‘Lily! Wake up!’
Lily groaned and pulled her blanket over her head. It was too early for this.
‘Lily! It’s ten to eight!’
Okay, maybe it wasn’t. Lily opened her eyes to Madeleine’s anxious face. Yawning, she sat up and swung her legs out of bed. It was cold. Maybe she could have a few more minutes –
‘Come on!’
Maddi seized her arm and yanked her out of the bed, and they both tumbled onto the ground. Lily glared at her best friend.
‘I was up!’
Being hauled out of bed at eight in the morning was not Lily’s idea of a good start to the day, let alone the day she had to go back to Hogwarts. But it had the desired effect. Within ten minutes Lily was dressed and dashing around Madeleine’s room looking for her Hogwarts things.
It was their ritual every September. No matter how early they set their alarms, Madeleine and Lily would always sleep through them and as a result, almost miss the train.
‘Girls!’ Chloe called up the stairs. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’
‘No!’ Maddi yelled back, looking under her bed for a misplaced set of robes. Lily’s eyes lit up and she headed for the door. Packing made her hungry, and she couldn’t go to school without some of the famous Collins pancakes, could she?
‘You haven’t finished packing yet,’ Maddi said, removing her head from under the bed, a pair of dusty robes in her hand. Lily shrugged, and Maddi sat there for a moment, torn between packing and pancakes. Eventually the latter won and she dashed down the stairs to join her mum and best friend.
After a fulfilling breakfast, the two girls returned to their remaining packing, which was done rather hurriedly. At a quarter past eight, Mr. and Mrs. Evans arrived, ready to take Madeleine and Lily to Kings Cross. Chloe had to work, and in any case, she didn’t have a car to take them in.
By the time Maddi and Lily were ready, they were running late. Mr. Evans piled their trunks in the boot of the car, and then they started the painstakingly slow trip to Kings Cross amongst all the traffic.
Despite everything, they got to the train station at a quarter to nine, which was rather early by Maddi and Lily’s standards. With a quick goodbye to the Evans, the girls took the barrier at a run and emerged on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters giggling like mad.
The platform was crowded with students and their families like usual, and Lily looked around eagerly for people she knew. Mary MacDonald, who shared her dormitory, waved to them from where she was standing with her parents. Lily and Maddi waved back, and then the former tugged on her friend’s sleeve.
‘Come on,’ Lily said. ‘We need to find a compartment.’
They dragged their trunks through the crowds and onto the train, where they walked along looking for someone to sit with. Eventually they found a spare compartment halfway down the train, and they stowed their luggage away, before collapsing onto the seat, panting from the effort.
‘I have to go to the Prefect’s meeting,’ Lily remembered, looking at Maddi apologetically. ‘We should’ve found someone for you to sit with –’
‘It’s okay, I’ve got Delilah,’ Maddi said, poking her fingers through the bars of her owl’s cage. Delilah nibbled them affectionately. Lily bit her lip, not wanting to leave her friend alone. Then Mary McDonald walked past their compartment, and Lily called out to her.
‘Come sit with us, Mary!’
The girl turned back and dragged her trunk into the compartment.
‘Thanks!’ she said, looking relieved. ‘I thought I would never find anywhere to sit!’
Mary McDonald was a very studious, quiet girl. She didn’t have too many friends, which was why Lily often took pity on her. Mary was nice, and genuinely sweet, but sometimes she was just too much so.
‘Well, I need to go,’ Lily said, ignoring Madeleine, who was shaking her head behind Mary’s back. Maddi got sick of her very easily, but Lily was sure she’d rather be with Mary than all alone.
‘See you later!’ Mary said brightly.
‘Bye,’ Maddi said, slumping down in her seat and plastering on a fake smile for Mary’s benefit when she started asking about her holidays.
Lily hid a smile and exited into the corridor as the train began to leave King’s Cross. As she made her way towards the Prefect’s compartment, the crowds in the corridor slowly lessened.
