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WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high piled books, in charact'ry,

Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

-Keats

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i'll show you how it began

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Lily Evans. Small, timid, afraid for the first time in her short life of eleven years. Her parents, muggles and not entirely sure what was going on, had not come through the barrier with her. They had not been able to see the other children her age and older who had disappeared through the solid brick and stone.

"Lily, are you sure?" Meghan Evans had asked, warily eyeing the large train station around them.

"Yes, mum, let me just kiss you goodbye here. I feel like next year I'll be more 'in the know,' so then you'll be able to come with me."

"But it's all just so odd…" Steven Evans looked frustrated. "Platform 9 ¾, I mean, it sounds like a joke!"

Lily shrugged. They had already had this discussion several times before, and every time, it concluded the same.

"Steve, you know that there is something special about Lily," her mother hissed to her father in hushed tones. She didn't understand why Meghan thought she couldn't hear—it's not like she was very far away.

"I know," he shot back. "But she's our daughter. I just…"

"Look," Meghan said, sighing. "Dumbly-dore was very reassuring when he came to the house. If all of this is true, and, really, what choice do we have but to believe it?—then I want Lily to have this opportunity."

Lily still wasn't sure what she thought of all of this. True, strange things tended to happen on occasion, like when Jeremy Brown was found seven feet away from her, in a trash can, after disappearing right before his fist landed on her face.

That…had never really been explained.

She had been expelled for fighting, despite her protests that, honestly, it was completely his fault.

Or when she cut off her little finger with the garden shears. She had only been six, and helping her father prune the hedges, when the large scissors had slipped and snipped off the tip of her finger, right through the nail. She had been too shocked to cry, catching the little piece of pinky and uncomprehending that it was no longer attached.

But after the outpour of hysterical tears began, when they got to the hospital, they found the finger as good as new, with only a cut. She got a couple stitches, but the cut was gone the next day, without even a scar. She'd never really told anyone about that. Her parents had been happy to believe that it was a young child's overreaction to blood, and as she got older, she simply never mentioned her vivid recollection of the day.

The craziest, scariest thing, however, was definitely the time when she was ten. She and Tuny were having tea together, and their parents had just for dinner and a movie. Tuny was fourteen, old enough now that they didn't need a babysitter.

"What movie do you think they're going to?" Lily asked.

"I don't know, why don't you ask them," Tuny snapped sullenly. Tuny was always sullen, so this was nothing special. "I can't believe I couldn't go to Camilla's party tonight because I had to stay and watch you."

"You don't have to watch me!" Lily said defensively. "I'm ten. I can watch out for myself. Besides, I didn't ask for you to stay. I wanted Elisa to come babysit, she's always nice when she comes. She plays Monopoly with me."

"Yeah and lets you win. That's the only reason you like it. Besides Elisa's a loser, she doesn't have any friends. That's why she babysits you."

"Well I like her. I'm her friend," Lily said staunchly, taking a bite of her sandwich.

Tuny took a gulp of tea. "That's because you're a freak, like her, and you don't have any friends either."

"Do too!" Lily cried, in the high-pitched voice of a ten year-old on the verge of tears.

"Do not, freak!" Tuny sneered, clearly failing to recognize the signals of an impending tantrum. "No one likes you, that's why you had to leave your old school, freak-freak-freak-freak," she started to chant, looking at Lily, eyes bulging. "Even Mum and Daddy don't like you, ugly loser freak, freak-freak-freak—"

Lily felt herself turning red, anger overcoming all of the sensible, ten-year old judgment telling her that the only reason Tuny was saying these things was because she was jealous and bitter.

She stood up on her chair, so that she was effectively towering over Tuny, who was obliviously carrying on her malicious chant. "SHUT UP!" She shrieked with all her might, and when Tuny opened her mouth to retort, eyes laughing cruelly, her teacup exploded.

It wasn't a small explosion—a hairline crack that finally capitulated, causing the hot liquid to pour in to Tuny's lap. It wasn't even a medium explosion, that could possible be explained by Lily's high volume, and a bouncing jump on the chair, causing the cup to bounce and fall, splatter and crack.

No, Tuny's cup exploded outwards with the force of a small bomb. She was showered with hot liquid and broken pieces of crockery as the cup shattered, hurling itself in all directions.

Lily screamed, a high-pitched, terrified, hurt sound, as Petunia's plate and water glass exploded in a chain reaction.

Things seemed to pause in midair, falling at her feet before hitting her, standing on the chair, or veering slightly off course.

She remembered standing motionless on the chair after it was over, looking at the dripping Tuny. The silence in the room had been overbearing, and there was rushing in her ears. She knew, somehow, that what had just happened had been her fault.

