on wednesdays we wear pink

I guess it’s normal for parents to cry on their kids' first day of school. There were tears in Lily’s moms eyes as she handed her daughter a brown paper bag. But this usually happens when the kid is five.
“Oh, my baby’s going to school!” she sobbed, wrapping her arms around her daughter. Lily could hear her dad say “smile!” and did her best to look happy when the flash came on.
Lily’s 15, and until today she’d been homeschooled. But she’s not completely socially inept, she thought her family was totally normal. Only her parents were research zoologists and until this summer, they’d been living in a hut in Namibia.
Lily had always enjoyed her life. Homeschooling wasn’t as bad as people think. She always loved math, even when she was young. Her whole life, she used to love books about people growing up, falling in love, making friends. Realistic fiction. But to her, it was as close to a fantasy as dragons and witches. Lily's life up to this point had been so small. Just her, her mom and dad, their work and Petunia. Her first friend, her best friend, her sister. For years, the sisters would tell eachother everything, do everything together. Lily’s best childhood memories are chasing Petunia though the safari, trying to find animals for their parents to study. Her and Petunia playing board games their mom had brought from home. Lily and Petunia talking about what they wanted to do when they grew up (Lily would be a singer and Petunia would be a movie star).
But they grew up and grew apart, that’s all. That’s what Lily told herself, at least. She hasn’t seen Petunia since she went off to college a month ago, and she still hasn’t called.
The school she would be going to was a private one, known for having the kids of politicians and celebrities, the upper escalon of teenage society. Lily was in because she was smart, on scholarship. Her mom told her that going from homeschool to private school would be an easier transition, less kids means more personalized lesson plans.
The ride to her new high school was not a quiet or peaceful one.
“Are you nervous, honey? It’s okay if you are. Being nervous is normal, everyone is nervous.” Her mom blabbered in the front seat.“Lily, you can't let anyone mess with you, you have to assert your dominance, like a lioness. Make me proud.” her dad said, and Lily wished her sister was here to laugh at how absurd that was with her.
All the weirdness that came with your daughter having her first day of school ever as a 15 year old eventually ended though when they pulled into Hogwarts highschool.
“Have a good day, don’t be scared, I’ll be here to pick you up, okay?” her mom said, giving Lily one last hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Okay mom, bye!”

Lily had gotten her schedule a few weeks ago, and made it to her homeroom easily. Room 102. The class was loud when she walked in, and Lily had never seen so many kids her age in one room. Everyone was sitting and talking to their friends.
Lily decided to talk to the teacher, and went up to the woman standing at the front of the class. The woman was wearing a sundress and a sweater and talking to a girl with short brown hair. Lily thought it would be rude to interrupt, but if she has a teacher who’s already so friendly with her students, she might not care if she introduced herself.
Lily smiled before speaking. “Hi, I don’t know if anyone told you, but I’m new. My name's Lily Evans.” The woman looks confused and stares at Lily.
“Who the fuck cares?” Now that she looks at the woman, Lily could tell she wasn’t the teacher, but just a girl who looks old. She felt her face turn red. The girl and her friend just laughed at her.
Lily turned around and went to find a seat. She settled on one in the front, next to a nice looking girl with frizzy brown hair who was reading a book.
“You don’t want to sit there,” a girl said from behind her before she could sit down. Lily turned around and saw who was speaking to her. “Sybill’s boyfriend’s going to sit there.”
The girl looked different. Like nobody Lily had ever seen in real life before. Her skin was darker than Lily’s but her hair was a bright blonde and styled short and choppy. She had two nose piercings, one in the middle and one on the side, and Lily had no idea why her parents would let her do that. She had a lot of eye makeup on and dark red lips. She was either the coolest person Lily had ever seen or the weirdest. The boy next to her was just as strange-looking as the girl. His skin was covered in white scars. The contrast between the scarring and his dark skin made them stand out so much more, and it was hard to notice anything else about him.
