Author's Note: Yes, I'm brazen enough to show my face after…oh, about nine months of ignoring this story. To tell you the truth, I considered abandoning it altogether, but I really need closure on this and I'm going to really do my best to get this finished in the next couple of months. Bear in mind, however, that I am ridiculously busy with school and such (blah!).
This chapter is dedicated to my reviewers, without whom /iRival/i would just be another unfinished manuscript floating around cyperspace. I wish I could mention all of you like I've been doing, but (and I am still completely flabbergasted by this) there have been so many in my absence that you'd have to wait another month for this chapter (which, by the way, isn't much; it doesn't even have James) for me to thank you all properly. However, a special mention goes to Snowlily, who is probably the most enthusiastic and persistent of my reviewers and whose reviews I definitely do not deserve but love to death anyways.
Quick recap: Since you've definitely forgotten, this is the story where James and Lily are competing for the Prefect position next year (they are fourth years), they work on a Transfiguration project together, which happens to be a stuffed blue kangaroo, and James is confounded by an odd occurrence in the Forbidden Forest and a mysterious midnight visitor to the Restricted Section. We last left our heroes at King's Cross Station, where James had just given Lily a comprehensive report on the horrors of Muggle maths despite their recent enmity, and where Lily begins her holiday of posing as a student at St. Brutus' Center For the Exceptionally Gifted for the benefit of Petunia's new friend, Kendall Grant. I am well aware that this story is almost entirely lacking in continuity, so feel free to email me with questions/concerns/insults at thistlemeg@yahoo.com.
Ten points to anyone who gets the Dylan reference.
Standard disclaimers apply.
It was Christmas Eve and Lily had shut herself in her room and was composing a list.
Escape Plans
1. Camp out in the treehouse for the rest of the holiday and hope no one notices.
2. Hitchhike to London and stay at the Leaky Cauldron
3. Hitchhike to Majorca and stay at the beach house
4. Enchant one of Mum's brooms and fly…somewhere
5. Strangle Kendall in her sleep.
Of course, none of these plans were feasible. The treehouse had been built nearly ten years ago and she wasn't sure it would even support her anymore. Her parents would kill her if she attempted to run away, especially by hitchhiking, and she didn't have the money to pay for a room. The beach house was usually rented out for Christmas. Any magic would see her expelled from Hogwarts. And premeditated murder was definitely out of the question.
Although, Lily reflected, if her sister's friend kept it up, perhaps she could plead insanity...
"Lily!" Petunia shouted up the stairs. "We need a third for rummy!"
Of course, Lily knew she could always ask one of her friends to have her over. But she couldn't do that to her parents or her sister. Besides, everyone had spent so much time preparing her for Kendall's visit, it didn't seem right to give up five days into the holiday. So, sighing in resignation, she went to join the game.
"…he didn't!" Lily heard Petunia exclaim as she entered the family room and sat down with the two girls.
"Oh yes," Kendall confirmed, eyes wide. "And what's more, I heard he's been seeing Kerry Wilder ever since."
"He isn't," Petunia returned, quite scandalized and equally delighted. "Who did you hear this from?"
Lily had become quite used to this conversation since she had met Kendall Grant. Before they could advance to the next stage, in which Kendall would rattle off the long chain of excellent accounts through which she had received her latest item of gossip, Lily cut in, "Deal me in, Pet?"
As Petunia counted out the cards, Kendall turned to Lily and smiled slowly. Lily squirmed.
"Tell me, Lily, do you have a boyfriend at your school?" When Lily answered in the negative, she pressed on, "Is there anyone you have your eye on, then? Any good-looking boys you could set us up with? Or, better, rich ones? What are the boys like in Scotland, anyway?" She seemed doubtful that anything good could come from Scotland, but willing to give it a try in the name of boy-hunting.
"I don't know that there are any your type," Lily settled on at last.
Kendall was disappointed, but not yet ready to give up. "Scholarship students, you mean? I suppose a school called St. Brutus' Center isn't very prestigious. Still, there must be some good families."
Lily thought of James Potter, who could trace his family back countless generations of pureblood wizards. "Really not your type," she said again and picked up the jack of hearts.
"Well," Kendall replied, her tone dismissive, "then I don't know why you put up with that. You could always ask your parents to send you to our school, couldn't you?" Before Lily could think of a tactful response, she continued, "I have my eye set on this one fellow - name's Duncan Derring - who'll be worth millions when he's eighteen, or so they say. Something about a rich old great-aunt. I keep telling Petunia that if she wears the right clothes and says the right things she can get her hands on his cousin, Clarence, so that's our project this year." She hesitated. "I suppose we could work on you, too, if you like." She did not seem particularly optimistic about Lily's cultivation. "My family's got connections and I'm sure we could dig someone up."
"Rummy," Lily answered, laying down her cards. "I'd love to stay for another round, but Mum wanted me to help with dinner." And she fled to the kitchen.
On Christmas morning, Lily's parents woke her up early and presented her with a few wizarding presents; a few spellbooks, a new cage for Henry VIII, and, the crowning glory, her first broomstick. Ecstatic, she stowed the gifts under her bed and dressed for Christmas breakfast, confident that nothing could ruin her mood.
She was wrong. Kendall picked ostentatiously at her blueberry pancakes and announced that her family never ate any pastries but whole wheat because of the cholesterol and did the Evanses have any low-fat cereal? She eyed Lily and Petunia's gifts with evident distaste and shook her head after inspecting the labels on their new clothes. Her gifts, which the Grants had evidently sent in time for the Evans to put under their tree, she displayed loudly.
"Oh, how did they know I wanted this sweater? And two more by the same designer – really they shouldn't have, it's far too expensive. You can have this one, Petunia," she added, carelessly flinging the garment into Petunia's arms, "I really have more than I know what to do with." She moved onto the next gift. "Ooh, diamond earrings!"
Lily shared a despairing glance with her mother and father, and tried to catch Petunia's eye, but her sister seemed only grateful. "Thanks, Kendall!" she exclaimed. "It's lovely. And those earrings – oh, and a matching necklace! Just wait until Duncan sees you in those."
Lily excused herself and ran upstairs to blow off some steam to a sympathetic Henry VIII, but she couldn't escape long. Christmas dinner was torturous, as Kendall compared each dish to its superior counterpart in the Grant family dinner. Occasionally she would add, "Of course, this is really very good, Mrs. Evans," with sickening condescension. Lily gritted her teeth and imagined she was on her new Cloudsurfer, flying too high to hear another word in that supercilious tone.
But this tactic was not enough when, as Mrs. Evans began serving the Christmas pudding, Kendall leaned over and whispered loudly to Petunia, "Your family's very…nice, Petunia, but just between us, I wouldn't bring Clarence home for dinner until you're quite sure of him."
Mrs. Evans turned red, Mr. Evans clenched his fists, and Lily felt her anger build up dangerously – and the next thing anyone knew, the pudding had taken off and was hovering over Kendall's perfectly blow-dried head.
"P-Petunia…" their guest began, but it was too late – the bowl turned over in the air and fell directly onto her head.