Lily Bud
Year 6 Chapter 78
Lily was slowly waking up from the whispered voices around her bed. It sounded like more people than just her roommates. For a moment she was confused about what was going on. But a smile broke across her face when she remembered that it was her birthday. Seventeen. It felt brilliant to be seventeen, with all magical doors opening wide for her.
She pulled open her curtains before her friends could. She grinned into their surprised faces. "Hey."
Dorcas was closest to her and was the first one to react. She hugged Lily tight. "Happy Birthday!"
"Thank you." Lily beamed at her friends and looked over Dorcas' shoulder. Sulfia stood behind her and smile widely. She was already dressed perfectly and with makeup done, in contrast to Gwen who was still in her night robes and didn't seem to care that Peter, Remus, and Sirius were in the room with her. Not that they could say much, considering they were dressed in some ridiculous dresses or skirts that looked a bit to small. Remus shifted uncomfortable on his feet and Sirius couldn't keep still either, always tucking at his skirt.
Lily giggled at their dress up, but then stopped. Where was James? She looked at the other faces in the room. There was Gunny and a girl Lily wasn't sure who she was, but maybe a fifth-year Hufflepuff or was it Ravenclaw?
Lily looked again. Something was off. Was her face changing? Yes! The nose grew longer and her chin got some beard stubbles. And she grew taller as well. The shoulder got wider and her arms and legs more muscular.
"Polyjuice?! You guys used polyjuice to get up the stairs?" Lily asked. She was equally impressed, amused and baffled by this. "What's wrong with the brooms you used on Dorcas' birthday"
"Well, Quidditch is more Dorcas' thing than yours." Mid-transformation-James explained in a matter of fact way. Lily still had to giggle at him because his voice was changing. It sounded like his voice was breaking all over again in seconds. "And to your birthday it should have meaning to you."
"Do you plan to break into your dorm in a personalized way each time one of us gets older?"
"Seventeen is a special birthday. So yes, we will be here each time. And that includes those birthdays that fall into the holidays, Gunny!" Sirius added.
"Oh, I'm sure my parents will be excited to have strange boys show up in my room without an invitation." Gunny replied.
"Handsome strange boys, please." Sirius answered while straightening his skirt.
"And you'll be seventeen and an adult and they won't have any-uuii!" James' words ended in a pain-filled whimper and held his neither region while hunching over.
"HA! I told you, that wearing girly underwear is too much!" Peter shouted and laughed at his friend.
"Well, at least our boxer shorts are not showing past our skirts!" Sirius argued back. "A true artist is ready to suffer for his art." He added and dramatically stared into the distance while placing a hand over his heart.
"Yeah sure… One day, when my kids ask me why they are the only ones to uphold the Marauder honor, I will tell them about the sacrifice you guys made for your art." Peter gave back with a smirk.
"OK, now shut up. As entertaining your present and future suffering is, now I want to see what Lily got for her birthday." Sulfia told them and waved them off and turned her attention back to Lily and her presents.
Lily laughed together with her friends and turned to the small pile of gifts. She opened Jimmy's gift first. Inside the packet were a couple of cassettes with handwritten labels on it and a card.
Lily read the card, while the boys seemingly forgot about their previous suffering and curiously inspected the cassettes.
"What's those?" James asked and turned one of the cassettes in his hand around, looking at it from all sides.
"Music cassette." Lily answered upsent-minded.
Hello Lily
How are you? I hope this gets to you soon. This whole post thing through your parents and no telephone is still so strange. But then you are at the high-end boarding school so pretentious us normal people don't even know about it, but that opens the doors to all the high ups.
Now you told me that you're not allowed to have turntables and can't play your records.
Lily half-listened to her friends talking while reading.
"Music? What kind of music?" James was opening and closing the case and rattled the cassette in it around. He seemed unconvinced about this.
Sirius sighed and berated him. "You are doing it wrong. You have to look for buttons to push or turn. Muggles love to do stuff with bottoms. You always have to look for the buttons."
