Seasons' Greetings 2011 ♥ A Gift for starry_laa [1/2]
Title: A Very Potter Christmas
Author: perilousgard
Recipient: starry_laa
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 10, 161
Warnings: None.
Summary: Needing some extra money for the holidays, Lily applies to be a chalet girl for a rich, wizarding family. Of course, that family is none other than James Potter’s.
Author's Note: I am indebted to my awesome friend Terri, who plays the James to my Lily and helped me with a good bit of the ideas for this fic.
I.
Lily’s first glimpse of James Potter’s house, through the somewhat foggy windows of the Knight Bus, brought an immediate smile to her face, despite the emotional turmoil she had dealt with in making the decision to even come in the first place. The house-perhaps small mansion was a better way of putting it-which sat on a stretch of property overlooking the water, was bedecked in fairy lights. They were strung across the roof and wrapped around the two massive columns that supported the front porch, twinkling on and off in the fading twilight. A wreath was hung on every window. As Lily hopped off the bus, she counted them-twelve windows, just on the front of the house. It looked like a place the bloody Prime Minister would live in.
It was picturesque and inviting, but the fact that it was still James Potter’s house made her steps slow as she approached. The letter Mrs. Potter had sent her was very kind, and she had been flattered by it, but it had taken some heavy persuading from Mary for her to send the return owl.
“Think of the concert!” she had said. “If you don’t do this, we won’t have enough money to go!”
That concert-a Fleetwood Mac concert, to be exact-was the reason Lily had decided to work over her Christmas holiday. It was taking place in Ireland, and since neither one of them were of age or had brooms for traveling, they were doing the entire trip the Muggle way. Mary had enough pocket money saved from her summer job to pay for her end, but Lily had spent all hers buying new school supplies at the start of term. A holiday job seemed the easy solution to their problem.
She had found the ad for chalet services in the Daily Prophet just before the start of break. It advertised working for wealthy wizarding families for the duration of the holidays, starting at one hundred Galleons a week. That would give her more than enough money to buy the tickets and get them a ferry and lodgings in Ireland. Two days later she had mailed in her application and gone home to await a reply.
Only one family had written to her, and as the fates would have it, that family just had to contain James-Bloody-Potter.
The two of them had parted for the break at odds with one another. On the last day of classes, Lily had been called into Professor McGonagall’s office after Transfiguration, and she had gone in looking like someone who had just been sentenced to the guillotine. She already knew that her grades in the course had still not improved, and that McGonagall had probably only let her proceed with the NEWT level because of her exceptional other grades and because of her status as Prefect (and also because she had desperately begged to be let in). She had fully expected to be kicked out of the class, which would destroy her hopes of being a Healer, but McGonagall had instead assigned her a tutor.
James Potter. Of course.
Lily had begrudgingly admitted that it made sense to pick Potter, despite the fact that everyone knew it was impossible for them to get along. He was the best in their year, and he knew how to teach people-she had seen him enough times with his team on the Quidditch pitch to know that. Still, Lily had lashed out at James when she found out, they’d had a rather colorful argument, and both had ended up storming away in their fury. She hadn’t seen him again before they left for break.
She desperately hoped that he was spending the holidays with his mates, or something of that sort, and that she would only have to interact with his parents. It was her curiosity about them that drew her down the long driveway towards the house. Mrs. Potter had sounded gracious and warm in her letter, and Lily was wondering how a woman who sounded like that could have raised such an arrogant prick for a son. The Potters were an old Pureblood family, and her experiences with Purebloods had only taught her how cruel and condescending they could be. An image of Mary, bruised and terrified after a close encounter with Henry Mulciber, a Slytherin Pureblood, sprang to her head unbidden and Lily tightened her grip on her bags, pushing it away as she walked up the front steps and banged the knocker on the front door without further hesitation.
The door opened almost immediately, and Lily found herself looking down on a house elf. She had seen them before, of course, having taken a few trips into the Hogwarts kitchen at night, but she didn’t think she had ever seen one quite so old. His skin was wrinkled and spotted, and he had two clumps of hair growing out of each batlike ear, which doubtless made him deaf or close to it. He squinted up at her through eyes that looked just slightly cloudy. Despite his age, however, the plain smock he wore for clothing was clean and he appeared well cared for.
“Miss Evans?” asked the elf, and his voice was higher than she had imagined it.
“Er, yes,” said Lily, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
The elf bowed low, his nose nearly touching the ground. “My name is Martin, miss. My mistress is out in the garden. She told Martin to fetch miss if she arrived.”
“Right.” Lily smiled, taking a step inside when Martin moved aside for her. She found herself standing in a massive foyer, with stairs on either side. The ceiling had to be at least thirty feet over her head. Twilight spilled in through the large sunroof, accenting everything with hues of purple and orange. “Shall I wait here, or…?”
“Martin will take your bags,” said the elf, and before Lily could protest, he had shrunk both of her bags to a more manageable size without a word, and was slinging them over his shoulders. He gave her a toothy grin. “Right this way, miss.”
Before Lily could start to follow, she was halted by a loud roaring sound coming from outside. She turned to glance out the window, and saw something big and black touching down from the air onto the driveway. Behind her, the house elf chuckled.
“It sounds like Master James is home.”
Lily’s heart gave an unpleasant lurch. “Is that so?” she repeated faintly. She suddenly wondered if James knew she was supposed to be here. There didn’t seem to be any reason for his mother to keep it from him, but if he wasn’t expecting her…the next few moments could be very awkward. She was still torn between staying where she was and ducking behind the potted plant with the wiggling tendrils near the stairs when the door opened and admitted James and Sirius.
His eyes fell on her almost instantly, and though he had been laughing, he became silent almost instantly. He didn’t look like he was surprised to see her, though-rather, he looked as though he had been awaiting her arrival for weeks, and had both dreaded and anticipated the day he would come home and find her there. Lily wanted to look away, but something defiant in her wanted him to break the contact first.
But Sirius did it for them.
“Prongs, why is there a girl standing in your hallway who looks like Evans?”
“Because it is Evans,” Potter replied, finally looking away from her. “She’s my mum’s chalet girl this year.”
He did know, then. But he sounded so detached, as if the fact that his mother had chosen the girl he had self-proclaimed undying love to for the past three years was of no consequence to him.
Sirius was gaping at her as if he had never seen anything quite like her in his entire life. Lily wondered why James hadn’t told him that she would be coming. “Thank Merlin I’m not staying the whole time this year, then. I don’t want to be here when you two bring the house down round your heads.”
“So good to know that you’re as charming out of school as you are in it,” Lily snapped, finding her voice at last. If it was even possible, she butted heads with Sirius even more often than James, because he was downright nasty to her the majority of the time, while James was just irritatingly persistent.
