A/N: I hope you like the story so far! I just want to say thanks to Vampire8 and Squidcats for adding this story to your alerts - it makes me very, very happy :)
Disclaimer: As much as I would love to say this isn't true, I do not own the awesomeness that is Harry Potter - only my OCs are mine.
"Oi! Small people!" Lily raised an eyebrow as she turned away from the slice of chocolate gateau in front of her to meet the gaze of another cousin of hers, Jasper Weasley. He was much the same build as his father, Bill, and was very good looking – a trait most likely received from his part Veela mother,
Fleur. Or 'Phlegm', as Ginny called her, out of earshot. Despite being a huge fifth year Beater, he cowered under the look she gave him, before she began smiling at his expression. Jasper grinned back at her, realising she wasn't angry. He was the cousin she got on best with – he was the only one that actually empathised.
"Anywho," he continued, grinning. "For some reason I'm a prefect this year. So after the feast, you know who to come to. Ignore Prissy over there," Finn said, gesturing to the other fifth year prefect, Pricilla Wold. "She's gonna bite your head off if you go near her."
"Jasper. You do remember me telling you to stop pissing her off, don't you?" asked Albus, who had heard the whole conversation from his seat.
"Eavesdropping, Al?" asked Jasper, smirking.
"Naturally. I'm a Potter."
Jasper grinned again at Albus' deadly serious face. Lily looked across the table to Jazz, and said, "favourite cousin," to her questioning look.
"Lily!" came a shocked gasp from further up the table. Julie, Jasper's older sister, was staring at her, clearly affronted. "How come my little pest of a brother is your favourite? Not me?"
"Well, stabbing me in the eye last month with your wand didn't really help," Lily countered.
"Wait, what?" That was Fred. "Jasper is your favourite? Not me with my charming wit and devilish good looks?"
Suddenly Lily found herself mobbed by all sixteen Weasley cousins, all wanting to know why they were not favoured, all except Jasper, who was merely watching the interrogations. Lily shot a pleading look at him, but immediately regretted it, as all he did was stand up, and say, "why can't you just accept that I am clearly the best of you all?"
Ten minutes later, Professor McGonagall was standing up, having laughed her fill at the mashed-potato-covered Jasper, all of which had been thrown by Julie, before he had been knocked over, and Fred had shouted "BUNDLE!" at the top of his voice, before jumping over the table on to Jasper, and the rest of the Weasleys had followed. They were all still lying on the floor in the gap between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables, the latter being considerably emptier. Lily was beside herself laughing, and Leo had fallen off his seat out of mirth, straight on to the mountain of redheaded teenagers on the floor, most of whom were now covered in mashed potato.
"WEASLEY!" McGonagall shouted, and every single one of the floored Weasleys turned their heads towards her, each with exactly the same expression upon their face – it seemed to be saying, "what did I do?"
The Headmistress had to try very hard to restrain herself from laughing again, but succeeded in maintaining her composure, despite a slight smile. This differed dramatically from the rest of the student body – all of whom had given up trying to shovel puddings into their mouths, as the laughter was causing many to gag if they did.
"All of you – yes, all of you – I want to see you in my office tomorrow at 7pm sharp!" cried McGonagall. "Now go sit back down!"
All of the Weasleys trudged back to their seats, with many grumbles of "Sadie, you have such pointy elbows", "you idiot, Karl, you gave me a dead leg!" and "fuck, Julie, it's gonna take me absolutely ages to get all this bloody potato out of my hair!"
"Lily, why couldn't you have just kept your mouth shut?" groaned Jasper, massaging his stomach where Fred had landed, and sat heavily back down in his seat. Lily completely failed to respond, as she was laughing so much it was silent, and tears were streaming down her face as she sucked air into her lungs. Jazz, Leo, Finn and, well, the rest of the school, were in similar positions.
