Chapter 7: Nothing New

"Wake up!" Britney sat up straight. She seemed to have been tucked into her bed with the covers tightly around her. She looked to find her sister looking at her smiling.

"Dad said you needed to go to Diagon Alley? Get ready and I'll meet you downstairs." Haylie left the room. Britney rubbed her eyes and yawned and rolled out of bed and landed on the floor with a thud.

"Ow . . ." muttered Britney. She didn't know she was at the edge of the bed. She frowned and got dressed. When she got to the kitchen her sister was already sitting stuffing pancakes in her mouth.

"Hurry up and eat sweetie, Haylie is going to take you to Diagon Alley to get you an owl, your father said you needed one. The one thing about Mr. Turner, he always kept to his word. Sometimes it was annoying, like in this instance. 'I hate owls,' Marissa thought grumpily. After she finished eating her pancakes, Britney and Haylie flooed to Diagon Alley.

When Britney landed in the Leaky Cauldron, she groaned. She didn't want an owl. She just wanted to send one letter to one friend this one time. She sighed as her sister grabbed her arm and dragged her down Diagon Alley. 'Why is she so enthusiastic about his – oh . . .' she was meeting up with her boyfriend. This wonderful guy she talked about during dinner that night.

'A Ravenclaw, nothing special, what's so good about him?' thought Britney, he had light brown hair and had grey eyes, he wasn't very good looking, and he was okay. "Princess," 'oh god I hate it when she calls me that,' angrily thought Britney. "This is Guy Daniels." She was smiling. 'Only because she's my sister, I will act rudely, because I love her.'

"So Guy, if you were a girl, do you think your mom still would have called you Guy?" Britney asked innocently. As she expected, Haylie glared, actually it was quite frightening. He looked at her slightly taken aback.

"I don't suppose so -,"

"So your mom would have called you Girl, or Gal?" Britney said with the sweetest voice she could muster.

"I'm sorry Guy, my sister doesn't know when to shut her mouth," said Haylie stepping in front of her sister, and blocking her from Guy's view. "My sister was just leaving," she dropped some galleons into Britney's hand and pushed her away.

Britney started wandering through Diagon Alley, and deliberately skipped passed Eyelops Owl Emporium, and went straight to the ice cream parlor. Yes, it was snowing, and yes there was no one in the ice cream parlor, but Britney felt like ice cream . . . so why not? Her mother probably would have forbid it but, her sister wasn't watching her so, she would get in more trouble.

When she came out of the ice cream parlor, she slowly made her way to Eyelops Owl Emporium, she was dreading buying this owl. She would have to clean after it, and she probably would only use it this one time. She entered the shop, it smelled of manure. Britney scrunched her nose of the smell.

"Hello my dear, how may I help you?" asked the lady at the desk at the other side of the shop, it was hard to hear her with owls hooting madly, rats squeaking and cats running around everywhere, distracting her.

"I need an owl," she whispered.

She was quite surprised the lady heard her when she said, "Right this way my dear." She led Britney to an area where there was a large amount of owls. 'Too many owls,' whined Britney in her head. "Choose any owl you want."

Britney smiled sarcastically but the lady didn't seem to notice, she left to the counter. Britney looked around at the owls, 'choose one, which one?' She closed her eyes, held out her index finger and spun around; when she stopped she opened her eyes and was pointing to a beige medium sized owl, which was blinking at her.

"Er, excuse me ma'am?" shouted Britney over the loud hooting and such. "I choose my owl," the lady bustled over to where Britney stood, looking blankly at the owl. She changed her face to a disgusted one.

"Is there a problem dear?" The lady questioned from the look on Britney's face.

"No, uh, what else do I need for it?"

The lady handed Britney all the things she needed for the owl and Britney set out the door with bags of food and such, with the owl in the cage. She held the owl out at arms length looking at it like it might explode any second.

The owl stared at Britney curiously. 'It's kind of cute . . . I guess?' "What are you looking at?" asked Britney to the owl harshly. It blinked. Britney sighed, as her feet crunched through the snow as she went out on a search for her sister and that Guy.

First thing coming to her mind was, the Leaky Cauldron. Sure enough, her sister was sitting with her Guy giggling at something, that weirdo ugly Ravenclaw Guy.

"Ok, got the owl, now let's go," she insisted.

"Princess," an angry Haylie said. "Here's some more money and get a Butterbeer, then sit in the corner over there, like a good little girl."

"Oh really?" asked Britney, getting angry that her sister was neglecting her. "I'll just have to tell daddy that I had to get the owl by myself, and my sister ignored me completely for her boyfriend Boy."

"It's, er, Guy . . ." he whispered, as the two sisters glared at each other.

"Fine," Haylie turned to Guy and kissed him on the cheek. She grabbed the bags from Britney's hands, grabbed Britney with her other hand and dragged her to the fireplace.

She handed Britney some floo powder, and before she knew it she was back at her house.

"Ah, much better," Britney turned to her sister who just arrived, stood on her tiptoes and patted her lightly on her head. "Good girl."

Haylie glared more than anyone could ever think possible. She dropped the bags on the floor, and stomped up to her room. Britney smiled. Then a house-elf hurried over to the dropped bags.

"What do I do's, with these bags, miss?" squeaked the house-elf.

