The summer after first year

The orphanage's gates were shut tight as usual. In the sweltering weather, Rose's clothes clung to her back, the fabric dark and completely soaked with sweat.

The enormous branches of an oak tree stretched over the courtyard wall, and a few scattered leaves lay on the ground.

Rose returned to the room where she used to live. Only a thin mattress remained on the narrow single bed, and the pillow was nowhere to be seen.

She put her luggage away, fetched a basin of water from the entrance, and spent quite a while cleaning the room.

"Rose, you're back?"

A young voice rang out from the doorway. It was Becky. She was a little taller than when Rose had left, and the freckles on her plump cheeks had grown more pronounced. She looked very cute.

Rose nodded and handed her the cookies she had brought from Hogwarts.

Becky held them happily, smiling until her eyes narrowed to slits. She told Rose that Marge and Alice had both gone out to work and that she was there alone.

Then she rattled off a whole string of questions, including when Rose's school term would start. Finally, she cautiously asked whether she could go to school there too.

Rose felt a little sad. She had once thought going to school was only natural; she had never expected it to become something children could only dream of.

She told Becky that if she had the chance, she would definitely ask the school for her. Becky was overjoyed.

Rose had written to Miss Elena a month in advance, telling her that she would return to the orphanage for the summer and go back to school when term started in September.

Elena did not care about someone she hardly saw all year. She was more concerned with how to get more relief money and make the little brats more obedient.

She had completely forgotten that Rose was coming back, so she got a terrible fright when she saw her at the dinner table that evening. Then she frowned and demanded that Rose go out to work with the older children the next day. "We can't afford to feed idlers!" she grumbled loudly, as if afraid others might not hear her.

The days of summer vacation seemed to take Rose back to the previous eleven years, giving her the illusion that Hogwarts had been nothing but an impossible dream.

After a busy day, when she returned exhausted to her little bed and opened her Transfiguration homework, she instead felt a strange sense of reassurance. She happily read the principles of Transfiguration, which usually gave her a terrible headache, and even worked on her Astronomy homework with relish.

At the end of July, she went into town and made her first call to Lily from a public phone booth. They did not talk for long and arranged to go to Diagon Alley together at the end of August.

"After that, you can come and stay at my house for a few days! Mum and Dad would love to have you, and we can go to the station together!" Lily's cheerful voice came through the receiver, and Rose could almost see the laughter filling her bright green eyes.

Lily always gave her a strange sense of belonging, as if Rose could glimpse the entire magical world through her. Perhaps because Rose knew she was Harry Potter's mother, she always found herself depending on her.

Rose felt terribly guilty whenever she thought this way. She felt she was overlooking Lily as an individual, as though such thoughts disregarded her very existence.

The days passed one by one. For Rose, who had to go out to work every day, the hot air was terribly hard to bear. She always told herself that she could grit her teeth and get through a great deal of hardship, and that the future would surely get better and better.

She had already made up her mind. After graduating from Hogwarts, she would rent a place of her own and perhaps keep a cat or two. She could continue studying or find a job she liked.

That belief kept her going until the middle of August.

Lily's letter was delivered by a round little owl. It gave Rose's finger an affectionate peck, and she had no choice but to feed it her lunch.

"Good boy. When I've finished writing my letter, I'll need you to take it back to Lily!" she said, stroking the owl's feathers.

In the letter, Lily asked how she had been, mentioned Petunia's coldness, and asked whether she still remembered their arrangement. She then wrote out her address in detail and thoughtfully included what kind of transport Rose could take to get there.

Rose wrote back to tell her that she had been looking forward to this moment every day.

After saying goodbye to Becky and the others, Rose followed the address Lily had written and set off once more, carrying her heavy luggage.

The town of Frenshem was not too far from the area where Lily lived. She only had to change buses once to get there.

Lily and her mother had been waiting at the station for quite some time. As soon as Lily saw Rose get off the bus, she came charging over happily and hugged her tight.

Lily's mother was a gentle, capable working woman with green eyes exactly like Lily's. When she looked at Rose, she seemed like another Lily. She took Rose's luggage, asked whether her journey had gone smoothly, and said that the whole family was delighted to welcome her.

They passed through streets lined with buildings and stopped in front of a small, two-story brownish-yellow house. The yard in front was covered in ground plants, and little yellow and green flowers poked through the gaps between the paving stones. Even the swaying grass was adorable.

The Evans family had even prepared a separate room for Rose. Rose would have used every warm word she knew to describe it. There was a faint fragrance in the room, and a seashell wind chime hung from the pale yellow curtains.

"I made it myself," Lily said, a little embarrassed when she saw Rose notice the wind chime. "It's a bit simple, but I think it's quite nice!"

"It's the prettiest wind chime I've ever seen," Rose said in genuine praise.

Lily smiled, her lips pressed together.

The Evans home was the place that felt most like a home to Rose in this world, with its gentle but strict mother and comical father. Even though Petunia rarely treated her kindly, Rose still liked it very much there.

Mr. and Mrs. Evans both had to work during the day, leaving the three children at home. Petunia, who had been asked to cook for the younger girls, would unhappily go back to her room and stay there all day.

Rose baked cookies for Lily, and they also followed the steps in a baking book to make muffins together. They put the ones they could not finish in a small basket, and Lily took her to the secret hideout she shared with Snape.

At first, Snape was furious about her arrival. Over time, he learned to ignore Rose and spoke only to Lily whenever they met.

Rose found his childish behavior amusing. She often deliberately brought up topics that interested Lily in front of her, then watched out of the corner of her eye as Snape's ears turned red with anger, though he still did not want to speak to Rose.

On August 30, they went to Diagon Alley together, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Evans. Rose exchanged the money she had saved from her summer work for some Wizarding World currency.

It was enough for her to buy a warm set of robes, a set of secondhand textbooks, and a few odds and ends.

Early the next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Evans drove them to King's Cross Station. After saying goodbye to each of them, Rose and Lily went hand in hand through the wall to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and boarded the red steam train once more.