Slamming the trunk shut, Lily enlisted Severus' help in dragging it downstairs. They walked out on the porch for a bit of sunlight, since the house had all of the magical air conditioners working full blast.
"Lily?"
"What?"
"You won't come back from there hating me and Lucius, will you?"
She scoffed at that. "Why would I?"
"Well-they might try to make you-it's no secret that they don't like me."
Lily turned and faced Severus squarely. "Have I ever let myself been influenced like that against my friends?"
"Does James count?"
"No." She laughed. "Well-he was being a git."
"As usual."
Lily was about to reply in agreement, but then his face at the children's graveyard flitted in front of her face-serious and sympathetic-truly sympathetic, and she couldn't reply.
Severus frowned. He couldn't guess exactly what she was thinking of, but he had a pretty good idea.
"So-what's this, you're starting to defend him? Next thing you know, you'll be brandishing a marriage license in my face, with 'Lily Potter' on it."
Lily scowled. "Shut up! And goodbye." She flounced inside the house and slammed the door, ignoring Severus'-"You didn't deny it!"
They arrived at Eva's using Floo powder, and after presenting Lily to Eva's parents, Mrs. Malfoy Disapparated hurriedly, leaving Lily with Eva's mother, a welcoming atmosphere, and the twins.
"Lily! We've missed you!" And, almost immediately, Lily was engulfed by her two friends in a large, comforting hug. When they finally let go, Lily's trunk had been lugged upstairs by a house-elf. Eva and Vanessa were obviously in very good moods as they shepherded Lily to her old room.
"Lily, you're getting changed. Now. We're drinking lemonade and swimming outside, and you're coming with us."
Lily laughed, petting Willoughby, who had immediately followed her and plumped himself on the windowseat. "I'll come. Even though the only decent suit I have is that black one I used at Lucius'."
Eva waved that away. "That doesn't matter. You've got a suit, and you're coming outside with us, or I'll know the reason why."
"You won't have to. I'll be right out." And with that, Lily quickly changed into the black one-piece, knotted a black cover-up around her hips, slipped into a pair of sandals but kicked them right back off, and flung the door open, running down the spiral staircase.
"Eva? Vanessa?"
They emerged from Eva's room, Eva in a light blue suit, Vanessa in a grey one. "You ready?"
"Yes."
"Good. We're…off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz. We hear he is as wonderful wiz as ever a wiz there was. As ever as ever a wiz there was, the wizard of Oz is one because…" They raced each other down the dark blue carpet-lined hallway, stopping, out of breath, in the ocher-carpeted room leading to the terrace.
"Vanessa, all clear?"
"I'll check." Vanessa vanished onto the terrace, and, a few seconds later, she yelled back, "All set, Chief!"
Ignoring Lily's questions, Eva led her friend out onto the porch, laughing as hard as anyone did when Lily clapped her hands to her mouth in surprise at the greeting she got from practically half of Hogwarts.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, ITS LATE BUT SO WHAT, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR LILY, HAAAAAAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOOOO AYOUUUU…"
All of the people that had been at her mother's funeral and then some were crowded around a large, white table, covered with a beautiful linen tablecloth, a crystal pitcher of lemonade for every three people, plates, cups, and silverware enough for everyone, and a large cake in the center; red velvet, with cream cheese icing and dark red flowers surrounding the writing in the middle-"We love you, Lily!"
Lily almost cried, but at the sight of everyone surrounded there and their faces, she ended up laughing instead.
In addition to the hand-made placecards in front of every table, there was a pile of packages in front of Lily's place. Her friends were practically fighting each other for the 'honor' of pulling her chair out for her, and they repeated their song once they had pushed Lily into her seat and placed a tiara on her head. It was actually a hat made out of Daily Prophets, but Amanda told Lily to 'pretend it's a tiara and see what happens.' Breathless, noisy, and laughing, everyone slid into their respective seats, attacking voraciously the large, round, five-layer pyramid-like cake as they watched Eva, Sirius, Vanessa, and Amanda rip the packing off of the presents.
