Disclaimer: I don't own it.
Chapter 5: Learning to Give Second Chances
(mid March- June, First Year)
Céline was released from the Hospital Wing with a clean bill of health on the following Friday, though I noticed that Madame Longbottom, the sweet and matronly wife of Professor Longbottom, waited until after her Potions class had finished to discharge her. No doubt she feared the idea of another "accident" occurring--which actually wasn't that unlikely, I acknowledged. Céline would be the type to seek revenge.
I dreaded the upcoming Potions class almost as much as Madame Longbottom did, though for an entirely different reason. Potions was the first class that I'd have with Céline since our talk in the Hospital Wing, and I had no idea what I should expect from her. Would she still seek the forgiveness I couldn't yet give her, or would she hate me again for refusing to bow to her will? I tried to tell myself it didn't matter, but I knew that was a lie; I cared very much, and it was turning me into a bundle of nerves. Potions, when it finally came, was therefore something of a relief. I no longer had to live in anxious anticipation; I could finally know for sure where I stood with Céline.
Hugo and I arrived to class more than ten minutes earlier than we usually did, but we still weren't the first to get there. Céline, standing uncertainly in the back of the classroom, was already waiting; she clearly had no idea where she was supposed to sit: with me and Hugo, or alone. Her eyes, when she heard the door open, snapped towards us, and for a second we all stood frozen and mute. Hugo was the first to move, and I quickly joined him as he made his way to our customary table near the middle of the room.
Céline looked disappointed, as if we had let her down somehow instead of the other way around, but she quickly masked her pain. "Hello!" she greeted us in a falsely cheerful voice. From the slightly nasally way her voice resounded out, I guessed that she had been crying, and the idea saddened me--which was probably why, when Céline hesitantly asked, a few moments later, if she could sit with us, I said yes almost immediately. Sure, I had spoken unenthusiastically, but that was, at least, better than a full-out rejection.
Céline seemed to be of the same opinion. She rushed over to the two of us as fast as she could and plopped down in the empty seat beside as if she thought we might take away her permission if she didn't act quickly enough. "Thanks," she murmured, a small smile gracing her face.
I shrugged as if it didn't matter, and the next few moments were spent in yet another awkward silence. Hugo, sitting on my other side, crossed his arms. He, like I, was waiting for Céline to make the first move; we had meant it when we told her she had to fix this without our help.
All of a sudden, Céline's face lit up, and she plunged her hand into schoolbag. Out came a thin, light blue box--I wondered, randomly, how in the world she'd managed to keep it from being squashed; her bag was nearly overflowing with books--which, we saw when she pulled the lid off, held an array of delectable-looking French desserts. "Victoire made them," she explained, "when she heard that I was in the Hospital Wing." And then, waving the box temptingly in front of our faces, "Please, take as many as you'd like."
Hugo certainly looked ready to take one--one? He looked ready to take them all--but I firmly shook my head in response. "No, thank you," I told her, though the aroma was making my mouth water.
"Er, none for me, either," I heard Hugo say resignedly, and I turned questioningly toward him. I didn't mind if he took any, and I was about to tell him so, until I saw the resolute look in his eyes. Food wasn't going to win him over as easily as Céline had imagined it would.
"Oh." Her voice betrayed surprise. "Okay, then. I'll just, er, put the box away, I guess." She, taking her time--no doubt trying to give herself longer to come up with some conversation starter--proceeded to do just that. "Er, have you, er, ever noticed that, when someone in the family bakes you something and likes what she's baked, that she'll eat a little bit of the food and then openly admit that she did, as if that would somehow make the fact that she ate part of it okay?"
I stared blankly at her; I had no idea what she had just tried to say. Beside me, I heard Hugo ask, "What? I didn't understand one word of that."
Blushing, Céline hastened to explain herself. "Victoire, er, when she sent me the box of desserts, wrote in her letter to me that she had 'sampled' quite a few of them--and by quite a few, I mean half of them. She seemed to think that it was okay, you know, that she ate so many because she had at least told me that she had eaten them. It's a bit daft of her, don't you think?"
