Prelude to Destiny

Chapter 3 -

Of Letters, Shopping, and Boys

8.8.74

Lily... just got back from the tour and Malaga... it was gorgeous... the water was fabulous clear and cold and there were tons of people... how was the anniversary dinner? met a couple bloke in Barcelona... Christine

PS. did you ever notice how closely linked your boyfriend's name is to mine?

PPS. when are you getting your books and things?

PPPS. are you still a prefect?

PPPPS. How many o.w.l.s did you receive?

PPPPPS. ... um... bye

~

9.8.74

Christine,

In answer to your postscript questions: yes, on the 25^th, with you when we meet at the Leaky Cauldron at noon; yes; enough; and finally, you're strange. Learn to punctuate. The dinner went really well. The food was fabulous and Christian pulled out my chair and took my jacket. No bloke at Hogwarts would ever do anything like that. Ever. He is so wonderful.

Lily

~

10.8.74

Lily,

How's the distraction?

Sam

~

9.8.74

Sam,

Really wish that you could meet Christian and quit calling him "The Distraction." I know what I told you at the end of term makes it seem bad, but he is really good-looking (REALLY good-looking), clever, and most certainly not just a replacement for He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

Lily

PS. Let's meet on the 25^th to buy our things for school. If you come over to my house at eleven, you can meet Christian before we go. Could you? Please?

~

11.8.74

Lily,

You'd never believe the amount of hell being on the Quidditch team has caused me. Not only is the new captain still insisting on daily practices, but now she says that we have to tryout for the team when the new term starts... Practice I understand and even somewhat enjoy. It's good to see the team and I love flying but trying out again? Isn't that simply ridiculous? She says that all the extra practices are "causing productive team bonding," but so far all we've bonded about is the belief that she should not being making us try out again. And she shouldn't!

Tracy

~

11.8.74

Tracy,

We're meeting on the 25^th at noon in the Leaky Cauldron to shop for supplies, and with regards to your complaints about trying out: go complain to someone else. You thrive on competition. That's why you insist that we play the Game.

Lily

~*~*~

At 11 o'clock on the 8^th of August, a knock echoed through the Evans home. Lily jumped at the sound and sprinted towards the door. Without bothering to see who it was, Lily threw open the door and enveloped the new arrival in a hug. Luckily for Lily, she had correctly assumed the person to be her best friend Samantha Caldwell whom she had not seen all summer.

"Glad to see you, too," Sam said.

"I should hope so!" Lily ushered her into the house, shutting the door behind her, and loudly announced to her mother that Sam had arrived. Faith Evans came out of the kitchen and also hugged Sam hello.

"How was your summer, dear?"

"Really wonderful, thanks," Sam said.

"Have you heard Lily's news?"

"About the boyfriend or about the O.W.L.s?" Sam asked.

"I was talking about the boyfriend, but her O.W.L.s were a wonderful surprise," Faith said.

"She wouldn't tell me how many she received," Sam said.

"Oh, she had--"

"I received a Troll on the Defence practical," Lily said, cutting off their conversation.

"Is that even possible?" Sam asked, shocked.

"Apparently," Lily said, shrugging.

"So, are you meeting Christian today?" Faith asked.

"Yes, it should be really interesting to see the bloke Lily spent more time with than anyone else this summer. Including me," Sam teased.

"And her family," Faith said. "In came her first boyfriend and out went the rest of the people in her life, apparently."

"Now that you two have had your fun, I was about to offer Sam something to eat or drink and then we're going over to Ian's," Lily said, trying to avoid further guilt-inducing conversation.

"All right, Lily. Do you need money for your books and things?" Faith asked. Lily was tempted to say yes, but instead she admitted that her father had given her some for the shopping trip. After a short detour into the kitchen, where Mrs. Evans insisted on giving Sam many little crackers and biscuits, the two girls headed towards Ian's house.

"What'd you do this weekend?" Sam asked.

