I don't own Harry Potter blah blah blah. I also don't own It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones.


'Please explain your thought process behind a barber shop quartet of gnomes bewitched to serenade me all day,' Lily snapped irritably, having to raise her voice over the high-pitched warbles coming from her right. 'And why you thought this would get me to go out with you instead of infuriating me.'

Potter looked conflicted. His face seemed as though it couldn't decide whether to don its usual smug grin or if it should instead flush ashamedly. Lily wished that, for once, it would be the latter.

'Moony – Remus – said you told him you liked gnomes,' he said, quietly enough for Lily to have to lean closer to hear him. 'I now realise -' he said much louder '-that my mates are all prats who shouldn't find this funny!'

The two shot looks at the three boys further down the corridor, all laughing hysterically, Black clutching onto Remus's robes so as to prevent himself from collapsing, and Peter with tears flowing steadily down his face.

The gnomes were only growing louder and in fact seemed to be edging closer every time Lily took her eyes off them.

Lily caught Remus's gaze and made a point of dramatically rolling her green eyes. He didn't seem to care that these gnomes he had basically created were causing her rather a lot of grief. She had hoped that whatever charm Potter had somehow managed to use would have worn off by now, but they had been singing for at least forty minutes at this stage and showed no sign of stopping. Luckily the only class they had intruded on was History of Magic, so Professor Binns didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Next, however, was Transfiguration. As fond of Lily as Professor McGonagal was, Lily wouldn't bet she'd ever forgive her for bringing a quartet of shrill garden gnomes into her classroom along with their repeated renditions of Tom Jones's It's Not Unusual (which perplexed Lily seeing as Potter had been known to scoff whenever Black talked about Muggle music).

She closed her eyes and sighed dramatically. 'Potter, make these monstrosities shut up, now,' she growled, opening her eyes to glare her angriest glare. Potter took a step back in alarm.

The gnomes seemed to take offence to being referred to as "monstrosities", and began bellowing "It's not unusual to be mad with anyone" over and over, shaking their tiny fists at her in resentment.

Potter took out his wand and aimed it at the gnomes, cleared his throat loudly and shouted, 'Evanesco!'

The gnomes were unaffected.

Potter, cocked his head to the right in confusion. He was rather good at charms (Lily would never admit it but she thought he was even better than her given that he never practised). He looked down at his wand and tried again.

The gnomes turned and looked at him, smirked derisively and returned to shaking their fists at Lily.

Further down the corridor, Black was jeering at Potter's repeated attempts to banish the gnomes, while Peter giggled at his rather accurate impressions of Potter's infuriated face. Remus however, approached Potter and whispered something in his ear. Potter looked horrified and turned to glare at Black.

'You twat!' he exclaimed, running towards his best friend menacingly. 'Take it off now!' Black laughed and stood behind Peter while Potter tried to aim punches at him. 'Now, Padfoot, this isn't funny!'

'It's hilarious!' Peter cried, still laughing hysterically even though he was in imminent danger of being sucker-punched in the face.

Lily leaned towards Remus. 'What's he done?' she asked him as she watched on in irritation and slight amusement.

Remus smirked and let out a soft chuckle. 'He's put a charm on Pro – James's wand so that it doesn't work until a time when Sirius feels like removing it.'

Lily turned to Remus expectantly. 'You know what Potter used on these … things,' she motioned towards the gnomes. 'You can remove it.'

Remus shrugged. 'Where's the fun in that?' he laughed and sauntered back to his friends, feeling Lily's eyes burn into the back of his head as he walked away.

Lily turned to her own friends in exasperation. Marlene was giggling and watching Black with the puppy face she always sported at even the mention of his name. Dorcas was rolling her eyes but smirking at the sight before them anyway. Hestia was paying no attention to the scuffle up ahead, but was cooing over the gnomes, who were still singing and seemed to have taken a liking to her too; they pointed towards her on the lyrics, "It's not unusual to find that I'm in love with you."

Professor McGonagal strode through the corridor, her tartan robes flapping around her ankles. Potter stopped trying to injure Black but continued hissing expletives in his direction.

She stopped suddenly in front of the gnomes and sighed. 'What in the name of Merlin is the meaning of this?' she asked tiredly, looking back at Potter and Black.

Black put his hands in the air, indignant at the suggestion that he could possibly have something to do with a horde of high-pitched gnomes following Lily Evans wherever she went. 'Innocent in this one, Professor. We've been trying to convince James here to remove the charm he placed on them but he's simply refusing. I don't know what to do with him, Professor, I really don't.'

McGonagal raised her eyebrows at him and Lily thought she saw a fleeting smirk on her face. 'Mr Black, please undo whatever you have done or face a week of detentions. And yes, that is on top of the one you already have.'

Black looked begrudgingly at Potter and muttered something. Potter's wand emitted a few pink sparks, and Potter once again attempted to make the gnomes shut their tiny little faces. Once again, to no avail.

