Lily stifled a scream as she awoke; this was becoming an almost regular occurrence, waking up after a nightmare that she couldn’t quite remember. This time, however, she could faintly remember reaching for something”she had badly wanted it, she was sure of that.
She groaned as she peeled her bed covers off. She was up earlier than usual but that just meant that she had longer to shower and could do so without her dorm mates annoying her. However, she frowned as she noticed that Mariella’s bed was empty and already made, her hangings pulled right back. It looked like it hadn’t been slept in at all. Lily shrugged, she couldn’t really care less.
Lily had a leisurely shower and enjoyed her quiet breakfast before making her way to Charms, which was her first class of the day. She was just walking up the stairs to the second floor when she heard someone behind her. “Lily!” Noah Smith shouted, grabbing her attention. Lily groaned as she slouched against the wall. He was a sure fire way to put her in a bad mood. Noah was a fifth year and in Hufflepuff, he shared a dorm with Hugo. He was incredibly boring and wanted to work in the International Regulations office at the Ministry when he was older”a job that Lily would rather gouge her eyes out than do.
“How are you?” the boy asked breathlessly as he caught up with her. Lily couldn’t help but note that he resembled a puppy. With his shaggy brown hair and eyes of the same colour, he was not really the best looking boy, really more average. He had always had a little crush on Lily and liked to follow her around hopelessly in the hope that someday she would come to her senses and agree to go out with him.
Rolling her eyes at him, Lily replied, “I’m fine thanks.” She left no room for a reply; however this did not seem to faze him.
“So, it’s coming up for Hogsmeade weekend. Have you got any plans?” The tall boy leaned against the wall, as though in a casual conversation.
Wanting to scream, Lily said back, “I’m going with Hugo, as always. “
Noah looked rather downhearted. “Ah, see I was going to ask if you wanted to go with me,” he muttered, looking at the ground.
“Hm, I suppose you could come with me and Hugo?” Lily offered in a sickly sweet voice, one that she reserved for harsh sarcasm.
Noah smiled a rather crooked and watery smile and Lily prayed to Merlin that he wasn’t going to cry. “No, its okay I’ll go with the rest of the lads,” he croaked before turning and walking away in the opposite direction. Not at all concerned, Lily dully realised that he must have walked the completely wrong way in order to catch up with her. Shrugging, she continued her journey to Charms.
***The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully. Hugo had found Noah’s advances hilarious and Transfiguration had bombed ever so slightly but apart from that Lily thought that everything was going well. That was until later on that evening.
Lily and Hugo had agreed to meet in an abandoned dungeon in order to start their potion; Hogsmeade was coming up soon and they needed to get a move on. However, both of them were not particularly skilled at potion making and were barely scraping a pass at their OWL class and making a potion with no direction from their professor whilst trying to decipher an ancient book was no mean feat .
The two cousins struggled and argued their way through the potion.
“I swear down Lily, the book says stir twelve times counter clockwise then three times clock wise.”
“No, Hugo, it says ten then three. Do you know how to read?”
They continued like this for almost an hour, mainly in silence but with the occasional comment. Eventually they broke the silence as they spent almost fifteen minutes arguing over when to add the moonstone before realising that their concoction was now an angry red colour, a far cry away from the clear that it should have been.
Almost to the stage of giving up, Lily slumped on the table. Her red hair was a complete mess and she could feel perspiration dripping down her face. She was, therefore, extremely embarrassed when an intruder burst into the classroom.
That intruder being Scorpius Malfoy.
Shocked, Lily swung around expecting to meet a teacher or a prefect. Rather annoyed that she had panicked for nothing she snapped, “What are you, my stalker? My dad had one once, she used to send him her dirty knickers and he used to get really embarrassed.”
Scorpius looked rather taken aback and Hugo quickly covered for Lily. “Sorry, she’s stressed out. She isn’t usually like this. Well, sometimes she isn’t like this. Anyway, what are you doing here?”
