Comedy/Tragedy: The Story of a Doomed Existence

Chapter Six: Retribution and Forgiveness

Lily was thoroughly glad to be rid of Professor Hurley's classroom, by the time lunch rolled around. By the time Lily was finally able to escape from his annoying voice and antics, she almost decided to run out of his classroom as fast as she could, screaming bloody murder. But in the end she didn't, for James Potter had taken the task upon himself. Much as the boy annoyed her, Lily was very glad to see that she and Alice weren't the only ones who found the teacher on the opposite side of decent quality. Hurley had spent the whole first lesson explaining everything they were going to do in the class, but never doing much of anything, and making horrible jokes that Lily didn't get in the slightest, but that seemed to immensely entertain a good half of the class (why didn't the chicken cross the road? He was tired!).

Lily left right after James, Alice behind her. Alice was laughing heartily at James' obvious relief, and Lily tried hard not to smile. Once James had disappeared from the hallway, Alice made a very feeble excuse about needing to go get 'something' from the dorm. Lily kept walking, but when she looked back, she saw Alice walking with Lucy. Alice smiled weakly and the sight of her friend, but Lucy gave the redhead a very nasty look, so Lily was inclined to hurry down to lunch.

More than one reason motivated her quick departure, however: her loss of appetite from Lucy's breakfast had returned full blast by the time she reached the great hall. She sat down quickly and helped herself to a large amount of salad.

"So, Lily, quite the bad girl, aren't you? I like that in my woman," a by now very familiar voice came from behind the redhead. She didn't even need to turn around to see that James Potter was standing behind her. "Is it true, then?" he continued. "Is it true that my scarlet songbird has gotten herself into not one, not two, but three detentions? All in the first day?"

"If I ever find your 'scarlet songbird,' I'll be sure to ask her," Lily told him.

James rolled his eyes widely and very obviously. With a pang, Lily remembered the dramatics of Lucy, who was at the moment staring angrily at her from a good dozen seats down the Gryffindor table.

"Just can't take a compliment, can you?" James straddled himself over the chair next to Lily. "Can you, my pinnacle of emerald light and joy?"

It was Lily's turn to roll her eyes.

"Yes, Jamesie here is quite annoyed with you, o one that he holds so dear," Sirius had sat down opposite his friend, only to be joined moments later by Peter and Remus. "Quite annoyed indeed."

"He's got a funny way of showing it," Lily commented, glancing sideways at James, who was fluttering his eyelashes at her.

"Ah, he's just jealous," Sirius commented with the air of a credentialed psychologist. "He's got two detents, but you've beat him out! Nice going, he needs a little slap of reality now and then," Sirius reached across the table and punched his friend playfully in the shoulder. "But I've got no doubt he'll win, eventually...at least I hope he beats you out, he might not be able to survive if someone defeated him at his own game -"

"NOT INSULTING MY WOMAN, ARE YOU?" James leapt off his seat and, to the dismay of everyone around, jumped over the table and tackled his best friend with the force of a small rhinoceros. He upset nearly everyone's lunch in the process, as well as gave his friend a nice bloody nose before Remus and Peter could pull him away.

Professor McGonagall swooped down on him like a hawk.

"What are you doing, Mr. Potter?" she shrieked. There is absolutely no fighting, especially not the muggle kind!" As James pulled out her wand, she rephrased herself, "No fighting whatsoever! And whoever this woman is -" she surveyed the area, which included the red-faced Lily and two girls who were rather unfortunate in the acne department. "- you are eleven years old, you need hardly think about a woman," she turned to leave.

James, whose glasses were slightly cracked from where Sirius had retaliated, stood up shakily and called after her.

"Wait - professor - aren't you going to punish me?" he sounded very desperate. McGonagall turned around and surveyed him through her spectacles.

"I don't think I will, Mr. Potter," she said finally. "I'll let you learn the hard way that your antics are only going to bring you trouble later down the road." She returned to the teacher's table.

"This is awful!" James moaned, thankfully forgetting about Lily in his current predicament. "She won't give me detention...and we've got her class double next, last one of the day, with the Huffles, so there's no chance I'll get it there either..." he trailed off, looking miserable, and Sirius patted him on the shoulder.

