Disclaimer: I don't own it.
Chapter 3: Holiday Blues
(Christmas Holidays, First Year)
I managed to hold out for nearly a day before Rose, during the middle of the train ride back home, forced me out of the compartment to "go to the bathroom" with her. Hugo, oblivious to the fact that Rose had ulterior motives, asked disgustedly, "You're going to the bathroom together? Why? That's gross!"
"We're not going together, you git," I told Hugo, rolling my eyes. "She just wants me to walk there with her."
"Oh." He leaned back in his seat. "Okay, then."
As soon as we were out of the hearing range of the compartment, Rose stopped me. "Are you ready to tell me what's going on?" she asked me calmly, though her eyes were sharp.
"Nothing's going on Rose," I assured her.
"Something's going on, Lily, or else you'd have already told me about it. I wasn't worried when I first asked you, but, now that you refuse to tell me, I'm starting to get very anxious. You know you can tell me anything, right? You know I'll always forgive you and love you?" I nodded uneasily.
Logically, I knew what she was saying was true, that my family would always love me, but sometimes I couldn't help my uncertainty. Daddy always told me that he wanted me to be unbiased and nice with everyone, yet he supported Uncle Ron whenever Uncle Ron insulted Slytherins. I could remember, when I was nine, laughing at the idea of Uncle Ron disowning Rose if she wasn't a Gryffindor, but now that I was put in the position to potentially be disowned--though I doubted I'd get that harsh of a punishment--the idea wasn't so funny.
"Please, Lily," her voice broke through my thoughts, "just tell me what's going on." She sounded so sincere and caring that I almost told her then.
Almost.
"I'm, er," I fumbled around for an adequate lie and finally came up with, "failing Transfiguration. Professor Burroughs had a talk with me about it two days ago." It was a bit of a stretch, I knew, because--though it was my second weakest subject--I certainly wasn't about to fail. I was getting anywhere from a high "A" to a low "E." Not great, but not horrible, either.
She still looked skeptical. "But you mentioned something about there being 'some good in them,' and I fail to see how that applies to failing Transfiguration."
"Oh, that?" I asked, forcing my face into a sheepish smile. "I was talking about books. I, er, got an 'E' on our latest essay because I read the textbook more closely, so I was saying that books really did have some use."
I was afraid that my tone conveyed my lie, but Rose immediately accepted this information for the truth. "Oh, Lily," she said, pulling me into a hug, "I had no idea; I'm so sorry for bugging you about it. Hey, I have an idea," she suddenly said, leaning back to look me in the eye. "How about I tutor you? I've got a full schedule, but, for you, I'll make time; just tell me when you're able to do it."
"Er, thanks," I said slowly, unenthusiastically. I didn't really need the tutoring, and I felt bad that she was going to lessen her already limited free time, but what else could I do? I could hardly tell her that I'd just lied.
"Don't worry," she added, seeing my anxiety and misconstruing the source of it, "I promise not to tell anyone. It'll be our little secret." I gave her a fake smile. "By the end of this term you'll have an 'O' in Transfiguration, I promise."
I headed back to our compartment feeling even worse than I'd left it. Was I a bad person for lying, especially to someone as wonderful and selfless as Rose? I supposed it didn't matter in the end, though, because there was no going back on that lie, not if I didn't want to make Rose disappointed in me--and I hated making people disappointed in me. Disappointment always made me feel more guilty than even anger did.
"Long bathroom break," Céline commented when I sat back down next to her, and her voice betrayed annoyance at not being privy to the discussion I'd just had with Rose.
"Eventful, too," I whispered back. And, before she could ask, "Rose thinks I'm failing Transfiguration."
Céline looked intrigued. "How does she figure that?"
"Because I told her I am," I answered, shrugging guiltily.
"I see--oh, wait a minute, no I don't. Explain," she commanded, and I bristled a bit at her tone. I didn't feel like fighting with her, though, not so close to vacation, so I let out my annoyance in a sigh.
"She had some notion that I was doing something secretive, and even though I've told her over and over again that I wasn't, she refused to believe me," I told her.
