Fourteen-year-old Lily Evans huffed in annoyance, shooting a glare towards the Third Year boys who were engaged in a rambunctious game they appeared to have invented themselves, a hybrid of Exploding Snap and the muggle game of bloody knuckles. Whenever a boy felt the cards under his fingers start to warm up that was his cue to promptly throw the card as hard as possible at his opponent with the hopes of causing him the most pain possible. As if their screams weren't enough, even worse were the giggling girls, a group of First and Second Years standing awkwardly to the side "working" on their Potions and Charms essays respectively. In all actuality they were simply gawking at the boys, attempting to catch their attention in the somewhat charmingly pathetic way that only preteens are capable of. Mind you, they were eleven- and twelve-year-olds, so their "flirting" consisted of giggling, looking to see if the boys were looking at them, becoming disappointed that Exploding Knuckles was much more interesting than a group of underdeveloped girls, and then giggling even louder to complete the vicious cycle.
Of course the Third Year girls were not happy with the younger girls "flirting" with their "boyfriends" so they sat unhappily on a different couch and expressed their disdain and how silly the children, those poor things not even thirteen or in need of the simplest training bra, looked pathetic, trying to catch the attention of older boys who were clearly out of their league. These girls also wanted the outgoing boys' attentions, yet were above giggling mindlessly, so they settled for doing things such as standing up and stretching, hoping to show off what they considered the curves they had developed over Christmas break. A young teenage boy's brain is rather single-minded, however, especially when focusing on keeping all fingers intact, causing the game to be much more interesting than their supposed girlfriends. So this Friday night the Gryffindor Common Room consisted of the Third Years trying to burn their friends' hands off, the First and Second Years trying to giggle over their screaming, and the boys then giving them annoyed looks as they yelled more fiercely to be heard over their admirers while the Third Year girls pretended that they were too mature to take notice of the boys, but were actually angry at everyone because the boys were ignoring them while the younger girls were trying to steal their men. Lily Evans was not happy.
Of course Lily had other options on places to work on her Transfiguration assignment, but she had fled the library after it was invaded by the horribly annoying group of Hufflepuff Sixth Year girls. Though they were probably not as loud as the younger Gryffindors, at least her housemates were keeping things relatively clean. The last thing Lily had wanted to hear was about just how flexible Marlene McKinnon is and just how well Head Boy Amos Diggory knows it. Nor did she care about how they suspected "that bitch Vance" of her own house of wearing a padding bra because there was "no way possible that any Fourth Year could grow melons so quickly in less than a month." At the sound of her own friend being insulted, Lily promptly shot them a glare and informed them that if perhaps they spent less time in the Great Hall and were active like her best friend, Keeper for the Gryffindors, that perhaps they'd be able to thin out, letting their own melons show through their robes. McKinnon had simply narrowed her eyes and hissed something about needing to put a bucket of water on the redhead to put out that "pesky little fire," then rudely suggested that Lily was more flexible than any of the Hufflepuffs, which was how Lily kept up with her cardio since she wasn't on the Quidditch team like "that other bitch." With that, her golden curls had gone disgustingly limp and somehow turned a startling shade of fuchsia, leaving Lily to walk out to the satisfying shrieks of the older girl, accompanied by the hushings of Madame Pince.
Needless to say, Lily could not go back to the library to deal with the gossipy older girls who now were less than pleased with her. She could, she supposed, yell at the younger students to keep it down, but she really wasn't in the mood to spoil their fun. It was a Friday night after all, and spirits were high after Christmas, especially with the first Hogsmeade trip of the term coming up the next day. She set her jaw, determined to focus on the topic at hand when several things happened at once. Third Year Dorcas had "accidentally" fallen directly into the lap of Alex Bell, causing one of the Weasley cousins, Lily could never tell who was who, to promptly throw a card at the startled boy, burning Dorcas's hair, resulting in a loud shriek and an unpleasant smell to fill the air. Almost simultaneously, Second Year Miranda McKinnon, sister to the girl whose Lily hair had ruined previously in the night, started crying since Alex had promised to bring her Sugar Quills from Honeydukes tomorrow when he went to Hogsmeade, but was clearly cheating on her with Dorcas since she was sitting on his lap and had paid her so much attention when his mate set her hair on fire.