‘Lily!’ a voice called. She turned, and grinned as she saw Remus Lupin walking towards her. He was the other Gryffindor Prefect, and they had gotten to know each other well over the past year.
‘How are you?’ he asked upon reaching her. Remus had grown a lot taller over the summer, and now Lily only just reached his chin in height.
‘Great!’ she said. ‘I stayed with Maddi for the past week, so that was fun. I had another fight with Petunia though.’ Lily grimaced at the memory.
Remus smiled sympathetically. He knew all about her relationship with her sister. He didn’t know that Petunia hated her because she was jealous, but then again, the only person apart from Lily who knew that was Severus.
‘So did you do anything interesting in the holidays?’ Lily asked, smiling again.
‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘Peter and I did stay with James and Sirius for a week – did you know that Sirius moved in with James? He’s finally had enough of his family.’
‘Good for him,’ Lily said. She had heard enough about the Blacks to realise what they were like. Needless to say, they were not people she would like to meet.
They had reached the Prefect’s compartment by now, and Remus and Lily went in, saying hello to the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Prefects. They ignored the two Slytherins, one of whom just happened to be Severus.
‘Now that we’re all here,’ said the Head Boy, Frank Longbottom, ‘we can get started.’
He winked at Lily and Remus, who smiled back. Frank was a Gryffindor seventh-year, and Lily was pleased to see that he had the position of Head Boy. He would have been her first choice for the position. Frank was a true Gryffindor, and he was pretty popular with people from the other Hogwarts houses too, with the exception of Slytherin.
The Prefects meeting just involved the Head Boy and Girl (a Hufflepuff called Amelia Bones) reminding them all of their duties, and giving them the new passwords. All the same, it took a long time to go through everything, and Lily was bored after ten minutes.
Eventually it finished, and Remus and Lily left the compartment together to return to their friends.
‘At least we’ll never have to sit through that again,’ Lily said, rubbing her hands over her face and trying to wake herself up again.
‘Unless you become Head Girl next year,’ Remus said, smiling. Lily laughed.
‘If I’m made Head Girl, you’ll be Head Boy, Remus,’ she said. Remus’s smile disappeared and he shook his head.
‘I wouldn’t want it,’ he said, looking serious all of a sudden.
‘Why not?’ Lily asked, but then someone bursting out of the compartment in front of them proved as a big distraction.
Sirius Black did not look happy with his new lodgings, and without even noticing Remus or Lily, he banged on the closed compartment door angrily.
‘Prongs! Wormtail! Let me back in!’
‘Hello, Sirius,’ Remus said. The dark-haired boy spun around and pulled Remus towards him.
‘Remus! I haven’t seen you since – since –’
‘An hour ago?’ Remus supplied. Sirius shrugged.
‘It felt like longer. PRONGS! LET ME IN! I’M HOLDING MOONY HOSTAGE!’
‘Well … see you later, Remus,’ Lily said uncertainly to the Prefect, who was now being held in a headlock by Sirius. Both boys turned around.
‘Oh, hi Evans,’ Sirius said, noticing her for the first time.
‘Hello, Black,’ Lily said with a tight smile. She wasn’t altogether fond of him. Yet her feelings for him were nothing compared to her feelings for the messy-haired boy who burst out of compartment upon hearing her name.
Lily had loathed James Potter from the minute she met him on the train in their first-year. He had been a horrible, bullying toerag then, and he hadn’t changed much in the past five years. And then there was the added annoyance that James was in love with her, and asked her out at pretty much every opportunity he got.
‘Evans!’ James cried, running a hand through his hair. ‘How are you? Do you want to come into our compart –’
‘Goodbye, Remus!’ Lily said pleasantly, pushing past James and continuing down the corridor to where she had left Madeleine and Mary.