“What the fuck are you staring at?” he asked, and Lily was honestly shocked at how much people swore here. Her face was red again as she muttered “nothing, sorry,”
Then, at the seat she was about to sit in, a short, thick boy slid in. He and Sybill began to make out, right there in front of everyone. She put her fingers in his hair and his hand went up her shirt. Lily was horrified.
“Told you,” the blonde girl said, smugly.
Lily tried to find another seat but all the ones in the front were taken, as were all the ones in the back. She walked around the class three times, and nobody offered her a seat.
She must’ve looked pathetic because on her fourth time around, somebody finally took pity on her. “You can sit here, I won’t bite.” The blonde girl with the piercings said matter-of-factly “no promises about Moony, though,” she smiled, nudging the boy with the scars. He didn’t smile, only looked at her like he was trying to figure her out. Lily sat down, feeling very out of place.
The girl and ‘moony’ began to talk, and Lily didn’t want to offend the boy again, so she kept quiet. She was sure that her day had to get better, how much humiliation can one person take?

Turns out, a lot more.
When her parents said that she would learn a lot by going to school, she was guessing they didn’t mean learning that if she ate lunch in the toilet, nobody would make fun of her hair. The whole day all she could think of was Petunia, she missed her sister like a limb, if she had her there maybe this day wouldn’t have gone so bad. But it was terrible. She had been called every horrible name she knew and some she’d never heard of. You’d think that these rich kids could afford some manners, but they were just a bunch of spoiled brats, she thought, as she was knocked in the shoulder by one of the younger guys. By the time she got home, all she wanted to do was go to her bed and cry.
“How was your day honey?” her mom asked, sweetly.
Lily just ran to her room.

The whole first week was like that, a minefield of slurs and depression. She hadn’t had a real human interaction until friday.
She had gotten to school early and was sitting in the empty homeroom class, reading, as her classmates filed in.
“Frankenstein, huh?”
Lily jumped, snapping her head up from the book and making scared eye-contact with the scarred boy, ‘moony’.
“Are you liking it?” he asked, smiling shyly.
Lily looked around confused, was he really talking to her?
“The book?” she asked, he nodded. She composed herself, “Yeah. Honestly, it’s my second time reading it, it’s one of my favorites.”
His face lit up. “Me too!”
They talked about the book for a minute as he sat down on the desk next to her.
“It’s so nice to find somebody who cares about books as much as I do,” he said, “ for a bougie-ass private school, nobody really gives a shit about literature.” She didn’t have the heart to tell him that this was one of five books she owned.
Luckily, she didn’t have to, he just kept talking, and talking, and talking. She wasn’t complaining though, she’d take book talk over bullying.
“Geez, Remus, you’ve out nerded yourself again!” It was the blonde with the nose piercing. Walking in as the bell rang, wearing all black and dark, glittery eye makeup.
“No, see you wouldn’t get it, you’re not an intellectual like us,”
“I leave for five minutes and now you’re best friends with the new girl?” She said ‘new girl’ with so much venom in her voice.
“My names Lily,” she said, feeling the need to defend herself.
“Yeah and Lily likes my opinions on Frankenstein,” Remus said smugly.
“I find that hard to believe.” She muttered as she slid into the seat behind Lily.A group of loud boys in letterman jackets walked in. “Nice wig, Mckinnon, What’s it made of?” one called out.
“Your moms chest hair!” she called back, the group started laughing uproariously. “I’m Marlene, and KINGSLEY IS JUST JEALOUS I KICKED HIS ASS YESTERDAY AT PRACTICE!” She said that last part loudly so the group would hear her. The boys scoffed and went back to talking amongst themselves.
“Nice to meet you.” Lily said quietly. The teacher was obviously distracted, so she didn’t feel as bad about talking in class.
“Hey,” Lily said, “do you guys know where room G is?” she pulled out her schedule, handing it to Remus.
“Health, friday/monday, room G.” he read and looked at Marlene who nodded. “Yeah, we know where that is,” he said.
“It’s in the back building,” Marlene said.
“Where’s that?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, smirking, “we’ll show you.”
The bell rang, signaling the end of class, and Lily found herself walking down the hall with Marlene and Remus on either side of her.
