I Remember Lily and James

Chapter One

I met Ferguson after Hogwarts; I wasn't one for romance during my school years. I left that to others, like James and Lily. I was in their year, yes. It seems everyone was now, but I really remember them, before they were famous fighters of Voldemort, and before they were martyrs for the cause of wizardkind. I knew Lily before she made boys' heads turn, and I knew James before he was Gryffindor Golden Boy.

Ferguson used to bother me about Lily and James. He knew I had known them, and I suppose he couldn't help it. Reporters are like that, you know? Naturally inquisitive, sneaky about how they ask questions. I never liked talking about it. To tell all the little stories I knew seemed to dishonor them. I know I don't want people talking about every little thing I'd ever done in school after I die. But then I suppose that's the price of being a celebrity. And Lily and James were celebrities even at Hogwarts.

The first time I saw Lily was at King Cross Station. She was all by herself, and so was I, so I went over and said hi. Goodness I was nervous, but it's easier to approach one person then a chattering group. And she looked nervous too, so that helped.

Anyway, she smiled and said hi back, and I asked what her name was and she told me and asked in return.

"Lydia Franklin. I'm a first year."

"Me too," she said, smiling more broadly. "And I'm not even a wizard."

"Well, I guess I'm not either," I replied, confused. Lily blushed.

"Oh, I mean, uh, I'm a Muggle."

"Oh." I understood now. I smiled. "That's neat."

"It is?"

"I've never met a Muggle."

"Really?"

"Do you have a, um, teebee?"

So she launched into an explanation of what a TV (that's what it's really called, you see) and all of a sudden we both felt much better. The train came then and I tried to get a seat with her, but I couldn't find her after the shuffle, so I sat with a girl named Gereldine and a fellow named Ezra, a friend of hers. We got along in that easy, unassuming way eleven year olds do, and agreed to sit together at dinner.

The Sorting was an adventure. I remember feeling very thankful I wasn't first like Michaela Abbett (she was Sorted into Ravenclaw) or even second like Sirius Black. He was Sorted into Gryffindor, and that caused quite a stir. He stood there for a moment, frozen, and the whole table to my left, I think it was Slytherin, murmured loudly. But he went and sat down, sort of ashen faced, and the line went on.

Lily went a few names later, right before me, and she went to the Gryffindor table too. I followed her. Elliot Foringer was Sorted into Slytherin after me. He was one of the Death Eaters unmasked during the Battle of Knockaturn Alley a few years ago. Remus Lupin was sorted in Gryffindor a bit later. He was a friend of James' later on, as was poor Peter Pettigrew, another Gryffindor. I remember him too; the hat fell way down over his head so it rested on his shoulders, and he nearly fell off the stool when he got off. Then came James.

Everyone expects me to say how dashing and clever and good he was, even that first Beginning of the Year feast. The fact is, he hardly stood out in the crowd. Nothing interesting happened during his Sorting. I only remember him at the feast because he bumped Sirius's chair when he went to sit down, and Sirius snapped at him, and I wondered why.

I was sitting by the end of the table with Lily. Gereldine was sorted into Gryffindor too and sat with us, and I introduced her to Lily. Gereldine made an odd expression when I told her Lily was Muggle-born (I wanted to share with Gereldine my knowledge of TV) and she was coolly polite to her after that. I thought little of it, because then a girl named Emma Velps came and sat with us, and Lily had sat with her on the train so it was her turn for introductions, and even Gereldine thought Emma was hilarious.

Ezra was sorted into Ravenclaw. Gereldine and I waved as he went to the Ravenclaw table, all alone, and I felt really awful for him. I looked over a bit later, though, and saw him talking with a girl named Auden Bernier, who ended up as the Gringotts representative to Northern Ireland. Smart girl she was. I think she was killed when some Death Eaters sank a ferry coming back to Britain.

