fourty-one - playful

(Evan Rosier is the first person to call her a Mudblood.)

She's sitting with Sev outside the greenhouses, telling him how her parents always tape Top of the Pops for her while she's away and that he should come and watch it with them, like he used to, and how if she watches it with Tuney it might help sort things out between her and her sister -

"You have a sister?"

Lily looks around, startled at the interruption, and finds two of Sev's Slytherin pals coming towards them, Mulciber leading the way. They sit on the bench beside the pair, a little (lot) too close for comfort, in Lily's mind.

"Yeah," she affirms, and turns back to Sev.

"Older or younger?" one of them asks, and Lily rolls her eyes, wondering if this is going where she thinks it's going. Back home people often ask after her leggy blonde sister, and she responds in jest, but she's not so certain of the boys' motives.

"Older," she says, wary.

Rosier frowns. "She doesn't go here, though. Beauxbatons?" he supposes.

Lily's lip turns in confusion. "Where?"

Sev closes his eyes briefly at her comment, knowing that this is the moment when the others will find out that -

"Wait, are you Muggle-born?" asks Mulciber, wrinkling his nose at the realisation that the young redhead doesn't know of the other schools of magic.

Lily sits up straighter, affronted. "Yes. What's it to you?"

The other two chuckle. "Didn't realise you were hanging around with a Mudblood, Sev," Rosier sneers, and they slide off the bench, sauntering over to Herbology.

Lily glances at Sev, bewilderment etched in every line of her face. She can't misunderstand Rosier's spiteful tone, though, and her eyes well with tears.

Sev looks away, hopping off the bench. "We should go."

Later on during the lesson, after Lily has managed to drop two watering cans and smash a plant pot on the floor, Judy and Mary share a glance from their spot next to their friend and, finding a blank look on her face, steer her over to the soil store. Firm hands on drooping shoulders, they ask what happened.

Finally: "What's a Mudblood?" Lily asks, barely audible.

James, beside her flinging compost playfully across the greenhouse at Sirius with his trowel, looks at her suddenly, mouth open.

"Evans!"

She turns to him, watery eyes wide. "What?"

"Don't say that!" he says firmly, gesturing with the trowel.

"Why?" she asks, shoving Mary's hands off her. "What is it?"

"It's - well, it means dirty blood. It's just about the worst insult for Muggle-born wizards. And witches," he adds, appraising her. "Why are you using it? I bet it's something you've picked up from Sniv -"

Lily glares at him. "I'm not! It's what someone called - it's what someone called me."

Judy's jaw drops and the trowel clatters out of James' hands. He pushes past Peter, who'd come over to enquire whether James was planning on getting back to their bench before the end of the century, and stops directly in front of her.

"Someone called you a - ? Evans, you need tell McGonagall about this."

Lily sniffs and glowers at him. "You're just as cruel with the stunts you pull, Potter. Let it go."

"Who was it?" he presses.

"I'm not telling you," says Lily, raising her head, "because you'll just go after them. I'm sure they didn't mean it."

"I'm sure," he shoots back sardonically, rolling his eyes. He drops down briefly, bending to retrieve his trowel from the stone floor, and strolls back to his bench, jaw clenched.

Lily watches him go, eyes narrowed slightly, and she returns to her spot too, deciding that however honourable his preaching may be, she doesn't like James Potter at all.

a/n: thank you so much for all your lovely reviews about the last chapter. So, it's opinion time: I have three chapters left unwritten; should I do one in a similar style to 40 but from Snape's perspective?