Lily's got a date?!
"Hey Evans!"
Lily looked up from her studying. She wondered if there would ever be a day she wasn’t interrupted by James Potter.
“I’m busy, Potter.”
She doubted it. There hadn’t been a single one in the seven years she had attended Hogwarts alongside him. Even her summers weren’t completely Potter-free. She had foolishly invited Remus to visit whenever he was willing, back in third year, when she had an unfortunately large crush on him – a lapse in judgement, truly – and he “accidentally” brought the rest. The rest being Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black, and James Potter.
So, now he knows where she lives.
He acts as though she didn’t even speak. “What’re you studying?” He says, all the while peering across the table to read her textbook.
“Divination.” She grumbles. “Dora usually helps me but she’s in detention and won’t tell me why.”
“Dora?” He pauses. “As in, Pandora? You guys are friends?”
Heat builds behind Lily’s eyes. “Yes, James. I do happen to talk to people outside my own house – not that you’d know anything about that.”
“I talk to people who aren’t in my house!”
Lily raises her eyebrows. “Oh yeah? Name one.”
A long pause.
“Regulus!” He almost shouts, looking incredibly pleased with himself.
“He practically lives with you, and he’s Sirius’ brother. Doesn’t count.”
“It does too count, Evans!”
“Nope.”
Oh, he’s so easy to rile up.
James is too busy trying to justify his answer to notice Lily slip away from the table and slink along to her dorm.
She doesn’t know why she let Potter get to her that time, it’s not exactly common knowledge that she and Pandora are friends. It’s her one secret; the one thing she will not share. She obviously loves her Gryffindor pals. There’s nothing she values more in life than Marls’ bluntness and honestly, Mary’s quick wit and general loveliness and Em’s sense of humour. She treasures her girls, yet there’s something about Pandora’s quietness; her peacefulness, that Lily can’t help but adore. Can’t help but be selfish and keep Pandora to herself.
It had been Lily’s fourth year, Pandora’s third, that the two met for the first time. Lily, who was still recovering from the sting of Remus’ rejection, had blindly stumbled into the library at the beginning of the year only to topple over a small blonde near the entrance to the restricted section.
Lily’s books went flying but never reached the floor. She remembered seeing them float an inch or two from the ground before they landed with a gentle thud a moment later.
“Did you do that?” Lily whispered, amazed. Apart from teachers she had never seen anyone perform wandless magic.
“Sure. It’s fairly simple.” The girl replied. There was a lilt to her voice, a softness that reminded Lily of the woods, and the fairies from her textbooks.
“Would you teach me?” Lily was desperate to know more about this girl, and her special magic. The girl seemed young but smart. Lily’s eyes were drawn to the blue of her tie.
Ravenclaw. Makes sense.
The girl glanced at Lily, her eyes were big and blue, but not bright blue like her tie. They were closer to silver. Like the sea on a stormy day.
“I can teach you.” She replied with a nod. “I’m Pandora.” She said after a pause.
“Lily.”
They shared a smile.
After that, the two spent the majority of their free period holed away in the library. Pandora teaching Lily wandless magic, Lily tutoring Pandora in potions. Despite their difference in house and year, Lily and Pandora became the closest of friends – but only within the walls of the library. It wasn’t intentional that their paths never crossed outside the boundaries of the library, it just seemed to happen, and neither Lily nor Pandora was willing to break the habit. They quite enjoyed the mutual solitude the other provided.
Later that night Lily was walking around on prefect patrol with Remus, who now, after a few years of awkwardness, was now one of her best friends. Despite his lack of taste regarding his other friends.
“Look I know you’re friends with him so could you please…”
Remus cut her off. “Lils I’ve tried. Prongs is not one for giving up. I promise you; we’ve all tried.”
Lily huffed in frustration. “How am I supposed to get him off my back. He refuses to take “no” for an answer.”
Remus just shrugged. “I can try sic’ing Sirius on him again. They usually listen to each other.”
Lily hummed in response. She decided to change the topic; she’d had enough of Potter talk. “Alright. What about you then?”
“Me?” Remus raised his eyebrow. “What about me?”
They were conveniently interrupted by a crash at the end of the hall. The two prefects watched as two dark haired blurs ran towards them, Filch hot on their heels. Lily saw, out of the corner of her eye, Remus’ lip curl up in amusement; he’d clearly gotten there quicker than she had. The shorter of the two boys slowed slightly as he passed them.
“Looking magnificent as ever, Moony!” Sirius yelled.
“C'mon Pads!” James huffed from ahead of him.
Sirius winked before speeding up to catch up with Potter. Lily turned to face Remus; she noted the slight pink tinge on the tops of his ears.
“That.” Lily said, with emphasis, returning to their previously interrupted conversation.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about Lily.” He avoided her eyes, though she could see a smile at the corners of his lips.
“I thought you were smarter than this, Re.”
Remus ignored her and began marching ahead of her. “We'd better check that third floor corridor – you know how people like to sneak out up there.”
“This isn’t over, Lupin.” Lily said, hurrying to catch up with his long strides.
After checking the third-floor corridor – they thankfully only had to evict one unlucky couple from the supply cupboard – Lily and Remus made their way back to the common room.
“So you’ll say to him then.” Lily said after the portrait swung open. Remus opened his mouth to respond before a shout from across the common room interrupted them – for a second time that night the two were interrupted by none other than Sirius Black.
“Remus! You’re back.” The obvious delight at Remus' presence rang through his words.
Sirius bounded across the room, curling himself into Remus’ side as he reached them. Remus’ hand, almost unconsciously, made its way into Sirius’ long hair (held halfway up with his wand, as was his usual).
