Lils
September 2, 1978.
Lily woke up to Marlene and Dorcas fighting again. They needed the bathroom at the same time and of course none of them were willing to give it up on the other people’s favour. Lily quickly had a shower while they were yelling, brushed her teeth, and put on her uniform. Mary offered her to do her makeup as she was ready with hers and she started to get bored while listening to the still quarrelling Dorcas and Marlene. Lily, as always, refused. She didn’t like the feeling of makeup. It made her face feel heavier and she had a constant fear that she will accidentally ruin it throughout the day and she will look like a panda without even noticing it.
So, she just put her hair up in a bun and went down to have breakfast with the perfectly looking Mary, the still mad Dorcas, and the satisfied Marlene (who ended up using the bathroom first).
They all sat down next to the marauders who seemed to be very excited, and Lily had a sense that it wasn’t because of the first day of school.
“They are up to something” she thought.
Professor McGonagall walked up to them as they were having their eggs and toast and handed their new timetable to them. Lily quickly went through her classes. She had quite a lot, because in third year she took up almost all the classes except Muggle Studies and Divination.
“Merlin’s beard! Are they trying to murder us?” Sirius whined.
“Indeed! Look, I’ll barely have time for quidditch.” James showed his timetable to Sirius, which looked exactly the same.
James and Sirius decided to take up Divination and Muggle Studies. Lily remembered clearly how angry Mr. and Mrs. Black were when they found out Sirius is attending at Muggle Studies. They came and took him home. Nobody saw him for three days. James was a mess, Remus was intolerable, and even Peter seemed to be under the weather. And then he came back. Nothing seemed to have changed on him, he looked healthy, and the exact way he did before. That was the problem. Nobody knew what happened, he never told anyone. He kept repeating that he was only grounded but then his parents realised that they can’t keep him out of school forever, so they let him go back. Which was a lie of course, because something did seem to change in Sirius. Lily couldn’t tell what it was, but he was different from that moment.
Lily will always remember that moment, when Mrs. Black stormed into the Gryffindor Tower and dragged Sirius out. She will always remember the look on his face. That was the moment when she realised that something was very wrong in that family. A children should never, under any circumstances have that look when they see their mother angry. That family was indeed very unhealthy and rotten to the core. And she didn’t even know half of the things she knows now, after Sirius had run away.
Lily started as Marlene took her timetable out of her hands to take a look at it.
“It’s not even that bad. Look at Lily’s!” Marlene said showing it to the boys.
“Fuck, Red! When are you going to enjoy your life? You know life is not all about reading books and writing exams!” Sirius said.
Lily didn’t really listen to him. She knew that withing two weeks he will be begging for her Potions homework. Or perhaps any kind of homework.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re already writing homework. School hasn’t even started yet!” Sirius continued.
“No.” Lily said putting her quill down “I’m writing an apology letter to Petunia.”
They all went silent. Everyone kind of knew the tension between the two sisters, though Lily never really told anyone the whole story. She knew that they all sort of disliked her, and James once told her to just ignore Petunia, because she was being prick. He literally said that.
“Oh.” Sirius said “Sorry, Red.”
Lily shrugged her shoulders. Sirius knew what it was like to be on bad terms with your sibling. He was especially sensitive about it, and since Regulus joined the Death Eaters Sirius doesn’t even look at him. Like he wouldn’t even be there. Lily was sorry for both of them. Sometimes she wished they wouldn’t have told him about it.
“You coming for Arithmancy, Lily?” Kingsley sat down to their table.
Kingsley Shacklebolt was the only one in their class who chose the same classes as Lily – plus he attended to Muggle Studies as well. Kingsley was the most ambitious Gryffindor Lily had ever known, she wondered why he wasn’t sorted into Slytherin. His and other two Gryffindor’s dorm was next to the Marauders’ dorm and Lily remembered specifically how Kingsley hexed all four of them at the same time, in third year the night before the exams. They were very loud, and Kingsley wanted to read through his notes before the exam. That was the moment when Kingsley took out from the friend group and started to befriend wizards from the years above. But this year, there were no older students, and Lily supposed that Kingsley considered her the most normal in that group. That thought almost made her giggle.
“Yes.” Lily answered while smiling.
“Great. I’ll wait for you, in the Hall, if that’s alright with you!” he said and stood up.
He obviously didn’t want to spend more time at the table as necessary. Lily could tell that he was afraid to be get involved with the Marauders.