“I like your makeup,” She said looking shyly at Marlene, who smiled.
“Totally punk rock, right?” She said excitedly.
“Oh totally,” Lily agreed, having pretty much no idea what that meant.
“Stop complimenting her, Lily, her head is already big enough.” Remus fake-whispered to her.
She smacked his arm.
Lily was on edge, she wasn’t expecting people to be nice to her, and she was overthinking everything she did. Do I normally walk like this? She wondered as Marlene and Remus teased each other, Am I supposed to talk to them?
Before she knew it, they were at the end of the hallway, opening the doors and walking out towards the football field. There wasn’t a back building in sight. Lily held her tongue until the three were at the top of a hill overlooking the gym class. She heard the bell ring in the distance as she watched students file into the changing rooms in the distance. Marlene and Remus sat down, shoving each other.
“So where is the back building?” Lily asked, trying for a joking smile.
“It burned down in 1987,” Marlene said nonchalantly.
“Oh,” Lily said, failing to conceal her confusion, “won’t we get in trouble for missing class?”
“Why would we get you in trouble?” Marlene asked, looking up at Lily, “we’re your friends.”
Friends, she was not in a position to pass up friends. Besides, there’s not much she could have been missing in health class. She felt light and giddy at the possibility she wouldn’t be alone in this strange, mean school. Be cool Lily, she told herself, these are cool people! She cleared her throat and said, as calmly as she could,
“Yeah, pfft, duh, I’ll skip school. Whatever.” she said quickly, feeling her cheeks get red. She sat down next to Remus, who had just lit a cigarette, and wrapped her arms around her knees.
She had never seen anyone smoke before, growing up in the safari with scientists all around her, everyone back home knew better.
“You know that’s bad for you, right?” She asked before she could remember to be cool.
Remus and Marlene burst out laughing, and Lily was embarrassed again.“No, we had no idea.” Marlene deadpanned, taking the cigarette from Remus who was still giggling.
“I mean,” she started, feeling her palms get sweaty, “It’s fine, I don’t care, do what you want, it’s so fine, it’s cool. Whatever.” She stammered out quickly which just made them laugh more.
“Don’t worry Red, we won’t make you do anything you don’t want to,” Marlene said.
“Red?” she asked ,confused
“Y’know like your hair, and your face-” Marlene was cut off by a smack.
“Be nice to our new friend!” He said, fake-sternly.
“My bad,” she responded sarcastically. Then, she turned to Lily, “so, where are you from?”
“Namibia,”
They both looked at her blankly.
“Africa,” she tried again. They looked back at her with wide eyes. “My parents are research biologists,” she explained, “so we lived on the safari, studying animals. But my parents thought it was time to come back to the U.S., so they finished up their research and applied for teaching jobs.” her new friends were still staring at her like she was speaking another language. “between you and me, I think they were just sick of homeschooling me,” she joked, trying to snap them out of it.
“Wait,” Marlene said, “so you’re telling me you’ve been homeschooled your whole life?” she sounded surprised.
“...yes,” Lily responded, awkwardly, “that’s what I said.” she scratched the back of her neck.
“Oh that makes so much sense!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah, no wonder you act like that,” Remus said quickly, then paused, “no offense,” he added with a sweet smile.
Before Lily had a chance to respond, Marlene was talking again, as she pulled a notebook out of her backpack. “Okay, okay so I’m going to tell you all there is to know about Hogwarts.” she said excitedly, “it’s L-I-L-L-Y right?” Marlene asked.
“One L” Lily corrected.
“Y’know what, I’ll just write Red,”
Remus was holding Lily’s schedule, “health, french,” he read, going down the list, “you’re taking 12th-grade calculus?” He asked, looking disgusted.
“I like math,” she defended, feeling called out.
“Why?” He seemed genuinely horrified at this.
“Well it’s the same in every country” she said, repeating what she had told Petunia so many times.
“Beautiful,” he nodded like she had a point, taking a drag of his cigarette, “very deep.”
She smiled bashfully.
“So, you moved all the way from Africa to come to Hogwarts of all places?”
