Seven Days

Lily blinked, her eyes adjusting slowly to the murky dawn. She leaned over and fumbled around on the floor for her wand.

"Damn!" she whispered. It had rolled right underneath her four-poster bed. Lily Evans was in her third-year at Hogwarts, and if she’d learnt one thing in her time here, it was ‘never lose your wand’. "Double damn," she said mournfully, as the wand scuttered completely out of reach. She’d only wanted to conjure a small light so she could go to the bathroom for a wash.

Today of all days, Lily wanted to look nice. It was November 23^rd, her birthday, and she couldn’t wait. The boys had promised some sort of party later (it was meant to have been a surprise, but Sirius blurted it out, he was useless at keeping secrets) and she had absolutely no idea what the girls had in store.

Speaking of her two roommates, Lily got out of bed as quietly as possible. The last time she’d got up early, to finish a piece of Transfiguration homework, she’d accidentally awoken both. Arabella had been irritable for the entire day. Charlotte hadn’t complained, instead choosing to illustrate how much she hated getting up by stubbornly pretending to be asleep and missing Herbology.

Still, the incident hadn’t cured Lily of her rising at dawn tendencies. Now she just tended to rise quietly, and sometimes played a game of chess with Remus, also a bit of an early bird. Mostly she used the time to finish her homework off, so she could have her evenings free.

Crouching awkwardly on her knees, Lily peered underneath her bed, half-expecting some frightful thing to jump out. That or Arabella’s new cat, Spaghetti. Spag had been given the name by Matthew, Arabella’s older brother, and, unfortunately, a magical cat is stuck with the first name given to it. Needless to say, Arabella had been at once delighted with the generous gift from her sibling, and annoyed that the handsome silver tabby kitten would forever answer to Spag.

"Spag?" she tried, hoping the small creature was still curled up on Arabella’s bed. Whenever his mistress wasn’t looking, Spag could be extremely...well, catty. Satisfied that she wouldn’t have a new set of scratch marks to match Charlotte’s bloodied arms, Lily reached underneath the four poster, and yelped.

"He-"

She felt a hand close around her arm and drag her into the darkness beneath the bed.

"-lp!"

"Surprise!" said Arabella, her eyes shining in some unnaturally pale light. Charlotte released her grip on Lily’s arm and giggled.

"The look on your face, Lils. I made Arabella lock Spag in the bathroom, anyway."

"Leave Spag out of this. He doesn’t mean to scratch you, he’s only a baby," protested Arabella. Lily grinned at both of them and breathed a sigh of relief.

"For a moment there I thought someone – forget someone, the boys had put some horrible creature underneath here."

"Scared for your life, then?"

"No – I was scared that if I screamed and woke you up neither of you would speak to me for the rest of the day."

"Speaking of the day," said Charlotte meaningfully, nudging Arabella in the ribs. "We just might’ve got you a little something."

"Presents!" cried Arabella, her face scrunching up with glee. "Now, there’s actually three. One from me, one from Char Lotty and one from both of us –"

"Er...one question?" asked Lily, still a little confused. "Why, exactly, are we underneath my bed?"

"You’ll see in a minute," said Charlotte reassuringly, handing her something squidgy and white. Lily smiled broadly, and feeling excited again lifted the object closer to her eyes, so she could see it. The faint light source, which actually appeared to be emanating from Arabella, was strong enough so that she could see the pretty linen wrapping clearly. It seemed a shame to unwrap Charlotte’s present, but when Lily did so she let out a small gasp of pleasure.

"Look, it’s a lily!"

"D’you like it?" asked her friend, looking for approval. Lily put the beautiful handkerchief and the Chocolate Frog it had been concealing to one side and gave Charlotte a messy, sideways hug.

"It’s lovely, I’ve never had a nice handkerchief before..." She picked it up again, and Charlotte leant over to rub the little embroidered lily. The most wonderful smell filled the space under the bed, and Lily laughed in delight. "Definitely never had a magical handkerchief, anyway."

"Now mine," said Arabella impatiently, almost shoving the heavy, brown packaged parcel into Lily’s waiting hands. "It came by owl, only arrived last night, so I didn’t have time to wrap it nicely," she explained, as Lily ripped the paper away.

