studyrooms
On campus they have a hall with little rooms that are isolated so much, you can scream your heart out and no one would hear you. Lily knows this, as she has, in fact, screamed her heart out in one of these rooms. But that’s not all they are good for. They are also very useful for practicing her violin.
The only problem, they outside may not hear you, but the rooms next to you can, so lily is listening to a group of people who originally came there to study, but are now having a full on gossip session.
Lily doesn’t know any of the people they are talking about, but is still invested. She is also trying hard to do anything but practicing, but she promised herself she would for the upcoming performance, that’s why she came here in the first place.
They are talking about a certain Evan and Barry who pulled the fire alarm while taking a test, when lily hears the door from the room on the other side opening. Curious to hear what’s going on there, she walks over to the other wall.
She hears some noise and eventually the person begins playing the piano. After a few seconds Lily recognizes the song that’s being played.
“Je te laisserai des mots. How basic, even I can play that.” Lily huffs.
The piano stops and lily wonders for a moment if the person had heard her. It’s not like she was talking that loud.
The person starts playing again, something softer, so much lily can barely hear it. The music starts speeding up and lily finds herself entranced. It’s absolutely beautiful. She slides down the wall and sits down on the ground, ear pressed against the wall to hear it the best she can.
When the pianist stops for the second time, lily gets the urge to clap as hard as she can. She doesn’t, she just sits there, quietly.
Then she stands up, picks up her violin and starts playing. Close to wall, she wants the person to hear it. After a few strokes, the pianist starts playing with her.
That’s how lily finds herself in a duet. Not just a normal duet, she wanted to impress the person next to her after the performance they put up, so she chose the most difficult song she learned. She was quite surprised when it was recognized and that the other person also knew how to play it.
Lily has loved the violin since she was a little child and puts a lot of her time into it, she has performed in multiple competitions and masters a few songs she is proud of. Her ambition was not always appreciated, especially by her parents, who never quite got it. They supported her, but in a distant way. That’s one of the reasons lily was so eager to move out. Her sister, Petunia, was worse. Always bullying Lily for what she loved. She really loves her sister and still wanted to keep in touch with her after moving out. Petunia did not, so they don’t speak anymore.
When lily is finally done she hears the gossip group in the other room applaud. They probably heard all of it. Lily smiles to herself and is now more than ever curious about the person behind the piano. So she steps out of her room and want to knock on the door.
Then she sees a very familiar name on the door. Occupied by: Mary Macdonald.
Lily can’t believe it. She’s everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And now lily knows how good she is, because yes, she is really good. And lily is supposed to go up against her.
As fast as she can she goes back to her room and just stays there.
When she finally decides to leave it’s already dark outside. It’s almost winter so it gets dark earlier. Lily loves fall and winter. She loves all the seasons, but those two the most. The evening gives her a sense of comfort and when she steps out of the building she can see her breath in little clouds. Beautiful.
She pulls out her navy blue scarf that Remus gifted her. He said that navy blue goes well with her hair colour, which she appreciated very much. She had been insecure about her hair, especially when she was little.
At school a lot of the boys would bully her for her hair colour and she had begged her mother to dye her hair but she wouldn’t have it. She had spent a week in her bedroom, refusing to come out, while crying under the covers of her bed.
Finally Petunia had come in. She told lily that her hair was beautiful and that she should be proud of it. Lily was over the moon, as her sister had never ever said something nice to her, so this compliment could have basically come from the queen herself.
After putting on her scarf she begins searching for her phone in her tote bag. Truly, you looked good wearing it, but when you need something, it turns into a black hole.
Finally after grabbing her etui two times, she fishes out her phone. If she wants to beat Mary, she going to have to put a lot of effort into it. So she reserves a new room for tomorrow, one far away from the one she was previously in. She doesn’t want to end up next to Mary again.
---
Lily and Remus are outside the café. Remus is smoking and lily is just talking about this and that, while standing next to him. When she found out about the smoke breaks, she pretended she smoked too and went with Remus. Because why should you work less just so you can smoke some cancer sticks? Honestly.
It’s snowing and it’s already getting darker. They only have to work for half an hour or so and Lily is imagining how good the hot bath is going to be when she comes home. And yes, she has a bath in her little London appartement, she worked hard for it for this exact reason.
Lily is talking about the new album Taylor swift released when she gets interrupted.
“Remus! Hi!” A girl with blond hair is walking towards them. “You work here now? Thought you worked with Sirius at that music shop.”
