"...and for homework tonight I would like you all to complete an essay on Invisibility Potions," Professor Halliway said, ignoring the groans that went around the room. The bell went. "You are dismissed."
Everyone filed out, complaining loudly about the amount of homework they were being given. Lily waited for her two best friends, Genevieve Gobswopped and Sara LaBeema to catch up before setting off again.
"Can you believe all this homework we have?" Genevieve said with a dismal sigh. "We have to do our star charts for Astronomy, practice hexes and curses for Defense against the Dark Arts, look at how Mercury disrupts every day life for Divination and now this!"
"You wouldn't have to study Mercury if you had chosen to do something sensible like me," Lily said loftily.
Genevieve rolled her eyes at her. "Arithmancy sounds worse by the look of all those number charts you have to do... what's going on?"
They had reached the end of the corridor and found a huge mob of people (mostly sixth years) all crowded around a bulletin board and talking very loudly.
"Let's go to the front," Sara yelled over all the noise, and the three of them pushed their way through, stepping on a lot of toes and receiving almost as many dirty looks.
"Stupid git," Genevieve muttered as a Slytherin named Malcolm Zambini who's toe she had just stepped on called a very rude name after her.
Lily reached the board first and read the notice out to her friends. "Could all sixth years please meet me in the Great Hall at six o'clock this evening. Professor Dumbledore."
"Wonder why he wants us to meet him there?" Sara said. Lily shrugged.
"Let's get out of here," she said.
"Agreed," Genevieve said, in a rather muffled voice as she was squashed against the wall by a bunch of Slytherins led by Malcolm Zambini.
They headed for the Ravenclaw common room after that, Genevieve rubbing her head and treating them to a long speech about inconsiderate Slytherins.
"Yes, we all know how horrible they are, Genevieve," said Lily wearily, bored of it after about five minutes. They stopped in front of an enormous portrait of a dark castle. "Purple Saphires," Lily said to it, and the door of the castle swung open. The three of them stepped through it into the common room.
"I suppose we'd better get started on all that homework we have," Sara said with a sigh.
"We'd better," Genevieve agreed.
*****
"Hurry up, Lily," Sara said, bouncing around impatiently. "It's six o'clock already, we're going to be late."
"In a second," Lily said, scribbling the last few lines of her Potions essay down. She hastily stuffed it into her bag and she, Genevieve and Sara hurried upstairs to the Great Hall. Lily stopped in front of the doorway.
"What's happening?" she wondered. All the house tables had been pushed along the walls, leaving ten smaller tables in the middle, each with four chairs around them. In front of the staff table was a stool, and sitting on it was a very familiar dirty, black hat.
'The Sorting Hat!" Genevieve said. "We're not going to be re-sorted are we?"
Just then, Professor Dumbledore walked into the room, followed by most of the staff who sat at the head table. He held up his hand and the chattering in the room stopped.
"Welcome," he said, beaming around as he usually did. "I expect you're all wondering why I have called you here, so let's get straight to it. We are all here because the Annual Sixth Year Treasure Hunt is about to begin."
Some people immediately began muttering excitedly to the people next to them, but others looked as blank as Lily felt. What on earth was the Sixth Year Treasure Hunt?
Dumbledore cleared his throat again and the room fell silent. "For those of you who don't know, the Treasure Hunt is a tradition we have in this school that is held for only sixth years. Each of you will try on the Sorting Hat and will be sorted into one of the ten groups of four. The Sorting Hat chooses according to the people it thinks you will work best with.
"Now, the object of the hunt is to be the first group to reach the treasure. You will each be given a clue that will lead to the next clue and so on, until you have the final clue that leads to the treasure. Each group's clues will be different except for the last one which will lead to the same place." Dumbledore smiled as he looked at the excited faces in the Hall. "You will have a total of three weeks to solve all the clues to get to the treasure. The final day will be on the twenty-second of October where you will have the entire day off to search for it."
The entire hall burst into whispers again.
"Do you think we'll get to be in the same group?" Sara said anxiously to her friends.
"I hope so," Lily said. "I wonder what the prize is."
Professor McGonagall suddenly stood up, holding a long piece of parchment in her hand.
"When I call your name, try on the Sorting Hat then sit at the appropriate table," she said. It was then Lily realized that the tables were labeled one to ten.
"Ambrose, Alan!" A hard-faced Slytherin boy stepped up to the stool and put the Sorting Hat on. It was still large enough to fall about his ears. The Sorting Hat seemed to think for a moment, then yelled out "Table Six!"
"Arvelis, Yvonne."
"Table Nine!"
"Black, Sirius!"
All the girls in the Great Hall seemed to swoon as he approached the hat.
"He's not that cute," Lily said when she saw Genevieve staring at him with a love sick look on her face.
"Yes he is," she said. "That hair!" Lily couldn't see what was so wonderful about his longish black hair that was tied back in a pony tail, and was about to say so, when the hat suddenly yelled out, "Table Four!" Sirius took of the hat and walked to the table, grinning.
"Bronwell, Lily!"
Lily pushed her way to the front, and stuck the hat on her head.
"Ah, yes, Lily Bronwell, I do remember you well," said a little voice in her ear, the same one that had spoken to her when she had tried it on back in her first year. "Very clever, plenty of courage as well... quick to jump to conclusions which can get you into a bit of trouble... you have enough sense to put some certain Gryffindor boys into place... yes, I think you'll do quite well with them... I'll put you on TABLE FOUR!" The Sorting Hat yelled out the last two words and Lily took off the hat and went to join Sirius at his table. He smiled at her when she sat down and her knees seemed to wobble slightly.
Okay, so maybe he is cute, Lily thought to herself as she watched him turn his attention back to the Sorting Hat.
To her disappointment, both Genevieve and Sara were sorted into Table One. They both threw jealous looks at Lily as they went past who was still the only one sitting at the table with Sirius.
"Longbottom, Frank!"
"Table Nine!"
"Lupin, Remus!"
A Gryffindor boy who was slightly shorter than Lily sat on the stool and put the Hat on. It hesitated a moment before yelling, "Table Four!" Remus pulled the hat off and headed off towards Lily's table where Sirius was cheering loudly. Lily knew they were both good friends, as well as some of the biggest trouble makers in the school.
Close up, she saw that Remus looked very tired. He had dark rings under his eyes and somehow looked much older than sixteen, but nevertheless, he smiled at Lily as he sat down and was immediately engaged in a conversation with Sirius. Lily turned back to the Sorting. It was going through the P's now.
"Pettigrew, Peter!" A very short boy with dark hair and watery eyes stepped up to the stool and put on the hat. "Table Six!" the hat yelled, and Peter went to join Alan Ambrose who leered at him unpleasantly from across the table.
"Potter, James!" Both Sirius and Remus stopped talking and turned to watch James being sorted. Both of them, Lily noticed, had their fingers crossed. James was Sirius' best friend as well as the Quidditch captain for Gryffindor.
The hat paused for a moment before yelling, "Table Four."
James took off the hat, grinning, and walked over to the table where he took a seat next to Sirius and joined in their conversation. Lily, now feeling completely left out, looked to see how many people there were left to be sorted.
"Snape, Severus!"
A greasy haired Slytherin boy pulled the hat on his head. "Table six!" the hat yelled out.
Finally, with "Zambini, Malcolm!" ("Table Six!" again), the sorting ended. Looking over at Table Six, Lily could feel herself feeling a bit sorry for poor Peter Pettigrew who was surrounded by evil looking Slytherins. Sirius, on the other hand, seemed to find it incredibly amusing.
"Whoever would have thought that old Peter would work best with Slytherins?" he said grinning.
James looked as though he were about to laugh but Remus had turned slightly pale and said testily in a voice Lily wasn't really supposed to hear, "Snape's in his group and he know's we're up to something, Peter's going to crack, I know he will..."
Sirius looked as though he were about to say something, but James looked at Lily pointedly and said, "Shhh," and Sirius quickly shut up.
James turned to Lily and smiled, and suddenly, Lily could feel her insides churn much harder than they had when Sirius had smiled at her. She felt herself blushing, a thing she usually tried to avoid doing because it made her look like an over ripe tomato, especially with her flaming red hair.
"Hi," James said to her. "You're Lily Bronwell, right?"
"Yes," Lily said, quickly dropping her eyes so she wouldn't have to look it him. It was probably the reason why she also didn't notice Sirius now looking at her with keen interest. He was just considering asking her out when Dumbledore stood up again, silencing the entire hall.
"Your first clues will be given out now. You will have..." he glanced down at his watch, "half an hour to work on it, and the rest will be done in your spare time."
He waved his wand and suddenly, a small box materialized on the table. Looking around, Lily saw that one had appeared on every table. She turned back to see Sirius snatch the box and pull it open.
He took out a small key which he put aside impatiently, and then drew out a small folded piece of parchment which he carefully unfolded and smoothed out on the table. The four of them crowded around to see. Sirius began to read it aloud.
"My first is the second of March and of fairy
The fourth of demand and the sixth of contrary
My second and third are the same as each other
The first in triathlon and middle of brother
My fourth can be found on your face, that's for certain
The second to last in the word that is curtain
My fifth is as blue as the sky is in Spring
Where ships go for sailing and seagulls will sing
Now put these together and you'll find the place
That will give you the key which will win you the race."
"I think I've seen one of these in a Muggle book once," Lily said, taking the parchment from Sirius and trying to ignore the fact that James was looking over her shoulder and breathing down her neck. "Each line is a clue that gives you a letter... then I think you put the letters together and they'll give us the place where the next clue is."
"Okay," said Remus slowly. "My first is the second of March and of fairy... what does that mean?"
"It means that the first letter of the word is probably the second letter of--"
But she was cut off because just then, Professor McGonagall stood up and called, "Could all of you please make your way back to your common rooms!"
"We'll work on it later," said James, taking the parchment from Lily and putting it, and the brass key in his pocket. He grinned. "See you tomorrow, Lily."
"Bye," Lily said getting up off her chair. She was just leaving when Sirius called her back.
"Hey, Lily!" She turned around.
"Yeah?"
"Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me next week?"
She considered, then grinned and said, "Okay," before turning her back and making her way out of the Hall.
*****
Sirius threw Peter onto his bed in disgust.
"Now tell me, why did I have to carry him all the way here? Why couldn't any of you guys have done it?"
"Because I'm not strong enough," said Remus matter-of-factly. "And neither is James."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right."
