A/N: i beg you, my readers, of your forgiveness while you read my really, really stupid writing. read and review please! i love flames so give them to me and i'll make my writing better! :-D oh, and i don't own harry potter or any of those characters, but if i did, i'd have all the bad guys in my bedroom in a heartbeat ;-)

August 25th, 1972 Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft

Lily Evans fidgeted in the uncomfortable armchair her Charms' professor had pulled out for her. Professor Flitwick was fairly young, but it was suspected he had elvish blood in him, for the man was very small and spoke in a high-pitched, sometimes squeaky voice. He was, however, astoundingly good with his charms.
"Now then Ms. Evans," the professor squeaked while dangling his midsection over his trunk, rummaging through junk, "I believe I have it around here somewhere........aha!"
The professor grunted and Lily saw that he was struggling to lift a heavy, black object that looked like a cauldron. She got up and went to try and to help him, but then Flitwick fell off the trunk, stumbling wildly backwards, crashing into Lily, who in turn stumbled into a cage, which contained on odd-looking bird. The door had came loose and strangely, the bird was now flying around the room squawking:
"Dung pie! Dung pie! Lot of y'all!"
It had an interesting Scottish accent.
"Professor, I'm so sorry........" Lily tried to say, while jumping up and down in a feeble attempt to recapture the insane bird.
"Ah, no! No, Ms. Evans!"
But it was too late. The bird had turned onto Lily and was now proceeding to peck her hair out madly.
"Accio Janathu!"
The bird flew into the cage, and the door slammed with a resounding crash.
"Dammit," the bird cussed under its breath.
Professor Flitwick shook his head, "Terribly sorry about that, Ms. Evans. One of our students put a particularly well placed charm on the Janathu, and now it won't stop insulting anyone who comes within fifty miles of it. Rather dangerous, since we had those blokes from the Soviet Union over to visit Dumbledore the other day........creature wouldn't desist in calling them a bunch of 'pig-faced, red-arsed commie basties'."
Lily giggled, but Flitwick just sighed and placed the black cauldron- resembling object heavily onto his desk.
"You're a bright girl, Ms. Evans. By far one of my best Charms students, although to be fair, I've only been here for three years so........Anyways!" he clapped his hands gleefully, "It is my pride and joy to present you with.......do you know what this is called?"
But instead of trying to identify the thing, Lily interrupted:
"Who charmed the bird?"
"Who else? Potter and Black."
"Anything to get attention," Lily huffed, but her ears grew red.
Flitwick chortled, "Yes, yes, well. Let's not dwell.........as I was saying—no, I do believe I asked you if you knew what this was."
Lilly snapped back to reality; she had been thinking furiously about how egotistical James Potter could be. The black thing looked unordinary, but as she peered into it—
"Why! It's a Pensieve!"
Again, Flitwick clapped his hands in delight. "Indeed! And you know of its purpose?"
"Oh, yes. They allow you to reflect on your thoughts easily, try to make sort out of them."
"Yes, well, close enough. It's a complicated thing. Like all magical objects it has risks........but they're very rare. Anyway, Ms. Evans, after class today we discussed the properties of an Avelford Charm. Very difficult magic; it took even myself a full three years to learn how to do it properly, and of course, you have to be the sort who can clear your mind very well. I must warn you Ms. Evans, the risks of the Pensieve combined with the risks of performing such an advanced charm could combine and cause a disastrous event. Now are you absolutely sure you want to try this?"
"Yes Professor." Lily nodded eagerly.
"Well, I dare say........I'm a bit nervous about this, seeing as you're only a second year—but outstanding talent at charms Ms. Evans........outstanding......."
Lily had stepped up to the Pensieve and was about to remove a thought from her mind and put it in the Pensieve when she noticed how old it was.
"It's quite old isn't it?"
"Oh. Well, yes. It's actually rather ancient; I believe it dates back to the times before the founders of the school. It belonged to the ancestor of Rowena Ravenclaw, and it's been passed down the centuries ever since."
"Wow," Lily breathed, "That is old."
She put her wand to her head and drew a long, silvery strand and it dropped into the silvery liquid. There was a disturbance on the surface, and then the liquid settled back into its placidness.
"Very good! Continue, please."
Lily prodded the Pensieve with her wand, and without warning she was falling, falling, into darkness. She hit the ground, her robes splayed and her wand on the ground next to her.
She was in the Great Hall on the first day of school at Hogwarts in her first year. Was that her, so small, pale and terrified looking, huddled in that group? She immediately spotted James Potter sneaking up behind her. Lily knew what was going to happen, and she floated effortlessly, so that instantaneously, she was next to her younger self and James's younger self.

