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"So anyway after that I was sure that she was just making it up. I mean she never told any of us about it and none of us remembered it therefore, it didn't happen..." Hugo had been rambling about one of his professor for the last 15 minutes. If she was being honest, Lily had stopped paying attention about 30 seconds in. She had no idea how he was still ranting about it. Grayson wasn't listening either; he was instead engrossed in some Muggle novel and playing with the ends of Lily's long, red hair.
"Are you even listening to me?" Hugo demanded. Lily looked up and saw Hugo's disgruntled face.
"Uh..."
"That's what I thought," he miffed, shoving a forkful of potatoes in his mouth.
"I'm sorry, Hu. I've just been thinking." She looked up and saw she still had his attention. "The other day in Professor William's office, I found a portrait of Snape."
"What?" Hugo replied through a mouthful of food.
"Okay, gross. But yeah I did."
"Did you talk to him?" he asked after swallowing.
"Sorta," she replied pushing around the carrots on her plate. "I tried, but he kinda ran off."
"How does a painting run away?" His question was met with a shrug. "You going to try to talk to him again."
"Hopefully next time I'm down there, yeah. Professor Williams said he'd talk to him and see what he could do."
"Who?" Grayson asked looking up.
"Nothing," Lily said, smiling up at him and squeezing his knee. He went back to his book. Lily was amazed at how oblivious he was most of the time. She looked down at the charm bracelet. Over the past few months, it had accumulated a Snitch and a lion charm to go along with the flower. He was oblivious, but he was sweet.
Lily was fighting off a cold due to the rainy weather during her next alchemy lesson. She had set a Quidditch practice the previous evening and it down-poured the entire time. Somehow, no one else had managed to get sick besides Lily which was annoying her. She sneezed for what had to be the fortieth time that evening.
"Bless you!"
"Merlin, thanks," Lily sniffled and reached for her handkerchief. "Sorry I'm sneezing everywhere, Professor. I just ca-" Her apology was interrupted by another sneeze.
"Bless you," Professor Williams said through a laugh. "It's quite alright, Miss Potter. I just applaud you coming and working so well through being sick."
"Well I like these lessons and the last thing I need to do is fall behind. It's already hard enough to keep up this year."
"Perfectly understandable. Many people think sixth year is the hardest of them all." Lily nodded in agreement with this statement. "How is your year going? I know you're involved in many things."
"Yeah." Lily blew her nose. "I've got loads of classes, Quidditch Captain, so much revision..."
"Seems never-ending, doesn't it?"
"It really does some days." There were a couple minutes of comfortable silence as Lily finished what she was working on and Professor Williams flipped through a book.
"Oh, I forgot to mention it to you." Lily looked up from her work. "I spoke to Severus the other day about you and he wants you to know he's sorry for his behavior last time the two of you spoke."
"Will he speak to me again?" she asked hopefully. Professor Williams paused and didn't meet Lily's eyes for a few moments.
"The thing is..."
"He doesn't want to see me," Lily said glumly setting down her book.
"Now, Lily." Professor Williams rarely used her first name.
"No, it's fine, Professor...really," Lily insisted. "I understand why he wouldn't want to talk to me."
"Lily, maybe he'll come around. Just give it some time."
The last few months of the first term seemed to drag on forever. Lily was very pleased when December rolled around and eagerly packed her stuff up to go back home for the holidays. Once she was finished, she decided to drop off the Christmas present she had gotten for Professor Williams. She greeted other students who were bustling about getting ready to leave on her way down to the dungeons. Lily knocked on his office door and waited patiently. There was no response so she knocked again. Still nothing.
"Professor?" she called out, cracking the door open. She gingerly stepped inside and peeked around the corner, seeing nothing. She took a couple of steps inside and let the door shut behind her. Lily wandered farther back where his desk was thinking maybe he was reading or grading and hadn't heard her which had happened before. There were stacks of parchment, but no one behind it. She took the small, wrapped package from her robe pockets and set it gingerly down on the desk where he would find it. She scribbled a note on some spare parchment he had lying about wishing him a Merry Christmas.
"Do you just enter this office whenever you fancy?" A voice made Lily jump and nearly throw the quill across the room. She turned quickly to her left.
"Merlin, you startled me!" she told the painting. "I was just leaving a gift," she gestured to the small package on the table.
"For?"
"For Professor Williams." Snape quirked an eyebrow at the red-head, obviously not expecting that response. "Just to thank him for all his help in alchemy and because he's actually more like a friend. Not like weird, he's just... Well you know how he was at school with you and knew my grandmother and it's a cool connection and he's kinda like a grandfather figure to me and my mentor..." The more she rambled, the more disjointed and harder to follow her sentences became. Snape was actually pretty amused and only stopped her because he was starting to feel bad. She was shuffling nervously and turning a little pink.
