Singled Out

This fic is rated R for language and sexual content. Later on there will be violence. Feel free to read until it becomes too much. Once again, this is the first section of a three-book series. The content of the first book, taking place at a school, the protective womb for the students, will be far less objectionable. Once the characters are in the real world, anything’s fair game: adultery, abortion, religion, treason, murder, suicide, prejudice, deceit, hatred, drugs, depression, rape, and envy may all make an appearance. This doesn’t mean I’ll forsake the humor and the positive side of life. It just means I’m not blind to the bad things.

Phew; that was long, but I think it covered everything.
 

Chapter I

Lily heard the mail drop into the mailbox, and she raced outside to get it before her twin sister Petunia. As she slammed the door behind her, she heard Petunia wailing to their mother and she smothered a giggle. Opening the mail, she found the usual. Junk mail from a dozen sources, a clothes catalog for Petunia, some flyers about sports for their younger sister, Marigold, some art and music stuff for their older sister, Rose, and one paper that looked like some sort of parchment. Expecting it to be another piece of junk mail, Lily looked at it more closely, and was surprised to find that it was for her. She double-checked to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her, but the elegant, calligraphic writing remained. Shrugging, she opened the letter. At the top, written in the same purple ink, it read

To: Miss Lily Evans

As she glanced over the contents of the letter, her eyes widening in disbelief, a loud noise jolted her attention to Petunia who was now crying about how one of Lily’s booby-traps had fallen on her head.

"Damn," she swore softly as her Arithmancy textbook fell on the floor, waking her up. She had fallen asleep doing homework again! Pulling one hand through her hair, she grimaced at the papers spread over bed. She had been having such a peaceful dream; it had been about life when she had gotten the letter to come to Hogwarts. If only she’d known it would be this tiring. Shaking her head, she forced herself to look on the bright side, something very hard to do when it was 3:00 AM and she still had a load of homework for the next day. At least there were good points about Hogwarts. One of then was her current—and first—boyfriend, Harold Potter. She smiled as she looked at his picture, which was at her bedside. He was asleep now, so she couldn’t see his gorgeous blue eyes, but she knew exactly what they looked like. He was a fourth year, like her, and he was definitely one of the nicest guys she knew.

Her smile changed to a frown as she thought about his brother, James, and his friends. From what she’d heard from her older friends, James, a sixth-year, the Gryffindor Seeker, and a Prefect who was a shoo-in for Head Boy, was incredibly obnoxious. Of course, they had never actually met, but she did know one of his friends. Sirius Black. What a jerk. Just yesterday, he’d rigged a bucket of water—including the bucket—to fall on her head as she walked through the door to the Gryffindor common room. That brought her full circle to her dream, which had cut off at Petunia’s yells as cold water splashed on her from the bucket of water Lily had hung over her room’s entrance. Who had asked Petunia to snoop in her room anyway? Lily was glad her room at home was so securely protected. Of course, that particular trap had gone wrong, dropping the bucket on Petunia’s head as well… Lily grinned wickedly. It had been funny…but it wasn’t nearly as funny when it had happened to her!

Sighing, she looked at her homework again. It would be another sleepless night. Why did homework have to take so long?
 

* * * * *

 

James Potter sucked thoughtfully on a real quill for a few seconds, before he realized what it was. "Yeuch!" He spat it out and picked up the sugar quill he had put down only a minute ago.

His best friend, Sirius Black, snorted with laughter. "Dumbass."

"Oh, and who stupidly rigged a bucket to fall on Lily Evans’ head yesterday," James retorted, laughing. He knew Sirius never forgot a prank gone wrong. Or a prank gone well, for that matter.

"Yeah, well, if I thought it was worth the effort, I’d think of a devastatingly witty comeback, but it isn’t, so I won’t." Sirius lay back in his bed, apparently satisfied.

James grinned and turned back to his DADA homework.

"Did you hear about Longbottom and Avery today in the hall?"

"Kinda. What happened?"

"A fight."

No really? I wouldn’t have guessed."

"It was the usual. You know, the entire ‘I’m going to be an Auror and you’re going to be a Death Eater and I’m going to beat your arse’ argument."

