Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all it's contents belong to JK Rowling.
Happy reading!
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A crumpled piece of parchment flew across the room, past three others and landed softly in the waste bin. The thrower was sitting about ten feet away, rushing to get the right words down on the paper in front of her before writer's block took over again. Her quill and hand seemed like they were in a race, speeding to get to the next line. With an open book beside her, Lily only glanced at the information before writing a new sentence. Few people noticed her there, sitting alone at a small table against the wall of the library.
She had been sitting there for half hour already, destroying her first few essays one by one and together, they all laid in the trash can that her last attempt had landed in just a few seconds earlier.
Think, how did Messina Millright create the first pewter cauldron? Lily thought to herself, mentally arguing that she really did not care in the slightest and should just stop and give herself a break. It really wouldn't be that hard to just set down the pen and get up, leaving the essay and all the worries it gave her alone on the oak library table. It would be as easy as mastering the levitating charm.
Except for the fact that Lily's mind forced her to stay. You know that little thing in the back? It had many names: the angel, your conscious, your superego and Lily was sure the list went on. So many names for just one little thing - a little pointless if you think about it. Nicknames were pointless to Lily, who could tolerate at least one, but if you had more than that, than it was just too much. Lily knew a few people like that, one of which she had barely seen since the start of term.
His name was James Potter - the King of Nicknames, Prince of Abbreviations. He was known as James to only his parents. Prongs to his best friends. Jamesy by his past girls and hot to the rest of the female population who had not yet had a chance to get to bed with him. Some boys looked up to him as some sort of hero, while others desperately told girls that he was just a player. What did Lily know him as? That was simple. Potter. Same as his teachers. It only seemed fair, though, considering they had never really had a normal conversation. He had a small crush on Lily, which she disregarded because she really knew all he wanted was a chance to get beneath the covers of his nice four-poster bed.
It wasn't like they never talked though, a brief pass the juice was made occasionally at lunch, and last year Lily had given him a piece of her mind a few times, but they only had exchanged these words every month or so. She didn't obsess over somebody of which eighty percent of the population of Hogwarts adored. Only eighty because you had to include the Slytherins. They didn't like James much, but Lily knew why. Potter was a big Gryffindor supporter, of which the Slytherins were rivals of. He even used to go around cursing certain people for the heck of it, which was one reason why Lily didn't like him much.
She hadn't seen him a great deal lately though, even though he was her copartner for the Head position. She didn't lay awake thinking of why he hadn't asked her to Hogsmeade next weekend either, if you were thinking she was some kind of stalker. It was a relief to have that worry gone. A big relief that didn't need any second thoughts. All she needed to know was that at the end of this year, pending no obstructions, she would be on her way to Healer's School a week after term ended.
"Hey," a deep male voice she recognized whispered into her ear and she felt a small peck of lips on her cheek. Asher Brenton plopped into the seat next to her, his smooth hand carefully playing with her locks of wavy red hair. She didn't look up and barely reacted when he had placed that kiss on her cheek.
"I have only eight centimeters left of this essay, can you hold on a second?" Lily asked, not even remotely interested in her boyfriend's nicely sculpted body. She had her head bent down in an acute angle and her quill, freshly dipped in ink, ran across the page like an Olympic runner going for the final stretch.
Asher sighed, glancing around the now empty library, save for a few stragglers checking out books. It was almost nine o'clock already. He sat there for the remainder of the time that it took Lily to finish her Potions essay, playing with her hair and watching her small pale face crinkle up when she reached a sentence she didn't know how to finish.
"Done," Lily said proudly, setting her quill on the table and massaging one hand with the other. "Two feet of how Messina Millright invented the pewter cauldron. Do you wanna read it?"
"No thanks," Asher said, pointedly turning away from the essay. "I actually came down here to see why you skipped out on our date to walk around the grounds, maybe sneak behind a bush to -"
"What date?!" Lily exclaimed, mentally kicking herself if she had forgotten another one of Asher's plans for the two of them to hang out. Before her boyfriend started speaking again though, a switch clicked in her mind and she remembered that morning at breakfast. How Asher had come up to her and whispered into her ear to meet him by the greenhouses at seven. She had forgotten all about it in her rush to finish her school work.
"Oh, that date," she said stiffly and turned to face Asher head on with a look of innocence on her face. In contrast, she was met with Asher's face contorted into a sad and angry mixture. She knew how to handle him though, coyly wrapping one arm around his neck and pulling him into a kiss.
"Come on, Lily, it's the third time since term started," he said, breaking away from her lips, not seeming one bit phased. "Why don't you ever remember?"
"It's not like I want to forget!" Lily exclaimed, getting up and grabbing her books. She was good at pleading her case, just not so good at winning the final battle. "I just have so much to do."
"So do the rest of us," Asher reminded her, as they both walked out of the library, for Madam Secrence was giving them stern looks. "We all have to do good on our N.E.W.T's. I have auror school waiting for me."
"I know, it's just I have Head Duties and Gregonhouser's is the best Healer's School out there. My parents are willing to pay for all of it, too," Lily argued. "I can't blow this."