"That's...kind." Lily stopped, surprised by his positive interruption. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and gently leaned against Professor Williams desk, her hands steadying her position.
"I'm sorry if I startled you the other day. I don't think I realized what meeting or even just seeing me would do to you. I would...like to talk more. If you're interested."
"What we possibly chat about?" The word 'chat' seemed so foreign in his mouth.
"I dunno. Anything you wanted to really. Hogwarts, the world, anyone at school you taught you'd want to know about now," she shrugged.
"I suppose I could," he paused, "entertain you, Miss Potter." Her smile was just like her grandmother's, and while it pained him to remember those days, Snape also found it and her presence oddly comforting. "What is it that you got him?" He nodded towards the neatly wrapped present on the desk.
"Oh!" Lily slid up on the desk where she could sit comfortably. Snape was amused by her clear ease with him already. "Well my Uncle George and his son Fred run a joke shop in Diagon Alley and they are always coming out with new products and sending them to me. Professor Williams is always commenting on how neat everything is so I thought I'd give him an early release of one of their products. He'll find it hilarious, but I can't tell you what it is because I don't want you spoiling it."
"George Weasley?" Snape asked. Lily nodded. "That last thing this world needs is for him to continue releasing his mayhem." Lily's laugh filled the room and gave Snape a warm feeling inside.
"That's what Grandma Molly has said ever since he opened the shop."
"Does the other one not run it with him? The twin?"
"Uncle Fred? He was killed during the Battle of Hogwarts," Lily explained.
"I'm sorry," Snape apologized awkwardly.
"It's alright, I never got a chance to know him. Uncle George still has a pretty hard time dealing with it though. Especially in May." Lily paused and looked down at her lap. "We lost a lot of family that day. Uncle Fred, Professor Lupin, Tonks.."
"I-" Lily looked up when Snape interrupted her. There was a pregnant pause. "I am sorry," he said sincerely. "I cannot help but feel that everything, all of it, is my fault."
"Professor." Snape looked Lily in the eyes, the only part of her that didn't remind him of his Lily. "I don't blame you. No one does." They held eye contact for a few moments before breaking the tension. "I mean c'mon, my dad named my brother after you." Snape surprised Lily by chuckling at this.
"I suppose." The silence that fell this time was a comfortable one. "You should probably be going so you don't miss the train home."
"You're right," she said slipping off the desk.
"I'll tell Philip you stopped by."
"Thanks, sir." Lily headed towards the door before stopping and turning around. "Merry Christmas, Professor Snape."
"Merry Christmas, Miss Potter."
The train ride home was filled with the discussion of the ridiculous amount of detentions accumulated by Remington and Rosamund and nearly becoming sick at all the sweets consumed. They reached the station and all went home with their families. A week before Christmas, Lily and Grayson met up to exchange gifts.
"Alright don't judge because I had a lot of trouble deciding what to get you this year," Lily told him.
"I'm sure it's amazing," Grayson assured her unwrapping the neat box. Inside were a pair of gloves and a red scarf.
"So the gloves are a special dragon hide that my Uncle Charlie helped me find. He said they're great for Keepers. And the scarf is one I knitted myself. Grandma Molly taught me how and I just thought since it's kinda a tradition thing to receive handmade things in my family."
"It's perfect," he told her kissing her cheek.
"Also!" Lily pulled another box out and handed it to him. "From Grandma Molly." Grayson opened the box and found a grey-blue sweater with a 'G' knitted on it.
"I love it!" he said excitedly. "Tell your grandmother it's absolutely brilliant." He pushed two boxes over to Lily. "Here are yours." Lily unwrapped the smallest one first and found charms in the shape of a broom and fish, his favorite animal. She smiled and added them to the bracelet with the others. She moved on to the slightly larger box and pulled the ribbon off. Grayson watched eagerly and she tore the wrapping and popped open the box. It held a small vial. "It's perfume." When she removed the top, she was overwhelmed by the smell of jasmine and vanilla.
"It smells wonderful," she told him as she dabbed some on her wrists. "Thank you," she said sweetly, leaning in and kissing him.
"I love you." Lily froze when Grayson said this. She had a limited amount of time here to recover before he noticed something was wrong with her. Her mind scrambled faster than the speed of light as she tried to come up with the appropriate response. Did she love him? If she didn't, could she say that she did and still feel okay? Just as Grayson was about to question her silence, she leaned in and kissed him again. This seemed to satisfy him which relieved Lily.
