Chapter Text
There’s a pineapple floating in the middle of the corridor.
And, the thing Lily Evans has discovered so far about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is that it’s Big and Unusual.
She’s discovered other things, too. Things that Sev had failed to really convey in his tales about the place, like the fact that sometimes when she speaks Mary Macdonald is the only one who understands what she’s saying, that the whole Magical World seems a strange mixture of extraordinary and entirely backwards and that everyone takes the House system disarmingly seriously (Sev had said things to that effect, but she’d assumed some degree of exaggeration. But it isn’t just the students who genuinely dislike each other on account of their house. One boy had even received some awful screaming letter from his mother on the day after the sorting, which an older girl named Marlene McKinnon had told her was called a ‘Howler’ and then said ‘he’s a Black’. She’d had to ask Sev about what that meant later and is still not entirely clear).
The first few weeks had been a culture shock. Incredible, magical, brilliant, but full of this thick confusion too. She’d swung wildly between being awed, homesick, joyful and lost. The latter often manifested physically because, as she’d discovered, the castle was Big and Unusual. Illogical, really. Things she’d always understood to be static moved. Things she’d always assumed to be inanimate talked to you. Ghosts were occasionally helpful and occasionally sent you entirely the wrong way, depending on their disposition. Often, she couldn’t tell whether she didn’t recognise a corridor because she’d never been there before, or if it just looked very similar to a lot of other corridors, or if it just happened to look different at two o’clock on a Tuesday than it did at five o’clock on a Wednesday. She had gotten better at navigating around, in part due to repetition, but also due to developing good strategies of following crowds / developing an awareness of the older Gryffindor’s schedules, in order to shadow their routes if they were going somewhere particularly helpful. She’d done a bit of exploring in an attempt to conceptualise the rough structure of the place, but had come to the conclusion that it was Too Big and Too Illogical to try and understand all at once, while she was still trying to absorb there being ghosts at all and having a wand and post being delivered by owls and being taught how to do spells, proper spells. So she’d resigned herself to memorising a few key routes — to the dormitories, her classes and the Great Hall, to the entrance to the Slytherin Common room, out into the grounds. She’d been intending to take learning the rest of it in segments. She hadn’t really gotten to a plan , but she had a sense of determination that she would plan and explore, and work it all out, just as soon as she’d managed to get on top of her homework and felt on more even-footing.
That hadn’t quite happened yet, but today she’d felt this false-sense of confidence and bravery and had taken a left turn she was sure was a shortcut to meet Severus, and had just been beginning to feel she might be quite lost when she’d run into the pineapple.
Hogwarts being what it was, it wouldn’t be entirely out of the realms of possibility that this corridor always had a pineapple floating in the middle of it.
She’d come to suspend her natural inclination of surprise, because one of the first time she’d displayed shock in one of her lessons -- Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall displaying her cat trick -- she’d noted that two of the snootier Slytherin girls had exchanged pointed looks and sniggered at each other, and she’d felt her face flush with embarrassment. It had been made significantly worse by the fact that Severus, beside her, had winced. Being surprised just highlighted how naive and different she was, so she’d learned to repress it and save her astonishment for when she was wrapped in the sanctuary of her four poster bed. Besides, the second time you accidentally walk through an ancient, headless ghost, you become slightly more immune to shock.
Beyond surprise though, she has come to adopt a healthy attitude of suspicion. She’d witnessed a fair amount of tricks and chaos in the corridors, too. In her third week, the seventh year Prewett brothers had charmed one of the corridors to rain. They’d added a supply of floating umbrellas, too, but if anyone were to grab one, that person suddenly shrunk to be six inches tall. After the first few students fell for it, others started using their bags or pulling their cloaks over their heads to protect themselves from the rain. Lily had opted for using her bag and had been incredibly disappointed to find a soggy-mass where her charms essay used to be. She distantly knew that one day she might be able to fix it by magic when she’d learned enough but that day certainly wasn’t today. Instead, she’d had to write it all over again. Since then, she has operated on a policy of excess caution.
She stops short and assesses the pineapple from a distance. It looks like a relatively normal pineapple, other than the fact that it is floating.
