Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does!
Well here goes the second chapter, this was slightly more of a filler chapter than I anticipated but hey Lily's gonna get a lot closer to Sander! *wink wink* Hope you like this chapter!
And also, I'd like to thank Ray who left me a comment; Lysander was surprisingly a lot snarkier than I imagined he would be. And you're somewhat correct, they is something more to the chocolate frogs and why Lily treasures them so much. It's explained later on in the chapter. Thank you so much for your review once again!
And I'd also like to thank NotsoSugarQueen, cubsgirl101 and LifeIsMoreThanAPrettyFace for following this story, it means a lot!
Chapter 2
oOo
Lily's gruff mood only improved when she'd entered the lively dining hall. At the Gryffindor table, Tsubaki was seated at her side, while she chatted with some of her other housemates. Lucy was seated further down along with the boys arguing over what they'd be having for supper.
From the corner of her eye Lily found dirty blonde head of hair that was gelled rather than touseled, sitting at the Ravenclaw table, he was laughing at something a sixth year was saying. Unlike Lysander, Lorcan had his mother's light brown eyes and his father's innate charisma. As she remembered, when they were younger Lorcan had always been the brainy and outgoing one, while Lysander had been more of the shy one around people he didn't know. He was socially withdrawn even from a young age and Lily recalled it'd taken him weeks to even agree to play hide and seek with Tsubaki, Lorcan and her older cousins.
It was only when Lily had caught him off-guard eating chocolate frogs did he slightly begin opening up to her. Like, Lily, he'd always found wizard history fascinating so he collected the chocolate frog cards of mysterious wizards and infamous witches. Sometimes they'd play I-Declare-Frogs using the cards, they'd draw a card from the deck and whoever won four out of four times owed that person a chocolate frog.
Of course, Lily, who was gifted with unluckiness still had a running tab from the amount of times Lysander beat her at the game.
Lily snapped out of her reminiscing when she heard her headmaster's voice silence the clapping crowd. The first years who had just finished being sorted still had looks of anxiousness drawn on their faces. Hogwarts' current headmaster, Professor Grimswald was an elderly man with eyes as dark as night, shaggy brown hair and an untamed bear longer than Dumbedore's. Contrary to his appearance he was a rather impartial headmaster.
"As you've all know, this year we've been graced with the presence of another two additions to our school. Ladies and gentleman give a round of applause for the Scamander twins," Grimswald said, the students erupted into an ear-splitting applause.
"Before we proceed to beginning our supper, I'd like to ask both boys to come up to the sorting hat when their names are called," he continued, "Lorcan Scamander."
Lorcan got up and eyes followed him as he walked to the three-legged stool. He sat on it, which was a funny sight in Lily's opinion because of his notable height. He placed the hat on his head on the Sorting Hat barely touched his head when it called out "Ravenclaw."
The students gave another polite but short a round of applause before Professor Grimswald called out, "Lysander Scamander."
Lysander appeared from the very end of the Slytherin table and walked up to the stool. He didn't even look his brother in the face when they passed each other on his way there. But no one seemed to notice that except Tsubaki and Lily. He sat down on the stool and put the worn out hat on his head. His eyes met Lily's curious ones.
"Hmm, well you are an interesting one. Definitely not Hufflepuff. Slytherin seems promising but oh, interesting, alas, Gryffindor!" the hat exclaimed. Although, there wasn't as much applause from the crowd as there was for Lorcan , Lily assumed it was because he was placed in Gryffindor, when the hat had clearly stated that Slytherin would be promising for him.
He strode down the aisle and didn't seem to care about the eyes that curiously peered at him. He passed Lily and didn't even acknowledge her, his expression was completely stoic and it sent chills through her. He went all the way to the end of the table where some housemates politely greeted him and initiated a conversation with him. Lysander, however, was giving them one-worded sentences and small nods of his head.
"He's so different," Tsubaki said when dinner ended and they were on their way to Gryffindor tower.
"He bought the last chocolate frog," said Lily subconsciously, referring to the previous encounter she'd had with Lysander. Of course, she'd just said that to make Tsubaki change the direction of the conversation, she wasn't in the mood to talk about him.
"Ouch!" Lily yelped when Tsubaki elbowed her in the arm, sharply.
"Baka!" which meant idiot in Japanese, "Is that all you think about? You might as well just dowse yourself in bloody chocolate frogs and have chocolate tadpole babies, on top of that!"
"Sounds splendid, I'll make you the godmother of all of them," Lily sardonically responded.
Tsubaki ignored this. Instead, when the Fat Lady appeared she told them it the password which was oddly "tadpole" and they went inside. Some of their housemates were still up seated on the chairs, some dressed in their school robes while others were in their pajamas.
Tsubaki and Lily made their way up the stairs and into their assigned dorm. Their other housemates, Amanda, Maria, and Ingrid were nowhere in sight. It was then when Tsubaki turned and faced Lily, and pulled her onto her four poster, Tsubaki had an intense look on her face and Lily knew what was coming next. "So what exactly happened between you and Sander?"
