"FREAK!" Petunia screamed.
It was the same old argument, Lily thought, with the same outcome. Her mother would walk in and tell them to not be so foolish. That they weren't children, and they were wasting the little time they had together by arguing. It wasn't easy on her or Lily's father, either, and they had to be more respectful in their house. Then they would both go their separate ways in a sulk. It was the way it had been for years now.
At least this was her last year, she thought, and then she could leave. Get a job in the Wizarding World, maybe as an Auror? A journalist for The Prophet? Who knows. Only fourty-two days until the first of September. But, hey. Who's counting?
So, as Lily was lying on her bed, twirling her curly red hair around her fingers and moping, she instinctively thought of Severus. Severus. The one she had always turned to whenever she and Petunia had an argument like this.
She'd have run down to the park, where he had always waited for her. He could always tell when she was sad, too. They'd sit on the swings and convey stories. Stories of how Sev had problems with his parents, and Lily with Petunia. Most would say it sounds very depressing, but it comforted her, knowing there was someone who could relate to her.
Though it can never be like that again. He'd screwed up. He tore up their friendship as though it'd been nothing. Yet, even though she missed him, she wouldn't forgive him. She couldn't forgive had been over a year since the "incident", and James Potter had never failed to remind her of that day.
"Prat," she mumbled to herself, before rolling over and picking up a book from her bedside cabinet. Transfiguration: The Guide to Common Household Tasks, it read. She chuckled. It reminded her of her friend Abigail, who once tried to Transfigure a leaf into a toilet in their previous year on a camping trip with her family and her closest friends. Sally, Abigial's mother, went ballistic after she'd found the entire tent filled with toilet handles and water.
Lily smiled at the memory and placed the book back, deciding she wasn't in the mood for reading. However, underneath the book, she noticed, was her Hogwarts Letter for that year. She smiled to herself in amazement. How the heck didn't I notice this?!, she wondered. A loud screech was sounded from behind her. She jumped and turned around. She assumed it must've been a Hogwarts owl, from the Owlery, as it had a pouch on it's leg for payment with the Hogwarts Crest on it.
Lily turned over the letter to open it and noticed a small bump where the seal was.
"No, it can't be!" she hastily mumbled as she tried to open the envelope to reveal the parchment inside.
Though what she was met with wasn't parchment. A red, shield-shaped badge was on top of, not one, but two letters. Golden writing glistened, reading the two words that she's been wanting to see all summer. Head Girl. She gasped and started smiling like an idiot to herself. She'd been half-expecting it, though there were a lot more popular girls in her year, in her opinion. It must be a dream, she thought. An extremely realistic dream, I'll give you that, but a dream.
But it wasn't a dream, and Lily knew that. Because only in reality could Lily be feeling the warmth spreading from her stomach across her body, and be smiling from ear to ear.
Clumsily, she fumbled through her drawers, full of the things she had purchased for the upcoming school year from Diagon Alley. I can always go back and re-stock, she thought, as she pulled out an ink-pot, quill and three pieces of parchment.
She adressed the first to Chloe Harvey, one of her three closest friends from Hogwarts. She knew Chloe wouldn't want all the details in anything as boring as a letter, so she kept it short.
Hey, Chloe
Just got my letter - I'm Head Girl! I couldn't believe it. Though I don't think Angel will take to it too nicely, if you get what I'm saying.
Hope your summer's going well!
Love, Lily.
She finished the letter and put it in an envelope, sealed it, and sent her tawny owl Hestia away with it.
She adressed her next letter to the toilet-transigurer herself, Abigail Jones.
Abby! Hi!
How was the French Alps? Did that Stabilising Charm I taught you help with the skiing? At least there's cute boys in France, so you got something out of it.
Me and Petunia have been arguing a lot recently - I think she's just trying to scare me off so I don't return forever after our last year.
I went shopping yesterday and got a muggle record of a band called Fleetwood Mac. You should listen to their song, Albatross. I reckon you'd like it.
The real reason I'm owling you is because I got Head Girl! I honestly don't know what's going through the teachers' heads, but apparently they're crazy enough to pick me!
Anyway, I hope your holidays are going well and you're not too bored.
Love, Lily.
She paid the Hogwarts barn owl the two knuts it required from it's journey, but she gave it another three for an extra journey.
"Dumbledore won't mind," she said, reassuring herself more than the owl as she attached the letter to it's leg. "He'll understand that this is urgent business. I mean, after all, he did appoint me as Head Girl." She sent the owl on it's way and, with a sigh, set about writing the third and final letter.
Hi, Angel.