Forty-five minutes later, Lily was the proud possessor of what seemed like half of Honeydukes, a good fourth of Zonko's, several new body cords for her fencing equipment (from Amanda), since hers had died, a tiny companion for Alisande (a tawny owl with odd white streaks), and as much happiness as it was possible for her to cram inside her. Then, when everyone was lying outside on the lawn, randomly rolling over onto Dungbombs and lobbing Owl Treats and Ice Mice at each other, Sirius and Remus jumped up.
"Everyone ready for the pool?"
Everyone had been in bathing suits since they had set foot on the terrace, so the response was a general roar and a mad dash for the pool.
James and Lily were the first ones in; Lily had beaten James to the high dive and done a series of imitation cheerleader jumps, earning a large laugh, especially as she pretended to do a split and came up holding her knees together and spitting water out, yelling, "OUCH!"
James immediately imitated her antics, but with a lot more flopping around. It was on his second dive that Lily got sick of this and lobbed a wet Filibuster's at him, causing him to land in a beautiful belly-flop on the surface of the water with a loud SMACK.
He recovered surprisingly well, and went on diving underwater until he reached Serena, who was busy piling her blond curls on top of her head to avoid getting them splashed. Swimming into the shallow end, he grabbed her around the knees, dunking her, and came up to face a mad cat and a caterwauling of applause from the others on the side and in the pool.
"You-you-what'd you do that for?"
"This is a pool, dummy! Swim, have fun, get wet, oh, come on, you didn’t come here just to wade around?"
Serena said nothing, simply glared at him from under sopping wet bangs hanging in her eyes.
"You did?"
Serena squared her shoulders, raised her hand, and, just when everybody, including James, thought she was going to slap him, she hit the water's surface with her hand, causing a few drops to splash him in the face.
"So-so you're not mad?"
Serena fairly shrieked, the rest bellowed, and James keeled over, falling into the pool and coming up, choking on a mouthful of water.
"Th-that was supposed to hurt? Cissa, good Lord, this is a pool, girl! I'm already wet!"
Serena hit the water a few more times, jumped out, and seated herself carefully on the other end of the basin, trying fruitlessly to ignore the flames burning up the lawn chair's towel she was lying on (Lily had thrown a firecracker at her).
They went on swimming, sometimes racing, sometimes playing water-volleyball, which the Muggle-born kids had to introduce to the wizarding ones. They fooled around until the sun was throwing its last pink, purple, and orange rays over the horizon, and then Sirius and James ordered everyone out of the pool, seating them on the well-trimmed grass. Everyone had a clear view of the dark night, lit only by the lamps at either side of the pool, and when those were extinguished, people started to murmur. Except Eva and Vanessa; they had been informed, since it was their place.
From the pool, Peter, decorated with a few spinning hoops of fire, was twirling them in the fashion of a circus clown, exaggeratedly howling every time he dropped the fiery rings onto his feet. After about five minutes, however, the light started to attract moths, and Peter was running madly around the pool with a swarm of moths following the firelight. Peter hadn't figured out yet that he was to drop the hoops, and, between laugh attacks, everyone was wondering when he would figure that out. He was relieved, however, when Sirius threw a bucket of water on him and told him to 'quit acting like a nearly headless turkey'. Then, holding a torch, James appeared, holding it in one hand and something else under the other. Draped in a toga, he greatly resembled the Statue of Liberty, as he stood in the front of the pool.
"Kids!"
Everyone howled.
"All right, all right, all right. Guys. We're about to show you something you might like. I say might. If you hate fire,-" here he coughed loudly, sounding strangely like, "Cissa!"-"you might want to leave. If you absolutely adore sparks in your hair, stay, be my guest; that's exactly what you're gonna get."
He nodded over his shoulder to Sirius, by now no more than a black shape in the gloom. He had been attaching something to the lawn chairs, statues, and diving boards surrounding the pools, and now he ran into the bushes. They could hear the sound of pouring water on leaves, and almost immediately, the atmosphere around the pool and the spectators was filled with amazing fireworks, sparklers, noisemakers, lights, and applause.
The night air lit up with the millions of fireworks that exploded as Sirius poured water over one, which exploded, with bits of it landing in the pool and splashing others, which, in their turn, went off, and so on. The sky was filled with a good fifteen minutes of firecrackers, and, needless to say, applause. Then, randomly, people started doing flips off of the high dive and trying to catch the firecrackers at the same time, so when the crackers went off underwater, it produced an amazing affair of lights.
