Hey! Another chapter for the adoring fans!
Just a forwarning, it's probably rittled with mistakes and I apologize, but I really wanted to get this out for y'all. Tell me where they are and I'll fix them tomorrow.
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Chapter Two: Wait
"It's getting dark," Scarlett said, looking out the window. "We should probably get changed."
"Sounds good to me," Sirius said, stretching out his arms and setting his hands at the back of his head, smiling at Scarlett.
"OUT!" Scarlett shouted, pointing out the door. James and Sirius both jumped, and scurried out like two scared little Chihuahuas with their tails between their legs. Scarlett then proceeded to close the blinds and the two pulled their trunks down.
"I hate uniforms," Scarlett said, eyeing her plaid skirt as she unearthed it from her mass of clothes, none of them showing any signs that they had entered the trunk folded.
"Not a big fan of folding things, eh?" Lily asked, amused.
"Nope," she said, not offended in the least. "The way I see it, even if I did fold them before packing them, I'm going to have to fold them again once I get to my dorm."
"That's true," Lily said, laying out her skirt and shirt in an orderly fashion.
"You're very neat," Scarlett observed.
"Yeah," Lily nodded, pulling out her Hogwarts tie and knee highs. "It's funny, I guess it's just because my mind is constantly going, thoughts shooting around in a million different directions. I guess I just like making things go in order when I can control them."
"Deep," Scarlett said, unzipping her jeans and pulling her skirt on.
The two got dressed and then proceeded to scrutinize themselves in the dark window which served as a makeshift mirror.
"Hmmm," Lily said, examining herself from every angle. "Not bad actually."
"Yeah, you're right," Scarlett said in awe. "It's actually kinda cool. Like, school girl chic."
"That's it," Lily said, grinning at her own reflection. "God, this so beats Petunia's uniform."
"Petunia?" Scarlett asked, confused.
At that moment, James and Sirius started banging on the door.
"Hurry up in there!" Sirius shouted through the door.
"It's not a fashion show, ladies!" James added.
Scarlett went to open the door.
"Here, your turn," Scarlett said, exiting the compartment.
"Aw, Scar…" Sirius said, looking mock-crestfallen. "Don't you wanna watch?"
"Lily, let's go!" Scarlett said, ignoring Sirius as Lily hurried out down the hallway. "Let's walk, 'kay? I feel like stretching my legs."
"Fine by me," Lily said, glancing at her inconspicuously. "Hey, if you don't mind my asking, what is this whole thing with you and Sirius?"
"What thing?" she asked.
"You know very well what thing," Lily said, smiling coyly. Scarlett smiled.
"There really isn't anything, to be honest," she explained. Lily scanned her face, fully expecting to see some sign that she was lying, some sign that she and him had this childhood sweetheart thing playing out, but surprisingly found none. "He's a really good friend. A really good friend. And as much as Sirius doesn't want to admit it, I think that's all he sees too."
"Really," I say sarcastically.
"I'm serious," she insists, smiling. "Sirius thinks I'm pretty, and that's what he thinks love is."
"What's what he thinks love is?" Lily asked.
"Attraction," she said simply. Lily didn't further push the issue.
"So tell me," Scarlett said, "who is Petunia?"
"My sister," Lily said, hoping to leave it at that.
"Oh, older or younger?" Scarlett asked, interested.
"Older," Lily said, trying to make it sound final.
"Oh," Scarlett said, obviously not catching on. "Is she on the train?"
"No," Lily said, "she's non-magic."
"Oh, right, you're Muggleborn," Scarlett said. "I keep forgetting."
"Yeah," Lily said, glad that Scarlett sounded as though she was about to change subject.
No such luck.
"What's it like having a sister?"
Lily sighed, wishing that she didn't have to talk about this.
"Uh… you know," she said, actually thinking about it. "I don't really know."
"What are you talking about?" Scarlett said incredulously. "You just said you have a sister."
"Well I technically do," Lily explained. "But she doesn't really treat me like a sister."
"How so?"
"Well," Lily said, trying to think of a polite way to spin it and failing. "She thinks I'm a freak and treats me like I'm carrying the plague."
"Oh," Scarlett said, taken a little aback.
"Maybe she's right," Lily said defeatedly. "I don't know. What I do know is, we used to be best friends and I used to look up to her. And now she won't even say a proper goodbye to me."
"She's not right," Scarlett said, with a very sure tone.
"Must be nice to be so sure."
"I'm not all the time," she said, glancing at Lily. "But I'm sure about this. No, Lily, you're not normal. None of us here are. But it's not like you're either normal or a freak. You can be C) none of the above."