It was quarter to midnight and Miranda was wailing, Dorcas and Alex were not so subtly ensuring that their counterparts' appendages had not been burned off by poking each other, Weasley was in hysterics over the fact that he had caused Dorcas to go nearly bald while completely destroying his friends' eyebrows, and the Quidditch team trudged in through the portrait hole, looking frozen to death and quite unhappy. Miranda immediately stopped her bawling and started to bat her eyelashes at the other boys, all of whom were "obviously more fit than Alex could ever hope to be" while Emmeline promptly put herself directly into Lily's lap, disregarding her friend's grumbles of protest.
"Hullo, Em. Is there something I can help you with?" Lily mumbled into her friend's shivering, sweat-soaked body. She didn't necessarily mind it, Emmeline was the cuddly-type of person who had little respect for what other people called personal space.
"I'm cold," she whined, wrapping herself even further around the redhead's form. "Love me. Longbottom's trying to kill me." She was referring to none other than Frank Longbottom, the Seventh Year Quidditch captain who had a reputation for being quite the tyrant when it came to practices. He had the team practice in the most severe weather, disregarding rain and snow and hail, scheduling odd hours varying from five in the morning until eight. Frank had scheduled tonight's practice to be from eight pm until eleven, but according to Em, the team was not up to par, resulting in everyone needing to run several laps around the pitch under their dictator was satisfied. "He's a madman, I'm a witch for Merlin's beard. Not once will my feet touch the ground during the game, otherwise there are about seventy-six different fouls they could call on me," she complained further, fully knowing that while her muggleborn friend enjoyed watching the occasional game she didn't understand it's complexities in full. "Plus he's decided that Ravenclaw's tactic is going to be dirty, where he got that idea I'm from I'm not exactly sure, but apparently it involves some sort of play where all three bloody Chasers fly at me while the Beater aims the Bludger directly at my midsection and the Seeker nosedives vertically in front of the left hoop, causing me to nearly have a heart attack in the air. And it started to snow. And I'm on my period. He's going to kill me."
"Mmmhmm, so sorry Em," Lily soothed, knowing that her friend secretly loved all the attention and training Longbottom was giving her. "Do you plan on sitting here for long by the way?" She didn't really mind, the question came more out of curiosity than anything.
"Yes, yes I do." And yet again she snuggled even closer to Lily.
"I ruined McKinnon's hair today," she started conversationally, fully knowing that her friend hated the witch for cheating on her cousin last year. Em's head popped up in curiosity with a glint of excitement in her eyes. The two were in stitches as Lily recalled the story, mocking the older's girl voice with an obnoxiously high pitch and the appearance of a dumbfound look across her face.
As Emmeline was still giggling over the idea of Lily being more flexible than Marlene, an impossible feat that was well known at Hogwarts, she grabbed her friend's wrist and noticed that the time was 12:07, Saturday morning. "KITTY!" she screeched out suddenly. There was a large crack that frightened the surrounding students as Emmeline's house elf appeared, large cake in hand. The Vances were an old pureblooded family that had no fewer than six elves in their service, Kitty being Emmeline's own personal elf. As she had sheepishly explained to Lily their First Year, Emmeline had wanted nothing more than a cat when she was three and first received Kitty as a birthday present, resulting in her elf's name.
"Here is the cake that the Miss has required of Kitty!" the elf proudly squealed, thrusting the chocolate cake almost into the girl's face as she lowered herself into a bow, crooked nose almost grazing the floor.
Emmeline quickly took her wand out of her robes and made a light flicking motion and whispered something that Lily's couldn't quite here as candles suddenly flew out of a box placed conveniently on the side of the plate and lit, different colors sparkling and dazzling across the room. "Haaaappy birthday to you!" her friend jumped up and started yelling loudly, the rest of the common room joining in immediately to sing to the now fifteen-year-old who was blushing a lovely shade of red. As the song finished and Lily blew out the candles on the massive cake, the room burst out into applause and Emmeline took the cake from Kitty, quietly thanking her and telling her that she could go. With another bow and a pop the house elf was gone, leaving Emmeline to slice up the cake and float them around the room.