Potter didn’t say a word. He leaned back against the closed door, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it with the tip of his wand. Taking a few drags, he blew plumes of smoke up towards the ceiling. Lily coughed a bit as the smell invaded her lungs.
“Master James, you know your mother doesn’t like you to smoke indoors,” said Martin, and with a snap of his fingers, the cigarette had completely disappeared from James’ hand. He didn’t appear to be overly upset by this. With a bit of a smirk at Sirius, he headed over towards where Lily was standing.
“We’ll be upstairs for a bit. Could you let Mum know we’re back?”
“Certainly, Master James,” replied the elf, bowing so low his nose touched the polished floor.
He walked past Lily and headed up the stairs without even looking at her. She watched him go, feeling incredibly agitated, though she didn’t quite know why. James hadn’t said a word to her. Wasn’t that how she wanted it?
Taking a deep breath, she followed the house elf down the hall after he gestured for her to come with him, which allowed her to get a small glimpse of the many large rooms in the house. He led her into an expansive ballroom, whose ceiling appeared to be enchanted in the same way that the ceiling of the Great Hall at Hogwarts was enchanted. It was so big that Lily wondered how it even fit into the house, but then she remembered that this was a wizarding household; undoubtedly some charmwork had been used in this case. Lily looked down at the floor as she walked, seeing a perfect reflection of herself in the smooth marble.
“Out here, miss,” came the voice of the elf, making her look up. He was poised by a pair of glass doors, which seemed to lead out into the garden. He pushed open the doors for her as she approached, and Lily caught the strong scent of dozens of types of flowers. For a moment, she was reminded of her parents’ shop in London, and oddly enough, it made her feel more at home here, rather than making her feel homesick.
“Oh, is she here?” she heard someone call from somewhere among the hedges, and suddenly a woman with a warm and friendly smile appeared. Lily had always heard that James’ parents were elderly, but surely this woman was not much older than her own mother. Her hair was a darkened red, only a few shades darker than Lily’s own, with streaks of gray woven in. Wrinkles appeared in her face when she smiled, and she seemed to move slowly, but other than that, she looked just like a woman in her late forties. As she got closer, Lily noticed that James definitely took after his mother in the face; it was like looking at his head on a woman’s body. A bit weird, really.
“I’m Lily,” she said after a moment, sticking out her hand and smiling.
“Evanna Potter,” said the woman, clasping her hand with both of her own. “I’m so glad to finally meet you, my dear…and I see my son was not lying when he said you were a beauty. Potters have always been fated to fall for redheads, you know.” She grinned in a way that definitely reminded Lily of James.
Blushing, Lily brushed the comment aside. “Thank you so much for responding to my application. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t hear from anyone.”
Mrs. Potter nodded. “We usually receive many applications, and often it’s very difficult to pick just one. One Christmas I chose three-drove my husband and son absolutely insane. This year it was easy, though.” She gave a slight wink, and Lily smiled.
“I’ve never done this before,” she said, though she wasn’t sure what had made her say it.
“Don’t worry about that. It’s a very easy job to get used to. In fact, it’s not much like a job at all.”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “It’s not? Then-“
“Oh, I’ll tell you all about it at dinner,” said Evanna. “You’re going to be more like a helper than a worker. But don’t worry, you’ll still be paid in full.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. If she wasn’t truly going to be working, then she certainly shouldn’t deserve to be paid as much as was advertised. But she still wasn’t even sure what it was she had signed up for, so she allowed Mrs. Potter to lead her back into the house without comment.
“I was going to have James show you to your room,” the elder woman was saying, as she closed the doors to the garden, though the scent of flowers still lingered in the large ballroom. “But I see he’s disappeared already…you know, it’s a bit odd, considering the way he goes on about you.”
Lily shifted from foot to foot a bit uncomfortably. Even though she had no idea what kinds of things James told his mother about her, it still made her feel embarrassed to know that he apparently spoke of her rather often. She just hoped Mrs. Potter wouldn’t spend the whole break reminding her of how much her son fancied her. As nice as the woman was, there was no way Lily would ever go out on a date with James. He had been nothing but an absolute prat to her since the very first day she had come to Hogwarts.
Suddenly there was a sound, like the rustle of something moving in foliage, and Lily’s eyes turned to a plant that was peeking through the doorway that seemed to lead into a living room. She could tell from where she was standing that it was some kind of Snapping Fern, and her suspicions were confirmed when she heard the smack of one of its tendrils against flesh, accompanied by an “Ouch!”
“There you are, James,” said Mrs. Potter, sounding rather amused.
James stepped out from behind the fern, his eyes trained on his mother. “Sirius left,” he said. “Said he’ll be coming back round sometime tomorrow.”
Evanna nodded. “I suppose that means you wouldn’t mind taking our guest up to her room?”
James flushed a bit, his eyes sliding to Lily briefly before going back to his mother. Lily didn’t bother to hide her bemused expression. Well, she supposed, even arrogant pricks could treat their parents with respect. He barely nodded his assent, and Mrs. Potter clapped her hands together.
“All right, then! Dinner’s at six, so you have a bit of time to settle in, dear. Martin’s already taken your things up, so you can just follow James; he knows where you’re staying.”
Lily started to say something-to stall, to ask where her room was so that she could find it herself, anything-but Evanna Potter turned once on the spot and vanished. She must have Apparated to another part of the house, and now Lily and James were left in awkward silence.
After a long moment, Lily couldn’t stand it anymore. She was going to be spending the majority of her break under the same roof as him, and it would probably make things a lot easier if she put their differences aside for a few weeks and tried to get along with him. Maybe since he was at home, he would be less insufferable, and she wouldn’t get the urge to punch him every time he opened his mouth.
“Listen, Potter, about that argument we had before break-“
She cut herself off abruptly. Really, Lily, that’s what you decide to start with?
But James was shaking his head, brushing her apology aside. “I chalked it up to pent-up stress before the end of classes,” he said. “Because I know my name was at the very top of your list to have as a Transfiguration partner.”
There was something both bitter and teasing in his tone that made Lily feel slightly tongue-tied. After a moment, she said, “Right. Well, still, I know it wasn’t your choice, either…Was it?”
James only smiled mysteriously, and didn’t reply. Before she could question him further, he gestured towards the hallway. “Your room’s in the eastern wing. We’ll probably run into half the house staff on the way up, so we should probably get going if you want to even see your room before dinner.”
