It was snowing. She could feel it settle onto her skin as it fell, quickly melting after a few seconds, as she waited outside the Evans' home in Cokeworth. Snow in September. It wasn't entirely unusual in the midlands of England, let alone in Ireland where her mother's home was. Stranger things had happened.
She reached up to catch a snowflake, her pale wrist chilly against the light wind. Lily always joked that she would disappear in the snow if she ventured in completely as she was so white.
"Ana", a voice called out behind, "are you sure you've got everything?"
"Yes, Mrs Evans", she called back.
Lily joined her outside, dragging her trunk behind her. She placed it next to Diana's and hopped on top of it.
"Yeah, we're not going to have the same as last year when halfway to London you decided to remember you had forgotten everything, save Jasper", Lily pointedly said, followed by a laugh.
As if on cue, a happy chirrup sounded from within her jacket and a furry black head peeped out from where it clung inside. Jasper was a black flying-fox, a birthday gift given in her first year of Hogwarts. She remembered unwrapping a green foiled box on her birthday and finding much to her own and every other child's on her table surprise, a wee black bat, no bigger than her palm, snuggled warmly inside. 5 years later, Jasper was now much bigger, though still relatively small; enough to fit inside her robes should he need to. He was an absolute beauty, though receiving letters was murder.
Diana laughed out loud, followed by an "I promise" and fed Jasper a grape from her pocket. He squeaked loudly as a snowflake settled on his nose and retreated back inside the warmth of her coat.
"What do you think for this year, Ana?" Lily came and sat on Diana's trunk, flinging an arm round her neck. "Do you think you'll finally crack and say yes to Barnaby Abbot when he asks you to a Slug Club dinner party for the possibly the hundredth time in two years?"
"Ha! You wish", Diana hugged her friend back, "And me? What about you?" She got up dramatically and took Lily's hand. "Do you think you'll choose between the two greatest loves of your life: Mr Severus Snape or…the great James Potter?", she pretended to swoon.
Lily snatched her hand back, nearly going as red as her hair, "Get lost! I would never-", she began but Diana cut her off with a cackle.
"I think the lady doth protest too much", She retorted and smirked at her friends discomfort. Lily rolled her eyes, her skin slowly returning to it's normal colour and a smile tempting her lips.
"Oh look at you! A muggle reference!" Lily noted, her mouth giving way to a smile at the sight of Ana's broad grin.
"I even used it in the right context this time!", Diana's responded proudly. This was true. The last time she had used it was in a particularly tense encounter with Lily's sister last year - needless to say, Diana was banned from Petunia's presence for the rest of the holidays.
Diana packed away Jasper into his little white cage, popping in another grape and draping a silk square over the top to act as a curtain. Lily's smile suddenly faltered, "Ana", she said uncertainly. Her friend looked up her, curious at the sudden change of tone.
"You wouldn't mind laying off the Severus jokes, would you?", she continued, "it's just our friendship has been a bit strained recently and paired with that sod Potter, I just don't want to make it any worse". Lily looked down at her hands; Diana knew Lily had been friends with Severus for such a long time, even before Lily had met her and they both had always written to each other over the summers and said hello in the halls, even studying together from time to time. However she also knew that recently Lily couldn't help but feel that a rift was slowly making a home between herself and the Slytherin.
"Of course Lils", Diana replied, blonde eyebrows crossed. Her friend smiled back gratefully at her.
"Right girlies", the flowery voice of Mrs Evans sounded from behind them, "I think we'd better be off". Both girls followed the red-headed woman, dragging their trunks behind them.
The boarding of the train was awkward. Mrs Evans had asked as she did most years if Diana's mother would be joining them on the platform to wave them off. Of course the answer was the same as it was each time - no. Even so, Mrs Evans insisted they wait a little longer which led to an awkward shuffling of feet and looking anywhere other than each other until she had decided they had waited long enough and she had given both girls a kiss before settling them on the train. As the train pulled away she saw them off with a loud, "Have a good time girlies! Learn something magical!".
Diana and Lily were sat in a carriage with the usual cohort - Marlene McKinnon and Alice Prewett. All 3 were chatting about their holidays while Diana sat with her forehead pressed against the window, watching the countryside float by.
Suddenly a disgusted groan disrupted the conversation as Alice threw down the Daily Prophet she had been reading, "Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black got married yesterday", she stuck out her tongue in revulsion.
Marlene scooped up the discarded paper and began reading aloud, "After an extravagant ceremony, sparing no expense, the happy newlyweds encouraged guests to apparate to the Malfoy Mansion to share their happy day togeth- What utter tosh!". She chucked the paper to Lily.
