Lily of the Valley
2 November 1974
The first Saturday of November 1974 was unusually warm, but not quite warm enough to go without a coat. Violette was still recovering from Halloween, her mind lingering on the thoughts that clouded her mind while she had been so overwhelmed. She packed her bag up with pencils and an old sketchbook, and Pride and Prejudice, and sat on the grass field behind the greenhouses. With her book opened in her lap, she popped sweet grapes into her mouth as the breeze flew past her, tickling her cheeks like feathers.
Footsteps dragged through the grass, and Violette’s first instinct was to be on her toes, alert with an urge to defend herself. She thought about what that man told her, the man who her mother sent her to speak to after her father died. He told her that she didn’t always need to have her guard up. He reminded her that she was no longer in that alleyway.
“Mind if I have a seat?”
Violette glanced up at him, feeling glad. Remus.
“Not at all.”
He sat down, making a sound of pain as he slowly crouched, then propped himself up with his arms in the grass. Letting out a groaning sigh, he relaxed.
“Have a nice Halloween?” He asked.
Violette shrugged, “It was fine. I heard the real fun went down up in Gryffindor Tower, though.”
Remus chuckled, tiredly, “Jealous?”
Violette scoffed, turning to him to spit some quick, witty remark. Then, she really saw him. His face was covered in scratches and scars, his neck, too. His eyes were dull and tired. He looked exhausted, like he’d been through hell. Her face fell.
He frowned with a puzzled brow, “What? Something on my face?”
She said nothing, her words stuck in her throat like a stopped drain. He chuckled, soft and breathy.
“Don’t worry about it, fancy pants. Not all of us can be as pretty and pristine as you are.” He joked, lightening the mood but still leaving Violette with a bottomless well of questions. With a slight groan, he leaned forward, grabbing her book off of her lap and examining it. “Pride and Prejudice, aye? Think I’ve seen copies of this floatin’ around Gryffindor Tower. Must be good, I reckon.”
Violette blinked, swallowing back her curiosities. It was clear that he was not going to elaborate on the matter. The scars, the stiff-soreness. Slowly, he leaned back, lying down and using his book bag as a headrest.
“Go on.” He said, shutting his eyes, “Will ‘ya read it to me?”
She opened the book, flipped to the beginning. Questions still danced on her tongue, and she glanced down at his hands, which were covered the same as his face. She imagined that the rest of him might’ve been cut up, too, beneath his sweater and jeans.
How rude of me to let my mind wander, she thought, scolding herself. She remembered the way people looked at her when her scars were still fresh on her face, how she hated it, wished she could shrink down small as an ant and crawl away. She read the first line:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
* * *
In mid-November, the fourth years had their first field trip to Hogsmeade of the year. The boys had rambled on and on about the different shops and pubs and things. The walk would be cold, though the first snow had not yet fallen. Violette swung a Slytherin scarf around her neck and pulled on a pair of boots, then met the group of fourth years outside in the courtyard.
“Gather round, gather round!” McGonagall shouted, waving her arms about to wrangle them all together.
“Ah, there you are.” Said Evan when Violette approached, “Thought you weren’t gonna make it.”
“Let’s hit Honeydukes first!” Mulciber nodded, and Avery scoffed.
“No way. Everyone’s hitting Honeydukes first. We’ll go to Gladrags. It’ll be completely empty.”
“You’re only saying that because you need a new coat.” Severus sneered, “We’re going to J. Pippin’s first.”
“You can go play around in the potions shop all you want, as for the rest of us, we’re going to have fun this trip.”
“Yeah, Sev.” Evan joined in, “Last year you kept us in that dingy shop for the entire trip.”
“Let’s let Violette decide on which shops we go to first. She’s the rookie.”
They all turned to her, and she shrugged with a smile, “Sounds like I’ve got a good amount to choose from. I intend to see all of them.”
The walk wasn’t as long as Violette had expected it to be. They walked over the paths on hills which were brown and ready for snow to cover them like blankets. The town was small, like Evan had told her. The roads were gray cobblestone, lined by warm shops and pubs to explore. Locals trotted along the streets, flashing warm smiles at the students who had come to visit. They went through almost all of the shops. Zonko’s, Gladrags Wizardwear, Dominic Maestro’s Music Shop– which, Violette liked the most – then, Severus begged to stop by J. Pippin’s. It was a potion’s shop toward the end of the street.
“Can we go now?” He groaned, “We’ve been through every shop on this road. Haven’t you seen what you need to see, Violette?”
The girl rolled her eyes, chuckling lightly, “Fine, Severus, go on.”
The boys all went down to the end of the street, Evan stayed behind. Violette caught a whiff of sweet cotton candy, then turned toward the shop which seemed to be the most popular. A purple plaque with green letters that read, Honeydukes.
“You wanna go in?” Evan asked.
“I thought you wanted to wait until it wasn’t so crowded.”
He shrugged, “It’s a sweets shop. It’ll be a madhouse in there until we’re all back at school. Come on.”
The two of them went inside, weaving through their peers. The store was filled with shelves of different sweets and treats, piled high. Laughter and chatter swarmed the shop like music. Violette picked through the shelves, and Evan offered to buy her whatever she wanted. She gathered a handful of items, bubblegum, suckers, peppermints, and gave it to Evan.
“I’ll be up at the register if you want to keep looking around.”
She wandered on her own, examining the fun, lively atmosphere. That small flare of loneliness sparked in her chest. It was a feeling she could never fully extinguish. That day, it was a sweeter sort of loneliness. It didn’t hurt like it usually did.
“Violette?”
She turned around to see Lily, beaming with delight.
“I’ve been looking for you all day!” She said, “How’s your first field trip to Hogsmeade?”