"There, there, mate, it'll be okay. More teachers tomorrow!" his words inspired a half-smile from James.

Lily fought the mad urge to laugh; she would give anything to load her detentions onto someone else's back. But the urge dissipated as James turned toward her.

"I'll get you yet, you sly fox you!" he howled at Lily. "One of these days, I will get you and destroy your detent record! I will, you just wait, ketchup haired fiend!!!" He shook his fist at her. "You ruby snake! You unthankful ivory dove! Just wait! I'll destroy youuuu..."

Lily rolled her eyes, grabbed a banana, and proceeded out of the Great Hall. James' yells followed her all the way into the entrance hall, where she couldn't help but grin.

"I'll bet you loooved that, didn't you, Evans?" Lily turned to see Lucy, arms crossed, backed by Alice, who was obviously trying to get her friend to reconsider whatever she was about to do. "All the attention...you hypocritical -" she called Lily something that made Alice's eyes grow wide.

"Don't curse," she mumbled half-heartedly.

"I'll do whatever I bloody well please, and that does not include two-faced redheads or traitorous best friends!" She stormed off.

Alice wrung her hands nervously, took one look at the near-exploding Lily, and hurried after Lucy, who was banging suits of armor as she walked past them. Lily, who had tried to contain her temper but knew she wouldn't last for long, gripped the banister painfully. She had never seen so many things result as an affect of her actions, and it made her reconsider the traits with which she had never found a problem before.

The rest of the day passed quickly; though McGonagall's class was hard, she was a great teacher so Lily had fun. She kidnapped one of the needles she had transfigured from a match, as well as the first one, which still had a discolored tip, with the intention of owling it to her mother. Just as the bell rang signaling the end of class, McGonagall told them what the homework was ("Transfigure ten matches to needles and bring them to class along with two rolls of parchment on what can go wrong in simple transfigurations.") and asked Lily to come up to the front of the class.

Feeling her heart sink horribly - would she get another detention for taking the needles? - Lily proceeded up to McGonagall's desk, pointedly avoiding James'

"Get another detention for me, will you, sweet pea?"

(Clearly being mad at her wasn't as fun as tormenting her with pet names.)

"Yes - um, professor, you wanted to see me?" Lily hoisted her bag up onto her shoulder and looked across the desk into McGonagall's cold gray eyes.

The professor stared at Davey Gudgeon, who was having trouble getting out of his chair and clearly dawdling as long as he could in hopes of overhearing. When the boy finally left, Professor McGonagall gazed at Lily.

"Please sit down, Miss Evans."

"Professor?" Lily sat, but she wanted to know why she was here.

"So. I must admit, you don't look or act like the troublemaking type." James, who in Lily's (and probably McGonagall's) opinion most definitely fit this description, had lit several of his needles on fire, causing them to explode and shower a Hufflepuff with droplets of molten metal. She'd been sent to the hospital wing. He'd lost Gryffindor thirty points for this, whereas Lily had been the first to properly transfigure her match and received ten points because of her outstanding work.

"But yet you have - is it three detentions - so far, and it is only the first day. Care to explain yourself?"

Lily honestly didn't know what to say. She didn't want to complain that it wasn't her fault - McGonagall probably wouldn't be too sympathetic.

"Um...well, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time...numerous times," she finally answered, hoping that it sounded as convincing as it was true.

McGonagall surveyed her for a few moments.

"I believe you. But I'm afraid I cannot remove the detentions. As Professor Hurley and Mr. Pringle have given me the decision of what your detention will be, why don't -" she pulled out a thick roll of parchment and unfurled it, stormy eyes skimming quickly down its length. "Why don't we do this: we'll combine all of your detentions into one and have you reshelf books in the library from ten in the morning to dinner time. I know it's a long period, but you will get it all over with, and -"she surveyed Lily's bag, which, though lighter than before, was still near-bursting with books. Crime and Punishment was dangling out one end. Lily stuffed it back in, blushing.

"And I can tell that you love reading, so it shouldn't be too miserable. I cannot remove your detentions; it looks like favoritism and, though I do not blame you for what happened, it does appear rather suspicious," she gave Lily a smile that, though completely out of place on the stiff professor's face, made Lily feel acceptable in a way she never had before. "You may go now, Miss Evans."