"Not really. I mean, she did make them in the first place," Hugo pointed out. "And she could've eaten all of them and not given any to you if she wanted to you. You should be more thankful to her."
Céline looked stricken. "I'm not--I wasn't--I am thankful to her!" she insisted.
"You don't seem thankful," Hugo muttered, but I gave him a sharp look. I agreed with what he was saying, but I was annoyed at how openly he was antagonizing her; he was better than that. "Sorry," he told me, "I just think Victoire's entitled to eat the stuff she herself made."
"You would think that," I said, grinning and poking his arm playfully to show that I wasn't angry.
"That's only because, if he ever baked desserts for someone, he'd eat most of them, too," Céline added, trying to continue the joke, but neither Hugo nor I laughed. She wasn't yet entitled to tease either of us, especially not Hugo.
"No, I wouldn't," he said defensively, and Céline once again looked wounded. She murmured something about "taking the mickey" and "not serious," but Professor Gravissimus entered the room at that moment and she didn't have time to finish her apology--if that's even what she was mumbling out.
Professor Gravissimus was quite possibly the oddest teacher--aside from Professor Binns, the sole ghost on the staff--that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry employed. He was such a bizarre mixture of seriousness and light-heartedness that most students had no idea what to make of him. During his classes, absolute silence was essential at all times--he didn't, he said at least once a class, want anyone to "disrupt the fragile atmosphere that is vital to making of effective potions" through chatter--and he expected his students, if they had to communicate while brewing their potions, to either pass notes or mime out their thoughts (I had a lot of fun with the latter of the two). Yet, for all his strict discipline when it came to his no-talking rule, Professor Gravissimus was by far the easiest grader that I'd ever had. Even I, dreadful potion-maker that I was, had a solid "E" to show for the year.
"Silence, everyone," Professor Gravissimus called out, though he needn't have done so. The class had long since learned to become quiet once he entered the room. I wondered if Céline would try to mime out whatever she'd been trying to say--though she'd never been as big a fan of this method as I--or write a note, but she did neither; perhaps, in her sorrow, she didn't remember these options.
I expected that Céline would, however, burst out her apology or excuse--whichever it was--the minute the bell rang to signal the end of class, but all she muttered was a hasty, "Bye!" before she hurried from the room. I heard rumors later that day that Céline had been caught crying in the girls bathroom, and I wondered if Hugo and I had been too harsh to her. I hadn't wanted to make her cry or suffer; I'd only wanted her to give me proof before I accepted her back that she wouldn't fly off the handle again the next time I annoyed her.
Céline, from then on, remained silent in the classes we had together. She still sat next to me, with Hugo on my other side, but she never tried to take part in the conversations I had with him. I wanted to tell her not to give up, to keep trying, because her easy defeat only made us seem all the less important to her.
The day before Easter holidays, I gave up my silly resolution to make Céline prove herself on her own. With her intensified, Veela-like emotions running rampant, I was afraid she'd slip too far into a depression without my help. "Go see Marie," I advised her at the end of Transfiguration, "if you want to become friends again. She can help."
I spent the Easter holidays expecting Marie to make some reference to me about whether or not she had talked to Céline, but none came. I began to wonder if Céline had even listened to me before, and I tried to seek her out to repeat my advice, but I could no longer find her now that I wanted to; she seemed to have disappeared over the holidays. I even wondered briefly if she'd chosen to go home for the holidays, though students very rarely did; most wanted to stay at Hogwarts to study for their end of the year exams. I'd assumed that Céline, especially, would choose the latter option, but perhaps I was wrong.