"There are no buttons." James sounded annoyed at Sirius's know-it-all tone.
"Let me see. There are always some things to push and turn. Don't look so skeptical, who of us has NEWT level muggle studies? That's right me!" Sirius took another one of the cassettes and looked at them himself.
But I mean, you are at a school with lots of posh rich kids and there must be some with a cassette player at least, right? I'm sure you can borrow it at least for some time. I think I would go crazy without music.
"See no buttons anywhere!" James crossed his arms and looked smug.
"Wait, wait, wait! Ah! See here you can turn this stuff here and then this thingy turns as well and see this band thing is running here as well."
"Ohhh!" James sounded impressed for a moment there. "Let me try!"
I recorded a couple of songs for you from the radio. Different kinds of stuff, so you can maybe have a party for your birthday. I tried to cut out the radio host talk bits. I was so angry because they kept talking over the ending of some ABBA song. But I think it turned out pretty well. I hope you have fun with these and you are my dancing queen.
Best birthday wishes,
James
"You notice that you are still not making any music there, right?" Sulfia asked both boys.
"Muggle buttons are tricky. You have to push and turn them the right way, we probably haven't figured out the right rhythm yet." Sirius explained back.
"Oh- oh no. What is going on? Why is it doing this?" James sounded distressed and he appeared before Lily with a guilty and crushed look on his face. "I didn't mean to break it. I promise. I tried to turn it like Sirius and this band thingy got out." He held up the cassette and the bit of the band was hanging out of it. "I really didn't mean to. I know that Snape broke that other music thing you had and I wasn't trying to do that. Really. I just wanted to see how it works. I'm very sorry…" He looked like a kicked puppy.
Lily smiled at him and took the cassette from his hands. "It's not broken and not even really tangled, don't worry." She pulled out her wand and rolled the band back on the cassette. James looked relieved and curious about what she was doing.
"It still doesn't make any music." Sulfia remarked again. She still looked puzzled at the whole concept.
"Yeah, I don't have a cassette player here." Lily explained and collected the different cassettes from her friends.
"Oh, so you need another eleconics for it to work." Sirius said. He seemed to think for a moment about this new information. "Does that thing has buttons to push and turn?"
Lily laughed. "Yes and even some switches."
"Oh…" He sounded impressed. "Yes that sounds like proper muggle eleconics. So why don't you have such a cassantte player? And why didn't he get you one, if he got you those things if they are useless without that player?"
"For one, such a cassette player is quite expensive and he thought that if I go to a posh boarding school with posh, rich kids, that they sure would have something like this." Lily started to explain with a huge grin on her face.
"We are posh, rich kids." Sirius said to James and Sulfia and pointed in a circle between them.
"That's true." James agreed. "Why don't we have something like this?"
Sulfia just rolled her eyes.
"Because it needs electricity to work and stuff like this doesn't work at Hogwarts." Lily continued her explanation. Sirius and James seemed equally dissatisfied with that answer.
Lily just shook her head and turned to her other presents. From Sulfia she got magical make-up, which Lily immediately loved because it would perfectly match her skin and never clash with her hair color. Dorcas got her a bottle of firewhiskey, much to the surprise of the boys.
"Now I can't say what scandalizes me more! Our poor innocent Dorcas going out to buy firewhiskey and tarnishing her pure reputation or that Lily, our beacon of moral integrity, is fine with something so sinful and illegal in these holy halls of education!" Sirius claimed with dramatic passion.
Remus hit him over the head for this. "Oh shut up, will you."
"I could have been the one to get her firewhiskey!" Sirius claimed with dramatic outrage.
"Oh please, first then she would only have two bottles of firewhiskey; not very creative. Second, it's not like you would have just given it to her in a sensible way, but do something ridiculous as, I don't know, switch every drink she takes for the day with firewhiskey, or something." Remus said with some frustration. Sirius and James stared at him with bright eyes, which made Remus go pale. "Don't you dare! That wasn't a suggestion or anything."
