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Lily Evans was a planner. She had a plan for everything that is until she got to university. She had planned to attend university with her best friend make some more friends, get her degree, and maybe fall in love with a nice man and settle down get married and succeed in her career and then she would move into the same area as her sister and parents and their kids could grow up together and be near their grandparents. However, like the best-laid plans it didn’t work out like that.
Not long after arriving at university she and her best friend Severus started to drift apart. She put some of it down to the fact that they were in different flat blocks and on different courses. He was studying chemistry and she was doing English literature. But she also knew some of it was her fault she had been so caught up in the excitement of starting university and meeting new people that she had neglected the friendship she had with Severus.
By the time she had started dating James Potter, she saw Severus once a week at most and more often than not didn’t speak to him when they were together and just used the time to study. It still hurt her when they had their fight though, she knew that Severus hadn’t liked James and his friends. She thought like herself he had disliked them because they were immature and loud and generally a disturbance to the general population of their university, not that he didn’t like them because Sirius and Remus were sickeningly cute and in love with each other and because James was Indian. That information shocked her when she found out and she was shocked when he said that he couldn’t be friends with someone who would debase themselves by sleeping with someone who wasn’t the same colour as them. Not that he had put it that nicely.
The plan to attend university with her best friend changed after that fight. Lily carried on though she made sure to spend time with the new friends she had made and spend time with her boyfriend and his friends. She made sure she looked after those relationships and didn’t let her friends think she didn’t care about them.
When Lily and James broke up, she was devastated because she thought that she would lose the friendships she had made with the so-called Marauders, and she loved James even though they weren’t in love she didn’t want to lose him either. However, he didn’t leave her alone once they broke up because it had been neither of their faults that they weren’t straight. James became family to Lily he became almost like a brother to her along with Sirius the two were like barnacles. Once they decided that they loved you it was impossible to get rid of them.
Lily realised that she liked women one Thursday evening when after her fight with Severus she had been sitting at the back of a pub drowning her sorrows in vodka. She developed a crush on the keyboard player in the band that played that night in the pub. Not that she realised she had found Sirius’ younger brother or James' future boyfriend that evening. The keyboard player had looked up and smiled at Lily and something bright inside her lit up more than it had when James kissed her. She understood what other people meant when they said they had butterflies. It was at that moment she realised that whilst she loved James, she wasn’t in love with him.
A week later some guy mistook James for his boyfriend, and she watched as James reached the same conclusion that she had made for herself. So, it wasn’t a surprise when the next day she and James sat down and had a serious conversation about their relationship and the fact that it wasn’t the right thing for either of them. When she expressed her fear about losing him and his friends now that they were no longer together, he told her that she was stuck with him from now on no matter how much she would beg him to piss off and leave her alone. She had just smiled to herself even though her plan to fall in love with a man had to be scrapped.
The next time she spoke to her parents and sister they asked about her relationship with James, she told them that they had broken up. Whilst they were upset for her that she was no longer dating the person she thought she was in love with they were more upset about the fact that she liked women. She knew they probably wouldn’t be very happy about it considering the area she had grown up in was very religious and her whole family liked to attend church at least once a week. But the way they made their displeasure with it clear hurt her more than she would care to admit. She hadn’t spoken to her sister since and had missed her wedding and the birth of her nephew. She still spoke to her parents but infrequently and the conversations were stilted and awkward. She had spent any holidays away from uni with James, Sirius, and their family rather than at home so she could avoid her parents and the disapproving looks they sent her way. This part of her life plan going wrong was the most upsetting one Lily often thought.
After she and her family had become distant, she learnt from Sirius how to build your own family and Effie and Monty carried on as if she had always been their child and never said anything. Remus would always make sure she looked after herself and often spoke with her about being queer and having grown up in a religious context and the girls: Mary and Marlene decided she needed a whole new look and wardrobe after coming out. Even though everyone else helped her in some way the person who helped her the most turned out to be Peter, the only straight one in their group, he was always there to listen when she needed to talk and often said the right thing she needed to hear at that point in time.