I'm sorry that this came in through the muggle post, but my owl is out and I thought this was rather urgent and you deserved to know when everyone else did.
I got my Hogwarts letter today, as I presume you did. Though I got something else to. I got my badge. For Head Girl.
You are an amazing student and I don't think any student or teacher is stupid enough to deny it. You are better than me in most subjects, which is why I'm as confused as you are as to why I got it and not you.
I'm so sorry, I know you wanted this as badly as I did, which is why I felt you had the right to know.
Hope your summer is going well, and maybe write back?
Love, Lil.
She put the last letter in an envelope, but put a muggle stamp on it and wrote her address on it. At least Angel is muggleborn, she thought.
Angel Douglas lay on her bed, listening to her mum's record player she'd 'borrowed'. Her tom cat, Darling, was curled in a ball on her lap and she hummed contently to the music. She was tying her hair into a bun when her mum suddenly knocked on the door.
"Angel? A letter's come for you," her mum, Anna, said. She walked in and threw the letter onto Angel's bed. Angel absent-mindedly nodded and thanked her. She pushed off Darling, climbed away from her desk and lay on her bed.
She sat in silence as she read the letter.
She could tell immidiately it was Lily: no-one else could write that neatly. Though she didn't entirely expect what she wrote.
I got my badge. For Head Girl.
She re-read that sentence over and over again, not even paying attention to the music anymore. She just stared at the piece of parchment, hoping that it might make it not real.
Angel knew that she wasn't getting the role of Head Girl. As Lily had rightly guessed, she'd gotten her letter the same day, as Lily had dated her note (typical Lily, she thought). But even though she knew that, she still had some hope that it could've been a mistake, or the badge arrived later than the letter.
And although she knew that none of this was true, and Lily had gotten it fairly, she couldn't help but feel cheated of the role. As if it was rightly hers. She had, after all been a Prefect for two years. She had been the one who got an 'Exceeds Expectations' or above on all of her O.W.L's. She had been the one who Dumbledore chose to be commentator on all Quidditch matches she wasn't playing.
But of course Lily got it. Because everyone loved Lily. She was so perfect. So sweet and kind to everyone. So good-looking, and had all the boys. So smart and witty, no-one could possibly beat her. So she had even the teachers swooning at her feet.
Angel couldn't help but envy Lily at that point in time.
Abigial Francesca Jones was grateful for her life. She was pureblood, and, as stereotypical for someone of her blood-status, was filthy rich. Though she wasn't like the stereotypical pureblood. For one thing, two of her best friends were muggleborn, something her parents disproved of greatly.
"You can't ashame our family like this!" her father yelled when she asked him if Lily could stay for dinner. "Associating yourself with people as disgusting-"
"You don't speak about my friends like that! You're simply judging them on something that doesn't affect who they are as a person! Because believe it or not, Dad, they're people. Wonderful people that I will continue to 'associate myself with'," Abby spat at her father, summoning great amounts of courage to talk back to him like that. She combed her brown hair back with her fingers in frustration and her father's expression softened slightly.
"Look, Abigail, I cannot have people like that in my house," he said, face stern.
"Then you're not the man I thought you were."
She also wasn't in Slytherin, something else her parents didn't like.
"Gryffindor," her mother said, practically gagging at the name. "Will corrupt you. You need to hold your magnificent blood-status with pride, and Slytherin would've helped you flourish!"
But, back in the present, Abigial Jones was very pureblood. She was on a very fancy skiing holiday in the Alps, in a very highly decorated, wizard-exclusive hotel. There were educated house-elves; a rarity in the Wizarding world, and very famous bands performing in the evenings.
She couldn't hate being there more if she tried.
It wasn't like she was ungrateful, and that it all wasn't enough for her. No, the entire holiday would've been perfect. If it wasn't for her parents.
As you could probably tell, Abigial Jones' parents were quite horrible people to certain other wizards and witched within the magical community. Her father, Michael Jones, was Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He mainly dealt with trials and was a main part of the jury. He was also a close friend with the Minister of Magic, so he was very well connected. The only thing Abby despised more than her father, was the fact they looked scarily alike. The shared the same chocolate brown hair and amber eyes; the signiature Jones trait.
Her mother was exactly the same, personality-wise. She was head writer for The Prophet, and was an extremely intolerable woman. Abby often felt sorry for the workers, but then she realises she has to live with the woman, therefore seeing her more often. She was also very strict, and would not allow any sort of tomfoolery in her house. This meant when Abby tried to sneak out to the Leaky Cauldron, three days before her holiday, to meet with Chloe, Angel and Lily, she had her owl taken away from her. Therefore prohibiting any contact with the outside world throughout the duration of her holiday.
