Jily oneshots

Girl Band

by lilyofthelion

If you asked Marlene McKinnon, she'd say it all started with her left hand.
The summer of '77 was slowly and successfully coming to an end and the seventh and final year of Hogwarts was readily waiting for Marlene and her best friend Lily Evans. They'd spent most of the summer together and had grown inseparable. Lily, who'd recently been made Head Girl was quite excited about her last year at Hogwarts. She'd been very proud and happy when she'd received the little golden pin in her Hogwarts letter and had danced around the kitchen. She'd promptly ignored Marlene's listing of why Dumbledore was bonkers to name Lily Evans Head Girl, and Lily had definitely not listened to Marlene, when she'd reminded Lily that they had celebrated the ending of their sixth year of Hogwarts by skinny dipping in the Black lake (while Lily was supposed to be on rounds). Marlene still couldn't believe that this had somehow escaped the great Albus Dumbledore. Lily, however, was quite thankful that no one had caught them and laughed whenever the marauders complained that they hadn't caught the girls.

The fact that Marlene had been the one to get Lily drunk and come up with the idea to do it in the first place was highly irrelevant – according to Marlene herself – and definitely not worth mentioning twice.

Marlene was in Lily's car. It had taken a few weeks, but she had now come to be quite comfortable in the odd vehicle. She had not shared Lily's excitement over the fact that her parents were in Australia and had allowed the girls to use the car freely all summer. However, she had learned to love the way her body rocked softly with the movements of the car. She also especially loved it when Lily played her favourite albums to her. Cue left hand.

Lily was playing her ABBA album for the thrillionth time that summer, which made Marlene's hand tap rhythmically against the opening in the car door that only moments before had swallowed the glass of the window. It was due to a mixture of the music and the feeling that summer would never end and a fresh splash of freckles on Lily's nose and cheeks that Marlene's mind wandered, and brilliance struck.

"We should start a band!"

Lily, who'd been pleasantly humming along to Dancing Queen, was shook out of her thoughts and turned to her blonde friend.

"What did you say?" Lily's green eyes were wide in a way that clearly showed she'd heard exactly what Marlene had said but didn't quite seem to believe it.

Marlene's left hand's tapping had only turned more enthusiastic since she'd first spoken, and she was more than happy to repeat herself.

"We should start a band!"

"Are you still drunk from last night?" Lily asked in a laugh and rubbed the side of her face as if she surely was.

"I'm serious!" Marlene told Lily. Marlene was known for her odd ideas and sudden outbursts of emotion and so she felt the need to clarify that this wasn't just another one of her crazy stunts.

"Please don't say that" Lily begged as she pushed her sunglasses further up her nose bridge.

"Why not?" Marlene asked. She felt a little annoyed that they were already getting off topic.

"So many bad jokes usually follow" Lily said, "It's because of, oh well, you'll understand once you meet them"

"You're acting as if I don't already know them" Marlene said with a roll of her eyes. Her hand had stopped its tapping and was now scratching at a faded sticker on the car that said Flower power with daisies instead of o's and in what used to be bright yellow letters.

"You don't know them anymore" Lily said, which was her entire argument for why Marlene was even to join her today.

"I still can't believe they invented that awful nickname themselves" Marlene told Lily. She wasn't about to start arguing with Lily. Her best friend's temper fulfilled every bad muggle joke Marlene had ever heard about ginger people.