Author's Note: Once upon a time, I wrote a very long fic that spanned the course of seven years at Hogwarts and centred on James Potter. I decided not to publish it until I was finished it completely. It was over fifty chapters and over two-hundred and thirty thousand words long when my old computer died entirely and lost everything I had ever written. Consequentially, this is the reason why I never re-posted some of the older fics I had written and then removed for editing. I was an idiot who never backed up her work. I have since learned my lesson and bought an external drive, but that story is long lost, and I will never be able to write it again. It's gutting, because I was really proud of it. Peter had a properly sizeable role. James was forced to take on a summer job in a Muggle post office at one point. My favourite original character, Beatrice Booth, actually died in a rather tragic accident. Remus had a satchel.

Why am I talking about this? It occurred to me earlier that I have published several different kinds of fics over the years, but the one fic I have not, as of yet, published, is a straight-up, multi-chapter, drama-filled, spanning-longer-than-a-day-or-so, set-at-Hogwarts work of fandom fuelled fiction. I can never recreate the ridiculous length of my original one, but at the very least, I can write something that covers the course of a couple of years, right?

I like to think so. That's why I've decided to post one, but I don't want it to be typical. I am not fond of typical. Typical isn't any fun. So this one won't be typical, and you'll be able to see why when you reach the end of this chapter.

CHAPTER ONE

Uncivilised Beasts

The summer of 1976 was, without a doubt, the most blistering and uncomfortable few months of weather that Britain had ever experienced in all recorded history.

The temperature in Cokeworth was high, unreasonably high, and especially unreasonable for sixteen-year-old Lily Evans who, with her dark red hair and ivory coloured skin, was ill equipped to survive such sweltering sunshine without suffering serious damage. On two separate occasions, she had failed to be vigilant with the sun cream and been very badly burned, and on two separate occasions, she had been left with a smattering of fresh freckles on her arms, face and shoulders. The freckles did not bother her in the slightest, but the heat, which had gone so far that summer as to lead to a nationwide drought, was beyond her ability to endure with any ease.

Lily was home from school for her summer holidays, and had spent the majority of the month in a horizontal position, mostly comatose, alternating between her bed and the sitting room sofa, afraid to step outside of the house for fear of melting. Occasionally, she would venture into the kitchen to play Scrabble with her mother, complain about the weather, fight her sister for the last of the lemonade - there never seemed to be a full bottle available - or stand motionless in front of the family's one electric fan, which lived next to the back door and had spent the entirety of the summer set to full blast.

It was nearing the end of July and Lily was hidden away in her bedroom, lying on her bed, her curtains drawn and her t-shirt tied beneath her chest. On the floor lay an open suitcase into which nothing had been packed, and surrounding it were mounds of colourful clothes that had been pulled from her wardrobe with evident purpose, but dropped to the floor when the oppressive heat had rid her of all of her most energetic intentions.

Lily was supposed to be packing in preparation for the family holiday, but due partly to the heat, and mostly to her disinterest in going on holiday to begin with, she had not made much headway in getting things done. In three days' time, Lily, her sister and her parents were to travel to a holiday resort in Majorca, where, Lily could only assume, conditions would be just as insufferable as they were in Cokeworth, but with the slightly mollifying addition of a swimming pool within easy reach. The holiday had been planned in honour of her elder sister, who was moving out of the house upon their return to live in London and pursue a typing course, a life-changing decision that Petunia had been bragging about at every available opportunity since Lily had returned from Hogwarts. After all, what did a miserable old boarding school in northernmost Scotland compare to the bustling and glamourous city of London, the centre of all that was current and urbane?

Actually, it compared quite well, all things considered. Spending ten months of the year in the middle of nowhere, in a place where going outside meant battling gale force winds on a near daily basis, was far more fun than one would expect, when one was attending a school for magic. Petunia had studied Mathematics and French during her sojourn at school; Lily studied Arithmancy and Charms, and could transform a mouse into a side plate with a flick of her wand. Being a witch, Lily believed, was probably a lot more fun than being a typist.

