The girls of dormitory 4-A had found themselves lulled into an easy routine by the time school started. Lily would wake up first, and get in the shower first thing, waking Dorcas and Hestia up. They would wake Marlene and Mary, Marlene blearily getting into the shower after Lily and Mary staying in bed for another 20 minutes.
When Marlene would get out of the shower, they would all attempt to wake Alice up. It was honestly a scarring experience, especially for Mary who had once been shoved right into Hestia's outstretched wand. It had been pushed right into the flesh of her arm, and Mary and Marlene had both nearly retched at the sight.
They'd all hurriedly get ready, and walk down to breakfast together. Near the end of summer, Lily began to break their routine- she would go to the library as soon as she woke up (still taking the time to wake Dorcas and Hestia quietly, who were the least angry in the morning). She'd do this some mornings to ease her anxiety, she already felt so stressed with her enormous workload, even though it was just weeks into the year.
How would dishwashing be useful in her O.W.L.S? When she posed the question to her dorm mates, they had just laughed and told her O.W.L.S were ages away, and she didn't need to think about them yet. They were in less than two years!
By November 16th, she decided she was already losing it. Dorcas would try to lure her away from her studies, tempting her with kind words and promises of biscuits from home ("My mum baked them from scratch! Told me to share them with my friends!") and she would snap at her ("This is important!") and then she would feel bad ("I'm sorry, I will take a biscuit.").
Nobody else seemed to be in the same predicament of pure anxiety, even though they were barely a quarter of the material on the fourth year syllabus. Lily just wanted to learn everything early, and be prepared for her lessons, there was nothing wrong with her!
November 30th was when she realised she was getting obsessive. She would spend time in the library with Hestia and Marlene studying, and they'd always seem quite proud that they were doing work before it was due, so usually took that time to relax as well. Lily couldn't do the same!
It was almost compulsive, and she found herself become annoyed by the two girls sitting at the table but never working. One day, she watched Marlene flop forwards and complain, "I can't be bothered, end of years are ages away," with a huff, and snapped.
"If you two want to leave, you can," Lily would counter, almost wishing them to get up and walk out, and leave her to spread out her work. Sometimes she wished she could walk out, and leave all her research on the table for some first year to spill something on, but her sense of pride kept her there, slaving over her work.
To her surprise, Marlene and Hestia would seldom leave her on her own, even when she worked well into dinner. They worked in silence, most of the time, so Marlene would pull them out of their work mode to tell them she was going to dinner, and a few minutes later Hestia would pack up her things and wait for Lily to finish her work.
Marlene would have their seats saved when they walked in a little later than prompt, and Lily and Hestia would smile at her gratefully, and all would be forgiven for any ignorance of her comments during their time at the library (because they were too wrapped up in their work to listen in the first place).
October the 12th was one of the lucky days where the girls of dormitory 5-A would all get a seat together. They all chatted over each other, and Lily felt herself get swept away in their chatter without feeling the need to say anything.
It's not like she could say anything anyways, her brain was filled with useless information about Jimsonweed rather than normal everyday topics.
"How's studying going?" An odd question brought her out of her study induced haze, asked by Dorcas.
"You can see how well it's going just by looking at her face! She looks zonked out!" Alice laughed at her, and for once it felt malicious as her eyes went all squinty as they were trained on Lily.
Lily had just replied with a quiet, "it's fine." So Alice's loud, pitchy tones had smothered it, but Dorcas looked like she had heard it anyways so Lily just smiled at her.
"That's good," Dorcas replied, and the whole group became a bit quieter to listen to her continue, even Hestia and Mary stopping their bickering for a bit, "you've been studying a lot, haven't you?"
"Yeah?" Lily replied, confused, "you know I have a huge workload this year, I need all the time I can get." Dorcas smiled softly at her, trying to appease the slightly defensive note in her voice.
"Don't you think you've been working a bit too much? When's the last time you've seen Severus?" Dorcas inquired, and Lily felt well and truly trapped. Her sickly sweet tone paved way for true concern, and Lily couldn't help feeling the sudden burst of love for the sweet girl.
"I... Don't remember." Lily frowned to herself, trying to remember for the sake of herself rather than others, "it was in Transfiguration the other day I think. Anyways, I know I've been studying a bit excessively, I already decided I would try and tone it down, I've just actually had homework the last few days."
She looked away, and played with her hands. She hadn't decided to tone it down, and was in fact planning on going back after dinner, and finishing off a research task she had given herself.
However, this wasn't a completely lie, as she had thought about it a couple days ago. But then she had seen Masie Davis from Slytherin working through the exact same section of her charms textbook as Lily had been (ahead of time), and her competitive streak kicked in and she began revising charms as much as she could.
