From Beginning to End

Chapter 17: Second Year

Start of Second Year

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      James was running around the Potter home packing his trunk at the last minute as always.

"James! We have to leave in five minutes. Hurry up!" Mrs. Potter called.

"Coming mum!" James responded grumpily, wishing he was seventeen so he could use magic for this task already.

He was excited to return to Hogwarts, his home away from home, but packing was such a bore and his mum didn't offer to help him this time around. Something about growing and being responsible and some other stuff James thought was a load of bull.

      Petunia Evans rolled her eyes as her sister struggled to carry her trunk down the stairs.

"Can you help me here Tuney?" Lily asked breathlessly, seeing as her trunk was extremely heavy.

Petunia just scoffed, keeping her arms crossed, still leaning against the wall. Her blonde hair was perfectly straight, and she tapped her shoe against the hardwood flooring impatiently. She had friends to see and boys to flirt with. She hated that her mum was making her life revolve around her brat of a sister.

"Why don't you just use magic for it? You are a witch after all." She mumbled something under her breath that Lily could vaguely make out as, 'in more ways than one.'

Lily just sighed, having explained this all before.

"I can't use magic outside of school until I'm seventeen," she explained, as the trunk fell with a thunk on the hardwood floor as she finally managed to get it to the bottom of the stairs.

"That's stupid. What's the point of being a demonic freak if you can't do anything with it?"

"I am not a demonic freak!" Lily shouted in shock.

Petunia just rolled her eyes again and walked back to her room. She had no plans to accompany Lily to the station.

       Soon everyone had boarded the train and were chatting excitedly about what their second year at Hogwarts had in store for them. Lily was sitting with Marlene McKinnon and Mary MacDonald instead of Severus since he was sitting with some other Slytherin boys who made it clear that they did not like her. That was fine but Lily disliked who Severus chose to surround himself with.

      "I am so excited for the feast," Marlene said in a lustful tone.

The others just laughed.

"You're always excited for anything with food, Marls," Lily said with a giggle.

Marlene gasped dramatically. "Are you insulting my love for the thing that keeps me alive? How dare you!"

Just then the trolley came around distracting Marlene from her one woman show.

"Ooh sweets!" she shouted, dumping a handful of galleons into the trolley woman's hand. "I'll take one of everything," she declared, making the others chuckle again.

"That's so nice of you Marls," Mary said.

Marlene looked at her, a licorice wand already dangling from her mouth. "What do you mean?"

"That you got us all some sweets," Mary said, emphasizing the 'all.'

Marlene looked at them and shook her head. "You guys don't know me at all do you? This is all for me."