Disclaimer: If I were Jo, I'd be living in a palace somewhere in Ireland, eating donuts and drinking chocolate milk. J
M-mail will be used in this one! (The story can't survive without it)
Have you ever had a friend that was just absolutely, absolutely perfect? I have. I don't mean perfect like model perfect, someone who looks like they just stepped out of a plastic surgery place. Those people scare me, honestly. I mean perfect like being born perfect. Tina Burnhardt is like that. My best friend. She's not the loveliest person in the world, but she's pretty. She's just plain adorable, and there's something about her that attracts everybody. But Tina has that special magic that makes everybody want to be her friend, and guys want her as their girlfriend. Everybody wants to know her, and she's just…special.
Dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Ordinary combination, but she just seems to sparkle. Short, and nondescript, but even my other friends love her.
Honest to goodness, I'm surprised she's my best friend. She's so…so perfect. And then there's me. Little Lily Evans. Slightly taller than Tina, dark red hair, green eyes. Slightly plump. Overly sarcastic. A regular geek. Acquaintances with everybody, but friends with only a few.
Tina goes to Beauxbatons. I go to Hogwarts. We're childhood friends, since first year at a Muggle primary school. She lives near me (other side of London, in fact), but for some reason attends Beauxbatons.
See, Tina moved from London to Paris, and she began at Beauxbatons. (We didn't know that we were witches together, then. We found out about each other by accident.) Then she moved back to London, but refused to transfer to Hogwarts. I think it had something to do with Hogwarts sounding like Warthog. Ah, well. She does have a point. Tina's funny like that.
Sometimes I feel…oh, I don't know. Like I'm just…there. It's kinda like the Marauders, actually. I feel like Peter sometimes, and Tina's the equivalent of James or Sirius. I'm just barely hanging on to her social whirlwind. Peter's like that. Short, mousy looking… I'm surprised he's even friends with them.
Yeah, I know that I'm doing self pity crap. But sometimes it's hard not to. I just feel so…so alone sometimes.
Have you ever felt that? Where you're surrounded by people, but still kind of…detached. It's an odd feeling. As if… you're separate.
But back to Tina.
She's so…perfect. There's no other word for it. Tina's not super smart, but she's not dumb. She gets all O's, but doesn't brag about it. Tina enchants all her teachers, and ditches school, but doesn't get caught or even in trouble. She just lies and says that the Arithmancy teacher needed her or something.
I'm…just me. I can't do that. I've got a reputation for being "lil Miss
Goody-goody," and I don't know how to break out of that shell. I follow all the rules, I pay attention in class, I tutor kids who need help. I…I turn down boys because girls like me don't associate with guys like James.
If you date James or Sirius, you're asking for trouble. By rights, I should have a crush on Remus. Actually, if I wanted to be an "average Hogwarts girl", I'd have on one (or in some cases, all three) of them. But I'm not your average Hogwarts girl. (Or male, in some cases. Not that I have anything against gay people. I just don't happen to swing that way.)
I think it's just habit for James to ask me out. Originally, it started probably because he wanted to get closer to the "girl who had all the answers in Charms and Arithmancy". Not that he isn't smart. In fact, I know for sure that he's waaaaaay beyond the average seventh year.
He's just lazy.
That's right. Ok, so he's not lazy when it comes to pranks and all.
But schoolwork?
Other than DADA and Transfiguration, he doesn't seem to pay much attention. And he only takes notes in DADA and Transfig because he wants to be an Auror. How do I know this?
He ran around the school bragging his head off. Like I care that his father has "connections and whatnot". I can make my own way in this world by myself. I have to. There's two things counting against me.
a) I'm a girl.
b) I'm a Muggle-born.
Muggle women in America have begun suffragette campaigns (even my aunts Rose, Lily, Marigold, and Chrysanthemum have joined in. Yes, I have a lot of aunts. And that's just four of them!), but here in England, it's not happening yet. And wizards just don't see that most Muggle-born people are perfectly sensible. If Salazar Slytherin had his way, I'd be a perfectly happy Muggle.
Ok, maybe not.
I'd probably kill myself before the age of ten. Magical explosions and whatnot would be the death of me. Magic is uncontrollable, unless you learn to tame it. So, that's why I'm at Hogwarts.
And thank goodness for Godric Gryffindor.
I have a habit of getting off-topic. It's probably apparent by now, but my mind is rather quick. The chain of events is like this:: James-Classes-him being lazy-me making my way by myself-prejudices against women and Muggle-born people-killing myself.
That chain of thought can form itself in a matter of split-seconds.
