Chapter Nine
If you had asked Holly Elwood a year ago what she was doing on a Tuesday evening she would not have said taking notes on Lily Evans. In fact, she likely would have looked at you like you went a bit mad. However, that was a year ago, and now she had been given a task. Find out more about Lily and help James Potter win her heart. Of course, she had no intention of helping the boy out of the goodness of her own soul, but Lily was her friend and in the short time she had seen the two interact she had noticed something. Lily liked James a bit more than she was letting on, and if the twat made her friend happy, Holly felt she had a bit of an obligation to help her out. Maybe all the couple needed was a bit of intervention.
That’s how she found herself sitting in the Gryffindor common room, despite it being close to curfew and despite the black and gold that decorated her robes. She had let Mia and Tilly in on her plans this time around, thinking that they might be helpful. The girls shared a class or two with Lily, and importantly, with her friends. They might be able to get some useful information, and in any case they would probably pester her less. A win-win if she did say so herself.
Despite herself, Holly’s mind slipped back to a certain Black boy. Regulus had been a constant topic of thinking for her since their late night encounter, whether she liked it or not. She had even been dreaming about him much to her horror. She could never remember the dreams in the morning, but sometimes she’d get flashes of them through the day. She caught his eye during potions and suddenly she wasn’t seeing her classroom, but rather a dark room and a boy hunched in a corner. She saw Tilly reach for something and suddenly she wasn’t in the library with her friends, but rather was looking at a pale forearm. A dark tattoo stood starkly against the skin, a skull with a snake wrapped around it. The skin was red and irritated, the brand was fresh. She knew, instinctively, it was Regulus.
A loud voice drew her from her thoughts and she looked up to see Mary McDonald grinning at her.
“Oi Lils! Snuck in a stowaway huh?”
She plopped down on the couch next to Marlene and threw her arm around the girl, another of Lily’s friends. Holly smiled, and the girls made introductions. Despite her ulterior motives (as good as the intention is) she found herself enjoying the company of the group. They made easy conversation between one another, and were sure to include her in any discussion. They all began a game of Exploding Snap, with a promise to murder someone from Marlene if her eyebrows were burnt off. Lily promised she would only have singed bangs by the end of the game and Marlene threw a bit of candy at her.
Mary didn’t play the game herself, rather watching Marlene’s hand and whispering strategy into her ear (which both Holly and Lily claimed was cheating). The tension rose, and finally Lily played the winning card. To the surprise of no one, Marlene’s bangs were in fact singed by the end. The girls laughed, and debated playing another game (to which Marlene protested saying her hair couldn’t take it) when a voice caught their attention.
“Do you girls need some more players?”
Looking up they saw no one but the marauders and Lily groaned, burying her head into Holly’s shoulder.
“Make them leave,” she grumbled quietly. Holly laughed, giving her head a reassuring pat.
“We could use some more players,” Marlene said, throwing down her cards. “My eyebrows are next, I can feel it.” Mary laughed again as the boys settled themselves around them. The Gryffindor common room was nice, and Holly admired it. The colors were calming, and the fireplaces were cozy. Her own common room was equally as nice, but people didn’t hang out in there as often as it seemed the Gryffindors did. Currently the group was spread out in front of a fireplace towards the front of the room. Three sofas sat in a U shape, with two chairs filling in the gaps. Holly and Lily were sitting on one couch with Marlene and Mary across from them. A small coffee table was between them, which is where they were playing the game. James sat on the chair closest to Lily, while Peter settled into the one by Mary. They began discussing some kind of homework, while Sirius and Remus took their seats across from the fireplace, on the final couch.
Potter looked to Holly, as Lily ignored him, with wide pleading eyes. She didn’t know how, as she had thought she developed an immunity to begging eyes from Tilly, but something about his kicked puppy demeanor melted her a bit and she stood up stretching with a sigh.
“You know I should probably get going anyways, Potter you can sit with Lily and play.” As soon as she stood James leapt up and sat next to Lily, who immediately whined and begged her not to go.
“You should stay,” Sirius said with a small smile as she moved to pass him. “You don’t have to play, just sit and hang out with us.”
Holly stared at the boy and then looked to the rest of the group, all of who were nodding in agreement.
“I- Okay. I’ll just stay for a little while.”
She looked at all the people around and sat on the chair James had been in. Where these her friends now? Remus always had been, though their companionship started through mutual benefits. Lily and her had been friends last year, but it had also come from a mutually beneficial relationship. The others though… The marauders were around as business partners, but business partners didn’t like spending time together outside of work right? And Black had been the one to stop her. Marlene and Mary had no reason to be friends with her, but they seemed happy to have her sitting with them and appeared to enjoy her company.
Shaking her head she tried to clear her mind. Holly had never been very good at making friends, or forming any kinds of relationships really. She had been alone through most of her childhood, until she was offered a place at hogwarts. Then she had met Tilly and Mia and she’d never really needed more. She had a hard time reading the room, understanding what people were thinking or trying to say when they didn’t actually want to say it. Social cues had never been her strong suit, so people her age (and those who were not) often found her strange or a bit odd. That didn’t help the whole friendship thing, but Tilly and Mia embraced it. It seemed, though she couldn’t tell completely, that she may have found others who could embrace her too.
Holly smiled to herself.