Plans
"Are you all barking?" Lily Potter spat in hushed tones. "This is going to get us chucked in the dungeons for the rest of our bloody lives!"
One rolled his eyes. The other grinned mischievously and stooped to tinker with something in his hands. She wanted to slap him; this all stemmed from his original plan, (which meant it was twice the risk and half the caution) and when things hadn't gone quite as well as planned, someone in the "foul-proof" chain panicked and wound them up in this mess. None of this was a surprise.
She stamped her foot to relieve some of her bubbling anger. A sick dread sunk into her stomach, and the nerves made her glance over her shoulder every few seconds. She wanted to scream but to do that would be to condemn them all to their inevitable death sooner than anticipated. Instead, she relayed her energies into frantically plaiting and unplaiting her auburn hair.
"Lily, Lily, Lily," one of them whispered with an infuriating grin, completely calm and collected. "You should know by now that they don't use the dungeons anymore. If anything, they'll take us into the Forbidden Forest." He sounded excited by this prospect.
Another stepped out from the shadows, chuckling lowly and slinking his arm around her shoulder. "Yeah, baby Lil, and that could be sort of fun. Where's your Gryffindor bravery?"
Yet another shook his head and gasped mockingly, "Did little Lily get sorted into the wrong house? The sorting hat is right over there...we could ask it right now."
Even though the bravery dig had stung, she refused to even glance at the sorting hat, mostly, because she didn't need the reminder that they were currently holed up in the Headmaster's office, after hours, without any sort of permission or valid excuse. But also, because she wasn't entirely true that the dig had been completely false.
Overall, she supposed it was completely unfair how she was treated in this family. Simply stated, it was not her fault that she was birthed the dead last Weasley grandchild.
She pursed her lips as she thought of this. "Can't we find a more...suitable place for this? I mean, honestly!"
"Hardly, little cousin." Another chuckled. This voice came from outside the room, and she turned, startled, to see one of the oldest ones balancing on a broom just outside the window. He did a lazy spin in order to catch a chocolate frog that one had thrown out him. "This is a perfect place–only place that Jamesy-poo can work without girls swooning over him."
That earned a few laughs from the too-loud voices that crowed the room, but she distinctly made out one scoff in the corner. There was always at least one scoff from the bunch.
"I told the lot of you that it was a terrible idea to bring her." Lily rolled her eyes for the first time that night and a seeping anger replaced some of the anxiety. "Are you all sure Uncle Harry house trained her? She's looking a little nervous, and I wouldn't want her to wet herself."
"Oh, can it, Luce." One complained from the revolving chair that sat behind the Headmaster's desk. "Your bad moods are making James's arrogance look promising."
Lily supposed she would have snapped back at her cousin if her heartbeat didn't sound like a tribal drum beating against her chest, but, as it were, she focused her attentions to her upcoming task. She was an overwhelmingly horrid liar, and though that's what James was counting on in order to set this all in motion, she couldn't help but doubt even her inability to not lie properly. With her rotten luck, she'd pull off an excellent lie and get her entire family chucked in detention for years.
She briefly wondered if her father's clout in the Ministry would help her at all if legal action was taken. Could she be sent to Azkaban at such a young age?
A smug grin stretched over one of their faces, and he stood slowly, holding the shiny object in his hands reverently. "Done."
Most of them hooted with relief or jubilation, but Lily looked more panicked than ever. Her part of the plan was coming closer and closer. They stared at her. One nodded to her, even opened the door for her.
Lily held her head high, walking swiftly past them, ignoring the one that scoffed. Her quick footsteps resounded through the corridors and down the stairs. Reaching the fourth floor, she stared around into the darkness.
This had been her assignment. Yet, there were so many flaws in the plan that she couldn't stop thinking that it was useless. She had no idea who would find her here in the dark as planned, or, more importantly, when she would be found. It needed to be fast, and it needed to be a professor. She shuddered at the thought of meeting Peeves alone in a dark corridor.