Of course, being a witch was significantly less fun when one was not permitted to perform magic during the holidays, particularly during a blazing drought. There should have been an emergency clause in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, Lily had bitterly thought on many an occasion that summer. A girl should have been able to conjure up some water every now and again without running the risk of being permanently expelled.

Lily hadn't moved from her bed that day for close to two and a half hours. Her father, who was the manager of the nearby Sainsbury's, had brought home a delicious substance called Nutella the previous evening, and she had been eating it straight from the jar, which was balanced on her exposed stomach as she lay on her back. She was sweaty and motionless, a gluttonous pig, with her hair damp and stuck to her face. She was waiting for her parents to return home from the chip shop with dinner; her mother had long since lost the energy to cook in the heat, and the family had been living off battered cod for a week.

"Gonna keep on dancing to the rock and roll," she chanted dully, scowling up at her bedroom ceiling. Petunia, who was sunning herself in the back garden, had been playing that song repeatedly, and at top volume, for the past thirty minutes, and Lily felt as if the lyrics had been seared into her brain with a scalding hot poker. "On Saturday night, Saturday night. I hate this stupid song," she added sullenly, and turned her head to the side a fraction to look at her owl, Julia, who was sitting grumpily in her cage. "Why does she have to play it over and over?"

Lily's owl, a small, brown, normally good-natured beastie, hooted her disapproval. Petunia's addiction to the Bay City Rollers was gradually leading to the breakdown in mental stability of everyone who lived in the house. For the sake of her parents, she was glad that her older sister was moving out at the end of the summer, but it didn't do Lily much good in the present.

"PETUNIA!" she shouted, hoping that she would be heard over the din of her sister's record, and not have to get up from her comfortable spot. "PETUNIA, TURN THAT BLOODY MUSIC OFF!"

There was no response from downstairs, and all that Lily's yelling seemed to serve to do was irritate her owl further; Julia gave another loud hoot of condemnation and promptly turned her back on her. Sighing heavily, Lily sat up and swung her bare legs off the edge of the bed, promptly upsetting the jar of Nutella; the gooey brown substance had melted in the heat, and her shorts were presently destroyed.

"Fantastic," Lily breathed, picking up the jar and setting it on her bedside locker before any more of the dratted stuff could stain her sheets. Up until five seconds before, her shorts had been snow white and spotless. "I look like I've shit myself."

She left her bedroom and sprinted across the landing to her parents' room, went to the window and looked outside. Their back garden consisted of a small rectangle of space that was generally almost entirely filled with flowers, but was now filled with the remnants of dead plants that hadn't managed to survive the summer.

Petunia was lying on a red and white striped beach chair, in the sunniest part of the garden, reading a magazine and clad in a black one piece that she wore whenever she thought she was Debbie Harry, her blonde hair styled to complete the ensemble. The record player was not visible, which meant that Petunia had simply turned it on in the kitchen and left the back door open.

Until very recently, that beach chair had been stuffed in the back of the garden shed, and Lily had been the one who was forced to go in to get it for her sister due to Petunia's crippling fear of spiders. She had shoved her way through various piles of junk, including two rusted pink bicycles that dated back to their childhood, planks of wood, tins of paint, and a broken old lawnmower that had given her knee a fabulous bruise, while her sister watched from behind giant sunglasses and offered no assistance whatsoever. Once Lily had wrenched it out into the garden, sticky with sweat and nursing her injured leg, the girls had discovered that it was damp and mildewed and covered in slugs, and Petunia had run away from the scene in disgust.

Lily was not an ill-tempered person, but the heat did bad things to her and she had been furious with Petunia for not appreciating her efforts. Their mother, however, had come to the rescue by fixing up the chair with a little of Mrs Skower's All Purpose Magical Mess Remover, which she always bought a generous supply of whenever she accompanied her youngest daughter to Diagon Alley. Petunia, who despised magic, had not been made aware of this fact, and was under the impression that her mother had simply placed a lot of effort into scrubbing it clean. In terms of a victory, it was pathetically small, but it had kept Lily from attempting to knock Petunia unconscious.

"PETUNIA!" she repeated, this time garnering the attention of her sunbathing sister, not to mention poor old Mr Bird, who was cutting his grass in the neighbouring garden. Her sister lifted her sunglasses from her face and blinked up at the bedroom window.

