This is the Year
Chapter 2 - Snow Day
The next morning, Lily awoke in her own bed. She faintly remembered her friends attempting to heave her up the stairs. She took a glance over at the other beds in her dormitory, then at the calendar. 'Everyone must already be at breakfast,' she thought. It was Friday, the first. Everyone was dreading the coming of Monday, when classes would resume at Hogwarts, but there was still the Hogsmeade trip on Saturday to look forward to. Lily quickly showered and dressed warmly, in case she dared to venture into the snow that was beginning to lightly dust the grounds. Once she was ready, she hurried down to the Great Hall to join her friends for breakfast.
"G'morning, everyone!" Lily smiled as she took a seat with her friends at the Gryffindor table. Above them, snow was falling and disappearing just above their heads. She grabbed a piece of toast and smothered it in raspberry jam as she asked, "So no Marauders this morning? I suppose they're all too hung-over to drag their lazy arses out of bed."
"Lily, my dear! You speak so ill of us!" Sirius came up from behind Lily, clasping one hand on her shoulder and the other on Emily's. "Anyway, there's no such thing as a hangover that can't be cured by one of Dogweed and Deathcap's remedies." He took a seat next to Emily and the others followed suit, James taking the one next to Lily. As usual, Lily ignored this and continued to focus on her warm, crunchy toast.
From across the table, where he sat with Alice, Remus, and Peter, Frank asked, "What's everybody up to today? Alice and I will be outside in the snow if anyone would like to join us." That was pretty much a 'no' for everybody, because they knew it would be just more overly-romantic hugging and kissing, which made for a pretty lousy snowball fight for everyone else.
"Well I was thinking of building a giant snow fort to blend in with the snow, that way I can hit old Snively and he'll never see it coming!" Sirius replied, entirely too enthusiastically.
"There's two problems with that," Alice pointed out, "One, he may not even be going outside, and two, I'm pretty sure he'll have a pretty good idea of where the snowballs are coming from and who's throwing them."
"Well you're no fun. I guess we'll just have to stick to the usual hexing then, right, Prongs?" James tried to kick him at that, but accidentally hit Lily instead.
"Oops, sorry!" He could tell that she was fuming, and her face was starting to turn red as her hair, so James prepared for one of her long shouting-lectures, but it never came. Instead, she just took her toast and bag, stood up, and headed for the other end of the Gryffindor table, where she promptly sat and gave her toast the death glare meant for James.
'"Oops?" They talk about tormenting poor Severus, have the nerve to kick me on top of that, and all James can come up with is "Oops?"'
He tried to get up to follow her and properly apologize, but Emily grabbed his arm to stop him and hissed, "Leave her be. If you want to talk to her, you're better off doing it later, when she isn't as likely to murder you." James sat back down and for the rest of the meal he silently poked at his porridge.
After breakfast, when Lily had mostly cooled down, she headed off to the library to work on an essay she'd been procrastinating over for most of the break. She wasn't usually one to procrastinate, but in her defense, the rest of her class probably won't even have started it by Sunday, the day before it was due. She found a desk by a big window with a beautiful view of the grounds, hidden behind some bookshelves and put her nose to the grindstone.
Alice and Frank headed to their dormitories to put on their winter coats and gloves to stay warm, then rushed out to brave the winter storm together and naturally, to build snowmen.
Emily strode off towards the Arithmancy classrooms, where she had volunteered to help tutor a couple of third years, and Sirius followed after her. "Hey, Em, wait up!" he called. She spun around on her heel at the mention of her nickname and smiled warmly. After catching up to her, one of Sirius' hands flew up to the back of his head and he asked, "I was wondering if you'd like to go to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow."
"Sure," she replied, beaming, "Hogsmeade with the Marauders sounds like fun! I'll meet up with you guys in the Common Room, before we head down there, alright?" And with that, she turned back around and continued on her way, leaving Sirius dumbstruck. Clearly, she had misinterpreted his question.
James, Peter, and Remus departed from the Great Hall together, meandering through the halls with no real destination in mind. "How much do you think she hates me?" James asked, hands in his pockets and eyes on the ceiling.
"I doubt anymore than before, but that's not exactly a good thing, mate," Remus replied. "I think I might have a slightly bigger problem, though. I just checked the schedule for Prefects patrol and I've got one with Lily next Wednesday night."
James whipped his head around to look at his friend, "The full moon?" Remus nodded. "Bloody hell."
Over in the library, Lily was beginning to feel a bit lonely. Outside the window, she could see dozens of students, including Alice and Frank, playing in the snow together. Perhaps she should have taken them up on their offer to join them. Behind her in the library, most of the students were studying or messing around with their friends, and there she was all alone. After a couple more hours of work, she finished her essay, scarfed down a late lunch, and headed up to her dormitory for an afternoon nap.
A/N: So I obviously didn't get this out as soon as I had hoped.. sorry about that. I'm not going to promise anything coming at any specific times in the future unless it's already written. (Although I am working on starting another story.) I'm not too busy with school now that the AP tests are over so perhaps I can get another chapter for this out soon. Also, I apologize that not much is going on in this chapter, but I'm just trying to set things up.