Lily nodded and followed him silently, wondering if this was the first civil conversation they had ever had. It wasn’t much of a conversation, really, but she had never said more than a handful of words to him before she either ended up storming off in a fury or trying to hex him. Maybe he really was different without those mates of his hanging about. She thought about how careless and flippant he had seemed when he had shown up with Sirius, the way he hadn’t even acknowledged her presence. It didn’t make sense to her, but she never pretended that she knew how boys thought. They were almost always a complete enigma to her.
He took her up the stairs he had darted up before, which opened up into one of the largest hallways Lily had ever seen. It was lined on one side with tall windows, which let in a flood of twilight, and on the other by a seemingly endless row of doors. Between each door appeared to be a floating lantern, but upon closer inspection, she was sure she saw movement inside. A flutter of wings. They had to be fairies, then, or pixies. She wondered if the “fairy lights” she had glimpsed outside were actual fairies as well.
“My room’s in the west wing, so you’ll know where I am if you need to find me for some reason. Or, you know, avoid me,” James said after a moment, as they made their way down the hall.
Lily nodded, irritated that he kept putting her on the spot like that. “Noted,” she responded, and there was a definite iciness in her tone that wasn’t missed by James. He smiled in a resigned sort of way and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Oh, and don’t go in my dad’s study unless you’re told otherwise,” he said, pointing at a door towards the end of the hallway.
“Does he work in there?” Lily asked, realizing she didn’t have any idea what his parents actually did for a living. She had mostly assumed that rich, Pureblood families like the Potters didn’t really need to work to support themselves, but surely they had to do something. Being able to buy whatever you wanted must be nice, but it would be awfully boring if the only thing you had to do was plan your next purchase.
“Sometimes,” said James, with a bit of a shrug. “He’s mostly just an investor now; both of my parents stopped working ages before I was born.” He glanced sideways at her. “They’re well over eighty, you know.”
Lily stared at him. “You’re kidding, right? She barely looked fifty.”
He grinned. “She loves it when people say that. Wizards-Pureblooded ones, anyway-they age differently than Muggles do. Or even Half-bloods, I suppose. They have longer lifespans. My grandparents were in their hundreds when they died, and my mum was seventy-three when I was born.”
Her brows lifted. “Seventy-three? How is that even possible? Even with a longer lifeline, the chances of women having children that late in life-“
“-Are slim to none. Right. That’s why I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” James cut in. “My mum says it was a miracle that they even had me. They had been trying for years to have children before I came along.”
“Oh,” said Lily, feeling a bit awkward. It was clear it wasn’t a terribly sensitive topic for him, but she still felt like it was.
He offered her a smile. “It’s all right, Lily. I’ve got Sirius, and my mum and dad have pretty much adopted him, so he’s kind of like the brother I never had.”
She fidgeted a little with her jacket sleeve, glancing away from his smile. She had learned over the years how to deal with the arrogant, self-absorbed James Potter, but this didn’t seem to be that person. And she had no idea how to handle him. He hadn’t said anything remotely patronizing to her, and she had been in his company nearly fifteen minutes. Chatting, even. It couldn’t just be for his mum’s sake; she wasn’t even around now. Had he somehow made this dramatic change without her even realizing it? Or was she just seeing the real James Potter, the way he behaved when Sirius wasn’t around to impress or cause mischief with? No, that wasn’t possible. He should have known that if he truly wanted to hear her say yes when he asked her out, all he needed to do was act like-
Lily’s train of thought was cut off abruptly when she walked right into James, who had come to a halt without her noticing. He steadied her briefly with a hand on her shoulder, but didn’t prolong the contact. “Sorry,” she said, her cheeks turning pink, and he merely shook his head.
“This is your room,” he said, and Lily looked up at the door. A blank, golden plate was mounted on it, but as she watched, James lifted his wand and tapped once on it, and immediately a thin, flowing script carved the words Lily into the nameplate. He grinned. “That was always my favorite bit about this house. It was mum’s idea.” Then, without waiting for a response from her, he pushed open the door and let her inside.
The room was about three times the size of the one she had at home, and looked more like it should belong to the masters of the house rather than just a guest. It had a huge four poster canopy bed, an arrangement of chairs and a couch with a table in the middle, a vanity against the far wall, and a door off to the right that she guessed led to a bathroom. A bouquet of flowers and a card lay on top of the bed.
“Wow,” she breathed after a moment, walking over to one of the chairs and trailing her fingers along its back. “Are you sure this is where I’m supposed to stay? It looks more fit for the Minister of Magic.”
James chuffed a laugh. “Nope, this one’s yours. All the guest rooms are like this, for the most part, but Mum gave you the best view.” He pointed out the window, and Lily could see that her room overlooked the water, and a dotting of quaint-looking cottages covering the land on the opposite side. “My parents have some…extravagant tastes. I’m pretty sure those flowers they got you sing on command.”
Lily walked over and picked up the bouquet; the flowers were freshly cut, which made her think they had been handpicked from the garden out back. A small vase was on her nightstand, and she made a mental note to fill it with water later for the flowers. She would test their singing abilities when James wasn’t around. “Is everything in the house enchanted?” she asked, looking around at the furniture. She knew many inanimate objects at Hogwarts were enchanted, but she wasn’t sure how wizards truly decorated their homes. Even after five years in the wizarding world, there were still tons of things she didn’t know.
“Well, not everything,” said James, walking over and leaning against her bedpost as she gently laid the flowers back down beside the card. “Some rooms are more enchanted than others. Speaking of which, I really should warn you about the third room on the left on this hall. It likes to lock people inside it.”
Lily had the strange desire to laugh. “Have you ever tried being nice to it? Maybe then it wouldn’t lock you in,” she said with a bit of a smirk, vaguely registering that she had just made a joke with James Potter.
James actually did laugh. “Of course I’m nice to it. But it helps to know where it’s ticklish,” he said sagely.
Lily grinned then. “Where is it ticklish? I do need to know these things.”
“Right on the knob,” said James, and they both laughed for a moment before fading off into another awkward silence. James cleared his throat.
“It must be nice to spend the hols here,” said Lily, after she saw that he wasn’t going to leave yet.
“We only spend Christmas here, actually,” James replied. “This is our winter house.”
She gaped at him. “What, do you have a house for all four seasons or something?”
“Nah. We’ve got the summer house, our main estate, and this. This one’s actually the smallest of the three, I think.” He glanced around and shrugged. The nonchalance in his tone, for whatever reason, sent a surge of anger through Lily, and her voice was a bit tight when she responded.
“So, your family comes by all this through inheritance?”
James shook his head again. “Not all of it. Some of it is inherited, but my parents did work for a living before they retired. They owned a chain of businesses. After I was born, they sold them all…but as I mentioned before, my dad’s still an investor, so he’s still bringing in money.”
