Epiphany

hi. i'm sure no one will read this bit, but oh well. i feel like it's important to me more than anything to put an end to this fic. an official end

no that does not mean i will be writing anymore for this. i really don't want to be associated with the harry potter fandom or jk rowling anymore, for personal reasons. as a queer nonbinary individual, i really just. idk how to explain it other than being a part of this fandom makes me feel icky now, so i'm gonna put it behind me. get some closure, ya know

also i wanted to give you guys some closure and i saw somewhere a recommendation to resolve fics that you've left unfinished by explaining what would've happened, so i'm gonna try and do some of that. tbh i was honestly coming up with most of the plot as i went so if there are big gaps... well, just expect them. also there will be spelling mistakes

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after the amortentia lesson, james overhears a conversation between lily and snape that turns into an argument. he almost intervenes but hesitates and then lily's standing up for herself. james leaves feeling confident that lily can handle herself (and also feeling a lil bit more in love, but he tries to ignore that part)

the next few chapters would've focused on james opening up to the marauders a bit more, talking about his feelings for lily and his lack thereof for mary. they're very supportive about it all (sirius a bit too much so, encouraging james to make a move, which remus correctly identifies as a bad idea this soon). peter is even more distant, but james pretends not to notice

on lily's side of things, mary comes out of the infirmary and is utterly horrified by the way her friends and the school are treating lily. she starts hanging out with lily at every opportunity and showing that she feels no ill-will towards lily, which lily feels very awkward about cause she still feels guilty. the girls' coven gets back together after some well-needed apologies

james potter experiences a sort of fall from grace. his reputation is in shambles and once the gossip around the yule ball dies down, he sort of becomes irrelevant. which he's totally fine with. he honestly couldn't care less. however, since lily's abandoned snape again, the james vs snape prank war continues in full force. snape has this huge prank planned for the end of the year that's alluded to multiple times but not brought up for agesssss (because i make you wait. except i don't because i don't write it)

there's a bit of a time jump and exams are here wooo. maybe there's some mention of the amortentia thing and also death eater stuff before exams but i didn't have any ideas for that so :P

exams go mostly fine. lily ends up studying with james for potions (cue longing glances and awkward accidental hand nudging). snape is awful just generally. the girls go on a few day trips to hogsmeade to relieve themselves from the stress. james and the gang relieve the pressure with pranks. actual exams go fine, james maybe flunks a few but mostly does well. lily does amazingly of course because she's practically perfect

blah blah blah, all mostly chill at this point except lily has some stuff with her family (petunia is stopping their parents from both sending and receiving letters because she sucks. it gets resolved and petunia has this dramatic thing about swearing to never speak to lily again. fun times)

end of the year!! and james gets a note from lily to meet him by the lake to talk! and he gets all nicely dressed and gets advice from the boys because this is it, this is the moment to make it up to her and confess his feelings!!! he goes to the lake and brings some flowers or something and lily's standing there and she's beautiful and james is so awkward but then she smiles at him and says she needs to tell him something, but he says the same thing at the exact same time. they laugh and decide james should go first. he does. he rambles a bit and basically all the words spill out in a flood and he's talking about how sorry he is and how messed up what he did was and how he hopes she can forgive him and then it just slips out that he really likes her. she goes quiet. it's so tense. lily looks up at him and she's so pretty omg he can't even believe it

"i don't like you. and i can't forgive you." she says. and he's heartbroken. because he's an angsty teenager this all feels so much worse. and the flowers fall to his feet. and he begins to walk away

SPLASH! he gets knocked into the lake and the lily illusion disappears and snape is standing there cackling and so is a bunch of the school (he'd brought them out just to really rub it in). yes this was his prank, it's awful i know

but shock horror, lily's there! and she confronts snape about it and slaps him and it's awesome. can you tell i don't like snape? the only one who takes a hit to their reputation from this prank is snape

anyway, the real lily and james ending is that they talk it over and lily says she likes james but she's not ready for a relationship with him yet. it's a sort of waiting for each other situation. but in the mean time they will resume the flirtatious banter and teasing

the summer holidays come around and there's a sort of cute friendship moment with everyone saying goodbye, etc. corny stuff but we like it. we end with a mirroring of the train scene from the start, with james popping into the girls' compartment and wreacking havoc in his usual way (but it's fun this time, less antagonistic vibes. also snape's not there)

*dramatically fades to black*

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i did have plans for making a series out of this but uh. yeah. so the one after this was gonna be called infatuation and it was gonna focus around the sixth... i think it's sixth?... year of their time at hogwarts. basically some more death eater threat things would occur, getting more serious, and there would be this continued banter with james and lily. i was gonna give mary someone else to date because girlie needs some love and support. there was gonna be more quidditch. all fun stuff that you can imagine playing out. a similar story for the final one of the seventh year which would have a name of some sort... maybe like confession or something relating to them actually getting together. the last one would get a lot more real and serious especially with death eater stuff

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extra notes:

- pepper should've gotten more screen time, i just have a bad memory and forgot she existed

- there were gonna be some ocs of mine in the background, maybe they could've shown up in the next two stories, and they were gonna expand the friend group basically

- i fully endorse any fics that act as a continuation of this story or your own spin on it (as long as you give credit)

- i DO NOT endorse getting ai to finish my fic. this is my writing and i do not want it copied by ai, thank youu

- uhh that's about it. guess that's all

final words i guess. i really appreciate everyone who read and engaged with any of my fics, i recognised anyone who commented often and it always made me smile. i have nothing against anyone who continues to make content for this fandom, so long as you definitely do not support any of jk rowling's transphobic or antisemitic views, or just her as a person. i recommend you read up on how her and her money is actively harming trans people's lives in the uk, and don't buy any official merch or anything that could possibly give her any more money (that especially includes the harry potter reboot). i also recommend you engage with other fandoms especially ones with more friendly and caring authors

some books i'd recommend that are similar in their vibes to harry potter, but very much less harmful:

- the lockwood & co series by johnathan stroud

- the shadowhunters series by cassandra clare

- the percy jackson & other series' by rick riordan

- the grishaverse books by leigh bardugo

anyway. that's it from me. i hope you enjoyed epiphany and i hope you have a wonderful life. bye all <3