Living A Legend
Book 1- A Clash of Wills
Chapter 1- Jitters and Feuds
The first hints of dawn began to twinkle against the still dark sky, and Lily Evans was already on her way downstairs.
Her footfall was light and her tone joyous as she greeted her mother, who was slaving over the stove with a cheerful: "Hi mom!"
Her mom jumped.,"Lily! Shouldn't you be asleep?"
Lily smiled exuberantly, "How could I sleep on a day like this?"
Rebecca Evans only smiled. It had been a while since her youngest daughter had joined them for breakfast. Lily was the type of girl who always slept in.
"Oh I just feel like there is so much to do," moaned Lily rapturously, flopping carelessly into a wooden dining chair. "I can't believe that today will be my first day at Hogwarts!"
"Honey, the train does not leave until noon, you have six hours," Rebecca assured her daughter. "Why don't you just relax a little. I'm sure everything will go great. You are all packed already and you have all of your supplies. Just enjoy the company of your family while it lasts."
Lily grimaced at her mother's lecture, but the expression only lasted a moment. She was far too caught up in the splendor of the morning to be much perturbed about anything.
Still, six-thirty was extremely early for Lily to be up. Even Petunia wasn't awake yet.
Lily kept glancing at the window, waiting for the usual tap which indicated her mail had arrived. The day after her letter had arrived, Rebecca had taken Lily to Diagon Alley, to purchase her supplies. Doting on her daughter as usual, she had even bought her an owl, whom Lily had named Lothlorien, after a mythical place she had read about in a book.
"Where is Lothlorien?" Lily wondered aloud.
"He is used to your sleeping habits darling, you can't expect him to know that you felt like getting up early this morning," her mother soothed her.
Lily sighed, twisting impatiently in the uncomfortable wooden chair. After a few moments, she muttered something about double checking her luggage and ran upstairs noisily.
"LILY!" Petunia's voice drifted up the stairway, obviously annoyed by the clatter of her younger sister's footfall.
"Chill out Petunia! All I did was walk up the stairs!" Lily screamed back almost impassively. She was not in the mood to fight with Petunia on such an important day.
Lily sorted through her bag twice before her mother called her down for breakfast.
Her father Tom, and Petunia were already at the table when she arrived downstairs. Her father shot her an odd glance, "Lily I'm surprised you are up so early."
Lily shrugged and Petunia glared, her hair a sleepy mess. Lily stared at her for a moment. It was a rare occasion when Petunia didn't look absolutely perfect. She would not even leave the house without her nose powdered and her hair perfectly curled.
Petunia was the beauty of the family. Lily had been told she was pretty, but her wild red curls and vivid green eyes were not classic features, and were no rivals to her big sister's perfect blond hair and blue eyes. Rebecca had once commented that Lily was fire, while Petunia was ice.
"What are you staring at me for?" asked Petunia coldly through a mouthful of scrambled eggs.
Lily spoke impetuously, "It looks like you are wearing a wig."
"Lily!" her mother admonished. "Stop teasing your sister and eat your eggs."
Lily could barely pick at her breakfast as she was too worried and excited about the day to come.
Tom finished his breakfast quickly but sat around conversing with his daughters and picking at Lily's own plate, which remained barely touched.
"Tom," Rebecca interceded, collecting the dishes from the table, "stop pestering the girls and go get the newspaper."
Her husband laughed at his wife's astuteness, but did as he was told, leaving only the two girls at the table.
At that moment, a tawny brown owl swooped over the table and landed on the arm of Lily's chair.
"Lothlorien!" Lily shouted in joy, collecting her copy of the wizarding newspaper from her owl's talons.
Petunia, on the other hand, looked absolutely horrified and swatted at the bird with her napkin. "Get that filthy thing away from my breakfast!" she shrieked.
Lothlorien flapped his wings in a frenzy, frightened by Petunia's wild cries. Lily pulled the bird away from her sister, cooing to him in a soft voice.
She fed the bird a bit of her toast, ignoring Petunia's complaints about the 'disgusting creature' and took him upstairs to his perch, clutching her copy of the daily prophet in the crook of her arm.
Lily settled down on her bed, contented to spend some time reading this magical newspaper. She would never consider reading an ordinary newspaper, that seemed an activity reserved for the very old and the very boring. Lily was neither. But the Daily Prophet, was filled with moving pictures and stories about all sorts of interesting things.