"What do you mean, what happened?" she said waving her hands in desperation.
Tsubaki was brilliantly observant. Her ability to perceive things was something that always fascinated and scared Lily. However, unlike Lucy who was pushier and nosier Tsubaki only pushed someone for answers when something had bothered her.
"Don't even bother acting like you don't know what I'm talking about," said Tsubaki, "you would think that being your best friend for years would teach you that I can see through your abysmal acting skills."
"He's different. I don't know how to explain it really, but it seems like he chooses to evade earth and be on Mars half the time," explained Lily, she continued, ignoring Tsubaki's smirk, "he accused me of being a peeping on him earlier, and he found it amusing that I lost my temper on him."
"Don't tell me you stared at him."
"I was trying to confirm that he was Scamander—" but Lily was cut off by Tsubaki.
"My arse. This is just like an anime! Cold-hearted, reclusive, stud meets a short-tempered, incredibly stubborn twat and then they fall in love and kiss under the cherry blossoms!" she exclaimed.
"Apparently, you and him have a lot more in common than I do," said Lily, who was now getting angry, "two pricks who use their imagination to escape the harsh realities of life."
"And ten points goes to Gryffindor for Lily Potter's smart arse!"
oOo
A week passed and it was only when someone had rudely interrupted Lily from her History of Magic essay did she attempt to hit them on the head with her Potions textbook. Although, she immediately was surprised when she saw Lorcan's hand catch hers. Her body became rigid for a couple of seconds. She'd mistaken him for Jordan or Carter, who tend to do that to her a lot. The awkwardness and embarrassment of the situation was getting to her and she could feel her cheeks turning red.
And then she felt guilty. All week she'd been meaning to go and say to say hello to him but she'd got caught up with the amount of homework N.E.W.T. classes required and the number of classes Lysander Scamander shared with her. Out of the six classes she took, he was in five of them. Then there was also the problem that wherever Lorcan went, he was followed by his newly developed fan club. Just in a matter of a week he managed to win the affections of every girl, and even some guy.
"You're still as violent as ever," Lorcan said, his voice had a husky tone to it.
"I'll take it as a compliment," she replied smugly.
He took a seat next to her and she quickly peered around to make sure no girls with binoculars were around. She'd seriously hate having to send one of them to Madame Pomfrey's. Especially if Witch Weekly got a scoop on her she'd never hear the end of it from her parents.
"So how's Little L been faring these past six years?" he queried.
"Are you sure you secretly didn't transfer from Beauxbatons?"
"Sorry, that was bad wasn't it?" They both were grinning.
"Very, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, I mean it's been six years."
"Right, but even so, it doesn't excuse me from not saying hi to you earlier on," said Lorcan. He was now eyeing the books on giants that Lily had checked out for an essay. Despite her accidentally losing her kiss to him when they were eleven he'd never brought it up, but moments like these arose during the few weeks before they left and it was well, awkward.
"Why don't you help me by showing me your proofreading skills?" Lily suggested showing him the Potions essay she'd been working on. She'd been taking only six N.E.W.T. classes, Transfiguration, History of Magic, Potions, Charms, Herbology and best of all, Care of Magical Creatures (the one and only class Lysander wasn't in) so she didn't have as much free time as she'd wanted to but she was willing to sacrifice time to furthering her education.
Lorcan surprisingly knew a whole lot more about dragons than she anticipated. It turned out that by the end of when he'd finished proofreading her essay about how dragons changed the wizard society he'd proven that he was in all, a borderline genius. Lorcan had given her tips and facts that she hadn't even read in the textbooks themselves.
"Lily!" voice called out, one of Gryffindor's chaser, Carter, was running down the he looked up at her, and his face was contorted with confusion and worry, "Is this where you've been? The tryouts are going on!"
"What are you talking about?" she questioned.
"The tryouts for the new beater was rescheduled for today," said Carter.
"Um, thanks for your help, Lorcan. I have to go," she said to Lorcan while piling everything into her bag.
Lily who'd been playing as Gryffindor's Beater for three years had never been late for a practice or tryouts before. She'd always looked forward to soaring in the sky, as lame as it sounded. At least when she was on her broomstick she was able to move around freely and was not forced to hover over textbooks until two in the morning. Whenever she hadn't been playing I-Declare-Frogs, with Lysander or going on expeditions with him, she'd been on a broomstick competing alongside him to block her cousin's bludgers.
Lily cursed herself for not reading the announcements on the Gryffindor board. Even though a week had gone by, she'd been so consumed in studying that she'd forgotten to check even the notice board. And now she'd delayed them by half an hour. She felt like a horrible teammate.
Once they entered the Quidditch pitch, Lily didn't look at her teammates who'd regrouped in the middle of the pitch. She dumped her belongings against one of the pillars and scowled, she wasn't even wearing practice clothes. It was only then she noticed the black shoes, and when she looked up her eyes widened in horror.
Lysander was leaning against the huge slab of rock, his arms crossed and the usual smirk on his lips, "So you're the beater that Lamb couldn't shut up about."
