Chapter Four

(Lily Potter)

Ever since our battle in the air, the Malfoy twins had not picked a fight with me again. If they said anything to Hugo when I wasn't around, he never told me about it, and I never thought to ask. They continued to strut around the school as if they owned the place, surrounded by people, but they never acknowledged our presence, and I saw fit to repay their favour.

Classes went on as the blustery breezes changed to cold whipping winds as Halloween passed. I had been taken on to the Gryffindor Quidditch team as Seeker, and practices were held so often that I hadn't realized how long I'd been at Hogwarts. Dad wrote to me almost everyday, and I knew it was because he missed me at home. Mum was a bit more tactful and hid her feelings: she wrote about once a week. On Halloween Grandma Molly sent a batch of cookies she'd baked in the shape of bats and pumpkins and I laughed at her creativity. Mum was never the homely type, and didn't bother with things like baking; especially in complicated shapes- trying would just confuse her.

On the day of our first match of the season against Hufflepuff, Mum sent me a pair of gorgeous red and gold Seeker's gloves, with my initials, LMP, embossed in gold near the base. With it, she sent a note wishing me the best of luck, but adding that if I was truly Dad and her daughter, I wouldn't need it. I smiled at my mother's confidence, and hoped that I didn't disappoint her.

'Mom sent those, didn't she?' James had arrived for breakfast, alone for once. He sat down next to me and grinned at the gloves. 'She sent me a pair of Chaser's gloves, too, on the day of my first match.' He turned mine over and laughed. 'Mine had JHP embossed on them.' He looked at me and I think it struck him that I was nervous. At any rate, I felt like I would hurl everything I'd eaten on to the pitch before kicking off. 'Nervous, honey?' I nodded shakily. No point in lying. 'How come? You're an amazing flier!' He brought his head closer to mine and whispered conspiratorially, 'You know, I think you're the best flier of us all. You're the youngest, and I know you feel like you have to prove yourself, but you really don't! We all know you're amazing. So you know what?' I finally looked up at him. He smiled, and he really looked like Dad, despite the obvious difference in the colour of his eyes. 'Just have fun, okay? Promise me that you'll have fun?'

I nodded and managed a grin. 'Thanks, James. That helped a lot.'

He winked. 'I'd wish you luck, but I know that you don't need it. Now let's go!'

As soon as I was up in the air, soaring over everyone else, watching for the snitch, all my terror was washed away, replaced by a firm determination to do my best; whenever Gryffindor scored, I let out my joy and did a few loop-the-loops; I yelled in encouragement every time I passed by Victoire near the hoops she was guarding. Alex and Dominique stopped to chat once in a while whenever they were smacking the Bludger away from me. I was fulfilling my promise to James as well: I was having a good time.

I remembered watching Mum's memory in her diary once, where she'd played Quidditch in her Gryffindor robes, hair whipping around her. And ever since, it'd become my dream to play in these robes, with printed across my back. And now it had come true! I was living my dream, I was playing for Gryffindor! But I kept my head in the game; the first time I caught sight of the Snitch hovering at the foot of the Slytherin goalposts, Gryffindor was leading by 30 points. I dived, accelerating rapidly, and I knew the opposing Seeker was hot on my trail; he was gaining on me and I flattened myself against the wood, speeding up. Thompson overtook me and extended his hand out to grab the Snitch, but he fumbled with it and crashed, head-first, into the ground, unable to control his dive. I grabbed the Snitch and turned my broom upwards, hand raised, with the Snitch beating futilely in my fist. The game was over: Gryffindor had won, 190-10!

The celebration which followed in the Gryffindor common room was incredible; Butterbeer, chips, popcorn, cake, cookies, and all sorts of treats were laid out on the tables. People were dancing, cheering, applauding, and singing along to the music playing. The only one I found totally uninterested in the party was Rose, who was sitting in a corner near the fire and reading a book, as always, and casting disapproving looks at the jubilant partiers. I walked up to her.

'Rosie, don't you want something to eat?'

She pasted a totally artificial smile on her face as she looked up at me from her book. 'Oh, no, Lily, I'm fine. I heard you played really well.'

