A/N - I don't usually do Author's Notes, but this time I going to make an exception 'cause there's a couple of things I want to say. For those of you who read 'Their Final Year': Firstly, THANK YOU! It is a continuation of that story but from Lily's POV, not Rose's, and I am carrying some characters from that story over to this one. Similarly, remember this is Lily NOT Rose, and Lily has more of an attitude (for example, if Rose says 'I walked' she walked. If Lily says 'I walked', she strutted or sashayed or something like that, you get the idea) For those of you who haven't read my previous story: This might be a little confusing at first as some themes and plots from it are briefly mentioned in this, however they're not crucial. If you don't understand, I suggest reading the first, second and last chapters of 'Their Final Year' to get a grasp on a couple of the characters - you don't have to read them if you don't want to, or you can read more if you like (I would be so grateful if you did!) At first this story might seem a bit shallow and only about Lily's problems, but please read on, 'cause I'm really proud of the plot I came up with for it! Anyway, here's 'Only One Year.' Hope you like it! x
Chapter One:
"This is my year! You are not ruining it for me! Why would you break up with me today, of all days?" I yelled. Kej Patel took a step back, shrinking into the crowds a little. I took a step towards him, folding my arms across my stomach.
"I chose today because you'd get the whole year to get over it," Kej said, with overdone casualness, looking at his shoes. I laughed.
"Ok, for one thing, it's not going to take me a year to get over you. Two, why the hell would you break up with me just before I leave for school?" I yelled. "We've been dating since the end of my fifth-year! My parents think we're back here snogging or something, and instead you're breaking up with me!" I cried, thanking Merlin that I had total and utter control of my tear glands.
Kej looked over his shoulder, seeming anxious to get away from me. "Look, it's just not cool to be dating a girl who's still in school!" he exclaimed.
"So that's your reason?" I cried with disbelief. Kej shrugged.
"Well...yeah, it is," he muttered.
"Well, go die in a hole!" I yelled, pushing Kej further away from me, and then for good measure I spat on the ground. Kej shot me a look of distaste before strolling off into the massing crowds of people swarming around Platform 9 3/4.
Instead of walking away immediately, I stopped still for a moment, before falling down next to the brick pillar, and checking my watch - five minutes left - and timed myself a two-minutes-exactly cry.
Kej is such a jerk! I can't believe I dated him for a year! I mean, it was a completely open relationship - I know we both dated other people - but I cannot believe he just dumped me! Merlin, I should not feel so upset about this. I hate this feeling. Why does my heart feel like it's in my mouth? Why do I feel as if my eyes are being pounded on from behind by a brass band? Why am I still sitting here?
I checked my watch - two minutes exactly. That wasn't really a good sign. I was getting so used to my two-minute cries that I stopped exactly on the second that they were scheduled to end. It was practise. I'd had to do this with every guy I'd ever dated - contrary to what Sharon Parkinson might say, I was never the one to end a relationship. She has no right to say all those things about me. She has no idea. Nobody has any idea. Pausing for a second to check my reflection in my compact mirror, to be assured that my eyes hadn't become red footballs from the crying. Thankfully, my face always obeyed me - my blushes were far and few, my eyes never swelled from crying, and spots were such a rarity I never bothered with the skin rituals that Aphelia went through every night before bed. As I was certain that my face displayed no hints that my soul had been crushed to dust mere minutes ago, I sauntered off the rejoin my family.
Mum swooped down on me the moment I returned to the clan.
"So how was Kej? Did he have a nice summer?" she asked pointedly, smiling at me. I shrugged.
"Kej did have a nice summer," I told her, answering her second question. Really, if she heard what I thought of Kej right now, I would be grounded until I was seventy-four and two-thirds. Dad was standing a little way off, chatting to Uncle Ron and Hugo. We'd all been relieved when Hugo had finally cut his ridiculous hair to a socially acceptable length. In his sixth year, Hugo had turned a corner in his life, and had suddenly become the model son that he'd been when we were little. He was in a steady relationship with Katy Bluehalph, scraped together enough OWLs to take all the subjects he had wanted to, and had finally stopped arguing with every one of his family members. He'd also moved onto another group of friends - ones that would definitely not challenge him to tackle Acromantula. Thank Merlin Hagrid was there that night...
