tell me about it

she removed her hand from the handle, turning to face lily and finding her position interesting to say the least. “are you monitoring the situation or were you just in the right place at the right time?”

“both.” not true - this was fully a right place right time situation, but ‘monitoring the situation’ sounded much more important than ‘i’m sitting on the floor prewriting an essay between classes and peeves happened to float by.’ “i reckon it’s a classic something-over-the-door trick.”

“Lily!” she called out, tone mocking as she turned to face her best friend. She glanced down the corridor behind Lily just in time to watch the quaffle turn a corner and… there was a loud crashing sound. The smile was wiped from her lips, replaced with one filled with anxiety. “That’s a very good question, Lils. We should go to the pitch and solve this mystery,” she suggested, dragging Lily the opposite way of the trainwreck, that also happened to be the wrong way to the pitch.

her jaw dropped at the sound of crashing, but she barely had a second to move before marlene made the decision for them both to bail. “no, we’re not-” she protested, though it was easy enough for marlene to pull her away, partly because of marlene’s strength and partly because lily very much wanted to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. “quidditch pitch is the other way, marls, where are we going?”

“Conspiracy theory number one: they fed you different food than the rest of us from day one and primped and primed you to be the number one student of our year and that’s your big secret,” she tease, happy for the momentary distraction from what would come after graduation. Perhaps the entire year could be one big distraction. Honestly, she just wanted to put off reality for a little while longer - at least until she could perfect her magic again. “I like your head where it is right now - on your shoulders. One of us has to be level headed.”

“Plenty of villains have a redemption arch, right? We’re just waiting on hers,” she continued, inwardly hoping that was true, “Coffee sounds great. I didn’t realize how much getting back was also going to be tiring.” All Mary could think about was how nice it was going to feel to sleep in a real bed again - not a shed.

lily’s eyes widened. “mary macdonald, first of all, i’m not the number one student of our year. second of all, you cannot tell me that i’m the conspiracy, ‘cause you know i’ll take that to heart!” it was true - even though she knew mary was just teasing, now the idea was planted in her head and wasn’t going to leave anytime soon. “do i have to be level headed? but what if i decided to make this year my big ‘screw it’ year? stopped caring about classes, appearances, all those awful job connections we have to pretend to like?” a girl could dream. 

Mary sighed dramatically, “Tell me. Who thought it was a good idea to create moving staircases in a school where students are punished for not getting to class on time? Honestly it is the perfect recipe for disaster and tearful students.” She mimicked Lily’s looking around for Marlene, curious to see who had caught their friend’s eye so strongly she wouldn’t be with them already. “She does realize a quaffle is heavier than a snitch, right? That if it hits you in the head, it can actually cause some very real damage?” Mary teased, putting on furrowed eyebrows, “Turned her? Oh, our love has always been evil when it comes to Quidditch. Why do you think she’s so skilled?” 

If anyone turned evil over the summer, Mary feared it was herself. Something dark was brewing deep, but she just couldn’t pinpoint it yet.

“i bet you we could get some pretty good conspiracy theories going about this school, if we dug deep enough.” mostly still a joke - mostly. lily was certain that she could find at least one good conspiracy about the school before the year was up, if she ever bothered to get around to it. “apparently not! oh- but imagine how angry nearly headless nick would be if i joined the headless hunt before him! he’d never forgive me.” she shuddered dramatically at the idea of going out via quaffle, of all ways. “damn, you’re right. it’s just so hard to accept that your roommate’s a bloody villain when you always see the very best in people, y’know?” lily let an extremely non-convincing serious look sit on her face for just a moment before breaking out in laughter, “c’mon, get some coffee with me, we can go marlene hunting on the way.”

“My first year, I got lost so many times, you found me crying in a hallway on the exact opposite side of the castle than my class. I still don’t know how you found me,” Mary recalled, shaking her head with a sigh, “And somehow I still get lost. Am I directionally challenged? Speaking of direction, we need to go in the direction Marlene is. Any ideas?” A few glances around confirmed that the third Gryffindor girl was no where to be seen. It was also a good way to keep from talking about what actually happened just a few weeks ago. 

“only found you ‘cause i was just as lost. i had almost forgotten about that, too - how did we survive first year at all?” as sad as she was to begin the end of their hogwarts career, lily was much happier to no longer be in that boat of confusion. at the mention of marlene, she stood on her toes to try and get a good look around the area for the girl - nowhere to be seen. “not a clue. i saw her earlier, nearly took my head off with a quaffle. you don’t think the summer turned her evil, do you? might cause some tension.” she joked. she couldn’t help but notice that mary had now twice avoided the simple ‘how are you’ question, and while she wasn’t going to bug her about it now, she was already formulating a plan to corner her in their dorm later and make sure everything was okay. 

“Hey! My lips are sealed,” he said, holding up his free hand in defense before taking a sip of his drink, making a big show of savoring it. “Congrats, by the way. Not that I’m surprised. Only mildly hurt I didn’t get called up to serve beside you,” he teased. In reality, he’d never expected the post - Dumbledore would be mad to choose him. His show last year had been traumatizing enough - a student collapsing in the middle of the Great Hall before being sent away for the rest of term? Imagine the chaos if that happened again to a Head Boy… “How was your summer?” 

“thanks.” she gave a playful curtsy, though her smile was genuine. lily really was proud to be head girl, and she probably wouldn’t shut up about it for the next few weeks before the excitement finally wore off. “it was alright, yeah! mostly helped my dad with campaigning, got the classic intern’s wage! what about you? everything been okay?”

Lily’s sudden explosion took Mary by surprise, but she was able to maintain her composure after a brief flash of alarm through her eyes. An added arms smack would’ve made it much more difficult. It wasn’t as if Lily arrived alone either. The gaggle of wiggling giggling gryffie babies flocked around her waist, as if they had truly adopted her as their new mother. Before, that would’ve been Mary too, but she couldn’t teach anyone in her current state. “How will they ever survive without your guidance?” Mary teased as the children slowly turned different ways and looked for their next piece of comfort, “I’m happy to be back. Summer doesn’t compare to the magic of Hogwarts.”

“they’ll manage, i believe in them.” she laughed, watching the kids wander away, “i remember our first year i would not leave one of the prefects alone, just because she made the mistake of being nice to me at the welcome feast. i think her name was caroline. about time the universe got me back for that.” lily shook her head, realizing she was beginning to ramble, “absolutely true. don’t know how i survived the summer without my favorite dormmates. you’ve been alright?”

“Your dad sounds like a stand up man. I’d like to shake his hand one day,” Ted joked. “And it’s not straight whiskey - I mix it with my hot chocolate…” He poured in a splash to demonstrate, knowing full well it didn’t much help his argument. “Here I was, all chuffed that you’d made Head Girl, only to find you’ve let the power go right to your head.” 

“yeah, you two can bond over your taste in brown liquor.” she scrunched up her nose in mock disgust, “you- ted tonks, you’re joking! you did not defile some perfectly good hot chocolate with whiskey!” to be perfectly honest, that kind of sounded good, and she wanted to try a bit, but now that she’s made a point of bashing whiskey she refused to stand down. lily laughed, “oi, watch it. i’ll take more points off for saying that out loud! the people can’t know the truth of my power hungry ways.”

LILY EVANS is a GRYFFINDOR whose favorite subject is POTIONS, maybe because they are KINDHEARTED but also CONTROLLING. They might be so popular because they look like ZOEY DEUTCH, can you believe they are a SEVENTH YEAR? rumors say they support DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY. where do they go from here?