Chapter One.
I remember the day my sister and I were sorted with amazing clarity. Mostly due to the ecstatic excitement at being at Hogwarts. A real, live, breathing magical place. So vastly different from our tidy little neighbourhood at home, with its manicured lawns, its dog walkers, and the postman who always asked us how we were doing with a smile. Suddenly at the tender age of eleven, we were thrust into this world of wizards and witches, where school was a castle, postmen were owls, and we clutched real wands. It felt as though we had tumbled down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, or stepped through the closet into Narnia. And oh, how we marvelled.
And then the sudden startling, stomach churning fear when my sister and I were separated, sorted into two different houses. It had all seemed so simple until that moment. Myself, Rivers, Grace, was called upon first. How I leapt off the chair as the hat sorted me into Hufflepuff. I remember at the time wondering how on earth they had come up with these absurd names. And then my twin sister, Rivers, Lily. Ravenclaw. I had not even for the briefest of moments entertained the thought that Lily might be in a different house from me. It had just never seemed possible to either of us.
We had both regarded each other with the deepest despair an eleven-year-old can possibly sink to. I genuinely thought my life was over.
We were muggleborn, taking our first stumbling steps into a foreign, frightening world of magic. It had still been so fascinating when we knew we were taking on this adventure together. But here we stood, and suddenly the distance between the house tables seemed miles wide. Lily Brenna Rivers, the Ravenclaw, Grace Cara Rivers, the Hufflepuff.
Of course, Lily already had her little moment of fame, right there and then. Only moments before the pair of us were sorted James Sirius Potter was sorted into Gryffindor. Black hair, laughing hazel eyes, apparently in every aspect pretty much like his grandfather in appearance and behaviour. And then came my sister Lily. Lily with the flaming red hair (which she still wore long back then) Lily the muggleborn, Lily with the proper skirt-lenght, Lily with the thousands of freckles, Lily who apart from her grey eyes, was everything Lily Evans had once been.
Of course, Lily and I knew nothing of Lily and James Potter and their son Harry at this point in time. We had known about the wizarding world for a grand total of two months, in which we had been far more occupied in learning all there was to learn about our upcoming lessons then the history of this new unknown world. I don't think I had even really entered our minds that this world would have so much history, so many wars, that we knew nothing of.
Perhaps if we had read Hogwarts a History, 6th edition, which we had bought and which was lying in the bottom of my trunk, we might have at least known why the name Potter was so important. But it had never seemed like the top priority at the time, we had instead stuffed our heads with magical theory, spells and potions recipes. And therefore we didn't realise why all the staff wore amused smiles on their faces. We had no idea why so many of the students burst into whispers when Lily's name was called.
Instead, all we knew was that somehow we had been separated against our will for the first time in our entire eleven years of life. And we were far from happy about it.
"I can't believe that Professor McGonagall dared to make Potter Head Boy!"
I grinned as I lay on my bed at home, listening to Lily rant as she paced the room. I could believe it. It was as if all the staff at Hogwarts believed that James Potter and Lily Evans had been reincarnated in my twin sister and James Sirius Potter, and it was their goal in life to make sure that the two dated before they left Hogwarts, so they could populate the earth with as many more little Hero Harry Potters as possible. However though I found this vastly amusing, not being the one called Lily, or the one with red hair, Lily did not agree.
"I mean honestly, what on earth could that unbearable, useless, uneducated prat have to contribute to the Head Boy position?" She continued.
I believe it's important to point out at this point that Lily never did like attention. I was the brave twin. The one that forged ahead, the one that introduced ourselves to other people, the voice of our duo. And therefore it really was the worst luck when she was the one called Lily, the one with the flaming red hair, and not me.
Lily would do anything to avoid attention, or foist it on me. However being called Grace, being a Hufflepuff, and being blonde did not make me particular interesting or significant to the school at large.
Lily even attempted in our third year to use her middle name Brenna as her name, but it never caught on. Everyone truly was far too enamoured with what they saw as a live romantic comedy being acted out right in front of their eyes.
In our fourth year Lily had joined the Ravenclaw quidditch team as beater, and though she truly was unbeatable in that position, I knew that it was in part due to the fact that Lily Evans Potter had never had anything to do with quidditch that Lily had joined the team.
In our fifth year Lily had cut her hair short in an attempt to distance herself from the image of the long-dead Lily Evans Potter, however this only seemed to cement more in people's minds the idea of Lily (my Lily that is) being the modern and 'chic' Lily Evans Potter of our generation.
In our sixth year I was afraid that she was going to dye her hair, as she threatened to do repeatedly, however her personal love for her hair won out, and she satisfied herself with writing on all her belongings, 'belongs to Lily Rivers (not affiliated, associated or named after Lily Evans Potter in any shape, form or manner)'.
Now professor McGonagall had gone off and done the most hilarious thing ever, making James Sirius Potter Head Boy, and Lily Brenna Rivers Head Girl. How could it possibly get any funnier?
