Thank you, dear reader. I very much hope to hear from you - perhaps once the story really kicks off.
Prologue: Ties
"Before tonight, I had been positively starved," Lily rolled over to look at her closest cousin, let her head rest gently against Dominique's bony shoulder. "Of laughter, of chatter, of any semblance of joy."
"You poor, wild thing," Dominique soothed a hand over Lily's auburn locks. That night, curled up in Lily's bed, was the first they'd seen each other almost a week - an unusually long time for two members of a rather self-involved family. "Truly, Dom. I have! And I missed you so. You should have seen the way Jamie and Al carried on," she squeezed Dominique's hand. "Oh, you would've absolutely loathed the entire thing," Lily said, even though they both knew she wouldn't have.
Lily didn't really mind either, the yearly Potter family trip; she'd spurred on most of Jamie's ribbing, had purposely popped off when Al was supposed to be watching her. It was a wild, tempestuous affair, the Quidditch World Cup. Filled to the brim with the loud, the brightly shining and the drunken, on team spirit and hope and fire whisky. So perfectly suited to both Dom and Lily's unique taste. They bonded over it, their shared love of every flavour of life. They'd spent every summer and every day that mattered in between together, someplace by the sea or in the sky or curled up in one of their respective rooms, dreaming of the world, watching shadows dance and listening to their parents laughter late at night. They knew each other quite well and had come by their closeness naturally, of course, though it really hadn't flourished in the same way at home, when they were children. It was the Sorting Hat shouting Slytherin so very, very loudly that did it. "I asked for Ravenclaw," she'd whispered to Dom after she sat down at the impossibly long table. She'd avoided Roxie, Rose and her brothers' eyes peering over at her from the Gryffindor table. Even Louis, the always-fair Hufflepuff, was whispering to Molly and Lucy.
"You do look rather blue, for a snake," Dominique agreed, loading some pudding onto Lily's plate. She'd only been in second year but still took Lily under her wing, showed her right from what was generally wrong. "You watch my back and I'll cover your front," she always said. Lily knew that neither her brothers nor her cousins ever really cared about what House she was in - she hardly cared herself, when it clearly came down to it. But it was a wicked thing, the mind and the tricks it played. She'd wrapped herself up in conversations with Dominique and then with everyone sitting near them, mostly to distract herself from the inevitable. Aisling Nott, Selene Fawcett, she'd recited as she walked out of the Great Hall, arm tangled with Dom's. Lily was quite prone to forgetting names or faces or both, if she hadn't spent enough time with them. And she really did want to make the best impression. Mia Spinnet, Atlas Carrow, Scorpius Malfoy. Jamie cut her off when he caught up to her in the hall, nearly yanking her off her feet by the elbow. "I'm - we're not mad, y'know," he said and flicked the side of her head. Albus bounded out the Hall doors a few seconds later to give her a quick hug. "You're fine," he said, and so she was. She slipped into silver silk pyjamas and went to sleep in a four-postered bed draped in deep green. Writing to her mum was much worse than her dad, but by the third day, she'd re-adopted the signature Potter attitude and asked whether her new roommates, Aisling and Mia, preferred chocolates or sweets.
It was important to Lily that her family not think badly of her. So much so that it worried her sick sometimes, all the ways she might one day disappoint them. She was the youngest of the family - three months behind Hugo, to be exact. It was a title she wore semi-proudly, always the first to try one of Grandma Molly's treats but also the first to be coddled, watched over, hovered around. But she loved her family deeply, and most people, too. She liked to think that everyone was good, could be good if given the chance. She firmly believed that all people were gifts and Hogwarts still excited her for that very reason: the promise of meeting new people, and quite literally soaring to new heights. She didn't much like her classes, besides Defense. Runes confused her and herbology eluded her. Potions boiled and bubbled oddly but she was a keen seeker, both for new things and for snitches, after finally making the house team in third year.
Dom shifted, tucking her legs up and turning to face her. "I'm surprised they even let you go," she said, looked at her nervously, worried her bottom lip between pearl-like teeth. "But never mind your dull, boring Quidditch," she poked her in the side, "it's my seventh year. I've a right to be a wreck." Lily tapped her knee and told her she was much too smart to ever wreck anything. Dominique wasn't really nervous about classes, but they were leaving the next day and it was easier for both to pretend that she was. Atlas had stopped speaking to her over the summer, which was very strange and unlike him, because he'd been chasing after Dom for four years. Lily thought she was really very silly for not telling him that she loved him too, but for all their similarities, Dominique was not Lily. She said love very sparingly, which Lily also thought was very brave. It might mean more that way, but for the life of her could not stop herself from pouring into things quite quickly. In any case, she'd been slowly working to position Atlas as the obvious choice for her cousin in the minds of everyone.
Lily fell asleep quickly after Dominique floo'd home, stepping gracefully through the fireplace across from her bed. The next morning, she woke late and dressed quickly, rushed downstairs over tripping feet to meet Albus. Their dad sat at the table, paper in hand, while their mother worked on herding Al's owl into his age. "And the youngest has decided to grace us with her presence!" her dad offered brilliantly. Lily batted the paper as she walked by, and then dropped herself down next to him. "Oh, but won't you miss thinking about me so often when I'm gone?" she said sweetly, and then did up the button on his shirt sleeve.
They travelled to King's Cross as a family always, even though this year they were less one, with Jamie in Prague. Lily's dad always found her Uncle Ron first, and Hugo would badger her into carrying his owl, because her own cat was just so well-behaved anyways, wasn't he? Then Rose would tell him to quit it and take Lily to find the girls. Only Roxie, Dom, Rose, Lucy, and Lily remained, in that order. Lily figured it was worse for Al, who only had two - Louis and Hugo - left. The cousins all crowded into two compartments after saying their goodbyes and changing into their robes, everyone switching between both at least thrice. Dom made it half way to Hogwarts before gripping her knee, eyeing the door.
They slipped into the hallway with a promise to bring back two chocolate frogs, and Dominique melted into the wall dramatically. "He's not found me yet," she moaned. "I know him. He's never going to speak with me again."
"I think the real knowing will begin a bit later," Lily said, and grabbed her hand to pull her along, Dom's heels digging in slightly. "Well, we've got to find chocolate now, so we might as well look for him too." Dom still pretended to fight back but conceded rather quickly, kept the pace far too brisk for Lily's liking. She stopped suddenly two carriages down and flattened herself to the wall once more, grabbing Lily rather harshly when she took one step too far and met Selene Fawcett's eyes.
"Lily?"
Lily stuttered, nose to nose with Dom. "Yes?"
"You fools," Selene said as she slid open the glass door, "Atlas isn't here. But you've finally done it, Dom. You've ruined him." The girls piled into the seat across from Selene.
"Well, he hasn't given me much of a chance to ruin anything, with all the time he's spent ignoring me."
"Much of a chance? Oh, I adore you, I do, but - "
"But?" Atlas dropped rather ceremoniously into the seat beside Selene, trying so hard not to look at Dom that it was almost better he stared. Lily felt the next addition before she saw him, stomach twisting despite herself. Dominique spent far more time with Scorpius Malfoy, but as he stepped into the doorway, Lily reckoned she knew him best. The way he took his tea - one milk, one sugar - and his favourite book, his cigarette of choice and where he got his nicest suit. She flipped her wand between her fingers and looked out the window, when suddenly the world split.
xo, Kitty