"Wow, thanks Arabella!" she exclaimed, and Arabella gave her a toothy smile. The lime green quill and personalised parchment set (‘Lily Evans’ in flashing rainbow colours at the top of each sheet) was, in Lily’s opinion, excellent. She tried to hug Arabella, but the other girl stopped her.

"Wait a minute, you haven’t seen your last present yet."

"It’s really nice. I want one for my birthday...hint, hint," said Charlotte, as Arabella reached behind her and presented Lily with the source of that pale, ghostly light.

"Oh my...what is it?" she asked them, fascinated. It was a necklace, obviously, but the pendant hanging from the silvery chain was the item Lily was most interested in. It was small, round and black, about the size of a Knut – at first glance the black appeared solid. When she looked closer, she saw that it was moving, real, similar to the picture on the television screen at home. It was the night sky; a small group of stars in particular.

"It’s Sagittarius! Your stars," said Charlotte delightedly, and Arabella started babbling about how she’d thought all three of them could get one, like a friendship thing, and how she knew Lily didn’t hold much with astrology but still, it was a very pretty necklace and really, your horoscope did mean something –

"Arabella, shut up. It’s brilliant."

*****

The rest of the morning passed somewhat uneventfully. She received no present from the boys, and all four pretended that they’d forgotten all about her birthday. At least, she hoped they were pretending. Lots of people came to the Gryffindor table at breakfast time to wish Lily a happy birthday and compliment her on the unusual necklace, including Matthew Figg. After he left she noticed James giving the sixth-year Slytherin a dirty look from his place opposite her.

"Git," he muttered venomously into his bowl of cereal. The normally noisy Quidditch star had been unusually quiet ever since he sat down, and Lily wondered if one of the famous ‘Marauders’ pranks had gone wrong last night. She frowned – that was no excuse to be nasty to Matthew - and nudged Arabella, who was deeply ensconced in an argument with Remus, Peter, Charlotte and Sirius about the relevancy of starsigns.

"They’re rubbish," Sirius was saying, slopping some of his porridge on to the table. "You can’t try and tell me that my entire personality was decided the moment I was born."

"I couldn’t agree more," said Charlotte. "Otherwise everyone with the same starsign would be exactly the same, and that’s not right."

"For example, Snape and our Charlotte here are born within two days of each other," said Sirius, refilling his goblet with more hot tea. "And they couldn’t be more different - unless you count the greasy hair, of course." Charlotte slapped him on the arm, and he continued. "Everyone knows Divination and all that’s utter –"

"Aries," said Arabella promptly.

"What? Utter Aries? Not really the word I was thinking of -"

"You’re an Aries, Sirius Black. You are, aren’t you? I knew it!" she cried triumphantly, popping another orange segment into her mouth.

"Well," Sirius said, momentarily speechless. "Well, that’s irrelevant. You know when I was born, anyway, you’ve just worked that out –"

"Sirius, she can barely remember her own birth-date, let alone yours," said Remus in an amused voice, jerking a thumb in Arabella’s direction.

"Ha!" crowed Arabella, to applause from Peter. She finally turned to Lily, ignoring the pointed comments Sirius was making about how closely Arabella must pay attention to him in order to have worked out his starsign. "What d’you want, Birthday Girl?"

"James just called Matthew a git," Lily said. James Potter looked up at this point, and raised an eyebrow. She had to admit, it was unlike her to tell on one of her friends, particularly to another friend. Arabella, probably distracted by the fact that both Charlotte and Sirius were now flicking bits of their breakfast at her, simply shrugged.

"What can I say? He is."

James grinned, and Lily bit into her toast, disgruntled. "He was only wishing me Happy Birthday," she said after a moment. "If everyone who did that was a git, then you’re including a lot of people. Our friends, for example."

The old mischievous smile resurfaced as he nodded at the others. " Y’know, maybe they are gits."

"They aren’t –"

Peter was sheltering beneath a plate, giggling helplessly, as Remus held a shrieking Arabella in place while Sirius and Charlotte pelted her with sugar cubes, amid yells of ‘Utter Aries!’

"Alright, immature, maybe, but not gits."

"Since when did you stand up for Matthew, anyway? I thought you and Charlotte wanted someone to hex him after he bought the wonderful Spag into your lives?"