“Who cares who you fuck but right now I need to know what topping you want on your pizza!” was her favourite thing he had said to her once when she had had a particularly hard day, it had been her sister's birthday, and it had made her laugh so hard that her ribs had hurt.
So, whilst her plan hadn’t turned out the way she had initially imagined she was following it pretty similarly. She was at university with her best friends, Mary, and Marlene, she was doing well in her degree and was on her way to having a good career and she would be able to live down the road from her family, the one she had chosen when she got married and had a family of her own. All she wanted now was a partner and she really wanted to date Pandora.
Pandora was the person she had seen all those months ago playing the keyboard at the pub. The person who made her realise that she didn’t like men. Lily wasn’t sure what she wanted to label herself at this point, but she knew that she wasn’t attracted to men. Pandora was the most beautiful person Lily thinks she’s ever seen their hair was blonde with purple highlights throughout, it was curly and hung down their back to sit just above their waist but when Pandora wore it up Lily could see her undercut that often had patterns shaved into it. They often wore bold makeup with dark eyes that highlighted their slate grey eyes. They were also fairly tall and were taller than Lily which she secretly loved. Overall, Pandora was gorgeous, and any time Lily was around them she seemed to fail on how to function as a human being, which Sirius loved to take the piss out of her for, she would then remind him how he acted around Remus. It was even worse now as James had started dating Regulus, much to Sirius’ annoyance, so they were always around as they were best friends with Regulus.
Regulus and James’ friend groups mixing is how Lily found herself in the position she was currently in. It had started earlier in the day when she turned up at the boy’s house because Remus had said he would help her with an essay she had due about his favourite book.
“Remus Lupin you better be here and have a fridge stocked with energy drinks as I have a deadline and about 50 words out of the 2000, I need to get done.” She had stormed into the house yelling for him.
“He’s not here at the moment none of them are actually.” a voice spoke up from where Pandora had been lounging on the sofa.
“Holy fuck! I did not see you there.” Lily had jumped a mile when she heard them speaking and was now very embarrassed about how she had acted.
“Sorry didn’t mean to startle you love” the smirk on Pandora’s face suggested that they weren’t all that sorry. Lily could feel her face heating up from Pandora calling her love.
“Do you know where they are? Or when they’ll be back?” she asked as she flopped down onto the other sofa.
“Not for a while from the sounds of it,” Pandora replied.
“Fuuckk I can’t believe he’s abandoned me and is making me do my essay all on my own,” Lily pretended to cry. “I guess I’ll get started and hope he gets back before it's due tomorrow morning, I’m stealing his Monster though,” she told Pandora as she moved into the kitchen and raided the fridge.
“What’s the essay about?” They asked as they followed Lily into the kitchen. Lily noticed they were wearing grey sweats and an unbuttoned shirt over a navy bralette causing her brain to malfunction as she looked up at them and saw their hair was also done into French braids meaning Lily could see both the highlights and the undercut, they had.
“Oh umm, it’s umm it’s about a book.” she managed to stammer out.
“Mmmh which book love? because from my limited knowledge of your degree, it does seem to be about a lot of books.” Pandora hummed out a light laugh as they reached into the fridge to get a drink for themself. The movement caused the shirt to move showing off a tattoo that Lily hadn’t seen before. It was lines of lightning that seemed to travel from below the waistband of their sweatpants to below where the edge of their bralette sat. Lily thought she might have actually drooled a little.
“It’s… it’s,” she had to blink herself back into awareness after she had been staring at them for what was probably a creepily long time, “it’s Beowulf.”
“I’m familiar with it, why’s Remus helping you? Surely someone as smart as you don’t need his help?” Pandora said whilst they moved into Lily’s space and smirked down at her. She thought she might be imagining it, but Pandora was flirting with her!
