“It sucks that Filch bans so much of Zonko’s stuff…” Malcolm Gears said glumly. “I mean an Ever-Bashing Boomerang! That's so cool! It's like straight from a comic book!”

Lily rolled her eyes, smiling at the younger boy.

“Yeah, but imagine that in a hallway with a hundred kids. I’m a Prefect so I won’t say that I disagree with the ban list, but quite a few of the things on there are there for good reasons.”

“I know I know… and uh, thanks for not telling me not to buy some of-” Malcolm began, holding the shopping bag closer to his body.

Lily raises her hands.

“I don’t know anything about anything.”

Malcolm grinned.

“Yeah, but still thanks for showing me around… you’ve helped us a lot with getting used to the Magical World.”

Lily smiled widely.

“Its no problem at all, it was something I wish happened for me when I first came. I had a friend that helped me out, but he didn’t know too much outside of potions and spells.”

Like her Malcolm was a Muggleborn, who came to the world with wide eyes and absolutely no idea about anything. Lily did have Severus, but Sev only knew as much as his mother would tell him, or what books he could snag from her collection.

So when she first came to the Magical World she quickly found herself fumbling.

Most witches and wizards would think it was just the super Traditionalist faction being bigots that tripped her up. But it wasn’t, in the Muggle world there was plenty of discrimination, based on class, race, country and religion.

It was the fact that most magicals were completely dismissive of anything muggle, and never explained anything about their own world because they grew up with it and took it for granted.

“Yeah… Snape right?” Malcolm said uncomfortably.

“Yes. I know he can be mean to others, but he’s just really bad with people,” Lily said, exaggerating the truth just a bit.

“... He called me a mudblood…” Malcolm whispered.

Lily froze for a tense moment.

“Did he… Were there other Slytherins with him? Ones that I’ve told you to steer away from?” Lily said, a knot in her chest.

Like earlier, slurs and discrimination were not new to Lily. In the Muggle world there was still a lot of looking down on black, Jewish, and pretty much anyone that wasn’t white and Christian.

“Yeah… but I don’t know.”

“He might just have been trying to fit in. I know he gets a lot of comments about being my friend, and as a Half-Blood in Slytherin he already has a hard time. If he tries to defend you it could be bad for him.”

Malcolm gives her a look and Lily flushes red as her hair.

Sev was never good at making friends in Slytherin, it took him a while and the aid of Lucius Malfoy to not be constantly harassed by them too.

But as he got more and more along with the Slytherins he became more and more like them. Lily was happy that Severus finally had others that he could talk to, but she wished that it had been anyone else.

He was changing, and Lily didn’t want to lose the boy that would sneak out Charms and Potions books from his mothers collection to read with Lily under a tree.

Malcolm and Lily entered the Three Broomsticks, the other Muggleborn’s she had been showing around already splitting off to hang out with friends. Malcolm gave a last, tense smile to Lily before heading off to his group and Lily scanned the room.

Immediately she spotted Severus with a few other Slytherins. Graves Mulciber, Hector Avery, Theodore Nott, Regulus Black, Narcissa Black and a few others sat in the corner with Snape, speaking in low voices.

A lump formed in Lily’s throat. Why them? There were plenty of Slytherins that didn’t push radical ideas, that were just ambitious or cunning, who just wanted to do well in life.

Every single person at that table had called Lily a Mudblood at some point, except Severus.

Releasing an unsteady breath Lily continued to look around until she saw Mary, Marlene and Dorcas sitting together, an empty seat waiting for her.

“Hey guys,” Lily chirped, shaking off the negative feelings.

“Heyo Lils!” Marlene said, knee bouncing up and down. “Done with your good deed of the day?”

Lily rolled her eyes taking the seat next to Dorcas.

“Yes I am done showing the others around.”

Her eyes glanced at Sev, who was looking at her, she gave him a smile and he nodded before turning back to his conversation.

“Good, you need to relax, classes have been so tense,” Marlene said, leaning back in her chair before leaning forward again and taking a drink from her Butterbeer.

“Yeah, I’m tired of all the talk of OWLs. We’ve hardly had a moment to do real magic,” Dorcas said, taking a bread roll from the basket in the middle and taking a bite.

Mary said nothing, her focus on a doodle in her journal.

“We should begin the real stuff soon. You know how it is in the beginning, reviewing last year's stuff and outlining this year,” Lily said, taking the extra Butterbeer that they ordered for her.

Dorcas’s lips thinned.

“Sure, at least this year we really begin Dueling.”

