build me up buttercup [s.black]

[18] Books

After almost a week of lazing around in the sunshine and eating copious amounts of ice cream, it was the day before term started and time for the girls to go to Diagon Alley and buy their school supplies for the year.

"Are you sure you don't want us to come with you honey?" Lily's mother asked her.

"Nah, wouldn't want you to miss out on dinner with Vernon later because you got held up shopping with us."

Lily was smiling sweetly, but Aisling heard the tiniest hint of sarcasm in her voice and suspected that Lily was planning on doing exactly this. The three girls stepped into the fire one after another and each spoke the words 'Diagon Alley' very clearly before rushing away in a mass of green flames. When they arrived on the street, the place was abuzz with people; most of whom were students at Hogwarts too. Aisling guessed that they must also have been partaking in some last minute school shopping. The girls brushed themselves off and looked around the bustling street.

"Flourish and Blott's first then?" Aisling asked brightly.

"I dunno..." Lily mused. "It's not like we're in any rush to get home, right?"

Aisling and Alice both recognised a familiar glint in her eyes.

"Should we go and see my uncle?" Alice suggested.

Alice had already met Vernon, prior to Aisling's arrival at the Evans' house, and was keen to avoid another encounter with him. Besides, her uncle Florean owned the ice cream parlour on Diagon Alley, which meant that the trio always ate for free there.

"Sounds fab!" Lily said.

They set off towards the ice cream parlour. However, they had barely managed three steps before their path was blocked by a group of three boys. All of them, in particular the middle one, were smiling at the sight of Aisling, Alice and Lily. Remus, James and Peter waved at the three girls and James immediately made a beeline for Lily.

"Hey Evans, good summer? How come you didn't reply to my letters?" He asked, trying to lean casually on the building behind him but misjudging the distance and unceremoniously wobbling on the spot before managing to regain his balance.

"Oh, you know." Lily said casually. "I was pretty busy, and nervous waiting for my O.W.L. results. Oh and also, and I can't stress this enough Potter, I didn't want to. How was your summer Remus?"

Remus, who had previously been standing watching the entire scene with an expression of extreme amusement on his face, smiled warmly at Lily.

"Oh yeah, alright thanks Lily. Yours?"

Aisling noticed that he absent-mindedly ran a finger over a nasty looking scar on his forearm as he said this. It looked newer than some of his others and hadn't yet having turned white, giving it a particularly irritated and painful appearance.

"Yeah, it was good." Lily was speaking without really paying attention to what she was saying now. Apparently having also clocked the scar on Remus's arm. "You stopped writing back."

"You've been writing to her?" James gasped as he said this, making his voice sound amusingly high pitched. "Traitor!"

"We were going to go to Florean Fortescue's." Peter interrupted the rant that James was clearly about to go on.

The now considerably larger group set off towards Fortescue's, occasionally stopping to talk to other students they ran into. Lily spent five minutes chatting to Marlene McKinnon, a pretty Gryffindor girl in the year above. While James, Remus and Peter were waylaid by the Prewett twins outside Madam Malkin's. Gideon and Fabian, who had just graduated that year, spent at least ten minutes making the trio promise to work doubly hard at pranking the Slytherins, now that they were no longer there to shoulder some of the responsibility.