Chapter Text
Prologue
The air above was thick. Thankfully, the leaves overhead were thicker.
Nestled down here in the trees, with the river cutting its way through nearby, it was as cool as a basement though it was late summer. Even the damp, bare earth she touched as she ducked low beneath a beleaguered hawthorn tree felt cold. She pressed her fingers to the back of her neck with relief, having rushed the last of the way here.
The river itself had stopped her earlier, captivating her with a few choice creatures passing through the water much as she had, shoes dangling in her hand and wearing her mother’s old paint-stained jeans, shrunken in the wash and cuffed at the ends just for her to play rough in. Her dad’s belt was doing double duty to hold them up and to make her look at least somewhat fashionably slouchy, which her mother said she envied that she could still get away with at her age. But the shade and bank alike had been absent of anything bigger than a rabbit, and she had gotten lost in thought for some time before she had realized the side she had come from—her side—had held fresh footprints in the wet ground going back into the patch of woods.
And so, after a second walk through the water, she was making her way to a more secluded spot, out of sight of the river and the meadow—and anything else in the world for that matter. Down where sleeping deer made impressions in the tender grass and debris from the oaks above, and only their narrow, printed paths could be followed.
She smirked as she saw the stark black and white through all the green. The brief pain of stepping on an acorn or two was worth it to get to sneak up on bare feet. There was no need to jump out and yell though, a short whistle was all she let out to announce her presence after she had gotten admirably close without a sound.
Even so, he jumped up with more enthusiasm than she had been expecting.
“Come here, look at this.”
“What?” She allowed herself to be led by both hands to the middle of the little glade, but stopped when she almost crunched a toe into something heavy. “Ugh, oh no…”
“It’s fine. Trust me—look.”
She was still pouting even after having kicked the big leather book to the side (as gently as she could), but she followed along. It couldn’t have been magic, at least not the kind with wands, given that they were still what felt like ages away from getting off the nasty Trace. But she knew quite well there were other sorts of magic.
Her eyes were meant to be closed while she mimed things out, but she could hardly contain herself when the rush of anticipation in the instructions being given was so evident. The sunlight couldn’t reach them here, but she knew the color of his eyes, like a pop bottle hiding its molasses glow until held up to the light, and she could imagine the spark playing in them. His words were cut off with a huff as he caught her peeking, but even though his grip tightened in impatience, she only squeezed back as they both giggled and he started over.
Suddenly, she let out a gasp. It felt like she’d been knocked over or had fallen. A wave of vertigo rushed her stomach up to her head and she grasped outward for a more solid purchase, clinging to his wrists.
“I knew it! I knew you could do it!”
She looked down, which felt like a normal reaction when one’s feet lost their place on the ground but didn’t seem so normal when one noticed they were maintaining their height.
“I’m flying?”
“Well, sort of.”
As if in defiance, her legs gradually tumbled higher until she was squealing head over heels. The flash of panic in the eyes below swiped the stretched grin clean off her face. It was a loud and anxious moment while they each tried to yank on the other in desperation, shouting in higher pitches than her toes, until at last, with a fierce strength, her feet were firmly planted once more, and their nerves were only tingling with the excitement of it all.
“You weren’t supposed to be able to do it that well,” he said breathlessly.
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to at all!”
Her fingers were still dug into the loose fabric of his shirt, and his attempt to free her from his arms only sent her rushing further into them, cherishing being grounded as much as the experience of momentarily not being so. After she had gotten out the last of her giddy laughter though, she finally let go, and he turned away rather quickly before she could even thank him properly.
“It’s—erm... It says here,” he was picking the book back up to show her apparently, but he was busy walking himself in a circle as he explained instead, “the same thing we know, that there’s no spell. But there’s been records... It looks like you can learn it from someone else. A master.”
“Wow... Guess you’re some genius professor, then, huh?”
He thinned his lips, going along with her laughter at his expense, but went on. “No, I just knew you could do it already. And it wasn’t quite right, I think that was just an accident. But maybe…”
They spent some time going over their individual theories, getting more and more wild until she was coming up with ideas about the stars aligning the exact same as they had been when she had flown off the swing set some few years prior. All in all, it was determined that the first thing they would be asking every professor at Hogwarts, as their current schoolteachers had come up empty, was still how to fly without a broom. Though she promised to help ask them all something he wanted as well.