"Oh." James’ attention was soon absorbed by the work again. After trying to write with the sugar quill, which elicited another comment from Sirius, he threw all the papers on the floor. "Don’t you have any homework left to do?"

Sirius smirked. "Of course not. I being a model student, did all my homework when it was assigned."

"Model student, my ass. So, who did you copy it from? One of the girls in your fan club?"

"Me, copy?" Sirius looked at James with wide, innocent eyes.

"Yes, you, copy." James mocked his tone. "So, who was it? Or did you just get help?"

"One of the quieter ones. I don’t think I know her name."

"You know, you’re really horrible."

"It draws the girls like magic draws chizpurfles."

James groaned and bent over to pick up his stuff. "What time is it?"

"About 3:30."

"This is ridiculous. There are so many better things I could be doing."

"Like sleeping?" Sirius smothered a yawn even as he said the word. "Why don’t we just leave the Common Room and head upstairs?"

"Because I still have to do my homework."

" I say you should just skip it."

"I would if I could, but I can’t so I won’t."

"What’s wrong, your Prefect morals get in the way?" Sirius rubbed his eyes. "I don’t know about you, but I’m really tired."

James was about to reply when a noise from the staircase caught his attention. "Shh. Someone’s coming."

Sirius smiled evilly. "They’ll have a little surprise."

In fifteen seconds, Lily Evans got soaked by a bucket of water for the second time in two days.
 

* * * * *

 

"Omigod," she shrieked as she looked at the bucket above her. "You, again? Well, at least this time you managed to avoid dropping the bucket on me." As she said that, the bucket fell on her head with a soggy thud.

Sirius groaned. "Sorry about that; charms aren’t my forte."

Lily glared at them both, inarticulate with rage. Finally, she decided to explain how a Levitation Charm should work, how to make it last a bit longer, and what he screwed up.

Walking over to where he was lying on one of the armchairs, she picked up his wand. First she used it for a simple Drying spell. Then, once her hair wasn’t dripping in a very undignified manner, she turned to the pair.

In a voice that would have done credit to a teacher, she began, "First of all, you might want to polish your wand." Sirius watched her apprehensively, as if afraid that she would beat him senseless with his own wand.

The idea appealed to her, but she decided that it could wait until after she had made sure he wouldn’t be dropping any more buckets on her head. "You know, I’m surprised you can’t do this particular charm yet. You learned it first year."

"Maybe I forgot," he growled, his annoyance at being lectured by her apparently overcoming his desire to not be yelled at.

"Dunce," she said. "Anyway, you hold the wand in your hand." At this point, there was a loud guffaw from his hitherto silent companion. She turned and gave him a glare straight from Professor McGonagall. As she looked at him up close for the first time, her insides gave a funny little twist. She pursed her lips and ignored it. "Is there something you want to learn? I can see you’re having trouble with your Defense Against the Dark Arts homework." She glanced, rather pointedly, at the papers spread across the floor. He merely stared at her. Annoyed, though with him or herself she didn’t know, she turned back to Sirius. "Now say ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ while pointing at the bucket."

"Wingardium Leviosa," he said uncertainly.

"No, that’s all wrong. You aren’t asking it to levitate, you’re commanding it. It figures that the one time in your life you’re supposed to command, you act polite."

"Wingardium Leviosa," he snarled crossly. Lily felt a moment’s pleasure until she realized a slight problem. Sirius gave her a worried glance as she shot into the air. She stifled the urge to scream at the top of her lungs. It was probably her fault, trying to teach such an idiot. She should have known he would mess it up. As she rose higher, her insides gave another small flip-flop. She began to remember what had happened to the buckets, and she resigned herself to a visit to Madam Pomfrey. Just as she felt herself beginning to fall again, James pointed his wand straight at her. Slowly, she slid through the air onto the arm chair next to his.

"Are you all right?" He brushed his hair from his eyes as he gave her a concerned look.

