Chapter Four
Lily collapsed in one of the armchairs by the roaring fire, almost completely engulfed by the squishy red cushions. Leaning forwards she spread her work out, covering the table in textbooks and parchment as she began to do her homework, not wanting to leave it until later. Outside, the sun shone weakly from behind the intermittent grey clouds, the grounds already preparing themselves for the cold winter which was to come.
"Lily!" cried a voice behind her. "What a surprise to see you here!"
Lily smiled as she ignored her, continuing with her essay until she felt Cassie's hands on her shoulders. "I was working Cassie," she replied as her friend pouted.
"You're always working Lily," she complained jokingly, "and you've been working since our lessons finished! It's time to take a break." Lily looked at her Charms essay before pushing it slightly aside, leaning her head to one side in indication that she was listening to her. "What happened?" she asked.
"What do you mean, 'what happened'?" Cassie asked.
"You look like you have something to tell me," Lily said, dipping her quill in her inkpot and writing another sentence.
"Okay so you'll never believe what happened! Basically I was walking back from Ancient Runes and Lupin started talking to me!"
"Remus Lupin?" Lily mumbled questioningly as she nibbled at the end of her quill.
"Yeah, Potter and Black's friend! Anyway, it turns out that he's actually quite nice but this random girl kept glaring at me and I had no idea why until that blonde in Hufflepuff, you know, the one with the short hair-"
"Rebecca something, I think her name is, isn't it?"
"I think so," Cassie agreed, "until she told me that this girl thought we were together or something! Which is ridiculous because I would never, ever go out with a friend of Potter's," Cassie finished.
"Oh dear, perhaps you're next in line to become 'Most Hated Girl at School,'" Lily teased.
"Why?"
"Well think about it, much as I hate it, Potter and his friends are the most popular people in school and practically every girl here would give her wand arm to go out with him or Black, but neither of them have ever gone out with any girl here-"
"Which is strange in itself, if you ask me," Cassie interrupted, shooting a surreptitious glance over to where the boys in question sat, Potter polishing his broom and Black lazily flicking his wand at something. "I mean, you'd think that, what with the number of pathetic girls who are so desperate to fawn over them, they'd have at the least taken advantage of it. Not that I want them to, of course," Cassie exclaimed in answer to Lily's shocked look her way, "but they're popular boys..."
"Yeah, popular boys," Lily said, wrinkling her nose in disgust, "and being popular has only made them more unpleasant. Anyway, what I was saying was that everyone is desperate to be friends with them and if people think that you're going out with Remus-"
"Which I most definitely am not!" Cassie interjected vehemently.
"Then all the girls here will be jealous. He's a catch just because he's friends with those two miscreants over there," Lily finished as she turned back to her essay, the pair of them completely oblivious to the covert glance that Potter sent her way, admiring the way the firelight trailed its flaming fingers along the dangling strands of her hair.
"She's fantastic," he breathed to Sirius, who just looked up at his friend, followed the direction of James' stare and sighed, shaking his head so that a couple of curls collided and fell in front of his forehead before raking his hand through his hair to push it back. He was preoccupied, first with the game of wizard's chess that he was playing against Moony, and second with despairing of his friend, completely oblivious to the greedy gazes of the girls who were eyeing him up as if he were edible; their stares were not restricted to Sirius, but James too was preoccupied, polishing his broom with even more care than he paid to his appearance, each stroke of the handle a soft caress of the shining wood.
"How is it, being back with the Marauders?" Cassie asked, her fingers forming sarcastic quotation marks as she called the group by the name which they had bestowed upon themselves.
"It's fine really," Lily replied as she flicked through her textbook, "apart from the incident on the train with Potter they haven't bothered me so far and I haven't seen them attack Sev. Maybe they grew up over the summer."
"I don't know, that seems like a lot to hope for," Cassie grinned.
"Besides, in a lot of ways it's better than being at home with Petunia," Lily admitted. "At least here I have hundreds of other things to do whereas at home it's obvious that Petunia is avoiding me and every time she sees me she just glares."
"Lily," Cassie soothed as she folded her friend into a hug, holding her against her. "She'll get over it Lily, she's just jealous of you."
"I don't want her to be jealous of me; I just want her to be my sister, to act like she used to before I left for Hogwarts!" Lily mumbled.
"She's eighteen Lily! She needs to be more mature and grow up. It's ridiculous of her to hold something which you have no power over against you, especially when it's her own prejudice and jealousy which is making you act like this," Cassie said passionately.
"I just miss her Cass."
"Cheer up Lil," Cassie said, pulling her upright and smiling at her, "you've got a lot of work to do before your O.W.L.s."
"Oh that reminds me," Lily said, wiping her face to get rid of any trace of a stray tear she might not have realised that she let fall, a weak smile appearing on her face as she tried to look happy for Cassie, "there's a Slug Club meeting at the end of next week. There's no point me even asking if you'll come is there?"
Cassie grimaced as the memory of her first (and only) Slug Club meeting rose in her mind: the insipid chatter, Slughorn's constant name dropping and attempted preening and his shameless attempts to ingratiate himself with pupils. "No, I don't think there is, sorry Lily. Why do you even go anyway?"
"He's a nice teacher and I just feel a bit bad for him," Lily said, "plus it's nice that he thinks I'm going places. Also I feel horrible saying that I can't go if I can and it's not very often."
