the_debt_of_time

"No, there's too much to do," Lily said, examining what appeared to be a colour-
coded timetable for N.E.W.T. revisions. "I have to write up all the new prefect patrolling
schedules, especially with Mia and Sev—er... Snape in detention next Friday. I'll have to
figure out who to pair with their previous partners since they'll be unavailable. Also, with
you being Quidditch Captain, I imagine I'll have to work around that schedule as well, not
to mention planning for N.E.W.T.s."
"You could just take a night off, you know," James suggested with a laugh.
"That's your problem, Potter." Lily put her hands on her hips and sighed irritably.
"You treat every night like it's a night off. You have to grow up sometime and actually take
responsibility for things."
"Fair enough. I'll think about it, yeah?" He smiled and turned his attention back
toward the staircase where they saw a small girl in green and silver robes sitting on the
bottom step looking positively devastated.
Mia was half-tempted to cancel her disillusionment to help the girl, but Lily stepped
up before she had a chance to even raise her wand.
"Excuse me? Are you lost?" Lily asked sweetly.
"No.. ." The eleven-year-old scowled up at her and then frowned, looking back
down at the floor, embarrassed. "Er... well yes, but... I don't want to go to my common
room."
"Why's that?" James inquired as he took a seat directly beside the girl.
"I'm a Slytherin," the tiny witch said, as though James were stupid and did not
understand.
"I can see that." He gestured to her robes and then, with a teasing smirk, asked,
"What's the problem, you don't like green?"
The girl looked like she almost laughed but caught herself before she did so. "I'm
half-blood," she admitted very quietly with a frown. "Slytherins are supposed to only be
pureblood. If I go in there, they'll just kick me out."
"They won't do that," Lily insisted, looking horrified that the girl had been led to
believe such awful rumours.
While she had never been friends with the girl in her original timeline, Mia
remembered hearing that Tracey Davis was a half-blood Slytherin. She never saw the girl