Not that all of my time was spent searching for Céline, of course. Most of it was spent on studying and reviewing my year's notes, though I was prone to take long breaks every couple of hours. My temperament couldn't handle reading notes for hours nonstop; I needed to stretch my legs and breathe in fresh air. During one of these breaks, when I happened to be walking by the lake, I came across Alice relaxing in the sun with a few of her fourth-year friends. When she saw me, she immediately stood up and hurried over to join me.
"Hey, Lily!" she, practically glowing with happiness, greeted me. "It's been ages; how've you been?"
"I've been better," I answered, though this was quite the understatement. Truthfully, I felt as if my life had recently become a living nightmare. "You?"
"I've been okay," she said modestly, though I could tell she, too, was downplaying her emotions. Unlike me, however, she couldn't keep up the charade. "Oh, who am I kidding? I've been wonderful, Lily, absolutely wonderful!"
"Really? That's great." I meant it, too, though I felt a little jealous that I couldn't be as happy.
"Don't you want to know why?" she asked, but she, eager to share her news, continued before I could get in any reply. "Perseus asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him next weekend!"
"My cousin Perseus?" Alice nodded. "Asked you out on a date?" Again, she nodded, and I felt my jaw drop. "And did you say yes?"
"Of course!" she answered, giggling. "Why would I ever say no?"
"But I thought you fancied James!"
"I do," Alice said with a shrug, her happiness deflating somewhat at the mention of James, "but that doesn't mean I can't date someone else."
My mind was reeling. "It doesn't?" I asked, dumbfounded, because it had never occurred to me, at twelve, that a girl could fancy one person and still chose to date another. The very idea struck me as illogical.
Alice was now the shocked one. "No, not at all! A girl can date anyone she wants to, Lily! Her choices would be so limited if she could only date boys she fancies. Not that I don't fancy Perseus," she quickly added, seemingly afraid that I'd get the wrong impression, "because I do. I'd just never… noticed, I guess, that I fancied him until now. He's quite the catch, though." I snorted at the thought; I'd never yet heard the word "catch" associated with Perseus before. "No, really, he is! Did you know he tutors first-year students in the library on Saturday mornings?" She smiled in an isn't-that-just-so-sweet way.
"I didn't," I told her, "but that does sound like something he'd do."
"He wants to be a Healer when he grows up," she confided, smiling even more widely. "He told me that he wants to be able to help people." James, I knew, dreamed of nothing more than taking over Weasley Wizard Wheezes with Fred as his business partner. Maybe Perseus was better suited to her, after all; at least his ambition was one that she could proudly spread around.
"Well," I relented, "I suppose he's not that bad of a choice. He's not as overbearing as his sister or as pompous as his father, at least."
Alice laughed at that. "That's good to hear," she said, her eyes twinkling. "I don't know what I'd do if he was as horrible as that sister or father of his. But, Lily," she asked, suddenly becoming serious, "you don't mind if I date him, do you?"
I frowned. "Why would I mind?"
"Well, you know, you've always she that you wanted me to date James," she mentioned awkwardly, refusing to meet my eyes. "I don't want to disappoint you."
"Oh, don't worry about that," I hastened to assure her. I was, as horrible as I knew it sounded, a little pleased that she had given up on James; while I'd have rather shared my big brother with her than any other girl, I still preferred sharing him with no one at all, no matter how selfish that was of me. "As long as your happy, I'm happy. And, if you date Perseus, you could still potentially become a part of my family; you'd just be a cousin instead of a sister."
"Well, I'll always think of you as a sister in my mind, regardless of whom I marry." Which was an incredibly corny, but it put a smile on my face nonetheless.
"I feel the same way," I told her, and we hugged once more. "Just promise me you'll tell me all about your date, okay?" I'd never been on a date--nor had I even thought about going on one before this point--so the idea intrigued me; I wanted to hear all she had to say.
"I'll tell you everything," she vowed.