He, James and Remus had walked out of the Great Hall into the Entrance Hall to find Peter on the ground having a nervous break-down because he had just had a run in with a bunch of Slytherin boys. After a lot of argument, Sirius had been chosen to carry him up the marble staircase to their dorm.
James flopped down on his bed. "What do you guys think of Lily?"
"I think she's nice," Remus said.
"She's cute," Sirius said, flopping down on his own bed.
James rolled his eyes at him. "Is that all you think of?" Sirius laughed.
"Okay, she's nice, too. What do you think?"
"She's okay," said James carefully, thinking about how green her eyes were and how she had blushed when he smiled at her.
"Wonder why she got put into our group instead of Peter," said Remus with a yawn.
"Because Peter's a brainless git."
"Sirius!" said James annoyed.
"I was only joking," Sirius lied quickly. He really didn't like Peter much. "I'm turning the lights out now. G'night."
*****
"You lucky, lucky thing," Genevieve said enviously at breakfast the next morning. "You get into a group with the three most gorgeous guys in the school while I'm stuck with Paul Zwigilieth the mega dweeb and Cyril Diggory. Oh, and Sara," she added as an after thought. Sara wacked her with her Transfiguration book, then went back to reading it.
"We need to get to class," Lily said, glancing at her watch. "We have Charms next."
The three of them got up and were about to leave the Hall when someone called out, "Hey, Lily!" Lily turned around. It was James.
"Oh, hi," she said, flushing a little and hoping that Genevieve and Sara wouldn't notice.
"We're working on the clue after our last class in the library today," James said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "So be there, okay?"
"Okay," Lily said.
"See you, then."
"See you."
And James went of to join Sirius and Remus at the Gryffindor table. Lily turned around to see both Genevieve and Sara grinning.
"What?" she said.
"Nothing," said Sara loftily, and they both burst out laughing and walked through the Entrance Hall with Lily running behind them yelling, "Tell me!"
*****
When Lily got to the library, she couldn't see Sirius, Remus or James anywhere so she put her things down on a table and went to search for a book she needed for Transfiguration.
She saw the book she wanted on the highest shelf and climbed up the ladder to reach it. She pulled it out and was half way down the ladder when she heard voices that made her stop.
"He must disappear every month for a reason."
"It must be pretty big as well or they wouldn't let him miss out on so much school..."
Lily peered over the top of the books to see who was speaking. It was Severus Snape and Malcolm Zambini.
"We'll probably be able to worm it out of Pettigrew though."
"Think he'll tell us the truth?"
Snape snorted. "We'll threaten to curse him. He'll crack as soon as we take our wands out!"
Malcolm sniggered."Potter's always looking out for him, though. Him and Black."
"Mmm. Well, we'll find out where Lupin goes eventually if it's the last thing I do..."
The voices faded off.
"Hello, Lily," said an amused sounding voice from behind her.
Lily started and toppled off the ladder, a pile of books coming down after her. She shook her head dazedly and looked up to see who had spoken. It was James.
He grinned as he stuck out his hand to help her up. "Who were you spying on?"
Lily blushed. "Oh... just Snape. And Malcolm Zambini."
James' face darkened slightly. "Oh. Them." He saw Lily picking up the books that had fallen. "I'll do that," he said, taking them from her and putting them back on the shelf. "Sirius and Remus are waiting for us at the table. Let's go."
Lily followed James to the table, cheeks still burning with embarrassment. Why did have to catch her doing the most embarrassing spying on Severus Snape, of all people?
Sirius seemed to be having an argument with Remus, but stopped when he saw Lily approaching them.
"What took you so long?" he asked as they said down. Then, not waiting for an answer, he pulled out the parchment with the clue on it and put it in the center of the table. "We need to work this out."
"Oh, right," Lily said. "Well, I was saying yesterday that the first letter of where the next clue is must be starts with the second letter of March and fairy which is..."
"A," said James, scribbling it down. "And the next one will be..."
"T," Lily said. "The first of Triathlon and middle of brother. That's the third letter as well."
"Right," said James, scribbling it down. "So the fourth one must be..."
"Something you find on your face," said Remus. "I." James wrote it down.
"So what's the last one?" he asked.
They all looked down at the parchment.
"My fifth is as blue as the sky is in Spring / Where ships go for sailing and sea gulls will sing," Lily read. She frowned. "Where ships go for sailing... that sounds like the ocean. But that can't be it." They thought for a moment.
"The sea!" Sirius yelled out suddenly. Everyone in the library turned to stare at him. He quickly lowered his voice. "C. It must be C."
"Okay," James said, scribbling it down. "So what does this spell?"
They leaned over the parchment. "Attic," they all said at the same time.
"So the next clue must be hidden in there," said Sirius with satisfaction. "Let's go find it tonight."
"Tonight?" Lily repeated. "Can't we wait till next weekend or something to do it?"
"You want to find the treasure first right?" Sirius asked her.
"Well, yeah, but..."
"So we'll go," he said in a that-settles-it voice.
"You're not scared are you?" James said, grinning at her.
"No, but..." Lily sighed. "Alright. We'll do it tonight."
"Good," James said. "We'll meet you in the Entrance Hall at about twelve then, okay?"
"Okay."
"Let's go down to dinner then. I'm starving," said Sirius.
"You always are," said Remus, rolling his eyes.
Sirius wacked him over the head with a copy of Hogwarts, A History and then they all went downstairs to eat.
*****
When are they going to go to bed? Lily thought irritably, looking at the few people who were left in the common room. Doesn't anyone finish their homework on time these days?
Beside her, Sara yawned. "Well, I'm going to have a sleep now," she said, getting up and stretching. "Don't stay up too late."
"Yeah," Lily said. "Good night."
"'Night."
Finally, Lily thought as she saw the last person head up the stairs, yawning widely. She got out of her arm chair and stepped out of the portrait. Then she made her way to the Entrance Hall, praying she wouldn't bump into any teachers and wondering vaguely if the verdict was worse if prefects were found wondering around the school at night.
She got to the Entrance Hall. Nobody was there. Wonderful. They were late. Minutes later she heard footsteps coming down the marble stair case and a voice say, "Honestly, Padfoot, you'll make a right fool of yourself if you do that..."
"I don't think so, Moony. As a matter of fact I--owww, who stepped on my toe?"
"Sorry. Is Lily here yet?"
Lily looked around. She couldn't see anyone, yet she was sure they were somewhere in the room with her. Suddenly, something grabbed the back her neck and she shrieked.
"Shh! It's only us."
Sirius suddenly seemed to step out of nowhere, followed by Remus, then James who was holding a long silver cloak.
"Wow," said Lily impressed. "Is that an Invisibility Cloak?"
"Yeah. Family heirloom," said James.
Lily reached out and touched it. "Cool."
"Are we going to go up to the attic or stay here and talk about Invisibility Cloaks?" said Sirius impatiently.
"Let's go," said James. "The cloak should fit over the four of us."
It didn't.
Lily was squashed in between Sirius and Remus and was definitely not enjoying the experience.
"Who keeps treading on my toes?" she asked as they made their way up the marble staircase. "Ouch!"
"Sorry," said Remus. "It's kind of hard to see under here..."
"Owww, who pulled my hair?"
"Sorry." It was Sirius this time. "Who just elbowed me in the stomach?"
"That was me," said James. "I don't get this, it always seemed to fit when Peter was with us..."
"Maybe it's because Lily's about twice the size of Peter...ow!" he said as Lily kicked him in the shin.
"Did you just call me fat?"
"Not exactly, I just meant..."
"Shhh!" James said suddenly. They all froze as the Bloody Barron floated gauntly past them, eyes staring unblinkingly ahead.
"Okay, now everyone shut up."
Lily gritted her teeth as they made their way up more staircases and tried not to scream every time someone stepped on her toes.
"Are we nearly there?" she asked after ten more minutes of walking.
"Almost...I think this is it." They stopped in front of a solid looking wooden door.
James reached out and turned the handle. It opened with a loud creak. "Inside," he whispered holding the door open for them all. He shut it after himself then turned on the light. The bulb was bare and set a very dim glow over the room which was cluttered to every corner with boxes and chests and old furniture.
"It's huge," Remus moaned. "This is going to take forever."
"It doesn't look like anyone's set foot in here for centuries," Lily said, looking at the thick coat of dust that lay over everything.
Sirius suddenly sneezed, sending up a large cloud of dust. "Sorry," he said. "Tell you what, me and Remus will take that end of the room and Lily and James will take the other."
"Okay," James agreed and he grabbed Lily's elbow and dragged her over to their side of them room.
"Where should we start?" Lily said, looking around at the dozens of boxes around them.
"You start with the chest over there and I'll start looking through these boxes," James said.
Lily shrugged. "Okay," she said and made her way to the large brown chest he had pointed to. She forced it open and looked inside to find some old, moldy looking cushions, not unlike the one's Professor Flitwick usually got them to practice Banishing Charms with.
"Find anything?" James asked.
"Just some cushions," Lily said. She turned back to them. Suddenly, she felt someone behind her reach out and push her in. She shrieked as she fell into the cushions, sending up a huge dust cloud. Coughing and spluttering, she looked up to see who it was. It was Sirius, standing over her and laughing like a maniac.
"Oh, I am going to get you for that," she yelled. She picked up a cushion and flung it into his face as hard as she could. He ducked and it hit James instead.
"Hey!" he said, flinging it back and before she knew it, it had turned into a full fledged pillow fight with everyone trying to get Sirius and Remus running around getting into everyone's way.
Suddenly, a badly aimed cushion thrown by Lily went shooting through the hair and hit an ugly pick lamp which toppled to the floor with a loud crash.
They froze, waiting for Filch to come storming up with Mrs Norris by his side, but minutes passed and to their infinite relief, no one came.
"Okay, enough messing around," James said. "We need to get this done."
"Yes, sir!" Sirius said. "Come on, Remus," and they both left for their side of the room.
Lily was looking through a box that were filled with hundred-year-old Daily Prophets when she heard a snort of laughter come from across the room.
'Hey, Lily, come look at this," James said. He was holding a thick leather bound photo album. Lily dropped the pile of newspapers she was holding and climbed through the boxes. She peered over James' shoulder and laughed too.
"It's Dumbledore!" she said. And sure enough, the tall auburn haired man in the photograph waving up at them was none other then Albus Dumbledore. She peered at the picture more closely.
"Who's that lady he's got his arm around?" she wondered curiously, but James, now bored with the photo album just shrugged. He reached into the crate next to him and pulled out a pulled out a wooden jewelry box.
