Chapter 4: New Acquaintances
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plots, and
intend to make no money from this story.
Authors Note: I know the last chapter was kind of weird (kind of? The voices in my head
say) and I apologise. This story will be getting back to as near as it ever is
to normal now. Thanks for persevering if you've got this far. Oh yeah, and I
know my timeline is different from the normal one, but this is how my story
fits, so just ignore it.
September the First 1975
That
was the first thought on five minds as woke up on that particular morning.
Each, in their own way, celebrated the day, Lily by jumping out of the bed;
Remus by allowing himself to relax under the covers a few minutes longer than
normal; James by making an extra special effort to pull himself out of his safe
warm bed before the housekeeper came to shout at him; Peter by steeling himself
not to check for the monster under the bed before he put his feet down, and
Sirius by discarding the semi-transparent t-shirt with nine holes and a large
rip in the back where he would normally have put on the first thing to hand.
Nobody
made it through the morning without disaster, and this included a typical Lily-
Petunia argument, James cursing David and Peter dropping his trunk down the
stairs. But eventually, everything in the different houses was ready and people
bundled into cars or fireplaces.
The
atmosphere in the Evans' car was spectacularly bad. Lily sat in a stony silence
while her dad tried to make conversation.
"You're friends seemed nice, Lily."
Even Petunia's "You have friends?" didn't elicit a
response. Her dad tried again. "What do you think you'll be learning this
year?" the silence after his question stretched on, and he gave up.
When
they got to the station, Lily stalked off, and it was only due to Cerys Black,
who had become great friends with Lily's mother, that the Evans' managed to get
through the barrier. As it was, Petunia was shaking with fear from actually
being around real witches and wizards. When they got through, Lily was right by
the barrier, Lily was right there, laughing with her friends as they waited for
Sirius' family. Seeing the look on her sister's face, Lily smiled maliciously.
"'Nia, you haven't met my friends yet, have you?" Petunia seemed to be unable
to do anything more than shake her head.
"This
is Remus, Sirius and James. And Peter." The boys turned around to face Petunia,
and the dumbstruck expression on her face got even worse. Petunia's jaw
dropped, and for the first time in her life seemed to be unable to think of
anything to say.
"Hi,"
said Sirius warily. This was the sister who made Lily so upset, and he didn't
quite know how to treat her.
It
wasn't just that, however. None of them had noticed, in the previous year, the
kind of looks that James, Remus and Sirius got from girls. All three were
showing early signs of turning out to have heartbreaker looks; Sirius with his
smile, James with his eyes, and Remus with his fair colouring and kind
demeanour that made him stand apart from the other two. But they had failed to
notice this, just as they had failed to notice the looks being thrown Lily's
way, even by much older students like Luke Potter.
Now,
faced with such obvious evidence, they couldn't help but notice, and a little
piece of their childhood innocence was shattered. They would all, Lily
included, be looking for similar reactions from other girls.
James
grinned at Petunia. "Nice to meet you," he said, breaking several minutes of
uncomfortable silence. He held out his hand, and Lily felt herself wondering if
he would kiss Petunia's hand as he had kissed hers a year earlier. But James
just shook the flustered Petunia's hand, and in some secret place Lily breathed
a sigh of relief.
"What
was it Lily said your name was? Petty?" Sirius asked mock-seriously. Petunia
glared at Lily for the use of the hated nickname, while the other three boys
hid snickers with their hands. "That's right, Siri," Lily smiled sweetly.
Fortunately,
confrontation was avoided by Luke Potter's bellow that carried across the
platform. "James, you idiot, what do you think you're doing! The train's
leaving!"
And
so it was. The driver was climbing into his car, the guard was blowing his
whistle and they were the only students still left on the platform. With a collective
yell, they grabbed up Lily and Sirius' trunks, Peter snatched the cages of the
two owls, and they ran towards Luke, who flung the carriage door open. He
pulled the trunks on, pulled four of the five friends on, and with a combined
effort, they got Sirius onto the train just before the platform disappeared.
