Chapter Two: A Chocolate Sundae Toast
Lily Evans groaned and rolled over in bed, not willing to get up just yet. Somewhere in the house below, she could already hear her sister yammering away about something or other – probably on the phone to Vernon. She groaned again, burying her head under her pillow.
It wasn't fair. If she didn't live in a Muggle house, she could have easily soundproofed her room, charmed the front lawn to cut itself every few days, magicked the watering can to do the flowers every morning, and turned Petunia into a great, ugly toad by now. But of course, magic was forbidden in front of (or performed on, unfortunately) Muggles.
Lily couldn't wait to get back to Hogwarts. She missed her friends terribly, and she was going into magic withdrawal. She was of age! She deserved to use magic. Only two more weeks. In just two weeks she would be back in Gryffindor Tower where she belonged.
The only problem, the only dark spot on her otherwise bright horizon, was a particular Gryffindor Chaser she was not particularly fond of. She could do without his constant harassment.
But then she remembered all the good things she had to look forward to, and thoughts of Potter were driven way. Just like that, all Lily could think about was how excited she was to go back to school. She couldn't wait to see the castle again, to spend her free periods by the lake, to eat in the Great Hall, to meet the new first years, to watch Quidditch… She grinned thinking about it.
Suddenly, the semi-quiet was broken by a loud tapping noise somewhere above and to the left of her bed. Lily jumped up to let the owl at her window inside before one of the neighbors noticed, and the bird swooped in, dropping a letter in her lap before turning and flying straight back out the open window. Lily left it open.
Noticing immediately the bright purple wax seal on the envelope, she tore into the letter. She read the book list hungrily, relishing in the names of famous witch and wizard authors and the sheer magicalness of the titles, the likes of which she hadn't seen for more than two months. She skimmed over a note from McGonagall detailing the organization of Prefect duties before tossing it aside. It was several moments before she realized the envelope she still held in her left hand was not in fact empty.
Sticking her fingers into the corner of the envelope, Lily extracted a plain silver badge. The letters 'HG' were engraved on it. She stared at it for a long moment, puzzled. Then, when she eventually remembered what HG stood for, she shrieked.
Her door burst open, and her father stood there, looking terrified. "Lily! Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened?"
"I'm Head Girl!" Lily shouted, jumping up and bouncing on her bed in excitement. Her father grinned.
"Congratulations, sweetheart."
"What? What happened?" her mother asked a moment later, appearing suddenly in the doorway, out of breath from hurrying up the stairs. "Is everyone alright?"
"More than alright, Mum!" Lily exclaimed, bouncing down onto he floor and rushing across the room to show her parents the badge. "I'm Head Girl! Oh we must go to Diagon Alley today."
"What? Oh, Lily!" Mrs. Evans said, smiling widely. "Congratulations! Oh, I'm so proud of you!" She pulled Lily into a bone-crushing hug, strong enough to make anyone forget she was anything less than perfectly healthy. Lily giggled.
"Oh yes, congratulations," Petunia sneered, having finally made it upstairs to see what the commotion was about. "What a great accomplishment. Head Freak of the Freak School." She left, rolling her eyes.
Ignoring his elder daughter, Mr. Evans hugged Lily as well. "This is great, Lils. We'll have to give you some extra money to spend in Diagon Alley when you go shopping. Get yourself something special."
Lily's smile slipped. "Are-aren't you coming with me?" she asked uncertainly. Her parents loved Diagon Alley. They thought it was the "neatest" place in London. She often thought they were more excited to take her school shopping every year than she was to go.
"Not this time, dear. Your father has to work today, and I…" her mother trailed off, looking embarrassed. No one filled in what went unspoken. Lily's mother was too weak.
"Okay," Lily said, forcing a smile.
"I mean, if you really want, I suppose I could-" Mrs. Evans started, but Lily shook her head.
"No, don't worry about it, Mum. It's okay. Really. I know my way around Diagon Alley perfectly well. You get some rest." She leaned in and kissed her mother's cheek, hugged her father once more, and ushered them out of her room so she could get ready. She did her best to ignore the apologetic look on her mother's face.
