Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw
Dear Mary,
I'm fairly certain a soft spot for looking at people. I’ve been thinking about eye contact, and how most teenagers tend to go about that sort of thing. As you know I do, I’ve gotten myself into quite a twist about it, really. There’s just something so perfect about meeting someone’s eyes, you know. That moment when you realize that you really are looking through a window into someone’s soul. Do you understand that as well as I think I do? I think my point would come across even better if I could be gazing into your eyes, both because you’d probably be so terrified you’d have to nod along with whatever nonsense I spew and also because seeing and feeling it in action could make you really understand.
Basically what I’m saying is I have your eye color memorized, though the picture of it in my head could use a couple of touch ups. When we’re back at Hogwarts, what do you think about letting me commit more to mind?
(P.S. If I ever stop staring, please tell me to snap the hell out of it.)
(P.P.S. Not wanting to look at you would only mean I’ve gone off the deep end.)
Yours in creepily watching,
Lily Evans
---
Dear Lily,
As I’ve seen you staring so much, I can safely say that you have the right. Out of anyone, you have some of the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, plus a face that thankfully doesn’t read awful murderous stalker. Though I don’t really understand the soul thing, I’m sure I will once we get back. I know I’ll see you and think by Christ, she’s boring straight into me just as much as I’m boring straight into her, no threats or fear necessary.
I look forward to it immensely, I’m realizing. Please do memorize my eye color, it would make up for the fact that I can currently picture yours in my head. Green like the stem of a daffodil, am I right? Really though, I’d like nothing more than to sit still for you to watch.
(P.S. I’m on it.)
(P.P.S. It’s only creepy if you start to do it at Potter, dear.)
Yours in returned staring,
Mary Macdonald
Chapter 11: Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw
For the next week, Mary and Lily entered a strange dance of talking, but not like they had. It was as if a thirst had been quenched and now they didn’t have to make awkward eyes over the jam at breakfast, their hands brushing whenever they reached for the same condiments. Or rather, Lily didn’t have to any longer. Mary, however, was frozen in those stupid moments. She had been caught staring upwards of twenty times, caught red handed, or even more so caught remembering how their clothes had been off and their mouths had been pressed close together.
They talked about James and Sirius together constantly. In the dorm, in class, in the toilets, and walking the grounds, all they spoke of was the boys. Even more still, there was the added stress of having those awful gits constantly about.
At lunch, four days before the Quidditch game that people couldn’t help but go on about, it was Lily and James on one side, Sirius and Mary on the other. Both boys had their arms around both girls, and Mary was steadily staring at Lily’s lips, which was the only beautiful thing about the whole meal.
“You know, there is something to be said for ham sandwiches!” James said. He kept resting his head on her shoulder in intermittent periods between disgusting bites of his food. It was disgusting, his glasses slipping away from the bridge of his nose and his dark curls becoming tangled in the red of her hair. She almost would have puked had Sirius’s hand not been slipping under her sweater once every minute. Personally, all Mary wanted was to eat her soup in peace.
That, however, was not an option. Lily bit her lip and flashed her green eyes, nearly by accident. She took a bite of her own ham sandwich without breaking eye contact
“You might be right, for once,” she teased.
“Absolutely disgusting,” Sirius retorted. Quietly, he muttered in Mary’s ear only. “Both them and the food.”
“Quite,” Mary agreed. Though he was about as happy about the whole Evans-Potter relationship, Sirius largely shared her feelings about the pair. They were two of the greatest people in the school, meaning Lily was a perfect girl and James was an oaf. Sirius must’ve seen that, in his own special way.
“Well you two can have your particularly posh food tastes,” James poked a finger at both of them.
Mary nearly snapped his finger straight off. Calling her posh was more evil than mudblood, more evil than all the words would be even worse than that. It was one thing to call her something that she was, it was another entirely different to make her something that she was not, and for that to be the thing that was constantly treading on her life. As much as she wanted to be seen for it, Mary refused to be posh.
Sirius, shockingly read her annoyance quite well, “Shove off Potter, you can’t be throwing around posh like that, mate. Especially not when your parent’s names are Fleamont and Euphemia.”
“Ah, yes! And you can say hello to Walburga and Orion,” Mary patted his hand half affectionately. It was oddly easy to pretend to like him. He had a laugh and he had the right eyes, the right smile. His hands were cold, but she supposed they felt nice. Best of all, the lad was funny, and terrifically, humbly, a rich person who was not quite rich.
They ate the rest of lunch peaceably, and another day passed without much complaint, though she wished it would’ve. They didn’t speak of that night. They didn’t so much as breathe a word of the kiss. Deep inside of her, Mary kept on burning, boiling nearly all the way over.
