I could go into a long diatribe about my inspiration for this story, but it would all be lies. There isn't any. I just wrote it, because I'm falling out of practice and it was better than writing my essay. I'll will see to it that it gets run through a spellchecker when I have access to one again.

Disclaimer: All characters, scenes and contents here seen are based on the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. No right are owned by the author of this story, nor was any permission granted, but the writing was at no point intended to be defamatory to any person or character and was produced solely for non-profit/money-making purposes.

Chapter 1

Lily Harriet Evans stood with her back turned rather gracelessly to her mirror. She was hoping repeatedly from one foot to the next, while simultaneously twisting her arms over her shoulders as far as they would go in an effort to reach her zipper. So far she was bitterly unsuccessful.

"Give it up," Jocelyn Harkiss, her fellow fifth year Gryffindor, insisted from her position slumped on the bed directly in front of the amateur gymnastics session, where she lay stuffing the contents of a large box of assorted Honeydukes chocolates into her mouth two at a time. The bedclothes were already slightly smeared from chocolate crumbs and the soft feather mattress was bowed low from Jocelyn's considerable weight. "Just face it, Lily. You're never going to fit into that thing."

Lily sighed and gave up trying do pull the blue and white checked dungaree dress up behind her. Flicking her rather orange hair from her face, she folded her arms and regarded herself quizzically in the mirror. "Did Petunia get you a size too small again?" came a rather horse voice from the doorway. Gwendoline Wenlock, a fellow fifth-year and the second of Lily's two best friends, emerged through the dormitory door on the way back from the Gryffindor girl's bathrooms. She was clad in a rather out-grown blue dressing gown and had her short curley hair safely wrapped in a matching towel.

"More than just one, by the look of it," Lily nodded, starting to pull it from her shoulders. She was, as was well known, a rather overly curvacious if just short of tubby fifteen year old, "I wish she wouldn't always buy things in her own size." The redhead's face was covered in so many freckles it looked like it had been attacked with brown paint and there was the rather unfortunate hint of a double chin just noticeable if she tilted her head at the wrong angle. She was, if nothing else, the total opposite of her older sister, Petunia, who was dark-haired and resembled a permanent anorexic. Something that never failed to surprise Lily as she watched her shovel food into herself at family meals.

"You know," Jocelyn added thoughtfully, sitting up and putting away her now half-empty box of chocolates, "I sometimes swear she does it on purpose." Then she caught what she said and blushed furiously with her horrified hands over her mouth as she stared apologetically at Lily. "I'm sorry. That wasn't very kind."

"But it's probably true," the redhead replied with a rather cold shrug, tossing the garment on her bed as she rooted out the green robe she had been wearing before from the mess of books, parchment and quills that had spilled from her satchel in the meantime. It was no secret among the three friends that the sisters did not get on very well at home.

The knowledge of why was something that Lily's two best friends, both wizard-born themselves, found harder to understand. Jocelyn came from an extensive family herself, including several prosperous cousins in the other houses, but her two older brothers were so much older than her that they treated her more as something of a pet than a sister. Widely overstepping the weight limit that Lily so narrowly avoided, Jocelyn was a kind girl with rosy skin, misty grey eyes, a good heart, bad acne and a perchant for sweet chocolate that was happily fed by her doting relatives.

The idea of being slightly spoilt was something Gwendoline could easily have understood if she had ever been able to take a third person's perspective on herself. Underneath her haughty arrogant exterior however she still managed to be very warm-hearted and a deeply loyal friend. Particularly on those occasions when her rash temper had not led her into a fight. An only child and a proud Welsh woman on her mother's side, she never-the-less felt obliged to look after her father's name (which had apparently been born by a vaguely famous Artithmancer several hundred years ago) and bore some resemblance to Petunia with the shared affliction of slightly bucked front teeth and a natural disposition towards skeletal skinniness, accompanied by such colossal over-eating that it left her two friends quite jealous.

Nethertheless Gwendoline and the other young witch had both been incredulous at the idea that someone could be envious or resentful of someone else possessing magical power. To them, it was like being jealous that their sister possessed hair or two feet. Lily supposed that was why she liked them so much.

The mid-winter sun was swimming gently in washed out sky, bobbing between the few wisps of remaining cloud and sprawling in through the small tower window. Lily had left it open, as usual, so she could hear the faint echoes of bird song and the taste the sweet smell of the mountain breeze from the forest. Gwendoline, now safely back in the room, glared at her until she shut it again. They had already had countless discussions about the benefits of fresh air versus the draw-backs of it being winter and the temperature outside hovering over the zero mark. The round tower room was usually adorned with fresh flowers, usually by Jocelyn's doing, and little pieces of embroidary that the largest of the three girl loved to display and which complimented the red and gold features of the room rather nicely. Although Gwendoline had taken to inquiring why exactly her friend was trying to make their bedroom look like the Gryffindor version of a farmyard inn.

Once toweled down though, while Jocelyn was busy washing her face over by the waterjug, the Welsh girl took the liberty of examining Lily's new dress. "It's actually really nice," she exclaimed, with some justified surprise, "I never knew Petunia had it in her."

"Tell me about it," Lily grinned, stuffing her schoolbag with it's rightful contents, "It's so much nicer than that thing she got me last year."

"You mean that jumper?" her friend replied, turning the dress inside out for a decent look at the stitching, "The fushia one Emmaline Vance expanded for us so Josey could wear it instead?"

"It was a nice jumper," Jocelyn added, wiping a dirty blond strand of wet hair from her face, "I've still got it. And wear it too. Very warm." She nodded approvingly and adjusted one of her rose ribboned pig-tails. Jocelyn adored anything in a shade of pink, particularly if it had flowers.

"No," Lily corrected, as she bent to stow her satchel by her beside table, "That was the year before last. I mean the shawl."

"Oh good God. That thing?" Gwendoline frowned at at the memory, as she folded the dress and put it neatly on Lily's bed. "Didn't we burn it in the end?"

"Nearly," Jocelyn shrugged, as Lily stood up and dusted herself down, "But then I think one of the first years wanted it to line her cat bas…"

There was a deathly silence. The sort of deathly silence that is generally known to follow a very large explosion. Slowly as the horrible smell of cinders filled the air Lily reanimated herself, grabbed her wand and darted from the dormitory, Jocelyn hot on her heels. Gwendoline made a move as if too follow, but stopped at the door, flung herself out of her dressing gown and hastened back to her bed to grab a robe and some underwear. While this saved her dignity, she missed all the action.