Her friends’ reactions were sudden and quite loud. “WHAT?” Alex shouted, so loudly that Lily fell backwards onto her pillow. “Lily, how could you?”
“I don’t know,” she replied miserably. “Malfoy said he’d help me get James back. But I don’t want to get him back anymore.”
Cadrian threw her a disgusted look. “Lily, that was pretty low.”
Lily looked at her friends speechlessly. Alex folded her arms across her chest angrily. “I’m going to go tell Sirius what you did.”
“No!” Lily scrambled off the bed and grabbed Alex’s sleeve. “Please, Alex. I have to tell him myself.” She swallowed. “When I’m ready. Which isn’t now. Promise me you won’t tell him yet?”
Alex’s eyes locked with Lily’s. “Fine. But if you haven’t come out with the truth in a week, then I’m going to tell him. Do you know how big a mess you’ve caused? I actually saw Sirius crying!”
That last part hit Lily like a brick in the head. “Crying?” she asked softly. “Are you sure?”
Cadrian nodded. “I was there, too. It was in History of Magic. He was keeping his head down so nobody would see, but we noticed.”
Lily didn’t reply. She drew her knees up to her chest. “I’m so sorry, guys.”
“Don’t apologize to us,” said Alex. “You owe Sirius an apology. Not us.”
“Not yet,” said Lily. “Tomorrow, okay?”
Alex shrugged. “Fine. But you’d better have a good apology. Because Sirius is going to be mad enough to strangle you when he finds out.”
And that didn’t exactly help.
* * * * * * * * * *
That night all the first-years were quite subdued, but none as much as Lily, not even Sirius. Older kids kept coming and patting Sirius on the back. Chris came by and gave Sirius some Chocolate Frogs, which seemed to cheer him up a bit.
But nothing cheered Lily up. She had never felt so guilty in all her life. Every glance over at Sirius brought on a fresh wave of guilt. Soon she just couldn’t take it. Throwing her things haphazardly in her bag, she disappeared up into the dormitory.
Tomorrow, she told herself sternly. I will tell Sirius and James what I did tomorrow. For sure. No excuses.
And then she fell asleep.
Back downstairs, the other first-years were still congregated together glumly, their books open before them but not much homework getting done. James and Sirius were whispering furiously, and it was clear they were arguing. Suddenly James slammed his fist on the table.
“God, Sirius!” he said loudly. “Why don’t you want to stand up for yourself?”
Sirius turned red. “It isn’t that,” he muttered. “I just…don’t want to face them.”
“Maybe you don’t. But I do,” said James. “This was just plain dirty of them. You’ve been teased all day. Let them have a piece of your mind! Don’t let them control you!”
“JAMES!” Sirius roared. “I…I’m scared of them, alright? My whole stupid family hates me, and they won’t care what happens to me. They…will hurt me.”
James was silent for a moment, and when he spoke it was in a different tone than he normally used.
“I know your family’s sort of messed up,” he said quietly. “And that Lucius probably knows way too much Dark magic. But that doesn’t mean you should let them boss you around. You’re in Gryffindor. You’re better than all of them. You just have to let them know that.”
James’s speech didn’t have quite the desired effect. Sirius only rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up, James. You’re so full of it.” With that, he swung his bag over his shoulder and stomped up to the boys’ dormitory.
“Jeez, what’s his problem?” asked Peter, scratching his nose.
James turned back to the group, frowning. “I don’t know. I was trying to help him. It’s not my fault that his loser cousins found out about his prank. It wasn’t that great, anyway.” He kept muttering things like that to himself, Peter agreeing with all of them.
Next to Cadrian, Remus shut his book. “I’ll go talk to him, James.”
“Fine,” said James sulkily. “Go. Of course he’ll listen to you. Smart Remus, nice Remus, teacher’s pet Remus. Yeah. Go. Whatever. He’ll listen to you, but not his best friend.”
