Chapter 2: A Pair of Old Socks
Lily Evans stared at the lone little box that stood on her nightstand. She had been worried sick about it since the day it had arrived. The box wasn't wrapped and there was no bow attached, but nonetheless her name was scrawled sloppily on the side. There was no doubt it was for her. And if the delivery of the box hadn't been odd, the contents were most certainly going to be. Lily set the box on her bed and took a deep breath, her fingers only inches away from opening the box. Just one tap with her wand and it would open...
"Lilyyyyy!"
Lily found herself being pushed out of her bed, the box ending up somewhere in the folds of the sheets. A dark-haired girl with a goofy grin greeted her in the form of Mary MacDonald.
"Oh, have you seen the sky outside Liliana?" Mary sighed calling her by the 'more elegant' version of Lily she had come up with. "It's all white and clear and you know what that means right?"
"Uh no?" Lily shook her head, confused and yet thankful that she had been distracted. Just another reason for her to not open the dreaded box.
"Oh, Lilliana it's going to snow of course!" Mary twirled around making Lily get up and join as well. "And you know how lovely I think it is." she sighed dreamily "Just imagine you're walking on a long windy road and suddenly it starts snowing. Little snowflakes start falling onto the ground making the world all white and glittery around you and then-" Mary's eyes widened and she clasped Lily's hands tightly. "your prince charming shows up and hands you-"
"Hot chocolate, I hope."
Lily grimaced as she realized who had just woken up. Her gray eyes were covered by a lace mask but the perfect blond curls that tumbled effortlessly down her shoulders were enough to mark her as Marlene McKinnon.
"Oh Marley- you've seen it haven't you?" Mary asked hopping onto her bed and pulling off the mask impatiently "Just look outside-it's definitely going to snow tonight!"
"It looks normal, Mary." Marlene sighed used to her friend's energy this early in the morning. "I'm telling you it's not going to snow until after Christmas is over. Even the Daily Prophet's confirmed it."
"See this-" Mary waved her hands in the air and pointed to them, "This is why I can tell you guys have no imagination. I'm telling you it's going to snow tonight and you guys will all be running up to me when it does."
Mary huffed pretending to be annoyed and swung around slipping out the door. "I'm going to go find Dorc- she believes."
"Only because she wants hot chocolate." Marlene mumbled shaking her head and falling back into her pillow. Lily looked at the blond girl for a moment before turning back to the box-the box- she whipped her face around the bed, but it wasn't there. She scanned the room, hoping the box had fallen somewhere nearby on the ground.
"Mary!" Lily huffed angrily throwing up the covers and shoving the sheets of the bed. She looked underneath the bed. Nope. She searched Mary's bed- that girl had a knack for slipping into places she didn't belong, but it was empty albeit a pile of gifts for tonight. Lily eyed the latter wondering which one was hers but shook her head. She would not be tempted. No, nothing could tempt Lily Evans.
"Finished searching?"
Marlene had propped herself on the bed and was watching Lily with amusement. Lily stood up tall and faced Marlene in the eye.
"Did you sleep well sleeping beauty?" Lily gave her a smile knowing she wouldn't get the reference to the muggle fairytale.
Marlene yawned and flipped her curls. Lily watched it fall elegantly and wondered exactly how frizzy her hair looked at the moment. She hadn't bothered to comb it since she woke up and she knew there were a good number of knots in the red abundance that covered her head.
"I might have actually if one of my roommates wasn't snoring." Marlene said finally.
"It's called breathing- and some people happen to have an issue doing so at night-" Lily started defensively feeling a little self conscious and embarrassed at the same time.
"Oh, I didn't ask." Marlene said heading for the loo her hair swinging behind her. "but thanks for letting me know it was you."
Needless to say, Lily and Marlene were not the best of friends.
"Oh one of these days I hope McKinnon loses all her hair and gets spots all over her face!" Lily sighed stomping furiously on the ground. She stared at the pewter walls mindlessly as they walked towards Slughorn's class, trying to ignore the series of retorts she had wished she had said to Marlene earlier.
