A/N: I own Eilis, JKR owns the rest.
Eilis yawned as she pushed her unruly golden curls out of her hair for the eleventy-seventh time that night. Well, morning, she supposed, glancing out the window to see the sky beginning to lighten.
She turned to the potion that slowly simmered in the cauldron at the center of her workroom, which had kept her up all night. She had obtained special permission from the Ministry of Magic, through letters of reference from her parents, Professor Slughorn, and Headmaster Dumbledore, to practice magic during the summer holidays despite the fact that she was underage. Dumbledore had personally assured the Improper Use of Magic Office that she would not abuse this grant, using her magic solely for the summer tasks set to her by Professor Slughorn.
Too young to secure that most sought-after of internships in the Department of Mysteries, prized by whichever two students entering seventh year were lucky enough to get it and cause of severely heightened tensions among all top students towards the end of sixth year, Eilis was instead spending her summer working on several very tricky potions for Slughorn. Celebrated Slug Club member and center of a five-year long rivalry with her best friend Lily Evans and their classmate Severus Snape for the spot of top Potions student, Eilis hoped to gain an edge this year by working hard throughout the summer.
Potions very simply made sense to Eilis. She was lucky Severus and Lily understood. There was a great deal of respect between the three of them for their shared work ethic and passions for the art of brewing so under-favored by the rest of their year. Lily and Severus currently were not speaking as a result of a rather unfortunate incident at the end of their fifth year of school when, humiliated by James Potter and his gang, Severus had rather unforgivably called Lily a "mudblood." Eilis had sent a few owls off to Severus so far this summer but so far had received no answers back. Lily refused to speak to him and grew exceptionally angry whenever Eilis suggested giving him a second chance. Eilis knew her anger was born out of a very deep hurt, however, as she had heard Lily cry herself to sleep the night it happened.
As things currently stood, however, Eilis knew this year was going to be very different and thus exponentially more difficult if she did not have Lily and Severus together to lean on when the workload grew to be too much. They were entering their first year of N.E.W.T. studies and it promised to be very hard indeed. With extra Potions, Quidditch practices, and the knowledge that no point was too soon to begin attempting to secure the Department of Mysteries internship, Eilis felt weary just thinking about the year ahead.
She was just adding the last seven remaining drops of honeysuckle to her potion—Amortentia, the best batch she'd brewed yet this summer—when a hooting from beyond the window told Eilis that her O.W.L. results had arrived. She hurried over to the window and opened it, allowing the large barn owl employed by Hogwarts to swoop in and drop the slim envelope on her workbench, before joining Eilis's own tawny owl, Francisco, at a small bronze water dish in the corner of the room. Eilis lingered for a moment by the windowsill before hurrying over to the letter and ripping it from its outer shell. Her eyes quickly scanned the page, reading:
Charms…..Outstanding
Transfiguration…Exceeds Expectations
History of Magic….Exceeds Expectations
Potions…..Outstanding
Divination…Acceptable
Defense Against the Dark Arts….Exceeds Expectations
Astronomy….Exceeds Expectations
Arithmancy…...Outstanding
Herbology….Outstanding
Care of Magical Creatures…Acceptable
Ancient Runes…..Outstanding
Her heart leapt. Five O's! Divination and Care of Magical Creatures were rubbish, anyway, she'd been planning on dropping them this year. Relief flooded through her. Of course she'd known she could get those Potions and Charms grades, but now she knew she'd scored highly enough to pursue any of the career choices she'd been considering. A Healer, perhaps, or an Auror—or what she really wanted, a spot as an Unspeakable.
Knowing Lily would berate her if she didn't hear from her immediately, Eilis scribbled down her scores on a spare bit of parchment and added a note before tying the parchment to Francisco's leg.
"Take this to Lily, eh, Frisco? She'll have my head if she doesn't know she's beaten me in at least three subjects." She patted his beak once and watched as he took off out the open window. The Hogwarts owl finished drinking and Eilis gave it a treat. She addressed it quickly, "hold on a minute, there's a good boy, just need to stopper this up."
Eilis pulled a clean vial from a shelf above the sink in her workroom and filled it with the Amortentia she'd just finished brewing, which was now sending curling waves of intoxicating fumes towards her that smelled faintly of spring rain, pumpkin bread, and something dark and cool she thought she might have scented around the Quidditch pitch or maybe the common room. She attached the vial to the barn owl's out stuck leg along with a note to Professor Slughorn, and watched the owl swoop out into the now considerably lighter morning air. Eilis gazed out as the owl disappeared from her sight before casting a quick but sure Stasis spell over her still-simmering cauldron, so that the potion would keep in its current condition until she returned to it later that day.
She bounded down the stairs of her comfortable home and into the kitchen where her mother sat in her Ministry robes reading the Daily Prophet, and a stack of toast sat waiting for Eilis.