Remus cast him a strange, hurt look as he walked away.
“James…” Alex began. Cadrian shot her a warning look. Alex ignored it. “James, we know how Lucius got wind of the prank.”
“How?” asked James.
“Alex!” said Cadrian. “Stop!”
“I promised I wouldn’t tell Sirius yet,” Alex told Cadrian. “I said nothing about James.”
“But…” Cadrian felt uneasy. “Don’t, Alex.”
“Alex! Come on, tell me! It can’t be that bad. Was it a first-year?”
Cadrian grabbed Alex’s arm as Alex opened her mouth. “DON’T,” she said loudly. “She’ll never forgive you!”
“She?” James contemplated this. “So it’s either Danielle, Jeniece, or…” his eyes lit up. “LILY!”
Alex nodded, ignoring Cadrian, who had buried her face in her hands.
“Lily,” James muttered under his breath. “Why’d she do it? She’s such a goody-two-shoes.”
“It wasn’t her fault, James,” said Cadrian. “She had a reason.”
“What could possibly make her tell a secret like that?” asked James frustratedly.
Alex and Cadrian exchanged glances, and this time Alex had enough sense to keep the truth to herself. “Nothing,” they said simultaneously. James didn’t know that he was the reason Lily had spilled to Lucius.
James shrugged. “Whatever. I just can’t believe she did that. That’s so stupid. What kind of a Gryffindor would do that?”
“James, you don’t know anything about it,” Cadrian defended Lily. She shot Alex a venomous look-she shouldn’t have told James at all. Alex began to look a bit repetent. That was the problem with Alex-she didn’t realize the consequences of her actions until the damage was already done.
James was looking up towards the girls’ dormitory, a look of contempt on his face. And that was when Alex began to feel truly sorry about telling.
“Look, James. She had a reason. A good one. So don’t be too hard on her, okay? And please, please don’t tell Sirius. He’ll kill her,” said Cadrian.
James got to his feet. “No, he won’t. I will.”
Peter’s small, watery eyes darted around nervously. “James, calm down…” he said hesitantly, but nobody really paid him much mind.
Cadrian threw up her hands. “Fine. Great job, Alex. You promised Lily you wouldn’t tell. But now you’ve messed everything up.” She viciously zipped up her bag and left the common room. The party of first-years was very steadily dwindling.
James was still looking murderous, and a squirmy feeling was growing in the pit of Alex’s stomach. “James…” she said nervously. “Cadrian’s right. She didn’t want to tell. She’s plenty upset about it, so keep it to yourself, alright?”
James threw her a cold, hard glance. “Why don’t you keep it yourself?” he asked her quietly. “It seems like you have a harder time with that than me.” With that, he, also, left the common room.
Peter took one look up at Alex with his beady, bloodshot eyes, then followed.
Alex leaned back into the cushy couch and sighed. Yes, she knew she really, really shouldn’t have told James what Lily had done. And now Lily and Cadrian were probably upstairs talking about her and her many faults…she was too reckless, too fearless, too mischievous, had no common sense, never thought things through. All of that was true, and she knew it. She’d heard it all before.
Gradually, as the clocks ticked later and later, the sky grew inky and starry, and the fires burned down, the common room emptied. The yawning sixth- and seventh-years disappeared up to dormitories, and by one o’ clock Alex was left alone in the near darkness, her schoolbooks still open.
Yawning, she rubbed her eyes. I should get some sleep, she thought, and then simply kicked off her shoes, lay down on the couch she’d been sitting on, pulled a blanket over her small frame, and fell asleep.
* * * * * * * *
She woke up early as somebody shook her. “Alex, you should get up now.” It wasn’t Lily or Cadrian. It was a boy. James? Sirius? Blearily, Alex opened her eyes, shivering in the cold.
She stretched and rubbed her eyes. It was Chris, looking concerned. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Alex self-consciously ran a hand over her hair, which always looked crazy in the morning. “Oh, yeah, yeah,” she said hastily. “I’m great. I just, er, fell asleep down here last night.”