McGonagal rolled her eyes and waved her wand, and the gnomes simply disappeared. Hestia pouted in disapproval.

'Class, now,' she ordered, and strode off humming Tom Jones as she went.

Lily, glad of the silence, shot one last glare at Potter and followed Professor McGonagal to class.


Three days later and Lily still had It's Not Unusual stuck in her head. She hummed it in Astronomy, sang it in the shower and had been told off twice for whistling it in the library. Now it was Hestia's turn to tell her to shut up.

'You have a beautiful voice, Lil,' she said. 'But honestly, if I hear that song one more time, I swear to Merlin, I will make you wish you had never been born.'

Lily grimaced. Hestia was sugary-sweet ninety-nine percent of the time, but if pushed she was absolutely terrifying. 'Sorry,' Lily said as she reached for another slice of toast. 'It's stupid Potter and his stupid gnomes. Every time I see him that song comes into my head as if those monstrosities were still here.'

'Speak of the devil,' Dorcas muttered, nodding towards the door. Lily turned to see Potter strutting into the Great Hall, along with Black and Peter. He caught her looking at him and winked at her before sitting down.

Lily rolled her eyes and turned back to her friends. 'What an arrogant toerag,' she huffed. 'How can he not understand that I don't want to go out with him?'

Hestia shrugged, pouring herself a goblet of pumpkin juice. 'He's persistent,' she said, smiling. 'I think it's cute. Shows he really likes you.'

'I don't want him to really like me!' Lily cried. 'I want him to leave me alone!'

Dorcas stood up. 'Class starts in a few minutes and I want to get a seat at the back so Slughorn won't see me finishing my essay. We should get moving.'

Hestia downed her pumpkin juice and stood up. Lily paused. 'I'll meet you guys down there, I won't be late,' she told them. 'And even if I am, Slughorn loves me; I'll be fine. I just have to … talk to someone for a sec.'

Dorcas raised an eyebrow and agreed to save her a seat. She and Hestia walked away and Lily grabbed one more slice of toast, smothered it in jam and walked over to the Slytherin table. 'Sev, can I talk to you for a moment?' she asked.

Severus turned around, sighed and apologised to Rosier and Avery (both of whom sported expressions of pure disgust) and sulkily followed Lily out to the entrance of the Great Hall.

'What do you want, Evans?' he asked, sounding completely and utterly bored.

'Since when do you call me Evans?' Lily raised an eyebrow. 'You haven't spoken to me for ages. We're back at school three weeks now and you haven't said a word to me. You ignored me at King's Cross. I called around to your house over the Christmas holidays but your mum always said you were out, and whenever I wrote to you, you ignored me. What's going on? Did I do something?'

Severus groaned and rolled his eyes. 'No, Lily, you've not done anything,' he said, as if she had said something personally offensive to him. 'I have other friends, you know. So do you.'

Lily frowned, feeling that uncomfortable knot returning to her stomach. 'Sev, why are you ignoring me?' she asked, her voice catching.

Severus met her eyes for a second before looking away quickly. 'I have to get to class, Lily,' he muttered coldly before walking back to his friends. Lily stood where she was for at least a minute, stunned. She couldn't understand why Severus was being so distant. Maybe it was because of that little argument they had in early December. She didn't remember what she'd said but Severus had stormed off and ignored her for the next few days … but then he had resumed talking to her so it couldn't have been that. So what could she have done to set him off?

'You alright, Lily?' Peter asked as he and Potter and Black emerged from the Great Hall. Lily blinked, snapping out of her thoughts.

'Yeah, just a little dizzy is all,' she replied quickly.

Peter's eyebrows furrowed worriedly. Potter and Black continued walking as if they hadn't noticed their friend stopping. 'Are you okay? Did you eat? Should I take you the Hospital Wing? I don't mind and I'm sure Slughorn will be okay with it -'

Lily smiled at him through closed lips. 'I'm fine, Peter, really,' she assured him. 'I'll see you in Potions in a minute.'

Peter looked back at his friends, who were disappearing down the stairs. 'I'll walk with you, make sure you're okay.'

Lily smiled again and he helped her gather up her stuff in the Great Hall. They walked in a comfortable silence all the way down to the dungeons. That was one of the things Lily liked about Peter. She didn't know what it was about him but he was very easy to be around. He always listened, and was happy to sit and not feel pressure to fill the silence with awkward conversation. She would have spent more time with him if he didn't have such terrible choice in company.

They separated in the classroom and sat with their separate groups of friends. Remus was absent, as was Marlene. The morning previous she'd received a letter at breakfast and immediately burst into tears. Lily didn't know why but she didn't want to press her obviously distraught friend. Marlene had been ordered by McGonagal to take a few days off and now she was curled up in her bed, crying. They'd had to bring meals up to her yesterday, and Hestia brought her some porridge this morning but had been sent back down, porridge still in hand.