It hit me in the same way being hit by a train would most likely feel. My chest felt so tight I was shocked there was no steel band around it, crushing my ribs, and my eyes clouded over so that I couldn't see anything whatsoever. Hagrid. It couldn't have been over a year ago. There was pain, physical pain that stabbed me in the stomach whenever I thought of him. I had never thought I was capable of missing anyone as much as I missed him.
"Oh, Lily," Mum interrupted my thoughts after a few seconds. I looked up, hiding my emotions as always. "As you know, it's the Lovegood twins' first year at Hogwarts. Be a dear and keep an eye on them," she patted my shoulder, smiling.
"Sure, Mum," I told her, grinning back. Lorcan and Lysander were family friends, so Hugo and I - and possibly even Roxanne and Lucy - were obligated to keep an eye on them.
Suddenly, I found Agnes by my side.
"Lily, get on the train right now, it's about to leave!" she cried, jumping up and down. Mum's eyes filled with tears.
"Harry!" she called. Dad was standing by her side in an instant. "Be good!" Mum brushed my shoulders down, as usual convinced that I was messy.
"Stay out of trouble," she reminded me.
"Write to us on your birthday," Dad said.
"Don't get caught up in too much drama," Mum added.
"And for Merlin's sake, stay focused on your N.E.W.T.s!" Dad sighed. I took his words to be synonymous of don't let any boys distract you.
"Will do!" I cried, before grabbing Agnes' arm and dragging her onto the Hogwarts Express.
"What compartment are we in?" I asked, looking over my shoulder and getting a face full of Agnes's shiny, honey-blonde, thick hair.
"The next one down. But I'm dropping you off next door for a second - Jack wants to talk to you for a moment," she informed me, giggling. I looked pleased; I felt sick. I have been broken up with Kej for five minutes and Jack Kipplet already thinks he can hit on me. That is what he was planning on doing - I'd been expecting it since May last year.
Agnes pushed me into the compartment where Jack was waiting, hissed, "Come next door in five," then slammed the door shut, and leaving me with the boy with the bluest eyes you could possible imagine.
I've never really liked blue eyes on a boy. Blue seems too much a perfect colour, a feminine colour. Green eyes are my favourite, and the next one down is brown - but they have to be dark, or it's no good. Normally, I didn't bother with eyes too much, so I could generally ignore them, however Jack's were so blue it was like a blazing sign was pointing at them, saying look at these feminine eyes!
Jack didn't even stand up when I walked in. He simply patted the faded seat next to him. I cocked my head to the side and smiled, before sitting opposite from him instead, just as the train lurched to a start. I'm off to my final year at Hogwarts. And this is how it starts. Brilliant. Jack smirked, then leaned across, his elbows on his knees. To keep the distance roughly the same, I leaned back in my seat, but I smirked back at him.
"Here's the deal. Want to go out?" he asked, seeming totally confidant. I pouted my lips, considering him.
"You sure don't beat around the bush, do you?" I commented, slightly disdainful.
"I didn't think there was any point really. Lily, you're hot. There's no two ways about it. I'm hot, too. Everyone would think we were a good couple, you know," he added. It was true - everybody would think we were an awesome couple.
Except me.
"I don't want to go out with you. I literally just broke up my boyfriend," I began.
"If you broke up with him then what's the problem?" Jack spat, suddenly very red in the face.
"We broke up, like, five minutes ago!" I exclaimed. "I don't want to go out with anybody new yet, Jack."
He paused, his face now as red as a cherry tomato. "Not even me?" he asked, fuming quietly.
"Not even you," I muttered, standing up to leave. Just as I slid open the compartment door, I felt Jack tap my shoulder. I turned; then I got a face-full of verbal abuse. Before Jack could start cursing my uncle, too, I slammed the door in his face, shutting him off, and then I shot him a very rude hand gesture. Furious, my temper living up to my hair colour, I tried to storm off down the corridor. Ouch! My face was suddenly buried in an off-white shirt.