So when a Hogwarts owl arrived, coated in snow and carrying a battered piece of parchment, Abby swore she could've jumped up and down on her bed in delight.
Careful not to make too much noise and alert her parents, she coaxed the owl in with some leftovers from her dinner (she had taken to her room, because her parents were arguing), and shut the window, as to stop it from escaping.
"Sorry, mate," she whispered to the owl. Abby fed the owl a few more unwanted carrots before taking the letter strapped to it's leg. She knew it was Lily, before even glancing at the envelope. Chloe never wrote; she preferred that muggle method of communicating...what was it? Something to do with a television? So it couldn't of been her. Angel didn't know where her hotel was, as she hadn't written to her all summer. Quite strange for Angel, she thought, but didn't think on it too much before returning to the letter and setting about writing her own.
Chloe Harvey is a very strange girl. As a half-blood with married parents, she had been brought up with a good balance of magic and relative normality. Though Chloe Harvey was not what you'd consider a normal half-blood. No, she was far from that.
Since the day she was born, she had been using her special powers. Her mother, to say the least for a muggle, was extremely shocked when her second daughter was born with bright green hair. Needless to say, so were the nurses.
Chloe was the only one of her three siblings to have inherited this ability. According to Lily and a few Hogwarts library books, she was a Metamorphagi, someone who can change their appearance at will. She was also the only one from her siblings to have inherited the magical trait.
During her mother, Lucy's, first marriage, she had given birth to two children. The eldest, Connor Benjamin Lee, was Chloe's older brother. Like her mother, he had brown hair and a pointed face; something that could be used to unnerve Chloe when she was in trouble. Two years later, she had a baby girl, Carrie. Apparently (as Chloe had never met her siblings' father) she looked exactly like him, with wild, blonde curly hair and green eyes. Chloe looked up to her only sister greatly, and she often took the form of a blonde when changing her appearance.
For years, Carrie and Connor's father had been very...off. He often went to the pub, drinking with mates from the office. They'd have a laugh, watch football and get absolutely out-of-their-heads drunk. Then he would return home. He was not a very pleasant drunk person. He would beat Chloe's mother without reason; simply because he was drunk. And, after a while, he would beat Connor, too. However, he never touched Carrie. Though Connor always tried to brave it, often taking hits for his mother, he cried himself to sleep every night.
When Carrie was six and Connor eight, their father committed suicide, jumping off of a tall building in the city. They would all like to say they cried and mourned for him, but they didn't deep down. Because, deep down, he had caused too many scars and so much pain for all of them. And, as cruel as it may sound, they were glad to see him go.
For a very long time, they tried to heal and forget everything that had happened. For Connor and Carrie, they could never understand why it all happened. For Lucy, though, she knew exactly why it happened and could never trust another man again.
That was, until, she found Richard Harvey.
Richard Harvey could not have been more different from Lucy's ex-husband. He was a brilliant man. He helped Lucy heal the scars on her heart and had, over time, claimed it as his own. He was very well educated, going to a boarding school from age eleven. He also owned his own business, a Head of Department in a place that Lucy had never heard of before.
"Somewhere very far away, that you could never reach," he always replied with whenever Carrie, Connor or Lucy had asked where he worked - a knowing grin on his face. To Connor and Carrie, he had been the father-figure that they were never able to have. Though they never admitted it, they loved him as if they were his own children.
Three years after Lucy and Richard wed, another baby girl was blessed to the household. Her name was Chloe, and, as we already know, was a half-blood witch-Metamorphagi.
But her abilities weren't the things that made her strange. It was her personality. She was so bubbly, lively, her family thought. She was constantly laughing and talking to her imaginary friends, right up to the age of nine. Her bubbly personality made her the centre of attention anywhere she went; something that never bothered her. Chloe Harvey was, in the eyes of some, perfect.
Since she was five years old, (when she's accidentally set the table on fire at dinner) she had been aware of her magical abilities. Her father adored her, and set about making sure she had enough funds to buy everything she would need for Hogwarts six years later. Her siblings couldn't have been more receptive to her being a witch. They couldn't quite believe it at first, but they soon adjusted to it and gave her all the encouragement she needed. Chloe Harvey's childhood was, in the eyes of some, perfect.
Chloe Harvey in the present was, had not changed. She was still the bubbly, creative person she had always been. She had just been thinking back on her life, (having one of those, life-flashed-before-my-eyes moments), when she recognised Lily's owl hooting at the window.
"Lily! I can't believe it!" Chloe squealed down the phone, approxiamtely two minutes after reading her letter.