And then she hears voices. It takes her a few moments to place them, but then it all fits together. James Potter and Sirius Black. She’s certainly heard enough of their voices over the first six weeks of school. James Potter and Sirius Black from the train. Sirius Black, who’d received the howler. James Potter, who’d ‘accidentally’ tripped over and knocked all of Sev’s valerian root into his potion in their first class, causing it to explode in their faces. James Potter, who was incredibly loud and disruptive whenever he could think of anything at all to say. James Potter who, when presented with the Prewett’s rain, had cheerfully, delightedly, grabbed hold of the nearest umbrella and made a big show of finding himself staring up at Sirius Black’s ankles. There’d been lots of loud laughter. Sirius Black had picked him in the palm of his hand and said ‘ you’re so short anyway I can’t see much difference to be honest, mate ’ and they’d both guffawed, and then James had declared ‘ join me ’ and Sirius had shrugged, grabbed an umbrella and done so. The third boy, Something-Pettigrew, had ended up carrying them both to Transfiguration in the top pocket of his robes, and they’d attempted to complete the Transfiguration lesson while miniature, sitting atop of the desks to see. They’d performed a comedy routine about attempting to lift up the match they were supposed to be transfiguring into a needle above their heads, declaring ‘oh, we wouldn’t dream of disrupting our education, McGonagall’ whenever she suggested they might go to the Hospital Wing to be resized, or at least shut up about it. Eventually, she’d gotten so thin-lipped and frustrated, that she’d waved her wand and fixed it herself, just as they’d been attempting to build a house for themselves out of donated-matches. James had been balancing on Sirius’ shoulders to erect the roof, and then they’d been a sprawling, disastrous mound of fully-sized eleven year old boys falling over each other and the desks. They’d found this even funnier and, Lily suspected, there was a glint of amusement buried behind McGonagall’s withering look. They had lost Gryffindor fifteen house points and everyone seemed to consider this to be a very good trade off for the entertainment. Besides her, Severus — who’d gotten very wet in the corridor — was seething. Lily made exactly no progress with her match the whole lesson.
“We were wondering,” James Potter’s voice says, “If you liked our Pineapple?”
“Is there another fruit that better suits your tastes?” Another voice asks, this one polite and warm. Lily takes a step forward so that they come into view, positioning herself flat against the wall in order to watch them without being noticed. That voice belongs to Remus Lupin, which is a surprise. Pettigrew is there, too, which is less of a surprise (he’d been shadowing them since the second week). All four of them are standing just behind the levitating pineapple, having previously been hidden by the bend in the corridor. They appear to be talking to the wall. “I see. Perhaps something ---- more citriusy?”
“Like a lime?”
“There’s no limes, Peter, you idiot,” Black says, dismissively, “It has to be something that’s there.”
“Perhaps you could help us?” Lupin says, turning to his left, addressing another part of the wall. “We appreciate all your services so far. You’ve been very informative.”
Potter sniggers. Elbows Black in the gut.
“As I said, we are awfully hungry. We missed lunch, you see ----” Lupin says, which Lily is quite sure isn’t true. She distinctly remembers them — at least Potter and Black — being very loud while she was attempting to read the corresponding chapter from her textbook before Herbology class.
“ -- we were helping an injured owl,” Black adds in, “Very gallant. Very courteous, us.”
“Yes,” Lupin continues, nodding. “An injured owl.”
“Thought our James’ hair was a bird’s nest, see, got frightfully confused.”
“Oi.”
“Took all four of you, did it?” A voice asks. A different voice entirely. Female, older. Lily can’t immediately understand where it’s coming from and then —- then she realises that they’re talking to the portraits.
They’re talking to the portraits about their levitating pineapple.
“Er, yes,” Potter says, “Needed moral support, see.”
“It nearly died.”
“ Would’ve died if we hadn’t —— uh, rescued it from James’ hair.”
“Alright, Rowena,” Lupin says, “I can see you’re much too smart to have the wool pulled over your eyes. There was no bird, but we are very hungry, and all over the castle we’ve heard how —- insightful and helpful you are. We’d be most indebted if you…. Helped us. Or perhaps… well, Sirius here heard that Violet might know more about how these corridors work, so perhaps we’ll speak to her instead….”
“Violet is an imbecile,” The portrait — Rowena— says, “The fruit you seek is good enough to eat in units of two.”
“ Ah, I see. That’s very helpful, thank you.”
“What are we, Ravenclaws?” Potter asks, ruffling his hair and looks away, down towards Lily’s end of the corridor.
“ A pear, you twit. It’s right there.”
“Ooooh, right.”
“And what might we need to do with the Pear? Is there a —- special word? A hand gesture?”
“Should we poke it?” Black asks, and pokes the pineapple. It wobbles mid air. An unfamiliar laugh rings out across the corridor.
“Must be close.”
“ Stroke it? Flick it?”
“Maybe we need to demonstrate with a pear,” Pettigrew says, “Can you get a pear?”
“The problem, Pete, is that to locate a pear, we need access to the kitchens. And to do that…. Well. It all becomes altogether rather circular, you see.”