"Oh! Sorry, Lily!" I heard a boy's voice say, sounding surprised.
"Hey, Aaron. Looking good by the way, been abroad this year?" I asked, stepping back from him, Jack suddenly banished from my mind. Aaron Cooke. We used to be really good friends, along with David and Hugo, until about our third year, when the rumours that we were dating grew out of control. We'd decided to stop hanging out so much, but to stay friends. Three and a bit years on, we were still friends. Something I was glad of.
"Yeah, I went to Spain last week. You been anywhere?" he asked, casually.
"Nowhere much," I shrugged, brushing some stray strands of hair away from my face as I spoke.
"I mean, I went to Godric's Hollow for a bit with my family, but other than that I've been at home all summer. So exciting!" I sighed, rolling my eyes. Aaron laughed.
"Yeah, I know what you mean," he grinned. I raised my eyebrows, and as I did so they stung where they'd been plucked hurriedly this morning after I'd woken up late.
"You kidding? You went to Spain, you haven't been stuck at home!" I laughed, folding my arms.
Aaron laughed too. "Yeah, forgot to mention - I was staying with my grandmother there, and I spent about twenty-four hours a day doing her shopping, cleaning and cooking."
I laughed at the description of his holiday.
"Wow, fun times, Aaron!" I punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Oh, is it true you're Quidditch Captain this year?" I asked, interested, remembering a rumor that Aphelia had told me earlier.
"Yeah, thinking about trying out?" he asked.
"As if! I can't play to save my life!" I sighed, exaggeratedly.
"Shame, it would've been nice to see you there," he grinned. I smiled back.
"Thanks, but yeah, too bad! Anyway, I've got to go - see you at school!" I grinned at him, sidling past him towards my compartment.
"See you round, Lily!" He waved at me casually, then strolled off further down he train. I took another few steps to reach my carriage and slid open the door. Lissy, Agnes, Brooke, Aphelia and Felicity were already sitting, chatting about the new ways to fix their hair they'd discovered over the holidays. I slumped down on a tattered seat in between Aphelia and Lissy. It took Brooke less than a millisecond to begin speaking to me.
"So, how did it go with Jack?" she smirked. I shrugged.
"Didn't want to go out with him," I said, casually. Agnes shrieked.
"But you've got to go out with him!" she cried. "We need to get you back on the market quickly! Before anyone else says anything about Kej!"
I rolled my eyes. Then I realised there was something fishy about what she'd just said. "How do you know about Kej?" I demanded, sitting upright straightaway. Agnes bit her lip, then turned to Felicity for guidance.
"We saw him snogging the face off Sharon Parkinson just before she got on the train," Felicity said, untroubled, checking her glossy hair for spilt ends.
"What?" I shriek, leaping off my seat - just as the train took a sharp corner, thus landing me flat on my face.
"How could he do that to me? We'd been broken up for less than five minutes! Who does he think he is?" I ranted, landing back onto my seat with a thump. Felicity didn't take her eyes off her split-end-free mahogany hair.
"My guess is they had something going on behind your back for a while; he broke up with you to be with her."
Aphelia put an arm around my shoulders, and looked daggers at Felicity. "Shut up, Felicity - nobody could ever prefer Parkinson to Lily!" she said, patting my shoulder. Secretly, I had to admit this was true - Sharon Parkinson, although I had to concede her body was what every guy could dream of, her eyes were too far apart, her lips a bit on the fishy side, and her nose that was already stuck in the air whenever she walked by anyone who wasn't in Slytherin, was so upturned you could look right up it with a glance.
Felicity stopped looking at her hair. "Really? I mean," she quickly tried to recover herself after seeing the look I shot her, "Lily is way nicer, and of course I prefer you, but I can totally see how someone else might prefer Sharon," she shrugged. I felt myself go red with anger.
"So why would someone prefer Sharon?" I spat, sincerely hoping she would take the hint by this point. Instead, Felicity laughed.
"Oh, well she's got a body to die for, she's pretty..."