"Freak," Tuny had finally whispered, eyeing her completely unharmed sister with something approaching hatred. She got up and ran out of the room, and hadn't spoken or even looked at Lily for weeks.

They had never been close before that incident, and they never were afterwards. Lily's admission and subsequent departure for a magical world was only one more separating factor.

And so here they were, standing together in an awkward clump, as Lily kissed her parents gently and suppressed her tears. Her mother clearly felt no such restraint, bawling openly as she kissed Lily repeatedly.

"Just be safe, darling," Meghan kept saying. "You know that if it were up to me I would never send you away. I want you to be happy, love. That's all."

Lily smiled bravely. "This is the right thing for me, mum," she said with a confidence she didn't feel.

Steven was wiser. He gathered Lily in his arms, allowing her to bury her face in the familiar smell of his sweater. And if a few tears leaked out, they were quickly and quietly absorbed, with her mother unworried. "Be sure to send us letters, Lil," he reminded her. "We may not understand everything, but we want to. I think this is all pretty grand."

She drew back, nodding, and scrubbing her eyes with the back of her sleeve. "And get good marks," Meghan cautioned her. "I don't know what kinds of classes you'll be taking, but Evans never do poorly."

"Honestly, mum," Lily laughed. "I know."

And suddenly she was walking away from them, slipping through the barrier, and in front of her a huge crimson train was pouring steam. Her cart and trunk suddenly felt very bulky, and the cage containing the owl she had yet to name wobbled precariously.

Steeling herself and lifting her chin, she hesitantly advanced on the nearest doorway, where a conductor was engaged in conversation with a large blonde woman on the platform. He nodded at her as she awkwardly pushed her trunk in front of her on to the carriage, struggling with its large weight and heaving with all the energy in her small frame.

Just as it was about to fall on her toe, and Lily was envisioning her first weeks of school in a large and ungainly cast, a slim hand caught it, lifting it with no apparent effort.

The slim hand was attached to an equally slim arm, which in turn belonged to a small boy with a tousled head of black hair. He looked oddly familiar, and Lily resisted the urge to cock her head and study him further. He was ridiculously small and thin to be lifting her heavy trunk with such ease, but suddenly all her bags were inside and she was standing on the edge of the platform, eyeing the boy's proffered hand.

Somewhere, a clock tolled eleven, and steam began pouring from the front of the train

Their hands met, and she beamed at him.

He blinked, momentarily blinded. Shaking his head, he helped her in to the train, moving them out of the way so the conductor could shut the door, holding on to her hand just a bit too long.

It was the start of the epic, tragic, doomed romance. It would last through eons, their desperate love defying the boundaries of time and space as they fell in love and died in millions of universes, through millions of lives and loves. In this moment, and forever after, Lily and James were every lover that had ever been, every Romeo and Juliet ever to defy the very boundaries of life for their love. The string connecting them was tangible, distinct. Death and love hovered around them, the ghost of a child they would never know and always wish to love, the years they had lost in hatred, the perfect joy in being together that they had finally found.

James had always had the ability to drive her wild.

The phantom tears of terrible fights trailed down cheeks: puffy eyes, suppressed sobs.

Rain and tragedy mixed in the silence.

"Evans," James's voice—husky, warm, suggestive.

The perfection of a single summer day by the lake lingered in the air: the light, dry smell of grass and heat lingering on the lips. The chill of winter breezed through, of snowflakes melting on lips and heated bodies.

James's hand—trailing, trickling, the adrenaline of contact leaving a trail of fire as her entire body burned. James's hand tracing her face, curling underneath her chin. Tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her ear, framing her jaw.

Lips that brushed hers, held her, caressed her, entranced her, completed her.

"James Potter," she whispered. "You make me crazy."

And so it was that the boy she had never really liked kissed the girl that he had always loved, and it was perfect.

"I want to hate you," James said. "I want to, I've wanted to for so long."

James was oblivious to all but her glowingly fresh face. If he'd been paying attention, he might have realized something was going on—but when was James Potter ever paying attention?

"Lily Evans…" it was James, chastising. "I remember every second."

Lily felt her palm tingle where he had held her hand, and something that she wouldn't recognize for another five years, and wouldn't admit for six, settled in the back of her mind.

The boy disappeared after her chivalrous act, and Lily wondered what his name was. He was probably a slightly older student, she finally decided, helping out clueless first years like herself. She was disappointed that he hadn't asked her to share a compartment with him, or introduced her to his friends, but he probably didn't want to coddle her—she had to be able to make friends and find people on her own.

She headed off in the other direction, nearly running over a blonde girl slightly taller than herself.

"Oh, hello," the girl said airily, blue eyes wide, dreamy, and undeniably kind. "I'm Alice, what's your name?"

After all, they were just beginning their first year. There was plenty of time.

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