Alice, when the time came to fulfill this promise, outdid all of my expectations. Everything from the expressions on Perseus' face to setup of the silverware at the restaurant he brought her to--some place called the Mademoiselle Puddifoot's--were explained in minute detail by Alice. The thought was nice, but, to tell the truth, she used a little too much detail. I was bored within the first five minutes--which is why, when I heard her mention the name "Scorpius Malfoy," I had no idea what she'd been talking about.
"What was that?" I asked, hardly able to contain my interest. "What did you say about Scor--about Malfoy?"
"Huh? Oh, when we went to the Three Broomsticks later that day for two butterbeers, he and some of his Slytherin friends were sitting at the table next to us, celebrating his birthday." I panicked, when I heard that, that I had missed Scorpius' birthday--why had I never taken the time to learn it before now? He had known the date of my birthday, after all--but Alice continued, "They were really quite rowdy, and his birthday's not even until the 23rd. I'd hate to be there when the real day comes around." She shuddered at the thought, and I breathed out a sigh of relief; I still had time.
My relief, of course, was not long-lived. Scorpius' birthday begged the question of what I was going to get him for a gift, and that was not an easy problem to solve. It had to be something worthwhile, something memorable, something that could live up to his potato--which, yes, did sound a bit ridiculous, I realize. I heard even less of Alice's story, lost in thought as I was, than I had before, and I eventually excused myself in order to think in the quiet of my own dormitory.
Thankfully, Abigail and Melinda weren't in the dormitory when I arrived, so I was able to spend nearly three hours thinking of possible gifts without distraction. I never quite found one that was perfect, but I did, at least, come up with a decent idea during that time. I knew that this present was nowhere near as thoughtful as his had been, but I also knew that I wouldn't be able to think of anything better by April 23rd, not if I wanted to give him his present on his actual birthday.
I went to Rose the very next morning--I needed her help to get the gift--and asked to buy her copy of Pride and Prejudice. She looked at me as if I'd gone completely bonkers. "Don't you have an aversion to reading?" she asked.
"Well, yes," I said, "but I still need it."
"You're not going to mutilate it or anything, are you? Because," she said, "I don't think I could take that sort of damage being to such a classic."
"I'm not going to mutilate it," I assured her. I was a bit offended that she even had to ask; did she really think I'd do something so childish? Sure, I might've disliked reading, but it not as if I had a vendetta against it.
"Well, okay, then, I suppose you can borrow it," she said uncertainly.
"No, I don't want to borrow it, I want to buy it."
Rose rolled her eyes. "Lily, you're my cousin, I'm not going to make you pay for the book."
"I need to pay for the book," I told her, which was true. The gift would lose it's meaning if I'd gotten Pride and Prejudice for free. "It, er, has to do with 'nothing,' Rose, okay?" I added reluctantly when I saw how stubborn she was going to be about this.
"Oh." Understanding flashed through her eyes. "All right, then, two sickles." Two sickles, I knew, was still cheaper than the amount she had paid for the book, but I didn't argue any further; Scorpius' gift couldn't have cost him more than a few knuts, after all.
Once I had gotten his present in order, I was actually quite excited about his upcoming birthday. I hadn't had the chance to talk to him recently, and I rather missed him. I even toyed with the idea of telling him how I felt--just to see how he'd react, I told myself--before deciding against it. His anger wouldn't be worth his embarrassment.
April 23rd turned out to be a Thursday, so I didn't have to time to search for him until after classes were finished for the day. I found him wandering near the library with a raucous group of third-year friends, and I figured I should probably want to talk to him until he was on his own. I might've been an essentially optimistic girl, but that didn't mean I was daft. Only a complete idiot would willingly walk up to a group of unruly fourteen-year-old boys, Slytherin or otherwise.
When nearly ten minutes passed, however--during which I followed them from a safe distance--and they made no move to leave Scorpius alone, I decided to try a different route. I used yet another short-cut that James had taught me to reach the end of the hallway before they did, and then I hid myself in a small niche in the wall and waited. Scorpius, thankfully, happened to be lagging a little behind the others when they passed me by, and I was able to pull him into the nook without attracting his friends' notice.