"Wonder what's in here," he said, and blew the dust off it. Lily coughed.
"Ow, I think you just got something in my eye," she said blinking fast and rubbing at it.
"Oh, sorry." James put the box down and looked down at her in concern. "Stop rubbing, I'll get it out for you."
"No, it's alright, I can do it..."
"I will," James said. "Hold still." He cupped her face in his hands. She stopped rubbing and looked up at him.
"Which eye?" he asked.
"Left."
He gently blew at it. Lily blinked.
"It is out?"
"Yes." He was still holding her face. Lily stared into his eyes and her stomach did an odd sort of flip flop.
"I found it!" called a triumphant voice from the other side of the room. Lily suddenly realized that her and James' faces were about an inch apart and jumped back from him. She could feel herself blushing.
She quickly made her way over to Sirius who was holding up a box identical to the one they had started off with.
"Where'd you find it?" she asked.
"In that chest over there," he said, pointing vaguely over his shoulder.
Remus and James came up behind Lily to see.
"Open it," said James, coming in closer.
Sirius' smile disappeared slightly. "Open it?"
"Yeah. You know. With the key." James rolled his eyes at him. "You do have the key here, don't you?"
Sirius' smile vanished all together. "Ah. Right. The key."
"Well, where is it?" asked Lily impatiently.
"Um..."
"Sirius! You didn't forget the key did you?"
"Um... yes."
Everyone in the room (except Sirius, of course) groaned.
"Where'd you put it?" Remus asked him. Sirius thought.
"I think it's under the bed. Or it could be somewhere else. I'm not exactly sure."
"So you've lost it."
"No! I've just... put it somewhere and forgotten where it is."
Lily sighed. "We'll have to look for it tomorrow. I've really got to get some sleep." She yawned and glanced at her watch. "We've been out for nearly three hours!"
Nobody really felt like using the Invisibility Cloak again as their toes were still recovering from the trip up to the attic, so they decided to just keep near the shadows and hope that nobody would see them.
"Besides, who would be wondering around at three o'clock in the morning besides us," James logically pointed out.
So they left the attic, Sirius in the lead, followed by Lily, Remus (who kept stepping on Lily's heels) and James bringing up the rear.
After about ten minutes of going down stair cases she had never been down before, Lily could see that Sirius was getting frustrated. He stubbed his toe on a wall and swore loudly.
"Uh, Sirius?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you lost?"
"No, we are lost. Look for a knight in a green armor."
"Why?"
"Because there's a secret passageway to the Charms corridor behind him, stupid."
"Who are you calling stupid," she began but suddenly, Sirius stopped in the middle of a stair case causing Lily to crash into him and Remus to crash into her and James to crash into him.
"What--" Lily began but Sirius quickly silenced her and Lily heard someone walking along the corridor directly .
"Come along, my sweet, Peeves has been along here, I just know it, maybe the Headmaster will listen to me this time..."
"It's Filch," Sirius hissed. "Back up the stairs! Before he sees us!" They began to slowly back up the stairs to last corridor they had been in. Suddenly, there was a loud crash. James had backed right into a suit of armor and the whole thing had come tumbling on top of him.
'RUN!" Sirius yelled and the four of them dashed to the end of the corridor and skidded around the bend.
They could hear Filch running after them and yelling, "PEEVES! I've got you now!"
Lily was running faster than she ever had in her life. By the time they reached the third corridor she was clutching at a stitch in her side and was gasping for breath.
"In here," said James suddenly, and pulled her in through a door. Remus quickly followed suit and Sirius slammed the door after him. They listened for a moment and heard Filch running straight past them. They sighed with relief.
Looking around, Lily saw that they were all squeezed in a tiny broom cupboard filled with mops and buckets and dustpans and brushes. If she thought the Invisibility Cloak was uncomfortable, it was nothing compared to this. She was wedged between a bucket and James and had mop sticking into her back.
"I think we lost him," she said, still breathing hard. Suddenly, she felt something fall into her hair. And she could tell by the snorts of laughter coming from Sirius and Remus's direction that she really didn't want to know what it was. But she had to ask.
"What just fell into my hair?" Sirius just laughed harder. Remus looked as though he were trying not to but little snorts kept escaping him.
"Uh... I think it was a spider," James said, trying to suppress a laugh.
"A WHAT?" Lily shrieked, sounding a bit hysterical. She began clawing at her hair frantically. "Get it out! Get it out!"
"It's okay, it's okay," said James, still trying not to laugh. "I'll get it out for you.... hold still."
He began to look through her hair, occasionally bursting into snorts of laughter.
"It's out," he said triumphantly, holding up a hairy black spider, its legs wriggling about like mad.
Lily shuddered. "Get it away from me."
"Okay." He tossed the spider at Sirius who was still laughing. He immediately stopped when he saw the spider was on him.
"Arrggghhhh! Get it off me! Get it off--"
Suddenly, the door of the broom cupboard was yanked open and Lily, James, Remus, Sirius and all the brooms and buckets fell out in a tangled mess onto the floor.
Lily looked up to see who it was.
We're dead, she thought when she saw Professor McGonagall in her tartan dressing gown glaring furiously down at them all.
*****
Two days later, the four of them were on their hands and knees in the Transfiguration room scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes.
"I suppose it could've been worse," Remus said with a sigh, looking around him. They still had half of the room to go.
"Really? How?" Lily asked grumpily. She really needed to be working on her Transfiguration. Her chair absolutely refused to turn into a peacock.
"What's wrong, Lily, is this your first detention or something?" Sirius asked her, grinning. Amazingly enough, he actually seemed to be enjoying the detention and seemed even more delighted when Professor McGonagall took an additional fifty points from Gryffindor.
"It's my first for this year," Lily muttered, scrubbing at a spot on the ground.
"This is my sixth," said Remus.
"My ninth," said James.
Somehow, nobody was surprised when Sirius said it was his twelfth.
"You do realize we've only been back for one month?" Lily asked him.
"Of course," said Sirius. "So there's plenty of opportunities to get more."
Lily rolled her eyes and went back to scrubbing the floor. "So. Have you found the key yet?"
"No." Sirius scratched his head, looking perplexed. "I could've sworn I put it under the bed. I've looked everywhere but I can't find it."
"We'll have to break it open somehow," said James. "Anyone know how to break locks on boxes?"
Nobody did.
"This is just great," said Lily, throwing her toothbrush down in disgust. "So we have the next clue but we won't ever get to see it because genius here lost it."
"Watch it, Bronwell, or I'll curse you."
"Like I'm afraid of you?"
"Well, who was scared of the big hairy spider the other night?" Sirius teased. "Woooh!"
James and Remus burst out laughing. Lily calmly pulled out her wand and turned him upside-down in mid air.
"Arrrgh! Let me down!"
"What's the magic word?"
"Let me down!"
"Say it!"
"Okay, okay. Pleeeeease?
Lily let him suffer for a few more seconds before letting him drop.
'Owww," Sirius complained, rubbing his head. He considered cursing Lily then decided that the look on her face was too scary and started picking the things that had fallen out of his pocket off the ground instead. He froze.
"I found the key!" he yelled, holding it up. Lily leapt up and snatched from him.
"You looked everywhere, huh? Did you ever think of looking IN YOUR POCKET FIRST?"
"I thought I put it under the bed!"
"Where's the box?" James asked.
"In my bag."
James raced to Sirius' bag, pulled out the box, and tossed it to Lily. She caught it and unlocked it, pulling out another key, this time silver, and piece of parchment which she hastily unfolded.
"What does it say?" asked Remus, trying to look over her shoulder which was hard to do because she was taller. She read it out loud.
"Listen to me about lollies that bake
And things that go creak and ho- hi- ha
Kind apples that scream for everyone's sakes
Eat them with berries in a ho- hi- hat."
Everyone stared.
"Let me see," said Sirius, snatching it out of Lily's hands.
"That doesn't make the least bit of sense," said James, shaking his head.
"Lollies that bake?" Remus scrunched up his nose thoughtfully. "That sounds like Honeydukes. Maybe the next clue is in there."
"I don't think Dumbledore would hide them outside the school grounds," said Lily. "And what's with the ho-hi's?"
"It said ih-oh if you look at it backwards."
"Very helpful, Sirius," said Lily, rolling her eyes.
The door of the Transfiguration room suddenly burst open.
"What are you four doing standing around?" Professor McGonagall yelled. "Get back to work!"
That night, Lily dreamt of baked lollies that kept running away from her while apples stood around and laughed ho-hi-ha.
*****
A week later they still hadn't solved the clue and Sirius was getting desperate. He was now calling daily meetings at the library every day after classes but no matter how hard they racked their brains, they just couldn't think of an answer.
Lily was waiting for the three of them in the library on Thursday to see if they could finally get a solution, but after half an hour of waiting she got fed up an began to pack her things up.
"Lily!"
She turned around. It was James. "Where have you been? I've been waiting ages."
"Remus found the answer to the clue."
"Really? Then where is he?"
"He's waiting with Sirius in another room."
"Then why didn't he just come here and tell us?"
They left the library.
"Sirius had...er... a little run in with Snape."
Lily rolled her eyes. "What did he do?"
James grinned. "He turned him into a toad and now he's hiding out 'cause he thinks that Snape's waiting around corners ready to curse him."
"Which room are they in anyway?"
"Just one we found a few month ago..."
He suddenly stopped in front of a large tapestry of a dragon in the Charms corridor and pulled it aside. Underneath was a door. Lily stared at it
"Wow. How'd you find this room?"
James shrugged. "Sirius did. Go in."
Lily opened the door and went inside. The room was small and perfectly round, furnished only with a wall-to-wall rug and an old green couch. Sirius was lying stretched out on the floor moaning while Remus was standing over him looking triumphant.
"Hi," Remus said. "I won the duel."
"He was lucky," Sirius muttered, getting up. Lily grinned.
"Sure, Sirius. So Remus, you solved the clue?"
"Oh, yeah." Remus rummaged into his pocket and pulled out the parchment. The three of them crowded around to see.
"It's the first letter of each line," Remus explained. "They spell L-A-K-E. Then there's the last letter of each line which spells E-A-S-T. So the next clue must be in the east of the lake."
The other three just sort of looked at each other. Then Lily said, "Isn't the lake kind of deep?"
James wrinkled up his nose. "Nah. Only in the middle I think. The shore's quite shallow."
"Shall we go?" asked Sirius.
"Now?' said Lily.
James shrugged. "Why not?"