"Well you are a far better person than I, Miss Evans," Cassie laughed.
"Oh well we all knew that already, didn't we?" she replied, a humorous light shining in her eyes as she smirked slyly, completely unprepared for the cushion with which Cassie hit her over the head. "Cassie! You're a fifth year! You're supposed to be mature now!" Lily gasped, shock blossoming on her face while the peals of her laughter rippled throughout the room; grabbing another cushion she smacked Cassie across the face with it as the other Gryffindors who were gathered in the common room looked on, some laughing and some wondering what their fifth years were doing.
"Lily Evans you are a fine one to talk," Cassie replied, "you're a Prefect; you're supposed to be responsible!"
"Do you think we should stop them?" Sirius muttered to James as they watched the friends hitting each other over and over again with cushions.
"I don't know; I mean I am enjoying the action but..."
"You disgust me Prongs," Sirius laughed as Cassie and Lily collapsed side by side, cushions abandoned at their sides.
"All right everyone, there's nothing to see here!" James called, shooing the interested eyes away and sending them back to their work before heading over to the notice board and pinning up a sheet of parchment with a doodle of a boy on a broom and a roaring lion, both enchanted to move, on which was the sign up sheet for Quidditch team tryouts.
The next day Lily noticed it as she was walking past it and resolved to make Cassie try out; she was a fantastic flier but was convinced that she wasn't good enough, a problem Lily had been trying to cure her best friend of almost since she met her. Luckily for Lily Cassie noticed the sign herself and, with some cajoling from Alice and Mary as well as Lily forcibly signing her up by writing her name down, Cassie was convinced to try out.
The next morning was the beginning of their first weekend of the year and Gryffindor Quidditch trials were scheduled to begin at noon; the four girls slept in and headed down to breakfast at around eleven, heading downstairs against the oncoming flow of students. "Oh dear it looks like we're a little late," Lily muttered lightly to Alice as people streamed past them.
Once breakfast was over Lily forced Cassie upstairs as they followed behind her slowly, finding her ready moments after they entered the common room. "Well that's a first," Mary teased.
"Yeah are you sure you feel okay Cass?" Lily asked, feigning concern. "You've never been ready on time before."
"You guys are so funny and caring; it really warms my heart," Cassie said as she flounced out of the portrait hole and headed down the many flights of stairs, broom in one hand and cloak flapping behind her.
The sun shone down half heartedly as they walked across the grounds and headed towards the Quidditch pitch, the cool breeze blowing their hair away one minute and tugging at it the next; Lily felt a cold shiver run down her spine and was glad that she had put a thick jumper on – winter was already setting in and it was only the first week of September. 'Still, I suppose that's what you get when you come this far north,' Lily thought wryly to herself as they hurried away from the castle, the calls of the students who were inside becoming fainter and fainter before being replaced by those of the many Gryffindors who were out to support their friends and potential Quidditch team.
"Evans!" cried a masculine voice as they arrived by the stands.
"I had completely forgotten about him," Lily hissed to Mary and Alice as Cassie peeled away from their group with a failing smile and a nervous wave.
"I didn't know you liked Quidditch," Potter said as he walked over to their group.
"There's a lot that you don't know about me Potter," Lily said coldly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"And that's a pity," he replied; though his tone of voice sounded mocking Lily was unable to work out why.
"Don't you have somewhere to be? Something to do?" Lily asked pointedly as she looked at the hopefuls who were eagerly watching their conversation.
"And what would that be?" he asked with a lazy grin as he ruffled his hair up.
"Quidditch trials perhaps," she replied, resisting the urge to roll her eyes and push him away. "It is why we're here after all."
"But why would I want to leave and start the trials when it would only stop us from talking together and deprive you of the joy of talking to me?" he enquired with what was obviously supposed to be a charming smile and a wink.
"I don't want to talk to you Potter. Go and begin the trials; we're just here to watch Cassie play."
"If you insist," he said, looking at his watch and glancing around, working out if anyone else was going to arrive. "Goodbye Evans, I'll see you later," he called as he sauntered off, ruffling his hair as he went and shooting her another wink over his shoulder.
Cassie performed brilliantly and it was obvious that she would make the team in her first few minutes of flying but Lily was too angry to notice, her thoughts occupied by Potter's annoying words flitting around in her head persistently. "God I ha-dislike that boy," she muttered to herself as Cassie scored yet another goal. After a while it was obvious that she and another younger boy outclassed everyone else there so, calling them down, James announced his choice of Chasers: Cassie and Tom to form a trio with him. As soon as Potter's decision was announced the three girls surged forward to congratulate Cassie, engulfing her in hugs and nearly crushing her underneath them.
"Well done!" Lily said beaming.
"You flew so well Cass; you and Tom were brilliant!"
"Thanks," she said with a grin. "I can't believe I'm on the team!"
"I knew you should have tried out earlier!" Lily grinned as they went to sit in the stands and watch the final few trials.
Hi everyone! I just realised that I forgot to do the usual disclaimery thing... Obviously everything here belongs to J.K. Rowling, the goddess of literature and the queen of my childhood apart from Cassie who is mine. Plagiarism will be punished with death. (Well not so much death as I'll push you in front of You-Know-Who and tell him that you're Harry Potter).
Anyway, hope life is good for all of you and that you like this next chapter :D You know the drill... I love votes, comments and love! :)