A/N: Originally posted on HPFF on 3/7/16. HPFF Keckers finalist for Best Historical Story. Third place in Jayna's Somehow Connected Challenge
For Lily Evans, the worst thing about going to school in a castle and learning about kinds of magic she only recently learned existed is being alone.
All of her life it had been her and Tuney, two sisters inseparable as twins. She had never once thought of herself as alone, until she learned she was magic and everything changed.
Now, she wakes up every morning alone. There are five other girls in the room where she sleeps, but they are not really there with her. Not the way her big sister Tuney used to be.
Every day Lily has to practice talking about her sister in the past tense. It doesn't mean that she is dead, but the special sister friendship they used to have is dead, and Lily knows that is much sadder.
There is no conspiratorial laughter, no sneaking down the stairs to nick a sweet or two before breakfast, nobody to stand by her side and lie with her when one of them inevitably gets into trouble.
Instead, Lily's morning ritual is predictable and therefore totally boring. She is awake before the other girls, and the floorboards hardly creak as her tiny body tip toes around the dormitory. Once she slips into her school robes and combs her hair, she stands very still in front of the tall mirror, peering curiously into it as it reflects her small figure, and the much larger empty space around her.
Lily's Birthday was four days ago. She is twelve years old now. On January thirtieth she had stared into this same mirror, looking for what was different now that she was older. She had not been satisfied, and found herself in that same spot every day since.
On her birthday, she had seen the girl who would be spending the first birthday of her life without her dear sister.
On the day after that, she had seen the blue streak in her hair, the result of her spell that she had convinced her teachers was an accident. Lily thought it looked pretty when she made it, but now it was just a reminder that her sister doesn't just hate what Lily can do, she hates what she physically is.
The next day Lily had hardly seen anything at all – her eyes were full of tears before she even reached the mirror, knowing all she would see was a remnant of the girl she had been when Tuney loved her.
Yesterday she saw the emerald necklace that she had automatically put on, and remembered that it had been a gift from Tuney, salvaged from the time capsule they found that summer in the woods.
Today all Lily sees is a girl, smaller than ever in contrast to the empty space around her. She stands still out of instinct for a moment, but soon feels she has no reason left to be there. She picks up her book satchel and heads down to the Common Room.
Lily walks past the table where she spent weeks writing letters that were never answered and plops down in front of the fireplace. There is of course no fire at this hour, but that meant that the big kids wouldn't try to take the chair from her.
A quick jolt of movement from the armchair nearest her tells her that she is not alone.
"Oh! Hello, Peter." Peter looks up at her, the obvious residue of sleep in his eyes. Lily thinks he looks quite funny in the overstuffed armchair, as if it is trying to swallow him alive. "Did you sleep here?"
"I was studying." Peter indicates the textbook on his lap with a jerk of his head, screwing up his face in distaste.
Lily twists her neck to identify the book. "Ah – History of Magic. How's your paper going?"
Peter once again screws up his face, this time holding out a crumpled length of parchment for her to take.
Lily unfolds it eagerly. History of Magic is her best subject. Before Hogwarts she was the top of her class in both reading and writing, and while many of her peers had a head start on the magical subjects, they have nothing on her in History of Magic.
Nor, it seemed, did Peter. For an all nighter in the common room, he had gotten less than a paragraph down on paper. Lily considers it carefully and asks herself what kind of feedback she would want if it was her draft.
"Well, you've definitely got a good start here," she begins with as kind a voice as she can muster. "But there are a few things – like right here, I think you spelled Europe wrong."
Peter immediately goes pale and grabs the parchment back out of her hand.
Lily sits very still, fearing that she has said something wrong. Peter sits equally still, his arms crossed and his eyes averted, until he finally mutters. "It takes a long time."
Lily debates for a moment whether she should press the matter, but her curiosity gets the better of her. "What takes a long time, Peter?"
"Finding the right letters!" He blurts out in blatant frustration. "I know what to say, but my letters are always wrong. I thought that if I found every word in the book before writing it, I could get it right. But I'm too stupid. I can't even see the words right."
Lily's eyes widen in sudden recognition. "Do you mean – do you have dyslexia?"
"No!" Peter insists immediately. "I've never even heard of it."
Lily folds her arms pugnaciously, "Then how do you know you don't have it?"