The jumper came up with sparkles in his or her hair, which made several of the girls especially eager to join in. Sirius and James won the spontaneous sparkle contest with fifty-seven each (James got a hug and kiss from 'Cissa' as a reward), and, at ten, everybody trooped into bed, tired and exhausted, but in a very good humor.
Everyone woke up late; around twelve, and when they did, it was only to scarf down a few scones, biscuits, and slices of toast with jam and bacon and to go outside onto the lawn for a few games of soccer (the Muggle-borns had introduced that game, too, and it was a hit). At one, Eva had her mother conjure her up a temporary foil of her own, and she and Lily (who had been giving Eva lessons) entertained the crowd as they paraded up and down in medieval armor and cloaks. Lily, wearing Severus' black cloak, was designated the evil phantom, and she fell after a long fight with a supposed hole through her stomach and an idiotic grin on her face. And somewhere in between, someone had the idea of quarterstaff-combat. Serena decided to watch, but she did look pretty stupid (everyone except James thought) as she sat on the huge terrace, with no one around her, sipping lemonade while everyone else was having a good time killing themselves on the grass.
All too soon, the summer was over. Lily had gone back to Lucius' for a while, but his parents thought it the height of impropriety to brawl outside, so she didn't have nearly as much fun. She almost succeeded in drawing Lucius and Severus to Eva's house, but at the last minute, they refused, and Lily spent the rest of the holidays at the large, Versaillian/Notre Dame castle-like mansion. All too soon, however, a cloud of owls had arrived at the breakfast on the porch, dropping off each person's respective Hogwarts letter. Lily's landed in her milk jug, and she had a hard time deciphering what it said.
Still, everyone was excited and ready for the trip to Diagon Alley, which they had planned for the second-to-last week before school. Dressed moderately respectably (not in the coats of mail, Lincoln Green, cutoffs, and bathing suits they had been wearing), everyone was assembled in the entrance hall, waiting patiently as each group of five, armed with wand and money, stepped into the Floo powdered fire.
They emerged in the fireplace of the Leaky Cauldron, jumping hastily aside so as to let the group after them appear in the fireplace without knocking them over. Finally, they were all assembled in the large doorway and alley leading to Diagon Alley. Eva's mother, after giving a few hurried directions ("don't buy anything illegal, be back here by five, and keep out of Knockturn Alley!"), had set off for a café, leaving them to do as they wished. The first move of most of the group was to bustle into Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, and they quickly swamped the small store. The rest, which included Lily, Eva, and Amanda, were looking for school supplies. In Flourish and Blotts, Lily and the rest pulled out their lists, making the two clerks and the manager quite busy, waiting on almost twenty people. Lily's was a bit longer than the other ones:
The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Four
Defense Against the Dark Arts; Curses and Deflections
Magical Plants of the Greenhouse
Divination: The Advanced Basics
Simmerings and Swellings: The Potions Guide
Charms and Hexes, An Intermediate Level
Runes and Translations, Level II
Anatomy of Magical Creatures: Grade One and Two
Students taking Anatomy of Magical Creatures will need:
Complete small dissection kit
Anesthetic-4Br7SgO4Z, 6 mol
Large apron
If you so choose, you may bring along a larger dissection kit. This, however, is not required and the absence thereof will not be penalized.
Lily was the third in line for her books, so she got out of the shop relatively quickly. Once outside, she headed straight for the shop labeled Agra's Science Accessories.
It was a pretty nice store; shelves along the walls were stacked with millions of small boxes, bottles, and different folded pieces of cloth. If you held your nose, the store was positively charming, but it was a bit impossible to shut out the odor of old fish. There was no clerk around to help, so Lily had to find her things herself. By the time she had located the anesthetic and dissection kit, however, the store was filled with several others, all chattering excitedly about some thing or another. She did catch one phrase, however, and she gathered that they were in here to look for a chemical that, when melted, had some properties similar to sugar, in the sense that it turned very alcoholic.
Lily's purse was lighter by seven Galleons when she left the store, and she was ready for something to eat. Quickly locating Amanda and Abigail, who were standing in line at a frozen lemonade booth, she moved over to them.
"Hi! You got everything?"
Amanda frowned. "With everyone crowding like that? I didn't even get inside the store. You?"
