A Not So Brief Introduction to This Story

I feel like I have to say a few things before you start reading. You can skip over straight to the story if you like, but if you're a skeptic about AU stories, it'd do you better to read this first.

First of all, this is a fanfiction. That means I don't own any of the characters – except my OC – or places in the story: they belong to JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. So just making that clear.

Second, this is my first multi-chaptered fanfiction, and an AU one at that, so please don't give me a hard time about canon and timelines and OoCness and things like that. In fact, the OoCness of the characters in this story is something I intentionally did, just to make things a little different.

Three, there is one thing that I messed up in this story – namely, the span of time over which it happens. I know that it is probably impossible to have so much happen in one week, so if you ever decide to point that out, I already know it. Cut me some slack.

Fourthly, I have finished this story and will be updating it once a week. Also, a lot of the chapters end with cliffhangers, but I won't be doing "recaps" – they just piss me off for some reason – so at any point, if you don't remember what happened earlier, just click on the little blue back button next to the chapter title and scroll to the bottom of the page to refresh your memory.

And last of all, I have only showed this story to one person before – and she loved it. Usually I stray far away from stories that are AU and promise OCs and un-canon things and OoCness, but trust me on this: You will not be disappointed. I put enormous amounts of effort into this story – I stayed up several nights, desperate to finish it – and as you can see, I'm using correct punctuation and spelling as I write this, so you know I'm not some idiot attempting to write an unoriginal story.

I'm not obsessing, really. I just want to get you to read. :D

1

[SATURDAY]

I closed my eyes and leaned against the headboard of my four-poster bed.

I was in my dorm room. I could hear loud music pumping through the walls from the common room, where a party was taking place – the party being the reason I was stuck inside the dorms on a Saturday night. The sound was slightly muffled, but I could hear it loud and clear and could almost feel it penetrating my own body, as if taunting me. In an attempt to block out the irritating noise, I plunged into the sea of thoughts that was my mind at this point, and let myself get lost there.

I thought back to this morning. I had woken up a little later than usual and gone down to the Great Hall to find it swarming with students, something I tried to avoid at all costs on weekends in order to be able to have my breakfast in peace at least two days out of seven. So, after just barely managing to squeeze through a pack of boys and girls who were all trying to shout over the din they themselves were creating, I reached the long table that ran from wall to wall and grabbed a stack of toast. It was a long time before I succeeded in exiting the Great Hall, but once I did, I dashed up the marble staircase to the portrait, breathlessly said the password, and once I was in, hurried into my dorm to find my roommate, Peter Pettigrew, standing there and holding a piece of paper in his hand.

You can probably guess what it was. But, having no clue at the time about what was later to ensue, I asked, "What's that?" before he whipped it out of sight under his jacket. I gave him a weird look.

He seemed to be able to speak with difficulty. "Nothing," he said finally, sounding as if something was stuck in his throat. "It's nothing at all."

Alright, if he didn't want to tell me, I didn't want to know. I stared at him a moment longer, then looked away and proceeded to remove my sweat pants. Hey, if I wasn't going to be eating breakfast in a quiet Great Hall, at least I should be comfortable… I climbed into my four-poster bed, now with only a pair of checkered boxer shorts and an old T-shirt on, and balancing my plate of toast on my bare knees, I reached over to my nightstand to grab the book that was lying there. Just as I was opening it to the page I had left off, I felt a pair of eyes on me and looked up to see Peter still standing there, looking at me as if I might leap out of bed and deck him.

Before I could ask him what the matter was, he burst.

"Okay, mate, look – I'm sorry! I don't know why you weren't invited and I was!" I gaped at him stupidly. He produced the piece of paper from his jacket pocket again and started shaking it around. "I mean, it's not like she knows me any better than she does you! I don't know, mate, I really don't – but I'm going anyway, okay? I'm going anyway."

There was a long silence in which he stared at me worriedly, a look which intensified when all I could do was gawk back with my mouth open.

"What?" I finally said. That was when he explained to me, resigned, that Lily Evans was throwing a birthday party in the common room that night, and that the piece of paper, which was now lying crumpled in his lap, was an invitation to that party. People were saying there was going to be Firewhiskey and some kind of Muggle music player that could handle all the magic in the air, James, he couldn't miss it – this was his opportunity to hang with the 'hot crowd' – and even though I hadn't got an invite I shouldn't be so mad as I was, he knew how much I liked her – but that was where I cut him off.