She tried to speak, but her voice was echoing, and apparently nobody could hear her. The frog went down her robes and she shrieked loudly.
Albus Dumbledore halted in the middle of his speech and looked at Lily Evans, not reproachfully, but with mild curiosity.
"Is there a problem?" he asked with genuine curiosity.
Meanwhile Lily the Younger was doing a strange sort of dance, slapping at her robes where the lump of a frog was moving. James, however, was roaring with laughter and Sirius Black looked on with admiration.
"Nice man," he muttered to James, "Very good. Bit amateurish though."
"It's good enough. James Potter," he held out his hand.
"Sirius Black, pleasure observing. I can see we're going to get along very, very well."
The two boys, already now fast friends, clapped each other's backs and went on to observe Lily's amusing dance.
If Lily were entirely solid, she would have been blushing furiously at the sight of her younger self shrieking and hopping about while all of the Great Hall looked on, gaping, and Albus Dumbledore standing, looking on in amusement, his short welcome having been interrupted.
When the frog finally jumped out ("Oh Ned!" a boy cried, diving for the frog, "There you are!" "Frank, no!" a girl screamed, and another boy rolled his eyes, "Good to see Longbottom's found his frog."), Dumbledore cleared his throat.
"As I was saying before Ms. Evans took it upon herself to be this night's entertainment—very generous if I may say Ms. Evans—would the first years please step up and be sorted into their Houses?"
"This way first years!" McGonagall snapped, and the crowd of first years followed her, James and Sirius looking greatly amused, a peaky- looking boy who kept looking anxiously above at the enchanted ceiling where the moon was shining, almost full, and a small, rotund boy who had a rather rat-like appearance about him included.
No names were read aloud for the sorting. Instead each first year was shoved gently towards the stool, and the hat was pulled over their eyes. It would then call out their House and the House table would erupt in applause.
Lily glided towards the stool and watched on in interest as each of her now twelve-year-old or thirteen-year-old classmates were sorted in their Houses.
The quartet, James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus Lupin were sorted into Gryffindor of course. Upon sitting down, James accidentally knocked himself into Lupin, but Lupin grinned half-heartedly and said something. Sirius barked a laugh and James grinned. They shook hands and made introductions. Peter looked onto them longingly.
When it was Lily's turn—that is, the younger Lily—to be sorted, Lily's own heart beat in quick anticipation on her younger counterpart's behalf. Lord, she looked so terrified, Lily was surprised she didn't faint back then.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
The table erupted in hearty applause and cheers, and James made a little flourish of a bow towards her as she walked shakily to the table. However, Lily could see that even at that moment, her younger self could still manage to shoot a baleful glare at him. Good girl, she silently congratulated her younger self.
"Lily?"
It was Flitwick's voice? It sounded booming and very animated; what was he doing here? Lily looked around her.
"Lily? Will you be performing the Avelford Charm soon?"
Of course! It was Professor Flitwick's voice speaking to her from the outside of the Pensieve. She did need to perform the charm, but first she needed to find somewhere isolated so people wouldn't see another Lily Evans appear out of thin air. The charm was supposed to make a Pensieve experience become real; in a way, it was time travel even. Once you performed it, only an outsider of the Pensieve could make it so that you didn't have to relive your past up until the present moment you performed the charm, and bring you back home outside the Pensieve. That was what Professor Flitwick was there for.
A strange tugging wouldn't allow her to leave the Great Hall. The tables were now engorging themselves onto the feast and paid her no attention still. She couldn't leave the room.
"Lily, you can't abandon your younger self. You can't go somewhere other than where you are in a Pensieve because your thoughts can't recreate what you couldn't see or process when you were living out that experience the first time around," Professor Flitwick's booming voice reminded her.
Lily knew that; she just temporarily forgot it. So she opted for crawling under one of the tables and performing the charm. She would time travel for a brief second and then upon seeing her success, Professor Flitwick would incite the counter charm, bringing her back home.
It was crowded, slightly dusty, and feet constantly passed through her. It was an eerie feeling, having somebody else's body part just passing through you even if you weren't solid. This is how ghosts must feel, Lily thought to herself.
"Ave—Aveshfloor—
Somebody's foot passed right through her face, shocking her.
"Avelforno Avelford!" she finished after stumbling.
"NO!" she heard Professor Flitwick's voice scream.
The Pensieve seemed to be collapsing around her. The skies—the ceiling—broke apart in jagged pieces, and the ground shook horribly as if the world were coming apart. And the funny thing was, while everybody was getting torn apart with jagged edges (it was almost like being in a drawing a two-year-old was ripping up), they kept right on talking, eating, and laughing. They didn't know what was happening.
Lily screamed in terror as the blackness that seeped through the tears enveloped her. It froze her, made her so cold........

A/N: review please! it's button right there...you can do it! go team, go! (i'm sorry; i've acted really weird again)