She nodded, and he continued, “I didn’t know research biologists are raking it in,”
“Oh, they’re not,” She snorted, “I got in on scholarship,”
Remus smiled at her, “same,” he said, “I’m glad I’m not the only broke one anymore,”
“Oh god,” Marlene said, interrupting, “would you look at Dorcas Meadowes gym clothes?” she asked, pointing at a girl on the field. The girl was gorgeous with long, black locs and clear dark skin. “I mean come on, her shorts are way too short, her whole ass is out!” Lily laughed, but Remus was obviously distracted. He was staring at something out on the field.After a moment of silence, Lily asked, “What are you looking at, Remus?”
This made Marlene look up from her drawing once more, she sighed and smacked his arm “no staring! God, you’re almost too gay to function.”
“Whatever,” he muttered, not even bothering to look at her.
“What’s happening? Who’s he looking at?” Lily asked, confused.
“The love of his life.” Marlene said, at the same time as Remus said, “no one.”
“Cool,” Lily said, feeling lost for what seemed to be the thousandth time that day.
All of a sudden, Marlene’s eye caught something and her whole face shifted, “How are all the plastics in the same class?” she asked angrily.
“Who are the plastics?”
“They’re teen royalty!” Marlene shouted, incredulous.
“Cold, shiny and hard,” Remus added.
“That one right there,” Marlene said, pointing at the girl with the short-shorts, “is Dorcas Meadows. She is the toughest bitch I’ve ever met, nobody messes with her. She knows everything about everyone. She was in Remus’ English last year.”
“Once, she punched me in the face because we chose the same book to do a book report on.” He added, touching his cheek like he could still feel the bruise.
“That pale one over there,” Marlene said, pointing to a very pretty, androgynous-looking person with black hair, “that is Sirius Black, he’s more rich than your average Hogwarts student because his family is like, almost royalty or something. He’s dating Mary, but nobody cares because everyone thinks he’s super hot,” she made a grossed-out face, “personally I don’t see the appeal.”
“And evil takes a human form in Mary Macdonald,” she pointed to a perfect-looking girl with shiny brown curls and a wide smile on her face, “now don’t be fooled, because she may seem like your typical selfish, back-stabbing, slut-faced, ho-bag. But in reality, she is so much more than that.” Marlene got quieter, “she’s the queen bee, the star, the other two are just her little workers.”
“Mary Macdonald, how do I even begin to describe Mary Macdonald?”
Lily didn’t know, since she’d gotten here she felt like she never knew anything anymore. Luckily, Marlene didn’t seem to be looking for an answer, she had gone right back to sketching away. Remus seemed content to smoke and look out at the gym class. So Lily pulled her book out again, feeling a lot less lonely than she had an hour ago.

Her next few classes were boring, without her new friends she was alone again. When the bell finally rang for lunch, she began to make her way to her bathroom stall as she had all week. But she stepped out of the classroom to find Marlene and Remus waiting for her.
“Ta-da!” Marlene said, smiling wildly. She held out a paper that said across the top in block letters, ‘Red’s guide to Hogwarts High’. It was covered in messy doodles with a rough outline of the lunch room. “Okay so, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial, thank god you found us. Where were you sitting before?”
“Bathroom,” she responded quietly.
“Yeah, that won’t work,” Marlene continued, handing the paper to Lily and linking their arms.
“So there’s your obvious cliques,” Remus began to explain, “the jocks, sexually active band kids and mathlete geeks,” he pointed to spots on the map.“There’s also your unique Hogwarts cliques, like politicians kids and girls who do modeling,” Marlene chimed in, then continued, “by the window at the end of the room is where we sit,”
“The greatest people you’ll ever meet,” Remus added.
They held onto her arms all the way through the doors, where Lily stopped them, “guys, I have to buy lunch.”
“Seriously?” Marlene said, wrinkling her nose, “the school lunch is gross,”
Lily shrugged, it wasn't like she had anything else to eat.
“Come to our table when you’re done,” Remus said as he made his way to the table.
“Beware of the plastics!” Marlene called out before following him.