It wasn't until half an hour later that everyone had finally calmed down, and pulled seconds from the cakes, ice creams, tarts, and jellies that covered the tables in front of them. Finally, after another half hour, the plates were scraped clean, and Professor McGonagall demanded that all the students headed to bed, and issued the traditional order of "first years, follow the prefects to your dormitories," as well as saying that as it was a Saturday, lessons would not start until Monday. As per previous instruction, the Gryffindor first years walked towards Jasper, Lily grabbing her shoes off the floor along the way, and he led them up seven flights of occasionally moving staircases, before they reached a portrait of a fat woman in a pink dress. He said the password, and the portrait swung open to reveal a large, cosy common room covered in red squashy armchairs, small circular tables, and a large, crackling fire. Many Gryffindor banners decked the walls.
"Welcome to Gryffindor Tower, this is our common room, and the dormitories are through those two doors. Girls are over there, and boys over there," said Jasper, pleased that he hadn't screwed up. Much. But, claiming that they were his minions (jokingly, of course) didn't really count. Probably. "Now, everyone go to bed, and you'll find your shit-" this earned him a sharp jab in the side from Pricilla "-right, sorry, not your shit, your stuff, in your rooms already." And swearing at the first years is probably not the best idea either, he reasoned.
The first years dispersed to their respective dorms, but Lily had already sped off as soon as Jasper told her which dorms were which. Dragging her pyjamas out of her trunk and claiming the bed next to the window, dumping her shoes on it, she rushed into the adjoining bathroom with a towel, showered the muddy water off herself and out of her robes, before drying and switching into her pyjamas. The trousers featured sheep jumping over fences. It made many people drowsy to look at them.
When she returned to the dorm room, the other three girls had arrived and chosen their beds. Jazz had claimed the one on the other side of the window, while the other two girls – Phoebe Patil and Zara Western – had taken the remaining two beds. Suddenly, she remembered something, and ran out of her dormitories to the common room. Noticing James was still in the common room, she sprinted up the stairs to the boy's dormitories, clutching a tin of a suspicious-looking blue liquid from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Reaching the fourth-year's dormitories, she quickly glanced around, and found her brother's bed. Tipping the whole can carefully over it, she hid the empty tin under the bed, and ran back to her dormitory.
All of the girls were also in their pyjamas. She jumped on to her bed, and flopped backwards. She sighed contentedly, and thought about her first day. Her imagination extended the thoughts to her father's first year, and how he became a hero so soon.
It's not fair. I don't get what James and Al did. How did they live up to all this flipping expectation? Lily scowled at the hangings above her, and sat up to draw the curtains. But before she did, she grinned as she heard a yell from the boys' dormitories. Still smiling, she reached up and tugged on the curtains. The other girls had jumped at the shout, but Jazz had seen Lily's face and was looking at her suspiciously. As the girl opened her mouth to say something, they suddenly heard the pounding of feet from at the bottom of the stairs, before another yell of surprise, and the sound of a heavy body tumbling downwards. At this, Lily jumped up and looked out of the door to see James lying at the bottom of the stairs in a heap, as they had turned into a giant slide, his robes tangled around him. Lily burst out laughing at the sight.
James rapidly disentangled himself, and stood up, but stood on the hem of his robes, and fell backwards on to Jasper, who had appeared behind him to see what was going on. Lily laughed even harder as Jasper was crushed for the second time that day.
"LILY! WHAT DID YOU DO?" shouted Jasper, from underneath James, who was pulling himself up to save himself from further embarrassment. At almost exactly the same time, James shouted as well.
"LILY! YOU ARE DEAD WHEN YOU GET DOWN HERE!"
Lily just stood, laughing at the two boys at the foot of the slide, and yelled, "You can't catch me from here, Jamesie boy!"
Lily wobbled slightly as another wave of laughter overcame her, and the other girls appeared behind her. Phoebe, being by far the shortest, and at the back, pushed her way forwards, but not realising that she had made Lily step forwards on to the slide. Immediately she slipped straight down, and as she neared the bottom, noticed the expression of glee upon her brother's face.
Oh crap, she thought.
Landing a lot more gracefully than her brother had done, Lily ducked under his outstretched arms, and ran into the common room. James chased her all over the common room, and she had to climb over people and sofas to get away. It didn't help that Fred had turned up and started singing "RUN RABBIT, RUN RABBIT, RUN, RUN, RUN!" at the top of his voice.
