I'll Take it Shaken, Not Stirred

Chapter 1: Somewhere Between Fairytales (a.k.a. The Boy in the Fire)

"You packed yet Lily?" came the call of Mrs. Evans from the kitchen.

"Yes, Mum," replied Lily.

"Petunia's coming in an hour, so make sure you're ready by then..."

Lily groaned.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, Mum, nothing..."

Sighing and rolling over on her small portion of free bed, Lily mentally slapped herself for forgetting. Petunia and Vernon would be coming. Vernon Dursley was Petunia's live-in boyfriend. They weren't married (both being very career oriented and not thinking it entirely necessary), but Mrs. Evans always wanted them to be. For other reasons, or else simply because she wanted to be a mother-of-the-bride, Mrs. Evans constantly hinted at Petunia. Though Lily's relationship with Elijah could be considered "serious," they weren't by any means engaged.

Lily climbed off her bed and crossed to the vanity. She picked up a brush and ran it through her hair, staring with dissatisfaction at her mirror image. The same reflection as ever stared back. The same ginger hair fell just past her shoulders. The same green eyes sparkled in the lava-lamp lighting. The same fair, thin face looked the same as ever, except there was a touch of red in her cheeks from excitement. The same half a dozen freckles were splashed on the same small, strait nose. It was a pretty face. Lily didn't like it.

She pulled down a red and silver make-up box from the shelf next to the mirror and glanced in the mirror on the open lid. Photographs surrounded it. They were mostly wizard pictures, because the subjects were not stationary as in muggle pictures; rather they were waving, smiling, winking, and making faces at her from their paper worlds.

Lily smiled reminiscently at the picture in the right corner; it was a picture of Elijah and her, sitting on the grass under a tree with his arms around her. Just below it was a mug shot of a brown-haired fifteen-year-old girl with a round, cheerful face, and soft brown eyes. Just below that was a muggle picture of Lily's family. It was an old picture- taken before Lily had entered Hogwarts, when she and her sister were still on good terms. Lily was still short and bony in this picture, and her then violently red hair was still cut in a bob.

On the opposite side of the mirror was another wizard picture. It was of seven people, all wearing scarlet and gold robes and holding broomsticks in hand. They were grinning and waving, looking flushed and wind-blown. It was from Hogwarts's Quidditch Cup the year previously. Covering the lower half of the Quidditch picture was a wizard photo of three males. One had red hair and freckles, another had sandy brown hair, a long, pale face, and the other was an exceptionally handsome sixteen-year-old, with neat black hair and smirking grey eyes. Though one wouldn't guess it at first, the last was only in Lily's make-up box by chance that he was in a picture with the other two. Below that picture were just two more. One was a scene of a fairy-tale-esque castle: Hogwarts. The other was of two girls of sixteen. One was an Asian girl with long black hair and thin-rimmed square glasses, and the other was a pretty girl with blue eyes, honey colored hair, and a suntanned face. They had their arms on each other's shoulders, and they were grinning up at Lily. The blonde girl winked.

Whenever Lily opened this make-up box, she would look over the pictures and remember the times they had been taken. When she had finished her trip down memory lane, however, she sorted through a good deal of make-up that she had never used, and probably never would. Finally she located the bare necessities (eye-liner and lip gloss- she lived in mortal terror of foundation and mascara) and began to apply them.