Lily nodded thoughtfully. She knew she really wasn’t an authority on Pureblood families, but for some reason she felt like the Potters were atypical of their kind. She could still remember hearing Lucius Malfoy preach, back in second year, about never needing to work a day in his life. And she remembered a couple of Pureblood girls in her year who had not signed up for Career Counseling on the claim that they didn’t need it. She recalled that James had signed up, though.
“I should probably go see if there’s anything I can do before dinner,” she said suddenly.
James ran a hand casually through his hair, a habit which usually drove Lily mad. There was something about the way he did it now-when he wasn’t trying to be suave-that made the corners of her mouth quirk in the suggestion of a smile. “I dunno what Mum told you, but this isn’t really that kind of job. You’re not going to be doing any housework, really.”
Her brows knitted. “Then, what am I here for?”
He shrugged. “I mean, we have a few house elves who take care of a lot of the housework, and Mum helps them with meals. She just likes to hire a chalet girl every Christmas, mostly for the female company, I think. She had sisters, but they’ve passed away. It’s just me and Dad with her.”
“Then, why bother paying me?” asked Lily. “It’s so much money, and to not be working…” It would mean not going to the concert, but she didn’t want to take money if she didn’t deserve it.
“Oh, you’ll be working,” said James. “Just not exactly the type of work that’s put in the ads. Mum does a lot of charity work, and she usually gets her chalet girls to help out with that. You know, baking, shopping, planning events, that kind of thing.”
It really didn’t sound too bad, since she had expected to be cleaning house every day for three weeks. “I suppose I shouldn’t complain that I’m not being made to act like a servant,” she said with a bit of a grin.
James laughed. “Even the house elves don’t feel like servants around here.”
Lily sat down on the bed beside the card and flowers. “Well…thanks for showing me my room, Potter.”
“Right-right, I should probably go,” said James quickly, as though he hadn’t realized just how long they had been talking. “I’ll see you at dinner, Lily.”
And he left just as quickly, hands in his pockets, leaving Lily alone in the massive room. She briefly entertained the idea that perhaps Amos Diggory had Polyjuiced himself as James, but that was simply too much to hope for.
|||||
At dinner, which was held in a room with a ceiling that seemed to be painted with different scenes from wizarding history, she heard all about the charity event she was going to be helping to plan. James hadn’t been wrong; this was really all that was expected of her over the course of the break. Apparently, Evanna Potter was a big supporter of a group known as the Society for the Preservation of Muggle Studies.
“Preservation?” she repeated, after Mrs. Potter told her. “I didn’t know that it needed to be preserved.”
“Oh, the Ministry has been saying for years that it needs to be done away with,” the elder woman replied, twisting her fork for emphasis. “They say there aren’t enough students signing up for it, that there’s little interest in it. And many of them don’t see why it’s necessary to learn about the Muggle world in the first place.”
Lily couldn’t say that she was surprised to hear that. She certainly didn’t know too many people who took Muggle Studies. “Is it really in danger of being cut from the course list?” she asked.
It was Mr. Potter-who had joined them for dinner-who answered. “There is a bill drafted to get rid of it,” he said. “But the Wizengamot still hasn’t made a decision on it. There haven’t been enough votes on it yet to really push it forward.”
Lily had decided right away that she liked James’ father. He reminded her a little of her own dad, with his warm personality and his love for Big Band music. He had a snowy white beard that hung just slightly below his chin, and he even wore a monocle. She hadn’t thought that there were people alive who still wore monocles. Then again, James’ parents were apparently much older than they looked.
“I don’t see how the wizarding and Muggle worlds can stay separate forever,” said Lily, with a little shrug. “I mean, there aren’t that many Pureblood families left, right? They’re probably going to have to intermarry eventually.” She glanced across the table and briefly met James’ eyes before glancing away. “Plus, if they’re so concerned about keeping our society a secret, don’t they need to know how to blend in with the Muggles?”
Mrs. Potter smiled. “Those are precisely our points, Miss Evans. We don’t claim to know a lot about Muggles, ourselves-Muggle Studies wasn’t being taught when Jaxston and I came along-but with all this talk of war, we’re beginning to see that it will probably be impossible that some of us won’t be exposed. The Minister of Magic already has the Muggle Prime Minister keeping our secret, covering up for us whenever there are incidents--isn’t it more trouble than it’s worth?”
“So, you think that Muggles and wizards should integrate?” asked Lily.
“I think it’s inevitable,” said Evanna. “And even if we can go on keeping our world separated from theirs, I think an increased knowledge of them might help us combat these fanatical blood purists who think they have dirty blood and aren’t fit to be more than slaves.”
Lily briefly recalled the time in third year when Severus’ gang of “friends” had nearly beaten him bloody for being friendly with a Mudblood. He had defended her then, but as time went on, his defenses became weaker and weaker, until finally he had adopted that name for her himself. The memory was swiftly replaced by an image of her parents-both honest, kind, and loving people-who had never been more delighted than the day they had discovered one of their daughters was a witch.
Across the table, James was watching her. “Mum, Lily’s Muggleborn,” he said, and she looked up quickly, wondering why he had thrown that bit of information out. Surely, both of his parents already knew that? If they didn’t, would it somehow change their judgment of her? Even though Evanna supported the Muggle Studies group, it didn’t prevent the fear from jumping into Lily’s mind as soon as those words left James’ mouth. It seemed like she had been judged on her blood status ever since she had entered Hogwarts…
But Evanna was smiling. “I think you’ve told me that before, dear. And that’s actually quite beneficial for the gala! So many people will want to ask you questions, Miss Evans.”
“Just Lily is fine,” said the redhead in response, but it was the preceding sentence that had caught her attention. “Gala?”
“Oh, yes! That’s what I want you to help me plan. We usually hold a ball in the winter, but I think we’ll combine it with a charity event this year. I’d like to have it just before Christmas.”
Lily had only ever attended one other ball in her life, and it could hardly be called that, as it was hosted by Professor Slughorn in one of the dungeons. It had been accompanied by a band of ghosts who had played screeching tunes on musical saws, and she had taken Manny Fredericks as a date after Mary had persuaded her into giving him a chance. She had spent the whole night avoiding Manny, who had pinned a rose to his lapel that spewed progressively more disgusting pick-up lines, and Slughorn, who had tried several times to engage her in conversation on the uses of newt’s eyes in potions. On the whole, it hadn’t been one of her better Halloweens.
But this ball, which was sure to take place in the enormous ballroom she had walked through earlier, was sure to be proper, and she surely wouldn’t require a date. Already she found herself looking forward to it.