"Morning Mum!" she said brightly, pecking her mother on the cheek before stuffing a piece of toast into her mouth, halting at the sight of her mother's reproving glare over the top of her paper. Eilis sat down and after hastily swallowing her too-large mouthful, she grinned over at her mother.
"And what time did you get to bed last night, hmm?"
"Oh, well, it was pretty late, y'know, don't really remember, caught up in work and all that…" Eilis had been expecting this and hoped her response sounded nonchalant.
No such luck.
"You didn't sleep, did you?"
"Well…no. But I did finish that batch of Amortentia, you know, the one I've been working on all week? And let me tell you, Mum, it's a real beauty, perfect steam spirals, clock-wise and all, and just the right shade of pink, too, the one Slughorn is always describing in class, somewhere between dusty rose and light rose but not too far either way, and…" Eilis fell silent, sensing that she had fallen into the state properly dubbed by her elder brother as "Potions Freak Psycho-Babble That No One Cares to Hear Nor Ever Will Care to Hear So You Really Ought to Shut Up Before I Hex You" and that her mother was not particularly impressed.
"Eilis, honey, when your father and I agreed to this Potions Study thing and signed those letters we were under the impression that it wouldn't be keeping you up at all hours of the night, preventing you from having a normal summer. You should be out with the other kids your age, dear. I've always admired your work ethic Eil, but I fear one day you'll wake up and find that you spent your whole youth with your nose in a book and in the meantime all your peers are off getting married and having children and you'll come home to only your more-than-stellar reputation as an Unspeakable."
Her mother saw Eilis opening her mouth to speak and went on. "And before you go interrupting me, I know that's your dream, honey, but I just want to know that you understand that success at the office doesn't keep you warm at night. You'll be seventeen this year! Don't you want to be out enjoying yourself?"
"Oh, Mum, can't you see that I am enjoying myself? I'm not worried about it, and if I'm not, you shouldn't be, either," said Eilis, trying to get her mother away from the ever-popular Don't Waste That Youth of Yours, Eilis Kathryn Cartwright speech, a favorite in their household.
Maeve Cartwright looked at her daughter and sighed, because she knew it was true, and that part of the reason Eilis was so content was because of the willingness with which she threw herself into her studies.
"Oh, I know you're right, dear, it's just…you know how very worried your father and I are about You-Know-Who and I just…I don't want you to find too late that you've grown up too fast."
Eilis could hardly argue when her mother put it like that.
"It'll be fine, Mum, I've already sent Lily an owl this morning with my O.W.—oh! My O.W.L. scores came today, I got eleven! Here, I'll go get them—anyway, when she responds I'll owl her back asking if she'd like to go into London for a bit tonight or even just floo over here and we can do something later." Eilis bounded back upstairs to her workroom, glancing regretfully over at her finished potion but knowing that in order to appease her mother, it was time to lay down the books and let her summer begin properly.
A few minutes later her brother, Patrick, stuck his head in her door and grinned at her. "Heard you and the old lady," he said. "Getting a bit old, if you ask me."
Eilis nodded in agreement, letting out an exasperated sigh. "It's not my fault that I like books better than I like most people."
"Right," her brother said. "Remind me again how we're related? Glad I didn't inherit that trait," he teased.
"Oh, stuff it, Patrick."
"Want me to go tell Mum she should be proud to have Brainy McNerd for a daughter?"
Eilis rolled her eyes at him. "Not one of your better jokes."
"I know," Patrick sighed. "Ah, well. Can't be the life of the party all the time. How'd you do on your O.W.L.s?"
"Better than you," she retorted, ducking from the Tickling Charm he tried to hit her with.
"You know, you'll be sorry, Eil, when I'm the most famous Auror alive someday. They'll interview me and say, 'Oh, Mr. Cartwright, Protector of the Small and Weak, however did you manage growing up with that twitchy little sister with the big brain? It must have been so hard for you!'" He laid a hand on his chest dramatically. "And of course I'll be the bigger wizard and say 'Well, we can't all be as perfect as I,' and they'll trip over their robes trying to get my autograph."
"I'll believe it when I see it," said Eilis, throwing a pillow at her face. "More like, 'Oh, Mr. Cartwright, how did you overcome that ghastly disfigurement? I never would have thought a ginger would be any good with a wand!'"
Patrick pretended to be offended as she pushed him out of her room. She went over to her window where Frisco already hovered with a note from Lily clutched in his talons—that was quick, Eilis thought—and let him in, scanning the response. She rolled her eyes as she saw that Lily had gotten Eight 'Outstandings'—she'd be insufferable when they met. Nevertheless she hastily wrote back inviting Lily over for tea, excited to see her best friend once again.
A/N: Thanks for reading! This chapter is mostly just setting up Eilis's character (Ay-lish), so I apologize if it seemed a bit slow. Things pick up a bit in the next chapter and familiar faces begin to appear, so please read on! And please review!