Lily was laughing as James eventually caught up with her, picked her up, and tossed her over his shoulder. She immediately started kicking and screeching in his ear; she didn't like being trapped. She had almost forgotten there were still other people from the dormitories descending the stairs (the girl's slide had changed back to stairs) to see what the commotion was about. Being a girl with surprisingly good aim – her beater skills coming into play; James was often suspicious of how good at being a beater she was, as she was so much better than him, and such a small person – she very quickly hit her target. James let out a cry of pain and dropped his sister as her foot hit him in the groin. She grinned in triumph over her older brother, as he was writhing in pain on the floor of the common room, before turning and running to the girl's staircase in a yellow-sheep-covered and red-haired blur before Fred could catch up. She needn't have worried; Fred was standing in shock, along with the rest of the Gryffindor house – it didn't seem possible that a tiny first year girl could reduce a fourteen-year-old boy, generally viewed as practically invincible, to a crying heap on the floor.
"Well, James. I guess you shouldn't try to kill your little sister any more," said Fred. James just moaned in response.
Gradually, over the next half hour, people trickled out of the common room, eventually leaving just James, who was still on the floor, and Albus, who had been sat on the sofa, reading a book and completely ignoring the proceedings. He was used to similar events. They happened almost daily at home. Which is why Albus couldn't grasp why he and James were expected to "burn the house down", as Harry put it, if they shared a room. Wait, it was because James and Lily would not only burn the house down, they would make the whole of Dover go up in flames.
Safely back in her dormitory, Lily sat on her bed and read until everyone else had returned.
"Um… Lily…" It was Jazz who broke the silence first. Lily looked up from Hogwarts: A History to find all three girls she shared a dorm with staring at her; Jazz curiously, Phoebe fearfully, and Zara warily.
"Yes…" Lily drew out the syllable, taking her time speaking.
"What did you do?" asked Zara, getting straight to the point.
Lily laughed softly. "Well, you know Weasley Wizard Wheezes? The one George Weasley owns?" Murmurs of agreement came from the three Gryffindors. Well, he's just created this vanishing liquid stuff, and I sort of tested it. On James' bed."
"Seriously?" cried Phoebe, her long blonde ponytail swinging slightly as she responded with vigour.
"Yes, seriously," Lily replied, a mischievous grin on her face.
"What did it do?" asked Jazz curiously.
"Well, what it was supposed to do was make James' bed vanish when he went to sit on it, but then reappear above him when he wanted to sit up again. And I'm assuming, by him being so pissed off with me, that it did exactly what it said on the tin."
Hoots of laughter escaped the girls' mouths, as they all remembered James running like an idiot to catch up with Lily. Eventually, they all realised how late it actually was, and lay down to sleep. Lily had let Jim out of his picnic basket, and he had curled up by her side, his belly and paws the deep purple they always turned when he was asleep.
Lily, however, could not switch her head off. She tossed and turned, disturbing Jim regularly. Finally deciding enough was enough, she sat up in her bed, and pulled some parchment and a quill out of her trunk. Because it was so dark, everything appeared in monochrome, so she could not see what colour ink she was using. It didn't matter, though, and after a moment's thought, decided to write to her Uncle George, Fred's dad.
George
It's been less than a day here, and loads has happened already. Fred and Jasper have already got all of the Weasleys in what looks like a detention, by, ahem, Fred getting offended that he's not my favourite cousin. And then bundling Jasper. In the middle of the Great Hall. During the feast. And everyone else joined in.
It was really funny! You should've been here – I bet you miss Hogwarts loads.
In other news, I just got chased around the common room by Jamsie Poo, because I may have tested out that vanishing liquid stuff on his bed. So now he's pissed off. There's no lessons tomorrow, so he's going to have loads of time to try and get me back. Note the "try".
He's going to fail.
Love,
Lily
Satisfied with her letter, and finally feeling drowsy enough to sleep, Lily folded the letter up and put it under her bed, along with the ink and quill. She turned in her bed, to face out of the window, and gazed at the full moon as she slowly fell into the deep subconscious layers of peaceful rest.