Lily thought about what she'd said. With Petunia all there was normal or freak, black and white. And in turn, that's all Lily had seen as well. But now… now, it just made sense. There was a spectrum: black at one end and white at the other, with a whole sea of gray in between.
"We should probably head back to the compartment," Scarlett said, turning around.
As she walked back to the compartment with Scarlett, Lily enjoyed swimming in a sea of gray.
---
"God, I'm starving."
"You're always starving."
"But I'm especially starving right now."
"Whatever…"
Scarlett, Lily, James and Sirius were all standing in the Entrance Hall, waiting for McGonagall to come and take them all into the Great Hall.
"Scar, I'm serious," James said, holding his stomach.
"Someone need me?" Sirius said, perking up. He had been leaning up against the stone wall, his arms crossed over his chest, scanning the hall, taking the architecture and all the people. Lily didn't know quite how he achieved that look of haughty, nonchalant sophistication at the drop of a dime. She was almost half jealous.
"No Sirius, I was using the adjective, not your name," James said, never losing focus on the task at hand. "Scar, you have to share… sharing is caring, you know."
"Hah!" Scarlett scoffed. "You are not getting anything out of me."
"Any what?" Lily asked.
"She always brings a Luna Bar with her, everywhere she goes," James said, desperately eyeing her pocket of her cloak.
"And he wants it," Scarlett explained. "James I'm gonna save it till tomorrow. They stopped selling them in Diagon Alley, and I'm trying to conserve."
"Scarlett, I'm hungry!" James begged getting down on his knees.
"No," Scarlett said without mercy.
"Scarlett Elise Potter!" James said, trying and failing to sound menacing.
"James Owen Potter!" Scarlett said, mocking James's tone from before.
"Sirius Nathaniel Black!" Sirius chimed in, smiling goofily.
"Wait until after the test, James," Scarlett said, losing patience with him. "There's a feast afterwards."
"Wait, what test?" Lily asked warily.
At that moment, a very tall older woman with her graying hair pulled back into a very tight bun emerged from the Great Hall, closing the door behind her. She looked extremely stern and no-nonsense, very clearly someone who was not to be messed with.
"Gather around! Gather around, First Years!" she announced clearly, gesturing for all of them to gather on the stairs. Lily, Scarlett, James, and Sirius congregated with the rest right where she wanted. "My name is Professor McGonagall, and I would like to welcome all of you to Hogwarts. The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room. There are four different houses, and they are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn you house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours."
She paused for a moment, letting everyone digest what she had said for a moment.
"Now, the Sorting Ceremony will commence in a few minutes. I suggest that you all make yourselves presentable, as it takes place in front of the rest of the school. I shall return in a few moments, and the Ceremony will begin. Please wait here quietly."
She returned to the Great Hall, and the Entrance Hall erupted in quiet chatter.
"The Sorting Ceremony is a test?" Lily asked frantically.
"According to my older brother, yeah," Scarlett said. "He wouldn't say much but from what he hinted at, it sounds like some kind of test."
Lily's whole chest felt like it was seizing from nerves. She wondered what sort of thing they would ask of her. True, she had mastered Alohomora, but that was a fairly simple spell and her neighbor, who incidentally turned out to be a witch (she discovered Lily was a witch as well after "accidentally" finding her Hogwarts letter), helped her a bunch, but they were probably expecting something more impressive. Lily bit her lip.
"What about the houses?" Lily asked, desperate to take her mind off the Sorting. "What's the story there?"
"Like she said, there's four: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin," Scarlett explained, counting them off on her fingers. "Ravenclaw is for really smart people, Hufflepuff is for hard workers, Gryffindor is brave people and Slytherin is supposed to be cunning."
"Supposed to be?" Lily asked.
"More dark wizards have come out of Slytherin than from any other house," James chipped in.
"Oh," Lily said. "Which one are you guys hoping for?"
"Gryffindor," Scarlett, James and Sirius all said in unison.
"Oh," Lily repeated. "I hope I am too then…"
"I bet you will," Scarlett said, narrowing her eyes as she looked at Lily. "You look like a Gryffindor to me."
Suddenly McGonagall reemerged from the Great Hall.
"The Sorting Ceremony will now begin," she announced. "Follow me."
Everyone shuffled down the aisle towards her. Lily was so nervous she barely noticed any of the older students watching them or the vast ceiling that displayed the clear night sky, speckled with stars, or Scarlett whispering in her ear a quick, "Good luck!" or even the Sorting Hat's song.