Christmas was a whirlwind of presents and revising and trying to fit on some extra sleep here and there. Before she knew it, the holiday was over and she had to go back to school. NEWTs and Quidditch took up all of her time allotted and even some of her meal and sleep time. Lily pretty much looked like a zombie most of the time. Professors and fellow students constantly asked her if she was alright.
"I just feel like the work never ends and I'll never sleep ever again," Lily told Snape one evening as Professor Williams was grading papers.
"Perhaps you've taken on too much," Snape suggested.
"Don't even try to convince her that's the issue," Williams inserted himself in the conversation. "I've tried that already." Lily shot him a look over her shoulder and he went back to his papers.
"I just want a full night of sleep, that's all. Or you know, a couple of consecutive hours would be nice too." She stretched and hopped from her usual place on the desk. "But I have to go. I've got Quidditch practice tonight because the House Cup is coming up."
"Tomorrow at 9?" Professor Williams checked.
"I'll be here."
The House Cup arrived and Lily found herself incredibly less stressed since it was against Ravenclaw this year instead of Slytherin. Now that her brother wasn't here going against her head-to-head, she felt much more confident.
"Team, we've got this. You lot are working so well together and I think we'll crush them," Lily said in her pre-game speech.
The team all marched onto the field and heard the thunderous noise coming from the stands. Slytherin was siding with Ravenclaw since siding with Gryffindor would never happen, so Hufflepuff would be cheering Gryffindor on. The game started normally with Lily's Chasers playing spectacularly and scoring goal after goal. Not surprisingly, they were in the lead from the very beginning. Lily had caught a few glances here and there of the Snitch but couldn't manage to keep up with it. About two hours into the game, a fight broke out down on the pitch. Lily started to fly down to see what the issue was when everything went black.
Lily groaned as she became aware of her entire body being in agonizing pain. She groaned and opened her eyes. She was met by bright lights. 'Am I dead?' she thought. 'Is this what death feels like?' Her vision cleared and she saw a white ceiling and nothing else. She turned her head and saw beds lining the wall. Once her thoughts became a little unscrambled, she deduced she was in the Hospital Wing. She groaned again and was suddenly surrounded by faces.
"Lily! You're awake!"
"Bloody hell, Lils."
"How do you feel?"
She held up her hand to stop the onslaught of questions. She slowly tried to sit up on her own but had to be assisted by someone on either side of her. She groaned for the third time as her head pounded mercilessly.
"I feel like words I won't use in the presence of innocent ears." The group surrounding her laughed. When she finally opened her eyes, she saw her Quidditch team, Alice, and the entire Ravenclaw team as well. "What happened?"
"It was a really bizarre rogue bludger," Grayson explained, sitting next to her and wrapping an arm around her waist for support.
"Like what happened two years ago to one of the Hufflepuff Beaters in the first match of the season," Hugo added. Lily nodded, remembering that incident from her fourth year.
"Merlin, I feel like I have died and then been reincarnated only to die again," she whined, letting her head fall onto Grayson's shoulder. Everyone was soon ushered out by Madame Gables so she could rest. She went back to classes the next day against all advice from the nurse and her friends. She took the next few days slowly and took a lot of naps. Now that Quidditch was over, she had more free time to work on school assignments.
"I feel like I did this wrong," Lily told Snape one night. "It should be green...not purple." Lily gagged. "Oh, Merlin. And it shouldn't smell like rotted cabbage either."
"Step aside," Snape told her examining her cauldron. "Did you stir 5 or 6 times?"
"Uhm..."
"That is an incredibly important step, Miss Potter. That is why your potion is the wrong color and smell."
"I forgot! Ever since I got clobbered on the head, I get headaches and concentrating is harder." She waved her wand and wordlessly cleaned out the black pot so the smell would stop wafting out.
"Excuses, excuses," he scoffed. "Just like your father."
"Hey!" Lily turned around, brandishing her wand and tried her best to keep the grin from her face. "Don't talk bad about my father." She stared intensely at the old Potions professor for a solid 5 seconds before the urge to smile won over and she let her wand fall to the side. "Damn right I'm just like him. And I've got my grandmother's spunk which is why you like me so much," she teased, hopping up onto the desk. Professor Williams was monitoring a detention tonight so he wasn't around. Snape usually spoke a little more freely without an extra pair of eyes and ears.
"Just like your grandmother," Snape said fondly. Spending all this time with the youngest Potter made him think about what his own kids or grandkids could have been. "It's late." He stopped his own wishful thinking. "You need to sleep. It will help the headaches."
"Looking after me as usual like I can't take care of myself or something," Lily goaded and she slung her bag over her shoulder.
"Always," he whispered to himself.
"Night, Professor," Lily called as she left.
Sixth year came to a close and Lily made her first grownup decision: breaking up with Grayson Wood. It had been on her mind for months, ever since the 'I love you' debacle, and a conversation with Snape had helped her make up her mind.