Lily turned and walked toward the door, feeling McGonagall's eyes on her back. She turned when she reached the door.

"Thank you, Professor."

"It's no difficulty, Miss Evans. I have had many students over the years, but out of all of them you are one of the most promising. Good luck here at Hogwarts - and do try not to get into anymore inopportune circumstances."

Lily nodded and stepped outside of the classroom, smiling. She had never received such a comment in her life - and it felt so amazing, to be acknowledged not only for her good work, but to get that recognition from who McGonagall herself had said was the most arduous teacher in the school.

With a spring in her step, Lily headed back to the dorms; she really wanted another shower, for some of Lucy's breakfast remained in her hair. She was truly amazed at how well the route to the common room was etched in her mind - she had only walked there a couple of times, but already knew its path quite well. She decided that the only thing embedding it in her mind was the fact that her and Alice's encounter with Peeves was not easy to forget.

Back through the tapestries, hallways, the portrait hole, the common room, ("Lily - my angel of detention! Queen of all troublemakers! Lady of the teacher torment -") and into the showers. Lily survived through another ten minutes of the disgusting cleanliness of the showers, then retreated to the dorm to get her books. She wasn't really that hungry, and supper wasn't for another hour or so anyway, so Lily decided that she would get her school supplies, send Aristotle to her mother, and go work outside. She brushed her hair and shook it back from her shoulders, ignoring the overly handsome knight's whistle, and continued down and through the common room.

Luckily, James was occupied with his own hair - Sirius had turned it a bright fuchsia - so he didn't bother Lily as she walked by. She did hear him complaining that, though he had nothing against bright hair, it disfigured his handsome face. Rolling her eyes at his egotism, Lily continued up to the owlry.

Aristotle got very anxious when he saw her - apparently, he had been waiting all day for her to arrive. He fluttered his wings and created such a ruckus that the other owls, who were already giving him a wide berth, moved even farther away. Lily moved over to the windowsill - the only place not covered in owl droppings and straw - and sat down to write a letter about her first day at school. However, she did neglect to mention her detentions, and her fight with Lucy.

Dear Mum and Dad,

Hogwarts is more than I could ever have imagined. It's a giant castle - turrets, towers, dungeons, secret passageways, an entrance hall larger than our house - it's incredible. I had my first classes today: History of Magic, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Transfiguration.

History of Magic is kind of tedious, or at least it was in the beginning - the teacher has a very monotone voice and the only thing we do is take notes. However, even this dull class was fascinating, for me, because I know so little about the magical world. But in class today, a boy named James Potter - he's a complete troublemaker - decided to write some graffiti on the ceiling with a feather duster. I can't say it wasn't amusing to see the wispy Binns yell at him.

Defense Against the Dark Arts - one of the classes I have been looking forward to - is a little bit of a joke. The professor is very annoying, and though he talks about all these things he wants to do this year, that's all I think he will do - talk. He really likes the sound of his voice, which is strange because he sounds like a deranged clown.

Transfiguration was great fun. The teacher is incredibly hard, but she likes me, so I'm content. In the first lesson, she did give us a rather long talking-to, but after this and some complex, precise notes we got to jump right in to the magic, transfiguring matches into needles. I'm including a few with this letter so that you can see what I did.

Hogwarts is separated into four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. When we reached the Great Hall, which has a ceiling enchanted to match the sky outside, we were sorted into the houses based on signature traits by a talking, singing hat. I'm in Gryffindor, which means I'm brave, courageous, and chivalrous, apparently. There are lots of really nice people in my house. I've made good friends with two girls - Alice Surrideo and Lucy Bones. They are very nice, and entertaining to speak with.

As for the James Potter person I mentioned earlier - I'm sorry to say this, but he is an arrogant prat. He finds it very entertaining to torture me with pet names. Before we got sorted, the first years crossed the lake - and on the way across, he tipped over our boat! I was wet for the rest of the evening.

And speaking of annoyances, Peeves the poltergeist had a large amount of fun when Alice and I were walking through the halls. Do you remember the fifties song, 'Flying Purple People Eaters'? Aunt Marlene played it at her wedding, if I remember correctly. Well, Peeves basically turned us into them.