The girl is wearing a mini skirt, despite the cold weather and matched that with a red top, what looks like it came out of a vintage shop. Over that she has a coat with fur along the sides. When she comes closer Lily can see all sorts of little braids in the girl’s hair. But overall a look Lily can appreciate.
“No, not anymore. The money is better here, but pads has been whining to me about for over a week.” Answers Remus.
Lily snorts quickly covering it up with a cough.
“Pads? What does he call you then? Tampon?” Lily smirks.
Remus gives her side eyes and luckily a little smile.
Remus’ parents are not as rich as lily’s, so he had to live at campus. There he met some, let’s say, questionable people, but he sees them as his friends, so so does lily. At the beginning she had been afraid they wouldn’t like her, but soon she came to notice how incredibly welcome they are and she’s isn’t looked at as ‘the friend remus brings’. She her own person. But this blond girl however, she has not met yet.
She has met James of course, which ended in him almost proposing. Of course she rejected him, it was a silly joke anyway.
Someone snorts behind the blond, lily had not yet seen there was someone else who came with her.
“Literally, I still don’t know why you came up with those nicknames.” The girl says. “If I could guess, “prongs” and “padfoot” came up with them, didn’t they?” She says prongs and padfoot with slight mockery, but her smiles stays.
Then lily recognizes the girl and her eyebrows fly up.
“Mary Macdonald.”
Remus turns his head from lily to mary.
“You know each other?”
“You know her?”
“It’s rude to talk about someone while she’s standing right in front of you.” Mary interrupts. “And I’ve seen you before, on campus.” She says, her eyes on lily. “What’s your name?”
“Lily, Lily Evans.”
Mary’s smile widens, a little ‘oh’ forming with it. She walks around the blond who just accepts that Mary is going to talk to lily and starts a conversation with Remus, who after a questioning gaze at Lily turns to talk to the girl.
“You are the other girl from the competition.” Mary says when she stands in front of lily.
“Yes I am, and I am planning to win it.” Lily says with a little smirk playing on her lips.
Mary raises her eyebrows in surprise.
“Oh, are you now.”
They are quite close and lily can see the specs of yellow in Mary’s brown eyes, not that she was looking in her eyes.
“Wanna bet on it?” Mary says, still a big smile.
A heat rushes to lily’s cheeks and before she notices what she doing she’s picking up a hand full of snow and just dumps her face right in there.
Mary does a step back in surprise and begins laughing.
“My face was warm.” Says lily as she wipes the remains of the snow from her face.
“Was it now?” Mary says while still laughing.
Lily gives her a dirty look and proceeds to walk to the door. Remus and the blond are staring at her.
“I’m going back to work.” She says as she rushes inside.
She stands still for a minute, just processing this whole interaction. Mary was not what she thought she would be. She expected mean and ugly. But she was neither, so lily has some trouble placing this personality with the name Mary.
After a few seconds Remus walk in. With a confused face he stares at her and after holding his gaze for a moment Lily gives in.
“I don’t know Remus.” She says.
“You don’t know? That much was clear, I have never seen you act like this, what’s going on?”
“You don’t have to overreact Remus.” She says, starting to get irritated. “She’s just the girl I was telling you about.” She looks at her shoes, brown loafers.
“Oh,” A look of understanding crosses his face. “Lily-“
“I forgot something.” Lily remembers and runs out of the door.
Mary and the blond are still talking at the spot Lily and Remus were standing just a moment ago.
“Mary,” Mary looks up and their eyes meet. “What was that song you were playing?”
She doesn’t know if she will understand or look at her like she just escaped an asylum. But she smiles and fully turns to look at Lily.
“Violin sonata,” She says. “No. 9”
“Kreutzer?”
“Yes indeed”
Lily nods her head.
“Thank you.”
Then she walks away for the second time today and when she opens the door Remus is still standing there.
“Sorry for the way I was acting, I have never seen you like that.” A small smile appears. “It was quite funny to see you embarrass yourself, a sight I though I would never see oh put together Lily.”
“Oh shut up, we still need to work.”
Lily passes Remus, but turns around at the end of the hall.
“If you say one word about this to anyone Remus,” She stops her sentence for a dramatic effect. “You will never be able to sleep peacefully again, because you will never see me coming.”
Remus looks impressed, but his smile hasn’t faded.
“Alright Lils, whatever you say.”