Three other people had joined them, so now all the Gryffindor sixth-year girls were in there. Alice Mitchell, Frank Longbottom’s girlfriend, who was excellent at Herbology and wanted to be an Auror; Carrie Roberts; who was the Keeper on Gryffindor Quidditch team; and Sophia Daniels, who was a very pretty blonde girl with a brain the size of pea.
‘Hi, Lily!’ Mary said with a sweet smile. ‘We saved some food for you … look …’
‘Thanks,’ Lily said, collapsing in the seat next to Carrie and taking a pumpkin pasty from her. The conversation started up again as Lily ate.
‘So do you know who the new Quidditch Captain is?’ Lily asked Carrie.
Carrie was tall and lanky, which suited her well for being a Keeper. She lived and breathed Quidditch, but the other girls in her dormitory had little interest in the sport. Sure, they would watch it to support Gryffindor, but it didn’t fascinate them like it did Carrie.
‘James Potter,’ Carrie replied, biting into a Chocolate Frog. Lily groaned.
‘He just tried to accost me in the corridor,’ she said. ‘He’s such a pain. But he is good at Quidditch, I suppose.’
‘Good? He’s great!’ Carrie said. ‘He’ll make an excellent captain. I just hope he chooses a good team …’
Lily had tuned out by now, and she turned instead to Alice, who was waiting patiently to ask her a question.
‘So, do you think Frank will make a good Head Boy?’ she asked, pushing her long wavy hair away from her face.
‘The best,’ Lily said. Alice beamed with pleasure. She adored Frank, and he adored her. They had only been dating a year, but Lily wouldn’t be surprised if they announced their engagement.
After a while of making conversation with her classmates, Lily glanced out the window to see the darkening sky and the bare countryside.
‘Maybe we should get our robes on,’ Lily said to the group. There was a murmur of agreement, and they spent ten minutes getting dressed in their Hogwarts robes. Just in time, too, because the train started to slow not long after.
They exited the train not long after, Madeleine clutching Delilah. When they got onto the station at Hogsmeade Lily and Maddi got separated from the other girls.
‘At least I don’t have to listen to Mary anymore,’ Maddi said as they were shunted along by the masses of students. Lily frowned. She didn’t particularly like Mary either, but sometimes Maddi was just a bit too mean towards her.
Thankfully, Mary didn’t get into the same horseless carriage as them, and they were joined instead by Alice and Sophia, and the latter started prattling on about her new hairstyle. Personally, Lily much preferred Mary to Sophia, because at least Mary had some brains.
They didn’t have to endure Sophia for long though, because soon they arrived at the castle. When Lily got out of the carriage, she gazed in wonder up at her home. Even after six years, she still felt the excitement she felt with her first glimpse of the castle at eleven years old. Somehow it managed to calm her.
‘Come on, Lily!’ Madeleine said, pulling on her arm so they could go inside. Lily tore her gaze away from Gryffindor Tower, where she would be residing later that night, and followed her friend into the Entrance Hall, where from there they were shown into the Great Hall.
Lily looked around smiling as she made her way towards Gryffindor table. It was so good to be back. She sat down alongside Maddi, and much to her displeasure, Sophia sat on Lily’s other side.
‘I hope the Sorting doesn’t take long,’ Maddi said. ‘I’m hungry.’
Sophia looked around Lily at Maddi.
‘I’m on a new diet,’ she said. ‘I can’t eat carbs or anything with too much protein, which includes …’
Lily rolled her eyes and looked up to the staff table where Filch was putting out the Sorting Hat. A minute later, the door banged open and Professor McGonagall came in, herding a group of first-years.
Everyone fell silent as they were ushered towards the Sorting Hat. After instructing the first-years on what to do, Professor McGonagall pulled out her list and cleared her throat.
‘Adams, Claudia.’
A tiny girl with mousy-brown hair stumbled forward and put the hat on. It took barely ten seconds before the hat opened its brim and announced her house.
‘RAVENCLAW!’
The Ravenclaws all cheered excitedly as the girl took the Sorting Hat off and ran over to them, looking relieved.