I hope that you are both well, and that Petunia is having good experiences at school. I love you, and I miss you -

~Lily~

Lily rolled the piece of parchment up around a bag holding the two needles. Aristotle, who had been flapping about her head as she wrote and hereby entirely blocking one of the main owlry entrances, decided to perch on her head.

Trying to contend with Aristotle's weight, Lily wrote a quick address and reached up to tie it to her owl's leg.

"Take this to my mum, okay? And try not to be too much of a nuisance as you're there!" She called after the departing owl as he smacked into a particularly noble-looking bird.

Smiling to herself, for only she could wind up with the most annoying owl at Hogwarts, and yet the most humanoid, Lily continued down to the grounds. The shadows were growing longer with the approach of late afternoon, but there was plenty of time left before night would fall.

While looking around for a place to sit, Lily very nearly chose a willow that began lashing out as soon as she neared it. Instead, she picked a large oak and rested her back against it.

The transfiguration was easy; in no time at all, Lily had transformed the matches McGonagall had given her into ten sharp, elongated needles. She pulled out a quill and some ink and began to write the essay. She was halfway through explaining the effects of holding your wand at the wrong angle when a strange sensation swept over her, as though she were being watched. The redhead looked up and around the grounds, but saw no one and nothing. For a brief moment, Lily's eyes flitted toward the Forbidden Forest - maybe someone in there was surveying her - but gave up after a while; the trees entered darkness moments after they began, and Lily was quite sure that she didn't want to know what resided farther in. She turned back to the paper, filling it with her tiny, neat cursive.

Lily tried to make her writing even smaller as she finished writing the fourth roll of parchment; she'd gone two rolls over McGonagall's request. With a little calligraphy ending, she set the paper out to dry and turned back to her bag.

"You might want to weigh that down with something," a voice came from above Lily. The redhead dropped Magical Theory - incidentally, her heaviest book - on her foot in surprise.

"Oww...Who's there?" Lily massaged her ankle, which was still sore from being shoved into a desk earlier, and now had even more bruises than before. Then the redhead stood up and peered through the branches above her. She nearly stepped on her assignment in shock when she saw a face peering through the foliage above.

It was a boy's face; he had longish, greasy hair, a hooked nose, and black eyes that seemed rather foreboding.

"Apparently, I am," he answered softly.

Lily stared at him for a few more minutes; there was only one word to describe this boy. He was weird. He kept sniffling, and this gave him an odd contrasting personality. Sniffling tended to be one of the traits connected with frailness, or weakness, but this boy was anything but. It was almost as though a head had been dropped out of the sky and landed on his body, for the look didn't suit him at all. With his face, he might have fit in some organization of underground spies; a Mafia, or people who plotted against government organizations. He just looked evil. But he seemed dreamy, as he sat in his tree, uncharacteristically foreboding eyes staring into the depths of the black lake. Lily couldn't say that he didn't intrigue her.

"Yes, it does look like that," she answered him a moment later.

"Sorry?"

"It does look like you are there. Though I cannot say that you are; perhaps you are actually a figment of my imagination or someone sent from Cairo to annihilate me before I can discover their plot to brainwash the youth of England with very long noodles."

The boy looked down at her appraisingly, one eyebrow raised to his greasy hairline.

"Cairo?"

Lily shrugged.

"Mmm. Well, would you like to join me up here? It's awfully nice."

"Sure," Lily consented. She wondered about this boy; he was so odd.

She packed the rest of her stuff away, blowing on the parchment to make sure it was dry, and climbed up the thick oak trunk toward the greasy-haired boy's lair. As she climbed, Lily fought the mad urge to giggle - she hadn't climbed trees in ages, and she had forgotten the wonderful smell of bark, the feeling of being one with nature. She resolved to climb more frequently from now on.

The oak's solid brown trunk spilt into many branches; the hook-nosed boy lay, stretched out, on one. His robes, slightly frayed and decrepit, swept about him in the slight breeze. Lily sat on a branch near to him, dangling her feet in the open air below and feeling her slightly damp hair swirl about her shoulders. She hadn't realized how big the tree was; it stretched up into the sky for a very long ways, especially considering that she was already four meters above the ground.

"Have you ever climbed all the way up?" she asked after a few moments.

"Yeah...it's amazing, up at the top," he answered after a few moments.

Lily liked the way he really thought about a question before answering it.