“Well, where did you find the pineapple?”
“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.”
“Maybe you kiss it.”
“ Kiss it. I’ll let you try making out with the fruit, James. Think it might be a bit spikey for my tastes.”
Black prods the pineapple again. There’s another giggle.
“Is the laughter a clue?” Lupin asks. There’s more laughter. “I could tell you a joke?”
This wins chuckles from Potter and Black, but not the disembodied-giggle.
“Must be something physical.”
Internally, something within Lily is screaming tickle it, you’ve got to tickle it. She slams her jaw shut. Continues to watch.
“Well, we’re making progress.” Potter says. “ Definitely nearly there, lads.”
“Poke it again.” Pettigrew instructs. Potter is the one that obliges this time, with a fierce jab, and then —- and then the pineapple goes careening towards the ground, landing with an awful splat, sending chunks of pineapple all over the floor.
Before now, Lily would’ve assumed a pineapple had more structural integrity. Her assumptions prove incorrect. Or perhaps, she’d underestimated the momentum that gravity could produce in such a relatively short distance.
She did not know there was that much flesh inside of a pineapple.
“Well, bugger.” Sirius Black says, and then they all look at each other for a moment, then they’re legging it down the corridor in her direction. Lily, startled, ducks behind a suit of armour. Remus Lupin is calling out a yelled apology to the portraits behind him. James Potter has a hold of Pettigrew’s robes, dragging him along.
“What did you do that for, Black—-? ”
“—- lost my concentration, didn’t I? When some idiot nearly knocked the thing out of the air —- ”
“—- we ought to clean it up — -”
“ — know that spell already, do we Lupin?”
“—- there’s such a thing as mop, James.”
“ — I’m allergic to muggle cleaning,” Sirius Black says, shaking pineapple chunks out of his hair. Pettigrew is laughing, wheezing to keep up, and then they’ve rushed past her, still laughing, arms hanging off each other’s shoulders, giving off the impression of being one entangled four-headed being. Once they’ve disappeared, the corridor is very quiet.
Lily takes one last look at the mess of broken pineapple on the floor, resolutely turns around and walks after their disappearing backs until she’s somewhere she recognizes.
*
Two days later, there’s a new addition to breakfast. Alongside the usual plentiful offerings of bacon, eggs, sausages, pancakes, toast and cereal there’s the usual fruit salad, but today it seems to be almost entirely made up of slices of pineapple.
No one else seems to have taken heed of it, but she notices four boys who’ve laden their normal breakfasts with heaps of the stuff. Black has both pineapple-and-sausage skewered on his fork, with his normal loud, laugher. Both Potter and Pettigrew have constructed a pineapple, bacon and egg sandwich. Lupin has arranged several rings of pineapple on top of his toast. She thinks all four of them are utterly ridiculous.
She also abruptly feels quite lonely.
On the second day, she has tried to eat breakfast with Severus at the Slytherin table. She had consulted with the disinterested fifth year prefect -- Susan Carter -- to see if this was against the rules and she’d informed her it wasn’t. After the fact, Lily very much wished that she’d been more specific and perhaps Susan might have taken notice enough of her question to inform her that it was a very bad idea. It had drawn far more attention than she could’ve expected. It had been humiliating, actually. The disdain she’d been viewed with had turned her inside out. Severus had been embarrassed, too, and hadn’t defended her. He’d looked away, flushed, when that older Slytherin girl had asked her who had given her permission to encroach on their territory. Lily had snapped something sharp back at her, gotten up with as much dignity as she could muster and left the Great Hall entirely. She’d taken herself off to the nearest bathroom to cry. She’d missed the rest of breakfast and then gotten slightly lost, turning up at potions just-on-time having only just gotten herself together. Things had been strained with Severus since. Slightly awkward and tense. She hated it.
It hadn’t won her any friends with the Gryffindors, either.
It’s not that the girls in their dorm were unpleasant, because they were all nice enough, but it was clear that they thought she was slightly strange. They were too large of a group. Seven of them in total, which was just too big to work as a collective unit. They’d already started to divide off into two close-knit groups, neither of which included either her or Mary. And Lily likes Mary just fine, but she can’t shake the feeling that they’ve been thrust together on account of their Muggleness, which she’s felt hideously self-conscious of since the beginning. She’s quite sure Mary would rather be enveloped into Cassandra and Alexandra’s twosome and can feel her attempting to make inroads, her disappointment about being excluded, and it manifests as this awkward space between them. The two of them get along fine , but they don’t have in-jokes, or simple, easy camaraderie. They don’t really understand each other. They’re very different.