"Oh." Lily thought a moment, playing with the charm on her necklace. "We were walking by this fountain and Christian couldn't understand how it worked, but I couldn't explain it to him either except to say piping and water pressure and electricity. I just sort of accept some things without thinking about it, but talking to Christian almost makes me feel like I ought to take Muggle Studies just to learn about--"

"You're babbling," Sam noted. "And you're nervous."

"I'm not nervous," Lily lied.

"Oh, that's why you keep playing with your necklace?" Sam asked. Lily dropped her hand to her side, but they continued walking in silence until they were at the walkway that led to Ian's house. Then Lily turned to Sam.

"I need you to like him. I really do, Sam," Lily whispered, as if confiding a really dangerous and evil secret.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I suppose I want to know that my friends like him. I am a little co-dependent, if you haven't noticed," Lily said and then she turned and led her friend up the path that would lead to Christian. She knocked and waited a couple of moments before he answered.

"Hello, Lily," he said, sounding both surprised and happy. She smiled up at him (for he was much taller than she), then walked up and gave him a quick kiss hello.

"Hi, Christian. This is my friend Samantha. We're going shopping for school things today and she wanted to meet you," Lily said, only sort-of lying. Why did he have to know Lily wanted to know her friend's judgement?

"Hello, Samantha," Christian said, reaching out a hand. "I'm Christian Knowles."

"Knowles?" Sam repeated, not reaching out to shake his hand. Her eyes widened.

"Yes," he said, dropping his hand back to his side. Lily looked back and forth between them. Was this encouraging or horrible?

"You study at Beauxbaton?" Sam asked. As Christian nodded, Lily tried to remember if she'd told Sam that. Yes, she was sure she had. Of course she had. Why wouldn't she have?

"What's your surname?" Christian asked.

"Caldwell," Sam said. Christian looked at her for a moment and she looked back at him. Then he nodded at her and motioned for both girls to enter Ian's home. Lily knew both Sam and Christian were from long lines of wizards and witches, but hadn't expected Christian to ask such an odd question about it.

"Which classes are you taking?" Christian asked. Sam listed them. "Sounds interesting."

"Not really," Sam said, and it was unfortunate that she thought talking about class as uninteresting because for the remainder of the time the girls spent with Christian, that was all they talked about.

~*~*~

"He's so dull," Sam announced, her eyes wide, as the two girls left Ian's house to head to London and meet Tracy and Christine at the Leaky Cauldron.

"What?" Lily squeaked.

"It's like talking to a wall." Lily's heart dropped. "He is good-looking, Lily, but he's not very quick on the uptake. He didn't even notice you were teasing him about those mittens."

"He just doesn't laugh much," Lily said. Yes, she knew Christian didn't exactly understand Lily's brand of humour, but what did that matter? He was nice and kind and gorgeous. Shouldn't that have made up for the fact that he wasn't able to follow her jumpy conversations?

"He's not for you, Lily," Sam said. "That, at least, I know. You need someone that can keep up with your train of thought, someone that wants to keep up with you in general."

Lily supposed that part of the reason she had been so nervous about the introduction between Christian and Sam had been because she had known it would turn out badly. Much as she liked Christian, she knew he would not fit in with her friends. Christian--gorgeous, gorgeous Christian--and Samantha would never get along well and Lily wished she had a way to make herself feel less badly about that.

~*~*~

"Lily is never allowed to organize the book buying again," Tracy said as she elbowed yet another over-sized, older woman out of her path. They had not even reached the Leaky Cauldron yet and the four girls were already grumbling, tired, and ready to leave.

The journey from their meeting place in Muggle London to the pub was one of the most challenging of Lily's life. She did not know how Muggles managed not to notice all of the extremely out-of-place animals and peoples marching around the streets.

And inside the pub was even worse: it was packed from wall to wall with witches, wizards, dwarves, half-giants, balding elves, hags, and others. In short, the Leaky Cauldron ranked among the top ten places Lily wished she could avoid at that moment.