"So, what's your name? I don't want to have to call you 'boy I met in tree' whenever I speak to you," Lily spoke again, watching the wind blow tendrils of water from the lake's surface.

"What makes you think you will ever speak to me again?" the boy asked after another pause, sniffing loudly and gazing past Lily's shoulder to the school.

"I don't know," Lily was taken aback by the boy's coldness.

"It's Severus." He seemed to change his mind, a couple moments later.

"Nice to meet you," Lily told him. "I'm Lily."

"You don't look like a Lily," Severus looked into her eyes. "You look like an...Emmaline."

"Oh. Um. Okay," Lily wasn't sure what to reply to this. "You can call me that, if you want."

Silence again.

Lily looked around, longing to climb again. She looked back at Severus, who was blinking absently up at the silver-lined clouds above the mountains.

"Severus?"

"Mmm?"

"I think I want to climb higher."

"Mmm."

Taking his 'mmm' to be an acknowledgement, Lily left her book bag on the branch and climbed higher into the tree's branching upper levels. It was so beautiful. A green tint, caused from the rays of the setting sun drifting through the oak leaves, covered everything. Lily's own skin looked as though it belonged to a tree nymph of some kind.

After a number of minutes, Lily's breath grew ragged in her throat and she stopped, climbing out on a horizontal branch. The sight that met her eyes was truly dazzling. She was now ten or twelve meters above the grassy grounds, and could see for such a wide distance. Across the lake, the village of Hogsmeade slowly closed down for the evening. Birds in the Forbidden Forest, which suddenly didn't seem so foreboding to Lily, were fluttering around, eating some of the insects in the evening air. Lily stretched out on the branch, slipping into some fabulous version of a daydream; for though she knew it was real, the sight she was seeing was completely magical.

Night slowly fell, so Lily turned onto her back and discovered that her branch wasn't as well covered as she had thought. In fact, when she slid a little farther down it, the entire night sky was open to her eyes.

Lily recognized hundreds of constellations; both those her parents had taught her and those that she had seen in her astronomy books. Lily felt very insignificant, staring up at the universe. It wasn't the feeling that she had carried around for all of her childhood, though. Instead, it was the feeling that, small as she was, she played her own part in the world's existence. She fit in, right with every other person and animal and thing; she truly belonged.

When Lily got back to the common room, sometime around eight o'clock, she was still smiling from her encounter with the beauty of the oak. She had taken a liking to this Severus kid - he wasn't the abrupt, rushed type of person that seemed to exist everywhere else in the world. He was the kind of person who took his time, did things right, stopped to smell the roses. Lily hoped that she would see him again.

But when she stepped in past the portrait hole ("Evanesco!") Severus was driven to the back of her mind. A large crowd was gathered around a set of four armchairs. Driven by curiosity, Lily peered through the arms of the people on the outside - and met a sight that she most certainly hadn't expected.

James Potter, of course, was in the center of the circle. Lily hadn't expected any differently. What was surprising was what he did when he saw her. Lily later decided that she should never dismiss something as not doable by James Potter.

The tousle-headed boy was standing amidst the people, clutching what Lily recognized as her favorite shirt - the green one, with Celtic patterns on it, that she had worn the day of the train ride. And, she realized, it had been one of the articles of clothing she had left on a chair in the common room, when she and Hana had been hurrying to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

James was holding the shirt next to his heart, with a look of longing on his face, when Lily decided she'd had enough; this had gone too far. She elbowed her way through the crowd and put her hands on her hips, staring up at James' face.

"What - are - you - doing - with my shirt?" she hissed at him.

The boy grinned down at her, and began to sing in what Lily had to admit was a very good voice, though the song was - well,

"Lil-ee Evans -

Thine heart so pure

Thine eyes so green

And bee-yoooooo-tiful...

Lil-ee Evans -

Thine mind so broad

Thine hair so thick, red

And bee-yoooooo-tiful...

Lil-ee Evans -

Thine soul so deep

Thine skin so pale

And bee-yoooooo-tiful...

My heart yearns for yours like never before

And don't know what I ought to dooooo

But right now, the only

Thing I can think of

Is beautiful, wonderful, youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!"

He ended in tumultuous applause. But Lily was annoyed. Very annoyed. He had taken this too far, way too far.