"Unforgivable curse leaves two wizards dead," read the headline of article on the front page.
Below it was a picture of several wizards examining what appeared to be an illusion floating in midair. the illusion depicted a skull with a snake head coming out of it.
Lily read on in fascination and horror at the deaths of the two men.
"Aurors have attributed the crime to the dark wizard known as Voldemort, the same wizard who was responsible for the death of young Tom Riddle, only last month."
Lily read the entire article in fascination, before moving on to "Which witch bewitches brooms?" which she found just as interesting.
By ten o'clock, Lily had showered and gotten dressed, as well as finishing the Daily Prophet and re-packing her suitcase almost ten times. She stood pacing back and forth across the living room.
"Lily Darling, if you are going to make a nuisance of yourself, why don't you help me dust the cupboards?"
Lily groaned, she hated cleaning, but complied against her wishes.
At eleven o'clock, she said good-bye to Petunia, who answered rather coldly, and left for the station with her mother and father.
"Mom, you're embarrassing me!" Lily protested as her mother tearfully kissed her goodbye outside of the station.
"I know honey, but I am not going to see you until Christmas, so I have a right to embarrass you."
"Uh, where exactly is this platform 9 and ¾?" Tom spoke up, looking curiously at Lily's ticket.
"What?" Lily's mom screeched. "Let me see that."
She examined the ticket for a moment, at a loss for words.
Lily had a sinking feeling in her stomach. What if this was all some sick joke?
Just as she was about to give up hope, she noticed a dark haired bespectacled boy toting a cart with an owl perched on it. She grinned and ran over to him.
"Hey, are you going to Hogwarts?" she asked him vibrantly.
The boy nodded, looking her up and down.
"Then you know where the platform is, nine and three quarters?" her voice came out hesitant.
"Yes of course. You simply have to walk through the barrier. It's not very hard at all, but only students can get through," he explained, glancing back at her parents.
Lily was skeptical. "Are you sure? You do it then."
The boy grinned. "I'm waiting for somebody. Just watch her."
He pointed at a girl, laden down with luggage who was jogging towards one of the barriers, the one directly between platforms nine and ten. One second the girl was there, and then she just blended into the wall.
Lily gasped.
"Go ahead. Any platform will work. Just remember to do it at a bit of a run."
Lily thanked him and said goodbye one final time to her parents, who made her promise to write often before leaving to the car.
She watched her parents until they disappeared from sight. Taking a deep breath she jogged towards the nearest platform, shutting her eyes as she gained speed and approached the barrier.
Her cart collided with such force that it slammed against her and knocked her to the pavement, the wind gone from her lungs.
Passers by were laughing and muttering about stupid kids and their dumb stunts.
As soon as Lily recovered her breath, she felt a wave of horror rise up through her stomach. the boy had said only wizards could pass through, suppose she wasn't really magic at all, and it had all been some mistake.
Lily was crying, as much from humiliation as pain. A large cut had formed on her lip, where the handle of the cart had slammed into it.
The boy stood laughing at her a few feet away.
"Child, are you okay?" an elderly lady helped her up.
Lily nodded slowly, grateful Lothlorien hadn't fallen off the cart.
"You were headed towards the wrong barrier. That is the one you need to go through." the woman pointed towards the middle barrier which the older girl had passed through. "Don't you worry about it though. Your fine. This is my granddaughter Brittany." she motioned towards a blond girl who was standing beside her smiling. "It's her first year too."
"I'm Lily Evans."
The woman helped her load up her cart once more, and then gave her a handkerchief to press to her lips. Lily stopped crying, glaring suddenly at the boy who had mislead her. He was now talking with another boy, who didn't seem to appreciate the prank quite as much as the first.
Lily wiped her tears from her face and took a moment to compose herself. "Will you hold on for a second?" she asked the woman who had helped her politely before marching off towards the horrible boy.
"How could you do that to me?"
He laughed, "I didn't mean to hurt you, but that was so funny! You have to admit it was great."
You are the meanest, most selfish, horrible and immature person I have ever met and I hope you die!" Lily raged, showing her true red-headed temper. She ended her little spiel by passionately slapping him across the face, and leaving the flustered boys to walk calmly back over to the Brittany and her grandmother.
"Thanks for helping me," she stated serenely.
The grandmother stared at her for a moment, and then just laughed. "Well, I have never seen a child like you before, Lily. Isn't it great to be young and hot tempered?"