"What the hell are you doing here?" She was still taken back by Lysander's words, all week he hadn't said a word to her. But then again she'd sat so far away from him with her nose in a textbook or piece of parchment you'd think Lysander had some sort of contagious sickness.
"Trying out, or let's see announcing my existence, as you call it."
"Arses, like yourself, aren't what this team needs," she seethed. Honestly, she didn't want him for two reasons, one was that his smirk was enough to make her mood crappier, and two, he was trying out for the available beater position. If he got the position than that would mean he would have to work alongside her.
"This team, or yourself?" taunted Lysander, he leaned in closer to her so that his mouth was by her ear, "I may just surprise you, Potter."
Tingles went through her body as his words went into her ear. It was enough to make her go slightly mad, lost in the sensation of him being so close to her, but then regained her composure. "Same goes for you, Scamander."
"Are you guys done flirting yet?" Jordan, who was also Gryffindor's Chaser, called from the middle of the pitch.
They realized they had an audience and from the position of where Lysander was they did look like they'd been doing something intimate. Lily slightly blushed at the idea. There was no way in possible hell she could like a devil like Lysander, again.
"We weren't flirting you, moron," she responded quickly.
"Sure, and veelas are kissing my arse," Jordan shrugged.
"What arse, Jordan?"
"This one," said Jordan turning around and doing a booty dance while pointing at his ass. This caused their teammates and potential recruits to snicker. She flipped each one of them off with her eyes.
"Trust me, mate, no veela, would want to kiss that arse."
"But it's plump, squishy and spank-able. Any veela would want to kiss this arse," Jordan argued. Before Lily could respond with a retort, the Gryffindor captain and Keeper, Rodrick Crabglass, appeared and cleared his throat.
Both of them automatically stopped and looked at him. The raven-eyed captain looked at them with gazes that would make anyone run for their life. While, this didn't phase Lily, it had Jordan kissing up to his arse.
"Is that new cologne you're wearing, cap? It smells lovely on you," Jordan was saying. While it sounded sarcastic, it was really Jordan's bad acting skills. One time in fourth year when Lily had snuck down in the kitchen with Jordan, Carter, Tsubaki and Lucy he'd shoved all the cornbread in his sweater. When they were caught by Proffesor Callart, their Arithmacy teacher, when the cornbread fell out of his sweater he'd played it off as an apparition charm.
They spent the next night cleaning out the bedpans in the infirmary, polishing the never-ending hallways and windows. And Jordan had earned himself a pig snout from Lily and Lucy's merciless stares.
"Any more of your blubbering and you get ten laps added onto your tab," warned Lamb.
This had shut Jordan up. He went back to standing in between Carter and Jolie Thompson, the last Chaser. The rest of their team comprised of Adam Murteye, a scuffled-looking fifth year as seeker and their captain, Thomas Crabglass as Keeper. The auditions were beginning and after the fiasco that'd just occurred, she was much more aware of Lysander's presence. Much more than she wanted to be.
When it was Lysander's turn, she eyed him. When they were kids he'd been deft on a broom. But she'd heard that Durmstrang still didn't have a Quidditch team yet. So she didn't know the extent of his skills. She eyed him curiously, and what she saw astonished her. The bludger that was lunged at him automatically went soaring in the other directions. She barely had time to make out the powerful hit that he'd done with the bat.
"Bloody hell, Scamander, you never told us that he could bat like that," Carter said slapping Lysander's back.
Once the auditions were done, the queasiness that had developed in Lily's stomach would not go away. Her fears were proven correct when the potential recruits had hustled away and Jordan and Carter had forced Lysander to walk with them. Equipment in their arms, Jordan and Carter were praising Lysander like he was their knight in shining armor.
"Cap thinks you might make the team," Carter said.
"And that way you can finally be with our dearest L," said Jordan rumpling Lily's red hair, she smacked it away and huffed.
"But be warned break her heart and we'll break your bones," Carter admonished rather aggressively. Lily who was nearing her limit of anger felt her hand touch one of the bats.
"Sounds terrifying," Lysander said sarcastically, he was smirking at Lily.
"Even though she can be extremely troll-like at times, it's Lily's way of showing affection. When she's going through her cycles make sure you buy her lots of chocolate frogs and Muggle teddy bears especially the ones with cute messages like feel better, bab—" he was cut off by the sight of Lily.
She'd dropped her school bag and the equipment she'd been carrying and was holding a bat. Her expression was a mixture of embarrassment and fury. "I'm going to beat you shitless, Nott, and I fucking mean it."
He held his hands up in a surrendering type of way, "Now, Lily, we can talk about this."
"That can wait." She lunged for him and soon enough Jordan dropped his equipment and he was running around the pitch with Lily following after him looking like a madwoman. Carter had taken to chasing after Lily in an attempt to get her to drop the bat. And when she glanced back at Lysander she could swear she could see the slightest smile curving on his lips.
oOo
The next update should be on September 23th :)