"Why didn't someone tell me there was a meeting of the Confederation of Abnormal Magical Peoples in the Diagon Alley today?" Lily grumbled right before an angry-looking dwarf shoved her into a wall.

"C.A.M.P. always meets on the 25^th of August," Tracy replied, yanking her purse away from a short, thin man with long fingers and a twitchy left eyebrow.

"If we make it into Diagon Alley there should be enough space to breathe at least," Sam said as she twisted out of the way of a warthog. After two more impression moves around and through the chaos, Lily lost sight of her and tried to follow Christine (the tallest of the group) towards the back of the dank little pub. But soon the crowd also consumed Christine, and Lily was left to find her way on her own when Tracy ducked under one smelly wizard.

"Excuse me. Pardon me. Could I please pass by?" Lily asked, her manners coming most prominently to the surface as she refused to knock into anyone without a word of apology. The wall, which had not seemed too terribly far away at the beginning of Lily's quest, did not appear to be growing any larger or closer as Lily continued sidestepping and shuffling towards it.

A hand latched onto Lily's arm and yanked her in the wrong direction, though that was not exactly her biggest concern as she found herself facing a woman with five different moles growing out of her left eyelid. No, at that point her biggest concern was keeping herself from screaming out in fright and running rudely away.

"What's abnormal about you?" she asked in a thick German accent.

"I'm just passing through. Excuse me." She tried to tug her arm out of the woman's grasp, but the elder, grosser woman held Lily a little while longer.

"Not all right," she said. "Must be abnormal to be here."

She met the woman's gaze and pleadingly said, "I'm only going to Diagon Alley."

Then the most peculiar thing happened. The woman's eyes flashed bright orange and her hand was gone. The woman backed away from Lily, averting her gaze as she said, "Sorry. Didn't know."

"It's all right," Lily replied, rubbing her arm where the hand had been and moving away from the stranger.

"I didn't know," the woman said again before turning and hobbling away.

Lily, not wanting to waste any time thinking about the strange woman or her attack, spun around and ran for the back wall. This time manners were ignored and feelings were hurt. Elbowing, kicking, shoving, and nudging became Lily's main weapons as she forced her way out of the pub and into the alley. The doorway was open when Lily arrived and she was grateful to find a place to breathe in the alley.

Resting her hands on her knees, Lily slowed her breathing and looked around the lopsided alley.

Like every other time she had come here, Lily was amazed by the sheer madness of it all; stores did not line up properly, no one seemed particularly normal or ordered, and Lily loved it. The whole ordeal of shopping in Diagon Alley was still a thrilling experience for Lily, a Muggle girl who had always wanted adventure and excitement but never had the opportunity to get it.

While standing near the entrance to the alley, Lily looked around to try and spot her friends, not seeing any of them near her. In the meantime, two blokes walked up and asked her if she knew the way to the Quidditch supply store.

"Sorry, no," she replied, her eyes still scanning the surrounding area.

"I'm Alex, by the way," the boy closest to her announced, inclining his head towards her, continuing the conversation Lily did not want to have.

"Todd," said the boy farther to the left.

"I'm Lily." Why were they talking to her? Shouldn't they have been trying to find their Quidditch store?

"What are you looking for?" one of the boys asked.

"My friends. We were separated in the pub," Lily replied. They really ought to have just gone away.

"Oh," he said.

Lily spotted Christine walking amongst the crowd, bumping into people and not really noticing. Lily shouted her friend's name and waved her arms to get her attention. The blonde girl noticed, spotted Lily, and made her way over.

"That was a joy," Lily said sarcastically, nodding over at the still-filled-to-capacity pub.

"Liar," Christine said, walking up.

"Yeah, that was pretty much the worst pub experience of my life so far. An old woman with too many warts attacked me," Lily said, making an unhappy sound. The boys, who Lily had nearly forgotten, introduced themselves to Christine, but she didn't return the favour.

"Where are Sam or Tracy?" she asked Lily.

"I don't know."

"We need to start shopping."