"WHAT?" she responded, looking put out that Lily had interrupted her quality time with herself.

"TURN THE MUSIC OFF!" Lily cried, and considered waving her arms around to emphasise her point, but decided against it. It was far too hot to emphasise anything.

Petunia kindly responded to her request by dropping her sunglasses back over her eyes and returning to her magazine.

"Oh, that complete cow," Lily murmured under her breath, tossing her hair in indignation as she turned on her heel to storm dramatically out of her parents' bedroom. She contemplated going back into her room and hiding her head under her pillow to drown out the sound, but that didn't sound appealing, so instead, she thundered downstairs and into the kitchen.

Sure enough, the record player was standing on the kitchen counter, coldly oblivious to the many sufferings of the angry redheaded girl who advanced upon it. Lily ripped the plug out of the wall with some relish, and her sister immediately raced into the kitchen, enraged.

Events such as these were a daily occurrence for Lily and Petunia.

"Who do you think you are, turning it off?" Petunia screeched, pulling off her sunglasses and glaring at her sister. The sun had not affected Petunia negatively at all, save to make her more obnoxious than usual. Her skin was tanned and free from sweat, and her hair had turned golden, and was not sticking to her face as Lily's was. Petunia Evans worshipped the sun; Lily hated it. It was one of the many subjects upon which they disagreed. "You plug that back in right now!"

"You're deafening half the street, Tuney," Lily retorted. "I'm committing an act of public service!"

"I haven't heard anyone else complaining!"

"That's because you can't hear anyone else complaining!"

"Who are you," Petunia snarled, making a grab for the plug in Lily's hand and missing, because Lily swung her arm out of the way. "To tell me what to do in this house?"

"It's as much my house as it is yours!"

"You're only here for two months out of the year!"

"Oh, right, because you really love having me around," Lily scoffed, laughing outright at her sister's ridiculous argument. "I could've sworn it was you who wanted me to spend the entire summer at Hog-"

Petunia hissed loudly, her grey eyes wide and fearful. She slammed the back door shut. "Don't say things like that when the neighbours can hear!"

"Well, then," said Lily, with a triumphant grin, holding the plug out for her sister to take. Petunia had unwittingly handed her a valuable bargaining tool. "Don't play your music like you're in a bloody disco, and maybe I won't be driven to make such silly mistakes."

"Oh, fine," Petunia conceded, with a roll of her eyes, taking the plug from Lily and setting it down next to the record player. She caught sight of Lily's shorts, and her lip curled in disgust. "What did you do to your shorts?"

Lily looked down at her shorts. The Nutella had begun to dry into the fabric, forming a hard, crusty, and interesting looking stain in the vicinity of her crotch.

"I shit myself."

"Front-ways?" said Petunia, incredulously, raising her eyebrows.

"You can do things like that," said Lily, with a shrug. "When you're magic."

Lily heard the sound of the front door opening in the hallway, which was shortly followed by the arrival of her beloved parents, Andrew and Grace, who entered the kitchen holding a brown paper bag apiece. Both appeared to be suffering from heatstroke.

"Alright, girls?" said Lily's father, a tall, bald, broad-shouldered man, from whom Lily had inherited her emerald green eyes. He looked as if he were suffocating to death in the suit he was wearing. Her father despised suits, but to wear one was a requirement when one was the boss at work. He dropped his bag onto the kitchen counter and picked up a tea towel with which he could wipe his perspiring brow. "What's the news?"

"Lily shit herself," said Petunia dryly. "I'm going to change for dinner."

She flounced out of the room, pausing only to kiss her mother and father on the cheek, as was the rule in the Evans household. Nonplussed by her sister's denouncement, Lily began to unpack the bag that her father had set down, the contents of which mostly consisted of greasy, delicious smelling food from the local chippy.

"Shit yourself again, Lily?" her father quipped, filling a glass from a bottle of water they had stored in the fridge before the drought restrictions had been announced. He downed it in record time and didn't seem to care that some of it missed his mouth completely.

"I'm out of control, Dad."