"What do you think you're doing?" he hissed, quickly glancing around the alcove as if someone else would be able to fit in the small, enclosed space. I rolled my eyes at him stupidity. "Do you want to make me an outcast for life?"
"Well, sorry," I muttered, not feeling sorry at all. "Next time I'll talk to you right in front of all your little--" which was a bit rich of me since the even smallest of his friends looked like a fairly large boulder--"friends because I'm sure they'd love that, right?"
His face got so panicked when he heard my words that, despite my anger, I let out a small giggle. "I get your point. You just startled me is all. So, er, what do you want?" he asked slowly, trying to avoid angering me further. Had he really believed that I'd do something so drastic as approach his friends?
"I wanted to wish you a happy birthday, of course, and to give you my present." I smiled and shoved the neatly-wrapped--Rose's doing; I was a miserable present-wrapper--gift into his hands. "Do you like the wrapping paper?" It had little multicolored balloons and the words "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"--written, of course, in obnoxiously big letters--all over it.
He looked down when he heard my question and winced. "Yeah, it's, er, really something."
I laughed. "I knew you would. Now, go on, open you're present!" I exclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly because Scorpius' face once again became panicked as he glanced fearfully at the small opening of the alcove.
Once he had ascertained that no one had heard me, he ripped the wrapping paper off of the present in one swoop. The paper slowly fell to the floor as he stared at the book in his hand. "You got me this?" he asked, finally looking up to meet my eyes and raising an eyebrow. "The muggle book that you're obsessed with?"
"Well, it's actually the film that I like, and I'm not sure the word 'obsessed' would describe my feelings for it--'obsessed' is a bit too strong--but, for the purposes of our conversation, yes, it's the muggle book I'm obsessed with."
"Do I actually have to read it?" he asked, frowning.
"Well, no, you don't have to read it. I'd certainly appreciate it if you did, though," I replied.
"That's not much incentive to read the book, then, is it?" he asked, but somehow I knew, given his cheeky response, that he would end up reading it. He would have said something much crueler if he had honestly hated his gift.
"Manners, Scorpius," I chided him playfully. "That was a very rude thing to say. And," I added, "speaking of rude, don't you have something you'd like to tell me? Something that starts in 'thank' and ends in 'you,' maybe?"
Rolling his eyes, Scorpius said, "Thank you." I'd like to think that he meant it.
"You're welcome!" I chirped, smiling proudly, for this had gone just as well as I hoped--and maybe even better. I was very pleased with myself--and with him, of course, for being such a good recipient. "Now, can we get out of here?" I asked suddenly. "I'm getting pins and needles in my legs."
"Er, let me check." He stuck his head carefully out of the niche to make sure that no one was around, and then turned back towards me and nodded his head. "Yeah, the hallway's clear."
"Thank Merlin," I muttered, following him out and stretching my legs to relieve the numbness. After a few seconds, my blood started to pump through my legs again and the pain faded away. "Oh, look," I said, turning my eyes to gaze out of the window, "the sun's setting."
The view through the window was remarkably beautiful; the sky progressed smoothly from a vivid crimson to a soft pink to a deep violet. I soaked it in for a few seconds, and then I closed my eyes.
"What are you doing?" I heard Scorpius ask from my left. Opening one of my eyes, I questioningly turned to face him. He was staring back at me confusedly.
"I was watching the sunset, of course," I told him as I closed my eye again. What else could I have been doing?
"With your eyes closed?"
"My Auntie Luna once told me that, whenever I see something truly beautiful, I should close my eyes," I explained, "in order to learn empathy. Blind people can never see the magnificence of a sunset, so, by closing my eyes, I can gain some perspective of what that must be like for them."
There was a pause after I said that. "Every time," Scorpius eventually said, and his voice sounded a little hoarse--I wondered if he was coming down with a cold--"every bloody time, that I talk to you…" he trailed off, and my eyes snapped open. He was gaping at me.