“It’s a shame,” he sighed. “The Slytherin Head teaches Potions, and I don’t think that’ll be helpful... Unless you can sprout wings. What?”
She redirected her look, but she couldn’t reconfigure her expression. Her dad always said she had a face like putty; so flexible you could read the news across her forehead. Failing to chew any new topics out of her lips, she asked to the sky, “You don’t… seriously still think I’m getting into Slytherin, do you?”
There was a pause before she heard him roll over onto his elbow to face her. “Of course you are.”
“After what McDoyle said...?”
“McDoyle’s stupid.”
“Even Miss Pierce thinks it’s—“
“She’s stupid too,” he snapped, letting his back fall against the ground once more. “You’re getting in, and so am I. We both are.”
She was peering at him sidelong, watching him grimace at the treetops. It didn’t seem like just her eligibility he was stewing over.
“What if... I don’t want to get in?” He broke from his thoughts to turn to her with such a forlorn face that her words were sent scrambling backward. “It’s just—can’t we get into a different House together?”
“I guess so...”
“It’s not as if we’ll get to sleepover together, boys and girls are in separate dorms.”
He shot her a wary look. “Of course.”
He tried to subtly shimmy himself away, but she scooted herself over until she bumped shoulders with him.
They hadn’t tried any new attempts to talk their parents into a sleepover since before this past first year of school, but she thought she might have remained more open to it than he now was, picturing all the fun she got to have with Mary when she stayed over. He didn’t seem amused at the moment and lapsed back into silence.
She bit her lip. “If we do get in Slytherin...” she offered gently, “at least we can see all that underwater stuff together that Miss Pierce was talking about, and it’ll be like if you had gone to the aquarium with us. You really should come next time.”
He was busy pulling off bits of deteriorating leaves clinging to the fabric of his shirt. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Well, I say it doesn’t matter anyway,” she declared. “Me, you, Sarah, Mary...There’s no way everyone ends up in the same House. We just have to be friends no matter what, right?”
“Right. Well, those’re your friends.”
“Right... But still, it doesn’t matter.”
He peeked over at her, and she gave him a reassuring grin. It didn’t seem to be sufficient, as he rolled to face her once more.
“We’ll be friends... no matter what? Even when we go away to Hogwarts?”
“Yep, official Hogwarts friends! Best friends.”
The smile that slowly crept up his face to his eyes seemed finally to be agreeable with her. She savored the moment of an imagined future passing between them, watching possibilities dancing around behind his eyes even as they held true onto hers. It always tugged at the corners of her lips to get to share like this, without words.
“I still hope you get into Slytherin…” he said, soft as the forest moss, not breaking their gaze. “Because—”
Chapter 1
It took a lot more bustle to get around to the other side of the trolley of treats than she had patience for, and it was only after a backwards apology to the sweet woman who had borne the misfortune of her mood that Lily finally made her way down the rest of the train car, still in a rush to escape further. Her storming strides carried her haphazardly far, and it was with a sudden realization that she was running short of options that she glanced toward the first open door, eyeing the sight of the empty red seat.
A peel of laughter from inside halted her fingertips before they could touch the handle.
Well... it can’t be worse. She inserted herself directly into the scene, mouth open with the intention of a quick “’Scuse me”—only to be hung up again as a pair of outstretched legs nearly tripped her.
The owner of them was also owner to the loud laugh apparently, as his eyes still held their humor, sparked further by her appearance along with the boy next to him. There was a smaller boy taking up the last space on end of their bench, so she pointed her thumb at the only other one left in the compartment and quietly sat down once she had received nods. The long-legged boy folded in as she took the spot across from him by the door. The two other people on her bench had stayed with their noses in pamphlet and newspaper respectively as they scooted toward the window to allow her space. She thought she might have offended the one closest to her, as her eyes had scanned the outer title, ‘Welcome to Hogsmeade—New Old Sights to See Now!’ and he had subsequently all but built a paper pamphlet wall between them. Lily added herself to the set as she dove into her own detachment reading material at once, barely having to dig into her bag for the thick map she had been studying as if her parents were still breathing down her neck, murmuring about magical catastrophes.