“Well, that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?” she told Mrs. Potter brightly. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”
Continue to Part 2
Author: perilousgard
Recipient: starry_laa
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 10, 161
Warnings: None.
Summary: Needing some extra money for the holidays, Lily applies to be a chalet girl for a rich, wizarding family. Of course, that family is none other than James Potter’s.
Author's Note: I am indebted to my awesome friend Terri, who plays the James to my Lily and helped me with a good bit of the ideas for this fic.
I.
Lily’s first glimpse of James Potter’s house, through the somewhat foggy windows of the Knight Bus, brought an immediate smile to her face, despite the emotional turmoil she had dealt with in making the decision to even come in the first place. The house-perhaps small mansion was a better way of putting it-which sat on a stretch of property overlooking the water, was bedecked in fairy lights. They were strung across the roof and wrapped around the two massive columns that supported the front porch, twinkling on and off in the fading twilight. A wreath was hung on every window. As Lily hopped off the bus, she counted them-twelve windows, just on the front of the house. It looked like a place the bloody Prime Minister would live in.
It was picturesque and inviting, but the fact that it was still James Potter’s house made her steps slow as she approached. The letter Mrs. Potter had sent her was very kind, and she had been flattered by it, but it had taken some heavy persuading from Mary for her to send the return owl.
“Think of the concert!” she had said. “If you don’t do this, we won’t have enough money to go!”
That concert-a Fleetwood Mac concert, to be exact-was the reason Lily had decided to work over her Christmas holiday. It was taking place in Ireland, and since neither one of them were of age or had brooms for traveling, they were doing the entire trip the Muggle way. Mary had enough pocket money saved from her summer job to pay for her end, but Lily had spent all hers buying new school supplies at the start of term. A holiday job seemed the easy solution to their problem.
She had found the ad for chalet services in the Daily Prophet just before the start of break. It advertised working for wealthy wizarding families for the duration of the holidays, starting at one hundred Galleons a week. That would give her more than enough money to buy the tickets and get them a ferry and lodgings in Ireland. Two days later she had mailed in her application and gone home to await a reply.
Only one family had written to her, and as the fates would have it, that family just had to contain James-Bloody-Potter.
The two of them had parted for the break at odds with one another. On the last day of classes, Lily had been called into Professor McGonagall’s office after Transfiguration, and she had gone in looking like someone who had just been sentenced to the guillotine. She already knew that her grades in the course had still not improved, and that McGonagall had probably only let her proceed with the NEWT level because of her exceptional other grades and because of her status as Prefect (and also because she had desperately begged to be let in). She had fully expected to be kicked out of the class, which would destroy her hopes of being a Healer, but McGonagall had instead assigned her a tutor.
James Potter. Of course.
Lily had begrudgingly admitted that it made sense to pick Potter, despite the fact that everyone knew it was impossible for them to get along. He was the best in their year, and he knew how to teach people-she had seen him enough times with his team on the Quidditch pitch to know that. Still, Lily had lashed out at James when she found out, they’d had a rather colorful argument, and both had ended up storming away in their fury. She hadn’t seen him again before they left for break.
She desperately hoped that he was spending the holidays with his mates, or something of that sort, and that she would only have to interact with his parents. It was her curiosity about them that drew her down the long driveway towards the house. Mrs. Potter had sounded gracious and warm in her letter, and Lily was wondering how a woman who sounded like that could have raised such an arrogant prick for a son. The Potters were an old Pureblood family, and her experiences with Purebloods had only taught her how cruel and condescending they could be. An image of Mary, bruised and terrified after a close encounter with Henry Mulciber, a Slytherin Pureblood, sprang to her head unbidden and Lily tightened her grip on her bags, pushing it away as she walked up the front steps and banged the knocker on the front door without further hesitation.
The door opened almost immediately, and Lily found herself looking down on a house elf. She had seen them before, of course, having taken a few trips into the Hogwarts kitchen at night, but she didn’t think she had ever seen one quite so old. His skin was wrinkled and spotted, and he had two clumps of hair growing out of each batlike ear, which doubtless made him deaf or close to it. He squinted up at her through eyes that looked just slightly cloudy. Despite his age, however, the plain smock he wore for clothing was clean and he appeared well cared for.
“Miss Evans?” asked the elf, and his voice was higher than she had imagined it.
“Er, yes,” said Lily, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
The elf bowed low, his nose nearly touching the ground. “My name is Martin, miss. My mistress is out in the garden. She told Martin to fetch miss if she arrived.”
“Right.” Lily smiled, taking a step inside when Martin moved aside for her. She found herself standing in a massive foyer, with stairs on either side. The ceiling had to be at least thirty feet over her head. Twilight spilled in through the large sunroof, accenting everything with hues of purple and orange. “Shall I wait here, or…?”
“Martin will take your bags,” said the elf, and before Lily could protest, he had shrunk both of her bags to a more manageable size without a word, and was slinging them over his shoulders. He gave her a toothy grin. “Right this way, miss.”
Before Lily could start to follow, she was halted by a loud roaring sound coming from outside. She turned to glance out the window, and saw something big and black touching down from the air onto the driveway. Behind her, the house elf chuckled.
“It sounds like Master James is home.”
Lily’s heart gave an unpleasant lurch. “Is that so?” she repeated faintly. She suddenly wondered if James knew she was supposed to be here. There didn’t seem to be any reason for his mother to keep it from him, but if he wasn’t expecting her…the next few moments could be very awkward. She was still torn between staying where she was and ducking behind the potted plant with the wiggling tendrils near the stairs when the door opened and admitted James and Sirius.
His eyes fell on her almost instantly, and though he had been laughing, he became silent almost instantly. He didn’t look like he was surprised to see her, though-rather, he looked as though he had been awaiting her arrival for weeks, and had both dreaded and anticipated the day he would come home and find her there. Lily wanted to look away, but something defiant in her wanted him to break the contact first.
But Sirius did it for them.
“Prongs, why is there a girl standing in your hallway who looks like Evans?”
“Because it is Evans,” Potter replied, finally looking away from her. “She’s my mum’s chalet girl this year.”
He did know, then. But he sounded so detached, as if the fact that his mother had chosen the girl he had self-proclaimed undying love to for the past three years was of no consequence to him.
Sirius was gaping at her as if he had never seen anything quite like her in his entire life. Lily wondered why James hadn’t told him that she would be coming. “Thank Merlin I’m not staying the whole time this year, then. I don’t want to be here when you two bring the house down round your heads.”
“So good to know that you’re as charming out of school as you are in it,” Lily snapped, finding her voice at last. If it was even possible, she butted heads with Sirius even more often than James, because he was downright nasty to her the majority of the time, while James was just irritatingly persistent.