"Every time you talk to me what?" I asked. "You can't leave off your sentence there."
He didn't answer me, and I began to doubt that he himself knew how to finish his sentence. "I have to go," he said suddenly.
"Er, bye, then?" I said uncertainly, but he hurried off before I could finish talking.
I was utterly confused, for I had no idea what I'd done wrong; had I offended him in some way? He hadn't seemed annoyed or angry with me during our conversation, but I couldn't think of any other reason for his abrupt departure. I was just as baffled by his behavior as I'm sure he was by mine.
I didn't see much of Scorpius after that birthday disaster, and I talked to him even less. I had the suspicion that he was avoiding me because, in the few conversations that we did have, he would always find some excuse to quickly leave--especially if I asked him about his unfinished sentence--or he would feign deafness and pretend not to hear anything I'd say. I doubted, however, that he did this to gain some perspective on deafness, as he once had the audacity to claim (after I cornered him in the library and demanded to know why he was ignoring me).
Yet, his snubs, while they annoyed me, were not foremost on my mind during the last few weeks of school. I had other, slightly more important worries to occupy my time, such as studying for my rapidly approaching exams. I went so far as to give up drawing as the month of May came to a close in order to limit all of the distractions that took up the time I might've otherwise used to review my notes. Even Céline was pushed to the back of my mind during this time--or, at least, she was until Marie, pulling me aside in the Gryffindor Common Room on the last day of May, brought her up.
"We need to talk," she told me, and I rose an eyebrow--or tried to, at least, because I hadn't quite mastered that expression yet. "About Céline." Understanding quickly spread across my face; I had, in light of my upcoming exams, forgotten all about my advice to Céline. "She's been coming to see me for the past two months, you know?" I didn't, but I nodded my head anyway. "Well, she's made a lot of progress recently, and I think you should give your friendship another chance."
"So she won't overreact anymore?" I asked hopefully, but Marie only shrugged.
"Who knows? She might occasionally still overreact." And then, seeing my expression, "Don't you dare judge her, Lily Ginevra Potter! Everyone, part-Veela or otherwise, overreacts once in a while. It's unavoidable."
"I don't care if she has normal overreactions, Marie. I just don't want her to have another three-month-long overreaction."
"That," Marie said, "I can safely say won't happen again. She's got a good enough handle over her emotions to avoid that. But, you know, this is never going to be easy for her; even I have trouble holding my Veela reflexes at bay sometimes. She needs support, Lily, from both you and Hugo, especially since I'm not going to be here next year." I blinked in confusion until I remembered that, as a seventh-year student, Marie would be finishing school this year. "Can you give her that support?
"I'll try," I promised because that's all I could really guarantee at this point. "But we'll have to start back at the beginning and work our way forward from there."
"All I'm asking from you is a try. Thank you." Marie gave me a small smile and left.
Although I knew that Marie wanted me to find Céline straightaway, I waited until after exams to sort things out. Neither of us, I thought, could deal with the stress that a half-healed friendship would provide before our exams were finished. Once our exams were done, however, no opportunity to talk to Céline presented itself to me until the night before we were set to return back home, by which point, I'm ashamed to admit, I had all but given up hope.
"Céline!" I called out, eager not to lose this chance, and she, taken aback, turned around.
"Yes?" she asked uncertainly, seeming almost afraid of what I had to say.
"I just wanted to say that, well, I think we should start over. Go back to the beginning and move forward from there." She didn't say anything, so I continued awkwardly, "Er, well, my name's Lily Potter. And you are?"
She stared suspiciously at me for another few seconds before a wide smile broke out on her face. "I'm Céline Weasley. It's a pleasure to meet you."
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A/N: Finally, the end of first year! Only six more years left to write (and then all of her adult life, too). ;)
I'm sad to say that I probably won't be able to update as often as I have these past few days. Break ends tomorrow, and school will unfortunately have to take precedent over writing. :(