*****
A few minutes later they were all at the east end of the lake, looking down at it uncertainly.
"Aren't there giant squid in here?" Lily asked.
"Yeah," said Remus. "And Grindylows too. Not to mention merpeople."
"That makes me feel so much better."
"Who cares?" James said. "Let's just get this over with." He suddenly jumped in, robes and all then came splashing back up, gasping for breath. "It's freezing in here!"
Sirius looked at Lily. "Ladies first," he said kindly.
Lily looked at the murky grayness of the water and pulled a face. "You can go."
"But I insist." Sirius suddenly whipped out his wand and before Lily could do anything he pointed it at her and yelled out, "Looparoma!"
Lily shrieked as she suddenly found herself shooting up into the air. She landed on James who caught her with an "Oomph!" and both of them fell into the water and came up with their noses touching. They stayed that way for a few seconds, staring into each others eyes until Lily suddenly blushed and backed away awkwardly.
By that time, Sirius and Remus had already joined them in the water and were trying to find the next clue. Lily and James quickly joined them and soon they were all diving in and out, trying to find the clue and having water fights at the same time. Lily finally caught sight of it wedged under a rock and called the others over.
"Who's going to dive in and get it?" she asked, shivering. It was already chilly to begin with and the sun was now sinking slowly over the horizon.
"I will," said Sirius, and he quickly dived under and resurfaced a few moments later, holding the box and looking triumphant. "Got it."
"Good. I'm getting out," said Lily and quickly splashed back to shore.
"Don't forget you're going to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow," Sirius called after her. "Meet me at the Entrance Hall at about three, okay?"
Lily nodded and waved, then made her way, dripping wet, back to the castle.
*****
Lessons had finished early that day so that the students could spent more time in Hogsmeade. Lily went back to her dormitory to put her things away. She was just about to leave to meet Sirius in the Entrance Hall when she caught sight of her wet robes from yesterday. She picked them up, thinking she could drop them off in the laundry on her way out when suddenly, a folded piece of parchment fell out. Frowning, she picked it up and read:
Lily,
I love you when you're smiling
I love you when you're sad
I love you when you're kidding
I love you when you're bad
I love you when you're nosy
I love you when you're blue
The reason that I love you
Is simply cos you're you
Please tell me
Do you love me too?
Lily stared at note for a moment in shock. Then, still clutching the note, she slowly lowered herself onto her bed.
Who had given it to her? It certainly hadn't been there before she had gone diving in the lake. It must have been put in there after or during it. That left Remus, James and Sirius.
Remus... she scrunched up her nose thoughtfully. He was probably the most thoughtful of the lot of them, but somehow, she couldn't imagine him writing a love letter to her and slipping it into her pocket when she wasn't looking.
James? Lily could feel her face heat up when she thought of him. She definitely liked him the best of the three of them. But he never seemed to look her way twice and she thought her chances with him were close to zero.
So that left... Sirius! But, Lily thought, he didn't seem like the romantic type. And he got on her nerves a bit as well.
On the other hand, he had asked her to go to Hogsmeade with him. But he had barely knew her then...
Lily moaned. Maybe it was Sirius.
She liked Sirius.
But definitely not in that way.
*****
Remus was going down the Charms corridor with someone suddenly yanked him into an empty classroom. He looked up, and to his surprise, found that it was Lily.
"Hi," he said. He saw that she was still gripping his arm. "Um, you can let of me now."
"Huh?" said Lily distractedly. She looked down at him. "Oh," she said and let go.
"Sirius is looking for you in the Entrance Hall."
"Is he?" she said. She was silent for a moment, then suddenly burst out, "Does Sirius write poems?"
"Huh?" said Remus, now completely confused.
"You know. Like rhymes."
"Um... no. Not that I know of." Remus looked at her. "Mind telling me why you're asking?"
Lily sighed. "I found this in my pocket after the episode with the lake yesterday." She thrust the note at Remus. He unfolded it and read it. His eyes widened suddenly.
"Ah," he said, handing it back to her. "So. You think it's Sirius?"
Lily shrugged. "Who else would be?"
"James?" Remus suggested casually. She flushed suddenly.
"No. I don't think it's him." She grabbed her bag and began to move towards the door. "I have to meet Sirius."
"Oh. And Lily?"
"Yeah?" she said, turning around.
"Can you do me a favor and don't show that note to Sirius?"
"Why?" Lily asked confused.
"Um... just don't."
"Okay," said Lily slowly.
"Have a good time."
"Thanks."
"See you."
"Bye."
*****
Remus found James doing homework in the common room. He grabbed his arm and dragged him up the stairs.
"I need to talk to you," he muttered.
"Ow! Where are you taking me?"
Remus didn't answer, he just dragged him to the dormitory and shut the door.
"Mind telling me what this is all about?" James asked grumpily, rubbing his elbow.
"Um... you didn't write a poem to Lily by any chance, did you?"
James suddenly turned red and became very interested in the floor. "No."
"Are you sure? 'Cos Lily showed me one. She found it in her pocket after swimming yesterday."
"Oh." James turned even more red. "Well, I might have."
Remus raised his eyebrows. "Might?"
"Okay, okay, I did." James sighed and suddenly flopped down on his bed. "She hated it, right?"
"I wouldn't say that," Remus said. He grinned. "She thought it was Sirius."
"How did you know it was me then?"
"I recognized your handwriting." He flopped on the bed next to James. "If you like her you really should tell her, you know."
"She likes Sirius," he said, staring at the canopy above him.
"You think?"
"Yeah. I'm positive."
"Why?"
"Because she's going to Hogsmeade with him, remember?" He suddenly bolted upright in horror. "Oh no! She might show him the poem!"
"It's okay," Remus assured him. "I told her not to."
"Then I really hope she doesn't. Because Sirius will never let me hear the end of it!"
*****
"Um, Lily?"
Sirius waved his hand in front of her face. She jumped.
"Oh, sorry. What is it?"
"Well, I've just asked you the same thing twice now, but you keep staring out the window like you're a million miles away."
"Sorry," she said again. She looked at him. "What did you want to know?"
"Do you want another Butterbeer?"
Lily looked at her bottle. It was still half-full. "No. I'm right," she said and went back to staring out the window.
Sirius sighed. He wasn't used to being ignored by girls. He frowned slightly, wondering what she was thinking, then decided to ask her.
"Anything on your mind?" Lily jerked.
"No," she said a little bit too quickly. She stared out the window again for a moment then turned back to him and suddenly burst out, "Well, you should know, shouldn't you?"
"What?" said Sirius, taken aback.
"The poem!" she exploded, jumping up out of her seat. "The poem you wrote to me yesterday."
"What poem?"
"Don't lie, Sirius!" she yelled. "I know you wrote it to me and I've been fretting all day wondering how I'm going to tell you that I don't feel the same way, so I'm really, really sorry but I just have to say that I don't love you but we can still be friends, right?"
Sirius stared at her with his jaw hanging open for a few seconds. Then he said, "Nice speech, Lily, except for one little thing. I didn't write you the poem."
Lily stared at him, speechless. "What?" she spluttered.
"I didn't write you the poem."
"Oh," she said in a small voice. She sat back down. "But Remus told me not to show it to you. So I thought..."
"What? He told you not to show it to me?"
"Yes."
"Can I have a look then?"
"Okay," Lily said slowly. She took a folded piece of parchment from her pocket and gave it him. He unfolded it and immediately choked, spreading crumbs everywhere.
"Sirius!" Lily yelled, brushing crumbs off her robes.
"Sorry," he said. He quickly swallowed. "You found this after the lake episode yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Ah," said Sirius nodding. He handed her back the parchment. "That explains it."
"That explains what?"
"Nothing." Lily looked as Sirius as if he were crazy. His face had gone all red and it looked as though he were about to burst out laughing.
"Lily?" he said after a while.
"Yes?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Yeah."
"Do you like James?"
Lily suddenly dropped her fork and had to duck down under the table to get it. When she came up her face was all red.
"I think I've had enough," she said brightly. "Let's go to the Shrieking Shack and..."
"You haven't answered my question yet!"
"What question?" Lily said, although she knew very well what it was.
"Do you like James?"
"Um...well...' said Lily, going even redder. She twiddled with her fork. "He's nice. I like him. As a friend of course," she added quickly seeing the smirk on Sirius' face. "But not it that way."
"Right," said Sirius, still smirking. "Whatever you say, Lil'."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," said Sirius loftily, getting out of his seat. "Let's go back to the castle. I think I've had enough."
*****
James was still in the dormitory, lying on his bed and waiting for Sirius to come back. He looked at his watch. What on earth were they doing for so long?
"No need to panic," Remus said. "She might not have told him."
"Yeah, right," James said. "Bet she did."
"But I told her not to!"
"Does everyone always do what you ask them to?"
"Point taken."
"When are they coming back?" James moaned.
Just then, the door burst open and Sirius waltzed in with a massive smirk on his face. He shut the door, and for a moment James thought that Lily hadn't told him, but his hopes were immediately dashed when Sirius opened his mouth and began to sing, "I love you when you're smiling, I love you when you're sad. I love you when you're kidding..."
James moaned and buried his face under his pillows. Remus patted his back comfortingly, though he looked like he were trying not to laugh at the same time.
"Aw," said Sirius grinning. "Why didn't you tell me you were in love, Prongs?"
"I wonder," said James to the pillow.
"She thought it was me," said Sirius laughing. "She gave me this whole big speech on how she didn't feel the same way. Then I told her that I didn't write it so she showed me the note. Then I asked her if she likes you."
"You what?!" James lifted his head from his pillow and stared a him in disbelief. Then he moaned and slumped back down again.
"It's okay," Sirius assured him. "She likes you. She dropped her fork under the table and went all red."
"Maybe you should tell her you wrote it," Remus said to him.
"No way!"
"She bound to find out sooner or later. Probably sooner," he added, a wicked smile glinting his face.
Just then, Peter opened the door and walked into the room. He took one look at Sirius' grinning face, James with his face under the pillow and Remus still patting his shoulder comfortingly and asked, "What happened?"
Sirius burst out laughing.
"Prongs is in love."
************************************************************************************
A/N: That's it for the first part. The next bit will be coming out soon. I wasn't planning to having it out as a series but when I was typing it up I realized that it was going to be waaaaaaaaay to long. So it'll be in two parts. Or maybe three. Depends really. There'll be kissing in the next bit. Review?
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JK Rowling. Except for the characters who belong to me which I think are only Genevieve and Sara. Oh, and Professor Halliway. And the poem which belongs to God-knows-who (absolutely no idea who wrote it).