I was surprised. 'You didn't come to watch?'

'No,' she replied. 'I was a bit busy reading. Sorry.' She didn't really look it. 'You know, I should really get back to this, you know. I'll talk to you later.' She got up, patted me on the arm and walked out the portrait hole. I was left stunned in her wake. Victoire walked up to me and, noticing my line of sight, merely chuckled.

'She's one I could never understand.' I looked up at Victoire. Dominique was by her side. She shook her head.

'I don't know how she can be so unsporting,' said Dominique.

'Even Tracy came to watch the match,' Victoire said. 'And Rose didn't. I just don't get her.' She shook her head again. 'Oh well. Great flying, Lils, very well done. Come on, let's go get some food into you, you barely had any breakfast!'

And in the noise and laughter of the party, I forgot about my cousin who sat alone in the library, reading.

As the Christmas break came around, all of us prepared to go home. We'd packed our trunks ahead of time and went down to the snow-carpeted grounds for a snowball fight. We divided into four teams. Again, I noticed that Rose decided to sit out the match, while Tracy was the referee. We had a lot of fun hiding behind our forts, which were large piles of snow, and throwing snowballs at each other. I hit more times than I got hit, but in the end it was a tie between our team and Victoire's. Sopping wet, we all trooped back into the Gryffindor common room to collect our trunks; we went to Professor Longbottom's room to Floo back to the Burrow, where all of us were supposed to stay over during the Christmas break. The journey through the fire dried us so that when we arrived at the Burrow, we were toasted and blackened with soot. Grandma Molly, with her bright red hair now streaked liberally with grey, fussed over us with a brush, dusting us all down before we settled at the kitchen table for lunch.

Once all our parents and aunts and uncles had started earning, they'd decided that it was time to renovate the Burrow. A large plot beside it had been bought and the house had been expanded. The floors above had been rebuilt, rooms and bathrooms had been added here and there, but the original sense of home and cosiness had remained. The kitchen had been expanded and a new, longer wooden table to seat 16 had been added. Sometimes, when it all became too much, they resorted to the old way: they would join tables in the garden and sit there.

After lunch, we took our things upstairs to our allotted rooms and settled down. I was sharing with Rose and Dominique on the top floor, with Albus, James and Hugo in the room beside ours. Victoire, Tracy and Charlie's daughter Simone were sharing a room on the floor below us, with Alex, Fred and Ted together as their neighbours. The two top floors were all to ourselves, with our parents in the floors below, and we had a blast! Christmas was easily the most fun time of the year, because we spent the days either out in the garden having snowball fights, in the orchard playing Quidditch, helping Grandma prepare Christmas dinner or all around the fire, listening to our parents and grandparents telling us stories. None of us, not even Teddy or Victoire, the eldest of our generation, were too old to listen to the stories and we all paid our full attention, because our parents were great storytellers. Either it was that, or the fact that these stories were still so real to them that the emotions that it evoked in them made their storytelling even more realistic.

On Christmas Eve, we all sat around the fire; even our parents were seated on the ground. Only Grandma and Grandpa, with the firelight reflecting off his bald head, were sitting on their stuffy armchairs. We were having our favourite story-telling session, the one which had become a ritual, almost, for Christmas Eve; over steaming mugs of hot chocolate, and in our pyjamas, the grandparents and parents told us the stories of how they had met for the first time, and how each of their friends and families' had reacted to their marriage and so on. Despite listening to the same tales so many times, none of us ever got bored, because each time, a new fact would appear in front of us, or another detail would be added to make tears, either of mirth or sorrow, roll down our cheeks.

