Love and Other Tragedies

Full Summary: Lily's life is turned upside down by a late night outburst from her boyfriend's best friend, sending her down a path of self discovery that will change all her careful ideals of the way things are supposed to be.

Author's Note: This story functions almost completely in cannon, despite one large exception that LILY IS DATING SIRIUS when the story begins. I'm the author so of course I'm going to suggest giving the story a chance before judging what might be deemed an OOC decision. Characters are kind of my thing and if you give mine a chance I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy them too.

It is a DIFFERENT explanation of our favorite untold story of Lily and the Marauders.

Everything we know about the Marauders, Lily, and Snape are all as they happen in the book. I simply attempted to give a fresh view as to how things got that way.

This is rated M and it will be for a reason. This is the prologue and it written in a different style than the rest of the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I'm not making any money.

Prologue:

All of the Reasons Why

There was a time in Hogwarts' history when the whispers of war were hushed, but always heard. Focusing outward meant confronting the unattractive truths that waited with sly anticipation just beyond graduation.

It was easier to come together, looking within their sanctuary for distractions.

Relationships were in vogue, and it was not hard to find couples of every house and age seeking solace in the company of the only thing that they could control… love. Fleeting, young, and repeatedly naïve the type of love they found was not always the forever type or even the meaningful kind.

There was one couple though, who no one ever doubted the importance of their love.

Their lust was legendary, and their relationship could always be counted on for the latest bit of tantalizing gossip. Younger students were more than willing to share tales of catching them snogging in broom closets, shagging up in the Astronomy Tower, or even their famous rendezvous by the lake that every second year boy knew could be witnessed if one was lucky enough to possess the right pair of binoculars.

For all those who took the time to consider such things-

It was obvious.

Lily and Sirius were meant to be.

Lily Evans was good at almost everything and even the very best at a few, but the very best thing that Lily was good at was love. She had known different kinds of love her entire life.

Her parents had loved each so fiercely that Lily often suspected they didn't have any leftover to share with their daughters. They were magnificent parents, of course. Clapping the loudest when Lily won academic awards and always taking care of their daughters in every way they could, but Lily had always been aware that her parents would have been just as happy if it were just the two of them on a deserted island and Lily and Petunia did not exist.

Lily supposed it was romantic.

As a result of this imbalance, Lily loved her sister the most. She needed it more than anyone else. Up until the day she had met Severus Snape, Lily had been very good at getting Petunia to love her back. Unfortunately, ever since her transformation from muggle to magical, Petunia had been obsessed with muggle. Her sister's return of affection depended solely on Lily's willingness to act completely "normal." Any slip of the world of the word "Quidditch" or accidental magic would result in not hearing from Petunia for a month.

In opposition to the love she had for her sister, there was the love she had for Severus Snape. It would have been impossible not to love the boy she met on the playground that fateful day. In Lily's mind, he had given her magic, filling a hole in her life that she had not even realized existed. Severus had never felt love a day in his life and Lily gave him enough to drown in.

While Petunia relied on Lily's love to be purely "normal," Lily was faced with the full responsibility of teaching Severus HOW to love.

Eventually it had become obvious that even though Severus had learned how to love her, he would never be able to stop hating himself for it. It is Severus Snape's great tragedy that he could never reconcile his own powerful love with his equally important hate. It is how he became just a paragraph in someone else's love story.

Yes, Lily Evans had built up years of experience with love. It was hate that puzzled the girl who was good at everything. She had never been able to come to terms with it.

Love was easy.

If you looked hard enough you could find something to love in anyone.

Love was something you could control, while hate ran rampant through the irrational at mind and desperate of heart. If love was control, then hate was ignorance.

It was love that pulled Lily like a magnet toward the Marauders in the first place. Not the outward kind that made professors smile at their kindness, or the obvious kind that shed a thick ray of sunshine on all those near them, but in a deep way that the experienced heart of Lily Evans could detect even in their first year.

As a silent observer, she watched the four boys transcend obstacles of family and devastation, knowing even before the boys themselves that the love would grow. She knew it because more than anything the four of them needed each other.