Potions, usually the class Lily looked forward to the most, failed to maintain her attention for very long. Slughorn had decided they wouldn't be doing any practical potion making today, and instead he talked endlessly about how interesting moonstone was. Under normal circumstances, Lily would pay full attention. But today she was too busy worrying about Marlene and Severus. Plus, Peter kept turning around and mouthing, "Are you okay?" at her, which was very sweet of him, but she wished he would stop.

After being assigned a six inch essay on moonstone and its uses in potion-making, Lily and Hestia headed off to Care of Magical Creatures while Dorcas went to Arithmancy. Lily became rather attached to the Kneazle she and Hestia were given, as did the majority of the class, but she did see Peter's repeatedly bite him.

Sprout was in a rather cheery albeit faraway mood in Herbology, and didn't seem to notice that Potter and Black were paying no attention whatsoever to their fanged geranium, and as a result, Peter was bitten at least five more times.


Time passed strangely quickly for Lily today and before she knew it, she had gone through a full day of classes and was now heading towards the Great Hall with Hestia and Dorcas. 'I'll bring up some food and eat with Marlene,' she volunteered, and began piling two plates with shepherd's pie and vegetables.

'Marlene?' Lily called tentatively from the door to their shared room. She approached Marlene's four-poster, plates hovering in front of her, and opened the curtains around the bed. 'Oh, Marlene,' she sighed pityingly.

Marlene was lying on her back, still in her pyjamas, staring up at the ceiling. Her blonde hair was a tangle of knots and her blue eyes were bloodshot and puffy from crying. She sat up and feigned a weak smile at Lily, who sat down next to her on the bed and offered her a plate. Marlene accepted it and began eating as though she hadn't seen food in a month.

They ate their dinners in silence and sat there for a few minutes. Lily wasn't sure what to do; her curiosity was burning to find out what was wrong, but she didn't want to pry and end up hurting her friend even more. So she just sat with her and hugged her when she started crying again.

'You look horrifying by the way,' she said. Marlene laughed. And laughed and laughed. Lily didn't know why because it really wasn't all that funny. Chuckle-worthy, maybe. But certainly not worth hysterical fits of laughter. After a bewildered moment, she started laughing too and suddenly couldn't stop.

Marlene's laugh was one of Lily's favourite sounds in the world. It was so musical and happy and reminded her of flying, for some reason. But right now it was different. It wasn't her usual sing-song laugh, but a tinny, hollow, sad kind of laugh that made Lily think of Tuney.

Marlene rested her head on Lily's lap and sighed. 'I love you, Lil.'

'Love you too, Mars Bar.'

'Stop calling me that.'

'Never.'

Marlene smiled. They said nothing for a while, Marlene with her eyes closed and Lily doing her best to untangle Marlene's bird's-nest of hair. She was unsure of how long they sat there for, but it must have been a long time because Hestia and Dorcas entered the room and sat down on Dorcas's bed facing the other two girls.

'Do you want to tell us what's happened?' Hestia asked eventually. 'You don't have to if you're not ready or even if you never want to, but we're worried about you. We want to help however we can.' This was followed with nods of encouragement from Lily and Dorcas.

Marlene sat up again and looked around at her best friends. She said nothing for a few seconds and Lily wondered if she was going to say anything at all, but then she took a deep breath. 'It's my cousin Owen,' she said quietly. 'He was killed.'

Silence hung over them. Marlene paused for a moment before continuing.

'Owen's ... you've met him, Dorcas, he works – worked – in Mr. Mulpepper's in Diagon Alley. He … he's been involved in loads of protests about that stupid anti-werewolf law they're trying to bring in now and stuff like that. He's a really good guy. And on Saturday night, a bunch of those Walpurgis Knight bastards went to his flat and …' Marlene took another deep breath and wiped a tear from her eye. 'He had a baby. He and his wife had just had a baby and they fucking slaughtered all of them!'

Hestia gasped in horror. Dorcas looked at the floor, forlorn. Lily put her arm around a weeping Marlene and tried to comfort her. The other two girls clambered onto Marlene's bed too and soon they were all huddled together, Marlene still crying and the others doing their best not to do the same.

Marlene fell asleep after a few minutes and Hestia tucked her into bed, closing the curtains around her. They other three wordlessly got ready for bed and soon Lily could hear Dorcas snoring gently.

Lily couldn't sleep. She lay in bed for about an hour before retrieving a roll of parchment, a quill and her potions book to begin her essay for Slughorn. After completing all of her homework, she still wasn't tired. She wanted to talk to Sev, or to write to her parents or Tuney, even though she knew she'd never reply.

She drifted off in the early hours of the morning, just as the birds began to sing outside.


If you've got this far, thanks for sticking it out! I have a vague idea of where this is going so I don't have a detailed plan for each chapter, but like I said, vague idea.

Reviews and constructive criticism are much appreciated!