“First year?”
Her eyes froze over the picture of a greenhouse waving its little inked vines at her. She had been purposefully ignoring what seemed like intentional silence since she had walked in. Lifting her eyes only to a glancing degree, she answered the boy across from her with a short, affirming smile. It took some repositioning to duck low enough to pretend she couldn’t see the opposite two boys’ heads turn to each other.
“Well, you don’t look like you just flew in through the window of a moving train,” the unfortunately persistent boy went on, “so why is it you’re jumping seats five minutes before we arrive?”
With a jolt, her heart was in her throat and her eyes were out the window. It wasn’t possible they were that close yet, surely?
She straightened her vision self-consciously, too alert now to ignore conversation any longer. The one talking to her with his dark brows raised looked hit or miss if he was also a first year, his bent knees making him appear tall even sitting, but his friend with the more boyish face gave them both away. They also held the same restless energy she hadn’t seen so stark in the faces of the older students at the platform. Uniform wasn’t much to go by, she had already learned.
It was just her mood from the incident moments prior making her standoffish, she told herself. It wouldn’t do to be judging the first new fellow students she was meeting just because she was missing the quiet solitude of the decidedly less magical tube.
With a concealing smile, hoping they would take the hint, she said at last, “The people in my car were a bit too... friendly.” As if waiting for said people to come marching down the train corridor, she took a quick check out the compartment door window. Not even the trolley lady was there and she held back a sigh.
While she was looking away, two things had happened at once; the cracking sound of a newspaper being shaken, and the twin looks of confusion, reminding her of the pair of little dogs that had lived in the neighborhood next to hers.
“What—with you?” the second boy finally spoke, brow furrowing into his glasses as if he were about to whip out a police pad and start taking notes.
She tilted her head this time. “Er, no? With... each other?” she said, spinning the rest of her half-truth, uncertain now where it was ending up. The boys turned to each other again with even higher brows.
“On the train?” the bespectacled one said, making the third boy stuffed in next to him let out an anxious laugh.
“Told you, mate! Shipping everyone off together… It’ll be a whole different world than Livington. That’s ten sickles to me, then.”
“Oh, come off it, that doesn’t count…”
Her fragile friendliness withered to dust on the spot. Even the boy next to her lowered his pamphlet to shoot her a furtively apologetic look.
She hadn’t wanted to share to begin with, but the misunderstanding was so far that she was re-enraged by the truth. Not to mention the sniggering exchange before her as the pair haggled over a ruling had her face fully wrinkled in revulsion for what types of boys she was being sent to live in proximity with. The need to deliver a sour sorting out was mounting, but before she could check herself out of a second train car with a raised middle finger, a glint of gold caught the light as the long-legged boy stretched his lapel to his friend’s face, laughing...
“They were asking everyone who they were related to,” she blurted, enjoying in equal parts the stomping of her metaphorical foot through their conversation and the release of pent-up fury. It flooded her veins instantly, and the rest came pouring out. “The arrogant lot of them were all sat blabbing nonstop about how many people in their family tree have pure-blood, and how they have a direct line to some ancestor or another. They laughed at someone for having a squib cousin.”
As if someone had shut the window, the air in the car was suddenly tight. Far different from the aloof grinning faces that had greeted her, there were thin-lipped stares at her from every direction. It was the laughing boy though, the boy with a red and gold pin halfway hidden beneath a sloppy shirt collar, with whom she was locking eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was a challenge to his thus displayed stupidity, or a plea to his supposed chosen House for backup, but she latched onto that change in his eyes, a fierce grey that echoed back her anger.
“Rotten bunch of Slytherins…” he grumbled, his words cold but firing her up with justification.
“What’s wrong with Slytherin?”
