"Where's my toothbrush? I put it here just a few hours ago!" Lily Evans was in the process of tearing apart the bathroom looking for her toothbrush. She took dental hygiene very seriously.

"Who cares, Lily?" Mary yelled, "It'll turn up, just come join us, we're gonna do our nails for the first day!" Lily smiled. She used to love doing her nails with her sister, sometimes they'd even paint their father's nails together. They hadn't done that in years though, things were different now.

She saw a green flash of color under the sink. "Got it!" After brushing her teeth she joined the other two girls on one of the spare beds. They had spread out various polishes and both Mary and Marlene had already chosen. Lily picked green, her favorite.

"You guys want music?" Marlene said, gesturing to a small radio on the bedside table. Both girls nodded. Marlene turned on the radio and Carole King's voice sounded over the radio. "I love this song!" Marlene sat back down and began to paint her fingernails with the purple polish she picked out.

"Do either of you know how tomorrow's going to work? Nobody in my family is magical so I'm pretty in the dark on this," Lily asked, trying not to let her nerves show in her face. She had always been a natural at school, but here she had no upper hand.

"You're a muggleborn too? I haven't met any other muggleborns yet, both my parents are scientists and nearly fainted when I got my letter," Mary happily interjected, stopping her painting. Lily smiled at this, feeling less worried. If one out of two of her roommates was in the same situation as her maybe being muggleborn wasn't a big deal.

"Yeah! My parents were shocked but so excited for me when they saw the letter, they thought I may fit in better here." Lily chose to leave out the part about her sister despising her for this, and the part of having very little friends at her old school. She didn't want to dwell on that, she'd rather keep painting her nails. "How about you, Marlene?"

"Both my parents are wizards, but my mom is a muggleborn so I'm not totally disconnected from the muggle world," Marlene responded with a smile. "But my brother went here a few years ago, he didn't tell me all the details but he said the hardest part of the first day is finding the classes. Speaking of, what're your classes?"

Mary grabbed her schedule from the floor and handed it to Marlene. In all her excitement, she hadn't been very neat in unpacking. Lily recited hers from memory, it was easy after looking at it as much as she did. She had a fresh start and wasn't going to risk it by showing up late and making a bad impression.

"Awesome, all of our classes are together! I guess it makes sense, we're all in the same year and house."

"Do you know if they combine houses for classes? Like, do all the first years have the same classes?" Lily asked.

"I'm not sure, why?"

"One of my old friends is in Slytherin so I was hoping to have some classes with him."

"The one you were with during the sorting, right?" Mary confirmed, her smile not as wide as before.

"Yeah, is something wrong?" Lily responded, causing Mary to look uncomfortable.

"It's nothing, I just don't think he likes me very much. I was asking him if he knew how the sorting works since I knew almost nothing about the wizarding community, and he just didn't say anything back to me. Just struck me as weird, that's all." This didn't surprise Lily much, but she still didn't like to hear it. "But if you like him, he's probably pretty great! Maybe he just didn't hear me," Mary finished with an awkward chuckle.

Lily looked down at her nails, which were now shiny and wet with the color of emeralds. "He probably heard you." A pause followed her sentence.

"Oh," Marlene said after being quiet for a while.

"Yeah. He's not the best at making friends." Then again, neither was she. "But he's really sweet once you get to know him, seriously. He's my best friend." 

Mary and Marlene both smiled at her. "I'm sure he is," Mary agreed, "Anyways, I'm all done!" She stuck out her hands and showed off the bold red polish. Lily followed suit and showed her clean job of polishing. Marlene revealed the purple mess on her fingertips. They all made eye contact before bursting into loud laughter.

♡♡♡

"Hurry up, Lily! We need to use the bathroom too!"