Everyone filed out, complaining loudly about the amount of homework they were being given. Lily waited for her two best friends, Genevieve Gobswopped and Sara LaBeema to catch up before setting off again.
"Can you believe all this homework we have?" Genevieve said with a dismal sigh. "We have to do our star charts for Astronomy, practice hexes and curses for Defense against the Dark Arts, look at how Mercury disrupts every day life for Divination and now this!"
"You wouldn't have to study Mercury if you had chosen to do something sensible like me," Lily said loftily.
Genevieve rolled her eyes at her. "Arithmancy sounds worse by the look of all those number charts you have to do... what's going on?"
They had reached the end of the corridor and found a huge mob of people (mostly sixth years) all crowded around a bulletin board and talking very loudly.
"Let's go to the front," Sara yelled over all the noise, and the three of them pushed their way through, stepping on a lot of toes and receiving almost as many dirty looks.
"Stupid git," Genevieve muttered as a Slytherin named Malcolm Zambini who's toe she had just stepped on called a very rude name after her.
Lily reached the board first and read the notice out to her friends. "Could all sixth years please meet me in the Great Hall at six o'clock this evening. Professor Dumbledore."
"Wonder why he wants us to meet him there?" Sara said. Lily shrugged.
"Let's get out of here," she said.
"Agreed," Genevieve said, in a rather muffled voice as she was squashed against the wall by a bunch of Slytherins led by Malcolm Zambini.
They headed for the Ravenclaw common room after that, Genevieve rubbing her head and treating them to a long speech about inconsiderate Slytherins.
"Yes, we all know how horrible they are, Genevieve," said Lily wearily, bored of it after about five minutes. They stopped in front of an enormous portrait of a dark castle. "Purple Saphires," Lily said to it, and the door of the castle swung open. The three of them stepped through it into the common room.
"I suppose we'd better get started on all that homework we have," Sara said with a sigh.
"We'd better," Genevieve agreed.
*****
"Hurry up, Lily," Sara said, bouncing around impatiently. "It's six o'clock already, we're going to be late."
"In a second," Lily said, scribbling the last few lines of her Potions essay down. She hastily stuffed it into her bag and she, Genevieve and Sara hurried upstairs to the Great Hall. Lily stopped in front of the doorway.
"What's happening?" she wondered. All the house tables had been pushed along the walls, leaving ten smaller tables in the middle, each with four chairs around them. In front of the staff table was a stool, and sitting on it was a very familiar dirty, black hat.
'The Sorting Hat!" Genevieve said. "We're not going to be re-sorted are we?"
Just then, Professor Dumbledore walked into the room, followed by most of the staff who sat at the head table. He held up his hand and the chattering in the room stopped.
"Welcome," he said, beaming around as he usually did. "I expect you're all wondering why I have called you here, so let's get straight to it. We are all here because the Annual Sixth Year Treasure Hunt is about to begin."
Some people immediately began muttering excitedly to the people next to them, but others looked as blank as Lily felt. What on earth was the Sixth Year Treasure Hunt?
Dumbledore cleared his throat again and the room fell silent. "For those of you who don't know, the Treasure Hunt is a tradition we have in this school that is held for only sixth years. Each of you will try on the Sorting Hat and will be sorted into one of the ten groups of four. The Sorting Hat chooses according to the people it thinks you will work best with.
"Now, the object of the hunt is to be the first group to reach the treasure. You will each be given a clue that will lead to the next clue and so on, until you have the final clue that leads to the treasure. Each group's clues will be different except for the last one which will lead to the same place." Dumbledore smiled as he looked at the excited faces in the Hall. "You will have a total of three weeks to solve all the clues to get to the treasure. The final day will be on the twenty-second of October where you will have the entire day off to search for it."
The entire hall burst into whispers again.
"Do you think we'll get to be in the same group?" Sara said anxiously to her friends.
"I hope so," Lily said. "I wonder what the prize is."
Professor McGonagall suddenly stood up, holding a long piece of parchment in her hand.
"When I call your name, try on the Sorting Hat then sit at the appropriate table," she said. It was then Lily realized that the tables were labeled one to ten.
"Ambrose, Alan!" A hard-faced Slytherin boy stepped up to the stool and put the Sorting Hat on. It was still large enough to fall about his ears. The Sorting Hat seemed to think for a moment, then yelled out "Table Six!"
"Arvelis, Yvonne."
"Table Nine!"
"Black, Sirius!"
All the girls in the Great Hall seemed to swoon as he approached the hat.
"He's not that cute," Lily said when she saw Genevieve staring at him with a love sick look on her face.
"Yes he is," she said. "That hair!" Lily couldn't see what was so wonderful about his longish black hair that was tied back in a pony tail, and was about to say so, when the hat suddenly yelled out, "Table Four!" Sirius took of the hat and walked to the table, grinning.
"Bronwell, Lily!"
Lily pushed her way to the front, and stuck the hat on her head.
"Ah, yes, Lily Bronwell, I do remember you well," said a little voice in her ear, the same one that had spoken to her when she had tried it on back in her first year. "Very clever, plenty of courage as well... quick to jump to conclusions which can get you into a bit of trouble... you have enough sense to put some certain Gryffindor boys into place... yes, I think you'll do quite well with them... I'll put you on TABLE FOUR!" The Sorting Hat yelled out the last two words and Lily took off the hat and went to join Sirius at his table. He smiled at her when she sat down and her knees seemed to wobble slightly.
Okay, so maybe he is cute, Lily thought to herself as she watched him turn his attention back to the Sorting Hat.
To her disappointment, both Genevieve and Sara were sorted into Table One. They both threw jealous looks at Lily as they went past who was still the only one sitting at the table with Sirius.
"Longbottom, Frank!"
"Table Nine!"
"Lupin, Remus!"
A Gryffindor boy who was slightly shorter than Lily sat on the stool and put the Hat on. It hesitated a moment before yelling, "Table Four!" Remus pulled the hat off and headed off towards Lily's table where Sirius was cheering loudly. Lily knew they were both good friends, as well as some of the biggest trouble makers in the school.
Close up, she saw that Remus looked very tired. He had dark rings under his eyes and somehow looked much older than sixteen, but nevertheless, he smiled at Lily as he sat down and was immediately engaged in a conversation with Sirius. Lily turned back to the Sorting. It was going through the P's now.
"Pettigrew, Peter!" A very short boy with dark hair and watery eyes stepped up to the stool and put on the hat. "Table Six!" the hat yelled, and Peter went to join Alan Ambrose who leered at him unpleasantly from across the table.
"Potter, James!" Both Sirius and Remus stopped talking and turned to watch James being sorted. Both of them, Lily noticed, had their fingers crossed. James was Sirius' best friend as well as the Quidditch captain for Gryffindor.
The hat paused for a moment before yelling, "Table Four."
James took off the hat, grinning, and walked over to the table where he took a seat next to Sirius and joined in their conversation. Lily, now feeling completely left out, looked to see how many people there were left to be sorted.
"Snape, Severus!"
A greasy haired Slytherin boy pulled the hat on his head. "Table six!" the hat yelled out.
Finally, with "Zambini, Malcolm!" ("Table Six!" again), the sorting ended. Looking over at Table Six, Lily could feel herself feeling a bit sorry for poor Peter Pettigrew who was surrounded by evil looking Slytherins. Sirius, on the other hand, seemed to find it incredibly amusing.
"Whoever would have thought that old Peter would work best with Slytherins?" he said grinning.
James looked as though he were about to laugh but Remus had turned slightly pale and said testily in a voice Lily wasn't really supposed to hear, "Snape's in his group and he know's we're up to something, Peter's going to crack, I know he will..."
Sirius looked as though he were about to say something, but James looked at Lily pointedly and said, "Shhh," and Sirius quickly shut up.
James turned to Lily and smiled, and suddenly, Lily could feel her insides churn much harder than they had when Sirius had smiled at her. She felt herself blushing, a thing she usually tried to avoid doing because it made her look like an over ripe tomato, especially with her flaming red hair.
"Hi," James said to her. "You're Lily Bronwell, right?"
"Yes," Lily said, quickly dropping her eyes so she wouldn't have to look it him. It was probably the reason why she also didn't notice Sirius now looking at her with keen interest. He was just considering asking her out when Dumbledore stood up again, silencing the entire hall.
"Your first clues will be given out now. You will have..." he glanced down at his watch, "half an hour to work on it, and the rest will be done in your spare time."
He waved his wand and suddenly, a small box materialized on the table. Looking around, Lily saw that one had appeared on every table. She turned back to see Sirius snatch the box and pull it open.
He took out a small key which he put aside impatiently, and then drew out a small folded piece of parchment which he carefully unfolded and smoothed out on the table. The four of them crowded around to see. Sirius began to read it aloud.
"My first is the second of March and of fairy
The fourth of demand and the sixth of contrary
My second and third are the same as each other
The first in triathlon and middle of brother
My fourth can be found on your face, that's for certain
The second to last in the word that is curtain
My fifth is as blue as the sky is in Spring
Where ships go for sailing and seagulls will sing
Now put these together and you'll find the place
That will give you the key which will win you the race."
"I think I've seen one of these in a Muggle book once," Lily said, taking the parchment from Sirius and trying to ignore the fact that James was looking over her shoulder and breathing down her neck. "Each line is a clue that gives you a letter... then I think you put the letters together and they'll give us the place where the next clue is."
"Okay," said Remus slowly. "My first is the second of March and of fairy... what does that mean?"
"It means that the first letter of the word is probably the second letter of--"
But she was cut off because just then, Professor McGonagall stood up and called, "Could all of you please make your way back to your common rooms!"
"We'll work on it later," said James, taking the parchment from Lily and putting it, and the brass key in his pocket. He grinned. "See you tomorrow, Lily."
"Bye," Lily said getting up off her chair. She was just leaving when Sirius called her back.
"Hey, Lily!" She turned around.
"Yeah?"
"Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me next week?"
She considered, then grinned and said, "Okay," before turning her back and making her way out of the Hall.
*****
Sirius threw Peter onto his bed in disgust.
"Now tell me, why did I have to carry him all the way here? Why couldn't any of you guys have done it?"
"Because I'm not strong enough," said Remus matter-of-factly. "And neither is James."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right."
He, James and Remus had walked out of the Great Hall into the Entrance Hall to find Peter on the ground having a nervous break-down because he had just had a run in with a bunch of Slytherin boys. After a lot of argument, Sirius had been chosen to carry him up the marble staircase to their dorm.