"So, naturally, you told her that you're failing Transfiguration. How brilliant of you, Lily," she said sarcastically.
"It was the only way I could think of to get her to leave me alone. Could you come up with anything better on the spot? Don't answer that," I said when she opened her mouth. "I wasn't really expecting an answer."
"A rhetorical question?" she asked, and I frowned in confusion.
"Er, sure?" I could've sworn I'd heard a teacher--one of my muggle teachers--use that phrase before, but I hadn't been paying attention at the time. Céline opened her mouth to explain, but I quickly turned to strike up a conversation with Al; I didn't feel like listening to Céline lord her knowledge around.
Mummy and Daddy were already waiting for Al, James, and I at Platform Nine and Three Quarters by the time we pulled in. I felt very old to be on the returning from Hogwarts as opposed to receiving siblings home from Hogwarts. I was finally where I'd always dreamed of being.
Yet, I returned home with more baggage--in the figurative sense--than I'd ever imagined I would as a young child. I'd never realized that Hogwarts would change me--and had already changed my brothers, too--in so many ways. Before my first year at school, the only real secret I'd ever kept was my love of drawing; now, however, I had secrets up to my elbows. I hadn't told anyone that I was actively trying to befriend a Slytherin, Al was the only one to know that I'd wanted to be in Slytherin, Rose thought I was failing Transfiguration, and only Céline knew that I'd been lying to Rose when I told her this. I was finding it difficult to keep track of such a twisted web.
I remember musing about all these lies often during vacation, so much so that, on my second day at home, I sought Daddy out. He was sitting in his favorite comfy red chair by the TV, dozing off as he watched the news. I walked straight up to him and tried to sit in his lap, something I hadn't done for years. Still, I managed to just barely fit; I'd always been on the petite side.
Daddy let out an "oof!" when I sat down and curled up against him. "Hey, sweetie," he said, kissing the top of my head, "what's wrong?"
"Nothing," I answered, burying my head into his shoulder. My voice came out sounding muffled. "I just missed you is all."
"Is that why you wrote to me so often from Hogwarts?" he asked jokingly because, in all the hustle of my first few months at all, I hadn't written to him more than once a week. I felt immediately guilty; had I been neglecting my parents too much?
"Sorry, Daddy," I murmured, but the words, spoken against his shoulder, were incomprehensible.
"Sorry, didn't quite catch that," Daddy said. I leaned back to repeat myself and saw that he was grinning.
"I said, 'Sorry, Daddy.'"
"Aw, Lils, I was just teasing you," he told me. "You know I could never really be mad at you."
"Even if I did something really bad? Something that you didn't agree with?" I asked, suddenly keen on the conversation. "Would you still love me then?"
"Of course I would," Daddy assured me, sounding and looking shocked that I even had to ask in the first place. "I'll always love you no matter what you do." There was a pause in which he scrutinized my face and I blushed deeply. "Is there something you want to tell me, sweetie?"
Again, I was tempted to tell everything, but I shook my head instead. "No, of course not." I buried my face in his shoulder again. "I was just asking."
I tried to remember why I didn't do this more often--rest in Daddy's arms, I mean--because I felt so protected and loved there. All of the fears I had when I wasn't with Daddy seemed irrational in that moment, stupid, even. Yet, once I was forced to leave his embrace--Teddy had just arrived--my worries came back as strong as ever. My repose was only temporary.
Teddy brought some bad news with him. He'd just been visiting Victoire at her house before stopping by, and apparently the Delacour-Weasley branch of the family was undergoing some difficulties. Angelique and Sophie, twin sixth-year utterly identical in appearance and personality, had both fallen for Roger Davies II. The two were notorious in our household for their love of boys--in fact, they purposely worked their beauty to full effect in order to win over any and every boy, which neither Victoire nor Marie nor Céline had ever done--so, I thought to myself, it really was only a matter of time before they both wanted the same boy.