It must be nice to have a very good friend within your own house. A group.
Lily’s halfway to standing up to leave breakfast, when a bespectacled eleven year old slams into her left shoulder. James Potter doesn’t lose his momentum, doesn’t even turn around to apologise, instead yells one behind him as he continues racing out of the Hall. Lily’s bag goes flying off her shoulder, drops into the floor. There’s a muffled smashing noise, as ink begins seeping out near her feet. A glance upwards shows Potter is hot on the heels of Black, for reasons entirely unknown. The two of them go careering off towards the entrance hall: narrowly dodging slamming into a group of fifth year Hufflepuffs and opting to run straight through the Bloody Baron with a loud ‘woop’, then disappear out of the door before any of the teachers have roused enough to tell them off for running.
Lily looks down at her bag with a huff.
She bends down to start rescuing her homework from her broken inkwell.
“Here,” A voice says, and then Remus Lupin bends down next to her. He’d been right behind Potter and Black, although moving at much less pace. And, of course, he had actually taken note of the impact they have, because he isn’t entirely self-absorbed . He helps as she pulls out her books and parchment, her fingers coming away blue with ink. He acquires one of the leftover breakfast plates and they start picking out broken bits of glass from her bag, setting them on the plate. He goes to start mopping up the smudge of ink with his robes, but Lily stops him and pulls out a squashed packet of tissues out of her pocket.
“Handy,” Lupin --- Remus, she decides, he can be Remus, he’s helped her and he’s nice -- says. By the time they’ve made a passable job of cleaning up, they're one of the last two in the hall. They head to the entrance way together.
“Defence,” Remus announces, in lieu of them actually having anything to talk about. She’s probably spoken to him more than the other Gryffindor boys, but they don’t know each other very well. Her impression so far is that he’s reserved, polite and kind. Something a bit like shy, but not really.
“Right,” Lily says, making to turn left.
“Remember, Professor Griffis said we’re in classroom six today,” Remus says, stopping her. “Because of the flooding.”
“Oh. Yes,” Lily says, and then pauses, stalls. She feels suddenly incredibly stupid and small. “Remind me where that is, again?”
“Here,” Remus says, nodding towards the stairs, and they set off together.
“They ought to give you a map,” Lily says, huffily.
“ That is a very good idea.” Remus Lupin says, smiling slightly. “Sorry about James.”
“I didn’t know you were friends with that lot.” Lily says, eyeing him carefully. In the beginning, it seemed like Remus had been attempting to keep some kind of distance between himself and the other boys. He’d sat next to her in Charms and next to one of the Ravenclaws in Astronomy, which somewhat bucked the tradition of staying in house-tribes (she was the only other one she knew of who’d done it on purpose). She’d seen him choose a number of different places to eat breakfast, being engaged in polite conversation with Gryffindors from various years, but never the same group consistently.
She’d witnessed a fascinating something transpire between them three weeks ago, where Potter had beckoned him over to work on a four person group project in Herbology. Remus had become very tense, very polite, and told Potter that he was very sorry, but he’d just agreed to work with Mary Macdonald and two Hufflepuff girls. Potter had looked visibly offended by the rejection, and he and Black had spent a lot of the rest of the lesson elbowing each other and communicating in hushed whispers. Lily had glanced at Remus’ back a number of times throughout the lesson. He’d not turned around or reacted once, but his shoulders had remained very still and the back of his neck had been very red. Potter and Black — assisted by Pettigrew and that tiny Hufflepuff boy — accidentally killed their plant and, after, they hadn’t made any further overtures of friendship that Lily had witnessed. It had seemed like Remus had spent his chance.
She’d been somewhat reassured that she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t immediately managed to make a best-friend in her dormitory, and had concluded that she was going to make friends with Remus Lupin. She’d been looking for a good window since, but then he’d gone missing for a few days -- ill, someone said -- and then she’d lost some of her initial conviction.
She’d been surprised to see him with the others in the corridor yesterday. Disappointed, although that wasn’t very fair of her. Clearly, something had shifted. Something had knitted them together. They’d suddenly seemed very close.
“We share a dorm,” Remus Lupin returns, his expression remaining quite neutral.
“ How many detentions have they had so far?”
“Nine,” Remus Lupin returns, and there’s some measure of amusement in his expression now. “Well, Sirius is only on eight.”
“They’re counting,” Lily says, exasperated.
“Aiming for ten by the end of the week.”
“Idiots,” Lily says, folding her arms over her chest. Remus smiles, and she follows him as he veers left and takes her down a corridor she’s sure she’s never seen before. He must take in her owlishly staring around at the walls.
