be amazing but...

No, James had banished that stupid thought from his head.

There is no such thing as magic.

He rolled up his sleeves and sat down in the flowery armchair opposite her.

He sent her a charming smile that usually worked on adults who did not know him. She raised her eyebrows as she asked, "Do you think it will work on me?"

He decided to try another approach.

"Very nice to meet you." He held out his hand to shake as his parents had always instructed him to do when he meets important people. "James Potter, I understand you've been waiting a while for me."

"well, I could not go after you fainted in my hands." She said, her lips curving slightly up before she returned to her grave expression. His cheeks reddened from his memory of the chuckle someone over him.

He took out air and ran his hand through his wet hair. He looked everywhere except her. The feeling of humiliation returned to him. As if she could feel what was happening inside his body the lady said.

"have a biscuit, Mr. Potter," she ordered, and James listened to her.

"My name is Minerva McGonagall, and I came here to offer you a place in a special school." She began to speak and was calm in her voice spread to him as he chewed the biscuit slowly. "I'm one of the professors in this school; we teach how to control magic and how to use it. you, James Potter, has a place with us, since the moment you were born." Professor McGonagall said it as if it were the most common thing in the world.

"But there's no magic. It's not real," James said quietly. Something about her made him not want to confront her. He wanted to please her and make her proud. It was strange for him. Maybe it was because, despite the hard personality, he had seen someone with a sense of humor or because it was something she had transmitted, but he respected her more than he had ever respect anyone. (Except for his parents of course)

"Magic is real," she said after she took a sip of her tea. "What you did today was magic, the chalk that wrote on the board ... It was accidental magic from a raging feeling of a wizard who has no training in magic. that magic wasn't not planned, that magic was out of control, a mistake, that what happened today in your classroom."

"So am I a wizard?" James whispered in astonishment. After a second, he began to think about all the possibilities and all the pranks and the mischief he could do. A malicious smile stretched across his lips.

Professor McGonagall sighed and shook her head in disappointment. "These are going to be seven long years," she said with almost physical pain.

"Unmistakably, Professor Minnie." James laughed aloud.

She gave him a letter before she finished her tea, she thanked his parents for hosting her and walked out the door. James didn't notice all this. He stared at the letter made of rich parchment and writing in green ink. Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft was at the headline of the letter.

Year one.

The first few weeks at Hogwarts were like a dream to James. The old castle was full of secret passages, and enchanting corridors captivate him. The figures in the pictures told him secrets and describe ancient times that he couldn't imagine even his wildest dreams. The lessons fascinated him, and every class taught him something new, something he never thought existed. His wand became his best friend.

Well, maybe his best friend after Sirius. James didn't imagine that he would find someone more crazy, insane and funny than he was, but Sirius was all this and more. Sirius, on the other hand, was a pure-blood wizard, from a pure-blood family who thought Muggle-born were equal to worms or merely need to be killed, that they didn't belong in the magical world. Sirius was not like them, quite the opposite. He loved the fact that James didn't come from a pure-blood family, he loved the things James taught him about the Muggle world.

Like now, they were outside on one of the last pleasant autumn days. The sky was gray however black rain clouds were not on the horizon. The wind blew gently from the air cooler. They took advantage of the extensive green lawns to practice their kicks, to teach Sirius and the other first year's Gryffindor students to kick a ball in a straight line. Most of them were pure-blood, and only two of them were Muggle-born (James and Mary Macdonald). The pureblood Gryffindor's never know there was a game that involves their two feet and a ball. Marlene McKinnon, Lily Evans, Emmeline Vance, and Peter Pettigrew were pure-blood along with Sirius that never touch a soccer ball in their life. Only Remus Lupin was the only half-blood of their year and the only one other than James who know how to kick a ball.

At first only Sirius and James went down to the lawns to play James' soccer ball. Slowly everyone else joined in, wondering what their friends were doing outside. In the end, actually put together a lesson for other first, Remus explains how technically they should kick the ball without hitting their foot, and then they went to James who kicked the ball in a straight line towards them, and they had to send it back in the same line. Not too hard.

Sirius managed to miss the ball twice and dump on his ass before letting someone else kick the ball. One by one they passed James. There were missed that James had to run to get the ball but nothing too drastic, at least until it was Lily Evans's turn.

Evans gathered her red blood hair into a high ponytail and took off her heavy cloak. Her green eyes sparkled with determination. She approaches a ball with a clear goal. Her leg went forward to hit the ball that rolled perfectly to her. James was sure she could kick the ball however in the last moment she slipped off her momentum and fell on her back.

Sirius laughed at her viciously, pointing out as all the children giggling and even the shy and kind Remus had to keep himself laughing. James smiled at her a little and wanted to say something encouraging, but he saw Lily get up quickly with a red face and wet eyes glistening. He expected her to run back to the castle, and yet Lily surprised him and everyone else. She went over to the ball that had stopped next to her and kicked it in so much power that had thrown it over the lawns and hit the most dangerous tree in the school. The Whomping Willow. James heard his favorite ball explode, but he didn't care. He looked at Lily as if it were the first time he had seen her. No one he knew could kick like that for the first time. She was able to learn to kick just as well as him at one time. His stomach made a small withdrawal like a pulling sensation.

"Potter!" She called, withdrew him out of this feeling. Whatever it was.

"Evans, my ball," James bewailed, although he didn't care what happened to the ball. His parents will send him a new ball.

"Sorry about that, " she said honestly, but her face showed satisfaction from her success more than feeling sorry for the unfortunate fate of his ball.

"it's alright, as long as I don't get a kick from you, I do not want to end like my ball," he said without thinking. There was something about her that made him talk without thinking, tell her everything and to spill all his secrets only if she asked. It was dangerous and frightening but soothing and joyous feeling.

"I promise nothing." Lily smiled at him and spoke her tong ridiculously.

She and the girls started walking back to the castle, and the boys approached James. Their faces displayed sympathy and pity, but James's smile told them how he felt about the short-lived ball.