Turning Tables

Chapter 9 - Mirror

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Glancing at the clock, Lily sighed and then heaved another pile of books out of her trunk and onto the floor of her bedroom. 10 pm, and she'd barely made a dent. She'd arrived home early that morning, but had been so busy catching up with her mum that she hadn't found time to sort her trunk until now. Thanks to the undetectable extension and weightlessness charms that James and Remus had managed to cast on it she'd been able to pack in a fair number of books from the Potter's library, and was only now beginning to realise that there was no way she was going to fit them neatly in her bedroom. It hadn't looked like there'd been that many when she was packing them, why in Godric's name had she brought so many with her?

Damn James Potter that was why. 'What about this one Lil?' 'Hey, this has got disillusionment charms in, you'll need this one!' 'Just take as many as you want Evans.'

'Of course, it would never occur to the rich boy that some of us don't have gigantic family mansions to keep all this stuff in would it? Nooo. Why would it?'

Lily continued to mutter under her breath, leaning so far into her trunk as she desperately reached for things buried at the bottom that she had completely failed to notice her mother watching her progress from the doorframe until she coughed. Lily straightened up so fast she hit her head on the lid of the trunk and would have fallen over if she hadn't already been kneeling on the floor. Her mother raised her eyebrows at the sight of the piles of books surrounding her daughter and picked her way through them until she could sit on the bed.

'So, this James Potter you were staying with...you haven't really mentioned him before.'

Lily had resumed her search in the bottom of her trunk, and was grateful that she wasn't looking at her mother when she spoke. 'Haven't I? Well I don't know him all that well. He's Marly's friend more than mine.'

'Hmm. But he's in your year isn't he? And he's in Gryffindor?'

Lily sighed and straightened up. Evidently there was no way of evading this conversation. She should have known it was too good to be true when her mother hadn't broached the topic during their catch-up earlier. 'Yes, he's a Gryffindor, and we're in the same year, but we don't really know each other well. We've never been friends exactly.'

'Why not? I mean, if he's friends with Marly, surely you all spend time together?'

'Well, sort of...but not really. It's kind of complicated.' Taking a look at her mother's stubborn face – an expression she knew appeared on her own quite regularly – she took a deep breath and prepared for an in-depth mother-daughter conversation. 'James and his friends...well they're kind of the school pranksters, they like to play practical jokes, and I don't usually appreciate their sense of humour. And I'm a prefect too, so I've spent a lot of time shouting at him over the years.'

She sat down on the floor with a thump, giving up the pretence of searching through her trunk. 'And he and Severus hate each other. They're constantly getting at each other, and I kind of had to pick a side. Picked the wrong one as it turns out, but James isn't a grudge holder apparently.' She twined her fingers around each other, a nervous habit she'd never quite been able to break herself of. 'Anyway, none of that stuff matters anymore, we're both over it. We're trying to get along better.'