The two had, Teddy told us, been fighting over him for nearly the entire month of December, but he finally asked Angelique out on a date the day before term ended. Sophie, distraught, ran out of the house in tears almost immediately after she returned home--Angelique had gloatingly mentioned her new boyfriend Roger to Uncle Bill and Auntie Fleur in front of Sophie--and, when she returned three hours later, most of her silky blonde hair had been chopped off and its color had been dyed jet black. She couldn't stand looking so much like a her conceited, selfish sister, she had explained to her parents when they'd asked what she'd been thinking.
Auntie Fleur had grounded Sophie for the entirety of the Christmas Holidays and was, Teddy said, currently trying to find a way to repair the damage Sophie had done--which, we later found out, was irreversible. Sophie wasn't in Ravenclaw for nothing; she knew how to make her changes permanent.
Auntie Fleur and Uncle Bill, when we next saw them, claimed only to have gotten mad at Sophie for "mutilating" her hair--though I personally liked how it came out. She certainly looked different than her sisters, at least, which I assumed was her intention--without permission. I, however, had the impression that they were only punishing Sophie for trying to be different. Maybe it was my imagination overworking itself, but Auntie Fleur and Uncle Bill's other explanation seemed, well, implausible. It was Sophie's hair, after all; why would they get angry about how she wore it unless they were against anyone standing out?
This negative response to Sophie's situation served to reinforce my fear of my own secrets somehow getting out. I didn't want my family to know I was different if this was how they'd react to something as small, by comparison, as hair color or length.
Céline didn't help matters any because, every time that she came over, she mentioned something about Sophie's stupidity. "I can't believe she cut off her hair," she said the day after Sophie's "meltdown" occurred, shaking her head angrily. "She loved that hair. What could she've been thinking?"
"Maybe she just wanted a change," I suggested, and Céline scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "Well, maybe she didn't want to look so much like Angelique anymore--didn't she say something about that? Maybe it hurt so much for her to look in the mirror while she still resembled Angelique that she had to change her appearance. Her heart is broken, after all."
"Her heart isn't broken," Céline scoffed. "She'll be over this crush in less than a week, and then she'll regret what she did. She'll regret trying to… to stand out, to steal the spotlight back from Angelique."
"Is it so horrible that she might want to be different than Angelique?" I asked in a small voice, my stomach clenching painfully. Was Céline going to hate me, too, if my secrets came out? If I showed how different I myself was from the rest of my family?
"She doesn't want to be different than Angelique, Lily!" Céline snapped. "She just wants attention! That's all this is about; she wants hates the fact that Angelique is getting more notice than her."
"She's your sister, Céline. Can't you cut her some slack?" I asked. "You should be supporting her, even if you don't like the fact that she's different from how you want her to be."
"I can't, Lily," Céline said, sighing as if I were the illogical one in the conversation, which I knew wasn't true. In fact, I think this was the first time I ever felt smarter and more practical than Céline. "If you were in my position, you'd understand." I shook my head and left the room; I couldn't talk to Céline when she acted like this.
I wrote Sophie a letter later that day asking about her situation and whether it was worth standing out in life given the backlash she had received. We'd never really been close before this moment, but I suddenly felt as if she was the only one who could truly understand me. Maybe, I hoped, I could tell her everything I had bottled up inside without fear of a negative response.
Her letter back, while sweet and encouraging, did not open any confidences. She merely wrote, "I needed to do it, Lily, to satisfy my heart; I couldn't bear the thought of losing another boy I loved to a sister identical to me in looks and personality. Since I could hardly change the latter of the two--to do so would be to change my very nature--I was left with changing the former. So, no, I don't regret my actions, and, yes, standing out was worth the backlash. You'll understand when you're older and you fall in love yourself."
I wondered why Sophie hadn't been placed in Gryffindor if she was able to so fearlessly stand up to her family; didn't this indicate a flaw in the Sorting Hat's judgment? And, if there was a flaw, then maybe I really did belong in Slytherin; I certainly, with my fears and secrets, didn't feel like a brave Gryffindor.
In order to forget my worrying for a bit, I turned to drawing the view from my window, a winter wonderland-esque scene. This, as I had hoped, calmed me down, and I retained that sense of tranquility even once I had finished drawing and left my room to join my family downstairs. I was able to enjoy myself with my fellow Weasleys/Potters and almost forget that I'd ever had any anxiety at all in life. Such was the influence my family had over me.
