Unfortunately for Lily, Albus could not have been more wrong. Lily had thought she had gotten off to a bad start, but it had been only the tip of the iceberg.
On her first night in the dormitory she had apologized to Hazel, Alanna and Poppy for splattering their robes and ruining their train snacks. Hazel had brushed aside her apology with a grin and Alanna had mumbled 'don't worry about it'. Lily was unsure if Poppy had even heard her, because she got no reply at all.
But the next day, though Alanna and Poppy stuck together, largely ignoring Lily, Hazel at least tagged along at her side as they tried to find their new classrooms in the giant maze of a castle. Hazel was constantly talking, apparently terribly excited for their first week. She also seemed to enjoy the looks that the pair received from the other students who were interested to see that yet another Potter had started at Hogwarts.
Lily had heard it had been much worse for James, as he had been the first to attend Hogwarts since their father graduated. But Albus had also got his fair share of stares and whispering owing to the fact that he greatly resembled their father. Lily on the other hand, was quite small, plain-looking and didn't have the aura of confidence that her brothers exerted, thus allowing her to pass by unnoticed the majority of the time.
She could not go unnoticed however when Professor Slughorn ran down the corridor her yelling her name as she and Hazel were trying to locate their History of Magic classroom. With a dismissive nod to Hazel, Slughorn pulled her aside and greeted her with a huge smile.
'Lily Potter! where have you been my dear? I've been looking for you all morning' He admonished her as though they were good friends.
Lily, quite confused, said 'I've just been looking for my next class… potions isn't until Friday is it sir?'
She began to rummage through her bag to find her timetable but Slughorn stopped her.
'Quite an odd way to go to get to Binns' class' He chuckled, apparently well aware of her schedule.
'It's just I had some very good news for you and wanted to let you know straight away'.
'Good news sir?' After her eventful start to the term, those words sounded marvelous to her.
'I' Slughorn began grandly 'would like to formally request…'
He paused for effect as Lily waited.
'…Your membership into the Slug Club' he finished with an air of gravity.
Lily wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but the Slug Club had been the furthest from her mind. She knew about it because both James and Albus were 'members' and she had heard them mention that Slughorn chose particular students he favored to attend parties every so often.
'Oh… Thank you, sir.' Lily said, a little uncertain but trying to be polite.
'What an honor'.
'I should say!' Slughorn bellowed happily 'Not many first years get an invitation that's for sure. But do you know what my dear- and I do hope you don't mind my saying so- but you remind me so much of your late grandmother. Quite the spitting image actually.'
Lily had been told before that she greatly resembled her grandmother, though since her grandmother had not had any ghastly freckles and looked quite beautiful in all the photos that Lily had seen of her, she had always been quite skeptical of the fact.
'Lilly Evans, now she was a clever witch that's for sure. I never quite noticed her until forth year when she really began to shine. And do you know what my dear? Such a clever witch as she, I always regretted not discovering her earlier!'
Lily was not quite sure what he meant by 'discovering' her- presumedly she'd been there all along- but she nodded along anyway.
'And so my dear it would be quite the honor if you could attend the first Slug meeting of the term, starting in my office at 7pm sharp this Saturday.' His tone made it sound as though it would be all Lily's honor, but nevertheless Lily smiled back and said, 'I would love to sir, thank you'.
'Excellent! Well now that's settled, you'd better hurry! Professor Binns' class is three flights of stairs up to your right.'
Wishing he'd mentioned that fact earlier, Lily said goodbye and rushed off to find a very lost Hazel before sprinting together with her towards Binns' classroom.
Poppy looked very disapproving when they showed up a few minutes late but her mood was placated by the fact that she was able to answer all Binns' questions, at times before he had even finished asking them. Poppy's answers were always longer than they needed to be and in far too much detail. Toward the end of the class, Professor Binns fell into a slumber waiting for her to finish her spiel, and the class was left with Poppy as their sole instructor. Begrudgingly Lily had to admit that the amount of knowledge Poppy had seemingly gained about the history of magic in the few months since she had found out about the magical world to now was really quite impressive- if only she would refrain from explaining it all with her nose in the air and several triumphant glances at Lily.
After History of Magic, they had transfiguration with Professor Montespan who was comparatively young compared to most of the professors at Hogwarts- Lily thought he looked to be around the same age as her father, but with black hair that was much neater than his and dark brown eyes that looked unimpressed at any given time. He seemed less than enthusiastic as he watched the first year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs file in and began the class by explaining that he did not like to teach but as Headmistress McGonagall could find no-one else that meet her high standards for the role, he was doing her a favor and filling in for the time being.
'So, don't get attached' he finished with a smirk and started to hand out matchsticks.
Despite his overt disdain for teaching and Lily's nervousness at having to take out her battered wand again, Lily found that she quite liked his frankness and was relieved that he did not seem all that invested in their progress- especially considering her matchstick remained completely unchanged by all her attempts at their task.
She particularly liked how he didn't take his eyes off of the book he was reading the whole class, even when Poppy ran up excitedly to show him the needle she had successfully transfigured her matchstick into.
'Right, let me know when that's a pincushion' he said throwing a matchbox to her without so much as a glance in her direction.
Lily had no luck in Charms either. The tiny Professor Flitwick had seemed quite excited to have her in his class when he had called out her name off his roll of parchment with a little squick, but in a room full of Ravenclaws and the exceptional Poppy, her inability to produce a shred of magic with her wand was painfully obvious. After many unsuccessful attempts the Professor seemed rather disappointed. To make matters worse, their task was to fix a broken potions flask with the incantation 'Reparo' which all the girl's she had ridden the train with, including Hazel, had already proven they were able to perform.