"Good," Dorcas said softly, trying not to read into her body language too much, "I worry for you, is all." Lily felt herself beam at the smaller girl, leaning over to give her a gentle squeeze.
"Thanks Dorcas," she looked round at the others, "you guys too. Especially Marlene and Hestia." She giggled, and everyone at the table's face showed some sort of relief. These girls truly were good friends.
She decided there and then she would try and give it a break, just after finishing the work she had already given herself. No need to worry them for no reason.
They quickly began to talk casually again, about nothing and everything, Marlene telling a funny story about someone tripping down the stairs while trying to get into the dungeons. She got up to try and act it out, to the delight of the other girls, who just wanted to watch her make a fool out of herself, when she bumped into Peter who was walking past.
"Sorry!" Marlene flashed her pearly whites at him, and he looked up into her eyes (if he was a typical girly girl, he would have let out a dreamy sigh). Scratch that, he actually did, if you could a weird raspy half gasp sort of thing.
"Ish fine," he munched, and she smiled and stepped to the side so he could go past. He did so, keeping eye contact with her most of the way. His friends trailed behind, for once, and James' eyes caught Lily's so she gave him an awkward smile that was more the corners of her mouth twisting up than anything else.
"Anyways, he completely missed the step!" Marlene called out in delight, "stepped to the side and got his leg trapped in the railing!" Dorcas winced and Mary closed her eyes in secondhand embarrassment, but the rest of the girls were interested, so Marlene continued.
"He got his leg out, and for one second I thought he was going to get up and shrug it off, but then the staircase started moving and he rolled right down the stairs!" She giggled, and the the others followed suit, Alice going above and beyond.
"How hilarious was that!" She laughed louder than everyone else, slapping her knee, and the others at the table who didn't know her began to shrink away. By the end of dinner, the seats in a 2 meter radius had all been vacated, but nobody seemed to notice.
For a while, Lily let herself relax and not worry so much about school and expectations. She felt so much lighter, and laughed more than she had in what felt like years.
The next morning she decided to not go to the library, and instead stay with her dormitory 4-A friends. At breakfast she sat quietly, trying not to think about the revision she wasn't doing, and it mostly worked (due to Alice and Mary screeching about something or other).
She got up, ready to go to potions, and Marlene, Mary and Hestia all got up with her, almost an unsaid agreement. "Do we have potions first thing?" Mary asked, and Marlene confirmed it.
Alice groaned, "that means we have History," Dorcas let her head fall onto the table, just shy of her porridge, and Marlene laughed at their misery.
"Suck it up, sunshines," she laughed again, making fun of them, "have fun learning about the third goblin rebellion for about the 20th time!" Alice shot her a deadly glare, but Hestia just laughed at it.
"We have history of magic?" Sirius called over a couple seats, and the girls stood up a little straighter, especially Mary.
"Yeah," Dorcas called over, faux casually, "there's an essay due in today, I think." The essay was due in for all classes, and Lily had given hers in yesterday, deciding to title it, descriptively, 'Aims of the Goblins in the Third Goblin Revolution.'
It had taken her ages, due to the fact that she did her own research and learnt about the bases they stayed at, and their allies, in order to help her classify the aims. She went above and beyond the assignment, but she knew Binns would be happy with it.
"That was for today?" Sirius asked with a groan, and Alice let out a bark of a laugh, which surprisingly wasn't at his expense.
"My thoughts exactly," she never finished her homework on time, which never failed to annoy Lily, as she always did decently on tests anyways, "but he won't remember anyways, so I'm just going to do it in the lesson."
"Could you do mine too?" He asked with a pleading grin, and Lily turned to him with a disproving frown, which he put his arms up in a mock surrender to. Alice hadn't taken it in a bad way, and laughed before replying.
"Yeah... No chance." She got up, and Dorcas followed. Sirius laughed good-naturedly, and Dorcas bid farewell to the group while she and Alice walked off.
"Guess we should be off aswell," Mary giggled, and Lily nodded with a smile.
"To the dungeons!" Marlene mock commanded, and Mary grinned and gave her a salute.
"Aye aye, captain!" The four girls let out laughs at that, even Lily. They walked together to the dungeons with a happy, light feeling, where Slughorn was waiting.
Potions was always quite fun- Lily and Hestia had paired up at the beginning of the year, and Mary and Marlene had paired up behind them, so they always talked while making their potions. They all did well in their assessments, so Slughorn never bothered them about it.
This day was no different, and they all began to brew a Babbling Beverage (Lily and Hestia both agreed that the name was a bit ridiculous). Lily chopped up the aconite carefully, while Hestia started actually brewing the potion.