Then Samantha Zhar was the last to be Sorted. She came to Gryffindor too, and apparently knew dear Emma and so she sat with us, but she was a little obnoxious.

And that was the end of the Sorting. That was how I come to know my year at Hogwarts. I roomed with Gereldine, Lily, Emma and Samantha for seven years, and I got to know them better than anyone I've ever met.

Lily was a very punctual person. If you planned to meet her in the Library at six, she had to refrain from expecting you at five forty-five. Samantha believed in being fashionably late and making an entrance. Needless to say this grew to be a point of friction between them. Gereldine, however, also valued timliness, so she usually backed Lily up. I think that was one of the only things that saved their relationship, because Gereldine always thought Lily as a tiny bit not-as-good as the rest of us. Emma was a clever one too, and she spotted Gereldine's little prejudice and always had something to say about it. She never came right out and said anything, of course, but oftentimes she would mutter some double-edged sentence under her breath that Gereldine and Lily would ignore. In fact, Emma always had something to say about everything. Quite the gossip, she was, though she knew when to keep her mouth shut, and swhe was always so easy to talk to. She, and Samantha, actually, were the first of us to have crushes. I think it was because Samantha was a beauty even at twelve years old, and she knew it, and because Emma had lovely eyes and a sharp tongue the boys loved, and she knew it.

Our first year was not very exciting, as first years rarely are. I mean, it was exciting to us, but in retrospect...I long for those quiet afternoons. Homework was easy for us; we were friends with Lily. She understood almost everything the first time anybody said it, and was able to explain it to us in turn so well we understood it too. She was Flitwick's darling pupil, and someone even said McGonagall smiled at Lily. More than once.

In any case, we had time in the afternoons and evenings to wander around and sit in the common room and enjoy each other's company.

Samantha never liked to sit still for long; she often wandered through the common room talking to whoever was around. Emma would always have a deck of Exploding Snap or some marbles or some other little game up her sleeve. Gereldine was obsessed with Lily's Muggle books, another saving grace of their relationship. One of the only times Lily and Gereldine honestly talked about anything was when they talked about Mr. Darcy or Hercule Poirot. And the two of them absolutely loved The Once and Future King. Lily, I think, loved King Arthur before she loved anyone else, and Gereldine was fascinated by the tragedy of it.

"It's beautiful," she'd sigh to me with tears in her eyes.

"If you say so," I'd reply. I was never one for tragedy.

Over the summer between our first and second years, Lily invited me over her house for a few days. We found out we lived fairly close together, and it was a work of a few moments to convince my mother to let me take the bus (the Muggle bus, not the Knight Bus, which is why it took a few moments) to Lily's house.

I think I was the first of her magical friends to meet her family. What I remember the most was, when I was leaving, a feeling of great thankfulness my older sister was not as awful as Petunia was.

Petunia would always look at me funny, like she expected me to explode at any moment. I remember one evening she walked in on me brushing my teeth, and seemed flabbergasted.

"Don't you have magic for that?" she said.

"Fohr rwhat?" I replied, my mouth full of toothpaste. She snorted and didn't reply, only left. Lily wasn't keen on explaining.

"She's just grumpy sometimes," she said when I asked her about it. But I got the feeling that wasn't it.

Anyway, her parents were very nice. I think that's one reason Petunia was so grumpy, if that's what it was. Sometimes she'd look at her parents after I'd said some crazy magical thing, expecting them to scoff. But they were very patient with me and explained what must have been stupid things to explain to anyone.

"Maybe I better sign up for Muggle Studies before I visit again," I said with a chuckle the afternoon I was going to leave. I was up in Lily's room, packing. But Lily didn't laugh.

"We can't choose what classes to take until third year," Lily replied. Always a stickler for accuracy, Lily was.

She walked me down to the bus station, and I invited her to my house for a few days, and she said she'd ask and send me an owl. She stayed at my house for a little over a week near the end of August, but then her mother fell ill again and she went home. Her mother was often sick in those early years.