"Obviously it was a pureblood only guest list", Lily carried on reading. Her face turned from mild irritation to downright disgust, "And of course the story comes before one about an unprovoked attack on a poor muggle family. Typical!".
Diana felt the paper land on her lap. She opened it up, looking down at the front page - the moving faces of the smiling Malfoy's enlarged above a small, still photo of a muggle man and woman with three smiling children. She traced their faces with her fingertip. Those poor people. More and more muggle faces seemed to be appearing in tiny tiny columns of the Daily Prophet, but appearing none the less. It seemed there was a serial attacker on the loose and Diana would bet her wand it had something with pureblood supremacy.
"Are you alright, Ana?", Lily asked quietly, shifting further down the seats so she was directly opposite her. "I'm sorry about what my mum said earlier, I've really asked her to stop mentioning it".
Diana's head whipped up quickly towards where Marlene and Alice sat, hoping they hadn't heard the exchange. They hadn't, to Diana's happiness they were chatting away animatedly about how vile Lucius Malfoy was, off in their own world.
"It's not her fault, Lils", Diana responded honestly, "I know she means well by it". As much as she meant what she said about Mrs Evans, she did wish that the mother would just give it a rest about Diana's own. It was well known to everyone that Diana's mother had barely left the house since Diana was 11 years old, so she wasn't just going to spoil 5 years of hiding to see her daughter off to Hogwarts in her 5th year.
Lily grimaced. "How is she? I know you went to see her one day in August. Was there any improvement at all?", she asked. Lily was gentle with her questioning; there were not many things that Diana didn't talk to her about but her mother was definitely a soft subject.
"Just to check on her. There was no change", Diana responded bluntly, "not that I was expecting any". She didn't feel the need to elaborate on the incoherent shrieking and babbling that greeted her when she visited that day. Camilla Trivinere was determined clinically unsound a long time ago and as the years wore on she became worse and worse until all progress, good or bad, stopped altogether and Diana gave up all hope of having a mother. Enough was enough and when she was 13 she had moved out completely, alternating between living at Lily's and a family friends. She couldn't completely abandon her mother though, she still loved her after all, so once every few months she returned home to Ireland to visit her but she never stayed for more than a few hours. She couldn't bare her mother's silence.
"We should get changed into our robes", Lily suggested, placing her hand on top of her friends. That was as far as Lily would go in expressing her sympathy for Diana and she was glad of it - she didn't want other people's pity and she wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. She was also grateful for the excuse to move about about the carriage.
"Diana!", Marlene exclaimed when all 4 girls were dressed in their robes.
"Marlene!", Diana exclaimed back sarcastically, a silver eyebrow arched and a smile on her face.
"Do you have something awful on your mind you need to share?", the petit blonde placed her hands on her hips, trying to mimic Diana's arched eyebrow and failing miserably, giving up with a huff when Diana laughed.
"I'm here with you Mar, how could I?", Diana responded, making a kiss face towards her. She reached out towards her mate, tripping over feet in the small carriage. All the girls laughed.
"Well to start, you completely missed the food cart", Marlene giggled, pointing out of the carriage doors to the retreating frame of the lovely trolley lady.
"Merlin", was all Diana shouted before she hightailed it towards the cart, leaving her friends laughing behind her. Maybe Marlene was right, maybe there was something on her mind. She never missed the sweet cart, always greeting the old lady she had befriended through her sugar addiction, whose name was Magda, at the door of her carriage before it arrived there. She was nearly at the cart, she could almost smell the chocolate frogs as she raced past a carriage full of Slytherins, who all shot her dirty looks.
She reached into her pocket, she was prepared, when suddenly she felt a hard object force her backwards, knocking her with a thud on her backside, the contents of her pockets flying.
Grapes and sickles littered the corridor as she watched with sadness the still retreating sweet cart. Her line of vision was disrupted when a shaggy head of hair moved from the floor in front of her, groaning - this was presumably the obnoxiously inconsiderate object that had deprived her of a pumpkin pasty. She looked upwards, seeing the form of Remus Lupin looking sheepishly down at her, apologetic already. The Marauders. She should have known their pratting about had something to do with this.
She was about to spit out a retort about what happens to annoying little boys who catch a particularly bad hiccuping hex when the shaggy head of hair started speaking.
"So this is why you always smell of grapes", the head said, while holding up a small green grape from his position on the floor, grey eyes looking directly at her.
All characters apart from my OC belong to J.K. Rowling
AN: Thank you for reading, this is my first story so let me know if there are any grammatical or spelling mistakes and if there is anything that needs explaining. Enjoy x