Dorcas came from a small Pureblood family. Well Pureblood enough to be called Pureblood but not Pureblood enough to be a “Sacred Twenty-Eight.” In fact her family now only consisted of her grandfather, her mother, and her, but the Meadows had a long history of being Duelists and Hit-Wizards for the ICW.

Dorcas had an interest in both, wanting to be a Hit-Wizard and go through the Dueling circuits on the side. Every once in a while she’d convince one of them to practice Dueling with her, and while Lily found it interesting, she wasn’t crazy about it.

In Second-Year they learned a bit about Dueling, the proper customs and courtesies, and different rules, but as it wasn’t really “DADA” they’d only gone over it briefly.

Fifth-years began actual Dueling, focusing more on how to defend yourself than the sport of Dueling.

The door to the Three Broomsticks bursts open and the sound of laughter rings out. Alice, Frank and James come in. Alice in between the two boys with her arms looped through theirs.

Lily stares at James… he looks… good. Hair the same untamed wild look, the round glasses he exchanged from his old square ones. A nice maroon robe, white shirt and black slacks. He looks like some scholar after a presentation.

Lily expects to see Pandora following them, but doesn’t. Did their date go poorly? Did James do something stupid?

Pandora and Lily were both in the Charms Club, and the older girl had helped Lily a lot with her own personal projects. She and Flitwick even gave her the basics of Spell Creation. When she had told Lily about her date with James the girl had seemed so excited.

Annoyance and anger bubbled up inside Lily. Not just at the idea that James did something mean to the nice Ravenclaw, but with James in general.

Their brief meetup over the summer and the incident on the train made Lily think something good had changed in James, and maybe something did.

But to say she was boring and didn’t enjoy herself, then to bring up Petunia was crossing a line.

She didn’t need to go around pranking, drinking or partying to have fun. If you felt the need to do those things to have a good time then you were the one missing out on life not the other way around.

“James!” Marlene called. “Weren’t you on a date? Didn’t think you were a quick-shot!”

Around them people snickered and Lily fought down the urge to hide away from Marlene’s crass comment. She really was just a girl Sirius, except with whatever baggage the black haired boy carried.

“I have to be Marls, otherwise I wouldn’t be such a good Chaser,” James called back, heading over to them with Alice and Frank in tow.

“Should try out for Seeker then, if you’re able to finish so quickly.”

James, Alice and Frank all barked out a laugh and Marlene stood to hug James.

“How's Aunty Euphemia?” Marlene asked.

“Good, well she’s been stress cooking apparently. Drives the house-elves mad.”

“Why?” Marlene asked, sitting back down.

“Just how busy Dad’s gotten with the Wolfsbane potion.”

Marlene and James were cousins, well, close cousins, with James’s mum being a McKinnon and Marl’s aunt.

James quickly glanced at Lily, but instead of his usual unwelcome comment he quickly looks away. The others notice, as this was so far away from usual James, but James quickly moves on.

“Nice talking to you guys though, Alice Frank and I are-”

“What happened with Pandora?” Lily asked.

James darted another glance, but didn’t keep eye contact. Guilt? Good, stupid git.

“Uh, went as planned I guess.”

Went as planned? For him or for Pandora? And what kind of date plan ends up with the two splitting off? She scowled at James, not trusting that he didn’t do something stupid on the date.

Frank put a hand on James’s shoulder, saving him from Lily’s ire.

“Well we’re gonna grab some things to eat, nice talking to you guys.”

Marlene and Dorcas gave their farewells, Mary only giving them an absentminded wave, still focused on her drawing, and Lily continued her scrutiny of James.

Frank took them to the table right behind Lily, forcing James to sit with his back to her and Frank and Alice on the other side.

Lily see’s James fidget, as if forcing himself to stop from turning around to look at her and Lily smirks, Alice gives her a wink before Lily turns back around.

The girls joked around, Dorcas poking fun at Marlene’s lack of ability to find a boyfriend, Marlene making fun of Mary’s odd obsession with drawing boys doing… things together. Talking about which of their teachers was the most fit. Lily and Dorcas got into a slight argument about the best way to take down a dragon, and Mary broke it up by saying to just poison it. The usual.

Lily may have been exaggerating her laughs, and bringing up the topic of boys more, and each time she heard the chair behind her squeak as James moved she laughed evilly in her mind.

Dorcas gave her a raised eyebrow in response, but Lily just shrugged. James did his best to push her buttons, what was wrong with her doing the same?

“Frank?” she heard James ask.

“Hmm? Yeah James?”

“I want to know more about Politics.”

-

11 more Chapters up on my Pa treon

Pa tre on.c om/BronzeTurtle