"I'm almost ready!" Lily said as she splashed water over her face for the third time. No matter what she did she still had a pit in her stomach that seemed to be getting bigger. She's gone to school before. She's had friends before. But that didn't feel as real as this, this felt like life or death. Before she was a natural at everything, and now it feels like the floor of that stability has vanished and she's falling into places she's never seen. And this time she wasn't a natural.

Everyone would see through her to who she really was. Just like Petunia said, a freak.

"I'm done!"

The rest of the getting ready process consisted mostly of Marlene fighting the urge to go back to sleep, Mary styling her hair in the mirror, and Lily standing by the door ready to leave early.

"How do I look?" Mary asked, showing off her half-up-half-down curls. Lily made a chef's kiss gesture, which made Mary smile bright, dimples flashing. "Ready to go, Marlene?" A very tired Marlene came out of the bathroom in her robes.

Lily stifled a laugh. "Aw, luv. Not a morning person?" Marlene groaned and fake smiled, then the three witches started down the stairs to their first breakfast feast.

The great hall was less daunting than the day before. The tables were filled with sausages, crumpets, scones, french toast, and more, and the natural light shone in on the students. There weren't too many people there, so the three girls sat down in an empty space and began to eat.

Not long after, Severus walked into the hall with three boys his age. One of them was very tall and the another rather short. The third one was muscular, surprising for his age, and had a large smirk on his face as he looked around the hall. Lily waved Severus over to her, smiling. He swallowed and turned to his friends. Lily tried not to dwell on what they were saying, forcing herself to look at her food instead of them. She'd learned to do this when she caught herself overthinking.

Around a minute later, Severus and the other boys sat across from them at the table. "Hey, morning Lily."

"Morning Sev," Lily said with a smile, "Who're your friends?"

"This is Avery," He gestured to the smirking boy, "Mulciber," The tall one raised his eyebrows at her, "and Aubrey." The short one gave a smile that didn't feel very genuine. "They're in my dorm."

Lily smiled. "Pleasure, this is Marlene and Mary, they're in my dorm too." After a few looks the group sat in an uncomfortable silence, only a few of the boys whispering to each other.

"Did you hear about the new tree? It's a Whomping Willow, apparently they've just planted it," An older, round faced girl also in Gryffindor said to the boy across from her. Lily overheard this and turned to Marlene.

"Marlene, what's a Whomping Willow?"

"Who doesn't know what a Whomping Willow is?" Avery interjected. "Did your parents forget to teach you any herbology or did they intend for you to be behind in school?" The two other lads, Aubrey and Mulciber, laughed at that.

Lily deflated a bit as Severus looked at her, an expression impossible to read on his face. "Well, both my parents are muggles so they were more focused on preparing me for maths." Lily and Mary laughed, the boys did not.

"You're a muggleborn?" Mulciber chimed in.

"Yeah, so is Mary," Lily answered with a polite smile. Avery scoffed, stood up, and with a look at Severus went to sit by himself near a few older students. Aubrey looked down at his food and Mulciber looked at Severus. "What's wrong?" None of the boys addressed her. She gave Mary a questioning look, causing her to shrug. When she looked at Marlene, however, she saw an offended look on her face.

"Come on Severus, sit with us over there." Lily's heart sank even deeper and the pit in her stomach grew even larger. "Don't waste your time with these mudbloods."

Lily felt the pit swallow her whole.

"Excuse me?" Marlene said. A flicker of understanding flashed in Mary's eyes. Mulciber just chuckled a bit and left to join Avery. Aubrey followed.

It was just Severus.

Lily wanted to speak. "Sev--"

"You should go." Lily saw that the speaker was Mary, who had said nothing for quite some time. Her arms were folded and she looked older than before even though she hadn't aged.

Severus looked at Lily. An apology haunted his eyes, but all he said was: "I like your nails." He followed suit, joining his classmates.

The girls didn't talk much after that.

A/N
Thanks for reading! I got to write some of my favorites in this chapter so I really hope you enjoy, next is Peter :)

-Meg/Thessie <3