"That's my girl," he said, and ruffled the top of his daughter's sweaty red head. "I'm going to pop upstairs and get changed, love," he added, looking to his wife for approval. "I'm melting away in this bloody suit."

"Did you get the battered sausage I asked for?" said Lily to her mother, after her father had left the room and dashed upstairs, presumably to set fire to his suit and laugh maniacally as he watched it burn to ashes.

"They'll be in there somewhere," her mother replied, pulling bottles of lemonade out of her own paper bag and setting them down next to the sink. "Does your mother ever let you down?"

"Perish the thought," said Lily, with a wry smile. "Shall I get forks and plates and stuff, or should we just eat out of the bags like uncivilised beasts?"

"Uncivilised beasts, I think."

"Petunia will love that."

"Petunia will recover eventually," said Grace, grinning at her daughter. Lily's mother was a shorter, prettier, and somewhat more curvaceous version of Petunia, sharing the same blonde hair and light grey eyes, but lacking the expression of disgust and disapproval that seemed to be constantly plastered across her eldest daughter's face. All of the women on her mother's side of the family had blonde hair, and everyone on Andrew's side had dark hair, so it had come as somewhat of a surprise to Andrew and Grace when their second daughter was born a ginger. "You wouldn't pop those bottles in the fridge, would you?"

"Of course," said Lily, picking up the lemonade bottles to carry them to the fridge. Now that the prospect of dinner was before her, her mood had taken a definite turn for the better. "Did you have fun picking Dad up from work?"

"Same old, same old," said her mother. "Actually, though, we saw that friend of yours when we were leaving the chip shop."

"That friend of mine?" Lily opened the fridge, which had mostly been filled with bottles of water, lemonade and fruit juice to help them survive the drought. "What friend of mine?"

"Oh, you know," said her mother, twirling one of her fingers in the air as she tried to dredge up the memory. "That boy you pal around with, what's his name, you know who I'm talking about."

Lily scowled to herself. The only friend of hers who lived within a twenty-mile radius of Cokeworth was Severus Snape, and he had ceased to be a friend over a month ago. Lily had attempted to rescue him from a gang of bullies and he had thanked her by throwing a bigoted slur in his face. That had really been the icing on top of the cake that was the year in which one of her best friends had decided to become a Death Eater. Death Eaters were glorified henchmen, working for a powerful, terrifying maniac named Voldemort, who had a penchant for murder and a strong desire to rid the magical community of Muggle-born wizards. As a member of the Muggle-born club herself, Lily found it difficult to remain friends with a person who was prepared to commit himself to hunting down and murdering people like her. Severus Snape seemed to be finding it difficult to understand any of this logic, but in any case, their friendship was over and done with.

"Sev and I aren't friends any more, Mum," she reminded her mother as she retrieved a carton of juice and closed the fridge. "He was getting really possessive."

That was a half-truth. Severus had been getting possessive, but the other reasons for their estrangement were not suitable to be shared with her parents. Lily did not want to attempt to explain Voldemort to her parents, because that would mean explaining that her own life was in danger, and that would terrify her mother and father. She especially didn't know how she could tell her mother that the little boy for whom she had once cooked fish fingers and chips for might one day try to murder her daughter.

"No, not Severus," said her mother, shaking her head impatiently. "I know Severus well enough to remember his name. It was that other boy."

Lily frowned. There weren't any other Hogwarts boys who lived in the area. "What boy?"

"The one from your house. You know, the good-looking one with the glasses. And the hair." She raised her hands to either side of her head and made a wild, shaking motion to indicate that the hair in question was rather messy. "You know who I'm talking about."

"The hair?" Lily echoed, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. There were any number of boys at Hogwarts who wore glasses, but only one who had "hair", at least, the kind of annoyingly impressive hair that required bizarre hand gestures. "You're not serious, are you?"

"Andrew," said Lily's mother, for her father had just entered the kitchen, looking entirely more comfortable in a t-shirt and football shorts. "What was the name of that boy from Lily's school that we saw outside the chip shop earlier?"

"The one with the hair?"

"Obviously. How many other boys from Lily's school have you seen around today?"

"Hang on, I had it a few moments ago," replied her dad, sitting down at the kitchen table with his greasy bag of chips, and an equally greasy steak and kidney pie. "Potter, wasn't it?"