***
The night before the Quidditch match, Marlene talked in her sleep about Bludgers. When it woke her Mary already felt the smile on her face, rolling over to see a slice of Lily’s face between the curtain of her bed and the wall. Her eyes were only just sliding open, her every breath making the soft fabric blow in the light of the moon.
“Did you hear that?” Mary mumbled. She was half asleep as it was. A part of her, the one that knew better, hadn’t woken back up.
“Hmm?” Lily snored, she lifted a light hand to rub away her sleep. She was so beautiful it ached in the pit of Mary’s stomach.
“She’s talking in her sleep again, dear. The Quidditch is coming back to haunt us.”
Lily was still half asleep, too. She’d forgotten that they weren’t speaking in any real way.
“Oh, not her too,” she giggled. “I thought the boys were enough.”
“They never will be, really.”
“Too true,” Lily agreed. That was probably the exact moment she woke up, the exact moment that her words unduly echoed real life.
Mary opened her mouth, so ready to crawl back into Lily’s bed. She needed to kiss her again, though she didn’t know why. She was going to beg for it, come hell or high water.
“Can I sleep-”
“Goodnight,” Lily interrupted, and turned over in a huff.
***
When they woke up that Friday, everyone was too afraid to ask why things were even more awkward than usual. They had bigger problems to attend to, such as destroying Ravenclaw in the game to end all games (though that’s only what a particularly hyped up James Potter said while Mary stared at the floor and Lily tried to pretend that she was not real).
Remus kept giving them looks over his oddly sectioned off toast, which she stopped with a head shake. It was no use. She was certain he’d already spoken of their apparent feud to Lily, and had received no answer. Who was Mary to tell on them now? The note had been a ruse, clearly. Lily couldn’t bear to lose her, couldn’t bear to be apart, right until she did something unforgivable enough. The message Remus had delivered to her didn’t mean anything at all. Mary had reached for what she wanted and gripped at something that was only made to slip through her fingers.
She took a bite of her oatmeal, nearly choked on it, and decided the best option was to listen to Marlene talk about what bat she was using for the match. Apparently none of the Gryffindors had so much as heard of pre-anything jitters. The whole daring, nerve, and chivalry had never particularly applied to Mary in the first place, at least not in her mind. Instead, she was stuck listening to everyone yammer on about their excitement while she was absolutely frozen behind her own eyes, watching James play with Lily’s hair. There was nothing brave about that.
Still, when breakfast was over she obediently followed Lily back to the dormitories for their usual getting ready routine while the rest of their friends made their way to the locker rooms. They did not talk as they zig-zagged through the noisy halls. Lily did not look back, not once, but Mary still watched her.
“Lily, please,” she said once they had finally made it back to the common room.
It was empty, given how late it was. Most students were already down at the pitch finding their seats, but they knew they would find ones easily. The girls were Quidditch royalty, what with both of their boyfriends being twin stars, plummeting to the very heights of popularity. They could afford to come late, to do whatever they wanted with each other in their room, all alone.
“What, is my outfit not right?” Lily’s back was turned to her. She was changing into a Gryffindor sweater, and she had on a pair of jeans that they had chosen together. A year ago, she would’ve been right about her imploring, but that was no longer the case.
“No, it’s perfect.” She said forcefully, and meant it. Of course Lily looked beautiful. Of course her hair was falling in loose waves and being struck with a match that was the sun. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“No, we can’t talk about this.” When she turned around, Mary nearly fell over. She was so pretty it hurt, so pretty it shouldn’t have been true at all.
“Don’t we have to, dear?” She reached out, needing to touch her best friend.
“No, we don’t,” Lily said back. Her voice had a shake that wouldn’t quit. “And don’t call me that. We’re late enough as it is.”
“Please-”
“No.” She knew what that meant. Lily was a true Gryffindor, stubborn and true to her word.
“That’s it?”
“For as long as it can be.”
Mary wasn’t going to make things worse, not if she could help it. Without any more complaint, she followed Lily down to the pitch. That was that, for now.
***
The pitch, with all of its colors and people and horribly perfect sounds, was a good place for Mary to lose her mind. She sat on the wooden benches and watched as red cloaked figures took gentle warm-up laps across the pitch. Alice and Lily chatted in one of her ears and a fifth year screamed in her other. She badly missed Marlene, who would’ve made up for the fact that she currently had no social skills by additionally having no social skills. Tragically, her friend was in her own element, twirling a large wooden club in one hand and steering herself with the other.
“James was telling me it’s going to be a wipe out today, does Frank think so?” Lily said to Alice. She was using a high, chirping register that Mary wasn’t used to. It was her nervous voice, like somebody was prodding her in the back with a knife.
