Circa March 2018: A/N: prevalenceofinsanity (on tumblr) is who I've been tasked with for the March JILY challenge. I hope you like this. And if anyone else has any suggestions, not so much grammar (but any glaring mistakes are welcome), but plot points or questions are welcome. Anyway on with the story. I'll post the prompt at the end.
2024 Update: I just found this post and gave it some minor edits and upgrades as I migrate it over to Ao3 and FFN. Listen, this was written when I was a freshman in college in the U.S. and I had a tenuous understanding of anything in England, laundry, and strong opinions about High School musical vs. Teen Beach Movie. You've been warned. I make no apologies about its content.
The sock is red with hearts all over. Valentine's Day is coming up on Monday. Lily was washing the socks that she hadn't worn in over a year, along with everything that she'd avoided washing for a month. She's not convinced it's clean, even though, she hasn't worn them since the last time she washed them. But she just wants to be extremely sure.
Moreover, she's not even convinced that she needs to bring it to college. After New Year's, Lily just threw a bunch of clothing into her suitcase. Grabbing every pair of socks that she owned, may have been overboard, but you never know when you need socks.
As all freshmen do, Lily lost a sock. In all fairness, it's probably the Marauder's fault. They came into the laundry room as she moved her clothing from the washer to the dryer. Since it was a Saturday, everyone and their mother were doing laundry, including the boys in the quad on the second floor.
James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus had put up a sign on their door proclaiming their room for the Marauders. A series of pranks followed. The third floor found their entire hall covered in toilet paper. One weekend all the RAs' doors were saran-wrapped making it difficult to leave and hilarious to watch them walk into. But their arch nemesis was the hall director, Argus Filch.
Argus Filch was a grad student who lived on the first floor in a converted quad. His cat Mrs. Norris would roam the hall looking for students causing trouble. The Marauders decided to fill his entire room with balloons. They were never in serious trouble, thanks to the Head of Residence life, Professor McGonagall. She always punished them, but never let it affect their student life.
Anyway, Lily did not want to be their next target. Especially since she noticed one of them was always watching her. He even used the same washer she vacated. But that's probably just a coincidence, there weren't free washers other than the four she just vacated.
Lily threw in dryer sheets after her clothes in the dryer, turned on the machine, and put her laundry basket on the dryer. As she walked up the stairs back to her room, she set the timer on her phone. She nodded at her roommate Mary and had just enough time to catch two episodes of Friends. Two episodes later, she grabbed her room key and headed for the laundry room. She wasn't sure if the squad would still be there or not. To be safe, Lily put her earphones in and put on some old-school R&B.
Reaching the basement, the Marauders were sitting on top of their washers chatting about something. After removing more clothes than should be in the dryer, she tossed it all into her basket. Moving along, she missed James trying to wave at her and talk to her about something.
"Tough luck, bud," Sirius said laughing. Opening their washers, the Marauders switched the soaked clothes to the dryers.
They each did a load, one would run a load of white, color, dark, and delicate. James was on the rotation for white clothing. Unfortunately, when he pulled everything out, the clothing wasn't white.
Everything was pink.
"Well shit," James said, but he had no choice other than to move it to the dryer.
"Man, that's some real tough luck," Sirius said; he didn't have any white clothing that needed to be washed this month.
"No! My white band shirt was in there," Peter said and was ignored. James, Sirius, and Remus had Opinions about the band.
"Do you remember who used the machine before you?" Remus asked, once again the sensible one.
"No, I don't. But there is a red sock with hearts all over it. Commence mission: Red Sock Owner Finding!" James declared.
"You can't just name the mission what it is. We need to operate covertly. I vote for Full Moon," Sirius said.
"Let's put it to a vote. All those in favor of Red Sock Owner Finding?" Only James raised his hand. "Fine, all those in favor of Full Moon?" Sirius, Remus, and Peter raised their hands.
"I can't believe I'm friends with you three. There was a clear winner and none of you picked it." James said.
"Moving on from the name, how do you propose we do this?" Peter asked as he moved his load of dark clothing from the washer to the dryer. "Hey, do you think we can all use the same dryer since they already turned white? It's not like it could be worse?"
Sirius threw an arm around Peter's shoulders, "An intelligent line of questioning, my friend. We will raid every person's room in this whole dorm at midnight, even if takes the rest of the semester. Also, separate dryers!" Sirius said with conviction.
"Or we could not do that," Remus said as he went about turning on his selected dryer.
"I'm with Remus, how about everyone keep an eye out on Valentine's Day? After that, we can re-evaluate our plan." Peter said.
"Or we could check everyone's socks on Valentine's Day?" Sirius said with a grin.
"Peter just said that Sirius," Remus said rolling his eyes.
"Ah, but my version had a certain flair." He raised his eyebrows. "and was more specific," Sirius replied.
"Great, we just need to wait until Monday," James complained. "In the meantime, I hope everyone likes wearing pink."
"Not all of us need to wear pink," Sirius said with a cocky grin. It quickly dropped. "You don't think this was retaliation or a targeted attack against us, right?"
"No one knew we would put all of our whites in that washer, though. So I don't think so." Remus said. "What should we do with the extra sock?"
"Might as well frame it. The first prank against us." Peter said under his breath. But Sirius heard him and was considering it.