Potter didn’t say a word. He leaned back against the closed door, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it with the tip of his wand. Taking a few drags, he blew plumes of smoke up towards the ceiling. Lily coughed a bit as the smell invaded her lungs.
“Master James, you know your mother doesn’t like you to smoke indoors,” said Martin, and with a snap of his fingers, the cigarette had completely disappeared from James’ hand. He didn’t appear to be overly upset by this. With a bit of a smirk at Sirius, he headed over towards where Lily was standing.
“We’ll be upstairs for a bit. Could you let Mum know we’re back?”
“Certainly, Master James,” replied the elf, bowing so low his nose touched the polished floor.
He walked past Lily and headed up the stairs without even looking at her. She watched him go, feeling incredibly agitated, though she didn’t quite know why. James hadn’t said a word to her. Wasn’t that how she wanted it?
Taking a deep breath, she followed the house elf down the hall after he gestured for her to come with him, which allowed her to get a small glimpse of the many large rooms in the house. He led her into an expansive ballroom, whose ceiling appeared to be enchanted in the same way that the ceiling of the Great Hall at Hogwarts was enchanted. It was so big that Lily wondered how it even fit into the house, but then she remembered that this was a wizarding household; undoubtedly some charmwork had been used in this case. Lily looked down at the floor as she walked, seeing a perfect reflection of herself in the smooth marble.
“Out here, miss,” came the voice of the elf, making her look up. He was poised by a pair of glass doors, which seemed to lead out into the garden. He pushed open the doors for her as she approached, and Lily caught the strong scent of dozens of types of flowers. For a moment, she was reminded of her parents’ shop in London, and oddly enough, it made her feel more at home here, rather than making her feel homesick.
“Oh, is she here?” she heard someone call from somewhere among the hedges, and suddenly a woman with a warm and friendly smile appeared. Lily had always heard that James’ parents were elderly, but surely this woman was not much older than her own mother. Her hair was a darkened red, only a few shades darker than Lily’s own, with streaks of gray woven in. Wrinkles appeared in her face when she smiled, and she seemed to move slowly, but other than that, she looked just like a woman in her late forties. As she got closer, Lily noticed that James definitely took after his mother in the face; it was like looking at his head on a woman’s body. A bit weird, really.
“I’m Lily,” she said after a moment, sticking out her hand and smiling.
“Evanna Potter,” said the woman, clasping her hand with both of her own. “I’m so glad to finally meet you, my dear…and I see my son was not lying when he said you were a beauty. Potters have always been fated to fall for redheads, you know.” She grinned in a way that definitely reminded Lily of James.
Blushing, Lily brushed the comment aside. “Thank you so much for responding to my application. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t hear from anyone.”
Mrs. Potter nodded. “We usually receive many applications, and often it’s very difficult to pick just one. One Christmas I chose three-drove my husband and son absolutely insane. This year it was easy, though.” She gave a slight wink, and Lily smiled.
“I’ve never done this before,” she said, though she wasn’t sure what had made her say it.
“Don’t worry about that. It’s a very easy job to get used to. In fact, it’s not much like a job at all.”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “It’s not? Then-“
“Oh, I’ll tell you all about it at dinner,” said Evanna. “You’re going to be more like a helper than a worker. But don’t worry, you’ll still be paid in full.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. If she wasn’t truly going to be working, then she certainly shouldn’t deserve to be paid as much as was advertised. But she still wasn’t even sure what it was she had signed up for, so she allowed Mrs. Potter to lead her back into the house without comment.
“I was going to have James show you to your room,” the elder woman was saying, as she closed the doors to the garden, though the scent of flowers still lingered in the large ballroom. “But I see he’s disappeared already…you know, it’s a bit odd, considering the way he goes on about you.”
Lily shifted from foot to foot a bit uncomfortably. Even though she had no idea what kinds of things James told his mother about her, it still made her feel embarrassed to know that he apparently spoke of her rather often. She just hoped Mrs. Potter wouldn’t spend the whole break reminding her of how much her son fancied her. As nice as the woman was, there was no way Lily would ever go out on a date with James. He had been nothing but an absolute prat to her since the very first day she had come to Hogwarts.
Suddenly there was a sound, like the rustle of something moving in foliage, and Lily’s eyes turned to a plant that was peeking through the doorway that seemed to lead into a living room. She could tell from where she was standing that it was some kind of Snapping Fern, and her suspicions were confirmed when she heard the smack of one of its tendrils against flesh, accompanied by an “Ouch!”
“There you are, James,” said Mrs. Potter, sounding rather amused.
James stepped out from behind the fern, his eyes trained on his mother. “Sirius left,” he said. “Said he’ll be coming back round sometime tomorrow.”
Evanna nodded. “I suppose that means you wouldn’t mind taking our guest up to her room?”
James flushed a bit, his eyes sliding to Lily briefly before going back to his mother. Lily didn’t bother to hide her bemused expression. Well, she supposed, even arrogant pricks could treat their parents with respect. He barely nodded his assent, and Mrs. Potter clapped her hands together.
“All right, then! Dinner’s at six, so you have a bit of time to settle in, dear. Martin’s already taken your things up, so you can just follow James; he knows where you’re staying.”
Lily started to say something-to stall, to ask where her room was so that she could find it herself, anything-but Evanna Potter turned once on the spot and vanished. She must have Apparated to another part of the house, and now Lily and James were left in awkward silence.
After a long moment, Lily couldn’t stand it anymore. She was going to be spending the majority of her break under the same roof as him, and it would probably make things a lot easier if she put their differences aside for a few weeks and tried to get along with him. Maybe since he was at home, he would be less insufferable, and she wouldn’t get the urge to punch him every time he opened his mouth.
“Listen, Potter, about that argument we had before break-“
She cut herself off abruptly. Really, Lily, that’s what you decide to start with?
But James was shaking his head, brushing her apology aside. “I chalked it up to pent-up stress before the end of classes,” he said. “Because I know my name was at the very top of your list to have as a Transfiguration partner.”
There was something both bitter and teasing in his tone that made Lily feel slightly tongue-tied. After a moment, she said, “Right. Well, still, I know it wasn’t your choice, either…Was it?”
James only smiled mysteriously, and didn’t reply. Before she could question him further, he gestured towards the hallway. “Your room’s in the eastern wing. We’ll probably run into half the house staff on the way up, so we should probably get going if you want to even see your room before dinner.”