"Remus, you are an evil genius!" James whispered in admiration.
"No! And we were checking out Lily's presents." Remus tried to change the subject back. "Here this is from us boys." He said quickly and pushed a present into her hands.
Lily chuckled at them and took it. It was large and messily wrapped. Carefully she opened it.
Inside were a collection of glass vials filled with some rare potion ingredients and a delicate scale.
Remus smiled at her. "I finally managed to convince them that a sensible gift is something you would want. It was a hard battle against the boys' more creative ideas." He explained with a hint of pride in his voice.
Lily smiled back, but something felt dull in her chest. Yes, she had talked or more like complained to Remus last year about the over the top kind of presents the other marauders, especially James sent her. Waste of money on useless things, like a small music box that plays a soft tone and dancing flowers or a shirt with something she once said to some Slytherins. And she meant it. At that time. She liked sensible gifts. Her parents had always got her and Petunia sensible things that they needed. Things for school, clothes. Only a few times did they get other things when both of them begged. Like the telescope or a new bike, they had to share and even those were useful in some way.
"Thank you, Remus, Peter, Sirius, James." She smiled at them each. James was looking down at his hands and just smiled at her for a small moment, before looking down again. And she wanted to really mean it. She liked sensible gifts. From Remus, Peter, her parents or S-. She liked them. And it felt like a gift from Remus or maybe Peter, but not James and she wanted something from James, if she was honest with herself. But she had said that she wanted sensible gifts, so she shouldn't be disappointed if he does that. Right?
"Very lovely." Sulfia said and saved Lily from having to say anything more. "But now I want to see your parents' presents." She hurried on.
Lily laughed at her impatience and looked at her parents' gifts. They had sent her a book about charms theory that she had asked for, a lovely new coat and some other clothes, as well as a card with their best wishes and some more money. But before she could read the card in peace Sulfia interrupted her again.
"This is all very cute and stuff but we really want to see the watch!" She claimed with an excited gleam in her eyes.
"Watch?" Lily hesitated. She had of course notice that Dorcas got a watch for her birthday and that everybody had admired it and when she thought back, yes the girls had said something how Sirius had got a watch from the Potters for his birthday as well and, she worried her lips thinking about this, in general, a lot of people in her year had talked about watches that they got for their birthday, but Lily hadn't paid much attention to it.
But now, looking in the eager eyes of her friends she realized that those weren't coincidence or a recent trend everybody was following for now. This seemed to be deeper, cultural. It didn't even seem to come to mind to them, that Lily wouldn't get a watch.
"Oh don't tell me your parents are some of those that need to 'give it in person'?" Sulfia sounded annoyed for her. Sulfia was talking some more, but Lily wasn't really listening anymore.
It was Dorcas' soft voice that interrupted Sulfia's stream of words. "Is that even a thing? With muggles, I mean getting a watch for your seventeenth birthday?" She asked. Lily felt relief that she didn't have to say it first. The others just looked at Dorcas in disbelief, who looked down in embarrassment. "I just mean, because my mum told that she didn't have a watch because it wasn't something 'muggle do'."
"Why wouldn't it be a thing? I mean muggle have watches, I mean they can't do much more than show the time, but they have them. We had them in muggle study." Sirius crossed his arms and furrowed his brows in confusion.
"It just isn't a tradition. Seventeen isn't even that important in the muggle world. You are only of age at eighteen." Lily explained.
"That is strange." Sulfia said and some of the others nodded in agreement to her. Lily just shrugged her shoulders.
"I never thought about this." James said. "I always assumed that muggle would do things the same way if they can… but why would they act in the same way we do. They don't even know anymore that we are around. That would mean all the newer traditions we have in common are either coincidences or we copied it from the muggles not the other way around…"
"Wait!" Sirius interrupted James and pointed at Lily. "Does that mean you are not off age yet? Or only half, or only when you are around wizards?" He demented answers from her and took little steps closer to her until he waved his finger directly in front of her. Lily just laughed.
"I'm not sure myself."
