"I'm so happy you won!" a person said, grabbing Lily into a hug as she exited the locker room.
Lily blinked and stumbled back one step. Once Lily got past the initial surprise of the embrace, she recognized Cassie hugging her, and a smile spread across her face, "They deserved to lose after not giving you a tryout. It serves Finn Wilson right."
"I'll say," Cassie said, pulling away. "I can't wait to see them moping around the common room because they lost to a team that was short a Chaser. You played incredibly!"
Lily shrugged modestly at the mention of her playing; her cheeks burned in a blush.
"You did! Great game, Lil!" Rudy said, giving Lily a quick hug.
"My cousin's a Quidditch star!" Hugo said. Lily walked over to hug him, but he put his hands up in front of his chest defensively. "I don't do hugs, Lil."
"You can't be too cool for a hug, Hugo," Nora said after giving Lily a congratulatory hug. "Give your cousin a hug."
Lily nodded, opening her arms up to him, "You have to give me a hug; the word hug is in your name."
"Yeah, Hugs," Rudy said, looking at Hugo with a daring smirk on his face.
Hugo's face dropped from a smile to a look of sheer horror, "I am not going to let you call me that. My name is Hugo, and only Hugo. That will not be my nickname. I've drawn the line."
"So you get to decide on Rudy's nickname but won't let Rudy give you one?" Lily asked, dropping her arms. "Seems a bit hypocritical if you ask me."
"Now, that is where you're wrong, dear cousin," Hugo said, wagging a finger at Lily as the five friends walked up to the castle. "Rudy is a good nickname. Hugs is just bloody stupid."
"I think Hugs has got a good ring to it," Cassie said mockingly. "What do you think, Lily?"
"I think that it's simply the best nickname ever," Lily said, giving her cousin a tight-lipped smile, challenging her cousin to come up with a witty comeback. "Hugs Weasley. We've got to spread that around."
"Hugs it is," Nora said, nodding her head of blonde hair definitively.
Lily swore she heard Hugo growl under his breath at the confirmation of his nickname. Hugo squared and hunched his shoulders, stalking away in front of the group. Lily and the three other second years laughed as they ran after him, teasing him and calling him "Hugs" all the way up to the castle.
"Would you stop calling me Hugs?" Hugo asked once the group walked through the castle's main doors; he sounded exhausted and a bit irritated. "I promise I'll stop calling you Rudy, Rudolph, if you all stop calling me hugs."
"Contrary to popular belief, I do like the nickname Rudy, so that deal's worthless," Rudy said with a laugh. "Rudolph seems so formal now."
"Good," Lily said, nodding her head at his confession, "because I also like the nickname Rudy and wouldn't be able to stop calling you that."
"I second that!" Cassie said.
"I third that!" Nora said with a fierce nod.
"And I hate you all," Hugo said, grumbling. "Are you actually going to call me Hugs?"
"We'll see where it goes," Rudy said, smirking at him.
Cassie laughed, shaking her head of dreadlocks, "Do you guys want to discuss this over some lunch? Lil, you've got to be hungry after that game!"
"A sandwich does sound good, but I should probably go upstairs and change first," she said, looking down at her Quidditch uniform. "It may not look like it, but I'm pretty sweaty underneath all of this. You guys go get a head start on lunch, and I'll be down once I shower and change. Don't leave without me though!"
"We could wait if you wanted, Lil," Nora said. "Lunch isn't going to go anywhere."
Lily shook her head, not wanting to hold her friends up, "Go ahead and eat; I'll meet you guys down here as soon as I'm done."
Her friends waved as Lily jogged up to Gryffindor Tower alone to take the world's fastest shower and to get into clothes that didn't stick to her skin with sweat.
"Lily!" a voice called up to her as she took the stairs two at a time.
Lily turned around to see Olivia Smith rushing up to her, her long, blonde hair swishing back and forth as she ran to catch up with her.
It took all of Lily's will-power to keep a look of disgust off of her face or to not turn the opposite way and sprint away. Even before the incident in the Forbidden Forest the previous school year, Lily was never a fan of Olivia Smith. Lily hated Olivia and James's relationship. Something just seemed off.
"Hi, Olivia," Lily said, forcing a smile onto her face; she hoped it looked warm and genuine. "What's up?"
"I just wanted to say congratulations on your first Quidditch game," she said, her voice bubbly and her smile beaming. "Your technique on those goals was remarkable! Quidditch really runs in your blood, doesn't it?"
"I suppose it does," Lily said, walking alongside Olivia now. "My mum played it professionally, and my dad and his dad weren't too bad at it. James and I got the gene for it; I guess Al didn't."
"I'll say that you and James got it; the pair of you were incredible today," Olivia nodded. "So how's your year been? I feel like we haven't talked in forever! Were you at the Quidditch bonfire?"
The pair of them didn't speak because Lily didn't want to talk with her. She saw her at the bonfire but had made sure to avoid her. Thinking of the unpleasant party in the forest, Lily nodded to Olivia, still working on keeping a disgusted look from her features, "I was there."
"Merlin, I didn't see you at the party," Olivia said. "I wanted to talk about your roommates. As a prefect, I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with rooming with the first year girls."
Lily nearly rolled her eyes; it was kind of late for that as it was already November, "It's been alright. We all get along well." Lily thought about excluding Addie from that equation, but she decided against it. She didn't think that was any of Olivia's business.