“Sirius’ top tip for navigating the castle,” Remus says, “Speak to the portraits.”
“The portraits.” Lily says, like she hadn’t witnessed this in action yesterday. The only portrait she’s ever spoken to is the Fat Lady. It honestly had not occurred to her to extend that outwards. She just got accustomed to tuning out the occasional chatter she sometimes heard in empty corridors. The idea of befriending them sounds somewhat overwhelming.
“He’s from one of those big magical families. Said that’s how you get around anywhere -- by knowing who's watching and listening, and using it to your advantage.” Remus says, and there’s something slightly admiring in his voice that she doesn’t like very much. There’s already enough people who look up to Potter and Black. “There’s some enchantments that affect how much they’re able to say. Like, they can’t tell you the answers to the homework or tell on you to one of the Professors ---”
“ --- something I’m sure Potter intends to abuse.”
The suggestion of a smile around his mouth deepens. He barrels on, regardless.
“-- it’s interesting magic, actually.”
“All of it’s interesting.” Lily says.
“And entirely overwhelming?”
“That too,” Lily says, smiles, “You don’t seem overwhelmed.”
“The portrait tip helped.” Remus says, “And I --- have you read ‘Hogwarts: A History’?”
“No,” Lily says, regretfully. “We only got everything on the list.”
This has been a point of much consternation since she’s gotten here and discovered that most of her classmates seemed to have bought all sorts of other magical trinkets, nicknacks and books to school with them. She bitterly regretted her parent’s assertion that Dumbledore would ensure that she had everything that she’d require, and she couldn’t get anything else until she understood more about how the world worked.
“They’ll have it in the library. It’s interesting. Helped me.”
“Are your parents wizards?”
“My Dad is,” Lupin says, “Ma’ used to work in insurance, which I have not been adequately able to explain to James.”
“You understand both worlds, then.”
“More than some,” Remus says, and offers her a smile, a very kind one. “Doesn’t make this place any less overwhelming. We’re nearly there now,” Remus says, as they turn down another corridor.
“Classroom six. Next to classroom thirty two. Obviously.”
“Never knowingly logical, Hogwarts.” Remus
Lily huffs.
“You’re much nicer than your friends.” Lily says, inelegantly, in a bit of a rush.
“You don’t like them very much.” Remus comments, slightly dry. He doesn’t turn around to meet her eye.
“Severus’ potion? All that valerian root?” Lily demands, her voice coming out prim and pointed.
Remus frowns, a crease forming in the centre of his forehead. His voice drops lower. Quieter.
“Lily, he was making fun of Sirius getting that letter from his Mum.”
Lily’s jaw slams shut. That --- she believes it. Remus’ voice is coloured in such a way that it comes across as very sincere and --- she has known Severus to be cruel, especially when he feels cornered. That had been the morning of the infamous attempt at eating breakfast at the wrong table. She’d been upset and cross and running late. Severus had been embarrassed. She’d arrived just before class and slumped down in the seat Severus had saved for her feeling incredibly irritated, not being altogether sure if she wanted to sit next to him at that moment. She can believe the Severus Snape of that morning might choose to pick at that awful, horrible letter. And Black wouldn’t’ve deserved it, whatever happened before that, because it really was terrible. Lily hadn’t understood half of what the disembodied voice of his mother had said, but her tone was vile, spiteful, and cruel. Sirius Black had looked determinedly unaffected as he shrugged and made some sarcastic comment about it and he had looked very, very young.
Also, Remus called her Lily. He knows her name.
They’ve nearly joined together with the rest of their classmates now. She only has a few moments before he’s likely to be dragged away, and she’s not sure she’s given off a good impression.
“I take it you found the kitchens, then.” Lily says. Remus hesitates, then he turns to take in her expression and offers her a smile that wreaks mischief. There’s a great deal of respect in that look. She hasn’t experienced many of her classmates treating her with respect . She feels suddenly taller and surer in herself. “Not sure I’d fancy a pineapple on toast.”
“I can confirm,” Remus says, with an air of solemnity, “That it was quite, quite horrible.”
She laughs.
They hit the rest of the Gryffindors.
“There you are, Lupin,” Black says, grabbing a hold of his robe and pulling him towards their group. Remus Lupin allows himself to be dragged. Lily sighs, brushes her hair out of her eyes and searches for an ally.
“Allright, Evans,” Potter says, nods, and then he gestures towards her blue-stained hands, "You've got a bit of ink, you know.”
“Yes,” Lily deadpans, “I’m aware. A result of someone knocking into me. ”
“Oh. Oh. Not to worry, I can clean that right up.” Potters says, cheerfully. He pulls out his wand and waves it experimentally. “ Scourgify.” He declares, and --
--- and quite suddenly Lily is entirely drenched in very cold, soapy water.