Lily nodded and followed him silently, wondering if this was the first civil conversation they had ever had. It wasn’t much of a conversation, really, but she had never said more than a handful of words to him before she either ended up storming off in a fury or trying to hex him. Maybe he really was different without those mates of his hanging about. She thought about how careless and flippant he had seemed when he had shown up with Sirius, the way he hadn’t even acknowledged her presence. It didn’t make sense to her, but she never pretended that she knew how boys thought. They were almost always a complete enigma to her.
He took her up the stairs he had darted up before, which opened up into one of the largest hallways Lily had ever seen. It was lined on one side with tall windows, which let in a flood of twilight, and on the other by a seemingly endless row of doors. Between each door appeared to be a floating lantern, but upon closer inspection, she was sure she saw movement inside. A flutter of wings. They had to be fairies, then, or pixies. She wondered if the “fairy lights” she had glimpsed outside were actual fairies as well.
“My room’s in the west wing, so you’ll know where I am if you need to find me for some reason. Or, you know, avoid me,” James said after a moment, as they made their way down the hall.
Lily nodded, irritated that he kept putting her on the spot like that. “Noted,” she responded, and there was a definite iciness in her tone that wasn’t missed by James. He smiled in a resigned sort of way and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Oh, and don’t go in my dad’s study unless you’re told otherwise,” he said, pointing at a door towards the end of the hallway.
“Does he work in there?” Lily asked, realizing she didn’t have any idea what his parents actually did for a living. She had mostly assumed that rich, Pureblood families like the Potters didn’t really need to work to support themselves, but surely they had to do something. Being able to buy whatever you wanted must be nice, but it would be awfully boring if the only thing you had to do was plan your next purchase.
“Sometimes,” said James, with a bit of a shrug. “He’s mostly just an investor now; both of my parents stopped working ages before I was born.” He glanced sideways at her. “They’re well over eighty, you know.”
Lily stared at him. “You’re kidding, right? She barely looked fifty.”
He grinned. “She loves it when people say that. Wizards-Pureblooded ones, anyway-they age differently than Muggles do. Or even Half-bloods, I suppose. They have longer lifespans. My grandparents were in their hundreds when they died, and my mum was seventy-three when I was born.”
Her brows lifted. “Seventy-three? How is that even possible? Even with a longer lifeline, the chances of women having children that late in life-“
“-Are slim to none. Right. That’s why I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” James cut in. “My mum says it was a miracle that they even had me. They had been trying for years to have children before I came along.”
“Oh,” said Lily, feeling a bit awkward. It was clear it wasn’t a terribly sensitive topic for him, but she still felt like it was.
He offered her a smile. “It’s all right, Lily. I’ve got Sirius, and my mum and dad have pretty much adopted him, so he’s kind of like the brother I never had.”
She fidgeted a little with her jacket sleeve, glancing away from his smile. She had learned over the years how to deal with the arrogant, self-absorbed James Potter, but this didn’t seem to be that person. And she had no idea how to handle him. He hadn’t said anything remotely patronizing to her, and she had been in his company nearly fifteen minutes. Chatting, even. It couldn’t just be for his mum’s sake; she wasn’t even around now. Had he somehow made this dramatic change without her even realizing it? Or was she just seeing the real James Potter, the way he behaved when Sirius wasn’t around to impress or cause mischief with? No, that wasn’t possible. He should have known that if he truly wanted to hear her say yes when he asked her out, all he needed to do was act like-
Lily’s train of thought was cut off abruptly when she walked right into James, who had come to a halt without her noticing. He steadied her briefly with a hand on her shoulder, but didn’t prolong the contact. “Sorry,” she said, her cheeks turning pink, and he merely shook his head.
“This is your room,” he said, and Lily looked up at the door. A blank, golden plate was mounted on it, but as she watched, James lifted his wand and tapped once on it, and immediately a thin, flowing script carved the words Lily into the nameplate. He grinned. “That was always my favorite bit about this house. It was mum’s idea.” Then, without waiting for a response from her, he pushed open the door and let her inside.
The room was about three times the size of the one she had at home, and looked more like it should belong to the masters of the house rather than just a guest. It had a huge four poster canopy bed, an arrangement of chairs and a couch with a table in the middle, a vanity against the far wall, and a door off to the right that she guessed led to a bathroom. A bouquet of flowers and a card lay on top of the bed.
“Wow,” she breathed after a moment, walking over to one of the chairs and trailing her fingers along its back. “Are you sure this is where I’m supposed to stay? It looks more fit for the Minister of Magic.”
James chuffed a laugh. “Nope, this one’s yours. All the guest rooms are like this, for the most part, but Mum gave you the best view.” He pointed out the window, and Lily could see that her room overlooked the water, and a dotting of quaint-looking cottages covering the land on the opposite side. “My parents have some…extravagant tastes. I’m pretty sure those flowers they got you sing on command.”
Lily walked over and picked up the bouquet; the flowers were freshly cut, which made her think they had been handpicked from the garden out back. A small vase was on her nightstand, and she made a mental note to fill it with water later for the flowers. She would test their singing abilities when James wasn’t around. “Is everything in the house enchanted?” she asked, looking around at the furniture. She knew many inanimate objects at Hogwarts were enchanted, but she wasn’t sure how wizards truly decorated their homes. Even after five years in the wizarding world, there were still tons of things she didn’t know.
“Well, not everything,” said James, walking over and leaning against her bedpost as she gently laid the flowers back down beside the card. “Some rooms are more enchanted than others. Speaking of which, I really should warn you about the third room on the left on this hall. It likes to lock people inside it.”
Lily had the strange desire to laugh. “Have you ever tried being nice to it? Maybe then it wouldn’t lock you in,” she said with a bit of a smirk, vaguely registering that she had just made a joke with James Potter.
James actually did laugh. “Of course I’m nice to it. But it helps to know where it’s ticklish,” he said sagely.
Lily grinned then. “Where is it ticklish? I do need to know these things.”
“Right on the knob,” said James, and they both laughed for a moment before fading off into another awkward silence. James cleared his throat.
“It must be nice to spend the hols here,” said Lily, after she saw that he wasn’t going to leave yet.
“We only spend Christmas here, actually,” James replied. “This is our winter house.”
She gaped at him. “What, do you have a house for all four seasons or something?”
“Nah. We’ve got the summer house, our main estate, and this. This one’s actually the smallest of the three, I think.” He glanced around and shrugged. The nonchalance in his tone, for whatever reason, sent a surge of anger through Lily, and her voice was a bit tight when she responded.
“So, your family comes by all this through inheritance?”
James shook his head again. “Not all of it. Some of it is inherited, but my parents did work for a living before they retired. They owned a chain of businesses. After I was born, they sold them all…but as I mentioned before, my dad’s still an investor, so he’s still bringing in money.”