"Um, yeah," she gasped as her heart rate slowed down. Then, she looked at him, and it began speeding up again. She reminded herself that she had a perfectly wonderful boyfriend, and there was no reason for her heart to thump so loudly, but she was completely aware of the fact that he was very close to her, and that he smelled really good. This is absurd, she told herself. She closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to look at him and notice that he looked an awful lot like Harold’s, only he had grown into his height, and his shoulders were broader, and… She willed herself to not think about that. "Are you OK?" His voice was deeper than Harold’s, too. She opened her eyes and carefully focused on a point over his head.

"Yeah, I’m fine," she said in a voice unlike her own. "Just a bit dizzy." She managed a weak smile or she thought she had. Everything was a bit blurry and she could hear someone breathing in a harsh, ragged way. That can’t be healthy, she thought vaguely, as the blurring gave way to blackness.
 

* * * * *

 

James looked at her as she lay on the purple armchair. She had passed out from hyperventilating, part of his mind said clinically. The other part of his mind was busy looking at her. Her hair had spread out around her head. Strange; he had never really noticed her before, although now that he thought about it, he recognized her name. She was said to be one of the brightest fourth-years. He looked at her more closely, and was surprised that he hadn’t seen her. Some of her features were very noticeable. Her hair was dark red and very long, and her personality… He winced. Then, he remembered how green her eyes were. He shook his head. He didn’t have time for girls with all the stuff he was busy with. Quidditch; school; at least he had finally figured out how to become an Animagus. That was hard. Ignoring this girl would be easy. He just had to avoid thinking about how cute she was when she was mad, and how fragile she looked as she lay there… James gritted his teeth. He could do this; he knew he could.

"What’s wrong, James?" Sirius was staring at him with his eyebrows raised and a very wicked smile playing on his lips. "Has the woman-hating James finally fallen for a girl?"

"Of course not," James replied stiffly. Even as he said it, he knew that Sirius was right and he knew that Sirius could tell when he was lying. After all, they’d been friends forever and then some. They could read each other like a book.

Sirius’ smirk was replaced by a look of concern. "What will we do with her?" he pointed his thumb at Lily. "If we try to take her to Madam Pomfrey, we’ll get some nasty questions."

James knew Sirius was right, but he couldn’t help but worry about her. "Maybe we should get her lying flat. Then, we could try to wake her up," he said tentatively.

"We could pour water on her head again," Sirius suggested.

James glared, and was astonished to see Sirius’ look of perpetual amusement, which had returned somewhere along the line, fade back into concern. "You don’t know, do you?"

"Don’t know what?" James felt very puzzled.

"Who her boyfriend is." Sirius looked very surprised.

"Not Snape, right?" He didn’t think he could take it if she was going out with the slimy bastard.

"No." Sirius paused.

"Tell me."

"It’s Harold. I’d have thought you would known your brother’s girlfriend."

James stared, his jaw dropping. "You’re kidding, right?"

"Um, sorry." Sirius now looked distinctly uncomfortable.

All of a sudden, he knew just how his brother had felt all those years, watching James get honor after honor. That was probably why she was looking at him in that dreamy way. She was probably imagining that he was his brother. All their lives, Harold had gotten comments about how much he looked like James, but now the tables had turned. Now there was someone looking at him, and thinking of Harold.

"Let’s leave her here. She’ll wake up on her own," James savagely picked up his papers and strode out the door. With an uncertain look, Sirius quickly pulled the armchair out from under Lily, shook her a few times, and hurried after James.
 

* * * * *

Lily woke up, feeling very groggy. Looking around, she was surprised to find herself in the Gryffindor common room. Suddenly, the events of the night came rushing back. She looked for the two boys, but there was no sign. However, she could hear feet pounding up the staircase to the dorms, so they must have just left. She remembered James and felt a twinge of pain at how quickly he had left. She had probably imagined the look on his face as he watched her. Not that it mattered. She probably wasn’t drawn to him; just his resemblance to Harold. Slowly, she got up and went back upstairs. It was only when she reached her bed that she remembered why she had gone downstairs in the first place. It had been to work on her homework. Oh well, she’d get the papers in the morning. Drifting to sleep, she thought about how mad the Professor would be that she didn’t finish the work, but those thoughts were quickly replaced by memories of a pair of dark blue eyes.