No Ordinary

Lily Evans was a simple person. At least she liked to think so. She just wanted good grades and to erase the word mudblood from the human vocabulary. She was happy with her life most of the time. She loved magic, she loved Hogwarts, she got along with her roommates. She was also top of her class, she worked hard for it and she deserved it. What else to wish for? But although she would like to be contented in her life, she wasn’t. Not really.

Lily Evans was lonely. She had her friends, of course. But she lost Severus. Or rather he confirmed what Marauders were saying for years and that really hurt. She also had Remus. They talked, they studied together sometimes. But she didn’t have that best friend she would die for.

That was what she was thinking about walking down the hallway. As much as the Marauders annoyed her with their pranks and irresponsibility, she envied them. Their friendship. James’ and Sirius’ in particular. They were like brothers. She has never ever seen one of them alone, they were always together like they morphed into one person. Inseparable. They knew everything about each other and now they even lived together. They would die to protect each other. Lily wanted that. Lily wanted someone she could always count on, someone who would have her back. Someone she would love as much as those two loved one another. But where to find that person?

Well, speak of the devil… When Lily turned a corner, she caught a glimpse of one Sirius Black. She automatically searched for James but didn't see him anywhere. What was she saying about the two of them never separating?

She would normally go on with her day, nothing interesting about Black, but she had to pause when she saw who he was with. She didn’t really hear what he was saying, but she noticed that he was wildly gesticulating to some Slytherin girl. They were probably arguing. And what is worse, there was a bunch of first years around them.

And since Lily Evans was a Head girl, she couldn’t let Black bully some girl just because she was a Slytherin. And some kids watching them! What was he thinking?

“What is going on here?” she spouted harshly. She should have wait and see. Because if she would, she’d notice, that Sirius’ face was splitting a huge smile and the girl was smirking. The first years were grinning. They were perhaps a little intimidated and shy, but Sirius was acting very welcome to them. But Lily didn’t see that, she naturally thought the worst.

“Oh, Lily-flower, you wanna join our super-secret meeting? We are about to break a bunch of rules, but make Hogwarts a better place," he smiled seemingly politely but the irony was dripping from his voice. Lily had a feeling he doesn’t like her. Why? She didn’t know.

The truth is, he did like her. He liked how fierce and passionate she could be, how she always said what she thought, and well, James was madly in love with her, so he kind of had to like her. But sometimes she was a bit of a prude and that was annoying the hell out of him.

“What?” Yeah, way to go, girl, she thought to herself. Read the room.

The Slytherin girl snorted.

“I’m here, I’m here!” James Potter suddenly appeared behind her with full hands of pens. Muggle pens. “Heyyyyy, Evans. You’re not gonna ruin this, are you?” he asked hopefully, and Lily was even more confused. Also, she thought about reconsidering her life choices and how she presents herself to the world, because the first thing James assumed was, that she ruins the fun. Wonderful.

"What are you doing here with the first years?" she asked instead of answering while eyeing the Slytherin girl. She could be their age. She was petite, with pale skin and short, black hair. Freckles on her cheeks and a silver ring in her nose. Her eyes were forest green mixing with brown, almond-shaped, and beautiful. She was holding a flowerpot with a small purple-ish flower with both hands like it was a baby. Lily didn’t recognize her.

“They were gonna enchant those pens to look like quills. First years have trouble writing with those, especially muggleborns. It’s pretty unpractical. I use ballpoints myself,” the girl explained instead of James and Sirius. She had a thick Russian accent, but her voice was soft as her features.

“But it’s a rule… To use quills…” she protested weakly, she didn’t even know why. It was actually a really good idea. She herself hated quills.

“It’s a stupid rule. If you want, you can take some points from Gryffindor for breaking it, but you can’t stop it.” That was Sirius. His voice didn’t sound as harsh as the words did, more like challenging.

“I’m not gonna take our points for helping first years to adapt better… For how long does the spell work? Are you doing it every day or what?” she asked, watching James trying not to drop all those pens.

“No. You see, we don’t really enchant them. It’s more complicated. It is an invisibility spell of sorts fused with some transfiguration. Very complex. But it stays that way as long as we want,” James explained, and Sirius winked.

Lily was impressed. She didn't know such a spell, they must have look for it for quite some time. Or maybe they even invented that spell. Which was even more impressive. It was also some pretty advanced magic, to make it stay morphed. The simplest invisibility spell was so difficult, that only a few were able to perform it. And make it last? Wow.

