The Cursed Generation (Harry Potter Next Gen)

A Strange Feeling

Lily wasn't particularly interested in playing Quidditch, to say the truth. Sure, being on the team sounded cool, but first year students weren't allowed to try out anyway.

She was sitting at the Gryffindor table on the Saturday of the first weekend of November. At Hogwarts that could mean only one thing: Quidditch!

That's right. The first Quidditch match of the season was to be played that very afternoon! The excitment in the buzzing Great Hall was palpable. Everyone was eager to take a break from whatever they were doing and go watch one of the most anticipated matches of the season: Ravenclaw vs Gryffindor!

Even more than seeing her brother James play, though, Lily couldn't wait for her oldest brother Teddy to come. Teddy wasn't her brother by blood, but he'd always been family.

When Lily was young Teddy used to come at the Potters' for dinner every day whenever he had a break from Hogwarts. They would play some game his classmates had taught him, and he'd tell them about Hogwarts.
Lily was the youngest, so she'd never been as close to him as her brothers. James was six years younger than Teddy, and Lily remembered both of them writing letters to her mother every week when James was in his first year, telling them about the mischief the other was up to, and blaming each other whenever the news of a detention reached mum Ginny's ears.

"Lily!" Ellie whispered. She elbowed her - rather rudely, in Lily's opinion - in the ribs, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"What?" Lily hissed through gritted teeth as she thouched her hurting ribcage. Clearly vexed by Ellie's interruption and her slowness in answering, she repeated, "What?!"

Ellie still didn't respond. She was looking over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed as she looked something or someone Lily couldn't see.
Ellie tuned and leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Lorcan and Lysander Scamander, the ones that are--"

"Followed by a crowd of giggling female admirers anywhere they go?" Lily rolled her eyes. "The ones that stole our sweets on the Hogwarts Express?"

"I was going to say the omes that are staring at us right now, but your description fits them even better."

Lily's eyebrows stitched together, "Why are they staring at us?"

"That's my point!" Ellie said hurriedly, "They were smirking in our direction before. What if it was them who locked us in our dorm on Halloween?"

Lily's eyes widened. She waited for Ellie's hypotesis to sink in, then turned slowly her head towards the Ravenclaw table. She scanned the faces of the blue-uniformed sea of students, looking for the twins. She nearly jumped off the bench in surprise when her eyes met Lysander's, and then his brother's. Bloody gits. They'd been staring just as
Ellie had said, and they didn't even bother to pretend not to be staring. Wasn't that the whole point of staring, not to get caught?

Just as Lily decided to turn back and eat her breakfast, Lysander grinned at her. He actually grinned.
Lily wanted to hex him.
She wanted to punch him.
She wanted to punish him.
She wanted to humiliate him.
She wanted to... to do something foolish.

Seeing her angry expression - which included a red face, no doubt - both the twins started snickering. Horrible beasts. Surely no one had ever gotten away with locking someone in a dormitory in a tower as a Halloween prank. Really. And people said they had a good sense of humor.

"Lil? C'm on, we better go." Lara's voice asked, snapping Lily's attention back to the world of the Gryffindor table.

"It was the Scamander twins." She didn't even bother keeping her voice down.