James flopped down on his bed. "What do you guys think of Lily?"
"I think she's nice," Remus said.
"She's cute," Sirius said, flopping down on his own bed.
James rolled his eyes at him. "Is that all you think of?" Sirius laughed.
"Okay, she's nice, too. What do you think?"
"She's okay," said James carefully, thinking about how green her eyes were and how she had blushed when he smiled at her.
"Wonder why she got put into our group instead of Peter," said Remus with a yawn.
"Because Peter's a brainless git."
"Sirius!" said James annoyed.
"I was only joking," Sirius lied quickly. He really didn't like Peter much. "I'm turning the lights out now. G'night."
*****
"You lucky, lucky thing," Genevieve said enviously at breakfast the next morning. "You get into a group with the three most gorgeous guys in the school while I'm stuck with Paul Zwigilieth the mega dweeb and Cyril Diggory. Oh, and Sara," she added as an after thought. Sara wacked her with her Transfiguration book, then went back to reading it.
"We need to get to class," Lily said, glancing at her watch. "We have Charms next."
The three of them got up and were about to leave the Hall when someone called out, "Hey, Lily!" Lily turned around. It was James.
"Oh, hi," she said, flushing a little and hoping that Genevieve and Sara wouldn't notice.
"We're working on the clue after our last class in the library today," James said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "So be there, okay?"
"Okay," Lily said.
"See you, then."
"See you."
And James went of to join Sirius and Remus at the Gryffindor table. Lily turned around to see both Genevieve and Sara grinning.
"What?" she said.
"Nothing," said Sara loftily, and they both burst out laughing and walked through the Entrance Hall with Lily running behind them yelling, "Tell me!"
*****
When Lily got to the library, she couldn't see Sirius, Remus or James anywhere so she put her things down on a table and went to search for a book she needed for Transfiguration.
She saw the book she wanted on the highest shelf and climbed up the ladder to reach it. She pulled it out and was half way down the ladder when she heard voices that made her stop.
"He must disappear every month for a reason."
"It must be pretty big as well or they wouldn't let him miss out on so much school..."
Lily peered over the top of the books to see who was speaking. It was Severus Snape and Malcolm Zambini.
"We'll probably be able to worm it out of Pettigrew though."
"Think he'll tell us the truth?"
Snape snorted. "We'll threaten to curse him. He'll crack as soon as we take our wands out!"
Malcolm sniggered."Potter's always looking out for him, though. Him and Black."
"Mmm. Well, we'll find out where Lupin goes eventually if it's the last thing I do..."
The voices faded off.
"Hello, Lily," said an amused sounding voice from behind her.
Lily started and toppled off the ladder, a pile of books coming down after her. She shook her head dazedly and looked up to see who had spoken. It was James.
He grinned as he stuck out his hand to help her up. "Who were you spying on?"
Lily blushed. "Oh... just Snape. And Malcolm Zambini."
James' face darkened slightly. "Oh. Them." He saw Lily picking up the books that had fallen. "I'll do that," he said, taking them from her and putting them back on the shelf. "Sirius and Remus are waiting for us at the table. Let's go."
Lily followed James to the table, cheeks still burning with embarrassment. Why did have to catch her doing the most embarrassing spying on Severus Snape, of all people?
Sirius seemed to be having an argument with Remus, but stopped when he saw Lily approaching them.
"What took you so long?" he asked as they said down. Then, not waiting for an answer, he pulled out the parchment with the clue on it and put it in the center of the table. "We need to work this out."
"Oh, right," Lily said. "Well, I was saying yesterday that the first letter of where the next clue is must be starts with the second letter of March and fairy which is..."
"A," said James, scribbling it down. "And the next one will be..."
"T," Lily said. "The first of Triathlon and middle of brother. That's the third letter as well."
"Right," said James, scribbling it down. "So the fourth one must be..."
"Something you find on your face," said Remus. "I." James wrote it down.
"So what's the last one?" he asked.
They all looked down at the parchment.
"My fifth is as blue as the sky is in Spring / Where ships go for sailing and sea gulls will sing," Lily read. She frowned. "Where ships go for sailing... that sounds like the ocean. But that can't be it." They thought for a moment.
"The sea!" Sirius yelled out suddenly. Everyone in the library turned to stare at him. He quickly lowered his voice. "C. It must be C."
"Okay," James said, scribbling it down. "So what does this spell?"
They leaned over the parchment. "Attic," they all said at the same time.
"So the next clue must be hidden in there," said Sirius with satisfaction. "Let's go find it tonight."
"Tonight?" Lily repeated. "Can't we wait till next weekend or something to do it?"
"You want to find the treasure first right?" Sirius asked her.
"Well, yeah, but..."
"So we'll go," he said in a that-settles-it voice.
"You're not scared are you?" James said, grinning at her.
"No, but..." Lily sighed. "Alright. We'll do it tonight."
"Good," James said. "We'll meet you in the Entrance Hall at about twelve then, okay?"
"Okay."
"Let's go down to dinner then. I'm starving," said Sirius.
"You always are," said Remus, rolling his eyes.
Sirius wacked him over the head with a copy of Hogwarts, A History and then they all went downstairs to eat.
*****
When are they going to go to bed? Lily thought irritably, looking at the few people who were left in the common room. Doesn't anyone finish their homework on time these days?
Beside her, Sara yawned. "Well, I'm going to have a sleep now," she said, getting up and stretching. "Don't stay up too late."
"Yeah," Lily said. "Good night."
"'Night."
Finally, Lily thought as she saw the last person head up the stairs, yawning widely. She got out of her arm chair and stepped out of the portrait. Then she made her way to the Entrance Hall, praying she wouldn't bump into any teachers and wondering vaguely if the verdict was worse if prefects were found wondering around the school at night.
She got to the Entrance Hall. Nobody was there. Wonderful. They were late. Minutes later she heard footsteps coming down the marble stair case and a voice say, "Honestly, Padfoot, you'll make a right fool of yourself if you do that..."
"I don't think so, Moony. As a matter of fact I--owww, who stepped on my toe?"
"Sorry. Is Lily here yet?"
Lily looked around. She couldn't see anyone, yet she was sure they were somewhere in the room with her. Suddenly, something grabbed the back her neck and she shrieked.
"Shh! It's only us."
Sirius suddenly seemed to step out of nowhere, followed by Remus, then James who was holding a long silver cloak.
"Wow," said Lily impressed. "Is that an Invisibility Cloak?"
"Yeah. Family heirloom," said James.
Lily reached out and touched it. "Cool."
"Are we going to go up to the attic or stay here and talk about Invisibility Cloaks?" said Sirius impatiently.
"Let's go," said James. "The cloak should fit over the four of us."
It didn't.
Lily was squashed in between Sirius and Remus and was definitely not enjoying the experience.
"Who keeps treading on my toes?" she asked as they made their way up the marble staircase. "Ouch!"
"Sorry," said Remus. "It's kind of hard to see under here..."
"Owww, who pulled my hair?"
"Sorry." It was Sirius this time. "Who just elbowed me in the stomach?"
"That was me," said James. "I don't get this, it always seemed to fit when Peter was with us..."
"Maybe it's because Lily's about twice the size of Peter...ow!" he said as Lily kicked him in the shin.
"Did you just call me fat?"
"Not exactly, I just meant..."
"Shhh!" James said suddenly. They all froze as the Bloody Barron floated gauntly past them, eyes staring unblinkingly ahead.
"Okay, now everyone shut up."
Lily gritted her teeth as they made their way up more staircases and tried not to scream every time someone stepped on her toes.
"Are we nearly there?" she asked after ten more minutes of walking.
"Almost...I think this is it." They stopped in front of a solid looking wooden door.
James reached out and turned the handle. It opened with a loud creak. "Inside," he whispered holding the door open for them all. He shut it after himself then turned on the light. The bulb was bare and set a very dim glow over the room which was cluttered to every corner with boxes and chests and old furniture.
"It's huge," Remus moaned. "This is going to take forever."
"It doesn't look like anyone's set foot in here for centuries," Lily said, looking at the thick coat of dust that lay over everything.
Sirius suddenly sneezed, sending up a large cloud of dust. "Sorry," he said. "Tell you what, me and Remus will take that end of the room and Lily and James will take the other."
"Okay," James agreed and he grabbed Lily's elbow and dragged her over to their side of them room.
"Where should we start?" Lily said, looking around at the dozens of boxes around them.
"You start with the chest over there and I'll start looking through these boxes," James said.
Lily shrugged. "Okay," she said and made her way to the large brown chest he had pointed to. She forced it open and looked inside to find some old, moldy looking cushions, not unlike the one's Professor Flitwick usually got them to practice Banishing Charms with.
"Find anything?" James asked.
"Just some cushions," Lily said. She turned back to them. Suddenly, she felt someone behind her reach out and push her in. She shrieked as she fell into the cushions, sending up a huge dust cloud. Coughing and spluttering, she looked up to see who it was. It was Sirius, standing over her and laughing like a maniac.
"Oh, I am going to get you for that," she yelled. She picked up a cushion and flung it into his face as hard as she could. He ducked and it hit James instead.
"Hey!" he said, flinging it back and before she knew it, it had turned into a full fledged pillow fight with everyone trying to get Sirius and Remus running around getting into everyone's way.
Suddenly, a badly aimed cushion thrown by Lily went shooting through the hair and hit an ugly pick lamp which toppled to the floor with a loud crash.
They froze, waiting for Filch to come storming up with Mrs Norris by his side, but minutes passed and to their infinite relief, no one came.
"Okay, enough messing around," James said. "We need to get this done."
"Yes, sir!" Sirius said. "Come on, Remus," and they both left for their side of the room.
Lily was looking through a box that were filled with hundred-year-old Daily Prophets when she heard a snort of laughter come from across the room.
'Hey, Lily, come look at this," James said. He was holding a thick leather bound photo album. Lily dropped the pile of newspapers she was holding and climbed through the boxes. She peered over James' shoulder and laughed too.
"It's Dumbledore!" she said. And sure enough, the tall auburn haired man in the photograph waving up at them was none other then Albus Dumbledore. She peered at the picture more closely.
"Who's that lady he's got his arm around?" she wondered curiously, but James, now bored with the photo album just shrugged. He reached into the crate next to him and pulled out a pulled out a wooden jewelry box.
"Wonder what's in here," he said, and blew the dust off it. Lily coughed.
