The Girl I Love
"Wow," sixth year Lily Evans said softly as she looked in the window of the shop in Hogsmeade.
"Yeah," agreed her friend Alice.
They were looking at a small intricately designed music box that was opened to reveal the small figure of a unicorn and her foal. Both were made from white gold with gold horns and silver manes. This was the first time they had ever seen it.
'It must cost a fortune,' Lily thought sadly.
"So, are you excited about your birthday tomorrow?" Alice asked once they had continued walking.
"I guess," Lily replied unconvincingly.
"What's depressing you, Lils?"
"Well, it's just it'll be my first birthday without . . ." she was quiet for a moment, "my parents."
Her parents had been killed in early October and although she missed them terribly, they were not who she was thinking of. She had meant to say Severus, but she had to forget about him. They hadn't spoken in at least a year, 'And besides he probably forgot about you ages ago,' she thouht.
The next morning Lily woke up and saw a small pile of of presents at the foot of her bed. She unwrapped the first. It was a box of cauldron cakes from Alice. Lily continued to open the rest and had found mostly presents from the pther girls in her dorm, receiving mostly candy.
Just as she had thought she had opened the last one she noticed a beautiful box wrapped in green with a silver bow. She picked it up and carefully unwrapped it. She opened a white box. Cutting the tape sealign the box, she opened it and gasped.
There sitting in the box was the silver music box she had been admiring the day before.
Carefully picking it up she looked for a card of some sort, but found nothing. She opened the music box and as it played its beautiful little song she read a small engraving on the inside of the lid,
"Happy Birthday,
to the girl I love."
But that was it. No name, not even an initial. "The girl I love" 'Hmmm . .' only one person came to mind, 'James Potter.'
Lily jumped off her bed she would have to tell him she couldn't accept it. She went down into the common room and found Jmaes.
"Umm . . . Potter."
"Oh good morning Lily, Happy birthday!" he handed her a small bag which she opened to reveal a small charm bracelet.
"Thanks, but didn't you? . . . Never mind." she said and hurried back upstairs. She sat on her bed for a while looking at the music box thinking, 'Well, if it's not from James, then who? . . .'
Meanwhile somewhere downstairs iat the Slytherin table in the Great Hall sat a boy around the age of sixteen with a curtain of greasy black hair who was wondering if a certain muggleborn witch with red hair had liked his gift.