"You looking to buy anything in particular?" asked the boy on Lily's right. She couldn't remember what his name was, though he'd only just introduced himself again. Honestly, shouldn't they have found they supply shop yet?

"School supplies," Lily replied, seeing that Christine wasn't going to.

"Your parents don't have people who do that?" the boy on the left asked. Lily wanted to roll her eyes, but manners kept her from doing so. Christine did not have this problem.

"Ew," Christine said.

"He didn't mean it like that," the boy on the right said, elbowing his friend in the side. The hell he didn't, Lily thought, smiling her practiced-for-dumb-people-smile. "It's just that--"

"I see Tracy" Christine interrupted before giving a sharp yell to grab her friend's attention.

"Where is she?"

"Look down," Christine said. Lily looked down, and saw Tracy crawling through the throngs of people pouring out of the Leaky Cauldron. When she saw Christine and Lily looking at her, she scrambled to stand up and walk over, dusting off on the way.

"Don't say anything. Not one word. I made it, didn't I?" Tracy announced, sounding defensive. "Where's Sam?"

"I don't know--" Lily began.

"But Lily has already caught to eye of two S.A.L.s," Christine noted.

"S.A.L.s?" Lily repeated.

"Surprisingly amazing looking lads," Tracy explained.

"That's not the right acronym for that. You'd need two ls," Lily said. "Plus, I haven't caught anyone's eye. Look at me. I'm a sweaty mess of grossness right now. I don't even want to be near me at this moment."

"Were they waiting for you to talk to them," Tracy asked.

"They needed to find a store," Lily.

"Sure. I believe you," Tracy said sarcastically, then looked around. "Where's Sam?"

"Here," Sam said. Tracy, Christine, and Lily turned toward the voice and saw Sam emerge from the ice cream shop with a cone of ice cream. She looked ridiculously and unfairly relaxed even though she had to have shoved her way through hordes of strange creatures too.

"Sometimes I strongly dislike you," Lily muttered, walking up to Sam and taking the ice cream from her.

"That's mine," Sam said.

"Not anymore, obviously," Lily said, smiling at her friend. "But thank you for buying me such a great treat."

"Stealing other people's ice cream cones is never okay. Never," Sam said, reaching out for her ice cream. Lily moved out of her reach.

"Duly noted," Lily said, walking down the alley beside Sam with Tracy and Christine following behind them, still talking about whether or not the blokes were actually interested in Lily.

~*~*~

The girls collected (or exchanged) their gold at Gringotts, bought Potions supplies, extra quills, books, a cauldron for Christine, a broomstick supply kit for Tracy, a cat for Sam (whose last pet, a frog, she had given as a gift to her younger brother for his upcoming first year), and were now debating the necessity of buying robes.

"I don't need new robes. Mum ordered me some from a catalogue," Lily announced, tired of walking around with so many packages and desperate for a seat.

"I don't need new robes either," said Tracy.

"Everyone needs new robes," Christine replied.

"Why don't we sit with the bags somewhere while you two go buy them?" Tracy asked. Sam and Christine shrugged.

"All right, you can sit at Fortescue's," Sam decided, handing Lily her bags as Christine gave hers to Tracy. The extra weight would have been unbearable if the shop had been much further than it was. As it happened, the girls made it to an empty table and collapsed.

"I'm going to buy the largest thing of ice cream I can," Lily announced. "do you want me to get you anything?"

"Oh, no, thanks. Have to stay in shape for Quidditch."

"You sure?" Lily asked, not beliving anything worth not eating ice cream.

"Yep, Nancy'd kill me if I gained wait after all the training we've done."

"Nancy Adams?"

"Yeah, the new Gryffindor captain."

"She's the slave driver from your letters?" Lily asked.

"She has a field at her estate, you see, so we all go over there for an hour or two every day and work out different moves. She's insane, absolutely barmy. The only good thing that's happened is that we've spent so much time together this summer that the team is almost seamless, which makes it less likely that she'll choose other people for the team," Tracy said, her dull blue eyes shinning as they always did when she talked about Quidditch.