This peace lasted until Christmas night, when the Longbottoms, Scamanders, Teddy's Gran, Teddy himself, and Céline's Aunt Gabrielle all came over. I spent a few hours with Alice brushing up my knowledge on James--who, apparently, was now dating Eileen Travers--and then, in turn, talked with James about his new conquest, but he quickly changed the subject on me to play our favorite game: the word game. We'd choose a topic--foods, animals, things you can hold in you hand, etc.--and list a word, and then the other person would have to say a word on the same subject that began with the last letter of the previous word. A word cannot be repeated in this game.
It was James' turn to chose a topic, so he picked colors. He had no idea that, now that I was into drawing, I had a wide vocabulary of colors. I easily kicked him out of the game with "burgundy"; he had already used yellow by this point. He wanted a rematch, but I told him to think again; I rarely ever beat him at any game, and I wasn't about to ruin my good fortune so soon.
Leo, during this time, remained suspiciously absent--usually he followed me around whenever he felt anxious--and I set out worriedly to search for him. I found him, howling plaintively, twenty minutes later; he had been locked in a cabinet by cousin Andrew. Uncle Charlie and Auntie Olivia scolded him fiercely for that, but Andrew--the prat--was unrepentant. Once I told him to sleep with one eye open, however, the smirk fell right off his face.
Priscilla, of course, chose this moment to intervene, and even though she was a year younger than me, she started to tell me off for being so "mean" and "irresponsible." It was in vain for me to mention that Andrew had started it, for "I was older and should know to act more maturely." I was tempted to tell her to sleep with one eye open, too, but I figured it'd just get her even angrier, and while that would be funny for me, I was sure Mummy wouldn't be too pleased. So, instead, I said, "You're right" all sweetly and walked away.
Uncle Neville--ironically, it now took effort not to call him "Professor Longbottom"--pulled me aside shortly after I did this with a firm look on his face. I assumed he was going to tell me off for acting disrespectfully towards Priscilla, or something along that line, and I was ready to defend myself--I had, after all, taken the high road and hadn't provoked her--but he said something entirely different than I had anticipated.
"What's this I hear about you failing Transfiguration, Lily?"
My eyes widened slightly. "How--"
"Rose asked me if she could use my office during her free time," he explained, "and I naturally wondered why she needed it. Her response was--after she had promised me to secrecy--that she had to tutor you in Transfiguration, that you were failing. Now, I know Transfiguration is far from your best subject, Lily, but I happen to also know for a fact that your grade in Transfiguration is currently hovering on the border between an 'A' and an 'E,' neither of which constitutes a failing grade. Which begs the question of how Rose came to have such a notion in her head. Any ideas?"
"I, er, might've told her something along those lines," I answered in a small voice. "Just maybe."
"I thought so," he said, his voice sounding dreadfully disappointment. My stomach squirmed uncomfortably. "I think you should tell her the truth, though I suspect she already knows that she's been lied to. I was, as you can imagine, rather shocked at what she had to say. Still, she deserves to hear you tell her this yourself. Can I trust you to do that?"
I nodded, feeling mortified. "Of course you can! I'll talk to her straightaway." I left to follow Uncle Neville's advice before he could make me feel even worse with his let down expression; I found Rose, with Hugo's help, upstairs. As I made my way up, I passed by Céline and she gave me a weird look, but I shrugged it off. I'd find out what Céline wanted later, I told myself; first I needed to settle things with Rose.
Rose looked up when I entered the room, but, except for a reddening in her ears and a narrowing in her eyes, she didn't show much of a reaction. Yet, with the always cool-headed Rose, such a small display of emotion as that betrayed volumes of her anger. The more calm and simultaneously red she was, the angrier she was guaranteed to be.
"Hello," she said curtly when I entered. "Come to start our Transfiguration lessons?"
"Er, about those," I began awkwardly, nervously playing with a strand of my red hair. "I'm not really failing Transfiguration."
