Fire On Fire

1: His Cousin

It was 6:52 p.m. when El and Indiana left dinner to make their way to Professor McGonagall's office. They left a bit earlier than needed just because they didn't want to risk causing any more trouble with McGonagall. Only a few minutes later, they reached her office and paused outside to wait for her where Lily was already waiting because she too had been caught out of bed that night.

"Didn't you say Malfoy got detention too?" Indiana questioned, raising their eyebrow.

El nodded, "Yeah. He's probably on his way."

Footsteps echoed down the hallway and Draco turned the corner, walking into view. Speak of the devil. El glanced at Indiana whose expression seemed to be becoming increasingly angrier as the seconds went by. Draco opened his mouth to greet El before remembering that Indiana had no idea they were friends, so he quickly closed it again.

"Good evening, students," McGonagall said after opening up the door and stepping out of her office, confusing the four first years, "Tonight your detention will be polishing the school brooms. You'll be under the supervision of Mr. Filch so I suggest not doing anything other than what you're supposed to be doing."

"This is ridiculous," Draco muttered under his breath as the four students were led to the Quidditch locker rooms that were beside the pitch and then to the equipment closet.

Filch was already standing outside of it, waiting for them. He had laid down each school broom on the grass, lined out evenly. McGonagall whispered a quick word to Filch then left the students to complete their detention work.

"At least it's just polishing brooms," Indiana pointed out to El and Lily as the three were all polishing right next to each other.

"That's true, it could've been much worse," El agreed.

Lily tilted her head in confusion, "How so?"

Before El could answer, Draco crawled on his knees a few feet over so he was next to Lily and nudged her in the side. She ignored it at first but when he did it again, she turned to him.

"Can we talk? Just for a second," he said in the lowest voice he could muster.

"Fine," Lily said then walked over to some of the other laid out brooms to polish elsewhere with Draco.

El and Indiana watched them for a second then looked at each other, exchanging looks of confusion. From anything El knew, Lily and Draco didn't even know each other. However, she was very mistaken.

"What do you want?" Lily asked in an annoyed tone.

"To talk, obviously," Draco said with as much attitude as she was giving him.

"Malfoy, if you're not going to start talking already then I think we're done here," Lily said firmly, looking at him with anger in her eyes.

"Oh are we resorting to last name basis now?" Draco raised an eyebrow.

"Ever since you ditched me all because you got in Slytherin and I didn't, yes."

There it was. Lily Lestrange, daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange who was sisters with Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother, making Lily and Draco cousins. They were best friends when they were children, not like they had much other choice. Even though her mother had been in Azkaban all her life, Lily's father still paid many visits to Malfoy Manor, the residence of the Malfoys. In fact, from ages one to eight, such visits happened at least once a week and lasted from three to forty-eight hours.

But it didn't matter how close Lily and Draco were when the sorting hat on top of Lily's head shouted the house Hufflepuff. At that moment Lily felt sick to her stomach. She knew the effect it would have on her relationship with her family. At the same time though, something about it made her so happy, it made her feel almost... free.

Draco looked at Lily for a second with an expression that made it seem like he was studying her.

"You never wanted to be in Slytherin, did you?" he asked quietly.

Lily looked away and back at the broom she was polishing, "Not really."

"Then why on Earth did you say you did?" Draco continued to question her, "You lied to me."

"Well, you seemed to get so happy every time we talked about getting into Slytherin and you know how close we used to be, I didn't want to do anything to mess that up or distance us in any way."

"That's bloody stupid," he shook his head in disbelief.

"What, the fact that I was hiding my feelings just so you could be happy?" Lily asked, "I agree."

"No, the fact that you never wanted to be in Slytherin in the first place."

"Wow."

"The whole family is in Slytherin, Lily!" Draco exclaimed but not loud enough for the others to hear, "My parents, your parents."

"Okay, well, maybe not every child needs to follow in their parents footsteps," Lily stated, doing her best to not look at him.

"The family despises the fact that you're in Hufflepuff," he pointed out, "You know I'm right."

Lily paused her polishing and looked directly at him, "Just because you're right doesn't mean I'm wrong."

Without another word, Lily got up from the ground and made her way back over to El and Indiana, continuing her polishing from there. Draco sighed. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, not even to himself, but he missed his cousin.