Of Moony Nights and Starry Eyes

The first weeks of school past fairly quickly, with all of the first year students extremely caught up in learning magic of all sorts.
For some, it came naturally with little struggle, but others simply couldn't seem to catch on. Lily fell firmly into the former group, with the exception of one measly little class. Lily Evans seemed doomed to be dreadful at flying. As her fellow Gryffindors managed at least to raise their brooms off the ground, she just couldn't get the hang of it.

The thought of falling was so firmly placed into the forefront of her mind, that she was unable to get her thoughts onto the actual process of raising her broom. It was, in her opinion, quite a sad sight to see one lonely student stuck on the ground while all the others were up in the air laughing and having a grand time. As she watched the students, she missed one flyer break away from the group and come up behind her.

"Evans, you ought to let me take you up on my broom, so that you can see how it feels without having to actually do it yourself." said James Potter. Truthfully, it was a rather nice thing for him to offer. However, over the past weeks Lilys dislike for the boy had only grown. The way he tormented Severus was just unforgiveable. So while she appreciated the offer, she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of saying yes.

"Potter, I would accept, if I wasn't worried you would toss me off just to see if it got you a few good laughs."
She said while turning her nose up at him.
"Aww Evans you wound me. Wouldn't it be better to let you continue to struggle, and watch them laugh at your continuing failure?" He countered. Which honestly was quite a good point.
"Hows this," He continued, "let me take you up, and if I scare you, or do anything reckless at all, I'll never fly with you again."
Lily could feel herself giving in. She hated being mad at people, and this was one person it was especially difficult to be mad at. He was just so good at making people laugh and smile, but at the same time that could be used in a large variety of ways. Not all of which were particularly friendly.

"Okay. But mark my words Potter, if you kill us, I will come back and haunt your family." She promised gravely.

"Well that's wonderful!" James exclaimed. "While you haunt my family, I can be there to haunt you!" He said. "And then you'd be stuck with me forever."

Lily couldn't help but giggle at the absurdity of the statement. Before she could question whether a ghost could haunt a ghost, she was being swept up carefully into his arms. "Alright Evans?" He asked quietly into her ear.
She could only nod, because they had already taken off of the ground and were steadily getting higher.
"Okay," he said, "I'm gonna speed up a little."

As they made a few laps around the quidditch pitch, Lily could feel herself relaxing. It was quite enjoyable, once she got over the fear of falling off. As she looked around she could see her friends all spread about. A couple of students had managed to grab a quaffle, and were tossing it about  in a makeshift scrimmage. Lily could tell that James wanted to join, but was being careful for her sake. 

"If you want to play you should play." She told him only slightly regretfully. 

"Nah, " He shook his head, "If I joined, the other team wouldn't stand a chance." He joked. 

The few minutes that they enjoyed seemed incredibly short, as Sirius flew up to them looking rather sour faced. 

"Jamie!" Sirius whined, "drop the bird down, and come play. you keep going on about your skills but haven't proven them yet." He said with a wink at Lily. 

James it would seem, was caught in a crossfire. He very much didn't want to let Lily down, but he couldn't just tell Sirius no. So a brilliant idea came to mind. 

"Sirius, I'm so confident I could beat you, that I could do it with Evans here still on my broom." He announced proudly. 

Both Sirius and Lily looked at him rather disbelievingly. 

"Come on Evans, what do you say. Care to prove we have what it takes?" He asked her with a grin on his fe.

Lily decided he was absolutely mad. But she found that maybe she didn't mind.

So they played. James and Lily made a rather good team, with James flying the broom, and Lily catching and passing the ball to her teammates. In the end, they didn't win, but only because James was convinced Sirius cheated. 

"In what way is attempting to pull a player off of their broom not cheating?" He exclaimed, the moment they got to the ground. "You nearly pulled Evans straight off the broom!" He shouted. 

This was a minor exaggeration. He barely nudged Lily, but Lily got startled and over corrected by jolting to the side. James then had to quickly stop the broom to avoid her toppling off the edge. 

Sirius countered with the fact that two players on one broom should also be considered an unfair advantage. The boys kept up this rowdy debate until the end of the period, much to their professors dismay.

Lily truthfully really enjoyed flying with James. However she was not excited to see her gossiping roommates, who were sure to make a fuss about the whole thing. 

And make a fuss they did, but not until later that night in the common room. 

*******

The girls were all sat around in the floor of their dorm room, with string and beads and all sorts of other things strung around about them. 

A few nights ago the girls had been sat around in their room talking, and Lily had, for some reason or another brought up one of her sisters childhood friend, who had come over to their house once to make friendship bracelets. She remembered how she saw the bracelets and had tried to convince Sev to make one with her, but that he had absolutely refused. Apparently, it was unmasculine or something. But as she told the story to her friends, they all looked at her in confusion. All of the other girls were brought up in pureblood homes, and had never heard of friendship bracelets. They absolutely loved the idea, and wouldn't rest until Lily wrote home begging her parents to send them supplies to make some. 

And that was how they ended up here, with Lily showing them how to thread the beads onto the string, and to pick patterns of beads, and other such things that were essential to making bracelets properly. 

As the girls sat in concentration, Alice suddenly perked up with an idea. 

"You guys! Lets make soulmate bracelets!" She exclaimed. 

None of the girls really understood what she was talking about, so she had to explain further. 

As she spoke, she told a story of her family on vacation. While they were out, they came across a woman selling these so-called soulmate bracelets. She told them that when the bracelet broke off of your wrist, that it meant that the next person you came across was your one true love. 

"It was all a bunch of hogwash, but wouldn't it be fun?" Alice asked excitedly. 

The girls all agreed whole heartedly. 

As they got to work on their bracelets, Emmeline seemed keen to address the game they had played in flying class earlier. 

"Well Lily, I don't see why you need to make one seeing as Potter would probably rip it off of your wrist himself, if it meant he was your one true love." She said slyly. 

"What are you talking about!" Lily cried, with a massive blush blooming across her face. "James Potter is most definitely not my soulmate." 

"Oh Lily, he was practically falling all over himself to give you a ride on his broom earlier!" Mary interjected.

"Plus not to mention," Emmeline inserted, "He was so determined to keep you with him that he was willing to lose the match! And we all know how important quidditch is to the boy." 

"No, your both so wrong. He just wanted to show off to sirius that he could still win with the extra challenge." Lily defended. 

"But that still doesn't explain why he would offer to help you in the first place." Marlene said. 

Lily looked at her friends feeling so fully cornered. 

"No! No! No!" she cried. "You're all just wrong." 

"James Potter most definitely doesn't like me." she exclaimed. 

The other girls merely laughed and shook there heads.

"Whatever you say Lily dearest, but I can almost guarantee that your bracelet will fall off with James Potter there to witness it." Alice declared. 

"Please can we just not talk about boys right now?" Lily begged. "Lets just focus on our bracelets."

The other girls just groaned, and agreed. 

Their bracelets came out wonderfully, and each girl had two on her wrist. 

One of them, was made of a few strings braided together, into very pretty unique patterns of threads. And the other bracelet, each had the letters, GG. in gold, with red and gold beads surrounding them. 

The letters of course stood for Gryffindor Girls, as they now took to calling themselves.