Chapter 5
She’d like to have said this most recent argument in the Common Room was her last straw, but she was fairly certain she’d run out of straws years ago and was now simply pretending there was anything left in her.
She was done. She was tired of arguing–it seemed like she couldn’t get through a single day without someone biting her head off about something. She was tired of being a source of scorn or pity or jealousy. Which meant her only option was to stay away from the people who, without a doubt, brought out the worst in her. Which meant staying away from the so-called Marauders until they got over their little ‘Aggravate Lily’ game.
She was purposefully not thinking about the fact that one of her recent arguments had been with Severus. She already knew she wasn’t going to stay away from him.
So she did what she always did when she wanted to get away from people. She pushed her way out into the blustery September day and found a good place to smoke.
Her dad had smoked. The memory burned in her throat as she pulled a pack of Benson & Hedges from a hidden compartment in her bag, and lit it with the tip of her wand. She took a long drag, feeling colder than she had before. She didn’t care. It smelled like her dad. And, for a few minutes, she could watch the pattern of the smoke and not think of anything at all.
The sky darkened around her and she saw the windows of the castle begin to light up, hearing distant sounds of Friday night revelry. The first Friday night back at Hogwarts was always intense. After a summer of being cooped up with parents, everyone was finally able to laugh and dance and sneak sips of firewhiskey that they were most certainly too young to drink. She didn’t mind it. She rather liked the tradition–spending the first weekend back celebrating all the reasons that you were happy to be here. There were worse traditions to have.
But she wasn’t happy to be here. Not anymore. And the idea of walking into the joyous reunion going on in Gryffindor Tower feeling like this felt like torture.
Her dad had been a tow truck driver. The mill in Cokeworth had shut down before she was born, shredding the local economy. That’s how they’d gotten places like Spinners End, where Sev lived. Run-down council flats mostly. They’d been lucky that her dad had kept them in fairly good standing, towing this and that around the Midlands, disappearing and reappearing at odd hours. It had never occurred to her that, one day, he might not come back.
Her parents had taken her magical abilities as in stride as they possibly could have. In some ways, it must have been a relief to know there was genuinely something different about her, and they hadn’t been imagining the times when Lily had accidentally enchanted her teddies to move or when she’d turned all the wallpaper pastel pink. They’d both always been excited to hear about her schoolwork and her friends, hoping to one day see all of the strange miracles she’d described to them.
Her dad had lived for several hours after he’d spun off the road, crashing into a sodden ditch. They raced to the hospital once called, all three Evans women pale-faced and red-eyed, waiting outside the operating room with hope trapped in their throats.
He never made it off the table. But it had been a muggle hospital.
If Lily had been there, even with her rudimentary healing knowledge, would she have been able to help? Could she have done what the doctors had failed to do? Could she have used one of her little miracles for good?
She knew Petunia thought so. She’d said as much, in the quiet, shocked days after it happened. Asked why Lily was so special if she couldn’t even stop their father from bleeding out. Lily had slapped her. But that didn’t mean she thought her sister was wrong.
She wondered if their mother shared that view. If that was why it had become impossible for any of the Evans women to look each other in the eye. Her dad used to send her a letter on the first Friday of every school year, like clockwork. Lily realized that her mother might not have even known about it. Their private little tradition.
Gone, now. Like all the other traditions they shared. And she was still here. She might have started to cry if she hadn’t heard footsteps approaching from the Black Lake, the pebbles of the pathway crunching underfoot. She turned, then discreetly held her wand in her sleeve, eyeing the intruders warily.
“What do we have here?” Evan Rosier drawled, flanked by a small crew of other Slytherins. Titus Pyrites, Rabastan Lestrange, Stella Yaxley, and, as her heart sank, Severus Snape. She didn’t look directly at him. It wasn’t worth the risk.
“It’s nearly curfew, Rosier. You might want to head back to the castle.” She said, evenly. The older boy smirked.
“You might want to head back, too, mudblood. It’s getting awfully dark to be out here on your own.”
She didn’t flinch. She’d heard the word too much for that.
“Five points from Slytherin for using a slur. I’ll have to take more if you stay out after hours.” She spoke confidently, even if she felt anything but.
“Careful, Evans,” Yaxley smirked. “We have a prefect of our own, you know? He can take points from you just as easily.”
Lily was forced to look at Severus. His expression was unreadable.
“Is that so?” She asked, idly. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
“Come on, little prefect. We’ll escort you back inside.” Rosier took a step towards her, his arms open wide. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman.” It was difficult, but she just about held back a gag at those words.
“Thanks. I’ll make my way inside on my own. Have a nice night.” She hoped they were smart enough to take it as a dismissal. Yaxley and Pyrites looked like they might, but Lestrange followed Rosier, both boys getting far too close for comfort.
They were both seventh years. They knew much more magic than Lily did and were significantly larger and meaner than her. And neither of them had any compunction about using dark magic.
But she was Lily Evans. And she was tired.
“Just go, okay?” She said, gesturing with her non dominant hand towards the castle, keeping her wand hidden in her other sleeve. “We can all just forget this ever happened.”
“Why would I want to do that, Evans?” Rosier said, taking one final step closer to her.
A part of her hoped that Severus would step in. That he would never let anything happen to her. The rest of her knew that was a fantasy.