Lily got her lunch quietly, trying her best to be polite to the lunch lady. You’d think, with how much they charge for tuition, they’d be able to make a better looking lunch, she thought, eyeing the mystery meat and gray mashed potatoes.
As she made her way back to her friends, a group of guys blocked her path.
“Hey, we’re doing a lunchtime survey of new students,” a guy with black, greasy hair asked. She recognized him from her French class. “Can you answer a few questions for us?”
Lily tried for a polite smile, “sure.”
“Is your muffin buttered?” he asked, all of them looking on the verge of laughter.
“What?” She looked down at her lunch, there was no muffin.
“Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?” He had a dark look in his eyes.
“My what?”
“Is he bothering you?” a voice came from the table next to them. Mary Macdonald. So much prettier up close than she was across a football field. She stared at the boy with hatred in her eyes, all of the ‘plastics’ did. “Snape, why are you such a skeez?”
“I'm just being friendly,” he said calmly with a smirk on his face.
“You don’t have a friendly bone in your body, none of you do,” Sirius said, scowling, “nobody wants you here.”
“He just wants to have sex with the new girl,” Dorcas explained, staring Lily up and down.
“Do you want to have sex with him?” Mary asks, looking at Lily with big, brown doe eyes.
“Um,” she felt herself blushing, “no.”
He looked a little put out at this.
“Now get the fuck out of here before I make you,” Dorcas said, and the boy ran.
Lily took that as her cue to keep walking. She could see Marlene and Remus in the distance laughing, a light at the end of the tunnel.
“Wait,” Mary called to her, “sit down.”
Lily looked back, confused. She remembered Marlene's words from earlier, evil takes human form in Mary Macdonald. But the girl in front of her now seemed so nice, looking at Lily with a perfect smile showing straight, white teeth.
“Seriously, sit down,” She said again, pointing to the seat across from her.
Lily awkwardly stepped back to the table, put her lunch down and sat down next to Dorcas.
“Why don’t I know you?” Mary asked, leaning across the table. Lily could smell her vanilla perfume now.
“Oh, I’m new, I just moved here from Africa.” Lily could feel the weight of three pairs of eyes staring at her like a coat on a summer's day.
“What?” “I used to be homeschooled,”
“Wait, what?”
“Like, my mom taught me at home…” Lily began, wondering why everyone here was so freaked out by how she grew up.
“No, I know what homeschooled means, I’m not stupid.” Mary spat out, then, quickly her hard gaze softened. “So you’ve never been to real school before,”
“Shut up,” Mary laughed a little.
“Shut up,” she said again, happily.
“I didn’t say anything,” Lily said, feeling more awkward than she had all week.
“Home-schooled,” Mary said, like she was tasting the syllables. “That’s really interesting,”
“Thanks,” Lily said, hoping being interesting was a good thing.
“But you’re, like, really pretty,”
“Thanks,”
“So you agree?” Mary raised one thin eyebrow.
“What?”
“You think you’re really pretty?”
Lily felt her skin crawl, heating up with embarrassment, “oh.. I don’t know…”
“Oh my god, I love your bracelet!” Mary changed the subject, looking down at Lily’s wrist.
Lily unconsciously touched the bracelet, feeling the smooth shells she picked out at the beach, “thanks!” she smiled.
“Where did you get it?”
“Oh, my mom made it for me,”
Mary gave her an approving nod, “it’s adorable,”
“Can you give us a minute to talk?” Dorcas asked, with a smile that looked forced.
“Go ahead,” Lily said, unsure if this was the time to make her way to Marlene and Remus. Indecisively, she stayed where she was and stared at the people across from her.
She started her observations with Dorcas, who was whispering to Mary angrily. Her hair was so long it was brushing the seat of the chair, and her eyelashes were almost touching her eyebrows. She had on layers and layers of silver necklaces and bracelets that clicked together melodically as she took a sip of her soda.
She then looked at Sirius who had a bored expression on his face as he picked at his fries. He didn’t seem to be contributing much to their whispered conversation. His black hair was pulled back in a messy bun, with a few loose curls framing his face. Each of his ears were full of piercings, his eyebrow too, and he had stars doodled all over his hands.
