Second year
By their second year, Mary is excited to return to school. Well, to return to her friends. She hadn’t thought she’d miss them this much when they left last term, arms wrapped around each other tightly and a promise to tell each other everything when they got back. They had wanted to keep in contact, but Lily didn’t have a phone and Marlene was used to sending letters by owl, which wasn’t something that Lily and Mary could have happening in their very muggle neighbourhoods.
Mary had been happy to be at home, she had missed her family and hadn’t liked only being able to see them for a few weeks at a time, but it was hard only being able to have one or the other. She wanted to be able to enjoy the magical side of her, spend time with her friends, and have her family, and all the muggle traditions and experiences she’s used to.
Unfortunately, that was asking for too much, she can’t have it all no matter how much she wishes she could. Mary had tried to enjoy her time, but for the first couple of weeks, she had been bored out of her mind. They had thrown a party for her, and when she returned, there had been way too much food and music playing while she got to tell them all about her time since the last break.
It had been wonderful, she got them all to fill her in on every little thing she had missed, from the gossip at school to how the flowers had blossomed. Then, after her first weekend back, her brothers had still been at school, and her parents were both working all day and she was left, with a pile of summer homework.
Basically, the first week of her summer had been as if she was at school, but without her friends there to make it fun. She hoped they were having a better time than she was, apparently one of Marlene’s older sisters was a curse breaker, and Marlene got to travel with her for part of the summer.
When her siblings had finally broken up for the summer holidays she’d had a lot more fun. They spent days playing games, football in the garden and chasing each other through the house, fighting over the last ice pole in everyone's favourite flavour and drenching each other in full-out wars with water guns. It had been incredible, and normal, which Mary had worried it wouldn’t be.
Then her cousins had shown up, and they had a million questions about this fancy new private school she had enrolled in that they had heard practically nothing about. Mary had spent the next week pretending that she was someone else, it was awful.
So, when she finally got to return to a place where she could just… be herself, without having to hide it from most of her family, the neighbours and her old friends, she had really tried not to feel too happy about it, but the prospect of so much time practising and being surrounded by people that can truly understand her, well she hopes her parents aren’t upset about it.
When she had been dropped off at the train station, she had found Marlene and her family, who were kind enough to agree to watch over her before they got on the train. Mary’s parents weren’t able to come onto the platform and had to say their goodbyes beforehand, so it was a nice reassurance for them knowing that their little girl wasn’t completely on her own here.
“Mary! Hi, over here,” Marlene called, but she was already running at Mary, looping her arms around her and fighting to keep them upright as she launched herself across the platform.
“Marls I missed you so much!” Mary had nearly squashed Marlene with the force she used to hug her as tight as physically possible, the two of them breaking into excited chatter, completely ignoring their families as they introduced themselves in the background.
“How was your summer? Mine was amazing,” Mary asked, the smile on her face not faltering as she detached herself from Marlene, standing back so she could pay more attention to her. Her hair had changed, the ends dyed pink, framing her face and she had another piercing in each ear.
“I did so much, I spent two weeks with my sister and we went to like 7 different places, I barely slept,” Marlene waves her sister over, desperate to introduce her to Mary.
“Mary, this is my sister, Marisa, Marisa this is my best friend Mary,” Marisa waves in a way eerily similar to how Marlene had introduced herself last year.
“Ouch, I’ll pretend I’m not offended by that,” A voice responds to Marlene’s introduction behind them and they spin around, rushing forward in a stumbling mess to embrace the third member of their trio.
“Obviously you’re my best friend too, don’t you ever doubt that again,” Marlene speaks into Lily’s hair, but it’s heard and if the slightly teary chuckle coming from Lily is any indication, it’s much appreciated.
“Right well, I’m going to let you two catch up a minute, I need to go and speak to Pete, I haven’t seen him in like a month, he was in Spain and then I was away,” Marlene wanders away as she speaks, grabbing her sisters arm and dragging her away.
“We’ll see you on the train,” Mary calls after her, laughing when Marlene spins to give a thumbs up and nearly trips as she attempts to walk backwards.
“I missed you,” Lily confesses quietly like it’s supposed to be a secret, pulling Mary in for a hug just between them.
“I felt like I was going to go mad without you, sometimes I think you’re the only person who gets me,” Mary buries her head in Lily’s shoulder and deliberately ignores the heavy feeling in her chest- like she’s doing something wrong just because of the way she feels right now.
“I know, I felt the same way, like it was fun for a few days but then I really just wanted to talk to you, Mary, and I spent the next 8 weeks counting down every second,” The way Lily says her name has her wanting to hear it on repeat, it’s like it was made to be spoken by Lily and Lily alone, anyone else saying her name was saying it wrong, this is the only way that means anything.