They all had their tragedies.

And Lily understood just how closely related love and need really were.

She was drawn to them from the start, but it took her a long time to figure out how appreciate them. They had similarities- both Lily and the Marauders were quite popular, all proud Gryffindors, and they all had deep feelings regarding Severus Snape.

Those deep, very opposing views, of the Slytherin led to uneasiness in Lily's early life at Hogwarts. It nearly drove her crazy trying to somehow decipher, separate, and bring to terms her ideals of love, the Marauders, and her childhood best friend.

In the end, Lily could love the Marauders in spite of the fact that they were immature, arrogant, and rule breakers, but she couldn't love Severus in spite of all his hate.

If she was being honest with herself, then Lily could have admitted that it could have been any of them.

It could have been Remus, who out of the four of them was most like her in outward attitude. He was smart in a dedicated way. He applied himself to all challenges with the vigor of a man with something to prove, and he was so nice that she feared it would run away with him. There was something in his eyes though that made her cautious and for a long time she could not put her finger on it.

One day sitting in the Great Hall on a rare cloudless day during third year, there had been a picture of a man in the Daily Prophet who admittedly- although accidentally- killed his wife.

She had stared at the picture recognizing something and not being able to put her finger on it, when his eyes shifted slowly to stare directly at her.

It was guilt.

It was on that man's face and it had been on Remus Lupin's face every single day she had ever known him. It was a look- to her horror- that made her question whether love really did conquer all. She might have been as brave as any Gryffindor, but that was something she knew she could not face.

It even could have been Peter, with his boyish face and sweet smile. Like another friend of Lily's, Peter was often misunderstood. Unlike Severus, who would never appear dim especially not to his enemies, Peter's quiet nature was often mistaken for blankness. It was something that he used to his advantage, proving that he was actually quite clever in his own ways. He understood the group dynamics and used them to accomplish his means.

However like Remus's eyes, there was something that caused her unease. Even though she watched him carefully and saw more than most, she felt like it was never enough. Lily was the sole owner of the belief that Peter Pettigrew was a bit mysterious.

James was the least likely out of the group. She could not blame him, when he was constantly showered with love and adoration, for believing it. The attractive Quidditch Chaser had two attitudes toward Lily: annoyance and indifference. She could blame him for that.

From the end of fifth year on, Lily was there with them and even though the other boys seemed to not only not mind having her present, but actually WANTED her to be with them, James continued in his unspoken desire for her to go back to Severus Snape or wherever the hell she came from.

James Potter did not need her love in the least.

That left Sirius.

And because she had loved Petunia and because she had loved Severus, she knew exactly how to love Sirius Black.

She knew deep in her heart that she belonged with the Marauders. It was natural.

He needed her and she needed them.

Love was easy.

She could have had a relationship with any of them, except maybe James, but it was Sirius who needed her the most. And although Sirius had never been described as such in his entire life- to Lily- he was safe.

She would never be in danger of loving him too much.

Love was control.

Loving someone toomuch was not something Lily was interested in. Toomuch love was a tragedy. Ask Romeo or Juliet. Ask Lily's 'magnificent' parents who could never love their children exactly how they should. Ask her father why he would run into a burning house, knowing his wife was long dead.

In the end the only thing left were orphans and bad love stories.

To everyone at Hogwarts, Lily and Sirius were meant for each other.

She was the beautiful Head Girl to-be, and he was the charming trouble maker. It was a book begging to be written- the girl perfect at love and the boy who desperately needed it. A pureblood going against all that he had ever known to be with mudblood.

Lily supposed it was romantic.

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Author's Note: I'd say the Prologue is just a little "Life According to Lily."

I should warn you that you are getting into a monster of a fic. It's anin depthlook at what you might deem a very backwards explanation of how things came to be the way they are in the Harry Potter series.

If JK taught us anything it's that nothing is ever easy and I'm applying the same philosophy to the Marauder Era.

It will be written in a more mature light and will deal with sexual situations.

I really appreciate feedback!