Out of all the classes she had been looking forward to Defense against the Dark Arts the most, but alas she proved terrible at that too. Their instructor was Professor Guibourg, a chubby, scrubby and bubbly old wizard who had (some decades ago it seemed) been quite the renowned Auror. He seemed to think that Lily's inability to block any of the charms he shot her way was due to a lack of fast reflexes and took to warning her in a rather patronizing manner each time he lifted his wand at her. When her wand didn't respond no matter what blocking spell she yelled or how she swished it through the air, she was forced to fling herself sideways to avoid being hit, much to the amusement of Poppy and their Slytherin classmates.
It was quite a relief for Lily that they had Herbology with Professor Longbottom three times a week. Though she suspected the professor was purposefully giving her the healthiest plants and fungi to look after out of pity for her sub-par magical abilities, she was still thrilled to see that whatever she took under her care thrived noticeably. Coincidentally it was also the one subject that Poppy seemed terrible at. Though she new all the names and properties of whatever Professor Longbottom threw at them, everything she came into contact with seemed to wilt after a while- a fact she vocally blamed Professor Longbottom for.
Astronomy with the Ravenclaws wasn't too bad either as most of it was spent looking through telescopes rather than performing magic and it gave her a chance to try to repair the first impression she had given Maria and Elizabeth. Besides, Lily liked looking at the sky (though she would have preferred to be flying through it). It was a good reminder that their flying classes would be starting soon and that gave her some hope.
She had just been chatting to Maria about which brand of broom she felt was best for each quidditch position when Poppy came by to ruin her mood.
They had been looking at the constellation Cygnus through the telescope they shared, when she came up behind them and said haughtily, 'You do realize you're looking at Aquila'.
Lily jolted in surprise and looked back at her with a frown.
'Are you sure? It looks like the the swan formation here' she showed Poppy the page in her textbook.
'Yes well that would be because Aquila, as you'd know if you'd read that book Potter, is also a bird.' Poppy reached forward and turned the paged of her book until it reached a diagram of the eagle constellation they had been looking at.
'ohh…' Lily said defeated.
'Not to worry Potter. Sometimes things look quite right on the outside but they end up being wrong on the inside- rather disappointing and dull, some might even say' she smirked.
'What's that supposed to mean?' Lily threw the book back down on the table that was supporting their telescope, causing it to wobble and loose the position they had chartered it to.
'Just that I don't think you'll need to worry about aiming for quidditch captain anymore- someone with your magical ineptitude could never hope to-'
'I'd outfly you any day Balfour' Lily cut her off.
'Excellent. Then tomorrow it is!' Poppy exclaimed triumphantly.
'What?' Lily shot back confused.
'Tomorrow, at our flying lesson- that's when you'll try to outfly me' Poppy stared back, unblinking.
'Don't be daft. We can't race each other- we'll get into trouble…' Lily sounded pathetic even to herself.
'Well then I guess you can't outfly me any day' Poppy's tone was light but her words went like daggers into Lily's pride.
'Fine! but we-'
'How grand, I'll let everyone know it's on then' as usual Poppy didn't wait for Lily to finish what she was saying. After fiddling with her and Maria's telescope for a little she walked off with a snarky 'and that's what Cygnus looks like, in case you were wondering'.
By the time their astronomy class was over and the first years had begun heading back to their dormitories, Lily was fuming. She could see the back of Poppy's beautiful shiny blonde head as she descended the steps of the tower in front of her and wondered how anyone could be so disagreeable. Poppy was already better than Lily at just about everything (bar Herbology perhaps), why did she feel the need to prove she was better at yet another thing? And, to make matters worse, to want to prove it in front of everyone else?
Lily was hardly listening as Hazel chattered about all the supplies they would need to take to their first potions class the next morning. She made up her mind that she was not going to let Poppy Balfour walk all over her anymore. Though it was past their curfew, Lily told Hazel she had forgotten something in the tower and made a beeline for the library. If she couldn't beat Poppy with her magical ability, the least she could do was to try and beat her in knowledge.
The library was dark and empty, just as Lily had expected. She still worried that someone might walk in on her however and so walked to the very back of the room to find a small table, hidden well behind the restricted section. There were quite a few books piled up on it which someone had apparently neglected to return to their shelves. Without paying their covers much attention, she pushed the piles over to the other side of the desk and out of her way, placing the proscribed potions textbook for tomorrow's class down on the table in front of her. It was quite a heavy and dense with the names of magical materials she had never heard of but she made up her mind to look up the uses for each and every ingredient in the recipes on the first few pages.
She was just wondering what Hellebore was and how one might get syrup from it when there was a ruffling noise and someone appeared from behind the bookcase in front of her. She looked up from her book to see the platinum blonde haired Malfoy boy, staring back at her. He looked surprised to see someone there and Lily realized with a pang of nervousness that it must have been his books who she had pushed across the table. After what Albus had told her, she was worried that not only would he tell on her for being out past bedtime, but that he might even cast a spell on her for touching his things. To Lily's surprise however he said nothing at all and simply sat down across from her and opened up the book he had in his hand. Not knowing what to do and thinking it would be strange to get up and leave, Lily awkwardly went back to reading her potions book. They sat like that ignoring each other, though they were only a few feet apart, for what seemed like a couple of hours before Lily's eyes began to droop and she had to admit defeat. She got up from the table as quietly as she could so as not to disturb him but paused before leaving. He was still absorbed in his book. Lily noted that he looked quite tired but seemed to have no intention of leaving anytime soon.
Very awkwardly, she broke the silence with a 'goodnight then' and tried to hurry off as fast as possible. But as she made her way around the bookcase that blocked the table from view she thought she heard a very faint 'Good night' in return.