‘Bertrand, Thomas.’
‘SLYTHERIN!’
The Sorting continued for another half hour. It was starting to get a bit boring, since it was Lily’s fifth one to watch. But it was unavoidable, so she sat through it until Professor McGonagall rolled up her list and the feast began.
Chatter resumed throughout the hall, and Madeleine and Lily talked happily about what people had done since they had seen them at the end of last term. New haircuts, new boyfriends and – Lily shuddered to think of it – less relatives. You-Know-Who didn’t go on holiday like they did.
She was horrified to learn that Carrie’s twin sister (a Hufflepuff) had almost been killed by Death Eaters when she was out with her boyfriend during the summer. They had been having lunch in a Muggle restaurant when the Death Eaters showed up, ready to engage in their favourite sport – Muggle killing.
‘But Lola’s okay?’ Lily asked worriedly. She had met Carrie’s sister on several occasions. ‘And her boyfriend?’
‘Her boyfriend, Jesse, was stunned almost as soon as the Death Eaters arrived,’ Carrie said grimly. ‘Lola had to practically drag him out of there.’
‘Why didn’t they stay and fight?’ Madeleine asked, frowning. Carrie gave her a sad smile.
‘Maddi, Jesse was in no condition to fight. It was all Lola could do to get him out of there. And if she had fought, she would have been killed instantly. Or if she hurt one of the Death Eaters, she would definitely be killed, and then they would have gone after our family.’
‘I suppose … what a horrible thing to happen,’ Maddi said, shuddering. Lily nodded fervently, and pushed away her plate of tiramisu. She wasn’t hungry anymore, but a few minutes later the plates cleared themselves and Professor Dumbledore stood up.
‘Welcome and welcome back to all students,’ he said, smiling around the hall. ‘I trust you have all had a pleasant holiday, and are ready to begin the new term. But first, I have a few announcements to make.’
‘I would like to remind you all of the rules here at Hogwarts, including especially regarding prohibited items and the Forbidden Forest.’ Lily noticed how he looked towards the Marauders as he said this, and Sirius and James smirked at each other. ‘The list of banned items can be found in Mr. Filch’s office, and remember, the forest is out of bounds.’
Madeleine leaned over to Lily as Dumbledore moved on to Quidditch tryouts.
‘Do you think Filch will let me keep the love potion I bought?’ she asked devilishly. Lily turned and stared at her friend.
‘Madeleine Collins, why on earth did you bring a love potion to school?’ she demanded. Maddi laughed at the look on her face.
‘To slip some into your and Potter’s drinks, of course.’
Lily opened her mouth to say something, but when no words came out she closed it again. Madeleine laughed even harder, which provoked Lily into speech.
‘Maddi, if you do anything of the sort I swear I will never rest until I kill you,’ she whispered furiously. It was then that Sophia interrupted, and said bossily, ‘shush!’
The two girls returned to listen to their Headmasters speech, Lily red in the face and Madeleine wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
‘I want you all to listen to what I have to say next, because it is of utmost importance.’ Dumbledore paused to look around the hall gravely, and everyone sat up to attention. ‘As you very well know, Lord Voldemort is continually growing stronger.’
There was the usual sharp intake of breath at hearing the name.
‘Now more than ever, we need to be there for each other. Several of our students had close encounters with Death Eaters over the summer, which just goes to show that nobody is safe. One person alone is not much of a threat. We all need to come together to have any hope of defeating him.’
After Dumbledore finished, a hushed silence fell over the hall. It dragged on for a few seconds, everyone deep in their own thoughts, until the Headmaster spoke again.
‘Now you should all be in bed if you want to be rested for lessons tomorrow. Off you go!’
He clapped his hands, and there was the usual scraping of seats and loud babble as the students all tried to get to the door at once. Lily was too tired to talk to anyone, and it was a relief when she finally got up to Gryffindor tower and collapsed in the familiar four-poster bed.