It was like ice water being thrown over her heat. She was frozen stiff, so that she watched instead the boys opposite her whip their heads in the disgust that she was too shocked to feel. When she did look over, it was to the terror of the still silent passenger directly beside her, who didn’t seem to know whether to duck further into his pamphlet or lean back and stare at the ceiling. It didn’t matter. She was looking right past, to the now lowered newspaper and its reader, the sixth passenger whose voice had so scattered her.
Before she could do more than stare back, mouth open even as she watched his form a sort of failed attempt at a guilty grin, there was an eruption of noise.
“Fuck Slytherin!” the be-pinned boy shouted, his arms up emphatically.
“Yeah! I’ve been—my parents—” There was an instant deflation as the second boy turned back, patting his empty lapel. “Oi, alright, give me back my pin.”
“Your pin? I’ll have you know my dad gave this to me right before he—”
“My dad gave it to me—”
“—died tragically, and signed this over to me in his will.”
“It’s my very alive dad’s! Just because you’re staying with us—”
“You traded it to me for a wizard card! I earned it.”
Lily finally moved, startled backward as a hand was thrown out to her quick as a fist, though it was open and delivered with a beaming grin.
“Sirius Potter, soon to be Gryffindor, nice to meet you.”
“We didn’t adopt you, for crying out loud! He’s Sirius Black , and I’m James Potter—and that’s my dad’s Gryffindor pin!”
The offered hand was taken back for a moment as it brushed off the attempt to steal said pin, but shot out again to still attempt the shake, the owner’s smile unfazed.
“Sirius Black, unfortunately, yeah. And I’m here with the sole intention of further disgracing the name my psychotic blood purist family gave me the second I’m made a Gryffindor and—and changing my name for good, it’s a pleasure to meet you—James, quit— ”
She clasped his hand for the briefest of seconds, if only to free him from the formality so that he could shove his friend off, which she watched with the same hanging mouth that she had yet to close. A memory was conjured of a street performer, where she had been just a warm body amongst the masses to observe and use as a collective prop.
“Lily Evans...” She tossed her name out with nothing left to lose given that the two were now so busy with themselves. The boy beside her seemed to be the only one who heard it, but his shoulders were sent up to his ears by the boy across from them before he could introduce himself.
“Remus, tell him it was just a temporary thing! You heard it, right?”
To her surprise, her closest seatmate looked up almost as guilty as the window seated passenger. He cleared his throat and said in an even tone, “Pretty sure you said until after we get sorted.”
There was loud opposition at this, but no celebration. In fact, the one who had just won the pin for another hour yet at least was no longer paying attention to the debate, and almost had it nicked right from under his nose. He silently elbowed his friend and pointed his chin at the corner.
It was due to her continued dumbfoundedness that her head swiveled to the side to follow his eyes before she realized whom she would find there, newspaper down though it seemed to twitch as if he could duck back behind it. She whipped her head away after having caught his eye. The shock was over, and she could feel hot blood pumping through her heart as she gritted her teeth.
“Isn’t that…?”
“Definitely...”
In another life she might have let out a dry laugh at the disparaging expression he had worn in response to the animated display that had taken place before them and commiserated silently with a glance.
At the moment, all she could do was clench her hands in her lap, unable to focus on her map.
The short rest of the train ride was spent leaning against the inner wall, her gaze fixed out the compartment window and into the hall, wondering if the trolley lady had any worthwhile stories and a nice, quiet car to stand in. There was some sort of mischievous murmur happening behind her head, but she was steadfast in earning a crick in her neck rather than pay it any mind. It was the change in view from the outer windows that eventually brought solace, usurping the need for another escape.
It seemed the larger body of passengers consisted of, as Lily had observed from the platform, sixteen- to eighteen-year-old witches and wizards earning their two-year qualifications—or at the very least they were the noisiest with excitement as the castle crawled into place in the windows. She had read about the more long-term scholarly types arriving separately to move into temporary housing in the nearby Hogsmeade. That option would come for her later, when she was on her third year. For now, she was one of the wide-eyed sixteen-year-olds all but hanging out of the window at the fully realized—not a picture, nor a painting, nor an inked stamp on a pamphlet—wall of freshly fragrant forest, misty lake, and luminescent castle. A magical world all to themselves coming into stark, heart-bursting view.