"Lily Potter?" A voice called to her. She spun around quickly, hoping her face looked as shocked as she felt.
Even worse than Peeves, it was a student. A very good-looking student. He smiled when the light from his wand reached her face, and she felt her heart speed up at the sight. It wasn't that she had a crush on her oldest brother's best friend's brother. It was that she was absolutely head-over-heels in love with him.
"Hello!" Her voice squeaked but she thought she managed to sound somehow worried. She didn't want to attempt to lie to him, but the others wouldn't like it if she didn't stall.
He peered at her inquisitively. "What are you doing in the halls this late, Lils?" He leaned closer; she could feel his warm breath and smell the peppermints he always carried in his pockets. "Lily Potter? Up to no-good?" He whispered in mock-horror. "And here I was, thinking her father had rid the Wizarding World of all of the evils."
She couldn't help but giggle. It sounded harshly loud in the quiet, dark hallway, and she glanced around to see if anyone had heard, not that she didn't want them to because she would stick to the plan. "And here I was, thinking all of the Wood boys didn't think about anything but Quidditch."
He laughed. It was deep and throaty. She, of course, liked it. His face turned serious, though there was a teasing lint in his voice, "Sometimes we have to wonder what pretty girls are doing when we just saw the pretty girl's brother flying down the main staircase on a broom holding onto something ticking."
She winced. "I wouldn't know anything about that."
"Lily Potter? Grady Wood?" An appalled voice spat from a distance. Lily squinted in the darkness to see a man swiftly walking toward them, robes billowing in the wind behind him. "What in Merlin's name are you two doing out here?"
To say she was not anticipating to be found by a student in the first place (let alone her favorite student) does not fully cover how little she expected to be found by Neville Longbottom. In fact, she had never, in the three hours since Roxanne woke her up for this, thought it would be him. She had even thought of a freak run-in with the Minister himself but not Neville.
She made a low, groaning sound in her throat and nearly came to tears.
Grady looked at her, calm himself, but obviously questioning her sanity. "Uh, well, you see Professor, Lily here is feeling absolutely terrible, and we were in the common room together, and I decided, as a good fellow Gryffindor, that I should escort her to the hospital wing."
Lily trodded on his foot to stop him. "But then, we heard a crash from upstairs so we were deciding whether we should go find a professor or if we should just go back to the common room to make sure we were out of harms way."
Professor Longbottom smiled wryly at the two. "I'm sure. Well, whether or not you both are lying through your teeth--which, of course, I assume is not the case–I suppose you should come with me while we go investigate the crash that occurred downstairs."
Lily cringed at his tone. "Um, professor? I think we should try to find the culprits of the crash upstairs."
She couldn't help but compare his answering hoot of laughter to the one he displayed at Christmas last year when she spilt hot chocolate over his new robes. She looked at Grady and hoped he didn't blame her when they were both serving a lifetime detention sentence.
"Just down these stairs, then–." Professor Longbottom muttered to himself and Lily could feel her heart beating erratically in her chest.
But when they reached the bottom of the stairs–
"Happy Birthday, Lily!"
Instead of the Slytherin smear-campaign she was expecting, she found herself staring at huge gold and red banners with her name on every inch. The clock to her left beamed twelve o'clock. The others were beaming at her; she felt totally in a daze.
James was the first to her, glaring daggers at Grady, but grinning at her. "And you thought we were barking, Lils. You forgot your own birthday! If Wood over here," he nodded once in the general direction of Grady, "hadn't devised this whole plan, you would probably be out-of-the-loop all day because none of us would have reminded you."
She was completely beside herself. Tears were streaming down her face, but more than anything, she felt totally enraged. She had thought that she was going to Azkaban for this! And that's when Lily Potter used her wand, in front of a professor, to magically stick her oldest brother to the ceiling.
I don't own anything. Another really random story.