"Did I just hear the words 'barmy' and 'insane' come out of your mouth, Tracy McGrath? Does that mean you're talking about everyone's favourite Quidditch captain?" asked a teasing voice to Lily's left.

The two girls looked over and saw James Potter (he-who-Lily-would-not-think-or-dream-about-anymore) walking toward their table flanked by his usual flunkies. Lily's heart skipped a few beats. He looked fabulous. Then her eyes narrowed as she remembered that she didn't care how he looked. She was getting over her crush on him. How dare he come back and make her think of him?

"The one and the same," replied Tracy.

"Always good to hear someone telling it as it is," James said.

The three boys stood a little behind him, uncomfortable talking to either of the girls because they hardly knew them. Actually, James should have been uncomfortable too, Lily thought as James and Tracy continued to chat. Since when had they become friends? Since when had he cut his hair that short or worn that shirt that made him look so good?

"So you don't see enough of me during practice every day, you followed me to Diagon Alley as well?" Tracy joked.

"Actually, this is a complete coincidence. I quit stalking people after the whole 'cursed if within sight of Julie' fiasco back in third year." Tracy laughed, sharing a joke with James. Lily played with her necklace. Since when did they share jokes? Since when had they even spoken except to tease one another during a Quidditch game? Never. That's when.

"You must have decided to stalk me," Tracy said. "Why else would you voluntarily come here on the twenty-fifth of August?"

"Sirius," James responded, pointing to the three boys behind him, "had to get out of his house and we decided to make a day of it."

"Fool."

"I know it. So why are you here?"

"Lily chose the date," Tracy said, smiling and pointing to Lily who sat twirling the charm on her necklace.

When their eyes met, James looked embarrassed and so did Lily. They were both remembering an awful moment at the end of their last year, a moment that would help shape the people they would grow up to become. Then, at the same moment, they overcame their shame and became angry. For Lily it was the kind of anger that kept her on her toes, kept her sharp and cutting. For James it was the kind of anger that made him exuberant and wild.

"Hey," he said. She nodded at him. He looked really good. As good as Christian? Better.

"Are you coming tomorrow?" Tracy asked James. Lily thought she saw something pass between them when their eyes caught, but could not be sure.

"To practice?" he asked.

"No, to the party after practice at the McDougals's."

"Maybe. I don't know," James answered vaguely. Then he looked back at his friends, who were starting to wander away. "They're a bit antsy. I best be off. See you at practice, Tracy. See you at school, Lily."

"See you at school," Lily replied automatically, her manners never letting her ignore a polite goodbye. As soon as the boys were out of sight, Lily turned and looked at Tracy.

"Since when have you and James Potter been friends?" she asked.

"I told you in my letters," Tracy said. "I spend every day with the team. They're like my extended family at this point."

Tracy shrugged as if it should never have mattered, and for Tracy, who knew nothing of Lily's crush on James, it was nothing. For Lily, who had been harbouring this annoying secret fascination with him for almost a year now, it meant utter disaster. She would never get over him if he hung around with one of her best friends, and she desperately needed to get over him.

"Why are you playing with your necklace like that?" Tracy inquired, trying to change the subject but only managing to make Lily even more uncomfortable as she realized she was still nervous around James. But she was dating Christian--Christian who was kind and considerate and would never in a million years play a prank (which was actually just a cruel joke aimed at making people laugh at those you did not like)--so how could she still like James? Frick! She was supposed to have gotten over this crush, but it seemed only to have intensified.

"James cut his hair," Lily commented.

"I didn't think you'd notice," Tracy replied, opening and looking at her broomstick kit for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day.

"It's not as wild."

"I'm sure it's easier for him to manage," Tracy said, still not understanding what Lily was saying. Lily, you see, was hoping he had cut his hair for her. It was possible, wasn't it? No. No, James was nothing to her. Christian was what ought to have occupied her thoughts. Christian was amazing. James was nothing except a show-off and a bragger--a bragger who had cut his hair and managed to make Lily's heart skip a beat.