X
Lily showered and dressed quickly before scarfing down breakfast as fast as she could without choking – ignoring Petunia's sneered, "You are disgusting." as she did so – and was out the door in twenty minutes flat. She waved to her mum, forced Petunia to hug her ("Oh my god you are such a freak." "Love you too, Tuney." "Don't call me that."), and headed off down the street to the alley she liked to use for disapparating.
Less than a minute later Lily stood in the Leaky Cauldron. She felt oddly lonely as she looked around at other families passing through the pub. Sighing, she headed out the back door to the entrance of Diagon Alley.
Her loneliness disappeared instantly when the brick archway opened up and she saw who was on the other side, having come through the entrance just moments earlier.
"Allie?" Lily said in surprise, and the girl whirled around.
"Lily!" the girl squealed, and immediately Lily was enveloped in a hug, receiving a mouthful of dark hair in the process.
Still spitting out hair, Lily grinned as she pulled away. "Hey, Allie."
Alessandra Riley squealed again and hugged her once more. Lily made sure to keep her mouth closed this time as she hugged back.
"It's so good to see you! I was so sad you couldn't come stay the summer. And then our Hogwarts letters came so late, so we couldn't even catch up here halfway through! It was awful. How lucky we both decided to come today! I've missed you!" Allie said animatedly as the two girls made their way to the high street of Diagon Alley. At the far end of the lane stood Gringotts, huge and white, rising out of the ground and towering above everything else.
"Let's go to the bank first," Lily suggested, interrupting her friend's extremely detailed account of her youngest brother's first time riding a broomstick. "I have to exchange my money."
"Okay," Allie agreed enthusiastically. Lily smiled. She'd missed her friend's rushed and excited manner of speaking. She half listened as Allie launched into a story of how her dad had tried to ride a Muggle bicycle the other week.
"And then he said, 'You're supposed to use your feet?!'" Allie was saying, laughing. Lily smiled. Allie continued to chatter as they went inside Gringotts and found a goblin trading Muggle money for wizard. Allie was still talking as Lily pocketed her bag of gold and silver and led the way outside again.
"So you've heard plenty about my summer now," she said, and Lily realized she'd hardly heard a word of what her friend had just said as they walked toward Flourish and Blotts. "How was yours?"
"Not nearly as interesting as yours," Lily answered her as they went inside. "I spent most of it trying to avoid being in the house whenever Petunia's boyfriend came over and have so far managed to evade meeting him entirely. Mum hates him," she laughed.
"How is your mum?"
Lily smiled a little too brightly. "She's good. The doctors say she's getting better every day." This was a lie, and Lily felt a twinge of guilt as Allie smiled.
"That's great. Tell her hi for me."
"I will." She didn't know why she didn't tell the truth. That her mum was getting weaker and frailer every day and the doctors were concerned she'd have to be hospitalized soon if she didn't get her strength up. That her hands were always cold and the color had sapped from her face. That Lily was terrified she was–
"Lily?"
She blinked, realizing Allie was no longer beside her.
"Over here!" she called from the Transfiguration section. Allie's face appeared around the corner a moment later.
"Don't do that," she scolded. "For a second there I almost started to believe Black's theory that books can eat people."
Lily snorted and pulled out her book list to consult. She glanced up at the shelf and sighed. The textbooks she and Allie needed were ever so conveniently located on the uppermost shelf. Lily stretched up on tiptoe, but even then her fingertips barely skimmed the book spines.
"Need some help?"
Lily froze at the voice, her expression quickly morphing into an impassive mask. She turned slowly to look up at the boy who had offered his help.
"No, thank you, Potter," she coolly.
James Potter looked rather taken aback at her tone, but he smiled easily a moment later. "Well, seeing as I'm here, and my mates and I need those books as well, I'll just grab a couple extras, and if you happen to want them, they'll be sitting right here on this shelf," he said, patting one of the lower shelves.
Lily and Allison watched as James reached up and grabbed three copies of Advanced Transfiguration for Students, Volume 2 and handed them off to Sirius, who had just appeared behind him. Then, grabbing two more copies, he placed them on one of the lower shelves. He took one of the books back from Sirius and smiled at the girls.