She opened her mouth with the intentions of yelling at him, but she was simply too mad to speak. Instead, she gesticulated crazily with her hands, opening and closing her mouth like Petunia's goldfish lips had done years before.

"Shhh..." James put his finger on her lips as though to shush her.

Lily, somehow, found her voice.

"Get away from me, Potter," too mad to yell, Lily spoke in a low, hissing, menacing tone. She threw James' hand off of her mouth angrily. "This is stupid and immature and completely pointless. You are eleven years old; try to act like it! If you are completely desperate to find someone to serenade, then go find someone with the brains of a fly -" she indicated a group of giggling girls that included Hana and the brown-haired girl from her own dorm, "- because they are the only people thick enough to find any romantic interest in you! Now, I want you to leave me alone, I don't want to see that shirt at all, and don't bother me again!"

She pushed past him, and, before turning up the staircase, swiveled to see his stupid, grinning face looking after her; slightly bemused, but smiling nonetheless. She put her foot on the first step, then turned and pulled her wand out of her robes, pointing it at James' stupid face.

"Silentio!" she shouted before leaving, hoping that the charm might teach him the lesson her words had not. The raven-haired boy gagged, choking on his now useless and completely dry lungs.

Then Lily turned and went upstairs to her dorm, collapsing on her bed and pulling the hangings around it. Tears found their way down her face - Potter knew she hated what he was doing to her, but he kept going! He just didn't know where to stop. The stupid names and the embarrassing plots he did really got on her nerves - surely he knew that, she'd yelled at him numerous times. He was just so cruel! Him and his stupid, arrogant head, his stupid mussed-up hair, his stupid grins, his stupid plans, his stupid friends. She punched her pillow, wishing fervently that it was James' stupid, constantly grinning face. She was so embarrassed, and so mad.

"Lily?"

A voice the angry redhead hadn't expected to hear for a long time floated through the scarlet curtains. Lily attempted to wipe the hot tears from her cheeks, but this soon proved fruitless; they kept coming. Then the curtains slid aside to reveal Lucy's anxious face.

"I heard what Potter said down there..." the blonde spoke nervously. "He had no right to do that, when you've made it so expressly obvious that you want nothing to do with him."

Lily blinked through her tears.

"You're not mad at me?" she asked finally, hiccoughing slightly from the drained feeling her crying was giving her.

"No, I'm not - I shouldn't be. You've got a temper -" She explained, sitting on the side of Lily's bed. Lily laughed slightly, though her tears kept coming. "You've got a temper, but that's okay - it makes you human, which is a trait everyone should have. And anyway, Alice forgave you - I should do the same. She was the person you insulted the most. I'm just so overprotective of her - we've been best friends since before the beginning of time."

"I understand," Lily said. "And though I appreciate your apology, I'm the one who needs to ask for forgiveness. Maybe my temper makes me human, but if I can cause that much pain with just a few words - do I really want to be human?"

"Oh, Lil..." Lucy reached forward and hugged her friend. "You're so philosophical, for a girl of eleven...maybe you aren't human, but whatever you are, I'm sure there isn't one person on this earth who doesn't want to be where you stand right now."

Lily looked up, slightly confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Open your pretty eyes, Lily, and look out at the world. You're gorgeous -"

"I'm not as pretty as you," Lily scoffed.

"- you're a genius -"

"I'm not as smart as Potter," Lily sniffed.

"- you're funny -"

"I'm not as funny as Sirius," Lily said.

"- you're kind -"

"I'm not as kind as Alice," Lily told her.

"- your parents love you -"

"Not as much as Petunia," Lily explained.

"- and you've got one of the best looking guys in the school drooling after you," Lucy sat back, surveying the expression on her friend's face.

"What?! He's not the best looking guy in our year! And I'm eleven - what do I care?"

"I know he's not! Sirius is!"

"And - anyway -" Lily spluttered, "He doesn't actually like me! He just does that because he's bored, and likes nothing better than tormenting my existence!"

"WOULD YOU STOP BEING SO GODDAMN NEGATIVE AND LOOK YOUR WONDERFUL LIFE IN THE EYE?" Lucy exploded.

"Well, that was uncalled for!" the overly handsome knight complained in his overdone, fake British accent.