"Good to know," Olivia said with a nod as the pair reached a landing. "Well, this is where I get off. I'll see you around, Lily."
"See you," Lily said, secretly hoping that she wouldn't see her. Ever again.
Though she wondered why Olivia decided to talk to her, Lily didn't feel like dwelling on it as she didn't like to have Olivia Smith on her mind.
Finally, alone again, Lily continued her walk up to Gryffindor Tower, passing through the portrait hole with the password "Mandrake" and walking up to her dorm room through a desolate common room as everyone was either at lunch or enjoying one of the last decent days of weather before the winter set in.
Lunch and her friends on her mind, Lily took to the showers and changed into jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt at a top speed of ten minutes, tossing her dirty Quidditch gear into a laundry bag. She pulled her short, wet hair into to a dripping ponytail and hopped out of the bedroom door as she pulled on her trainers.
When she got down to the common room, it wasn't empty any longer. Eli, the lone Gryffindor in the room, sat by the blazing fire, staring into the embers.
"Eli?" Lily said timidly, not sure what state her friend would be in after that morning's event. She didn't want to upset him.
He looked up to her, the whites of his eyes pink but his voice calm and steady, "Hey, Lil. How'd the game go?"
"We won," Lily said, sitting beside him in front of the fire. She was a bit confused at him mentioning the game so casually and not speaking on the confrontation with Nicholas from that morning. "Ravenclaw had ninety points, and we won with one-hundred seventy points. I scored twenty points for us."
"That's good," he said, sniffling. "Who played in my place?"
Lily shook her head, still a bit detached from the conversation as something more than Quidditch seemed be bothering Eli, "No one. It was just Annie and me."
"Was she mad?"
"More shocked than anything," Lily answered honestly, looking over to him. "James and Jake had a bit of a confrontation in the locker room before the game."
"My fault," he said, hanging his head and looking at the floor between his legs.
"No," Lily said, shaking her head furiously; she didn't want to upset him over something else that wasn't really his fault. "Jake was complaining about James's captaining, and I told him off. He told me to shut up, and James demanded he apologize. And when he didn't, well..."
"I guess I'm glad I missed those two fighting," Eli said with a sigh. "Anything else?"
"I don't want to talk about Quidditch, Eli," Lily said, looking into his eyes. He was trying to avoid something by bringing up the match, and Lily knew it stemmed back to the incident over breakfast. "What happened this morning? What did Professor McGonagall say when you got to her office?"
"I don't really-"
"Please, tell me, Eli," Lily said, interrupting his defense; she didn't want to hear it. "I'm your friend. I'm here for you. You can't do something like that and then keep the reason from your friends. You have to tell someone."
"It was petty of me, really, but I just couldn't take it any longer," he said, ringing his hands and not looking at Lily. "It was a letter, signed by my entire family, telling me how much of a disappointment I am and that they can't consider me a Harris any longer. They want me to change my last name."
"Eli," Lily said, her voice breaking off in the absolute sadness she felt for her friend, "that's awful. I'm so sorry." Lily couldn't imagine being disowned by her family, and she certainly couldn't imagine her parents and brothers asking her to stop being a Potter. Her heart broke for him.
"I mean," he began, sniffling and tears traveling down his face, "I've known that they've hated me since last school year, but it just hurts to see it in writing, especially them asking me to change my name. I just-"
Lily broke off his words by pulling him into a hug. It was certainly different than the celebratory hugs she had given to the remaining four friends in their group after the game. If anyone needed a hug, Lily knew it was Eli.
They sat there in the empty common room for a few minutes until he pulled away, wiping the tears from his cheeks, "McGonagall told me she didn't want to give me a detention, but she said she had to because she didn't want to have double standards. She only gave me one though, and it's next week with Hagrid."
"At least it's with Hagrid," Lily said, trying to find a silver lining. "Did she understand where you're coming from at least?"
"I think so," Eli said with a nod. "My name's not Eli McGonagall for nothing."
Lily's jaw dropped, "She-"
Eli nodded, smiling now, "It's the only good thing to have come out of today."
"I'll say, Mr. McGonagall," Lily said, beaming at her friend before getting to her feet and extending her hand down to him. "Now, come on, let's go get some lunch before Hugo eats all of the sandwiches and convinces Rudy, Cassie, and Nora not to call him by his new nickname?"
"New nickname?" Eli asked, taking Lily's hand.
"I'll have to introduce you to Hugs Weasley," Lily said, pulling him to his feet.
Eli laughed, "You'll have to explain where that one came from."
"I will on the way to lunch," Lily said, walking to the portrait hole.
"Lil," Eli said. Lily turned around only to be pulled into a hug by her friend, "you're a great friend."
-+-
Woo!! Today's been such a great day for my writing! First, we have this chapter, which I love to bits, because it shows how close the whole group is! Next, if you don't know, I just released another oneshot!! Yay!! It's called "One Week Later", and you should most certainly check it out (along with my other oneshots if you haven't already)! And finally, I'm starting something new (HP-related of course)! It's called "Letters That Need No Postage", and it's really different. You'll have to be on the lookout for that one!
Wow...that was a long author's note, but anyway, thanks for reading! Vote, comment, and share it if you liked it!
-aquaseahorse
Lily Potter and the Companion Stories - "Becoming McGonagall"