"See you around Evans. You look especially nice today, Riley," he commented, glancing at Allie. With that, he and Sirius disappeared.
"I don't know why you won't just go out with him," Allie said, staring after them in mild surprise.
"Oh don't start. Let's get the rest of these," Lily said, brandishing her book list. Reluctantly, she picked up one of the Transfiguration books Potter had left behind.
The two girls gathered the rest of their books and paid before walking down the road to Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. As they approached, they were pleasantly surprised to see two familiar girls seated at one of the tables outside, sharing a giant chocolate sundae.
Lily and Allie grinned at each other and raced toward the table. Their friends looked up in surprise.
"Lily! Allie! When did you get here?" the one with the blonde hair, Ellen Sonders, asked. Ellen had a bookish look about her, which was fitting since she spent most of her free time with her nose stuck in romance novels. While Lily considered Ellen one of her close friends, she often found the other girl's obsession with boys and romance grating. Lily couldn't help but notice the corner of whatever latest sordid affair she was reading about, sticking out of the girl's bag.
"Not long ago," Lily answered. "We've just been to Flourish and Blotts." She held up her bag of books as evidence. "What about you?"
"Oh, we're both staying nearby with my parents until the start of term. They've been visiting friends and site-seeing, and we've been shopping," answered the other girl, Mary Macdonald. Of the four Gryffindor girls in their year, Mary was the most reserved. She could often be seen sitting quietly and patiently as Ellen rambled on and on about some new boy or book. Lily had never understood where the girl's unending patience came from. But Mary was kind and brilliant, and everyone who bothered to get to know her could hardly find a fault with her, except for her crippling shyness.
"So we've been here all week. We've already got all our shopping done. Our lists came yesterday," Mary said.
"Lucky you. Guess who we've already run into today?" Lily asked, rolling her eyes. Ellen giggled and Mary smiled knowingly, which made Lily frown.
"Gee, I wonder," said Mary, grinning.
"Couldn't be a devilishly handsome seventh year Gryffindor Chaser could it?" asked Ellen. Lily rolled her eyes again.
"You know, I'm surprised your eyes aren't constantly rolling around in your head the way you do that every day," said that annoyingly familiar voice from Lily's right. The four girls looked over simultaneously. Allie frowned, Ellen froze with her spoon halfway to her mouth, a blush creeping across her cheeks, and the Mary simply stuck her spoon back into the bowl of ice cream and took another giant scoopful.
"Sod off, Potter," Lily sighed.
"Aw c'mon, Lils. Is that any way to talk to someone you've known and loved for six long years?"
"I haven't loved you for six years," Lily grumbled. "I don't even like you. And don't call me Lils."
To her annoyance, James came over and sat down beside her. She moved over as far as the bench would allow, squashing herself against Allie.
"You don't mean that," he said, looking at her strangely, and for once Lily couldn't tell if he was being serious or not.
"Yes," she said firmly, lest this was some new trick he'd devised. "I do. Now go away."
James looked at her for a long moment, his expression contemplative. Lily glared back until he looked away. Nodding decisively, he stood.
"Alright. See you around Evans," he said. It was the second time he'd said those words that day. Lily watched him go, confused and unsettled for a reason she couldn't quite put her finger on.
Her friends turned to look at each other with raised eyebrows.
"Did he just–?"
"He did."
"But he didn't–"
"I know."
"He didn't–"
"I know."
The three girls looked at each other, baffled. Never, in all the years they had known James to have that strange infatuation with Lily, had he ever come and gone without even hinting at her going out with him. Something was either terribly wrong or he …
"You don't think –?"
"Maybe he finally…"
"No."
"I mean he's completely –"
"But he just –"
"I know."
"This is crazy," Lily declared, annoyed at her friends. "Why do we even care? Maybe this means he's finally gotten it through his thick skull that I'm never going out with him. This is a good thing! Gimme a spoon!"
Ellen handed her a spoon, and Lily dug it into the chocolate sundae. Taking a huge spoonful, she held it up like a toast.
"To Potter," she said, "finally comprehending that I'm not interested," and she stuck the whole giant glob into her mouth. Her friends grinned.
"To Potter," they echoed.