“Ah,” Potter says, fretfully. Beside him, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew fall about laughing. The sound of it echoes around the corridor and then, of course, everyone else is looking and laughing. Lily blinks water out of her eyes. “Might’ve --- well, might’ve buggered that up a bit, actually,” Potter says, “Appologies, Evans. A bit --- over the top, I think. My Mum always says my magic is quite --- potent.”
Lily roughly wipes the water off her face with the sleeve of her robes.
“But, I know a drying spell! What is it ---? Something to do with---”
“Best not, James,” Black says, clapping him on the shoulder, “You might set her on fire.”
“Oi,” Potter says, rounding on him. “I’m very talented, look. Scour---”
Black ducks before anything emerges out of Potter’s wand, and then they’re lost in their own pantomime. Lily huffs, shakes water out of her sleeves. Once again, everyone seems to be finding it incredibly funny. Even Remus Lupin is smiling, his gaze fixed on Sirius Black. Lily searches out Mary, and finds her chuckling behind her fingers.
The second the classroom door opens, she stalks in and sits at the desk furthest away from everyone else, she pulls out her books and her parchment and proceeds to drip over all of it, furious.
*
A week later, Lily is having a very bad day. She’d gotten stuck in a trick step and had been late to History of Magic. Then she’d run into that awful Slytherin girl from her second day, who’d cornered her in the corridor and called her something she didn’t really understand but she was sure was an insult. Unfortunately for her, she’d done it in front of Prefect Austin Cathlove, and then Lily had been dragged off to give McGonagall a report she didn’t feel like giving but didn’t know how to get out of. McGonagall had become very grim and had a long conversation with her about a looming war that didn’t make much sense but filled her with dread all the same and it turned the rest of the day dark and difficult. Then she’d come upstairs to be handed a letter from her sister by her dorm mate Roisin Lynch.
It had been effective in it’s simplicity. She’d written weekly to Petunia since the beginning of September, hopeful that the rift that had begun between them some time ago might be healed by her continued effort. She had skimmed over the magical things she’d really wanted to share, like a description of the ceiling in the great hall, floating lights, suits of armour that moved themselves, of learning to fly. She’d written about homework and her teachers and her attempts to make friends. Normal, relatable things. She had not received an answer at all until this letter, which simply read ‘ Don’t write to me anymore. Petunia.’ She had posted it with a stamp, rather than use the owl Lily had last sent, which is probably why it hadn’t come with the morning post.
“Lily,” Remus Lupin says, approaching the alcove she’s secluded herself in the Common Room. She’d been hiding the fact that she’s upset in her homework, but for the last twenty minutes she’s been staring into the fire, attempting not to cry. She jolts out of her thoughts at his voice. She rearranges her Potions textbook to obscure the letter. “That book I mentioned…. My copy. You can borrow it, if you like.”
“Oh,” Lily says. Blinks. “Yes.”
She accepts the book. It is visibly well-read. The spine has well-worn creases in it, the pages seem determined not pressed too close to each other like they’re used to the luxury of being open. She’s always liked second-hand books. She weighs it in her hands. Hogwarts: A History.
“Thank you.” Lily says, and sets it on top of her Potions book.
“You alright?”
“Yes,” Lily says, the determination in her answer clearly audible in her voice. It doesn’t land convincingly. Remus sits in the seat opposite her, waits her out as if he’s expecting her to continue. “My sister…” She says, and leaves it hanging, vague. Remus offers something like a sympathetic nod and doesn’t press any further. He’s nice, Remus Lupin. Kind. She looks back down at the worn cover of the book. “I miss my cat.” This seems to take Remus by surprise. He looks like he considers laughing, then decides better of it. “And my parents.”
“You have a friend from home here, though,” Remus says, “That must be nice.”
This is the first time anyone has said anything positive about the fact that she’s friends with Severus Snape. She wants to protest that everything’s different here , and the whole world is governed by things she doesn’t understand and she can’t shake the feeling that everyone knows more than she does. About magic, culture, making friends.
“Did you know anyone?”
“No,” Remus says, “No one.”
She’s surprised by this. It felt like everyone else had some connections. Cousins, old family friends, parent’s-colleague’s-daughters. James Potter and Sirius Black seem to have already known half the castle by name, or at least knew their whole family history the second they were given a surname. Two of her dorm-mates had first met when they were six, although hadn’t seen each other much since. Most of the others all seemed to recognise some names and faces. Everyone seemed equipped with so much context that she’s behind on, all those conversations in the park with Sev seeming entirely insufficient now she’s here. She should’ve asked more , but she’s growingly aware that Severus Snape is a limited mouthpiece with a limited perspective. Everything she knows of the world that’s supposed to be hers has been filtered through his opinions.