"Why was Sirius talking to us?" Mary asked with a slightly dreamy sigh, "it made me nervous."
"Probably because he overheard?" Hestia suggested dully, not one to get swept away by the thought of a cute boy, "not like Marlene wasn't loud enough or anything."
"Oi!" Marlene laughed, knowing everything was being said in good humour, "I wasn't that loud!"
"Sure," Lily chipped in with a small grin.
"Lily gets it," Hestia laughed, and if they had been looking in his direction, they would have seen the twitch of Severus' head when he heard Lily's name.
"He's bad for my health, he is just so good looking," Mary reiterated the girly sigh from before, and the other girls laughed.
"Not that I don't agree, but he's also so much of a troublemaker," Marlene mocked slightly, stirring the cauldron.
"That would be bad for your health," Hestia agreed. Lily nodded in agreement, and then Marry shook her head at the three of them patronisingly.
"You wouldn't get it," she pushed up her glasses in a conceited fashion, "you're just too young." The other three burst out laughing, and most of the heads in the room turned to them.
Lily and Hestia turned forwards to focus on their potion in embarrassment, trying to smother their giggles.
"We're... nearly done," Hestia got out, between the giggles, Lily nodded and checked the book to see what else there was to do, but it was just stirring.
"I'll go get a vial," Lily replied, and made her way to the front of the classroom to pick up a vial from the pile. They were always one of the first pairs to get their work done, so Lily took her time picking out a vial, looking for cracks or stains in them.
She felt a presence behind her, so quickly kept the one in her hand and stepped to the side to let that person get past. They grabbed her arm, not exactly hostile, and she froze slightly, before hearing her old friend's soft voice.
"Do you want to walk to Herbology together?" Severus inquired, and Lily relaxed, nerves washing away. She pulled her arm back, and looked up at him, realising how little she had seen of him this year.
She nodded agreeably, "yeah, that would be nice." He nodded back, and she took that as her cue to walk back to her table she shared with Hestia. The three girls gave her curious looks, and she handed out the vial on the table, next to the cauldron.
"What just happened?" Marlene asked with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle, "did he ask you to a pow-wow behind the greenhouse?"
Lily and Hestia spluttered, and Mary let out a loud laugh, when everyone looked over again, Hestia and Lily turned back to their potion, which was a brick red colour.
They quickly bottled it up, Lily flushing, and Hestia beginning to smile. Hestia poured the liquid into the vial using a ladle, quick and precise, with no shaking or odd movements.
"Hestia," Lily began cautiously, "what's a pow-wow?" Hestia snorted, and smiled even further.
"I'm not sure," she held in any stray giggles, "let's ask them." Lily gave her an odd look, and turned to the girls behind them.
"What's a pow-wow?" Lily asked Marlene, and Mary and Marlene began to giggle again, thankfully quieter. The truth was, none of them knew what exactly Marlene was on about, not even Marlene.
But the idea of a pow-wow was just so stupidly funny, that they all couldn't help laughing. It was infectious too, and before she knew it, Lily was smiling. "Guys!" She protested.
"He just asked me to walk to our next lesson together," leaving out that it was, in fact, herbology, and they could, in fact, have a pow-wow behind the greenhouses (whatever that was).
"Aw," Marlene pouted, "that's unsurprisingly mundane." No gossip there, but for that Lily was glad, she just nodded.
"We were expecting some hot gossip, from how he gripped your arm," Mary winked, and Hestia pretended to gag.
"Grow up," Lily groaned, but the smile she was hiding defeated the biting purpose of her words.
By the end of the lesson, Lily was done with their sly jokes, "have fun with Severus, in your greenhouse of love!" Were Mary's parting words, and Lily shot her a not so friendly glare.
She then flounced off to where Severus was waiting for her, and smiled gratefully at him. "They're hard to deal with, sometimes." He smiled at her and agreed, like he always did, and she felt herself melt back into the easy relationship they always had.
"What did you think of that essay we got the other week? I did it the other night," Severus was always a perfect student, and Lily often felt herself become competitive with him unconsciously, "it was quite easy, for me. Just listing the uses and writing around that."
"Yeah," Lily agreed, chosing to omit the fact that she also introduced the secondary effects in the conclusion. She was going above and beyond for her grades, "took me a good couple of hours."
"You spend so much time on your studies, Lily!" He was trying to reprimand her, but she could hear the slight admiration in his tone.
She smiled smugly.
I don't like calling Snape Severus, it just doesn't sound right! It'll be fixed in the later years, when they fall out, but still!
Tell me what you think! Am I butchering Snape and Lily's friendship? I hope I'm not.
-sunkissedbubbletea