Chapter Text
She first meets James on the second day of year 7. She spins around to see his hair falling over dark eyes and his glasses sliding down his nose, because she always gesticulates wildly when excited, and she has just elbowed him hard in the face. Her mouth opens to say sorry, but Sev speaks first, to marvel at how “someone like him could get into a school like this”. James, who has till this point been smiling, now scowls. Any apologies are useless with him marching away, pushing now bent spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. The next day finds Sev dangling from the fence of the netball court, and Lily resolving to stay the hell away from the dark boy with wonky glasses.
She and Sev have gotten in on scholarship. The private school fees are way too high for two kids from Cokeworth. It is natural to be wary of the others, who don’t have secondhand blazers and DIY haircuts, who speak in the “Queen’s English” and wrinkle their noses at her spam sandwiches. Though to be fair, not everyone is like that. There is narrow, large-nosed Remus who speaks with a soft Welsh lilt, and Marlene, with her jet black curls who cuts her own fringe in the girl’s loo while Lily watches in fascination. And James, who comes in every day with tupperware filled with yellow rice and red lentils and dark spinach, and foil-wrapped round flat bread.
It is impossible to remain with Sev all the time, with them being placed in separate classes. So she partners with Dorcas in English, because she has the same Woolworth’s flowery ring binder. With Marlene in Science and Maths, because Lily lets her borrow a protractor and Marlene proclaims herself forever indebted. Peter shares his crayolas in Geography so she can colour the world map printout in magenta and turquoise, and she offers a sparkly gel pen in return so he can outline Great Britain. James nicks it from him and uses up half the ink shading in India.
One day in late December, Sirius brings in two whole bags of black licorice. Lily’s class of 7Gryff spends the whole lunchtime competing to see who can eat a whole lace the fastest. Peter is a close contender, but he keeps biting them off by accident. James hasn’t actually tried it before, and spits his out immediately. Sirius himself gets a little distracted and instead tries to see how many he can fit in his nostrils (three in each). Lily wins, but she refuses to touch another piece of licorice the whole of the rest of the term.
Her afternoons with Sev at the park are hijacked by Mary MacDonald, and then by Remus, both of whom live only a train stop away. Once Remus shows them how to turn a blade of grass into a whistle. It takes a couple of tries and Remus’s gentle encouragement to manage it, but Lily does, and excitedly stores the knowledge away to show Petunia. Sev gives up and shreds his stalk of grass pretty quickly, shrugging off Lily when she tries to help. He stops coming to the park after a few weeks, saying his dad wants him at home. Afternoons seem a little lonelier after that.
Severus has told her before, about his dad and his black moods and heavy fists. Always by accident, and he will always clam up tight about his home life afterwards, as if by ignoring it, Lily will forget what he has let slip. So she takes his word for it, about needing to take an earlier train without her. About needing to do his homework at lunch instead of home, so would she go eat somewhere else? He needs to concentrate. She doesn't want to scare him into avoiding her. Not now that they only see each other for minutes at a time, when once they would spend every hour they could in each others company.
A rainy day in June sees Lily traipsing around the concrete building trying to find Sev, who hasn’t talked to her much at all the whole week and now it is Friday, and she has an article on supercars that she wants to show him. The library, his form room, and the canteen all yield empty. He isn’t even in the science labs, where Slughorn sometimes let him take over and experiment in. Instead, Lily finds him in the PE changing rooms, hanging with the awful bullies from Year 9, and “Beer?! Sev? You’re twelve years old...You said yourself you don’t wanna end up like-”
The resulting argument puts a wedge between Lily and Severus for most of the summer. He is being even more stubborn than Potter, shutting her out or flat out yelling at her and oh, it makes her seethe with anger. Hasn't she always been there for him? Can’t he see he is acting just like his father?
“Probably in denial” is Dorcas’s response, before she blows the biggest bubble either of them have ever seen, and they lament the fact that they have no camera to document it.
In the last few weeks before the end of the school year, 7Gryff’s teacher, McGonagall, sets them a challenge to plan a business. In groups of five, they write up proposals, with a design for a product, costings written and advertisement in the form of permanent marker on sugar paper. Lily is put with Potter, Anne Goldstein, Sirius and Peter. Figures that her actual friends end up with Remus - the only one of Potter’s friends she can stand.
Surprisingly, Peter turns out to be brilliant with the art supplies and, along with Goldstein, draws up all of the half arsed ideas Lily brainstorms. Sirius is the laziest deadweight she has ever come across, but she knows he is smart. With the threat of disembowelment hanging over his head, Sirius gets to work crunching the numbers. Potter is the one who suggests selling his mother’s laddoos and brings in the recipe for them . With Mcgonagall’s blessing they spend one Wednesday morning covered in gram flour and ghee in the school kitchens. They emerge with thirty four slightly wonky looking sweets to share with the class.
They don’t win. Marlene and her handmade bracelets beat them out. But with the way that everyone inhales the laddoos, and McGonagall’s seal of approval on the proposal, Lily reckons they did pretty good. Her teammates certainly agree, and they all celebrate with half melted chocolate Peter finds in his pocket. Severus refuses the laddoo she offers him. Lily says nothing, and later breaks it in half and shares it with Remus instead.
On the last day before summer hols, everyone is allowed to wear their own clothes. Lily spends the night before deliberating over outfits. Mum says she can’t borrow Petunia’s platforms, but she can wear the scarlet maxi dress her mother hates and Lily loves, on account of how it clashes with her hair. Lily knows she looks ridiculous, wearing a large yellow floppy sunhat she stole off of Dorcas, with two braids sticking out from underneath because it is too hot to have her hair down. But James says her dress is cool, and Severus smiles when he sees her.
Lily isn’t looking forward to the summer all that much, because Petunia is going on a school trip to France and won’t be home. Marlene and Dorcas live too far away to come over all that often, and Severus… Anyway, it’s not all that bad because she has a new record player and, with much cajoling, has Dad three quarters of the way to liking David Bowie. Her mum is still running ragged as usual, because parents don’t get a summer holiday. But one Saturday, she helps Lily paint her bedroom walls bright yellow so that, come winter, her room will still be filled with sunlight.
About three weeks into the break, Lily and her Dad go further up into London to see the new Robin Hood. It’s not as good as the Aristocats, and the kid sitting behind her keeps kicking her seat, but Maid Marion is wicked and Lily might have a small crush on Robin. After, Dad goes to get sandwiches for lunch and she waits in the Odeon, and comes across two boys with shaggy dark hair trying to sneak in to see The Exorcist. Rolling her eyes, Lily proceeds to distract the ticket officer by tripping over and sprawling to the ground near her feet. As the woman helps her up, Lily catches sight of Sirius hiding a smirk and James’s impressed grin, before they disappear into the screening rooms.
Lily makes a wobbly, rather lopsided trifle for Petunia when she comes back home, because Petunia loves trifle more than even chocolate cake. It’s an apology, for whatever it was that made Tuney feel like she couldn’t be Lily’s sister the way she used to be. For once, Petunia doesn't say anything about its less than stellar appearance. Her lips pull up into a small smile and she takes a careful spoonful into her mouth. Places the spoon onto the table. Seems to hesitate. Then scoops up whipped cream with two fingers and smears it onto Lily's face. The ensuing food fight manages to get jelly and sponge fingers stuck to the ceiling. Lily can't remember the last time she heard Petunia laugh so loudly.