"That is very disappointing from you, the all-knowing brainiac around here."
"Oh shut it, Sirius." Sulfia said and cast a 'Silenco' along with it. He looked at her with outrage, but Sulfia waved him off.
"Now if we could get your attention." Gunny started. "We have a present as well." At that same time, Gwen waved her wand and a plate of lovely muffins appear. Lily smiled at them and invited everybody to eat as well.
The rest of the day was nice. Her friends stuck to her and they had a lot of fun, even in class. The boys made sure that every teacher they had that day, was informed that it was Lily's birthday. Even when her cheeks heated up with embarrassment, it felt kind of nice when Professor Flitwick clapped in delight and congratulated her. Her friends were all whispering conspiratorially with each other and at one point in the afternoon Sulfia and the boys just disappeared altogether.
She made her way back to the Gryffindor tower and did some homework because she had the hunch that she wouldn't have time for it tonight or was up to it tomorrow. A smile stayed on her face. She finished with most homework when Sirius, Peter and Remus stumbled back into the room. They were laughing and Peter had some dust and cobweb on his back that Sirius was all to happy the dust off with slaps on the back. Peter lost a bit of his footing under Sirius care so that Remus chased him off and helped clean Peter in a much gentler way.
Sirius pulled his nose up in the air and walked away. Then he stopped and fixated her, then her books and homework, then her again and let out a strangled gasp.
"The BETRAYAL!" He grabbed the robe over his heart. "You betrayal everything that his holy about sacred holidays." He accused her in the most dramatic way. "We should cast you out in the woods to live with the animals if you discard the most fundamental rites of human culture like this!"
He attracted the attention of the whole room pretty fast. Everybody looked at them with confusion or amusement. Lily just clicked her pen and watched the dramatic display.
"What is going on here?" Remus asked with a tied or unnerved sigh when he and Peter joined them.
"She is doing homework. On her BIRTHDAY!" He cried.
"The atrocity!" Peter agreed with him and put on an equally shocked and hurt face.
"Yes! Pure anarchy!"
"I'm pretty sure doing your homework is the opposite of anarchy." Lily said with dry wit.
"And now she is trying to be cute with us to avoid her fair ostracism for her misdeed." Sirius accused her and Peter stood next to him playing the straight man who slowly shook his head and looked deeply disappointed at her.
"Such big words. Didn't know you knew those." Lily smirked back at him.
"Oh, you! I'll inform you that we are not James. Playing cute won't help you with us!"
"Sirius!" Remus cut off Sirius with a sharp warning. It sounded like a soft growl. Until now Remus had stayed quiet and just smiled at his friends' little play.
Sirius just waved him off and stalked closer to Lily. "Will you stop this abomination immediately?"
"And do what instead?" Lily put the pen down on her homework but wasn't closing the books yet. It was fun to joke around with those boys.
Sirius checked his watch, and now Lily remembered how much he loved the watch James' parents had sent him to his birthday, how had she not notice this before), and frowned. He and Peter looked at each other.
"Play Exploding Snap with us." Peter suggested and pulled out a card deck. Sirius looked skeptical but Peter just raised an eyebrow as if to challenge him to come up with a better idea. Sirius rolled his eyes but sat down in an armchair next to Lily.
They played for maybe an hour or two. Lily laughed at how intense those boys played cards. She loved every second of it. It felt like only a moment later that Sulfia sat down on the armrest of Lily's chair and put an arm around her.
"What are you doing with those idiots?" She asked.
"Winning obviously." Lily answered.
"Brilliant. How much longer do you need here?"Sulfia was pecking at her cards and whistled. "Not bad." Her cards were shit, but it made Sirius stop in his movement and he chose another card to play. Peter sat next to him and groaned.
"What are you doing. Do you want her to win?"
"Didn't you just hear Sulfia? If she says she has good cards this is a much better play!"
"She can't have such good cards left! Ever heard of a bluff?!" Peter protested.
But it was too late and Lily was able to make her victory play. "Thanks a lot, Sirius." She grinned cheeky at him and the cards exploded into the face of the boys.