"Shut up, you weak-chinned berk!" Lucy called in his direction.

"I beg your pardon!" he sounded very offended.

"Well, you can't have it. Now SHUT UP!"

"Can't have your -"

"Her pardon, curly toes," Lily told him.

The two girls tuned out his roar of fury.

"Lily, you need to stop being so negative," Lucy reprimanded her. "And please stop crying...you're making me feel bad!"

"Sorry," Lily sniffed, wiping the remaining tears from her green eyes.

"It's okay. Lily needs to stop apologizing, though. And Lily needs to stop being so negative. And Lily needs to help Lucy with her transfiguration homework!"

"Lily agrees."

The two girls spent the rest of the evening doing homework and talking. Lily was glad to see that the knight had retreated to the inner corner of his frame; she didn't much like his listening in. Alice came in a few hours later, yawning loudly.

"Good, you've made up," she said gratefully. "I'm so -" she yawned hugely, "So tired..."

"I can tell," Lucy commented dryly, moving her things from Alice's bed, which was next to Lily's, to her own, on the other side of Alice's.

"Wait -" Lily stopped Alice from changing into her pajamas and Lucy from throwing a book at the peeking knight. "You planned this?"

"'Course," Lucy told her, breathing in short, steadying gasps, meant to dramatize her pretended anger at the knight. "Alice's the queen of cheering up, but she thought that you'd feel better if I made up with you. Plus, I've got a talent of being frank when I need to. "No, not that Frank," she laughed when Alice dropped a large pile of books in surprise. "Frank, as in blunt, truthful, honest..."

"Oh," said Alice, sounding disappointed. She turned back to the task of changing into her nightgown fast enough that the knight couldn't watch her.

Lily followed suit, though she had the sense to change behind the curtains of her four-poster. The shameless Lucy didn't bother to hide at all, and because of this she was the first one changed. She decided it would be great fun to bounce on someone else's bed, so was busy doing this when the door swung open.

Lily peered around her hangings, settling her huge nightshirt around her body. She'd almost forgotten that anyone else shared their dormitory. It seemed so long since she had arrived at Hogwarts...

Lily remembered the lake, the sorting, the purple people eaters, James, classes, her fight with Lucy and Alice, making up with them, Severus and the tree...suddenly, the day seemed very long. Having completely forgotten about the door opening, Lily was about to lie down and go to sleep when a cold voice startled her up.

Two new people were standing at the edge of the rug in the center of the room. One of them was Hana - Lily eyed her with utmost dislike - and the other Lily recognized from the morning before. Lucy was still bouncing, but much more slowly. She grinned at the new girls, probably wondering what their reaction would be to her bouncing on one of their beds. Alice was holding a dressing gown, half in and half out, an expression of worry on her round face.

"What are you doing?" the nameless girl asked Lucy. "Get off of my bed!"

"Lucy leapt up and sailed through the air before landing with a very loud crash in the center of the room.

"Luce!" Alice squealed. "Lucy, are you okay?"

"Fine," her friend grinned up at her. She raised her voice to speak to the brunette girl who was walking around her long, sprawled legs. "So, you must be Leanna. I'm Lucy...that's Alice, and Lily is standing over there. Isn't it funny that we've got three L-girls in our dorm?" She laughed congenially and stood up.

"Not really," Leanna told her scornfully. "My name has class; yours and pants-less over there are so plain."

"Oh, excuse me!" Lily couldn't resist a little sarcasm. "Are my legs and horrid plain-ness offending you, your classy highness?"

"Don't mess with Lil, over here," Alice gave her friend a playful one-armed hug. "Did you hear the telling-off she gave Potter, down in the common room? Priceless."

"Shut up, fatty," Hana had joined the conversation. "Evans was absolutely horrid to that James boy, and for no reason at all. Now, if you'll excuse us, we need our beauty sleep."

She flipped her raven hair behind her and changed into a very elaborate black nightgown; Leanna's was identical except for the fact that it was pink.

Lily and Lucy rolled their eyes at the exact same moment, but they were dismayed to see that Alice's eyeballs, rather than becoming mobile, were filled with tears.

"Am I - am I really that fat?" she looked down at her stomach, which was only slightly larger than normal.