"You know she's actually really nice when you get to know her." Dorcas told her. "Sure she's hard to please and a little sarcastic at times but she's not mean mean you know."
"I guess."
The truth was it bothered her. The fact that she and Marlene didn't get along. With everyone else it had been so easy. Mary had practically bounced over to her the first night talking so fast Lily could barely remember what she had even said. But somehow in the next few days they had become friends, walking to class together, waving at one another as they passed by each other in the hall and exchanging letters throughout class. Dorcas though a little shy at first soon became familiar with Lily as well. It was usually the two of them who stayed up late talking about classes and how fascinating it was to finally be at Hogwarts. Unlike Lily, Dorcas was born in the magical world, both her parents born with magic in their veins. They often wondered how it was that Lily had gotten the magic gene in the first place and many a days they had event spent in the library searching for answers. Lily told Dorcas about the muggle stories growing up and Dorcas introduced her to Wizarding tales and lore among much more.
Marlene on the other side was rude, pushy, straight up judgmental and rubbed her the wrong way the very first night Lily had met her.
"Evans?" Marlene had said, eyebrows raised. Lily had just been sorted into Gryffindor and had just sat at the table where the others greeted her with warm smiles. "I would I have thought you'd be a Weasley."
"What's a Weasley?" Lily had asked, curious. It wasn't a term she was familiar with.
"They're a pureblood family, all red-heads."
"A lot of people can have red hair." Lily had retorted.
"I know." was all Marlene had said before turning away to talk to the boy next to her.
The following week she only gave curt nods to Lily but wasn't overly friendly and warm like the rest. It bugged Lily and somewhere between the lines she had started regarding Marlene as only an acquaintance not a friend.
"Are you sure that's the only thing bothering you?" Dorcas asked looking towards her. They had stopped in front of the creaky door that teetered back and forth slightly as students rushed in one by one.
"Yeah." Lily said finally brushing her red hair past her shoulder. "Just her."
Dorcas looked like she wanted to argue but Lily faked a smile before tugging her into the classroom. It didn't take long for the smile to turn real as she noticed Severus in the back of the classroom, the seat next to him empty.
"Hey Sev," she greeted him putting down her bag."What does it look like today?" She quickly pulled out a pink scrunchie to tie her hair back noticing the sweltering cauldron. Severus blinked at her and stared for a moment before answering. "Same as yesterday-although you can see a light sheen emanate from where the iridescent bulbous bulbs have immersed completely into the potion. All we need to do now is add the kettle wings so that the sheen is preserved and the color-"
"turns to a light peach." Lily flipped over to the page they were on. "Yes, Severus I know. Shocking. I actually had Mary read over the chapters to me."
"You're teasing." Severus replied narrowing his eyes.
"Of course." Lily had already grabbed the cup and measured 3/4 of the kettle wings, handing the mortar and pestle to Severus. "Although, Mary did read the entire chapter word for word last night."
"She should, her potion looks terrible." Severus looked towards the dark haired girl who was frantically flipping through the textbook."If her partner had any sense, he would have offered to do the entire potion himself"
"Hey," Lily snapped. "Mary's smart. She just needs to focus on potions more. You're just mad she scored higher on the Transfig exam yesterday."
"I don't understand how." Severus sniffed. "McGonagall just seems to favor the Gryffindors, that's all."
"Slughorn seems to like you too." Lily responded evenly.
"And you."
Professor Slughorn walked by their table at that exact moment and smiled at the pair of them causing Lily to blush. Yes, Professor Slughorn had taken a liking to her, but only because of Severus if she was honest. She didn't want to imagine how awful she would have been at potions had he not spent the summer before teaching her everything and anything to do with magic.
He had introduced her to the world of magic. Hogwarts, being here right now- it was all because of him. She smiled at the though stirring the potion slowly.
Marlene McKinnon aside, she knew she always had a friend in Severus.