"Rematch!" Sirius demented and jumped up in anger.
"No." Sulfia shut him down. "Now Lily and I will go up to our dorm and doll ourselves up." She flicked her hair over her shoulder and smiled at Lily.
James appeared from behind them as well and fell on the sofa between Remus and Peter. He grinned so wide his teeth seemed to shine. "Oh Sulfy, neither of you girls need to doll yourself up, you're pretty as you are. Not that there is any reason to get pretty tonight."
"Of course we are, but it is still fun and it's not like we do it to impress any guys." Sulfia said back and turned back to Lily and surveyed her for a moment. She gave a small nod and fixated the guys again. "And don't pretend that Lily here doesn't know what is going on." She turned back to Lily. "You're coming?"
"Sure." Lily rubbed off the smug of the game from her hands and followed Sulfia up the stairs.
It didn't take too long for the girls to meet up and get ready, even if they shared one or three bottles of gigglewater between them. Once finished all five Gryffindor girls got down to the common room, where James waited. He had cleaned up nicely, even if his hair still looked as if it was home to an alternative reality where neither a comb nor a brush was ever invented. He gave a small bow as the girls got down the stairs. Mischief was twinkling in his eyes.
"Are you fair ladies ready?" He asked them. "Then please follow me on this little adventure."
They giggled together and Lily agreed for all of them. "Please lead the way kind sir."
He grinned his wide and happily carefree smile at them and turned around to pull a small mirror out of his pocket.
"Peter." He said it loud and clear and after a moment she saw Peter's face appear in the mirror. "How are we? Everything clear?"
"One moment I have to see where Remus is with the Huffies." After a minute he was back. "Hey Prongs, everything looks mostly fine. The two prefects are still in the broom closet on the 2nd floor. Filch is distracted by the little show we put on near the Slytherin dungeons. But you should take the route around the charms corridor, Peeves is having some fun near the stature of Mad Malve." Peter dutiful reported.
"Thanks a lot, tell me if anything comes up." James said with a salute. He turned back to the girls. "You hear it the coast is clear, let's be on our way."
"How did Peter know all-" Gwen started to ask, but James interrupted her.
"Nay-nay, marauders secret. I fear I can't tell you that." With that, he disappeared through the portrait hole and waited for them on the other side. The girls giggled again as they followed James through the dark halls of Hogwarts. The girls were smuggling the bottle of firewhiskey that Dorcas had given her with them. Lily felt like a top-secret spy in a movie and had to giggle some more at the idea. James seemed to know at any time where he was and led them through ways Lily never used in her years here. Once or twice he had stopped them and put a finger on his lips to silence them, but finally, they arrived at the destination.
They were close to the library when James opened a small passage and led them into a cozy room. The walls were covered in bookshelves and there were lots of mismatching armchairs and beanbags pushed to the side in small groups.
Lily immediately fell in love with this place. A dozen or two of her friends from different houses were there as well and cheered when Lily arrived.
"Let us sing!" Sirius shouted over everybody and they all started to sing her birthday songs. Lily laughed and when they finished she hugged all her friends and laughed with them. A lot of the higher class muggleborns were there along with Mary.
Someone brought a wireless along and wizard music was filling the room. Gwen and Gunny were dancing close together and whispered and giggled together. Dorcas came back over to her and held out a cup to her. It tasted fruity with a hint of spice from firewhiskey.
She looked around and saw a discussion between James and Sulfia. He wanted to hand her something, but she crossed her arms and tapped her foot in annoyance.
"Do you know what's that about?" Lily asked Dorcas and pointed to them. Dorcas looked up and rolled her eyes with a deep sigh.
"James acting like a ballless idiot, I assume." Dorcas answered, but turned around to watch the confrontation better.
James was waving his arms in their direction and Sulfia kept staring him down. He was talking some more at her, but she was unimpressed. When he tried to get Remus involved the situation changed. Not only did Sulfia's death glare made Remus back away with raised hands, but she did gruffly snatch the packet out of his hand. James smiled confidently, but that lasted only for a second because with her free hand she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him after her as she strode over to Lily.