“With a blanket over you?” asked Chris skeptically.
Alex frowned. “Yes.”
Chris grinned good-naturedly. “Fine. Are you sure you’re okay, though?”
Alex sighed, closing her still-open book and dropping it in her bag. “No, not especially. I’m such an idiot.”
“Yeah, well, we already knew that,” teased Chris. When Alex didn’t laugh, he sobered. “Okay, okay, sorry. What’s up?”
“It’s just that…it’s sort of a long story. I’ll give you the short version. Sirius was planning to play a prank on Bellatrix, and then that whole thing with James turning Lily green came up, so obviously Lily was mad. So she asked Lucius to help her get revenge, since she knew Lucius could come up with something really good. Well, Lucius wanted Lily to tell him what was going on with Sirius as, like, payment. So she told him, and that’s why the papers everywhere were trashing Sirius,, instead of Bellatrix, so Sirius was obviously upset. Then Lily was really upset too, and I told James that she told, and she and Cadrian are both really mad at me, and James and Sirius will both be mad at Lily, and it’s just a big mess!” Whew. She took a deep breath.
“Wow,” said Chris, after a few seconds. “That’s the short version?”
At this Alex cracked a grin. “As simple as I can give it to you.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have told James.”
“Oh, thanks for the great advice,” said Alex sarcastically.
Chris held up his hands defensively. “Ouch! No need to get all girly on me!”
“Sorry.” Alex paused. “Hey, what do you mean by girly?”
He smirked. “Girly. Girls can be mean. They bite, you know.”
Alex had to laugh. “Fine, I get your point.” She looked up to see Lily and Cadrian descending down the steps. “Now I really need to get down to breakfast so I’m not late to class.” Raking a couple fingers through her hair (which was looking exceptionally ratty), she stuffed her things into her bag and exited the common room, still wearing yesterday’s robes.
At breakfast she sat down across from Lily and Cadrian. They kept their eyes trained on their plates, chewing slowly and deliberately, not saying a word.
Alex stabbed a sausage viciously, tears pricking at her eyes. “Um…hi,” she said cautiously.
Lily glanced up, then quickly lowered her head again. It was clear that Alex wasn’t welcome here. Willing herself not to cry just yet, Alex picked up her bag and moved to a relatively empty spot near the end of the table.
Her friends didn’t call her back, didn’t even look over at her once.
All through the day it was like that: Lily and Cadrian avoiding Alex. It was made worse by James and Sirius’s spiteful comments about Lily, Peter’s incessant sniggering, and the general animosity between the first-years.
All in all, the atmosphere in the common room that night between the first-years was anything but friendly. Once one big group stealing answers off of each others’ homework, the seven first-years (minus Danielle and Jeniece) were now in three separate groups.
James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were occupying two couches, and they were talking in hushed voices. Every so often they would look over to Lily, who had an odd feeling that they were plotting something that she wouldn’t exactly like. Lily herself was sitting with Cadrian by one of the bigger fireplaces. The two of them were silently plodding through a Potions assignment and trying not to look back at Alex, who was sitting with Danielle and Jeniece.
Sirius was wishing that he wasn’t related to Bellatrix. James was wishing that he knew enough magic to turn Lily’s head into a pumpkin. Peter was wishing that he could have some Chocolate Frogs. Remus was wishing that Sirius and James would just forget about what Lily had done.
Cadrian was wishing that this whole thing had never started; Lily was wishing she hadn’t told Lucius about Sirius’s plan.
But Alex was wishing the hardest out of any of them, and she was hoping with all her might that somehow her friends could forgive her.
Lily, Blossoming by halfbloodprincess22
Chapter Notes: Hey, here's chapter 17! Sorry, it's a bit short. Hope you like it, though. Please leave a REVIEW!!!! :)