Chapter Text
The sunshine bled through the cracks of the curtains, creating a line of light directly onto Lily’s face. She could just make out the dust particles floating around the room. Reaching out, she wiggled her fingers, attempting to make the dust scatter.
Her alarm was set to go off in about 30 minutes, she just happened to wake up before it. That was happening a lot more lately. March had just begun, and they were far enough away from winter break that they had started to get more serious work, but they were far enough away from the end of the year that they didn’t have to cram for NEWTs. However, that did not spare Lily from any stress. Studying and head girl duties took up practically all of her schedule.
Sighing, Lily threw the covers back and stretched her arms up, touching the top of her canopy. She gave her neck a few cracks and pushed herself up. Might as well get her morning started early if she was already awake. She shuffled over to the bathroom, making sure to not wake up the other girls, quickly used the toilet, and then hopped in the shower. With the water on the hottest setting, Lily let the water fall onto her face and into her hair, turning her hair from ginger to a dark red. She took her time in the shower, slowly soaping up her body and putting shampoo in her hair, relishing in the hot water that flowed down her hair and back when she rinsed it off.
Once she finally turned off the water, which mind you was a struggle, Lily wrapped her hair and body in their respective towels. The hot water created a thin film of fog on the mirror. She wiped it off and started to put her moisturizer on, Mary had gifted it to her for her birthday this year. With a quick pat to her face, Lily stealthily exited the very warm bathroom to grab her school robes and dashed back.
Finally clothed and her hair up into a ponytail, after a drying charm of course, Lily left the bathroom and checked the time. 1 minute before her alarm goes off. For the second time today, Lily dashed across the carpet, turning her alarm off right before it was set to go off.
“Will you stop making so much bloody noise?”
Lily winced. “Sorry Marlene.”
“S’alright,” Marlene rolled around on her bed before propping herself up on her elbows. She squinted at the alarm clock and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”
“It’s seven”
“Breakfast doesn’t even start ‘till 7:30, for Merlin's sake,” she groaned, sinking back into her bed and covering her face with the covers.
Lily rolled her eyes, grabbed her wand from the nightstand, and walked toward the door, hanging in the doorway for a second.
“Make sure you wake up Mary.”
“Do I have to?” Marlene whined, finally getting up from her bed.
Mary is known to not take well to anyone waking her up. She and Sirius are the same in this way. They both are absolute arseholes in the morning, hitting anyone that came to wake them up. However, Mary was a lot worse when you didn’t wake her up. The last time Marlene and Lily forgot to wake her up she locked them out of the dorm for the whole day. Nothing had worked to unlock the door and they had to beg her to let them back in.
“Need I remind you why?” Lily deadpanned.
“Yeah Yeah,” Marlene yawned. The girl finally seemed to be fully awake, taking a glance at Lily. She raised her eyebrows and tapped right above her breast. Lily glanced down at herself and realized what Marlene was trying to say.
“Ah. Thanks, Marls.”
Lily walked back to the nightstand and picked up her silver, well technically tin for Remus’ sake, head girl badge and clipped it onto her robes.
“See you two at breakfast?” Lily asked, heading back to the door.
Marlene took a look at Mary and grimaced, then nodded her head. Lily took this as her cue to leave, very quietly closing the door behind her. She would not be the one to bite the bullet of waking Mary this morning, that was only her problem during the week.
The common room was quiet and empty, except for the two boys cozied up on one of the sofas. Remus was sitting up with a sleeping Sirius in his lap, one hand sifting through the boy's curls and the other holding up a book. Remus lifted his hand and waved at her, a small smile tugging at his lips. Sirius grunted, lifting his hand to tug Remus’ hand back down. Remus rolled his eyes but complied without complaint.
Lily held back her giggle, not wanting to fully wake Sirius, she refused to be assaulted this early in the morning. She gave Remus a quick wave and walked out of the portrait hole, into the quiet halls. Not many people were up this early on the weekends, even the 7th years usually slept in. Lily, however, did not have this luxury. Her weekends were spent studying and only studying. She had decided to take 5 subjects to NEWT level, including Alchemy and Arithmancy. The amount of homework she got was horrendous.
Lily slowly walked the halls, hearing the rhythmic click of her boots as she made her way to breakfast. Seeing as there were no other students in the hallway, Lily’s journey to the great hall was short and sweet. She went to her usual spot at the Gryffindor table and sat down.
As Marlene had mentioned, breakfast was not due for about 25 more minutes, however, the house elves knew Lily and a few other students were prone to getting up early, so there was already food on a few of the plates. The other students in the hall - which included 1 Slytherin, 1 Ravenclaw, and 3 Gryffindors - were already digging into the food, piling large servings onto their plates to get as much as possible before more people showed up.
Lily grabbed a piece of toast and buttered it up, spreading a bit of marmalade on top. She took a bite of the toast and started to go through the list of things she has to do today. There was a potions essay, alchemy homework, arithmancy homework, and a DADA essay. Along with that, she had head girl rounds tonight, with who she had no idea, which meant it was a random 5th or 6th year. This might sound like a lot, technically it is, but it was just a typical day for Lily. Actually, she could confidently say that it was an easier day since she had finished some of her homework yesterday so there was less to do today.
Right as she finished her piece of toast and list, Marlene and Mary sauntered into the great hall and took their seats beside her. Mary looked to be in a somewhat good mood. The two girls grabbed their servings and immediately dug in. Lily gave them time to eat before talking to them, she would not be performing the Heimlich on one of her friends again.