Lily thought she saw amusement flicker across Scorpius’s face, but that was quickly covered by an impassive expression.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he replied. “This is my classroom; I’m brewing my project for NEWT Potions in here.” His eyes flickered towards the corner of the classroom and Lily looked behind her to see a cauldron, which contained a baby blue potion with large bubbles floating to the ceiling.
“Oh,” both Lily and Hugo murmured at the same time. Lily sidled in front of her cauldron, hiding their disaster. Not only could they get in trouble but she was embarrassed at what Scorpius might think of their dreadful potion. However, he just ignored them and crossed to his corner of the room. He frowned as he stirred the potion lazily, adding a handful of ashwinder eggs. Noticing that she was staring, Lily averted her eyes.
They continued in peace, Scorpius working on his potion and Lily and Hugo on theirs. The blonde boy worked for fifteen minutes before packing up to leave. However, he stopped at the door and turned back. Rolling his eyes, he carefully stirred Lily’s potion and added a little more moonstone. Lily and Hugo watched him, rather taken aback. Suddenly, the potion started to bubble and slowly but surely, become transparent. Noticing what he was doing, Scorpius flushed pink. Wiping his hands on his robes, he quickly left the room leaving Lily rather shocked.
Slowly, Lily collected some of the mixture and cleaned out her cauldron. For long after he had gone, she couldn’t stop thinking of Scorpius. She envisioned his messy blonde hair and speculated about his body for a long time before Hugo picked up on her quietness.
“What’s up, Lily?” he asked as they made their way up from the dungeons.
Lily flushed slightly, and averted her eyes. “Nothing!” she replied, perhaps a little more edgy than normal.
Hugo shrugged; he was used to Lily’s funny moods. They stopped outside the entrance to his common room, and Lily went to say good- bye before someone behind him caught her eye. Noah Smith and his friends were walking down the stairs. She contemplated for a while, before realising she needed to do this. She couldn’t keep pining over Malfoy, could she? And Noah seemed keen enough. Drawing a breath, she crossed over to the tall, brown hair boy. “Erm, Smith.” She had to clear her throat in order to speak again, and Hugo looked rather bemused. “I’m not going to Hogsmeade tomorrow with Hugo anymore, I suppose you could take me,” she muttered, hardly believing what she as saying.
Noah’s face lit up and he could barely stutter his acceptance before rushing away. She thought she saw his friend clap him on the shoulder before they disappeared through the Hufflepuff tapestry. Shuddering, she turned to face Hugo who looked rather upset.
“What am I meant to do now?” he said.
Lily shrugged. “Go with Albus or Rose or Louis or someone…”
Hugo rolled his eyes but didn’t seem immensely bothered. “I think I will see what Louis is doing actually, I couldn’t bear a whole afternoon of Roxanne,” he said rather thoughtfully, as if he was weighing up his options.
The two cousins said their goodbyes and Lily turned to start the long trek to the Gryffindor common room. All the way there, she thought about what she had just done. There was no way that she would enjoy her date, but really there was no way out of it. Each excuse she thought up became more and more ridiculous until Lily realised that she would have to go on the date, even if for only an hour.
Finally, Lily reached the portrait of the Fat Lady which swung open before she had a chance to even say the password. Mariella Vance climbed out, and Lily inwardly groaned as she was not in the mood at all for her. However, she was vastly surprised when Mariella simply smiled and said in a breezy tone, “Hey, Lily! How are you?” before slipping past her and down the corridor.
Blinking, Lily stepped into the common room. Mariella had never been that nice to Lily before. Ever the prankster, she never turned down a dare and only last year had filled Lily’s bed with frogspawn. The year before, she had been dared to try to get as close to the Whomping Willow as possible, and had subsequently ended up in the Hospital Wing for a week.
The point was that Lily and Mariella had never really spoken.
So what had that been about?