Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The Insane House Challenge: 511. Action - Drawing

The 365 Prompts Challenge: 240. Relationship - Best friends

Warnings: Contains slight implication of abuse

WC: 964

Charcoal Drawings, Green Pencils, and Eleventh Birthdays

He felt the cold coins pressed against the palm of his hand, and a crumpled paper note. His mother's hand pulled away from his, and he stared with wide eyes at her retreating back, then opened his hand to see what it was. A sickle and a ten pound note. Good. She'd been able to go to Diagon Alley, and long enough to have some of the money turned Muggle for him. The summer sun was beginning to rise out his window, and pushed the curtains back so he could see better.

Carefully, he pushed the silver coin to the back of his drawer, hidden amongst socks and underwear. He had knuts and sickles, but no galleons. They were harder to hide, and of more value to Muggles. When he went to Diagon Alley next month to get Hogwarts supplies, he'd get a galleon. He'd be able to walk down the street without worrying about being home soon; he could marvel at the magic and wonder at the items in the apothecary.

In the back of the drawer he also found a few last bits of Muggle money. A one pound coin and twenty pence. Eleven-twenty was sure to buy what he wanted: a new sketchbook and eraser. He only had a few pages left in the one he'd gotten two months ago, and they were smeared with charcoal. Good, clean pages was just what he needed for this next drawing. It would be special.

He reached into closet, finding halfway decent clothing. He slipped into jeans that ended just above his ankles and a blue t-shirt one size too big so he'd be able to wear it longer. He didn't know how much money his mother got from the alley when she went, but he knew it couldn't be much. Anything she bought him was made to last.

Once arrived at the store, a cold, cement-floored hidden shop in the neighbourhood nearby, stifling with the summer heat, he went straight to the shelf he wanted. It was host rows of paper books, neatly packaged charcoal pencils, and erasers. He found the sketchbook, the same one he always bought, and a single eraser. Nine pounds for the book, one for the eraser. He had one pound and twenty pence left.

As he neared the front of the shop, a display of coloured pencils caught his eye. They were being sold separately, in a plastic grid with each hole holding a different colour. When he could, he would buy a pack of colours, neat in a tin container, all thirty-six colours. He normally didn't buy them; he only had once. But is was for her birthday, and he did have enough money… he plucked up a pencil named 'emerald green.' Perfect.

He returned home shortly, purchases clutched tight in his arms. The clean, unmarked pages were too pretty to risk harm to, the coloured pencil too valuable to risk losing. On his dresser, he found the handful of charcoal pencils he owned- a birthday gift from her, four months before. He was surprised at how long they were lasting. He hadn't even used half of them. A metal pencil sharpener completed his collection of supplies, and he laid them out on the floor to draw.

He started with the round oval of a face, and slowly filled in the rest, till he had just the eyes to draw. He squinted as he traced the almond shapes, as perfectly symmetrical as he could, and eyelashes fanning outwards, ending with the brilliant emerald green.

It wasn't perfect, of course. The jaw should have been more obvious, the shadows more realistic, but he was only eleven years old. But he didn't know that. He'd never seen an art museum, and he was certainly a better artist than most children his age. Drawing, however, was far from his favourite thing. Hunting for hunks of clay by the creek that ran through the park, he was able to mold. To feel what he was working with, that it really was something, not just charcoal smeared on paper. Modeling, still was not what he longed for.

He longed to brew a potion. To watched it change from one colour to the next with each stir, to add the meticulously prepared ingredients with the just-right timing, and then let it simmer. To make something not just for himself, not just for his best (albeit only) friend's birthday, but to make it to help. To help his mother, or his friend, or even her wretched sister. But to make something tangible and real, that would do more than be something to gawk at hanging on wall or displayed on a table.

When he gave it to her the next day, she was delighted. She clutched the paper, with charcoal smeared in the best way he could think to smear it, with the bright emerald green eyes, and thanked him. Her very real not-pencil eyes lit up, and he realised he should have chosen a darker colour. She tucked a loose strand of very real not-charcoal hair behind her ear and suggested they go to the creak and hunt for clay.

He agreed, and they spent the afternoon pinching the thick mud into shapes and leaving it into the sun to bake, children screaming on the playset behind them all the while. And then her sister came to make her come home ("So much mud on your hands, oh, well. You can wash it off inside. Come on, you don't want to miss your cake, do you?") so they hid their creations in the bushes, where only the squirrels would find them.

Hi! Thanks for stopping by my story. I just couldn't help writing a Lily-centric sequel to this, so that should be up as a second chapter sometime soon. I will warn it: it will be written in a different style (with names and dialogue). You might not want to read it, it's up to you. I find this to be a good ending, but then I got the idea, and I really like thinking that Lily didn't completely hate Severus when she died, sooo...

Anyways, that you again for reading, and please review!