“Oh, thanks!” Lily looked at Remus “I finished, but Moony is still eating. We’ll meet you there.”
“Remus?” Kingsley looked shocked “Oh, I forgot, he takes Arithmancy too.”
“Maybe if sometimes you looked up while licking the teacher's arse you would know that I have been sitting behind you for four years, mate.” Remus said quite angrily. Lily couldn’t blame him. It was full moon that night.
Sirius snorted, and James tried to hold back his gurgles of laughter.
“No, I… Nevermind. I’ll meet you in class.” he said and quickly left the Great Hall.
They all started laughing.
“I think he’s still kind of mad, that after all of those pranks, you still got to be a Prefect, Moony.” James said “And that I became Head Boy instead of him.” he added.
“I still don’t understand why they gave it to you. You were the worst possible choice!” Sirius laughed. Lily noticed that he started to have a very strange – but funny laugh. As if he was barking.
“Honestly mate, I don’t understand it either.” James laughed too.
“I think Dumbledore was high when he made the decision.” Remus said suddenly.
“Oh, he was definitely high.” Mary laughed.
After Remus finished his abnormally huge amount of sausage and toast they left the Great Hall and went straight to the classroom. Kingsley was sitting at the desk closest to the board. When they entered he waved at Lily but didn’t pay attention to Remus. For solidarity to Remus Lily didn’t wave back, what is more she even turned her head away. “That was childish” she thought.
They somehow survived the first day. For Lily the first days were the hardest. Not because of the classes, they were fine. It was hard for getting used with magic. Every summer break, when Lily went home, she became a muggle girl for 2 months. She couldn’t use magic, she was surrounded with muggles, who didn’t understand why she was homesick. “But you are home” they said.
“They don’t understand” Mary said once to her “How could they? They’ve never been to Hogwarts.”
They’ve never felt the magic tingling through their body. They never casted a spell after 2 months and got amazed how magic exploded out of their body. They’ve never entered the Great Hall and gasp for breath as they look at the ceiling no matter how many times they’ve seen it. They’ve never felt the satisfaction and happiness when they learned a new spell. They haven’t created a potion before or have met with a unicorn or a hippogriff.
And it was overwhelming. It was hard for Lily to get used to it, and sometimes, when se did things in the muggle way at Hogwarts she had to remind herself that even though almost everyone hates her for it she is indeed a witch. And she was proud of it.
At lunch Lily was flipping through her new Care of Magical Creatures book. After lunch they only had that one class and her afternoon was free. Or, no. Not really. She still had Head Girl duties, homework, and she decided to go to Madam Pomfrey’s healing class. Dorcas talked about it in summer and Lily thought it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to learn a few healing spells as the war is getting more and more intense.
And James Potter certainly did not help.
“Oi, Evans!” he sat down next to her.
His uniform was a mess. His shirt was only half tucked into his trousers. His tie wasn’t tied anymore it was just hanging in his neck. He rolled up the sleeve of his jumper. And not to mention his hear. Oh, his stupid hair. It was messy, as if the wind had blown it up, but Lily knew that it was all intentional.
“Yes, Potter?” she reminded herself to roll her eyes.
“So, there have been a little bit of an issue.” he said and scratched the back of his neck “I cannot help you with the night patrol tonight, I’m sorry.”
“What?” she said.
No! No, this isn’t how it’s going to be! She’s not going to do everything all by herself, and let Potter celebrating himself with the pin on his chest.
“I know, I know!” he put his hands up “I’m the worst and all that. It’s not going to happen again, I’m sorry. I’m going to come up with a solution, I promise!”
With that he stood up, and turned his back to walk away.
“Wait a second, Potter!” she said and James turned around “I’m not going to get a proper explanation?”
“What do you mean?” he puckered his eyebrows.
“Well, I don’t know! What are you planning to do between 9 and 10 o’clock exactly?” she raised her eyebrows.
“Look, Evans. I really can’t tell.” he looked as if he was truly sorry.
“You are going to do a prank, aren’t you?” she stood up too “Because if you are, I swear Potter…”
“You’ll see. I really have to go now, Lils!”
‘Lils’? Lily got speechless.
James’ eyes widened as he realised how he has called Lily. Suddenly he smiled wide and chuckled. Lily had to concentrate so hard not to smile too. He then winked at her and ran out of the Great Hall.
Lily slowly sat down, still under the shock of what happened. The butterflies in her stomach woke up. She pushed her plate away, as she no longer had an appetite, and tried to hide her smile.
Lils.
She liked that.