Interesting.
“Hm speak of the devil.” Lily muttered. A smirk grew on Sirius’ face as he looked up towards Remus’ pinkish face.
“Talking about me, eh Moony? Go on what’s you and Evans gossiping about now.”
Lily answered. “Not you so much as Potter. Merlin, can you do something about this puppy dog act he’s decided on this year? He’s barely left me alone – we’ve only been back a week.” His lip seemed to twitch when Lily said this, for whatever reason.
“Uh yeah course Evans.” Sirius replied, before looking back up at Remus again jerking his head slightly in the direction of the boys’ stairs. Lily knew she'd lost Remus for the night.
“Hey Lils, I’ll see you in Transfiguration tomorrow, yeah?” Remus’ eyes were focused completely on the boy in front of him as he spoke.
“Yeah, see you.” She said with a smile. Lily watched the two boys – who were so obviously head over heels for each other – stumble up the stairs together. She shook her head; someone needed to knock some sense into them both.
Lily made her way up to her own dorm. She paused before opening the door, listening to the girls laughing from inside. The three girls pounced at her as she walked in, various shouts of “Lily!”, “Lils!” overlapped each other.
“It’s been so long, my love. Don’t ever leave us again.” Mary said, dramatically holding her hand to her forehead. Lily rolled her eyes.
“You saw me like two hours ago, come on Macdonald.”
“In Mary-time that’s probably about a week.” Marlene said, picking up her Quidditch magazine before settling onto her bed.
Mary chucked a pillow in Marlene’s direction. “Um, rude!”
“We’re actually more interested in that little gift that was dropped on your bed about 20 minutes ago.” Emmaline interrupted. She gave Lily a look, before raising an eyebrow. For some reason this made Lily blush.
“Don’t worry, it’s not from Potter – not his style.” Emmaline continued.
Lily ran her fingers through her hair and walked over to her bed. Sure enough, there was a small, neatly wrapped box. The paper was deep blue in colour, with a large silver bow that pretty much covered the box entirely. There was also a small tag attached. Lily looked up from the gift and saw three pairs of eyes watching pointedly to see what would be unwrapped. Lily swung onto her bed and close the hangings around her bed with one quick flick of her wand before the girls all let out various moans of disappointment. Finally, without an audience, Lily picked up the small box and flipped over the tag to read what it said: “Mo, leòmhann.”
Pandora.
Lily quickly tore the paper and opened the box. A small compact to fall into her hands.
“What is it?” She heard Mary whisper from her left before Emmaline hushed her.
Lily turned the compact over in her hands, wondering what Dora meant by the gift. The thin compact looked old, but well loved, like a family heirloom. It was covered in delicate depictions of vines stemming from the latch at the front and crisscrossing over one another that all connected to a small rose in the centre. Lily flipped the compact over only to be partially blinded by a small light. Once her eyes recovered Lily realised the light was projecting a series of letters, though she couldn’t make out what the letters meant. She put the compact down on her mattress, close to opening her bed hangings and asking for Mary’s help, when she noticed the letters starting to float upwards, away from the compact slightly. She watched them drift towards the top of her bed and a message started to make itself visible.
“Find me where the peals of time clutch the twilight sky.”
In true Ravenclaw fashion, Pandora had sent her a riddle. Lily huffed slightly, despite the smile steadily growing on her face. Her small sound of frustration seemed to have told Mary’s impatience it was time to interrupt. The curtain was suddenly flung back, and Mary’s face appeared in view, her hazel eyes locked on the small object in Lily’s hand.
“Let me see it Lils, please.”
Lily made room for Mary to sit next to her. “It’s better if it stays here.” Mary sat down, and Lily gestured to the writing above them.
“Merlin.” She said softly. Her tone had piqued the interest of the other girls, immediately both Emmaline and Marlene were also hovering around the compact.
“’Find me where the peals of time clutch the twilight sky’.” Emmaline read. “What’s’it mean?”
“It’s a riddle.” Lily explained. “I have to figure out the answer.”
“Alright, lets do this.” Mary disappeared for a moment, before returning with a piece of parchment and a pen.
“Still looks so wrong.” Marlene whispered.
“Come off it, Marls. Ink’s such an effort.”
The girls were silent for as Mary wrote “Lily’s potential date riddle!” at the top of the parchment in a looping font.
“Ideas, lads! What we got?”
“‘Twilight sky’ must mean sometime at night.” Emmaline suggested.
“Okay. Good, good. ‘Time’ maybe has something to with time turners – we just did a whole lesson on them, maybe someone’s trying to impress Ms Evans with their knowledge.” she giggled and then wrote down ‘night’ and ‘time turner’ on the page.
“That doesn’t tell her where to go.” Marlene cut in.
“Maybe the History classrooms?”
“That’s not romantic in the slightest Mary – Lily don’t go on a date to the history classrooms.”
Lily laughed. “I won’t.”
Time is the important clue, Lily thought. ‘Time Turners’ was a good idea, but Lily wasn’t convinced that was it.
Peals of time.
Sounds of time? No.
Time clutch…clutches of time. Hands clutch. Hands of time?
Suddenly Lily had it.
“The clocktower!” Lily yelled, and then explained herself.
“Oh, that makes more sense, Lily you’re so smart.” Marlene said.
“Brightest witch of her age.” Mary replied, while writing 'clocktower' in her loopy handwriting and surrounded it with hearts and stars. She looked pleased with herself.
“Well, looks like you’ve got a date at the clocktower Lils.” Emmaline said with a smirk.