"I do not like her," I countered in a firm voice to make sure he understood. But it was no use. Peter and my other friends knew as well as I did that that was about as true as the sky being pink or the sea being made of melted chocolate.

But in the end, that was how I found myself in the dorm that night, lying on the bed in exactly the same position as I had been in the morning: my head resting against the headboard, my eyes closed, one of my bare legs propped up and the other sprawled out over the length of the bed. I had been internally angry about not having been invited, even though I knew it was pointless because it would have been expecting too much anyway. Lily Evans, who was throwing the party, noticed me about as much as everyone else in my year, save my own friends – namely, not at all. And the fact that I spent half my time thinking about her didn't help.

I wasn't angry about my position in the social hierarchy, though. In fact, I quite liked where I was. I wasn't bad looking, with my spiky hair that stuck up in all directions and never seemed to lie flat, my round, thin-framed glasses, my hazel eyes and my thin body. I had even been asked out by a girl once or twice. I tended to fall asleep in a lot of my classes, but despite that my teachers liked me, and I had a great bunch of friends – I had never felt the need to join the loud, popular crowd. And the fact that they had never asked me to was perfectly okay with me. That wasn't what I was mad about.

No, the problem was that I didn't want to like her. I knew I was wasting my time – she was completely out of my league. But my hormones wouldn't leave me alone. It was her face that swam through my mind now, and I held my breath and curled my hands into fists, but it wouldn't go away. I could see her clearly, as if she was sitting right in front of me: her straight, scarlet hair; her high forehead; her almond-shaped, shining green eyes; her small, smiling pink lips, inviting me…I shook my head.

I felt a sudden anger flaring up in my lungs, making it difficult to breathe. I rubbed my eyes and counted to ten. Damn these hormones. Why did I like her so much? This wouldn't be a problem if I didn't. But she was so fit – no, she was beautiful – and if she would just let me run my fingers through her sleek hair I would never complain about anything ever again –

Suddenly there was a loud crash in my room. My eyes flew open and I let out a yelp as I leapt to my feet, still in my boxers. It was a moment before my eyes adjusted to the pool of light now spilling into the dark dorm from the doorway. The door had been pushed open and was hanging open against the wall, still barely on its hinges. I looked down and saw that a long streak of some liquid had stained the scarlet carpet, deepening its color, and the stench that now filled the room told me it was alcohol. The trail led to a girl, lying spread-eagled and face-down near the open door, her hair splayed out in all directions, her arms stretched out on either side of her and an empty glass clutched in one of her hands. She dropped the glass, bent her elbows and struggled to get up. I didn't feel the smallest inclination to help her. Finally she got to her knees and looked straight up at me as I stood beside the bed in my shorts. My face suddenly burning, I jumped into bed and dove under the covers to hide my indecency, my head poking out from the top of the duvet so that I could say, "What the hell?"

My heart was hammering in my chest, and not only from surprise. I had almost believed that it had been Lily herself who had crashed through my door, completely mashed, and the thought had sent me reeling. But now I saw that the girl who was shakily getting to her feet in front of me was not Lily at all – she had sandy blonde hair and clear blue eyes, and I recognized her as one of Lily's friends. Her name was Briony.

She, on the other hand, had no idea who I was. She mumbled a slurred apology, as if it were a perfectly forgivable mistake to break down someone's door at midnight and fall head-first onto their carpet, and when I didn't reply, she turned around and tottered out the door, which she left open behind her.

I stared after her for a few moments, the covers still pulled up to my nose, and waited for my heartbeat to return to its normal pace. Then, sighing, I dragged myself out of bed, a million different memories and emotions still running amok in my mind. I struck a match, lit the candle on my nightstand, and padded barefoot across the room to shut the door. What a night. Suddenly I felt exhausted, as if I had run one of those Olympic races we had learned about in Muggle Studies. I glanced at my watch: it was three minutes past midnight. For a moment I stood beside the four-poster bed, marveling at how fast the time had flown since I had lay down at ten at night, intending to read – and then I clambered into it. I reached over to my nightstand to blow out the candle, and in doing so I noticed the book I had left there, shadows flickering across the beaten leather cover – and a piece of dyed pink parchment poking out from between the pages. I knew I certainly hadn't placed it there. Curiously, I picked up the book and plucked out the piece of parchment, squinting in the light from the candle as I read what was written on it a loopy, girly hand:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;