"I know."
For a few seconds which felt like minutes we both remained silent. Rose, it seemed, was expecting more from me. "I only said that because, well, you wouldn't leave me alone," I told her. "You kept bugging me even though I told you nothing was going on, and it was annoying me."
"So you thought the best solution was to lie to me?" she asked, hurt. "Instead of telling me the truth?"
"I did te--" I began, but I stopped myself. I refused to lie to her again--at least not so soon. I didn't want her to somehow find out about a second lie; she'd probably decide to never forgive me. "I lied because I didn't want to tell you the truth. I still don't. And I, well, felt it was unfair of you to force me to tell you something I didn't want to, so I took the easy way out and lied. I'm sorry."
"You should've told me that you didn't feel comfortable sharing, Lily," Rose said sadly. "I would've left you alone if you had said that instead of, 'Nothing.'"
"Would you have? Honestly?" I asked. "Because I don't think you would've, Rose."
"Well, maybe I wouldn't have, but--"
"But what? You deserved to know? I was selfish to keep something from you?" I cut in. "I shouldn't have to tell you everything, Rose. Everyone needs to keep some things a secret. Don't you have any secrets?"
"I…" She paused her, then answered, "Yes, I do. Many, in fact. I was just worried about you, Lily. You're so young and impressionable, and when you turned red and wouldn't tell me what was going on, I thought something was wrong. I just wanted to protect you."
"I don't need protecting, Rose," I said. "I know that's hard to believe, but it's true. I'm growing up."
"You're only eleven," she pointed out, but at least she was half-smiling now. "That's not quite so old yet."
I shrugged. "No age is ever going to seem old enough to you; you're my big cousin, after all. But I've got to learn to take care of myself at some point, so why not now?" Rose still seemed uncertain. "Look, Rose, what happened before was a good thing; I promise that you don't have to worry about it."
"Then why can't you tell me?" she asked, and I sighed.
"I just can't, Rose. I'm sorry, but I can't. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to, but not now; I'm not ready yet." She seemed to struggle with that for a moment, but, finally, she nodded her head in grudging acceptance. "Are you still very mad at me?"
"Not very," she replied, "but, yes, I'm still mad. Just give me the night, Lily, and then I'll be fine." I started to walk to the door, but right before I exited, Rose called out, "I love you, Lily, and I'll continue to love you no matter what you're doing. You know that, right?"
It meant a lot to me to hear her say that, but I couldn't completely believe what she said; a part of me still thought she'd change her mind once she found out how much I differed from the Lily she thought she knew. "I love you, too," I called back, exiting and shutting the door behind me.
I leaned against the solid wood of the closed door and felt like crying all of a sudden because, really, why was I having such a problem telling anyone the truth? I firmly believed that what I was doing was right, so why was I keeping so many secrets? Did I really have the courage that the Sorting Hat said I did? Or was I put into Gryffindor simply because I fit into no other House?
I'm not sure how long it took Hugo to find me, but the next thing I remember is his voice asking me, "So you've talked to Céline?"
I looked tearfully up at him--I wasn't sure when I'd sat down, but apparently I had--and asked, "What are you talking about?" I cringed on the inside because my voice sounded so nasally. I hated crying; I hadn't done so for months, or maybe even years.
"Oh, er, you haven't talked to her?" I shook my head. "Then you might want to… avoid her, if possible. She's sort of mad at you right now." Great. Just what I needed. Another person angry with me.
"Why? What did I do?" I asked him, wiping my once again tearful eyes unattractively with my sleeve.
"She's mad that you, er," Hugo said awkwardly, "didn't ice Sophie out. You gave Sophie a Christmas present."
"She's mad that I gave my cousin a Christmas present?" I repeated in disbelief. "I was supposed to ignore my own cousin and not give her a gift?" And, before Hugo could answer, "I didn't even give Sophie a big gift: a pair of earrings from Diagon Alley. It's not something Céline should be mad about."
"I know, she's just… Céline." Hugo shrugged.
"As if that excuses her for being a bitchy prick!"