"Well- I got my books and Anatomy supplies. But that's it. What's in here?" she questioned as the line in front of them moved and she could take a good look at whatever was for sale.
Abigail nodded at the display model. "Frozen lemonade statues."
Lily frowned. "But they'd melt and get your hands all sticky before you got a chance to eat them!"
"No. They won't."
"Won't what?"
"Melt. These don't. Which is why we're going for 'em."
Lily nodded. She saw sense in that. "Hold on. I'm getting some too." Fishing some Sickles out of her bag, she gratefully bit into a frozen figure greatly resembling a pretzel.
When they left the stand to go sit on some benches, Lily's Flourish and Blotts bag burst. They had to go scurrying around after the volumes, and it took some time before they could fix up the rip and continue. But, just as Lily stood up, she crashed into something, causing her to trip backwards over the books, open up the tear, and take the skin off of her hands.
"JAMES POTTER, WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!"
He let go of Serena's arm. "Oops-sorry-didn't see you. Here-let me help." In a matter of seconds, he had pulled out his wand and had tapped the torn cloth, causing it to spring together, better than new. Helping her up from the rough cobblestones, he kept on apologizing profusely as he caught sight of the torn knee of her jeans and the badly torn knee underneath.
"I'm really sorry-really-I just wasn't paying any attention at all to anything else-you all right?"
"Fine. Is this a habit of yours?"
"What?"
"Every time we meet here, you have the annoying urge to knock me down."
"What-I guess you're right."
"I am."
Serena interrupted with a slight pull on James' sleeve. "James, dear, I've got to go get some things-you don't mind?"
Lily smiled sweetly. "Of course not. But we'll be sure to miss you terribly."
Serena scowled at Lily, smiled at James, and turned on her heel, heading into the store selling what they called 'girl accessories'. Lily called it stage makeup.
James stared after her, shaking his head, then turned back to Lily. "So-you sure you all right?"
Lily tipped her head quizzically. "What would you say if I said no?"
"Well-are you?"
"Look down."
He did so.
"At my knee, you idiot!"
"Oh. Oops."
"Does that answer your question?"
It should. The skinned knee and torn pants leg had rapidly turned into a freely bleeding something resembling a waterfall. It had already stained her shoes red, as well as the cobblestones beneath her. James frowned.
"That doesn't look so good. Come on-we'll go get help."
"Excuse me?"
"Come on! My aunt's best friend works here-get up!" He yanked her towards the back of Fortescue's, banging on the back door and calling a rather grumpy-looking witch to it. Her frown cleared, however, as soon as she saw James.
"James dear! How are you? Come in, come in, and I'll bet we can fix you up with something nice and cold…dear, do you still like that mango bat kind? Oh, heavens, I almost didn't see your little friend. Dear, how are you-Oh, dear!" She gave an odd little screech at the sight of Lily's red-stained jeans. "Oh, dear,…well, we'd better get that fixed up. In you go, then!" She shepherded them inside, shooing James into the bathroom for bandages, helping Lily onto a footstool and finally sending James to go help out behind the counter, since the shop was packed.
Rolling the jeans up, the old lady washed the red stains away from her leg, and then she bent over it, squinting. Lily had been afraid of this.
The old lady peered up. "Dear, there's no wound here!"
Lily bit her lip. "I know."
"Then where-"
"I had some fake blood in my bag and it got smashed?" Lily said, phrasing this more as a question than a statement.
The witch, to her surprise, grinned widely, showing a row of false teeth. "Trying to get back at Jamesie, were you, dear?"
Lily wanted to smile. "Yes, ma'am. Sort of. That is-"
The old lady interrupted her with an understanding nod of the head. "I know all about that, dear. All about that kind of thing. Why, when I was young, I used to play tricks like that on old Billy all the time! But don't worry; he'll marry you anyway. If he really loves you, then…"
Lily was having a hard time keeping the smile pasted onto her face; she suspected she might have to drill it on. She was also having a hard time sitting on her fist; it kept moving in the direction of those tempting false teeth.