"So what you're saying is, I have a crap body, and I'm ugly?" I hissed.
"No, no, no!" Agnes jumped in, desperately trying to salvage the situation. "Felicity is just saying that Sharon does have some good qualities, but their not necessarily any better than yours!"
Felicity shrugged again, now in a full examination of her left fingernails. "I don't know, Sharon's body is definitely better than Lily's..."
"Oh my Merlin, just shut up!" Aphelia yelled. I felt a pounding in my head, and my vision had a red tinge to it.
Brooke put her hands on her hips. "Oh, Aphie, don't tell them what to do..."
"Don't call me that!" Aphelia hissed. "And I have every right to tell them to shut up, since they're being so bloody tactless about the whole thing!"
Brooke laughed. "Tactless? Who are you to talk about tact? Didn't you date Laticia's boyfriend almost immediately after they broke up last year?"
"No, I didn't! He just hit on me in front of the entire school and then told everyone we went out!" Aphelia retorted, blushing furiously.
Felicity lifted her gaze at last. "That's what you say," she smirked.
"Everyone shut up. Guys, Aphelia's right. You're being tactless," Lissy said quietly, unexpectedly. We all turned to look Lissy, who rarely said so much at one time. Brooke opened her mouth, presumably to say be quiet, Lissy, however I spoke before she could.
"Well, I don't want to listen to this anymore, so I'm going to go find the Scamanders," I announced, standing up, the red hue still staining my sight.
Aphelia stood up, too. "I'll come with you," she said.
"And me too," Lissy chimed in. The three of us stood up and left the compartment - the hand gesture Aphelia showed the people who stayed inside did not escape my notice.
"I'm really sorry about that, Lily," Aphelia muttered, her voice dripping with quiet anger.
"It was mean," Lissy intoned.
"You know what? I don't give a crap," I hissed, looking into the compartment we were passing. No sign of Lorcan and Lysander in there. We carried on all the way down the train, even passing Lucy and Roxanne with their quiet, studious friends. I didn't fully understand how Roxanne was friends with the quiet girls - during the summer she never shut up. But who was I to question her choice in friends? Roxanne and Lucy had actually been really cross at me for not talking to them about the - as they called it - Scorpius Incident. I called it the plan. They, along with the rest of the school, were still under the impression that the plan two years back had been true, however they were irked that I hadn't confided in them about my 'suspicions about Scorpius.' Sadly, I'd known straight off it wouldn't work, since it was only Al, Rose, Hugo and I were the only kids of the 'amazing' Golden Trio. Merlin, I hate that nickname. James too, actually, but he'd already left Hogwarts by the time the rest of us carried out the plan. It had to be us. Also, because Rose, Lucy and Roxanne seemed to be constantly ignoring each other to the point of not even acknowledging each other's existence, and Lucy and I didn't exactly see eye to eye, either, they'd had to be kept out of the loop.
Finally, in the last compartment, we found Lorcan and Lysander sitting together with another first-year boy. I beckoned to Aphelia and Lissy and slid open the compartment door.
"Hey, guys!" I grinned at them, waving. Lysander grinned back, whereas Lorcan, who although smiled at me, looked slightly nervous at the arrival of Lissy and Aphelia. The other boy sitting with them seemed to feel the same way as Lorcan. I sat down next to Lysander, and Aphelia and Lissy sat down next to me.
"How was your summer? I feel like I haven't seen you two in ages!" I laughed, forgetting my irritation at Felicity, Agnes and Brooke. Lysander scowled.
"Mum grounded me for hiding Licorice Snaps in Dad's food when he came round for dinner," he muttered, looking down.
"Just for that?" Aphelia laughed. Lysander scowled even harder.
"Come on, there must be something else!" I folded my arms and leant back in my seat, smirking, waiting for him to elaborate.
"Actually," Lorcan chimed in, "he hid Canary Creams in Dad's food, and smuggled a Gernumbli Gardensi into Grandmother and Grandfather's bed. And, Ly, the Licorice Snaps were in my food," he added, frowning. I burst out laughing, along with Aphelia and Lissy.