Peter considers her with a suspicious gaze. "Fine. Show off your fancy word."
His comment embarrasses Lily as she realizes what a difficult word it must be for dyslexics. "Well," she begins timidly, "It's a muggle disease. Well, not a disease, just a way someone's brain is. It's what it's called when someone doesn't see letters in the right order. And so it can be hard to know what order to put letters for spelling."
"That does sound like me, like, a lot." Peter looks from Lily to the crumpled attempt at an essay in his hand. "But, I'm not a muggle, so I can't have it!" He heaves a sigh of relief.
"I don't know…" Lily continues. "I think maybe magic only fixes muggle problems in the body, not the brain."
"Oh." The momentary optimism fades from Peter's face and he seems to sink even further into his chair.
"But it's not that bad!" Lily rushes to reassure him. "My friend Alicia at muggle school had it. She got extra time and help to do her work." Suddenly, her entire face lights up. "I could be your extra help!"
Peter looks back up at he, pessimistic doubt etched in his face. "How?"
"Well, my History essay's already done, but I can help you with yours. Like you said, you know what you want to say, you just have trouble with the words. You can tell me what you want to write, and I can put the words down for you! And I can help you with the reading parts so it doesn't take so long. We can try different things and see what works best."
"Is that… fair?" Peter the touch of uncertainty in his voice competing with the growing light of optimism in his eyes.
"Miss Winifred says it's always fair to get the help you need," Lily quotes proudly.
Miss Winifred is the Feelings Doctor who Lily's parents have her talk to while she is at home. She isn't sure if being at Hogwarts means she is better, but nobody makes her talk to them here. Besides, all Hogwarts has is a Matron, and Lily isn't so sure she knows very much about feelings.
Finally, Peter agrees.
"Perfect! We'll be like secret homework buddies – we'll be best friends!" She catches herself and, after a moment of thought, she rephrases her sentiment: "I will be your friend and you can be mine."
Miss Winifred says Lily is supposed to change her words to practice thinking about herself as a separate person, whatever that means.
After agreeing to meet that evening for their first homework session, Lily says goodbye to Peter and bobs out of the common room, her mind busy with growing ideas.
Down at breakfast, Lily looks thoughtfully at the owls overhead as they deliver the morning mail. Today she does not hold her breath in doomed hope for a letter from Tuney, or at the very least one from her parents that might mention her sister. Instead, she imagines all of the words in those letters as the owls weave in and out of the Great Hall, zooming past each other and diving down towards students. She wonders if trying to keep track of them is anything like what it's like for Peter to try to read.
Her stomach full, Lily makes her way to Charms, where they are practicing their Softening Charms. Instead of spending the period thinking about how to explain this spell to Tuney in a way that wouldn't frighten her, Lily wonders for the first time if dyslexia might have an effect on how Peter learns spells.
Lily's next class is Transfiguration, which seems to involve a lot more listening than actual wandwork. As Lily looks attentively up at Professor McGonagall, she daydreams about what it's like to be a teacher. She has always been the follower – the little sister who plays whichever games are picked, the student who does as she's told. To Lily this is not a bad thing – she has many good examples of how to be a leader. She almost loses track of the Transfiguration lessons as her mind invents different possible ideas for working with Peter.
Finally, class is out and Lily heads to the Great Hall, where she grabs a sandwich and a handful of fruit to eat on the grounds. Picnics are a long-treasured habit. Now, instead of two bare foot girls in the grass there is only one, but even that is beginning to feel normal.
After lunch is Flying. Lily thinks for a moment that perhaps this is the easiest class for Peter. She steals a glance his direction in time to see him colliding head first with Lyles. Okay, maybe not. But flying's definitely not her favorite class either.
When Lily arrives at dinner, she does not see Peter at the table. She reminds herself that this is not unusual. She and Peter have been the loners of the house up until now, and unlike many of the loud boys and girls in their house, loners don't tend to stick around the dining table longer than they need to. Tonight she eats her dinner even faster than normal, knowing what is waiting for her in the Common Room.
"We're best friends," Lily whispers to herself with a smile before climbing through the portrait hole to meet Peter.
When Lily finally tells Miss Winifred about this day, she does not reprimand Lily for not thinking of herself as a separate person. After all, for an entire day her sister's rejection was the last thing on her mind.