“I told you it would be better than Diagon Alley.”
She held perfectly in place, not dropping her gaze upward at the beauty before her for a second, even as she stood in others’ way, taking up prime space for filing into line down the torchlit road or off to the side for the carriages. The sound of one particular set of shoes on the cobblestone stood out above the rest, but still she did not turn until the last second. And it wasn’t around, but back towards the road.
“I’m— Wait—”
It had been a surprise the first time, but this time her shoulders held sturdy and without tension at the voice she was blocking out.
“I’m trying to talk to you—”
“Well, you can cut that out anytime you choose. Stop!”
She wouldn’t have spun around at all, but the hand on her arm had shot a new lightning bolt of rage through her. She sorely wished, though, that it hadn’t.
Nearly a decade ago—had it really been that long?—she had sat in a canvas of green shade and dreamed about this moment; working hard through their first magical school so that she could go further, learn deeper, and most of all, get to see that legendary castle. When she was a child, that’s all it had been to her; a sight to behold that must be unlocked. But in the years following the awakening of that dream, she had of course wanted to mount those steps with a fellow dreamer. It had become part of the landscape in her mind that she would be walking with her best friend, under the stars and lights together for the first time.
Here he was before her, and here indeed were the steps. The loathing coursing through her, nearly strong enough to push her hand towards her wand, was the unexpected bit.
Fellow first years were trying not to be seen peeking in the direction of the person having a yelling, glaring stand-off out in the open, but they were enough to make Lily reign herself in and turn right back around. She didn’t want to look at his infuriatingly confused face a second longer anyway.
He was at her side again in an instant, as if her years of dreaming of him there had made it cosmically easy for him to invade her space.
“We’re about to be Housemates,” he was saying without remorse, “so you should get used to talking to me now.”
“I wouldn’t be Housemates with you if I was a house elf magically bound to it,” she hissed under her breath, trying to focus on the view and internally weeping that this memory, of the castle reflecting on the expanse of water below, was being forever tarnished. “I’d rather chuck myself in the sea.”
This somehow amused him; she could hear it in his idiotic voice. “I’m pretty sure the magical bond wouldn’t allow that.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s sick, you’re sad, and you should chuck yourself in the sea.” She would have savored the affront that crossed his face a moment longer, but a head of curly hair several steps below grabbed her attention. “Mary!”
Before she could gleefully run off, she was caught again in the sticky web of an insufferable person.
“See you after the sorting, then?”
She stopped mid-stride, boiling. With a flash, she had turned back around, stepping up to look him in the eye and relishing the extra inch he put between them out of surprise. She had to get close for what was to come out of her mouth though. No one else could hear what she was about to say, especially not anyone she knew.
“Why don’t you stick to your friends, Severus? I saw you on the platform with McDoyle, getting head pats from your new upperclassmen. Go have fun deciding what sort of matching bracelets you’ll get when you’re all Death Eaters. I’ll stick to my ‘mudblood friends.’”
“What is it with him?” Mary was saying once Lily had stormed down the steps to join her and their other friend who had decided to ‘further their education.’
Most of the class from her small, local wizarding school had been split up, either to go work for family who owned a little business selling hand-picked herbs, did broom repairs, or were especially good at cleaning out venomous bats from chimneys, though some were taking a year off by choice or by bad luck. A boy who had been looking promising on the dirt field of their school’s quidditch pitch had flown out of town on fumes of a future career, only to be rejected and forced to fly back, missing out on the rest of the year for both sports and school. There were other kids from her area that had just made the train, but one of them was an absolute arsehole and another didn’t exist to her despite his voice currently lurking in the back of her mind, a replay of his most recent annoying words.
“Who knows?” Lily said, eyes straight ahead but missing the view of the lake everyone was ooo-ing at. “It hasn’t been my problem in forever and it surely won’t be here either.”
“What is your problem, then?”
She turned to her friend on her right, Sarah, and then back to Mary, who looked stubbornly uninvolved.
It was inevitable, but she had been hoping to ignore it for now. “I’m sorry I ran out, but—”
“You left us there,” Sarah protested. “They started asking us who are parents were, too, you know.”