Lily suddenly became very interested in the table, and she was certain that James gave her a knowing look before retaliating against the Sirius-Charlotte Sugar Cube Front on Arabella’s behalf. Damn James Potter! It wasn’t fair of him to tease her like that – although she knew he hadn’t really teased her at all, just asked her an innocent question – but then it wasn’t so innocent, was it? Lily tried to stop herself from chancing a glance at the Slytherin table - it must seem so obvious, she did it every morning – and failed miserably. There he was, sitting with some of his friends. Most Slytherins were rather hard or mean looking. Not Matthew. He was very, very good-looking in Lily’s opinion. In the opinion of quite a few other people as well, judging by the number of girls who passed by his seat and just had to tell him something terribly important. Jealously she noticed Amelia tossing back her beautiful head and laughing far too loudly. Showoff.

She would never be able to just go up and talk to him like that. Lily remembered visiting Arabella’s house in the summer with Charlotte; she’d been a nervous wreck. For a start, it was the first wizarding house she’d ever visited. The girls had all stayed at Lily’s and Charlotte’s houses – Charlotte lived in London, and the three had tremendous fun shopping and Muggle-watching - in their first summer together, and Arabella had invited them to stay for a whole week to repay the favour. Her family lived in a modest house in a place called Rowena’s Crescent – both Arabella’s parents had been Ravenclaws – and both Muggle-born girls had thought her house amazing. The best part was the small surgery attached to the side, as Arabella’s father was a healer.

Of course, Matthew had been around almost constantly, and Lily had consequently spent a lot of her time in his presence either struck dumb or giggling in an over the top way. She prayed desperately that neither Arabella nor Charlotte had noticed anything and now it seemed James Potter, of all people, had guessed her little secret.

Well, utter Aries to him.

*****

"Why is Arithmancy so boring?" complained Charlotte in a low voice. Lily had to agree that the last lesson of the day was crawling past. When she’d picked her new subjects for third-year, she’d anticipated them as being more dangerous and more advanced. What Arithmancy lacked in danger, it more than made up for on the advanced front. Professor Nometry faltered for a moment in his explanation of how to draw up ley-lines, and on her left-hand side Pytha Vector hissed, "Will you two please stop nattering? Some of us are trying to learn."

A few seconds later Charlotte scribbled something in the corner of Lily’s parchment.

Lily checked to make sure Nometry (and Pytha, for that matter) wasn’t looking, and wrote her reply, pressing a little harder than was necessary.

She tried very hard to look interested in the work while waiting for Charlotte, who’d gone into a frenzied burst of note writing. When her friend had finished, Lily knocked the parchment into her lap. If it said anything about – horror of horrors – her liking Matthew, and Professor Nometry read it aloud, she’d die of embarrassment. Hoping against hope that Charlotte hadn’t worked out how much she did like Matthew, she read the note.

Lily’s eyes widened, and she hurriedly wrote a reply.

"Miss Evans?"

"Hmmm – yes, Professor Nometry?"

"Would you please let Pytha share with you, her book was eaten by a Flobberworm yesterday. Thank you. Now if you’ll all turn to Chapter Two..."

She tapped her fingers waiting for Charlotte to finish yet another mammoth response, and noticed Pytha staring at her murderously. The girl really was obsessed with Arithmancy – she imagined that the Flobberworm who ate her textbook was living in mortal fear for its life.

Feeling a little ill, Lily wrote back.

Charlotte gave her a dark look.

Lily squirmed uncomfortably.

*****

As soon as the pair walked through the portrait hole, they were jumped on by Arabella. "You can’t come in! You can’t come in!" she said frantically.

Sirius appeared behind her, and rolled his eyes. "You couldn’t’ve been a little more subtle?" he asked sarcastically, and got a scowl for his efforts. "Lily, go away, we’re preparing your party," he got out, despite obvious amusement at Arabella’s increasingly outraged facial expressions.

"Subtle? Subtle? You’re the one who told her in the first place!" she said, voice getting progressively higher.

"Look, no-one asked you to help anyway, this is our surprise for Lily, so clear off and keep her occupied," ordered Sirius, completely ignoring the fact that he had indeed ruined the surprise in the first place. A fuming Arabella, pleased Lily and giggling Charlotte were soon ejected into the corridor, where the Fat Lady eyed them curiously.