When
they were all safely inside the carriage, the five began to laugh hysterically.
Luke glared at them. "What do you think you were doing?" he raged. "You could
have been-"
"You sound like David," Remus interrupted, and Luke
visibly stopped himself from retaliating. He didn't want to end up like his
elder brother, unable to have any fun. With a final glare at them, he stomped
out of the carriage, in the direction of the prefect's car, leaving them alone.
The
journey passed quickly enough, with games of Exploding Snap, eating, catching
up from the holidays and planning revenge on the Slytherin's. the only eventful
happening came after about three hours, courtesy of the Slytherin's themselves.
The
door of the compartment crashed open, revealing Snape and Malfoy. Their 'goons'
as James called them, followed them in.
"Hello," said Malfoy courteously.
"Goodbye," smiled James. Malfoy's face twitched.
"Don't be rude to me, Potter," he threatened softly.
"Why not? In case you gang up on me and beat me up?"
James demanded angrily.
"Exactly," said Snape.
"Afraid to face us on equal terms, Sevvy?" Lily
asked, knowing he hated the nickname. Two red spots appeared on Malfoy's pale
cheeks.
"Why should I be scared of a Mudblood like you,
Evans?"
"Because you know I'd kick the shit out of you," Lily
replied smugly. Remus groaned inwardly.
"Hardly, little girl."
"Why do you pick on second years, anyway, Malfoy? Is
it 'cos you're afraid to fight anyone your own size?"
Malfoy appeared to have lost his temper. "That's it,
Evans. You wont know when or how it'll come, but I promise you I'll use every
curse I know to get you for that."
"Why's that? Too scared to pick on big, strong
Sirius, or Remus or James, or even Peter, are you?" Lily sneered.
"Maybe ill get them too. Or maybe I'll just choose
one of them. Pettigrew, I think. He'll pay, too."
Too late, Lily realised what she had done, and
blanched. Peter was most definitely the weak spot in their armour.
James
stepped forward to take charge of the situation, as Sirius was locked in a
staring contest with Snape. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave
now," James said, waving his wand. The appearance of wands in Remus, Sirius and
Lily's hands seemed to convince Malfoy, who didn't have his out. He and Snape
turned to leave, and got stuck in the doorway with the other Slytherin's. It
was such a comic situation that the Gryffindors had to laugh, and Snape banged
the door so hard behind him when he finally got out that all the glass
shattered.
************************
Lily
walked into her dormitory that night, exhausted, and frowned as she saw the
other fur girls. She had completely forgotten they existed during the long
summer holidays and couldn't even remember their names. She walked over to her
trunk. While she was searching for her pyjamas, she came across the pink dress
robes and held them up.
"They're
pretty," one of the girls behind her said. Lily whipped around, and saw it was
the loudest of the girls, a cheerful blonde.
"Thanks…" for her life, Lily couldn't remember the
girl's name.
"Vicky," the girl smiled.
"Vicky, then. But they're horrible on me, they clash,
you see."
"Oh, I'm sorry. But how come you're talking to me
now?"
"I don't know," Lily mused. "I'm sorry about last
year, I guess I never thought we could be friends. I have the others."
"I see," Vicky said slowly.
"That doesn't mean we cant be friends, though," Lily
said quickly. "But I don't know their names either." She indicated the other
three girls.
"That's Tabitha," Vicky indicted a mousy looking
girl, "that's Andrea," a tall, brown haired girl stared at Lily in a way that
was far from friendly, "and that's Zoe." The fourth student, a slender girl
with hair almost as black as James and Sirius', didn't even look up. Strangely,
this was who Lily felt would be the most interesting.
"I'm sorry," Lily apologised to Vicky, this should
have happened last year."
"That's ok," Vicky answered. "Good night." She
crawled into her bed, soon followed by all the others.