Grey Eyes (A Harry Potter Fanfiction)

2. Small World

"Do you mind if I sit here?" I ask tentatively, peering into a near empty compartment.

The pretty redhead, who occupied half of my future seating place, looks up from what seems to be an advanced spellbook. "Oh, sure," she replies with a smile. "Always nice to have some company."

I hobble over and sit across from her with a grin. Though is it just me, or does my ankle suddenly feel a billion times worse? Nope, must be my imagination. Definitely just imagining it.

"I'm Lily Evans, fifth year." She reaches out her hand.

I raise my hand to shake hers and with that ever so slight movement of my hand (Yeah, my hand. A joint completely unrelated to my leg.), a sharp pain shoots up my leg like someone had hammered a nail into it.

"Cecilia Vance. I'm also a fifth yeaARGHH!" A steady stream of curses pour out of my mouth, though I decide to just end with a very succinct "OW!"

Ye-up, definitely not imagining it.

Lily immediately bends down to look at my ankle in concern. "What's wrong with your leg—whoa!" Her eyes widen in surprised laughter. "Is that your ankle or a grapefruit?"

"Would you believe me if I said grapefruit?" I groan, unable to surpress a laugh myself. "This knobhead of a stationmaster shoved into me earlier on the platform. Evidently harder than I thought."

I didn't notice how bad it was while Sirius was holding me up, but ow. I don't know if I'm supposed to be impressed that Sirius' arm muscles are clearly super strong or appalled that I actually need buggin' medical attention for this. Guess this calls for some bone mending.

"Here, I'll fix this up for you." Before I can make a move for my wand, Lily pulls out her own wand and taps my ankle. "Episkey!"

I move my ankle gingerly and... huh, no pain. And this girl says she's a fifth year?

"How'd you learn to do that?" I say, thoroughly impressed. "That's a healing spell that even N.E.W.T. students have trouble pulling off and you haven't even started O.W.L. lessons yet!"

Lily grins as she stows her wand away in her back pocket. "I'm... well," she says with a tinge of embarrassment, "I'm a bit ahead of my class, I guess."

"Oh yeah, just a bit ahead, Lily. Only a little," I tease.

She rolls her eyes at me and replies, her eyebrow raised. "Like you're one to talk. By the looks of that wand in your hand, you're not that far behind me either."

"Oh this?" I tuck away my wand sheepishly. "Well, I've been home-schooled until now, so I've kind of been learning and my own pace."

Lily's eyes widen in surprise. "Home-schooled?" she repeats. "Blimey, then you must be even farther than me! So, that's why I don't recognize your face."

"Yeah, that'd explain things." I laugh good-heartedly before leaning in closer to her. "But anyway, while we're both stuck here in this compartment for the next couple of hours, fill me in on some details about the whole Hogwarts deal. I don't want to walk in completely clueless."

"Oh, good idea." Lily grins at me. "Right, listen up, important things first. So, there's this thing in our year that..."

We talk like that for probably hours on end. It's incredible how when your chatting with someone you just click with time just passes by without you even noticing. I guess this is what they call 'love at first sight'... only it's not love, er, it's friendship. Or, I mean, I guess that's a kind of love when you think about it—but anyway! All jokes aside, if this is what I've been missing during my home-schooled years, then, dang, I could definitely get used to this.