Lily meanwhile was panicking about missing a sock.
"Mary, I went a whole semester without losing anything to the laundry," Lily said folding her shirts.
"I don't know what to tell you, Lily," Mary was sitting on her bed typing up a paper only half-listening. "It was bound to happen sometime in your four years here."
"But I was on a roll. I was hoping I could complete our freshman year without gaining the freshman fifteen, losing a sock, or below a B," Lily said putting her shirts in the drawer at the bottom of her closet.
"In the wise words of Hannah Montana, 'Nobody's perfect, I got to work it, again and again until I get it right.'" Mary burst out into song after pushing her laptop aside and giving her full attention to Lily.
"Hannah Montana is dead." Lily deadpanned and ignored Mary's scandalized gasp. "I'll just wear the one with red hearts and one from the pink pair with green dots on Monday," Lily said pulling the socks out.
"I can't believe I'm living with a Disney-less heathen," Mary said. "Next you'll be telling me Teen Beach Movie is better than High School Musical." Her eyes dared Lily to comment otherwise.
Lily wasn't an idiot, "Did someone say that? Who said that? That's blatantly false." Lily eyed Mary's laptop, "Can we watch High School Musical? Is it still on Netflix?"
Thus, a High School Musical Marathon began in earnest. The sock debacle was forgotten.
When Monday came around, Lily was sitting in her Philosophy class. She was rocking the mismatched pair of socks. But honestly, it was unlikely that anyone would ever notice them. She was feeling festive though, that should count for something. She sat down at a table with Remus, Marlene, and Benji. They had sat there the first day of class, as they all lived in the same dorm. Plus, once someone sat there, they were committed.
The class wasn't difficult at all, as an entry-level class, Lily was acing it. Even if one just listened to the professor and wrote down everything he said it would be difficult to earn below a B. Thus, Lily was letting her pen scratch across the paper to copy everything the professor said.
At one point, she crossed her left leg over her right and her left sock was visible to Remus. He made sure to note down what type of sock it was. He wasn't going out of his way to carry out the mission. But he was doing his due diligence.
Once class was over, Remus headed to the cafeteria. Mostly for lunch, but also to meet up with his fellow Marauders and share the socks of the fifteen girls he'd noted down.
At the cafeteria, Remus grabbed a bunch of food and wandered over to the table the Marauders generally used. Sirius was already there, but they were waiting for James and Peter.
"Did you find her yet?" Remus asked as he opened his water bottle.
"Not yet, but I'm keeping my eye out," Sirius said with a surreptitious look around the cafeteria. "There was quite an abundance of red socks with hearts, but none was quite right." Sirius perked up. "This is kind of like Cinderella, and trying to find the girl with the perfect size foot." Sirius began to dig into his food.
"Yes, maybe," Remus replied, taking a bite of his apple.
"Hey Remus, Sirius," Peter said as he slid his lunch tray down and took a seat. "I haven't had much luck with finding the other sock."
All of a sudden there was a commotion. James was on the ground by a beautiful redhead. He had grabbed her foot.
Remus was immediately out of his chair and raced across the room. Remus pulled James back. "I'm sure James didn't mean to grab your foot in the middle of the cafeteria in front of the entire student body," Remus said mostly directed at James.
"She has the other sock. Your one red sock mixed with all my whites and oh my god, it has turned all my clothes pink," James said to Lily. "I swear it, just look at Peter." Lily, Remus, and James turned to look at the approaching Peter and Sirius. Peter was wearing a pink dyed band shirt.
Lily shook her head looking away from Peter, "Wait, does that mean you have my sock!" Lily was pumped. This meant that she hadn't lost her sock after all. Well, she did leave it behind and turned a guy's clothing pink.
"Yup, we were planning to frame it and everything," Sirius chirped. He threw an arm around Lily. "But let's talk about this at our table, and stop causing a scene."
James looked rather put out. "It was my clothing that she dyed. It should be my arm around her shoulder." James said to Remus.
"Well, when we are all at the table, maybe you can try a move there," Peter suggested and steered them back to the table.
At the table, Lily looked ready to leave. She turned to James, "I can't put up with your friend for much longer," She said giving Sirius the side-eye. "Here's my number when you're ready to give me my sock back, Glasses." She wrote down her number and left.
"Are you telling me that you clutched her foot in the middle of the cafeteria and were still able to win her number?" Remus was shocked. "Maybe your luck is turning around after all."
James just smiled. She had given him a nickname and a phone number, he could do a lot with worse. But he was wearing pink on their first date. When it happened, which it would, probably, maybe, yes, it would happen. He just needed to not do whatever it was Sirius did.
"Hey, Sirius what did you say to drive her off?" James asked.
"Oh, I was explaining the finer points of why Teen Beach Movie is better than High School Musical," Sirius said. James threw a fry at him.
"Are you insane? No, it isn't." James said. The conversation quickly changed. But James shot off a quick text.
'Hey Red Socks, it's Glasses. Hopefully, we can get your sock back and enjoy a nice dinner, how does Wednesday at 8 pm sound? Let me know?'
James smiled. He had a definite chance.
The End
A/N: The prompt was: "your one red sock mixed with all my whites and oh my gOD its turned all my clothes pink"