"Hey Sev, so I got something from back home- you know from-"
There was a loud yelp from the back that stopped her mid sentence. Something had splattered into Kiara Knightshade's cauldron. There was a serenade of gasps, a few screams from Kiara herself who was doused head to toe in the shimmering liquid, and a small giggle from somewhere behind Lily. Professor Slughorn surged forward to assess the damage and immediately sent the pair to the hospital wing.
"Simmer down!" Slughorn brandished his wand vanishing the mess is seconds. "Let's all hope your potions don't meet the same end..."
But Lily had been focused on something else entirely. The object, whatever it was had been thrown from the back. And judging by the look on Peter's face he didn't seem to have realized his little trip had cause the jar of pickled eels to fall-
Lily felt a huge weight being lifted off of her chest. She knew exactly where the box had fallen now!
"Lily-!" Severus called after her pointedly but she gave him an apologetic glance.
"Sorry Sev, Professor Slughorn I need to check on something really quick-" the words were coming out of her mouth faster than she could make sense of them. Professor Slughorn to his credit smiled. "Absolutely Ms. Evans." And awas out before she could finish. Sprinting past the Infirmary she could hear Knightshade and Vera Solis explaining to Madam Pomfrey what had happened.
"It happened so quickly-I wasn't sure what had happened. All I did was add the glow worm essence."
"Ver, it wasn't you. Someone threw something in our cauldron. I'll find out who did this."
"Ms. Knightshade if you would please stay still while I attend to the wounds."
The anticipation to get back to the dorms overtook her and she began to run, hair flowing behind her. She knew exactly where it had fell, the one place she hadn't looked. Now she could open it and see what it was.
"Oh!" Lily gasped narrowly avoiding Michael Duke who had evidently just woken up by the state his hair was in. She stepped to the side smiling at awe in him.
"Hey Lily is it-?" he began to ask rubbing his eyes and trying to squint at the large clock on the deep red wall in the common room.
"3rd period is nearly over Michael!." She shouted grinning as she ran up the stairs to the girls dorms. It would snow, she mused, the day Michael Duke got to class on time.
She forced the door open, breathing heavily, expecting it to be empty. What she did not expect to see was James Potter digging through her drawers like he was on a mission. The box lay tore open on the foot of her bed and Lily's right hand curled to a fist, blood rushing to her ears.
"James Potter what are you doing?!" She screamed stomping towards him ready to knock him into his senses all whilst wondering how he had gotten in with all the enchantments in the first place.
He turned around with such vigor his glasses flinging off to the side that for a second Lily even forgot why she was angry. It didn't last long as she locked eyes with him again and remembered what he did to Severus last week.
"Oh well you see Sirius and I had a bet and-" He put a hand to his hair nervously, "What did you do with the chocolate frog cards then? I've searched everywhere and -you didn't burn them did you?" He looked towards the cold hearth now nervously.
James Potter almost looked hopeful, but Lily looked back at the opened box at the foot of the bed.
"That you're doing?" She asked calmly pointing at it.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
"Oh yeah," James rubbed his hair again. Why was he always doing that? Lily thought to herself furiously as he continued.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
"That's Sirius's handwriting, alright. Don't worry it wasn't anything bad just a pair of old socks-!" James was saying. He actually let out a small laugh too causing Lily Evans let out an infuriating scream that made James Potter back away.
"You can't just walk in here and open other peoples things! And I don't have your bloody chocolate frog cards-!"Lily took a deep breath. "Just leave right now. Please." She added softly.
She didn't like it when she got like this.
James nodded. He nearly tripped twice, but managed to escape out the door without looking back.
Lily dropped next to the box and picked up the socks that were fraying at the edges. One was pink, the other a slight lavender-almost gray. To anyone like James Potter they would mean nothing but to Lily they meant everything. She put the pink sock on her right hand, and the purple one on her left.
"I miss you too Tuney." She whispered looking down at them and wondering why in the world James Potter was such an insensitive prick.