They were so cool it hurt, Lily felt so painfully plain next to them. Dorcas nodded and turned to Lily.
“Right, so we never really do this,” she glared at Mary over her shoulder, who just smiled charmingly, “but we want to invite you to have lunch with us everyday for the next week,”
Alarms immediately went off in Lily’s head, she looked over to the table at the other end of the cafeteria, where Marlene sat. Marlene was already looking at her, mouth hanging open.
“No, it’s ok,” Lily began to say, but was cut off by Mary.
“Coolness!” She said, “so we’ll see you tomorrow,”
She nudged Sirius, who rolled his eyes before saying, “on Wednesdays we wear pink.”
Lily scooped up her lunch and ran as fast as her legs would take her to Marlene’s table.“What the fuck just happened?” she asked, but Lily just grabbed her and Remus’ arms, whispering, “come with me,” and dragging them into the hallway.
If the way Marlene thought of Mary was any indication of what Mary thought of her, then it was probably for the best if she wasn’t seen with them.
In the empty hallway Lily blurted out, “they want me to sit with them!” she could hardly recognize her own voice, it sounded so shocked and disgusted.
Marlene and Remus looked at each other before suddenly bursting out into laughter.
“Oh my god!” Marlene managed in between gasps, “you have to do it!”
Remus just nodded along, too lost in mirth to talk.
“What? Why?” Lily liked Marlene and Remus, she didn’t understand why they wanted her to leave them to go hang out with people they hate.
“You have to tell me all the horrible things Mary says,” Marlene instructed, still smiling.
“But Mary seems so sweet,” between Dorcas’ anger and Sirius’ indifference, Mary was the only one who actually seemed like she wanted to be Lily’s friend.
Marlene instantly dropped her smile, “Mary? Sweet? She is not sweet, she’s a scum-sucking road whore who ruined my life!”
Remus nodded solemnly, “she’s gorgeous but she’s evil,”
“If she’s evil, why do you want me hanging out with her? Trying to get rid of me already?” Lily tried to joke, knowing it came across as too honest.
Marlene’s face turned caring, “of course not. I just think it would be like,” she paused, eyebrows furrowing, “a fun experiment!” she said finally, eyes brightening, “yeah! An experiment where you hang out with them and tell us everything they say!”
“Every dirty, nasty thing,” Remus said, still looking on the verge of laughter.
Lily’s frustration was lessening, “what would we even talk about?”
“Hair products?” Marlene suggested.
Remus shook his head, “Ashton Kutcher,” he said smugly.
“Is that a band?” Lily asked, feeling out of her depth already.
“Look, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Remus said, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder, “we’re here for you either way.”
“It would just be so funny,” Marlene said wistfully, then added, “totally your choice though,”
Lily sighed, mentally preparing herself for a week of confusion, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Later, when Lily got home, she debated calling Petunia to tell her about all the crazy stuff that had happened in her first week of school. She decided against it, and after her homework called Marlene instead, who picked up after the first ring.
“This is Marlene,” she said, sounding bored.
“Hey,” Lily said, feeling awkward already, she hadn’t had friends to call before this week.
“Red!” Marlene said excitedly, Lily could hear a smile in her voice, “what’s up,”
“I’m just bored,” she admitted, “and I have no clue what to do for my English paper,”
“Procrastination, I love it,” Marlene said, “let me help you.”
She launched into a story about some singer, then, once she realized Lily had no idea what she was talking about, tried to update Lily on all pop culture in America from the past 15 years. She was so effortlessly funny, Lily was cracking up the whole time. Eventually Remus was added to the call to help Lily with her paper, but no work got done. They spent hours talking and joking until Lily’s mom came in at 10:30 to tell her to go to bed.
“I got to go, guys,” she said, disappointedly.
“Aww, is it past your bedtime?” Remus teased.
“Shut up,”
They both laughed, echoing, “bye, Lily!”
She went to bed that night feeling equal parts excited and terrified for the week ahead of her. She was praying to whatever god was out there that Mary Macdonald was just as nice as she seemed.