"Is there a birthday today, my loves?" she asked. Lily grinned.

"Yes, it’s mine, thanks for asking."

"Oh, Happy Birthday dear!"

Lily got on well with the portrait, and was always polite enough to converse with her. The other two, however, were not.

"Come on, let’s go for a walk," said Charlotte, eyeing the painting suspiciously. Lily remembered the time Arabella had forgotten the password and the Lady had refused to let her into the Tower despite the fact it had been her Transfiguration practical exam in twenty minutes and she’d left her wand in her bedroom. Arabella had accepted it as Hogwarts rules, but Charlotte had been livid on her behalf, and for some months had refused to speak to the Fat Lady.

Walking around Hogwarts was always pleasant, especially in these winter months. Lily loved the roaring fires, the promise of holiday in the air, and most of all the snow. It was snowing outside now, and she admired the contrast of white against the blue-black sky.

"Alrigh’ Lily? Girls?"

It was Hagrid, smiling broadly underneath his bushy black beard. Pleased to see him, the three walked into the Great Hall where the groundskeeper was eating a late dinner.

"Fine, thanks Hagrid."

"Of course yeh are, it’s yeh birthday. Think I wouldn’ remember?"

"Because you’ve never forgotten anything before," whispered Arabella, obviously still annoyed that he hadn’t remembered to buy her some Flea Away Potion on his last visit to Hogsmeade, as promised.

"Pot. Kettle. Black," said Lily as they sat down opposite the gigantic groundskeeper while he rummaged around in his great pockets before producing a rather battered card and a mewling, even more battered ball of ginger fur. It was a kitten.

The chorus of ‘Aahs’ and ‘How sweet!’ took a while to finish, and Lily hugged Hagrid, at which he went rather red.

"Jus’ found him near t’ Forest....thought yeh migh’ like teh look after him," he said gruffly. "What’ll yeh call him?"

Lily watched the little abandoned kitten limp around on rather bandy legs, and grinned. "Crookshanks," she said firmly.

*****

"Crookshanks?" said Charlotte, a little incredulously as they started back to the common room. Lily cradled the tiny creature in her arms and made baby noises at him.

"Who's a clever boy then? Who has ickle crooked shanks? It’s you...yes it is. It is."

"Still, can’t be worse than Spag," said Arabella with a shrug. The three paused outside the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, and Lily looked from one to the other.

"Am I going to regret ever having known Sirius, James, Peter and Remus?"

"Maybe."

"Perhaps."

With a deep breath, she said the password.

"Lacewing."

The portrait swung aside with an ominous creak. Lily peered into the silent darkness and the feeling of trepidation which had been steadily growing ever since Sirius announced the party reached its highest point yet. So this was their game – lights out, then the second she stepped through the hole, boom. Excellent.

"Hello?" she asked, waiting for the required response.

Instead Lily distinctly heard scuffling noises and someone (she thought it was Peter) saying ‘I can’t remember – is it lumos? It is lumos?’ Another voice joined in (definitely Remus) ‘Give it here. Lumos!’

Then the lights sparkled into flaming existence and the occupants of Gryffindor Tower – well, all those who’d jumped at the prospect of a party – yelled ‘SURPRISE!’

Lily beamed as she was swept into the centre of the crowd, and music started to play. She recognised it as Sirius’ latest Muggle record – he was mad on Muggle music and drove them all mad playing it at unheard of volumes – and started dancing her way over to give her friends a hug. They’d done a grand job.

Flashing streamers that had been cleverly enchanted to change position every few minutes were currently woven around the staircase. Balloons hung everywhere, telling the world ‘Happy Birthday Lily!’ Best of all was the magnificent cake in the centre of the room. It was seven-tiered, covered in sunny yellow icing (Lily’s favourite colour) and people danced around it, spinning and twirling in time to the upbeat of the music.

She finally reached Remus and Peter (the girls had already disappeared into the dancing crowd) and gave them both a big hug. Peter blushed, and Remus smiled broadly, something elusive and immensely gratifying.

"Where’s James?" she yelled. "And it isn’t like Sirius to pass up a free hug!"