"I know! It's amazing! But you don't happen to know who got Head Boy, do you?" Lily asked inquisitively. She had been thinking about that for the past day, hoping that it was someone at least half-tolerable. The only possible candidates, she's deduced, were Remus Lupin (a Gryffindor and Prefect), Hui Chang (also Prefect from the previous year, but in Ravenclaw) or Severus Snape.
Ugh. Her head hurt just at the thought of him.
"No, no-one's owled me apart from you and Abby all summer," she said.
"Oh, how come Angel hasn't been in touch? She hasn't owled me and, according to Abby, she hasn't spoken to her either," Lily asked.
"Maybe she's just narked at the Head Girl business?" Chloe suggested.
"Hmm," Lily sighed. She was expecting this, and, to be fair, she couldn't blame her. Angel had deserved the Head Girl placement, though Lily had wanted it and worked for it as much as she had. "I don't know, but it's not like ignoring it will make it go away, will it?"
"Exactly! But, look on the bright side, at least she won't be constantly asking for your test and essay results now to 'compare'," Chloe chuckled. Lily joined in, remembering how throughout the entirety of sixth year, Angel had been rushing up to her after every single test to see if she had beaten her. To be honest, she had beaten Lily in most tests.
"Yeah, that's true..." she mumbled.
"What's wrong?" Chloe asked, sensing that they had gone into a dangerous topic for Lily.
"It's just..." Lily started, but couldn't finish.
"You're scared that Angel won't want to be friends after this?" Chloe asked sympathetically. Chloe was so kind and caring, it was hard not to open up to her. That was how she and Chloe had first became friends. Lily had been crying in the dormitory, right after the...incident, and Chloe somehow managed to get Lily to talk about her entire life story.
"Yeah," Lily muttered.
"Well, don't be. I'm sure that even if Angel is narked about it, she'll be smart enough to realise it's not worth losing friends over. And you two have been close friends since second year, I don't think she'll want to throw that away." Lily was silent for a few seconds before replying.
"Okay, thanks, Chlo. I've gotta go, Head Girl duties and all that," she chuckled weakly before putting the phone back on the wall. She sighed. Why is the last year already difficult? she asked herself, before returning to her tea.
"Three Butterbeers, please, Tom," Lily asked with a smile to the innkeeper at the bar. He nodded and walked across the bar, presumeably to get some mugs. Lily turned around to look at Abby and Chloe laughing at something. She looked at the door as it swung open, hoping for a familiar face. It admitted two wizards who looked around fifty. Come on, Angel, she thought to herself.
"Three Butterbeers, miss?" Tom suddenly said from behind her. She jumped slightly, as she was deep in thought about what had happened over the past month. Or, really, what hadn't happened.
She had been ignoring everyone. Literally, everyone. It had gotten so bad that Chloe had had to ask her boyfriend James if he had heard anything from her. Of course he didn't, but it only made the trio even more worried.
"Oh, yeah. Thanks, Tom," she mumbled. She fumbled for some change and paid him, recieving a nod. She took the drinks over to their table.
"Right, so then James-" Chloe was saying, laughing. "Oh, hey! Lily, you need to hear this," Chloe said, inviting Lily to sit down next to her. "So James had this firework-" she stopped abruptly as Abby interrupted her.
"Speak of the Devil..."
"Hey, that's rude, Munch. My feelings have been damaged now. You should make it up to me by getting me a Butterbeer," James proclaimed loudly, whilst pulling a faux-sad expression.
"Munch? Last time I checked, my name was Abigail," Abby bit back, looking at him sternly. James only smiled.
"Whatever you say, Munch," he grinned his crooked grin and ruffled her hair, only making her scowl even more.
"Oh, leave her alone, Potter. Or is it your goal in life to be a complete and utter prat?" Lily snapped curtly as Abby was about to say something.
"Is this your girlfriend or something, Tom, because the last time I ch-" James started with a smug expression.
"Tom? Where did that come from?!" Lily demanded, growing redder by the second.
"Oh, it's just our little pet name for you, isn't that right Padfoot?" Jame said, turning around and talking to Sirius Black. Lily hadn't noticed him there, nor Remus and Peter standing behind them.
"'S'right, Prongs. Oh, and how are you Rainbow?" Sirius said, now talking to Chloe.
"Dandy," Chloe smiled, though she was clenching her jaw.
"Hey, back off her, Padfoot. She's mine," James grinned, before sitting down on the other side of Chloe.
Chloe chuckled before leaning in for a kiss with her boyfriend. James Potter, she thought, is perfect.