Lily couldn't help but smile. Her second time going through the barrier was much smoother, although she did flinch when it seemed like she would hit it.
Lily sat next to Brittany on the train, who was full of light-hearted babble. Brittany lived with her grandmother, who was also a witch, and she told Lily all about the spells she had seen her grandmother use and the few that she actually knew.
Lily was surprised that Brittany was almost as fascinated with her as she was with Brittany. Brittany called her a muggle, a word that meant non-magic folk, and seemed very interested in things that to Lily seemed quite boring and mundane.
After a while, the two girls closed off the compartment and changed into their robes.
Once, the boy Lily had slapped walked through the compartment and she turned her head and pretended to ignore him. Brittany identified him as James.
When he had left, she seethed about him to her new found friend.
Brittany was very talkative and got more and more hyper as the trip wore on. At one point, she stood and showed Lily a cheer that she had learned at a cheerleading camp over the summer. Lily laughed at the girl's peppy attitude, and found herself enjoying Brittany's company immensely.
Eventually, the train was unloaded. The journey had seemed very quick, although it was already dark outside. Lily and Brittany had kept themselves busy on the ride.
As they exited the train, all of the first years were herded off in one direction, towards a glimmering lake overshadowed by a magnificent castle off in the distance, the lights looming over the lake, casting their luminous reflections in the dark water.
Lily shared a boat with Brittany and the two girls had to paddle very hard to cross the lake.
At one point their boat lined up with the two boys from before and Brittany waved to them. Lily slapped down her hand, "What are you doing?" she hissed.
The boys waved back and splashed them lightly with water from their oars.
Angry, Lily smacked her paddle against the surface of the lake, spraying a huge gust of freezing cold water into their boat.
The boys shouted and one of the prefects, who had taken the journey along with the first years, tried to absolve the situation. His attempts to literally calm the waters, failed miserably. His words went unnoticed.
The dark messy haired boy who had lied to her earlier, smacked down on the water even harder. Lily stood up in rage, despite Brittany's protests, the boat shook under her wildly.
"Lily, you're going to fall out! Sit back down!" Brittany cried.
Lily tried, as she noticed the rocking of the tiny vessel, but just as she started to lower herself, another wavy of icy lake water sent her way by the boys in the next boat caused her to lose her balance.
Lily screamed as she toppled over the edge of the boat, pulling it upside-down in her wake. She plummeted downwards, frantically fighting her way through the cold lake. Brittany had already surfaced, but Lily did not know how to swim.
She clawed her way through the water, once bobbing above the level, thrashing about violently, before sinking back down, gasping for air. Lily swallowed more than a healthy amount of water, and went unconscious for a moment.
Luckily, something soft and gigantic reached up an oversized tentacle and pushed the little girl back to the surface.
Brittany, who had just managed to flip the boat right-side-up, screamed in horror as the tentacle pushed Lily's lifeless body to the surface.
James pulled Lily into his boat, as she had resurfaced right by him, waves of guilt and anger running through his body.
"You killed her!" Brittany yelled, weeping. "It's your fault James!"
All the students were looking back and yelling and some were crying. the prefects were calling for order, frantic for control of the situation.
A moment later, Lily began sputtering and coughing in James' lap. He held her head forward so she could cough the water out of her lungs, pounding her soundly on the back as she began to choke on it. As soon as she regained control of her breathing, she shoved him away, shivering intensely, Lily sat as far as she could from James.
"Are you all right?" the other boy asked.
"Well other than being completely soaked, having a cut lip, and having nearly drowned, just to be pulled up and hit on the back by an idiot, I'm fine." Lily replied icily.
"Hey, don't blame me, that was all James. I am the innocent one, for once. My name is Sirius by the way. Sirius Black." he introduced himself, sticking out a hand pretentiously.
Lily laughed despite herself. they did look a ridiculous lot, all of them were soaked and James had a bit of seaweed in his hair.
When they arrived on shore, Lily exited the boat quickly, glaring at James with every ounce of hatred in her body.
The prefects were scurrying about worrying to themselves about the nearly averted disaster.
The castle was even more beautiful on the inside. Elaborate paintings decorated the halls and to Lily's surprised, they moved about, chatting amongst themselves about the new students. Moving suits of armor walked around clankikly and an occasional ghost floated by and shocked the first years into fits of subsequent screams and giggles.
Lily felt as if she had just entered a new and magical world.