Lily nodded thoughtfully. She knew she really wasn’t an authority on Pureblood families, but for some reason she felt like the Potters were atypical of their kind. She could still remember hearing Lucius Malfoy preach, back in second year, about never needing to work a day in his life. And she remembered a couple of Pureblood girls in her year who had not signed up for Career Counseling on the claim that they didn’t need it. She recalled that James had signed up, though.
“I should probably go see if there’s anything I can do before dinner,” she said suddenly.
James ran a hand casually through his hair, a habit which usually drove Lily mad. There was something about the way he did it now-when he wasn’t trying to be suave-that made the corners of her mouth quirk in the suggestion of a smile. “I dunno what Mum told you, but this isn’t really that kind of job. You’re not going to be doing any housework, really.”
Her brows knitted. “Then, what am I here for?”
He shrugged. “I mean, we have a few house elves who take care of a lot of the housework, and Mum helps them with meals. She just likes to hire a chalet girl every Christmas, mostly for the female company, I think. She had sisters, but they’ve passed away. It’s just me and Dad with her.”
“Then, why bother paying me?” asked Lily. “It’s so much money, and to not be working…” It would mean not going to the concert, but she didn’t want to take money if she didn’t deserve it.
“Oh, you’ll be working,” said James. “Just not exactly the type of work that’s put in the ads. Mum does a lot of charity work, and she usually gets her chalet girls to help out with that. You know, baking, shopping, planning events, that kind of thing.”
It really didn’t sound too bad, since she had expected to be cleaning house every day for three weeks. “I suppose I shouldn’t complain that I’m not being made to act like a servant,” she said with a bit of a grin.
James laughed. “Even the house elves don’t feel like servants around here.”
Lily sat down on the bed beside the card and flowers. “Well…thanks for showing me my room, Potter.”
“Right-right, I should probably go,” said James quickly, as though he hadn’t realized just how long they had been talking. “I’ll see you at dinner, Lily.”
And he left just as quickly, hands in his pockets, leaving Lily alone in the massive room. She briefly entertained the idea that perhaps Amos Diggory had Polyjuiced himself as James, but that was simply too much to hope for.
|||||
At dinner, which was held in a room with a ceiling that seemed to be painted with different scenes from wizarding history, she heard all about the charity event she was going to be helping to plan. James hadn’t been wrong; this was really all that was expected of her over the course of the break. Apparently, Evanna Potter was a big supporter of a group known as the Society for the Preservation of Muggle Studies.
“Preservation?” she repeated, after Mrs. Potter told her. “I didn’t know that it needed to be preserved.”
“Oh, the Ministry has been saying for years that it needs to be done away with,” the elder woman replied, twisting her fork for emphasis. “They say there aren’t enough students signing up for it, that there’s little interest in it. And many of them don’t see why it’s necessary to learn about the Muggle world in the first place.”
Lily couldn’t say that she was surprised to hear that. She certainly didn’t know too many people who took Muggle Studies. “Is it really in danger of being cut from the course list?” she asked.
It was Mr. Potter-who had joined them for dinner-who answered. “There is a bill drafted to get rid of it,” he said. “But the Wizengamot still hasn’t made a decision on it. There haven’t been enough votes on it yet to really push it forward.”
Lily had decided right away that she liked James’ father. He reminded her a little of her own dad, with his warm personality and his love for Big Band music. He had a snowy white beard that hung just slightly below his chin, and he even wore a monocle. She hadn’t thought that there were people alive who still wore monocles. Then again, James’ parents were apparently much older than they looked.
“I don’t see how the wizarding and Muggle worlds can stay separate forever,” said Lily, with a little shrug. “I mean, there aren’t that many Pureblood families left, right? They’re probably going to have to intermarry eventually.” She glanced across the table and briefly met James’ eyes before glancing away. “Plus, if they’re so concerned about keeping our society a secret, don’t they need to know how to blend in with the Muggles?”
Mrs. Potter smiled. “Those are precisely our points, Miss Evans. We don’t claim to know a lot about Muggles, ourselves-Muggle Studies wasn’t being taught when Jaxston and I came along-but with all this talk of war, we’re beginning to see that it will probably be impossible that some of us won’t be exposed. The Minister of Magic already has the Muggle Prime Minister keeping our secret, covering up for us whenever there are incidents--isn’t it more trouble than it’s worth?”
“So, you think that Muggles and wizards should integrate?” asked Lily.
“I think it’s inevitable,” said Evanna. “And even if we can go on keeping our world separated from theirs, I think an increased knowledge of them might help us combat these fanatical blood purists who think they have dirty blood and aren’t fit to be more than slaves.”
Lily briefly recalled the time in third year when Severus’ gang of “friends” had nearly beaten him bloody for being friendly with a Mudblood. He had defended her then, but as time went on, his defenses became weaker and weaker, until finally he had adopted that name for her himself. The memory was swiftly replaced by an image of her parents-both honest, kind, and loving people-who had never been more delighted than the day they had discovered one of their daughters was a witch.
Across the table, James was watching her. “Mum, Lily’s Muggleborn,” he said, and she looked up quickly, wondering why he had thrown that bit of information out. Surely, both of his parents already knew that? If they didn’t, would it somehow change their judgment of her? Even though Evanna supported the Muggle Studies group, it didn’t prevent the fear from jumping into Lily’s mind as soon as those words left James’ mouth. It seemed like she had been judged on her blood status ever since she had entered Hogwarts…
But Evanna was smiling. “I think you’ve told me that before, dear. And that’s actually quite beneficial for the gala! So many people will want to ask you questions, Miss Evans.”
“Just Lily is fine,” said the redhead in response, but it was the preceding sentence that had caught her attention. “Gala?”
“Oh, yes! That’s what I want you to help me plan. We usually hold a ball in the winter, but I think we’ll combine it with a charity event this year. I’d like to have it just before Christmas.”
Lily had only ever attended one other ball in her life, and it could hardly be called that, as it was hosted by Professor Slughorn in one of the dungeons. It had been accompanied by a band of ghosts who had played screeching tunes on musical saws, and she had taken Manny Fredericks as a date after Mary had persuaded her into giving him a chance. She had spent the whole night avoiding Manny, who had pinned a rose to his lapel that spewed progressively more disgusting pick-up lines, and Slughorn, who had tried several times to engage her in conversation on the uses of newt’s eyes in potions. On the whole, it hadn’t been one of her better Halloweens.
But this ball, which was sure to take place in the enormous ballroom she had walked through earlier, was sure to be proper, and she surely wouldn’t require a date. Already she found herself looking forward to it.
“Well, that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?” she told Mrs. Potter brightly. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”
Continue to Part 2