Lily Evans knew that the world was often fucked up. And she enjoyed potion-making for its non-fucked-up-ness. It was the art of precision and persistence. The game never changed halfway through. Lily was seldom more at peace than when she was brewing something in her cauldron, like the witches she had seen in books when she was little.
Most of the work Professor Slughorn had given her involved concocting different potions. Less favorable to Lily, he had also requested she draft some lab worksheets. Lily was familiar enough with nearly every potion on the list, even some of the work for the seventh years. There was a reason the professor had been hinting about an opportunity for next summer, and it wasn't her pretty eyes.
Lily had barely been in the potions classroom for an hour before she had a half-dozen cauldrons steaming and simmering. She had set up a workstation for herself near the front of the room, where she put out spare ingredients, a potions book marked to all the necessary pages, and a quill and paper.
Once most of the potions could sit for a bit on their flames, Lily bent her head over drafting a worksheet for the first years. She tucked a stray hair back into her ponytail and wrote the date at the top of the parchment.
Every so often, she went to stir a potion or add something to another one. Potion-making was old hat to Lily, but she had never made so many potions on her own at once. For a brief second, she let herself entertain the idea of being the Potions Master someday. Then she remembered the war that had kept her at Hogwarts over Christmas. The idle fantasy fizzled out like a dead firecracker.
Lily was halfway through writing a question about the importance of stirring in the right direction when she heard a knocking from outside the classroom. By the booming sound of it, like the tail of a great dragon beating against the wall, she figured it to be Hagrid. She leapt to her feet and went to open the door.
Nothing. Probably Peeves.
She heard it again, coming from all directions. It made the floor tremble. Lily leaned against the doorframe, like she had once read you were supposed to do in an earthquake.
The banging sound went away. Lily straightened her sweater, took a deep breath, and told herself once more Peeves was probably just bored.
One of the cauldrons had toppled over from all the shaking. Lily muttered a quick profanity when she saw the purple potion seeping out across the floor. She ran to the front of the room and grabbed her wand. She waved it once to right the cauldron, but hesitated before vanishing the spoiled potion.
It had almost been finished, so close to it. Lily might even argue it had been finished, save for another minute on the fire. She wondered whether it was any good. She looked toward the storage vials at the front of the room, wondering whether she'd need a Wideye Potion anytime soon and whether it was immoral for a prefect to smuggle potions.
"Head Girl or head of an illicit potions ring?" muttered Lily, with a grin.
She reminded herself of the school's stringent rules about potion possession. She thanked no one in particular that it was only a Wideye Potion, or else she would have been more tempted. She waved her wand, and the floor was clean as cottages.
Just around suppertime, Lily popped into Slughorn's office. The door was open, but Lily knocked anyway. Slughorn's head was hidden beneath his desk; just his massive shoulders and back were visible. He looked somewhat like an overstuffed tweed pillow.
"I finished the potions, Professor," Lily said.
Slughorn straightened in his seat. His forehead shone of sweat.
"Excellent, my dear, excellent," he said. His ruddy jowls quivered when he spoke, and his voice was far too loud for the confines of his office. "I trust I'll see you at a little Slug Club party I'm having next week."
"I'll definitely try to make it," said Lily politely. In truth, she had grown weary of those parties, at least the ones that were just Hogwarts students. She had once met the Minister of Magic's press secretary at a luncheon, but that had been very much the exception.
"Excellent," said Slughorn in a quieter voice. He looked down at his desk and tidied an already-neat stack of papers.
"Is everything all right, Professor?" Lily asked.
"Of course, of course! Couldn't be better."
Lily nodded. She felt the beginning of some skepticism working its way into her head, but she thought it best not to pry. Slughorn's business was his own.
She ate dinner in the kitchens. There was no sense in going to the Great Hall; no one would be there except for a Hufflepuff or two. The house elves were more than happy to give Lily some food, even if they made for somewhat obsequious company.
Lily walked back to Gryffindor Tower with thoughts of red wine sloshing around in her head. A glass and a shower appealed greatly to her.
Gryffindor Tower smelled of disuse. Even though Lily had stayed for the whole break, the place felt thoroughly unlived-in, and it was no surprise. With the world being what it was, nearly every student in school went home over Christmas break. It wasn't necessarily to anyplace better, but no one really took family for granted anymore.
Up in the sixth year girls' dorm, Lily shed her skirt and sweater in anticipation of a shower. The hot water warmed her bones after having been in the dungeons for most of the day. How did the Slytherins deal with the cold, she wondered?
After her shower, she changed into an old pair of pajamas and took out her favorite book. Then, from beneath the layer of old, Christmas-gift sweaters in her trunk, she extracted a bottle of red wine. It was part of her stash of muggle paraphernalia: magazines, sweets, and liquor. Alcohol was the secret currency of the older Hogwarts students, but Lily kept the stuff more for personal than pragmatic use.
She uncorked her bottle of wine, wondered briefly whether her stash would last the semester, and settled into her bed.
As her eyes were beginning to droop, she heard a knocking at the door. It wasn't as loud as it had been, but Lily saw the posts of her bed shaking slightly. She shut her eyes and willed it to stop. The pipes, she told herself, it must be the pipes. No need to worry.
The knocking didn't stop for at least another minute. Once it did, Lily got out of her nice, warm bed and went to the door: nothing, just as before.
She grabbed her wand and slipped on the nearest pair of shoes she could find. Before she left the dorm, she magicked the cork back into her now half-empty bottle of wine.
She heard the knocking once more in the stairwell and followed it down. When she reached the common room, she whispered, "Homenum revelio."
Nothing. Lily shivered from the cold and pulled her sleeve back up onto her shoulder. She waited a few minutes: nothing more. She didn't move, and her breaths were silent as death. Then, and perhaps this was the wine, she headed toward the portrait hole. If the Fat Lady admonished her as she left, Lily didn't hear it.
The corridors of Hogwarts were eerie at night, especially with the castle so empty. Lily thought of Potter and all of the late-night adventures she knew he had with his friends. If they could do this, so could she.
She instinctively headed in the direction of the dungeons. She didn't worry much about running into Filch; he was always far more laissez faire during winter holidays.
On the second floor, Lily thought she heard footsteps approaching. She froze for a second and clutched her wand tighter. Then she looked around and ducked into the nearest corridor. She moved as quickly yet silently as she could, succeeding more in the former than the latter. She stopped halfway down the hall to listen for more footsteps. Instead, she heard muttering from up ahead and saw a bit of light coming out from under a door.
Lily tiptoed forward, wincing with each tap that her shoes made on the stones. She stopped a few feet short of the room in question.
"Merlin, why?" she heard someone whisper. It took Lily a moment, but after a few more mutterings she identified the speaker as Professor Slughorn. He went on, "If only I…when it should…she's not…"
Then his voice went silent. Lily heard the groan of his chair as it was relieved of his weight. Then came his footsteps tapping on the flagstones. She darted away from Slughorn's office, wondering whether she could make it to the end of the corridor in time. The door creaked; Lily settled for hiding behind a suit of armor.
She turned and watched Slughorn exit his office. He blessedly went in the other direction. Lily noticed a folded piece of paper, most likely a letter or a lesson plan, hanging out of his pocket. She couldn't help but wonder.
Once Slughorn was gone, Lily made her way back to Gryffindor Tower, caring more for speed than silence. The Fat Lady greeted her with judging eyes and crossed arms.
"Do you have an explanation, young lady?"
"Virtuoso, and no, I don't," said Lily. "Not that I'd care to share right now, at least."
Still glaring, the portrait swung open. Lily decided as she ascended to her dorm that she would not so easily be dragged out of bed again.