"Well, she's always been a 'bitchy prick,'" Hugo pointed out. "That's why you used to hate her, remember? You've just been surprisingly safe during your friendship from her anger. And, if it makes you feel any better, she's mad at me, too."
"So we're suffering together?" I asked, and he nodded. "Well, that doesn't really help at all, but at least I still have you, Hugo. I don't know what I'd do without you."
His ears turned bright red. "I, er… don't know what I'd do without you, either," he murmured awkwardly, his voice so low I almost didn't hear him.
That caused me to grin despite my tears. This was most definitely a Christmas miracle. Getting Hugo to act emotionally, I mean, because he, unlike his sister, always became mortified whenever he had to share his feelings.
"Rose had an interesting theory when she first found out that Céline was mad at me as to the reason why," Hugo said suddenly. "She told me that she'd been talking to Céline's Aunt Gabrielle earlier today about Veela and part-Veela, and that Gabrielle had explained quite a bit to her."
"Really?" I asked. "What did she say?"
"She said that Veela feel emotions much more powerfully than humans do, and that part-Veela, when they reach adolescence, have the tendency to take on this trait. Céline's overreacting to everything even more than usual because her hormones and emotions are working like a Veela's now. Every slight disagreement or annoyance turns into the worst betrayal, and every small happiness seems like the most joyous thing to ever happen in the world."
Hugo's explanation answered so many of my questions about why Céline had been acting so oddly lately. This was the reason why she overreacted when Sophie cut her hair, why she was now acting so completely unpredictably in her emotions towards me and Hugo. But, while I was glad to have this understanding, I was also worried that Céline's change might be permanent. So, naturally, the first thing I asked Hugo was, "Is she ever going to go back to normal?"
"With time she'll learn to control her emotions, I think. Auntie Fleur, Gabrielle, Victoire, and Marie all have, and Sophie's close to being able to. Gabrielle said to Rose that, now that Sophie's felt real, lasting pain, the memory of her misery will keep her from feeling so intensely in the future. I just hope it doesn't take Céline as long or cause her as much pain as it did Sophie," Hugo said.
"Me, too." I couldn't imagine what I'd do if Céline, for the next five years, was as selfish as Angelique still was and Sophie had previously been. It was even worse, though, to imagine her mastering emotions under the same conditions that Sophie did; I never wanted to see my best friend ache so much.
Hugo and I eventually returned downstairs, though neither of us was in any mood to celebrate anymore. Céline glared daggers at us when she saw us come down the stairs. She made a point of walking past us, and as she did so, she muttered, "Having so much fun without me, huh?" in an angry, wounded voice. I tried to talk to her, to tell her that neither Hugo nor I had had any fun without her, but she refused to so much as look at me for the rest of the night--or the rest of the holidays, as I soon found out.
She better, I mused the day before school started once again, learn to control her emotions soon, or at least forgive me and Hugo. I missed talking to her, no matter how much of a "bitchy prick" she'd always been, and I knew Hugo felt the same way.
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A/N: Fast update for you all. :)
Lily Hermione Potter--Thank you! I hope this latest installment meets your expectations. :)
100-percent-Harry-Potter-obsessed--Thanks! Perhaps she's a combination of both? I never said, after all, that her surname reflects her Weasley-ness. ;)
SmileEmLoveYou--Thanks! I'm sure she'd be glad to hear that you appreciate her quirks, too. ;)
Ramzes--Thank you! Her interactions with Scorpius will become more frequent and more awkward (for him, mostly) as time goes on, but those are the best sorts of conversations. ;) As for Leo, well, he's very tempermental. He, as you pointed out, is more trusting than Crookshanks--mostly because he isn't a part-kneazle like Crookshanks is--but he's also more prone to turning on the people he trusts, like in Hugo's case. The only person who never has to worry is Lily.
Also, with this story, I've got only one relationship completely set in stone at the moment (three guesses which, ;) ) and another I'm inclined to keep, so if you like a particular pairing, let me know. The two might just end up with a more lasting relationship than I originally was going to give them (as long as it doesn't interefere with the plot, of course). :)