“You didn’t,” Lily begins, “No friends of your Dad’s?”
“We weren’t… in much contact with the Wizarding world, really. Not much of a socialite, my Dad.”
“So you grew up more … muggle?” Lily asks, trying to hold back some of the eagerness in her voice. She has been absolutely desperate to have a conversation with someone who understands more of her world. Someone else, someone other than Mary.
“More or less.”
“Did you go to primary school, then?”
“No. No my --- my mum homeschooled me.”
“Any siblings?”
“No, just the three of us. No cat, either.” He adds, with a good natured grin. Her initial thought is that it sounds horrible, unbearably lonely, but there’s no visible trace of that in his face. She swallows that and looks down at the battered copy of Hogwarts: A History.
“You must like it. The book.”
“Used to be my Dad’s. Nicked it when I was eight. I thought,” Remus begins, then stops himself. His brow furrows as he weighs up his next sentence. “I wasn’t….. We weren’t sure if I could come to Hogwarts. I was ill. So it was … escapism, masochism. Take your pick.”
Lily laughs, thumbs at the cover.
“I’ve seen you —- reading a lot.” Remus says.
“Didn’t used to be big on books,” Lily says, “Mum always used to get ragged on at parents' evenings for me not reading enough, but…”
“But…?”
“I feel,” Lily begins, and then her throat feels very sharp and thick. The threat of tears is there again. “Very behind.”
His expression softens with sympathy.
“You’re not,” He begins, but then wretched, awful Sirius Black appears, clapping a hand on his shoulder. At this exact moment, Lily thinks she might hate him.
“Remus, old chum,” Black says, as loud as he always is, “That’s where you’ve gotten to. James has had the most marvellous idea about exploding snap ---”
“Right,” Remus says, turning to arch a brow at him, “Does it, by any chance, involve exploding them under someone’s bed or, perhaps, in the fireplace?”
“Why yes, actually, you cynical beauty. Evans.”
“Hello, Black.” Lily deadpans, pulling her books closer towards her. She’s not sure whether it’s for her own or her book’s protection.
“Give us a minute, Sirius,” Remus says.
“But you’ve been gone for hours, mate, positively days --- Peter is absolutely lost without you.”
Remus glances back towards their group on the other side of the Common Room. There’s a relatively straight view to the big sofa and coffee-table they’d commandeered. Lily is almost entirely certain that Remus had noticed that she was upset before he’d come over.
“He’s asleep.”
“Pre cisely. Given up on consciousness as a result of his great distress ---”
“Leave off, you berk. I’ve barely been gone. You can entertain yourselves for five more minutes,”
“What if,” Black says, with an air of great drama, “We can’t?”
“Then I suppose we’ll see if Gryffindor tower can survive the boredom of James Potter and Sirius Black for ten minutes.”
“You said five before.”
“Sirius,” Remus says, pointedly, “Piss off.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll go,” Black says, with a big huff, flicking his hair and whirling around. Lily watches his retreating back, feeling --- something. Irritation, yes, but there’s something else. If Remus Lupin has in fact been largely cut off from the wizarding world, ill and home schooled, there’s a chance that these are the first real friends he’s ever had. Some of the twisting jealousy she’d felt tightening in her lungs lessens.
Remus had been exceptionally quiet those first few weeks. She can’t deny that they’ve managed to get him to relax, talk, make jokes. Run around the school talking to portraits. Feel confident enough himself to tell Sirius Black to ‘piss off’. It is not his fault that Lily is lonely and projecting notions of friendship on him. Nor is it any of the rest of their fault, really.
“They’re very clingy, your mates.” Lily says, dry.
“Apparently so,” Remus says. He’s hiding it quite well, but she can tell that he’s pleased. Very pleased, and why shouldn’t he be?
“It’s all right, Remus. I’m okay.” Lily says. Remus looks back at her, searching her expression. “ Really.”
“If you like it, there’s some other books you can borrow,” Remus says, eventually, apparently in lieu of knowing what else to say, because he is, of course, still a boy . “The modern history of magical Britain, some stuff about how the ministry works….”
“Thank you. Really.”
Remus nods. His gaze drifts back to where, for reasons that Lily will likely never be able to understand, Potter and Black are performing some sort of deranged waltz with textbooks balanced on their heads. Black is unnaturally good at it. Potter is not.
