I Remember Lily and James

Chapter Three

Then it was our third year.

Now we could pick classes. Lily signed up for nearly everything, including, against all our entreaties, Arithmancy and an Advanced Charms class. We saw decidedly less of her that year, since she had so much more homework than us. Gereldine and I signed up for mostly the same classes, except I enrolled in Muggle Studies and she couldn't be bothered. Emma, without our knowledge, signed up for a class called Articluate Potions. We never really figured out what it was, but she had a lot of homework to do too. I think Samantha signed up for a lot of the classes the boys were taking, but I never found out, exactly. See, third year was the year we all began to find our niches. Granted, they weren't the niches we ended up in, but for a while Lily thought she was born to study Arithmancy, for example. She, especially, grew up a lot, and became the clever, Head-Girl material witch everyone talks about now. We weren't thinking of her as Head Girl yet, of course, but the foundation was there, see. She and Remus were tied, I believe, as the two most studious in our class. Which was different from cleverest; that prize probably went to James and Sirius, since they could master any concept without studying hardly at all. Anyway.

Now we could go to Hogsmeade. Emma and Samantha set up their own "accounts", saving some of their money and spending the rest. They loved Hogsmeade. Lily only went sporadically, she had so much work to do, see. What I remember most about Hogsmeade was The Three Broomsticks where, if you showed up at the right time, you could see the Marauders (that's what they'd taken to calling themselves) in all their glory. They were pets of Madame Rosmerta, and Sirius often would throw a few galleons on the counter and shout "Butterbeer all around!"

Now all our practice with Muggle fashion magazines came in handy. Samantha was the first of us to have a "boyfriend": Sirius. Everyone, including girls in the year just below and the year just above us, were jealous. She would giggle and wave to us as she left for Hogsmeade arm in arm with Sirius. He dumped her after a few weeks, and her wails filled our dorm room for at least two whole days.

"You might have spared us and waited until she dumped you," Emma said to Sirius one afternoon. James laughed (you never saw one without the other, they used to say), but Sirius rolled his eyes. I think he said something like all her simpering was annoying, and she was pretty boring.

Now Quidditch became all-important in our eyes. James was the hero of the school, and other captains rued the day he had been Sorted into Gryffindor. Our entire year would go out to see him fly, cheer him on. Legend seems to dictate that only Lily didn't go, that she stuck her nose in the air and refused to hero worship anyone. That's not exactly true. She loved watching James as much as anyone. She didn't go sometimes because she had homework, but she'd often show up for the last half or the very end. She loved Quidditch in general, and was the most avid collector of Quidditch paraphernalia among us. It wasn't until James vowed to go on a date with her or die trying that she grew disdainful of the sport, or at least, of James.

The second-to-last match of the year, which decided if Gyrffindor or Ravenclaw would face off against Hufflepuff, was "the big match". James faced off against Ravenclaw back-up Seeker Kenneth Davidson, and Ezra and I had a friendly argument over who was the better Seeker. It was a thrilling game, and James won in a close chase for the Snitch. He flew a victory lap and the school, except for the some die-hard Ravenclaws and the spiteful Slytherins (James and the Marauders were not popular among them, you see), roared in a cheer. After the game, in front of all the students leaving the auditorium, James asked Lily out.

Now, the common misconception is that Lily hated James all along and turned up her nose to his offer. But I remember what really happened.

Lily had a crush on the Gryffindor Golden Boy. Sure, he was obnoxious sometimes, but he was smart, pretty good looking, and an excellent Quidditch player...who didn't have a crush on him in those days? What happened, though, was that his obnoxious side grew to annoy Lily, who fancied herself among the righteous. The Marauders pranked everyone, but a lot of the times it wasn't very funny. I mean, lots of the people laughed, but they could be very cruel. Like to Snape, for example. I will always stick by my first argument; that Snape wasn't very nice to them either. But the injustice of four-on-one irked Lily beyond reason, in Samantha's opinion at least, and she turned James down. She had too much homework, she said.

Unfazed, he asked about the weekend after. Lily asked if he would be up for a date if Gryffindor lost the championship match that weekend, and he laughed.

"I'm not going to lose the match!" Lily looked at him as he stood there, laughing.

"No thank you," she said loudly, and walked away.

Me, Ezra and Gereldine stuck around. We saw James stand there with his mouth open, watching her leave, and then saw him ruffle his hair and shrug, and go back to his legions of adoring fans who deserved his attention. I think he went out that weekend with a Ravenclaw girl, Michaela Abbet. They were a "couple" until after the last game, (He won it, naturally, but when I told Lily, who didn't go the game, she corrected me: "Gryffindor won the game, Lydia, Potter just caught the Snitch.") when Michaela dumped him. The official reason was they dumped each other, or the feeling was mutual, or something. But Ezra told me Michaela got fed up with James constantly watching Lily. From then on I think James had two obsessions: Lily and Quidditch.

The summer between our third and fourth year was peppered with Death Eater attacks. I didn't follow it very much, but whenever I wrote to Lily she'd have some phrase or sentence that left me thinking she knew exactly what was going on. Samantha spent the whole summer in France this time. She told me, in one of the few times she was ever serious, that her parents thought is was safer there than in England, and that she agreed with them.

"It's all right at Hogwarts, of course," she wrote, "But no one is safe out on the streets anymore."

Gereldine's father had been relocated because of his job to India, so her family spent a week and a half every month with him there.

Emma came over my house for a few days, but otherwise I had a quiet summer. I did a lot of homework, wrote a lot of letters. My family went on day trips to London and we spent a long weekend in Scotland. I think that was the last 'quiet' summer I had for a long, long time.