The bedroom door creaked open, and Lily opened one bleary eye to see Alice, dressed in black, leaving the room. The bleak blue of early dawn peeked through drawn curtains.
It was funeral day.
Lily's chest constricted painfully and she was suddenly filled with anxious unease that tingled all the way down to her toes. She didn't want to wake Jane and alert Alice to her waking, so as Lily silently panicked, she closed to pretend she was still asleep. Alice took one last look behind her, at her sleeping friends, before closing the door with a muffled whoosh against the carpeted floor.
There was a beat of calm silence that filled the room, before Lily heard the bedsheets rustle beside her. There was a slight commotion downstairs, Mr. and Mrs. Evans saying a cheery farewell and thank you, and Petunia grumbling as she shut the front door.
"Goodbye Alice." Jane's quiet voice whispered.
8 hours before
"You two make it look like I'm the one dying."
Lily and Jane looked guiltily at one another, sitting in Lily's bedroom late at night, surrounded by shopping bags and new clothes, listening to Alice teach them how to apply makeup and her rants about their new looks stunning the boys back at school into silence.
("NO! Don't you dare open that bag Evans!"
"Why not? What's inside? Is it a surprise?"
"Because I said so, and no. It's mine. It's...the personal stuff."
"Oh! Oh dear, okay. Girl problems, I getcha. Bleh, now just get it out of my face."
"Don't give it to me Lily!")
They had just covered the unfortunate topic of Potter's mum dying for the upteenth time and Alice had had enough. It wasn't even HER funeral, but their goodbye's felt like she was never going to see them again.
"I know it's depressing, but can't you two be reminded that it's James fucking Potter we're talking about here? The largest git in history? Your faces make it seem like he was a saint!"
"Yeah, Alice, but that doesn't make it any less sad. I feel bad for him."
"But Jane, you shouldn't feel bad for him. Sure, he may be a grade A arsehole, but he's doing it just to seek attention too. Losing his mum doesn't suddenly give us the permission to pity him."
"Now that I think of it, we don't even know what she died of."
"Dragon pox, Jane. Uncle Sam told me. Isn't it so sad, though?"
"I guess…" Lily mumbled, pulling at the end of her long hair.
They quickly moved onto another subject, after Alice had drilled into their minds that she would be back to meet them at Platform 9 ¾ but until then they were on their own. Which meant she had to cram a huge amount of beauty tips into a one night lesson on how to walk in heels, ("If the time ever calls for it, you never know.") apply makeup, do their hair, and dress. Really dress, not just throw something on.
"Everything else, like the basics, I would expect you two to know. We've been going through the motions of a healthy lifestyle enough that it should be ingrained in your brain cells along with all those spells from school. If you forget, or you just can't come up with an answer on your own, consult the interwebs, because I'm sure muggles have a few tricks up their sleeves, even if they don't have magic to help them."
Alice then sent a terrifying glare in their directions, "And if I find out you two have quit on our mission, I will personally find you and kill you."
They both gulped.
"You know that 10 quid I still owe you Lily? It's going into a new bet." Alice had a hair curler in one hand and bottle of new perfume in the other. "I will bet you that 10 quid that no one will be able to recognize you the moment you step onto the Hogwarts Express."
Lily rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, of course they'll recognize me. I still look like me, even though I'm skinnier and without the glasses. Plus, you do know that if you lose, you owe me 20 quid instead of just 10." Jane didn't look so sure though.
"Yeah, but Alice has a point: it's not like anyone will think about us changing. They have known us for 7 years to be these fat girls with no chance. Suddenly we're gorgeous? It'll throw them all for a loop."
"Exactly!" Alice brandished a stiletto heel in Jane's direction, making Jane yelp, "They won't know what hit them. It'll be exactly how I imagine it to be: the Marauders with helpless jaws open, pointed fingers, hushed whispers of worshipping awe, Darcy and Charlotte's hateful faces painted with jealousy, the gleeful looks of Declan Parish and Thomas Brown, and then ME!" Alice sang, "ME, THE MASTERFUL ARTIST IN DISGUISE, THE DIRECTOR BEHIND THE RED CURTAIN, MAKING MY GRAND DEBUT WITH FRANK TO APPLAUD MY GENIUS AND MY TWO BEAUTIFUL MODELS TO SHOW THE WORLD HOW AMAZING I AM!" Alice had the heel pressed to her chest like a baby, and sighed dreamily.
Crickets chirped in the background.
"Oi, earth to Alice, you there?" Jane snorted as Lily moved a hand back and forth over Alice's lost face. "Did you die and go to self-center heaven or what?" Alice snapped from her trance and pouted.
"You guys are no fun!"
The three girls continued like this, jokes and girl business, until they all yawned, got ready to go to bed and settled into their respective spots around Lily's mattress, sleeping bags and all.
"Goodnight loser #1."
"Sweet dreams sucker #2."
"You can all go to hell, bitches." Alice finally ended. Of course the last goodnight had to be the worse. "Just kidding. Hope you two drown in your drool." In which Lily countered with a "I know you fart in your sleep," at the same time Jane said "You snore like an airplane taking off."
"Ugh, that's the thanks I get for making you guys over. Well, fuck you two, too." They all cackled at the homonym, and all simultaneously said, "Just kidding."
"Jinx!" They all scrambled for Lily's wooden desk chair, and Alice got it first, grinning evilly.
"You owe me 10 quid, Evans."
"In your dreams, Prewett, deal with a soda."
The two brushed their teeth and sat at Lily's dining table, Petunia already seated and munching on cereal as Mr. Evans was cooking up scrambled eggs and bacon.
"Hungry girls?" They all hummed back in agreement.
Lily looked around curiously for her mum as Jane went to the fridge to get orange juice as if it was second nature.
"Lily, mum went out to get milk, since we ran out. Petunia got the last drops this morning." There was a bored "yep" from said person.
Once they were all seated and were quietly dining on breakfast, Mr. Evans with his newspaper and cup of tea, there was silence all around the table, only the clinking of glasses and silverware. At around 7 past, Mr. Evans glanced at the clock and straightened, drinking up the last dregs of the tea before kissing Lily and Petunia goodbye before heading off to work.
"Goodbye dad." They each said.
"Goodbye girls. Have fun, don't kill each other." He chuckled back.
Funny enough, the minute he said that, hand on the door and his head turned back to the dining room, he had the door hit him right in the face with the entrance of Mrs. Evans, a manic glee painted on her face as she held a bag of Tesco's in one hand and mail in the other.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry darling." Mrs. Evans gently rubbed the little red spot that had appeared on her husband's forehead. "I didn't see you there." She chuckled, which only made the tears of mirth and pain on Mr. Evans face trickle out faster.
"No worries, sweetheart, I'll be fine. Nothing but a little wake-up call." He chuckled and kissed her cheek, saying a quick goodbye before leaving the house, safely this time.
While all this happened, the girls had set their empty dishes in the sink and Petunia disappeared into her room as she did every morning of every day since the arrival of her sister's "friends" whom she had called "freaks".
So there we have it folks. A few days before school, and the girls have exciting news. Now just WHAT exactly the world has in store for them, no one will know. But sometimes it takes looking below the surface to find an adventure just waiting to be found.
Thanks for reading and please review, follow or favorite!~ :D