Remus leant over and shouted into her ear. "Just give them a few minutes. How d’you like the cake?"

"It’s great!"

Just then Lily remembered Crookshanks. He was so small that she’d completely forgotten she was holding him until his tiny claws had scraped against her hand in protest. "Oh, I’m sorry Crookshanks!" she exclaimed, extracting him from her robes. Remus and Peter registered surprise at the small bundle, and she told them how Hagrid had ‘found’ him. In fact, Lily was just starting to relax when the lights centred on the cake and the music stopped.

"Hello, everybody. My name’s James Potter..."

Lily felt her throat seize up. Oh no. Oh no. What, exactly, were they up to? James was standing at the top of the stairs, and he’d definitely recovered from his bout of breakfast blues. Recovered enough to be wearing a lime green shirt, gold medallion and white trousers. As everyone whistled and clapped, he slid expertly down the banister, coming to a halt by the cake.

"...And I’m here tonight to tell y’all a little tale about this girl I know...Lily." He breathed the last word in a fake husky voice, and a few people laughed. Lily sighed at his wink in her direction, and it took Charlotte’s firm hand on her arm to stop her from bolting there and then.

A few piano notes (damn Sirius and his obsession with Muggle music, damn him) tinkled into existence and James started to sing.

"Her...name...was...Lily..."

No. No. As he spoke, the top of the cake swung back (she realised too late that it wasn’t a cake at all) to reveal none other than Sirius Black, wearing one of her old dresses, a red wig and very heavy make-up. A cacophony of catcalls, cheers, claps and laughter reached Lily’s ears, and she finally joined in. Trust Sirius and James to do something like this. Sirius curtseyed, pouting, and Lily whispered in Arabella’s ear.

"Do I really look like that?"

"When you haven’t shaved your legs..." came the innocent reply. There wasn’t time for a counter attack, James was singing again, and (horror of horrors) Sirius was dancing.

"Her name was Lily,

She was in Gryffindor,
With red streaks in her hair and a robe cut down to there
She would study and do the homework
But while she tried to be a star,
Her friends just weren’t up to par
Across the common room, she worked from 8 til boom!
They were young and blew things up,
Who could ask for more?

At the Hogwarts (HO!), School of Magic
Where life would never be tragic! (here)
At the Hogwarts (HO!) School of Ma-gic,
Pranking and passion were always in fashion
At the Hogwarts....they did detention."

There was a massive cheer as Sirius waved coyly, pirouetted on the spot and blew a kiss to the crowd. The Gryffindors roared, and Lily along with them.

*****

The party had been in full swing for almost an hour. Charlotte was trying to pull Remus on to the dance floor, where Sirius had already established himself as Lord of the Prance (or Lord of the Prats, according to Arabella). Peter had elected himself ‘bartender’ and was currently yelling for more pumpkin juice. Even the tiny first-years were enjoying themselves, and the older students certainly didn’t mind letting their hair down for the night. Lily excused herself from a limbo competition and dashed upstairs to make sure Spag wasn’t bullying Crookshanks.

The dormitories were quiet, so she jumped when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

It was James, still sporting his green shirt.

"Sorry, didn’t mean to shock you..."

"S’alright."

For some inane reason, Lily suddenly felt violently awkward.

"Look, Lils..."

"James, I..."

They both laughed, and he pointed at her. "Ladies first."

"Speaking of ladies, Sirius definitely looked too good in a dress."

James smiled, and then looked serious. "Okay, I’ll go. I’m sorry I was such an idiot this morning, I know you like Matthew..."

"What?"

Please don’t blush. Please, please, don’t blush.

"Well, you’re sort of friends with him, aren’t you?"

Oh, friends.

"Yes, yes, of course...I mean, he is Arabella’s brother..."

"Yeah, I know, I was out of line, I should’ve explained. Feel free to call me a git without explanation any time."

"I might just take you up on that. Git," she said affectionately, and the awkwardness disappeared. "Besides, Charlotte told me what happened. He was a complete and utter..."

"Aries?"

"Quite."

James offered his arm, and Lily took it. They walked down the stairs, and joined their friends, and later, as she lay in bed, fingering her pretty, new necklace with Crookshanks snoozing at her feet, Lily reflected that this had been the best birthday ever.