"Thank you Em, but was that really necessary?" Lily asked through a mouthful of cake.
She should have known better as her friend gave her an incredulous look and simply replied, "Of course it was." Nothing that Emmeline ever did was simple or quiet, everything was always an event. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've managed to embarrass you for the night and have to get my beauty rest so I can spoil you rotten with gifts tomorrow in Hogsmeade!" Before Lily could protest, Emmeline had bounced away and up the girls' staircase, seemingly forgetting that Frank had tried to kill her not even an hour ago.
Lily slightly frowned, not at all pleased with the idea of Emmeline buying her presents in Hogsmeade. Though she knew she had no real choice in the matter and that money was the last thing of concern for the Vances, she never felt comfortable when Em insisted on doing things like that for her. Growing up Mr. and Mrs. Evans, a construction worker and secretary respectively, had never had an abundance of money, so her friend throwing around old money was something that Lily had never grown fully accustomed to. Stretching slightly, Lily gathered her items and got ready to join her friend upstairs to get some sleep for the morning. As she stood, she heard "Oi! Evans!" called across the room.
Looking up, she saw James and Peter eagerly wavering at her where the Third Years had picked up their game of Exploding Knuckles again. Having grown tired of Dorcas's weight on him, Bell was once again explaining to a wide eyed Miranda about how many different sweets Honeydukes has, leaving Weasley, the current champion of the game, to try a harder challenger, as Sirius had returned from his detention halfway through Lily's song. "Alright there Evans?" Peter asked her as she approached the boys.
"Quite fine, and yourselves?" she asked back evenly. She didn't know the boys, save Peter, her Charms partner, that well. James and Peter answered politely while Sirius mumbled something, not once taking his eyes off his pile of cards, hands flying across the table quickly.
James went to open his mouth when a shout interrupted him, quickly followed by a "SNAP!" by Sirius as he jumped up, reveling in his victory. "Next victim?" he called out playfully as Weasley was nursing his wrist closely to his chest, Third Year girls cooing over the "poor baby" and offering to look at it for him. "Nice game, mate," he said with a wink as he decided to try his chances with Dorcas who was already donning a newly grown head of hair. "Now then," the dark haired boy said, straightening his robes. Though he was the shortest out of the Marauders and barely surpassed Lily's height he had an air of regality that gave him the appearance of being much larger than he actually was. "It would appear that we have a problem, love."
The three boys looked down at her expectingly, as if she was supposed to read their minds and know exactly what the problem was. She waited a bit, allowing the moment to become sufficiently awkward as it became apparent that the three of them weren't going to tell her what was going on. "Erm…care to tell me what's the matter?"
"What's the matter? What's the matter!" Potter started dramatically. "Be still my heart, Pete, she doesn't know what the matter is! What a sin!"
"A sin indeed, mate. A sin indeed."
Lily was growing short of temper. "Now I understand that I'm a sinner and all that, but I've got to be off to bed soon, so unless you care to tell me what's happening I'll just be on my way."
Sirius sighed, exasperating that the witch didn't know what was happening. "Let's just all calm down here, Evans, we're friendly blokes and whatnot. What's the matter is is that it's your birthday and you didn't bother informing us! We're unprepared!"
She blinked once, twice in surprise. "Unprepared? Whatever do you mean? And I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that all birthdays had to be reported now."
"Never mind, never mind that," James said absently mindedly as he looked over a piece of parchment with Peter while Sirius again started eyeing people, looking for his next competitor in Exploding Knuckles. "No, no, we'll just have to cancel the fireworks for that day and rearrange the reserved accounts for Filch's bloody cat," he muttered as Peter was furiously scratching out various things across the parchment.
Lily glaced at the parchment and was surprised to see what appeared to be a complex budget, allocating all of the Marauders' funds for the years. Upon seeing her face Peter asked incredulously, "What, you think that we could do all of this without planning ahead? There's a reason why I'm in advanced Arithmancy, piss poor planning prevents perfect performances!" And the two of them went back to their math, ultimately deciding that they were short four galleons, seven sickles, and six knuts for whatever it is they were planning.