Late at night, around 1:30, we all marched up to bed, eyes thick with sleep, but all satisfied at the thought of presents and turkey when we next woke up. I smiled when I walked in on Victoire kissing Teddy goodnight; it always made me smile to see couples like that. They looked so at peace when they were around each other. I walked sleepily up to my room and curled up under my covers and wondered when I would find my prince charming; when I would find the man who would make me feel so at peace with myself. I yawned and closed my eyes…well, if I didn't have him at present, at least I could dream about him for now…

I was dragged off my bed and carried downstairs by James, who didn't want me to miss the opening of the presents before lunch. It was already 12:30 and I only cracked my eyes open when James put me down on the carpet in front of the Christmas tree. I saw a shining red present in front of me and grabbed hold of it. It was soft and bulky and I ripped open the paper to find a scarlet jumper with a golden Snitch in front. There was also a package of fudge in it, and I knew it was from Grandma, so I got up and hugged her. Everyone else had received similar presents from her, including the adults. I watched with amusement as Ron tore open the present Freddie had gotten him and we laughed when he chucked the socks against the opposite wall with a yell of fright: they were patterned with spiders. I heard Hugo moan beside me; Grandma had given him a maroon jumper again: Hugo hated maroon, but Grandma never seemed to remember that.

I turned to the rest of my presents: Hugo and Rose had given me a large book (typically) about great Quidditch matches in history, with several coloured, moving pictures; Fred had given me a package of Wheezes merchandise; Victoire, Dominique and Alex had given me a pair of slippers in the shape fluffy bunnies which made me giggle; Simone had given me a skirt made of black dragonskin from Romania; Tracy had given me a bottle of ink that changed colour as I wrote; Teddy had given me a pendant in the shape of my initials; Dad gave me a Broomstick Servicing Kit; Alice sent me a pretty silver bracelet; Christine sent me a t-shirt which read, "I get prettier everyday. I can't wait for tomorrow!" Sam sent me an eagle feather quill and Andrew sent me a football jersey for a team called Liverpool which he supported.

But the biggest surprise was when Mum called me aside and handed me a small green package. I plonked myself down on the arm of her chair and tore open the paper. Inside was a beautiful gilded scarlet leather-bound diary; I opened it - the pages were blank.

'That's for you. When I was your age, I had kept a diary myself, and I thought it would be a nice present for you as well.'

'Thanks, Mum!' I hugged her. But she wasn't done!

'There's something else inside,' she said. I removed the diary and saw another one, identical, but older. It had writing inside the top cover. It read, "This diary belongs to Ginevra Molly Weasley" in elegant, curly script. I looked up at Mum in wonder. She smiled again, this time with a twinkle in her eyes. 'I think it's time you got to know your mum a bit better. I went through a lot from your age onwards, and I know you'll never come to me for advice, so I though I'd let you read my diary, so that you can learn from the mistakes I made. Besides,' she winked, 'This holds several tips about boys, so I daresay it'll come in handy. Take care of it, okay, sweetheart? And don't tell the others what this is. They'll get jealous.'

I hugged her again. 'I love you, Mum! This is the best present ever!'

I could feel her smile as she pressed her lips to the red locks falling over my forehead. 'Love you too.'

Then Dad came and lifted me up into the air. I screamed piercingly, but playfully and he brought me down, closer to himself, and held me tight. 'So, what's that, huh? What secrets are you and your mother sharing, hmm?'

Mum and I giggled in unison. 'I can't tell you,' I whispered.

'Oh,' Dad sighed. 'I know what this is about. How come she gets to read it, and I don't?' Dad demanded of Mum. I didn't wait to watch the outcome of their conversation. I loaded my arms with my presents and hauled them up to my room and dumped them into the trunk. I pulled on my

jumper over my striped pyjamas, stuffed my feet into the bunny slippers and ran down the stairs to sit at the table for a huge and delicious Christmas lunch. As tradition dictated, we had breakfasted on Grandma's fudge while opening the presents and now we demolished three entire turkeys for lunch.

The day continued in laughter and fun, as did the rest of the vacation. Soon, it was the last evening before we had to return to Hogwarts and we were again bidding our farewells with stories from the adults, this time about their first days at Hogwarts, again over steaming mugs of hot chocolate. This time, however, we had to get to bed early, so that we could get up early the next morning and Floo back to Hogwarts with our owls and trunks in tow.

Yeah, sorry for the late updates. Been busy with a wedding in the family! But in this chapter, I mainly wanted to underline Lilly's relationship with everyone in her family; there's going to be plenty more of James later as well. And if you're thinking about Rose being such a b****, well, yeah, there's a reason for that as well. So, now all you have to do is REVIEW!