In fact, when McGonagall finally called "Evans, Lily!", both Scarlett and James (Sirius had already been Sorted into Gryffindor) had to give her a little push forward.
Lily stumbled on the first step, mostly thanks to certain people's eagerness to get her going, but she walked up the rest of the steps with ease and sat on the stool, her heart nearly pounding out of her chest.
"Lily Evans, eh?" said a voice inside her head. "Seems to be very impressive. Talented too, I see… Pure of heart and loyal… hardworking… bright… even some bravery here, I see. How about… GRYFFINDOR!"
Applause erupted along the Gryffindor table, and Lily happily hopped off the stool to join Sirius.
Scarlett and James were Sorted into Gryffindor as well, and following a short speech by Dumbledore—which James kept insisting was taking forever as his stomach growled loudly—the feast began. Lily was amazed; she'd never seen so much food in her life. There was steak, potatoes, ambrosia salad, chicken, corn and Caesar salad.
Afterwards they were all beyond tired, so, following the Head Girl—a curvy redhead with pretty blue eyes who just so happened to be a Gryffindor as well—they all made their way to the Gryffindor Tower. After informing them all of the password ("pickles") and showing all of them to their dormitories.
"Wow…" Lily said, looking around at the five four-poster beds. She spotted one next to a fairly large window through which she could see the lake they'd sailed across earlier. She ran, jumped and landed on it, sprawled out, belly down. "Scarlett! Grab that one," Lily added, her voice muffled in the sheets as she pointed to the bed on the opposite side of the window.
Scarlett ran, jumped and landed on her bed, although she landed much more gracefully than Lily.
"Got it!" she said, grinning.
Three other girls filed in behind them, looking around uncertainly. One was a girl with bright blond hair and blue eyes, a pretty Indian girl with bright brown eyes, and a girl with sandy brown hair and teal eyes.
"This one free?" the brunette asked, patting the bed on the other side of Scarlett.
"Yeah, course," Scarlett said, dragging her trunk to the foot of the bed she'd so ceremoniously claimed.
"Thanks," the brunette said, looking around the room appreciatively. "This room rocks."
"Doesn't it though?" Scarlett said, smiling as she sat crossed-legged on the duvet. "I'm Scarlett Potter, and that's Lily Evans."
"Nice to meet you both," she said, smiling cordially. "Emmeline Vance."
"Likewise," Lily smiled. She looked over at the Indian girl settling into the bed next to her. "Hey, what's your name?"
"Kumara Gite," she said softly. Lily could tell she was shy by nature.
"Lily Evans," Lily said, grinning. "It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you as well," Kumara said, smiling sheepishly. She went to get her trunk and was having some difficulty.
"Here, let me help," Lily said, pulling it along with her.
"Hey, I need help too," the blond girl said, goofily feigning weakness. "Somebody save me…"
"You poor thing," Lily joked, pulling her trunk over. "All better now?"
"Remarkably, yes," she said, smiling widely. "Thanks for your help, Lily Evans."
"Your welcome…"
"Alice Grey," she said, finishing Lily's sentence.
"Your welcome, Alice Grey," Lily giggled.
As all of them slowly changed into their pajamas and crawled into bed, Lily smiled to herself, feeling remarkably at home.
---
"Try this one."
"No, it's gross-looking."
"Try it!"
"I don't wanna…."
It was early December, and Lily and Scarlett were having a girl's night in while James and Sirius were "up to no good," in their own melodramatic words. Alice, Kumara and Emmeline were all down in the Common Room, so the two had the dorm to themselves. Scarlett's older brother, Mitch, had brought the two back sweets from his Hogsmeade trip, and Scarlett was trying to get Lily to eat a questionable-looking Bertie Bott's Bean.
"Never!" Lily protested, pushing Scarlett's bean-holding hand away from her.
"Fine," Scarlett sighed, tossing it over her shoulder as it landed with a light tick on the flagged-stone floors.
"Hey did you finish McGonagall's essay?" Scarlett asked as Lily devoured a Pumpkin Pasty, her favorite try yet.
"Yeah," Lily said with her mouth full. "And no, you cannot copy it."
"Why not?" she asked desperately. "C'mon Lily I'm never gonna do anything that has to do with Transfiguration!"
"Oh really," Lily said sarcastically, knowing full-well how many careers Transfiguration became useful in. "What would that be?"
"I'm gonna steal Decarte's job," Scarlett said, grinning like she was a complete genius. Professor Decarte was the Divination Teacher who was widely considered to be the World's Biggest Crackpot.