“Well, then you should have left too! You could have, you just didn’t—”
“You barely gave us a chance…”
The looks on her friends’ faces weren’t pouting, but an already united front of disapproval. She was hit for the dozenth time since seeing them again after their near full summer departure, which her own parents had held her back from in order to keep their youngest daughter close before she was to be sent off, with a pang of feeling left out. They had come back from the beach with matching friendship bracelets, and though they had thoughtfully gotten a third one for her, the woven braid hadn’t been worn down by the sun and salt water like theirs, and it didn’t have an imprint of untanned skin beneath it.
It had been quite a lonely summer...
But this was different. This was a matter of principle.
Sure, she might have been a bit doom and gloom, talking their ear off about the news lately and how much it rankled her when all they had wanted to do was show her their souvenirs and future dorm room adornments. But they were supposedly in tune with her on this. Maybe they were not as up to date or voracious with their daily paper reading, but they had always understood, especially Mary, that the magical world for her often started and stopped at her doorstep where the paper landed, which was decorated with a very nonmagical welcome mat that had to have the mud dusted from it by hand. The wizarding world meant everything to her. And to hear that people were lurking in the shadows spreading horrible ideals and nastiness, besmirching what she so coveted—well, it infuriated her. And rightly so, she felt, as it was directly her ‘kind’ that they were whispering about. Just as much in her heart as magic, she explained the funny-sounding things in the paper to her parents when they were curious, and always helped with the chores, knocking the dirt off that welcome mat by hand with nothing but gladness for her fortune in the world.
But in that first train car she had been more so full of a kicked hornet’s nest, seconds away from driving the posh little button nose of the boy who had asked if she had any famous ancestors back into his skull—without a wand as well, which may well have been within the rules, as they had only mentioned that dueling or even performing magic on each other whilst on the train would lead to an immediate round trip right back to London.
“I… I just had to get out of there. I’m sorry,” she pleaded.
Her friends gave her begrudging mumbles that quickly turned into playful eye-rolling and overly exasperated sighing as they condemned themselves to their incorrigible—yet still highly lovable—friend. They were hanging onto each other with genuine giddiness by the time everyone had taken their first steps into the castle, onto polished, ancient marble.
They had already heard everything about this ceremony, either from older siblings, schoolteachers, parents, or just anyone who had graduated from the prestigious institute itself, as all of them had always been eager to regale their story of that first night. It was the sorting itself then that was making them all anxious. Lily had been trying not to think too much of it other than that she might be separated from her friends, but it was her sister’s boyfriend, older than them both, who had recently wedged full trepidation into her with his stories from university and how the friends he was making on his hall would be bonded for life once they entered the workforce. She hadn’t thought of that, but now she had a clear picture in her mind of a future hiring wizard staring at her in distaste after hearing what House she had been in, not trusting that someone from so-and-so was up to the task.
It couldn’t be that serious, she kept repeating to herself. The updated dress code had been foreboding and unsavory to her, reminding her of her sister’s school uniform that had made her eternally grateful every morning to say goodbye to her and go their separate ways (despite the nightmarish magical bus having made her forgo breakfast for five years.) But she hadn’t as of yet seen anyone beyond first and second year wearing something more strict than a nicely collared shirt and vest or full-length formal robe with a school cloak thrown over, which was more familiar. Her school—her old school, now—had relaxed their dress code from mandatory layered robes to button-down shirts after third year, so all she really was adjusting to was the tie, vest, and more strictly formal witch’s skirt and shoes.
As the first years entered the Great Hall—to applause, embarrassingly enough—her eyes roved over everything and everyone, confirming that it was mostly a mishmash of general House colors and formal wizarding attire; Malkin’s self-lacing boots or Tattings acid-resistant high collared threads, not below-the-knee plaid skirts and T-straps like her sister. She would have to take in the ceiling and the candles more clearly some other time when she was not already feeling dizzy thinking about which of the four tables she was about to be assigned to, and which one her friends would be at.