"No!" Lily glared forcefully at Leanna, who was busy sticking curlers in her hair. They were very big, and looked painful. Lily hoped that they hurt a lot. She stomped over to Leanna's bed, leaving the cheering up to Lucy and put her hands on her hips.

"Do you mind?" the curler-infested girl spun around and looked down her nose a long way at Lily; she wasn't as tall as Lucy was, but her height far exceeded the small redhead's lack of verticality. Hana joined her friend in staring derisively at the infuriated redhead.

"I think the question is, do you mind? Do you mind not being a complete brat?" Lily half-shouted. "Do you mind not interrupting our pleasant conversation, when your highness would so clearly be better off downstairs on Mr. 'Mature' Potter's lap? I suggest you do get some beauty sleep, because you really need it! Maybe if you get enough, it'll affect your inside? But it's so cold and smelly in there, I doubt even the light of the sun could warm your heart. Believe me, though, I will not rest until I find a spell to force that ball of molten lava down your maggot-infested throat! Don't call my gorgeous friend Alice 'fatty,' for she is far prettier than you, both on the inside and out. Lucy, Alice, and I are better, nicer people than you and squeal-head over here, so don't come in here and act like you rule the world! No one wants you to! I understand that you rule the kingdom of Very Unpleasant Things That One Finds on One's Shoe After Walking Through the Muggle Fair, but up here in the world of real people, we don't give a damn what you think, want, or say. Do not come near us again, and if you ever call Alice anything that doesn't describe what she is, I swear I will hunt you down and feed you, wearing all of your fake jewelry, to a pack of rabid, fetal nifflers!" Lily finished, breathing hard.

A storm of applause broke out behind her; Lily turned to see Lucy catcalling, Alice cheering through heavy tears, and a number of girls on the staircase, staring in and clapping loudly. Lily took a flourished bow that was so reminiscent of Lucy that, when she reached the center of the room, the blonde smacked her playfully and complained that she was 'stealing Queen Lucy's royalness related to drama.'

Lily waved hello to Nafeesah, the Pakistani girl she'd met on the stairs what seemed like ages ago. Nafeesah gave her an encouraging wink and turned down the stairs. Once the last of Lily's supporters were gone, the three friends turned toward Leanna and Hana, curious as to what their reaction might be.

Leanna was staring, openmouthed at Lily. She looked terrified; Lily was strongly reminded of Petunia in Diagon Alley. Hana was simply surveying Lily and her friends with a cool, collective glance.

"Now that you have got that out of your system," she said sweetly, "I'm going to bed. We are turning off the lights, and there will be no more shouting. Understand? Good."

She retreated behind the curtains of her four-poster. Lucy stared after her, a look of shock on her face.

"How is it possible to be so - so dead? So unemotional? That girl is scary..." muttering about people who exist for no reason, Lucy retreated to her bed, calling behind her: "Oh, Leanna, queen of classiness, please do closeth your mouth! The scent of thine breath carrieth on the evening breeze and maketh me want to hurleth." She leapt on to her bed, gracefully landing in the perfect snoozing position, - clearly, she had practiced many times - closed the curtains, and soon the sound of her real sleep - that is to say, not her fake snoring - pervaded the atmosphere of the dorm.

Leanna closed her mouth with a snap and attempted to jump into bed with Lucy's grace, but wound up, instead, slamming her curler-covered head into the backboard. Lily and Alice chuckled unmercifully, for, understandably, neither liked the girl at all, and headed over to their own beds.

As the curly-haired first year climbed into the comfort of her bed, leaving the curtains open so that the breeze from her window would ruffle her hair soothingly, Lily smiled. Despite all the unfortunate instances that happened in her first day at Hogwarts, from James' embarrassing plots, to Professor Hurley, to her fights with her friends, Lily truly loved it here. If one day had seemed a lifetime, how wonderful would seven years be? She grinned, and looked over to see the glittering luminescence of Alice's eyes; they were lit by the moon's warm light.

"Some first day, huh?" the round-faced girl spoke when she realized that Lily wasn't asleep.

"I think I'm going to like it here," Lily answered, grinning through the darkness.

"Me too."

"Goodnight, Alice. Welcome to Hogwarts," Lily told her, happily rolling the word off of her tongue. She never knew if the girl replied, though, because she was asleep the subsequent instant.