“Well, umm it’s one of his favourite books and they’ve just covered it in his classics and mythology class,” she mumbled but could feel her cheeks warming up further with a blush. She hated being a redhead sometimes she was so pale that anytime she blushed it was obvious, and Pandora could clearly see it if the way they were smiling at her was any indication.
“I take that class as well you know so I could help if you want,” Pandora said as she sat down at the table opposite where Lily had situated herself.
“Oh, umm if you don’t mind that would be great thanks.” she blurted out before she could second guess herself.
“No, I offered, didn’t I? Now when’s this due?” Pandora asked.
“8 am tomorrow” this time Lily blushed with embarrassment.
“Well looks like we have a long night ahead of us, love.” Pandora winked before she dragged Lily’s laptop to where they could see it easier and then reached around the table and grabbed her chair and dragged Lily, so she was sitting right next to them.
***
Lily woke with a start at the sound of a door slamming open followed by drunk whispering and then the sound of the door being slammed closed again. It took her a few seconds to realise where she was. She had been asleep at the kitchen table of the boys’ house where she had fallen asleep whilst working on her essay with Pandora. Shit her essay! What was the time? Looking frantically around for the time she failed to notice how she had been leaning against Pandora in her sleep.
“Are you alright love?” Pandora asked in a rough voice as she had also just woken up.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” Lily whispered under her breath, “what's the time?”
“It's only 6:30, you still have time besides I’m on the final read through now and it looks good, so you have nothing to panic over,” Pandora answered in a soothing tone trying to calm Lily down.
“Oh, ok cool cool cool thanks.” she managed a strained smile at Pandora and as she went to say something else, they were interrupted by the boys and Pandora’s friends stumbling into the kitchen.
“Lils what are you doing here!?” Sirius yelled excitedly as he tried to hug Lily whilst trying to climb into her lap at the same time.
“I was originally here so Remus could help me with my essay, but Pandora kindly offered to help as you lot were clearly busy” she answered as she sent a glare to a now sheepish looking Remus.
“Ah well moony was with me cause he loooves me” Sirius slurred whilst still trying to get into her lap.
“God knows why” Regulus snorted from where he was standing and holding up a very drunk looking James who was trying to get inside Regulus' shirt with him.
“Sssssshhhhhh, you have Jamie don’t take my moony toooo” Sirius replied.
Pandora pushed Lily’s laptop back over to her so she could read through her easy one last time before she turned it in.
Suddenly Sirius stopped arguing with Regulus and turned to stare at Lily like he couldn’t work something out “why did you stay here when you realised Remus wasn’t coming back anytime soon?” Lily quickly glanced over at Pandora before she went to answer, once again being interrupted by Sirius, “Ooohhh its cause Pandora was here, Dora Dora Dora did you know Lily likes you she thinks your very pretty all she does is talk about you,” Sirius then turned to face Lily again “you should ask Dora on a date she, sorry Dora, they also like you all they speak about is you according to Reggie.” Sirius said before he fell asleep leaning on Remus leaving the kitchen in awkward silence.
“Well, we have to go”.
“I need to get him upstairs”.
“Oh yeah we need to get to bed too.”
“I left something in the hall”.
The others all said at once before shuffling as quickly as they could out of the kitchen. Leaving Pandora and Lily alone both feeling fairly embarrassed about the fact their crush on the other person had been revealed.
“So…” “I…” they both started at the same time before stopping and then quickly looking away when they made eye contact.
“Thank you for all your help tonight.” Lily started.
“Oh,” Pandora said sounding disappointed, “it was no issue.”
“In a few hours after we’ve both had a proper sleep do you want to grab a coffee?” Lily asked nervously.
“Like a date?” Pandora asked tentatively.
“Yeah, and as a thank you.” Lily answered blushing.
“Yeah, that sounds good, like really good,” Pandora replied smiling brightly.
“We won’t ever tell Sirius he was the reason we went on a date agreed?” Lil asked as she was leaving the kitchen.
“Yeah, I don’t think I could take it if his head ever got any bigger.” Pandora agreed easily.