Asher was quiet for awhile, mulling the words over in his mind, obviously trying to come up with a good retort. Meanwhile, the piece of parchment tucked neatly in Lily's heel seemed to burn a sensation of reminder into her skin of what she was working for. Gregonhouser's. The school that even Dimitri Delgod, the best Healer out there, had graduated from.
"You've been so busy though," Asher said. "You're my girl, I want to spend at least a minute with you everyday."
"I'm sorry," she said honestly, thinking of a way to make it up to him. "Do you wanna make my rounds with me? It's only from the fourth floor up."
"Fine," Asher agreed, taking Lily's free hand in his grasp and they made their way up the stairs to the fourth floor. Together they walked along, enjoying each other's company for the most part. Lily couldn't help but remember that she was supposed to practice her summoning charms for tomorrow, but pushed the thought out of her head. She did have all night.
The corridors were clear for the most part. Lily occasionally had to shoo a stray Fourth Year from roaming around, but that was routine. For the most part, Fourth Year was always the cockiest year for every student. They thought that they had been in the school long enough to boss around younger years, but still had enough time left to goof off. It was the year that Lily had had her first boyfriend. His name was George and he graduated last year. He had not given her anything special to remember, but, nonetheless, Lily thought of him occasionally and her first 'intimate' moments.
I've definitely gotten better at kissing, Lily laughed in her head. When she had first started lip-locking, she had been uncoordinated and nervous. Now, she was at least confident enough to know when to kiss Asher. He seemed to like it, or so she thought. Sometimes, she worried that he would dump her just because she was bad at kissing. It was one of her many silent fears. With something so stupid that she was cowardly of, it was a wonder she had ever gotten into Gryffindor.
Up on the sixth floor, a loud snap made Lily's ears perked up a bit. Asher heard the noise, too and made a move to turn backwards, but Lily, holding his hand firmly in her own, kept forward. The noise had come from just far enough up the hall that she couldn't see it, but she walked briskly, suddenly letting go of Asher's hand and extending to reach inside of her back pocket in search of her wand.
Lily's first thought was of a wrist bone snapping in half. But she quickly ruled out that for if somebody had broken a bone, she would hear a loud bout of sobs sweeping down the corridor. It was eerily quiet; only Lily and Asher's own footsteps pattered on the cold floor. It took only a few seconds before Lily reached the spot where the noise had occurred and her mouth dropped at what she saw.
"Sev!" she exclaimed, taking in the sight before her. A seventeen year old boy with long greasy hair and black eyes that looked like a vacuum in space stood over a smaller boy of the same age. The cowering one had round brown eyes, chubby cheeks and an overall cute nature to him. Lily thought nothing was wrong until she looked down at the boy even more. He was holding his wrist tightly and seemed to be crying, but no sound was emitting from his large mouth. Somebody really had broken their wrist.
"Asher, can you take Peter to the hospital wing? Madam Pomfrey will fix that up," Lily said calmly, though nothing seemed to be serene. "I'll deal with Snape."
"Are you sure? Couldn't you just mend it here?"
"No," Lily said swiftly. "Now go please." Without another question, Asher took a hold under Peter's arms and lifted him up so that Pettigrew stood on his feet. Supporting the injured, the two slowly walked down the corridor and once they rounded the corner, Lily turned to Snape.
"What was that?" Lily asked, unafraid to be angry around her first wizarding friend. "What the bloody hell did Peter Pettigrew ever do to you?"
Snape shrugged, seemingly unaware of the damage he had done. "He was following me around all day. I think Potter's up to something and had to send his little sidekick to spy. You know it wouldn't be the first time."
"That doesn't give you an excuse to break his wrist!" Lily exclaimed. "You know I could probably get you expelled for that."
"But you wouldn't," Snape said calmly.
"You bet I would! With being so busy, having you expelled would probably make my life just a smidge easier!" Lily used her hands to annunciate her point, having them fly around every which way. Severus seemed unaware that his only real friend was standing there threatening to expel him. His face was calm as ever.
"But you wouldn't," Snape said again. "You know you would not expel me."
"So what if I wouldn't?" Lily said, changing her approach. "That doesn't mean I'm still not mad at you. You snapped a guy's wrist just because he was following you. That's not right, Sev, even you know that."
"I like my privacy," Snape said. "And if some guy's going to ruin it just because Potter wants to harass me a little bit more, I'm not going to take it. Tell Potter that would you? You are his partner for Heads anyway. It must be nice to be spending so much time with a boy you supposedly hate."
"I've barely even talked to Potter since the beginning of the year and if you think I don't hate him just after one summer, well, you don't know me that well, do you? It's going to take a hell of a lot longer to get me to even think of him as a friend." Lily half yelled - half whispered to Snape's retreating form.
Frustrated, Lily kicked the wall next to her and a soaring pain went up through her foot. Feeling agitated and tired, she turned and left the opposite way, knowing that she should see how Peter was in the hospital wing, but too fed up to do anything but go up to Gryffindor Tower. She always felt this way after fighting with Snape, which seemed to happen a lot. Severus always liked to bring up Potter as a comeback too, which Lily only ever scoffed at. James Potter was a jerk. And Lily was never in her lifetime going to be friends with him. Ever.