“I better----”
“Yes,” Lily says, as she gathers up her things. “I should think so.”
She watches them for a few more minutes after he returns. They spend most of that time seemingly trying to convince Remus to join the waltz, which he does not, and the rest seeing how many exploding snap cards they can balance on Peter Pettigrew’s face while he sleeps. They’re all laughing, easy, content.
Lily pulls her bag onto her shoulder and heads up the stairs.
She is perfectly fine for five more minutes, then the day comes crashing round her ears and she begins to cry. Not polite, easy-to-hide tears, but proper, wracking sobs.
It’s the humiliation: the trick step, that sneering Slytherin, Severus , Petunia’s letter, the fact that she feels more alone than everyone else.
“Lily?” Rosin asks, and then she’s sitting on the edge of her bed. She hugs her. Lily has not been hugged since her parents bid her goodbye at Platform 9 ¾ --- Severus isn’t exactly hug-y, she can’t quite imagine hugging him, and things have been all awkward and tense since that second day, and Lily isn’t sure if he doesn’t want to be seen with her -- and it is lovely and quite devastating. She cries harder. For want of some better explanation, she tries out her previous line a second time.
“I feel --- very behind.”
They’ve drawn the attention of Amy Fletcher and Jane Stretten too, now, who both flock to her like moths to light.
“What?” Amy asks. “You’re kidding, right? You’re the only one who’s read any of the textbooks.”
“Right,” Jane agrees.
And then Lily tells them she feels likes she doesn’t have any friends, and Amy tells her they’d thought she didn’t want to be their friend after she’d ran off to the Slytherin’s on the second day, and she tells them about getting lost, and Rosin relays a story about ending up on the seventh floor when she’d only gone up one flight of stairs, and Lily says she feels like she’s got to try harder than everyone else, and the whole thing ends up with the three girls squeezed onto her bed as they finish off the rest of Jane’s collection of chocolate frogs, and things get quite a lot easier after that.
*
The next day the sixth year prefect, Alice Fortescure, manages to subtly pull her and Mary away from breakfast. She says McGonagall had told her what had happened with Jugson-the-awful-Slytherin-girl. She apologies. She offers to tell them anything they want to know. She’s kind, informative and fierce, answering all of their questions with an unwavering honesty that genuinely helps.
Lily remembers asking Severus if it mattered that her parents were muggles and his hesitation before he’d told her that it didn’t. Alice is more honest. She tells them that it shouldn’t matter. She suggests they both take out a subscription to the Prophet, or otherwise acquire one, and they can do this weekly, until they don’t want to anymore.
Roisin, Amy and Jane wait for her at the end of Astronomy, and they head down to lunch together, and it shifts something in her, and she starts to feel lighter.
After Transfiguration, she drags Severus off down a quiet corridor. He’s all awkwardness and insecurity, not looking at her properly in the eye. Lily misses him; her first, original link into this world that’s dizzying, incredible and confusing. She hates these stupid social-rules that means their friendship is under a microscope, but if that’s how it is, then that’s how it is.
“Well,” Lily says, slightly huffy. “If we can’t do meal times, when am I going to see you Sev?”
He looks up at her with this blinding gratitude and offers her a rare smile.
*
She sits with the girls for the rest of the week. She discovers that Amy is brash and feisty; that Roisin is bold and sweet; that Jane is quietly curious. She reads three chapters of ‘Hogwarts: A History.’ She throws the letter from Petunia into the fire. She discovers that she’s actually quite good at potions and, now she’s not so caught up in her own head, she starts to recognise that she’s the only one that feels out of her depth. Now she doesn’t feel trapped in it, she feels a sudden surge of empathy and fondness for Mary Macdonald.
*
The morning after the Halloween feast, Lily is due to meet Severus to make the most of one of the last good days of weather they’re expecting before winter descends. She hesitates at a junction of two corridors, deliberately takes the wrong turn and heads down to the right. There’s no floating pineapple this time. She strides further forward and faces down two portraits: a haughty looking witch in a purple hat and a bowl of fruit.
Talk to the portraits, she tells herself, talk to the portraits.
“Hello Rowena,” Lily says, “I’m Lily Evans, and it’s lovely to meet you.” She arches a challenging brow at her, but makes no further comment. “ Would I be correct in thinking that it might be a —- appetizing thing to do, to tickle the pear?”
Rowena looks her up and down. Eventually, she nods.
“Right then,” Lily says, and then she reaches out to the portrait of the bowl of fruit and tickles the pear. It giggles, high and loud, and the portrait shifts. She’s grinning as she steps over the threshold, into the Kitchens, ready to steal her and Severus a picnic for lunch.