So you might say that I'm above average in the IQ department. That's my only strength.
I'm not beautiful. I'm "pleasantly plump" and moderately pretty, actually, but I don't really mind. If my body wants to be fat, fine. Alright, so I'm not totally happy with it. But I don't have time to run around and do track (like Tina) and I'm absolutely hopeless at Quidditch. (don't get me near a broom). I know I have large eyes, and they're actually quite pretty, once I discovered that "healing sight spell". It was an old spell, and I didn't find out until afterwards that I could've died in the process. But enough about that.
I also have a penchant for bread and butter. I'm not sure why, but I have to have at least two slices of bread a day, smothered in butter. That could be the cause of my plumpness…hmm…
Aw, crap. There's Jamie. Jamie Ubaldi is slightly, er, obese (twice as wide as I am, and half as tall too). She's on the yearbook with me, and she's sooooooo annoying. This is what happened yesterday.
So the Gryffindor cheerleaders were selling sticks of beef jerky for a Knut apiece. One of the cheerleaders is Terryn, and she makes a lot of money off of James and Sirius. (They love beef jerky more than I love bread.) Jamie wanted to know what beef jerky was made out of, and we were all sitting at tables, working on our pages. It was fun. All of a sudden, she looks over at me and asks, "What's beef jerky made of?"
Kathleen Foster, a tall, gothic girl and fab writer, just rolled her eyes at me and said, "Beef." Duh. What else would BEEF jerky be made out of? I finished scribbling out some ideas and shoved them towards Kathleen, who grinned and said, "Lovely, Lily. Now…what if we just change this, and there you go! Perfect!" She slid it back towards me.
Jamie didn't get it. She kept asking, "Well, then what's the jerky made out of?"
I have a sarcastic streak, as mentioned above. It's just a part of me. I'm overly sarcastic, what can I say?
So I rolled my eyes (who else's eyes would I roll? That's a stupid expression) at her and said, "Frog Liver." She's such an idiot. I was thinking, If she fell for that, she'd probably believe that Hallie Wendlyn is my alter ego. Hallie Wendlyn is like the hottest pop singer at the moment. She's like my idol. I love her music.
She fell for it.
I couldn't believe it.
She fell for it.
"Is it really?" Jamie asked naively. I shrugged, not paying any attention to her. So she skipped around to the other tables and asked, "Lenea, is jerky really frog liver?"
How dumb can you get? We're seventeen, for chrissakes! Ok, I'll stop cussing.
I cuss a lot too.
Think I forgot to mention that.
So…what else to talk about. At the moment…nothing. Well….James.
I honestly think he only keeps asking me out as a habit, which originated from a bet (or so the rumors say) with Sirius in fourth year. I mean, why would one of the most wanted people in the school bother with somebody like me? People like James go out with people like Tina. Speaking of which…there's another M-mail from her right now. Wait, no. Better yet, it's an Mim! (Magical Instant Messenger)
JumpAroundUpnDown: Hey chicka!
XlilsmartypantsX: Tenie Beanie! Hey!
JumpAroundUpnDown: Ugh. Don't call me that! How's life?
XlilsmartypantsX: It's ok. Kinda boring. So, who's your current bf?
JumpAroundUpnDown: Garrett something. He's soooooooo cute! Not to mention funny. Here, want to talk to him?
The one thing I have never fathomed is Tina's boyfriends. Even after she breaks up with them, they're still friends! I haven't even had one boyfriend…
XlilsmartypantsX: Sure, why not!
UrWORSTnitemare has entered the MIM.
XlilsmartypantsX: Hey Garrett.
JumpAroundUpnDown: GARRETT! Missed ya!
And the conversation proceeded like that. But yeah. Even then, I felt rather…isolated. I'm always cold. I could be standing in a desert and be cold. It's very odd. Then again, I'm an odd person.
AAH! I'm always re-examining myself. I never stop.
It's like I'm this person outside of my body, and I'm looking in and scrutinizing my own thoughts.
Ok, I'm gonna stop. In fact, I'm going to bed.
But this is the way most of my life works.
Back to my original point! Yeah, there's nothing particularly special about me. I don't have that sparkle like Tina does. I'm not popular like James or Sirius. I'm not pretty like Kathleen. I'm just me.
A/n: This is slightly different from OotP. Lily doesn't really hate James. She just doesn't really care for him one way or the other. This is only the first chappie, but tell me what you think, so I'll know whether I should go on.
There won't be another update in awhile, unless I get an urge to write. I still have ICE, LDAW, GP, and PP to work on at the moment, so…yeah. Hehe.