“Of course, of course. This is the best Gryffindor team we’ve seen in years!” Alice chirped back. In her case, that was her usual voice.
“And charming too,” Mary attempted to joke. She was shot one pitying look and another dirty one from Alice and Lily respectively. Jesus, not even a little part of her could be normal.
Somewhere in front of them, the match began. Mary was fascinated by the game, which she did not understand very many rules for. It had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the vicinity that didn’t hate her at the moment. Sirius swatted away a thick, leather ball, sending it flying into the chest of an oncoming Ravenclaw chaser, which made the real ball (Mary couldn’t remember what that was called) fly into James’s waiting hand. They really were an excellent team, dynamically handsome and shockingly athletic. She could hear Lily and Alice saying as much in her ear.
Deep inside of her, some part of Mary burned. She could smell Lily’s perfume, still cinnamon, still warm.
Peter was the announcer for this game, as he couldn’t bear to not have some part in the game his friends actually got to play, and he kept shouting things into the air so loudly it would make Mary’s skin crawl. Both sides kept scoring at odd intervals, whooshing in front of her at semi-alarming speed without signs of stopping. The little third year James had hand picked to be their seeker was circling the pitch with anxious anticipation. She had absolutely no faith in him, nor the Ravenclaw seeker, to make this match a quick one. Her torment, it appeared, was not going to end.
In all fairness, though, the teams were playing rather well. Despite all stereotypes, the Ravenclaws always kept up with the other teams (just as Mary was a Gryffindor who could not be brave, they were geniuses who possessed some athleticism).
Lily and Alice dallied back and forth in conversation while the score continued to move up. Mary listened to the gush about James and Frank respectively. It made something inside of her tick insistently, pressing at all sides of her heart. She listened and burned, studying Lily’s hands as they waved in the cold air. She could have reached out to touch her, had she gathered the courage. She could have warmed her palms between each of her hands, but she did not.
Instead, Mary watched James Potter wink at Lily from his high seat atop his shining broom. She watched as Lily hid a smile behind the neckline of her sweater. She heard as the crowd roared and clapped and cheered for them, the pair of them alone, and she knew that no matter what she did, she could never get a Hogwarts crowd to cheer like that, not like how James Potter could. That realization, permanently burrowed into the pit of her stomach, was bone chilling enough in the context of what had happened in the prefect’s bathroom. Lily had her for a night before going out to get the better thing, not even the next best.
Mary couldn’t deny how she felt now, not when there was anger everywhere inside of her and her chest had been aching with want all week long.
Taking one last look, at the curve of Lily’s eyes, she shoved her way past her and Alice, past all of the many rows of Gryffindors around them, and deeper into the bowels of the Quidditch stadium. To hell with the score, to hell with winners and losers. Deeply, Mary needed to be alone.
***
She found her spot somewhere in the middle of one of the great grandstand towers that carried the rest of their housemates. Once she reached a certain depth into the wooden structure it all looked the same. Each oak beam seemed just as likely to keel in and crush her, or give way with a misplaced step. It almost felt like being with Lily again, one tiny movement and their tongues were plunging down each other's throats.
Slinking into a corner, she leaned against the wall and laughed to herself. The two of them were rickety enough, alright. Creaking and bending in the wind of stupid desire.
Above her head, feet thundered praise and Peter’s voice could faintly be heard shrieking over all of the noise. Gryffindor began to take a larger and larger lead, which she did not feel sad to be missing.
Then, above all the din, she heard something creaking near the stairs that she’d come down. She knew what she wanted it to be more than anything in the world, but it was probably just the wind.
She waited for another moment, and heard an even consistent sound. Footsteps, tapping down towards her. As the noise became louder and louder, drawing closer and closer, she knew what it had to mean. There was no other option, really. Usually, no one ever came to find Mary when she disappeared. If anyone ever did, it was Lily. Always, always, it was Lily.
Apparently, they couldn’t last without speaking as Lily had wanted them to. There was no helping, that couldn’t be it for very long at all.
Mary stepped forward, waiting anxiously at the bottom of the stairs, her face towards the only sign of light that came through each slatted board.
It didn’t take long for her to appear, only faded Mary Janes to be seen at first until the whole of her started to reveal itself. For the first time all week, she allowed herself to look at Lily like she had the night they swam so openly together. She let her mouth fall open and her eyes get soft, and Lily did the same. When her face appeared, they were wearing mirrored expressions of glowing, undisguisable relief.
“I knew I’d find you somewhere like this,” Lily chucked at first, stepping onto the platform right in front of Mary.
“So did I,” she replied almost defiantly. “I mean, I knew you would find me too.”
