Lily Potter and the Shadows' Misfortune

Chapter Twenty

Call her obsessed, but Lily spent the entirety of the next month charting the Sanger twins' late nights and missed meals. She kept a folded piece of parchment in her pillow case and wrote down every date that the twins came into the dorm room after curfew. Though it was sometimes taxing on Lily to stay up later waiting in the silent darkness of the room as Cecily slept, finding out what the twins were up to definitely seemed worth it, and this was a necessary step.

About a month passed, and Lily was certain of a pattern. They came back to the room late every other night and would miss dinner that night and breakfast the next day. It was too regimented to be random chance or a sheer coincidence; Lily was certain of that. Ready to share her findings with her friends, she brought her notes down to dinner one cold December night.

"You've been tracking them?" Hugo asked, raising an eyebrow at the revelation. "That seems like something a stalker would do, Lil."

"You know you want to know what they're doing, Hugo," she said, rolling her eyes at her cousin's comment. "And it's not like I'm stalking them or anything. We just happen to live in the same room, and I take a small note anytime they come in late. It's perfectly normal."

"Yeah. Normal," Eli said with a laugh, taking a sip of water. "What are we going to do with this information?"

"Evening all!" a perky voice said from behind them.

Lily nearly jumped ten feet in the air at the voice, and she dropped her parchment on the ground in the process. Lucky for her, Rudy scooped it up before the person could grab it. Lily's stomach churned when she saw the person behind her: Olivia Smith. Wasn't this girl going to leave Lily alone?

"Hello, Olivia," Lily said, intentionally making her voice sound bored. She had had enough of pretending to like her brother's girlfriend. "What do you want?"

"Nothing," she said with a shrug and a sparkling smile. "I just decided to say a quick hello before I was on my way! Have a nice night everyone."

Olivia wiggled her fingers in a wave before walking out of the Great Hall. Lily turned back to her friends with a snarl on her face, which didn't match her friends' smiles.

"What?" Lily asked.

Hugo laughed, "She's such a nice person. Why don't you like her?"

"You like everyone, Lil," Rudy said.

"Why not her?" Eli finished.

"I don't not like her," Lily began, earning confused looks from her friends. "I hate her. Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. It's unsettling. It really is. I think I might actually have to vomit now."

"You're so strange, Lil," Eli said with a laugh.

"I'm strange?" Lily asked, pointing to herself before leaning toward her friend across the table. "Are you sure you aren't talking about Olivia? She's so peppy that it makes me sick."

"You're so jumpy that it makes me sick," Rudy said, handing over the parchment to Lily. "You have to keep your cool, or else people will think we're up to something."

"You're up to something?" a new vice asked.

Again, Lily jumped, and once she landed, her friends shook their heads at her with smiles on their faces. Turning toward the laughter behind her, Lily wasn't surprised to find Nora and Cassie standing there.

"So you are up to something," Cassie said, sitting in between Lily and Rudy. "We'd like to know."

Nora nodded and sat on Lily's other side, "Gryffindors shouldn't get to have all of the fun. I'd like to get my hands dirty here."