"How do you know if someone isn't right for you?" she asked him suddenly one night.
"I beg your pardon?"
"This is awkward. Forget I mentioned it." Lily quickly buried her face back in her book.
"No. Explain."
"I just mean, I've been with this guy for a while and it's never felt...well I don't know how it's supposed to feel."
"I can tell you if you don't even know how to feel about him, you won't ever and you're wasting your time," he told her.
"Well that seems a bit harsh."
"Am I wrong though? Do you imagine a long-term life with him?" he asked.
"Why do I need to be thinking long-term? I'm still young."
"That is another good sign that it isn't right."
"But maybe I just am stressed and with the-"
"If you blame your dissatisfaction in your relationship on your head injury, so help me... Listen you asked for my opinion and I'm giving it. You have obviously not been completely happy all along. And that is a good indication that he isn't right for you," he advised.
That conversation had circulated in her mind for weeks; so one day, she asked Grayson to meet her at The Leaky Cauldron for lunch so she could get it over with and it would stop looming in her thoughts.
"Hey, gorgeous." Lily was pulled from her thoughts by Grayson's arrival. His cheeked her cheek and Lily smiled awkwardly at him. She watched as he sat in the chair across from her and folded his hands on the table. "So what's up?" Lily paused trying to think of how to word it.
"I think we should break up. Dammit that was supposed to be smoother," Lily swore under breath. "Anyway, yeah. I've been thinking about this for a while and I just...well you told me you loved me, and I couldn't say it back."
"If it was too soon, I'm sorry."
"No, no. It wasn't. It was fine. If our relationship was...normal? I guess?" her explanation was choppy and awkward. "I like you a lot. I really honestly did like being in a relationship with you, but I feel like if we go on any longer, I'll just be leading you on."
"Maybe you're just-"
"Gray," Lily stopped him from arguing anymore. "I love you deeply. Just not in the same way you love me. I'm so, so sorry." They sat in quiet for a while and Lily was afraid she had screwed up more than their relationship.
"I can't be your friend for a while," Grayson told her. "I'm not saying forever!" he quickly added once he saw her panicked face. "I just...I need some time away from this because it's gonna hurt a little. We probably shouldn't see any of each other over the summer, but I'm going to try to be okay with it come fall term. I don't want this to ruin our friendship group during our last year at Hogwarts together. Don't get me wrong I am mad. Well not mad, but...sad. I really do love you, Lily," he said sincerely. "I really, really do. But we can't just throw away our years and years of friendship."
"I'm so sorry, Gray. I feel absolutely dreadful about all of this-"
"Lily, I'm glad you told me now before things got more serious like I wanted it to." The conversation fell into another lull. It wasn't like the comfortable quiets they had gotten used to. It was awkward and tense and Lily did not like it.
"I should probably go," Lily said standing up. Grayson stood up quickly as well and stepped away from his chair.
"Would you mind...uhm...what I mean to say is...could I just?" Grayson shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. "May I just kiss you? One last time? Please?" The look in his eyes broke Lily's heart as she swallowed and nodded. He stepped closer to her and placed the gentlest kiss on her lips. "Bye, Lily," he whispered as he pulled away.
When she got home, Lily went upstairs to her room and cried for an hour. She felt awful about the whole situation and felt like a horrible human for breaking Grayson's heart like she did. She wrote Alice and Avery about what had happened figuring Grayson would tell Hugo and Elliot. Both girls responded immediately asking if they could come over. Thirty minutes later, the three of them were sitting on Lily's bed eating licorice wands, her favorite sweet.
"How do you feel about it?" Avery asked as she picked up another candy.
"I feel fine I guess. Just bad for Grayson." The other two nodded.
"What brought it on? Did you two fight?" Alice asked.
"No. It just...didn't feel right anymore."
"Makes sense."
"Is it because you like someone else, maybe?" Alice asked, tilting her head to the side at the thought.
"Merlin, Ally! No!"
"Well maybe like... unconsciously you do."
"On who? She never hangs out with anyone besides Grayson. And her cousin but that would be weird."
"Ew! Avery, you sicko!" Lily shrieked through laughter tossing a pillow at her.
"Don't worry. You'll find someone someday," Alice assured her.
"Bloody hell I'm not worried about it. If it happens, it happens," she said shrugging.
Avery and Alice ended up spending the night at the Potters and the girls were up till two in the morning just enjoying each others company. Lily wanted to cherish the free time she had with them since so little left. After their seventh year, they would have to chose careers and work at those and wouldn't have lazy Sunday afternoons together anymore. The three of them spent almost every day together enjoying the last free summer they would ever have.