“You two want to come with me to study in the library after breakfast?” She asked, reaching across to grab a breakfast sausage off the mountain that was still on the plate.
“I will, got care of magical creatures work,” Marlene said, biting off a chunk from her sausage link.
“Do you ever take a break Lils?” Mary asked, clearly stunned that Lily was going to spend another Saturday holed up in the library.
“I do. I just can’t today. You coming or not?”
Mary sighed and took a bite of her toast. “Guess so. That potions essay won’t write itself. Unless -”
“I’ll stop you right there Macdonald.”
“Right.”
The three girls finished up their food and headed out of the great hall, making their way to Gryffindor Tower to pick up books, parchment, and other things they would need for their long day in the library. Lily grabbed her tote bag, which she had cleverly packed last night, that was lying against her bed and waited by the door for the other two girls to gather up their stuff. If there was one thing Lily Evans was, it was organized. With books in hand and bags on their shoulders, the girls started their long, okay it wasn’t that long, trek to the library. Before they had left the common room, Lily had asked Remus if he wanted to join them. He and Sirius were no longer snuggled up on the couch, but frantically stumbling around the common room obviously looking for something. He gave her a quick no and told her that he would study with her tomorrow.
The girls entered the library and quickly went to their usual spot, which was a round table near the back of the library, out of sight of Ms.Pince’s desk. Ms.Pince liked Lily but had a strong and open dislike toward most of her friends, excluding Remus of course. So, Lily had claimed the back table as her own, where her friends could study with her in peace. Lily pulled out a roll of parchment and started on her potions essay, Mary following suit. The two girls worked in tandem, answering each other's questions and explaining concepts the other didn’t understand. Mary may have complained a lot about homework, but once she actually started it she would stay focused and was super helpful. All 3 of them worked efficiently for an hour before they were interrupted.
Now, today was supposed to be a regular day. A perfectly normal day in March. It was not supposed to be the day Lily’s life changed. Lily was supposed to just do homework like every other day and not be interrupted. She was Head Girl for Merlin’s sake.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lily could see a girl making her way to the back of the library. She assumed the girl was just coming to the back shelves to grab a book or to talk to the people a few tables over. Oh, Merlin was she wrong.
The girl skipped up to their table and tucked her hair behind one of her ears. Mary glanced up and a confused expression flashed across her face.
“Pandora? What are you doing here?”
Pandora. What a pretty name. Absolutely perfect for the person it belonged to. The girl had long platinum blonde hair that flowed down her back and the most beautiful blue eyes Lily had ever seen. She had thin bangles and rings littering her wrists and hands, shining every once in a while when the sun hit them just right. Lily wanted to reach out and touch them, running her fingers along the rings that fit so perfectly on the girl's slender fingers.
“Oh, Mary! Nice to see you. Is Remus here?” Pandora smiled.
“Ah. No, he’s caught up with something in the common room.”
“Oh. Alright then. See you in Divination,” the girl gave a quick wave, which made the most amazing sound as her bracelets clanged against each other, and turned on the spot.
“Wait,” Lily said before she could stop herself. Merlin save her.
Pandora turned back around, a quizzical look on her face.
“What is it you needed? We might be able to help you,” she forced out.
Pandora looked her up and down, then took the spot next to Lily and placed a piece of parchment on the table.
“I found this piece of parchment a few days ago. I was saving it for the next time I needed to do homework,” Pandora carefully unrolled the parchment and splayed it out, “This morning I tried to write on it, but the ink immediately disappeared. I was going to see if Remus knew what was wrong. He is very smart.”
Lily nodded her head, a little dumbfounded. She was just interrupted over a piece of blank parchment. The worst part is, she wasn’t even that upset about it. Lily reached over and pulled the parchment in front of her. She took her wand out of her pocket and hovered it over the parchment.
“ Revelio ,” Lily swished her wand and tapped the parchment. Ink slowly started to appear on the parchment and Lily pulled it close to read.
Mr.Prongs asks Lily to return the parchment to one James Potter
Mr.Moony would like to know how Lily came into possession of this parchment
Mr.Padfoot thinks Lily should stop being nosy and stop trying to get into the parchment
Mr.Wormtail agrees with Mr.Padfoot
Lily stared at the writing on the parchment.
“Well, what’s it say then?” Marlene piped up, her own parchment pushed off to the side, forgotten. Mary was looking at Lily too, arching an eyebrow.
“Well, it says Mr.Prongs -”
“Prongs? As in the ridiculous nickname the boys use for James?” Marlene interrupted.
And then it clicked. Prongs, Moony, Padfoot, and Wormtail. Lily had heard all of those utterly ridiculous nicknames before. In fact, she heard them practically every day. She heard them in the great hall during meals, whispered in the back of classrooms, and chanted in the common room during after-parties.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, her face falling slack.
The two girls immediately caught on.
“No fucking way!” Mary squealed. Marlene had a smile growing on her face. Pandora, however, looked extremely confused, looking from one girl to the other.
“What is it?” Pandora asked, the confusion showing on her face transferring to her voice.
“Whatever this parchment is, It belongs to the boys. James, Remus, Sirius, and Peter,” Lily explained.
Marlene started to bounce in her seat, reaching over to shake Mary’s shoulders in excitement.
“Shouldn’t we return it to them then?” Pandora asked, sounding even more confused.
“Absolutely not!” Marlene chirped. She reached over and snatched up the parchment, dangling it in the air. “We have to find out what’s on it first.”