“That is… very nice of you,” she finally said and turned to the Slytherin girl. “I’m Lily Evans, by the way.”

“Sabine,” the girl nodded, hands full, so she couldn’t shake Lily’s hand.

“How do you know each other anyway? I’m surprised you talk to one another," she pointed at Sabine's green tie. And then she realized that was a stupid ass thing to say and do.

Sabine smiled, Sirius barked with laughter and James shook his head with a laugh bubbling in his chest. Which reminded Lily of the day she saw them laughing like crazy any she kind of wanted to hear that sound again.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“It’s fine,” Sabine waived and almost dropped her flower.

"She's my dealer," answered finally Sirius, but didn't get Lily time to get confused or mad again. "We met a few years back in the train to here, she's a sixth year. And she's magical, I mean it. The most important person in my life."

“Oi!” exclaimed James and Sabine smiled again, softly.

“Sorry, Prongs. But she gives me music.”

And Lily was confused again.

“A music?” she asked puzzled, and Sirius turned his gaze back to her.

“Yes, Evans, music. She exchanges muggle money with me so I can buy muggle music. And clothes. And cigarettes. And she even found me a tattoo artist, look.” Sirius took off his t-shirt and shown Lily black ink strongly contrasting with his pale skin. She backed up a little, startled at his exhibitionism. Who does that?! But then she noticed all those tattoos. On his chest and shoulders and arms. There were runes and tiny antlers, thin lines that looked a bit like a map. She didn’t have time to examine more of his tattoos because he put his t-shirt back on.

“Wow. That must have hurt,” she noted.

“Yeah, not really. But all of them are muggle tattoos, isn’t it awesome? So, I was thinking about the magic paintings the other day and then I searched for some magic tattoos, but there are none. Then I thought that if there are magic paintings, there must be a way to make a magic tattoo too, right? And hear this, Sabine knows what flowers are used in magic paint. It’s not just about mojo the portraits to live, but it’s mostly about the paint and brush,” Sirius trailed off and Lily couldn’t stop staring. She has never seen him talk so passionately about something. Definitely not about art.

“Sabine is amazing at herbology, she has like thousand flowers including those that are used in the paint. So, I’m working on magic tattoos. How cool is that? Anyway, she also gives us flower ingredients for potions. You know, pranks…” Sirius finally got back to the point.

“Padfoot, a little help here?” called James before Lily could reply. The whole time he was enchanting or transfiguring the pens into quill lookalikes. He probably heard that speech many times.

“Sorry, deer,” Sirius grinned and joined him. The first years were excitedly whispering, the girls blushing like crazy, probably because of previously shirtless Sirius.

“Are the tattoos going to talk too?” asked Lily curiously, because that would be creepy.

“No. That would be weird. I don’t want any parts of my body, except for my mouth, to talk.”

“Agreed. Let me know when you figure it out,” she responded, already thinking about a nice tattoo she could get. She always liked those but never really thought about it. But she saw Sirius doodle a few times when he was bored at class and damn, the boy had talent. He would be an amazing tattoo artist.

James and Sirius stopped their work and turned to her, shocked.

“You want a tattoo?” James blurted and Lily shrugged.

“I would never guess," Black shook his head, but smiled. All the hostility from before gone.

“Alright fellas, I gotta go, but let me know if you need something. And Sirius, don’t tattoo before you test it! It was nice meeting you, Lily. Bye,” Sabine waived and turned to leave.

“Thanks for everything, Love,” replied Sirius.

“Don’t call me that!”

“She loves me,” he beamed and continued with his work.

“Don’t they all?” chuckled James.

Lily watched them work. The kids were staring at them with astonishment and admiration. And she wasn't surprised. She never thought that a look at the two boys would warm her heart. They were laughing, joking around, engaging the kids in conversations. They were giving them advice on how to get to classes on time, they told them the pattern of magic stairs changings. They were amazing. And Lily had to wonder how could she ever dislike them.

Then a wave of sadness hit her because there it was, right in front of her eyes. The friendship, the love, the kindness. She wanted that so badly it hurt. She was so lonely and desperate for love. She could just stare at James Potter with his amazingly deep, dark eyes, his black hair he would mess even more with his hand. He had long fingers and strong forearms. She could just imagine those arms wrapped around her in a comforting hug…

“Oh my god!” she shouted suddenly, which made said boy flinch. She turned on her heel and red from head to toe, she rushed away. That was not something she should be thinking about!

“Charming,” remarked Sirius and went on with his work, whilst James stared at the place Lily was standing just seconds ago.