Instinctively and silently, she snapped her wand up, a bright light erupting from the tip as if a bomb had gone off. When it died down–she was finally able to see again–all five Slytherins were on the ground, out cold. With a wary glance at her dark surroundings, she started to run.
***
By the time she returned to Gryffindor Tower, she’d forgotten all of the reasons she’d initially fled, leaving her oddly paralyzed in front of the Fat Lady. The portrait looked at her, suspiciously.
“Password?” She asked.
“Give me a second,” Lily panted, still catching her breath from her flight up the stairs.
“Incorrect,” the Fat Lady replied, seeming almost amused. Lily shot her a look, but before she could respond, the portrait swung open, and she was almost deafened by the immediate cacophony of noise.
“Lily!” Mary Macdonald, of all people, shouted her name, her voice slurring softly around the edges. She jumped forward and flung her arms around Lily’s neck, hugging her tightly. “Happy Friday!”
“Hi, Mary,” Lily chuckled, slowly extricating herself from Mary’s arms, and leading them both back into the Common Room. “Happy Friday to you! Having fun?”
The Gryffindor Common Room was packed. The tables she usually studied on were covered in ornate goblets, a huge bowl of liquid floating in the middle, slowly spewing white smoke. Gideon and Fabian Prewett were holding a fake wand duel in one corner, where each flick turned their weapons into something more and more ridiculous. Peter was on Sirius’s shoulders by the fire, attempting to put a party hat on an irate-looking portrait of a knight.
Lily looked back at Mary, who was giggling. Mary looked… good. She was always pretty, but her long, dark hair was curled, her makeup had been meticulously applied, and she was wearing platform boots that Lily was immediately jealous of. If Lily hadn’t known better, she might have thought that Mary was genuinely having a good time.
“Loads of fun,” Mary said in a sing-song voice. “Let’s get you a drink. Then you’ll have fun!”
“I’m alright,” Lily said, wondering if she might be able to get Mary to drink some water before she went to bed. “I’m not really in the mood.”
“Lily Evans refusing a drink?” A tall presence sidled up behind them. “The shock! The horror! Someone call the Daily Prophet!”
Lily turned, arms folded, to see James Potter annoyingly taking up her personal space. “If you’re offering the drinks, Potter, I will always refuse them.” Mary gasped dramatically, then burst into giggles.
“I don’t think I did offer, actually,” he mused, levitating one of the goblets into his hand and taking a long sip. “Nor was I going to. You’ll have to suck up to Remus if you want to actually have fun tonight. I’m done.” He wasn’t slurring like Mary, but he was definitely not even close to being sober. If he was, he wouldn’t be leaning quite this far forward.
“James Potter doesn’t want to fuck me?” Lily said, in a falsely high voice. “How will I go on?”
James blinked in surprise, whatever retort he had been planning on dead on his lips. Then, his eyebrows furrowed as he looked at her.
“Why do you smell like cigarette smoke?”
Shit. She usually charmed the smell away before she got back inside, but, well, she’d had other things on her mind.
“I’ve been out romancing a motorcycle gang.” She snapped, unwilling to share this secret with Potter, of all people. “You kind of just pick the smell up, after a while.”
“What’s a motorcycle?” He asked, bemused, and she shook her head in frustration, pulling Mary away.
“Mary, love,” she said, sitting her down on an oversized armchair while Lily sat on the stool in front of her. “Do you need anything? Water, bed? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink like this.”
Mary gave her a look. “What would you know? You’re barely here.”
Lily recoiled, and the sudden silence between them would have been more awkward if Mary hadn’t been obviously halfway to falling asleep.
“That’s fair,” Lily said, suddenly feeling exhausted herself. “Doesn’t change my question, though. Do you need anything?”
Mary leaned back in the armchair, closing her eyes and sighing, dramatically. After a moment, she opened one eye, peering at Lily.
“I want a girlfriend. And a nap.”
Lily’s eyes widened. She wasn’t certain anyone had come out to her before. And, from all the information she knew about Mary, she wasn’t certain Mary had come out to anyone else before, either.
“I’m not one hundred percent sure how to fix the former,” she said, as casually as she could, “but I can definitely help with the latter.”
***
It took half an hour and required the help of both Andi Shacklebolt and Marlene Everson, but, eventually, Mary was in bed, snoring softly as they pulled the curtains closed. Lily grabbed a small vial of hangover potion from her own supply and left it on the other girl’s nightstand.
“You should sell those in the Common Room tomorrow,” Andi said, eyeing the vial appreciatively. “You’d make a killing.”
Lily shrugged. “Lots of people can make hangover remedies.”
“Yeah, but most of them taste like shit.” Marlene sat cross-legged on her own bed, loudly opening a pack of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. “Yours are actually nice. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Honey,” she answered, truthfully. “It’s what my mum always put in medicine when I didn’t want to drink it. Wizards never think to include muggle remedies, but it works as often as not.”
“Honey…” Marlene repeated, thoughtfully, while she threw the box of beans at Andi. “My grandad used to put it in milk when we couldn’t sleep. I’d forgotten about that.”
“Maybe we should get some for the dorm,” Andi said, wincing as she chewed on a likely foul-tasting sweet. “After McKinnon, nobody is sleeping well. I mean, he’s out of the Hospital Wing, but still…”
“Hospital Wing?” Lily asked, stopping short. “What do you mean? What happened to Alex McKinnon?”