Potions and Promises
Wednesday, September 8th, 1976
Lily had been avoiding James all week. It was her instinct to draw back from everyone when she was upset, it always had been. But it was different this time, because Potter seemed to be avoiding her too, not that she cared. The only people who knew what’d happened between James and Lily were Mary and Marlene, it had kind of been obvious when she came back crying from her prefect duties. Her two roommates had stuck by her fiercely, and Marlene had even “boycotted” Quidditch practice on Tuesday out of anger at James. The three of them sat at the breakfast table together along with Remus, further down the table from James, Sirius and Peter.
“What do you have first?” Mary asked her over her toast.
“Potions,” Lily sighed, and put her head on the table. None of her friends were taking the subject at NEWT level, and she was worried about having to talk to Snape.
“It’s okay Lils, I’ll walk you over there. I’ve got a free.” Remus said.
“Aw, thanks.”
Remus just gave her a tight smile, and scoffed down his third piece of toast. Lily finished off her cup of tea, and they stood up together.
Now they were in sixth year, their classes were mixed with all the houses, and people from all four were in Lily’s potions class. She walked into the room and scanned the students for an empty seat. There was one in the back, as far away from Snape as you could get. Perfect.
As Lily walked over, she realised it was next to Sybill Trelawney, a Ravenclaw girl who kept to herself, and Mary always said she was a bit weird. However, Lily didn’t really have another choice, and wasn’t going to judge her based on what Mary said anyway.
“Hi, I’m Lily.” She said instead, offering a smile to the other girl.
“Oh. Hello.” Sybill replied, blinking at Lily from behind her thick glasses that made her blue eyes look way too big for her face. She had dirty blonde hair that framed her face in ringlets, and her eyes shifted across Lily’s face in a way that made her look distant.
The two girls later had to partner up to brew Felix Felicis, and Lily discovered that Sybill was talented at potions. She had been worried about not having Severus as a partner this year, as he had helped her a lot with the OWL in it, but between them, Lily and Sybill made a decent potion. Severus was still awarded house points for the best potion, but Lily felt satisfied with her work by the end of the lesson.
Lily tried to talk to Sybill as they worked, but she didn’t really say much, only giving one-word answers to Lily’s questions. It wasn’t that she was shy, Lily realised, but that she didn’t really say anything until she felt the need to. Lily thought it was a bit awkward, as they were working in silence, but the other girl didn’t seem to think so.
“Can we study together sometime?” Lily asked at the end of the lesson, determined to not give up and a bit desperate for more friends. Sybill looked at her strangely, like she was seeing her for the first time, and blushed.
“Yeah, that... that would be good.” She finally said quietly. Lily gave her a polite smile and they walked out of the classroom together.
That night, in the girl's dorm room, Mary, Marlene and Lily were sat in a circle. Mary’s record player was softly playing ABBA’s new album.
“Please? I promise it’ll be so much fun.”
“I don’t know, Mary” Lily groaned, flopping onto her back on the floor. Emmeline Vance was holding a birthday party this weekend in the Ravenclaw common room, and apparently, they were invited.
“But Lil, you need to have some fun, you’ve been so uptight recently.” Mary pleaded, grabbing onto her arm. Lily frowned.
“I have homework.” It wasn’t a lie, she did have a potions essay due.
Mary rolled her eyes dramatically. “We’re not even a week into the year!” She exclaimed, exasperated.
“I think you should go, Lily. It’ll be fun. And everyone’s going to be there.” Marlene added, tucking her long blonde hair behind her ears. Lily briefly wondered if Sybill would be there, she was a Ravenclaw, after all.
“Everyone?” She asked skeptically.
“Don't worry,” Mary jumped in, shooting Marlene a look, “James won’t be there.”
“Fine. I’ll think about it.”
“That means yes.” Mary jumped up and ran to Lily’s bed. “What are you going to wear?”
“I never said I was going!”
“Oooh, you should wear that green dress you wore last year to Remus’s birthday party.” Marlene said from the floor, ignoring Lily.
Mary’s face lit up. “Yes! Yes, Lily you looked so good in that dress. It’s like, the same colour as your eyes, and everyone knows that redheads look amazing in green.” She was already searching through Lily’s wardrobe.
“Stop messing up my stuff!” Lily pleaded, but Mary just rolled her eyes.
“Ah-ha!” She said, pulling out the dress in question. It was a light forest green with small pink flowers scattered all over it. Petunia had picked it out for her, last Christmas. It’ll match your eyes, she’d said, pulling it out from the rack. She had smiled at Lily, a rare thing these days. It’d almost been normal between the two sisters, for about a week, until Vernon had come along to visit and ruined it all. Lily shook the memory away, focusing on the present. She tilted her head at Mary, who was waiting expectantly, the dress held out in front of her.
“Okay! I’ll go, and I’ll wear the stupid dress.” She agreed.
“Yes! I knew you would!” Mary shouted and dropped the dress, instead reaching for Lily and hugging her tightly. Lily laughed and pushed her away.
She had prefect patrols again the next evening, but this time with Remus. She had tried to change the rota as much as possible so she wouldn’t be left alone with Potter, and so far she had managed to avoid him. Lily and Remus went on their assigned route of the castle, but it seemed like no one was breaking the rules this early into the year. Lily found herself relaxing more than she had all week, falling into her usual friendship with Remus. But something was on his mind, he hadn’t been his usual self since they came back to Hogwarts, and Lily couldn’t help remembering her promise to Sirius.
