Chapter 2 ready to roll!! Hope you enjoy :)
*
"So, Head Girl, huh?"
Hermione and Lily were sitting in the living room of Potter Manor, while the boys went out and tried as hard as they could to injure themselves playing Quidditch.
"It's not that big of a deal, really." Lily tried to be modest, but Hermione could tell she was very proud.
"It's a huge deal, Lily! Being Head Girl is an important job, and can open so many doors for you." Hermione waved her hands excitedly and Lily smiled sadly.
"It would, if I wasn't a Muggleborn."
Hermione's smile fell off her face, and she leaned back on the couch. "Do you ever get so caught up in something that you forget a very fundamental part of your society?"
Lily sighed and put her arm around Hermione's shoulders. "We can make it better. We're smart and powerful, there's nothing we can't do when we set our minds to it. Especially if we do it together."
The brightest witches of the age.
"You know, you're going to make a great mum someday." Hermione said, a sad smile adorning her face.
Lily tightened her grip around Hermione's shoulders.
"If I live long enough to find out."
Harry watched as James and Lily ate together and talked about being Heads together. Lily willingly sat next to James, and the other Marauders were more than a little shocked.
Harry, on the other hand, could only smile.
"You want to what?"
Lily set her fork down and was giving James an odd look, as if she questioned his sanity. Coming to think of it, it actually wasn't that weird of a look coming from her. At least when directed at James.
"We should switch Head badges! You get to be Head Boy, and I'll be Head Girl. It won't really matter, we'd still have our same responsibilities. It would just be for laughs, you know?" James waved his fork around excitedly, and Lily rolled her eyes fondly. She looked over at Harry and smiled, shaking her head.
Sometimes, it's nice to not thinking about fighting. Just being with the people you're fighting for is enough.
"Harry."
Lily stopped him after dinner, and nodded her head towards the garden. He follows her out and is mildly startled when she turns to him abruptly.
"I think I'm being followed."
She is very matter of fact about the subject, and it gives Harry pause. Is that what he sounded like whenever he told his friends strange things?
"What makes you think that?" Harry asked, cautiously. He didn't want to feed into it if it turned out to not be true. There's no use in scaring people needlessly.
"I can feel someone watching me, Harry. I went home to see my sister, and she didn't want me there, so I left. I walked down the street and I could feel someone walking behind me, and I thought it was Tuney, you know? I thought she was maybe coming to ask me to come back. But when I turned around, no one was there. Nothing was out of place, and it was completely silent." Lily wrapped her arms around herself, and looked down, her red hair curtaining her face.
"I just thought you might maybe know something, or be able to help. This isn't the only time it has happened, but other times were in places like Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. I couldn't tell if it was just the magic around me or if someone was really following me. But I know for certain someone was there that day in Surrey. It wasn't my imagination, Harry, I know it wasn't."
Harry reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. "I believe you, Lily."
She looked up and her green eyes shone with gratefulness. "You do?"
"I've lived through enough of my life with people not believing me about things I knew happened. I won't do the same to you."
Quick as a flash, her arms were around him, and she held him tight.
"What did I do to deserve you, Harry?" She pulled back, but moved her hands to his face. "You're the best of all of us."
There was nothing Harry wanted more than to hear those words over and over from his mother's mouth, and he almost asked her to say it again.
But this wasn't his mother.
This was Lily Evans. A teenager who only knew he was her son in the loosest sense of the phrase.
She was scared, and Harry wasn't going to allow his emotions about the situation to hinder him helping her.
He placed his hands over hers, and smiled. "I'll talk to Charlie about it, he might have an idea of who it might be."
He didn't want to tell her who he thought it might be.
There was no need to scare her more.
And he knew for a fact that if it was Bellatrix, there was more to be frightened of than just being followed.
It wasn't Bellatrix, but they only knew that because no one has seen hide nor hair of her since last summer.
Charlie had a few suspects and he seemed stuck on one in particular.
Antonion Dolohov.
The name made Hermione go pale, and Ron clench his fists.
That was a man that had put them through hell. By taking Ron's uncles, Fabian and Gideon. By cursing Hermione in the Department of Mysteries.
Harry would be damned if he allowed Dolohov to take Lily.
Dolohov was a member of Voldemort's Inner Circle, and Harry wasn't entirely sure he wanted to tell Lily. He didn't want to scare her anymore than she already was.
He needn't have worried.
"That tosspot is the one who's been following me?" Lily paced angrily in front of the fireplace, the flames reflected in her eyes. "Who does he think he is?"
"Lily, he's a very dangerous Death Eater. Maybe you shouldn't take this so lightly." Harry cautioned. Ron chuckled.
"Maybe learn how to take your own advice, eh, Harry?"
Harry elbowed him and looked imploringly at Lily. "Please be careful. You shouldn't go anywhere alone."
Lily shook her head at him and stopped pacing. "Don't worry, Harry. I'm staying here until September 1st, and then we'll be back at Hogwarts. I don't even have the chance to be alone."
"And we'll be with her, anyways." Hermione flopped down on the couch and reached her hands out to Lily. The other girl smiled and dropped herself into Hermione's lap, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. "We won't let anything happen to our favorite Head Girl."
Lily snuggles into Hermione and looked out at the boys. "You all have to promise you won't let anything happen to yourselves either. I will not be the one responsible for that."
"Don't worry, Lily. We've faced enough people vying for our heads that we know how to handle ourselves." Ron grinned at the other redhead.
"Besides, I honestly doubt they're going to attack the Express, and it's next to impossible to infiltrate Hogwarts."
"Still," Harry said, "we should be as prepared as possible for the eventuality."
"We needn't think about it right now though. Right now I heard Tibby has made some amazing cookies, and I'd rather think about them than any impending doom, wouldn't you?"
