Just What I Needed

Chapter 3

Fun and Friends

When Lily arrived at school, she saw that James she to be back to his old, obnoxious self. His three good friends must have worked their magic (not actual magic), and cheered him up. Lily was glad because it was easier to concentrate on being happy about being back at Hogwarts when she didn't feel guilty about James. Wait! She had felt guilty about James? Oh no! Ok, not going to think about that anymore, it just means I am a sensitive caring person. Nothing wrong with that. Changing the subject now.

In Lily's opinion, Hogwarts was one of the best places on earth. Lily had traveled all over the place, it was one of her passions, but very few things compared to Hogwarts. She loved her home more than anything, not because there was anything particularly outstanding about it, but simply because it was her home. Hogwarts was like a home with a lot of particularly outstanding features. She beamed as she walked into the Great Hall and felt the happiest she had all day. The enchanted ceiling was beautiful today- the sky was a deep violet-blue with glimmering white stars dusted across. Lily liked to think that her mother, father, and even her sister were under the same sky. Yes, it sounded corny, but it was an idea that made her feel safer in the crazy world that was Hogwarts.

As she and her friends walked along the Gryffindor table to four empty seats, people called out greetings and waved to them. Lily was a very secure person who would have been perfectly content with just her three closest friends, so she tended to forget how popular her little group could be. A large part of it was the other three, but Lily herself was very well liked. Some of the girls, mostly the younger, more immature ones, could be jealous and therefore mean to Lily because of the attention she got from handsome boys (like James). But most girls overlooked this and realized Lily did not seek out the attention of these boys and rarely enjoyed it (Rarely- Lily may be very mature, but she is still human). Lily heard a wolf whistle as she greeted Molly Prewitt. She looked up and saw that it was her good friend, Frank Longbottom, just teasing her. She smiled.

"Hey, Frank!"

"Hey, Lily! How's it going?"

"Really good! I had a great summer. You?"

"Oh, fantastic. You still breaking boys' hearts?"

"I've been trying to cut down," Lily replied with an embarrassed laugh. She trusted Frank to be a very decent person, so she knew he was only joking and didn't actually believe she went around stomping on boys' feelings. But she couldn't help being embarrassed since all the people around them had heard.

"Well, if they give you any trouble, just tell me. I'll teach them a lesson."

"Thanks, Frank!" Lily giggled to herself at her almost-rhyme. She could be a dork that way.

The feast passed very pleasantly as usual. There were no more unexpected feelings of guilt, and Lily was just fine with that. She laughed and smiled so much during dinner that her cheek ached as she traipsed up to the Gryffindor common, slightly in front of her friends. Lily was a quick walker, and unlike other girls, felt fine not walking exactly in sync with a pack of friends.

Lily was looking forward to getting in her soft four-poster bed when she reached her common room, but was very surprised when she arrived. The Gryffindor common room was much more gold than usual. In fact, it was so covered in gold confetti, balloons, ribbon, enchanted gold lights, and beautiful magical golden birds that Lily was afraid the new Gryffindors would think that their house colors were gold and gold, not gold and crimson.

However, she barely had time for such thoughts as the excited squeals of students just arriving erupted around her at the sound of the now loudly blaring Weird Sisters music. Although Lily thought the decorations were very cool and was all in favor of school spirit, she could not bring herself to be as excited as everyone else at the idea of a party. She wasn't entirely sure it was allowed since lessons started tomorrow, and she would be held responsible for this as Head Girl. She also couldn't help feeling disappointed as she realized she knew who was behind this. Why did they have to be so predictable?

Sure enough, at that moment James Potter stepped up on to the back of the couch. He had an expression on his face as if he was trying to look serious, but the serious face was barely winning over his amusement. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said officially, "my name is James Potter. I am a seventh year for those of you who don't know me. Me and my friends here," he waved a hand at Sirius, Remus, and Peter who were standing conspicuously behind him, "would like to welcome you to the best year at Hogwarts that you will ever see!" There's that big head of his, thought Lily. James continued, "Since my stupendous class and I are finally seventh years, we'd like to start off the year with a party. Surprisingly, no one has ever done this before!" People laughed and shrieked and screamed even louder than ever. After the screaming died down, James added, "Also, both the Head Boy, my friend Remus here, and the Head Girl, the wonderful Lily Evans, are in Gryffindor!" More screaming as Lily felt herself blush deeply. Oh, well it's not like she hadn't expected something like that. "ENJOY!" James screamed, before climbing down from his place on the couch.

Despite her opposition to staying up late and going crazy before the very first day of lessons, Lily had to admit people were having fun. She wasn't great at parties- she could be when she was in the right mood- but tonight she was tired and was therefore very quiet and contained. She was having even less fun when James slinked an arm around her shoulder. "Hey babe, like what we've done for you?"

Lily squirmed under his arm, "You didn't do this for me! And get your hand off me." He did.

"Well, ok, no, we didn't. But I thought of you." Normally this would have been sweet, but James said it in a way that made it so obvious that he was just trying to get something from her that the gesture was annoying.

"Look, no offense to your party, but I think I'm going upstairs." She really didn't care that much if he was offended. There were plenty of other people here.

"But your friends are having fun." Lily turned around and looked at him.

"What?"

"Your friends- Bridget, Sam, Margaret- they're having fun. And I know you are not a big party animal, Evans, but I know you care about your friends. And I think they would want you to have fun too." Lily was thrown off by this. It was shockingly true. And he had sounded totally and completely genuine when he said it. Did he really know her that well? The fact that her friends were so happy did indeed lift her spirits.

She stammered an "Oh, yeah, ok," to James before running off to join her friends. Sam and Margaret let her join in on their swing dancing and they all laughed at Bridget's exuberant dance moves as she moved around them. The party had suddenly become much more enjoyable for Lily,

A few hours later, Lily could be found in her dormitory with Sam and Margaret. Bridget was still downstairs with about half of the Gryffindor house, but the other three girls had wanted to sleep. Well, not sleep exactly, but rest. And that's what they were doing- all three of them lay in their pajamas on Margaret's bed, talking quietly. Sam told about her summer fling with a cute older guy in Italy, Lily told about her troubles with Petunia, and Margaret talked about how she had had to tell a good muggle friend that she was a witch.

"Why did you tell?" inquired Sam,

"She saw my mother using floo powder and I had to explain. She was really freaked out. When my Dad got home from the Ministry, he had to erase her memory. She was really weird for a couple of days, so her parents took her to the doctor's. Of course, he couldn't figure out what was wrong, so her family just kept her in bed for like a week," Margaret answered in a sad voice.

"Oh, honey, is she going to be ok?" Lily asked soothingly.

"Yeah," said Margaret, "She's already better. It was nice though, to be able to be honest with her for a few minutes." This sort of talking and reminiscing, unlike the raucous party downstairs, was a first night at school tradition for these girls. And it was one that Lily didn't mind staying up late for in the least. It made her friends and her feel happy and secure as they started in on a new, unpredictable school year. James may be wrong about a lot of things, but he was right that Lily would do anything for her friends.

Bridget soon joined them and they spent a little while longer talking before more and more people began coming upstairs and they decided to go to bed.

Lily woke up the next morning slightly tired, but happy and excited for the new school year. At breakfast they received their new course schedules. Lily was excited to see that she had at least one of her friends in all of her classes. And in Charms, which was by far her best and favorite class, she had all of her friends. Charms was also her very first class on Monday morning. She smiled widely. The day really was starting out well.