"Ow, I think you just got something in my eye," she said blinking fast and rubbing at it.
"Oh, sorry." James put the box down and looked down at her in concern. "Stop rubbing, I'll get it out for you."
"No, it's alright, I can do it..."
"I will," James said. "Hold still." He cupped her face in his hands. She stopped rubbing and looked up at him.
"Which eye?" he asked.
"Left."
He gently blew at it. Lily blinked.
"It is out?"
"Yes." He was still holding her face. Lily stared into his eyes and her stomach did an odd sort of flip flop.
"I found it!" called a triumphant voice from the other side of the room. Lily suddenly realized that her and James' faces were about an inch apart and jumped back from him. She could feel herself blushing.
She quickly made her way over to Sirius who was holding up a box identical to the one they had started off with.
"Where'd you find it?" she asked.
"In that chest over there," he said, pointing vaguely over his shoulder.
Remus and James came up behind Lily to see.
"Open it," said James, coming in closer.
Sirius' smile disappeared slightly. "Open it?"
"Yeah. You know. With the key." James rolled his eyes at him. "You do have the key here, don't you?"
Sirius' smile vanished all together. "Ah. Right. The key."
"Well, where is it?" asked Lily impatiently.
"Um..."
"Sirius! You didn't forget the key did you?"
"Um... yes."
Everyone in the room (except Sirius, of course) groaned.
"Where'd you put it?" Remus asked him. Sirius thought.
"I think it's under the bed. Or it could be somewhere else. I'm not exactly sure."
"So you've lost it."
"No! I've just... put it somewhere and forgotten where it is."
Lily sighed. "We'll have to look for it tomorrow. I've really got to get some sleep." She yawned and glanced at her watch. "We've been out for nearly three hours!"
Nobody really felt like using the Invisibility Cloak again as their toes were still recovering from the trip up to the attic, so they decided to just keep near the shadows and hope that nobody would see them.
"Besides, who would be wondering around at three o'clock in the morning besides us," James logically pointed out.
So they left the attic, Sirius in the lead, followed by Lily, Remus (who kept stepping on Lily's heels) and James bringing up the rear.
After about ten minutes of going down stair cases she had never been down before, Lily could see that Sirius was getting frustrated. He stubbed his toe on a wall and swore loudly.
"Uh, Sirius?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you lost?"
"No, we are lost. Look for a knight in a green armor."
"Why?"
"Because there's a secret passageway to the Charms corridor behind him, stupid."
"Who are you calling stupid," she began but suddenly, Sirius stopped in the middle of a stair case causing Lily to crash into him and Remus to crash into her and James to crash into him.
"What--" Lily began but Sirius quickly silenced her and Lily heard someone walking along the corridor directly .
"Come along, my sweet, Peeves has been along here, I just know it, maybe the Headmaster will listen to me this time..."
"It's Filch," Sirius hissed. "Back up the stairs! Before he sees us!" They began to slowly back up the stairs to last corridor they had been in. Suddenly, there was a loud crash. James had backed right into a suit of armor and the whole thing had come tumbling on top of him.
'RUN!" Sirius yelled and the four of them dashed to the end of the corridor and skidded around the bend.
They could hear Filch running after them and yelling, "PEEVES! I've got you now!"
Lily was running faster than she ever had in her life. By the time they reached the third corridor she was clutching at a stitch in her side and was gasping for breath.
"In here," said James suddenly, and pulled her in through a door. Remus quickly followed suit and Sirius slammed the door after him. They listened for a moment and heard Filch running straight past them. They sighed with relief.
Looking around, Lily saw that they were all squeezed in a tiny broom cupboard filled with mops and buckets and dustpans and brushes. If she thought the Invisibility Cloak was uncomfortable, it was nothing compared to this. She was wedged between a bucket and James and had mop sticking into her back.
"I think we lost him," she said, still breathing hard. Suddenly, she felt something fall into her hair. And she could tell by the snorts of laughter coming from Sirius and Remus's direction that she really didn't want to know what it was. But she had to ask.
"What just fell into my hair?" Sirius just laughed harder. Remus looked as though he were trying not to but little snorts kept escaping him.
"Uh... I think it was a spider," James said, trying to suppress a laugh.
"A WHAT?" Lily shrieked, sounding a bit hysterical. She began clawing at her hair frantically. "Get it out! Get it out!"
"It's okay, it's okay," said James, still trying not to laugh. "I'll get it out for you.... hold still."
He began to look through her hair, occasionally bursting into snorts of laughter.
"It's out," he said triumphantly, holding up a hairy black spider, its legs wriggling about like mad.
Lily shuddered. "Get it away from me."
"Okay." He tossed the spider at Sirius who was still laughing. He immediately stopped when he saw the spider was on him.
"Arrggghhhh! Get it off me! Get it off--"
Suddenly, the door of the broom cupboard was yanked open and Lily, James, Remus, Sirius and all the brooms and buckets fell out in a tangled mess onto the floor.
Lily looked up to see who it was.
We're dead, she thought when she saw Professor McGonagall in her tartan dressing gown glaring furiously down at them all.
*****
Two days later, the four of them were on their hands and knees in the Transfiguration room scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes.
"I suppose it could've been worse," Remus said with a sigh, looking around him. They still had half of the room to go.
"Really? How?" Lily asked grumpily. She really needed to be working on her Transfiguration. Her chair absolutely refused to turn into a peacock.
"What's wrong, Lily, is this your first detention or something?" Sirius asked her, grinning. Amazingly enough, he actually seemed to be enjoying the detention and seemed even more delighted when Professor McGonagall took an additional fifty points from Gryffindor.
"It's my first for this year," Lily muttered, scrubbing at a spot on the ground.
"This is my sixth," said Remus.
"My ninth," said James.
Somehow, nobody was surprised when Sirius said it was his twelfth.
"You do realize we've only been back for one month?" Lily asked him.
"Of course," said Sirius. "So there's plenty of opportunities to get more."
Lily rolled her eyes and went back to scrubbing the floor. "So. Have you found the key yet?"
"No." Sirius scratched his head, looking perplexed. "I could've sworn I put it under the bed. I've looked everywhere but I can't find it."
"We'll have to break it open somehow," said James. "Anyone know how to break locks on boxes?"
Nobody did.
"This is just great," said Lily, throwing her toothbrush down in disgust. "So we have the next clue but we won't ever get to see it because genius here lost it."
"Watch it, Bronwell, or I'll curse you."
"Like I'm afraid of you?"
"Well, who was scared of the big hairy spider the other night?" Sirius teased. "Woooh!"
James and Remus burst out laughing. Lily calmly pulled out her wand and turned him upside-down in mid air.
"Arrrgh! Let me down!"
"What's the magic word?"
"Let me down!"
"Say it!"
"Okay, okay. Pleeeeease?
Lily let him suffer for a few more seconds before letting him drop.
'Owww," Sirius complained, rubbing his head. He considered cursing Lily then decided that the look on her face was too scary and started picking the things that had fallen out of his pocket off the ground instead. He froze.
"I found the key!" he yelled, holding it up. Lily leapt up and snatched from him.
"You looked everywhere, huh? Did you ever think of looking IN YOUR POCKET FIRST?"
"I thought I put it under the bed!"
"Where's the box?" James asked.
"In my bag."
James raced to Sirius' bag, pulled out the box, and tossed it to Lily. She caught it and unlocked it, pulling out another key, this time silver, and piece of parchment which she hastily unfolded.
"What does it say?" asked Remus, trying to look over her shoulder which was hard to do because she was taller. She read it out loud.
"Listen to me about lollies that bake
And things that go creak and ho- hi- ha
Kind apples that scream for everyone's sakes
Eat them with berries in a ho- hi- hat."
Everyone stared.
"Let me see," said Sirius, snatching it out of Lily's hands.
"That doesn't make the least bit of sense," said James, shaking his head.
"Lollies that bake?" Remus scrunched up his nose thoughtfully. "That sounds like Honeydukes. Maybe the next clue is in there."
"I don't think Dumbledore would hide them outside the school grounds," said Lily. "And what's with the ho-hi's?"
"It said ih-oh if you look at it backwards."
"Very helpful, Sirius," said Lily, rolling her eyes.
The door of the Transfiguration room suddenly burst open.
"What are you four doing standing around?" Professor McGonagall yelled. "Get back to work!"
That night, Lily dreamt of baked lollies that kept running away from her while apples stood around and laughed ho-hi-ha.
*****
A week later they still hadn't solved the clue and Sirius was getting desperate. He was now calling daily meetings at the library every day after classes but no matter how hard they racked their brains, they just couldn't think of an answer.
Lily was waiting for the three of them in the library on Thursday to see if they could finally get a solution, but after half an hour of waiting she got fed up an began to pack her things up.
"Lily!"
She turned around. It was James. "Where have you been? I've been waiting ages."
"Remus found the answer to the clue."
"Really? Then where is he?"
"He's waiting with Sirius in another room."
"Then why didn't he just come here and tell us?"
They left the library.
"Sirius had...er... a little run in with Snape."
Lily rolled her eyes. "What did he do?"
James grinned. "He turned him into a toad and now he's hiding out 'cause he thinks that Snape's waiting around corners ready to curse him."
"Which room are they in anyway?"
"Just one we found a few month ago..."
He suddenly stopped in front of a large tapestry of a dragon in the Charms corridor and pulled it aside. Underneath was a door. Lily stared at it
"Wow. How'd you find this room?"
James shrugged. "Sirius did. Go in."
Lily opened the door and went inside. The room was small and perfectly round, furnished only with a wall-to-wall rug and an old green couch. Sirius was lying stretched out on the floor moaning while Remus was standing over him looking triumphant.
"Hi," Remus said. "I won the duel."
"He was lucky," Sirius muttered, getting up. Lily grinned.
"Sure, Sirius. So Remus, you solved the clue?"
"Oh, yeah." Remus rummaged into his pocket and pulled out the parchment. The three of them crowded around to see.
"It's the first letter of each line," Remus explained. "They spell L-A-K-E. Then there's the last letter of each line which spells E-A-S-T. So the next clue must be in the east of the lake."
The other three just sort of looked at each other. Then Lily said, "Isn't the lake kind of deep?"
James wrinkled up his nose. "Nah. Only in the middle I think. The shore's quite shallow."
"Shall we go?" asked Sirius.
"Now?' said Lily.
James shrugged. "Why not?"
*****
A few minutes later they were all at the east end of the lake, looking down at it uncertainly.