After binding up Lily's 'wound', the old lady hobbled to what Lily supposed was the door to the store and came back with a large waffle cone of tiger's-claw ice cream with false eyeballs made out of a sort of crčme on top. It looked pretty disgusting, but if you went by the smell, it was quite good. James, with his cone of mango bat, was looking at her as if daring her to lick it. Glaring at him, she looked down at the orange mass.
"Lil, scared to lick eyeballs?"
"Excuse you?"
"You're scared to eat that, aren't you?"
Lily didn't answer. She simply brought the waffle cone up to her mouth and bit half of the protruding orange cream off, swallowing the false eyeballs and ignoring the pounding ice cream headache. James raised his eyebrows appreciatively.
"Not bad! You know," he added to the old witch, "I wasn't expecting her to eat that much. Still-Lil, your knee all right?"
"Couldn't be better. Let's go. I need to do some more shopping."
He groaned. "Not you, too! I'm starting to get sick of makeup stores!"
Lily pressed her lips together hard, concealing a smirk. "You don't know me very well, Potter. Meet me in front of here at two."
He shrugged. "Sure. Whatever."
"And I get to try out what I bought on you."
"No! At least, not the makeup!"
Lily nodded. "Fine. Not that part. But all the rest?"
"Can't get much worse than that. All right. You sure you're all right?"
"I want that in writing."
He stared at her. "Sure-whatever." Ripping a piece of parchment out of his new Divination book, he scribbled a short contract on it. "Happy?"
Lily stuffed the slip into her pocked. "Yes."
"And you're sure you're all right?"
"Potter, you ask me that one more time and you won't be."
"What?"
"All right."
"All right what?"
After herding James towards Quality Quidditch Supplies, Lily wound her way through the masses of people to Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop, picking up a fair bit of Apparel candy, Dungbombs, and Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks. Just out of spite, she also went next door to a store selling dress robes and wigs. Picking out a fluffy blonde wig and frilly light pink robes, she ran into Sirius as she was leaving.
"Lily! What're you doing in here?"
"Why?"
"Lily Evans, buying dress robes?"
"They're not for me."
"Not for you? Who, then-Petunia?"
"Your very best friend."
Sirius was baffled. "Lily, Serena's not my friend!"
Lily snorted. "Not for her, idiot! I wouldn't spend a cent on her-well, unless you paid me to. I'm telling you-these are for your very best friend."
Sirius shook his head in disbelief, but, thirty minutes later, he understood.
Walking down the street-well, more parading than walking-were two figures. One was perched, sidesaddle, on a broomstick that was floating about a foot and a half from the ground. That figure, who was wearing bluejeans with a ripped knee and blood-soaked pants leg and a black T-shirt, was also holding an interesting sort of buggy whip. The other figure wasn't familiar to Sirius at all, at least, not till it got up close. Dressed in the frilliest pale pink robes he had ever seen, a blond girl with hair too poofy for comfort was tied to the front of the broomstick. A necklace of Dungbombs and firecrackers was around her neck, and she looked extremely tentative. The whole thing rather resembled a horse and buggy, except that the blond girl wasn't a horse and wasn't a girl, either.
"James? Have you lost your mind?"
James, with the blond wig perched on top of scraggles of black that was peeking out from underneath and forming sweaty bangs, scowled.
"Don't say a WORD."
"I won't. I don't even know you. Lily, hi, nice to see you. And who is this charming young lady here?"
He held out a hand and bowed ridiculously as Lily alighted with an affected graceful air. "Mr. Black, how nice to see you. I have acquired a new mare recently, though she does not please me as well as my last. I am thinking of selling her to Mr. Malfoy-what do you think of that?"
James snorted with ferocity, while Sirius nodded slowly, stroking an invisible beard. "It would certainly be a wise move. Mr. Malfoy will give you a good price. Let me tie up your steed-excuse me, mare-for you." Taking the reins out of her hands, he firmly tied James to a bench, leaving him to the full scrutiny of the passers-by, all of which were hooting with laughter.
The next few weeks passed rather hurriedly. James still hadn't forgiven Lily for doing that to him, but, as he had given her his written word, and a very clumsy one at that, she could now force him to wear anything she had bought that day and he couldn't do a thing about it, as she could always send that piece of parchment to his mother, who was very strict on all that had to do with signing names to contracts. James was more scared of his mother than of anyone or anything else-she was the nicest person in the world, but a fury when she was angry.