"James Potter?" said Lily. "You're telling me that James Potter was hanging around outside the local chippy for no reason?"

"That's his name!" cried her mother, slapping the table with the palm of her hand. "And here I was thinking it was Jeremy! what am I like?"

"There's no way that James Potter was outside the chip shop," said Lily emphatically. The sudden appearance of James Potter in Cokeworth could not spell good things for her. "He lives in Wales, or something like that. Are you sure it was him?"

"Yes, it was. I remembered him from the platform last month," said her mother. "He's a lovely looking boy. Your silly old Mum does have eyes that work, you know."

"Oh, bloody hell, not him," Lily groaned, and both parents turned to look at her in surprise. "Not James Potter, not here. Seriously, Mum, please tell me you're lying."

"Why would I make up a lie like that?" said her mother, looking bemused. "I thought you were friends with him?"

"No, I am bloody well not friends with him!" Lily cried, utterly baffled as to where her parents had gotten that ridiculous idea. Her mother and father had met Potter at the train platform on two separate occasions, and on neither of those occasions had Lily made any overly friendly overtures towards the boy. James Potter and Lily Evans were not friends, not by a long shot. "He's an idiot! I can't stand him! Why were you two talking to him at the chip shop?"

"We weren't talking to him," said her father. "We saw him as we were leaving in the car. He was with someone, anyway, don't think he saw us."

"With someone?" The stone in her stomach sunk even further. "The person he was with, did he have long, dark hair and look as if he might spend his free time vandalising car parks?"

"What? No," said Lily's mother, with a laugh, as she joined her husband at the table with her own food. "He was with some woman."

"Some woman?" Lily repeated, and frowned. "Why on earth would he be with a woman?"

Lily's parents smirked at her, and to her annoyance she realised that she had successfully convinced them into believing that she was harbouring some kind of crush on James Potter, had been whipped up into a lustful frenzy upon hearing of his presence in Cokeworth and was now wildly jealous to learn that he was with another girl. She couldn't really blame them for it either, her strong reaction considered, but she didn't care if James Potter hung around with a hundred women. She immediately adopted a nonchalant expression which didn't even fool her.

"I really don't care who he's with," she said, trying to sound casually disinterested. "When he calls here, I don't want to see him."

"Ooh," said her mother, pulling a comical face. "Someone's pleased with herself!"

"Pardon?"

"Why do you think he'd be here just to see you?" said her father. "You said you weren't friends."

Lily's retort died on her lips. She had been on the verge of telling her parents that James Potter liked to follow her around and harass her, but that would have been a lie and it would have made her conceited. He had asked her out a few times over the last year, perhaps because he was bored, perhaps because he wanted to embarrass her or (most likely) perhaps he just wanted to make Severus jealous. She didn't know the reason; she had always turned him down and it never seemed to bother him much. She suspected that he was joking and didn't want to go out with her at all. He acted like an idiot whenever she was around, but he was always acting like an idiot. That hardly counted as harassment.

"Right," she said flatly. "Right, yeah. He's probably here for some other reason. He probably doesn't even know that I live here."

"You're probably right, love," agreed her mother, staring past her husband's head and into the sitting room, at something only she could see. "Of course, that is him out there in the front garden."

Author's Note: I have created a poll. It's on my profile. At the end of every chapter I write for this story, I will post a poll immediately afterwards. I get so many lovely reviews from readers who have been kind enough to stick with me for so many years in spite of the fact that I have been known to be a bad updater, and so I thought it would be really fun if you guys could vote in my polls and basically decide on aspects of the story for me. Obviously, I have a basic plot worked out, but there are lots of other little factors to consider, and polls are fun, and I hope you guys like the idea. Interactive fanfiction!

For my first poll, I would very much like it if you guys could decide on who Lily's best friend is going to be. There are five options, and I have a small plot in mind for each girl, so it is a decision that will affect the story somewhat, but no matter who wins out the core of this fic is very much Lily and James, and will remain so throughout. Please vote, because it's my birthday on Tuesday, and that's a good as reason as any, right?

Anyway, that's about it. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

EDIT: The poll has now closed!