"Aren't there giant squid in here?" Lily asked.
"Yeah," said Remus. "And Grindylows too. Not to mention merpeople."
"That makes me feel so much better."
"Who cares?" James said. "Let's just get this over with." He suddenly jumped in, robes and all then came splashing back up, gasping for breath. "It's freezing in here!"
Sirius looked at Lily. "Ladies first," he said kindly.
Lily looked at the murky grayness of the water and pulled a face. "You can go."
"But I insist." Sirius suddenly whipped out his wand and before Lily could do anything he pointed it at her and yelled out, "Looparoma!"
Lily shrieked as she suddenly found herself shooting up into the air. She landed on James who caught her with an "Oomph!" and both of them fell into the water and came up with their noses touching. They stayed that way for a few seconds, staring into each others eyes until Lily suddenly blushed and backed away awkwardly.
By that time, Sirius and Remus had already joined them in the water and were trying to find the next clue. Lily and James quickly joined them and soon they were all diving in and out, trying to find the clue and having water fights at the same time. Lily finally caught sight of it wedged under a rock and called the others over.
"Who's going to dive in and get it?" she asked, shivering. It was already chilly to begin with and the sun was now sinking slowly over the horizon.
"I will," said Sirius, and he quickly dived under and resurfaced a few moments later, holding the box and looking triumphant. "Got it."
"Good. I'm getting out," said Lily and quickly splashed back to shore.
"Don't forget you're going to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow," Sirius called after her. "Meet me at the Entrance Hall at about three, okay?"
Lily nodded and waved, then made her way, dripping wet, back to the castle.
*****
Lessons had finished early that day so that the students could spent more time in Hogsmeade. Lily went back to her dormitory to put her things away. She was just about to leave to meet Sirius in the Entrance Hall when she caught sight of her wet robes from yesterday. She picked them up, thinking she could drop them off in the laundry on her way out when suddenly, a folded piece of parchment fell out. Frowning, she picked it up and read:
Lily,
I love you when you're smiling
I love you when you're sad
I love you when you're kidding
I love you when you're bad
I love you when you're nosy
I love you when you're blue
The reason that I love you
Is simply cos you're you
Please tell me
Do you love me too?
Lily stared at note for a moment in shock. Then, still clutching the note, she slowly lowered herself onto her bed.
Who had given it to her? It certainly hadn't been there before she had gone diving in the lake. It must have been put in there after or during it. That left Remus, James and Sirius.
Remus... she scrunched up her nose thoughtfully. He was probably the most thoughtful of the lot of them, but somehow, she couldn't imagine him writing a love letter to her and slipping it into her pocket when she wasn't looking.
James? Lily could feel her face heat up when she thought of him. She definitely liked him the best of the three of them. But he never seemed to look her way twice and she thought her chances with him were close to zero.
So that left... Sirius! But, Lily thought, he didn't seem like the romantic type. And he got on her nerves a bit as well.
On the other hand, he had asked her to go to Hogsmeade with him. But he had barely knew her then...
Lily moaned. Maybe it was Sirius.
She liked Sirius.
But definitely not in that way.
*****
Remus was going down the Charms corridor with someone suddenly yanked him into an empty classroom. He looked up, and to his surprise, found that it was Lily.
"Hi," he said. He saw that she was still gripping his arm. "Um, you can let of me now."
"Huh?" said Lily distractedly. She looked down at him. "Oh," she said and let go.
"Sirius is looking for you in the Entrance Hall."
"Is he?" she said. She was silent for a moment, then suddenly burst out, "Does Sirius write poems?"
"Huh?" said Remus, now completely confused.
"You know. Like rhymes."
"Um... no. Not that I know of." Remus looked at her. "Mind telling me why you're asking?"
Lily sighed. "I found this in my pocket after the episode with the lake yesterday." She thrust the note at Remus. He unfolded it and read it. His eyes widened suddenly.
"Ah," he said, handing it back to her. "So. You think it's Sirius?"
Lily shrugged. "Who else would be?"
"James?" Remus suggested casually. She flushed suddenly.
"No. I don't think it's him." She grabbed her bag and began to move towards the door. "I have to meet Sirius."
"Oh. And Lily?"
"Yeah?" she said, turning around.
"Can you do me a favor and don't show that note to Sirius?"
"Why?" Lily asked confused.
"Um... just don't."
"Okay," said Lily slowly.
"Have a good time."
"Thanks."
"See you."
"Bye."
*****
Remus found James doing homework in the common room. He grabbed his arm and dragged him up the stairs.
"I need to talk to you," he muttered.
"Ow! Where are you taking me?"
Remus didn't answer, he just dragged him to the dormitory and shut the door.
"Mind telling me what this is all about?" James asked grumpily, rubbing his elbow.
"Um... you didn't write a poem to Lily by any chance, did you?"
James suddenly turned red and became very interested in the floor. "No."
"Are you sure? 'Cos Lily showed me one. She found it in her pocket after swimming yesterday."
"Oh." James turned even more red. "Well, I might have."
Remus raised his eyebrows. "Might?"
"Okay, okay, I did." James sighed and suddenly flopped down on his bed. "She hated it, right?"
"I wouldn't say that," Remus said. He grinned. "She thought it was Sirius."
"How did you know it was me then?"
"I recognized your handwriting." He flopped on the bed next to James. "If you like her you really should tell her, you know."
"She likes Sirius," he said, staring at the canopy above him.
"You think?"
"Yeah. I'm positive."
"Why?"
"Because she's going to Hogsmeade with him, remember?" He suddenly bolted upright in horror. "Oh no! She might show him the poem!"
"It's okay," Remus assured him. "I told her not to."
"Then I really hope she doesn't. Because Sirius will never let me hear the end of it!"
*****
"Um, Lily?"
Sirius waved his hand in front of her face. She jumped.
"Oh, sorry. What is it?"
"Well, I've just asked you the same thing twice now, but you keep staring out the window like you're a million miles away."
"Sorry," she said again. She looked at him. "What did you want to know?"
"Do you want another Butterbeer?"
Lily looked at her bottle. It was still half-full. "No. I'm right," she said and went back to staring out the window.
Sirius sighed. He wasn't used to being ignored by girls. He frowned slightly, wondering what she was thinking, then decided to ask her.
"Anything on your mind?" Lily jerked.
"No," she said a little bit too quickly. She stared out the window again for a moment then turned back to him and suddenly burst out, "Well, you should know, shouldn't you?"
"What?" said Sirius, taken aback.
"The poem!" she exploded, jumping up out of her seat. "The poem you wrote to me yesterday."
"What poem?"
"Don't lie, Sirius!" she yelled. "I know you wrote it to me and I've been fretting all day wondering how I'm going to tell you that I don't feel the same way, so I'm really, really sorry but I just have to say that I don't love you but we can still be friends, right?"
Sirius stared at her with his jaw hanging open for a few seconds. Then he said, "Nice speech, Lily, except for one little thing. I didn't write you the poem."
Lily stared at him, speechless. "What?" she spluttered.
"I didn't write you the poem."
"Oh," she said in a small voice. She sat back down. "But Remus told me not to show it to you. So I thought..."
"What? He told you not to show it to me?"
"Yes."
"Can I have a look then?"
"Okay," Lily said slowly. She took a folded piece of parchment from her pocket and gave it him. He unfolded it and immediately choked, spreading crumbs everywhere.
"Sirius!" Lily yelled, brushing crumbs off her robes.
"Sorry," he said. He quickly swallowed. "You found this after the lake episode yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Ah," said Sirius nodding. He handed her back the parchment. "That explains it."
"That explains what?"
"Nothing." Lily looked as Sirius as if he were crazy. His face had gone all red and it looked as though he were about to burst out laughing.
"Lily?" he said after a while.
"Yes?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Yeah."
"Do you like James?"
Lily suddenly dropped her fork and had to duck down under the table to get it. When she came up her face was all red.
"I think I've had enough," she said brightly. "Let's go to the Shrieking Shack and..."
"You haven't answered my question yet!"
"What question?" Lily said, although she knew very well what it was.
"Do you like James?"
"Um...well...' said Lily, going even redder. She twiddled with her fork. "He's nice. I like him. As a friend of course," she added quickly seeing the smirk on Sirius' face. "But not it that way."
"Right," said Sirius, still smirking. "Whatever you say, Lil'."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," said Sirius loftily, getting out of his seat. "Let's go back to the castle. I think I've had enough."
*****
James was still in the dormitory, lying on his bed and waiting for Sirius to come back. He looked at his watch. What on earth were they doing for so long?
"No need to panic," Remus said. "She might not have told him."
"Yeah, right," James said. "Bet she did."
"But I told her not to!"
"Does everyone always do what you ask them to?"
"Point taken."
"When are they coming back?" James moaned.
Just then, the door burst open and Sirius waltzed in with a massive smirk on his face. He shut the door, and for a moment James thought that Lily hadn't told him, but his hopes were immediately dashed when Sirius opened his mouth and began to sing, "I love you when you're smiling, I love you when you're sad. I love you when you're kidding..."
James moaned and buried his face under his pillows. Remus patted his back comfortingly, though he looked like he were trying not to laugh at the same time.
"Aw," said Sirius grinning. "Why didn't you tell me you were in love, Prongs?"
"I wonder," said James to the pillow.
"She thought it was me," said Sirius laughing. "She gave me this whole big speech on how she didn't feel the same way. Then I told her that I didn't write it so she showed me the note. Then I asked her if she likes you."
"You what?!" James lifted his head from his pillow and stared a him in disbelief. Then he moaned and slumped back down again.
"It's okay," Sirius assured him. "She likes you. She dropped her fork under the table and went all red."
"Maybe you should tell her you wrote it," Remus said to him.
"No way!"
"She bound to find out sooner or later. Probably sooner," he added, a wicked smile glinting his face.
Just then, Peter opened the door and walked into the room. He took one look at Sirius' grinning face, James with his face under the pillow and Remus still patting his shoulder comfortingly and asked, "What happened?"
Sirius burst out laughing.
"Prongs is in love."
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A/N: That's it for the first part. The next bit will be coming out soon. I wasn't planning to having it out as a series but when I was typing it up I realized that it was going to be waaaaaaaaay to long. So it'll be in two parts. Or maybe three. Depends really. There'll be kissing in the next bit. Review?
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JK Rowling. Except for the characters who belong to me which I think are only Genevieve and Sara. Oh, and Professor Halliway. And the poem which belongs to God-knows-who (absolutely no idea who wrote it).