Lily was nervous. She knew her friends deserved an answer about her strange behavior, but this wasn't a conversation she wanted to have. She didn't know where to start, and she didn't want to break down in tears. They were her best friends, but she didn't know how to say this. She didn't know how to explain any of it. She couldn't understand why it was affecting her so much. In reality, not much had changed in her life.
As it was Friday, the girls had agreed to meet up after dinner, eat some chocolate and hear Lily's story. Knowing what was coming, Lily found herself uncharacteristically quiet all through dinner. She was uncharacteristically quiet even for this new 7th year Lily. She found she couldn't eat much. She mostly pushed the food around on her plate. Nothing looked or smelled particularly appetizing. She could hear a million conversations happening around her, but it sounded like static on a badly tuned radio. She felt someone nudge her in the side as she was making shapes in her mashed potatoes. Looking up, rather startled, she found Marley pointing towards a rather curious Remus Lupin standing behind her. Realizing she probably missed whatever Remus had said to her, she tried to act as if nothing was wrong. "Hmm?" she questioned.
"I was just checking to make sure you remembered we have rounds tonight." Remus remarked.
"Oh. Right. Rounds. I almost forgot. Thanks for the reminder. Meet in the common room at 9?" Lily responded.
"Sounds great. I will see you there." Remus replied with a smile, walking off to join his friends.
"Don't think rounds are getting you out of telling us what's going on," Marley said as if reading Lily's mind.
"But-"
"No." Emma interrupted sharply. "You are telling us tonight before rounds."
"Right…" Lily responded, returning to her mashed potatoes. It's not that she didn't want to tell them. It's just that she didn't know how. In theory asking for help seems easy. She could go to anyone. Her friends, her teachers, her extended family. But when the situation arose, she could not think of a single person she felt comfortable asking for help.
After dinner, the girls made their way back to Gryffindor tower. Lily was still lost in her own thoughts and quietly worrying about the conversation to come. How did you even start having this conversation? Much too quickly in Lily's opinion, they found themselves in their dorm.
"Speak." Emmaline commanded as she sat on her bed facing the still standing Lily while Marlene was bent over digging for the chocolate she knew she brought with her.
"Hold on, hold on!" Marlene insisted. "I know I have lots of good chocolate - aha!" She called out triumphantly holding a rather large amount of chocolate high in the air. After Marlene sat down and passed around the first helping of chocolate, Lily sighed.
"I don't really know where to start," she began, staring at the chocolate in her hands, "I guess I can start out with the fact that my summer was not good." She took a deep breath. "I got myself home from school. After the Hogwarts Express, I took the Tube back and walked to my house. I was expecting to have the whole place to myself at that time of the day. Mum and Dad should have both been at work, and Petunia had already moved out. But when I got around the corner and saw the house, my dad's car was there. I figured he just decided to work from home or take the afternoon off, so I lugged my heavy trunk in, and I called out a typical greeting to my dad."
Lily's Story:
"Dad! I'm home"
"Hi Lily." I noticed that he sounded upset. I figured it was probably the layoffs he had to do at work that her mother had been mentioning in her letters, so I headed to the kitchen to try to cheer him up.
When I got to the kitchen, he was just sitting there at the counter. He didn't have any form of entertainment or anything around him. He was just sitting there staring straight ahead. "Come sit down, Lily. We need to talk." So I sat. I sat there at the kitchen counter with my dad. "Lily, I'm going to go stay with your grandparents for a little while." Somehow I just knew that he meant that he was divorcing my mom. Maybe he explained it. I don't really remember. I just remember that we sat there at the kitchen counter talking. I remember crying. But we must have been sitting there for a couple hours.
I don't think I'll ever forget the next part. See, he hadn't told my mum yet. Her car pulled into the garage, and I got up to go to my room and get as far away from there as possible, but my dad stopped me. "No, I want you to be here." I froze, then sat back down.
My mum walked in the room and found us both sitting there. It was almost an out-of-body experience for me. I felt like I was watching the scene from above rather than living through it. I guess my brain just decided to shut down.
"I'm going to stay at my parents' house," Dad said.
"Ok. When will you be back?" Mum replied casually. It was so painful. She didn't understand. She didn't know that he wasn't planning on coming back. And I was stuck there.
"I don't think this is working." Dad replied. Mum seemed to be catching on to what was happening. She walked to their bedroom. He followed her. And I heard as my mum begged my dad to stay. She finally convinced him not to leave that night. He ended up leaving a couple weeks later while Mum and I were out of town. We came home and his closet was empty.
Lily was staring at the wall now, unable to look at her best friends. If she didn, she knew she would break down. And she couldn't do that.
"Lily," Emmaline whispered, "I'm so sorry."
Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
There was a knock on the door and a second year entered. "Um? Sorry to interrupt? But Remus Lupin is looking for Lily?"
"Thanks." Lily said, giving the girl a small smile as she stood up and grabbed her sweater before heading down to meet Remus for rounds.
"Lils…" Lily heard Marlene's voice, but she didn't turn around. The rest of the story would have to wait.