“Remus?” She asked tentatively, after a few moments of silence.
“Yeah?”
“I talked to Sirius, the other day.” She watched his face, and something distinctly shifted when she said the other boy’s name, like a wall going up. He didn’t say anything.
“He’s really sorry, Remus. And I know it’s not my place to say anything, and I’m not telling you to forgive him, but he misses you, and I can see that you miss him too. Why don’t you just talk to him? Hear him out?”
Remus’s expression didn’t change, and for a second, she thought she had made him angry, but then he sighed, and met her eyes.
“Maybe you’re right. I’m tired of being angry.” Lily exhaled, relieved. “But... I think you should talk to James, too.”
Lily opened her mouth to protest, but Remus gave her a look, and she closed it again.
“Okay, fine.”
Remus grinned, “Thank God, I can’t deal with any more of his moping.”
“He’s moping over me?” Lily asked, forgetting herself. She didn’t think James cared that much, he had asked her to talk to him a few times, but he wasn’t so annoying as he had been last year.
Remus looked at her like she was insane. “Of course he is, he’s only been in love with you for what – three years?”
“He is not in love with me!” Lily had always hated that act he put on, asking her out constantly just to annoy Severus, pretending to like her just so he could laugh about it with his stupid friends. He couldn’t actually be in love with her, could he?
“Of course he is, it’s all he ever talks about. He’s trying out a new strategy of giving you space, that was my idea.”
“Well, thank you. He’s been considerably less annoying this year.”
She shouldn’t have been, but she was still thinking about what Remus had said when she lay in bed that night, unable to go to sleep. Sure, they all made jokes about her and Potter all the time, but she thought that was behind them. After all, he had apologised for the way he acted. She didn’t know why she was so worked up about it anyway, it wasn’t as if she liked him, the annoying prick. He might be easy on the eye, but he was so full of himself it made her feel sick. Besides, love was a strong word, and Remus had obviously been joking, hadn’t he?
Lily may not have wanted to, in this case, but she always kept her word. So, when Potter asked her to talk to him the next morning, she accepted. He had blinked at her, surprised, as he had obviously not expected her to say yes.
They both had a free period, and James led her to the black lake, where they sat, taking in the last of the sunshine before summer was over.
“Look, I’m sorry, Potter.”
“No, no. I’m sorry. You were right, I shouldn’t have acted like that. And I tried to apologise to Snivellus, but he just hexed me, the git.” James said earnestly, rolling up the sleeves of his robes to show his brown arms.
Lily laughed. “Maybe I was right, but I shouldn’t have been so annoying about it. I just... I hated the way you acted last year, asking me out as a joke all the time, you know?”
“Yeah, that’s why I stopped.” James agreed, but his brow was furrowed.
“I need to send Petunia a letter, so I should probably go.” She said, standing up and brushing the grass off her robes. It wasn’t just an excuse, she really did want to send her a letter, but she also couldn’t spend another second with James right now, because the more time she spent with him, the more she enjoyed being around him. And liking James Potter was something she swore would never, ever happen.
James stood up with her, and she prayed he wouldn’t offer to walk her to the owlery, but when he didn’t, she felt a little stab of disappointment all the same.
“Evans?” He said, just as she had started to walk away.
“Yeah?”
“It wasn’t a joke.”
Lily tilted her head, opening her mouth with a question, but James answered it before she could even get it out.
“Asking you out, and everything. It was never a joke. You... you’re um...” He cleared his throat, blushing. “I meant it.”
Lily found her voice was gone, and when she met James’s eyes, they were shining and earnest.
She finally came to her senses, and shook her head. “James, you don’t have to-”
“I meant it, I promise.”
Lily avoided his gaze, but nodded. “Sure.”
She left before he could say anything else, and walked to the owlery, her mind preoccupied with a million thoughts, most of them involving James Potter. His words were replaying in her head, over and over. He didn’t actually like her, he had started pestering her in third year, no one knew what they were doing at that age. And if he had meant it, that was past tense. Just because he had liked her last year doesn’t mean he still did. God, what was she even doing? She hated Potter, she always had, and she always would.
Right?
She went about her day as normal, but found her hands shook as she tied the letter to one of the school owls. She hoped Petunia would respond this time, she had tried to mention school as little as possible, and even asked about Vernon. But she hadn’t written back to Lily since third year. She claimed to not know how to use owls, but Lily had showed her, and she had done it before. Even her parents managed to do it. The truth was, Lily felt so painfully far away from her family, and they could never understand this part of her life.
Hogwarts was so different, so far removed from their terraced house in Cokeworth. Sometimes it felt like she was living two lives, and every time she thought of Hogwarts as home, or her friends as her family, she felt a stab of guilt in the back of her mind. She knew she could never go back to being a muggle, once she had opened her mind to this new world, she didn’t want to close it. She didn’t want to settle for less, when she could be whatever she wanted to be, she could be magic.
Still, she also didn’t miss the names the Slytherins shouted in the corridors, the hexes they threw at her, and others like her. She refused to let it get to her, holding her head up high, using her prefect’s badge like a shield. But there was a whole world out there, a war where a prefect badge meant nothing.
It was selfish, Lily knew, but she wouldn’t give up magic even if it meant fighting a war.