She wanted to pretend like she understood how this would turn out, or where their crash course was inevitably going to destroy itself. It would make both of them feel better, she knew, if she could act like she always did, like she was the one with all this grand experience. For a moment, she wished there had been girls back in London. It would have been nice to have done this for one meaningless chance so she could get it right this time, with Lily.
“I’m sorry.” Immediately, Lily’s apology was accepted. It was painful how quickly Mary’s heart made the jump.
“For what happened?” For either one, she would forgive her. The answer to her question only counted for how she would act, really.
“No, never for that. For how I’ve acted, for the fact that I didn’t come to you sooner.”
“Ah,” Mary said, a little bit dumbfounded. “You’ve been a wee dick.” She smiled and giggled like they always did. Lily did the same.
“More than wee, quite grand actually.”
“Can’t disagree, I say.”
Lily didn’t say anything to that. She was smiling so hard it looked like she’d once thought she’d never do it again.
Mary took that as her cue to keep talking, “Why’d you do it, then? Act a grand dick, I mean.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Lily’s words made her own smile disappear, but it seemed like she was taking it in stride as penance. “I thought about physics and magic, about how every action has an equal and opposite reaction and every spell has an inverse. I thought about what I needed to do to make our equation, our incantation, come out to zero. I couldn’t think of anything else after that. He was the only option.”
“Subtract James from you and me and it comes out to nothing, eh?”
“Ay, but not quite. It comes out to something that can keep going. Infinite solutions.” She was much better with words than Mary ever was. She had a beautiful way of putting things, and her voice was just as pretty. Even over the din of the crowd, it seemed to float.
Mary pulled her closer. She couldn’t help herself. Physics, right? Maths and charms and ancient runes. Lily had done all of the work, it was only left to her to solve the problem.
“So we’re something to keep going?” She needed only one word of confirmation, at most. Lily could give her that at least.
“Of course,” Lily whispered into her ear, and the world went absolutely silent. The cheering stopped, the pounding deadened, and she could only hear each soft gasp for air. Sure, Lily had given her two words, not exactly one, but it was perfect.
Mary silenced more thought with an ultimate kiss. She tangled all the fingers of one hand through locks of Lily’s hair and wrapped the others around the collar of her sweater, tugging until their chests were pressed together. Finally, finally, their lips slid in all of the ways they had before.
They fumbled with each other until Mary was sitting astride her on the ground, making steady work of exposed skin but always remaining careful not to leave a mark. This was exactly what she’d done with boys before, listening to each time Lily would tell her where to move and what to do and obeying carefully. Each time sent a thrill running through her stomach. She wondered why this felt so good. It certainly wasn’t supposed to or someone would have told her before that this was the thing they should’ve been trying. She decided it must be something new to try, something that they both needed to get out of their anxiously awaiting systems. She kissed Lily harder and allowed herself to be pleased with the fact that she had what James Potter did not. She could give Lily something new, something entirely different. This was all she had to offer up in response to adoring crowds and spotlighted affection.
For the first time, she begged for the Quidditch game to go longer. She prayed that the bumbling new seeker would so horribly fail at his job. She savored each second of time before she heard Peter’s squeaking voice rattle shrilly through the wooden beams.
“GRYFFINDOR WINS! HE HAS THE SNITCH PEOPLE, HE HAS THE SNITCH!”
They broke apart with a deep sigh and hastily tripped to get themselves right again. People would begin to wonder where they went, the two of them alone for so long.
“Story?” was all Mary was able to get out through her slurred speech.
“Don’t need one,” Lily quickly explained, her breath drawn short and chastely, her cheeks a lovely shade of deep pink. “I’ll find James, you find Sirius. No one thinks twice.”
Mary struggled to contain herself until it was no more use, she surged forward for one last kiss, only a quick one. She didn’t know why, and didn’t dare to figure it out. They were both smiling, anyway. That was enough explanation. She’d do anything to make Lily smile again.
Chatting quietly, like they always had, the two of them make their way up the steps that rattled with celebration. They did not discuss what had just happened, merely their excitement for the party afterwards. At the top of the steps, once the sun finally hit them fully in the chest, they were met with a wash of crimson and gold colors, roaring lions, and a triumphant whoop that was befalling every person in the crowd.
Shockingly, Mary felt at home, like she belonged with the Gryffindors. Densely packed next to her, she could feel Lily’s arm. She reached for her hand, took hold, and squeezed resoundingly once. A smile lit up her face. For the first time in a good while, she had really done something brave.
“Friends?” Lily whispered in her ear. Mary felt like she could have floated out of the stadium entirely.
“Friends,” she murmured back triumphantly, both knowing and imagining she really knew, that it was right.