Once they arrived in front of her, Sulfia called for everybody's attention. Everybody went quiet and watched them. Sulfia finally let go of James who awkwardly stood a step behind her.
"Here is another present for you." Sulfia said in a bored voice and unceremonial trusted the beautifully wrapped gift into her hand. Then she turned around and went the other way.
James grabbed her wrist and hissed to her. "Sulfia…"
"If you want her to know anything more about this, You can tell her." She pulled herself free and kept going.
James looked helpless at her back then back at Lily and the present in her hand, then at the rest of the rooms. Everybody looked expectantly at him. Sulfia by now had turned back around once she stood in front of the other boys and crossed jet arms. She looked completely unimpressed.
James looked back at Lily and smiled at her. It was a shy and nervous smile, that Lily hadn't seen in quite some time. "It's from us, all of us. We chipped in together." He gestured to the other people in the room. Lily smiled at him and then everybody and carefully unwrapped it. "It's just, it's part of being a witch and coming off age. It seems unfair that you didn't get that. Not that you would be any less of a witch because of it. You're an amazing witch and could knock most of us on our asses, but-" James began to ramble until someone hit him with a silenco and he stopped trying to talk. He didn't look angry about being hex quiet, but relieved.
Lily opened the little casket. Inside an elegant watch sat of a velvet pillow. It had a golden bracelet with a playful rose gold vine wrapping around it. It had filigree golden numbers and hands, the face was dark, but tiny golden lines showed the night sky and its constellations. A few little buttons were on both sides of the watch. It was beautiful. She felt tears well up in her eyes. A wide smile pulled at her lips and she looked at James and the rest of her friends.
"Thank you." She hugged James first, who still silenced hugged her back and then she hugged everybody else and thanked them.
In the end, she stood next to Dorcas and Sulfia again and marveled at her new watch and what the different buttons did.
"When did you even get this?" Lily asked them.
"Today." Dorcas answered with a giggle. "James had the idea today after you didn't get one from your parents. He robbed everybody else into it." Dorcas was loudly whispering to Lily in the way tipsy or drunk people thought was quiet. "Everybody just gave a little and I think he and Sulfia paid the rest."
"Dorcas!" Sulfia interrupted their friend and made her shut up, but Lily's interest was peaked.
"It was James' idea?" She asked, but Dorcas shut her mouth and turned an invisible key over her lips, so she turned to Sulfia. "Is that why you wanted him to give it to me? Why didn't he want to do it in the first place?"
"He doesn't want to make you feel uncomfortable or like he oversteps any boundaries in your friendship. And because it isn't a sensible gift." She rolled her eyes at the last sentence.
"Oh." Lily looked down at the watch around her wrist. She felt confused, but there was something warm glowing in her chest. "Where did you even get this today? Here in Hogwarts."
"The boys smuggled us into Hogsmeade through some secret tunnel. Same way the got the alcohol for this party or any other party." Sulfia said. "James and I got the watch and the boys went and got the drinks. Ridiculous those boys, really."
"So James chose this?" And this idea made Lily happy or some reason, even if she knew she should worry about how expensive the watch was.
"Let him choose? By Rowena's good taste, No! He sat there and ramble about the features it should have for tracking things for potion making and all that, like constellations and bonding the watch to a potion that immediately informs you when it changes color and stuff. But let him choose? That boy would have happily bought you a silver watch, if it had the right functions, even if anybody with eyes and a rudimental sense for colors could see that with your complexion silver jewelry makes you look like you died three days ago and just hadn't notice yet."
AN. Hey, it had been long, I'm sorry. Stuff came up, but I still work at and think about this story. I can't even tell you why I had such problems with this chapter that I kept rewriting it, but I did. And I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I like it better than other versions of it. I hope you enjoy it never the less and maybe leave a small review for me.
Have a nice day