"You're mad, Ly! Absolutely mad!" I laughed, shaking with hysteria.
"Why would you do that?" Lissy giggled, covering her mouth with her hand.
Lysander shrugged. "S'fun." This made us laugh even harder.
I turned my attention to the dark haired first-year boy who we appeared to be sharing a compartment with. He looked vaguely nervous, staring down at his lap.
"Hey, what's your name?" I asked, grinning. The boy looked up, evidently surprised I was talking to him.
"Charlie. Charlie Duntrot," he said, in a surprisingly deep voice.
"Hey," Aphelia said, bobbing her head up and down awkwardly. Lissy giggled slightly.
"Are first-years allowed to try out for Quidditch?" Lorcan asked, suddenly. I realised he was talking to Aphelia.
"They can, but they're not usually picked for the team - Captains usually go for someone more experienced," Aphelia told him. Lorcan looked a bit downtrodden at this, so she hastily added, "But you never know! First-years are occasionally selected for the team! You can turn up for the trials and give it a shot, if you like."
After a while, we settled down into a casual conversation, mostly about Quidditch - to which Charlie was completely unfamiliar with, as he was a Muggle-born, so we all spent at least half of the train journey explaining the game to him. He kept comparing it to a game he called football, which to everyone apart from him sounded completely ridiculous - who would play a game with only one ball? And why would they kick it at the other player? When there was about half an hour left of the train journey, Lorcan suddenly leapt to his feet and started swatting his hands around, as if there was an invisible fly. I didn't bother explaining to my friends that the Scamander family believed in Wrackspurts. At one point, Charlie let a Chocolate Frog escape through the window, but was left with an Albus Dumbledore card, that he thought was 'wicked'. When Aphelia, Lissy and I left them on their own to get changed, Aphelia couldn't help but sigh, "First-years are so cute!", to which Lissy giggled.
We had no choice other than to return the the compartment that we'd previously shared with Agnes, Brooke and Felicity, as everywhere else was full. When we came in, Brooke scowled at Aphelia, who simply rolled her eyes. Agnes coughed nervously and stepped forwards.
"We just want to say that we're all," here she shot a meaningful look at Brooke and Felicity, who both rolled their eyes, "really sorry we offended you, but we were only telling the truth!" she squeaked, before scurrying back to her pile of school robes to get changed. Lissy sighed, but walked over to her trunk to extract her robes. Aphelia and I went to our trunks to in a resigned manner. Nobody spoke much whilst we were getting changed - Felicity interrupted the silence once to whisper loudly to Brooke, "Such an overreaction," however everybody else ignored her.
I practically leapt off the train in my desire to get away from those three, onto the crowded platform that was already swarming with students.
"Hey, Lily!" I heard someone call out. I turned to see Professor Harriet Matthews, the Care of Magical Creatures professor, barging her way through crowds of first-years to get to me.
"How's Rose?" she panted, when she finally reached me. I laughed, remembering that my cousin was good friends with her.
"Oh, she's gone off to Paris with Scorpius for a bit. Seth Michaels has gone on tour, and she went with him. Don't tell her parents that, they think she's going to a medical convention," I said, smirking.
Professor Matthews nodded. "Well, next time you see her, tell her Harriet said hi, and thinks it would be cool to meet up sometime," she told me. I rolled my eyes.
"Do I look like an owl? Tell her yourself! You can use a quill and parchment, can't you?" I laughed.
Professor Matthews frowned. "I'm tempted to deduct a house point for that kind of talk, Miss Potter," she said.
"Do your worst," I told her. Professor Matthews paused.
"Fine. Ten house points from Gryffindor. It'll be more if you're rude to me again," she threatened. I laughed at her tone.
"Ooh, I'm scared!" I said, pretending to look frightened. She scowled at me.
"Make it fifteen house points," she spat, before turning away. "First years! This way please!" she called out, however when she had assembled her crowds of eleven-year olds, I heard her still muttering to herself. I didn't catch much of it, but as she was walking away, the first years in her wake, I heard her say, "That girl doesn't deserve to be a Gryffindor."