Written for the QLFC Round 12
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Seeker
Word Count (excluding author's note): 971
Characters Chosen: Lily Evans and Sirius Black
Lily never worried about her exam results. Yes, the end of year tests were tough, but she'd always had confidence in her academic skills. Surely enough, when Professor McGonagall handed her the scores for her first official Hogwarts exams, she could see that she'd done incredibly well. An O in everything except for Transfiguration, in which she got a high E. Still, she was convinced that she would be top of the class, in Gryffindor at least. No-one else could possibly have had such high scores.
"All Outstandings," Sirius declared, smiling smugly as he waved his results around in the common room. "Mum's gonna be so annoyed; she's been looking for any excuse to tell me off, and now she'll have to compliment me instead!"
It wasn't possible! How could Sirius Black, of all people, beat her? Lily couldn't understand. At her Muggle Primary School she had always been top of the class, and she had expected that trend to continue into Hogwarts and beyond. Crushed, she crept off to her dormitory and pulled the curtains on her bed closed around her. Tears began to fall from her eyes. She realised that it was silly to cry over having one person beat her scores, but she couldn't help it. She was used to being the smart one, the one that others turned to when they were stuck, and she liked it. She only had a few friends, and almost all of them had been made when she'd offered to help them with their homework. What if they all abandoned her now? Abandoned her for Sirius?
Lily cried herself to sleep that night, before pulling herself together in the morning, in time to catch the train back to London and her Muggle life.
The test results were being handed back, and Lily felt a slight flutter of nerves in her stomach. She hated this feeling, hated not being sure of herself. Glancing down at the parchment in front of her, she breathed a sigh of relief to see that, again, she only had one score lower than an O, and it was History of Magic, which Sirius regularly slept through. No way could he have possibly…
"All Outstandings again!" Sirius crowed.
"What?!" Lily shrieked, causing everyone to stare at her. James smiled and ran his hand through his hair, but Lily was not in the mood for his painful attempts at flirting today.
"How did you possibly get an O in History of Magic?" Lily demanded, only getting angrier at the grin that blossomed on Sirius' face.
"Evans, I grew up surrounded by it. Most Purebloods are taught this stuff at an early age, just like you probably learnt Muggle history as a kid." The patronising tone of his voice really wasn't helping Lily's mood, but she did her best to ignore it, at least until she was alone.
Nine Outstandings! At least Sirius could, at best, only equal her results.
"TEN OUTSTANDINGS!" Lily's head snapped round and her jaw dropped to stare at Sirius. Ten?! How was that even possible?
"Ten?" She enquired, casually, although her voice shook slightly.
"Yeah, I took three electives," Sirius replied, before turning back to his friends.
Fourth year was a tie, with Lily picking up Divination alongside her other subjects. She knew this obsession with beating Sirius was silly, but he was her rival and she was determined to win. A draw was better, but not quite good enough. She wanted to defeat him and then shove it in his face, the way he had been taunting her every year.
With Outstandings in every single OWL subject, Lily had high hopes that she had won this time. Of course, since this year the letters were sent home rather than handed out at school, she would have to wait until September to find out.
On the train, Lily immediately sought Sirius out. She found him alone in a compartment, pouring over a book, his eyes bloodshot. This could only mean one thing. He must have failed something! Her heart leapt in vindictive glee as she opened the door.
"What's wrong, Black? Not sitting with your friends today?" She tried to keep her voice casual, but from Sirius' expression she thought that perhaps he'd noticed something.
"Might as well tell you, it's already going to be all over school as soon as Regulus opens his mouth," Sirius mumbled. "I failed, OK? I failed potions because I got distracted. I barely passed everything else I needed, except Transfiguration."
Lily thought back over the previous year. James, Sirius and Peter had seemed very fixated on something, not pulling as many prans as usual. She had asked Remus about it, but all he'd said was that they were helping him with something.
Looking at Sirius' dejected expression and red eyes, which she could now see had been crying, Lily felt awful.
"Do you need some help? I'm not too bad at Potions, so I can tutor you, if you want."
Sirius smiled. "'Not too bad at Potions'? Lily, you're top of the class in everything."
"No, you are. You've never got below an Outstanding in your life."
Sirius looked surprised. "Oh, come on, Lily, I never thought you'd really fallen for that! I've just been saying that so James wouldn't worry that Mum'll be on my back about my grades all summer. I've had one Outstanding at best every year."
Lily suddenly felt so stupid. All this time she'd been wishing failure on Sirius, and it turned out that, not only was it unnecessary, she had never wanted that outcome in the first place. She promised herself that from that train ride on she would put the silly rivalry behind her and just focus on doing her best, whatever that may be. And, possibly, helping Sirius to do the same.