It’s just a dorm, it’s not a prison sentence—the older students staying in Hogsmeade probably don’t even care, look, they’re just wearing open formal robes and standing around. It’s just for us because they’re still treating us like kids—Petunia said at secondary school they didn’t even care about school spirit even with uniforms—but maybe wizards are really fixated on tradition because this castle is thousands of years old—or—
The starting speeches of headmaster and deputy headmistress—and then, surprisingly, hat—forcibly quieted her thoughts for a time. The enchanted article gave an odd sort of song that sounded more like a dramatic forecast that would have prickled her spine most unpleasantly had she been capable of sparing the emotion at the time. She wished the headmaster had stayed up longer instead. Everyone had been raving for what had felt like years that Dippet would retire and Albus Dumbledore would be made headmaster of Hogwarts anytime now, but it had never actually come true before today. The whole hall was alive with murmuring every time he so much as raised a hand. He looked much more impressive in person than on a chocolate frog card.
But they were already moving on, calling the first name up, and everyone was set abuzz with anticipation.
Sarah Barnett was her first friend to be lost. Lily watched her go off to the Ravenclaw table thinking that it was a good place to be in, as she knew Sarah wanted a career in Numerology—somehow—but not sure suddenly if she wanted to be joining her in blue and bronze. She watched the loud boy from the train get his wish, practically jogging on his long legs to the Gryffindor table even as he was looking backwards and cheering, flashing his friend’s pin.
Mary, left alone with her now, squeezed her hand—then nearly shoved her. Lily hadn’t heard her name called, and jumped to part through the crowd, bumping into someone.
He looked around in surprise and she felt her already jostled stomach churn further as she looked directly up at his face, which broke into a grin when he saw hers.
“See you soon,” she heard over her shoulder as she stormed past with fresh determination to prove him wrong once and for all.
She didn’t care if she wound up sorted into the boat house with the giant squid as her Head and only fish for friends. So long as she didn’t have to be anywhere near him.
She slammed the hat on her head, her heart doing the same in her chest.
The next thing she noticed wasn’t any sound at all, and yet somehow the movement in her peripheral vision was louder than the clapping at the end of the hall that rose to the peaked ceiling, a deafening, delighted raise of brows and broadly grinning—smug—good for nothing—face was eating up all her senses. She was walking toward the table that was applauding for her on stilted legs before she realized it, thinking only then how she had handed the hat off to the next person rather haphazardly, and wishing she had thought to raise an argument with the rumpled article instead.
She stopped dead in front of some tall, blond older boy with a green badge flashing a silver ‘P’ and a smile that made her have to remind herself it didn’t stand for ‘prick.’ He was directing her where to sit, at the front of the table with the younger students, and she sat, stoppering the fight in her for later. The girl next to her might have said hello and introduced herself, but Lily couldn’t hear her over the rushing in her head.
She perked up at the name Mary Macdonald being called, listened hard, and watched her friend walk off to the table at the other end of the hall. She looked around for Sarah to share in a desolate look to no avail. She could just barely make out Mary, who was poking her head up as well, and gave a wave like she was wishing a sailor off to war, making Lily want to burst into tears then and there instead of just pout sadly back, big enough to be seen from so far. A thunder of noise around her as a boy was sent scurrying over to her table cut her off, and when she tried to peek back over, Mary’s table was then too busy accepting someone else.
Then she heard it.
The name of the person who had somehow cursed her to this table; bewitched the hat ahead of time, no doubt, with some wickedly Dark magic. He walked up confidently, put the hat on his head—she wished nothing but the boat house for him—a broom closet—the forest—the roof—anywhere but next to her—and then she leapt from her bench with the other table at the end of the hall, startling the rest of her own, as she shouted a triumphant, singular, “Ha!”
He was sitting there, knocked dumb as a sack of rocks by the announcement as she had been by hers, until she was gleefully watching every second of his unsteady walk towards the Gryffindor table, where he was greeted by the two boys who had denounced him on the train, who were looking so riotous that they might not have even let him sit down.
It was only when he had disappeared from sight, a table between them clapping for another student, that she noticed everyone in her immediate vicinity at the Slytherin table, including McDoyle and the unsavory group from her first train compartment, staring at her crazed standing pose with unveiled criticism, without even having yet been made aware of her muggle-born status.