Violette smiled, elated to see her, “It’s great.” She shrugged, “Cute little village.”
“I got this groovy new record at Maestro’s.” Lily said, pulling a vinyl record out of a brown paper bag. Sheer Heart Attack by Queen. “Maestro says it’s just come out. And, look, look!” She flipped the cover over to the back, pointed to the fifth song on the tracklist, “Lily Of the Valley.”
Violette grinned, crossing her arms, “Far out. Have you given it a listen, yet?”
“Not yet. Maestro gave it a quick spin in the shop, though. This one,” She pointed at it, “Killer Queen. Oh, I just love it–”
“S’that the new Queen album?” James cut in, taking it out of Lily’s hand and reading it, “Sheer Heart Attack.” He gave a frown, nodding. “Oi, Sirius! This is the one I was talking about!”
Sirius walked up, glancing at the record, then he noticed Violette. Lily took the record back, “Get your own, Potter.”
Violette’s mood soured at Sirius’s presence.
“Are these sweets up to par for you, mademoiselle?” James grinned, “Have you got shops like this in Paris?”
Lily groaned, rolling her eyes, “Of course they have sweets shops in Paris, Potter.”
“Come on, can’t a man make casual conversation?” He turned back to Violette, “How’re you liking Hogsmeade, anyway, Laurent?”
Violette pursed her lips, crossed her arms. She didn’t favor James in any sense, but she could not deny that he had a nice smile and a friendly charm.
“It’s nice.”
“Been to Zonko’s yet? It’s just next door. Best shop on the high street.” James went on, waving a hand in front of him and mapping out Hogsmeade village, even though Violette had already been through most of it. Then, he stopped, and both he and Sirius looked up, behind Violette. James gritted his teeth, sneered and scoffed.
“Care to join us, Rosier?”
Violette glanced back, seeing Evan standing with a sack of sweets in his hand and a cold face.
“No thanks, we were just leaving. Come on, Violette–”
“Leaving so soon?” Potter taunted, “Relax, Ros, we’re just chatting. What’s the rush?”
“We’ve got better things to do than hang around here with you tosser’s.”
“What is it?” James grinned, “Afraid of a tosser like me, is it?”
“Afraid?” Evan scoffed, “Of what, a chalk bomb?” He put a hand gently on Violette’s back, guiding her out of the shop, “Clowns.” He bit under his breath, and he and Sirius exchanged quick glares.
The two of them walked outside, the cold breeze greeting them first, nipping at their noses.
“What was that all about?” Asked Violette.
Evan pulled a pack of popping peppermints out of the bag and poured some out in his hand, and in Violette’s.
“What?” He replied, eating the handful, “That pack of tosser’s were bothering you, weren’t they?”
Violette shrugged, “Not exactly.”
They started down the cobblestone road, toward the potion’s shop to find the boys. Violette snacked on the peppermints, and the spice sizzled on her tongue.
“Not exactly?”
“I was talking to Lily, then the other two came up. She was showing me some new record she’d bought, and–”
“Why do you hang around with her, anyway?”
Violette glanced up at him, furrowing her brow, “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask.” They kept walking, and Evan shrugged, “Well, you know… considering who you are, it’s a bit surprising that you don’t seem to mind that she’s a mudblood.”
Violette stopped, and a confusion-stricken.
“What?”
The boy nodded with a jutted lip, like it was nothing new. Of course, it wasn’t for him, and the others. For Violette it was.
“I said that it’s surprising that you–”
“No, I heard what you said.” She cut in. She stared up at him, her mind racing, “I just– what?”
Then it hit him. His face loosened, and he straightened. His lips parted, “You didn’t know?”
Violette shook her head. She looked at the ground, a feeling of dread washing over her.
She didn’t tell me, she thought, was she afraid to? Maybe she doesn’t care, maybe she doesn’t think that I would care.
A worrying thought struck her.
Does Theo know? She wondered, and her stomach began to turn.
“Does everyone know?”
He hesitated, biting his bottom lip and shrugging, slightly.
“I’d assume so, yes.” He narrowed his gaze, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, “I just… yeah, of course I’m fine.”
“Are you… upset?”
She forced a chuckle, “No, why would I be? We should be catching up with the others by now, shouldn’t we? Come on.”
The two of them walked on, and a thick silence lingered between the two of them. Evan didn’t expect that it would have been such a hard pill to swallow for her. But, even then, he understood why Lily wouldn’t have told her in the first place.
For the rest of the trip, Violette’s mind was in a haze, and that night when they returned to school, she went straight up to the Astronomy Tower to think. It was an odd feeling that loomed in her core, then. She stared out at the castle, and the forest, and felt a churning in her stomach every time she thought about it. It wasn’t the fact that Lily was a muggle-born that bothered her, it was more-so the idea that Lily might have been too nervous to tell Violette about it.
The part that bothered her the most, was that she didn’t care. She couldn’t care less about who Lily’s parents were, or if they were muggles or not. It didn’t change a thing to her, but she thought that maybe it ought to have.
She thought about her mother, and what she would say if she knew that she had been hanging around with muggle-borns at school, especially after the year they had had. The days of packing up the house and leaving France were a blur, but Violette remembered clearly in her head the speech that her mother had given all three of the kids when they’d arrived in London. She firmly impressed upon them the importance of keeping up a good and strong reputation. Violette could see that her father’s death had put a lot of pressure on her mother’s shoulders. People always talked about them, picking apart the evidence and the logistics of it all.
Violette sat down, and she could feel the cold of the wooden and metal floors of the tower through her jeans. She worried that she might be the one to soil the family reputation, all because of one person. A muggle-born girl called Lily.