"Hah!" Lily laughed.
"I'm serious! It's an easy job, just make up junk off the top of your head and say it's prophecy! That sounds like a sweet gig to me."
"Well, James has already tried to buy it off me, and I said no," Lily told her. "Just give it a shot."
Scarlett sat in silence for a moment, staring at Lily scrutinizingly.
"You have a thing for James, don't you?" Scarlett asked her in barely more than a whisper.
"What?" Lily sputtered, taken aback that she'd be so forward about it. "What brought that up?"
"That stupid, goofy grin you got on your face when you said his name," Scarlett said, pointing at Lily's face, which was still incidentally wearing the goofy grin.
"There's no grin…" Lily said rather weakly, only grinning bigger.
"Hah! There is!" Scarlett announced. "You do like him!"
"So what if I do?" Lily said, slightly defensive.
"Oh Lil, don't be like that," Scarlett said, grinning. "It's okay. It's the James Potter charm."
"It has a name?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Sure," she said, biting into a Licorice Wand. "James named it a couple weeks after school started."
"Okay, fine, I do," Lily admitted. Scarlett looked at her for a moment.
"Can I give you some advice?" Scarlett asked.
"Sure…" Lily said uncertainly.
"Don't tell him, if you were thinking about it," Scarlett said. "Not right now anyway." Lily nodded, but said nothing.
"It's not that he wouldn't like you, Lily," Scarlett said reassuringly. "Trust me, James would be more than lucky to have someone as beautiful and as smart as you. It's just…" she trailed off, looking for the right words. "He's just too immature right now. He's my cousin and I love him, but he's immature. He won't deal with it properly. Give it some time, wait until you guys are a little older."
"Okay," Lily said softly, nodding. "I will."
"Good," Scarlett said, smiling. "Okay, try this one now."
Later, after Scarlett had gone to sleep, Lily snuck down to the deserted Common Room, seating herself on the sofa, her legs tucked under her arms up against her chest as she stared into the fire. She thought about what Scarlett had said. She knew she didn't have any reason not to trust Scarlett and that she wouldn't say that to sabotage her, but she still really wanted to tell James. She wasn't even sure what for, she knew that he might not feel the same and she'd screw up her friendship with him. Or even if he did like her, what would they do about it? Lily's father had a strict "no-dating-until-you're-fifteen-rule", and while he'd probably never know, Lily would never break her promise to him. She just wanted to know, she supposed, if he felt the same.
Just then, James and Sirius attempted to sneak back in without anyone noticing. Lily decided to scare them a bit.
"Fifty points from Gryffindor!" she shrieked in her very best impression of McGonagall. The two of them yelped like little girls and nearly jumped out of their skin. Lily proceeded to laugh her butt off.
"Geez, Lily…" Sirius said, panting from the shock. "You scared the bah-jesus out of me."
"Good, that has to come out some way, you know," Lily said jokingly.
"What are you still doing up?" James asked, sitting down next to her on the sofa.
"Couldn't sleep," she shrugged. "Scarlett's up there, snoring like a buzz saw."
"A what?" Sirius and James asked in unison.
"Never mind," Lily said. That sometimes reminded her of talking to her parents about wizarding stuff, that "What?". She found it entertaining. "She's snoring loudly."
"Oh," Sirius yawned. "Why didn't you just say that?"
Lily laughed.
"I'm going to bed," Sirius said, going up the stairs. "Night, James."
"Night, Sirius."
And then there were two.
"So how was being 'up to no good'?" she asked.
"Boring," James said. "Remus couldn't come with us."
"Remus?" Lily asked.
"He's the little sandy haired kid who sits behind me in Potions. Nice kid, but he was sick tonight."
"Aw," Lily said. "That sucks."
"Yeah, but oh well. He'll be better soon."
Lily looked into James's eyes. He looked so honest, so sincere. She rarely saw that James. He was always usually so cavalier, so 'throw-caution-to-the-wind-gosh-darn-the-consequences', but she really liked this James, when he wasn't acting brave or silly, he was just… a person.
"I better go to bed," Lily said, stopping herself before she said anything stupid. She got up and went to the stairs. "Night James."
"Night Lily."
Scarlett was right, Lily said to herself as she climbed the stairs. She should wait. Until he's ready.
Lily wondered when that would be.
Liked it? Then REVIEW! Even if you didn't like it REVIEW!
BTW if anyone didn't catch on, the two girls, Alice and Kumara are supposed to be Neville's and Parvati's mothers respectively.
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