"...and honestly, he was prefect before, and he was the worst prefect imaginable, abusing prefect privileges, smuggling alcohol into the school, I mean, smuggling alcohol into school? Surely that must be breaking at least twenty school rules just in that one act, what is Professor McGonagall thinking?" Lily continued.
Just then what sounded like a herd of elephants rumbled up the stairs, across the hall, and burst into my room. I braced myself for impact, and was rewarded by only hurting my elbow when my fourteen-year-old brother and sixteen-year-old sister landing on top of me in a tangle of limbs and hair.
"I love you too guys." I mumbled as I in vain tried to push them off me. At least this sudden surprise had stopped Lily's rant.
"Alistair and Eliza, look at this, JAMES SIRIUS-FREAKING POTTER of all the seventh years boys in the entirety of Hogwarts has been made HEAD BOY!" Lily exclaimed, thrusting the letter into their faces (so close to their faces that they couldn't possibly be able to read it).
Clearly I spoke too early. Trust Lily to be annoyed about the fact that James Potter was made Head Boy, rather than be glad for the fact that said letter announced that she had been chosen as Head Girl.
Alistair grabbed the letter from her hands and snorted with laughter, ignoring the fact that steam was coming out of Lily's ears.
"Good for him." He said with a grin as he passed the letter back to Lily.
"Well it's not good for me! How on earth did someone so arrogant, annoying and air-headed get Head Boy!" Lily exclaimed, regarding the letter with a death glare, as if hoping it would spontaneously combust.
"I like the alliteration." I drawled, and Alistair snorted with laughter again.
Lily was too wound up to appreciate any form of humour.
The doorbell rang. Repeatedly. Only one person ever rang our doorbell so insistently when they arrived. Alistair's eyes lit up.
"Bye!" He hollered as he dashed down out of my room, skidded across the landing, hurtled down the stairs, and slammed the front door as he left. It is a mystery to me every time he does that how our staircase is still in one piece. Eliza rolled her eyes. Hugo Granger-Weasley had come twice a week every week throughout the whole summer to do 'life-threateningly important' chaser practise.
Both he and Alistair were chasers on the Hufflepuff team, together with Frank Longbottom, our third chaser. The most hilarious thing about Alistair and Hugo? Everyone who doesn't know them well think that they are twins. Even a lot of people who do know them well.
I mean come on, their about the same height, same build, they both have these wild red curls (yes, I am the only one of my siblings not a redhead and by default not mistaken for a Weasley on a regular basis), millions of freckles, both in Hufflepuff, both chasers, take all the same subjects, etc.
I assume it also doesn't help that Hugo and Alistair find the whole thing hilarious, and therefore encourage the belief that they are twins. I'm certain even some of the teachers believe he is Hugo Granger-Weasley's biological twin. My belief is supported by the fact that they regularly call him Granger-Weasley to his face, and all Alistair does is grin and respond to the name.
Lily and I tease him saying he should marry a Weasley and take her maiden name as his own. Most hilarious thing ever! This is of course helped by the fact that he does indeed have an (adorable, but as yet un-admitted) crush on Roxanne Weasley. As least that's Lily and my theory, we have yet to get Alistair to admit to this fact.
"I'm off!" Eliza exclaimed with glee, and raced off to the living room, the only room with a fireplace connected to the floo.
The only room with a fireplace in our house at all actually, and really we were just lucky that mum and dad let us keep this one to connect to the floo network. While Alistair was off with Hugo, Eliza would take the advantage of the absence of the boys, and go to the Granger-Weasley house to visit Rose, the only other Granger-Weasley in existence (which is good really, they're both seriously scarily clever), who was also a sixth-year Gryffindor like our darling Eliza.
Yes, Eliza was another of my siblings turned into a faux Granger-Weasley. The only thing that saved Lily from such a fate was the fat that she was well... Lily. If she was a Weasley then the whole James-Lily thing would have been cousin-incest and that just wouldn't do. And me… well as previously discussed, I look nothing like the Weasley's.
I sighed, relieved now of the burden of two teenage siblings off my chest. Picking up Hogwarts a History 7th edition (a beloved birthday present I had received last year from Alistair and Eliza) I flicked through it, smiling at the moving enchanted images.
There was one particular one of what had been known of as Dumbledore's Army during the war, and it was plain hilarious to compare them to their kids. Especially since Hugo looked more like George Weasley then Ron, and I loved pointing this out to him and asking him if there was any particular reason for this, he always turned bright red and spluttered. Placing the book back on my bedside table I grinned at Lily.
"Only one week left till term starts." I said.
"One week until I have to endure the sight of Provocative Promiscuous Player Potter the Purposeless Pitiful Prat." Lily groaned, flinging herself down on the bed beside me, cradling her Head Girl badge, smiling at it absent-mindedly.
She really did have this amazing thing for alliteration.