"Good show, Pete, I'll throw in six galleons just to be sure and we'll be square," James decided, clapping him on the back. "I'll match that," Sirius said, already involved in a game with Frank. "Yes, yes," Peter mumbled, quickly adding the twelve additional galleons to his calculations. "With that we'll be able to keep the fireworks and cut the cat in half!" he declared proudly. When he saw Lily's horrified face he corrected himself, "the cat budget, the cat budget," and stowed the parchment away in his bag.
"Well that's great," Lily said, disapproving of any harm coming to the caretaker's new kitten. With its luminous eyes and cute way of following people around, Lily didn't understand some people's claims of the cat's horridness. "Erm…I'm going to leave now if that's quite alright with you lot?" she said warily while slowly backing up. The boys, though friendly enough to most people, were quite odd, always appearing as if they were hiding some secret joke amongst themselves.
"Right on love, see you tomorrow!" Potter called out cheerfully, turning his attention to Frank and Sirius.
The next morning Lily awoke to Emmeline curled next to her, brown eyes wide awake and a huge grin plastered across her face. "Happy birthday Lily!" she squealed as she rolled herself on top of her friend.
Lily, never the morning person, mumbled sleepily, insisting that her "bloody touchy friend remove herself immediately before something bad happened."
"Don't be daft, you could never hurt me," Emmeline insisted, yet rolled off her nonetheless. "Well get dressed already, I let you sleep in quite a bit today and we have all of Hogsmeade to loot and pillage before the day's over."
A half hour later Lily, still rather grumpy, made her way dan into the Gryffindor Common Room where she found three out of the four Marauders waiting for her. "Happy birthday, love!" James said with a cheeky grin across his face as he proudly presented her with a brown kitten, large purple bow wrapped around its neck.
"Oh God," Lily cooed out the Muggle saying as she cuddled her new kitten. "Is this what you lot were readjusting your budget for?" she asked, completely touched and infatuated by her pet.
"Don't be thick, that thing's all James," Sirius insisted, anxiously shifting from foot to foot. "And now that you've got the damned thing we must be going." He grabbed each of his friends by the arm, dragging them towards the portal hole as James whipped around quickly to shout out a goodbye and Peter paused to mutter, "Ignore him, can't stand cats and his torn up leg shows they're not rather fond of him either. See you ladies down at breakfast." And with a wink and a particularly hard tug from Sirius, Peter was merrily forced out of the common room.
The girls spent as long as the could babying over the new kitten and situating it in their room with the cat Emmeline received for her third and a half birthday, the apology for a lack of kitten on the actual date. Lily, now considerably more awake, chatted animatedly the entire way to the Great Hall on what to name the kitten and how considerate it was of Potter, despite them not being mates or on general speaking terms. The debate between Elliot and Bronson came to a screeching halt, however, as they stepped into the room for breakfast and watched a terribly wonderful scene unfold before them.
The ceiling, typically enchanted to show the weather, stopped snowing and started shimmering actual glitter as fireworks started exploding from behind the professor's table, erupting into various shades of purple, all somehow charmed to make Lily's outline in the air and took the form of her laughter. The four house tables were spewing confetti that read "Happy Birthday, Lily!" and an enormous cupcake bobbed in front of Lily, refusing to go away until she finally blew out all fifteen oversized candles, each the length of her forearm. As the organized chaos started to subside James Potter suddenly appeared from behind the colossal cupcake, a bouquet of violets in his hand, his smile even larger than when he had presented her with the cupcake. "Happy birthday, love," he said, shoving them into her hand before effectively being dragged out by the collar of his robes by a seething McGonagall. "Make sure you read the note!" he screeched from around the corner.
Emmeline grabbed the card out of the flowers before Lily could fully react, reading out loud, "Happy birthday to the most beautiful girl in all of Hogwarts. Do yourself a favor and join me in Hogsmeade today, Evans? Your Future Lover, James Potter."
"Oh dear…" Lily muttered as Severus's eyes shot daggers at her from across the hall. "We have a problem."