"My room," said Britney lazily, she quickly pulled out her letter tied it to the owls leg (which took a while since she didn't know how), and sent it off to Lily. 'Yeah! All that work for just one, I repeat, one, letter.

The Next Day

Lily

5 Days till the Christmas Eve Ball

Lily's Room

Lily lay on her bed. She was thinking . . . about Hogwarts mostly, it was so cool! She loved it; she had the nicest friends ever. The only problem was, her sister. This was the reason she was in her room. Lily felt tears stinging her eyes.

Flashback

Earlier that Morning

"So there are actually ghosts flying around the school?" asked Lily's father, Mr. Evans, interested.

Lily nodded her head furiously, smiling hugely. "Yeah, and there's this one called Peeves, who terrorizes the students, it's really annoying at times, but really amazing." Lily said this so fast, during breakfast, the second day of winter break.

"Interesting, and you have a giant as a teacher?" asked the father apprehensively.

"No he's not a teacher, or I don't even think he's a giant. He's the keeper of keys and ground at Hogwarts, he's really nice. He's really tall, but I read in a book that giants are like 18-feet tall and extinct." said Lily quickly.

"Really, eighteen feet?" asked her father with every bit of his interest at Lily, as her mother too sat their letting every word sink in. Lily nodded.

"And our Headmaster is the greatest wizard of all time! He's like over one hundred years-,"

"Would you shut up!?" screeched the neglected thirteen year old. Everyone was silent and was staring at Petunia.

"All you've been doing for the past two days is talking about your freakish school. And I've come to the conclusion, that you're just a freak! You're not normal Lily! This family sucks! We're not normal, you're not normal!" she screeched pointing at Lily. Lily felt her eyes stinging.

"Petunia!" said Mrs. Evans horrified. Petunia turned around, her face read with fury, and stomped loudly to her room and slammed the door. Lily felt tears coming up, and ran to her room.

End of the Horrific Flashback

"I hate her," Lily muttered to herself. Oh, but just then, there was a tapping on her window. Lily jumped of the sudden surprise. She walked over to the window, and saw a beige colored owl outside her window. She opened her window and the owl came in, and dropped a letter, then swooped around the room and landed on the end of her bed.

Lily grabbed the letter and read it. An immediate smile played her lips, as she rushed down the stairs, to her mother who was doing the dishes. Mrs. Evans seemed to still be a little shaken over this morning's display.

"Mom, can I go to my friend's house on Christmas Eve? There's this ball, and all my friends at school will be there. Can I?" Lily said quickly. Her mother turned to look at her young excited daughter. Lily handed her the letter.

"I don't see why not?" her mother smiled at Lily. Lily ran up the stairs, replied to the letter and sent it off with the owl.

Christmas Eve Morning

Lily was so excited, she had her best dress that was baby blue and she had a blue ribbon ready to be put in her hair for tonight. She had it in her bag. Marissa should be here any minute.

There was a knock on the door. Lily raced to the door; she straightened her hair and opened the door.

There, standing at the door, was Britney in jeans and a red jacket with knitted black gloves, a scarf and a hat. Her father on the other hand, seemed to be a little lost dressing like muggles. Since everyone at school, now wore muggle clothes during weekends and stuff, they were used to it. But it looked like her Britney helped her father with the clothes layout.

"Lillian!" Britney grabbed Lily by the hand and pulled her out on the doorstep. "Let's go!"

Lily laughed. "I have to say 'bye' to my parents, and I have to get my shoes on." Lily ran back into the house said good bye to her parents, slipped her boots on, grabbed her bag and was out the door.

Right out front of her house was a green car, with a driver in the front.

"Ministry car!" smiled Britney. The driver walked out and opened the door for them, and they entered.

The inside was pretty big compared to what you would think on the outside.

The ride was about an hour long, but Britney and Lily found a way to preoccupy themselves. When they arrived at about 11:00 am, and entered the door, Mrs. Turner was at the door, waiting.

"Hello, Lily nice to meet you!" she said shaking Lily's hand, with a huge smile on her face.

"Hello Mrs. Turner," Lily replied smiling.

"Please don't call me that, Mrs. Turner is my mother-in-law, call me Jen, and call my husband Brad." she said smiling. "I've heard so much about you, Brit has been talking about you all week. If you need anything don't hesitate to ask me, my husband or a house-elf." She and her husband walked off to a room.

"They're nice," said Lily.

"Yeah . . . no . . . oh I mean . . . come on my room!" Britney grabbed Lily by the arm and pulled her up to her room. "So what you wearing tonight?" asked Britney, sitting on her gigantic bed, in her gigantic room, in her gigantic house.

It just hit Lily on how big everything was here. "This place is huge."

"Yeah huh, now let's see!"

Lily pulled out her blued ensemble, she was smiling hugely. Britney raised her eyebrows, than sighed.

"Lily, this party isn't that type of wear, its dress robes," Britney said looking at the cute blue dress, frowning.

"But I don't have any dress robes and I -," Lily started.

"Oh don't worry, I have tons!" Britney ran to a door, opened it and went in. Lily followed through the door, to find a huge walk-in closet. One side had wizarding robes and such, and the other had muggle clothes.

"Here," muttered Britney, under a pile of robes, she dropped them on her bed. "Choose one!"